Tuxedo Bastard

Having had the good fortune to see three big summer films in the space of three days I thought I’d best do a quick blogpost seeing as this bloody lame blog hasn’t been updated for time, so here we go.

A-Team

The big screen version of the much loved 80s TV show is surprisingly good. That’s not to say it was everything I was hoping it would be, Rampage Jackson as BA Baracus is way off the mark, but its has enough in its locker to make it a fairly enjoyable comic-action romp.

Despite a fairly lame initial set-up, once we get the team assembled, the action comes thick and fast with a few memorable set pieces which you’ve probably already seen in the trailer. The new actors playing your favourite guns for hire all do a decent enough job in their roles, with Sharlto ‘District 9’ Copley particularly inspired as Howling Mad Dog Murdock, but anyone expecting the bonkers charm of Mr T from cage-fighter Jackson will be disappointed. Most of his lines are delivered fairly incomprehensibly and a sub-plot about BA’s conscience is pretty lame, besides he doesn’t wear anywhere near enough gold chains and bling to be the BA of my childhood (I once went to a fancy dress party as BA - a small blond 5-year old child as Mr T? As silly as it sounds, wish I could dig out a pic for you.)

Go into the A-Team expecting anything as iconic as the show and you may be disappointed, but go in with low expectations and you should be pleasantly surprised, even if the theme tune is criminally underused.

3/5

Predators

Predators, or Adrien Vs Predator as Total Film put it, was a little bit disappointing for me to be honest, although I’ve never given the original the reverence that many people seem to hold for it in the first place.

A cookie-cutter bunch of badasses get dropped into an alien jungle to be hunted by a bunch of Predators and that’s about all you need to know. Needless to say there are a few decent gruesome deaths, but for me as always, the actual Predators themselves are a bit of a lame baddy. They’re big, hard, and ugly, with some nasty hardware, but they never convince as being actually scary, they just seem a bit silly to me.

It’s cheesy, drags in the middle, and has a fairly unsatisfying conclusion, even if that’s when the best stuff happens. It’s probably worth seeing, but don’t expect it to attain the legendary status of the original. Predator 2 on the other hand is a personal ‘guilty pleasure’ favourite, much beloved from my childhood, so if you’ve never seen that, save yourself the ticket price and check that out instead for some unintentionally hilarity.

2/5

Inception

My personal anticipation levels for Inception were getting a little bit silly, it felt like it was never going to come out, and that it could never possibly live up to my expectations, but it did… in spades.

Chris Nolan has crafted an incredible sci-fi epic of mend-bendingly insane proportions and complexity it makes you wonder whether he’ll ever top this masterpiece. I needed to sleep on it before I decided my final thoughts on it, but the day after seeing it, I’m still reeling at what I saw last night.

To tell you too much about the plot would spoil it for you, but lets just say the comparisons to The Matrix, James Bond and Synecdoche New York are apt, but also they don’t do justice to this wholly original cerebral movie. That Nolan manages to unfold this vastly complicated film at such a rate, with many scenes happening within scenes, and action scenes unfolding across three different mindscapes all at the same time, whilst still allowing to stay with the plot (just) - is an achievement in itself.

Like the Dark Knight before it, this is a smart action flick that isn’t afraid to share its smarts, but also not willing to hold back on the action front. The muscular action scenes are some of the best you’ll see in a cinema this year, or an other at that rate, with Joseph Gordon Levitt getting the best of the lot, a zero g bout of fisticuffs in a rotating corridor. 

The cast is exemplary throughout, each bringing their game, including DiCaprio who I often find fairly dull, but my favourite of the gang was Brit Tom Hardy, whose forgery expert dude gets all the best lines.

This is up there with my favourite films of 2010 already, and if it doesn’t get a Best Picture nod at the Oscars I’ll eat my hat. Some achievement for an entirely new and original property. 

5/5

Oh and one more thing - I said three for the price of one… well consider a 5/5 for Toy Story 3 as a bonus feature for you. It’s brilliant. But then it is Toy Story 3 by Pixar, so what were you expecting?