Film Review - Crawl (15)

We can defeat these pea-brained lizard shits.

Crawl is the last hurrah - at least here in the UK - for summertime cinema 2019. It's also an homage to another movie summer, that of 1975. Back then New Jersey waters were being terrorised by a great white shark in Jaws. This holiday season, however, it's a Florida home under attack, from not one but an entire (I'm not clear on the collective noun so I'm going to be creative) ... chomp of alligators. No non-sci-fi creature feature is ever going to match the genius of Spielberg's fish tale, on that we can surely agree. The only question is - can this new one summon up enough thrills for a fun and scary, if derivative holiday ride? That would be a giant razor-toothed YES.

Kaya Scodelario played Haley, a college student and competetive swimmer, who seeks out her father when he goes incommunicado in the middle of a category 5 hurricane. Having located him injured in the old family home, she discovers that they have non-human company on unexpected day-release from a local alligator farm. Trapped in a flooding basement, father and daughter struggle to escape before they're either drowned or snapped up by ravenous reptilian predators.

Crawl is helmed by Alexandre Aja, the French director who at his best brought us nasty-artsy slasher movie Haute Tension aka Switchblade Romance back in 2003. In short, he knows how to create something lean, blood-stained and suspenceful, which is precisely what he does here. There's minimal time devoted to set-up. Establish your heroine, immerse her (often literally) in a deadly situation and start cranking up the clautrophobic tension. Any exposition required to beef up character, do it on the move, however unlikely such interactions might seem in the circumstances. Then when the anxiety levels are nice and high, unleash scaly slithering hell. 

Dumb aquatic adventure movies are now a Hollywood staple (check out last year's The Meg if you're in doubt). Crawl rises above the floaters, chiefly by being exceedingly well-made and snappily executed. The hurricane shots have a brooding beauty to them, while the production team have created a realistically storm-whipped and rapidly-flooding landscape. The alligators crucially feel real, getting a lot more screen-time than Jaws ever did and earning screams from characters and audience alike. Aja is a great visual storyteller too, constructing and shooting the action with imagination and panache. He exploits the Florida house's crawl-space for all its horror-movie potential and has even more fun once water-levels push our protagonists higher. When Haley gets properly swimming he even reworks that old Spielberg trick - creature POV shot of thrashing human legs - to nerve-tearing effect. 

Performance-wise Scodelario (the Maze Runner movies) toughs out a good physical performance as Haley, with Barry Pepper (her Maze co-star who once went Saving Private Ryan) dragging himself through equivalent hell as her dad. Both are sufficiently engaging - to say nothing of bloodied, grimy and scared - to earn our concern. Admittedly the dialogue they're given is laughable (see above movie quote as prime example), but the screenwriters have had the good sense to make the escalating action as nuts as possible and to throw in a cute dog, so that we're far too worried to care what the humans are saying.

Look - if it's exquisitely crafted verbiage and sensible storytelling you're looking for, watch something written by Aaron Sorkin. If however you fancy 90 minutes' streamlined excitement, with characters locked in a gruelling, muddy, blood-and-gristle fight for survival against vicious critters that can get them in water and out of it, then Crawl delivers. It's not Jaws. Hell, not even Jaws II is Jaws. But it is as good a B-movie thrill-ride as you'll experience this - or most - summers. Dive in and swim for your life.

Gut Reaction: A lot of wincing and reactive laughter. What began with hand gripping face ended in full-body contortion. 

Memorable Moment: Why looting in a hurricane-flood is just a bad idea.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. I won't defend it in terms of plot logic, but Crawl is a visceral, intense, funny, hugely entertaining monster flick, with more hungry 'gators than you can shake a stick at. (Word to the wise - you're going to need a bigger stick.)

Film Review - Angel Has Fallen (15)

We're lions - and there ain't nothin' gonna change that.

