Hypnotic (2023)

It doesn’t matter how many times you get to the cinema this year, I doubt you will see a dumber film than Hypnotic. It’s so consistently ridiculous that it sits on the same level as some of the classic stinkers of cinema, and may well go on to become a bit of a cult classic in time.

The plot all begins with cop Danny Rourke (Ben Affleck) talking to a therapist about the day his daughter was snatched away from him. It was a typical day at the park, he let his mind wander for just a moment, and that one lapse has gone on to define his entire character. After his therapy session is over, Rourke is almost immediately sent to check out a potential bank robbery. That’s where he first encounters Dellrayne (William Fichtner), a man who can get people to see and do whatever he plants in their mind. While trying to figure out exactly how he works his magic, Rourke heads along to see Diana Cruz (Alice Braga), a woman who knows all about the power of people like Dellrayne. Rourke needs to stop the guy, but he also suspects that he knows something about the disappearance of his daughter. It is going to be a lot harder to crack this case, however, while Rourke is unable to trust his own senses.

Director Robert Rodriguez isn’t a stranger to messy movies, to put it kindly, but his worst moments have always, up until now, been reserved for the kind of ridiculous kid films that we’re never exactly aimed at cinephiles anyway. Hypnotic feels different. It feels, despite the silliness, as if it is aimed at adult viewers, but it also feels very much like Rodriguez had an idea (he also co-wrote the script with Max Borenstein) and wouldn’t let anyone dissuade him from crafting an entire movie around that idea. And getting Affleck for the main role just goes to show how poor Affleck is at choosing star vehicles for himself.

While I could offer up a selection of lines from the script that would make even the most stone-faced reader laugh out loud, that seems a bit too easy. Especially when the cast do so little to help. Affleck plays his cop in the style of Topper Harley, Braga is disappointingly flat while delivering almost every bit of exposition required, and Fichtner isn’t allowed to just cut loose and have more fun with his bad guy. He should be the absolute highlight of the film, especially when you think of the ridiculous power he has, but he somehow feels like nothing more than a canny henchman. JD Pardo, Dayo Okeniyi, Jackie Earle Haley, and Jeff Fahey also appear, although the latter two only have a mere minute or two of screentime, which helps to spare them too much embarrassment.

There’s one decent set-piece, known to anyone who saw the trailer, but nothing else here. The score is uninteresting, the special effects are okay, at times, but will probably just make you wish you rewatched Inception instead, and the whole thing lacks tension, as well as lacking anyone to really care about.

It IS mesmerising, in a way, but it’s mesmerisingly awful. And shame on Rodriguez for calling back to a joke delivered in the far superior Desperado.

3/10

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Strange Days (1995)

Although it may seem a bit dated now, with the action thriller cliches piled up and the focus on that Y2K sensation, Strange Days is yet another superior film from director Kathryn Bigelow. And it gets very dark indeed.

Ralph Fiennes plays Lenny Nero, an ex-cop who now makes a living selling experiences. Actual experiences. There's a gadget you can put on your head and Lenny will sell you recordings that will put you in the position of someone who has been through whatever you want to try out - sex with a gorgeous woman, breaking & entering, hardcore revelry, whatever you like. Unfortunately, someone recorded something very dangerous, which leads to people Lenny knows being killed. Lenny has to get to the bottom of things before it's decided that he'll also need taken out of the picture.

With a cast that includes Fiennes in the lead role, strong support from Angela Bassett, Tom Sizemore, Michael Wincott, and Juliette Lewis, and smaller roles for the likes of William Fichtner and Vincent D'Onofrio, Strange Days is a film not shy of talent in front of the camera. The first three mentioned there are the standouts, thanks to their positioning in the plot, but nobody lets the side down.

With Bigelow directing, and a script written by Jay Cocks and James Cameron, it's not shy of talent behind the camera either, and that translates into a slice of very slick entertainment.

The visual style of the film is remarkable, it's dark and gorgeous and cool throughout, and the pacing works well. The runtime is almost two and a half hours, but it doesn't feel as if it is ever outstaying its welcome. Graeme Revell creates an effective soundtrack to accompany the visuals, viewers are kept very much aware of the urgency of the situation, and twists and turns, although a tad easy to spot for afficianados of this kind of film, are interspersed nicely in between the set-pieces.

