*CAUTION: This review contains spoilers for World War Z. If you haven't seen it and wish to do so, proceed with caution.*
The immeasurable delays in production of World War Z has meant the resulting product has been spat out at a big time for the zombie.
Earlier this year saw Warm Bodies attempt to turn zombies into a replacement for the sparkly facsimiles of vampires in Twilight. More successful - critically and commercial - are AMC mega-hit TV show The Walking Dead and the critically successful PS3 exclusive video game The Last Of Us.
After many years lurching around as a cult concern, the works of the last decade or so have seen zombies become big entertainment business. It's a mood that has raised expectations for this - a big-budget realisation of the New York Times' best-selling book of the same name.
Or at least it should have in theory. In reality, various re-writes, re-shoots, production delays, arrests by the Hungarian authorities and general uncertainty since Brad Pitt's production company won the film rights in 2007 have led to the production seemed doomed to being a Hollywood Turkey in the eyes of many.
Critical reception has been mixed, with some loving and some hating the film. But the actual film itself has a feel of somewhere in the middle.
For a zombie film, there's a surprising lack of blood. It's remarkable how coy the film is about showing blood, when the zombies and the 15 rating indicate they shouldn't be that worried about broadcasting it.
The zombies themselves are more of the sprinting dead variety that are previously notable for use in the 28 Days Later and the more recent Dawn of the Dead remake. It works for the scope of the film in a way because they have some impressive set-pieces with them.
This is evident from the first whistle. Barely have the final bars of the Muse track Isolated System played out over the finish of the opening titles do the zombies raise their heads, overwhelming Philadelphia (well, Glasgow) and forcing the world into the film's paradigm.
The first part of the film is impressive, linking from set-piece to set-piece with aplomb. After their home city Philadelphia is obliterated by zombies, the main character Gerry Lane (Pitt) and his family (Mirelle Enos, Abigail Hargrove and Sterling Jerins) are on the run, wandering into the path of another zombie invasion further up the East Coast in Newark, New Jersey.
Here, they just manage to escape the apartment building they were holed up in by the skin of their teeth, in a scene eerily reminiscent of one from the first series of The Walking Dead, only with the rescue ending that one didn't have.
Gerry is revealed to be an ex-UN investigator and is told that, to keep his family on a safe boat out in the middle of Atlantic, he has to go back into the fold to help them figure out where the virus originated.
Pitt's character is a strange one. He is obviously very intelligent and does well to figure out the correct answers to various situations and scenarios, and he is certainly a good fit for the abundance of screen time the script gives him. But he often has moments of incredible stupidity that, in some cases, cause these problems.
The first of these comes in a dark and rain-saturated army base in South Korea, when he keeps his mobile phone on and the ringing duly attracts a small horde of undead.
This visit is the first in a 3-pronged travelogue against the end of the world. In SK, he learns of the first patients there, a way the virus has spread, the idea that burning them is the best neutralisation along with head shots, and that North Korean citizens have removed all of their teeth in a touch to escape.
After barely making it out of South Korea, Gerry heads across Asia to Jerusalem, where Israel is now completely fortified with a gigantic wall. The head of Mossad Jurgen Warmbrumm (Ludi Boeken) informs him that, as soon as they heard the mention of Indian soldiers having to fight the undead, they elected to hide. So far it's worked.
Outside the wall that is keeping them and several thousand refugees safe is several thousand ravenous zombies. This leads to a spectacular action piece, as the noise of new arrivals thinking their safe leads to a mountain of undead that rises higher and higher before coming over the wall and into the city.
In the trailers, it looked quite dumb but here, in it's full glory, its incredible spectacle. It is certainly impressive to watch zombies climbing over the wall and falling into the city before dusting themselves off and launching themselves at the general populace.
Gerry finds himself in the company of an Israeli Segen (Daniella Kertesz) who he has to amputate after a zombie bites her on the arm. Somehow, this works, and they make it onto the last plane out of Israel before the airport is overran by the zombie horde.
With that escape, Gerry's boss Secretary General Thierry (Fana Mokoena) directs him and his plane to Cardiff to use a WHO lab to help try and develop a vaccine for the uninfected population. Unfortunately, on the way, a zombie hidden on board the airplane is unleashed and soon enough the whole plane is a mass of rioting undead.
This leads to Gerry resorting to desperate and perhaps ill-thought measures, as he chucks a grenade bought along by the soldier and beds down as the plane falls from the sky, spewing zombies and baggage across the landscape below.
So far, the film has been quite good and it seems that, despite everything, they'd made it work.
This, however, is the end of the road for that theory. If it had ended here, it would've been stupidly abrupt but actually have worked quite well.
Instead, Gerry awakes impaled by a piece of fuselage amid the wreckage of their destroyed jetliner. The Segen duly escorts him to the WHO lab which is home to several doctors (Peter Capaldi, Pierfrancesco Favino, Ruth Negga and Moritz Bleibtreu) and several zombies.
This is the bit that feels a bit forced, given that this section was entirely re-written and re-shot, and which forced a 7 month delay to the film's release.
This is a noticeable dynamic change, with the rush and the fast pace of trying to leg it from zombies is sacrificed in favour of a gentler pace that loses a lot of energy. Plus a lot of the zombies waiting in the lab feel a bit... weird. They move like bad dancers in a nightclub, or in one case, teeth chattering in a similar fashion to the Were-Rabbit from the Wallace & Gromit feature film.
Anyway, now he's here, Gerry has decided that injecting himself with a lethal virus works as a camouflage-style vaccine that disguises him and makes him undetectable to the zombies, as he noted a few times while out in Jerusalem.
Getting to the biohazard lab means getting past a shitload of zombies, but somehow Pitt manages it and is able to prove the merits.
There's even time for a lengthy and absolutely pointless plug for Pepsi before he returns a hero that has given the human race a fighting chance for the likely sequel.
The whole thing leaves a very strange atmospheric. The first part of the film flows very well and has some terrific action sequences. But after the plane crash that brings the film to Wales, the film loses a lot of it's energy and feel. It all leads to a final act that is a bloated and incoherent mess that doesn't feel like it belongs from the same film.
Any sequel - and let's face it, the box office gross means there will be one - should use more of its zombies and try and avoid any messy rewrites. With any luck they'll have learnt some of their lessons with this one.
3.5/5
Monday, 24 June 2013
Sunday, 23 June 2013
The Killers at Wembley Stadium - Live Review
"They say what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But that is a crock of shit because tonight The Killers are at Wembley Stadium!"
