Michael (2026)

There have been few celebrities to cause the kind of reactions that Michael Jackson managed to cause throughout various stages of his career. Then there's the scandal that overshadowed the last decade or so of his life. It's a very odd and complicated situation (even those who believe him entirely innocent would have to admit that nobody would be asking for more evidence if it was Old Jimmy from round the corner building a park in his garden and inviting kids over for sleepovers). I always try to separate the art from the artist, I know that some seem unable to do that (for specific examples anyway), and Michael Jackson was quite a big part of my youth. I made multiple trips to the video rental store to rent the tape that had the full Thriller video, as well as The Making Of Thriller. I, like so many others, have tried to moonwalk. And, also like many others, I have failed spectacularly. I was about twelve or thirteen when Bad was released, and I spent some of my birthday money on a special set that had the album on cassette, and a branded pencil and notepaper.

Michael Jackson ruled the world for a number of years. I'm still not sure his fame wasn't the absolute pinnacle of that kind of thing for a solo artist. Maybe I was just more aware of it because of my own fan status. He was a genius, but he also had a best friend chimpanzee. He worked with top-tier directors to deliver astonishing music videos. But he also gave us Moonwalker. He was a big kid, but he should have been able to at least accept how his lifestyle and choices would look to a constantly watching public.

This movie gives a glimpse at the star that was Michael Jackson, but it's no more than the very smallest and superficial look at his life. Legal rulings meant that the film had to be reworked, at no small expense, and writer John Logan seems to think that viewers will be happy with a number of song-creating scenes that wouldn't feel out of place in Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. I don't envy Logan his position, but he must have known what he was getting into when he took the job.

Jaafar Jackson takes on the main role (with Juliano Valdi playing the younger Michael in the earlier scenes), and he does what is asked of him. It's not a great acting performance, but it's a very good impression of Michael Jackson. It's a tribute act, which you could also say about the whole film. Colman Domingo is very good as the tyrannical Joseph Jackson, Nia Long is enjoyable as Michael's mother, Katherine, and the others worth mentioning as KeiLynn Durrel Jones (playing the main security guard assigned to Michael), Miles Teller (a strong-willed agent), and Mike Myers (playing a powerful exec who proves pivotal in getting MTV to change their policy on how much airtime was allotted to black music artists).

There's not much more to say. I'm surprised that Antoine Fuqua decided to direct this. I'm surprised that it runs for 127 minutes and feels like it gives you nothing of actual interest. Michael didn't have a great childhood, as the family were trained and exploited to make as much money as possible, but that's not a revelation. There's nothing here showing Michael leaning into his own imagination, perhaps because it was belatedly decided to end things just as Bad became a huge success. So we don't get any idea about the creation of Moonwalker. What's worse is that we don't get any look at the purchase of the property and development work that would become Neverland (that's a whole movie in itself, surely). Sadly, we also have to miss out on learning anything about the development of We Are The World, the hit charity song that Jackson wrote with Lionel Richie in response to the British Band Aid hit. There's also no mention of any women in his life. Okay, his marriages happened later, but I assume that neither Tatum O'Neal nor Brooke Shields wanted to be part of the story. Despite being part of the story. But, hey, at least there's screentime for "Bubbles". 

If you LOVE Michael Jackson and want to spend a couple of hours remembering some of his hits then this might be for you. I don't understand how even fans will be satisfied though, unless they specifically wanted something that was split evenly between depicting his victimhood and saintliness. With some time devoted to reminding us all about that Pepsi incident, that I admit I didn't realise was as serious and damaging as it seems to have been.

Maybe the life of Michael Jackson is best explored through books and documentaries, almost all of them with their own bias. Maybe it takes a lot more effort to weigh up his entire life, to consider everything he did for fans over the years and everything that then started to overshadow his public persona. I recommend a lot of other sources for those wanting to learn more. All you will learn here is how spineless and lacking vision the film-makers are. Although I'm sure they're figuring out how to prep a sequel already.

3/10

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Amsterdam (2022)

Writer-director David O. Russell seems to be coasting along lately, to put it nicely. His films have become an excuse for an ensemble cast to put on some glad rags and have some fun together, but without saying anything of substance. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, not every film needs to be substantial, but it’s odd that they are still being presented as praiseworthy and interesting when they, sadly, are not. 