But what really sets this apart is the main idea being exploited. Some elements may have dated, including the tech on display, but this takes the concept of being able to experience the sensations that someone else is having and gives it an extra, VERY dark, twist. The fact that it manages to do so without making the whole thing seem too grimy and unpalatable is testament to the skills of everyone involved.

It's also worth bearing in mind, not unlike the various episodes of Black Mirror, that Strange Days shows us what can happen to technology when it can indulge the more warped whims of human nature. Something worth bearing in mind every time we try out VR, scour the internet, or just use one of the 160 apps on our smartphones. It doesn't take a huge leap in AI to turn machines against us. It just takes another human being.

8/10

UK people can get this lovely bluray here.
Americans have this DVD, for the moment.

Go (1999)

Directed by Doug Liman, and written by John August, Go is often described to people as a teen version of Pulp Fiction. Seriously, you'll find that phrase in almost every major review of the movie, so I decided not to buck the trend here. It's got drugs, some violence, plenty of dark humour, a great soundtrack, and a few main events shown from the viewpoints of different characters, which all means that the comparison point is a good one, even if Pulp Fiction is itself hugely influenced by a multitude of movies to have come before it.

Anyway, let me try to describe the various escapades. First of all, we get Ronna (Sarah Polley) looking to make some quick money as she faces eviction over the Christmas holiday season. She seizes her chance when a couple of guys (Scott Wolf and Jay Mohr) come into her work looking for her colleague, Simon (Desmond Askew). Simon often sells drugs so when these two potential customers start to enquire about any other potential supply avenues, Ronna decides to arrange a sale. She then has to buy product from dealer Todd Gaines (Timothy Olyphant), which puts her at serious risk if anything goes wrong during the proposed exchange. Things go wrong. Meanwhile, Simon is having a blast in Las Vegas with his friends (Taye Diggs, Breckin Meyer and James Duval). Vegas is such a glorious place to be, as long as nothing goes wrong. Things go wrong. There's more to discover here, but part of the joy of the film is finding out how the tales are interconnected and just what changes when seen from a different viewpoint.

Liman and August do a fantastic job here, keeping the energy levels up without the film every feeling hyperactive, and peppering conversations with great lines and references without it feeling overly-stylised. They also take a number of standard situations that we've seen done many times before and manage to give each one a twist, often weaving confidently between the sublie and the ridiculous. All of this would be impossible if it wasn't for the fantastic ensemble cast, taking the material and elevating every bit of it.

Polley, Wolf, Mohr, Askew and Diggs have rarely been better, and Olyphant is as great as he always is. Then we have William Fichtner as a slightly strange lawman, Jane Krakowski as his equally strange wife, Nathan Bexton as a pill-popper who hallucinates about conversations with cats and dancing with strangers to the Macarena, and even Katie Holmes does okay in her role. There's even a small, fun role for Melissa McCarthy that's worth looking out for.

There's one character I have yet to mention, and that is the soundtrack. Jam-packed with cracking tunes, Go has one of the best soundtracks of the 1990s. It's one that I listen to a lot, and it's also one that perfectly complements the visual style of the film. From the opening Columbia Pictures logo to the closing credits, this is another film that proves just how important the perfect song choice can be.

It's worth noting that what I find fun and cool could just as easily be viewed as tiresome and annoying by someone else. This is a film I used to recommend heartily to everyone until I started to realise that not everyone was won over by it in the same way as I was. I still heartily recommend it, but now do so with the standard, usually unspoken, proviso: No film is for everyone.

9/10

http://www.amazon.com/Go-Special-Sarah-Polley/dp/0767835093/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1418650151&sr=1-2&keywords=go

The Lone Ranger (2013)

Here's an anecdote that will make sense to nobody outwith Scotland. When I was quite young I wrote in to the letters/joke page of the Oor Wullie section of The Sunday Post. I sent in a joke and received, if I remember correctly, a £5 gift token, and my name in print. The joke wasn't great, but I still kinda like it. See what you think.

Tonto is riding through the countryside one day and sees The Lone Ranger coming towards him, with a bin bag over his shoulder.
"Where are you going?" asks Tonto.
"To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump. To the dump, to the dump, to the dump, dump, dump."

I admit, it may not work quite as well when written down. Anyway, let's move on.

