The Night Before

At one point, the notion of Seth Rogen as a father was so inherently ridiculous that they made an entire feature-length comedy about it. The curly-haired Canadian/marijuana enthusiast has always seemed like every straight American male’s platonic ideal of what a best friend should be: smart, funny, ready to dispense advice and/or drugs at the drop of a hat. He has never, though, been anyone’s idea of dad material. Every Rogen movie is a loving ode to the joys of staying eternally young, and also the build-up towards that inevitable moment where our lovable schlub is finally forced to grow up.

Turns out, everyone’s favourite chuckling teddy bear has grown up. Well, sort of. He actually plays a dad — and, from the looks of things, a (mostly) decent one — in The Night Before, a shambling, sporadically funny stoner comedy that splits the difference between your traditional yuletide yarn and the typical Rogen gross-out-fest where friendships are tested and eventually affirmed, naughty jokes are made and everything turns out to be more or less alright in the end. More often than not, the movie succeeds  and is sweet and silly, with a lightness of touch. However flimsy it is in the grand scheme of things, in the moment it possesses a modest but undeniable charm.

Our trio of bros this time around are Isaac, played by Rogen, Chris (Anthony Mackie) and Ethan (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). Isaac is the typical Rogen character gone domestic, Chris is a charismatic, hot-headed football superstar with an all-too-predictable secret and Ethan works dead-end catering gigs and remains emotionally stunted after the tragic and untimely death of his parents. With each passing year, their brotherhood of bong hits and bar crawls is solidified by one longstanding Christmas tradition: a night of karaoke, Chinese food, playing the piano from Big and, finally, the attempt to gain access to the Nutcracka Ball, a mythological party that is reputed to be one of the most lavish and elusive in New York City. A few things end up complicating the boy’s quest, however, including the re-emergence of Ethan’s old flame, the wonderful Lizzy Caplan, and Isaac’s wife giving him a pocket-sized box of narcotics that he ingests all too willingly. Throw in a gang of drunk sidewalk Santas, an admittedly rousing live performance of Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball and an almost-too-creepy cameo from Rogen’s pal James Franco, then roll, seal, spark and inhale and you’ve got The Night Before.

The director here is Jonathan Levine, who helmed 50/50, his first union of Rogen and Levitt - a flawed but ultimately affecting dramedy about one young man’s battle with cancer. Levine has a gift for naturalistic comedy and an ear for male banter and camaraderie. It doesn’t hurt that our three stars manage to convincingly portray a lived-in, long-term friendship marred by instances of doubt and betrayal. Rogen is especially funny when he’s losing it, although a nasty gag about cocaine blood ending up in a woman’s drink goes too far, while Mackie subtly oscillates between bouts of narcissism and the crippling insecurity of a grown-up jock. Not surprisingly, Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns out to be the film’s heart: his Ethan is a palpable and heartbreaking vision of young male stasis, even when the film’s busy script saddles him with some unwieldy dialogue. The Night Before also features a who’s who of comic talent in supporting roles, including the indispensable Jillian Bell as Rogen’s wife, Nathan Fielder as a weirdo limo driver, Mindy Kaling doing Mindy Kaling, Broad City’s Ilana Glazer as a weed-stealing Grinch and Tracy Morgan in a role that is way too funny to spoil here.

In almost every respect, The Night Before is exactly what it’s supposed to be: a broad, big-hearted trifle whose momentary lapses in good taste are ultimately redeemed by its sweetness.

It: Chapter Two

It feels like a very short two years ago that the 2017 remake of Stephen Kings It hit the big screen. After release, the film very quickly became the highest grossing horror movie of all time, seemingly satisfying the critics just as much the audiences. Almost immediately plans were put into action to film the second half of King’s sprawling 1986 novel. I, for one, was very much aboard the hype train.

