Movieblaze

Starring: Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence, Zoe Saldana, James Marsden, Tracey Morgan, Luke Wilson, Danny Glover, Peter Dinklage

Director: Neil LaBute

Writer: Dean Craig

Cinematography: Rogier Stoffers

Original Score: Christophe Beck

Running Time: 92 Mins.

What possessed anyone to remake (shot for shot no less) the flop British comedy from only 2 years ago is anyone’s guess, but most bizarrely of all is that the director is Neil LaBute, a man best known for his drama’s, but wait there is more, it now stars Chris Rock, Martin Lawrence and Tracey Morgan who between them have enough awful comedies to sink a ship. All of which begs the question, why? Why did they remake it? Why has it attracted a reputable director? Why does it have (some) good actors, a returning Peter Dinklage for one! And why on earth did I choose to see it against all my horrible expectations…

Alas it was not the eye-wateringly bad experience I went in expecting, amassing a laugh quota enough to warrant a post-pub viewing and showing that when required too Chris Rock can hold back and tone it down for more comedic effect, even if it also became abundantly apparent that Martin Lawrence can’t. Direction, cinematography, music, script, there is little here that stands out other than the large ensemble of largely African American actors, thankfully it refrains from slipping into what I’d like to tout as the kind of Cosby-esque humour that Tyler Perry’s output has become ridiculously successful from in America, hence why it is more likely to play better over here than Perry’s offerings.

Death at a Funeral is a farce through and through, never played for anything other than laughs, which is no bad thing as more often they hit than miss even if they are likely to play better first time round and offer little in the way of repeat humour, in a cast this vast and well-known some players were always going to stand out over others and while Luke Wilson, Saldana and most of the other female characters are little more than window dressing or comedy foils there are a few notably funny turns, Marsden and Tracey Morgan proving the highlights over-acting to the desired levels and perking up any scenes they are in.

The premise itself is one that is humourous in thought and concept alone so wringing some laughs was pretty much a no-brainer. lazy or not the thought of the wrong body beign brought to a funeral is funny in the darkest and most distasteful way and as with the 2007 version of the film Dinklage appears with a rather tasteless secret with some unsavoury demands of the deceased son, all of which results in some of the funniest scenes and lets some great comedy actors bounce of each other in a bickering way that is once again as funny as you would expect.

On the flip side though there are moments when you can half expect a tumble weed to blow past, given Lawrences’s appearance though what did you expect, while there are some real clangers of jokes concerning fertility, grandchildren alongside deeply unconvincing relationships between Wilson and Saldana, though to be honest considering how poor i was expecting the film to be these were minor quibbles.

VERDICT

Offering little more than an all out farce Death at a Funeral is much funnier than it ought to be (which isn’t really saying much), switch off when Martin Lawrence is on-screen and the humourous antics of Morgan, Marsden and Dinklage will carry you through a film that purports to be no more than it is.

Starring: Ben Stiller, Rhys Ifans, Chris Messina, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Director: Noah Baumbach

Writer: Noah Baumbach

Cinematography: Harris Savides

Original Score: James Murphy

Running Time: 107 Mins.

Greenberg writer and director Noah Baumbach has a talent for crafting films based around deeply unlikable characters and drawing you into their tale, eventually making you either endeared to them, through their plight and learning to love their eccentric ways as more extreme versions of the foibles every one of us posses to varying degrees. He did it with Jeff Daniels character in The Squid and The Whale, Nicole Kidman in Margot at the Wedding and now he achieves it most surprisingly with everyone’s favourite fall guy and comedic doormat Ben Stiller.

It has been quite some time since Stiller stretched his dramatic acting muscles, many forget that drama and thrillers are where Stiller began his acting career so it is always a welcome return when he hangs up his lowbrow comedy hat for a film or two giving us a rest from the laziness of Night at the Museum and Meet the Parents. So to Greenberg, yes it is a comedy of the darkest order, a comedy of truths rather than extremities and true to form for Baumbach’s scripts, his central character is a deeply unlikable person.

