Baby Driver - Cinema Review

I'm having difficulty pinpointing what I didn't like about Edgar Wright's Baby Driver. His personal project first conceived 24 years ago that has finally come to fruition as he wrote and directed it for 2017. To just call it a "heist film" is something of an oversimplification.

It certainly wasn't the writing or directing itself. Edgar Wright's unique visual style and impeccable wit are present throughout and in many ways perfectly suit this type of film. As I mentioned, whilst overall a crime-heist-thriller type affair, the film has elements of romantic comedies and musicals whereas much of Edgar Wright's previous work would come under Action-Comedy or Horror-Comedy.

This is not to say the film isn't funny, but there is perhaps less comedy than something like Shaun Of The Dead or Hot Fuzz. This is really only a nitpick though and probably only noticeable because the jokes that are present are all spot on hits hence my craving for more of the rarity that is dry comedy with some actual thought put into it.

The acting and performances are also great so it can't be that which irked me about the film. Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Jamie Foxx, Jon Bernthal all bring stellar performances as you would expect but right down to the bit part extras, everyone puts in a solid performance here.

 Ansel Elgort is a relative newcomer who I hadn't seen in anything before this but as the film's protagonist he does an excellent if understated performance, carrying his weight alongside the big names aforementioned. The same is true of the love interest Debora played by Lily James who together with Ansel gives their relationship a charming quality reminiscent of Sandy and Danny in Grease (Yes I just referenced Grease.)

The technical aspects of the film are all fantastic from the camerawork and lighting to editing and set design. I don't want to spoil almost anything about the film but there's a superb sequence early on that could only be achieved by Edgar Wright's meticulous attention to detail. Said scene, as well as the whole movie is hugely reliant on the music which absolutely does not drop a beat.

With music arguably the core theme of the film, Baby Driver doesn't disappoint in its Bluesy-Pop soundtrack filled with some classic well known tracks and quite a few more unknown but high quality and expertly chosen songs that probably got a small percentage of the audience aware of them incredibly excited.

I would argue the film goes beyond a similarly music driven piece like Guardians Of The Galaxy in the way that the music is blended into the action, the characters and even the set design. It's that attention to detail I mentioned earlier that really imbues the scenes with a special sort of personal atmosphere that so many films lack even a trace of recently.

So what I didn't like wasn't the writing, directing, music, cinematography, acting, art design or anything else I've mentioned thus far. I suppose the only part of Baby Driver I wasn't entirely on board with was the subject matter. I'm rather indifferent to elongated car chases and actively despise casual singing the likes of which infests musicals and many romantic films.

So it's down to my own personal discomforts and yet despite this I still found the film immensely entertaining and plan to see it again soon so I would hope that is testament to the brilliance of Baby Driver. I highly recommend it if you enjoy stylish crime and action that knows how to have fun with memorable entertaining characters, romance, drama and a groovy soundtrack.

Alien: Covenant - Cinema Review

With every passing film I feel that Ridley Scott loses credibility as a filmmaker. I'm now significantly worried about the upcoming Blade Runner 2. I watched Prometheus for the first time a few weeks ago in preparation for Alien Covenant and I'm honestly not sure which is better (or "worse" might be more apt).

Prometheus certainly confused me more but Alien Covenant left me more annoyed, which is odd considering the real shit-head characters are in Prometheus. Perhaps because I had heard of Prometheus' shitty reputation long beforehand I was somewhat prepared. Regardless the take away should be that neither are particularly good films.

Alien Covenant, much like Prometheus succeeds in many technical areas like visually engaging art design and intense, atmospheric lighting of scenes. Of the several largely dark or night based films I happen to have seen recently, A.C was the most visible of them, which is relieving to know filmmakers haven't forgotten entirely how to shoot a darkened scene.

Unfortunately just like its predecessor, A.C's plot thread and characters are where the film falls apart. The crew of the colony ship "Covenant" might be the worst, most ineffective group of trained astronauts I've ever seen on film.

There is a line of dialogue where our protagonist Daniels, (the only close to competent human on board) talks of their long training for this specific mission. Now, granted their captain immediately dies and killer aliens aren't a scheduled part of the mission but you would think voyaging into the vast unknown of space, people would be somewhat prepared for the...well, the unknown.

Allow me to explain further. This trained crew are cowardly, clumsy, emotional, oblivious and incompetent. One person slipping on blood and falling on their arse is a regrettably common trope. Two people slipping on the same blood within minutes is near farcical. The second slipper is confusingly both smart enough to then hide behind netting and lure an alien onto it for a clear shooting position but not smart enough to avoid getting flustered and unloading so much ammunition that the ship combusts and is destroyed.

