Tag Archives: Idris Elba

Prometheus (2012, Ridley Scott)

Posted on 11 June 2012 | Leave a comment

Given its $120 million price tag, one might think Prometheus would have a script above Internet fan fiction. It does not. Director Scott is more than happy to run with a dumb script–which often forgets subplots and story threads, not to mention is full of pointless action scenes. Prometheus tries very hard to be smart; it fails miserably. It’s also really boring for a two hour sci-fi action movie.

A lot of its stupidity is forgivable. What isn’t particularly forgivable is how Scott, after distancing the project from Alien in the press, has all sorts of eye roll inducing Alien references in it. He does have quite a few really smart 2001 homages, however. His mishandling of the film is bewildering.

For example, most of his casting is fantastic. Michael Fassbender is amazing as the android; he’s kind of bad (an unoriginal development), but still sympathetic. That sympathy’s partially due to his primary antagonist–one of the film’s protagonists, Logan Marshall-Green–giving a laughably atrocious performance. Marshall-Green’s is the only weak actor. Top-billed Noomi Rapace barely makes an impression thanks to Scott’s inexplicable emphasis on Marshall-Green.

In major supporting roles, Idris Elba and Charlize Theron are excellent. The rest of the large cast make little impression; Scott can’t handle them.

Dariusz Wolski’s photography is lovely, the special effects are great, Marc Streitenfeld’s music is solid.

Scott decided instead of shooting for a good Alien prequel, Prometheus should be pretentious and stupid. Bully for him.

CREDITS

Directed by Ridley Scott; written by Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof; director of photography, Dariusz Wolski; edited by Pietro Scalia; music by Marc Streitenfeld; production designer, Arthur Max; produced by David Giler, Walter Hill and Scott; released by 20th Century Fox.

Starring Noomi Rapace (Elizabeth Shaw), Michael Fassbender (David), Logan Marshall-Green (Charlie Holloway), Charlize Theron (Meredith Vickers), Idris Elba (Janek), Sean Harris (Fifield), Rafe Spall (Millburn), Emun Elliott (Chance), Benedict Wong (Ravel) and Guy Pearce (Peter Weyland).

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Posted in 2012, 20th Century Fox, Action, Color, English, Horror, Sci-Fi, USA

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Thor (2011, Kenneth Branagh)

Posted on 9 May 2011 | Leave a comment

Thor has two problems to overcome. Director Branagh is successful at one of them. The first problem is half the film takes place in mythological Asgard, which is an ancient place, but very modern with all the latest streamlined architecture—think if Art Deco molded with neon, some magical stuff and then inexplicable horse-based transit. For a superhero movie, it asks a lot. One has to believe it. Branagh makes it work.

The second problem is less severe and, by the time it becomes clear, it’s sort of a non-issue. The New Mexico setting for the “on Earth” sequences is boring. There’s this fantastic ten foot tall metal monster thing and it all looks great, but it’s destroying a tiny desert town. It’d be a lot more fun to watch it destroy something bigger. But, by this time, the romance between Chris Hemsworth and Natalie Portman is going and the movie’s coasting. Plus, the exit from New Mexico’s a nice sequence.

The script’s assured, but again, the acting helps. Tom Hiddleston walks off with the movie as Hemsworth’s brother and antagonist. Idris Elba and Jaimie Alexander are also strong. Anthony Hopkins is fine (one wonders how much they spent making him look so young at times). Hemsworth is ideal in the lead. Portman is just doing the smart girlfriend role—and she has some problems—but she’s good overall.

Great score from Patrick Doyle. Nice composition from Branagh.

Thor’s a lot of fun; it escapes its inherent goofiness.

CREDITS

Directed by Kenneth Branagh; screenplay by Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz and Don Payne, based on a story by J. Michael Straczynski and Mark Protosevich and the Marvel Comics characters created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber and Jack Kirby; director of photography, Haris Zambarloukos; edited by Paul Rubell; music by Patrick Doyle; production designer, Bo Welch; produced by Kevin Feige; released by Paramount Pictures.

