Film Review: Wonder Woman (2017)

Even though she made her first appearance in 1941, thereby being part of the comics canon almost as long as fellow Justice League members Superman and Batman (who debuted in 1938 and 1939, respectively), Diana, Princess of Themyscira, Daughter of Hippolyta, a.k.a. Diana Prince, a.k.a. Wonder Woman, had never graced the silver screen until last year, when Gal Gadot briefly enlivened the slurry shipped to theatres as Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Sure, the character had appeared in various iterations of the D.C. animated universe, and she was brought to life on television by Lynda Carter in the iconic series from the 1970s, but film eluded her, even as Hollywood burned through six big-screen Batmen (including the late Adam West), three Supermen, two generations of X-Men (and three Kitty Prydes) and an ever-lengthening roll call of minor or cult characters who now find themselves household names.

Film Review: The Jungle Book (2016)

One of the more surprising (not to mention lucrative) developments in recent years has been Walt Disney's decision to reach back into their cavernous back catalogue to create live-action versions of their animated classics. It's surprising both because of how successful those films have been (most notably Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland, which grossed more than a billion dollars worldwide back in 2010), but also because it's such a simple idea that it feels like it should have happened ten times over already. With a steady stream of similar adaptations due over the next couple of years (some of which make more sense than others), Disney's nostalgia-mining looks set to continue for some time. We can only hope that the next installments display as much love and wit as Jon Favreau's take on Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. Or, more accurately, his take on the 1967 Disney version of The Jungle Book, since the story and design of Favreau's film has much more in common with that than the original stories.

Film Review: Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)

Over the past ten years, J.J. Abrams has slowly become the Gordon Ramsay of big-budget filmmaking. He comes in, figures out how a franchise has been mismanaged, then sets about trying to set everything right. Abrams probably swears less than Ramsay, but his ability to identify with surgical precision what the bleeping problem is has been proven time and again. Starting with Mission: Impossible III, his feature directing debut, and then the Star Trek reboot, he and his collaborators Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci demonstrated an intuitive sense of what elements of a film can be drawn out, blown up until they're fit to burst, then deployed in such a way that they can draw as big an audience as possible. Whether it was coming up with increasingly more inventive ways for Tom Cruise to almost kill himself or reducing the crew of the Enterprise to a handful of simple characteristics, Abrams and his team were able to resurrect dormant properties by taking familiar characters and situations, twisting or subverting them slightly, and delivering them with furious energy.

Film Review: Spectre (2015)

There are few franchises as reactive as the James Bond series. Over twenty-four films and fifty-three years, it has had to adapt and change in order to survive, often taking on the qualities of the trend du jour in order to remain relevant. When blaxploitation cinema was at its height, Bond went to Harlem and fought against Voodoo gangsters. After Star Wars became one of the most popular movies of all time, Bond went to space. As Hollywood became obsessed with hard-nosed crime dramas focused on the drug trade, Bond dismantled a cartel and fed Benicio del Toro through a shredder.

Film Review: The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997)

"Stella!"

It wouldn't be going too far to say that Jurassic Park was one of the most important films for me growing up. There were a lot of other contenders, most of them Disney animations, but Jurassic Park was the first film I remember being completely floored by. It helped that I was obsessed with dinosaurs, as most six year olds were at the time and, it seems, still are, but the way that Steven Spielberg blended special effects with a lean story to create a sense of wonder and magic really captivated my little, still-forming imagination. It probably didn't hurt that it was one of the first examples I had encountered of a film being everywhere thanks to a huge marketing campaign, so even if I hadn't loved it, I would not have been able to escape it. Watching it (not to mention rewatching it) was a formative experience, to say the least, and while I wouldn't put it as my favourite film ever now (I'm not sure if it would even crack the top 100, assuming that I was crazy enough to make one), its importance in shaping me as a film lover is immeasurable.

Film Review: Jurassic World (2015)

Twenty-two years ago, a man named John Hammond had a dream. A dream of opening a park filled with dinosaurs, resurrected by the wonders of science, and open for all the world to see. That dream went tragically sour when the actions of a rogue employee led to the park's security measures failing, several deaths, and the apparent abandonment of Isla Nublar to its prehistoric inhabitants. Yet the magic of Hammond's vision - and its undeniable potential for huge profits - meant that people would try again, so now his park - renamed Jurassic World, no doubt as a canny bit of rebranding to move away from that whole rampaging dinosaurs thing - is a glistening hybrid of Disney World and SeaWorld.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 98 - Jaws at 40

Jaws, one of the greatest films ever made, turned 40 this year. As admirers of the film, Matt and I thought it would be grand to talk about why the film endures,  the mixed blessing of its influence, and the possibility of The Rock starring in a remake of Big Trouble in Little China.

