Dredd (2012) Review

Dredd is a sci-fi action film set in post-apocalyptic North America in a massive dystopian city that house hundreds of millions of people. The only sense of law enforcement in this world is “judges”, who serve as judge, jury and executioner. The film follows Judge Dredd, played by Karl Urban´s chin, who is trapped, with his trainee Judge Anderson inside a massive building under the control of gangs. Mayhem ensues as they try to reach the 200^th floor to stop the cruel gangster Ma-Ma and her gang from terrorizing the people living in the building. This is the second adaptation of the British comic book, after 1995s Judge Dredd, starring Sylvester Stallone and is a well-known disaster. I have never seen the original film, nor ever read the comic book and so I am fresh into this world.

It is sort of a cliché to say this by now, but going into this movie, I really didn’t know what to think, the trailers and posters looked awful, yet the film was getting good reviews. After seeing the film I can with confidence say that I thought this was a great flick. The film is very stylish and moody and feels surprisingly fresh. The major reason for this is most likely that it’s not a Hollywood picture, not even American, it is a British production and it shows. What really surprised me is how self-satirical the film is. It is very aware how corny the film is and twists it so that we get some really darkly comical scenes. Judge Dredd is a deadly serious badass, yet without being over the top he becomes funny in certain scenes (not because the scenes are so bad they become funny) as the way corny lines are presented, you can tell they are having a bit of fun with it. Without the humour and self-awareness, this could very easily have become a cheese-fest.

However, all humour aside, the action in the film is perfectly presented, it is tense, well shot, well edited and a joy to watch. The action is heavily stylized, yet it works very well as it isn´t in your face, but woven in via interesting camera angles and very good use of colour within the shots. There are parts with heavy use of slow-motion, however as part of the plot centers around a narcotic that slows the users perception of time, it use in a way that fits the story and sets up for the some really cool slow-motion scenes. The film was shot in 3D (which was very good 3D by the way) and 3D is used very well in these slow-motion scenes in particular and it really becomes pure eye-candy in these scenes.

Dredd´s character is not really present all that much in the film, yet I think this is on purpose and I really feel it would feel wrong to give him too much character, because the satire works so well because he is such a characterless, almost robot-like character. Judge Anderson on the other hand is full of character. While Dredd doesn’t feel like there is any humanity left in him, like he sort of doesn’t believe in humanity anymore, Anderson is destined to fight for good people and believe that they can make the world a better place. Anderson also becomes the emotional core of the film, as she is someone who is likable and that we care for and she is the character that undergoes a serious character arc during the course of the film. Karl Urban is very good as Dredd, keeping that fine line between plain silly, or just ironically badass.  

There is a surprisingly good score for this film, consisting of odd futuristic, almost cyberpunk, techno music that somehow manages to be very atmospheric. The music and cinematography (from the Oscar winner who also did Slumdog Millionaire), works really well together to create a mood and a very believable world. These two elements help create a very well realized world, which instantly feels like it could be a real place.

The end product is a surprisingly enjoyable action movie, filled with dark ironical humour, amazing action and a well-realized universe. This is not something you go to if you’re into deep characters or plot, but is a film with very simple plot (which works in its favour) filled with stylized and very entertaining action. The films greatest success is that pretty much everything it tries to do, works and like I said, it doesn’t try to have a deep plot or to make Judge Dredd a character full of emotional depth, yet adding this would have ruined what is a great and fresh action flick.

4/5

Kon Tiki (2012) Review

Kon Tiki is a Norwegian film based on the true story of explorer Thor Heyerdahl and his crew, who crossed the Pacific Ocean on a balsawood raft. The film is sort of a mixed bag, but I am going to start with the positive. First of all this is a very beautiful movie, the cinematography is very well done and absolutely beautiful. We get magnificent shots of the raft out on the ocean chasing the sunset and look as beautiful as the best Hollywood films now a days do, though at times it tries too hard to do exactly that. Nonetheless the film has many shots that give the audience a sense of how lonely it must be for these six people out on a raft in the middle of the ocean. They managed to get an overall very epic feel and the camerawork does impress when you keep in mind that a lot of the film was actually filmed on the ocean. The films score is also very perfect and in my opinion couldn’t have been more perfect for the film. The score is nothing ground-breaking, however it definitely has a great sense of adventure, while at the same time hitting the right notes for the more emotional scenes.

