It’s been very widely reported that 2015 has the potential
to be the greatest year in blockbuster film history. Joss Whedon returns with a
second Avengers film, J.J. Abrams serves up the first in an already lengthy
list of new Star Wars films. The Terminator and Jurassic Park franchises are
both getting reboots/sequels, there’ll be a new Bond film with Mendes at the
helm again after the triumph that was Skyfall, and the Hunger Games quadrilogy
of films will come to a hopefully fitting end. Mission Impossible 5 and Fast
and Furious 7 will almost certainly rake in impressive box office figures. Ant
Man and Fantastic Four have the potential to prove as wise a gamble as Guardians
of the Galaxy was this year. The Wachowski siblings will bring us the delayed
Jupiter Ascending, which looks absolutely barmy but potentially great fun.
There’s the adaptation of Assassin’s Creed which might provide a rare
videogame-to-film adaptation worth watching. Michael Fassbender is in that one
and will also be lining up opposite Marion Cotillard in a promising looking
version of Macbeth.
I could go on and on, but the promise of next year is not
what I wanted to write about right now. It’s the fact that the much less
heralded summer of 2014 is one of the best I can remember in a long time.
There’ve been disappointments along the way; The Amazing Spiderman 2 had great
moments and the chemistry of Emma Stone and Andrew Garfield going for it but
wasn’t the triumph I was hoping for. Transformers by all accounts delivered
exactly what you might have expected, and the less said about Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles the better.
For me there were 6 great summer movies this year.
- · Captain America: The Winter Soldier
- · X-Men: Days of Future Past
- · Edge of Tomorrow
- · How to Train Your Dragon 2
- · Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (the names might not get any less clumsy but the films get better)
- · Guardians of the Galaxy.
I’ve written reviews of Captain America and Guardians so I
won’t go into too much depth about them here, but it is a sign of why Marvel
are as dominant as they are right now, that two of their less high profile
projects, which could easily have felt like placeholders to tide us over until
Avengers 2, were as good as anything they’ve produced so far. The Winter
Soldier is possibly my favourite Marvel film apart from The Avengers, and the
new Star Wars will do well to capture the gloriously fun, space opera, joy of
Guardians.
So onto the other four films that made this summer so
memorable for me:
X-Men: Days of
Future Past (Bryan Singer)
This film is a definite contender for greatest cast list of
all time, but even with such talent assembled, the time travel plot and
ambition could easily have resulted in a muddled and underwhelming mess of a
film. I loved First Class and McAvoy and Fassbender were the perfect choices
for young Charles and Eric but I was a little worried that this film might end
up trying to do too much, getting bogged down in its own complicated macguffin (I’m
looking at you Luc Besson’s Lucy) and failing to develop any characters enough
(Amazing Spiderman 2’s villains suffered from this).
I needn’t have worried because Days of Future Past delivered
on my hopes and more. Smart, funny and well controlled throughout it was an
absolute triumph. The time travel elements were well handled (and some of the
ret-conning of previous X-Men films will be for the best in the long run), and
for a film with such potential to become cluttered it feels remarkably clear
throughout. Magneto (whether Fassbender or McKellen) remains one of the most
interesting villains in superhero history, his motivations understandable if
not condonable. Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine continues to be one of the best things
in any film he’s in (whether or not he saves his individual films is up for
debate) and Jennifer Lawrence is great as the angry and confused Mystique.
It is a film that focuses more on the newer 70s based cast
than the old guard, but most of the familiar faces get a good amount to work
with. There are a few characters I suspect will feature more in deleted scenes
(and it’s been confirmed that Rogue, who doesn’t make it into the theatrical
cut, will feature in an extended addition as plenty was filmed for her
storyline) but overall the balance is well maintained.
It will be interesting to see how Avengers 2 approaches the
character of Quicksilver, who through some sort of contract loophole is
available to both the X-Men and Avengers films, though the latter can’t call
him a mutant. Quicksilver in DoFP steals nearly every scene that he is, a
rebellious and comedic element in a film that has a number of intense, dramatic
scenes (Magneto and Xavier’s conversation on a plane a particular highlight).
The action is well staged throughout with Blink’s portal
opening power a particular highlight, delivering a fresh type of action
sequence as she and a number of other mutants combat the chillingly unstoppable
sentinels.
I chose to cover Days of Future Past first in this blog
because it is perhaps the best example of what made this summer great. Films
which were not guaranteed successes taking risks and showing ambition, and
precisely because they did so, delivering a great end product.
Edge of Tomorrow
(Doug Liman)
It’s a damn shame that this film wasn’t more of a success
than it was. It didn’t even break $100m in the U.S and only made $364m
worldwide, off of a $178m budget. It’s not hard to pinpoint some of the reasons;
it’s a film based on a little known in the west manga called All You Need Is
Kill, with the Groundhog Day meets Starship Troopers plot making it a challenge
to market and it is the only film of the 6 I’ve highlighted that isn’t a sequel
or adaptation.
The problem is there are so many reasons it should have been
more popular.