Angel Has Fallen completes one of the more unlikely modern cinema trilogies. In 2013 it was Olympus, i.e. the White House, that did the falling, as Secret Service agent Mike Banning (Gerard Butler) rescued the US President from the clutches of kidnapping terrorists. Then in 2016 it was the turn of London to collapse, our hero once again salvaging the day as the English capital's most photogenic landmarks tumbled around the ears of assembled world leaders in a CGI firestorm. Now it's Banning himself who's destined for a fall, as he protects a new leader of the free world in President Trumbull (Morgan Freeman). It should be an old and tired rehash and I was bracing myself for such. But you know what? It's not a bad evening at the cinema - at all.

This new story finds Banning a beaten-down mess from all the injuries he's sustained on previous adventures. Old Service pal Wade Jennings (Danny Huston) is trying to get him back on track with some off-the-record training, while neither Mike's wife or indeed his President know that he's popping pain-killers like candy. It all comes to a head when he leads operations on a Presidential fishing trip that goes very wrong indeed. A powerful force - possibly the Russian government - wants the President dead, and are organised enough to make Banning take the fall for it. But if they think he'll roll over easily, hey - they're reckoning with the wrong guy.

This is a potboiler action thriller that knows its limitations and strengths, and which plays to the latter. Rather than up the ante following the 2016 terrorist blitzing of London, it keeps the mayhem relatively restrained, although a lethal drone strike early on demonstrates that proceedings are going to be both high-tech and bloody. The screenplay draws out the political elements convincingly enough, keeping things taut and fast-paced, and focusing at all times on its central character's developing plight.

It's all helmed by Ric Roman Waugh, one of those stuntmen-turned-directors, who deals well enough with the gritty set-pieces, even if he resorts a little too much to edgy hand-held shots and fast editing. David Buckley provides a pumping, drum-heavy soundtrack, there's a steely-gray colour palette to match and even if the plot resorts to familiar thriller tropes (you'll easily guess which characters aren't to be trusted), its comparative groundedness keeps you involved.

The other department in which the movie betters its predecessors is in the depth of casting. Butler's tough-guy lead has added vulnerability to make him more relatable and Freeman is - well - President-you-wish. But there's also Jada Pinkett Smith as a brisk and determined FBI agent, Tim Blake Nelson as the morally ambiguous Vice President and John Wick's Lance Reddick as a high-ranking Secret Service bodyguard. And Huston is having a lot of fun as Mike's former comrade-in-arms. But most welcome of all is Nick Nolte - crustier and more knobbly than ever, with a vocal register that could grate cheese. Who he plays I'll keep secret, but his interations with Butler in the Appalachian woods are choice, taking the film to a whole other funnier and better level.

There's not a lot of critical love out there for Has Fallen 3, with many dismissing it the flogging of a B-movie franchise. I think it's better than that - a nuts-and-bolts thriller for sure, but with fewer preposterous explosions than before and a greater sense of fun. Maybe Harrison Ford did it better twenty-five years ago, but Gerard Butler has a battered charm of his own, and this time around - with such good company - it really works.

Gut Reaction: Consistently invovled, some unexpectedly big laughs halfway through and even a little bit moved at the end.

Memorable Moment: Danger! Forest fires!

Ed's Verdict: 6.5/10. An unremarkable but solid piece of action entertainment, helped out by a battery of good performances, decent set-pieces and some welcome humour.

DVD/Blu-Ray Mini-Review - The Kid Who Would Be King (PG)

I'm supposed to stop her... That's ridiculous. I'm twelve. I'm not even old enough to do a paper round.

The Gist: Alex is a fatherless and bullied London schoolboy with a penchant (along with his best friend Bedders) for Arthurian mythology. When he discovers a certain medieval sword in the concrete of a derelict building, his life takes a fantastical turn. A gangly and eccentric new student at the boys' school warns of the return of evil sorceress Morgana - half-sister to King Arthur himself - and of imminent apocalypse. That's shortly before fiery horseback demons start wreaking havoc in the home Alex shares with his mum. Teaming up with some unlikely allies, Alex and Bedders shoulder their destiny and set off on a quest to save the modern-day Realm of Britain.

