The Martian

I've been a bit disappointed with blockbusters this summer, in fact with films in general. Avengers 2 came out aaaages ago. Mad Max: Fury Road was epic and Jurassic World was really fun and, well, was another Jurassic Park movie, but since then what has there been...? Ant-Man was this summer's  superhero movie (if we ignore Avengers: Age of Ultron which was, as I said, aaaages ago) and it was a bit meh TBH. Yes, everything Paul Rudd does is wonderful, but when there are so many brilliant superhero films coming out these days, Ant-Man didn't do anything particularly special or different. Definitely a stupid move letting Edgar Wright go. Anyway, the point is,  for the first time in months there is a better than average blockbuster in the cinemas and it's The Martian. Thank you, Matt Damon, Ridley Scott.

The Martian starts with astronaut Mark Watney (Damon) being left behind on Mars when his crew (who are doing some sort of science-y stuff on Mars) have to abandon the planet due to a dangerous storm. Watney is knocked out by some equipment and appears to have been killed and only revives once his crew mates are already long gone. Watney has no way to contact earth and it is 4 years until the next mission is due to arrive on Mars. The Ares III mission (Watney's mission) was only supposed to remain on Mars for a few months and so he has limited rations. If he wants any chance of surviving, he has to figure out how to make what he has last for several years at least. As he says, he is "going to have to science the shit out of it". NASA soon discover Watney is still alive and the film flips between earth's greatest scientists trying to figure out how to keep him alive/get him home and Watney doing impressive science stuff on Mars, like devising a way to grow crops on a planet where nothing grows and how to create water. To keep himself sane in the solitude, Watney relies heavily on dark humour.

This film is a lot of Matt Damon talking to himself and making corny jokes (mostly shown through a video diary he is making). Luckily, Matt Damon is super likable and has a subtle charisma which means that he can carry a film like this mostly on his own and pull off potentially lame lines like "Fuck you, Mars!" You get really sucked into the world Watney is building, feeling really great when something goes right and really frustrated when things go wrong. I felt very distressed as the film went on, food started to run out and Matt Damon got more and more emaciated. I may have shed a few tears...

The supporting cast on earth and in the spaceship that has left Mars is also very impressive: Jessica Chastain, Jeff Daniels, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Kristen Wiig and Sean Bean, to name but a few of the familiar faces. Arguably however their collective talent is slightly wasted as most of the screen time is taken up by Damon and the rest is divided between a large supporting cast. But they all play their roles well and make what is quite a long film where not much happens a very entertaining watch.

In this kind of film, it's obviously the ending that's most important: does he get rescued? Will he see earth again? The ending reminded me very much of how I felt watching films like Gravity (inevitable comparison) and 127 Hours: hands clutched to my face in tense anticipation!  I don't want to give away too much so I'll just say the ending delivers.

So yeah, all in all, a good blockbuster, one of the better ones I've seen this year. But now I'm going to have to wait until the final Hunger Games film and the new Star Wars for anything else exciting.

TERMINATOR GENISYS

It's very difficult to explain Terminator Genisys. This is partly because it is the fifth Terminator film (following on from Terminator Salvation back in 2009) and really only makes sense if you have seen the previous installments and also because, although it does initially follow on from the fourth film (with the odd inconsistency), it then completely re-writes the entire history of the Terminator universe.

The basic premise of the Terminator films (to the few who are unfamiliar) - which span back to The Terminator in 1984 - is that, in 1997 a computer program known as "Skynet" becomes sentient and, deciding that humanity is a threat, deploys a large amount of bombs which kill a significant proportion of the world's population. The date when Skynet becomes self-aware is known as "Judgment Day" (as is the second film). Skynet then creates humanoid robots known as terminators (some of which look human) whose purpose is to kill all remaining humans. Salvation was the first film set post-Judgment Day.