Yes that is technically a spoiler but I won't be recommending this shiny shallow tripe so don't worry about it. Continuing "Astronauts Do The Funniest Things" none of the surviving crew think to question a decades-old hermit android living alone in a palace surrounded by hundreds of petrified corpses and just accept his hospitality without hesitation.

Why does the acting captain somehow believe a word he says after he's seen befriending Xenomorphs next to a colleague's barely cold corpse? Why do Xenomorphs flee from a shot flare but shrug off daylight, interior ship lighting and jet engine fire to the face? I could go on about how the true lethal pathogen of Alien Covenant is airborne stupidity but we'd be here all day.

Who would live in a place like this? Apparently someone of entirely sound mental health...

Even attempting to look past this, it's also hard to feel much emotional connection to any of the characters. The protagonist, for example, starts the film having lost the will to live and at no point really recovers or moves on from that and she's the most developed of everyone. Character motivations are as unclear as a Xenomorph's life and growth span.

Quite quickly you can decipher in what order the crew of expendables will be picked off and towards the end of the film the writers seem to be actively looking for excuses to slay the remaining survivors. This includes a shower scene blatantly included just for the trailer but so tone deaf and lacking in context it felt better suited to be in lowbrow parody franchise "Scary Movie".

Let me try and think of some positives to balance this out...Well Michael Fassbender's performance is probably the most enjoyable part of the film. He doesn't carry the film because frankly I don't think any actor could but he does an admirable job and any scene focused on him is a highlight.

So returning to my original quandary, if I had to choose I suppose Alien Covenant is better than Prometheus but not by much. A.C's plot is easier to follow and whilst most of the characters are brainless idiots at least unlike the Prometheus crew, they're not heartless bastards as well.

One of the actors reads the script a little too late.

E3 2017 - Nintendo

Nintendo starts with a nauseatingly hip and happening advert. The trailer features the unlikely event of professional boxers playing Arms together, a woman who can't afford most of her jeans playing Rocket League and a future serial killer temporarily delayed by Pokken Tournament Deluxe. With an ever decreasing presence at E3, you would think Nintendo would trim out all the crap and just stream a direct feed of gameplay footage into their meagre self-imposed 24 minute slot.

Nope, your hair is still the weirdest thing about you.

A title reel plays and we find ourselves in a house. Is it your house? Better hope not because Reggie's here as he steps ominously out from behind a wall. "The game is fun." he insists with all the warmth of a Guantanamo Bay tannoy. "The game is a battle" he continues, not looking entirely sure himself of what the fuck he means.

Perhaps he means the game of life...

"It's a test that you pass or a quest that you fail." Why does it become more grandiose if we lose? That seems pretty unfair. "Fun and battle always lock together but the game is also something else." Which one of us is on drugs here because it's definitely at least both of us. I could transcribe the entire of Reggie's philosophical sermon here but it honestly gives off the vibe of a Shia Lebeouf motivational speech so perhaps I'll leave it to you if you want to experience Nintendo's new Confucius.

I don't think I like this Matrix reboot.

The first game trailer shown is Xenoblade Chronicles 2 which not only has some of the most astonishingly bad voice acting but also terrible casting. This very Japanese anime looking game has decided its main character should have some kind of deformed cockney accent. "Let's gowe to Eleesium, iyll take yuh there moyself.". This coupled with either poorly translated or poorly written dialogue and I can't imagine anyone but die hard fans of this series will be enticed into or able to endure the game.

Next comes a new 2D Kirby game so classic that it's just called "Kirby". I hope Nintendo aren't doing the whole reboot getting to reuse the same name thing. Four player co-op, all the classic horrific assimilation of enemies set to charming music and marshmellow visuals. I imagine it'll please a lot of fans although it doesn't yet seem to be doing anything particularly new. Perhaps that's the point though and it doesn't have to...It's always difficult to tell with Nintendo.

The twisted glee of a serial arsonist.

A chap in front of a green screen tells us he is "so relieved" that Nintendo Switch is doing well. "We thought we'd pissed away the entire company! I kept a loaded gun in my desk just waiting for the news to hit." He laughs unstably. This summer, he claims there will be many multiplayer games released for the Switch and at this point alongside Reggie's talk of "battles" I guess that's kind of the theme for this showcase...That or awful actors.

A man from The Pokemon Company stares at a blank piece of paper surrounded by Pokemon toys. He welcomes us and talks about Pokken Tournament Deluxe before mentioning that Game Freak are working on a "core RPG Pokemon game for the Switch.". Whether this will be in the same vein as the Pokemon Colosseum games or not remains to be seen, as does everything about the game.

