Body Cam (2020)

Horror films can, and often do, throw a bright light on parts of society that we don’t always want to look at, whether that is a major problem we don’t know how to improve or the worst aspects of human nature. So Body Cam deserves a point or two for using the genre to look at a problem that has been in and out of the news over the past few decades, with good reason. It’s all about police officers, and eventually turns into an exploration of certain individuals who can get away with murder because they’re wearing a badge.

Mary J. Blige is Renee Lomito-Smith, an officer just starting back to her duties after an incident that involved her hitting a member of the public. That incident was, of course, caught on camera. Keen to get back to work, Officer Lomito-Smith is also battling to stop herself from becoming consumed by the grief stemming from the sudden death of her young son. Out on patrol with Officer Danny Holledge (Nat Wolff), it soon becomes clear that someone is out to take out a number of police officers in a night of killing. That someone has some strange powers, or so it would seem, and they might just have a very strong motive for their actions.

Writers Nicholas McCarthy and Richmond Riedel have one or two decent ideas at the heart of their script, and maybe if they had worked with a strong third writer then this could have been something really good. Unfortunately, the whole thing ends up being a half-baked mess, completely I helped by the direction from Malik Vitthal. None of the characters are developed well enough, the plotting is careless and illogical, and it all builds to a final act that would be laughable if it wasn’t so confusing in how earnestly it seems to undermine some really . . . misguided decisions.

Blige does well enough in the lead role, and she's certainly the one person trying their best in this mess. She shows someone striving to do right, even after a major mistake, and she also conveys her worry and stress without horribly overdoing things. Wolff isn't too bad, but that's mainly because most of his scenes have him alongside Blige. David Zayas, someone I normally like seeing onscreen, is given a pretty thankless role, there are a lot of other people who make little to zero impression at all, and Anika Noni Rose is given the role of sympathetic protagonist.

I can see why some people might enjoy this as simple, lightweight, horror fare. It attempts to tell a decent story, provide some social commentary, and deliver a few jump scares here and there. Unfortunately, the apparent lack of care made it a miserable viewing experience for me, and other people may feel the same way. Because it's crap.

3/10

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Annie (2014)

Yes, I was as dismissive as a lot of other people when I heard that we were about to get another remake of Annie, the musical that gave us the songs "Tomorrow" and "It's A Hard Knock Life", and starred a little red-headed girl being annoyingly precocious. The 1982 movie isn't, as far as I can recall, that great a movie anyway, so I just didn't see any point in going back to that well. And when I saw the first trailer for this movie I was slightly smug, safe in the knowledge that this was a movie that I needn't prioritise, what with it having the potential to be absolutely bloody awful.

Well, I can always admit when I'm wrong (because it happens so often, unfortunately), and in the case of Annie I was wrong. It's not going to be one of my favourite movies, and it suffers from many of the failings that the original movie had, but this is a fun, energetic, musical that should keep the family entertained for the duration.

Quvenzhane Wallis takes over the titular role, and just fine she is too. She's an orphan who lives with the constant hope that one day she will be reunited with her parents. Meanwhile, she is stuck in the care of the bitter Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz), a nasty drunk who regrets the opportunities she missed out on in her past. Jamie Foxx is Will Stacks, the character substituting for Daddy Warbucks here. Stacks is a billionaire business tycoon trying to become mayor of New York, and when his approval rating jumps up after he's filmed saving Annie from being hit by a truck his staff decide that he could benefit even more if he offered Annie a temporary home.

I started to warm to this version of Annie in the first few scenes. In fact, the very opening moments provide an amusing little fake-out before moving in to a credit sequence that nicely riffs on the well-known musical numbers with a makeover that feels genuinely appropriate for the new audience without seeming horribly desperate. And everything kept ticking over nicely, for the most part.

There are two main problems that prove insurmountable for director Will Gluck, who also worked on the screenplay with Aline Brosh McKenna (with help from the past versions of the tale, of course). First of all, this isn't a musical full of the best songs. I'm sure many musical fans will disagree, but I've always found Annie to have more filler than thriller, to put it simply. Two good songs just don't cut it, especially when one of those isn't really all that good as opposed to just being one of the most familiar. The second big problem is Cameron Diaz horribly overacting in the role of Miss Hannigan (and let's not even mention the horrible backstory given to her). I've been kinder to Miss Diaz than most, over the years, but she's sorely miscast here, and an undeniable weak link in the cast.

Wallis is bright and sweet in the main role, just about avoiding feeling too precious, Foxx is a lot of fun as the rich man who tries to keep his defences up at all times, Rose Byrne and Bobby Cannavale are both good as the advisors who watch things unfold from two very different perspectives, and David Zayas and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje do well as two men, one a store owner and one in the employ of Stacks, who try to help Annie as much as possible.

Overall, the flaws in this version are similar to the flaws in the previous versions. The fact that it tries so hard to win viewers over with a better cast, for the most part, and ever-so-slight adjustment of the twee factor means that it's far from the worst family movie to come out in recent years, even if it will never be one of the best.

6/10

http://www.amazon.com/Annie-Blu-ray-UltraViolet-Digital-Copy/dp/B00R878NI4/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1420223100&sr=8-5&keywords=annie

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Skyline (2010)

Skyline is a fantastic movie, absolutely superb, very possibly the top of its kind. For those wanting a movie to point at and use as an example of everything that's wrong with over-reliance on special effects. Going by more traditional criteria, Skyline is pretty terrible.

Eric Balfour and Scottie Thompson star in this sci-fi alien invasion movie that takes a few attractive young things (including Donald Faison and the gorgeous woman who was my motivation for watching this rubbish, Brittany Daniel) and then surrounds them with lots and lots of VFX in an attempt to stretch what should have been a decent 20-minute short film into a 90-minute feature.

Written by Joshua Cordes and Liam O'Donnell (a first-time script from two men who have more of a background in VFX work) and directed by the Strause brothers (Colin and Greg, two men who have more of a background in VFX work), this movie is astoundingly inept in a number of ways. It's impressive that the brothers managed, apparently, to get the film financed without assistance from any of the major studios, but maybe having someone else heavily invested in the thing would have stopped it from feeling quite so self-indulgent and silly.

The acting is okay, I suppose, but all of the characters are too lightly sketched out and pretty unlikable. Balfour and Thompson do their best, but they're not given anything decent to work with and so end up flailing around, waiting for the next barrage of special effects to take over. Faison and Daniel fare even worse, sadly, but even they get treated better than poor Crystal Reed, who is saddled with a character who does absolutely nothing of use at any stage. At least David Zayas gets one good moment, I can only imagine that he campaigned hard for it.

I was going to end on a charitable note here and say that there were one or two good ideas and it's just a shame that the rest of the film was such a disappointment. I can't even do that. There weren't one or two good ideas, with the notable exception of the final few minutes (which has, I'll begrudgingly admit, ONE good idea). The special effects are often well done, but that's all the movie has going for it. Which is not enough to make it worth watching.

3/10

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