The Juice: The Kid Who Would Be King is an unabashedly family-friendly follow-up by writer/director Joe Cornish of his 2011 hit Attack the Block. It's also resolutely urban-British in all its sensibilities (not unlike the earthbound elements of the modern Doctor Who), with a rough-and-tumble London comprehensive school serving as backdrop to much of the fantasy. Commendably light on CGI, the narrative focuses much more on old-fashioned virtues of loyalty and companionship than crazy action-mayhem. Cornish's screenplay is in the tradition of boy's-own adventure, albeit with twists of contemporary humour, and his direction keeps things fluid and dynamic. The youthful performances are clunky at points but always likeable, with Louis Ashbourne Serkis (yes, he is son of Andy) rising to the challenge as a latter-day King Arthur and Angus Imrie putting in an enjoyably wacky take on Young Merlin. Oh, and a bit of actorly gravitas is supplied by Sir Patrick Stewart and Rebecca Ferguson as the older Merlin and villainous Morgana respectively.

The Judgement: 7/10. It's a shame that this film wasn't a bigger box-office success earlier this year, as it's a genuinely charming adventure for kids and parents alike, with flashes of striking beauty once the story transfers to the rural heartland of Arthurian legend. (It's also funny without resorting to fart and poo jokes, always a blessed relief.) With its message of finding common ground in divided times so life's bigger challenges can be met, there's a lot here to love. It'll make for a great family movie night - so seriously, give it a go. 

Film Review - Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood (18)

Hey! You're Rick fuckin' Dalton - don't you forget it.

 

There's a very specific feeling I have going into any 'New Film by Quentin Tarantino', one that dates back to the '90s and my experience post-Reservoir Dogs. I'm no slavering Tarantino fanboy and there are aspects of the film-maker's work with which I struggle, but anytime I sit down to watch his latest cinematic opus there's a sense of expectation - of something uncompromising, unpredictable, impossible to forget. And that reaction in itself is to be cherished. I fell in love with Once Upon a Time in ... Hollywood within the first ten minutes and felt the feeling grow. The only question was whether that particular emotion would sustain past the end.

If the director's past films are love letters to 1960s Hollywood, then this one is a velvet-bound outpouring of love-poetry to that time and place. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Rick Dalton, an old-school tough-guy actor whose career is on the skids following the cancellation of his TV western show Bounty Law. Brad Pitt is Cliff Booth, Dalton's stunt double turned driver, and his one true friend in the world. The story - such as it is - follows these two over a couple of days in their lives, Rick as he tries to reassert his acting credentials on a TV-show pilot episode and Cliff, whose cruising around town takes him on a altogether different and more sinister adventure in the wider LA county. Simultaneously we get glimpses into the existence of Rick's next-door neighbour Sharon Tate (Margot Robbie), real-life actress and wife of director Roman Polanski, whose life was to be cruelly cut short in the so-called 'Manson Family murders' of August 1969.

The true star of the movie, arguably, is late-Sixties Hollywood itself - the city and its film industry recreated in meticulous, nit-picking detail that's bathed either in California sunshine or glistening neon depending on the time of day. It transforms a ride around the streets in the back of Rick's Cadillac (and there are a few such languorous trips) into a fascinating historical odyssey, albeit one filtered through the director's gilded childhood memories. Every scene is bursting with the Americana of the period - much of it real, some cunningly invented - so that even an interlude in Cliff's trailer as he feeds himself and his dog is a nostalgia-steeped joy. Most loving of all perhaps are the recreations of the era's TV shows, movies and commercials - never less than convincing, but with a lovingly parodic edge to make you grin. And as ever the soundtrack is cherry-picked, with an exquisite radio playlist circa '69 to fuel the whole experience as smoothly as the gas in Rick's tank.

As for the dream casting of DiCaprio and Pitt, it's a source of unalloyed gold, whether the bromantic duo are hanging out in each other's company or cutting a solo path. Leo is as good as he's ever been as Rick - hilariously narcissistic, but sufficiently insecure and aware of his own failings to make us sympathise like we maybe haven't before for a flawed Tarantino protagonist. Brad is the antithesis of the self-regarding Hollywood actor as laid-back, roll-with-the-punches Cliff - effortlessly cool and funny, yet with a dark back-story that makes us wonder what's lurking beneath. Their entwined fates provide the meat of the narrative.

