A Cure for Wellness (2017)

I remember watching the trailer for this film when it first came out and decided not to read or watch anything to do with it until I actually go and see. And thankfully I pretty much went in blind bar the synopsis and had no spoilers. A Cure for Wellness is based around Dane DeHaan’s character travelling to Switzerland to retrieve a follow wall street business man from a spa retreat. Unfortunate circumstances mean he’s struck not just trying to figure out how to find his colleague, but how to escape from the spa himself.

Now I like Dane DeHaan, I think he’s got an interesting face and a good career ahead of him. I liked him a lot in Chronicle (2012) and he’s done well since. He’s quite a serious chap isn’t he? Very intense little man. His characters always have a severity to them. In this he begins unlikable, though handles the weight of the cliched rude yet successful business man suited to older men well. His character Mr Lockhart doesn’t really have a great development or progression, he doesn’t really become a different person until pretty much the last 30 seconds of the film. Not due to DeHaan, who is very believable in his struggles and frustrations, and his eagerness to understand seems genuine. But more due to the amount of story. So we’ve got a few different subplots all weaving together. So on our way to try and retrieve his colleague, Pembrooke, our first subplot, we’re told a little about the history of the retreat and it’s relationship with the village. On this journey we also touch on Lockhart’s father, who we come back to further on in the movie. Then once there we meet a young woman named Hannah who is a special patient in this ‘Wellness Centre’. As the film goes on water is a big theme too, don’t make my mistake and watch the movie thirsty, damn. So we’ve got Pembrooke, history, daddy Lockhart, Hannah and water. Now it’s not that it’s overpowering but it’s that it’s kind of underpowering. We gather that they’re gonna be related but often they get treated as individual narratives. I get it, you don’t want to tell us the ending you want us to try and guess and be surprised. That’s all well and good but on occasion you kinda forget about the others, then when they come back up, you’re like, oh, oh yeah are we still meant to care about that? Oh Lockhart cares still so yeah I guess we should. The rest of the cast is good, well suited, Mia Goth playing Hannah was great, she’s got a list, albeit short, but a good list of interesting roles. Jason Isaacs was great, creepy and powerful, if you’re wondering why you recognise his sparkly blues it’s because he played Lucius Malfoy.

Let’s talk about the pretty pictures. So the cinematographer for this is Bojan Bazelli, now I wouldn’t personally say that he’s got a particular style of his own, he adapts to whats needed for the picture. Examples of his work go from The Ring (2002) to Hairspray (2007) so I was open minded on what was matching the director Gore Verbinksi, who also directed The Ring. The brief showing of the office world is as expected with dull muted colours, but once with get to the Swiss Alps and the wellness centre some colours get sparingly included. It’s a gorgeous place to shot and the old architecture is beautiful, it finds its way onto the screen as would a Grimm’s fairy tale. With the aforementioned theme of water we get a lot of blues and greys along with the medical whites. The opening monologue to the film discusses how humans are the only creatures capable of self reflection so that does become a motif, in water, glass and of course mirrors. Another frequent visual is explicit framing, doors, windows archways, you name it and DeHaan stood in the middle of it. I also really enjoyed the sound, Benjamin Wallfisch has a wide selection of films under his belt, many of which have emotive sound and music. Having Lockhart use a crutch for a majority of the film is almost reminiscent to Rear Window in having the protagonist be physically bound by something, it adds danger. And to be perfectly honest with out that I doubt the film would have the same sense of suspense.

One thing I really want to discuss is the certificate of the film. Before literally being at the counter buying the tickets I did not know this was going to be an 18, but it was. Why? I don’t know. Maybe I’m a harden adult and didn’t think there was much that counts as higher than a 15. Granted it’s probably the collection of things. I won’t reveal anything that is countered to the plot but there is a rather adult scene, which though uncomfortable, isn't explicit. There is nudity, but it’s a spa, so yeah there’s some naked people trotting around. Language, yes but not enough to notice. Violence, yes, though not a great deal. If you don’t like the dentist, you won’t like a scene in the film. If you are scared of water you’re gonna feel a bit claustrophobic in parts. If you aren’t a fan of eels or leeches, this film isn’t going to convince you otherwise. The small parts of which where special effects were used they were fantastic.

Overall a somewhat engaging film though slow pacing, if you’ve got 2 hours and are curious, go right ahead. 6/10. Didn’t have the confidence to be completely experimental but had interesting elements.    

