RUSH. REVIEWED.

Rush (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 2 hours 3 minutes

Directed by- Ron Howard

Written by- Peter Morgan

Rush was a film that I was only interested in after hearing how good it was from others. Before that I had no motivation to see it as I’m not a huge fan of F1, the Hunt/Lauda rivalry was before my time anyway and Chris Hemsworth and Daniel Bruhl aren’t enough to make me want to see a movie. But I did go to see it based on word of mouth alone and I’m very glad I did. Rush is a brilliant movie and here’s why.

The film is a depiction of probably the greatest F1 rivalry of all time and quite possibly one of the greatest across all sports. But you don’t need to know anything about that to enjoy the film; I had very limited knowledge of it going into the film and I still loved it. Why? Because the film, beneath the surface, really isn’t about that. The fact that the film is based off real life events holds little bearing to what makes this film good; it is all about the two central characters. It doesn’t matter that they are representations of real people, the essence of the film lies in how the two characters develop and evolve because of their relationship with each other. The feelings of the two characters towards one and other are mutual throughout the film; it starts out as jealousy, then hatred and finally respect. With the overall moral being that you can gain just as much from your rivals as you can your best friends, if not more. This is something that is true in real life and this film depicts it perfectly.

Given that the film is largely based on the characters’ relationship with each other it was vital that the acting of Hemsworth and Bruhl was of a high standard or this film just wouldn’t work and, fortunately for Howard and co, it was. I went into the film with a somewhat negative opinion of Hemsworth as I had only ever seen him portray the character of Thor, who I don’t like, so I was pleasantly surprised while watching this film as he was brilliant. He was, without doubt, the shining light of this film. He played the character of James Hunt so well; the good-looking, confident jock with deep lying problems regarding his fears and relationships. I think this film shows that he can break away from the role of Thor whenever he wants to and still be highly regarded and popular amongst cinema goers; he can easily avoid being typecast if he chooses. But Hemsworth’s brilliant performance didn’t overshadow the greatness of Bruhl as Niki Lauda as he was also very good in this movie. He wasn’t someone I knew an awful lot about, I recognised him from Inglorious Basterds (2009) and I enjoyed his performance in that but this film showed to an even greater extent what a fine actor he is.

Overall, I feel that Rush is a film that F1 fans will love and that everyone else will love as well. The representation of the real life events will win the admirations of racing fans and the brilliant performances and character development will appeal to pretty much everyone. All in all, a very good film.

Final Rating. Four Stars.

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PRISONERS. REVIEWED.

Prisoners (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 2 hours 33 minutes

Directed by- Denis Villeneuve

Written by- Aaron Guzikowski

Prisoners wasn’t a film I had heard much about. I knew it was about a kidnapping of some kind and that it starred Hugh Jackman and Jake Gyllenhaal – that was the extent of my knowledge. I looked up the running time of the film before going to see it and, I have to say, the fact that it is over two and a half hours long left me a bit sceptical going in. I hold a strong belief that films should only be as long as they need to be and that there are too many films, particularly in recent times, that are unnecessarily long (Man of Steel (2013) for example). But Prisoners doesn’t fall into the category of ‘unnecessarily long’ as its length was justified.

I often sit through films like Man of Steel and think “that scene could have been cut out” or “that shot was held longer that it should have been” but with Prisoners I can’t think of a single moment like that. Every scene had its purpose within the narrative which ensured that the audience’s attention was always focused on the story. I’m not going to lie and use the cliché of saying ‘the film may have been long but it didn’t feel it’ because it was noticeably long but that doesn’t mean it ‘dragged’, it was simply just slow-paced which is fine as long as it grips the audience’s attention throughout. The one section of the film that did seem to become a little sluggish was the latter half of act two but I feel that this was intentional as it seemed to perfectly reflect the characters’ positions; they were in a rut because they weren’t making any progress with the kidnapping case and seemed to be just ‘going through the motions’ waiting for something to come up that looked increasingly more unlikely to ever materialize. So, the length wasn’t an issue.

The best quality of the film is its intensity. It becomes apparent from very early on that it is a film in which anything could happen at any moment and we are left guessing what might come to pass and that leaves us on edge throughout the movie. There is a scene that is so intense that I saw many fellow audience members squirm and wince as they were watching it, it carries an air of unpredictability about it which makes something that you would think is never likely to happen very possible and when teased with it we are left open mouthed.