Set twenty seven years after the events of Chapter One, It: Chapter Two brings both the audience and the original members of the Losers’ Club back to Derry to keep the promise that they made to one another three decades ago, destroy Pennywise once and for all. The child killing force has returned and only they can band together to stop it. With their memories faded the longer they had been away from their hometown, the likes of Bill, James McAvoy, Beverly, Richie and Eddie and Ben (played by James McAvoy, Jessica Chastain, Bill Hader, James Ransone and Jay Ryan respectively) face the task of remembering and coming to terms with their past traumas, along with finding the strength and belief to come together and be single-willed enough to rid Pennywise of his fear feeding powers.

Unsurprisingly, my likes and dislikes of It: Chapter Two are pretty much identical to the likes and dislikes that I had for its predecessor. In my opinion, the magic and power of this story lies in the human connection and engagement with characters – not in the cinematic terror that its antagonist generates. This new adult cast brings another enjoyable element to the characters we last saw in childhood and once again I found myself more invested in the moments in between jump scares than in the jump scares themselves. It by its very nature works best on a metaphorical level with themes of childhood trauma and overcoming fear. Where It: Chapter Two fails slightly in my opinion is in dedicating far too much time to horror set pieces that have little to no stakes. Faced with giving equal time to an already large cast of central characters, the film proceeds with a back to back set of horror sequences that all end with a classic hero realisation – Pennywise is not real. You can only hold a viewer’s engagement for so long when they aren’t sure what is dangerous and what is not. Clocking in at just under three hours, you start to feel every single minute about a third of the way through the film. Unfortunately, some moments in this film are really just kind of boring. Which was not something that could be said about the first instalment of the franchise. By the time hour three comes around, there is certainly a sense of satisfaction that this entire two year long cinematic saga has been wrapped up neatly, but for me, the ninety suspect minutes either side of a strong beginning and a rewarding ending are not quite enough to make It: Chapter Two a triumph.

One element of the film that absolutely cannot criticise is the strong and varied performances of its aged up cast. The casting folks behind the scenes have done an exceptional job matching up adult actors with their 2017 child counterparts, in some cases it verges on eery. Jessica Chastain picks up where Sophia Lillis left off in an expert fashion, the young and mature iterations of the character share much more than just simple colouring. The same can be said for James Ransone as adult Eddie – his adopted and shared mannerisms with young Jack Dylan Grazer are extraordinary. Far and away the star of the show, for me was Bill Hader as trash mouth Richie. Now a standup comedian, the character is the source of comic relief. But he does so much more than just provide humour and some of the film’s biggest revelations and poignant moments are provided by both Hader and Finn Wolfhard in flashback scenes.

In a strange way, it feels like Bill Skarsgard, who plays Pennywise, takes something of a backseat in this sequel. As the narrative ramps up towards a crazy ending, we get to experience less of the truly creepy, smaller touches that made him so good in the first and instead get more CGI that didn't really do it for me. Of course, there are more effective jump scares than you can count but ultimately Pennywise just doesn’t have as big an impact as he did in 2017.

Overall, I have to say that It: Chapter Two doesn’t quite feel like the expertly crafted package that Chapter One was but on balance there is probably enough there to please fans of the 2017 predecessor. It’s way too long, with a repetitive middle section that will test even the most patient of viewers but you will walk away from the cinema feeling satisfied with the closure that is provided.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

There never should have been a Han Solo prequel movie. Before we can talk about Solo: A Star Wars Story in any meaningful way, this is a fact we simply have to accept – not only is it a really boring, tired idea for a film, it's also continuing the franchises inability to look beyond the original trilogy in any meaningful way, falling into the same trap of the prequel trilogy by assuming that the more details we know of a character's backstory, the better. Originally released shortly after Star Wars: The Last Jedi dared to do something new with the franchise, this film can't help but feel like a huge step backwards. Around the clumsy references and eye-roll inducing nods at the audience, Solo: A Star Wars Story is at its core just an excuse to see some characters you know and some you don't on a mostly standalone and refreshingly small-scale adventure, and from that perspective... well, it's not bad.