So says Brandon Flowers, loudly and happily as the night approaches its final stages. But its a celebration for his band - barely 10 years after first taking to a stage in this country, The Killers have made it to the biggest one the UK has to offer.
It's an impressive list of contemporaries they find themselves in. As a slightly bizarre tribute song to Wembley hinted, the stadium has welcomed such acts as Queen, U2, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Oasis, et all down the years, as well as more modern arrivals like Foo Fighters, Green Day, Coldplay and Muse.
With the Vegas band having sold out 13 arena shows last autumn and played headline festival sets in the UK for years, it feels like a natural step to make the jump into such a venue. They prove this almost immediately, as Brandon Flowers serenades the venue solo with Sam's Town intro Enterlude before the opening chords of When You Were Young sends 75,000 people into glorious delirium and pyro explodes left, right and centre.
The band certainly has the back catalogue for this show. Spaceman and Smile Like You Mean It are delightful indie anthems that get the stadium vocals. They're also joined by lesser known songs such as Battle Born song The Way It Was and earlier album tracks This River Is Wild and Bling (Confession of a King), which more than hold their own in this humungous environment.
The setlist is honed from months of touring. The cover of Joy Division's Shadowplay, accompanied by a monstrous laser show, slides into Miss Atomic Bomb - and a huge cloud of pyro - and the knockout one-two of Human and Somebody Told Me. This being stadiums - the former of those two has its own galaxy of lasers zipping across the venue, while the latter has an exciting bass-led intro that slides into the actual song.
The usual stadium rock touches are also around - fans holding up their mobile phones and lighters for the chill piano ballad Here With Me, while Dave Keuning and Ronnie Vannucci play mesmerising and brilliant solos before the jaunty From Here On Out.
Flowers on the other hand acts as the ringmaster, leading the crowd through extended sing-alongs of a cover of I Think We're Alone Now and From Here On Out, whipping up the crowd while strumming the bass in For Reasons Unknown, and bouncing around with the frenzied crowd.
The surprise comes when the band launch into an ode to Wembley after A Dustland Fairytale. It's an unexpected touch that is simultaneously hit and miss but it somehow works, and it certainly adds to the celebratory air of occasion that this band has, through all the solo projects, style blunders and fun with the critics, made it to such a huge environment.
After this the main set is a run through of hits, culminating in All These Things That I've Done. The songs "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" chant has finally found a room big enough to hold it, while an avalanche of confetti blankets the standing zone.
The band returns for a 4 song encore, split 50/50 between Hot Fuss and Battle Born. The title track from the latter is extended to preposterous lengths, with pyro and confetti zipping all over the place as Flowers high-fives the front rows and Keuning shreds his guitar to bits.
And all this before the high-point for many - the song that started this journey, no less. It is incredible to think that Mr Brightside is the first song the band ever wrote, but it's still going strong, and it is certainly right at home in this cavern of steel and concrete. Here it brings the curtain down on the evening, with one final crazy mosh for the audience that responds with suitable delirium.
Such a marvellous evening's entertainment has proved what fans of the band have been saying for years - The Killers are in the big leagues. Although where they go from here is anyone's guess.
The only complaints can really be for the hardcores gutted they didn't see the band play a few surprise rarities in an after-show gig at the Relentless Garage across town. But here, the band have delivered a fantastic evening.
4/5
Supporting the band for this big show were The Gaslight Anthem and James.
James opened the show and delivered a tight set of songs from their 90s heyday, with singer Tim Booth delivering some amusing observations and crazy dancing to go with their pleasant music.
The New Jersey-based Gaslight Anthem may well have been a better fit the week before when Springsteen was in town - and indeed, they have performed with The Boss. They took a few songs to warm up but the quality of their songs significantly improved the further their performance carried on.
So says Brandon Flowers, loudly and happily as the night approaches its final stages. But its a celebration for his band - barely 10 years after first taking to a stage in this country, The Killers have made it to the biggest one the UK has to offer.
It's an impressive list of contemporaries they find themselves in. As a slightly bizarre tribute song to Wembley hinted, the stadium has welcomed such acts as Queen, U2, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, Oasis, et all down the years, as well as more modern arrivals like Foo Fighters, Green Day, Coldplay and Muse.
With the Vegas band having sold out 13 arena shows last autumn and played headline festival sets in the UK for years, it feels like a natural step to make the jump into such a venue. They prove this almost immediately, as Brandon Flowers serenades the venue solo with Sam's Town intro Enterlude before the opening chords of When You Were Young sends 75,000 people into glorious delirium and pyro explodes left, right and centre.
The band certainly has the back catalogue for this show. Spaceman and Smile Like You Mean It are delightful indie anthems that get the stadium vocals. They're also joined by lesser known songs such as Battle Born song The Way It Was and earlier album tracks This River Is Wild and Bling (Confession of a King), which more than hold their own in this humungous environment.
The setlist is honed from months of touring. The cover of Joy Division's Shadowplay, accompanied by a monstrous laser show, slides into Miss Atomic Bomb - and a huge cloud of pyro - and the knockout one-two of Human and Somebody Told Me. This being stadiums - the former of those two has its own galaxy of lasers zipping across the venue, while the latter has an exciting bass-led intro that slides into the actual song.
The usual stadium rock touches are also around - fans holding up their mobile phones and lighters for the chill piano ballad Here With Me, while Dave Keuning and Ronnie Vannucci play mesmerising and brilliant solos before the jaunty From Here On Out.
Flowers on the other hand acts as the ringmaster, leading the crowd through extended sing-alongs of a cover of I Think We're Alone Now and From Here On Out, whipping up the crowd while strumming the bass in For Reasons Unknown, and bouncing around with the frenzied crowd.
The surprise comes when the band launch into an ode to Wembley after A Dustland Fairytale. It's an unexpected touch that is simultaneously hit and miss but it somehow works, and it certainly adds to the celebratory air of occasion that this band has, through all the solo projects, style blunders and fun with the critics, made it to such a huge environment.
After this the main set is a run through of hits, culminating in All These Things That I've Done. The songs "I've got soul but I'm not a soldier" chant has finally found a room big enough to hold it, while an avalanche of confetti blankets the standing zone.
The band returns for a 4 song encore, split 50/50 between Hot Fuss and Battle Born. The title track from the latter is extended to preposterous lengths, with pyro and confetti zipping all over the place as Flowers high-fives the front rows and Keuning shreds his guitar to bits.