The one other main positive of the film is the characterization of the two central protagonists. Jackman’s character’s actions are sometimes questionable to say the least but you still find yourself empathizing with him because of the situation he is in, you are left with the question: ‘would I do the same thing in his shoes?’ And even after the film had finished I still didn’t have an answer. His actions remain an ambiguity throughout and that’s why his character is so good’ he represents the ‘everyday man in extraordinary circumstances’ and is a good portrayal of how someone can change so dramatically due to the situation they find themselves in. Whereas Gyllenhaal’s character appeared to be the cool and calm detective that can solve any case and do so without breaking a sweat. So when the case starts to get the better of him he slowly begins to lose his collectiveness and becomes a figure of pure frustration causing him to do things he wouldn’t normally do. The two characters are both people we are unlikely to share many similarities with and yet they are surprisingly easy to identify with which is a credit to the writing; they manage to make us care for characters that haven’t really earned it.

So, all in all, it is the writing that makes this film so good. Mainly apparent in the fact that the mystery of the kidnapping is truly puzzling; it wasn’t until very near the end of the film that I had any real clue as to who kidnapped the two girls. The writers’ do the obvious thing of introducing a couple of red herrings but because of the way the film’s narrative progresses you begin to wonder whether they were red herrings at all which is how all good mystery/detective movies should be; you should always be second guessing yourself and be in a constant state of genuine confusion.

Overall, Prisoners is a very good film that I would highly recommend seeing. It requires plenty of attention but rewards you for it. It contains all the elements of a great detective thriller while also exploring how difficult scenarios affect people in different ways. It is, in my opinion, one of the best films of the year so far so make sure you watch it, if you haven’t already.

Final Rating. Four Stars.

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ELYSIUM. REVIEWED.

Elysium (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 1 hour 49 minutes

Directed by- Neill Blomkamp

Written by- Neill Blomkamp

Elysium seemed to come out of nowhere. All anyone seemed to know about it is that it was made by the same guy who made District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009) and that it had Matt Damon in it. Later, via trailers and what not, we found out the general idea of the film. Being that in the not too distant future the rich have left Earth behind to form a colony on a space station called Elysium and have somewhere along the line found a way to cure all illness and heal all wounds. The trailer also told us that Matt Damon’s character has a terminal illness and so aims to get to Elysium in order to receive the kind of medical treatment only they can offer, that being an instantaneous cure. So it aptly fulfilled the function of a trailer; it gave us the general plot, it told us who the star is and it established the genre. So why then did it take the first hour of the film to tell us what they have already managed to tell us in a three minute trailer?

It is fair enough that not everyone who goes to watch the film will have seen the trailer and that the film has to establish the film’s setting and the character’s situation but why should it take over half of the movie to achieve this when, as the trailer proved, it can be done in a matter of minutes. This extremely slow beginning (moving into middle) takes you out of the movie because of its tedious nature which is exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to achieve. But I remained patient with the movie and waited for something exciting to happen, which it did. There is a genuinely entertaining battle scene pitting Damon and crew against some militant robots and, despite the odd goof such as one of the robots taking a good few seconds to lock onto Damon only to then fire madly and miss with every bullet in Storm Trooper-eque fashion, it goes some way to redeeming the languorous opening. But it's all over after ten minutes and the end of this segment coincides with the beginning of fifteen more sluggish minutes to set up the final act of the film. By this point I don’t even care what will happen to the characters or how the final few scenes will pan out because I am completely disconnected from the film. Maybe that’s why the last twenty five minutes felt like a blur, or maybe it was down to the needless use of stedi-cam at any available moment which made concentrating on any of the action scenes near impossible due to the shaky nature of the on screen ‘non’-events. When the film was finally over I was so disconnected that I wasn’t even thinking about how that film’s ending was predictable and somewhat clichéd, I was thinking “how, in a total of seventy five minutes of establishing scenes, did they not explain how people can be completely healed from anything (no matter how severe) just by lying on a bed for a few seconds?” In fact at this point my mind was filled with thoughts like these and it left me wondering, why?