Sing (2017)

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I am a sucker for an animated film, especially when it involves singing animals. I was very excited to catch this film and write a bit of a different review as this one is a lot harder to criticise mostly due to the fact that I am an adult going out to watch a film largely aimed at kids. I didn’t have many expectations going into seeing this film, and I guess you could say it didn’t disappoint. 

The story behind this film is largely about 1 character called Buster Moon, a lovely happy, Koala full of aspiration who decided at the age of 6 he wanted to own his own theatre, and put on the greatest shows for all to witness. He and his father did not have much money so his father worked his little Koala butt off washing cars to save the money so Buster to eventually buy his own theatre and fulfil his dreams. We learn very early on in this film that his productions are a bust (ha! I’m sorry), and he is really not doing great financially and is receiving constant calls from Judith at the bank ordering him to sort his accounts. In attempt to try and boost his business he has a great idea about writing, and casting for a singing competition with a prize of $1000. His 200 or so year old iguana assistant however, types this up wrong and he is offering $100,000 as a prize, meaning he gets tonnes of animals wanting to audition and later on, as is to be expected this causes him a bunch of different problems, and although the production is ruined due to a literal disaster, it all managed to end happily, as kids films do. The film starts off by giving us a quick insight into the lives of the additional main characters and the struggles these characters are going through. For example one is a mother with 25 kids that all seem to be toddlers (realistic, right?), one is very shy, another wants to be a singer but their dad has other plans for him… like robbing banks, so you basically get introduced to all these main characters and hear their little voice a bit before we get into the main bulk of the movie.

This cast of Sing consisits of a lot of big names, such as Reese Witherspoon, Matthew McConaughey and Seth McFarlane. It is quite obviously hard to rate actors in an animated performance, so I guess all I can say is their voices fitted wonderfully? I don’t know, they suited the characters they were given, like higher pitched voices for a female porcupine, a massive gangsta gorilla was given a deep rough cockney accent. It all worked, you get the drift. 

The animation in this movie was pretty beautiful. This is the thing I love about animated movies, not only are they usually just easy, fun films to watch, they are very artistic productions. Animated movies have (quite obviously) developed and improved greatly over the past… well even 5 years! Sing is noticeably so detailed, to the point of there being a restaurant scene with TONNES of little squid in the background and they were all doing their own little thing, and all had their own little faces and so on. Similarly, there is a scene (spoiler alert) when the characters are trying to escape the theatre and it is all crashing down around them, and water is their main enemy here, everything is slowly being destroyed, and animals are fighting for their lives. It looks dramatic and makes you feel scared for them, and upset for Buster. This is I really began to appreciate the work put in to this film by its creators.

Throughout the film there are a bunch of jokes made for both adults and children, yet I think this really depends what kind of a sense of humour you have. I don’t think a German pig in a sparkly leotard is for everyone. However, saying that, you get the impression that this kind of humour is going to be displayed from even the trailer, which heavily makes reference to character Gunter. 

                                        

My overall rating for this is going to be a 5.5/10. It was an enjoyable film and I probably would watch it again, but it did get slow in parts, however the thing that salvaged the great bits was the animation of the film. If the animation wasn’t so good it probably wouldn’t have carried on flowing as nicely as it did. The story was pretty solid as far as an animated kids film goes, and the characters were loveable and adorable, I just don’t think I can easily rate is as high as a Pixar Movie such as Inside Out, as a more recent example, because oh hell, that as a deep film.
I recommend giving it a watch though, and if you’ve got any little ones I’m sure they’ll like it too. I mean I giggled, and was in adoration of the silliness involved in this film, along with the drama, light comedy and the pretty nice selection of pop songs used throughout the film.

I mean, any film which includes Carly Rae-Jepsen’s Call Me Maybe as a huge part of the soundtrack is a winner for me.

                                        

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)

Retired? John Wick? Surely not?

He’s back, the ‘Boogeyman-Assasain’ is back. Wick intends to begin his quiet life in his beautiful house surrounded by nature, with his new pal… ‘Dog’ (original, nice one John) when this is quickly ruined by an Italian gangster who turns up at his door and forces him to tie up loose ends when he presents him with a gold marker. He is very briefly reluctant until his house gets torched, and he realises he must do as he’s told, should he want to live.