At the very least it's more entertaining than you might expect, especially once you take into account its more than just troubled production. For those not in the know, original directors Phil Lord and Chris Miller had been filming Solo: A Star Wars Story for four months before they were unceremoniously fired and replaced by Ron Howard, who went on to reshoot approximately 70% of the film. That the end product isn't a complete and utter mess is nothing short of a minor miracle, one only made all the more impressive by the film somehow feeling more cohesive as a movie than Rogue One (which had a significantly less troubled production) ever did.

Which isn't to say that it doesn't suffer from some of the same problems, of course, merely that they don't affect Solo: A Star Wars Story to such a high degree. Both films open poorly thanks to rushed and messy first acts that fail to draw the audience in or engage them on any meaningful level, but where Rogue One doesn't settle into itself until the finale rolls around, Solo: A Star Wars Story gets there much sooner. By the time Han has joined a criminal gang and teamed up with Lando Calrissian in order to pull off a virtually impossible heist, Solo: A Star Wars Story has found its rhythm, and while it never aims for something not easily within its reach (this might actually be least ambitious movie ever made), it's also rarely outright unenjoyable.

And I recognise that's maybe the mildest praise ever given to any film ever, but in this case it's praise nevertheless. You're not going to walk out of Solo: A Star Wars Story with a new favourite film by any means, but its 2 hours and 15 minutes running time passes surprisingly quickly thanks to the simple fact that it never really stops moving, imbuing the film with a breezy, lightweight, feel-good sense of easy-watching that's hard to be all that offended by. The stakes are low, nothing more than a few thieves trying to worm their way out of a sticky situation, and that can't help but feel pretty refreshing for a franchise in which every other film sees the fate of the galaxy hanging in the balance.

That's doesn't mean that it isn't capable of being quite exciting though. You might never be under the illusion that these characters are in real danger thanks to the aforementioned light and easy tone, but the originality of Solo: A Star Wars Story's set pieces alone means they're pretty fun, which is to say nothing of how well some of them are filmed. This, I think, is where the behind-the-scenes troubles seem most obvious, albeit in a good way – a lot of Solo: A Star Wars Story is shot in a fairly pedestrian way, yet every so often there will be a really impressive, kinetic shot or two that seemingly come out of nowhere. I have no way of knowing if these shots are ones left over from when Lord and Miller were directing or shots added in by Ron Howard (I suspect the former, but I wouldn't be hugely shocked to find out the latter), and in truth I really don't care - all that matters is that they're very good, adding a sense of weight or urgency or scale to a scene exactly when it's needed most.

And while a lot of Solo: A Star Wars Story's characters are various degrees of underwritten (some shamefully so, especially those who don't stick around for long), the eventual main cast are pretty good in their roles at worst and downright excellent at best, adding a lot to the film through performance alone. Woody Harrelson is perfect as the rough around the edges mentor figure Tobias Beckett, who feels very much like if someone took his character from The Hunger Games, Paul Bettany seems to be thrilled to have the opportunity to really ham it up as main antagonist Dryden Vos, and Donald Glover is naturally fantastic as both versions of Lando that we see, the smoother than smooth facade he presents to people throughout most of the film and the more vulnerable, human version we glimpse at times.

Solo: A Star Wars Story is an OK film that's unlikely to inspire an all too strong reaction from many people in either direction. It's entertaining in a very gentle way, never expecting too much from its audience and hoping its audience don't expect too much in return, and by and large succeeds on its own terms. Ultimately your mileage may vary, but in spite of everything I was entertained by Solo: A Star Wars Story – and at the end of the day, that's nothing to grumble about.

Godzilla (2014)

It seems there was a lot of criticism aimed at the Godzilla film regarding the use of the titular character as I discovered whilst reading up on the film after watching it last night. Everyone seemed to slate it due to the limited screen time Godzilla, the creature, actually got. I sort of agree, and also very much so find myself disagreeing too.

