OJ's Movie Review - Dunkirk

In Nolan we trust?

So Dunkirk is the great Christopher Nolan's first film based on a true story, the evacuation of Dunkirk in World War II. No dreams, no memories, no sci-fi; and yet completely Nolan. 

 
   The first thing I have to mention is, of course, the directing. If you've seen Nolan's films and enjoy his aesthetic, his style and direction then Dunkirk hits all the right beats in that regard and more. I really felt like I was in this film. I felt like I was on the windy overcast beach, I felt like I was aboard the little English boat, I felt like I was clinging to the wing of a Spitfire. There was no Hollywood fluff, research had been done; things looked and sounded like it is. So like what I said about Interstellar, this film was more like an experience than a movie. Helping this, of course, is yet another amazing score by Hans Zimmer, using a constant ticking throughout and tense musical tones build up a perfect atmosphere.

   Acting wise, Dunkirk has a stellar cast with Mark Rylance, Kenneth Branagh and Tom Hardy, alongside newcomers like Barry Keoghan,  Fionn Whitehead and Harry Styles of all people. But one of the interesting choices Christopher Nolan has made with Dunkirk is that there isn't a great deal of dialogue; there are conversations and lines obviously but mostly you have to engage with the film through visuals alone and that's where the actors do really well with their literal acting in expressions, how they carry themselves and reactions to things; all hard to do but I felt they all did a really great job.

  Now, something I have to say about Dunkirk is that it has a very unorthodox narrative. There isn't really a beginning, middle, and end; neither is there really a main character. I felt that this sometimes worked but other times I felt a little lost into where and when we were in the film. So although the film looked and sounded great, the experimental style choices Nolan makes with the story didn't always work for me. I admit I wasn't particularly riveted during a lot of what is a true-story WWII battle. The two best parts for me was the opening, which I really loved; you're straight into the situation and I just really liked first act in general. Then my attention was refocused during the last act which I enjoyed and the very last few scenes were really well done. Don't get me wrong, there were moments and scenes during the main bulk which I enjoyed a lot but as a whole, the unusual nature of the plot and restrained dialogue didn't grab me.

  In the end, I'm very glad I've seen Dunkirk because it is a very unique film. It doesn't feel like a move, it feels like an experience, like a segment of life, literally an event, which this was. I've thought a lot about a rating and to be honest I feel like you can't fit this sort of film into any sort of rating system really but for the sake of habit, I will give it one. Anway, if you're a fan of Christopher Nolan or World War II, or cinema then you'll get a lot out of Dunkirk; if not, then I'd be really interested in what you think of the film as it proves to be quite controversial.

7.5/10

OJ's Movie Review - War For the Planet of the Apes

Apes together, strong.

Well, here we are, a conclusion of sorts. I absolutely loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes; it's a film unlike anything I had seen before.  Dawn was one of the most intense, edge-of-your-seat experiences I'd ever had in a cinema, and now is the third part of Ceaser's personal trilogy. How did it go?

  I'll start off by just saying how much the apes look like actual real animals. Seriously, the CGI improves with every film. There are moments where if you told me that was an advanced animatronic head on screen, I would believe you. There's one particular shot of Maurice the orangutan where I swear it was like watching a close-up in an Attenborough documentary, they are that real. So that in itself blows me away. Of course, along with the expert VFX team, you have Andy Serkis and others doing their performance-capture work as the apes; the emotion and acting they manage to portray is incredible and a thrill to watch.

   Moving onto the story now, I have to say, the plot is what lets it down for me. For a film that contains the phrase "War for the Planet", the story is a very contained and inconsequential narrative that has no real bearing on the world as a whole. Sure, it has major points in Ceaser's life and the life of his tribe and what they have to face, and as a story there, it was a suspenseful, brutal, incredibly well-scored and acted film. But in terms of what I feel I had been led to expect, it dropped the ball for me. If I accept what the film is about though, and look directly at the what the plot was, even then, although it's not a bad film, it's completely unoriginal. What transpires from the second act onwards is everything we've seen before in films where a group of characters must escape somewhere; it hits all the beats of that genre and the only change it offers is the fact that it's with apes; which, to be fair, is a fascinating visual and I will never grow tired of seeing how the apes are depicted in this franchise but because Rise and Dawn were so different from anything I'd seen before I was not expecting this film to be so familiar.

  I mean there are more aspects about this film I liked a lot, including Steve Zahn's character, some of the little easter-eggs and callbacks to the 1968 film and Michael Giacchino's score, which were all great, and I'm not saying this is a bad film, it's just very unoriginal and falls into some cliches every now and again.

