Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992) – Review

Uh oh. This movie has actual literary credentials and makes a serious attempt at bringing across a new version of a classic story both using and subverting several common tropes. Looks like I might actually have to review something properly for once. So let me just get my ‘critical analysis’ hat out of storage where I left it ten years ago with the rest of my university things and let’s have a look at women’s roles in classic literature and adaptations thereof.

Dracula in specific and vampire stories in general have always explored themes of sexuality and the foreign. Dracula represents everything that an English man of the Victorian era might fear. He is a strong, swarthy European stranger with mystical and occult powers who lures good and proper English women, corrupting and subverting them through an act of domination and sexual aggression and predation that literally turns them into evil monsters who must be destroyed in order to save their mortal souls. The metaphor is rather thick on the ground and carries with it a lot of negative stereotypes and connotations. So when it comes to a modern adaptation there are two primary concerns that must be addressed. The first is the role of the woman in the proceedings. Is she a passive force, helpless and led astray by her wild passions, or is she in some way taking control of the situation. And the second is the role of the foreign gentleman, and exactly how deeply into the more racist undertones the story explores.

Bram Stoker’s Dracula by Francis Ford Coppola chooses not to pay much mind to the foreignness of Dracula, choosing instead to lean more heavily into Mina Harker’s role in the plot. It appears that the intention was to allow her more agency, choosing in some ways to be involved with the Count and allowing herself to be wooed and swayed towards him. The problem is that it still tried to retain too much of the original plot at the same time, which to my mind actually makes its portrayal of women in some ways worse than the original novel, if it does at least manage to absolve the Count of some of the more negative stereotypes.

For perhaps a more detailed look into how the changes from the book negatively affect the portrayal of women we need to also address the issue of Lucy Westenra. In the book she is a charming and fanciful young lady who is nonetheless a proper English gentlewoman. She has three gentlemen courting her, and she is shown to be a wild and free spirit, but she doesn’t breach the bounds of impropriety with any of the men. She makes her choice known as soon as she is sure, and the courtships are shown to be taking place as normal courtships, not as Lucy being a flirt with all of the men. This is changed in the movie to make Lucy a far more traditional seductress, wearing revealing dresses and being far more sexually aggressive and curious.

There is of course nothing wrong with a woman owning her sexuality and enjoying herself by flirting with people and sleeping with as many people as she wants to (whatever the Victorians thought on the matter) however, the problem is that the movie then keeps the part of the book where Lucy is targeted by Dracula in a manner that is suggestive of rape or sexual assault, meaning that Lucy’s change of character now has a very different feel to it. It is a classic horror movie trope that the sexual and flirtatious woman will always die, as a form of archaic and patriarchal punishment for her sexuality. If the movie had made Dracula’s monstrousness more apparent, and been clearer about Lucy absolutely not ‘deserving’ what happened to her in some way because of her provocative nature then this might be ok but it keeps pulling back right when it needs to commit to its new interpretation. Lucy in the book, while being an example of a more ‘traditional’ view of woman’s purity and goodness, is actually better served by the book’s narrative of her being an utterly innocent victim of a heinous monster.

This expands to Mina as well, who is struck by exactly the same issues. Now her seduction by the Count has become a more two-sided thing, where she is wooed by him for a time beforehand, and comes to fall in love with him herself. The filmmaker’s intent is apparent here. Mina of the books can come across as a very passive character, who is assaulted by Dracula, then is simply carted around by the strong men who try to take care of her. On the surface it comes across as a very shallow and sexist portrayal, and the movie is obviously trying to give her more agency and change what was in the book a clear case of assault into a woman trying to reclaim some power for herself.

And yet once more the movie doesn’t commit enough to its new interpretation, and leaves enough scenes verbatim from the book to make it a very uncomfortable viewing experience. Yes Mina now has more agency over her own decisions, but it comes at the cost of a lot of audience sympathy. Her treatment of Jonathan in the movie version now seems quite callous and cruel. He is not a bad man by any stretch, perhaps stuffy and English in the extreme (despite that accent Keanu) but he wants to do right by her and be the best husband he can be. Suddenly her courtship with Dracula makes her seem unfeeling toward her husband and the torture he has suffered at the hands of the vampire. Again the movie could have remedied this by inserting more new scenes, where Mina perhaps would be more torn between the two, or even be more blunt in her rejection of Jonathan, but trying to have it both ways just reduces her character’s empathy.

