Jurassic World (2015)

I never fell in love with a Spielberg film. It’s difficult however, not to foster a respect for his filmmaking formula when films like Jurassic World roll around – films that beg to be as cohesive a heartstring tugger as E.T, as expertly manipulative as Indiana Jones but fall way short due to lack of care and imagination. Unluckily for it, Jurassic World suffers from having the $1 billion-grossing classic, Jurassic Park (1993) as its ancestor, a solid, well-organised film that does what it does excellently.

The story here is very much the same. Humans have made a theme park full of genetically engineered dinosaurs, the dinosaurs get out and there’s lots of death while everyone evacuates and the threat is neutralised. Many motifs/scenes from the original film are ruthlessly re-exploited:

• There are two parentless kids. There’s a man, there’s a woman and there’s sexual tension between them as they fall into the roles of surrogate parents for the children.
• There’s a big establishing shot of the park with that brassy 5-note theme.
• There’s a bit where a crazy “chaotician” warns us with glee that any control humans imagine they have over dinosaurs is an illusion.
• There’s a bit of hiding under cars and a bit of cowering in cars and a crunch of teeth on a vehicle roof.
• There’s a bit of “hey, you might’ve pushed science a bit too far.”

Spielberg’s original was all about the tech. There really wasn’t much besides running away from dinosaurs because there wasn’t room for anything else. What makes it a bit of an anomaly in Spielberg’s canon is that it sacrificed satisfying character development for the sake of thrilling animatronic puppets – a strange stroke of genius, a choice that focused its concerns solely on being a thrilling ride. Jurassic World, however, suffers a crisis of confidence, assuming that “Wow! Dinosaurs!” isn’t enough for a 2015 audience. That’s the only explanation for the jarring amount of token storylines ignited and then abandoned or awkwardly under resolved in deference to the main issue of Running Away from Dinosaurs.

The subject most criminally raised and discarded is the impending divorce of the boys’ parents (who we see only in short scenes that bookend the movie). Spielberg loves divorced children in his adventure movies; he loves taking them on a journey towards accepting their situation by learning to look after themselves. They work through their domestic problems by being involved in lots of thrilling stuff and come out stronger as a result.

But here, children run from danger, hide from danger, and have it defeated around them. By adults – by male adults – while the female lead quails with them in a van, sitting in its passenger seat, shielding them from watching dashboard-based battle updates. “Your boyfriend is badass!” they squeal as Owen roars by on a motorbike. She smiles and that’s that – the film has betrayed its young characters. The children end up props. Props for the love story and props for Claire’s lesson: ‘tone down your ambition and make more time in your work schedule for spending time with family’ – a dubious lesson and one more forced than learned anyway.

Jurassic Park earned a bomb, Jurassic Park re-released in 3D earned a bomb and no one who wants more money could argue against re-realising the exact same film but with more people in the way of the dinosaurs and all the latest CGI, 3D and IMAX technologies to animate them (the dinosaurs, not the people.) Jurassic World is pretty terrible but (sigh) pretty entertaining. I do enjoy watching prehistoric beasts wreaking havoc as much as the next person. I’d just rather this film didn’t pretend to care about its characters and their lives when it can’t afford to.

“Wow! Dinosaurs!” gets you a long way, even now.

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

The idea of a relentless thrust through 2 hours of near-silent cinema with laconic characters who let the cars do the snarling is an enticing one, one that sets its own challenge. How can a film maintain its momentum when every scene is an explosive set piece, stacked-up against the last and precision-engineered to top whatever came before? The fuel needs to be pure and Mad Max: Fury Road certainly draws its own world with a set of bold visual ideas followed through to their absurd conclusions. It’s a great starting point.

Max is the least capable of the heroes we’re bound to. His initial attempts to escape the clutches of the weird-faced tyrant Immortan Joe are easily thwarted and he is still being used as an unwilling blood donor (strapped to the front of a car) even when the film is well on the road. He can’t shoot straight, nor is he particularly adept a driver as far as we can tell. Agency belongs to the females of the piece, in particular Imperator Furiosa whose journey back to the ‘green land’ of her youth provides the film its narrative arch. However, that Max is the eponym – and not Furiosa – rather highlights his philosophy “hope is a mistake” amid all this elusive struggling towards a better place. The film needs to pretend itself a direction, hence the diversionary storyline of Furiosa and the Wives that we, and Max himself, are riding with. But by having the directionless hero at its centre, the hero whose only drive is survival, its makers have nailed their colours to the darker corner of this dystopian nightmare. Hope is a mistake.