   In the end, War For the Planet of the Apes is an incredible step-up in film-making itself with the directing, acting and what VFX is capable of but for me personally the story was a let-down and I very much hope there is a next entry after this as I feel there is more to tell.

7/10

OJ's Movie Review - Spider-Man: Homecoming

A Spider-Man film produced by Marvel Studios; a homecoming of sorts.

So here we are, the third reboot of Spider-Man, the sixth modern Spider-Man film, the sixteenth entry into the Marvel Cinematic Universe. What can I say? It's actually really great! I enjoyed Spider-Man: Homecoming a lot, right from the opening all the way to literally the end of the credits.

   We saw Tom Holland's Peter Parker in Captain America: Civil War and there I wasn't too sure on him, he was very different from the film Spider-Men I was used to in Toby Maguire and Andrew Garfield but here in Homecoming I really enjoyed him. And it's his difference which is what I now enjoy about him, he really felt like a kid in school and even though we don't see his origin, he's still really new to this. Although I like the previous two adaptations, to different levels, it seemed only after a brief montage did Spider-Man suddenly become very skilled and professional, but here in Homecoming, you can see he's an amateur through the whole film, he makes mistakes, he bumbles about and I really enjoyed seeing that; so for me, Tom Holland is great in the role. Another cast member who was absolutely fantastic was Michael Keaton; his portrayal as Adrian Toomes was so intimidating, never mind as the Vulture, that he is up there with the better Marvel villains, which of course is a common criticism of these films. He really had a lot of great scenes and some very suspenseful ones. The supporting cast was entertaining enough, Peters friends at school were some familiar archetypes but enjoyable ones and Zendaya delivered some lines that made me laugh. Robert Downey Jr. didn't appear as much as many feared and his number of appearances felt just right for a film about Spider-Man.

   Story-wise, I enjoyed a lot; the Vulture had really logical reasons for his actions and Peters arc was well-done with some quite dramatic and emotional scenes. The humor wasn't forced and I'd say the majority of the jokes landed for me. There were plenty of easter eggs and references and actually some of the nods to previous events really felt like you were part of large Universe and it was nice to see how the general public, as it were, viewed the Avengers, similar to how Ant-Man was a smaller-scale story and the villain wasn't looking to take over the world, it's the same here, a nice normalised perspective on an enormous Universe.

   If I had to pick faults with the movie, I'd say one or two bits of dialogue were very expositional in the way of not really needing to be said, and also Spider-Mans suit was a bit Iron Man-like which makes sense in the context of the film but I'd be happy if they did away with the JARVIS-type AI and the heads-up display.

  In the end, you probably can tell I really enjoyed Spider-Man: Homecoming and it's up there with the best of the MCU franchise.

8.5/10

OJ's Movie Review - Transformers: The Last Knight

So apparently this is the last Transformers film directed by Michael Bay, but then again the boy did cry wolf.


   So this is the fifth, that's right, fifth, film in the Bayformers franchise; and this is supposed to be the beginning; they got a special writers room with all these screenwriters and story guys to build an enormous cinematic universe with an epic story arc. So let's see what they came up with...

   I'll start with things I like. This film had some interesting visuals for sure. The sight of Transformers in the world of the medieval knights was certainly something I'd never thought I'd see and I enjoyed the aesthetic if nothing else. In fact, the first act of this film I did sort of enjoy; but I'm afraid my enjoyment didn't last.

  This movie is so convoluted, stupid and non-sensical that I cannot believe how far it has come since 2007. Transformers: The Last Knight reaches a new low by having even more pointless characters that don't factor into the plot at all, introductions where the name of the Transformer appears on the screen in a freezeframe, Optimus Prime has at least 20 mins of screentime, and it ignores it's own continuity over and over again, even from things it set up in the previous film! The dialogue was either exposition or unfunny humor, and I use the term "humor" loosely as it seems getting sophisticated British actors Sir Anthony Hopkins and  Jim Carter to say modern slang and profanity counts as funny.

   Even if you enjoy the craziness of what this franchise has become, and you like the humor and aren't bothered with the plot, the actual filmmaking itself is terrible, from the constant change in aspect ratio to the very strange flashing end credits that appear while the film is still going!

   In the end, I did not enjoy Transformers: The Last Knight. It's still cool to see giant alien robots transform into vehicles, and it was cool to see Josh Duhamel return and be a connection to the first three films but there are so many factors that let it down for me that I have to give it...

5.5/10