And all this before the high-point for many - the song that started this journey, no less. It is incredible to think that Mr Brightside is the first song the band ever wrote, but it's still going strong, and it is certainly right at home in this cavern of steel and concrete. Here it brings the curtain down on the evening, with one final crazy mosh for the audience that responds with suitable delirium.
Such a marvellous evening's entertainment has proved what fans of the band have been saying for years - The Killers are in the big leagues. Although where they go from here is anyone's guess.
The only complaints can really be for the hardcores gutted they didn't see the band play a few surprise rarities in an after-show gig at the Relentless Garage across town. But here, the band have delivered a fantastic evening.
4/5
Supporting the band for this big show were The Gaslight Anthem and James.
James opened the show and delivered a tight set of songs from their 90s heyday, with singer Tim Booth delivering some amusing observations and crazy dancing to go with their pleasant music.
The New Jersey-based Gaslight Anthem may well have been a better fit the week before when Springsteen was in town - and indeed, they have performed with The Boss. They took a few songs to warm up but the quality of their songs significantly improved the further their performance carried on.
Sunday, 16 June 2013
Newcastle United History 101
Season 2008/09 was not a happy or productive time for Newcastle United.
It had all started so promisingly - 4 points from tricky looking games with Manchester United and Bolton despite a raft of injuries, some good looking signings in Danny Guthrie and Jonas Gutierrez and a sense we could, at long last, get a simple top 10 finish.
Then everything imploded. Kevin Keegan resigned after a ridiculous fall out with Director of Football Dennis Wise, leading to an awful whirlwind that chewed up and spat out Joe Kinnear, Charles N'Zogbia, Alan Shearer and, ultimately, Newcastle's Premier League status.
There are various middling reasons for the club's relegation - hair-brained tactics, poor signings, bad managerial appointments, incompetent owners, bad luck, a failure to score one goal or keep out one goal in games against strugglers - but the memories provoke various painful recollections.
Thankfully, season 2012/13 did not end in a preposterous relegation that had been threatened. But it's not as if the club has provided any knowledge they haven't learned the lessons of recent history.
It's weirdly fitting to have these comments in the week the club has discussed the history in retrieving old cast-iron gates from Sir John's Hall house, even if some Toon Army fans dispute the actual iconic status of said gates.
But the re-appointment of Joe Kinnear - unconfirmed by the club but loudly trumpeted by the man himself - is not exactly a positive omen.
There are two ways the club has not learned history - returning to a structure that we deployed in 08/09, to great success, and returning Kinnear to his position.
This is slightly harsh as it is arguable Kinnear could have kept us up. We lost our Premier League status in the run after he left, where we picked up just six points in 13 games. It is conceivable that the security of a stable(ish) appointment in the manager's hotseat could have given us at least the one more point that would've kept the team up, maybe even more.
But this is not praise, and merely a comment that having 4 managers in 1 season was ultimately a huge factor in our relegation. Poor tactics, poor self-awareness, repeated excuses, calling journalists fuckers and cunts in the same press conference, and mispronouncing players names is hardly a great omen.
Be interesting to see him pronounce the name of our French centre back Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa.
His new position is that of director of football - a role that has always struck me as one of the most pointless roles in football. The manager and scouts are the men best suited to run transfers, as they will liase to find talent to fill in the gaps in their squad. Getting somebody to do this for you seems fairly pointless, because of the fact there is nothing to stop manager and scout doing this.
Alan Pardew and Graham Carr operate in the manager and scout roles on Tyneside, and found the talent that fuelled the surprise success of 2011-12. Following the great drop down the league a year after, the club had to change tack. The ideal option would've been a new manager, or failing that, some new tactical theories to help work on things.
Although the club agreed they needed a new direction after such a disaster of a campaign, reverting to the structure that led to the disastrous relegation season is not it.
In that season, Dennis Wise was bought in as a Director of Football, with various scouts looking for players while he and Kevin Keegan were supposed to discuss targets. Instead, Wise bought several players we didn't need as a favour to shifty South American agents, while wilfully blocking players Keegan actually wanted, leading to the resignation and various truths exposed in a tribunal.
This situation is ultimately where the fiasco that was the 2008/09 season begun. Unfortunately, after a few years, it seems the board wants to reinstate such a paradigm. This is a flawed arrangement that struggled to work the first time around and just shows all signs pointing as failure the second time around.
Mike Ashley has certainly developed a somewhat unsurpassed level for PR bollocks since his buyout of the Toon Army some 2 years before the trapdoor opened. It remains a true miracle he has overtaken Freddy Shepherd, for whom bad publicity was the only publicity, in the fuck-up stakes.
But after a litany of errors that have ranged for poor managerial appointments to never putting in any more money than the minimum, and arranging a deal with the truly detestable Wonga.com, errors in judgement like this are so common place you almost tend to forget to notice them after a while.
It is hyperbolic to suggest this situation is about to lead to the club repeating the litany of mistakes that sent the team tumbling downwards. Certainly, one can see talk of boycotts as excessive.
But it is hardly a move in an acceptable direction, and one that provokes more questions than answers amongst a fanbase getting more and more agitated before the fixtures even come out. The chief question among all this surely being "What the hell was Ashley thinking when he came up with this bollocks?"
The publicity-shy Ashley surely has to, at some point, justify an increasingly outlandish series of boobs that seem to help the club in no way whatsoever.
It had all started so promisingly - 4 points from tricky looking games with Manchester United and Bolton despite a raft of injuries, some good looking signings in Danny Guthrie and Jonas Gutierrez and a sense we could, at long last, get a simple top 10 finish.
Then everything imploded. Kevin Keegan resigned after a ridiculous fall out with Director of Football Dennis Wise, leading to an awful whirlwind that chewed up and spat out Joe Kinnear, Charles N'Zogbia, Alan Shearer and, ultimately, Newcastle's Premier League status.
There are various middling reasons for the club's relegation - hair-brained tactics, poor signings, bad managerial appointments, incompetent owners, bad luck, a failure to score one goal or keep out one goal in games against strugglers - but the memories provoke various painful recollections.
Thankfully, season 2012/13 did not end in a preposterous relegation that had been threatened. But it's not as if the club has provided any knowledge they haven't learned the lessons of recent history.
It's weirdly fitting to have these comments in the week the club has discussed the history in retrieving old cast-iron gates from Sir John's Hall house, even if some Toon Army fans dispute the actual iconic status of said gates.
