Change Your Image
neil-procter
Reviews
The Shape of Water (2017)
The Emperor's New Clothes
Del Toro's finest? Really? What I saw was Sally Hawkins having an affair with the creature from the black lagoon. I tried to imagine it was a veiled attack on racism, but it could just as easily be seen as pro-bestiality propaganda. I heard Del Toro refer to it as a fairy tale for our times, and I presumed he meant these times of revealed male sexual harassment in the movie industry. So Sally gets her kit off in the first five minutes and we get a gratuitous look at her from above in the bath. Beautiful, yes; necessary, no. No balancing male nudity because the creature from the black lagoon is already latex naked. And then they put towels long the edges of the bathroom door and fill the room up with water so they can have aqua sex, although of course Sally can't breathe under water, and of course, rooms in houses are not water tight. Sally got the idea from seeing Paddington do it back at her house a couple of years earlier, but that was a kids' movie. It's silly and funny in a kids' movie. What are we supposed to make of it in a grown-ups' film?
Star Trek: Discovery (2017)
The worst Star Trek franchise by a country light year.
Idiot TV comes in many guises. Ant & Dec's and James Cordon's shows are very different, but both are still juicy slices of idiot television. Star Trek Discovery is another in the long line of new wave shows that think they are clever but are so idiotic they can only be designed for people who just like to watch the fabulous images and the explosions. I watched season one to the end in hope of some redemption, but alas, there was none. First of all, it falls into the same trap that eventually killed off (the superior) Star Trek Enterprise, namely having one continuous theme. In Discovery it's the Klingon war. There are several episodes in a parallel universe where everyone's doppelgangers are evil (such a cliched idea it could be right out of the original Star Trek series). The characters are unlikable and dull and the things they do are illogical to say the least, and not just in the eyes of Mr. Spock. To put evil Georgiou in charge of the mission to end the war was just one of the many nonsense actions, sort of akin to capturing Hitler and putting him in charge of an allied invasion. Furthermore, despite not being set in a future beyond all previous Star Treks, they seem to have come up with some convoluted method of high speed space travel that had never arisen in previous franchises. Star Trek used to pride itself in using science that was plausible - this stuff is just garbage. I won't be around for season 2. I'll go back and watch Voyager again.
Wonder (2017)
Heart warming family story
I normally avoid Owen Wilson, who falls into my category of Moron-Movie stars. However, he did a good job in this story of a facially damaged young boy's first year at school. It is cleverly constructed, showing events from the perspective of all leading characters, enabling us to sympathise with them all, even Wilson as the boy's father. You know it's going to an emotional ride, but there is plenty of quirky humour and love as well and, without giving too much away, a happy ending of sorts.
Goodbye Christopher Robin (2017)
Gentle and moving portrait of a dysfunctional family
As one who is fed up of infantile super-hero movies and "who's got the biggest" shoot 'em up films, I look for something a bit more grown up and intelligent. This fit the bill nicely - an exploration of the relationship between A A Milne and his son, for and about whom the Winnie The Pooh books were written. The tragedy is that, despite the lasting appeal of the books, Milne seemed to have been limited as a father. The two reasons the film gives for this is that, first, Milne was damaged by his wartime experiences, and second, that in those days, interaction with one's children seemed frowned upon for all but the poor. Milne's wife fared even worse as a mother, never forgiving her son for the pain of childbirth, leaving the child to be raised in the main by his nanny. The damage done to their relationships was permanent. Even the time Christopher got to spend with his dad seemed to be either in research for his books or on an endless promotional tour of the books. The most poignant illustration of this was when he allowed Christopher to be photographed in the enclosure with the bear from who Winnie The Pooh got his name. It is a poignant and touching film about a dysfunctional family. However accurate it actually is I found it moving and captivating.
Bright (2017)
Middle Earth in the 21st Century?
Imagine a world in which adults have the imagination and intellect of fourteen year-olds and an internet movie company makes a film about Middle Earth maybe 1000 years after Lord of The Rings. The premise they take for their movie is that orcs and elves interact with humans, harmless dragons cruise the skies, there is magic, but everything else in the world is just like it is in every other underworld cop drama; ignorance and racism abound, there is much violence and mayhem. The baddies are desperate to bring back the Dark Lord - I laughed at this extra Lord of the Rings connection, and again when I considered it could just as easily be Voldemort. Did I say there is magic - glowing magic wands that a non- magic person can't touch without instant death. As I said, it's a plot for fourteen year-olds but it is supposed to be an adult movie. Ultimately, as with all violent films, we then just have to wait for the one with the biggest to win. As usual, it turns out that goodies have the biggest, but they take the whole movie to prove it. Alas, I couldn't be bothered to wait that long.