At first it seemed obvious why. I was bored with the film’s story line and so my mind led to other aspects of the film. Like how can the majority of people on Earth survive when we are told most of them don’t have jobs and therefore no income? How can a group of Mexican rebels successfully integrate a robot exoskeleton into Matt Damon’s nervous system? And why if this technology exists do more people not have it? And why does no one bat an eyelid that Matt Damon has suddenly become half robot? Why do people carry data in their brains if they can only access it if they plug themselves into a computer anyway? But on reflection, I had it backwards. All of these inconsistencies and plot holes was what led to my disconnection from the film and not the other way round. All of the above issues deconstructed the futuristic realism that was trying to be created and therefore I didn’t believe anything that I saw on screen. This made the movie almost impossible to enjoy and made identifying with the characters even harder.

Overall, the film was ambitious and had some good ideas but its failure to create a believable environment didn’t allow a solid base to be formed for these ideas to grow and flourish, they instead fell through the cracks and the few that remained did little more than wither. A good representation of how far away I felt from the film’s world is the fact that all the way through this review I have referred to Matt Damon’s character as Matt Damon and not the character’s actual name. This may be due to his star power but I think it’s more due to the fact that I didn’t ever relate or empathize with his character and therefore never cared who he was, I saw him only as Matt Damon.

*All of the timings are approximate. I didn’t accurately time the length of each segment though it did cross my mind more than once to do so while I was watching the film.

Final Rating. Two Stars.

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KICK-ASS 2. REVIEWED.

Kick-Ass 2 (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 1 hour 43 minutes

Directed by- Jeff Wadlow

Written by- Jeff Wadlow

Kick-Ass 2 wasn’t a film I was particularly excited for when it was first announced but after recently re-viewing its predecessor my anticipation levels rose dramatically. Maybe that’s why I was so disappointed with the sequel or maybe it was just because it was a bad film.

The writers of the first Kick-Ass (Matthew Vaughan and Jane Goldman, 2010) took a back seat for this one, Vaughan taking up the role of producer, so it fell to Jeff Wadlow to continue the story of unlikely superhero Kick-Ass (Aaron Taylor-Johnson). So how did he fair? Not too well unfortunately. While the general plot of the movie was solid, the dialogue and the makeup of the individual scenes were hit and miss, but mostly just miss. The good moments were very good and the bad moments were truly awful and plague most of the film. This leads me to believe that that Wadlow is either a sporadic genius or he just blindly fired a metaphorical machine gun at a target labelled ‘good ideas’ and naturally hit it a few times but most of the time he was way off the mark. It seems clear to me that he was attempting to play it safe by trying to recreate the formula of the first film while shoe horning the story around that. But what he ended up doing is hand picking every good feature of the first film and taking it too far, to an extent that ruined what made it good in the first place.

But I feel the reason the film was filled with such poor material is because it was missing a key ingredient from the first film and that was Nicolas Cage. Usually I find Nicolas Cage films entertaining because his acting is so bad that he himself becomes hilarious to watch but in Kick-Ass he played the character of Big Daddy perfectly and he was sorely missed in the sequel. It seemed that the film makers tried to replace him with Jim Carrey but while his character was intriguing and had potential to become the film’s best character, he was grossly underused and so that potential wasn’t allowed to manifest itself into anything concrete and he remained somewhat of an enigma throughout the movie. So in the end there really wasn’t a stand out character who would become the fans’ favourite as Cage’s character was in the original, the character of Dr. Gravity (Donald Faison) was probably the closest to achieving that but was such as minor character that he was easily forgotten for large parts of the film. But maybe that’s why he seemed the best character, because we didn’t see enough of him to eventually grow tired of him as was the case with most of the other characters.

I think that in the end the film suffers from gross negligence on the part of the makers. They tried so hard to recreate the style of the first film that they forgot what they were originally trying to achieve. Maybe the reason a new writer was brought in is because they thought a fresh approach would do the film some good but if this was the case Wadlow certainly wasn’t briefed and instead of coming at the film from a different angle he forced himself to follow the same path as the first film even though that path should have been closed off because it no longer leads anywhere. So all in all I can’t give this film any more than two stars, so that is what I will give it.