But the re-appointment of Joe Kinnear - unconfirmed by the club but loudly trumpeted by the man himself - is not exactly a positive omen.
There are two ways the club has not learned history - returning to a structure that we deployed in 08/09, to great success, and returning Kinnear to his position.
This is slightly harsh as it is arguable Kinnear could have kept us up. We lost our Premier League status in the run after he left, where we picked up just six points in 13 games. It is conceivable that the security of a stable(ish) appointment in the manager's hotseat could have given us at least the one more point that would've kept the team up, maybe even more.
But this is not praise, and merely a comment that having 4 managers in 1 season was ultimately a huge factor in our relegation. Poor tactics, poor self-awareness, repeated excuses, calling journalists fuckers and cunts in the same press conference, and mispronouncing players names is hardly a great omen.
Be interesting to see him pronounce the name of our French centre back Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa.
His new position is that of director of football - a role that has always struck me as one of the most pointless roles in football. The manager and scouts are the men best suited to run transfers, as they will liase to find talent to fill in the gaps in their squad. Getting somebody to do this for you seems fairly pointless, because of the fact there is nothing to stop manager and scout doing this.
Alan Pardew and Graham Carr operate in the manager and scout roles on Tyneside, and found the talent that fuelled the surprise success of 2011-12. Following the great drop down the league a year after, the club had to change tack. The ideal option would've been a new manager, or failing that, some new tactical theories to help work on things.
Although the club agreed they needed a new direction after such a disaster of a campaign, reverting to the structure that led to the disastrous relegation season is not it.
In that season, Dennis Wise was bought in as a Director of Football, with various scouts looking for players while he and Kevin Keegan were supposed to discuss targets. Instead, Wise bought several players we didn't need as a favour to shifty South American agents, while wilfully blocking players Keegan actually wanted, leading to the resignation and various truths exposed in a tribunal.
This situation is ultimately where the fiasco that was the 2008/09 season begun. Unfortunately, after a few years, it seems the board wants to reinstate such a paradigm. This is a flawed arrangement that struggled to work the first time around and just shows all signs pointing as failure the second time around.
Mike Ashley has certainly developed a somewhat unsurpassed level for PR bollocks since his buyout of the Toon Army some 2 years before the trapdoor opened. It remains a true miracle he has overtaken Freddy Shepherd, for whom bad publicity was the only publicity, in the fuck-up stakes.
But after a litany of errors that have ranged for poor managerial appointments to never putting in any more money than the minimum, and arranging a deal with the truly detestable Wonga.com, errors in judgement like this are so common place you almost tend to forget to notice them after a while.
It is hyperbolic to suggest this situation is about to lead to the club repeating the litany of mistakes that sent the team tumbling downwards. Certainly, one can see talk of boycotts as excessive.
But it is hardly a move in an acceptable direction, and one that provokes more questions than answers amongst a fanbase getting more and more agitated before the fixtures even come out. The chief question among all this surely being "What the hell was Ashley thinking when he came up with this bollocks?"
The publicity-shy Ashley surely has to, at some point, justify an increasingly outlandish series of boobs that seem to help the club in no way whatsoever.
Saturday, 8 June 2013
Governments and PRISM: What Is The Limit?
Chances are that the people who use internet products are
not quite as aware as to who could be reading the data they leave.
If the mountain of data that consists of every Tweet,
Facebook status, Google search, YouTube video, Skype call, MSN conversation,
Hotmail e-mail etc. made in this world each day took on physical form, it would
blanket entire continents and stretch beyond the stratosphere.
Imagine if this data was tapped into. Anyone that wished to
use it could find anything to hang dirt upon any living citizen, without
telling the difference between legitimate crime and one word in a sequence of
many. But that fear is less so much conspiracy as it is everyday reality.
Advertisers receive data everyday to help with their targeting, from Google
adverts for products to iTunes recommending you albums to buy.
But it’s not just this premise where information is traded. This
week, the United States
In unhelpful news for citizens this side of the Atlantic , the government’s GCHQ – who are already trying
to implement similar legislation – have permission to use it for their own ends
here.
This is all supposedly in the aim to prevent terrorist
activity and maintain our nation’s security. But it’s not actually clear what
terrorist activity it has prevented, given the American National Security
Agency has not said so.
Plus it can also be used to stop ‘enemies’ whose only real
threat is to be opposition – a crime we decry when it happens in other
countries. One example is the Fox News journalist whose e-mail and phone call
records were seized for trying to do his job. And as much as Fox News earns
much deserved criticism for some of their reporting, it’s hardly liberal to
respond by spying on them in such depth and detail.
One of the internet’s original architects, Sir Tim
Berners-Lee, has commented that he feels the values of privacy are being eroded
from his construction.
But this is evidently modern society – with the citizens of
the Earth, or at least, the Western world, so keen to share their lives with
each other online, there is a voluntary goldmine people can harvest. And not
even the flimsy Facebook Privacy settings can save this.
Cliché dictate all of these discussions should mention
George Orwell’s breathless dystopic masterpiece 1984. Certainly, this is a
perfect realisation of the conspiracy of omnipotent forces observing our every
move, but it is doubtful it was foreseen we would do this voluntarily with
companies who we let follow us in favour of us getting nothing at all other
than being the target.
And all this comes before the routine surveillance of bank
cards, fingerpints, passport and all other devices.
Talk like this makes it easy to make people believe in
conspiracy theories. In one case it is easy to try to hold onto a rational view
because, if such a thing can prevent terrorism, then it is legitimately saving
lives. But it is hard to avoid being paranoid knowing everything you say online
in any context is potentially in the threat of being seized upon, regardless of
motive.
Plus its not so long ago the government was renowned for leaving
various high security files in taxis, trains, bins, McDonald’s – in one case,
sensitive personal data was left on a roundabout near Exeter Airport. The
implications of recklessness with this information could be monstrous, and
knowing the reliability of the government we can hardly be confident something
won’t go missing.
In the meantime, it also points to an age where you have to
monitor what you say. The only way privacy can now exist appears to be if you
avoid the internet altogether, and by becoming reliant on the sort of
technology spy films use. But as long as you’re plugged in, the chances of that
are at best remote and at worst non-existent.
This is arguably long overdue given that Twitter is a minefield of ill-informed and potentially libellous conversation. But that doesn't mean to say it's a helpful proposition to contend with.