(Yup, that is Al Pacino with the boys.)

Robbie's tragic Sharon Tate, however, supplies the emotional spine, her star rising as Rick's goes into decline. Whereas the real Tate is associated historically with death and the macabre, here it's her life, youth and potential that are celebrated through Robbie's radiant performance, even though a terrifying spectre looms in the minds of those familiar with her story.

That, I think, will mark out a significant dividing line in audience reactions to the movie as a whole. It's essential to know about the notorious Sharon Tate/Charles Manson incident and a little about the dying Hollywood era represented by Rick and Cliff to see what Tarantino is getting at with all this. Without that knowledge there will still be plenty to enjoy, including a treasury of great supporting performances (Sarah Qualley as a precocious hippy chick and Julia Butters as a wise-beyond-her-years child actor are two standouts). But the head-spinning shocks of the final act will only have their intended impact, and the narrative will only knit together thematically, with the help of that prior understanding.

In some ways Once Upon a Time is old-school Tarantino, replete with pithy dialogue, irreverence and allusions to his favourite cinematic genres (the title connects with Sergio Leone's spaghetti westerns, while also reminding us that this is a Quentin kind of fairytale). But the film is also reflctive, elegaic and much more heartfelt than anything the auteur has made before. If times past I've want his narratives to get a move-on, this time around I was more than happy take this long, unhurried and meticulously crafted ride, wherever it was all going. And where it goes will be considered either wildly exploitative or deeply moving (or maybe both) depending on the viewer. My response - I slept on it, carried it around for a day or so and found that it sat with me just fine. My love for QT's 9th film sustained - and that love is real.

Gut Reaction: A big fat smile for much of it along with bated breath, hand clutched to mouth, trepidation, then BOOM. Stunned and unexpectedly moved. 

Memorable Moments: Rick gets some acting tips. Cliff rises to a challenge. Sharon goes to the movies.

Ed's Verdict: 9.5/10. A wonderfully realised, undeniably self-indulgent but deeply-felt paean to the Hollywood of a bygone era. Not everyone will love it, but for me it's his best since Pulp Fiction and just maybe (yes, I'm going there) his best ever.

Film Review - Blinded by the Light (12A)

You can't start a fire without a spark.

Bruce Springsteen had no shortage of fans in the 1980s, but culturally his blue-collar rock was well out of step with the UK's synth-pop and New Romantic stylings. For Sarfraz Mansoor, a Pakistani Muslim lad growing up in Luton, however, New Jersey's 'Boss' was pure inspiration. Blinded by the Light, the new film from Bend it like Beckham's Gurinder Chadha, is based on Mansoor's memoir of how Springsteen's music fuelled his writing aspirations, pushing him to rise above the perceived grimness of his home town and to find a distinctive voice. It's not a flawless movie, but it is definitely one of the more affecting cinematic stories of this year.

Viveik Kalra plays Javed (the film's version of Sarfraz), a sixth-form college student, seeking a path to university while his immigrant family struggle to survive financially in 1980s Britain. Unemployment is spiralling towards the three million mark and Javed's father - in danger of losing his factory job - is keen that his son pursue a practical vocation like accountancy rather than writing. Javed is on the point of abandoning his dreams, when Sikh friend Roops introduces him to the music and lyrics of Springsteen. It's a revelatory experience - one that transforms Javed's thinking, helping him view his life in a strikingly different way.

For those of us who lived the UK '80s, Blinded does a good job of summoning up the era - social division and political unrest in the face of Margaret Thatcher-branded Capitalism. It has fun with the music and fashions (particularly when its protagonist takes such an alternative denim-and-check-shirted route), but also underscores the turbo-charged racism of the period, with National Front marches and vile anti-immigrant assaults - sometimes literally on the victims' doorsteps. Javed's nightly scribblings are a desperate, angry response to his personal and familial issues, with Springsteen's similarly rebellious sentiments giving him the boost he so badly needs.