Dunkirk (2017)
Shameful lack of scope in this age of CGI
It amazes me that this film has an average review score more than 8. I found it tedious and unnecessarily time-skewed. Christopher Nolan seemed to think it was a good idea to jump between events that were happening at different times. So, for instance, we had night time scenes at Dunkirk while it was daylight 20 miles away in the channel. It was unnecessary and confusing - a chronological telling would have worked far better. More irksome still was that, in supposedly trying to right the myth that the RAF provide no support, Nolan has three Spitfires, three, being the entirety of RAF involvement, and only a handful of German planes too . This is patent rubbish. The biggest gaff of all is that we get no sense whatsoever of the huge numbers of civilian boats that made the trip to rescue soldiers from the beach, some of them returning over and over again. In this age of CGI I was surprised that, when for once the vast scope of something was a vital part of the story, the images showed hardly anything. This was a very poor effort from someone regarded as being one of the top film makers. And that people can review it so highly perhaps illustrates that people don't care, provided there's shooting and explosions. For me it was dull and unedifying.
Strike Back (2010)
Tosh
I quite enjoyed the first season of Strike Back, but subsequently it has lost whatever essence of realism it had in those first episodes. It's a macho blokes show for starters, so if that's your thing, fair enough. But in a ten episode series the plot takes absurd twists and turns - the evil baddie at the end is never the same evil baddie as at the start. Secondly, forces friends tell me that the chances of a captive escaping from a terrorist organisation is nil, which is why the forces go in immediately and heavily to try to free captured comrades. Thirdly, these section 20 guys do their jobs so badly sometimes that they let the evil baddie get away many times before finally terminating their threat, This usually involves talking to them at gunpoint in some dangerous situation rather than grabbing them and leaving or, what would more likely happen in reality, killing them instantly. Fourthly, at least one of them is always having sex on the job - I know it makes compulsive TV viewing for some, but this is a sure way for an agent to compromise their security. Lastly, these two superheroes are forever running into a hail of bullets and, while everyone around them gets killed, they rarely get a scratch. It's nonsense, but if it floats your boat, good luck to you.
The Five (2016)
Not even The Five out of Ten.
I don't know where to begin to describe how bad this, and I wouldn't bother if IMDb didn't require a minimum input. It's yet another attempt to jump onto the Swedish noir bandwagon, but this is staggeringly bad. The "complexity" of the plot actually hinges on every character having a sordid, twisted past and a secret to hide. The behaviour of the characters is absurd. Everyone seems to want to be an amateur sleuth, so much so that they put themselves in danger with barely a second thought, knowing that they are dealing with multiple murderers, people who wouldn't hesitate to kill them. Real people don't do that. The child welfare worker is actually better at being a policeman than the policeman, in fact he comes over as being a secret agent of some kind. The doctor seems to take time off work all the time and is like a teenager with her mobile phone - not like any doctor I've ever known. And they all keep information from the cop even though he's their mate; obviously that's because they don't want him to find out their dirty secrets. But wait! He has a few of his own. I can't go on, I'll get too angry. This is an insult to my intelligence: I can't watch it any more. We are clearly told this is Harlan Coban's The Five - I won't be wasting my time reading any of his books if this is what I can expect.
The Affair (2014)
Not A Happy Affair
Season one ran its course and I saw it through. It was OK. I didn't quite see why it had garnered such respect but it was OK. As with all dramas these days they can't be just ordinary people embarking on an affair, like many ordinary people do. Instead there has to be tragedy in the mix. For me this made it less compelling. But the real trouble for me came with season two. Now we had extra voices telling the story, so there were even more angles, even more interpretations. I started to see the funny side: in series 8 we might get the point of view of the garage mechanic who services the family car. The Affair was actually over with now - Noah and his wife were separated and Noah and Alison were together - so the title is no longer apt. And, like all series seem to these days, in an effort to extend the success and further the profits, the story gets more and more bloated and sillier and sillier. I can only think the makers think that an audience, once hooked, will swallow anything. The final episode of season 2 is riddled with ludicrous coincidences, such as everywhere Noah and Alison go they seem to bump into former family members. But the denouement takes the biscuit. Standing at the road side Alison and Scott have a confrontation, and it is clear to the viewer what is on his mind. They talk for minutes without a vehicle passing. He then makes a grab for her and she pushes him. He steps back into the road and, lo, a car sweeps passed and kills him. That's hard enough to swallow, but to then tell us that it is Noah's car and Noah's ex-wife is driving. What are the chances? I'm still hoping for a grown-up program some day.
