Lucy

Leon.

Because of Leon, Luc Besson gets a Free Pass for pretty much anything. (I mean cinematically of course). He's a triple threat - a writer, producer and director. He wrote and produced The Transporter. (Who doesn't love The Stath?). But then also Transporter 2 & 3, the continuation of a single idea stretched far too thin. (And now 4 & 5). He wrote and produced Taken, an unrepentant, brutal European revenge and rescue thriller. But also Taken 2 & 3, the dampest of squibs, the most artificially flavoured of movies. Arthur and the Invisibles trilogy (trilogy!), Taxi 1-4, Brick Mansions! (only a writing credit or we could be in trouble). However - FREE PASS! All is forgiven Luc, you gave us Leon! No worries.

But then Lucy. And frankly, I want my money back.

I don't just mean I'm taking back my Free Pass, I want recompence. To define what makes Lucy so terrible is to define 0 on a scale of 1-10. So lets dive in and dissect this beast, as it's already been killed and butchered by the people who made it.

Actually lets take a quick breath and look at what went right (not enough to even get it to 1 out of 10) Scarlett Johansson does her very best to wrestle some semblance of a human being out of her character (ironically, considering Plot Point - she becomes a hyper human. Or a robot) and, in fairness, it's very sleekly shot. And it's short.

And thats it. So...let's start at the very beginning. After the most preposterous start - a voiceover that states "life was given to us a billion years ago. What have we done with it?" and then waster Lucy (ScarJo) and her waster 10-Day boyfriend (It Doesn't Matter) end up outside a large building after an all-night party and he handcuffs a briefcase to her and tells her to take it in for $500 - Lucy goes inside, realises it's a bad idea and while trying to escape 10-Day paints the doors with his insides courtesy of a semi-automatic rifle. Lucy gets taken up to a top floor hotel suite where a number of Asian men (undefined nationality - Min-sik Choi, head baddie, is Korean, so I guess they're going for korean) shepherd her to a desk and after shooting a number of people in the head, force her to watch as the briefcase's blue crystal contents are forced into a half-dead drug addict before making smash with his brains.

It sounds interesting enough. It's not. Many parts of this scenario are preposterous - Choi kills wearing protective gloves and shoes, yet splattering blood over clothes, floors, furniture AND HIS FACE and not giving a damn. I call this scene Anger & Fear, as Choi is angry and Lucy is scared. Nobody shows any discernible depth and the Asian baddie crew might as well be manequins with guns they're so motionless and emotionless. And as if Anger and Fear weren't evident enough through Angry Face and Scaredy Face, this is all intercut by nature clips and scenes of animals being chased or killed or hunting, just in case you missed the cues - this person is ANGRY and this person is SCARED. (As an aside these overused sloppy lazy visual metaphors are inexplicably axed after half an hour, as if someone just got bored putting them in. Or maybe they just forgot.) 

Lest he be left out what is swiftly becoming a frankly terrible party, Morgan Freeman pops up in an unspecified location (University auditorium? Oh yes! This means he is intelligent and well respected) who is on exposition duty for the day, giving a running theoretical commentary on events. Except none of what he says makes any sense, his philosophising 
on existence and the capacity of the brain just rolling next to a young girl being abused by Korean men. Eventually it will all become apparently linked, but even then the nonsense he spouts while actually fairly interesting becomes increasingly ridiculous and then bland and over descriptive.

And we're only half an hour in. After becoming an unwitting drug mule with a bag of blue crystals in her abdomen she gets kicked around by a lower level thug thus splitting said bag and absorbing its contents. Which is obviously what happens after a 3 pound bag of drugs surgically inserted into a 5'6" woman explodes inside her. After some, admittedly impressive, trick camera work following Lucy being thrust around the room while chained to a chair, she becomes...a robot? Oh wait, here comes a big message on screen that says 10% CAPACITY turning into 20% CAPACITY. So that must be what's happening.

At this point I'm sure you see my patience wore so thin it ripped in half. It should get more interesting. It doesn't. Lucy then goes on what seems like a revenge rampage - but is it? She comes across Choi again, and doesn't kill him. She then leaves, phones Interpol and apparently reads their minds - she can tell them what they're doing and where they're from, who their kids are, but somehow can't find the other 3 sliced and spliced drug carriers. Apparently she's looking for them. Then there's the sheer amount of blood, though to what end is not apparent. People get cut open, heads get shot, white walls painted red. As Lucy becomes more powerful the powers she seems to develop seem to be picked up and dropped depending on if she can be bothered. There's no structured development of abilities. She starts by rendering people unconscious with a single thought, yet later on feels the need later on to hand fight a group of men, and then throw them around into walls. Why not just knock everyone out every time? Especially if you're more powerful than before.

