David Brent: Life on the Road (Allen)

(Originally posted 25th August 2016)
(minor spoilers)

There were concerns about this film as a concept, no doubt about that. Had too much time passed? Would Brent work as a stand alone character? Can Gervais write this stuff on his own? But all that quickly disappears when you sit down to watch because this film works very well and gives you pretty much everything you want as an Office fan. I'd forgotten just how much of a frustrated pop star Gervais is, and I was pleasantly surprised by just how many original songs were included, carefully formulated to be amusingly bad without being self-consciously funny.

Sure, it's not perfect. The happy ending feels rushed and it would have been nice if some of the supporting characters were a bit more fleshed out. I would also have preferred it to make more of the documentary nature and use the limitations that come with that to its advantage (like The Office) instead of just shooting it handheld and having people talk to camera and then say it's documentary style (like the US Office).

But what matters most is that it's funny. It's very funny from beginning to end. That is its raison d'etre and it achieves it comfortably. Gervais is so comfortable in his character that it's hard to believe it's taken him this long to try and do something substantial with him.

As for the plot, well, it gets the job done. Essentially it is playing out the ultimate 21st Century tragedy; a man over forty who still has hope. It is this hope that differentiates Brent from his salesman colleagues – whereas they have blindly accepted their lives of dead end drudgery, Brent still aspires to something different, something creative and passionate. This is where we empathise with him, it's where we aspire to be like him. However, the pathos of the story comes from realising that it's not about becoming a famous or respected singer, it's just about being liked. It's about being wanted.

This is why the slightly slipshod ending of “all you need is love” just about worked. I think I've made it pretty clear by now how I feel about the “love conquers all” mentality but I'm willing to let it go here because it demonstrates that Brent as a musical failure doesn't matter as long as somebody likes him. The more obvious satisfying ending would have been for him to find a place in the music industry – for him to accept his own limitations as a performer but use his actual skills towards working in management. It even looked like we were heading this way when we see the burgeoning success of his protege Dom Johnson. But perhaps that would have been too easy. Brent is a tragic figure after all and he must remain in his cage to represent all of us who find ourselves with dreams that will only ever be dreams and real lives that will bring us nothing but misery.

Coming soon, David Brent 2: Eurovision.

Probably my favourite film so far this year, 9/10.

Listen to our ideas for continuing The Office here:
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/diminishing-returns/11-the-office
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…/podcast/diminishing…/id1121069722

Suicide Squad (Allen)

(Originally posted 18th August 2016)
(spoilers)

It should be pretty clear by now that I'm not the biggest fan of superhero nonsense so I must admit I went into Suicide Squad with pretty low expectations. Maybe that helped, because I came out being entertained by a solid if flawed film.

The problems mostly arise from them trying to do too much in one film. There are too many characters and with next to no previous backstory for them, it gets a little exposition heavy at the beginning. They handle this about as well as possible and do it as a roll call style intro to all the main players. It gets away with it by charging the flashback cutaway scenes with some flashy visuals, which frankly, was a nice change after the staid darkness of recent Batman offerings.

The whole concept is, of course, fatally flawed, just like The Avengers, in that this team of people are completely imbalanced and really shouldn't be existing in the same story world. How can you have a demi-god that is capable of pretty much anything and a hell-spawned fire demon working alongside a girl whose only superpower is being a bit kooky and hitting people with a baseball bat? It's like having a raging green beast who can jump over buildings working alongside someone whose special skill is running in heels.

And yes, it is the female characters who are mainly hamstrung by this. But that's what comes from adapting 30 year old material that is mainly aimed at 14 year old boys, I suppose.

It was, of course, Margot Robbie as Harley Quinn that was getting a lot of attention pre-release. Unfortunately, both the character and the performance felt a little desperate, with not quite enough substance to offer. There were a few flashes of what will be a much more interesting (and fucked up) story dealing with Quinn's and the Joker's relationship. As Sol alluded to in our podcast, that's a really damaged relationship and could either give us a very deep and moving story or be exploited for horrific titillation. I'm not holding my breath.