The movie also achieves what co-writer/director Chadha did so well in the Beckham movie - portraying the inter-generational dynamics of an immigrant family. There's warmth and depth along with the frustration and misunderstaning, Kulvinder Ghir (known chiefly in the UK for his turns in sketch show Goodness Gracious Me) proving particularly good as Javed's demanding but well-meaning dad. The boy's relationship with his similarly conflicted sister Shazia (Nikita Mehta) is touching too, although it warranted greater screen time than it was given.

The movie succeeds particularly well in conveying Javed's initial Springsteen conversion, a wonderfully inventive sequence set against the UK's Great Storm of 1987. (I won't pre-empt the scene too much, but it employs a technique that gets inside our hero's mind to memorable effect.) Where things falter is in a couple of musical interludes that land uncomfortably between Rocketman-style fantasy and real life, rather than committing fully to either. Even Rob Brydon's welcome appearance as the father of Javed's best mate can't save one of these from being particularly jarring.

The latter are missteps in an otherwise hugely enjoyable and moving tale, one aided by support from the likes of Hayley Atwell as a supportive teacher and Fisherman's Friends' David Hayman as an expectation-subverting next-door neighbour. The movie also benefits hugely from Kalra's likeably dorkish central performance - one with 'break-out star' written all over it. What Blinded by the Light ultimately conveys (cringey bits aside) is the universality of art, where one man's heartfelt songs can resonate with someone from a different country and culture - bringing inspiration, empowerment, even healing. That in itself would be cringing if the story weren't based on real experience. But it is, and that alone makes it worth your time - whether you were born in the USA or Luton, England.

Gut Reaction: While I was willing bits to work that simply didn't, I spent much more time laughing, setting my jaw in anger or welling up. Yes - Javed and Bruce moved me to tears.

Memorable Moment: Epiphany in the (windy) dark.

Ed's Verdict: 7.5/10. While not as sublime as 2016 gem Sing Street, this is a lovable and uplifting '80s-musical-coming-of-age tale in its own right. And its message of common bonds in a time of racist division is - sadly - a very urgent one indeed.

Film Review - Fast & Furious: Hobbs & Shaw (12A)

This guy's a real asshole!

Hobbs & Shaw is the first spin-off from the Fast & Furious movies, a franchise that began in 2001 as a street-racer version of Point Break and then evolved over two decades into a series of gleefully loopy action/spy stories. Taking its cue from the most recent Fast & Furious episodes, this new adventure is all about endless over-the-top stunts and broadly comic macho banter, most of the latter coming from Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson and Jason Statham as the eponymous frenemies. Yes, this is at heart an old-style buddy movie - and if you've enjoyed the past few entries into the F&F canon, rest assured you'll get shed-loads of what you expect. Although it might be overload even for you.

The story - how to describe it? Luke Hobbs (LA-based cop played by Johnson) and Deckard Shaw (Statham's rogue special-ops agent who's returned to the good side) are made to team up when a lethal virus threatens to fall into very bad hands in London. At the centre of the incident is Shaw's sister Hattie (The Crown's Vanessa Kirby), an MI6 agent who has fallen foul of a genetically enhanced super-soldier called Brixton Lore (yup, were going into crazy science-fiction territory with some very silly character names to boot). Brixton (played with villainous relish by Edris Elba) wants to track down said virus and set it loose, in the name of whittling down and resetting the human race along survival-of-the-fittest lines. Our trio of heroes have to outrun him long enough to neutralise the virus - that's if the two boys don't kill each other first.

There are a number of reasons why I thought this movie might be a fun, if daft ride. Johnson is a likeable presence who made last year's Rampage and Skyscraper - both of them summertime nonsense - worth watching. Statham is likewise good value (as proven most recently in The Meg), and the bolshy chemistry between the two had already been established in main F&F movies. Elba is a class act and Kirby a strong female counterpoint to all the testosterone washing about. Add to that David Leitch, an action director with the undeniably funny Deadpool 2 and the bruising Atomic Blonde already under his belt. I wasn't expecting greatness, but I did figure there'd be a genuine sense of fun.