In Genisys, the human resistance is near victory and John Connor (Jason Clarke), the protagonist in many of the films and the leader of the resistance, sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to 1984 to protect John's mother, Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke), from a terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) who has been sent back by Skynet to kill Sarah and prevent John from ever being born. Complicated right? When Reese arrives in 1984 with instructions to protect Sarah, he finds she is waiting for him, aware of his task and with Schwarezenegger's terminator as her ally. This is where the plotline deviates from the original films. 

The first three Terminator films had very similar stories, in that each saw either John or Sarah Connor on the run from a single terminator who had been sent back by Skynet before Judgment Day to kill them. The war is yet to happen in these films and they are best described as thrillers. The fourth film was more of an action film and was set mid-war and in my personal opinion, is nowhere near as good as the first and second film. The third film was a bit of a dud but the first and second are great films (and Judgment Day has aged incredibly well), full of suspense and, at times, quite frightening. The best thing about these films was the characters: they both had great villains (Arnie in The Terminator and the amazing Robert Patrick in Judgment Day) and the heroes, Kyle Reese, John and Sarah Connor, were strong-willed and likeable.

Genisys is also set mostly pre-Judgment Day and sees its heroes, Sarah Connor, Kyle Reese and "Pops" (Sarah's name for her terminator protector), face for the most part one main villain, a new and improved terminator (try to avoid the trailers which give ridiculous spoilers on this). Because it goes back to the old formula, I much preferred Genisys to Salvation. It felt much more like a Terminator film for me and I do love Arnie in that role (he barely makes an appearance in Salvation).  The new villain is quite cool and, although it's another terminator, it’s unlike the terminators we've seen before. That said, Genisys is not as scary or as suspenseful as the first or second films.  

I really enjoyed Genisys and thought it was a good action film, but I do think it has its faults, in particular that its characters generally aren't as well-developed or as cool as in the earlier installments. Arnie fits into his old role like a glove and Emilia Clarke is likeable as Sarah Connor. However, Clarke is nowhere near as bad ass as Linda Hamilton's Sarah Connor from Judgment Day who, let's be honest, is one of the coolest female leads in any film. Those are pretty tough shoes to fill to be fair! Courtney is quite generic as Kyle Reese and, I feel, could have been replaced by a number of other handsome, buff men without any detriment to the film (not so much his fault perhaps as the writing). The emotional scenes in the film, particularly between Sarah and Kyle, seem quite forced, although I did like the relationship between Sarah and Pops.

The ending is fine and I would not say disappointing, but it is nowhere near as epic as the finale of The Terminator or Terminator Judgment Day. The latter has one of the most memorable movie endings ever!

Overall I did enjoy Genisys. I love the Terminator franchise and would be very happy to keep watching more films. That said, the first two films are so good, especially Judgment Day, and I don't think any new film will ever meet that high standard.

MAD MAX: FURY ROAD

The original Mad Max movies are classics. They made Mel Gibson  famous (though I try not to hold that against them). But what they're probably most famous for is the rather long chase scene at the end of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior. In this scene Max drives a truck hauling a giant tanker full of fuel through the Australian desert, attempting to escape a maniacal gang clad in hard-core bondage. It is one of the (if not the) most famous chase scenes in the history of film and George Miller clearly knows when he is on to something good. Mad Max: Fury Road is essentially a two hour chase scene with the occasional break so that the protagonists can have a quick drink and recuperate.

The story is set in a post-apocalyptic Australia where water and fuel are scarce. A crazy cult has arisen led by the incredibly gross Immortan Joe (played by Hugh Keays-Byrne, who was also the lead villain in Mad Max 1), who has built a fortress in a mountain in which he hordes the local water supply and keeps his army of War Boys and his 5 young wives (including Zoë Kravitz and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley). Imperator Furiosa (played by the awesome Charlize Theron) tries to free his young wives by sneaking them away in a fuel truck. Meanwhile, Max (now played by Tom Hardy) has been captured by the War Boys and is being used as a blood bag for War Boy Nux (Nicholas Hoult). When Nux tries to help re-capture Furiosa, Max manages to escape and ends up helping Furiosa and the wives in their bid for freedom. And so begins one of the longest and most awesome chase scenes in film history.