Recovering from a severe bout of depression, Roger Greenberg (Stiller) heads to L.A. from New York to house-sit his brother’s house, care for his dog and generally, in his own words, to simply “do nothing for a while”, which you will be unsurprised to learn is far from what he does ending up in a relationship with his brother’s P.A. and reconnecting with numerous people from his past including most significantly ex-bandmate and ”best friend” Ivan Shrank (Rhys  Ifans). What Greenberg shares with Baumbach’s past film’s is a leisurely pace that sees very little actually happen, this will likely frustrate those who were frustrated by his past two efforts but if you bought into the lives of such navel gazing and, it has to be said, largely irritating people before you will adore Greenberg for all his faults, of which there are plenty.

The joy in Baumbach’s writing though is in recognising that though his characters are usually narcissistic they have a certain charm in that if you can look a little deeper there is a truth to their reactions that marks them out as much more “real”, in other words their reactions are closer to home than the average scripted person. Not that reality automatically makes for entertaining, but again Baumbach has a knack for finding the gentle and observational kind of humour that will linger with you much longer than the usual fart gag!

Stiller is excellent as Greenberg, flipping on his likeable loser persona from such films as Meet the Parents/Fockers, but it is in Greta Gerwig and Ifans, as love interest and best friend respectively, that the film is tipped beyond simple dramatic comedy stylings with Ifans in particular tapping into a never before seem side that is warm, funny and touching while representing a true friend to Greenberg that will stay by his side regardless of how selfish the guy can be, it is nice to see that there is so much more Ifans acting than over-acting and if there were any justice he would be in the running for best supporting actor awards…sadly the world we live in will likely see such a unjustice served, aptly really as that is the same approach Greenberg himself would likely take!

VERDICT

Greenberg makes this a Baumbach hat-trick of great dramadies led by the character’s rather than plot, realistically touching despite having a largely unlikable lead character but it is in Rhys Ifans that the film finds its heart, and nicest truth.

Starring: Sean Bean, Carice Van Houten, Eddie Redmayne. David Warner, Andy Nyman 

Director: Christopher Smith

Writer: Dario Paloni

Cinematography: Sebastian Eschmid

Original Score: Christian Henson

Running Time: 102 Mins.

Pestilence, so says Sean Bean’s knight, on a mission from the Bishop, many times during Black Death, if ever a film was worthy of being branded pestilent this is it, but mark my words this is not bad thing. Marketed as a film in the vein of Solomon Kane, a cheesy and comic-booky take on medieval times, this is as far removed from that film as any, it is also not an action packed romp through the middle ages that takes in heroic sword-fights and worthy knights, yes there is one fight scene but that in itself is more a skirmish that sees no victory for our “heroes”. In fact liken Black Death to any film and it would have to be the atmospheric brood of The Wicker Man.

Here Sean Bean is no hero and there is no big bad deity to be conquered, rather he is a knight seeking the one village that has escaped the pestilence (see, it’s that word again!) of the titular black death. Seen as either one of two things the disease itself is branded as either the work or the devil or God depending on your beliefs, needless to say Bean’s knight Ulric and his band of warriors are firmly in the band that feels it is the former aided in part by witches, so with the guidance of a Monk (Redmayne) these men aim to find the village and dispose of the “Necromonger” who is up to the Witchcraft that is keeping the disease at bay from their people.

Unlike recent medieval romps Solomon Kane and the forthcoming Nic Cage Starrer Season of the Witch, this is not a bawdy action film that wears a cheesy nature with pride, no this is set in a land where death eeks at every turn and indeed from every frame, choosing to focus on character over action meaning it is a film punctuated with performance and drama rather than sword fight and siege. The first half of the film acting as something of a medieval road movie simpering with a sense of dread of the horrific events we know will eventually unfurl, ever-present in the form of a torture cage attached to the back of the horse and cart the men travel with.

Then when the band of men finally reach the village The Wicker Man comparisons become abundantly apparent, to say much more of the occurences there would be to spoil the expertly built suspense but needless to say it doesn’t end well for many. Carice Van Houten makes for a convincing witch but the interesting thing is we are never in doubt who we should root for character wise,  but given the questions raised with regards to God and religion there is a hard to swallow air about whether Ulric’s band of men have a legitimate reason for their brutal mission.

