Reviews

Real Steel is a film in the robotic mould of a Rocky movie, but outside this metallic framework is that of a tale of father and son reconciliation. Levy uses the robots to symbolically and figuratively represent Jackman's character, a failed boxer who would sooner sell his son for cash than face his responsibilities. Life has left him on the garbage heap. It is that same garbage heap that his son, played with likable enthusiasm by Goyo, revives an abandoned robot and in turn his relationship with his father.

The robot, Atom, is in every way the underdog, but despite his size he can take a beating. Jackman is the robot in every sense. As the father and son connect over the success of their fighting robot so too does Jackman's confidence grow. His skills become the robots skills as their robot possesses a unique ability to shadow and learn from Jackman's boxing expertise. As the film progresses, Jackman and his son reveal their robot's innate value and in parallel Jackman's own value as a fighter and a father is uncovered . He fights back against the odds and at the crunch point realises the real fight is to fight for his son.

As is expected the father son tale is played against the typical boxing scenario as seen in Rocky. The underdog rises to fight the colossal champion. The fights, which are choreographed by Sugar Ray Leonard, have a genuine sense of the sport behind the robots. The part CGI / part animatronic robots have the right sense of realism to make it credible to watch.

Real Steel is an enjoyable watch and as expected from Spielberg as Exec Producer the film as the production value and emotional resonance to make you want to invest in Jackman. Jackman is, as always, immensely watchable and turns a character, who under another actor's control could be obnoxious to the point of audience disconnection, into a likable rogue. Lilly is a pleasure to see acting again in the supporting role and gives a genuine barometer for the type of man Jackman is portraying. She aids in the sense that here is a man on the garbage heap and only a person who can see beyond would attempt to salvage him, just as she and his son do.

The boxer and his mechanical shadow overcome the odds and his own failings and its fun to go along on the ride.

Framed as leaked "found footage" from the era of space exploration in the 1970s, Apollo 18 is an attempt to out conspiracy the already rife conspiracy theories concerning the lunar landings. The trouble with framing something as being documentary style footage is you have to get the science right and be free from any loopholes that might break the audience out of the illusion. Apollo 18 falls short on this count. López-Gallego manages to recreate to a certain extent the lunar missions. Portrayed through the various cameras feeding live footage back to Earth we have a Big Brother style look into the doomed from the start space mission. The two man crew of the lunar lander also film themselves on 16mm cameras. Herein lies some of the flaws in the director's logic. We need to get into the character's perspective to relate. This is solely done through these 16mm cameras. They film themselves on the moon's surface as well as personal records in the module. The rest is all caught on remote cameras, the audience being allowed to see the threat before the crew do, privy to the danger the Department of Defence has exposed them to. The live footage makes sense to have been documented; however the 16mm film rolls do not make it out, they share the crews dire fate. How then are we seeing the actions of the crew amidst this found footage? It makes no sense pulling any reasonably astute watcher beyond the line of suspension of disbelief.

It seems clear López-Gallego wants us to care about the cast. We need to care for the conspiracy theory to resonate. The story very directly harks into the era of Watergate where the powers that be cannot be trusted. But his illusion of found footage does not stand up at all well. Does the story really fail on this account? No. It's actually fairly entertaining as it goes. The tension builds; the threat is revealed and played out. However the conspiracy theme and the documentary framing lend the film no real benefit and do not pay off. While there is reams of data on the films website to build the conspiracy it is not present enough on screen to sideline the notion we are victim to a none to subtle slight of hand.

What the film did do with the early footage was remind me why, as a child, I was so fascinated with space. It shows with sufficient realism what the actual Apollo astronauts did and how we as a planet reached for the stars. This is not history as it tries to suggest, but it is a reminder, to me at least, of how sad it is that we no longer pursue such epic destinations as the moon or beyond.

The romcom genre is by nature a formulaic affair. Girl meets boy, chemistry, do they don't they, yes they do. Friends with Benefits tries to play on the formula in a self aware style. The film and its characters both know the disappointments of chasing the fairytale of true love. The couple initiate a friendship that the co-stars Timberlake and Kunis do with humour and a good turn of chemistry. To avoid the hardships of chasing love the story has them turn against love, thus creating the premise of the anti-romcom. This is of course a red herring. The couple fall in love despite themselves and it is an enjoyable journey to follow them.