This is also a hammer blow for the credibility of governments. It can be hard to say you are trying to protect liberties while doing this, and it puts questions on a variety of matters.
A big overall reaching question is one asking to what limit this will go to. If those at the top
can now monitor everything we say, when will they stop?
Friday, 31 May 2013
Star Trek Into Darkness: Film Review
*CAUTION: This review contains spoilers for Star Trek Into Darkness. If you haven't seen it and wish to do so, proceed with caution.*
The perils of rebooting entertainment franchises is that you have two things to do to make it worthwhile.
One is keeping the old fanbase happy, and the other is drawing in a new one to supplement it. These factors are important in making a workable construct from the ashes, because it is no point in making it if everyone who loved the old version hates it and the new crowd are similarly rendered uninterested.
JJ Abrams seems to be becoming a go-to man for success with this, given he is entrusted with the anticipated Star Wars re-boot to go with the succesful Star Trek reboot. He was given the keys to the Starship Enterprise for it's 2009 re-boot, which was a great success. Four years down the line and the adventures of Kirk, Spock, Uhura et all continue to an even stronger buzz.
We're beamed into the action mid-adventure, with Kirk (Chris Pine) running across planet Nibiru before bailing out Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is in a deep spot of bother in the middle of an erupting volcano.
Although he bails out Spock before the half-Vulcan is swallowed by a volcano-cancelling bomb, Kirk violates 'the prime directive' by allowing the planet's people to see the USS Enterprise, which is duly worshipped by them. As a result, Kirk is demoted to First Officer while Spock is shifted to another craft.
Not that it's going to be a smooth ride in his new position, with rogue Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) running amok. Harrison manipulates a man into unwittingly blowing up a secret base in 23rd century London, before heading over to California to take out the council.
As an Englishman, it is amusing to see the idea London in 2253 would still have Big Ben, St. Pauls' Cathedral and the Gherkin. The city is also extremely well-visualised, as is a mesmerising explosion of both the secret base and the Starfleet HQ. This leads to the death of many officers, including Kirk's mentor Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood).
This duly leads to a chase on Kronos, home of famous Star Trek villains The Klingons. However this is where some of the weakness rears. For a supposedly formidable and dangerous species, it is ridiculously easy for Harrison - with a little help from Kirk and Spock - to take them out.
Beyond the main heroes and villain, a lot of the characters are fairly clunkily written. It's almost a disservice to the main people and the beautifully realised landscapes that it's tricky to engage with everyone else.
Luckily, then, that the main cast get the bulk of the camera-time and perform well. The central Kirk and Spock relationship is in full strength, as is the adjoining relationships with Uhura (Zoe Saladana). The triumvulate of Pine, Quinto and Saldana certainly do their best to enact their legendary roles and pin the juggernaut to the ground.
Other standouts aboard the Enterprise are Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), who delivers a stream of sarcastic barbs as the counter to Kirk, and new recruit Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), who is impressive in depicting a quite impressive combination of varying roles. A fairly amusing Scottish accent aside, Scotty (Simon Pegg) also provides a great feeder line.
Harrison is duly captured rather than killed as ordered. In captivity, he drops the mask, revealing himself as legendary Star Trek villain Khan. He says he is the ambassador for a crew frozen in deep space after a long galactic war, with the 72 men of said crew frozen and hidden into the Enterprise's torpedos.
This sees the usual flip-flop so common in film, where the crew are trying to help Khan defeat the seemingly evil boss of Starfleet only to find out they were unwittingly aiding his evil scheme and damaging their own side.
Saying that, the fact the head of Starfleet was about to down the Enterprise in a ship co-designed with Khan didn't exactly point to a wholly-honest chap behind the keys.
Khan duly downs the Enterprise, with only some near-fatal (in the end) action preventing the ship crashing into the seas of Earth.
However, the last thing the Enterprise crew did before being blown out of orbit was to detonate the torpedos, thus seemingly killing the stored humans (ultimately they don't as they'd been covertly moved). As a result, an enraged Khan deliberately flies the big Starfleet ship into San Francisco. This leads ultimately to a Spock vs Khan fight.
One person at the showing said it was like "the ultimate fan-fiction" but it is very well-realised, both in terms of plot and the eventual fight atop of a thriving and bustling 23rd century city.
There's a few quirks and quibbles but ultimately this is a very satisfying continuation of a surprisingly impressive reboot. It certainly has the pieces set to boldly go where no trilogy film has gone before - a 3rd film that surpasses the others.
3.5/5
The perils of rebooting entertainment franchises is that you have two things to do to make it worthwhile.
One is keeping the old fanbase happy, and the other is drawing in a new one to supplement it. These factors are important in making a workable construct from the ashes, because it is no point in making it if everyone who loved the old version hates it and the new crowd are similarly rendered uninterested.
JJ Abrams seems to be becoming a go-to man for success with this, given he is entrusted with the anticipated Star Wars re-boot to go with the succesful Star Trek reboot. He was given the keys to the Starship Enterprise for it's 2009 re-boot, which was a great success. Four years down the line and the adventures of Kirk, Spock, Uhura et all continue to an even stronger buzz.
We're beamed into the action mid-adventure, with Kirk (Chris Pine) running across planet Nibiru before bailing out Spock (Zachary Quinto), who is in a deep spot of bother in the middle of an erupting volcano.
Although he bails out Spock before the half-Vulcan is swallowed by a volcano-cancelling bomb, Kirk violates 'the prime directive' by allowing the planet's people to see the USS Enterprise, which is duly worshipped by them. As a result, Kirk is demoted to First Officer while Spock is shifted to another craft.
Not that it's going to be a smooth ride in his new position, with rogue Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) running amok. Harrison manipulates a man into unwittingly blowing up a secret base in 23rd century London, before heading over to California to take out the council.
As an Englishman, it is amusing to see the idea London in 2253 would still have Big Ben, St. Pauls' Cathedral and the Gherkin. The city is also extremely well-visualised, as is a mesmerising explosion of both the secret base and the Starfleet HQ. This leads to the death of many officers, including Kirk's mentor Admiral Pike (Bruce Greenwood).
This duly leads to a chase on Kronos, home of famous Star Trek villains The Klingons. However this is where some of the weakness rears. For a supposedly formidable and dangerous species, it is ridiculously easy for Harrison - with a little help from Kirk and Spock - to take them out.