But it is in the atmospherics that Black Death is won, director Christopher Smith who presided over Creep and Severance, both hugely gory Brit-horror’s, is an expert at creating a mood and the dial here is set very much to the aforementioned “pestilent”! This feels like a genuine depiction of the times of great hardship, women are generally hideous, everyone has browning teeth, suit’s of armour are believably rusty and everyone has their own agenda, even though they are god fearing/worshipping men! It is also nice to see a bit of restraint when it comes to the actual scenes of gore, shocking yes but not gratuitous surprisingly given Smith’s pedigree, finally a director has embraced the less is more mantra leaving you with a rather nasty taste in your mouth upon walking from the film, and quite frankly in a film that’s called Black Death you can ask for nothing better.

VERDICT

Black Death is a pestilent film personified, reeking a desperate and grim atmosphere it is an experience that any film dealing with such harsh times should be…and more, Aided by a clutch of convincingly shady performances director Christopher Smith has a forged a great, and grim, filmic experience.

Starring: Richard Gere, Don Cheadle, Ethanm Hawke, Wesley Snipes, Will Patton, Lili Taylor

Director: Antoine Fuqua

Writer: Michael C. Martin

Cinematography: Patrick Murguia

Original Score: Marcelo Zarvos

Running Time: 132 Mins.

Director Antoine Fuqua hit the big time with seminal thriller that dealt with the darker side of the police force in Training Day, bagging a deserved Oscar for Denzel Washington in the process, so it comes as no surprise that he returns to that turf once more with his latest film Brooklyn’s Finest which is similarly plotted, as it deals with corrupt cops, but cranks everything up a few notches by following the path of not one, not two, but three men walking the fine line between what an opening speech touts as the idea of “righter or wronger”.

So we have Richard Gere’s last 7 days as a nondescript and weary beat cop who has done nothing of note during his 20 years on the force and, through the eyes of a rookie, seeks to change that, Don Cheadles undercover narc who is in so deep he wants out and finally, acting as the central focus point, is Ethan Hawke’s corrupt officer at the end of his tether, wrestling with how far he will go to provide for his ever-growing family. If each strand on its own sounds familiar it is because it is, The Departed, Pride and Glory, Dark Blue, to name but a few have tread these boards to great outcome in their own rights, but in truth they largely have Training Day to than for reinvigorating the genre, all of which means that Fuqua should be able to top all these in one fell swoop…

Sadly he doesn’t, juggling this many strands and creating fully rounded characters is difficult and what is even more difficult is bringing them together upon the film’s close without seeming hackneyed or forced, on that front he largely fails with an ending that echoes The Departed a little too much not to seem stale. But the taken as an attempt at something with a little more meat on its bones than your average thriller the film proves a success to the final 20 minutes. Each story alone would likely have felt massively clichéd, but somehow when brought together they work, not so much three stories weaving in and out they are separately plotted with the characters only ever crossing in a street or in the police rec-room, though this lends the film a little more credence while seeming a touch disjointed.

Inevitably some arcs become more interesting than others, be it through character or the story itself, here it is the characters who grip over the admittedly seen-it-all-before plotting, Hawke, Gere and Cheadle are all great actors and are worth their mettle here, Gere in particular seems to be stretching himself playing a man out of his usual comfort zone, in one squinty sigh alone Gere can act most people off the screen and it is this kind of presence that keeps the film alive. Hawke is as intense as ever, switching his good guy rookie role in Training Day for something much darker seems much better suited to his now cracked and worn looks, this is a man aged by stress and in a standout scene, set in a confession booth you literally can’t tear your eyes off the screen.

Of the three strands it is Cheadle’s that suffers most, maybe it is because The Departed did the undercover thing so well or maybe it is because this kind of black gang drug warfare has well and truly descended into parody given how often it crops up in films now but the characters never seem to gel with the events, that said it is a story that affords Wesley Snipes a great role despite giving him little to do beyond have furrowed conversations with Cheadle, thankfully he does it so well it really begins to matter very little what they are saying and rather that they are just saying it!

Oddly, when balanced against Training Day, this is not an action packed film in terms of shoot-outs and heated confrontations, rather it is a slow burn character piece that juggles maybe one too many characters than it can feasibly handle, that it handles as many as it does as well as it does is a great thing for it means Fuqua has tried to raise his game rather than simply treading the same boards as would have been all too easy to do.

