The Bourne Legacy.

Spotify? Bucky Done Gun is playing right now, as I start writing this. That M.I.A. She’s mental, but makes a good choon when she needs to. 
LoveFilm? I’ve had Nightmare On Elm Street and Zach And Miri Make A Porno sitting on the table for ages now. Looks like I’m in for a film night. Now where did I put that takeaway leaflet…? 
Amazon? I actually haven’t done a lot of reading lately, mainly due to my iPhone deciding it hated me (I listen to books now). But I have a shiny new Samsung, and it will be christened with the last Narnia book soon.

****

Let’s just discuss legacies for a second. This whole Bourne thing has a massive legacy. Matt Damon is Bourne, apparently, nobody else could fill those shoes. They might be right, but I don’t know because I’ve only seen two thirds of the first one, that’s it. And frankly, I don’t care. But why am I telling you all this crap? I’m telling you because you need to know that I went to The Bourne Legacy with very little expectation; therefore, my review won’t be littered with complaints about how Legacy doesn’t live up to the last three movies. Sorry.

But before I get into it, let’s do that age-old summary of the movie. If I’m correct, Legacy and Ultimatum happen at more or less the same time. When the media find out about these super –soldiers the Americans have been creating, the CIA decide to kill the remaining agents. One of those agents is Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner), who won’t give up without a fight. With doctor Marta Shearing (Rachel Weisz), Cross travels across the world to save his life. It turns into a cat-and-mouse game, Cross and Shearing getting chased by Eric Byer (Edward Norton) who wants to kill both of them so he can remove all evidence of the super-soldier project.

Is this film as good as the first three films? I have no fucking clue. I will say this though; the first three would have to be cinematic masterpieces for this to be seen as inferior, because Legacy is a really enjoyable movie. It’s constantly moving, stopping only briefly at points for a quick breather before jumping in again. You’re always at the edge of your seat. The action is frenetic but believable; everything is rooted in reality and I never felt like something was too ridiculous. We are taught to believe that Cross is essentially superhuman, so any seemingly extraordinary feats make sense.

And let’s talk about Cross for a second. Played by Jeremy Renner, obviously, who is bloody fantastic. An excellent performance. Since Hurt Locker, he’s not really done many good roles, frankly. Side parts in Mission Impossible and Avengers Assemble are a highlight, which isn’t saying much. Here, though, he burdens the movie and does a fucking good job of it. The character is very different from what I remember of Jason Bourne; there is an underlying sarcasm and cynicism in everything he does, which is a refreshing quirk. Without a doubt, Cross (thanks to Renner) is more than credible as the Bourne substitute.

Oh yeah, the other guys. Rachel Weisz? Fantastic. Edward Norton? Fantastic. Both of them are awesome, anyway, I’ve more or less loved them in everything they’ve done, and they’re good here. Weisz’ transformation from hysterical to defiant is well-expressed and Norton is, well, Norton. That high-pitched nasal voice is still quite funny, but you can’t fault the performance. There are others too, who come in and out of the film, but the three leads steal the show.

My only issue with the movie is that it’s bloody predictable. Just re-read my summary above again, and you can easily work out how the movie will end. I won’t give you a blatant spoiler, but it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to work out if Cross and Marta survive in the end. I just wish there was some sort of twist in the film, but it never comes. The film plays out exactly as you would expect it to, and that’s a downer. Nothing is truly unpredictable nowadays though, I guess. The beauty is in the execution. And the execution here is great.

The best way to judge a movie like this is to ask yourself whether you’d want to see the inevitable next one. And I do. Jason Bourne has his legacy, and Aaron Cross could be cementing one of his own now too.

****

Another one bites the dust. This was really easy to write, which probably means it was an awful review. Ah well, nothing wrong with pieces of shit every now and again. It’s Drive by Incubus blasting on the iPod machine as I sign off, but you know the drill.

Find me on Twitter - @writeofcentre

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And, well, yeah. You can go away now. Oh, and tell yer friends!

Ted.

LoveFilm? Two movies sitting on the table right now. Limitless, that Bradley Cooper one I’m actually quite intrigued by. And Javier Bardem in Biutiful. A brilliant actor in what is meant to be a brilliant film. Time will tell.

Spotify? ‘Parklife’ by Blur. Nuff said.

