The Ministry Of Ungentlemanly Warfare

Mouthful of a title!

Good times be had at the newest Guy Ritchie film with his directorial style mixed with real world history of a sordid group trekking to neutral water in an attempt to sabotage a german U-boat blockade to bring relief to His Majesty's kingdom. It really is what the trailers says it is and more so, it's not balls to the wall action nonstop this is essentially a wartime thriller and is paced like so. It has some pretty damn good moments of suspense and I never thought a musical score of jazz/big swing band could get me on edge, it has moments of communicado with the leaders of the military government and the Prime Minister, and strategizing when the plan goes belly up. For a 2 hour movie with credits it's paced to where it flies by! Cast does proper good work and while the characters aren't deep three dimensional people you like them and get where they are coming from. Henry Cavill is having a blast here and I'm always game to see him in any role under the sun, Eiza Gonzalez more underplays it but at times you can see just this hellfire rage at the natzi army she's proper good, Babs Olusanmokun thankfully had such a bigger role than the last movie I saw him in which was Dune playing a more undercover part and touches base on the espionage part of the war, and I'll give a shoutout to Cary Elwes and Rory Kinnear it's a joy to see them as always. That was wild to know good old Bill Tanner himself plays Churchill and the Bond references don't stop there, we meet Ian Fleming and I'll be honest I greatly enjoyed and liked the way they handled Fleming here than probably any biopic made of him in the decades past, he's just there no fuss made about him or eye rolling quip about his literary creation. Well done. The action is not super flashy or choreographed but still packs the right punch with the squibs and explosions. The score is something awesome in and of itself combining two distinct genres, western music a là Ennio Morricone or something akin to the Kill Bill soundtrack and syncopated jazz music like you hear in Birdman, doesn't seem like it would work in a World War 2 movie but it's absolutely great, I just love it! It's always interesting to learn about another facet of history especially during wartime and while it undoubtedly is theatrical and played up even just a notch, it's neat to see. Especially since this came from a declassified file not even made public a decade ago so this is still relatively new information! I can recommend it, entertaining and fun showing the opposite side of the spectrum when it comes to war cinema. 3.5 stars, 8/10! Expect some odd stuff for my birthday week, and have fun at the movies this weekend!

Wrath Of Man

Kind of a bummer after the surprisingly light and highly entertaining Nobody.

It's good to see a Guy Ritchie film again, and he commits to telling a very grounded, very serious, very heavy film. Now I respect and admire films of this kind, there's action movie fluff but then there is stuff like Wrath Of Man that just goes full f***ing force off the edge into some heavy shit. The plot follows a security truck driver who has more to his past than he leads on as he thwarts robberies with an ulterior motive in the revenge department. There truly is a lot I can't talk about for the sake of not ruining the movie. Guy really brings his camera work to this picture, and the storytelling aspects jumps around a bit in time but each segment of the film, included with title cards and all, is just as important as the one preceding it and it only gets more dense and involved as it goes along. You can tell there is something there to this security guy named H but even I didn't fully anticipate or grasp who and what he was even after the film told me. It works well with it's reveals, not so much plot twists but how it goes about telling you the backstory of events, the best example of which is the inciting incident that kicks off the film both literally and in terms of H's story. You see it from H's perspective, the security guard's perspective, and the robber's perspective, not once feeling like padding or treading the same waters. The action parts have no stylized or entertaining factors to it, it's treated as seriously as it should, almost in the way war films depict gunfights. It's brutal, unforgiving, has the balls to kill anybody, and while the film has a traditional ending of revenge flicks it doesn't detract from how the rest of the film is presented. It's a different kind of entertainment value but one that should be looked at despite it's serious nature. 3 stars, 7.5/10. New movies incoming next time, so I will see you then.

Snatch

Yet another movie I've never seen and really liked.