VERDICT

A character piece first and foremost with excellent turns all round, and in that Brooklyn’s Finest succeeds, even if the inevitable happens and some of the stories suffer for being less memorable than others resulting in a somewhat rushed and unsatisfactory ending.

Starring: Adrian Brody, Mark Ruffalo, Rachel Weisz, Rinko Kikuchi, Robbie Coltrane

Director: Rian Johnson

Writer(s): Rian Johnson

Cinemtography: Steve Yedlin

Original Score: Nathan Johnson

Running Time: 114 Mins.

The Brothers Bloom has sat on a Hollywood shelf somewhere for 2 years awaiting its arrival on our shores, having taken director Rian Johnson 3 years to actually get round to directing again after his (now) cult classic debut Brick. Following up such a film is always difficult, Richard Kelly failed spectacularly in his follow up to Donnie Darko, Southland Tales, while John Hillcoat’s follow up to The Proposition was the lacklustre The Road, these are just two of the more recent examples so it is no surprise Rian Johnson took his time but given the added time it has taken to make its way here along with its almost non-existant take at the US box office, it would be safe to say that expectations were if not low, rather more on the wary side.

The problem Johnson faced is that Brick itself was as expertly and uniquely written as it was presented, the visuals punctuating the script and giving us that all too rare experience of something new in multiplexes. Coupled with a rather excellent turn from Joseph Gordon-Levitt amidst a great ensemble of new actors it was always going to be a hard act to follow, to give something equally as genius while being different enough to prove Johnson as more than just a one trick pony. Suffice to say in his attempts to do just that he at once fails and succeeds for the first hour The Brothers Bloom, almost, hits the highs of Brick’s ingenuity but, retaining the director/writer’s quirks while adding something unique to a well worn tale, however in its latter half the plot begins to unravel…

So to the good, and what good it is, Johnson clearly has an eye for casting and Brody and Ruffalo as the titular brothers are a match made in heaven, believable as siblings and inhabiting characters that are only ever found in the minds of the quirkiest directors, Johnson is a master, based on the evidence of this and Brick, of creating hyper stylised worlds a la the Coen brothers or Wes Anderson. Unlike Anderson though, whose films all seem to occur in a similarly unique place the world that The Brothers Bloom inhabit is so different from that which Johnson created for Brick yet it still retains the same visual markers.

The opening prologue that sets up the plot, one brother, Bloom (Brody), falls for the “mark” of a con while the other brother Stephen (Ruffalo) scams his way to a fortune, with a great sense of whimsy that shows each brother for his true colours and, hopefully, demonstrates we aren’t in for just another con man movie, which rings true for a while. We get to know the brothers and the other crazy characters such as Bang Bang the mute Japanese explosive’s expert and Robbie Coltrane’s bizarre Belgian curator, while Rachel Weisz gamely throws herself into the pivotal role of the “mark” on the inevitable one last job the brothers embark upon.

So far so quirky, and great for it, but as the film reaches its midpoint Johnson seems at a loss at how to tie up the story without resorting to cliché and in trying to avoid that he ends up going round in circles with plot and characters meaning they are built up with very little to do. The inevitable romance that burgeons between Weisz and Brody is sweet and realised well especially given the excellent turn from Weisz showing a different side to her ample skills as an actress but this is not enough and as the story meanders back and forth between double-cross after double-cross you lose the empathy you had for anyone and will be left bored, thankfully the finale somewhat redeems the film and reminds you why it was so great to begin with if not consistently throughout and if nothing else Johnson’s visual flourishes will stave off boredom at the plot.

VERDICT

The Brothers Bloom is a commendably different follow-up to Brick in that it carves out a uniquely great start for itself, even if it loses its way at the mid-point as Johnson doesn’t quite know where to go with his quirky take on a well-worn genre.  

Starring: Jay Baruchel, Alice Eve, T.J. Miller, Mike Vogel, Nate Torrence

Director: Jim Field Smith

Writer(s): Sean Anders, John Morris

Cinematography: Jim Denault

Original Score: Michael Andrews

Running Time: 104 Mins.