Final Rating. Two Stars.

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ALAN PARTRIDGE: ALPHA PAPA. REVIEWED.

Alan Partridge: Alpha Papa (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 1 hour 30 minutes

Directed by- Declan Lowney

Written by- Peter Baynham, Steve Coogan, Neil Gibbons, Rob Gibbons and Armando Iannucci

Ah-ha!!

Alan Partridge has made the jump to the big screen and it’s a very successful transition. The film is consistently hilarious and stands above any comedy made this year or in any other year in recent memory – it is comedy at its finest. “But what makes it so good?” I hear you ask. Well I’ll tell you.

The main reason is that it is genuinely funny from start to finish. You may think that this is a prerequisite for a comedy film but in my experience this is a rarity, especially in recent times, even comedies that I have thoroughly enjoyed and consider great films have lulls where nothing funny really happens.  That is not the case in this film though because every scene has something uniquely funny in it which is a breath of fresh, comedic air. How does it achieve this though? Simply by not changing the formula that made I’m Alan Partridge (1997-2002) one of the funniest sitcoms ever made and translating it to a situation worthy of the big screen. And there lies the adhesive that holds all of the comedic elements together. The piece of a royal family jigsaw that has the Queen’s head on it. The film wouldn’t be quite right without it. While the humour is what makes the film so successful, it’s the high stakes situation of the siege that allows the humour to work on a cinematic level. The storyline is exhilarating, high staked and danger filled yet welcomingly familiar and relaxed in tone which is the perfect formula for a mainstream comedy film.

I perhaps though am not the best person to give a subjective view on this film as I am a huge fan of Partridge and find everything he has ever appeared in hilarious. Having said that I expect that most of the humour is just as accessible to strangers of Steve Coogan’s greatest creation as it is to diehard fans. The reason? It’s genuinely funny. It doesn’t rely on gags that only fans will ‘get’ – it is just pure comedy. But Partridge fans find things such as his general demeanour and way of speaking hysterically hilarious so they are, somewhat obviously, going to enjoy it to a greater extent. But that in no way means that others won’t thoroughly enjoy it because there is much more to it than that. That’s probably the best aspect of the film: it works on so many different levels yet is so simple on the surface making it accessible to almost anyone.

Another positive is the length. It is ninety minutes long, the perfect length for a comedy. I am very cynical of films that are too long particularly comedies as they are prone to burning out; too much of the same thing, no matter how good, can soon become flat. That’s why I’m glad that this film was kept at a reasonable length as the audience were left wanting more rather than being worn out by the non-stop comedy which is the way it always should be.

Overall, this is a must see movie for everyone. Depending on your position on the Alan Partridge fan scale you will wither leave the cinema with expectation fulfilled or surpassed but you are definitely in no danger of being underwhelmed. I think the best way to sum up how good I believe this film to be is through a personal anecdote: I have seen this film three times within a week and found it better each time. The primary moments of hilarity that can be enjoyed over and over again are perfectly complemented with subtle visual gags that may not be picked up from a single watch, such as a photo-shopped photo of Alan at a Norwich City football game (sitting just in front of Norwich’s other treasure, Delia Smith) hung on the wall of Alan’s shed. All of this leads to one of the greatest comedies I have ever seen and for that it is worthy of the highest possible rating: five stars.

Final Rating. Five Stars.

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THE WOLVERINE. REVIEWED.

The Wolverine (2013)

Rating- 12a
Running Time- 2 hours 6 minutes
Directed by- James Mangold

Written by- Mark Bomback and Scott Frank

Hugh Jackman may think he’s a well-respected actor for all of the many wonderful and varied roles he has played throughout his career but the fact is that nine out of ten people know him only as Wolverine. This doesn’t seem to bother him though as he’s back as everyone’s favourite mutant loner and, judging from the after credit scene, this isn’t the last time he will don the spiky hair and metal claws. But should we be excited by this or should we start packing away our Wolverine action figures and put to rest the time when he was by far the coolest superhero in existence? Well there are many signs to suggest that we are witnessing the redemption of the adamantium filled emo after his very poor outing in X-Men Origins: Wolverine (2009) all but ruined the character. 

