Ocean's Eight (2018)

While it may not be as cool or witty as the first instalment of the series it is a part of, Ocean's Eight seems to have been yet another enjoyable slice of entertainment now reframed/erased by those who become enraged when women have the audacity to enjoy some more representation onscreen. It's silly and implausible, but the fantastic cast help to make it an easy pleasure from start to finish.

Sandra Bullock plays Debbie Ocean, related to a certain Danny (of course). We first see Debbie as she's being released from prison, and it's not long until she's hatching what she believes is a foolproof plan for a legendary robbery. It's going to take place during the Met Gala. She'll need the help of her partner, Lou (Cate Blanchett), and the plan will rely on various skills brought to the table by a fence named Tammy (Sarah Paulson), a nible-fingered pickpocket named Constance (Awkwafina), a fashion designer named Rose (Helena Bonham Carter), a hacker nicknamed Nine Ball (Rihanna), and a jewellery maker named Amita (Mindy Kaling). They also need to manipulate and make use of a vain actress, Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway), and it would be a big bonus for Debbie if she could find a way to get revenge on Claude Becker (Richard Armitage), the man who was responsible for her being caught and sent to prison years ago.

Directed by Gary Ross, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Olivia Milch, this is a fine caper, absolutely in line with the other instalments in this movie series. A lot of the appeal stems from the charm of the leads, the big score is impressively audacious, and a couple of twists and turns on the way to the end credits will keep viewers on their toes without them feeling cheated. You get a lot of celebrity cameos, all helping to ensure that the Met Gala feels just busy and glamorous enough to make it believable, and there's a good attempt to replicate the energy and cool style of the other movies, particularly when it comes to the unflappable nature of our main character reacting to fluid and precarious situations.

Bullock allows her star power to shine bright in the lead role, and she's a fantastic lynchpin for the entire cast. Blanchett works well alongside her, equally calm, but also slightly more cautious as some of the risks are being calculated. Paulson and Carter both have a lot of fun in their roles, Awkwafina feels like perfect casting for her character, and both Kaling and Rihanna are just the right personalities to round out the core group. Hathaway seems to enjoy playing someone so egotistical and vain, Armitage is allowed to play his part in a way that makes it very easy to root for his downfall, and there are amusing little moments for Elliott Gould and James Corden.

As is the way with many sequels, the main thing working against this is the large shadow cast by the original. It still proves to be worthwhile though, and the way in which our main characters rely on women being ignored feeds nicely into the main scheme. It shows that there could be one or two extra features in this series yet, and I'd certainly be happy enough to one day sit down to watch an Ocean's Nine.

8/10

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Mubi Monday: Father Mother Sister Brother (2025)

I don't want to be too quick to dismiss writer-director Jim Jarmusch, but he's certainly been on a bit of a creative downward swing since the fantastic Paterson, which was ten years ago now. And let's not mention The Dead Don't Die. There's a feeling that Jarmusch still enjoys working with the talented collaborators he has befriended over the years, but he may now struggle to come up with a premise truly worthy of their talents.

Father Mother Sister Brother sees Jarmusch returning to the kind of portmanteau form that he's previously used to great effect. I just don't know what to make of it though, although I think it's a look at the unhealthiness of forced family duties. Maybe I'm wrong, but the sections titled "Father" and "Mother" certainly feel more strained and less healthy than the third "Sister Brother" section.

Tom Waits is Father, visited by his son, Jeff (Adam Driver), and daughter, Emily (Mayim Bialik). It's an odd situation, with the children feeling more responsible and parental than the actual parent, but very little actually happens until an amusing enough beat at the very end of the tale. Then it's time for Mother (Charlotte Rampling) to be visited by her two daughters, Lilith (Vicky Krieps) and Timothea (Cate Blanchett). There's a bit more happening here, considering how the two daughters seek approval from their mother, and also from one another, while Lilith tries to hide the fact that she's not exactly in the healthiest of financial situations. Finally, siblings Skye (Indya Moore) and Billy (Luka Sabbat) spend some time reconnecting as they process the recent death of their parents.

