THEGAYUK

Tag: Two Star Film Review

The latest two-star film review from THEGAYUK.

  • Men In Black International Review: Not as good as the sum of its parts

    Men In Black International Review: Not as good as the sum of its parts

    ★★☆☆☆ | MEN IN BLACK INTERNATIONAL

    (C) Columbia Pictures

    The 4th MIB movie coming 7 years after the last one and 22 years after we first met the super agents with no Will Smith, no Tommy Lee Jones but the welcome addition of sex god Chris Hemsworth.

    Nutshell – The secret well-dressed sunglass wearing organisation that exists to protect the earth from aliens and the scum of the universe are back in a loud CGI action-heavy film that in theory sits alongside the original trilogy rather than being a sequel. Almost all new characters and this time with a lot of globetrotting to Europe and Morocco as they try to stop another alien villain and protect yet another artefact hidden on earth but the bigger problem is that there is a mole in the Men In Black hierarchy – our money is on the Pug dog.

    Running Time – 114 Minutes – Cert 12A.

    Tagline – The World’s Not Going To Save Itself

    The Gay UK Factor – Chris Hemsworth is one of the world’s best-looking men. Of course, Hemsworth in a tight designer suit showing every inch of his massive firm buttocks is something right from the top end of the wank fantasies – the ones we reserve in the back of our brain for the intense vinegar strokes. Not enough for ya? Well, you get a two-minute extended topless scene at the start of the film… We have seen this movie six times so far and counting for that alone.

    Cast – Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Liam Neeson, Rafe Small, Kayvan Novak and the only major returning cast member Emma Thompson… no Will Smith or Tommy Lee Jones and boy do we miss their chemistry here as the two leads mix about as well as Madonna’s music does with the current charts.

    Key Player – For the first time ever we cannot spot one. The directors, writers, cast etc are all retreading a tried and tested formula for ever diminishing results. The new CG chess piece character gets all the best lines though and our marriage proposal to Hemsworth is not rescinded by this but he just cannot carry a comedy on his own as he is better as the straight man to a comedians foil – now Will and him that could have been one-liner heaven but Will wanted to be Aladdin‘s genie instead.

    Budget – $110 Million – Thank goodness they kept this budget down as it is just not flying like the previous films in the trilogy. The first week it took the entire world box office to break even so now it can start making some profit which it will do but don’t expect any sequels as you file this under slightly disappointing.

    Best Bit – 0.48 mins; We get a very thrilling fight with the invaders in a studio set London street which has great action and well-placed comedy beats and it works well. Shame this balance couldn’t be kept up elsewhere – an action comedy needs both to be effective and this is often lacking in either one or the other at most points and often both.

    Worst Bit – 1.15 mins; Lots of little bits here don’t come off including a by the numbers hoverbike chase not as good as in MIB 3 but none more so obvious than the flying car in a secret organisation. Harry Potter and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang did this better. It underlines an attempt to make everything bigger than we have seen before but too much smaller returns. So much possibility ends in something not bad but just average and is that not condemnation enough for a blockbuster.

    Little Secret – Believe it or not the MIB universe also includes the 21/22 Jump Street movies. The film was originally going to be a Jump Street / Men in Black crossover with Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill reprising their roles from that franchise when Smith and Jones refused to do another MIB. However, plans fell apart, so it became a spin-off with Chris Hemsworth and Tessa Thompson. Chris Hemsworth announced shortly after the release of this film that he would take a break from acting (not because of this film we should add more to do with the end of the Avengers’ saga) to; a) stand for US President, b Join the Jonas Brothers, c) Start his much in demand gay porn career or d) be with his family… only one of these is correct.

    Further Viewing – Men In Black – 1-3, Ghostbusters 1-3, Austin Powers 1-3, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-3, Detective Pikachu, Pixels, Evolution, Space Jam and the king of sci-fi action comedies Galaxy Quest.

    Any Good – Not as good as the sum of its parts. There are two major problems. Firstly the original MIB was a breath of fresh air with great ideas from its wonderful characters in both the fore and background through to the classic number one hit single but then unlike a lot of other franchises instead of taking the best bits and improving on them they have gone the opposite way with every new addition to the set.