The film was surprisingly good and definitely surpassed my expectations. Those of you who read my review of Man of Steel (2013) will know that I had just about lost patience with comic book movies so it was to my great surprise that I left the cinema with a positive feeling rather than one of great anger and frustration. But why did this film make me feel this way? Quite simply because it steered clear, in the main, from any of the clichéd routines of recent comic book movies. This almost didn’t feel like a comic book movie at all which, in my opinion, is a good thing. Rather than focusing on Wolverine’s powers it focused on his weaknesses, both emotionally and physically, which made him as relatable as a guy with indestructible metal claws can be. This isn’t the first time this side of Wolverine has tried to be played upon, X-Men Origins: Wolverine was entirely built around this premise but failed due to a lack of empathy because of the introduction of characters we had never met before yet are expected to know exactly how Wolverine feels about them all without any sort of explanation. This film doesn’t suffer from this though as all of Wolverine’s emotional pain is conveyed through Jean Grey, a character we already know, and the great guilt he feels for his part in her death i.e. killing her. While most of us don’t know what it’s like to be forced to live an eternity with the burden of someone’s life weighing down on us, we still fully understand what he’s going through and the film is built around this.

But, guess what, it is ruined by a final battle scene that would fit perfectly into any comic book movie. But not this one. I was so happy that the film was able to steer clear of any stereotypical comic book movie action scenes that seem to be way over the top and make your enjoyment of the movie plummet, but it didn’t last. The final fight scene has far too much going on at the same time; at one point it seemed that Wolverine was fighting three different villains at the same time and none of it seemed to make sense, it wasn’t until it was a clear one on one fight that I was fully aware of what was going on and even that seemed stupid. This unfortunately spoilt the film to a huge degree for me and it may not have been the only negative aspect, the character of Viper (Svetlana Khodchenkova) seemed out of place and easily replaceable, it was the only one that I wasn’t willing to overlook.

There is also the expected ‘cheesy’ dialogue at times which is not necessarily detrimental as comic books are built with cheese, or paper, one of the two. But I think this film manages to incorporate the cheese with a heavy layer of crackers which makes it so that the one-liners don’t go too far despite seeming out of place in regards to the narrative, making the line “I am Wolverine” less groan worthy than it should be.

So overall, despite enjoying three quarters of the movie, the final quarter of the final fight scene was enough to render this movie slightly above average when it could have been so much more. Having said that, the after credit scene was enough to get me excited for the next film and went some way erasing all of the bad scenes of the movie from my find but didn’t manage it completely unfortunately.

Final Rating. Three Stars.

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THE WORLD'S END. REVIEWED.

The World's End (2013)

Rating- 15

Running Time- 1 hour 49 minutes

Directed by- Edgar Wright

Written by- Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright

The third instalment of Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright’s Blood and Ice Cream trilogy is upon us and fans of the first two thirds of the series will not be disappointed. I though am not a big fan of eitherShaun of the Dead (2004) or Hot Fuzz (2007), I don’t dislike them I just don’t find them as funny as everyone else seems to. But nevertheless The World’s End is a decent enough movie and will be thoroughly enjoyed by those who enjoyed its predecessors.

The comedy in the film is of the style expected from a Pegg/Wright movie and even I, despite not ‘getting’ their type of comedy, came close to laughing on a sparse few occasions. This is better than it sounds and judging by the laughs received from fellow audience members I imagine that a lot of people will find this film very funny. That’s about all I can say regarding the film’s humour as it’s hard to talk about what made it funny when I didn’t actually find it that funny myself but, as I’ve previously mentioned, you’ll enjoy the comedy of the movie if you enjoyed the comedy of the previous two films.