There are some movies that just don't stand much chance with the critics. That can happen for a variety of reasons. The subject matter. The budget. Bad casting choices. And much more besides. The Lone Ranger was one of those movies. And I can think of two main reasons for the knives being drawn. One, the budget, which apparently went just over $200M. Two, the casting of Johnny Depp in the role of Tonto, the Native American sidekick to the main character. I don't care about the budget for blockbuster movies, personally. Once you're over $100M then everything tends to blur into one big, fat wad of cash anyway. I do agree with everyone who thought that casting Johnny Depp as Tonto was ridiculous, however, but realise that he's the only BIG name in the cast. That means that the decision is still dubious, but a bit more understandable. Yet it's still not a good enough reason to completely drub a film that actually has some moments of rollicking entertainment.

The story is, as if you couldn't guess, all about how a man (Armie Hammer) assumed the role of The Lone Ranger. With Tonto by his side, for better or worse, he eventually comes to realise that his idealistic approach to the law may not be beneficial to his health, especially if the criminals that he wants to capture are just working for more powerful, but hidden, villains.

Directed by Gore Verbinski, there's no denying that the film has a certain Pirates Of The Caribbean vibe to it. There are issues with the pacing, there are some big, entertainingly complicated, action sequences, and there's Johnny Depp being a bit kooky. The script, by Justin Haythe, Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio, packs in much more than it needs to. The Lone Ranger doesn't have to be a complex character. He's a good guy, plain and simple. Yet the writers here decide to focus on his steep learning curve, as he grows into the mask, and then amuse themselves with a framing device that allows them more room to play around with the narrative. It does make for a few good moments, admittedly, but could easily have been trimmed to save the movie a good 10-15 minutes, in my estimation.

Hammer is good as the hero. I like him a lot, thanks to his ability to temper the stoic heroic qualities required with some solid comedic talent. Depp - well, we've already covered his performance. He's not terrible, although many will disagree. Ruth Wilson is a tough woman who finds herself in danger, and she's okay, but given short shrift by the script. William Fichtner fares much better, playing the dangerous criminal known as Butch Cavendish, and Tom Wilkinson repeats the kind of decent performance that is often required of British actors in American blockbusters. Barry Pepper proves to be a highlight, once again. As he does in almost every movie that he appears in. And there are also small roles for James Badge Dale, Helena Bonham Carter, Harry Treadaway and Stephen Root, among others.

There are a number of scenes that feel a bit dull and lifeless, yet the movie really shows how great it could have been in a few extended set-pieces that raise up the energy levels and mix CGI, fantastic stunt work, and a healthy dollop of humour to provide the kind of exuberant fun that I wish more blockbusters would strive for. And the finale, accompanied by that rousing theme music (well, it's the final section of the "William Tell Overture" but many grew up with it as "the theme tune from The Lone Ranger"), is a surprisingly great piece of cinema, marred by some excessive FX work and both helped and hindered by a sense of ridiculousness.

I wouldn't be brave enough to say that this is a movie that you may be pleasantly surprised by. Okay, what the hell, I will. Give The Lone Ranger a try some time, and you might be pleasantly surprised. I certainly was.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Lone-Ranger-Blu-ray-Digital-Copy/dp/B00DJYJWVW/ref=sr_1_2?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1409322376&sr=1-2&keywords=the+lone+ranger

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2014)

For anyone with far too much time on their hands, here are reviews for the previous Turtle-tastic flicks.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret Of The Ooze.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles III.
TMNT.

Yes, it's yet another reboot for our heroes in a half-shell. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had a long, fruitful life in various guises, from their comic origins to the movies to the cartoon show to lunchboxes, toys and other merchandise, and I can't see that stopping any time soon. Having said that, things didn't look good for this movie. The very first trailer was received with a large amount of disdain, and outright hatred in some quarters. Michael Bay was producing (allowing for more people to rant, once again, about him somehow being the most evil thing to happen to movies since pan & scan). And the director was a man who can claim that The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning remains his best movie. Throw Megan Fox into the mix (hey, I like her, but many don't) and you seem to have a recipe for disaster.