Fury Road is visually stunning. It is a film which focuses entirely on the visuals and gives little importance to the script.  I watched an interview with George Miller in which he said he didn't write a script for Fury Road, but rather created a graphic-novel -style storyboard and left a lot of the dialogue up to the actors. Hardy himself has very few lines in the film. But that doesn’t matter because there's so much to see! 

As Furiosa drives her giant armoured truck through the desert, she is chased by dozens of dune buggies, covered in spikes and skulls. In order to try to re-capture the wives, the War Boys thrust giant sticks out of their vehicles into the air with men clasped to the top who are thrown towards the truck. There is literally a giant vehicle whose only purpose is to convey a man perpetually playing electric guitar and his giant amps alongside the chase.   

There is a breath-taking scene in which Furiosa enters a sandstorm in order to evade her pursuers. Lighting flashes through the storm and changes the colours from sand-red to electric blue. Vehicles are thrown into the air and torn apart by hurricanes. It's one of the coolest things I have seen in a film for a long time and I must admit, I found myself wishing I was watching the movie in 3D (even with the extortionate prices).

Turning to the characters, Hardy and Theron are both incredibly cool leads. Both actors have a great amount of presence in whatever role they take on and they make a good team here. You could say that, even though this is a Mad Max film, Furiosa gets more attention and certainly, with her robot arm, she was the more interesting character. Immortan Joe is ridiculously repulsive  and makes for quite a scary bad-guy. Hoult is very likeable and entertaining as redeemed War Boy, Nux.

There has been some criticism however of the portrayal of Joe's young wives and I can't say they're given very empowering roles. We first see them hosing each other down in the desert wearing nothing but thin strips of white fabric. They aren't exactly stereotypical damsels in distress but nor do they really add much to the film or provide much assistance to Max and Furiosa.

All in all, I'd say this is my favourite Mad Max film. Admittedly I have not seen Beyond Thunderdome yet but I highly doubt it beats The Road Warrior or Fury Road.

This summer looks like it's going to be a good one for epic blockbusters. Jurassic World isn't far away, there's another Terminator movie on the horizon (although I have some doubts about that one) and the next Marvel Universe movie, Ant-Man is due out on 17 July.

PITCH PERFECT 2

Three years on from Pitch Perfect, Beca (Anne Kendrick) is now in her final year of college and is the leader of the Barden Bellas, who are 3-time national a cappella champions. Pitch Perfect 2 follows the Bellas after they are disgraced at celebrations for the President's birthday (easily one of the funniest scenes in the film) and as they try to win back their reputation and their right to compete nationally by competing in the World Championship. 

Pitch Perfect (1) is incredibly popular, probably more so than anyone expected when it first came out. I believe this popularity stems from its quirky, off-the-wall character.  It is funny and sweet and something a bit different. Although Pitch Perfect 2 is also funny and sweet, it seems to me more mainstream and less original than its predecessor. For that reason, for me at least, it isn't as good or as memorable as Pitch Perfect.  The romance between newcomer, Emily (Hailee Steinfeld), and Benji (Ben Platt) seems unnecessary and clichéd and, to be honest, I don’t think Steinfeld really adds anything to this film. 

On top of this, there are a number of moments in the new film where the writer is clearly trying to replicate some of the better scenes in the first. At times I felt like the film was relying too much on the popularity of its predecessor. The basement a capella-off is clearly a throwback to the swimming pool scene in Pitch Perfect. I'm not saying I didn't enjoy David Cross's appearance and the Bellas' spar off against Das Sound Machine and the Green Bay Packers! I just feel like this film wasn't giving us much new. 