Something I can talk about is the way the film has been put together in terms of its cinematography. Overall, the film is well made. There was clearly a lot of work done in post-production (which is surprising for a British comedy) most of which was successful. The Requiem for a Dream-esqueediting for the pouring of pints (i.e. rapid close up shots of the beer leaving the pump into the glasses with exaggerated sound effects) was a clever way to repeat a similar scene many times without it becoming boring. And you know that annoying buzzing sound your computer/TV makes when you are about to receive a call/text message on your phone? No… well it sometimes happens trust me. That sound is played whenever the protagonists are close to the enemy ‘blanks’. This is subtle yet acts as an indicator that something isn’t quite right even before the ‘blanks’’ evil nature is revealed and also alludes to the technological aspect of the enemies. But all of this good work is somewhat overshadowed by the absolutely terrible editing of the fight scenes. The rapid jump cuts that plague every action sequence in the film ruin anything that is trying to be achieved in said scenes mainly because the viewer is fighting a migraine caused by the pointless editing technique. It manages to protect itself from the ‘Dark Night’ disease where you can’t even tell what is going on or who has the upper hand in the fight and even if it did succumb to the metaphorical virus the rest of the film acts as a vaccine due to its relatively slow nature. What it does do though is take you out of the world of the film which detriments the enjoyment of the film as a whole even if it does give you the chance to pick up the bag of jelly babies you had earlier dropped on the floor. You are safe in the knowledge that you are missing nothing important as the film fails to progress and the troublesome gelatine toddlers continue to evade your grasp.

The dynamic of the five protagonists is by far the best aspect of the film though. The only way we are able to like the central character of Gary King (Simon Pegg) who is an archetypal twat is through the knowledge that the other four acknowledge his twatiness which allows us to identify with them and therefore share in their negative feelings towards Gary. So when they begin to show some compassion and understanding towards Gary we feel it too because we are still on their wave length. This is a very effective method but I would suggest that it is unintentional. I may not be giving enough credit to Pegg or Wright as they are no doubt accomplished writers but I think they thought that the humour and familiar vibes that emanate from Gary would be enough for the audience to come around to him. I doubt it would’ve been and even if mistakenly done so they do manage to make a likeable bastard which is something many film makers have failed to do in the past so they should be given praise for that alone but they do more than that. They make not just Gary likeable; they make the other four equally likeable through their various humorous qualities and general dislike of Gary. No matter my feelings towards Pegg or Wright, which to honest are none existent, I must admit they can create good characters that the ‘average joe’ can identify with which can only be considered a success as their target audience is the average man.

I find myself reluctant to give this film an overall rating as while I don’t agree that all comedy is subjective this style of comedy definitely is and while I consider the film average at best I am sure others will thoroughly enjoy it. However, I can only give my opinion and that is that the film was only mildly funny and for a comedy that isn’t good enough so, despite other aspects being fairly accomplished, I can only give the film three stars.

Final Rating. Three Stars.

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THE INTERNSHIP. REVIEWED.

The Internship (2013)

Rating- 12a

Running Time- 1 hour 59 minutes

Directed by- Shawn Levy

Written by- Vince Vaughan and Jared Stern

The Internship. More like The Internshit. I know what you’re thinking: That was a terrible, terrible pun but rather unfortunately that was by far funnier than anything in this film. That speaks volumes for a film that was billed as and tried so hard to be a comedy.

The film started off like any comedy of this type would: poorly. The difference between this and most of its contemporaries is that this failed to get any better. The entire story of the film became obvious from very early on which a lot of the time isn’t necessarily a bad thing particularly with regards to a comedy movie but considering how poor the film promised to be one could only hope that there was a huge surprise around the corner. There wasn’t. The film continued as I hoped it wouldn’t but expected it would which resulted in me letting out an audible cheer when the film finally finished.

The one slightly redeeming quality was the acting of the two main stars – Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughan. They somehow managed to make the central protagonists somewhat likeable which, believe me, was no easy task. I almost felt sorry for them; their efforts were always going to be futile with the awful quality of writing they were working with. But that feeling was halved when the end credits began and I saw that Vaughan himself co-wrote the film; he dug the whole that he was trying to escape from. With the sympathy I had briefly felt now 50% gone I had the chance to evaluate the acting of the film overall and it’s more bad news. Pretty much every character was portrayed with some of the most over-the-top acting I have ever seen. I have often heard people say that a particular character is ‘punchable’ meaning that they are so annoying that you physically want to hit them in the face and apart from Wilson and Vaughan (and the cameo performance of John Goodman) I would attribute this tag to every character in the movie. Remember when I started this paragraph stating that this was the ‘redeeming quality’ of the movie? The pure negativity of the words that followed should have made you realise how lowly I rate this film. If my defence of a film is almost completely derogatory to said film then it probably tells you that the movie is pretty awful.