April O'Neil (Fox) is a reporter who seems to be stuck with the lighter items, despite working hard to pick up a serious news story. She thinks she may have something special on her hands when she sees some vigilantes taking on the violent Foot Clan, trained baddies who have been terrorising the city. Unfortunately, when she sees them up close she sees four large turtles. Nobody is going to believe her, of course, but that doesn't stop her from pursuing the story. Accompanied by a cameraman (Will Arnett), April heads along to visit local celebrity business mogul, Eric Sacks (William Fichtner). And then Shredder pops up to cause even more trouble. Fights happen. There are big action moments. And viewers may roll their eyes, as I did, at a section of the film showing how the turtles developed into the teenage mutant ninjas that we now know them as.

There are one or two things that this film does get right. First of all, the human cast works well. Fox is a decent April O'Neil, and her character is pleasingly proactive throughout the movie, Arnett is always good fun (and provides some amusement here), Fichtner is great, and it was good to see Whoopi Goldberg back in a major release, albeit in nothing more than a cameo role. Tohoru Masamune doesn't do too badly as the main, famous villain, while Minae Noji somehow makes a good impression as his main henchwoman, despite being treated quite badly by the weak script.

Some of the action in the first half of the movie works well. People will undoubtedly complain about the levels of lighting and the editing, but the film IS showing characters who are ninjas. The clue is there in the title, making the flurried fighting under cover of darkness perfectly acceptable, and enjoyable.

And then we have the runtime. At about 100 minutes, approximately, this manages to distance itself slightly from the modern trend of the blockbusters that run for at least two hours. Well, it WOULD, if it didn't feel like a much longer movie, thanks to the interminable dullness of it all.

That's all I can think of. A few of the lines will raise a smirk, but just as many will raise groans from viewers (both familiar and unfamiliar with the characters). The script, by Josh Appelbaum, Evan Daugherty, and Andre Nemec, feels as if it doesn't know what it wants to be. A fun film, in line with the past movies that many enjoyed, or a serious reboot, adding a sharpness and grit to the characters. It subsequently fails to be either.

Jonathan Liebesman directs with some competence, I guess. But he seems to be just as unsure of how to handle the material as the writers. Some of the rapport between the main characters does work, but an awful lot of it just falls flat. And as for the big set-pieces in the second half of the movie. Unfortunately, I think they're some of the dullest and most irritating that I've sat through in some time (in a mainstream cinema release, anyway). Everything soon starts to become tiresome, as those making the film opt to please the audience by just throwing more and more effects and noise onscreen, and hoping that something sticks.

Symptomatic of everything that's wrong with modern, soulless, cinema at its worst, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles has already been successful enough to have a sequel greenlit. Which makes me incredibly sad, despite the fact that there are a lot of other world problems I should be focusing on.

4/10

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Drive Angry (2011)

Beginning with Nicolas Cage literally driving out of hell, Drive Angry is not a film that you will ever find described by the word "subtle". In fact, it's perhaps best summed up by the scene in which Cage shoots a lot of bad guys while swigging on a bottle of bourbon and having sex with a naked blonde. It's a scene that should be laughably bad, yet it plays out as a sequence that's hugely entertaining. It's still laughable, but in a good way.

What's the plot anyway? Cage plays a man named Milton, a runaway from hell who is being followed by The Accountant (William Fichtner). Milton is determined to stop a baby being sacrificed by Jonah King (Billy Burke), a cult leader who wants to make hell on earth. And on his quest to stop Jonah he ends up gaining a companion in the shapely . . . . . . . . shape of Amber Heard (playing a character named Piper). David Morse appears for a few minutes, Tom Atkins also gets to make an appearance, and Christa Campbell makes quite an impression with her limited screentime, but everyone takes a back seat to the feeling of excess, the CGI effects bandied around to enhance the 3D experience, and Cage going for yet another whacky turn.

I have to take a moment here to mention the one thing that bugs me most about Drive Angry. It's a little thing, yet it sits in my mind and flashes like a big, neon sign. The character played by Amber Heard is, as is made clear quite early on, someone who is both tough and has a strong urge to always do right by people. Her actions, words and general attitude show this. So the fact that the film-makers choose to show her holding a cigarette for one scene, about an hour or so into the movie, just doesn't make any sense. It's as if they thought she'd definitely smoke to make her more obviously tough, and then that decision was reversed at the last moment. Keep your eyes peeled. She holds a cigarette. When next shown, she's still holding it. And then she throws it to the ground, at no point actually smoking the damn thing.