"It may not release for over a year but we hope you'll look forward to it all the same" If I could get people as excited by my purely theoretical ideas maybe I'd have a career by now but frankly telling us this without literally anything to show smacks of a lacking lineup for Nintendo's E3.

"We're open to ideas...please..."

We return to our first guy who echos mine and probably many other people's question of "What kind of Pokemon game will we be able to play on Nintendo Switch?" He answers, "I'm looking forward to it myself" ...Fuck you.

Speaking of lacking substance the next "footage" is just a logo. Admittedly a logo for Metroid Prime 4, a series so sidelined and forgotten it was all but awaiting a burial by heartbroken fans but a logo nonetheless. I'm glad Nintendo appear to have listened to people's desires at last but "Now in development" is still a lacklustre announcement, no matter the pedigree of the game. The Final Fantasy 7 remake was not teased until there was at least a smidgen of footage, similarly when The Last Guardian was revived from development hell.

On principle, I can't really endorse these announcements as they feel kind of desperate like the first party equivalent of early access. Except they only have to tell you it exists for the preorders to start rolling in.

What was that Zelda game where Link became 2D? I can't quite remember and I feel like Nintendo's banking on that with Yoshi's new self-titled game where he can go behind walls and inside houses by using doors. Following this comes a non-gameplay trailer for Fire Emblem Warriors with slightly less dreadful voice acting than Xenoblade.

Starring Hitler's Aryan dream.

Eiji Aonuma appears next and mucks about with a sword talking about the Link costume and weapons appearing in the Switch version of Skyrim and introducing a trailer for Zelda: Breath Of The Wild's upcoming DLC. "The Master Trials" seems to mainly deliver harder difficulty modes and enemy variants alongside some new novelty clothes and weapons.

The second DLC gets a purely implied trailer where a montage of cutscenes from the game with an instagram filter play. "The Champion's Ballad" promises story content whereas the first DLC is gameplay additions. Hopefully together they'll be worth the £15 price.

Really? You thought these bastards needed to be tougher?

Oh and the champions are getting amiibos now too...yaaay...I love amiibos

"This changes the game" Oh shit Reggie's back and he's cornered us on an empty beach with no potential witnesses. He claims that E3 is "magic week" and we're shown footage of their outposts at Los Angeles and the Splatoon 2, Pokken and Arms tournaments taking place there. Good for them. I'm not in LA though, I'm in fucking Glasgow so unless you have a set up somewhere between the kilt weavers and Tony Macaroni it doesn't really interest me.

Although the broken fingers do capture the Glasgow spirit.

Yves Guillemot next talks about the Mario + Rabbids game revealed at the start of the Ubisoft conference that seemed to numb the public's perception to how tragically shite the rest of that showcase was. Personally the Rabbids have never lived up to their comedy potential and Yves talking about their "crazy personalities and unpredictable behaviour" really kind of sours me on this game. Replace the Rabbids with those fucking snot coloured Minion cunts and ask yourself if there's honestly a difference.

Try having the Rabbids take a leaf out of Kirby's book for a start.

Two chaps appear to barely talk about Rocket League on Switch which alongside good features like cross-platform online play it has customisation options implied to be putting Mario hats on your car...

Speaking of putting Mario hats on things, turns out that's the freaky new mechanic at the core of Super Mario Odyssey. The new trailer shows Mario possessing the souls of his enemies by flinging his parasitic cap onto them. This brings forth a lot of poignant and unnerving questions...

Like is "Mario" the man or the hat?

 Saying a Mario game looks good is hardly noteworthy but they seem to be making the most of this "real world" setting (I mean there's a T-Rex so unless the game starts quite early and Mario's immortal, I dunno how much realism they're playing with.). And then Nintendo's "Spotlight" ends with a few limp copyright notices and a reminder of their booths and stuff at the actual place.

Overall I feel disappointed with the showcase, spotlight, direct whatever the fuck it's even called anymore. Just under half an hour and they barely had enough to fill the time. Maybe footage will appear separately and specifically for each game throughout E3 but an unwelcome tone was still present.

With bare bones conceptual announcements and lack of description or detail regarding what was featured, Nintendo alongside Sony and Microsoft felt like slapdash cobbled together minimum effort shows. I suppose if pressed, Nintendo's was the least disappointing of the E3 showings but that's hardly high praise at least nowhere near as high as whatever ascended plane of consciousness Reggie's brain is floating on.

Is the frog aware of its host nature or simply made comatose whilst Mario exploits its body for high jumps?