And there is for about half an hour - slick introduction to the characters, nice bit of stuntwork down the side of a London skyscraper, everyone clearly having a blast as they trash England's capital in a variety of motor vehicles - before my old Fast fatigue set in.

I actually sat pondering why last year's Mission: Impossible - Fallout had me enthralled, while during this film I ended up staring unmoved at all the stuff going down on-screen. Both are jet-setting, action-heavy spy stories after all. The reason, I think, is a simple one. With Hobbs and Shaw, much like the franchise of which it's an off-shoot, there's zero sense of jeopardy. The stunt sequences are too frequent, too OTT-ludicrous, too CGI-enhanced, to provide any sense that the characters (or the world) could come to serious harm. There's also minimal attention to plot logic or the laws of physics - an issue which arguably counts for less in a comedy-action spectacular, but which here just further undermined any lingering reasons I had to care. What's left is a series of big set-pieces high on ballistics but low on tension, strung together by the insult-heavy banter. (Even that wears thin after a while.)

Okay - in the name of my recent Glass Half Full article let me identify a few things I liked. The film has a clear sense of style when it pauses long enough to let it sink in. The London locations look good. It's quite fun when the final act explores the Hobbs character's Samoan ancestry. An unexpected cameo during a plane-flight was genuinely funny. Vanessa Kirby kicks ass.

That's it, really. If I hadn't got suckered by the promise of big laughs and a thrilling, engaging ride, I wouldn't have felt so deflated by the end. Hobbs and Shaw only serves to bulk up my list of 2018 summer blockbuster disappointments. As with all things Fast and Furious it wants to be daftness as an art form. In truth it's just plain daft - to the point of tedium. Sorry, lads.

Gut Reaction: It did make me laugh a few times and there were a handful of awe-worthy action moments. After that, stupefaction.

Memorable Moment: Extreme abseiling.

Ed's Verdict: 5/10. Fast and Furious: Sound and Fury. Signified bugger all.

Netflix Mini-Review - Bird Box (15)

I'll say who goes. I'll say who looks.

The Gist: Malorie (Sandra Bullock) is a woman seeking refuge for herself and the two children in her charge, as they travel downriver, all three of them blindfolded. Flash back six years, and the pregnant Malorie observes what appears to be a bizarre global pandemic along with her sister Jessica (Sarah Paulson). The truth behind the phenomenon becomes apparent as it hits the US - terrifying entities are abroad, driving anyone who sees them to instant, violent suicide. Along with a disparate band of other survivors Malorie struggles to adapt to this terrifying new world, where a simple action like drawing back the curtains may result in horrific death.

The Juice: Adapted from Josh Malerman's 2014 novel, Bird Box has a similarly post-apocalyptic high concept to 2018's A Quiet Place, while taking a narrative route that's more reminiscent of a zombie survival flick. Everyone is holed up in a claustrophobic location - paranoid regarding newcomers and scared to go outside. The 'enforced-blindness' idea gives the proceedings an original twist, however, setting up some nerve-tearing and visceral action sequences. Also the split time-frame suggests that some very bad things are on the way for our ragged band of characters. Most unsettling (and most highly effective) is how we only experience the creatures, whatever they are, through the characters' traumatised responses. Nothing this insanely frightening could be realised visually, so it's left more or less to our imagination. Bullock is great as Mallorie - tough as leather and more drill-sergeant than mother (the rigours of parental responsibility is a major subtext). There's great support too including from Moonlight's Trevante Rhodes as the empathetic Tom, Danielle Macdonald as hapless mother-to-be Olympia and a scenery-chewing John Malkovich as the obligatory cynic-who-trusts-no-one.