This film teases us for the best part of two hours, and it does so masterfully. There are some incredibly well shot scenes where Godzilla appears in some of the best and most memorable entrances a giant monster could have – a foot lands in front of a screaming crowd, silencing them, or he is slowly lit up by flares fired from a rooftop – and then it cuts away, leaving you desperately wanting to see more. There are at least three of these jaw dropping entrances before we even get to see him fight, and it means that when we do finally get to see him in action it feels all the more bad-ass. The fights between Godzilla and the MUTO's are short and quick, mostly seen from an up close human perspective or incredibly far away, so we can see these giants battle it out amongst sky scrapers. This choice means that we never lose that sense of scale or size that makes this film so visually impressive. Action fatigue fails to set in because of the restraint the film shows, and it ends leaving you desperately wanting more in the best possible way.

However, if you can't get behind the build up and anticipation, you aren't going to get a lot from this film. Bryan Cranston doesn't get the screen time he deserves, despite playing the most fleshed out character and being the best actor in the cast by a long margin. The main human characters, played by Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Elizabeth Olsen are pretty forgettable, but they are serviceable as the emotional hook of the film and work well enough with the suitably simplistic story for it not to matter a great deal. The film moves at a good enough pace to keep things fresh, with the teases of Godzilla mentioned earlier keeping you interested enough in the story for it to matter when the finale rolls around.

This film is by no means a master class in story telling or even a good lesson in writing characters, but it was never meant to be. Godzilla is all about spectacle, scope and a surprising amount of restraint, and it achieves this in an age of cinema where audiences are expected to get bored if ten minutes pass without an action scene. This film treats you like an adult, with enough patience to sit still and shut up and allow the film to tease you – and if you are willing to let it do that, you will not be disappointed.

American Ultra

It can be hard to write a review. Sometimes I find it difficult to look at something critically because of how much I enjoyed it, and at other times it can be hard to find something good to say about something I strongly disliked. But this time, a complete lack of any feelings one way or the other makes reviewing American Ultra hard, a film so unremarkable in every way that I forgot I had already seen this film when it first came out in the cinema nearly five years ago.

American Ultra is the story of Mike Howell and Phoebe Larson, a couple of unambitious stoners who live together in the town of Liman, West Virginia. Unbeknown to Mike, he's really a secret CIA asset from an Ultra program, a highly trained killing machine who can be activated with a coded phrase. When the person responsible for the Ultra program learns that he is to be taken out by a rival CIA agents operation, she travels to Liman in order to activate Mike and save his life.

Despite this seemingly interesting premise, there is very little of American Ultra that feels at all original or noteworthy. The most obvious problem facing it is that it was marketed as something it isn't – those expecting a mash up of the Bourne films and a stoner comedy are going to be sorely disappointed when they realise that much of the films run-time is dedicated to exploring the (admittedly rather sweet) relationship that Mike and Phoebe share, the infrequent comedic moments being rooted in character and having nothing to do with our heroes penchant for substance abuse, a part of our main characters that really isn't needed. The stoner aspect of American Ultra has no bearing on either the plot of the film or the characters themselves beyond surface level (and I'm talking mainly costume design here), and if anything distracts from the film during potentially important moments. Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart bring enough to their characters for this 'humanising' aspect of them to feel unnecessary and the cynic in me sees it as an if not manipulative then certainly questionable attempt to sell the film to a wider demographic – one that has wholly failed, judging by the under-whelming box office numbers that American Ultra took back when it was first released.

On the plus side, Jesse Eisenberg and Kristen Stewart are, as I already mentioned, really quite good as Mike and Phoebe respectively. Jesse Eisenberg's Mike is the right level of vulnerable to garner sympathy and understanding without alienating the audience, and despite some questionable career choices Kristen Stewart more than proves yet again that she can actually act. Although it isn't a particularly original pairing (the two of them having already shared the screen for Adventureland) it can't be said that it isn't a great bit of casting – a good job too, given how American Ultra is far too content to try and get by on the charms of their lead actors alone.