Further issues arise with a more detailed analysis of the book’s original text. Because despite the surface veneer Min is not a flat female character without any sense of character or agency. She isn’t perfect, but she takes a lot of charge of her situation, becoming the group’s official stenographer and helping by being the one who transcribes all of the Doctor’s journals with her knowledge of shorthand writing. She bears up strongly in the face of her assault and supports Jonathan who it hits very hard. She may still be a woman of little direct action who is assaulted as part of the narrative, but it is her emotional strength of character that gives her agency.

And so with all of this we turn to Dracula himself, perhaps the worst hit by the movie’s reinterpretations. In trying to give Dracula a sympathetic backstory he becomes an almost schizophrenic character, but then the adherence to the book’s plot means that this is never given a chance to be fully explored, and far from making him seem more sympathetic causes his actions to become all the more monstrous. It is hard to swallow a poor sad Dracula simply wanting to be reunited with his lost love and going to heaven when earlier in the movie he raped Lucy Westenra, murdered and drove insane every member of the Demeter and fed a baby to his brides. At least by my estimation that guy doesn’t get to go to heaven simply because he really really loved the reincarnation of his dead wife.

Adaptations often struggle in wanting to do something different with the source material, and it can work to make changes between a book and movie. They aren’t the same medium and what works for one does not necessarily translate to the other. But any change can have knock-on impacts throughout a character and narrative that really need to be properly addressed. Changing Dracula from a story of bold and true heroes fighting against an ancient and evil monster to one in which a sympathetic count tries desperately to find and reunite with his lost love could have worked, but it needed to change more aspects from the book. Dracula cannot be sympathetic after his murder of a baby, his assault of Lucy Westenra, and his treatment of Harker. And Mina loses a lot of sympathy by then being sympathetic and indeed seemingly won over by such a hideous creature.

All in all I do still like Dracula and I will still watch it again, but this movie has major flaws in its characterisation of women. Ironically, in trying to make them have more agency and be more in charge of their own fates, for me it only succeeded in robbing them of the non-traditional strength they displayed in the book and making them far less sympathetic overall.

Dodgeball (2004) – Review

I love this movie. I love love love this movie. I want to marry this movie and have its children and live with it in a big house where all of our little mutant half human half movie babies can run around and enjoy themselves in the sun, making jokes about balls and being generally adorable.

Woops, kind of nailed my colours to the mast there on this review. Now what am I going to talk about for another seven hundred words?

Well I could start with how this movie has one of the most immaculate grasps of physical comedy that I’ve ever seen. I don’t care how many well delivered quips and funny puns and insightful witticisms you can come up with to populate your bigger more critically acclaimed movies, nothing to my mind will ever be so funny as the following sequence.

Patches O’Hoolihan: If you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball.

Justin: What?

Patches O’Hoolian hurls a wrench at Justin who collapses writhing to the floor for the next minute.

This is a movie that would be made or broken on the strength of its physical comedy, and there is not a single actor who doesn’t commit 110% to the comedy, throwing themselves about with wild abandon in the dodgeball scenes, but equally committing to the rest of the film, such as Ben Stiller’s constant over the top arm motions all throughout, or Vince Vaughan’s utter unflappable nature. It’s a masterclass in how to use physicality to bring across character and simultaneously laughter. At no point does anyone need to do anything outside of character in order to get the laughs, the characters are the centre of that humour.

The writing is on point as well, propping up the physical laughs with some utterly hilarious jokes. They make a good wide range of comedy as well, never relying too much on any one style of humour or joke in order to be funny. They range from the simple innuendo laden quips (time to put your mouth where our balls are) to the wild surrealist statements (anything Pepper and Cotton say as commentary). It’s rare to find a movie that so perfectly blends physical pratfall style comedy with some pretty sharp witticisms but this movie does it very well. And then of course there’s the simple humour of unnecessary repetition (the American Dodgeball Association of America; Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive and Dodge). It hits a lot of comedy bases all throughout.

And the last thing I’d highlight as a real positive of Dodgeball is that it has a good deal ore heart than a lot of other comedies of this style and era. To me that is always the thing that makes them stand the test of time and it’s why Dodgeball has a lot more staying power than other similar but lesser movies. There are small moments of positivity in here amongst all the ball gags an it really adds something. The Average Joes and Peter actually never particularly engage in physical appearance related bullying or negativity, and promote a generally healthy and positive attitude towards personal fitness, in contrast to the villain treating personal fitness as a measure of a person’s worth. We also see the head cheerleader being attracted to and liking the nerdy weakling with no hint of irony or playing it for a laugh, she just likes him and that’s ok. The final speech of the movie (before White Goodman’s ending comments) sums up any message Dodgeball might have quite nicely. It’s ok to be an average guy, as long as you like yourself and you’ve got heart.