    Secondly whoever cast Hemsworth and Thomson as the leads here (They were together in the Thor films) has made a fatal error. We need a comedian of Will Smith’s character bouncing of a straight man like Tommy Lee Jones instead here we get two straight men/women delivering all the punch lines. You will enjoy the film but don’t expect a laugh a minute maybe one every 30 mins is closer and is that good enough for an action comedy?

    TWO STARS

  • FILM REVIEW | Tomb Raider

    TOMB RAIDER – The umpteenth attempt to turn a blockbuster video game into a hit movie. Lara Croft is back for her third cinema outing cue new origin story and then a high octane action-packed trip to a Japanese jungle.


    Nutshell – We meet Lara as a troubled kid in London as a low earning cycling courier mourning the death of her parents and in particular her Dad who went missing on an antiquity hunt. She gets sucked into retracing his steps in the Far East where there are ample bad guys, endless Tomb booby traps and a total bitch of a supernatural being that could destroy the planet. Think Raiders of The Lost Ark with boobs although it does stay closer to the computer games than the Angelina Jolie two attempts.

    Running Time – 118 minutes – 12A.

    Tagline – ‘Her Legend Begins’…..and end with this Box Office

    The Gay UK Factor –  When we meet the bad guys things pick up hugely as each thug following each thug is hornier, sweatier and more muscle-bound than the last. Ok, so they all get dispatched at some point but a conveyor belt of good looking men all of which look like they were born to top, makes things very watchable – think Tinder/Scruff or Grindr the movie version.

    Cast – Alicia Vikander, Dominic West, Derek Jacobi, Kristin Scott Thomas and Daniel Wu so nobody worth getting that excited about or reach for your Fleshjack’s for but it’s the character that will sell the tickets here hopefully.

    Key Player – Core Design the company that 23 years ago designed the Lara Croft character the only computer game to have three movies and the character is also in Guinnesses Book Of Records as the most successful in computer gaming history.

    Budget – $94 Million and it is already suffering with an opening of just 25 Million. Very few movies actually make a loss nowadays with DVD/TV/Streaming/Satellite etc and most importantly the global market especially Asia and with this film set in Japan that is a lock. Sequels though may be in question.

    Best Bit – 0.49 mins; A big action set piece where Lara is escaping the bad guys via some rapids ending up clinging to various parts of an old aircraft that has crashed atop a waterfall. There are four genuine heart in the mouth moments but not a lot comes close in the rest of the movie.

    Worst Bit – 0.01 mins; Purely and simply Alicia Vikander just does not have a lot of presence and is largely unconvincing pulling off all the fights and action later in the movie from no obvious training, background or experience. She is certainly no Angelina Jolie or even Gal Gadot for that matter.

     

    Further Viewing – Lara Crofts 1 and 2, Indiana Jones 1 through 5, Jewel On The Nile but avoid all computer game/movies as from Warcraft to Assassins Creed they are all as much use as those tissues under your bed.

    Any Good – It’s passable without being outstanding. The action story and locations (with South Africa standing in for the Japanese islands) are all decent but whoever did the casting here needs their heads examining. You won’t want your money back but Angelina will hardly be worried about this taking her green T-shirt and twin guns away. It’s borderline whether this will turn into a franchise or not but a sequel will have to up its game.

    Rating – 50% out of 100.

  • FILM REVIEW | It

    IT – The big horror movie of the year is here as we welcome back Stephen King‘s homicidal shapeshifting sewer dwelling killer clown so what does this mean for the larger world of scary movies?

    FILM REVIEW | It

    Nutshell – From the original 80’s blockbuster book through the very popular two-part TV series in 1990, our favourite grinning red helium balloon fan is once again crawling out of the gutter to terrorise a new raft of dysfunctional kids. Set in classic small-town Stephen King’s Ville, this hugely anticipated thrill-fest sees the youngsters slowly work out why their town is the world’s hotspot for missing kids and decide that Pennywise needs to have that fu*king smile wiped off his smug face once and for all.

    Running Time – 135 minutes; That is the longest butt-numbing horror film we can ever remember.