Beyond the main heroes and villain, a lot of the characters are fairly clunkily written. It's almost a disservice to the main people and the beautifully realised landscapes that it's tricky to engage with everyone else.
Luckily, then, that the main cast get the bulk of the camera-time and perform well. The central Kirk and Spock relationship is in full strength, as is the adjoining relationships with Uhura (Zoe Saladana). The triumvulate of Pine, Quinto and Saldana certainly do their best to enact their legendary roles and pin the juggernaut to the ground.
Other standouts aboard the Enterprise are Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), who delivers a stream of sarcastic barbs as the counter to Kirk, and new recruit Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), who is impressive in depicting a quite impressive combination of varying roles. A fairly amusing Scottish accent aside, Scotty (Simon Pegg) also provides a great feeder line.
Harrison is duly captured rather than killed as ordered. In captivity, he drops the mask, revealing himself as legendary Star Trek villain Khan. He says he is the ambassador for a crew frozen in deep space after a long galactic war, with the 72 men of said crew frozen and hidden into the Enterprise's torpedos.
This sees the usual flip-flop so common in film, where the crew are trying to help Khan defeat the seemingly evil boss of Starfleet only to find out they were unwittingly aiding his evil scheme and damaging their own side.
Saying that, the fact the head of Starfleet was about to down the Enterprise in a ship co-designed with Khan didn't exactly point to a wholly-honest chap behind the keys.
Khan duly downs the Enterprise, with only some near-fatal (in the end) action preventing the ship crashing into the seas of Earth.
However, the last thing the Enterprise crew did before being blown out of orbit was to detonate the torpedos, thus seemingly killing the stored humans (ultimately they don't as they'd been covertly moved). As a result, an enraged Khan deliberately flies the big Starfleet ship into San Francisco. This leads ultimately to a Spock vs Khan fight.
One person at the showing said it was like "the ultimate fan-fiction" but it is very well-realised, both in terms of plot and the eventual fight atop of a thriving and bustling 23rd century city.
There's a few quirks and quibbles but ultimately this is a very satisfying continuation of a surprisingly impressive reboot. It certainly has the pieces set to boldly go where no trilogy film has gone before - a 3rd film that surpasses the others.
3.5/5
Sunday, 26 May 2013
Muse: The Unsustainable Tour - Live Review
You would think after so many years of trying to push the boat out Muse would run out of boats to push out.
The giant video screens and risers. The video satellite/blenders and pylons. The humungous array of satellites and antenna later converted into video screens. Three skyscrapers. A pyramid so huge it needed an aircraft warning light. A similarly huge pyramid hung upside down from the roof of the venue.
Somewhere out there Muse must have a warehouse stacked with a shedload of old props. But is that gonna stop them putting on an even huger show? Hell no.
Details about the band's biggest ever tour in terms of dates - 20 shows are planned in May-July across Europe in big stadiums, parks and the like - have been sketchy. However the advance buzz ahead of last week's opening night in Coventry was big after Muse's pyro testing was mistaken for the stadium being on fire.
The pyro is evident straight from the off. Opener "Supremacy" is preceded by a humungous explosion from the middle of the park and bursts of fire from the roof of the stage. It is a tremendous opener to the show, that whips the crowd into a frenzy before - belatedly, after Matt Bellamy confused his songs - "Supermassive Black Hole" tips them into overdrive.
Far from resting on their laurels, band and an exceptionally energetic crowd alike bounce further. The euphoric "Bliss" comes on the back of the funky "Panic Station", and before the surprisingly boisterous "Resistance".
Performance pieces seem to be Muse's new thing, with some success and some not. The success comes when "Animals" concludes with a caricature of a banker throwing custom-notes at the crowd before collapsing. This works a treat as it fits in with the visuals and the song's narrative. However a bizarre interlude during "Feeling Good" of a businesswoman dousing herself in 'petrol' and drinking from the pump is a bit more weird and not as fitting.
Counteracting this are the usual favourites. "Knights of Cydonia", once again with it's harmonica intro, sends the entire stadium into a state of frenzied delirium. It gets so outlandish Matt even feels moved to comment "it's like Fight Club down there" before starting the next song.
Recent singles "Madness" and "Follow Me" also maintain their charm as they work into the live cannon, but in keeping with a die-hard crowd, they are eclipsed in reaction by the heavy rush of 2001 non-album single "Dead Star".
A healthy reaction also accompanies Chris Wolstenholme taking the mic into the crowd for "Liquid State". This is one of many 2nd Law songs to evolve into hugely impressive live numbers - a vast improvement on The Resistance, where a number of songs failed to work live.
The first real mis-step comes in the encore, as the awful "Guiding Light" is dusted off after 2 years out. Quite why this dull cod-U2 nonsense returned when other hits went absent is a tricky one to explain.
This song came in a B-stage encore, which includes returns for "Unintended" and "Blackout" in a rerun of the chill encore from the HAARP tour. There's also an acrobat for the second one, albeit on a giant light-bulb rather than an inflated sphere this time.
The other major prop comes during "Unsustainable", when a giant 10-ft tall robot wheels onto the stage. On YouTube and in images it looks pretty poor but in a stadium, with the lights down low and surrounded by sinister red lights and pyro, it looks spectacular. Plus the song has evolved into a monster, with crunching bass and a crazy guitar riff.
A one two of "Plug in Baby" and "Survival", replete with more pyro, would be the perfect end to any gig. But Muse aren't down, with a final one-two of "Uprising" and "Starlight" ending it off.
"Starlight" isn't really the best choice for a closer, and it is certainly disappointing Bellamy has left it to keyboardist Morgan Nicholls to play guitar. This is a trick he also pulled on "Blackout", where Wolstenholme was handed the six strings.
But these, thankfully, can be overlooked in the wake of a wonderous and delightful show. The musicianship and showmanship is thankfully still here in exceptional abundance, and every song sounds massive.
It's awesome to see that they still have ideas left in the tank and can still captivate stadiums in such a manner. But what's next? Well... who knows?
4/5
Also in support were two more poppy acts than many fans would expect. Dizzee Rascal was the controversial choice for headline support. His brief as being the warm-up for the filling up crowd was more than filled, with a final one-two of "Holiday" and "Bonkers" sending the crowd into hysteria. Rascal and his fellow MC This despite the fact it just sounded way off and just didn't work in the stadium.
The other support is the more recently successful Bastille. They delivered a pleasing set, if not quite as good as
The giant video screens and risers. The video satellite/blenders and pylons. The humungous array of satellites and antenna later converted into video screens. Three skyscrapers. A pyramid so huge it needed an aircraft warning light. A similarly huge pyramid hung upside down from the roof of the venue.
