Wolfsbane's thoughts...

Just a thread to give quick thoughts on recent films, good or bad.




Mostly bad.

Another Paul Feig/ Melissa McCarthy vehicle after Bridesmaids and The Heat. This time McCarthy is front and centre and the film suffers greatly because of it. She was a breakout star in the ensemble film Bridesmaids and since then has been overexposed. Much like Galifianakis was after The Hangover. One can only take the same mundane comedy routine from the same boring person so many times. Spy takes a lot of shots of McCarthy's weight, "beauty features" and the fact that she's a woman in the spy genre.

Alongside her is Rose Byrne as the antagonist who walks the line of funny and sexy. Superstar action hero Jason Statham in a thankless role as the foul mouthed spy who thinks he's the best, but always ruins things. You see? The joke is that he in incompetent, despite Statham's previous film efforts. Finally Jude Law as the Bond-ish spy who has the funniest bit in the whole film, which happens in the first ten minutes.

The concept is good, the execution is terrible. This cliched offering of a script is ham fisted with bizarre fart jokes, penis pictures, out of place bat/mice gags and vulgar language that adds nothing to the story. Spy will make a lot of money, will make the dumb people in the audience laugh and will make Hollywood throw more money at the one trick pony, McMcarthy.

Another take on the spy genre, this time with more action, more talent in front and behind the camera and better results. Kingsman might be this year's sleeper hit that no one saw coming.

Colin Firth channels his inner Liam Neeson for this role that shows off his action chops. Will there be more action films in store for Firth? That's still to be seen, but in my mind he can pull it off. Jackson finally manages to play a character in a film and not himself. That was a big surprise and finally new comer Taron Egerton seems to have a healthy career ahead of him.

The story is simple. Bad guys are doing bad things, good guys need to stop them. They recruit a bunch of people, train them, then set them out to stop said bad guy. Nothing new or original here, but the film doesn't try to be anything it's not. The film is mostly about style and it has that in spades, thanks to director Matthew Vaughn.

Can I recommend this film? Absolutely. It's mindless popcorn fun. Films take themselves too seriously these days, it's nice to have something fresh and exciting....also not redundant *cough*Avengers*cough*

Jurassic World

Jurassic World is formulaic mess that offers nothing new in this series, other than a fully operational theme park.

The effects are better, but isn't that expected? The story isn't. Maybe people need to spend more time with the pen instead of the computer. Jurassic World has a lot of problems and only a few bright spots scattered in between. Nostalgia is not enough to get me to give this film a positive review.

When Jurassic Park III came out people were apparently bored by the T-Rex, so they had to give us something bigger. Well, they did it again. The people who go to this park are also getting bored, so the smart thing to do is genetically mutate the DNA to create your own, bigger, badder dinosaur. Nothing can go wrong, right? Well, things go wrong, people die and thrilling, yet predictable set pieces arrive. I use the word thrilling loosely, as this film pales in comparison to any...ANY set piece in the original Jurassic Park. That film had a sense of adventure, despite being stuck on an island. It had heart, characters we loved, characters we loved to hate. This film has "state of the art" effects and the everyman that people love Chris Pratt.

The film was bigger than the director could handle. His previous film, Safety Not Guaranteed was a smart, heart warming indie flick. Why give an indie director with no track record of Hollywood talent such a big tent pole film? Maybe taking a chance on new talent? Sure, I can see that. But did the sit down with him raise any flags? This film is stagnate in terms of entertainment.

Is it time to stop resurrecting old film franchises? Mad Max came out earlier this year and despite what JayDee will tell you, it's one hell of an entertaining film. Maybe studios need to stop trying to make a movie around a release date and start with the script.

I don't understand what people see in Melissa McCarthy. I don't think she's funny at all.

I thought she was hilarious in Bridesmaids. I don't think I've seen anything else she's done, though.

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Melissa McCarthy is anti funny to me. Only time I found her funny was in her role in Hangover III,

I don't know if she's funny or not, but I know that Bridesmaids wasn't.

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5-time MoFo Award winner.

I thought she was funny in Bridesmaids, The Heat, and The Hangover III, but other times annoying.

Bridesmaids worked because Melissa McCarthy was with a great, talented assemble cast and given moments where she could truly shine. Other films she was in involved her carrying out all the jokes alone, which in my opinion is a burden for her, resulting in a lack of laughs.