Guy Ritchie man. Say what you will about the guy but the way his movies flow and are told are on point like hell! Seriously with a concept of various groups and interests all hunting down a diamond, it certainly can keep your attention and keep you guessing. The editing is flippin' genius, that's the only way I can describe it. Like I have to know who edits Guy Ritchie's films! Hang on a sec. Jon Harris. Like man, you got this down to a science, well done! So yeah, this movie really is a ride to say the least, I was thoroughly enjoying myself all the way through. Very funny, with good characters, a dash of action, and a one great big chase scene for a diamond that encompasses the movie from start to finish. You write down the plot on a piece of paper and it sounds so rubbish and no fun, bit then you watch the movie with the borderline comic characters, the great black comedy, and all the strange situations that keep popping up and by God you got yourself a great movie! I'd definitely buy it, and do very highly recommend you view it at least once in your life. The thrill is in the chase, never in the capture and whatnot.

Brand new movie tomorrow! Yes, we will be looking at the new heist/comedy movie Logan Lucky tomorrow so stay tuned for that.

King Arthur: Legend Of The Sword

Alright, and I'm back with a brand new movie on a timeless legend.

So King Arthur The Legend Of The Sword is an iteration on Arthurian Legends and tales so how does it hold up? Well...I'm kind of split on it. When the trailer first popped up, I thought nothing of it but I soon saw it on television and the second The Lady in the Lake grabbed Excalibur and the sword caught on fire? You have my attention! Now granted King Arthur is a hard movie to make without the magical elements in it. So I was excited knowing there was going to be straight up magic in this movie, and it was great! Now onto the movie, so the film kinda jumbles the mythology a bit, in the stories Mordred an evil knight was trying to disband the Round Table and take the throne for himself, in the movie Arthur's father fights Mordred and defeats him in the first few minutes. Which is fine, it doesn't destroy the story of Arthur and his knights so no worries there, but as it happens Arthur's uncle stages a coup, takes over Camelot and forces Arthur to flee the kingdom but at the cost of his parent's lives. So now we kind of have an everyman story where he rises to do great things and take his rightful place as whatever, in this case king. What follows is the undoubted stroke of the editor. It takes the movie a grand total of maybe a minute to cover the expanse of time from when Arthur was a small child to adulthood, the shots last a second at most. It is un-flippin'-believable! It moves so fast and yet somehow I was able to stay with it, but that can't be the case for other people! So Arthur has his own thing going on, but enemy soldiers invade his town, and by what I swore to God was almost a massive coincidence, he gets taken to Camelot by said enemy soldiers and his forced to remove the sword in the stone. At first I thought I stumbled on a film breaking plot hole, how by pure coincidence Arthur is taken to the sword in Camelot on a boat, is then forced to pull the sword out, and then the movie really begins. But then I just stopped and thought, well rumors have been spreading about the true heir to the throne so it actually makes total logical sense to round up every guy from his mid 20s to early 30s and have him attempt to pull the sword. The guy who does it, congratulations! The bad guys can execute him, and keep the evil king in power. Sort of like The Ten Commandments. But, I don't know it just really threw me off a bit, but not as much as Jude Law who plays Arthur's uncle and his inability to age! Dude looks the same when he was a kid and when he is an adult! Now he does practice magic but somehow I doubt he found that particular spell. Anyway, so Arthur gets the sword, breaks out, joins a resistance, and leads them in regaining Camelot. Not much to write home about but it's nothing less than what I expected. I mean the whole movie is really just okay. The acting is okay but there's one tiny scene with Jude Law that really speaks volumes, Arthur is no longer the kind and noble king, he's a bit of a snarky bastard. Scratch that, he's a massive smart ass! But Charlie Hunnam does well, as does the rest of the cast. The action scenes are very um...videogame-ish. I mean the second Arthur grabs that sword, it's like god mode! Excalibur breaks every sword, everything slows down to matrix bullet time, I'm pretty shure that damn sword threw a Hadouken at least twice! So sometimes the special effects look ripped from a video game, but these sets are pretty damn good. If you stop and look at these massive sets they built the film must be commended, and there was even use of miniatures. Now how many movies can you say that about in 2017? All in all, King Arthur is an average movie and could only be recommended to the most hardcore of fantasy and medieval movies. There's even a hilarious in-joke where Arthur has to fight giant rats and bats as training. Gee, I wonder why that sounds SO damn familiar! Well that about does it for me, more movies to review next week. Many more weeks, many more movies. Take care everyone!

Sherlock Holmes: A Game Of Shadows

Boy did this series lose it's identity.

