Author Archives: tony

Body of Lies

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The advertising for Body of Lies says something like “Packed with breath taking action sequences” which is essentially a lie.  This isn’t an action flick and trying to sell it as such does it an injustice.  Either the studio were nervous, stupid or perhaps they don’t think much of the cinema going public.  Whatever the reason, Body of Lies is actually a dramatic thriller espionage action movie with some action sequences (impressive) and lots of dialog.  I really enjoyed DiCaprio and while I disliked Crow’s character immensely it’s probably because of his acting prowess that he made the man so odious with so little screen time.

The story covers a US CIA agent (DiCaprio) based in the Middle East, trying to get closer to a terrorist leader who is currently coordinating attacks on mainland Europe.  DiCaprio and his superior (Crow) differ in how they want to deliver results, with DiCaprio clearly more sympathetic to Arabic and Muslim sensibility.  They clash several times and as we proceed to the movie’s climax we see how much both of them are prepared to sacrifice for what they believe in.

I found the dialog absorbing and the roles well played.  I can’t comment on whether the movie is an accurate portrayal of the conflict going on in the Middle East or America’s involvement in it, maybe Ridley Scott has spent years researching it, maybe it’s just a pastiche or an impression but it certainly raised some interesting ideas.  The action sequences were well done, realistic and gritty and the scenes in the final act were suitably traumatic (I won’t spoil it too much for you).

Ultimately however the ending felt too loose, too open perhaps.  Maybe because Crow doesn’t seem to suffer any consequences for his actions, maybe for other reasons.  In any case it was like the last rocket of your fireworks evening misfiring, it didn’t spoil what came before but it left me feeling like we’d missed out on something important at the end.

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

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Simon Pegg is a funny man.  He’s a comic.  He conveys humour with his face, his stance, his voice, his very presence and it’s a good job because without him, How to Lose Friends and Alienate People would have been a very average movie.  With him, it’s on the better than average side of funny.  Pegg plays an entertainment journalist given the chance to move to America and join a world famous magazine, there he meets the stars, forges a career, screws plenty of things up and falls in love.  It’s a straight by the book romantic comedy with a few decently amusing scenes that Pegg carries pretty much throughout.

I didn’t find Kirsten very comfortable in her role at all, and the rest of the cast has hardly enough screen time to make any kind of impression.

No where near the quality of Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz or even Run Fatboy, Run, but still worth a giggle.

Babylon A.D.

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If your audience is expecting a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action movie in which your beefcake hero runs around and shoots a bunch of bad guys, while protecting a mysterious young girl then really, it should be quite hard to screw it up.  Make it exciting, give it some funky dialog and some charismatic characters, give them something to deal with together to form some bonds, and reveal the back story as you go illuminated through the lights of tracer rounds and frag grenades.

I admit it’s not easy or we’d all be doing it, but there are some advantages to bringing a sci-fi action movie to the screen in terms of plot development and character depth.  Get it anyway half decent and the crowds will be happy.

Which makes it all the harder to excuse Babylon A.D. and to understand what the hell they thought they were doing.  Oh it starts out on a firm footing, Diesel still has enough on-screen presence and acerbic charm to pick up the role (essentially Riddick without the mirrored eyes) and he can cook!  We get a little back story, we get some evidence he’s bad ass, and we get to meet the other two of the trio as he collects them (in quite an amusing manner) from their little convent.  There’s something weird about the girl, and there are some people trying to capture her.  Perfect, now we just need a good solid set of action combat / chase sequences and a small twist near the end and we’re golden.

Maybe the girl’s female protector turns out to be a bad guy, maybe Diesel’s character turns out to be a double agent, maybe the whole world turns into tofu, just something little and twisty after all the action to make us look back and go ‘oh yes, I see now’.  That’s what a twist should be, not something out of the blue but something which makes you re-evaluate what you saw and assumed.  Just to remind you to pay more attention next time.  It shouldn’t be obvious before-hand, but it should be totally obvious with hindsight.  That’s the point right?   To suck us in and then whack us when we’re not looking?