She’s Out of my League hardly present’s us with an original conceit for a rom-com, affable loser falls for stunner and all manner of hilarious antics ensue, as plot’s go it could be written on the back of a stamp. The thing is, what makes or breaks a rom-com  is very much down to how it is put together, get the elements just right such as an excellent cast and you have a corker of a comedy, i.e. The Girl Next Door, add a really great script and you get a comedic masterpiece, Knocked Up and The 40 Year Old Virgin, in fact (based on this mantra) almost anything Judd Apatow puts his name too with the exception of Drillbit Taylor!

So it should come as a nice surprise to see an Apatow bit-player ascending the heights to leading man status, Jay Baruchel is a winningly likeable actor with a nasal groan of a voice that coming from the mouth of anyone else would likely be hugely annoying, but like all great comedy actors he makes it his calling card, droll delivery is his staple and if you liked it in small doses, fear not for he carries a film exceptionally well, balancing the likeable everyman persona with the appropriate level of funny one-liners means he offers a fresh take on a stale stereotype.

You will be unsurprised to learn that the plot is a mish-mash of scenarios and stock characters from a wealth of past films, though the execution is serviceable on the whole what raises She’s Out Of My League’s game above many of its peers is the casting all round, each actor, with the exception of one or two is both talented enough to be truly funny and has enough heart to make them emminantly watchable right down to the inevitably over-bearing family. The real belly laughs are to be found in the interplay between Baruchel and his trio of friends, resisting the urge to be simply funny bit parts they are all afforded enough screen-time to create a three-dimensional person from the male “bonding” scenes!

What really makes the film a winner though is the sheer level of laughs, with each and every one hitting the bullseye, ranging from sniggersome in a slow-ish build start to the all out hilarity of one or two scenes that could well have been stolen whole-sale from American Pie but work like a charm none-the-less. So while the romance between Baruchel and a stunningly beautiful Alice Eve is less than believeable, something which is intentional for a change, you will watch and love their characters, a bit of a coup of Eve’s part as she provides proof that stunning actresses can be more than just window dressing, gamely entering into the gross out levels the film has a habit of hilariously resorting too, hardly high-brow enteratinment then, but great fun!

VERDICT

Jay Baruchel is a winning leading man but it is the sheer sense of fun that carries She’s Out Of My League beyond the comedic staleness the plot would suggest we were in for, consistent laughs then and a great cast, what more could you ask for of a comedy!

Starring: Casey Affleck, Kate Hudson, Jessica Alba, Bill Pullman, Elias Koteas, Ned Beatty

Director: Michael Winterbottom

Writer(s): John Curran, Jim Thompson (novel)

Cinematography: Marcel Zyskind

Original Score: Melissa Permenter

Running Time: 109 Mins.

A film whose reputation precedes it, and the latest taboo shaker from Michael Winterbottom, The Killer Inside Me was never going to be your generic run-of-the-mill study about a serial killer though to be fair neither was the source novel. A faithful adaptation this is a tale that takes in violence at its most brutal, met out at its worst on women and sees little to no motive or explanation for it, while this is a harrowing watch at times it is never a film to present us with an opinion rather putting forth the events on-screen in an almost factual, documentary style way and one in which there is no seeking to condemn or berate the lead characters brutal acts, and it is in this that the controversy has grown.

Within the first 20 minutes two are dead, and one of the films two sickening acts against the leading ladies have been met out, Jessica Alba as prostitute Joyce Lakeland is not an innocent herself, and when she first slaps Affleck’s Sheriff Lou Ford we see the previously hidden rage bubble to the surface in one look. Pushed to the edge he takes it on himself to beat Lakeland with a belt, to which it is suggested she enjoys, from here an obsessive affair develops with the primary objective of blackmailing the town’s big business founder.

So far so noir, but plot is secondary to character machinations, Affleck is a powerhouse in the most subtle of ways, a smirk here, a glare there, this is as far from panto evil as you can get, in fact that’s the truly scary thing. Despite the acts Lou carries out you feel little towards him other than intrigue which is where both the strengths and weaknesses of such a film lie. There is no attempt made to suggest why this murderer lay under Lou’s calm exterior, the idea is raised that we know little of someone from their exterior and as Lou himself says “people think they know you because they grew up with you” but these ponderous anecdotes do little to make the audience think, simply accept the events we see when we should probe further.