There’s the central cast of Tom Cruise, delivering an
entertainingly comic take on his action hero persona, starting off as a much
more cowardly character than most he plays and Emily Blunt, clearly enjoying a
fully fledged action role. Both are convincing in the action sequences while
delivering reasonably complex, not always likable characters. I’m not a massive
fan of Cruise, he’s delivered some great performances and films (Collateral,
Minority Report and Interview with a Vampire standing out), but there’s also
been a lot of generic action hero performances along the way. I am however a
huge fan of Blunt, whether she’s in an action thriller (Adjustment Bureau) or
low key drama (Your Sister’s Sister). Both are excellent in this and fully
committed to the role so it’s a shame the film didn’t get the attention it
deserved for them.
There’s the original concept, of an alien attack experienced
over and over until Cruise’s character Lt. Col. Cage gets it right, an
experience familiar to gamers everywhere. He has to learn when to fight, when
to run and when to duck. The director Doug Liman has great fun with this
element, adding a darkly comedic streak to otherwise excellently delivered
action sequences. I have my issues with some of the decisions made by Liman,
which I’d need a spoiler section to go into, but overall he does an excellent
job of making an alien invasion movie feel fresh and original.
There’s some entertaining supporting work from the likes of
Bill Paxton (who get’s arguably the best line of the whole film when he
responds to an escape attempt from Cage), Brendon Gleeson and Noah Taylor.
The alien grunts themselves remind me of the Sentinels from
the Matrix, refreshingly un-humanoid and are entirely believable as a species
that would have the human races combined military power on the ropes.
It’s not one of the greatest films of all time by any
stretch, but it deserved so much better than it got from the box office. It was
a smarter, funnier and more exciting action thriller than most and it’s a damn
shame that the studio will probably look at the return on their investment and
lump for safer, established options in the future. It’s originality was perhaps
it’s biggest asset and crippling flaw, which is not a promising indication for
blockbusters in the future. Hopefully it will do well on home cinema options,
but I’m not going to hold my breath.
How to Train Your
Dragon 2 (Dean DeBlois)
For me, the first How To Train Your Dragon is the best
non-Pixar animation of the last 20 years (I acknowledge that I need to give
Miyazaki’s films a fair go before that statement carries a lot of weight). It
had the heart, wonder and emotional clout that all the best animated films can
capture. There was also a maturity to it, a sense of consequence sometimes
lacking from all but the best films of the genre.
The sequel manages to capture much of the same sense of
wonder and emotion while also feeling like a fitting progression. It’s darker
(numerous interviews with DeBlois have touched upon the comparison between this
and The Empire Strikes Back, for its potential thematic place in a trilogy) but
remains kid friendly.
The influence of Roger Deakins as a consulting
cinematographer is felt as much here as in the original, Dragons continues to
be one of the most beautifully staged animations ever, with the flight
sequences a particular delight. Disney defined how to do animated films well,
Pixar embraced their approach and developed it, delivering more emotional depth
and animated complexity, but with the Dragons series DreamWorks have set the
standard for the epic within animation.
Hiccup and Toothless’ relationship develops naturally as
both begin to mature and look outside of their own friendship. It’s a dynamic
rarely realised more effectively and it’s complimented well throughout by
themes of parenthood, responsibility and ambition.
I grew up with the Toy Story franchise and its growing maturity;
I hope a lot of children are growing up dreaming of a dragon for a best friend.
Dawn of the Planet
of the Apes (Matt Reeves)
Out of all the films I’ve featured in this post, it’s a
testament to the achievement of Reeves and the team he’s assembled that a film
which heavily focuses on a group of apes who primarily communicate via sign
language are motion captured imagery, delivered perhaps the most intense,
emotional performances of any of them. As a side note I’m trying to think of
any big budget summer film that relied as heavily on subtitles as this does.
If Dawn’s success was purely down to the technical achievement
in the realisation of the apes and their interactions it would still deserve a
lot of credit. I’m not sure I’ve ever had to put so little effort in suspending
disbelief for this kind of film and the initially staggering C.G.I is quickly
accepted because it’s so incredibly executed. I’m fairly sure several of the
key apes have more naturally expressive faces than I do.
The film is so much more than the technical though. It’s a
top level action thriller, full of entertaining set pieces (a 360 degree spin
on the top of a tank is up there with the best action sequences in recent
years) and complex characters. The performances from the human cast are strong
with Jason Clarke (who will appear as John Connor in next year’s Terminator
film) and Gary Oldman presenting convincing, flawed individuals. The questions
about the desire for survival and the uncomfortable truths it reveals about us
are well handled, mirrored with great control between ape and human society.
It’s probably the most morally complex film out of the 6,
because it takes the time to give even the villains of the piece solid
motivations (“Human work” is one of the great lines of the year, delivered and
animated with impressive conviction and complexity). Similar to the How to
Train Your Dragon franchise, it endorses the idea of peaceful collaboration
without taking a simplistic view on the reality of that. I’m all for summer
blockbusters venturing into the morally grey, the most interesting stories
often reside there.
It will be interesting to see where the series goes from
here, both in terms of plot and titles (Battle for the Planet of the Apes
perhaps?), but the first two efforts have managed to largely erase memories of
Burton and Wahlberg’s attempt.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Basically it’s been a great year in film for blockbusters and
I’m practically giddy at the thought that next year could be even better.
No comments:
Post a Comment