THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E - review

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E
Director: Guy Ritchie
Cast: Henry Cavill, Armie Hammer, Alicia Vikander, Elizabeth Debicki, Hugh Grant

So, for the first time in I don't know how long I went to the movies sans crochet. That's right folks, you heard me. I went to the movies without my crochet. I am on a 6 week ban from my one true love (thanks A LOT Dr Life Ruiner) while I work on strengthening my unstable wrists. I'm not going to lie, I cried when my specialist broke the news. I mean, what do people do when they watch movies or watch Netflix? Just sit there? What a waste of time that could be better used crocheting *sigh* #firstworldproblems.

Anyway, so I went to the Sun, feeling a little bit gloomy that I couldn't spend my luxiourious 2 hours crocheting while I enjoyed my other favourite pasttime - watching movies - but ready to enjoy the latest Guy Ritchie film, THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. I was excited by the fact that Ritchie has put out a new movie, and excited that my future husband (Henry Cavill) and my other future husband (Armie Hammer) were starring in it. Also, I was excited to see what else Alicia Vikander could do after thoroughly enjoying her in TESTAMENT OF YOUTH and EX MACHINA. I had some trepidation, there was a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the lead up to this film with Stephen Soderberg originally slated to direct before pulling out in 2011 (The Hollywood Reporter), and truth be told there isn't really a "star" in the film. Sure Henry Cavill is the new Superman, and Armie Hammer did some awesome stuff with the Winklevoss twins in THE SOCIAL NETWORK, but c'mon let's face it, they aren't A-listers yet. This is a star franchise to be without any stars in it, and I can't help but wonder what it would have been like with someone like Brad Pitt or Jude Law or even Bradley Cooper in it.

American super spy is meant to save super hot German car mechanic girl. Super spy and girl get chased by Russian super spy who is trying to kill them both. Russian super spy fails, super American super spy and super hot German car mechanic girl get away. American super spy and Russian super spy are forced to work together to find super hot German car mechanic girl's father and save the world from a nuclear weapon that has fallen into the hands of an international crime organisation. Super hot German mechanic girl is actually super hot German undercover English spy. Much hijinks. Such 60's technology. Very spy. Wow.

Henry Cavill being very spy

image via Warner Bros.

Based on the television series by the same name from the 60's THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E is not your run of the mill American summer spy movie blockbuster. It is small scale, subtle and funny. There are no gargantuan battle scenes, no super outlandish special effects and as I mentioned earlier no massive A-listers. Except Hugh Grant. He was in it for a whole 17 and a half minutes max. Quite a welcome change from all the high impact, same-sameyness that is coming out of Hollywood at the moment, but still clearly proof that no one can have an original thought anymore.

The casting could have been magical, I'm sure these three leading actors have so mmuch more to give than they gave in this film. I've seen glimpses of it in their other work, but there is something so reserved about them - Cavill and Hammer in particular - that makes this film not quite work. It's all very cookie cutter like and the characters don't have a nice flow or synergy about them and that's just a real downer. I actually quite like that they cast not quite A-listers, although it must be hard for casting agents in Hollywood right now with every other person signed on for movie after movie in a franchise because everyone must be so damn busy with their franchises they don't have time for anything else! I like a film that is a bit left of centre without a huge name cast, but sadly this time it didn't quite work.

Seriously Hugh Grant is in this film you guys - who knew?!

image via Warner Bros.

In interviews with the cast you can tell they've all had the best time and that they really like and respect Ritchie, but I think they've been let down by him. They all seem to be holding back and as a director he should have got right up in there and made them let it go a little bit. A lady in the session I was in said at the end "it was all very British wasn't it?", and I think she was quite right. There wasn't the sheer level of unpredictable craziness of an American spy movie, it was very "British" and by British I mean refined and cultured with subtle humor and an inoffensive soundtrack, and I actually think that's why I liked it even though I didn't love the acting and some of the directing. I liked the terrible 60's spy technology and the outfits (that suit...oh my), I liked the slightly deranged, very backhanded but oh so polite humor. All of those things are what made it so enjoyable. That and the fact that both my future husbands are in it.

hello future husbands

image via Warner Bros.

I like that it could be a stand alone movie, and I think Ritchie is pretty lucky that he made it that way...I really don't think it's going to pull in enough money for them to consider backing the final two films of this franchise. It's certainly obvious that there is a plan for this franchise - I mean the ending has left itself WIDE open there, so there isn't any doubt - but whether it gets off the ground is another story. If it does I hope to see all three of these leads just let go a little bit and show us who they really are instead of the cookie cutter versions of people we saw in this film.