There's nothing to fault here when it comes to the performances. Waits, Driver, and Bialik get to play up the awkwardness in a way that is light and fun, Rampling, Krieps, and Blanchett are mesmerising as they take part in what feels like some kind of three-way swordfight on criss-crossing tightropes, and both Moore and Sabbat are nicely relaxed for the majority of their segment. Whether he nails down his dialogue and thematic strands or not, Jarmusch can always rely on his casts to deliver.

Aside from the focus on family, there's also a Rolex watch linking the tales (the same one? doubtful, but it's a possibility) and the feeling that relationships are always inextricably linked to that constant root of all evil, money. It's just a shame that Jarmusch keeps things so light and relatively inconsequential. Especially when he has a lot of people who could have easily enjoyed sinking their teeth into something much more substantial. I didn't dislike the time I spent with this, but I doubt I'll ever want to rewatch it. I'd also be surprised if many Jarmusch fans strongly disagreed with me.

4/10

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Black Bag (2025)

Here's another film from the long-retired director Steven Soderbergh. Coming along so soon after Presence, which was also written by the writer of this, David Koepp, it would be interesting to consider just how many movies we would get from him if he hadn't decided to duck out of the industry years ago and spend time resting on his laurels. 

George Woodhouse and Kathryn St. Jean (Michael Fassbender and Cate Blanchett, respectively) are a married couple who are both in the spy business. Their marriage is enviably solid, but things may get tricky when it looks as if Kathryn has been up to some treachery. In order to get to the bottom of things, George ropes in a number of friends (played by Tom Burke, Marisa Abela, Regé-Jean Page, and Naomie Harris) to help him. He'll either ask them for favours or interrogate them with a polygraph attached, but he'll do whatever is necessary to untangle the whole messy situation.

One or two moments aside, and even those could be tweaked, Black Bag is the kind of film that you could easily envision as a stage play. The plotting is smart, yet also keeps things slightly confusing in a way that is nicely in line with the murky world of spycraft that we're dropped in the middle of. Keeping track of everything should show you how it all works out plausibly, but it's one that I think may well require at least one or two rewatches to fully unpick.

Koepp does well to deliver a mix of characters who feel enjoyably different from one another while also feeling capable of doing what their job entails. He also ensures that the dialogue feels authentic for everything that our protagonists are discussing. I'm not saying that it IS, but it feels that way to a layman onlooker like myself.

Soderbergh loves a challenge, which is what I assume drew him to both this and Presence (that one being a haunted house movie from the POV of the presence, this one being a spy thriller with the emphasis on conversations and a look at the mindset of those who take on such work), and it's a good job that he is often up to the task of meeting those challenges. He has times when he misses, and I am one of those people who really disliked Presence, but his hit rate is pretty impressive, and there's usually always at least something of interest in even his weakest features.

Fassbender and Blanchett are both as excellent as you'd expect, and there's a nice little role for Pierce Brosnan that allows him to lift the film momentarily with a perfect mix of menace and that typical Brosnan charm, but it's interesting to see how well the supporting cast do to hold their own alongside the two more established stars. Burke, someone who doesn't always impress me, is brilliant, providing some of the funniest moments of the film in a way that doesn't move everything too far away from the main tone of the whole piece, Abela projects the image of someone very capable, but perhaps trying too hard to disguise her own intelligence, and both Page and Harris sink their teeth into roles that could have easily been all-too-forgettable.

Low-key throughout, but no less thrilling for it, this is top-tier cloak and dagger stuff. It might not be the very best example of this kind of thing, and I suspect one or two loose plot points that I may or may not be satisfied with on a rewatch, but there are times when it comes very close. 

8/10

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Borderlands (2024)

A sci-fi action movie based on a videogame I haven't played from a director who usually does his best work in the horror genre, and starring Kevin Hart in a role that would seem to be ideal for almost anyone other than Kevin Hart? I couldn't work up any enthusiasm to see Borderlands when it landed in cinemas, after a very long delay, and the disappointing box office performance and many negative reviews made me believe that I had been right to keep it low on my list of priorities. I knew I would get to it eventually though. And today was the fateful day. Maybe I should have delayed it by another few weeks or years though.

Cate Blanchett plays Lilith, a bounty hunter who ends up joining a group of people who all end up on a quest to locate and open a secret vault on the planet of Pandora. There's Roland (Hart, trying to be the leader of the gang), Krieg (the strong and silent type, played by Florian Munteanu), a small robot named Claptrap (voice by Jack Black), and the destruction-loving Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt). They will eventually be joined, at least temporarily, by Tannis (Jamie Lee Curtis), and someone named Atlas (Edgar Ramírez) who may be hiding his true motivation for wanting to stay close to the crew.

