Films I Saw on the Plane

I'm going to take another stab at this blogging thing. I promise neither quality nor frequency.

Tonight's exercise is sharing thoughts I had on the films that played on the plane during my recent flights to/from London. Yes, let's!

These are in no particular order.

Taken

So it turns out that Liam Neeson makes a pretty convincing action anti-hero. Who knew? Now, I know that I'm a little bit late to the party on this one. Everyone saw Taken last year and everyone has already thought "wow, that was actually a bit not-shit". Well I wasn't there then! I didn't know! And it turns out that Taken is, indeed, actually a bit not-shit.

Plot: Kidnappers take girl. Father goes after kidnappers. And that's it. Neeson, however, is a good enough actor to take that fairly cliched and bare-bones plot and make us care about what happens. And director Pierre Morel, to his credit, has enough style and pace to make the whole thing a pretty cracking ride. Oh, yes.

The A-Team

Then, there was... this.

Hiding somewhere within The A-Team is the ghost of a good movie. Not a great one, necessarily, but certainly a fun way to spend two hours on a plane. It's there in sequences like the one in which the team throw themselves out of a plane while trapped inside a tank, then start firing at planes while the falling through mid-air and using the tank's gun to propel themselves towards a lake. Now, that doesn't make any goddamned sense, but it's kind of thrilling to watch.

The humour and energy present in those moments, though, is lost beneath a muddled plot and - most disappointingly - a confused and troubling morality. The character of BA Baracus (played by some wrestler or some shit) gets out of prison partway through the film and announces that he's taken a vow of non-violence. This vow is then tested and mocked for the remainder of the film, until it's "overcome" with a moment of brutality, restoring the "hero" to his former "glory". This film kind of left a bad taste in my mouth.

Cyrus

Man, was this a good film. Cyrus comes from the Duplass brothers, who specialise in getting actors to improvise to cover up the fact that they can't be fucked writing dialogue (or something). On this one they had John C Reilly, Marisa Tomei, Jonah Hill and Catherine Keener (and Matt Walsh! MATT F'ING WALSH!) lending their considerable charisma to a story about a dude (Reilly) who meets a lady (Tomei) who has a weird son (Hill) and awkwardness ensues.

Just a well acted character piece with some good laughs. Nothin' wrong with that.

Cyrus is most notable for being the first film to really convince me that Jonah Hill can act. He's obviously an energetic and funny performer, but in films like Superbad and Knocked Up he's played variations on "foul-mouthed fat guy". In Cyrus he gives a straight up well-rounded dramatic performance, and a good one at that. Well played, Hill. Well played.

Also: Bonus points for casting Matt Walsh in a fairly significant role.

Knight and Day

The most pleasant surprise of the whole bunch, and a good example of the benefits of low expectations.

I am largely apathetic about Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz. I don't particularly love or hate either of them, and both have appeared in as many films I've liked as ones I haven't. Coupled with a pretty generic trailer, this fact meant that I was fully prepared to let Knight and Day pass me by while I lower my eyes slightly, like a charity worker who's just that little bit TOO forceful.

So I was surprised to find that Knight and Day was a fun bit of action-comedy-romance, keeping itself going with some snappy one-liners, some dynamic action sequences, a wink and a smile. This is the film that The A-Team tried to be, and it made it look easy.

Predators

There's some badasses on some planet with some badder-asses. Most players on both sides die. Adrien Brody gets to act tough, Topher Grace gets to pretend that there's a twist to his character, Lawrence Fishburne gets to deliver some exposition.

There are some well-done hunting sequences and all, but the whole exercise feels a little unnecessary. Like the studio all of a sudden remembered they had a franchise that may still turn a profit and cobbled something together out of some kid's fan fiction (which is probably exactly what happened).

Clash of the Titans

Fuck this movie. Seriously.

Date Night

I barely remember watching this. I mean, I must have, 'cause I remember thinking "I like Fey and Carell, sure, I'll watch that", then I remember the food cart coming past, which indicats that some time passed. But the whole thing is like a foggy dream. Like a conversation that you overhear but then tune out as it's not very interesting.

There were some jokes, but they were neither funny nor painfully unfunny. There were some action sequences, which were coherent, I guess. Fey and Carell had some kind of low-key chemistry.

Seriously. I'm trying to muster up some kind of opinion on this movie one way or the other, and I'm coming up empty. In fact, the only reason I know this movie even exists is that one of the buses in my neighbourhood still has an ad for it on the side. And every time I see that ad, I'm reminded of an hour and a half of my life where I could have been doing something interesting, but at least I wasn't watching fucking Clash of the Titans.

Kick Ass

This film is insane. Not in a bad way, but not necessarily in a great way, either. It certainly has its own unique tone, for which it should be commended. But I can't quite figure out what they were trying to do, or whether or not they were even clear on it themselves.

The film opens as if it's going to present the story of a regular guy who decides to become a vigilante. Okay, fine. That's a premise I'm willing to get on board with. Then the "regular guy" suddenly gets super powers (low-level ones, but still), and the shit goes totally mental.

I think I realised this film had identity issues during Big Daddy (Nicolas Cage)'s monologue; it was a more interesting story than anything that had come before it in the film. Why, then, were we spending time with all this other shit?

Still, some of the action looked great, Hit Girl was a fun character, and Nicolas Cage was more entertaining than he's been in years. So not entirely without merit.

Cold Souls

An intriguing (if Charlie Kaufman-esque) premise - actor Paul Giamatti (played by actor Paul Giamatti. He nails it) gets his soul removed to aid in his performance as Uncle Vanya, but can't get it back before it's stolen by smugglers - and a great central performance make this film compelling, but it feels dry. It lacks the spark of humour found in conceptually similar work (see: The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and the plot involving the soul smugglers was surprisingly (and somewhat disappointingly) routine. Good, but not great.