2014 review - by Danny

Here's the films I put on my 2014 preview to watch last year. I regret making the list so hastily as some of them I didn't really want to see.

January	Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit	Seen - OK
February	Robocop	Seen - OK
February	Pompeii	Seen - poor
March	Grand Budapest Hotel	Seen - OK
March	Noah	Seen - OK
April	Sabotage	Seen - poor
April	Transcendence	Seen - poor
May	Godzilla	Seen - good
June	Edge of Tomorrow	Seen - good
June	The Purge 2
July	Jupiter Ascending
August	Lucy	Seen - OK
August	The Giver
September	The Equalizer	Seen - OK
October	Gone Girl
November	Interstellar
November	Dumb & Dumber: To
November	Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1	Seen - good
December	Exodus
December	Unbroken

Overall a hit rate of just 12/20.

The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 1 - Danny's Review

I was hoping for some light hearted entertainment and this delivered in style.

On the upside there's some good emotional moments when Katniss is being heroic, and she is a suitably reluctant hero. The love triangle storyline is much less annoying than the books.

On the downside it suffers slightly from being the first of a two parter, in that lots of the time is spend building things up and clumsily explaining the politics of Panem and Katniss' different colour super-arrows. There also seems to be a shortage of characters from District 13, so all of the main players from the other two films are drafted in to form an instant President's Council, with drunkard Haymitch advising on strategy and Phillip Seymour Hoffman as a general advisor specialising in whimsical filming.

Stanley Tucci has said in interviews that the Hunger Games premieres are a lot like the overblown parties they have at the Capitol, and there's a certain irony to the whole Hunger Games franchise becoming such a consumer hit. He said that Katniss is unaware of the political themes, but maybe becomes more aware during the trilogy, as will some of the teenage audience. However, the author Suzanne Collins is no Iain M Banks and the dystopian world she describes is not very well imagined. Still, it's lots of fun.

Suzanne Collins (author), Gale, Katniss, Peeta, Francis Lawrence (director)

The Imitation Game - Danny's Review

This is a very good bio-pic of Alan Turing. By the end you feel like you've learned about someone who did very important things you didn't know about. In fact, the final scenes more or less claim that Alan both won World War Two and invented computers.

However, I did know about Alan Turing, because he was a mathematician and Computer Scientist. I therefore have four minor gripes with the film:

• Turing's interest in thinking computers wasn't really relevant to cracking the Enigma code. The method there was just to use a computer to run through all the millions of possible combinations, using some logic to rule out the impossible ones.
• Keira Knightley mispronounces Euler (a little thing, but couldn't someone have checked?)
• It's claimed that Turing's Universal Machine was a machine to solve all problems; in fact it was more of a thought experiment which demonstrated that any solvable problem can be solved with a very simple computer, it just takes longer.
• They failed to include Turing's most visual eccentricity, that he kept his mug chained to a radiator so no one could take it.

I did enjoy the general mathematical rivalry between the group of super-nerds. There's a good bit where Turing mutters that the Engima machine has one hundred and fifty million combinations. "One hundred and fifty nine million to be precise" says the sexy chess champion. Knightley is also good as the human counterpart to autistic Turing, while also being really clever herself.

The three interwoven stories are all interesting. When Alan is a child and middle aged you mostly feel sorry for how he is mistreated. The main section when he is in his prime at Bletchley Park you get a glimpse of his darker side, where he was actually quite unpleasant. Benedict Cumberbatch (who plays Turing) said of the 2013 public apology that Turing was pretty appalling and he should have been apologising [Edit - I've crossed this out as I can't find the source of the quote and it seems like everything else Cumberbatch said about Turing was very positive, so maybe I've got it wrong - see comments]

The film also provides plenty of social commentary, about sexism, homophobia, paranoia and espionage. So there's tense scenes mixed with funny bits when Turing does something odd or clever. Overall, it's a winner.

The Equalizer - Danny's Review

I did my first day's work since June yesterday, so as a reward today I went along to the new Denzel at 10am. There weren't many of us there, mostly single middle aged men, and an elderly couple who left early.