Speaking of no structure, Lucy bounces around from place to place, scenario to scenario with no motive at all. Or character. Or development. There's no explanation of narrative, no empathy and way too much theory. Where is she going? Why is she doing this? Where is she now? Things just happen, conversations apparently are had. These conversations are designed purely to get A and B to interact. A good example of this is Lucy calls Morgan Freeman for the first time, and the conversation is basically: 

Lucy: "Hi. I read your hypothesis. I do this. Like you hypothesised" 
Morgan Freeman: "Just like I always imagined. This is great. I like it."

He has no evidence. She offers none. Rather than spend time worrying about how to get characters to believably interact, let's just concentrate on stuff that is awesome, like blood and guns and a hot chick. It's like a high end delivery of a teenagers fever dream, it's purely "what would look cool" with zero substance. 

Ironically, the action is strangely anaesthetised, and even after quite a bombastic end corridor shoot out (which Lucy conveniently ignores), there follows a number of random clips of life events (oh so thats where they all went) and with Morgan Freeman trying to explain it all away again with his assorted boffins, the most ridiculous ending ever committed to screen occurs. Now, I cannot stress enough how absolutely insanely preposterous the ending is. It should be so crazy that it works, and yet it's not. And yet you can't turn away from it. It's like a factory on fire. A terrible, horrific accident. On fire. And then it ends.

And it ends with Lucy saying, in a voiceover (because of the ridiculous ending): "Life was given to us a billion years ago. Now you know what to do with it."

Yup. Take back my Free Pass and watch Leon.

Maze Runner

A boy wakes up in a hole. 

The start of Maze Runner is speechless, breathless and captivating, as our central protagonist finds himself speechless, breathless and in captivity in a rising grated crate through a deep mechanical well. With the focus on the immediate plight of Dylan O'Brien's amnesiac nameless teenager we share his confusion, and as a crowd of adolescent faces peer into said well and he is is dragged into the light, mentally and emotionally we, with he, explore his situation. It's a powerful conceit and forces the audience to find visual clues to fill in the story gaps rather than being told them. Five minutes later newly named "Greenie" gets the full setup delivered on a roughly hewn plate from group leader Alby (Aml Ameen) which swiftly undoes all of the great work done in the previous five minutes.

Which kind of describes the film as a whole. There's a lot to like, and frequently there are surprising and strange moments that make you feel like there is far more to discover in the Glades - the central park of the titular maze housing a community of mind-wiped teen boys - which then gets swiftly explained away or ignored. It leaves the story feeling a little linear and it never quite finds the strength to expand and grow, and the greater mythology around it lies under the surface of the story rather than permeating through it.

It seems like an opportunity missed, and even when you consider its core audience (8-14 year old males), young people nowadays are far more adept at understanding what does and does not make a great movie to know when they're being underserved. That said this is a far stronger effort than, say, the Percy Jackson adaptations, and its Lord of the Lies themes of truth, deception and reality a far more interesting proposition than CGI mythical creatures smashing each other. The microcosmic society, the miniturisation, exploration and manipulation of peoples behaviours and interactions a pre-teen 1984 in a post-Big Brother world.

This group of boys, living a peaceful existence surrounded by towering walls, know the hand their dealt and make the most of it. A few of their number take flight into the labyrinth by day searching for a way out, returning before nightfall for fear of the mysterious and murderous grievers. When Thomas (formerly Greenie, formally unnamed) arrives his inquisitive nature leads to all manner of disruptions. It becomes appropriately grim in places, the full metal arachnid grievers and their raptor growlings a vicious blend of muscle and metal, and the level of guts and goo when one gets squished between two walls will delight and disgust pre-teens and parents alike. A twilight massacre is particularily brutal. The merry band of kids are interesting if pretty stereotypical character tropes - the strong angry one, the fearless leader, the funny fat one, the intelligent brave one (aka. Raphael, Leonardo, Michelangelo and Donatello) but each is played with layers of desperate survivalist fear undertones. And then, all around, there's the maze.

A metaphor for the journey through adolescence? Maybe. As a representation of the impossible odds life has in store it is imposing and quite literally crushing. It's also inventive and well designed for some thrilling set pieces that are used sparingly but expertly. It's the questions of the who and the why that elevate the maze from being a purely physical opponent to an intellectual one, though this is where the film once again slips up. The more interesting who's and why's are there, they're just not...there. Every now and again the questions get asked, and then swiftly it's back to worrying about staying alive. Survival may be the most basic instinct, but there's bigger and more interesting answers out there, and they get lost amongst the running and clanging of metal and brick.