That said, Pitch Perfect 2 does bring back all of the brilliant characters who made Pitch Perfect so great and it has maintained much of the charm of the first film. Anna Kendrick is one of my favourite people ever and is undeniably wonderful in both films. However, it's really Rebel Wilson who steals the show in these films, brining comedic-brilliance to every scene she is in. I will never get sick of Bumper and Fat Amy's sort-of romance. One piece of constructive criticism on the cast: I do wish they'd made more use of the Treblemakers!

Pitch Perfect 2 also has some great tunes and theatrics. Beca produces some more of her awesome mash ups for the Bellas to perform and the Bellas' new a capella-nemeses, Das Sound Machine, are a great addition to the cast and incredibly entertaining to watch. Who knew you could do an a capella rendition of a Muse song?!  

Pitch Perfect 2, when considered on its own, is a fun film which I really enjoyed. It's just a shame I don't feel a great need to watch it again, as I did with the first one.

Avengers: Age of Ultron

 

Avengers: Age of Ultron finds us approximately 3 years after the events of Avengers Assemble. Whilst the first film brought our heroes together for the first time, in Age of Ultron the Avengers are now a close-nit unit, led by (the wonderful) Captain America. The film follows the fall of SHIELD and the Avengers are trying to mop up what is left of Hydra and recover Loki's sceptre which is in the hands of Hydra thug, Baron Strucker. Meanwhile, after the near-demise of New York (and the planet) in Avengers Assemble, Tony Stark is trying to design a robot army who can defend the planet so that the Avengers no longer have to. When Stark messes with artificial intelligence, Ultron is born, a psychopathic robot with a hatred of mankind and, in particular, the Avengers.

As with Avengers Assemble, the thing that makes Age of Ultron a great superhero film is the fantastic ensemble cast (matched by few). Joss Whedon has once again done what most directors could not and managed to fit 6 big personalities into one film without overloading it and falling into the trap that Spider-Man 3 (oh dear, oh dear) fell into. The 6 characters are each so different and complement each other so well. I particularly enjoyed the Stark/Rogers/Thor banter in this new instalment. As Agent Hill says, "testosterone".

The new members of the cast can also hold their weight amongst these big personalities. We are introduced to "the twins", Pietro and Wanda Maximoff (Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver who, in the comic universe, are the children of X-Men's Magneto) played by to Elizabeth Olsen and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Olsen and Johnson deliver strong performances (in particular Olsen) and interesting new characters. And in terms of our new bad guy, I believe Joss Whedon wanted James Spader for Ultron from the beginning, and you can certainly see why. Although of course Ultron's body is CGI, Spader has amazing presence in this film; his voice oozes menace.

The other element of this film which is particularly notable is the script. You know a Whedon script when you hear one. As with Assemble, Age of Ultron is quick and funny and also at times intelligent and moving.   

Of course, what we all really go to see any superhero film for, Avengers included (other than, of course, Chris Hemsworth's face), is the action scenes. Age of Ultron is possibly even more action-packed than assemble. It offers many and varied battle scenes and amazing special effects. I think we were all eagerly anticipating the battle between the Hulk and Iron Man in his "Hulkbuster" suit and it did not disappoint! But for me the best action sequence is a scene at the very beginning of the film when the heroes are battling in Russian forests as they seek out Strucker and Loki's sceptre.  There is a brilliant continuous sequence which moves between each of the Avengers and which harks back to one of the best scenes in Avengers Assemble, a long continous scene in the battle of New York.

Having praised the film so highly, I must admit that for me it did not quite reach the standard set by Avengers Assemble. The best and funniest moments in the script could not match such wonderful moments in Assemble as "puny God". I'm not sure either that Ultron can really match the genius that is Tom Hiddleston's Loki, but to be fair, that bar is set very high! Avengers Assemble is one of, if not the, best superhero films ever made (as far as I'm concerned) and I find it hard to believe that it could ever be matched. Age of Ultron and Captain America: Winter Soldier came close. Perhaps Civil War is up to the challenge…