There may be lots of little details here for fans of the videogames, (I don't know) and there may be some production design and character arcs that have been directly translated, (again . . . I don't know), but what there IS here is some horrible plotting, a complete lack of any excitement, and a couple of action set-pieces that do nothing to justify the time spent enduring the rest of the film. Because it is an endurance test. Few of the cast feel well-suited to their roles, and the film itself is exactly in line with a trailer that gave many people the idea of making a meme joke in the format that ends with the line "we have Guardians Of The Galaxy at home" and then shows the poster for this as the aforementioned lesser substitute option.

None of the characters here have anything really going on below the surface, but Blanchett manages to make her own involvement rewarding to those who can enjoy her simply swaggering around onscreen with a fantasticaly-sculpted bright red hairdo atop her head. Hart is never convincing, Greenblatt has a higher energy level that keeps her out of sync with the rest of the group, and makes her slightly annoying for most of her screentime, and Jack Black's vocal performance is the equivalent of being stuck beside the most annoying "office joker" for the entirety of the big annual night out. Munteanu is decent, helped by the fact that he doesn't really have much to say, Curtis has some fun in her thankless role, and there's a fun cameo from Gina Gershon. As for Ramírez, he's one of the weakest movie villains in recent years. Not allowed to make a strong enough impression, his character fails to cast the required shadow over the movie, leaving the actor struggling to be remembered as soon as the end credits roll.

Movies based on videogames nowadays should no longer be dismissed as quickly as they used to be, but this seems determined to take up a place alongside the worst of the game-to-screen adaptations we have seen over the years. I cannot say if there is still enough here to please fans of the game series, but I can definitely say that there's nothing here to please fans of Eli Roth. In fact, there's no real indicator of his involvement, unless you count the fact that he apparently cannot direct decent action set-pieces to save his life (seriously . . . how do you mess up the chance to choreograph a big fight sequence to the Motorhead song "Ace Of Spades"?). Having also written the screenplay with Joe Abercrombie, it's obvious who is most to blame here, but it's also obvious that he might be able to shake himself off and move on quickly enough, having his own credit overshadowed by the brand name that he was given the responsibility of turning into a hit movie.

I would advise those who love the game of Borderlands to keep playing it, rather than giving this movie their time. On the plus side, maybe some confusion will lead people to a very different movie named Borderlands (renamed as Final Prayer in some territories). I give this some bonus points for how much I enjoyed Blanchett here, but others wouldn't be half as kind.

4/10

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Tár (2022)

Written and directed by Todd Field, with the main role specifically earmarked for Cate Blanchett, Tár is a character study and a murky psychological thriller that claims to be making a statement about abuse and manipulation, but seems to sadly muddy the waters of a conversation that still doesn’t seem to be allowed to fully unfold without numerous caveats and attempts to put a different angle on things. I will get back to this point later, but please bear it in mind.

Blanchett plays Lydia Tár, a phenomenal musician and composer who is aiming to present a symphony she believes may well be her greatest triumph. Lydia has a loyal assistant (played by Noémie Merlant), a supportive wife (played by the incredible Nina Hoss), and numerous students and peers all ready to bask in the glow of her talent and heap more praise upon her. She also has a history of manipulation and exploitation of her position, whether it is intentional or not. The death of a former student, and the circumstances surrounding her relationship with Lydia, leads to the start of a whirlwind change of events that may see the maestro feeling more in the pits than on the podium.

There’s no denying that this is an interesting film, paced slowly to draw viewers into the world of the main character, and featuring a superb core cast all doing great work. I would argue that both Blanchett and Hoss are two of the best actresses working today, and they are joined onscreen by the talented Mark Strong, Julian Glover, and others I am less familiar with, but who were certainly bringing their A-game while orbiting such a flawless lead performance. Because Blanchett, whether conducting an orchestra, playing piano, or shredding apart a student for letting their modern day morality affect their choice of music to work with, IS flawless here. She can do cold and calculating as well as she can do confused and flustered, and she seems to relish playing someone we get to see, at one point, menacingly threaten a child.