    Certificate – 15

    Tagline – ‘You’ll Float Too” & “It Comes In Many Forms” is the best they could come up with really?

    THEGAYUK Factor – All the heroes are kids and the villain is a murdering bugger so unless you jerk off to clowns playing with balloons then save the man gravy for the muscle studs in the upcoming Kingsman, Thor, Jumanji and Bladerunner.

    Cast – Bill Skarsgard plays Pennywise and his most famous appearance to date is in the unsuccessful Atomic Blonde. Everyone else are newbies – this is not a star vehicle as the book and concept take that role, that will change with the adult sequels.

    Key Player – Stephen King probably the world’s most famous writer, whose books have been turned into classics like The Shining, The Green Mile and Stand By Me but just as many right wank rags such as The Mangler and The Dark Tower which make us shudder for all the wrong reasons.

    Budget – $35 Million and so far it has made back a whopping $189 Million and climbing, parts 2 and 3 are already in the works expect that budget to start going way up and returns to fall as severe disappointment kicks in.

    Best Bit – 0.07 mins; The keynote scene of a young lad losing a toy boat down a large water drain and coming face to face with the never-blinking clown of everyone’s nightmares and then it gets really nasty.

    Worst Bit – 1.45 mins; Basically anything in the last third is not brilliant and sometimes laughable. Nothing is quite as scary as that opening scene and as the CGI takes over and the baddie turns up everywhere and in every shape, this becomes as realistic as a steroided muscle mary’s stuffed jockstrap – this could have been so much better.

    Little Secret – Bill Skarsgard was on set for the whole 32 week schedule but did not go in front of the cameras until the 18th week. Yes the clown is in it that little! This is the original story where the kids’ “The Losers Club” face Pennywise for the first time, they then have to face him again as adults hence the first sequel due 2019. Jessica Chastain is up for one of the parts and they also want sex gods Chris Pratt and Jake Gyllenhaal too.

    Further Viewing – The Shining, Thinner, The Green Mile, Pet Semetaries 1 & 2, The Stand, Carrie, Christine, Children Of The Corn, The Mist, The Running Man; basically any of the 43 King adaptations you can find but maybe not that last Arnie one.

    Any Good – This is so similar to the original film and book that the first question is why bother and no Tim Curry this time. Its problem is that it is just not scary and so very very long. It was truly anticipated and the box office should lead to a wealth of new big-budget horrors next year and beyond and not just the cheapie Saw, Purge, Paranormal & killer dolls we have had to suffer lately. Just expect huge diminishing returns and disappointment to this franchise.

    Rating – 48% out of 100.

  • FILM REVIEW | Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie

    A cheeky children’s series of novels has now been turned into a gleeful and silly animated film. It’s Captain Underpants: The First Epic Movie.

    Yes, in case you weren’t aware of this popular children’s book series by Dav Pilkey, it has our superhero fighting crime wearing a cape and his white underpants – Y fronts. But he’s actually the creation (and from the imagination) of George (voiced by Kevin Hart) and Harold (Thomas Middleditch), 4th-grade friends and next door neighbours. They are king of the pranks at their elementary school so it’s no surprise that when principal Benjamin Krupp (Ed Helms) threatens to separate them, they, through their self-created comic book, and after one unfortunate prank that goes wrong, turns Mr Krupp into Captain Underpants! But the boys want to keep Mr Krupp in his superhero kit so he doesn’t turn back into the mean principal who is going to separate them. But they can’t keep him wandering around town in his underpants all the time. They also have to deal with the nerd inventor prodigy Melvin (Jordan Peele) as well as the new mad science teacher Professor Poopypants (Nick Kroll), who is up to his own evil plans.

    For the little boy in you (and that would be boys who will surely find this animated film funny, as it’s pretty much that kind of humour), but the rest of us will shake our heads at the silliness of it all.

    If this is the first (as per the name of the movie) in a series of more Captain Underpants movies, I’m not too sure it’s going to be a good thing.

  • FILM REVIEW | Four Days in France

    ★★ | Four Days in France (Jour de France) is basically one very long advert for Grindr.

    One man uses the app to find his missing partner – in the middle of France! I can’t even find a shag in my own neighbourhood much less find someone in the middle of nowhere. But that’s the premise of this film, very far fetched and not quite durable.