Everything else about American Ultra is nothing more than mediocre. Topher Grace is competent but unremarkable as the films bureaucratic bad guy. The side-plot dealing with the inner-workings of the CIA is an acceptable distraction to the central narrative. The action scenes are evenly placed throughout the films running time and don't go on for too long. This constant level of 'fine' becomes almost over-whelming by the time the film draws to a close, and results in a movie that I was already forgetting by the time I'd left the cinema. It's a film without highs or lows, a film that should be vivid and full of energy but is instead completely monotone, a film that exists and nothing more.

American Ultra is a perfect example of when the sum of the pieces is less than the value of the pieces themselves - this is a film that is consistently OK, but somehow less than OK when taken as a whole. It failed to resonate with me, it was unable to engage me as an audience member, it was incapable of making me care about what was happening - no matter which way you phrase it, something about American Ultra simply didn't work. I can't say I would or wouldn't recommend American Ultra because ultimately, I feel nothing but pure apathy towards it. And in some ways, that's more harmful than being bad.

The Post

Like a few of Spielberg's more recent movies except Ready Player One, The Post (which sits comfortably alongside Lincoln and Bridge of Spies in what I'm calling Spielberg's "important events in American history" trilogy) is a film with a lot of narrative on its hands. It's telling the story of Katharine Graham, the publisher of the Washington Post during the Nixon administration and the difficulties she faced in being taken seriously in a male-dominated environment. It's also telling the story of Ben Bradlee, the executive editor of the Washington Post during the release of the Pentagon Papers and, later, the Watergate scandal. And it's ALSO telling the story behind The Pentagon Papers, a decades long deception of the American people by the American government in order to maintain public support for a war they know they can't win.

It's a lot, but it works because much like how Bridge of Spies isn't really about the Cold War at all, The Post isn't really about those things either. Instead, it's about the importance of a free press and the vital role they play in any true democracy, which makes The Post feel extremely relevant in the time of Trump and "fake news". There are speeches given by characters here that may as well be delivered directly to the camera and addressed to 2018 itself, and while that has the potential to come across as preachy, Spielberg's guiding hand alongside Liz Hannah's solid script ensures that's never quite the case, resulting in a film that speaks to its audience rather than at them. It helps, of course, that most of these speeches are delivered by everyone's favourite uncle Tom Hanks, who plays Ben Bradlee much the same way he played James Donovan in Bridge of Spies – intelligent, righteous, and not afraid to speak up in the face of injustice, regardless of the consequences he might face.

But Hanks is just one part of what makes The Post work. Something I'm really enjoying about several of Spielberg's more recent projects is the amount of credible actors and actresses he's able to get involved and The Post offers no exception – you've got Bradley Whitford, Bob Odenkirk, Alison Brie, Bruce Greenwood, Jesse Plemmons and Sarah Paulson rounding out the cast in roles of varying sizes, all of whom manage to leave an impression. But of course it's Meryl Streep who ends up walking away with The Post and an Oscar nomination under her arm, introducing us to Katherine Graham as a nervous and uncertain woman with very little self-belief before transforming her into a confident leader in what is easily The Post's most interesting storyline. It's a shame that we've gotten so used to Meryl Streep receiving award nominations for everything she does – this is a genuinely great performance, and it's frustrating that those who haven't seen The Post might assume that the praise she received for this role is because of who she is not because of what she's done.

Where The Post does falter somewhat, however, is in the actual film-making itself, albeit in very minor ways. Other than an opening scene in Vietnam, the cinematography feels pretty lifeless throughout, and there are a number of scenes where the dialogue doesn't feel as snappy as it should, or a shot feels like it's been held for just a beat too long. It's here that Spielberg's "one big, one small" approach to filmmaking seems to work against him – I can't help but feel that these issues, minor as they might be, wouldn't exist if The Post hadn't been shot, edited and released all while he was still working on post-production for (the god awful) Ready Player One. Given the time and attention that it deserved, The Post could've been a genuinely great movie rather than just a very good one.