Incidentally, Jared Leto's Joker seemed completely on point. Used sparingly in this film and only there to serve Quinn's character arc, the shorter screen time probably works to his advantage as such an extreme character. A different enough take on a well established villain to give us something different while staying true to the source. I have hopes for the future here.

As for the rest of the Squad, Will Smith stands tall as the leader and does his Will Smith thing. He is in fact a much larger role than the Harley-heavy trailer suggested. Jai Courtney I think was supposed to be the comic relief; that didn't work. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje is completely unrecognisable as Killer Croc and unfortunately the character is completely irrelevant to the entire story and you can't understand what he's saying (but he only has three lines so never mind). Cara Delevingne just looks way too young and her character strays too far into the supernatural for my tastes, which derails the whole film. As I've already said, bringing characters together from vastly different story worlds just doesn't tessellate comfortably. Joel Kinnaman is completely forgettable but Viola Davis puts in a perfectly pitched performance as the government overseer of the Squad. If you're going to make the bad guys into anti-heroes, you need a real cunt pushing them around and she does it beautifully.

Flame on

The plot gets a little messed up and spends so much time setting up the team that the actual story feels unexplored and forced and never quite adds up. The supernatural stuff makes it seem too silly and it's also limited by the fact that this team of terrible bad guys can never do anything really bad because they have to become sympathetic for the audience. Deadshot is a ruthless assassin but has a rule of no women, no kids. Fire Boy can burn a prison to the ground but he just wants to be back home with his wife and kids. All that kind of bullshit. They don't even swear for fuck's sake. Even all the henchmen who have to be brutally killed to give us a significant bodycount are faceless goons so it doesn't feel like real murder. Harley Quinn and The Joker are the only ones who seem like truly bad guys, and again that sets up their future film as one to watch.

All that sounds like quite a lot of negativity so what kept me going? The film was visually entertaining, the action stuff didn't drag out too long. The characters, imperfect as they were, had chemistry and the actors were generally charming and likeable. I think I've got to put this one on the director. David Ayer has taken an impossible proposition and made it greater than the sum of its parts. He's got the heritage in his back catalogue that suggests he knows how to make engaging character driven action and he was a great choice for this kind of film. And it's to the benefit of us all. God only knows what sort of stinking mess Zack Snyder would have made of this.

I'm still not converted to overblown action films but this is an entertaining watch.

7/10

UPDATE:

Okay, upon second viewing, unfettered by the allure of the cinematic experience and in the cold light of day, I really can't hold on to my positive feelings here. I don't need to go against anything I said in my original review about the individual parts, it's just that it doesn't come together as a whole in the way that I previously saw it. The chopped up edit and nonsensical plot is too much of a drain on the few elements that did work and ultimately kept me going throughout. It was entertaining but needed more focus and an actual sense of what it was trying to achieve.

4/10

We discuss all this in our Batman episode that can be heard here:
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…/podcast/diminishing…/id1121069722
Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/…/9-batman-v-superman-dawn-of-justice

Jason Bourne (Allen)

(Originally posted 9th August 2016)

Have you seen any of the previous Jason Bourne films? If yes, then you've already seen this one too. It is exactly the same as the second and third films in that it makes no attempt to do anything original or interesting with the story.

It also brings together all the worst elements of those earlier pointless films. Overly long car chases? Check. Computers are magic and can do anything? Check. Credulity stretching personal connection with the bad guy? Check.

For what it's worth, the plot involves Jason Bourne getting dragged back into the world of international espionage after his old buddy Nicky Parsons (Julie Stiles) involves him in a plot to bring down the C.I.A. Then something involving a motorbike goes on for about forty minutes but the camera was shaking too much to really know what. So the C.I.A. are after him but they've got their own problems as well because the different members are stabbing each other in the back. And then at the end he walks into the sunset to a Moby song or whatever.

