Film Review Catch Up 2
Still behind on the film reviews, here's five from earlier in the year.
1. Ad Astra
Cosmic wave radiation comes in from the outer solar system, disrupting communication on Earth. It might be the fault of H Clifford McBride who was in charge of a mission to Neptune. So the space force sends his son Roy McBride to talk to him, but thanks to the surges of radiation he has to do so from Mars. We then get a brief trip through the solar system, with somewhat dubious orbital mechanics and even more dubious adventures (moon buggy pirates, a research vessel overrun by escaped baboons). He makes the approved call, then makes a personal appeal, following which he fails a psychological evaluation and decides to stow away on the long range craft heading out to Neptune.
It’s a very serious film, with Roy McBride not showing very much emotion, reacting calmly to all the outrageous science fiction nonsense thrown at him. The wacky, pulp adventures clash with the serious, almost mechanical tone.
Watch This: For a space adventure with some thrills and spills and just a tiny something to say
Don’t Watch This: If you want more than an uneasy marriage of bad science, weird threats and poor celestial mechanics, with a very serious character plot and/or reason for being in space
2. You Only Live Twice
It’s certainly strange to discover that this James Bond film that I am very familiar with from my childhood, makes almost no sense from top to bottom at every scale.
(The Western gaze on Japan as a whole and Asian women in particular I was expecting and let’s just say that Japan was unbearably exotic for Western audiences in those days and the film does nothing to dispel any preconceptions).
An American spacecraft is captured by another spacecraft and the Americans blame the Soviets, threatening war. If SPECTRE and Blofeld can launch larger rockets than the US or USSR and intercept other objects in orbit in 1967 (also then land the rocket back on it’s pad) then 1. I can think of some better things they could be doing than charging $100 000 000 in gold to start a war; and 2. They could much more economically shoot down spacecraft.
Bond fakes his death and goes to Japan where the SPECTRE rocket came down. His contact, Captain Henderson, thinks it’s a good lead, has no reasons for it, builds up the head of the Japanese secret service Tiger Tanaka, who no one ever meets, then says Bond will meet him tonight, following which he is promptly killed. None of this makes any sense.
Later Bond poses as Fisher, the CEO of Empire Chemicals, and has an interview with Osata the head of Osata Chemicals, the SPECTRE cover corporation. Realising he’s not who he says he is, Osata orders him killed. Rather than either disappearing him inside the office, or letting him get far enough away to hide any link with the company, they decide to gun him down in the car park outside.
There follows an exciting car chase that ends when Tiger’s helicopter picks up the chasing car with a magnet. Rather than capture the agents inside and question them, perhaps using them to provide evidence to investigate the chemical company and their activities, they’re dropped in Tokyo Bay. This makes no sense at all.
The film continues in this vein for a while. Anyway, I enjoyed it immensely.
Watch This: For a simple, nonsensical, orientalist 1960s adventure film
Don’t Watch This: If you want the plot to hang together even by the low standards of a Bond film
3. Charlie’s Angels (2019)
An action film based on the TV series and the pair of films from the turn of the millennium, possibly slightly updated. A mis-matched pair of “Angels” (operatives) from the Townsend Agency are trying to help a whistleblower whose clean energy product can be weaponised, and management is rushing it to market. Then their handler “Bosley” is killed and replaced by another “Bosley”, they think that someone has been tracking them so they go a bit rogue. There’s exotic locations, a clever Thomas Crowne Affair style identical outfit heist scam, and a whole bunch of fights.
It’s a little incoherent; one moment they’re trying very hard to use their non-lethal weapons and techniques, the next they’re thirsting for blood, then they’re a bit disgusted that a bad guy got caught in a rock crushing machine and (presumably) was smashed to bits legs first while alive. There’s a gratuitous dance sequence, a smooth clothes-closet into weapons-and-gadget-closet scene, a handful of good banter lines (including revolving around one character’s age; the actor is also the director and writer of the film so this was meta-entertaining*) and one and a half scenes where they manage to subvert an expectation or two.
Watch This: For a fun film of some good-looking women doing action stunts, maybe making friends
Don’t Watch This: If you want some thought and themes followed through on in your comedy action film
* This draws attention to the timeline in which said character claims to be 40 (the actor/director was 45), and was also the first Angel to be promoted to Bosley. Meanwhile another Bosley who retires at the start took the agency international forty years ago. And if we believe that this is in continuity with the show, the Agency has been around for fifty years. Did no Angel until 2010 have both the ability and desire to be promoted? Of course this could be a clue as to what’s up at the Agency but if so it was a bit subtle. ENOUGH NITPICKING the film is not designed to stand up to it.
4. The Friends Of Eddie Coyle
Eddie Coyle is an aging criminal who works for the Irish Mob in Boston. He’s supplying guns to a group of bank robbers when he hears from his supplier that someone is looking for machine guns (M16s).He’s facing prison for another crime so sells them out to a federal agent to get his sentence reduced.
This of course gets out of hand.
It’s a 70s Boston noir film, dark and complex and a bit grim, lifted by the central performance of Robert Mitchum as Eddie Coyle.
Watch This: For some classic 70s neo-noir
Don’t Watch This: If the noir tropes of everyone playing everyone else and some people never learning or paying for their crimes puts you off. Also the bank robbers hold a lot of people including children hostage so bear that in mind.
5. The Angry Birds Movie 2
I had been due to watch “Star Wars” with my 7 year-old co-reviewer but he decided that morning it was too scary for him, sight unseen. Well, fair enough. Instead we watched this. I had heard literally nothing of this film and my ignorance of the first – a tie-in of the video game – was only exceeded by my Mum (who has played Angry Birds Guess Who and confusingly refers to that as the Angry Birds Game).
Anyway the birds of Bird Island are locked in a prank war with the pigs of Pig Island in which they launch things (crabs etc) at each other. Bird Island is defended by Red and his mates, which is basically everything Red has to do, though his mates do take him speed dating. Then the mysterious Eagle Island starts launching ice balls at both islands and they have to team up to stop it.
There’s some slapstick, a bit of on the nose music and quite a few shots of pig’s bums which my co-reviewer never failed to laugh at. It was not as crassly exploitative and derivative as I feared.
Watch This: For some ridiculous cartoon action, less scary than "Star Wars"
Don’t Watch This: If you want actual characters, motivation or plot that makes any damn sense I guess