Maybe I am part of the problem, considering I gave American Hustle a pass and genuinely enjoyed Joy, neither of which were on a par with his better films. So this disappointment was probably inevitable, and I suspect many others will have felt the same way when they finally watched Amsterdam, a pretty, but ultimately hollow, distraction.

The plot is more convoluted than it needs to be, which is why I am not going to properly summarize it here. Let’s just say that a suspicious death alerts one or two people to the idea that certain individuals may be plotting to overthrow the US government. This puts the people (played by Christian Bale, John David Washington, and Margot Robbie) in a lot of potential danger.

This material could have been done any number of ways, from tense thriller to farce, from straightforward historical drama to action movie, but Russell, in all his wisdom, decides to do just what he’s done before. You get some humour, you get a lot of drama, and you get a cast allowed to indulge themselves as long as the director is also happy with their work.

As for the cast, it’s more of a mixed bag than you might think. Bale doesn’t feel enjoyable in his main role, his character defined by the false glass eye he wears, but both Washington and Robbie improve every scene they are in, both avoiding that sensation of just repeating tics and tricks from their own back catalogue that Bale conveys. Zoe Saldaña is good in her small role, Robert De Niro is fun without being funny, and Timothy Olyphant brings the added bonus of, well, being Timothy Olyphant. If there is ever a film in which I don’t welcome the appearance of Olyphant then I want to be slapped repeatedly around the face until I see sense again. There are also supporting turns from Rami Malek, Andrea Riseborough, Taylor Swift (just a cameo, really, but she’s decent), Alessandro Nivola, Matthias Schoenaerts, Anya Taylor-Joy, Michael Shannon, and Mike Myers.

The production design is very good, as are the wardrobe choices and the musical score, but this is a film that needed more than just the visual distractions and a couple of key performances to make it worthwhile. It needed a better-written, and better-performed, lead, and it needed a much better approach to the story, which is an interesting and intriguing tale. Instead, we get to once again look on as Russell and his cast appear to be enjoying some in-jokes that nobody else is privy to. To sum up . . . disappointing, but pretty.

4/10

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View From The Top (2003)

I am not sure if others felt the same way, but after reading Ayoade On Top (well, listening to the Audiobook, which I highly recommend) I knew that I had to see this film. In case you aren't aware of the connection, Ayoade On Top is a book in which Richard Ayoade critiques View From The Top in a very funny, very tongue-in-cheek, way, comparing the directorial choices and the performances to great moments in cinematic history. You could watch the film before reading his book, but I assure you that enjoying the book first is the best way to go about things. And don't worry about spoilers, as View From The Top is a film so predictable and bizarre that it's pretty much impossible to spoil.

All you need to know about the plot is that Gwyneth Paltrow plays Donna Jensen, a young woman who dreams of being a flight attendant, aiming for a coveted, classy, route that will take her to Paris. She also develops a nice little romance with Ted Stewart (played by Mark Ruffalo), but that might have to be pushed aside as she focuses on her career goals, all the while following the guidance in a book written by Sally Weston (Candice Bergen), who is essentially the queen of all flight attendants.

It's no surprise to see that this is the first, and so far only, movie script written by Eric Wald. It strives to be so inoffensively bland, and fits everything together like a jigsaw made for 4-year-olds, that it somehow becomes a film that you start to actively dislike. The tone just isn't right either, with the gentle humour (oh Mike Myers and your inward-looking right eye, chortle, chortle) married to material that has Paltrow smiling and winking at viewers, as if everyone is in on "the joke" together. We're not. Mainly because it never feels like there's a proper joke there.

Director Bruno Barreto has an eclectic filmography, and there are certainly other films from him that I am sure I will check out one day (although not because they sound great, they just sound like they could be more fun than this one). Hailing from Brazil, another consideration for the strange experience of View From The Top COULD be something lost in translation. Barreto may have wanted to make something quite different from the final product, it's hard to tell, but we can only judge what we're left with. And we are not left with anything good.

Paltrow doesn't do well in the lead role. Her performance is patronising (considering the kind of small town girl that she's playing) and she doesn't help the comedic tone by simply putting on her big eyes and being overly earnest for most of her scenes. That earnestness affects everyone, however, and Ruffalo is also doing far from his best work here, although he's a bit more likeable, mainly due to his ability to not slavishly follow some set guidelines for a rigid career path that could lead to losing out on love. Bergen does well in her few scenes, nicely fitting into the role of air flight royalty, and Christina Applegate is quite fun in her scenes, as she's the only character in the film who doesn't feel as annoyingly goody goody as everyone else. Myers is allowed to indulge himself with his cross-eyed schtick, and he's not good. He's not good at all, but that tends to be the way with Myers, he will fully commit to something and it either works or it doesn't.

