Big Hero 6

"On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your pain?"

With an advance weekend screening, we just had to check out 'Big Hero 6'. The film was released in the US a couple of months ago and since seeing the trailer we have been itching to see it. Its official UK release isn't until 30th January so I'll try not to ruin it with my advance review below. 

'Big Hero 6' is an American animated movie by none other than Walt Disney Animation Studios. The film follows Hiro Hamada, a young inventor living in the futuristic city of San Fransokyo. Hiro spends his time earning money by participating in back-alley robot wars. His brother Tadashi is worried his little brother is wasting his potential so takes Hiro to his lab at the university to show him what he could do with his talent. At the lab Hiro meets Tadashi's fellow lab buddies and his latest invention Baymax, an inflatable personal healthcare assistant. Amazed at the lab, Hiro decides to apply for a place at the university. In a bid to win a place at the school, Hiro showcases his latest invention; Microbots. These tiny robots can link together using telekinesis with the user to create whatever said user can imagine. Shortly after showcasing his invention, a fire breaks out at the event and tragedy strikes. Hiro's invention is ruined minus the tiny Microbot he still has which leads him to a warehouse. It turns out that someone has stolen Hiro's idea and is using it for the forces of evil. With the help of the other university students and Baymax, the team must solve the mystery and put an end to these evil-doings before it is too late. 

Although entirely predictable, I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The story itself wasn't boring at any point but it's just that it's all been done before. I feel the superhero genre has been overdone lately to the point where they are so predictable. Due to its predictability, the plot for this film didn't quite reach the greatness of the completely original 'The Incredibles'. Having said that, this film is much funnier. Saving the day, and the film, is the cute and entirely lovable Baymax who is undoubtedly the star of the show. With brilliant one liners, and not relying entirely on slapstick, this film receives top marks in the comedy department. I found myself genuinely laughing throughout almost the entire film. It was very enjoyable as an adult and the children in the packed cinema absolutely loved this movie too. It just falls short on the predictable unoriginal plot and, minus Baymax, boring characters!

8/10 for 'Big Hero 6'. Great fun for the entire family and one I'll be watching again someday I'm sure.

The 1st Roscar Awards

So 2014 is over and done with. How about a little award ceremony to acknowledge the greatest triumphs and defeats in film this year? With 70 films viewed, this was not an easy task but here are the categories, the nominees and the winners in bold...

2014 Movie Of The Year

12 Years a Slave

Pride

Lone Survivor

Gone Girl


Best Adaptation

12 Years a Slave
Gone Girl
Edge of Tomorrow
Lone Survivor

Best Male Performance

 

Jack O'Connell - '71 

Benedict Cumberbatch - The Imitation Game

Jake Gyllenhaal - Nightcrawler

Chiwetel Ejiofor - 12 Years a Slave

Ben Schnetzer - Pride

 

Best Female Performance

 

Jennifer Lawrence - The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1

Rosamund Pike - Gone Girl

Rene Russo - Nightcrawler

Keira Knightley - The Imitation Game

Angelina Jolie - Maleficent

 

Young Actor Of The Year

Mackenzie Foy - Interstellar

Quvenzhané Wallis - Annie

Sophie Nelisse - The Book Thief
Emma Tremblay - The Judge

Comedy Of The Year

The Lego Movie
22 Jump Street
The Other Woman
A Million Ways To Die In The West


Best Comedy Performance

Imelda Staunton - Pride
Jim Carrey - Dumb and Dumber To
Charlize Theron - A Million Ways To Die In The West
Leslie Mann - The Other Woman


Best Animated Movie

The Lego Movie
How To Train Your Dragon 2
The Boxtrolls


Best Animated Character

Toothless - How To Train Your Dragon 2
Emmet - The Lego Movie
Batman - The Lego Movie
Bad Cop/Good Cop - The Lego Movie


Best Horror Flick

Oculus
The Purge: Anarchy
Paranormal Activity: The Marked Ones
The Quiet Ones


Best Film From A Series

Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes
The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1
Divergent
The Maze Runner


2014 Worst Film Of The Year

Mrs Brown's Boys D'Movie
I, Frankenstein
August: Osage County
Last Vegas

 



The Theory of Everything

"There should be no boundaries to human endeavor. We are all different. However bad life may seem, there is always something you can do, and succeed at. While there's life, there is hope."

Fresh New Year, fresh new films to see! 2015 promises to be a great year for film so we thought we would start off with a potential great, 'The Theory of Everything'.

