Reviews

Every now and again, a movie comes along that comes as close to movie perfection as you can get.

Killing Them Softly is about the GFC hitting the US criminal underworld. Funds for hits are trickier to obtain. The quality of hit-man you can get for your dollar these days is a compromise.

Andrew Dominik has taken a great story, re-titled it with one of its key phrases and given us a movie that will undoubtedly score him a Best Director Oscar nomination in 2013.

From the opening sequence with Ben Mendelsohn playing what might be his greatest, grottiest character ever, the subtext of the film is evoked by great visuals of suburban desolation and regular punctuation of radio and TV political rhetoric. Obama is a frequent image – the official Big Boss of the Ununited States Of America.

And without giving anything away (no spoilers here) it all makes even more sense in the final scene – when text and subtext collide in a gob- smacking, grim realization of what the US has become and what has become of us.

As Michael Moore pointed out in Capitalism: A Love Story, the distinction between capitalism and democracy has been made murky when they are in fact two very different entities.

Democracy is a form of government of the people, by the people and for the people. Consensus and referendum are key to policy formation and decisions.

Capitalism is based upon 'every man for himself' and for a minimum wage the rest of us can put ourselves into voluntary slavery and subscribe to a generic superstition like say, Christianity then buy into the dangled carrot of a better life in the next life. They might call it the After Life but it's really no more than an After Death. And I'm betting not much happens from that point on. Ask a steak that was once a cow what its After Life is like.

Capitalism pretended to be the good buddy of democracy in order to establish itself as the preferred First World Westernized way to live. When in fact, capitalism has little to do with freedom of the people – unless you are one of the few at the top raking in obscene amounts of money you can't spend and fiddling with yourself on your mansion rooftop watching the rest of the country burn because of your unbridled greed.

It's great to see Ben Mendelsohn go from an AFI Best Actor Award for Animal Kingdom – to a significant support role in The Dark Knight Rises – to a perfectly directed role in Killing Them Softly that will establish him as an internationally recognised character actor. And he's worth every accolade he gets.

In my interview with Andrew Dominick, I complimented him on his heavy use of close-ups on his cast which creates extreme intimacy. In scenes of James Gandolfini with Brad Pitt in a hotel room, you can see the direction of dialogue coming out of Gandolfini's mouth and also the expert direction of his character's soul being directed in the facial muscles, tics and the old, wounded eyes of a weary hit-man.

I'd give Andrew Dominik a Best Directing Oscar nomination for this scene sequence alone. And I'll bet Gandolfini will get a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nod too next year.

Also - the Scorsese-influenced slo-mo car death sequence cut to music truly elevates the art of dying on celluloid to a new level to which Quentin Tarantino can only aspire. And I really like QT's work with death.

Andrew Dominik made Chopper starring Eric Bana then The Assassination Of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford and now Killing Them Softly. He's made a massive impact with three films.

The Decline Of The American Empire has happened as surely as did the Decline Of The Roman Empire. There's so much in each frame of Killing Them Softly, repeat viewings are essential. It is probably the best film I have seen all year.

I loved the satire of Da Ali G Show - nominated for 6 primetime Emmys. Most exciting were the segs of reportage on UK life from (the then) little known TV reporter, Borat. And it was great to see a character like Bruno stick it up fashion.

Now Sacha Baron Cohen gives us The Dictator.

At his best, Cohen's approach to his craft reminds me of Peter Sellers - a single absurdist character who by being nutty holds up a mirror to our own nuttiness. This is the most valuable gift an actor can give an audience. It is not to marvel at how great the actor is - but to give us a way to understand our ridiculous selves a little better.

At his worst, Cohen reminds me of Adam Sandler when Sandler is at his worst (cos sometimes he's good - eg Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer, 50 First Dates and Punch Drunk Love prove Sandler can do good work).

I enjoyed The Dictator because I enjoy Cohen but I also have to let go of a few gripes. Instead of a terrifically woven satire from start to finish buliding to a mind-shattering realization about how the world works through the eyes of a dictator, Cohen has given us a rom-com with an isolated speech near the end about what his character has learned about democracy. The Dictator has been dumbed down so far, that not even a bikram yoga master could limbo under it.