The film begins with 5 minutes of aggressive car sounds, a big fight, and a summary of what the last film was about by one of the first characters we see on screen. At this point you really do think, right okay, this is a John Wick film and the action is going to be immense, I’m excited.

Unfortunately, this is not completely the case throughout this film. Although the story itself seems to be a solid storyline upon reading it, when watching it, the importance behind it seems to get lost somewhere, and ends up just being ‘another action film’, and once he has completed the task he set out to do (very early on, I might add), you wonder what he’s going to get up to in the next 100 minutes. This story seemed to be – as expected for a second chapter, an extension on the first film, which, don’t get me wrong, is a beautiful way to tackle a sequel, however, this film was 2 hours 2 minutes and my god, in my opinion, those 122 minutes felt like days. I am not saying this film was all bad though, of course. We begin to get some new insights in Wick himself and the life he led before his final job in the last film, granted it’s not necessarily brand new information but additions and extensions to the world that been created. There’s a great scene just as he arrives in Rome which shows him preparing for his big job, his tailor, his weapons expert and his location intel all received gold coins and all welcome him with a high sense of respect and anticipation. It really solidifies just how big a deal John Wick is and far this universe expands.

The techniques used for this film mirrored those used in the first film significantly, such as the use of subtitles in different fonts to highlight certain phrases, and like it did in the first film, this worked well, and fitted with the film perfectly. Similarly, the soundtrack still fitted wonderfully, but however, in some parts I’m pretty sure they used exactly the same music, and the Killing Strangers intro seemed to still be thoroughly used during transition periods accompanying a long shot of the city or specific place we were going to next. Again, keeping the films very similar, though not so much a problem that it should be changed. It worked, it was fine.
The lighting used in this film, once again… (You guessed it) the same. John Wick was a very dark film, John Wick 2, well they just forgot about lighting all together in some parts, and suited these scenes well, however, certain scenes seemed to drag on for a little bit too long in this chapter, possibly making it feel a lot darker than it probably was.

The cast, is mostly the same in this film. I mean we had a couple of new appearances such as Ruby Rose, and Ricardo Scamarcio but overall, the ones that stood out for us – were the ones who we’ve seen before. I’m obviously going to stop off to mention the great fella that is – Keanu Reeves. Personally, he was the only thing about this film I cared about. I adore Keanu Reeves, and he is always an actor that plays his character and isn’t just Keanu Reeves in every production. I am upset to say, he just wasn’t given dialogue in this film. I can’t explain why they decided that this was the best idea, but they decided it! When Keanu did have dialogue they gave him corny, predictable John Wick come backs that we have all heard before, that just didn’t benefit the film or the story in any way, and you know what… he might as well have said nothing because he is just so impressive, that he just didn’t need a good script to assist his acting. The fight scenes he was involved in were believable, and incredible, and you would begin to fear, not only this character but the person portraying him. He could make you believe that John Wick was real. Although some of the scenes were long, they were well planned out and there should certainly be some kind of award available for whoever choreographed these (there probably is, please excuse my ignorance)
Anyway, 11/10, Keanu.

Ruby Rose’s character… one word for her, why? Why did they feel it was necessary to get another completely unnecessary female character involved? She was the kind of character that required an eye-roll whenever they came on, and this eye rolling doubles in two separate scenes such as, when she one – randomly groped Keanu Reeves, to the point of even his face presented some concern. Then secondly, when she was reaching to get her gun, and we got a sweet little close up shot of her ass. The reaction in my head was ‘great, here we go’.  Scenes that just weren’t needed.
In order to emphasise further how truly, truly pointless she was, I have to explain that she did not speak. She didn’t say a single word throughout. This character spoke with sign language, yet understood John when he spoke to her, and grunted during a fight scene. Can someone please explain the no speaking here?
Despite the eye rolling though, I must admit, it was yet again great to see a male vs. female fight, this scene was admittedly not as good as the similar fight that was had in John Wick, but it was entertaining all the same.

John Wick: Chapter 2 was not what I expected, but at the same time, seriously was. I went into it believing they would reproduce the first one, but asking myself surely they won’t?! They did, and for that reason, I was not impressed.
Athena is much more generous than me, giving it a 5.5/10, for me I don't even want to give it a 5.

4.5/10. Sorry John Wick: Chapter 2, you didn’t impress.