As the story builds it becomes more complex and Lou attempts to cover his tracks as the kill’s mount, oddly it is only those murders of the women that are lingered on with little explaination offered other than sparse and cryptic flashbacks to Lou’s youth that hint at a twisted upbringing but never answer fully enough to forge any understanding of linger in our thoughts beyond the scenes to pose questions and possibilities. That said it is a film that cannot fail to stay in your mind, more for the shock factor that any deep desire to find method in Lou’s madness.

It is obvious that the scenes of violence are those that remain memorable but as you watch they will punctuate the experience and permeate through the plot, cold and clinical as they are, this is not 300 style ultra-violence, they serve a purpose and are neither glorified nor especially frowned upon. Character’s that feature are real people, neither good nor bad, each has a motive and those that don’t are simply doing there jobs, in amassing a great ensemble to surround Affleck’s bubbling tension-fuelled turn are a duo of beauties playing largely against type but stand up strong as real women, flawed as anyone, each character seems to drift in and out of Lou’s life, only there to serve their purpose in his scheme or to crop up in attempts to corrupt it.

While the story fits a classic narrative Winterbottom chooses to take a fresh perspective that is led not by narrative drive but by simple cause and effect on character’s in the most clinical way, this is a journey through the psyche of a clearly twisted individual that is scarily as “normal” in many ways as anyone else, not an enjoyable experience then but rather a true and truly disturbing one.

VERDICT

The violence met out is what The Killer Inside Me will be remembered for, with good reason, it is what drives the film and it’s lead performance by Affleck, commendable for its clinical approach yet somewhat cold for it too, one to be admired then, for better or worse.

Starring: Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Idris Elba, Chris Evans, Jason Patric, Zoe Saldana, Columbus Short

Director: Sylvain White

Writers: Peter Berg, james Vanderbilt

Cinematography: Scott Kevan

Original Score: John Ottman

Running Time: 97 Mins.

This summer a crack ex-military outfit have been framed for a crime they did not commit, surviving “under-ground” they seek to clear their names and they aren’t the The A Team, yes pipping that particular team to the post are The Losers operating under suspiciously familiar circumstances they are a mis-matched group of individuals each with their own special skill, team leader, sniper, comms, knife expert extraordinaire. Working like a who’s who of  clichéd team ups The Losers does not so much lack any sense of freshness as exude something rather more unwanted, like a bad case of chronic diarrhoea for example.

Despite the total disregard for ripping off the aforementioned The A Team, not to mention any other “framed group righting wrongs” films The Losers manages to come out the other end a shining light and a pretty glossy, if hugely shallow, popcorn fest that set’s out a marker for the upcoming The A Team film to topple, its one that for pure unadulterated enjoyment will be hard to beat…however given my rather damning introduction you would be forgiven for wondering where such high, and contradictory, praise comes from…

The Losers is plundered from Hollywood’s ever-growing obsession to adapt everything and anything from the graphic novel world, with good reason, the characters, plots and set pieces are already there, not only written but visualised on the page, all a producer need do is amass a cast and crew befitting of said material, though that said there are as many hits (in both box office and critical terms) as there are misses, for every The Dark Knight there’s a Superman Returns, for every Iron Man a Fantastic 4, and in those that stray a little further from the typical superhero bent there is a From Hell for every Road to Perdition.

All of which leaves The Losers with not much of a problem in terms of fanboy issues, for the few who are aware of the comic are not those who will make or break the film itself, the trailers haven’t played up the graphic novel roots in the slightest, pitching The Losers somewhere between Oceans Eleven and the obvious The A Team. Neither of these comparisons are unfair and the easy charm the cast glowed with in the Ocean’s films is replicated here albeit with a number of shall we say lesser known thesps. Leading the group is Dean Morgan, building on his  Watchmen comic book credentials he does little other than act as the big boss while everyone else grabs the comedy elements, filling out the team are a weapons ace with a Stetson, Elba’s knife wielder, Short’s family man and the ace in the pack Chris Evans as the Comms expert.