I saw this dumbing down happen when Cohen took Borat from the small screen to the big screen and I understand why an artist does this - to reach a wider, dumber audience. But I don't want art dumbed down. Give people an entertaining way to help them understand a difficult concept - don't give them a lazy way to understand a simple notion.

If Cohen had have seized the opportunity for great and timely satire, The Dictator might have had a chance to be ranked alongside the great and timely satire of Charlie Chaplin's film The Great Dictator.

** Curious observation - notice how fashion repeats ad nauseum except for one item - Hitler's moustache. It has never enjoyed a renaissance. I wonder who had it first - Hitler or Chaplin? And was it awkward when they bumped into each other on a red carpet?

Does Sacha Baron Cohen need to be more democratic or more of a dictator to keep his satire smart?

I give the film 8/10 for what it could and should have been - and a 6/10 for what it turned out to be.

I mean - after Borat made more than $100m at the box office, was Anna Faris the best he could do? I'm not one to promote real-life partners co-starring in movies but maybe this was that one time Cohen should have cast his wife Isla Fisher.

Oh well.

It's worth seeing for some of the severely awkward moments and lines of dialogue that no other comedian on the planet would dare to utter and a few 'oh-no-they-di'-n't' cameos.

Prometheus – the second most keenly anticipated follow-up film to Ridley Scott's 1979 classic, Alien - the first being of course that other Ridley Scott classic, Blade Runner.

The reason Alien worked is because it's a horror that happens to be set in space – it's not a sci-fi film first and foremost.

It worked because we didn't know who would survive or in what order the humans would die.

It worked because as each human died, a vital part of the space crew skill set vanished presenting an increasingly greater challenge to final escape and survival.

It worked because HR Giger is a genius artist.

It worked because we got some scary clues about the Alien's talents and powers long before we got to meet her.

It worked because the theme of motherhood has never been so brutally and intellectually explored in a fusion of genres outside of a straight up drama.

It worked because without being an obvious sexy babe, when Ripley was in the Escape Pod and peeling down to her space undies and a cut-off t- shirt – then she kept going – losing the t-shirt – there was a sneaky singlet underneath. It was a perfect tease and kept her being the sharp, focused captain of not only her immediate safety but her own destiny. She was desired and respected for wearing so many underthings.

After Alien, James Cameron got his paws on the sequel, Aliens (1986) and turned it from a horror into an action movie. Sure it has its merits – but it was a distinct departure from the tone, style and success of the first film.

It's pointless talking about any subsequent Alien films because the rest were rubbish.

Now we have Prometheus with Ridley Scott back in charge. So what do we get?

Homage after homage to the first film which was all good as I know the first film intimately and I picked up probably all of them – including the almost frame accurate shot composition of some. (EG there's a scene with Fassbender that is virtually the same as a scene with Ian Holme. That's all I need to say about that.)

If Alien had a motherhood theme then Prometheus has a birth theme. It takes one step back in the process of life and explores it in really good 3D. I did notice one of the infant aliens looked a lot like angry, toothy female bits - and some other infant aliens looked a lot like chubby, fist-like male bits. (Yep – they are the most accurate descriptions I could muster.)

It's also intriguing to see people still like to smoke in 2093, scarves are still in fashion, people still wear spectacles and sport tattoos, vodka is still a cool drink, thongs are still the indoor footwear of choice and space uniforms are a mash-up of Gattaca costuming meets Mao Tse Tung.

Prometheus also gives us a glimpse into the future of surgery. And I like it!

Charlize Theron plays the prickly Vickers (yawn).

Noomi Rapace plays the moral compass.

Fassbender plays the robot with some soul software.

The rest of the cast put in solid performances and form a great supportive ensemble around those three stand-out characters.

Overall, Prometheus is a satisfying couple of hours of big screen high quality entertainment.

But…

There's a major decision made by three characters near the climax that comes so out of the blue, it appears to be a script fault. An earlier set up or bridging scene – maybe two – is needed to make sense of how they could arrive at that decision in a split second.

It also made me wonder – if preserving life on Earth is so freaking important, why is life in space so worthless?

If anything was going to kill the Family Guy wicked fun and laughs I just love in the work of Seth McFarlane, it would have been Hollywood dumbing down a sharp, slapstick, bad taste, politically incorrect satirist by making his first feature film (ugh) M or even worse - PG.