Starring Chris Hemsworth (Thor), Natalie Portman (Jane Foster), Tom Hiddleston (Loki), Stellan Skarsgard (Dr. Erik Selvig), Kat Dennings (Darcy), Idris Elba (Heimdall), Colm Feore (King Laufey), Jaimie Alexander (Sif), Joshua Dallas (Fandral), Tadanobu Asano (Hogun), Ray Stevenson (Volstagg), Rene Russo (Frigga), Clark Gregg (Agent Coulson) and Anthony Hopkins (Odin).

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Posted in Paramount Pictures, Color, English, USA, Drama, Action, Adventure, Fantasy, 2011

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The Losers (2010, Sylvain White)

Posted on 7 May 2010 | Leave a comment

A friend of mine (colleague might be the better designation, but friend first, I suppose) has given up on punishing slash hating films for having bad endings. I disagree. Otherwise, I’d give The Losers four stars and scream recommendations for it from the rooftops. Because the end of The Losers, an exceptionally problematic action revenge picture, is the greatest thing ever. It might actually be the best ending of a film ever.

I’m even calling it a film. Literature is nothing but good fiction writing and the end of The Losers is nothing but good film.

The Losers fails for a lot of reasons. Mostly because it utterly wastes an excellent cast. Chris Evans might be taking on the only great role left in adapted fiction (he’s due to be Captain America) but The Losers almost completely wastes him. Almost. It’s nice it doesn’t, because it certainly wastes its other exceptional cast members.

Columbus Short, a fantastic character actor, is reduced to a nothing role; his finest moments are basically when he directly echoes his role on “Studio 60.”

Óscar Jaenada has like ten lines. They’re all good. It’s too bad the film doesn’t do anything with him. (Look at me, still calling it a film).

In case you’re counting, The Losers doesn’t get four stars because of its exceptional, wonderful, better than Ocean’s Twelve ending, but it does get 500 words instead of the usual 250.

Idris Elba is fantastic throughout–like Short and Evans–but Elba gets the most screen time of the three actors. He doesn’t get the best material (Evans does) but he’s so good, even when the script fails on him.

Because, really, The Losers ought to be about him and Jeffrey Dean Morgan’s relationship. It’s more than a friendship, more than a partnership, it’s about men working together and relying on each other. But The Losers isn’t about any of that thoughtful nonsense. Instead, it’s a modified adaptation of a really mediocre comic book.

The comic has really good art and really paltry writing, until the writing gets plain stupid. The film doesn’t go as stupid as the comic, but it gets pretty bad. The comic, however, never thought of having Zoe Saldana’s mercenary be a complete joke. Saldana’s performance probably knocks The Losers down a full star. Between her and Morgan (he’s too passive as the ostensible lead), there’s just no way for the film to recover.

Though having nineties guy Holt McCallany is nice; he plays Otis to Jason Patric’s Lex Luthor. Imagine if Gene Hackman had played Lex Luthor with total derision and visible loathing for the role and you’re about a tenth of the way to how awful Patric’s performance gets. He’s clearly upset he’s in this film. I hope he put in a nice pool.

White’s a mediocre director. He’s unimaginative and shoots an action movie like Tony Scott would. Terrible lighting from Scott Kevan (probably White’s fault). Okay music from Ottman.

But greatest ending ever. Don’t stop believing.

CREDITS

Directed by Sylvain White; screenplay by Peter Berg and James Vanderbilt, based on the comic book by Andy Diggle and Jock; director of photography, Scott Kevan; edited by David Checel; music by John Ottman; production designer, Aaron Osborne; produced by Joel Silver, Akiva Goldsman and Kerry Foster; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Clay), Zoe Saldana (Aisha), Chris Evans (Jensen), Idris Elba (Roque), Columbus Short (Pooch), Óscar Jaenada (Cougar), Holt McCallany (Wade) and Jason Patric (Max).

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Posted in 2010, Action, Adventure, Color, Crime, English, Mystery, Thriller, USA, Warner Bros.