Amazon? Still reading Anne Of Green Gables. It’s very much a book for girls, but still quite engaging. I don’t hate it, which is a positive.

***

Family Guy is like Marmite, it seems. People either absolutely hate it with a passion, or they’re obsessive fans who would worship Peter Griffin if it was socially acceptable. I love the show – I’m not a freckled fanboy, but I do think its genius writing. Naturally then, I had to go and see Ted. Seth McFarlane’s first-ever live action feature film? Fuck yeah, I had to go and see it. But it wasn’t just the appreciation for McFarlane that brought me to the cinema. It was the intrigue of seeing if he could emulate animated success on a larger scale.

Better tell you what it’s about first, though. When ten year-old Johnny wishes that his teddy bear was real, it actually happens and the two become inseparable best friends. Now aged 35, Johnny (Mark Wahlberg) is still best friends with Ted, but it begins to cause problems for his relationship with Lori (Mila Kunis). It comes down to a simple choice – the girlfriend or the teddy bear. Oh, and there’s a bad guy too, which I’ll get to later.

  

Ted is made in exactly the same way McFarlane writes all of his animated shows – the humour is controversial, crass, vulgar and laugh-out-loud funny at times. There are cutaways of the sort you would see in Family Guy. And, in the character of Ted, you have another Peter Griffin. The formula hasn’t really been tampered with too much. That could so easily have been a massive mistake but, lo and behold, it wasn’t! The film is shamelessly offensive throughout, and really bloody funny because of it. Ted is a hilarious character; close your eyes and you’d think it was Peter Griffin talking, that’s how similar they are. That was a mistake, I think, but McFarlane does manage to give Ted much more heart and soul; an achievement, considering we’re talking about a pot-smoking alcoholic teddy bear.

Where the film fucks up is the final third. Yes, it’s an offensive comedy, but you also have a film that is about romance and friendship and the choices people are forced to make. So why on earth are we suddenly thrown into a high-speed car chase and action sequence? The whole tone of the movie shifts suddenly, and not in a good way. I get that they needed to have a dramatic moment, but it could have been done in such a better way. But in doing it this way, they spoil the movie’s tone and waste a very talented Giovanni Ribisi, playing the villain.

What Seth McFarlane really needs to be applauded for is Mark Wahlberg. I used to hate Wahlberg, my opinion of him being that he was just a poor man’s Matt Damon. Looks a bit like Damon, talks a bit like Damon, but can’t act like Damon. But, dammit, he’s starting to make me change my mind. Amazing performances in The Departed and The Fighter, as well as a change of pace in films like The Other Guys have made him much better. And now, he gives what I think is the best comic performance of his career. I didn’t know he had it in him, but he’s fantastic.

The supporting cast is solid, they get the job done without being amazingly spectacular. Mila Kunis has great comic timing, and looks bloody hot throughout. You also get cameos from other Family Guy regulars, which is nice. But it’s the unexpected cameos in the film that are a treat. I’ll only tell you about one: Sam Jones (who played Flash Gordon back in the day). Jones has a small, but really funny sequence in the movie. It’s so random, but works so well. The other cameos, you can see for yourself. Like I said before, Ribisi is so wasted. I’m a big Ribisi fan, and he is very funny in the few scenes he’s in, but such a waste. Look out for his dance performance, it’s hilarious.

Ted is so similar in style to Family Guy that it could have been a massive failure; instead, McFarlane has managed to successfully translate his skills to the big screen. Despite its flaws, this is still probably one of the best comedies of the year so far. It does bear noting, however, that he still does rely on animation (okay, CGI, but its close) and suspension of disbelief here, like he does in his cartoons. The next challenge, and what I really want to see, is what he can do with a film that has none of that.

***

I talk on Twitter sometimes - @writeofcentre – about things. Stuff like this:

DVD REVIEW Carnage: A masterclass in acting with Jodie Foster as the big standout for me. Nice to see Polanksi still in good form. Loved it.

DVD REVIEW Wild At Heart: A surreal movie that could only have come from David Lynch. The two leads are superb, Dern just as good as Cage.

DVD REVIEW The Inbetweeners Movie: A genuinely laugh-out-loud film, I was very pleasantly surprised. A fittingly grand end to a good sitcom.

So, follow me!

The Dark Knight Rises.