Anyway, ranting aside, the rest of the movie does exactly what it should do. It entertains without ever getting close to any sign of intelligence. The performances from most of the main players are deliriously over the top. Cage is, of course, no stranger to this type of thing, Fichtner has a number of scene-stealing moments, and Burke simply tries to match them (although he can't). Heard is a good addition, mainly because I think she's always a good addition, Atkins is The Atkins, and Morse reminds viewers that not everyone in such a raucous movie has to turn everything up to 11.

Patrick Lussier is the director of this madness, and he also co-wrote the script with Todd Farmer (who gave himself a couple of great moments onscreen, too). I guess the script went something like this: Nic Cage drives, oooohhh Amber Heard, Fichtner is cool, Nic Cage drives some more . . . . . . or sits beside Amber Heard in a car, guns, guns, guns, boobies, boobies and guns and blood and booze, Cage drives again (note to self - he HAS to drive angry, otherwise the title makes us look stupid), Fichtner is cool again, ATKINS, more driving in the angriest way possible, etc. etc.

It's easy to mock this because it's not a good film. Yet, it's pretty great in the way it so unashamedly lays all of its cards on the table from the very beginning and then delivers one ridiculous set-piece after another en route to the grand finale. There are even some RAWK songs on the soundtrack that sound like parodies, somehow just adding to the appeal of the whole thing.

If Trey Parker and Matt Stone ever made an action movie (a non-puppet action movie) then I'd imagine that the end result would be Drive Angry. As difficult as it may be to believe, I mean that as a compliment.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Drive-Angry-Blu-ray-Nicolas-Cage/dp/B004EPYZOY/ref=sr_1_3?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1404503971&sr=1-3&keywords=drive+angry

Ultraviolet (2006)

Apparently, writer-director Kurt Wimmer is very unhappy with this film because it was completely re-edited by the studio and reduced from a two hour movie to one that runs for 88 minutes. I know how he feels as I'm also very unhappy with this film. Whether or not an extra half hour of content would make me any happier is a risk I'm not prepared to take, even if a full director's cut is ever released. I can't see how any extra footage could make up for the bad acting, bad special effects and uninteresting characters on display here.

The movie starts off with some voice-over narration from Milla Jovovich about the state of the world that she's living in, but this isn't Resident Evil. We then get our first glimpse of Milla, clad in some tight leather clothing and ready to kick ass with some superhuman strength and skill, but this isn't Resident Evil. People are being affected by a disease of the blood and Milla is determined to fight against an evil corporation that is trying to use the whole situation to its advantage, but this isn't Resident Evil.

Milla plays Violet, a beautiful hemophage (AKA basically a vampire) and member of an underground resistance movement who boldly strides into the Archministry and intercepts the delivery of a weapon designed to destroy her and all of her kind. However, it turns out that the weapon is a small boy (played by Cameron Bright) and Violet starts to think that maybe, just maybe, he can be used to help the hemophages rather than kill them off. Nerva (Sebastien Andrieu) doesn't think so and, as he is a superior member of the same resistance movement, Violet finds herself battling with her own kind as well as the soldiers working on behalf of Vice-Cardinal Ferdinand Daxus (Nick Chinlund), the head of the Archministry.

Almost everything about this movie, with the exception of the lovely leading lady and one or two nice visuals, is horrible. Not just horrible, but horrible in a way that actually hurts your senses. You can feel your eyes start to burn as every scene has more and more bad CGI crammed into it. Your ears may try to separate from your head and crawl off into a gutter somewhere rather than listen to most of the godawful dialogue. Then there's the acting, which is so bad across the board that I thought I was watching a parody. Indeed, Nick Chinlund's turn as the villain could be replaced by Will Ferrell's performance as Mugatu (from Zoolander) and the film would be improved 10%. The only person who comes close to escaping with a shred of self-respect still intact is William Fichtner, though it's too close to call. Cameron Bright at least has the excuse of being young here. Someone like Sebastien Andrieu does not.

The action sequences could have been decent, with Wimmer again using the Gun Kata style that he'd showcased in the enjoyable Equilibrium, but yet again, excessive CGI and over-editing spoil the result. With no action to enjoy and a selection of uninteresting characters that nobody will care for, the only asset the movie has is the lovely Milla. As much as I like watching her on-screen, that's just not enough to save this from being a complete waste of your time.

2/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Ultraviolet-DVD/dp/B000HT1WYW/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1358400784&sr=1-2