Sherlock Holmes A Game of Shadows hardly feels like a Sherlock Holmes story. It has elements which consist of five characters and one scene related to the books. Our story picks up awhile after the first movie, Watson has ben married to his wife Mary, and they are off to their honeymoon. However, several bombings have been going around which causes Holmes to sidetrack Watson off his honeymoon and to stop the guiding hands in this catastrophe, Professor Moriarty. Sounds interesting right? Well if you're a fan of mostly action, decent bits of comedy, and absolutely NO mystery, then boy howdy is this film for you! I repeat, a Sherlock Holmes movie....wiyh no mystery. Everything is spelled out for you, there are no clues, no deductions, just a trail of slow-mo action scenes coupled together with questionable disguises, and fair comedy but that does not save this movie. We get our original three stars from the first one, but also two newcomers, Stephen Fry as Sherlock's brother Mycroft who is funny because it's Stephen Fry he is quite funny regularly, and Jared Harris as Professor Jim Moriarty...oh boy. I have nothing against this actor, terrible Moriarty. I do not look at this man and go, "Ah Sherlock Holmes greatest nemesis!" I see a guy. He's not menacing, devilishly brilliant, or threatning. He is merely there. Oh God. There is one good thing I can talk about in the entire movie, and it all boils down to one single scene, at the end. It's the most Sherlock thing in the whole damn movie, a chess game between Holmes and Moriarty. Brilliant, something I can get behind at last! The only part of the movie you should ever watch, culminating into one of the most famous stories from the books....The Reichanbach Fall. But I only recommend the chess scene, beyond that I can gurantee you will miss nothing. Stick to the first movie, or even better watch the BBC series Sherlock. That is all for this week, join me next week for some real Christmas classics.

Sherlock Holmes

Best way to start December!

Yes, I liked reviewing a Sherlock Holmes movie so much in December I am doing it again. I have always greatly enjoyed this movie and I couldn't think of anyone better as playing the world famous detective than Robert Downey Jr. he is just brilliant as him! Okay story time, our partners in crime solving Sherlock and Watson are hip deep in a case that arised from quite peculiar circumstances, a grand mystery with no clear answers in sight until the very end involving conspiracies, cults, and a much bigger plot behind it all. But of course we all know who's behind it. If you have a passing knowledge of Sherlock Holmes you know who orchestrated this whole scheme. Major brownie points for the setting, fitting the time period the books were written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, I mean spot on. The cast is wonderful in our three main characters, and quite decent in supporting. Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law have excellent chemistry together as friends, just their witty banter between each other never fails to amuse me. Rachel McAdams is an interesting choice as Irene Adler, but she gets the character down very well although I don't recall Irene being very open with how much she loved Sherlock. It also has pretty terrific music, I just can't explain it any other way than being well...Sherlockian, I hear it and I immediately think Sherlock Holmes. With one exception, just had a great and intense scene, Irene nearly escaped death, Watson runs out and Holmes follows, tripwire goes off, Watson yells Holmes' name, film goes slow-mo, big chain of explosions going off everywhere, and what do I hear? Bizzare, dischordant violin music. I don't hate the music, it fits in the world potrayed perfectly, but not that scene. Would have been way more effective if you barely heard anything, perhaps ever so faint sound effects of explosions or just dead silence! It would have created a better scene. And I really hate to say this but, you don't know what all has transpired until 30 minutes before the film ends. You constantly see things, ever so subtle hints, clues, minute details but never any explanation of it. Half the fun of a mystery movie is trying to piece it together yourself. This never happens in this movie. You're just left to wait until all is explained, now some people can argue that is a good thing, only Holmes can pick up on these things and no one else so it makes sense. Other people like me can argue it never hurts to actually leave clues for the audience to pick up on. Participation in movies is rare, this is where the mystery genre comes in. It encourages you to become part of the movie, not an observer but a actor. I love the exanation, taking what seems to be pure malicious magic into hard scientific facts. That is awesome. Now beyond all that, I still like the movie, I would definitely recommend it to people, and I think it would be sort of a fun competition to see how much people can pick up on throughout the film. Give it a watch and put those detective skills to work.