This is a cast that were born to play these roles, Elba and Morgan have easy bickering chemistry as do Evans and Short, but script wise it is Evans who is afforded all the cracking lines and scenes, worth seeing for a truly inspired moment that uses the recently over-used Don’t Stop Believing as a backdrop and culminates in a sure to be fan favourite spiel about government experiments and superheroes by Evans that has even more poignancy given he filmed this before becoming Captain America.

While the films roots have been skimmed over in marketing material (unwisely perhaps) they are there to be seen on screen right down to the graphic freeze frame character intros and the Watchmen-like slo mo fights against a backdrop of flames, so while none of this may sound particularly inspiring it gets by with oodles of charm and some choice moments that are pure grin and revel in the audacity of it all, in much the same way as Smokin’ Aces did. The action is choreographed well, and with a very stylistic eye, employing slo mo, freeze frame, and just about every other effect you can think of.

VERDICT

Some films are just made to be enjoyed, and The Losers is one of them, wearing its lack of originality on it’s sleeve this is not there to be admored simply to revel in the absurdity of it all, heres hoping The A Team can follow in the footsteps of the ironically named troupe here.

Starring: Jonathan Mellor, Manuela Valesco, Oscar Zafra, Ariel Casas, Alejandro Casaseca

Director(s): Jaume Balaguero, Paco Plaza

Writer(s): Jaume Balaguero, Manu Diez

Cinematography: Pablo Rosso

Original Score: N/A

Running Time: 85 Mins.

Buried in a few select cinemas across the UK the original [REC] was a surprise cult smash, riding on the crest of the current crop of  first person horror (as I like to refer to it), i.e. those that use handheld footage to deliver the narrative, it was a film that rightly won much admiration for its lean, mean approach to a tired and all too often contrived genre, offering scares and a gritty realism often lacking of late, it somewhat sealed what was in the thoughts of most…the European Horror scene is where it is currently happening.

Stateside [REC] incurred an even rawer deal, slipping into DTV ignominy by THE distributors who saw the promise in a shot by shot remake, albeit in the English language for all the Horror plebs turned off at the mere thought of subtitles, rushed into cinemas and hastily renamed, un-originally as befits the whole film, Quarantine it did great business on a budget to takings scale, alas this seems to have prompted original directors of [REC] to hit back with a sequel that picks up merely minutes from the end of the last film, continuing plot strands and showing us what happened to those locked inside the infected building while doing the usual sequel things of upping the ante, introducing multiple plots strands and developing ideas for better or worse.

This time around there are multiple cameras, fitted with lights, rather than the original film’s one, this allows for more scope with occasional split screen and a little more in the way of action which can now be seen from more than one perspective. The plot itself has the bare bones S.W.A.T. group heading into the apartment block to discover what has happened, suffice to say all does not go at all to plan and many people die a nasty death. So far so [REC], but what the writers have cleverly done is open up the original’s simple zombie infection and crafted a mythology around the creepy occurences.

This is not new territory for Horror, building on a mythology is a dangerous thing though and in the wrong hands can go spectacularly wrong giving your evil entities rhyme and reason where there was none for good reason…the scare factor, witness Halloween 2 (Rob Zombies!) or the Saw films for evidence of this. What  Balaguero and Plaza have done is take what we thought was scary for its primal viciousness and added a supernatural spin, to say too much si to rob the film of its scares but it is enough to say there is something of an Exorcist vibe going on.

So while the scares are ratcheted up with the S.W.A.T. we are suddenly introduced to a group of teens, seemingly there as extra fodder and sadly dragging the pace a little when it should be at its peak, thankfully a kill involving a rocket and a possession  scene save what could have totally killed the tone and we wind up with an ending that is at once as scary as the final 5 minutes of its forebear and at the same time excruciatingly annoying in the desperation to which the film-makers have gone to exude the need to use that infamous night vision camera style. Aside from these minor mis-steps and something in a lack of characterisation this is as snappy and scary as the first and leaves you looking forward to, rather than dreading, another installment.

VERDICT

[REC]2 offers a satisfying sequel, something that is a rare beast in the Horror genre, as scary and snappy as the first whilst introducing a satisfying mmythology to be built upon, not a classic but in a world of remakes soemthing fresh is in itself to be commended.