The more I think about it, the more I realise that I liked the film despite sometimes feeling on the wrong end of one of its blood transfusions. Everything about its design is immaculately cohesive, from the ridiculous teal/orange colour grading to the grinding gears and grinning martyrs that populate its fiery dust storms. It is a singular vision and gloriously female-led at times. The only problem, on the first viewing, is pacing. 2 hours 10 minutes of this stuff is too exhausting – it mars the final half hour of the film, which in any case is a kind of journey home that should have begun at its midpoint anyway. The editing of the action is expertly done, but add a little more punctuation here and there and we’re laughing (maniacally into the void). ((With silver spray-painted mouths.))

The Imitation Game (2014)

“Normal? The world is an infinitely better place precisely because you weren’t.”

That is The Imitation Game in a nutshell. The biopic sets out to reaffirm Alan Turing’s key contribution towards solving Germany’s enigma code during World War II as well as his importance in the field of modern computing. This comes in the wake of very recent royal and governmental pardons for Turing’s 1952 conviction for homosexual acts which arguably led to his suicide two years later.

Turing is painted as a man who measured all communication, even human conversation, in mathematical terms. Indeed many early scenes are built around the punchline that Turing cannot understand puns and jokes. Ironically, for a film about the incomprehension of subtextual language, it is incredible how superficial its dialogue is.

The script is hammy and ridden with clanging sentiments, so much so that the first ten minutes are almost funny because of it. But however ridiculous the lines are, it is equally ridiculous how this problem melts away as the film progresses. At first I thought the writing might be improving but eventually became convinced that I was in fact simply settling into the rhythm of the film and its primary focus – story. And most importantly: telling its story through events rather than believable verbal exchanges.

Because actually, from a structural standpoint, the film is simply immaculate. Every dramatic incident is correctly placed, every scene serves the whole. There is no doubt that a careful plotting of its key moments would produce a line graph with a flawlessly symmetrical arch. I suppose this is apposite for a film about a mathematical genius.

Its central themes of man and machine, secrets and revelation, games and codes, intertwine impressively neatly. We are compelled, at all times, to focus on the parallels between Turing’s work and his private life and his anguish in marrying the differences (and similarities) between scientific formulae and social convention.

The film is all about Turing – Utterly All. About. Turing – and reinstating his reputation at the cost of the depth of any other character involved in his story. The more the film admits it – and everything from the voiceover narration of his own life to the subtitles at the film’s end demonstrates how much it understands itself – the less problematic it gets. The true story is juicy and the film squeezes all of that juice out in just the right way as to make it deeply satisfying.

Helping it along its way is the cast. Benedict Cumberbatch is predictably brilliant; we all know he does sociopath extremely well, but he also rises to deliver the overt emotional gestures that a biopic like this asks for. Deserving of as much praise, perhaps more so for effectively masking much of the script’s problems, are the supporting cast. The likes of Keira Knightley (woefully underused and starved of depth), Mark Strong (always reliable) and Matthew Goode inject just enough life into parts written essentially as ornamental caricatures to elevate what the film considers peripheral into the realms of interesting and beneficial.

I’m a huge fan of careful dialogue and an enemy of unnecessary exposition. As such, I was shocked at how much I enjoyed The Imitation Game. While there will always be a niggling unease at a film that eschews the small matter of three-dimensional characters in favour ‘bigger’ concerns, in this case it is as a result of conscious choice rather than sheer incompetence. I wonder if its makers purposefully attempt to make it as difficult for themselves to understand human behavior as it is suggested Turing did.

More than forgiving the film its flaws, I actually marvel at it and still need to mull over exactly how it pulls off its trick. Not to be underestimated, I think, is how enjoyable it is simply to learn about the achievements at Bletchley Park, which had to be kept secret for so long. The story of Enigma is still fairly fresh, and an important part of history that many of us are still eager to learn about.

As for the film’s depiction of its hero – while the amount of conspicuous reverence bestowed upon Turing borders on worship, this is probably the right way to tell his life story at this point in history. This is a man whose royal pardon only came less than a year ago, an apology that can never really make amends for Turing’s abominable treatment at the hands of the country he helped save.

As Turing’s life and work is reassessed, eventually a grittier account of his life will surface and will likely be more nourishing when it arrives. For now, The Imitation Game begins the process admirably.

Nightcrawler (2014)

It’s difficult to find much information about Nightcrawler’s writer/director Dan Gilroy. With only a handful of writing credits to his name during a career spanning over 20 years he appears both a seasoned veteran and a green upstart. Whatever explains his trajectory in the industry, it led to this film – so it can’t be bad.

Utilising the intense nocturnal-ness that made his performances in Donnie Darko and Zodiac so striking, Jake Gyllenhaal stars as sociopath Louis Bloom, a creepy autodidact intent on cashing in on television news’ insatiable lust for bloody stories with which to terrify audiences and therefore drive up ratings. Armed with a police radio and a video camera, Bloom trawls the night, seeking out violent crime and horrific accidents, often arriving on the scene before the emergency services. Once capturing the debris on film (at any cost), he sells the footage to a news broadcaster just in time to make their breakfast show.