If you're after something a little bit different to all the other Hollywood smut that's around at the moment but still want a fodder film, then you might well be glad you spent the twenty-something dollars on THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E, but it's not a must see.

3 out of 5 for this unlikely trio

xoxo
The Blonde Bombshell

THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E trailer

MR HOLMES - review

MR HOLMES

Director: Bill Condon

Cast: Ian McKellan, Laura Linney, Milo Parker

Disclaimer: If you know anyone suffering from Alzheimer's then this film is probably going to get you right in the feels. 

The mysterious, marvelous, incredulous Detective Holmes is once more gracing our screens. Now, I don't know about you, but I do love the story of this super sleuth in all its forms. Not so much a fan of some of the tv spin offs, but the classic Holmes stories have an uncanny ability to keep me enthralled. When I heard that one of my all time favourites was going to be bringing Holmes to life on the big screen I couldn't wait. I mean is there nothing this man can't do? Gandalf, Magneto, King Lear, Emile, all of the narrators, and the list goes on. Sir Ian McKellan is one of the true greats, and his performance in MR HOLMES does not disappoint, it's just a shame that the story isn't as good as his performance. 

This version of the Holmes story, is set in postwar Britain, in Sussex, where the famous detective, now 93 and retired, lives in seclusion with his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son (Milo Parker).  He is grappling with a case from 30 years ago, but his memory is failing him and the pieces of the story come to him in fragments. He forms a bond with his housekeepers son Roger, who helps him tend to his bees and with Rogers' help he slowly puts together the story of the case that he ended his career over. 

Holmes and Roger

image via Transmission Films

Bill Condon has done something extraordinary with this piece of work - he made it kind of suck. He is not entirely to blame, the script is all over the place, and there is so much back and forwardsing going on that there isn't enough time to get wrapped up in any of them. Present day where Holmes is keeping bees, and befirneding Roger and trying to work out what happened 30 years ago, a trip to Japan where Holmes travels to get some prickly ash to aid his failing memory and where he witnesses the horror of the Hiroshima bombing, and 1919 where the case began that Holmes is trying to solve. As soon as we get used to being in one time and location and used to one set of characters, we are quickly whisked off to another place and time. 

Holmes and Mrs Munro

image via Transmission Films

The entire cast of this film is magnificent, but requires them to be little more than bit part actors, particularly in the case of Laura Linney who hardly does anything other than walk in and out of rooms with a concerned look and some exclamation of disdain for her sons relationship with Holmes of for Holmes' declining mental state. It was a real shame to see such talented actors wasted. Even McKellan who played his part wonderfully suffers at the hand of this poorly scripted film. The timing is strangely off kilter for the whole film and the disjointed nature makes it difficult to get fully involved because you're too busy trying to keep up with where we're at. I'm not saying I could have written something better, if I could I would surely be an accomplished playwright instead of a business manager, but the script needed some editing of the flow to bring it to its full potential. 

McKellan's portrayal of a once brilliant man struggling with the very painful reality of losing mental faculties is moving, if at times a little unsettling. Anyone who has watched someone suffer through Alzheimer's will probably get hit right in the feels. McKellan does a stellar job of flying through the range of emotions displayed by other sufferers. Anger, frustration, sadness, helplessness, hopelessness and everything in between. It is isolating and infuriating, and both Linney and Parker give performances of the very real responses of those living with someone living with the disease. 

93 year old Holmes trying to remember the case from 30 years ago

63 year old Holmes working the case he can't remember in his old age

images via Transmission Films

Overall, MR HOLMES is a visually lovely film to watch, and the actors have done a wonderful job with what they had. McKellan's performance is stellar and had the film been slightly better written I think that McKellan could have been generating some Oscar's buzz. Sadly I'm not sure it's going to end up that way, but I will happily stand corrected if it happens when the time comes. If you like something off the beaten path in terms of mainstream film then you might very well enjoy this lovely little piece of cinema. I'm not sure I would recommend you pay 20-something dollars to see it at the cinema, but it is certainly worth checking out if you get a chance. 

3 out of 5

xoxo

The Blonde Bombshell

SELF/LESS - review

SELF/LESS

Director: Tarsem Singh

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Ben Kingsley, Natalie Martinez, Matthew Goode, Victor Garber

OK, so here's the deal, SELF/LESS is getting a pretty bum rap from a lot of critics out there, and I can appreciate why, but for all it's plot holes, replications, lagging and aesthetic blandness, SELF/LESS will have some appeal with the general public (GP). 