Director Wes Ball should be given a lot of credit for the positives - the acting is solid, the pace good, the action excellent and the whole thing looks great. And maybe its meagre $34 million budget has something to do with its leanness and thereby its missteps, but some things are unforgivable, such as Kaya Scodelario's Teresa who as the lone female is delivered midway to shake things up, and then swiftly disappears into the band of boys serving no discernable purpose, or the last minute dumbo drop of information that, yes, does come as a shock and surprise but also feels like it could've been either been supported more throughout the movie or leaned out and saved for the sequel. As it is it's a little left field and feels like it's playing catch up, throwing backstory and exposition at you for the sake of it. It should've been handled more deftly, and the audience given more credit. 

Which is a shame to end on such a confusing note, after starting so intriguingly. But overall this is an interesting and well made young adult adap, with plenty of promise and far more to say than the average tween-bait.

A boy wakes up in a desert.

World War Z

World War Z was not supposed to do well. In it's formative stages it went from excitable expectation, to purported on set conflict, third act rewrites, $20 million reshoots, and a six month delay. In every critical mind it was a bomb, destined to be sidelined with the great follies of blockbuster cinema.

But the people spoke.

To the tune of $540 million worldwide. People liked it. A lot. And thats because there's a lot to like. 

I've seen World War Z a few times now, and it stands up to repeat viewings. And honestly the long arduous production process (which wasn't as arduous as it's been made out to be, according to director Marc Forster) can be seen all the way through the film, but not with necessarily detrimental effects. Any number of sequels, prequels, threequels and parallelquals are prepped and produced with very specific release dates already set and zero flexibility and it usually manifests in sub-par results, but the extra time taken to get WWZ made right and the extra investment from the studio shows guts, determination and faith in the product they were investing in.

So here's how it goes. A man and his family have breakfast, get in their car and go off somewhere. While stuck in traffic, a few strange cases of road rage end with thousands of sprinting undead tearing into all and sundry. And it all happens in about as much time as it takes to say it. It takes serious kahunas to just get straight to the point, and it really sets the tone. Nothing is explained, the exposition at breakfast only letting us know Brad Pitt's Gerry Lane is "retired" and doesn't like making pancakes. As the Lane family attempt to escape the city we see looters, riots, survivalists and more all running and gunning as far away as possible from the super speedy zekes, culminating in a breathless red flare lit stairwell chase as they rise like deep sea divers to get their heads above the rising tide. This is all the setup that's needed, no lengthy dialogue exchanges, just small moments from Gerry where his expertise and history is demonstrated and discovered visually rather than discussed verbally.

Dialogue is appropriate, nothing forced, just quick familial conversations. Some of it is even too quiet to hear distinctly. His interactions with his family are human, in what he says to them but also what he doesn't (his wife's suggestions to take his 'work talk' elsewhere for example is a small but more normal moment.) Having said that dialogue isn't really the point of WWZ now is it. It's all about the rush, the panic and the fear. Zombies have been used as metaphors for many themes in film, and while the specifics may be diluted here the sheer volume and velocity of the spread of the virulent strain is emphatic to say the least, emblematic of any theme such as hatred, greed, nature or death. As Gerry globe-trotts his way following whatever breadcrumbs he can to find patient zero, nations come together, races embrace and religions walk side by side showing that in the face of cataclysmic danger there are no borders or boundaries. In reality it only serves to show that the one thing that doesn't have boundaries is danger itself, as it tears through crowds with no respect for person or privilege or position.

And so the virus rips through country after country, seemingly following Gerry around like, well, a virus, and the high octane crazy keeps on coming. And as if to prove how futile resistance actually is almost everyone Gerry meets end up as pure zombie fodder. Great pains are taken to show Elyes Gabel's virologist as the possible saviour of humanity, the man with a plan, a cure maybe, and his expiration is hilarious and swift, he being one of many characters introduced and promptly dispatched. One wonders what the original cut (minus the third act switch) had planned for these peripheral characters. Certainly Matthew Fox's ten seconds of screen time would have been expanded on. Not that he's necessarily missed, for as mentioned while any number of changes to the film are obvious they're not unwelcome or disrupting.

Which leads us to the final third. After an hour and a quarter of relentless running and fighting and paranoia all of a sudden the film completely switches gear. And I mean completely. It's almost like a different film, which isn't a bad thing. It's reminiscent of the early zombie movies or Romero, and early video games like Resident Evil, and is a bold and striking move. Yet it feels like a completely natural transition and leads to probably the most tense sequence of the entire film, and credit is due to the incoming writers and the producers for taking that step and being willing to let go of what must have been multi-million dollars worth of original footage. Ultimately it's allowed to be a more personal and human finish than a big bang smash n grab would've been and all told it's a welcome shift in what was already a surprising movie. 

So here's to more delays, more rewrites and more reshoots. 

It's what the people want.

Live. Die. Repeat.

It's just war.