Denzel, along with Liam Neeson, is the new breed of middle-aged action hero. Unlike Arnie and Stallone (and Seagal) who rely on brute strength (and lightning reflexes) these guys use the unique skills they learned ages ago, and were hoping not to have to use again. But they've been pushed too far, so reluctantly destroy everyone in their path.

In The Equalizer Denzel plays an ordinary guy working at a hardware megastore, with a secret past. It's a bit like Viggo Mortensen in A History of Violence, but whereas Viggo actually is fairly normal Denzel's character is a bit weird. He's excessively precise, lives like a hermit, never sleeps, and carefully wraps up a single tea bag in a napkin to take to his favourite late night diner, where they give him hot water and he reads a really old looking book.

It's in the Diner he meets another creature of the night, Russian mini-hooker Chloë Grace Moretz, who is intrigued by the very obviously symbolic books Denzel is reading. The Old Man and The Sea where the old man "faces his greatest challenge late in his life", Don Quixote, about a man who "wanted to be a protective knight in an age where there were no knights", and right at the end The Invisible Man.

Denzel is curiously affected by her plight, and snaps when she gets beaten up one too many times. There's a good scene when he confronts the Russian pimps. He decides to let things lie and opens the door to leave, but then pauses, pushes the door closed and goes back inside... From then on we know he's some sort of elite killer, and it's a case of him working his way up the organisation outsmarting and outkilling them.

The film is pretty lean, and pretty much everyone Denzel talks to in the first half, when he is being normal, later returns when he is being a badass. There's one woman who Denzel greets near the start "Hi Julie, how are you?" "Better now" (for having seen Denzel). Later she gets a Diamond ring stolen in a routine robbery unconnected to the main plot. Denzel of course gets it back, but by now it's well established how effective Denzel is, so all we need to see is the shorthand of her rediscovering the ring, and Denzel cleaning off a bloodied sledgehammer and popping it back on the shelf. Presumably it's still fit to be sold to another customer.

Denzel meets his nemesis, a steely evil Russian fixer (Martin Csokas) who brings loads of goons with him for Denzel to kill. Denzel deals with him, in an epic hardware finale with lots of good props. Then after you think it's finished there's a little epilogue when he goes to Russia to kill "the head of the snake". The final scene shows Denzel answering an uninformative email "Can you help?" simply by writing "Yes". He's found his inner peace, and has become some sort of lethal agony aunt.

Before I go to Sleep - Danny's Review

I was supposed to watch The Giver today, but couldn't face another teen drama. Instead I went for the solid grown-up Before I go to Sleep, helmed by the three heavyweights Colin Firth, Nicole Kidman and Mark Strong.

It was a wise choice. Mark Strong was good and menacing, Colin Firth was so nice he came across as menacing, and Kidman was very innocent and confused. She has daily amnesia, and every morning has to be reminded of who she is. It's like 50 First Dates, but scarier.

Because she has no memories of her own Kidman has to trust what other people are telling her, and this makes her very vulnerable. You only know as much as she does, and feel her sense of fragility; you're always braced for the next revelation that will shatter what she thinks she knows.

In order that she can build up her knowledge she starts a little video diary which she watches each day. It's a bit like Leonard tattooing himself in Memento, but less painful. But once that starts getting erased she's in big trouble, and you can sense her frustration as she knows that tomorrow she won't remember a thing. It builds up nicely, but ... [scroll down for massive spoiler]

...the ending is very poor. The big twist is that actually the man she's been living with is not really her (ex)-husband. In fact he's the one who she had an affair with years ago, who then beat her up causing her amnesia.

For the last four years he's effectively kidnapped her, photoshopped himself into her wedding photos, and tells her the same lies every day. This is an ingenious idea, and makes for a good surprise, but collapses under scrutiny. Why does her actual husband and son not realise that she's out of the care home and living with a maniac? Surprisingly, this dramatic but ill-conceived twist also features in the book the movie is based on.

And while I'm at it, why does this therapy of giving her a camera (or in the book a written diary) have such a drastic effect (her amnesia improves during the film)? Surely it would have been tried before, 14 years ago when she first had amnesia.