The story exposes the characters flaws that inherently cause one person to connect deeper to another. The emotion that the couple attempt to remove from the relationship in favour of just sex, wins the day. Where the film does well is turning the conventions just a notch to show something reasonably fresh in a very clichéd genre. The film even mockingly plays on these clichés through a film within a film which Kunis as the die-hard romcom fan finds herself aspiring to in her own love life.

Friends with Benefits paints an amusing yarn of finding love where the characters actively chose to deny it. Gluck keeps it raunchy (see poster for example of possibly most suggestive gesture to find itself on a London bus), self aware and when needed shows the baggage the characters carry without it being over sentimental. The message seems to be that love, if you can find it with the right person, is the ultimate friends with benefits.

Conan the Barbarian is born in war, a product of blood and steel. Thus the film should be a visceral, violent portrayal of a warrior set against the fantasy backdrop of Robert E. Howard's Hyboria. What emerges on screen is a set of one dimensional characters placed in a world that feels half heatedly brought to life.

The film has been accused of being like viewing a video game. I would disagree. The nature of video games, particularly those of the fantasy and RPG genres, is immersion. There is no immersion here. We flit from place to place in a lame attempt to show the vastness of the world through a mediocre CGI backdrop of a castle or slave camp or pirate city. None are ever fully realised before Conan jaunts off somewhere else. The violence itself is the most disappointing. Nispel manages to create fight scenes that lack the kinetic quality of a dance. The camera is misplaced, the editing focusing on the wrong points. You never feel the hits, the power of the blows or Conan's qualities as a warrior. It feels clumsy.

There are more grunts and warcries than lines of dialogue and those spoken feel like the actors are running them in rehearsal for the first time. There is no commitment to the lines so again the audience fails to immerse in their characters. McGowen in contrast overly plays the sorcerer.

Given this is a reboot, the film does not feel fresh, but instead feels dated. It's almost as though Nispel wanted it to feel like the 1982 version, but taking only the worst qualities and none of the charm. Conan reinforces the assertion of refraining from producing reboots where there is nothing original the writers or director bring to the table. Conan is a stale rehash that will offer no reward to its audience.

Cowboys & Aliens is a mash-up of two B-Movie staples that takes the clichés of both and brings little of the fun the title might promise. The film reeks of being a cool idea a producer thought should make it onto the big screen. In fact this is just the case as the comic book creator put the comic together as a comic/film tie in. The sad truth though is that the film never really gets beyond the gimmick of the title. The aliens are so vague as characters, the film could be Cowboys & Vampires with little changed in the plot.

The stellar cast of lead actors do their best with the roles, and Craig and Ford seem perfectly cast as the man without a name (well forget his name) and the rough ex-soldier turned rough rancher. Wilde seems destined to be the leading lady in many a film to come. Also standing out is Adam Beach as Ford's loyal native. There a moments where these actors do get a chance to develop their characters and Favreau plays his part here too. However these moments are few and far between and mark the moments of pause and consideration before the nonsensical alien gold looting, kidnapping and experimenting plot line takes hold.

Cowboys & Aliens should not work, yet Favreau in his blockbuster manner makes it appear as though is its fused seamlessly. The two genres do co-exist and to some degree the audience buy it. But never do you care, not for the characters, not for the outcome, especially not about the bug-eyed aliens who stand to threaten the unlikely posse of outlaws, cowboys and apaches to stand against them.

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In a cinematic era dominated by reboots and mindless blockbuster franchises, Rise of the Planet of the Apes does indeed rise above the rest. This is in whole due to the startling performance by Serkis. The man behind Gollum and Jackson's King Kong has created through motion capture and facial recognition technology an ape character that is nothing short of miraculous. Serkis gives us Caeser, who is every bit the primate but Serkis offers such subtle nuances and gestures that the character outperforms his human counterparts. This is truly deserving of an Oscar, should the Academy finally get its head around this hybrid style of acting. The technology is now so good you can allow yourself to forget you are watching a CGI character, but it is down to Serkis why you believe that character has life and sentience. You will want to rise up and follow him too.

The story is told with equal subtlety. While it contains all number of clichés that will swell your heart and stir your compassion, newcomer Wyatt directs with a purpose. There is a sense that there has been great thought about how man can fall and apes rise in their place. The audience is left to fill in the story without having the plot points force fed. By the climatic end it is enough that there is escape for the audience to know the human oppressor has given way to the nobler and indeed humane race.

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