Or so we're told halfway through Live. Die. Repeat/ Edge of Tomorrow/ All You Need Is Kill. The ambiguity of the title was a bullet in the chamber of all those who thought, pre-release, this would be another generic action sci-fi with The Cruiser playing, well, himself. But if there's one thing audiences have proved over time it's that they know when to listen to the press and when to believe their eyes, even when they can't believe what they see. Who cares what it's called when a film is this inventive, this engaging, and this good. 

The story starts thus: Cruise is a U.S. Army Major who attained his position through being a world class promoter and propaganda spinner who gets sent to document the front lines on a war of attrition between a world force and an intergalactic super alien species who have already taken over half the world. Snivelling weasel that he is he tries to beg, plead and blackmail his way out of going before being tasered, tagged and bagged and dropped off for front line duty minus his essential credentials. It's all set up and introduced with a smile and wink and finally a shock as Cruise's Major Bill Cage realises no amount of explaining and complaining can save him from his drop from officer to grunt. From then on it's a whirlwind of introductions, to his new squad, his new exo-suit, a normandy beach and finally the tentacled extra-terrestrial antagonists, Cage flabergasted and justifiably panicked throughout. He runs, he gets knocked over, he can't turn off the safety on his weapon and then he dies, in gloriously OTT face melting fashion.

And then things really kick off. He wakes up, maggot re-awoken, to relive and moan another day. It's no secret that the crux of this film is based around Major Cage's unnatural ability to Groundhog Day himself and repeat the same 24 hour period over and over again, but it's the style and quality of the delivery of this mechanism that really impresses. Director Doug Liman and his team of editors (including James Herbert who has had previous with snappy editing as Guy Ritche's go to guy) keep each death and rewind fresh and interesting, never repeating the same tactic twice, whether that's a new way to kill off Cage or a quicker cut of his day's activities. The real success lies in what is reserved and what is revealed, where each time Cage lives and dies a different part of his journey is shown. For example, one short sequence includes purely beach battle deaths, featuring his attempts to navigate a safe way through the carnage. It reads: run, move, die. Run, move faster, move, die. Once he meets Emily Blunts' Full Metal Bitch and poster girl Rita Vrataski on the beach, the location and focus shifts to sequences showing his pre-battle squad training, and then to their now combined efforts. What could become rote remains interesting due to this expert storytelling and story showing, changing locations and paces at a drop.

Possibly the greatest of these is the films character focus shifts. To begin with we're following Cage, we're picking up what's happening with him, on his level, at his pace. Everything we see we see in tandem with him. The beach slaughter, the training, the exhausting repetition, the constant pain and death. And then there's a moment where it dawns on you that you're no longer running with Cage, and the perspective drops completely, but subtly, to someone else, and you feel like you're behind somehow and doubling back. It's a real feat of screenwriting. And then later as the story develops you're thrown into a new scenario with more tension and imminent jeopardy than before and this focus switches again. It's a theme that the time travel mechanism allows, but the director and screenwriter, as storytellers, embrace and hone. And again it keeps things fresh and new and interesting.

There exists a balance in LDR/EoT/AYNIK that very few films manage to achieve; there's action (lots of it), a distinct storytelling mechanism, a twisting, turning plot and importantly and above all characters you can actually engage with. Character is a priority here, with both Cruise and Blunt on top form, two actors whose natural charm and charisma could carry them through and above most hollywood dross, and when given something substantial can really shine. Vrataski is strong and determined, a female battle warrior we rarely get to see on screen, and over time we gradually get to see her more vulnerable core, and Cruise goes through the greatest arc starting as weak and weaselly and through many many lifetimes becomes the classic Cruiser we know and love. It also demonstrates what a great subtle physical actor Cruise is, and with the help of some well placed camera angles his height, or lack of it, is exploited to magnify the fall to the bottom rung of his early character, and later to emphasise, despite his height, his new confidence with his current situation. It's subtle, but impressive. 

His internal struggle changes over the course of the film, and as Cage gets further into his journey and is met with more frustration at his lack of progression he sees even with so much power you can still feel powerless, his near immortality no match for such a relentless enemy. In life there are wars we cannot win, against nature, against physics, against time. It's a deeper message than you find in most standard blockbusters, but this film is anything but standard. 

With so much focus on the central pair there's little room for peripheral characters, and they need to make an impression with the time they have. It's a difficult omission to have to make, and mostly Cage's adoptive J Squad make a good fist of being more than just 2D versions of cliched ideas, though it's not till the final third that they get to open up and we see their purer motives, and Brendan Gleeson and Bill Paxton give extra weight to lighter roles. The aliens too are merely functional, an embodiment of pure opposition, and while they look great all whipping tentacles and slippery ground digging movement, they are just a barrier to be overcome. 

But these are minor gripes against a 2 hour thrill ride thats intelligent and character driven as well as action packed. 

It's just war? It's far more than that.