Field knows what he is doing, constantly framing the film around Blanchett’s imposing figure, with most of the scenes showing passionate and dedicated musicians doing their work in displeasingly dark and cold environments, unless relishing the times when playing to an audience. There is an ugliness here, from the visual palette to the light levels, but it feels like a reflection of the world that Lydia has created for herself, one that is only lit up by a few different elements.

Getting back to the conversation this is part of though, Tár would seem to be a film originating from the #metoo movement, making it another important part of an ongoing process that hopes to make our world safer and more transparent for women (not exclusively women, but predominantly so), but that is where it feels least valuable. This feels, to me, like a “not all men” movie, but the phrase has been contorted into the equally-redundant “see, women do it too”, which doesn’t really feel as helpful, in the grand scheme of things, as something that could have been more complex, more subtle, and ultimately more effective, which I feel is owed to any viewer affected by the issues at the heart of the film.

I guess, rightly or wrongly, I viewed this with a raised eyebrow because it is a story I feel should have been left at the back of a queue for a while. I don’t think we have had enough films properly showcasing other scenarios yet, whether it is more powerful men being held to account or other common victims having their voices heard (the statistics regarding assault and abuse of trans people, for example, always seem to be omitted from this bleak landscape).

Tár has one towering performance, and sterling work from others onscreen, but it doesn’t actually have enough beneath the surface to make you feel that it is worth 2 1/2 hours of your time. I would still recommend it, and think Blanchett will continue to receive a lot of well-deserved credit for her portrayal of such a sharp and “jagged” character, but it’s not actually a great film.

6/10

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Nightmare Alley (2021)

When I finally got around to watching the 1947 film version of Nightmare Alley, it became a firm favourite. It's not a film easily forgotten by those who have seen it, a noir that skirts very close to horror as we watch a man on a journey that eventually takes him to . . . well, that would be telling.

I am not automatically averse to remakes, and Nightmare Alley has a story that you can see being attractive to others. It's also very much of a time and a place though, and it's already good enough that you have to wonder what others think they can do to improve upon, or just equal, it. At least you can start to feel optimistic when one of the people involved is director Guillermo del Toro. If there's one thing that Del Toro can do it's craft an onscreen love with style, beauty, and a wonderful attention to detail. He can also assemble a great cast.

Bradley Cooper is Stanton Carlisle, a shady character who ends up joining a travelling carnival. Once there, he starts to learn some of the tricks of the trade. He is especially interested in the feats of mentalism performed by Pete (David Strathairn), a fragile man cared for by Zeena (Toni Collette). Learning enough to believe he can make a name for himself, Stanton heads off with Molly (Rooney Mara) and performs for bigger and bigger crowds. This eventually leads to him crossing paths with Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett), and Dr. Ritter might be able to provide information that could lead to a huge payday.

If you like the selection of names just mentioned then you may be pleased to hear that this film also features roles for Willem Dafoe, Richard Jenkins, Ron Perlman, Mary Steenburgen, Holt McCallany, and Tim Blake Nelson. Don't get too excited though, a number of the cast members are either miscast or disappointingly underused. Cooper, likeable leading man that he is, doesn't feel right for the central role. Blanchett feels like the most wasted in her supporting role, and wasting Blanchett in your film should be a crime. It's the smaller roles that provide more of the treats, with highlights being Dafoe, Jenkins, and any scenes involving Strathairn and/or Collette.

Adapting the same source material as the original movie, a novel by William Lindsay Gresham, the screenplay by Del Toro and Kim Morgan seems to lose sight of what made the story so mesmerising and powerful. You still have a good story here, and it's supported by a smattering of very good performances, but the power is diluted by a) too many moments dwelling on the pretty visuals, and b) an ending that I feel lacks the full bittersweet resonance of the 1947 adaptation.

As good as a director as he can be, and as fired up about his chance to helm this remake, Del Toro feels as miscast in his role as Cooper. He aims for some style and grace that actively pulls the material away from that "down 'n' dirty" feel that the material has running through it. These characters are allowed to create wings and fly close to the sun, but it would be more appropriate to see them simply being allowed to bathe in warm water in between constant trips back to the sewer.