Somewhere out there Muse must have a warehouse stacked with a shedload of old props. But is that gonna stop them putting on an even huger show? Hell no.
Details about the band's biggest ever tour in terms of dates - 20 shows are planned in May-July across Europe in big stadiums, parks and the like - have been sketchy. However the advance buzz ahead of last week's opening night in Coventry was big after Muse's pyro testing was mistaken for the stadium being on fire.
The pyro is evident straight from the off. Opener "Supremacy" is preceded by a humungous explosion from the middle of the park and bursts of fire from the roof of the stage. It is a tremendous opener to the show, that whips the crowd into a frenzy before - belatedly, after Matt Bellamy confused his songs - "Supermassive Black Hole" tips them into overdrive.
Far from resting on their laurels, band and an exceptionally energetic crowd alike bounce further. The euphoric "Bliss" comes on the back of the funky "Panic Station", and before the surprisingly boisterous "Resistance".
Performance pieces seem to be Muse's new thing, with some success and some not. The success comes when "Animals" concludes with a caricature of a banker throwing custom-notes at the crowd before collapsing. This works a treat as it fits in with the visuals and the song's narrative. However a bizarre interlude during "Feeling Good" of a businesswoman dousing herself in 'petrol' and drinking from the pump is a bit more weird and not as fitting.
Counteracting this are the usual favourites. "Knights of Cydonia", once again with it's harmonica intro, sends the entire stadium into a state of frenzied delirium. It gets so outlandish Matt even feels moved to comment "it's like Fight Club down there" before starting the next song.
Recent singles "Madness" and "Follow Me" also maintain their charm as they work into the live cannon, but in keeping with a die-hard crowd, they are eclipsed in reaction by the heavy rush of 2001 non-album single "Dead Star".
A healthy reaction also accompanies Chris Wolstenholme taking the mic into the crowd for "Liquid State". This is one of many 2nd Law songs to evolve into hugely impressive live numbers - a vast improvement on The Resistance, where a number of songs failed to work live.
The first real mis-step comes in the encore, as the awful "Guiding Light" is dusted off after 2 years out. Quite why this dull cod-U2 nonsense returned when other hits went absent is a tricky one to explain.
This song came in a B-stage encore, which includes returns for "Unintended" and "Blackout" in a rerun of the chill encore from the HAARP tour. There's also an acrobat for the second one, albeit on a giant light-bulb rather than an inflated sphere this time.
The other major prop comes during "Unsustainable", when a giant 10-ft tall robot wheels onto the stage. On YouTube and in images it looks pretty poor but in a stadium, with the lights down low and surrounded by sinister red lights and pyro, it looks spectacular. Plus the song has evolved into a monster, with crunching bass and a crazy guitar riff.
A one two of "Plug in Baby" and "Survival", replete with more pyro, would be the perfect end to any gig. But Muse aren't down, with a final one-two of "Uprising" and "Starlight" ending it off.
"Starlight" isn't really the best choice for a closer, and it is certainly disappointing Bellamy has left it to keyboardist Morgan Nicholls to play guitar. This is a trick he also pulled on "Blackout", where Wolstenholme was handed the six strings.
But these, thankfully, can be overlooked in the wake of a wonderous and delightful show. The musicianship and showmanship is thankfully still here in exceptional abundance, and every song sounds massive.
It's awesome to see that they still have ideas left in the tank and can still captivate stadiums in such a manner. But what's next? Well... who knows?
4/5
Also in support were two more poppy acts than many fans would expect. Dizzee Rascal was the controversial choice for headline support. His brief as being the warm-up for the filling up crowd was more than filled, with a final one-two of "Holiday" and "Bonkers" sending the crowd into hysteria. Rascal and his fellow MC This despite the fact it just sounded way off and just didn't work in the stadium.
The other support is the more recently successful Bastille. They delivered a pleasing set, if not quite as good as
Friday, 24 May 2013
The Hangover 3 - Film Review
*CAUTION: This review contains spoilers for The Hangover 3. If you haven't seen it and wish to do so, proceed with caution.*
How many sequels is a sequel too many?
In an age where film franchises are endlessly spun-out to compensate for the lack of original ideas, there's the increasing number of films being made that don't really need to be.
The Hangover is a case in point. The first film, when it landed in 2009, when a stone cold success. It had many funny lines, it introduced a wealth of funny characters in the most extreme example of a relatable situation - stag party hangover - and it was well plotted.
Then came The Hangover 2. A commercial success it may well have been, but the film was a hollow mess. It felt like a cynical re-tread of the path, with the same plot but in a different city (Bangkok as opposed to Las Vegas) and nowhere near as funny.
A cynic may say this decision was built more on financial rather than creative decisions but, in any case, the 3rd film is now upon us. The prospects of The Hangover 4 seem remote at best - the film advertising is touting this as the end of the trilogy.
So, a run through of one final adventure. Question is - have they rediscovered what made them funny or was that a memory the creators can barely remember?
This film takes a rather interesting and quite ballsy tack - to ignore the pretence of being a comedy. It adopts presence of a mixture of ideas. Drug intervention, gangster film, a heist plot as complex as the Ocean's 11 film and various twists all revolving around two central characters.
This film starts not in a debauchery-filled hotel room or at a wedding missing guests embroiled in heists. Instead, it begins in a Thai prison where the film tries a little Shawshank Redemption.
Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) is one of the main driving roles in the film. This is also a bold move, given he is a fringe character yet gets the most screen time and arguably the driving force. It's bold because he is a ball of lunacy and not one of the main Wolf Pack. He is also a more divisive figure. After all, Asian jokes get a wee bit tedious after a while, as anyone who has sat through the deteriorating-in-quality Family Guy will tell you.
Elsewhere, the rest of the group is concerned about Alan (Zach Galifianakis), who buys a giraffe and then unwittingly decapitates it, causing the closure of a freeway. This is painfully badly placed and it feels like this could be a bad omen.
The film takes a different turn when Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) arrive to try to help him. They convince him to check into an Arizona rehab centre, only to get crashed off the road by gangsters on the way there.
Head of the gangsters, which includes the other Doug from the first movie, is Marshall (John Goodman). He knows this group of oddballs is the link to Chow, who stole $21million in gold bars from him shortly after the events of the first movie.