'The Theory of Everything' is a British biographical film following the life of Stephen Hawking. In the 1960's at Cambridge University lived a man named Stephen Hawking. Still undecided on what field to focus his PhD on, Hawking meets a lovely young lady named Jane Wilde. The two spend much of their time together and subsequently fall in love. Life then throws Stephen a massive curve ball. He collapses in the middle of the university grounds and is rushed to hospital where he finds out that he has Motor Neurone Disease. Stephen is given two years to live. Distraught at this devastating news, Hawking locks himself away from the world and pushes Jane away. Jane however isn't giving up that easily on the man she loves and though despite warning from Stephen's dad she decides to stick by Stephen. As his condition gets progressively worse, and the family grows, Jane reaches breaking point and decides she needs help.

This film was truly breath taking. I found myself upset, happy, appalled, angry, and I had a tear to the eye on more than one occasion. The acting was of the highest calibre. Eddie Redmayne was truly magnificent as the man himself. It must have been a very daunting and difficult task but he nailed it. As for Felicity Jones as Jane Wilde Hawking, she portrayed the angst, happiness, pretty much everything spot on. Such great casting, I could feel the love this couple had oozing out of the screen, it was so so believable. The cinematography was also spot on with some amazing shots and different filming styles all thrown in. I particularly loved the rewind at the end which brought me to tears for the fifth or sixth time in one film. Some scenes were completely dialog-free but so well written and acted that they were almost more powerful than if they had have had dialog. I could have done with a bit more about how the disease affects people as this was only lightly touched on. I would highly recommend viewing this film. Not only is it a lovely love story which is brilliantly shot and acted, but it also tells the story of the genius of Stephen Hawking and his awful condition. 

9/10 for 'The Theory of Everything'. I have a feeling this film is going to stay high in my 2015 league table. Now go see it!

My 2015 League Table

No	Film	Rating	Directed by
1	The Theory of Everything	9/10	James Marsh
2	Big Hero 6	8/10	Don Hall/Chris Williams

 

Dumb and Dumber To

"Come on, Lloyd. You gotta get over her. Mary Samsonite was just a girl."

What better way to end a great year of film than with 'Dumb and Dumber To'. I love the original, so much so that it currently sits at number 16 on my Top 20 of all time. What could possibly go wrong!?



'Dumb and Dumber To' is an American comedy and serves as the follow-up to the 20 year-old original 'Dumb and Dumber'. 20 years on, Lloyd Christmas (Jim Carrey) has spent his time withering away in a mental institution. He is distraught due to losing the love of his life Mary Swanson (Samsonite). His best buddy old pal Harry Dunne (Jeff Daniels) has been visiting every week for 2 decades in the hope that he can help his friend get over his lost love. It turns out that the whole thing was just a prank and Lloyd is just having him on. Once the catheter is removed Lloyd is ready to re-join his buddy back at their old apartment. He learns that Harry is suffering from kidney failure and he doesn't have long to live. They decide to go to see Harry's parents, a sure kidney match, to see about getting a kidney. Harry's parents are clearly not a match (I won't spoil the surprise) but while visiting them, Harry picks up his old mail containing a postcard from Fraida Felcher (Kathleen Turner) revealing that Harry has an estranged daughter; the perfect kidney match for Harry. After a visit with Fraida, it turns out that she gave her daughter Fanny Felcher (Rachel Melvin) up for adoption. With Lloyd's help, and a hearse loaned from Fraida, the pair must find Harry's daughter in a bid to save his life. Fanny however is away for the weekend and her adoptive parents have other plans which may just throw a spanner in the works for the idiotic-yet-lovable duo.

As previously stated, the original is one of my favourite films, so it was a massive task for the sequel to live up to it. In short, 'Dumber To' didn't quite do it for me. Don't get me wrong, I was expecting a car crash due to what I had previously heard but it wasn't that bad. I found it had a very shaky start, mostly due to over watching the trailer so it was hard to find these parts funny. Twenty minutes in and I started to feel the Carrey/Daniels magic again. This helped restore my almost broken faith in the franchise. As with the first film, Carrey completely overshadowed a good performance by Daniels, no shock there. It was funny as it was silly, as per the first film, with some genuine laugh-out-loud moments but never quite as clever as the previous instalment. Other good points for the length of the movie, it didn't drag on at all. I found the acting to be rather impressive as Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels have managed to sustain the personalities of the two main characters impeccably. The main problem was the plot. Although zany and ridiculous like the original, I had no interest whatsoever in what was actually happening. The sometimes funny scenes didn't quite meld together with a big pay-off and some were completely pointless thrown in for not very funny effect.

7/10 for 'Dumb and Dumber To'. It's a shame it didn't live up to the original but I'm so pleased it didn't turn out as bad as it could have or as bad as people are saying.