I am sure that someone could enjoy this. There are maybe even quite a few people who would defend it to others. Change just a few details and it's not entirely unlike a thousand other stories of "young woman/man overcomes odds to achieve dream". It just makes enough strange choices, from script to casting, from the music selection to the overall direction of the film, to feel worse than so many of them. By any sane measurement, this is a long way from the top.

3/10

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Prime Time: Terminal (2018)

When watching Terminal, there were two things that I strongly suspected. First of all, it was written and directed by one person. Second, that person was making their feature directorial debut. But would my suspicions prove to be correct?

Written and directed by Vaughn Stein, making his directorial feature debut, Terminal is a neon-splashed neo-noir that takes a game cast (Margot Robbie, Dexter Fletcher, Max Irons, Simon Pegg, and Mike Myers) and squanders them in a muddle of horrible plotting and horribly overt references to the most famous writings of Lewis Carroll.

Robbie is a mischievous woman names Annie, who works in a diner, but also works in a number of other roles. She encounters a dying man (Bill, played by Pegg) and sets out to help him end his misery. She also encounters a couple of contract criminals (played by Fletcher and Irons), setting out to put them on a job that may end up pitting them against one another. And she's helped by a crippled train station janitor (Mike Myers). The grand finale may try to convince you that more connections abound, and that this is a film plotted with interesting clues and details, but that's not true. You can believe it if you want to, and I won't begrudge anyone trying to find something more substantial within what they've just watched, but it doesn't make it any more true. It also doesn't mean that this is a film without some entertainment value.

There are things to enjoy here, not least of them being the central performance from Robbie, who is as watchable and enjoyable as ever (despite one or two moments in which the accent wavers). Fletcher and Irons aren't on the same level, but Pegg has fun with his scenes, and Myers makes the most of his biggest onscreen role in a long time.

The visuals are also a plus. This film isn't set in a reality. It's set in a dangerous world that feels populated only by unsavoury characters, supporting players who may not realise the tale being woven around them, and a select few vibrant personalities who dominate any scene they're in. There may not be an entire world built before you, and what's there may not feel authentic, but there are a number of wonderful sets, each one resonating with a special sense of cinematic cool. This is homage-by-numbers from almost start to finish, but the films and tropes being homaged are so much better than the main feature that they drag things up a notch.

It's sad that Stein is the biggest failing that the film has. He shows that he's capable when it comes to the visuals and a handful of cinematic tricks and flourishes, but the script is never as clever, nor as witty, as it thinks it is, which is a big problem when there also isn't enough originality or substance to make up for it. This is a bowl of wax fruit, it's appealing enough on the surface but won't feed you, and therefore feels ultimately pointless whenever you need something real.

4/10

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Ani-MAY-tion Month: Shrek (2001)

The joy of Shrek may have been diluted slightly nowadays, after multiple sequels and spin-offs, but I'm still a fan of most things that feature the big green ogre at the centre of events, and the first film remains the best of the lot.

Based on a book by William Steig, Shrek is, for anyone who doesn't know, all about the titular ogre (voiced by Mike Myers). He likes to live alone in his swamp, but that isolated existence is threatened when a talking donkey (Eddie Murphy) bumps into him while fleeing from armed guards. That isolated existence is threatened even further when numerous fairytale creatures start to fill up his home, due to it being the one safe haven. The nasty Lord Farquaad (John Lithgow) doesn't like fairytale creatures, and has been causing them no end of problems. When Shrek visits Farquaad to sort out getting his swamp back to himself, he ends up being tasked to rescue Princess Fiona (Cameron Diaz). If he does that then Farquaad will ensure that the swamp is back to how Shrek likes it.

It took a lot of people to craft this script - including Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Joe Stillman and Roger S. H. Schulman - but the end result is a wealth of great gags and sly references, as opposed to a bloated mess. The twisted fairytale may be overdone nowadays, but it's rarely been utilised to better effect than it is here, with the whole premise of Prince Charming rescuing the trapped Princess turned gleefully on its head.