Why then, why in the name of all the Norse gods, does Bablyon A.D. take a 345 degree turn 15 minutes before the end and tell a completely different story about which we had no warning.  No hidden messages.  Yes, the girl was weird, maybe psychic, maybe telepathic, perhaps just odd.  But if you have to tell us what happened before the movie started, with 8 minutes of monologue from a character we’ve only just met, so that you can then justify the last 11 minutes of the movie, you’re doing it wrong.

Come on!  Basically, Bablyon A.D. is two movies, everything you see up to the 15 minutes before the end, and then everything after that.  We listen to some exposition which explains why the girl is weird, who the bad guy is, what is really going on, and then we get a limp-wristed end sequence.  Really, I’ve not been left hanging by a movie as badly as this before and I’ve watched some crud.  It’s a true shame because it feels like Bablyon A.D. reached for something and failed and instead of that being recognised and aspirations toned down, they just hacked it together any way they could to deliver the story they’d tried and failed to shoot.  I’d rate the first three quarters as a passable and watchable action sci-fi movie and the last 15 minutes or so as pure shite.

Avoid.

Movies!

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Watched a bunch of films recently and not gotten around to reviewing any of them so I’m about to serial post about 7 reviews, sorry if they bore you, just skip over the next few posts.

Normal service (mindless vapid excuses for blog posts) will be resumed momentarily.

Chester Zoo

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While we were on holiday I promised Grete we’d go to the zoo.  We’ve been to Twycross a few times and we fancied a change.  I don’t know if you’ve seen Zoo Days on the TV but it has Chester zoo and we’d thought we’d give that a shot, it’s only a couple of hours from here.  We planned to go yesterday but the weather first thing was enough to put us off – however bright skies this morning had us heading over there at 9:20am.

Chester zoo is massive, there is no way you can see everything for any useful duration in one day.  We walked from 11:30am until it closed at 4:30pm with a short break and saw about 60% of the enclosures, and a few of them for only a few minutes in passing.  I am really impressed by the size and quality of those enclosures though.  There is a lot of moving water at Chester, many of the enclosures have streams or waterfalls or some kind of moving water.  Where possible they’ve used live plants and trees, for example the chimpanzee enclosure has a little wooded area in the middle and they were hanging out there away from the wind.  I’m used to see lots of man-made structures and there were certainly some of those but it was nice to see the animals being able to use live vegetation.

We caught the sea lion talk, which I have to say was a little disappointing.  I had visions of the keepers feeding both sea lions and making them wave to the crowd or collect rubbish or something, but instead they fed the male one (huge thing!) off to the side and got the young female out of the water a couple of times.  The penguin talk was good though, with them throwing fish into the water and the penguins fighting off the seagulls who came to snack.

In some ways, it’s always going to be a little sad looking at a lion through a fence, instead of in the wild, but I just have to hope the zoo is doing some good in terms of conservation and breeding to make it worthwhile.  A lady next to us said the lions must get so bored – but I’ve got two cats, and I’m pretty sure the lions are happy enough sleeping, eating and roaring at visitors who annoy them.

  • Biggest surprise enclosure : Butterfly Enclosure – was just amazing, standing amongst butterflies as they floated past.  Huge and amazingly delicate.  No photo’s because the camera fogged up in the high humidity room after being outside in the cold.
  • Loudest creature: The male lion – did some kind of Maori haka starting with long roars which turned into shorter and shorter noises more like grunts or coughs until it petered out.  The first time he was joined by his mate, the second time he sang alone.
  • Cutest animal: Young orang-utan – clinging to his mother one minute and then scaring all the girls in the watching crowd by climbing up and down some ropes with one hand and not a care in the world (until his mother retrieved him), this little ‘un stole the show.
  • Personal favourite: Komodo dragon – I have always wanted to see one of these up close and was not disappointed.

The food we grabbed at lunchtime was over priced, I know in advance it’s going to be over priced, but it doesn’t make it any less surprising.  I just kept telling myself they use it to pay for the animals, and that if I was less lazy and more prepared we could have taken sandwiches.  Overall the day out was quite expensive, but I think the animals make up for it.  Chester’s huge and interesting and I just wish we’d had more time.

See the photo’s over here.