The Judgement: 7.5/10. While it doesn't scale the sublime world-building heights of A Quiet Place, this is still a terrific, scary thriller in its own right, which conjures up a memorable sense of dread and a few potentially iconic moments. The fact that the threat remains unexplained only adds to the fear. It's a bit like M. Night Shyamalan's The Happening - only good.

Feature - Glass Half Full: The Filmic Forays Philosophy

Always look on the bright side of life. Eric Idle (and others) - Life of Brian.

'Your blog is very well-written,' my friend Kev said to me earlier this year. (I was having dinner with him and his mum in a very nice French restaurant in London's Soho district.)

'I'm glad you think so,' I replied, gratified. 

'You don't mess around, you get straight to the point,' he added.

'Thank you,' I responded, considering that this kind of unalloyed praise is exactly what friends are for. 

'One thing...' he went on, at which point I realised that the compliments had merely been a preamble to his main observation. 'You like everything.'

It's been said before, not just by Kev. There's a perception that I'm too easy to please, blanketing everything in praise and really not being sufficiently discriminating. I've fielded the opinion enough times to want to address it in print, so here goes. Let's get this said.

Firstly, and this is pretty significant, it's not actually true. I can bitch about films with the best of them. Take 2018 as a completed filmic year for example - there were some total bleedin' stinkers. Winchester was laughable (I gave it 5/10 - what possessed me to be that generous?) and Pacific Rim: Uprising was a soulless mess that left me in a literal stupor. A host of comedies failed to deliver the requisite laughs; I Feel Pretty, The Spy Who Dumped Me, The Happytime Murders and Night School were all ultimately lame and Life of the Party proved only marginally better due to a handful of stand-out Melissa McCarthy moments. Oh, and Book Club wasted a terrific cast on very drab material. The Nun needed an actual story and Patrick (no of course you haven't heard of it, only twenty people ever saw the damn thing and I was unlucky enough to be one of them) needed never to have existed. See? There were plenty of films that offered me nothing, and those are just the ones I saw.

 (dog-poo actually)

Which brings me to my second point. Since I'm not (yet) a full-time professional reviewer, there are only so many films I have time to go and see. So when faced the the choice of viewing say A Quiet Place or the Bruce Willis revamp of Death Wish (in UK cinemas at the same time), which was I more likely to take in? The groundbreaking high-concept science-fiction thriller that everyone Stateside was raving about, or the revenge-movie rehash that got roundly trashed by every other critic in every other town? Seriously, I wasn't going to opt for the latter in the hope of getting to balance my positive reviews with a hate-laden diatribe. Like everyone else I just want - in some form - to be entertained.

But that's only part of it.

I have a particular attitude when I go to the cinema, one that I intend never to lose, should I be taking up theatre-space aged 90. Basically it's one of hope and of giving any film the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes that hope flickers on in the face of critical negativity from elsewhere, or while simultaneously bracing myself for a new episode in some long-running franchise that's been going nowhere good for years. I never enter the screening-room with my knives ready-sharpened - there's no place for that in valid film criticism. Even if my expectations have been lowered by pessimistic buzz surrounding the project, or by a slew of two-star reviews, I want to be pleasantly surprised. I want to find something to enjoy that other reviewers have perhaps missed - a few nuggets of gold, however obscured they've been by all the crud.

That attitide strikes me as only fair. The 'critical' part of criticism is all too easy to do - click here or indeed here if you want proof that I can do scathing. But hundreds - in some case thousands - of industry people aside from the writers, director and cast have invested time, sweat and craft in even the most dubious of cinematic fare. Me, I've not contributed a single moment to the production of a feature film, so it behooves me (and when I dig out a verb like 'behoove' you know I'm being serious) to cut some slack. I won't deny that there's a dubious pleasure in unleashing a stream of literary invective when you really feel that two hours of your life have been flushed down the pan (I'm flashing back to Godzilla King of the Monsters as I type that), but fankly there's more joy in exhorting readers to go see something, than in warning them to stay away.

 (Nope - couldn't begin to muster a defence.)

Let me briefly illustrate all I've said with three examples - specifically of films that I've found reason to rate more highly than the overall critical consensus.