Tommy Lee Jones plays C.I.A. Director Tommy Lee Jones, who you might recognise as the same character that Tommy Lee Jones plays in every film he's ever been in (apart from Batman Forever). And let's be fair, he knows how to play that character. The filmmakers obviously took on my suggestion of putting in a primary bad guy for Bourne to repeatedly tussle with and Vincent Cassel is wasted in this two-dimensional role. And of course they had to take it way too far and have it that he killed Bourne's father. Bourne's father, incidentally, who it turns out is a crucial element in every aspect of the Bourne story even though I'm pretty sure he's never even been mentioned before.

Alicia Vikander does what she can with another characterless role that is just there to buffer the magical computers that solve everything. Did you know that you can wipe the memory of a USB stick 8000 miles away as long as there's a Nokia 3210 in the room?

The only highlight is Riz Ahmed as a young Zuckerberg style tech entrepreneur who has found himself in a deal with the devil. It's a great performance and feels very real in a film that specialises in the incredulous. It is this element of the story, dealing with concerns of the government spying on our internet activity that was obviously the starting point for the plot. It's topical, it's in the collected consciousness of the target audience, it's a genuine concern. They could have developed that into a suspenseful espionage/corrupt government story, but nah, fuck it, let's drive a tank into a casino.

A waste of time and money that has no validation as either art or entertainment. The final nail in the Bourne coffin that should have been left buried nine years ago.

4/10

You can hear some better ideas for Bourne films here:
SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/diminishing-retu…/8-the-bourne-legacy
iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/…/podcast/diminishing…/id1121069722

Finding Dory (Allen)

(Originally posted 3rd August 2016)

Finding Dory is pretty much what you'd expect from a cash-in sequel. The plot is fairly thin and obviously is centred around Dory. There is not much effort to flesh out any new supporting characters and Marlin and Nemo are similarly marginalised. That being said, Dory herself is a charismatic enough character to carry the film. She is not exactly developed any further from the original film, but at least is given some history and more purpose. The scenes of her as a child are suitably adorable and there is an emotional pay off at the end that is about as basic as you can get.

At many points, it feels like you're watching a cartoon. It may be ridiculous to criticise this about an animated film but it's an important and negative step away from the tone of Finding Nemo. Pixar has never been about strict realism, of course, but it at least strove to obey the laws of (Hollywood) physics. There's exaggeration and then there's pure fantasy and Finding Dory strays far too close to the latter.

The most egregious example of this is the magical mcguffin character of Hank the octopus, who arrives on the scene at any point where the characters are in a situation they can't get out of. Hank has supernatural powers that allow him to turn invisible; he has super strength; and he can live out of water for extended periods of time. Put it this way, at one point he drives a truck for about ten minutes and we're supposed to take that completely seriously. Then there's a beluga whale who serves no purpose in the plot other than to provide echolocation, which apparently is being able to see anything anywhere, even when not in water. The filmmakers' abandonment of any kind of grip on reality, even in a kid's film, is pretty laughable at times.

And that is part of the problem overall. This is very much a kid's film. Pixar have built a brand on creating child-friendly stories that are complex enough for adults to appreciate too. Finding Dory is aimed at six year olds, but is complex enough for a twelve year old to appreciate. This may be my own prejudices talking, but if Finding Nemo was Pixar, then perhaps Finding Dory is Disney Pixar. Soulless Corporate Pixar.

Oh, and a side-note. There are a couple of minor characters in Finding Dory who are seemingly cognitively disabled. Over the course of the film, other characters manipulate, bully and harass them. There's no pay-off where they get their comeuppance or anything – just disability played for laughs. Very surprising to see that in a kid's film in 2016.

So finally, what is the message of Finding Dory? Kid's films have to have some kind of moral, right? There's definitely something about family being important but also that family is who you choose it to be. That's okay. There's also some bits to do with trust and letting people make their own decisions, which felt like a bit of a hangover from the first film because it was all centred around Marlin being a worrier. But I think what the major message is, comes down to, “do whatever you want, it'll turn out alright because magic.”