LoveFilm? I just watched Beverly Hills Cop for the first time last night. That Murphy kid is gonna be a star. I’ve got Carnage sitting on my desk, which I’m looking forward to. Love me some Polanksi.

Spotify? ‘Wires’ by Athlete. Admittedly, not my favourite song of all time, but that’s the beauty of Shuffle. That, or I’m a lazy dick who can’t skip it. Maybe both.

Amazon? I’ve just started reading Anna Of Green Gables by Lucy Maud Montgomery. I have literally no expectation from it, which is a good thing, I’d say.

***

I was a little surprised a couple of weeks ago when I realised Batman Begins, the first of the Nolan trilogy, was released in 2005. Seven bloody years ago. To think that this series has been floating around for so many years – it’s pretty crazy. But seven years and three movies later, it’s over. With definitely much more of a bang than a whimper, it is actually over.

The Dark Knight Rises begins eight years after the second film. Harvey Dent is dead. Gotham is free of organised crime. Having lost a lot of his money through questionable business deals, Bruce Wayne has become a recluse. Oh, and that mysterious guy in the black suit is gone. All is well enough, until a mercenary by the name of Bane arrives. As Bane starts to wreak havoc on the streets of Gotham with the aid of a nuclear bomb, the need for Batman grows. We know the answer to whether Batman returns. Of course he does. The answer to whether Batman is still good enough to save the day? Well, you’ll just have to find that out for yourself.

It took a while to get this last one out (it’s been four years since The Dark Knight), and there was a ridiculous amount of hype and expectation. How do you possibly top the grandeur of The Dark Knight? How do you develop a villain as fantastic as Heath Ledger’s Joker? And, more importantly, how do you satisfyingly end this Batman mythology? Bravely and very successfully, Christopher Nolan not only tackles these questions, he makes them a focal point of the actual story. Rises isn’t just about a superhero trying to overcome a supervillain; this is about Bruce Wayne coming to terms with his own mortality, and that of his masked alter-ego.  

I think Christian Bale gave the second film’s worst performance; here, though, he’s one of the best. He isn’t the best Batman, but he is definitely the best Bruce Wayne. Bale is at his best in the movie when expressing the insecurities Bruce, particularly in pivotal scenes with Michael Caine and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. That annoying gravelly voice has been improved on too, making Batman much more fun to see as well. As his opposite number, Tom Hardy is incredible. Yes, the mask and stupidly bulky body are immense; what resonated with me more, though, was how Hardy was able to emote so much with just his eyes. A great performance.

The supporting cast do their bit too. It’s probably a disservice to call Anne Hathaway supporting cast, because she’s not really. And she is scene-stealingly good as Selina Kyle (Catwoman, though she’s never called that). Michael Caine, Gary Oldman and Morgan Freeman are typically brilliant – in fact, I’d say Caine gives the best performance in the movie. Joseph Levitt is strong as the valiant young police officer. The weak link for me was Marion Cotillard. I love her as an actor, I really do, but her accent really pissed me off. All her dialogue felt forced and unnatural, which annoyed me. I get that she has become part of the Nolan family, but other actresses could have done a better  job.

It’s hard to talk about the movie without giving away spoilers. And there is so much happening in the two-and-a-half-hour movie, that I’d need to reveal spoilers to have things make sense. Know this though; the scale of this movie is far greater than the last two. The Dark Knight Rises is an epic film. Whether you’re drawn to the thrilling action and spectacular set-pieces, or the interaction between lots of brilliant actors at their best, you’ll find it all here. You could argue that the ending is a bit too Hollywood, but then you could say Batman as a character is a bit too Hollywood.

I made the claim just before watching Rises that Nolan’s Batman trilogy might be the greatest trilogy of all time. Having now watched the film three times (don’t judge me), I stand by my claim. From beginning to end, in nearly ten hours of cinema, Christopher Nolan has produced a Batman series that will never ever be matched. I feel sorry for the poor guy who tries.

The Hunger Games.