Contrary to my opening statements Dodgeball is not my favourite comedy movie ever, nor do I honestly think it’s the best comedy film ever. But it has so much going for it that I would still highly recommend it today. Are there a few jokes that might rile some people up the wrong way? Almost certainly. Are there some jokes that won’t land as well today as they might have done? Of course, that’s just the nature of the progression of time. Is there at least one cameo appearance that has become either even funnier or really bad as time as passed? Ooh boy yes. But for a dumb movie about a group of grown men playing Dodgeball, there’s a surprising amount of genuine emotion and thought that was put into what could have just been another disposable pun machine.

District 9 (2009) – Review

As I was putting together this review, one word kept popping up in my head to describe District 9. ‘Effective.’

Everything great about it can be summed up with that word. The setting is effective, the CGI is effective. The aesthetics and design are effective. The documentary style is effective. It all works towards building one of the most real feeling science fiction worlds I think I’ve ever seen. And of course the real world social commentary hits particularly well because of this effectiveness as well.

The design of the aliens is where I’ll start my explanation, because they are so central to the themes of the movie. For one thing, the effects are great, and still hold up very well even over a decade later, when many many other works have fallen by the wayside. But what’s most impressive about the design is how perfectly it fulfils it’s thematic and narrative need. The design is expressive and emotive (one might say ‘human’) enough to evoke the feelings that these really are an intelligent sentient race being oppressed and harangued unfairly, yet simultaneously alien and foreign enough to make it very very believable that all of the humans in the movie would see them only as mindless drones.

The body horror is also very effective. I had actually forgotten since my first viewing of this movie just how much like a classic horror film it is. Watching Wikus’ arm slowly begin to mutate and change is absolutely viscerally terrifying, and seeing the other physical changes wrought on his body just keeps piling on that horror. It looks painful. The effects team spared no expense in the most gut-churning prostheses and slime-encrusted protrusions they could find. And of course the slow degeneration of his body throughout the film is very well done, progressing slowly enough to think that there might be a chance for him, but also quickly enough to be a clear and scary invasion of his body by a foreign parasite.

Which brings me on to our lead actor. Sharlto Copley is absolutely incredible in this film. He really brings across the horror of what is happening to him in a very naturalistic and realistic way. His desperation and fear are palpable in every scene he’s in, and even in the early scenes of the film, pre-transformation, he’s doing a good job of showing us that Wikus might appear on the surface as a cruel and racist man, but there are already hints underneath of a far more gentle and good natured soul that just might be able to shine through. He’s a genuinely complex character and a great example of an anti-hero that might have been ruined by another actor trying to lean too far into making him seem good or bad. Sharlto Copley’s Wikus is just a completely ordinary man thrown into the most extreme circumstances imaginable.

It’s impossible to talk about District 9 without addressing the apartheid shaped elephant in the room so let’s address that as well, given the context of my last couple of paragraphs. Once more the word of the day is effective. The documentary feel contributes to making the film feel like it really is a documenting of these events (funny that) which lends it a feeling almost of watching a historical film in high school about what’s going on. Since many people I’m sure will have that experience of having watched films like this about real world events, framing it in this way is sure to evoke those same feelings. Again we return to the design of the aliens, which is another good point. By making their design such a perfect halfway between human and truly alien the film hammers home that apartheid message all the stronger. And of course Wikus’ as unwitting racist turned semi-revolutionary gives us a nice strong grounding character around which to see the horrors. We understand at first that what Wikus is doing is monstrous, even while he seems cheerfully oblivious, but then he begins to see the true horror of what’s being done to the aliens as well. It’s a masterclass in showing not telling. While we’re so focused on the very direct and personal nature of Wikus’ story we’re seeing the far more real-world horror around him all the stronger.

District 9 is hardly a feel good movie. It’s not one I’ll be rewatching regularly like so many in this list. But it’s a very well put together and (once more) effective film that does a very good job of bringing across its message and letting the audience really get a feel for a visceral and real feeling world.

Die Hard 4.0 (2007) – Review

Boy this movie had some fun ideas about how the internet worked didn’t it?