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28 Weeks Later (2007, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo)

Posted on 18 July 2007 | Leave a comment

If 28 Weeks Later weren’t executive produced by Danny Boyle and Alex Garland and produced by Andrew Macdonald, it would not be any better (in some ways it would be worse) but it certainly would be less offensive. Before seeing the film, I remarked to friends about what made 28 Days Later, in the end, work. It wasn’t cheap. Weeks isn’t just cheap, it’s also gimmicky. It’s the worst written, well-made, frequently well-acted film I’ve seen in quite a while. It’s not just a bad script, it’s a cheap, incompetent one. The setup for the film is fine, but then instead of playing the Drew Barrymore role in Scream (in what I understood to be a thirty minute or so episode, I had understood the film to be episodic… but it doesn’t really make up for going to see it), Robert Carlyle becomes the subject, sort of, of the whole film. At first he’s a tragically human coward, but at the thirty minute or forty minute mark, he becomes the zombie version of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I suppose it’s lousy to spoil that one for interested viewers, but really, if you’re going to like a piece of crap like this film, you’re not going to care.

But the gimmicks don’t end with Carlyle becoming a super-zombie (he’s apparently got some consciousness and a real hatred for his family). No, see, Carlyle’s wife (played by Catherine McCormack, which I had no idea about until I looked at IMDb), who he left for dead, see… she’s a carrier, but immune. So, the whole plot rests around Carlyle’s family. How convienient his lame and fearless kids have just come to London, so they can restart the zombie holocaust.

As a director, Juan Carlos Fresnadillo shoots and edits some great montages. It’s all very frenetic, but it actually works with the content here. Lots and lots of beautiful visual montages. There’s even a really nice montage scene where the U.S. Army snipers, bored with lack of zombies to shoot, watch the repatrioted Brits. Even after the really cheap gimmicks, the film maintains a level of intensity until it just becomes cheap overall, with characters doing unbelievable things–smart ones becoming stupid. So stupid I almost spelled it stoopid, Weeks‘s stupidity has killed so many of my brain cells.

It’s frustrating because there are some nice scenes and some good performances. When he’s not super-zombie, Carlyle is fantastic. Even better is Jeremy Renner as a sniper. Renner’s got very little to do besides be a decent human being, but he does it with a lot of force and it’s good stuff. Rose Byrne is the, obviously, best, because she rules this movie in her terrible role. She’s an army doctor and she doesn’t want kids, but then she hangs out with them, but is it just because they might carry the cure? Who knows, because Weeks doesn’t even give subtext to its contrived coincidences. The kids, Imogen Poots and Mackintosh Muggleton, both stink. Muggleton’s worse, but it might not be his fault, the script sets him up as the kid from The Shining but ominous and possibly evil (so I guess more Omen-esque, but not having ever seen one of those, I’m not sure). Harold Perrineau’s in it a bit and I’m glad he got a job in something intended to be high-profile, but he’s way too good for this kind of work. He, Byrne and Renner ought to reunite for something written by someone not trying to remake Halloween 4. Hell, Fresnadillo could even direct it. The only times he fails in Weeks are with the lengthy action scenes. The chase scenes, when from the chasee’s perspective, get tiring, but the action scenes are boring. You can’t tell what is going on so why even bother trying (or carrying).

I find it horrifying Alex Garland could make the time to write a Halo movie, but it couldn’t give this crappy script a rewrite. It’d take maybe a week to fix it. Some of the dialogue especially. My friend said it sounded like a bad Spanish-to-English babelfish translation.

CREDITS

Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo; written by Rowan Joffe, Fresnadillo, Enrique López Lavigne and Jesús Olmo; director of photography, Enrique Chediak; edited by Chris Gill; music by John Murphy; production designer, Mark Tildesley; produced by López Lavigne, Andrew Macdonald and Allon Reich; released by Fox Atomic.

Starring Robert Carlyle (Don), Rose Byrne (Scarlet), Jeremy Renner (Doyle), Harold Perrineau (Flynn), Catherine McCormack (Alice), Mackintosh Muggleton (Andy), Imogen Poots (Tammy), Idris Elba (General Stone) and Emily Beecham (Karen).

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Posted in 2007, Color, English, Fox Atomic, Horror, Spain, Thriller, UK

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