Undeniably enjoyable in places, and a visual treat throughout, it's a real shame that there's such a disconnect between the content and the form. It's a divide that I couldn't easily overlook, despite the many positives (such as the cinematography by Dan Laustsen or the wonderfully old-fashioned music from Nathan Johnson). I know a lot of people enjoyed it a lot more than I did. See it for yourself and let me know if you agree or disagree with me.

6/10

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The House With A Clock In Its Walls (2018)

IF you don't mind his presence in films, Jack Black has spent the past 10-15 years steadily building up a great selection of family-friendly adventure films. Okay, I'm the only one who enjoyed Gulliver's Travels but most people seemed to enjoy the Kung Fu Panda movies, School Of Rock, Goosebumps, and Jumanji: Welcome To The Jungle. And here's another to add to the list, a film full of magical delights that is an unexpected directorial effort from Eli Roth (a man more well-known for his gory horror movies and twisted thrillers).

Owen Vaccaro plays Lewis Barnavelt, a young boy who ends up going to stay with his eccentric Uncle Jonathan (Black) after his parents die in a car crash. Uncle Jonathan lives in a very strange house, is himself a very strange individual, and has a good friend in the shape of the very strange Florence Zimmerman (Cate Blanchett). There's a lot of magic being bandied around, and Lewis wants to learn how to use it as soon as he sees it happening, and that clock in the walls, a device placed there by a warlock for reasons unknown. But it's counting down to something, and that something can't be good.

Based on a John Bellairs book that was first published in the early 1970s, The House With A Clock In Its Walls manages to feel surprisingly fresh and fun, despite not being entirely dissimilar to so many other movies we have seen aimed at children in the post-Potter entertainment years. A large part of that is to do with the cast but it's equally down to the surprisingly spot-on handling of the material by Roth, working from a script by Eric Kripke. This is not a film concerned with mystery and personal discovery, it's a film about magic. Young Lewis finds out about it quite quickly, making it a very normal part of his life for most of the movie, and the fun and thrills come from that magic being used, and from a third act that culminates with the final ticking and tocking of the clock.

Black is as energetic and amusing as he usually is (IF you like him, those who don't will want to find some other viewing choice), and Vaccaro is perfectly likeable in his main role, but it's always a lot of fun to see Blanchett in a lighter role, and she's her usual wonderful presence here. You also get Lorenza Izzo in a small, but important, role, and Renee Elise Goldsberry and Kyle MacLachlan as the two main characters who want to be there when the clock finishes the countdown. Colleen Camp is a neighbour who witnesses some odd stuff going on, Sunny Suljic play a boy who befriends Lewis, but may just be using him, and there's an array of enjoyable CGI creations that have fun personalities of their own (the best being a pet armchair that acts like an excitable puppy).

You can probably already guess the main problem that the film has. It's just too similar to so many others that we've seen over the past decade or so. The fantastical elements don't quite go as far as they could, it lacks some tension, and the grand finale feels more like an afterthought. There are also some toilet humour gags that don't feel in line with the rest of the film, just a couple of them but they're in there. These things aren't enough to spoil the whole movie, they just drag it down slightly.

Roth will always have his detractors, no matter what genre he tries his hand at, as will Black, so that also provides a lot of people with more reasons to give this a miss. I think it's worth your time though, especially if you have children at just the right age for it (probably between 6-14 being the optimum demographic . . . or anyone with the same mental age as me).

7/10

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How To Train Your Dragon 2 (2014)

Considering How To Train Your Dragon was one of my favourite animated movies in recent years, my expectations were high for this sequel. Some early glowing reviews pushed those expectations even higher. While I disagree with some who think that this is even better than the first movie, I have to say that it comes pretty close (in fact, I rate it equally). I left the cinema happy, looking forward to whenever I get to watch it again in the comfort of my own home.

All of the main cast members return in a story that picks up, of course, some time after the events of the first movie. The island of Berk is now a bit of a dragon haven since everyone has been shown the way forward by young Hiccup (Jay Baruchel). In fact, most of Hiccup's friends enjoy spending their days dragon racing, with sheep being collected for points, while our hero disappears to fly around the clouds with Toothless, mapping out other territories. On one of his journeys, Hiccup finds out that a ship full of heavies are hunting dragons to take back to the fearsome Drago Bludvist (Djimon Hounsou). Drago wants to build, and lead, a dragon army. As if that wasn't enough to process, Hiccup also meets his mother (Cate Blanchett), a woman thought dead for years and years.