Here's how the film goes: 1%-er Damian Hale (Ben Kingsley) is dying. His body is riddled with cancer that cannot be cured, so upon finding a mysterious business card he discovers a man (Matthew Goode) and a company who can transplant his mind into a lab-grown body so he can go on living his life. Hale is the kind of 1%-er who thinks his cheque book can solve all the problems in the world, including the ones with his estranged daughter (Michelle Dockery), so he throws down 250 million big ones and goes ahead with this "shedding" process. In goes Hale and out comes Edward (Ryan Reynolds), not a bad trade if you ask me. 

waking up in a new bod - Ben Kingsley goes in Ryan Reynolds comes out 

images via Universal Pictures

Edward begins his rehab process, including getting a new life story, learning to be a human again (because apparently transplanting your brain into another body means you have to learn all your fine motor skills again), and taking the anti-rejection medication daily. One skipped pill leaves Edward crippled by hallucinations that feel way more like flashbacks, and leaves him questioning the whole shebang. Delving deeper into the whole mess he finds out that his brand, spanking new body is not actually brand, spanking new and once belonged to a man named Mark, who had a family and made a life changing decision to save his daughter. 

Chase, fight, chase, fight, blow torch, gun fire, chase, yell, frighten the hell out of people who thought you were dead, chase, fight, blow torch chase. Apparently the afore mentioned company doesn't want him to find out about the whole bod snatching thing (one can only imagine why), and the whole thing goes belly up. 

Tarsem Singh is an awesome filmmaker, giving us gems like THE CELL, and I had high hopes when I heard he was on board for SELF/LESS. Unfortunately he doesn't quite hit the mark with SELF/LESS, not all his fault - some blame must lay with the writers here. The film doesn't delve into the myriad of philosophical issues it raises and barely touches on anything with real meaning, which is a shame because it could have had much more depth than it did. Aesthetically the film didn't really work for me as well as some of Singh's other films, and the flow of the film was pretty clunky and lagged a little in the second half. 

There is a lot in this film that rings a familiar bell and that isn't surprising, there are ideas, themes and plot twists from pretty much every bod-swap movie ever made, in particular SECONDS, a piece of cinema from 1966 in which a wealthy but unhappy banker gets a facelift and ends up looking like Rock Hudson. Sadly all the borrowing makes the film feel very same-samey, and had the writers chosen to do so they could have made it less sci/fi-action and more sci/fi-drama and explored some of the issues the other bod-swap movies don't do. There's a veritable smorgasbord of options in the narrative of this film and no one even takes a sniff, let alone a bite. Shame I say. 

hello  blow-torch

image via Universal Pictures

Ben Kingsley introduces us to Damian as a cruel, heartless, 1%-er who cares for little more than money and power even in death. Reynolds' version of Damian is a reformed man with a heart that has appeared out of no-wheresville and doesn't gel at all with Kingsley's Damian. Massive plot hole there, both versions of the character are perfect for the part of the story they're in, but they don't go together, there is no character development that shows us how we get from one to the other. Matthew Goode brings a nice spark to his jerk-hole character (CEO of the shedding company, Albright), which had someone else played that role seemed stiff, but he brought a nice little something-something to life in Albright. The other supporting cast do lovely things with the little screen time they have, and in my opinion deserved more. Cut out the gratuitous and never ending action, and put a little bit more meat into the story!

I get the feeling that Reynolds is trying to branch out away from Hollywood heart throb to tough action guy (think Jason Statham style, who would have been a nice fit for this role), but I don't know that it's really working for him. GREEN LANTERN worked for him because of the genre and the romance in that film, and I am just not sure that sci/fi looks good on him. I mean, most things look good on him, but I don't think he's quite got whatever it is that this film needed. He brought a great balance of humor, emotion and action, but something about him just didn't sit right. Maybe it was the script, maybe it was him, maybe it's me type-casting him, I don't know, and I'd be willing to give him another try in a film like this to see what happens. 

Goode & Reynolds in a little shoot out - that's bullet proof glass yo!

image via Universal Pictures

For GP who aren't into this genre and who haven't seen a bod-swap film before, and are maybe only catching it to see what Hollywood heart-throb Reynolds is up to of late, then I think they will find the film full of exciting twists and turns, some great action scenes - hello blow-torch - and an all round decent enough film. For those who are into this kind of thing and are familiar with the genre, I think you'll be disappointed. Singh has put together an enjoyable film, but it is predictable and a bit flat which ruins all the good things he does do. Overall I think SELF/LESS could have been amazing, but it was just too much of a mish-mash rehash to make it. I don't recommend spending the 20-something dollars on this film, wait for it on Netflix or Foxtel or Apple TV or whatever medium you use.

2 out of 5

xoxo
The Blonde Bombshell