Annie

"It's a hard knock life for us"

Probably our last trip to the cinema this year saw us cramming in another few films. We began our day at the cinema by seeing what the reboot of 'Annie' was all about.

'Annie' is the latest adaptation of the 1977 Broadway musical of the same name. A modern twist on the classic film sees Annie (Quvenzhané Wallis), the foster child from Harlem, in a desperate search for her birth parents. Annie is living with her foster parent Colleen Hannigan, an alcoholic washed-up pop star who has taken a group of foster children under her wings in order to earn money from the state. Due to a note left with her when she was born, Annie believes her parents are coming back for her any day soon. One day, when trying to stop a group of boys from chasing a stray dog, Annie is saved from being hit by a car by Mr Stacks (Jamie Foxx). Mr Stacks is a billionaire mobile phone creator who is currently running a very unsuccessful presidential campaign. With help from his spin doctor, and after being filmed saving Annie from the car, Mr Stacks spends more time with Annie to improve his public perception. Annie's presence in Mr Stacks life proves to be an eventful one as he learns what is actually important in life.

Shamelessly I have to admit that I loved this film. I must have been in a good mood, as reading other reviews; I think I'm one of only a few who think the same. Yes it was quite over indulgent, yes it has children singing (one of the most annoying sounds ever!), but it brought a tear to my on more than one occasion. The relationship between Annie and Mr Stacks' associate (played by Rose Byrne) was lovely to watch, as was the friendship between her and Mr Stacks. The plot was cleverly brought into the 21st century with mobile phones, a smart-penthouse that was frankly ridiculous, and of course an over-produced updated soundtrack. Regarding the music, there is a mix of old and new with cleverly updated Annie classics such as, 'Tomorrow', 'Hard-knock life', 'You're Never Fully Dressed without a Smile' etc. plus some new songs (all pretty awful!). The acting wasn't the best I'd seen but also not the worst. Cameron Diaz, although quite poor in this movie, did bring the comedic aspect to the role of the awful Miss Hannigan. I'm surprised to see how great she is in these nasty roles (see 'Bad Teacher'). Jamie Foxx and his male associate (Bobby Cannavale) were painfully awful to watch but I got over that soon enough. Hats off again to the youngest actor Quvenzhané Wallis, she really shows the adults how it's done. Young actors in movies this year have been very well cast in almost every film I have seen. The plot didn't really do it for me. Although it's cleverly been brought up-to-date, I did prefer the original, though it did retain the bare bones of the Annie story so of course it wasn't all bad.

7.5/10 for 'Annie'. The fact that this film is well paced, the music is mostly enjoyable and the fab acting from the young lady in the main role make this an entirely watchable and at some points smile-inducing musical. Definitely worthy of another viewing.

The Imitation Game

"Sometimes it is the people no one imagines anything of who do the things that no one can imagine."

Third and final film to complete our three-film marathon saw us sitting down to watch 'The Imitation Game'. Being a real sucker for films based on true stories, I was quite intrigued to see what this movie had to offer.

'The Imitation Game' is a British/American thriller based on the life of mathematician Allen Turing portrayed here by Benedict Cumberbatch. Turing has been hired by the government to find a way to crack Nazi German messages encrypted by 'Enigma'. This being an almost impossible task, the main problem is that the code changes daily and there are millions of different combinations. Turing, along with a group of other scholars, must race against the clock each day to find a way to understand these messages. Turing believes he can create a machine which will crack the daily code and help allies to understand German moves to end WW2. With insight into Turing's past, it becomes evident as to why he is so determined to create this code-cracking machine.

After all the hype and recommendations I was expecting this movie to be outstanding. To a degree, this was the case. The acting is almost flawless with another fab performance from Cumberbatch and a near perfect performance from Knightley. The rest of the cast were solid and the young actors were as great as you would hope from a Hollywood Blockbuster. I was expecting the film to concentrate on the task at hand of cracking the Nazi code but so often we almost get there and we are given scenes of Turing's life at the time along with flashbacks from his school days. The scenes were dramatic and moving with a particularly powerful final scene which did bring a tear to my eye. My problem with this film, as is the case with a lot of films these days, is that it was too drawn out. I just wanted to get back to the main plot without all these deviations. Also the main point of the film is actually not about this group of scholars trying to break 'Enigma' but more focussed on Turing's life. Maybe I have had enough of these 'it was awful to be gay back then' films. This for me is where 'The Imitation Game' loses points, otherwise an amazing film with moving scenes and Oscar-worthy performances.

7/10 for 'The Imitation Game'. Some may think that's harsh but I just feel it was 20 minutes too long.