Ted works on so many levels. For genre mash-ups to work, each genre has to work equally as well as the other. EG a romantic comedy has to succeed as a romantic story and in the funny stuff. A mystery thriller has to have a great mystery with proportional thrills.

But Ted is a four-way mash.

It succeeds as a fairytale - most kids wished their favourite toy or pet could talk to them.

It succeeds as a love story - Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis (the voice of Meg in Family Guy) have chemistry that plays out with a fair whack of reality.

It succeeds as a stoner bromance - Ted and John are clearly best friends with a long, colourful history loaded with hilarious stories to repeat as they get smashed and run every red light down Memory Lane (thank you Dire Straits for that metaphor).

It succeeds as a coming of age story - John needs to grow up and put the bear down (not with a veterinarian 'green dream' shot.) l mean he has to put the bear aside - re-draw the boundaries of how they spend time together now this he is a grown man and Ted can remain and a wonderfully bad bear for the rest of his magical life.

But I would not go so far as to describe it as a homo-erotic plushy love story. The love that Ted and John share is hetero at its heart.

It was great to see Joel McHale in the film along with Putty - Elaine's meathead boyfriend in Seinfeld. And boy oh boy - who know Giovanni Ribisi could dance like that? His hips can bust porno moves.

Was there too much screen time given to the campy 80s film Flash Gordon? Possibly. But it still worked.

And - I cried.

My other favourite part was homage to the Family Guy's running gag of Peter Griffin's fight with a giant, angry chicken.

The live action animation is seamless with only one sneaky giveaway - when Mark Wahlberg rattles off all the girls names to Ted on the couch, you can see his eyes reading autocue. Otherwise, the performances of the actors with the bear are seamless.

Go see Ted. He's a lot of fun to hang out with for a couple of hours - at least.

4.5 out 5.

Another possible title could be Apewakenings or even Primatenormal Activity.

In a nutshell, this is a movie that illustrates how hideous it is to be a lab rat – to be experimented on – not matter how noble the cause. And the oppressed might learn more than we wanted them to know – like how to fight back.

Monkey see monkey do = humans in deep doo-doo.

I loved the 1968 original Planet Of The Apes starring Charlton Heston because it's intriguing to contemplate life if we weren't at the top of the food chain. What if we were an enslaved species and treated as sub-human? It's good to ponder the possibilities because it could happen and it reminds us to have a little humility.

I also reckon Tim Burton did a great job re-imagining the movie in his version starring the terrific Tim Roth as the angry General Thade – a chimp with a chip on each shoulder.

So now we have this kind-of-prequel that addresses the modern issue of finding a cure for Alzheimer's and Dementia – but it really explores how the monkeys first got the upper hand.

James Franco leads the cast as the kind-hearted passionate scientist with John Lithgow playing his father who suffers with Alzheimer's. Franco brings home an orphan baby chimp from the lab and calls him Caesar who evolves at an incredible rate thanks to an experimental drug - ALZ 112.

Monkey Magic it ain't. Their behaviour goes from being super smart to something like Animals on Angel Dust or Primates on PCP. Not only is Caesar adept at climbing and swinging – he also seems to be pretty good at Parkour.

The eventual uprising of the digichimps is led by Caesar who for the most part, is actor Andy Serkis in a motion capture suit overseen by the Weta Workshop – the same SFX production place that did all the great work on Lord Of The Rings. Andy was the actor who gave us Gollum in the Tolkien trilogy whom he described as a 'three and a half foot junkie'. And he also was the go-to guy for motion capture when it came to creating the biggest monkey of them all – King Kong.

It was decided the simians had to be digichimps because it would be subversively ironic to exploit chimps in order to make a movie about chimps being exploited.

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes succeeds in terms of terrific set up, good performances and superb special effects that really serve the story.

But here are a few questions and thoughts I have on some WTF moments.

** SPOILER ALERT** 1) What brand of jeans does Caesar wear – and what happened to them when the real fighting breaks out on the bridge? They just vanished from his body.

2) Why was there zero chemistry in terms of the love story? Do they both prefer the company of other species? If so then there should have been heart-warming awkwardness between them instead of bland compatibility. Would have contrasted better with primate courtship behaviour.

3) Why didn't any of the super smart simians pick up the dropped guns on the bridge and start using them on the humans? 4) Why did Caesar say those 3 silly words to James Franco at the end when it would have been more effective to hear him just say 'no' to JF thus reinforcing the simian resistance to human domination?