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised. I had heard nothing but bad things about this film. Bu there is one thing I would like to put straight: this film isn’t just a ‘two hour advert for Google’. I had heard this a lot before watching the film and I can confirm that this is completely untrue, the film is one minute short of the two hour mark.

So in conclusion, in case you didn’t catch my drift, you should definitely see this movie. It’s a decision that you definitely won’t regret, it’s an instant classic. Whoops. I inserted the conclusion for a different film by mistake. But don’t worry if you insert each individual word from this summary into an opposite dictionary* you will get my real feeling towards this film. Actually, I’ll do it for you…

Inappropriately out commencement, out dislike I did release your guide, I shouldn’t doubtfully be blind that…

Alright, forget that. The film is bad. That’s all you need to know.

*If you don't know how to access an opposite dictionary just do a quick Google search and you should find one...

Final Rating. Two Stars.

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MONSTERS UNIVERSITY. REVIEWED.

Monsters University (2013)

Rating- U

Running Time- 1 hour 44 minutes

Directed by- Dan Scanlon

Written by- Dan Scanlon, Daniel Gerson and Robert L. Baird

The long wait is finally over. The much anticipated return of James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski is finally here…

Hey!

Wait a minute!

Since when did Sully style his head hair into a small quiff?

And when did Mike start wearing braces?

Oh… I see. The film is set several years before the events of Monsters Inc. (2001) and follows our two beloved nut bars while they study at university.

The title makes much more sense now.

But can it be done? Can Pixar recreate the formula that made Monsters Inc. such an incredible movie? The answer is no. But that doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, just not nearly as good as its glorious predecessor.

Monsters University attempts to recapture all of the elements that made Monsters Inc. so successful. They worked the plot around the relationship of Mike and Sully, they used the same kind of humour and they tried to create a strong emotional response from the audience. But then why wasn’t the film as good as the original? Simply because they didn’t fulfil any of the above criteria to the standards previously set.

There were a few laughs but nothing as funny as “put that thing back where it came from or so help me”. It was also emotional at times but there wasn’t anything that tugged on the heart strings quite like Boo. And they ever so slightly changed the dynamic of the Wazowski/Sullivan partnership to render it slightly less fun.

It’s an almost unnoticeable change but nevertheless it stops it from reaching the heights of Monsters Inc. The film’s central character is Mike rather than Sully. This isn’t too much of an issue as they are together most of the time anyway but I couldn’t help feeling that I wanted to know more about Sully’s back story, regarding the huge pressure he is under to live up to his family name, rather than being subjected to Mike’s rather obvious underdog story. Mike’s story isn’t a bad one but the fact that Sully doesn’t appear until about 15-20 minutes into the film took me out of the comfort zone created by the original film. More often than not being taken away from what you expect is a good thing but in this case it was somewhat unwelcome and unnecessary.

The film did have a decent enough plot though and the character relationships all seemed real. But I felt that there was something missing. Something to tie the movie together. And I feel that that something was a song. Some of the best Pixar movies contain a memorable song, usually written by the great Randy Newman, that brings all of the aspects of the movie together. Think It’s the Time of your Life (A Bug’s Life, 1998), When Somebody Loved Me (Toy Story 2, 1999), If I didn’t have you (Monsters Inc.) and We Belong Together (Toy Story 3, 2010). All of these songs create atmospheres that capture the essence of a particular scene or the movie as a whole. The songs don’t just exist, they become one with their films; it’s hard to think of Toy Story (1995) without thinking ofYou’ve got a Friend in Me. But Monsters University didn’t have a song like this, it was void of any songs other than instrumentals that, despite being great for their purpose, didn’t carry the same wholesome feeling that was apparent in previous Pixar films and this in my opinion was detrimental to the film.

You may have noticed that this review seems to be almost entirely negative but that’s only because I can’t help but compare it to its predecessor. This may seem unfair but it’s only natural. The truth is it is a good movie and I would recommend it but I have come to the realisation that the best thing I got out of this film is that it made me want to watch Monsters Inc. again. All in all it’s a good movie but it fails to step out of the sizeable shadow of its predecessor.

Final Rating. Three Stars.

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