Spotify? Thin Line by Jurassic 5. I’ll never call myself a hip hop aficionado, but these guys are great. I’ll sound cheesy now (fuck you) but Jurassic 5 really do have the sound of the streets.
LoveFilm? Sitting on my desk right now are The Zookeeper, which is going to be painfully bad. And Laputo – Castle In the Sky which, I’m predicting, will be painfully good. Pain, basically.
Amazon? So I finally did that thing I should have done YEARS ago, and read The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. A measly 200 pages, but fun. Once I get done with this months’ Empire Magazine, it’s Jane Austen’s Emma. I’m hoping it’s less Little Women, and more Jane Eyre. Interesting, not wank, I mean.

*****

This is a short list of things people could say to put me off a movie: “This is the next Twilight!”. Okay, that’s the end of the list. I don’t have anything against that Twilight lot, but I’m not sold on it. So chances are I wouldn’t be sold on anything claiming it’s the next one. They said it about The Hunger Games though. Said it a lot.

For those of you haven’t read the novels, here’s a quick breakdown of the movie first: Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) lives in the slums of New York many years in the future, where the poor are very poor and the rich are very rich. Every year, the annual Hunger Games puts 24 slum-dwelling kids into a televised contest, watched by millions Big Brother-style. The rules are simple: kill everyone else, and you win. This year, Katniss is taking part, and winning is a matter of life and death. Literally.

So I’ll come clean: I really loved this movie. This was a very well-made, well-shot film with a great central concept and some great performances. To be honest, mentioning this as something similar to Twilight is an insult – Hunger Games excels over Twilight on every level.

What really impressed me about the movie was the grittiness of it all. Sure, it’s marketed mostly towards teenagers, but this isn’t exactly a date movie. This is literally young children beating and murdering other young children. Mercilessly, a lot of the time, and all for nothing. Rather than shots of gorgeous people in gorgeous places, we follow a battle-worn Katniss with shaky cams. We’re in a warzone, and director Gary Ross never lets us forget that.

But that’s the second half of the movie. The first half is impressive because of how allegorical it is. Comparisons can easily be made to the fantastic Battle Royale, but the two films differ in one aspect. While Battle Royale is an allegory on society too, it doesn’t touch on it nearly as enough as The Hunger Games does. It’s a fearlessly scathing attack on reality TV and the Big Brother world, and it works. Nothing could justify why these poor kids have to kill each other, especially when, beyond staying alive, the winner gains nothing. They just do it because people want to watch them do it. Ratings. Familiar?

But everything else aside, this is a good film simply because of Jennifer Lawrence. Fucking hell, she’s fantastic. She hasn’t been around very long, but has already succeeded in tough, meaty roles. This is one of them. Katniss Everdeen is not a girl’s girl: she is a fighter, a survivor, devoid of expressing herself, but still so vulnerable and fragile. Lawrence embodies all of that. You could argue that her performance here is a watered-down version of what she did in the brilliant Winter’s Bone. The film would live and die depending on her, and she rises to the occasion.

The rest of the cast are alright, but nobody else really jumps out. Elizabeth Banks and Woody Harrelson are good, but wasted. Donald Sutherland is good in a short, but menacing role. Everyone else does enough to not be hated, but they’re all just background players to Lawrence. It’s her movie all the way.

I’ve never read the books (I probably will end up reading them at some point) but you don’t need to be a fan to enjoy the movie. It succeeds all on its own. A sleeper success.

*****

I’m lying in bed right now, writing this. Once I finish writing I’ll, well, remain lying in bed. No better way to spend a Saturday night, I’d say. Oh, yeah, Plan B’s singing Stay Too Long right now. I like him, he ain’t bad. Not a great actor, but I’ve seen much worse.

Okay, shameless plug time. I do that thing they call Twitter - @writeofcentre – and I do that thing they call Facebook. I do other things too, but you’ll have to ask me about them. I might tell you.

Shall I go now? I’ll go now. Gone.

Professional Wrestling, Or Why I Shouldn't Really Hate Ballet

In roughly six hours, hundreds of thousands of men, women and children will pack a stadium to see men in spandex pretend to fight. Millions more will watch it across the world. I’ll be watching it too, just like I have for most of my life. I can’t still be deluded, surely?

“What was amazing to me was how similar the performers in both of these worlds are. They both make incredible use of their bodies to express themselves. They’re both performers.”

(Darren Aranofsky, writer/director)

Ballet is one of the most highly-respected art forms in the world. Dancers literally suffer for their art. Kids as young as four or five push beyond their threshold of pain to achieve that perfect step or perfect position. In return, they gain the admiration of the art world, selling out international theatres and achieving critical and creative acclaim. Only those within the industry can properly understand and appreciate why ballet is worth sacrificing your body and your mind.