Overall though, a good tense drama. The amnesia angle is a good one, and is dealt with more thoroughly than say Trance, which instead packs in a lot more plot twists.

Kidman, Firth, Anne-Marie Duffy, author S.J. Watson and director Rowan Joffe

Sin City 2: A Dame to Kill For - Danny's Review

The first issue is, is this a sequel? Bruce Wills who plays protective cop Hartigan only appears as a ghost in this one, which make sense as he died in the first film. But Marv also died and he's back alive. And the characters of Dwight and Manute are played by different actors. It's confusing.

In a way this doesn't matter too much, as like the first film it's just about giving a slice of dirty life. There are three interwoven stories. In the first Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a cocky gambler who can't lose, until he goes face to face with the outstanding Powers Boothe. In the second Dwight is enraptured by a mostly naked Eva Green. In the third Nancy seeks revenge on Powers Boothe, which is obviously a mistake.

For both the second and third plot lines Marv is knowingly used as extra muscle by the protagonist. This is fine, but I was unhappy with the fact that he was built up as being Nancy's protector (and brother?) but was quite happy for her to storm Power's house with him. Also, when they get there Powers goes on about how that yellow man was his son, "his son!", even though he doesn't seem to care that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was also "his son!". These are minor points, but are examples of how this film is not as well put together as the first one. Certainly the end is not as satisfying.

On the plus side, each scene is still great to watch. The Black & White with a bit of colour is still very entertaining, the neo-noir sets are atmospheric, and the story lines all move along quickly. It's extremely hard boiled, but unlike over-boiled pasta it doesn't become limp. My favourite character is a minor one; the cop who is besotted by Eva Green, he is the rare good man in Sin City who pretty quickly gets turned.

I enjoyed this for the action and excitement, although I would have preferred it to deepen and expand on the first movie (as all good sequels should), rather than be a slightly worse version of the original.

Lucy - Danny's Review

The average person uses 10% of their brain capacity. Imagine what she could do with 100%.

You don't have to imagine - during the film Scarlet Johannsen gets gradually more and more powerful until she reaches 100% and transcends into a spangly USB stick. Spoiler alert. First, I'm going to debunk this brain capacity myth. We already use 100% of the brain. We know this, as brain damage to any part of the brain affects its overall function. We don't use all of the brain at the same time, but that's because the different parts do different things. Claiming we could use it all at once is like claiming a football team would do much better if all 22 legs kicked the ball at the same time.

Despite this, the film is enjoyable. It's fun watching Lucy get more powerful. The progression is described in advance by bumbling professor Morgan Freeman, who explains it in a science lecture, while stressing this of course is only theoretical. He correctly hypothesises that you get: heightened senses, more control of your own body, control of other people's bodies, control of matter, then ... unknown (spangly USB). As she becomes more ultimate Lucy feels herself losing control of her humanity so gets in contact with Morgan, who just like he does in Transcedence (review here) presents the human face of science and reflects on the morality of it all. He gets the crumby lines about how much progress have we really made, and annoyingly contrasts maths and physics with emotions.

Lucy first gets her powers when she is unwittingly used as a drug mule, and the experimental new super-drug leaks into her. This first half hour of set-up is really good, and Luc Besson handles the slick Chinese supercrims nicely. I particularly like that none of the Chinese gangsters speak English, including evil honcho Mr. Jang (Min-sik Choi from Oldboy). There's no subtitling, except for one very weak moment when Lucy shoots a cab driver and they add a subtitle like "aarg my leg" just to make it clear that she's not overly mean and didn't actually kill him.

Once she starts growing in power you want to see what she can do, and she has two missions: to get revenge on the drug traffickers and to collect more of the drug for herself, to fuel her rapid metamorphosis. She also picks up a French cop sidekick, who at one point makes the excellent point that Lucy doesn't really need him. She responds that she needs him "to remind her", remind her about being human I suppose. She has quite a bit of existential angst but that doesn't get in the way of a good and fast moving plot, which is clearly signposted when big numbers flash up on the screen to show what percentage of full brain capacity she is at.

Overall it's an OK watch but not one to take too seriously. Best moments when she claims she can feel gravity, and starts to see phone calls as lots of lines going up into space.