1.  The Hustle - 35% on Metacritic.com

I'm starting with a recent release and a real challenge. By no stretch of the imagination could The Hustle 2019 be considered a great film, or even a very good one. Much of the humour is forced and Rebel Wilson's familiar comedy business falls terribly flat in key scenes. And, as pointed out by other reviewers, its attempt at feminist revisionism simply doesn't work plot-wise in a straight remake of '80s not-quite-classic Dirty Rotten Scoundrels.

The Glass Half-Full Factor: Having been led to expect comedy-geddon, this simply wasn't nearly as bad as I'd been led to believe. Director Chris Addison demonstrated his pedigree in comedy on a good handful of occasions, resulting in my laughing more than once, even though I'd been assured I wouldn't. And Anne Hathaway was having such a great time camping it up that is proved infectious. I've always like her, and I liked her here. My 6 out of 10 might have been a tad generous and I have no plans ever to watch it again, but in all honesty it didn't suck that bad and I felt like redressing the critical balance, if only a little.

2. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom - 61% on Metacritic.com

Mega-fans of the original Jurassic Park have been particularly harsh on this summer-of-'18 title, claiming lack of plot logic and bizarre character motivations as two of their main grievances. Like all the Jurassic movies from Lost World onwards it simply can't match up to the sublime original and yes, I accept that some of the crazier writing decisions are pretty problematic.
The Glass Half-Full Factor: Simply put it was one of the more enjoyable family blockbusters of summer 2018 - full of nicely played dino-Gothic moments along with glorious action, not least when the island erupted into volcanic fury with humans and prehistoric critters fleeing in similar panic. Bryce Dallas Howard's character was more sympathetically written than in 2015's Jurassic World, so that her dynamic with Chris Pratt proved much more enjoyable. As popcorn entertainment goes, it was well-crafted with some flashes of its own personality, and totally did what a summertime cinema audience might expect it to do. That 7.5 out of 10 awarded by yours truly was earned.

3. Downsizing - 63% on Metacritic.com

Critics expected mighty things of this Alexander Payne project (he'd scored high with About Schmidt and Sideways after all) and felt as let down as the film's minituarised protagonist, when he discovers that living in a literal model world isn't all he'd hoped. Many reviewers seemed to think that the movie promised a 'Borrowers-for-grown-ups' storyline and then lost interest in that premise, tying itself up with a bunch of other disconnected ideas. 
The Glass Half-Full Factor: Okay - on this one I'm going full evangelical. Downsizing isn't a flawed film with some good bits. It's misunderstood brilliance. Sometimes a movie does something different from what you expected having seen the trailer and that can skew your whole response. When the movie in question is conceived, co-written and directed by someone as whip-smart as Payne, however, then maybe you need to watch it again before you pass final judgement. Downsizing is an ingenious satire on the excesses and other failings of modern society that works on multiple levels. Ultimately it delivers the message that there are no short-cuts to finding true satisfaction and meaning in life and that maybe you need to change where you look. It's the filmic equivalent of REM's New Adventures in Hi-Fi album - not necessarily an easy first listen, but ultimately more satisfying than either Out of Time and Automatic for the People. (Either you're thinking 'Ooh, controversial', or 'REM - I think I've heard of them'.) Anyway, I gave the film 8 out of 10 and it might actually be worth more than that - much like the album.

Look, this isn't about my defending past scores here on Filmic Forays. It's about something broader than that. Creating a feature motion picture is a truly colossal undertaking and while some films succeed in pulling everything together to create utter magnificence, many do not. I'm not here primarily to rip apart other people's creativity (though if a film grates on me or suffocates my brain I'll surely let you know). I'm here to give an honest reaction and personal appraisal, and if I can find something - anything - to like about the next movie I see, I'll tell you about it. I'll neither say it's great because I'm supposed to or trash it because everyone else is. 

Basically, I'm an enthusiast, albeit one with an adequately functioning brain. Give me reason - any decent reason - and I'll become enthused. It's the glass half-full way.