The Hundred Code (2015)
The Nordic Noir bandwagon
Yet another attempt at matching the heights of The Bridge and The Killing, with that greyed effect film and Swedish countryside. But, these days writers seem to think that the way to succeed is to come up with more and more outrageous plots. This one involves a serial killer (or killers) who buries his victims alive and then digs them up again. Because serial killers are deranged by definition we're supposed to buy this as plausible but it just seems convoluted and absurd to me. I've wondered for a long time why America hires British actors to play Americans. I wondered if it was because they don't think their own actors are any good? But in 100 Code, a British actor (Monaghan) uses the cliché New York American accent and sounds just like someone doing a poor New York accent. It grates every time he speaks and makes it hard to watch the show. I'm a fan of Nyqvist, but so far his character seems underdeveloped and emotionless. When will America start making good dramas for real adult viewers again?
Extant (2014)
Uninteresting and directionless
I managed to stay with season 1 of Extant,although at times it was tough going. After a couple of episodes I've given up on season 2. It has the hallmarks of yet another show that was sold on the seed of an idea - woman comes home from a long space trip pregnant - and has floundered along ever since. Even the opening sequence of season 2 irritates me because it describes in detail what happened in season 1, almost as though they know we were so un-engaged that we've forgotten. Goran Visnjic was wise enough to get out early. David Morrisey has joined the cast as the new focus of evil. It's yet another alien invasion story but strung out ad nauseum. Yet more kidult nonsense I'm afraid.
Mistaken for Strangers (2013)
Mistaken for Worthwhile
Most reviews cite this as being an accidental success. If that is true isn't there an implication that spending years learning a craft and perfecting it is unnecessary? What I saw when I watched this movie was a sibling who was being indulged by his family and his brother's band members, and this afforded him the chance to film the band's world tour. What he did, however, in classic narcissist style,was film himself most of the time. Organisation and planning were concepts he had no idea about. When he interviewed the band members he not only had no questions prepared, he could't actually think of any. He was employed to be a roadie but avoided this responsibility to the point where he lied about completing tasks and was eventually fired by his brother. There was no indication that this thirty something had any kind of job history. In fact, truth be told, the film - his own film mind you - presents him as intellectually challenged. When asked to give an idea of what he'd filmed so far he showed a previous film he'd made - a rank amateur schlock horror movie that a ten year old might make. To their credit, his brother and the members of The National were incredibly tolerant of him. He didn't understand that 'celebrities' at a private gathering might not wish to be filmed because they were filmed all the time in public. At another time he stated that he felt alienated from the band and didn't know why. Well, if you worked for twenty years in any career, banking, computing, taxidermy, whatever,and built up your knowledge and experience, ascended the ladder of success, made yourself known, and then brought your brother into work, wouldn't he be bound to feel alienated; he has no idea what is going on?
In summation, it is an indulgent movie made by a sibling who has not taken time to learn how to film or make a film. To laugh at it is to laugh at handicap.
Fortitude (2015)
Fartitude!
Advertised as "original", this drama is the latest to jump onto the "Nordic Noir" bandwagon. It has also been compared, worryingly, with Twin Peaks, a drama that disappeared up itself so quickly I am surprised there is any evidence of its existence left. My worry is that this is another Lost, which sucked people in faster than a giant vacuum cleaner, only to lead absolutely nowhere. The town governor states in episode one that this is a town without crime. Subsequently, nearly everyone has broken the law. The explanation for her grossly inaccurate statement seems to be that, in Fortitude, no one knows what the law is, including the police. A man goes wild with a gun, shooting up a workshop and at the police sheriff; he gets a lift home. People mislead the investigation at every opportunity, but hindering a police enquiry seems to be lawful. The sheriff himself, upon deciding he knows who the murderer is, finds him and beats him to a pulp, but doesn't arrest him.