Gyllenhaal gives the performance of his career. He makes Bloom a magnetic anti-hero. What he captures best is the drive and ambition of his character, causing us to be awkwardly awestruck at how passionate he pursues his depraved goals. This, along with the narrow-minded subjectivity of the direction (that’s a good thing), invites us to get behind Bloom and – as the stakes get higher – subconsciously wince when the obstacles stack up against him and smirk with guilty glee when he gets his way.

All 3 central characters are drawn well. It was no surprise to me to learn that the first-time director is an experienced writer. Although this is Gyllenhaal’s moment and he’ll be the one touted for awards, it cannot be denied that both Rene Russo, who plays news director Nina, and Riz Ahmed, who plays Bloom’s protégé Rick, match the leading man at every step with skilled and detailed performances. They deliver characters that are designed for us to measure Bloom’s mental state against. Just how abnormal is he in a world that was already amoral before he entered it?

The reason that Russo and Ahmed’s performances might fly under the radar has something to do with how attractive constructed Lou Bloom’s dialogue is. This is a man who doesn’t let the qualms of others get in the way of his own eloquence and quick wit. Bloom is sharp, he never takes his eye of the ball and Gilroy has a field day with his lines, feeding Gyllenhaal consistently tasty paragraphs, all of which he delivers with those unnervingly bright eyes.

The film is shot as nicely as it is written. For a debut director, it can’t have hurt to be telling a story about a man whose life mission is to meticulously frame the subjects he is capturing on camera; it must have kept Gilroy as focused as his main character. Especially impressive is the ebb and flow of pace during the film’s climactic scenes which is what keeps them thrilling for longer. Some of the personal scenes involving Bloom alone might have been handled a little slower but that’s as much my taste as anything.

It’s a really good film, one of the best of the year.

The Best of 2014 So Far (Part Two)

Locke (18^th April)

The only argument to be had over a story as well written as Locke is as to whether it belongs on the stage or the screen. Tom Hardy is fantastic as Ivan Locke, a construction foreman on a long night’s drive from Birmingham to London. The film takes place entirely inside Ivan’s BMW with the drama unfolding through a series of hands-free phone calls between Ivan and his family and co-workers. Something big has happened and Ivan steps up to mastermind his life, making emotional and logistical decisions under pressure from all directions. The film’s central theme is responsibility and watching one man’s attempt to organise his way out of crisis after crisis is compelling viewing. Tom Hardy is at the top of his game.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (11^th July)

Teed up nicely by the first of the rebooted franchise (2011), Dawn takes place in a world where human civilization has collapsed and a sticks-and-stones struggle for land and resources is the way of life. In the 10 years since the events of the previous film, ape leader Caesar has effectively formed a society away from human interference. When the two species collide once more, it is up to the good guys on either side to halt the impending war mongered by their not-so-peaceful counterparts. Weta Digital continues to lead the way in the field of performance capture with extraordinary technical work. Thankfully their efforts are matched by those of the writers who have produced a smart political fable that will hopefully continue to deepen as the franchise moves forward.

Boyhood (15^th August)

The best film of the year so far is Boyhood. Richard Linklater’s speciality is time, as it is experienced in real life, with all the messy detours and untidy exchanges uncut. In the same way that Slacker (1991) was a ramble through a day in Austin and the Before films (1995 – 2013) are a ramble through an afternoon/evening, Boyhood covers 12 years in the life of its main character, Mason, aged from 6 to 18. Its dialogue is characteristic of the other films in Linklater’s oeuvre, a kind of well-constructed naturalism written during improv sessions in the rehearsal room. While the most extraordinary thing about the film is watching Mason’s progression from boy to man, what flies under the radar are the performances of Ethan Hawke and Patricia Arquette as his parents. Arquette in particular is gut-wrenchingly good as a mother whose two-decade-long dedication to her children suddenly seems meaningless to her in the face of their move away to college. With Boyhood depicting the years of youth flying by in a 165 minute running time, the film seems to say as much about a parent’s perception of time as it does their children’s development. A real achievement.

Pride (12^th September)

Suspicious as I am of a feel-good British film of the year, Pride is actually brilliant. Covering the unlikely alliance between a Welsh mining village and a group of gay rights activists in London during the 1984 strike, Pride lets the true story do the telling. Passionate portrayals of strong characters give the drama heart and substance. Simple direction lets the writing shine and there is real warmth to the humour. Paddy Considine, Bill Nighy and Imelda Stauton are typically excellent and are matched by the younger cast. Attention to period detail makes the film look perfectly ‘80s and its grasp of the issues of the time feels sensitive but also brave and thorough.