5) Did the digichimps use telepathy to free all the other primates from all the other zoos in San Francisco and why does San Francisco have thousands and thousands of them?

6) And why have Harry Potter star Tom Felton (who plays a cruel zookeeper of sorts) saying that classic line from the 1968 original 'get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!' For one thing, modern people don't speak like that. It was out of character. And the audience I was in the cinema with groaned in unison.

I still enjoyed the movie overall but the above questions needed to be asked and answered in script meetings.

Humans have to be on top of this stuff because if (intelligent) apes take over Hollywood, it'll be the end of cinema as we know it.

King Kong will live to reign again.

Captain America huh.

What a good ol' boy.

A 95 pound weakling is delivered his ultimate fantasy of being a superhero.

I'll talk about Captain America: The First Avenger without spoilers so you can read without fear. However, I have ticked the 'spoiler' box more to be on the safe side so if you don't want to know anything about the film before you see it - don't read this.

Superhero movies are either really good like Iron Man or really bad – pick either Hulk movie. Captain America is good. It's better than good. But how good is it? The script is good enough for A grade actors to elevate it into something great. Tommy Lee Jones is engrossing, Stanley Tucci is superb and Hugo Weaving as the villainous Nazi just shines in another bad guy role. He's become the actor who plays the thinking person's bad guy – not your garden variety thug. And those eyebrows just get better and more expressive with age. One day, they'll be up for a Best Supporting Role award.

One real success of this film is the seamless creation of the puny Steve Rogers and the Frankenstein emergence of the bulked up muscle-bound version of the same bloke. It was like the perfect lunchtime procedure for guys who want plastic surgery but are too afraid to ask.

Howard Stark – inventor and founder of Stark Industries has none of the charm and charisma of Tony Stark. Of course that may have a lot to do with the difference between Robert Downey Jr and Dominic Cooper. Then again – it ain't Howard's movie.

Female roles are few and far between but the ones that are there are relevant and worthwhile. Hayley Atwell does a great job as the love interest but it's her skill set and attitude that are more interesting. Nice to see Natalie Dormer in something after her seminal performance in the TV drama The Tudors – but the role was far too small for her talent. She owned it and nailed it though.

Seeing the original Captain America was cracking it way back in WW2, director Joe Johnstone could work the nostalgic angle without too many clichés. Sure he's observed a formula but it suits the material - he's made a genre film.

Red Skull's lair is the kind of real estate you'd expect a bad guy to own - suitably villainous, remote and built into the side of a snowy cliff. He exhibits the expected disdain for anyone who works for him as well as the typical megalomania that comes with wanting to take over the world or destroy it – whichever is the easier option. Ever since Austin Powers movies however, it is hard to watch this kind of villain without anticipating comedy.

If anything is disappointing, it's the henchmen. They can't throw punches that connect and they die too easily. Now I'm starting to understand a villain's disdain for his own men. Guess it's like the ol' saying – it's hard to find good help.

Sadly for Paramount, this is their last film of a Marvel character as the baton now gets passed to Disney. Interesting to see what they will do with the Marvel stable from now on.

So back to Captain America. Chris Evans does the job well. He's likable and capable. But for my taste, he's just a bit too goody-two-shoes and nowhere near as conflicted and brooding as I'd like him to be. He has more in common with Superman than Batman. But that's the gig, right? While 3D has its drawbacks, I liked the effect on the opening comic graphics and it works a treat when the cinematographer works a nifty pull-focus from background to foreground.

And of course you gotta stay to the end to get the special bit of video that sets up the next movie. But it took way too long to get to the end of the credit roll. It needed to be twice as fast. It was so slow and boring with no fancy graphics at all, one guy in the cinema yelled out, 'this better be good!' And it was.

I'm so glad this movie didn't come out when George W Bush was in power as Globocop. He would have taken it as a metaphor for himself.

Oh wait – 'metaphor' – he wouldn't know what the word means. But I bet he would have cottoned onto Vibranium quickly enough. Sounds like a good investment. Think I might see if Rio Tinto has found any in Western Australia and get me some shares in it.

Revenge is the central theme of a lot of films and the reason they are so popular is because they touch something deep within humanity.