In recent years TV drama has become incredibly well made - it looks good and it is acted well - but intelligence seems to have been discarded in favour of these qualities. Personally, I think it is time there was a backlash against this kind of nonsense; against script writers who have been educated to think writing good dialogue is sufficient and having a coherent plot that actually leads somewhere is not important. Three episodes of Fortitude are enough for me. Watch Spiral or The Killing, if you want to find out how it well it can be done.
The Walking Dead (2010)
Walking Dead-end
The problem with making a long-running series out of what has always been a one off movie scenario is that, as the show progresses more detail needs to be added to explain the plight of the protagonists. As many people say, suspension of disbelief is required for this type of show - how is it possible for dead people to live? - why do they eat when it isn't necessary, and they often don't have stomachs? So, we have to remove our intellectual caps and just go with the nonsense. But, as the show develops these holes in the concept become more and more glaring. It wants us to be an intelligent audience but feeds us silliness. People get caught by the dead, even though they plod around at a mile an hour; when our heroes shoot them by the score the dead bodies never pile up.(Specifically at the prison fence when they were 'killing'the dead through the wire - the living dead wouldn't have been able to get to the fence.) However, for those who love the gore there are some stunningly made scenes, and there are well developed characters. One of my biggest complaints about TV drama is when they kill characters off and then bring them back again. It is a cheap ploy that leaves you thinking you cannot believe anything about the programme, and so it is pointless to watch it. The Walking Dead is the exception - it might be nonsense, but coming back from the dead is its central theme. My biggest qualm though, is how will it end? Either it will fade away or Rick will wake up in hospital. I see no alternative.
She's the One (1996)
T'ain't the one
An unlikeable film about unlikeable people - never a recipe for movie success! Leaping straight into a scenario in which one brother is having an affair and the other gets hitched to a girl he picks up in his taxi, it has no initial character development and leaves no option for the viewer but to think, "What a bunch of *****!" In every scene cigarettes are stuffed into the characters' hands; but instead of adding a touch of working class realism it looks fake and, to this viewer, annoying. John Mahoney plays the father who, because of his old-fashioned sexist opinions, we are supposed to frown upon. But I found myself frowning at all of them. Are we supposed to care about these people or wonder how quickly their beautiful actor skin is going to get ruined by the tar they are inhaling?
Cloud Atlas (2012)
Great music, overrated film.
This is a smokescreen movie, like Donnie Darko. Like Donnie Darko, it involves different time periods, and the events in each build a complex plot. Or, do they? Donnie Darko actually didn't make sense at all, and the connections between the stories in Cloud Atlas are actually, in the main, irrelevant. The leaping from story to story, time to time, may be considered clever and challenging, but it serves to further add unwarranted complexity to the five or six strands of the whole. Yes, some characters in some parts are relatives of those in other parts,but this doesn't really have any influence on the story. This conceit is illustrated in the episode on the sailing ship in which our protagonist is reading a book, half of which he can't find because its propping up a table leg. The book was written by the central character of a different story - so what? The only effective use of the vehicle is in the futuristic episodes, where the 'manufactured' serving girl turns out to be the god worshipped by a later generation. I've read the book as well, and my disappointment extended to it too. The film looks good though, and the acting is fine. For me, the theme music is the outstanding aspect of this overrated movie.
Ascension (2014)
An old concept given a dumb overhaul
An unsubtle blend of The Truman Show, Capricorn One, Dallas and The Stepford Wives, with touches of The X Files and 2001, A Space Odyssey thrown in for good measure. I had high hopes of a contemporary reworking of the old space travel conspiracy theory (still levelled at the Apollo moon missions by some), only to find it was reduced to an inane murder mystery. Apparently, it's the first murder on the 50 year mission, but it is quickly followed by another, and another.... The middle-aged crew members seems to be engaged in a prolonged wife- swapping party. I haven't missed the fact that we are supposed to recognise 1960s' social habits because this society is locked into that era, but of course, this is stupid; all societies develop, for better or worse. The teenagers aboard have no sense of innocence or loyalty but seem to be primed for psychotic and violent action. The old people - oh, there aren't any. Even the man in charge of the whole $50 billion mission seems to have psychopathic and sociopathic impulses; how did he get the job? Oh, he inherited it from his father. Really? No government inspections; the spaceship isn't just a world within a world, the whole mission seems to be a world within a world, with only the conspiracy theorists to try to police it. At one point the boss says, "It's an experiment to see if the human race can survive." Well, if the people on board this "spaceship" are anything to go by, the sooner the human race dies off the better.