Film Review: Tomorrowland (2015)

In Brad Bird's Tomorrowland, the future isn't what it used to be. From an opening sequence set at the 1964 World's Fair to the depiction of the eponymous city, a metropolis which mimics the futurist aesthetic of the Disney attraction of the same name, the film is awash in nostalgia for a future that never happened. By being partially set in a world of jetpacks, hovering trains and boundless creativity, it hearkens back to the world we were promised by the science fiction of the '50s and '60s; an altogether neater world in which science makes the lives of every human being better.

Film Review: Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015)

When Joss Whedon's first Avengers film landed in 2012, it was the end result of several years of calculated, but very real, risks. Marvel had embarked on a seemingly foolhardy quest to create a cinematic version of their comic universe, one in which dozens of superheroes existed simultaneously, had their own solo adventures, then teamed up when needed. It paid off in a huge way, not merely because The Avengers became a massive hit, but because all the subsequent Marvel films that followed were given a boost as well, and formerly marginalised characters like Thor (Chris Hemsworth), Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner), and especially Captain America (Chris Evans) are now pretty much household names. Yet success has boxed the series into a corner.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 93 - Avengers: Age of Ultron

Now that Avengers: Age of Ultron has been unleashed upon the world and is destroying the box office like The Hulk in a built-up area, it seems like the perfect time to discuss what will likely become one of the biggest films of all time, and check in on the health of Marvel's mega-franchise. Matt and I discuss our feelings about the film, how it compares to the first film, and offer our live reaction to the unveiling of the first cast photo from Suicide Squad, an event which derails the entire last five minutes or so of the podcast.

Spoiler Warning: We discuss events in the Civil War comics which may (or may not) become part of the forthcoming Civil War film, so if you want to avoid them then please skip the discussion from 31:30 to 33:00.

Film Review: Furious 7 (2015)

Note: This review contains spoilers for the fate of Paul Walker's character, Bryan O'Conner. These have been hidden using white text, so highlight the blank space to read them if you have seen the film or don't mind having that part of it revealed.

Since the Fast and Furious franchise came roaring back to popularity with the fourth entry in the series, the tersely worded Fast and Furious, which followed the thought to be franchise-ending disappointment of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, the series has gradually, if not subtly, reinvented itself. What started as a series focused primarily on illegal racing with various crime elements added to link the races has at this point become an odd hybrid of heist film and spy thriller, one in which a group of low-level car thieves are also martial arts masters. It feels as if it cross-pollinated with Vin Diesel's other early '00s hit xXx, with the end result resembling Pierce Brosnan era Bond movies, but with the archness replaced with aching sincerity.

Film Review: Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

How do you even manage to make this boring?

What's the worst thing about Michael Bay?

It's a necessary question, since few filmmakers are as critically reviled as Michael Bay. Probably only Aaron Seltzer and Jason Freiberg, the crown princes of terrible, laugh-free parodies, and Uwe Boll, the king of joyless video game adaptations, come close. Yet Bay is in a whole other league since, unlike those three, his films actually make a lot of money and shape the cultural dialogue. He's also far more influential than they could ever hope to be since his chaotic visual style - nicknamed "Bayhem" - has helped (a word I use begrudgingly) shape blockbuster cinema for two decades. Why does a man whose commercial instincts are beyond a shadow of doubt make films which are almost universally hated?

Film Review: Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

The Marvel Cinematic Universe, or MCU as all the cool kids are calling it, exists in a curious dual state. Within the broader ecosystem of blockbuster cinema, it's a uniquely ambitious attempt to replicate the breadth of storytelling on display in Marvel's comics; a shared fictional world in which dozens of superheroes, gods and aliens coexist and flit between each others' stories. Within its own ecosystem, however, the films are weirdly risk-averse. They conform to a rigid plot structure, they don't make much room for personal expression on the part of the directors - with the notable exceptions of Kenneth Branagh's canted angles in the first Thor and Shane Black's narrative trickery in Iron Man 3 - and they have a uniformity of tone that makes them feel consistent, but rarely surprising. The latest addition to the canon, James Gunn's Guardians of the Galaxy, in some ways feels like Marvel's first step into a larger world, while also reinforcing the notion that, as far as the studio are concerned, formula is king.