A clearly angry Marshall duly takes Doug as collateral - thereby keeping him out of the film for more than a handful of scenes yet again - while giving the others 3 days to hand him Chow.
This soon leads to a trip via Tijuana to a Mexican villa, with Chow picked up along the way via a truly bizarre cover version of Hurt and some amusing concept gags involving security systems. These sequences in the villa are among the funniest in the film, with Jeong's madcap lunacy working well in tandem with Helms' exasperation.
After this, in the Mexican villa, they retrieve what they think is the $21million Chow stole. Instead, it's the other $21million from the original $42million haul, meaning Chow now has the lot.
This increases the tension, which duly leads to the return where this all began - viva Las Vegas, Nevada.
The shots here are, for a comedy, beautifully shot. It's easy to take good shots of the oasis in the desert but this feels like a true widescreen-epic for the beautiful panoramas of the Strip.
There's a clever element that takes hold here as it is a hangover of The Hangover. Various elements from the first film are tied up here, ranging from a re-introduction of Heather Graham's character and the baby that inexplicably wound up in their hotel room, to a raid on the same casino, to closure in the deserts outside Vegas.
It's a clever concept and it would make more sense as a more drama/thriller concept. However, as a comedy it feels like its missing its chances to make humour out of the situation. There are some zingers and some amusing sight-gags, but it's not full on rolling-in-the-aisles funny.
Despite this, there is enough to keep people entertained. It flows very well and there are a good few lines. But it is better to go in with lower expectations. If you're expected a knockout string-of-humour comedy based on not knowing what you did the night before, go rent the first movie.
Saying that, this sequel does not really feel that much like a sequel too far. If anything, it feels like the sequel they should have made when they did the Hangover 2 back in 2011. This is especially true when a knockout re-doing of the original Hangover sequence emerges at the end of the film, which has inspired some for a possible Hangover 4. Now that would be a sequel too far...
If this is the end, it's definitely done the franchise more justice than the last film. It also feels more like a finale, and this should put the lid on any future escapades. That is probably for the best at a film which will not be winning Oscars, but not any Razzies ever.
3/5
How many sequels is a sequel too many?
In an age where film franchises are endlessly spun-out to compensate for the lack of original ideas, there's the increasing number of films being made that don't really need to be.
The Hangover is a case in point. The first film, when it landed in 2009, when a stone cold success. It had many funny lines, it introduced a wealth of funny characters in the most extreme example of a relatable situation - stag party hangover - and it was well plotted.
Then came The Hangover 2. A commercial success it may well have been, but the film was a hollow mess. It felt like a cynical re-tread of the path, with the same plot but in a different city (Bangkok as opposed to Las Vegas) and nowhere near as funny.
A cynic may say this decision was built more on financial rather than creative decisions but, in any case, the 3rd film is now upon us. The prospects of The Hangover 4 seem remote at best - the film advertising is touting this as the end of the trilogy.
So, a run through of one final adventure. Question is - have they rediscovered what made them funny or was that a memory the creators can barely remember?
This film takes a rather interesting and quite ballsy tack - to ignore the pretence of being a comedy. It adopts presence of a mixture of ideas. Drug intervention, gangster film, a heist plot as complex as the Ocean's 11 film and various twists all revolving around two central characters.
This film starts not in a debauchery-filled hotel room or at a wedding missing guests embroiled in heists. Instead, it begins in a Thai prison where the film tries a little Shawshank Redemption.
Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong) is one of the main driving roles in the film. This is also a bold move, given he is a fringe character yet gets the most screen time and arguably the driving force. It's bold because he is a ball of lunacy and not one of the main Wolf Pack. He is also a more divisive figure. After all, Asian jokes get a wee bit tedious after a while, as anyone who has sat through the deteriorating-in-quality Family Guy will tell you.
Elsewhere, the rest of the group is concerned about Alan (Zach Galifianakis), who buys a giraffe and then unwittingly decapitates it, causing the closure of a freeway. This is painfully badly placed and it feels like this could be a bad omen.
The film takes a different turn when Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Doug (Justin Bartha) arrive to try to help him. They convince him to check into an Arizona rehab centre, only to get crashed off the road by gangsters on the way there.
Head of the gangsters, which includes the other Doug from the first movie, is Marshall (John Goodman). He knows this group of oddballs is the link to Chow, who stole $21million in gold bars from him shortly after the events of the first movie.
A clearly angry Marshall duly takes Doug as collateral - thereby keeping him out of the film for more than a handful of scenes yet again - while giving the others 3 days to hand him Chow.
This soon leads to a trip via Tijuana to a Mexican villa, with Chow picked up along the way via a truly bizarre cover version of Hurt and some amusing concept gags involving security systems. These sequences in the villa are among the funniest in the film, with Jeong's madcap lunacy working well in tandem with Helms' exasperation.
After this, in the Mexican villa, they retrieve what they think is the $21million Chow stole. Instead, it's the other $21million from the original $42million haul, meaning Chow now has the lot.
This increases the tension, which duly leads to the return where this all began - viva Las Vegas, Nevada.
The shots here are, for a comedy, beautifully shot. It's easy to take good shots of the oasis in the desert but this feels like a true widescreen-epic for the beautiful panoramas of the Strip.
There's a clever element that takes hold here as it is a hangover of The Hangover. Various elements from the first film are tied up here, ranging from a re-introduction of Heather Graham's character and the baby that inexplicably wound up in their hotel room, to a raid on the same casino, to closure in the deserts outside Vegas.
It's a clever concept and it would make more sense as a more drama/thriller concept. However, as a comedy it feels like its missing its chances to make humour out of the situation. There are some zingers and some amusing sight-gags, but it's not full on rolling-in-the-aisles funny.
Despite this, there is enough to keep people entertained. It flows very well and there are a good few lines. But it is better to go in with lower expectations. If you're expected a knockout string-of-humour comedy based on not knowing what you did the night before, go rent the first movie.
Saying that, this sequel does not really feel that much like a sequel too far. If anything, it feels like the sequel they should have made when they did the Hangover 2 back in 2011. This is especially true when a knockout re-doing of the original Hangover sequence emerges at the end of the film, which has inspired some for a possible Hangover 4. Now that would be a sequel too far...
If this is the end, it's definitely done the franchise more justice than the last film. It also feels more like a finale, and this should put the lid on any future escapades. That is probably for the best at a film which will not be winning Oscars, but not any Razzies ever.
3/5
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)