The cast of the film is for the most part very good, however I felt many of the actors portraying character that were not on the raft, were somewhat weak and it kind of took me out of a couple of scenes in the movie. Pål Sverre Hagen was very good as Heyerdahl in the movie, his performance was a good as it could have been and I really feel that his role here could bring him offers from international movies. He perfectly portrays the social awkwardness and slight lunacy of this man, Thor Heyerdahl. That being said I was disappointed that the film didn’t explore the character more, I was hoping it would give us an even deeper understanding of drove him and who he really was. This is where the film lacks, its script. It seems every scene of the film has a very obvious reason for being here, yet the way ever scene gets to its point, often feels very forced. Often it was the lack of good realistic dialogue that made many scenes feel flat and like they might as well just stand there and explain what he learns in this scene. Every scene tries to bring one thing to the film, and most of them do, however then you realize the film is very shallow underneath. The film tries to explore Heyerdahl and have certain scenes to set up certain character traits for, yet the film fails and giving him proper depth and his character ends up disappointingly one-dimensional. It seems every scene had one thing it wanted to tell us, but there was not a single other thing to take from this scene and so it became like looking at a PowerPoint presentation with bullet points, but not having the speaker expand on them. I also felt that the movie before they got on the raft was very dull. They were necessary for the rest of the film however I felt like it should either have compressed down to about five minutes or expanded and explored more thoroughly. Once they got on the raft however, the film became very enjoyable. The film is full of some very exhilarating moments including sharks and whale sharks among other things. What is great about the sharks are used in this movie is that their presence is there almost instantly from the moment the journey begins, however instead of having them attack right away, many scenes are set up so that you are certain a shark will show up and scare you, yet it doesn’t for a while and it builds so much suspense because of this.

 

One major issue I have with the film, again with the script, is the raft journey slowly build and shows many challenges they encounter, however then as some conflict is resolved, the film all of a sudden skips to the last day of the journey, which gives you the impression that they had all these difficulties and near-death experiences within the first two weeks or so and then all of a sudden everything just went fine for the rest of the trip. Despite having a very suspenseful scene after this scene, it does become somewhat of an anticlimax to the film and it made me feel kind of cheated. Also I am kind of curious why the director chose to have suck popping colours in the film, it seems very as scenes that take place on a tropical island look like a cheesy commercial for a travel agency. What this movie lacks the most however, is an identity. The film seems like it tries really hard to be an epic Steven Spielberg movie, rather then embracing its own style and nationality. Seeing foreign films can often be an interesting break from American films, as they bring a fresh style influenced by their culture, however here it feels like the movie really wants to be a Hollywood movie. Though that’s not necessarily something that drags the film down, however I believe it could have been much more interesting if it had more of a style of its own rather then just ripping the style of big Hollywood director. That’s not saying the style doesn’t work well for the movie, it just feels like tries too hard to be something its not at times. Nonetheless the film has a great sense of adventure, once they get on the raft that is, and though the character are not particularly deep, complex or even all that interesting, it is still quite enjoyable to watch them interact on this balsawood raft.

3.5/5

There Will Be Blood (2007) Review

While waiting for The Master to hit my local theater, I decided to re-watch Paul Thomas Anderson´s previous film, not having seen it since it came out and I have to say, what a film! There Will Be Blood is not an easy film to describe, as it is more a character study then a plot driven film. But nonetheless, the film follows Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), an “oilman” as he refers to himself, and his rise to power and wealth and descent into madness. The film takes place in the early 1900s in south-western USA, but don’t go to this film expecting a western, because you would be mighty disappointed. The film would most accurately be described as a psychological-drama, however for some reason I kept getting vibes of horror in the way the mood was set up and did kind of remind me of Kubrick´s The Shining, especially in the final scene of the film which I will not spoil for you.