Hidden Figures (2017)

So we've recently signed up to be a part of Show Film First, a website which offers free cinema tickets to previews of upcoming shows. We're often going to midnight releases so we thought why not get some previews in before those too. As luck had it one of the first opportunities we had was to see one of the nine Best Picture nominations Hidden Figures.

The story of three African American women facing diversity as mathematicians in the early years of NASA. It sounds like something that's meant to be a film doesn't it? Like many I wonder why I hadn't heard of these women and their story before. I remember once reading online that there was a woman that worked at NASA that was so smart that when they first started using computers they had her double check the calculations. As one the the astronauts in the film says, 'it's hard to trust the workings of something you can't look in the eye.' Yet after hearing of this potentially fictional woman I was never told that she was African American. Being black in America is a tiring as it is, let alone in the 60's. Then on top of that, being a woman in a male dominated environment? Frankly it sounds exhausting. The film accents prejudice with a somewhat calculated restraint. Everyone watching the film is aware of the history, we're all aware of stereotypes and assumptions of the time. The audience is smart enough to know that it doesn't need to show brutal or explicit offence to get the message across that racism is bad. Yes racism is bad, but worse, racism at the time was the norm. The repeated incidents of disrespect and subtle degradation become standard. I found this a great way to wear the audience down. As when the straw finally broke the camel's back you got it. The emotionally charged scenes and outbursts felt justified. It felt like we all got there together. You understood and agreed with all three women. The racial tension is a strong backbone for the film and is not missed but it is not the whole story. The story is about the women.

My favourite character, and I find it odd saying character when it's a real life woman, but my favourite character is played by Taraji P Henson. Katherine G. Johnson is the woman in question that was the 'computer', an intelligent mathematician that joins the team responsible for America's first manned space flight Project Mercury. It is debatable that she has the most development over the course of the film, across all bets. Her career, her family life and her self confidence all improve. Granted at times it felt her love life appeared to advance a little quick and easy. But hey, the real Mr and Mrs Johnson have been married over 50 years so what do I know. With three powerful ladies it's hard to give all three equal character backstories. Which is why I couldn't tell you much about Octavia Spencer's character outside of work. Though Spencer's portrayal of Dorothy Vaughan earned her a best supporting actress Oscar nomination, because of course it did. To be honest there's not much to say about Spencer, if you've seen her in anything then you know what she's like. Her gives characters natural nuances that make you believe they existed before we meet them. Her performance in The Help (2011) was the same. Also she was arguably just as great in a few episodes of Ugly Betty if any of you remember that. She gives Mrs Vaughan a believably permanence. The film would not have the right weight without her.

The whole cast is stellar, it's been nominated for Best Film for a reason. Janelle Monae has done well starring in this as well as another Best Picture contender, Moonlight.  Her character in Hidden Figures, Mary Jackson, embodies progress. She became NASA's first black female engineer. Can you imagine having something you've done be recorded as the first time it's ever happened. Being the first. That's the message she gives, and it resonates. We also get a glimpse into family life with her husband and children, though briefly and granted somewhat unnecessary to the narrative, it does round out how the world is at the time outside of NASA. Now, Monae is a pleasure to watch (partly because of her crazy good skin, what is her regime!?) but because she'd proved that on top of to her own music career and record label she can act (in addition to performing on the soundtrack).

The soundtrack as you might have assumed is great, everything Pharrell Williams touches kinda turns to gold. Yes, some of his songs are overplayed, but that's partly due to their popularity, and you can't always argue with that. The man knows what he's doing, he produced the film, the soundtrack, and was involved with the score... And performed as well... And slayed.

All aspects of sound were made for this film. Really made for it. It all comes together completely as an equal part, everything fits. The music even goes with the cinematography, which was good though I think benefited from the period that it's in. The whole 60's look, the hair, the make up, the home, they all have this warmth to them that contrast the cold greys and blues of the NASA buildings. Clearly no mistake, but that definitely gave Mandy Walker, the director of photography, a lot to work with, and she did well. It definitely did not feel like a film that was over two hours, it handled itself well, and the pacing of the film is great, even though it began to slow towards the final scenes. However, this partly is due to there being no real climax to the film, just some good resolutions. It's a satisfying ending and gives some information and insight to the lives of the women after the story of the film. And I am a sucker for a freeze frame and 'this is where they are now'. So that was an extra point for me.

A happy 7/10. Great cast great story, and space is cool. Would not buy it on Blu ray but would recommend the soundtrack.

CINEMATES - A