    Pierre (Pascal Cervo) up and leaves his partner Paul (Arthur Igual) in the middle of the night with no explanation whatsoever – he just gets in his car and heads out of town. Pierre drives and drives and drives and uses Grindr to hook up with various men along the way – to nowhere.

    He also encounters all sorts of people, including taking a man’s photograph on the very snowy border between France and Italy, is then yelled at by a woman who is tired of gay men using her neighborhood as a cruising area, and a much older man who refuses sex because Pierre smells (he’s been sleeping in his car). What is Pierre’s motivation for doing this?

    This very long 127-minute film doesn’t give us a clue. Paul, meanwhile, is hot on the trail looking for him and narrows his search by using Grindr. It’s only a matter of time (a very long time) until the predictable happens, but before we are expected to believe that they both picked up the same woman on the side of the same road and had the same conversation with her (she tells both of them that they look depressed), and that Pierre goes out of his way to deliver a package to a woman who lives high up on a mountain because one of his shags asked him to do so. Really?

    Writer and director Jérôme Reybaud really tests the viewers’ endurance as some of the driving scenes are way too long and this film could’ve been cut by at least 45 minutes. It’s a bit of an indulgence that Reybaud puts us through this journey, it’s a journey that’s very unbelievable and the payoff it not even worth it. And while there is only one hot hookup in the film, it may be better that you spend your time looking for sex in the middle of France, because according to this film there are lots of lonely and sexually frustrated men there, and all are on Grindr.

     

  • FILM REVIEW | Gold

    FILM REVIEW | Gold

    ★★ | Gold

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    Matthew McConaughey deservedly won an Oscar a couple years back for his portrayal of an AIDS victim in the film Dallas Buyers Club. He definitely won’t win one for his new film Gold.

    Gold is the true story of American Kenny Wells – a man so intent on following in his father’s footsteps that he’ll do anything to succeed. His father, played by Craig T. Nelson, founded a mining company, and Kenny wants to keep the company going strong. So he goes in search of gold, a commodity that he hopes is easy to find and which he hopes will make him extremely rich. He teams up with geologist Mike Acosta (Edgar Ramirez), and with Mike’s expertise in knowing where exactly to mine for gold (it is in the unchartered jungles of Indonesia), they easily, perhaps too easily, find gold and become very very rich. Their company goes public and the stock goes up and up and up. Other larger companies start circling around them like vultures trying to buy them out, with investments bankers ready to seal the deal to become rich themselves. It’s all about money and who can trump who, but it comes at a cost. Wells gets malaria in the Indonesian jungle and almost doesn’t survive, his long-term girlfriend Kay (Bryce Dallas Howard) doesn’t like the man he’s become, and to top it off, is Acosta the man he appears to be? It’s basically The Wolf of Wall Street all over again. And if you remember McConnaughey’s excellent cameo in that movie (as a rich and successful banker mentor), well in Gold he is playing a similar character. It’s fine for a few minutes of showmanship but for more than two hours it gets to be a bit too much.

    McConaughey, who put on the pounds for this role (he lost the pounds for Dallas Buyers Club), overacts and overacts. Gold, which is set in the eighties, shows Wells as a man who gets everything he wants, and method actor McConaughey plays it over the top. Howard is much much better as his girlfriend – all she wants is a simple life and does not care for nights at the Waldorf Hotel or expensive meals. The standout in this film is Ramirez. He’s charismatic and extremely believable as Well’s business partner, a man who knows his business and can charm both the men and the women. Ramirez was also the lone standout in the awful The Girl on a Train as Doctor Kamal Abdic. Make him a leading man already! Directed by Stephen Gaghan (Traffic and Syriana), in Gold, there’s no excitement, no feeling of happiness or sadness when the characters go through their ups and downs. And the soundtrack is just god awful – the music just doesn’t go with the scenes in the film – it’s tepid at best but belongs in an old cowboy western movie.

    Originally scheduled to open wide on December 25, 2016, it was pushed back to open on January 27, with the December 25 release staying a limited release in order to qualify for awards. The film’s limited release was then pushed back to December 30, 2016, four days after its presumed date. Gold has not been nominated for any awards, it doesn’t deserve any.