The film opens with 15 minutes of silence, which can be hit or miss, however it works very well. It does a brilliant job of introducing this character, Daniel Plainview, to the audience and though there is no dialogue, the viewers become instantly invested in the story. The first fifteen minutes also shows us that Daniel Plainview is a man that is very determined to succeed and to become rich, however you can also tell there is something slightly off with this man as he within the first few minutes of the film gives his infant son alcohol.

We can instantly tell that Day-Lewis gives a brilliantly diabolical performance, his Oscar was very well deserved, because this performance is just incredible. His facial expressions alone bring so much complexity to this already complex character. He also has this subtleness in his performance, where he his hard to fully understand as he doesn’t act completely mad or completely evil, but he just is this man and he does occasional gruesome acts, yet he is always subtle. It is one of the best performances of the last decade for sure. Paul Dano is also very good here as Eli Sunday, a hypocritical, greedy priest. Dano´s performance is so that it really takes us times to figure out the character and whether he is simply just a man standing up to the evil of Plainview or if he is someone that in the end might not be any better then Plainview. Both of these characters are very complex, yet immensely interesting to watch and try to figure out, though it is defiantly Plainview who is the main character here and he is also the most interesting character, especially since we don’t ever learn all that much about his past and was has shaped into the character he is.

The score, by Radiohead´s Jonny Greenwood, has to be called one of the most original, and maybe even best, scores in the last decade. His score at times remind me of scores from Kubrick film such as The Shining or 2001: A Space Odyssey, however at the same time it has a very strong identity itself and becomes quite unlike anything you’ve heard in recent films. The odd thing about the score is that it sounds a lot like it could be the score for a horror movie, which this isn’t however that combined with the films themes and use of shadows give it an almost horror like mood in the vain of The Shining or even Psycho. The films cinematography in the film is also very much worth mentioning and is also somewhat strange, giving the film an almost apocalyptic look. The film is chockfull of long takes as well as beautifully framed pictures. Every shot was like a photograph, a photograph I would very likely want to frame on my wall. The music and cinematography together create such a bleak, disturbing and somewhat unsettling mood and the film really wouldn’t be the same without it.

There really isn’t much negative one can say about the film, it has a brilliant script, its brilliantly directed, acted and shot and it is paced perfectly. Some people argue that the film is very incoherent and the scenes seem like just random events, however this is why it is important to remember this is not a plot-driven movie, but a character study. The pacing might also be what some consider a problem though as it is very, very slow, but then again a film being slow isn’t a problem as long as it works and let me tell you, it really works here.

5/5

Ben Affleck directing his brother and Matt Damon in South Pole movie?

Two Afflecks and a Damon. The word on the street is that Matt Damon and Ben Affleck will be producing a new film called Race To The South Pole starring Bens brother Casey Affleck. Ben Affleck will also be directing and so it seems this could be his next project after Argo, which comes out later this year. Affleck has directed his brother before in the 2007 crime-drama Gone Baby Gone. The script, from Peter Glanz, tells the true story of Englishman Robert Falcon Scott and Norwegian Roald Amundsen in their competitive race to be the first man to reach the South Pole. Casey Affleck will reportedly play Scott and Ben has also said Matt Damon will have a role in the film, the question is who?

The project is however in the very early stages and could end up dying like many projects do however when and if it happens I am defiantly intrigued. Ben Affleck has proven to be a great director over the last few years and a historical film on the South Pole could make for a very interesting film. There is no word on if Ben Affleck himself will be starring in the film, but he has been starring in his last two films so there is a good possibility that he might do so.

It is also important to remember that the three of them also have previously announced working on a movie about Whitey Bulger, an infamous New England gangster. No word on if this movie has been cancelled or not, or which movie they will be shooting first, but the film is also said to be starring both Damon and Casey, and directed by Ben. Ben Affleck is also said to be attatched to multiple other projects, so what will actually end up being made after Argo, is still unknown.

Casey will play Scott, but who will Damon play? Will he learn to speak in a Norwegian accent and play Amundsen or will he be one of Scott’s crew? Personally I think it would be a bad idea to have Damon as one of Affleck´s crew as his star power could easily end up overshadowing Casey Affleck. It will also be interesting to see who they pick for Amundsen and whether they will go for a native Scandinavian, or bring in someone from Hollywood. Comment your thoughts below and stay tuned for more information on Race To The South Pole!