That’s the world Darren Aranofsky referred to during interviews for his Oscar-winning movie Black Swan. The world he compared it to? Professional wrestling.

Now I fucking hate ballet, can’t stand it, but I fully respect it. Wrestling? Just say the word and people roll their eyes. If ballet is high-end, then wrestling is low-end; the lowest form of art and entertainment, if it’s even allowed to be called those things. It is to performance art what pornography is to cinema. Yet, even now, millions and millions of people around the world love and revere it, children and adults. This weekend, for example, the entire city of Miami, Florida is dedicated to promoting it. A whole city! How can something so universally popular still create so much derision?

Chances are that your exposure to wrestling, if any, will be to WWE/F, the biggest wrestling company in the world. And I’ll be honest, it’s not always great nowadays. At times, it can be downright awful. But just like you wouldn’t use Chris Brown to talk about the entire history of hip hop, you can’t use one company to discuss the entire wrestling industry. Professional wrestling in its current form has been around for over a century, and its origins go as far back as the gladiators of Ancient Rome. What you see today has been influenced by things like Jacobean theatre, circus carnivals, traditional pantomime, gymnastics and, yes, even ballet. Instead of being a niche art form, it’s an amalgamation of many other ‘respectable’ arts. Quite the accomplishment. Wrestling performers have spent decades perfecting the art of the spectacle, evolving with the times.

And yes, it’s a spectacle. It’s not real. Of course it’s not fucking real, we’re not stupid. Hamlet doesn’t really stab Polonius in the chest, y’know. Sam Worthington doesn’t really travel to a faraway place called Pandora. Hulk Hogan doesn’t actually get dropped on his head. Not real. But what is very, very real is the physicality. Like those dancers who live and breathe ballet every second of the day, so too do professional wrestlers.

Obviously, there are the wrestling matches themselves. A wrestling match is like a choreographed dance routine, except you’re falling and landing constantly on a concrete surface and everything is improvised. Very little is usually planned beforehand, it’s all done on the fly. When you know one missed step or wrong turn can cause horrific injuries, the decision to improvise like that has to be appreciated. And there have been horrific injuries; I’ve seen legs and necks broken, I’ve seen concussions, I’ve seen worse. Yet these brave performers continue to risk that, all the while continuing to entertain the crowd and staying in character. We all applaud those amazing actors who are able to remember and recite long Shakespearean soliloquys with the same intensity every night. Why should this be treated any differently?

But the physical toll on these guys doesn’t end there. Travelling is an integral part of the wrestling industry, borne out of the carnival lifestyle of the past. Yes, at the highest level, wrestlers can afford planes and tour buses and whatever else, but 90% of wrestlers don’t reach the highest level. In America alone, most wrestling performers have to drive everywhere, trips that can last days sometimes. Just as recent as thirty years ago, wrestlers would be on the road 300 out of 365 days in a year, away from their families and loved ones, moving from hotel room to hotel room, city to city, never getting proper rest. And all that just to perform in front of no more than a few hundred people, usually. All for the love of the industry. Some would say that the rock and roll lifestyle is what killed music greats like Elvis Presley, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. They are tragic deaths. Wrestlers have an almost identical lifestyle, but dying is seen as an eventuality, not a tragedy. Why?

Now the common and overused criticism – wrestlers all take drugs and steroids and that’s how they do what they do, and look how they look. Hey, a lot of them did. Some of them still do. I’m not saying I like it, but it’s an aspect of the industry that is fucking fascinating. You can’t talk about rock and roll without mentioning the drug culture. It’s probably worse in the music industry, but it’s still fun to research and talk about. If drug culture is the reason professional wrestling should be alienated and looked down upon, then so should the music industry. So should boxing and American football and athletics. I could name more.

I’ve probably started rambling now. But if you’ve managed to read this far, I hope you’ve got even a tiny bit more respect for an art form that is severely misunderstood. Wrestling has the spectacle of a music concert. It requires the same skill and ability as gymnastic. It is as physically demanding as ballet. It needs the same concentration as theatre. And it needs the same sacrifices to be made as every other art does.

And rightfully, it deserves the same respect.