  • FILM REVIEW | Chi-Raq

    FILM REVIEW | Chi-Raq

    ★★ | Chi-Raq

    Chi-Raq review

    Chicago has such a high murder rate that from 2003 to 2011 there were more murders there than in the same years in the Iraq war. On one Independence Day, 55 people were murdered. And in one year alone, 400 school kids were shot. With stats like this, a film with a message about violence and murder in the Windy City is seriously needed. But don’t expect it from Spike Lee’s new film called Chi-raq (Chicago and Iraq).

    What we do get instead is a musical drama where woman ‘take away the pussy’ from the men in order to stop them from using their guns. This is triggered by the death of a local girl who is the daughter of a church going religious mum (Jennifer Hudson). This in turns leads Lysistrata (yes, that’s her character’s name – and she’s played brilliantly by Teyonah Parris), to withhold sex from her boyfriend Demetrius, whose nickname is Chi-raq (a surprisingly good turn by an unrecognisable and very buffed up Nick Cannon a/k/a the former Mr Mariah Carey). Lysistrata rallies her girlfriends to do the same, and they all band together to declare ‘no peace, no pussy’ while holed up in an armoury in downtown Chicago (the scene where Lysistrata seduces the general in charge of the armoury has got to be the most ridiculous scene this year). This sex strike makes the men crazy, they’re missing their women, and even the mayor’s wife joins the strike, causing him (played by D.B. Sweeney) to intervene in this major crisis that’s taking place in his city, and, of course, right before a re-election.

    Lysistrata rallies her girlfriends to do the same, and they all band together to declare ‘no peace, no pussy’ while holed up in an armoury in downtown Chicago (the scene where Lysistrata seduces the general in charge of the armoury has got to be the most ridiculous scene this year). This sex strike makes the men crazy, they’re missing their women, and even the mayor’s wife joins the strike, causing him (played by D.B. Sweeney) to intervene in this major crisis that’s taking place in his city, and, of course, right before a re-election.

    It’s the women who take centre stage in this movie; they’re sexy and hot and all of them seem to be wearing very little clothing, and what they do wear is extremely provocative – tight fitting tops and shorts – with padlocks over their crotches (yes, for real). It’s quite misogynistic. It all comes to a head when Lysistrata and Demetrius have a sort of sex-off to resolve the crises that are televised live for everyone to see. Really stupid stuff there.

    It’s quite misogynistic. It all comes to a head when Lysistrata and Demetrius have a sort of sex-off to resolve the crises that are televised live for everyone to see. Really stupid stuff there.

    It all comes to a head when Lysistrata and Demetrius have a sort of sex-off to resolve the crisis that is televised live for everyone to see. Really stupid stuff there.

    Spike Lee has a voice and the talent to make a film that could’ve highlighted the problems and issues dealing with Chicago’s murder rate, but instead he’s written, produced and co-wrote a satire/comedic farce that can’t decide whether it’s a musical, a tragi-comedy, or something so surreal and stupid that you can’t believe that it’s is unfolding right before your very eyes. The cast is first rate, including Angela Bassett as a woman who had a daughter that was killed by a stray bullet, and John Cusack as the local priest who has to preside over the many funerals that take place in the black neighbourhood.

    The music is excellent and the locations and cinematography are all first rate. Samuel Jackson is ridiculous as a narrator who pops up every now and then wearing very bright coloured suits – his role is a distraction that doesn’t really help the film’s narrative. Chi-raq was released in US cinemas in 2015 and was a commercial bomb, making only $2.7 million from a budget of $15 million. It’s a film that’s likely to recoup its cost back – deservedly so.

     

    Available on iTunes | Amazon

  • FILM REVIEW | Freeheld

    FILM REVIEW | Freeheld

    ★★ Freeheld | A dying female police officer struggles to get her benefits passed on to her female domestic partner in the new film ‘Freeheld.’

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  • FILM REVIEW | How To Be Single

    FILM REVIEW | How To Be Single

    ★★ How to be Single | Not a film for you if you’re ready to mingle.