Shallow and uninspired – 6/10

Listen to our Finding Nemo episode here:
SoundCloud: soundcloud.com/diminishing-returns/2-finding-nemo
iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/diminishing-returns/id1121069722

Star Trek Beyond (Allen)

(Originally posted 22nd July 2016 - complete and total spoilers)

In a long tradition of Hollywood blockbusters, Star Trek Beyond gives you exactly what you expect, but it does at least do it competently and with some personality. It also lives up to the long lineage of Star Trek by successfully combining action fare with some long-standing character development. It's only really the bare minimum you could expect from a film series that relies on maintaining the status quo, but it is there.

The general theme of the film is that together we are stronger; “Ye cannae break a stick in a bundle” - primarily based on the fact that the villain of the piece is trying to bring down the Federation. Unfortunately, this doesn't come across very clearly because the antagonist's back story and motivation is kept secret for a dramatic “reveal” in the final act (which you will have figured out at least 45 minutes earlier). It's also rather undermined by the nature of the enemy, who are presented as a Star Wars-type army of Stormtroopers; faceless and plodding and can't shoot for shit. These drones are the ultimate in unity in that they mindlessly follow the orders and indeed it is this element that is exposed as a weakness when it comes to destroying them. So the message is unity but with individuality? We work together but we're not drones? I feel like it may have been slightly muddied along the way but there is definitely an aspirational message there somewhere.

The spaceships of the villains are a great concept; referred to as bees by the characters, they are more like locusts, overcoming their enemies with sheer numbers and literally ripping apart enemy ships. I'm not familiar enough with the world of sci-fi to know if this is an original concept but it felt very fresh and different and works in the tradition of Star Trek bringing in new and interesting technologies to keep their alien races on point (like The Borg for example). Similarly, the massive Space Station colony of Yorktown is gloriously realised and in terms of visual effects in general, it feels like the film never puts a foot wrong.

The main cast is as you were, and it's only the ones who have personality (Scotty and McCoy) who ever really catch your interest. The weight of the emotional story is placed on Spock, which never really works. There is only so many times you can play the “logical guy has emotions” card before it stops being a character arc and we just accept that the guy has emotions. Idris Elba is excellently menacing as the main villain but sadly is rather less convincing when he tries to play a human. Sofia Boutella is the other stand-out in the guest cast and her relationship with Scotty is played just about perfectly.

I do think this new incarnation is being slightly hamstrung by having to tie in to long-established characters and they need to make more of bringing in new regular personalities. The death of Anton Yelchin has gifted them a perfect opportunity to do this, as a respectful end for Chekov can be written in and that slot can be taken up by an entirely new character. Make it an arse-kicking woman who doesn't have to wear a tiny skirt as standard issue uniform. Someone very much like, if not actually, Boutella's character of Jaylah (the ending does open the door for her to become a regular).

Plot-wise, don't expect any surprises. It's pretty by the numbers stuff, but it does the job. The one thing that really always annoys me with these kinds of films is when they put people into positions of danger as if we're supposed to feel any real suspense about their fate. We know that Kirk isn't going to get sucked out into space and he'll manage to press that button just in time. We know that the villain isn't going to shoot magic death smoke into the atmosphere and kill millions of people. Stop building suspense into your plots if you never have the courage to do anything out of the norm. It doesn't work.

One last moan about Star Trek in general. As stated in this very film, Starfleet is not a military operation. They are a scientific expedition. An incredibly well-armed and combat-trained scientific expedition. I know you have to make action films, but could you just for once not have the whole plot centred around the killing of another species? This film had the set-up to do it, too, because the main villain is an ex-Starfleet member who is wreaking misplaced revenge after spending centuries losing his humanity. Wouldn't it have been more satisfying if he had reconnected with his fellow man and stopped his fiendish plot because he saw the error of his ways? No? Beat him up and then blast him into the deathly ice grip of space? Okay then.

A solid if unsurprising addition to the canon – 7/10