Taking a darker path than the first movie, How To Train Your Dragon 2 is, consequently, ever so slightly less fun. That's not a major problem, however, as everything is mixed together so perfectly. The characters are all as enjoyable to spend time with as they were the first time around, the dragons are just as colourful and cute as ever (and sometimes fierce), and the animation is just about as gorgeous as you can get.

Director Dean DeBlois, who also wrote the script based on the book series by Cressida Cowell, does a fantastic job, exploring themes of responsibility, treachery and loss this time around. The film has a number of emotional ups and downs, but it's all pitched perfectly at the level of the target age group.

The vocal cast all do a great job again, for the most part. Baruchel is good fun, joined once more by America Ferrera, T. J. Miller, Jonah Hill, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, and Kristen Wiig. Gerard Butler and Craig Ferguson also return as, respectively, Stoick (Hiccup's father) and Gobber. Hounsou is an impressive villain, truly mean and menacing whenever he's onscreen. The only voice that doesn't quite work is Blanchett. I get what she's going for, but it just ends up coming out as a bit of a garbled mess, to my ears.

I don't think I can adequately convey how much love I have for these movies. They get everything right. Everything. Even in my late thirties, I now want a dragon. I want to fly through the air, skimming the tops of clouds as I go. I want to be just like any one of the good-natured dragon riders shown onscreen. If that is how I feel when watching the movies then I can only guess how they fire up the imaginations of the kids watching everything onscreen.

Even in the densely-populated field of quality animated movies, this soars above the rest.

9/10.

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Robin Hood (2010)

So I thought I knew what I was getting into when I went to see Ridley Scott's take on Robin Hood at the cinema. I was in safe hands, surely. Russell Crowe in the central role (who does well but provides a strange Geordie/Glaswegian accent for the part), Cate Blanchett as "Maid Marion" (excellent), the fantastic Mark Strong as the baddie, other roles given to the likes of Max Von Sydow, Oscar Isaac, Eileen Atkins, Léa Seydoux, William Hurt, Matthew Macfadyen, Danny Huston, Kevin Durand, Scott Grimes and Mark Addy amongst others. All of them are at least very good, most of them are excellent. A screenplay by Brian Helgeland. It all seemed so good. I mean, good grief, there isn't one Ridley Scott movie I can think of from the past 30-40 years that I've actually disliked.

Which makes it all the more disappointing that this movie was a bit of a misfire. Its greatest strength (the talent behind and in front of the camera) proves to be its biggest drawback. This movie coming from anyone else would have been alright. But coming from people I expected so much from means that, despite one or two great moments here and there, it just doesn't cut it. No sir.

The story, for those unaware, is all about how the man we came to know as Robin Hood actually became the famed outlaw we all love to this day. This is not a tale of daring archery contests, no cocking a snoot at some panto baddie here, this is an origins tale.

Which is a great shame because when the movie gets close to some swashbuckling fun it then pulls back just when things are about to get entertaining. Does this make me a shallow audience member or am I simply suffering because Ridley Scott wants to have his cake and eat it in so many ways? He wants the "reality" of the story yet laces it with wonderful, cinematic moments. He wants actual characters instead of caricatures and then makes the decision to portray Marion (after such a good number of scenes pitching things perfectly) as a much-too-progressive spirited fighter. Not to mention the bizarre inclusion of "the lost boys" for reasons best known to himself.

As good as it gets in places, and it does get very good, it all feels like a movie that had to be made just to get a greenlight for the sequel, a film featuring all of the antics and swashbuckling fun we love about Robin and his men in tights (surely).

It's definitely not the Gladiator 2 that many lazy critics tagged it, neither is it an actual, fully fledged, Robin Hood movie. Ironically, this feels very much like Robin Begins.

NB. The Bluray, as expected, is a nice package. While there's not enough in the mix to make it worth a purchase if you hated the movie, there's plenty to enjoy if, like me, you liked parts of the film, and wanted to like it more.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Robin-Hood-Extended-Directors-Blu-ray/dp/B003DZ1328/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1388850998&sr=8-2&keywords=robin+hood+blu+ray