But it's also ultimately the worst thing I can find to say about The Post. Even with it feeling as if it were put together in a bit of a hurry, it still easily manages to hit every emotional beat it sets its sights on, and the result is still an engaging, timely and downright important piece of cinema all the same, one that you can't help but get wrapped up in and absorbed by as it progresses. Perfect? No. Spielberg at his best? Again, no. But even as the weakest film in that aforementioned "important events in American history" trilogy, lacking the tension of Bridge of Spies or the sheer craftsmanship behind Lincoln, The Post is still nothing less than an incredibly solid movie that once again proves Spielberg to be one of the most accomplished directors in the industry.

Green Book

Set in the 1960's, we follow New York bouncer Frank Vallelonga (known as Tony Lip to his friends) as he is hired by famed black musician Dr. Don Shirley to serve as a driver/bodyguard on an eight-week tour of the deep South. Naturally then, it's an odd couple/road trip movie, with the two main characters initially bouncing off one another before bonding over the course of the movie. But what's fascinating about Green Book – and not necessarily fascinating in a good way – is the way in which these two characters change over the course of the movie.

Or more importantly, the way that one of them kind of doesn't. Green Book is book-ended by scenes that imply Tony Lip (and somehow his family, possibly via telepathy) has grown as a person during his time with Dr. Shirley, but the movie in between those scenes in no way challenges Tony's worldview or the way he acts – in fact, it validates and agrees with him almost unanimously, possibly because it was written by Tony's real life son, Nick Vallelonga, who naturally wouldn't want to portray his father in a bad light. Instead, it is Dr. Shirley's worldview that is challenged throughout, often on the receiving end of what can only be described as Tony's "white working class wisdom". Over the course of the movie, we see Dr. Shirley go from someone who doesn't respect or appreciate Tony to someone who does – which means that Green Book is, at a fundamental level, a film about a black man learning not to judge a white guy based on appearances.

That's pretty incomprehensible for a film set in the midst of the Civil Rights movement in the Jim Crow South to do, especially when Dr. Shirley's real life family dispute many of the claims made by Green Book, right down to the idea that Tony and Dr. Shirley were ever even friends. This is a film that seems to broadly agree with Tony when he says that he's blacker than Dr. Shirley, who at this point in the movie has been harassed and assaulted multiple times for being black, a film in which Tony helps Dr. Shirley get back in touch with his blackness by forcing him to eat fried chicken. In the years to come, we're going to look back at Green Book and laugh about the fact that it was ever considered a serious movie, let alone a best picture award winner – it's simply an incredibly tone deaf and stupid movie, offering a childish and mollycoddled take on a topic that deserves a far more intelligent and confrontational examination than Green Book is willing (or able, I suspect) to offer.

And yet I'd be lying if I tried to claim that Green Book wasn't at the very least watchable, reasonably well put together on a technical level with nice cinematography and good editing even while it sticks its foot so far into its mouth that it can taste its own kneecaps. Mortensen's Frank Vallelonga is a caricature of an Italian-American but it's exactly what this movie needs, a performance big enough and bizarre enough to keep you engaged where a more subtle performance simply wouldn't. Is it a good performance, of a well-written character? No. But it works within the context that Green Book presents it, much like the rest of the movie tapping into well-worn tropes to produce something so familiar that it can't help but end up feeling... well, comforting, and safe, and broadly inoffensive - as long as it's playing to "the right kind of audience", which just so happens to be the same demographic as the majority of Academy Award voters.

Green Book is little more than a shallow and superficial example of why the recognisable hallmarks of a prestige picture don't mean much at all if they aren't imprinted on something with actual merit, which really shouldn't have come as much of a surprise being as it's directed by one of the guys behind the excruciating Movie 43. With another writer and a different director, maybe Green Book could've been a genuinely good, enlightening movie. But as it stands, it's little more than a film that's only vaguely entertaining at its very best, deeply unchallenging and staggeringly misguided throughout - and if that's what we're holding up as the best picture of 2018, then something has gone very wrong indeed.