Film Review: Godzilla (2014)

If there is a single moment that encapsulates the strengths and weaknesses of Godzilla, Gareth Edwards' take on the most venerable of movie monsters, it is the one in which Ken Watanabe, playing Dr. Ishiro Serizawa, the film's requisite expert on things no one has ever seen, utters the words "Let them fight." In terms of the narrative, it comes at a crucial point, the moment when the film acknowledges that the only way to resolve the threat posed by the insect-like creatures known as MUTOs is to let Godzilla destroy them. It's a moment filled with awe at the sheer power of these building-sized monsters, acceptance at the powerlessness of humanity in the face of such enormity, and more than a little bit of excitement. Even scientists dedicated to the preservation of the human race want to see giant creatures whale on each other.

Film Review: Edge of Tomorrow (2014)

Tom Cruise has spent so long playing action heroes that it's jarring to see him play a coward. In Doug Liman's Edge of Tomorrow, Cruise plays William Cage, a recruiter for the United Defense Force who has convinced millions of young men and women to sign up to battle an alien race known as the Mimics. When the leader of the UDF (Brendan Gleeson) presents Cage with the chance to report from the front lines of the final assault on the Mimics' stronghold in Northern France, he declines, saying that he became a recruiter specifically to avoid combat. His refusal isn't accepted, so he is knocked unconscious. Upon waking, he discovers that he has been sent to a training camp where his commanding officer (Bill Paxton) has been told that Cage is a deserter. Against his protests, he is strapped into a mech suit so that he, along with thousands of others, can fight the Mimics on the beaches. Unable to even turn off the safety on his weapon, Cage is killed within minutes. Then, he wakes up back on the training camp, meets his commanding officer again, and realises that his whole day has been reset.

Film Review: The Lone Ranger (2013)

While helping to transport the dangerous criminal Butch Cavendish (William Fichtner) so that he can be brought to justice, District Attorney John Reid's (Armie Hammer) train is attacked by Cavendish's men and the outlaw is freed. Reid heads out with a posse of Texas Rangers that includes his brother Dan (James Badge Dale), but which is promptly ambushed. Left for dead, Reid teams up with the Native American tracker Tonto (Johnny Depp) to hunt down Cavendish and avenge his brother's death. To protect his identity, Reid dons the mask and identity of The Lone Ranger, and with Tonto and his white, possibly mystical horse in tow, he follows Cavendish's trail, right into the heart of a huge conspiracy.

Film Review: Man of Steel (2013)

If there's one image that sums up Man of Steel, Zack Snyder's loud, long, and tedious retread of the Superman story, it's of the Hero Formerly Known As Kal-El (Henry Cavill) knocking down a skyscraper as he goes mano a super-mano with General Zod (Michael Shannon). It's a fleeting moment, but one that says a lot about the intentions and attitudes of the film, as well as those of the people who made it. Whereas most iterations of Superman have focused primarily on him saving people, often at the expense of his own well being, and doing as much as possible to limit the damage, Man of Steel's climax is all about how much damage is inflicted while trying to defeat Zod.

Film Review: Thor: The Dark World (2013)

Even in a shared cinematic universe that features super-soldiers and men who transform into giant green monsters when they get a bit cross, Thor always seemed like a bit of an outsider when it came to becoming an iconic film character; injecting Norse mythology into Marvel's more science fiction orientated world seemed like it would be destined to lead to a work of disastrous camp. While Kenneth Branagh's Thor was a somewhat divisive film, with some saying its goofy sense of humour went too far in deflating the pomposity of its faux-Shakespearean stylings and others, myself included, saying that it struck just the right balance between the two, its main success was in establishing Thor (played with sly wit and bountiful charisma by Chris Hemsworth) as a believable, if larger than life, character, and it took him on an interesting journey from arrogant God to humble, worthy hero.

Film Review: World War Z (2013)

It's a Golden Age of the Undead these days, and of the hundreds of different zombie stories that have emerged in recent years, Max Brooks' novel World War Z stands out as one of the more ambitious. Using an epistolary style that retells a zombie apocalypse that has already happens, Brooks wrote a book which owed as much to Studs Terkel's The Good War or Haruki Murakami's Underground as it did Romero's Night of the Living Dead. By presenting the end of the world in the past tense, the book managed to be both exciting, inventive and, at times, oddly moving. It was not just a terrific zombie story, but a terrific book regardless of genre.

Shot/Reverse Shot: Episode 41 - Autumn/Winter 2013 Preview

With a fairly moribund summer fading into the rearview mirror, now is the perfect time to look ahead to the films coming out over the next three months. Taking a scattershot approach to the Autumn schedule, by which I mean talking about the films we're actually a little bit interested in, Joe Gastineau and I take in potential blockbusters, Oscar hopefuls and ribald comedies, while pondering whether or not Orson Scott Card is engaged in a Producers-style scam involving the Ender's Game adaptation, and accidentally pitch the scariest film ever made.

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