Directors Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson do a great job of keeping everything perfectly paced and perfectly balanced. There may be a number of audio and visual gags aimed more at adults than the younger viewers, but they stay just the right side of cheeky, and there's never anything done that spoils the experience for the target demographic.

Myers, putting on a sorta-Scottish accent, makes Shrek an ogre that it's fun to hang around with. He's very childish, which obviously makes him appealing to children, and as the movie progresses we get to learn that ogres can be layered (like an onion, but not necessarily like a parfait). Murphy has his best role in years, as the cute, chatterbox Donkey, Diaz is a good match to play Princess Fiona, and Lithgow is a lot of fun as the diminutive Lord Farquaad.

There's a lot in this movie that people could choose to either love or hate - the accent that Myers uses, the standard selection of child-friendly tunes (All Star by Smash Mouth again??), the ending that rounds up some characters for a bit of a song and dance sequence. I loved it when I saw it at the cinema, and I still love it now.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Shrek-Whole-Story-Forever-Blu-ray/dp/B0046A9RMC/ref=sr_1_6?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1399983784&sr=1-6&keywords=shrek

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So I Married An Axe Murderer (1993)

AKA the Mike Myers movie that many people forget about because he's not being Wayne or Austin Powers or Shrek.

So I Married An Axe Murderer seemed to come and go without much fuss back in 1993. I'm not sure if it was considered a flop at the time, but it certainly didn't set the box office alight. That's a shame because this is a very enjoyable comedy with some great characters, a decent cast and a constant supply of decent chuckles.

Myers stars as Charlie Mackenzie, a man obviously afraid of commitment. His friend, Tony (Anthony LaPaglia), can testify to this and tries to get Charlie to see the error of his ways, to no avail. Charlie comes up with all kinds of reasons to explain why his ex-girlfriends became ex-girlfriends (one was a kleptomaniac, one smelled of soup). Circumstances change for the better when he meets Harriet (Nancy Travis). As the relationship blossoms, Charlie tries to put his usual behaviour behind him, but when he reads up about a killer named "Mrs. X", a murderous bride who has been killing her husbands on their honeymoon, he starts to wonder if the lady he loves might not have a very dark and dangerous side. And as he tries to dispel his worries, more and more circumstantial evidence starts piling up.

Well, well, well, I did not realise the negativity surrounding this movie until researching how it was received before writing this review. This seems to be a mixture of people wanting to take Myers down a peg or two after the huge success of Wayne's World and the star also starting to slip into the bad habits that would develop in later years (his penchant for playing multiple characters, in particular, also known nowadays as "doing a Murphy"). Writer Robbie Fox was understandably a bit miffed when it was claimed that the script was changed so much that he should consider a "story by" and co-screenplay credit. Mind you, Neil Mullarkey ended up getting no credit, despite working on a lot of the content. Director Thomas Schlamme found the shoot difficult, but also praised Myers for his total commitment (how ironic, considering the theme of the movie).

Whatever the mood behind the scenes, all that matters to viewers is what ended up being caught on camera and I think that So I Married An Axe Murderer is a fine little comedy. The script, by whoever you want to give the credit to, is full of amusing one-liners and great exchanges and Schlamme moves everything along nicely, helped by a typically upbeat selection of pop songs.

The cast have a lot of fun. Myers isn't at his most comfortable playing someone who is so "normal" but he gets to make up for that in the scenes in which he plays his own father, Stuart, a hilariously stereotypical Scotsman who spends a lot of the movie insulting his other son (Matt Doherty) for having an oversized "heid". Brenda Fricker is also very good as May Mackenzie, Charlie's mother who often gets carried away in the company of Anthony LaPaglia. Speaking of LaPaglia, he's just fine, whether he's asking his boss (Alan Arkin) to be more like a movie police captain or whether he's trying to commandeer a vehicle from a reluctant member of the public (Charles Grodin). Nancy Travis is very good in the role of Harriet (she's a lot better here than she was in those Three Men & A Baby/Little Lady movies). The cast also includes Amanda Plummer having a lot of fun and very small roles for Phil Hartman and Debi Mazar, all are great.

I don't expect too many people to wholeheartedly agree with me on this one, but I hope that at least some people enjoy themselves with a film that, in my opinion, was given some unfairly harsh treatment upon its initial release.

7/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Married-Murderer-Blu-ray-Region-Free/dp/B00171EEAI/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1359910468&sr=8-2