It's the inherent desire for justice.

We like to get our fix via film because it's too haphazard an unreliable in real life. We can't count on justice unless other variables come into play such as having a better lawyer on the day or a lot of cash so justice can be bought.

Life isn't fair. Bill Gates told us that. I don't know how he knows but he's right. It's a series of haphazard events that occur largely due to cause-and-effect but not due to any morality or innate fairness.

The truth is – people don't always get what they deserve.

That's why we need Machete.

And it's very exciting to see Danny Trejo get a good solid lead role. He's a strong actor with a hell of a face and physique. He makes support roles memorable.

But like David Morse and Steve Buscemi, you know his face but not his name. Trejo has never really had top billing with any great recognition. And he rarely gets the girl. Even in Con Air where he played a serial rapist, he didn't get the girl because Nic Cage saved her (which under the circumstances was a good thing).

But in Machete Trejo doesn't just get the girl – he gets all the girls. And it was heart-warming to see. He's kind of like an organic Mexican Terminator and has that unrelenting drive of Chigurh in No Country For Old Men – it's like he's had passion replaced with programming.

Machete is the latest film from Robert Rodriguez. He's been described as the Mexican Tarantino. Machete is described as a Mexploitation movie.

In a nutshell, it's the story of a highly skilled operative who gets set up in a political assassination plot and has to clear his name. Other friends and foes include a racist senator (Robert De Niro who looks like the KFC dude Colonel Sanders); a female version of Ché Guevara called She (Michelle Rodriguez); an immigration official (Jessica Alba); a drug king pin (a tubby Steven Seagal); the padre (Cheech Marin); a disobedient daughter (Lindsay Lohan who must have thought it was a documentary) and even Don Johnson gets a gig.

The issue that makes this movie so much more than a B grade exploitation film, is that it addresses the real issue of US racism and denial of basic human rights as well as the price America pays for their propaganda about being the land of the free and the brave where anyone can make a whole lot of capitalist cashola with scant regard for how they do it. There is some terrific irony found in the tools of trades illegal immigrants use in their blue collar jobs in the US because in Machete, they are the tools of that other cleaning enterprise – the criminal cleaning business of wiping people out. In real life, Mexicans might be taking out the trash for US employers. In Machete, the main Mexican is taking out the human trash – with extreme prejudice.

There's nothing like a sharp machete to shave some human crud off the face of the Earth!

One of the fun things in this film is the revival of the Six Million Dollar Man staccato metallic sound effect of his bionic body parts in action.

It's a lavish, lusty production. It's not torture porn but it is action porn. And there's an escape from a building using the internal organ of a human that will go down in cinema history. I've only ever seen this in an Itchy & Scratchy cartoon. It is gruesome comedy at its B grade best.

The music by Chignon (Spanish for 'Bad Ass') is just mesmerizing to the ears – that's Rodriguez's band and Tarantino got Rodriguez to score Kill Bill Vol 2 with it.

There's a scene reminiscent of the final shoot-out in Scarface and there's an Eva Peron moment as well as a possible passing nod to the assassination of JFK.

Another plus is it's a car lovers wet dream. I'm talking about real cars – muscle autos and hot rods with custom paint jobs and deeply sexy bodies that you just want to be inside and drive… (sigh)

Back to Danny Trejo for moment. I see beyond his big scary appearance. His past is etched into his body – a chunk of time in jail then a long time counseling troubled youth about drugs and crime shows he's spent more time caring than scaring.

He is a simple paradox - an incredible philanthropic soul housed in a misanthropic body. The wonderful thing is the devoted fan base he's generated without being an A list star.

When Rodriguez made the fake Machete trailer for Grindhouse and it became a hit with requests for the film to be made, Trejo learned how deeply his fans were committed.

He says, 'when I was in England a few years ago, I was stopped by these guys who had tattoos of the character Machete on their backs. When I signed my name above their tattoos, they had my signature tattooed as well.' (quoted from the Machete production notes 2011) Now that's love. And it softens my cynical old heart like a metal mallet does to a pound of steak.

Machete is fun to see on the big screen and despite the howls of protest I can already hear from film purists – I would love to see it in 3D.

And while I'm out on a limb here, I'll also say I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Maybe Danny Trejo has his franchise.

Now I guess it's time I got that tattoo.