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  • FILM REVIEW | LIFE: There Is No Life in Life

    There’s a famous photograph of James Dean in Times Square taken by Dennis Stock. It is now a movie called ‘Life.’ ★★

    The photo, taken in 1955, shows James Dean, cigarette in his mouth, head tilted towards the ground, the billboards of Times Square in the background, dark clouds overhead, made the cover of Life Magazine. It also made Stock’s career.
    So ‘Life’ the movie is all about that photograph, and the events leading up to, and after, that photograph was taken. It’s also a buddy movie: one man on the cusp of celebrity, another man trying to capture him while struggling to make it as a photographer and to also spend time with his young son, with an un-cooperative ex-wife. Stock (Robert Pattison) is tasked with an assignment: to do a photo essay on an unknown actor. So he’s introduced to James Dean (Dane DeHaan) at a party, where he’s also introduced to a young Natalie Wood (Lauren Gallagher). Dean in on the cusp of fame – his first film – East of Eden – was yet to be released. So Dean agrees to have Stock follow him around to get some shots. The first are rejected by his editor – who wants to see hazy shots of an unknown actor boozing it up in a club with Eartha Kitt (Kelly McCreary)? Stock thinks about taking another job, this one in Japan, but he decides to stay in New York and gets back together again with Dean, and on the spur of the moment that famous Times Square photograph is taken. Not to end there, ‘Life’ takes us with Dean and Stock to Dean’s hometown in Indiana.
    There is where Dean feels most at home, and comfortable; with family, aunt and uncle and Grandma and nephew (his mother died when he was nine and his father sent him to Indiana to live with them). More famous photographs are taken there; Dean with his nephew, Dean on the farm, Dean in the kitchen; these photos would become part of the Life Magazine photo essay. And that’s the movie.
    As you can second guess, there’s not much of a story to build on. ‘Life’ is not only about the photographs, it’s also about the relationship between these two men and especially the trust Stock builds with Dean. But ‘Life’ is boring, with stale dialogue, and with acting that is quite lifeless. Pattison is fine as Stock, but DeHaan, even though he has hair that looks identical to Dean’s, just doesn’t bring the right energy and sparkle that we can presume Dean had. Ben Kingsley, however, is excellent as Jack Warner – the man who guided Dean’s career. And while the period details (clothes, cars, hairstyles) are fine, it’s the story that is not a very exciting one and is not enough to warrant a 110-minute film.
    Director Anton Corbijn just doesn’t bring any ‘Life’ to this movie.

  • FILM REVIEW | Triple Crossed

    ★★ | Triple Crossed

    After he had finished his posting serving in the military in war-torn Afghanistan during which time he witnessed his best friend being killed, Chris Jensen is struggling to adapt back into civilian life. Unable to find a job, as no one seems prepared to want the services of a somewhat damaged ex-serviceman, he has resorted to living in his car.

    Out of the blue, he gets a call from Jackie who wants to offer a job that he would like to turn down. Her recently deceased half-brother has left his controlling share of the family’s multi-million business to his boyfriend Andrew, and she is having none of it. She wants to get his share but doesn’t want to pay a cent for it, but she is however prepared to pay Chris a handsome sum to kill Andrew so she can get her own way.

    He is desperate enough to take on the assignment but first he goes to check out his ‘target’ who naturally turns out to be as hot as hell. The two men are soon grappling with each but not quite in the way Jackie had wanted as they are naked and in bed. The question then is to kill or not? Not an easy one to answer as the title of this drama implies everyone has their own agenda, and so we are never sure how this will play out.

    What makes this small-budget indie stand out from others of this genre is that it marks the debut of Sean Paul Lockhart; aka ex-porn star Brent Corrigan behind the camera as well as in front for a change. Although it is full of the good intentions the movie does sadly fail to be a thriller in or out of the bedroom even though it does have a gun-toting finale.

    Sean doesn’t ever quite manage to convince us that he really did go to war, although he does put in a pretty good performance as a potential new boyfriend for Andrew who seems to have soon forgotten his ex dead one. If you are a fan of Sean aka Brent then you’ll want to see this,but if you are not, then you may just want to wait for a rainy afternoon when you have nothing better to do.