I’m not going to rag on Die Hard 4 as much as some other reviewers have done. I’m perhaps not going to rag on Die Hard 4 as much as it deserves. The biggest problem I have with the movie is that in reviewing it I can’t help but feel like if it didn’t have the Die Hard label on it I’d be inclined to be a lot more kind to it. Taking it as a stand alone film about a regular New York cop who gets sucked into this mad nationwide terrorist plot it’s a decent solid action thriller. The sort of movie that would have a decent theatrical run, get solid 6-7.5 out of 10s across the board, and either count as a career resurgence for an actor like Liam Neeson with Taken or kick start some new action franchise with a new actor. Something in a Tom Clancy sort of mold. What it doesn’t do very well is work as a John McClane Die Hard film.

How best to explain this.

The Die Hard sequels struggle because the first film locked in such an airtight formula as part of the makeup that subsequent films have to go to some lengths to be able to keep that formula somewhat intact. The first film works as well as it does because John McClane is an absolutely ordinary NYPD officer (not even a detective in the first film) who happens to find himself trapped in the middle of a terrorist plot. If he could leave the building and get help then he absolutely would. If he could trust that the authorities outside would handle things correctly then he would hide up somewhere and wait for them to deal with the problem. But in Die Hard 1 he can’t simply leave, and the authorities are quickly proven to be lacking in the sorts of knowledge that he possesses by virtue of being trapped inside the building. So he does what he can, and he fails a whole bunch and has to retreat and back off almost more than he has the chance to stand and fight. That’s the Die Hard formula. Everyman protagonist vastly overmatched by his opponents but without the option to simply back out.

So why doesn’t this translate as well across the series? Well Die Hard 2 managed to keep to the formula pretty well, making the other authorities airport police and thus assumed to be less competent at handling these sorts of threats, then having the competent authorities turn traitor. McClane has a personal stake with Holly in jeopardy and certain sections of the airport even mimic the cramped and claustrophobic confines of the first movie. So it holds up decently. Die Hard 3 has to have a bit of a reach by having every single other police or public service tied up chasing the potential bomb threat, which McClane is only exempted from because Simon has said he should be. There’s less of the personal threat keeping him in place, and as the setting becomes bigger we see some of the sheen wearing off. Die Hard’s formula works best when it’s in a tight enclosed setting with minimal room for escaping. Die Hard 3 still gets a little bit of that in with the subway and boat sequences, but the cracks were already showing.

Then comes Die Hard 4, which dispenses with both the small cramped confines, and the direct need to have John McClane involved in the plot. There’s very little explanation given as to why not a single agent from any letter agency can get involved in things, or why John is the only police officer who can get involved. The authorities aren’t explicitly shown to be incompetent, they aren’t shown to be obstructive or against McClane, and they aren’t shown to be doing anything unrelated that is far more important than the plot which McClane is foiling. In addition to this, McClane of the previous films was a far more human character. He bled, he cried, he got hurt, he failed, he had to make things up on the fly and sometimes those plans didn’t work out. The McClane of this film is verging into 80s action hero levels of bulletproof quip-slinging mad scheme achieving awesome. The McClane of Die Hard 1-3 could never have launched a car at a helicopter and hit it. He could never have gotten out of a car falling down an elevator shaft. And the less said about that stupid scene with the jet the better.

In hindsight Die hard 4.0 was not the strong return to formula that the movie series needed. It was the signal that the end was in sight for the venerable old franchise. In rewatching all the films one right after the other it actually seems a little strange to me that we regard the Die hard series specifically as being such a pop cultural mainstay because it’s really only the first film that has that massive sort of recognition. Other franchises like Back to the Future or Lethal Weapon have at least 2 entries which are considered to be great, with only subsequent films taking a dive. But Die Hard basically never once reached the same heights as that first movie, and I can’t help but feel that if it had only been that one movie then it might have been better off. As much as I enjoy Die Hard 2 and 3 they still don’t quite feel like Die Hard in a lot of ways. But by this point, as I started the review by saying, they might as well have called it the adventures of Detective Bullet-Proof and just started over with a new series.

Die Hard With a Vengeance (1995) – Review

Die Hard 3 was the first of the Die Hard movies I ever saw. It was on tv and I recorded it to a VHS. This has probably biased me a little towards this film but I think it’s probably the best of the Die Hard sequels. It managed to expand the scope of the original while still retaining what are probably the core components of a Die Hard film. So as I’ve done for the last two, let me break down what it gets right and what perhaps didn’t hit the mark quite so well.

Let’s talk about the villain first. Jeremy Irons as Simon Gruber is another excellent example of what a Die Hard villain should be. He’s cunning, polite, brutal when he needs to be and even has a sense of humour about what he’s doing that makes him come across as some sort of murderous prankster. His scheme is likewise a very fun one to see unfold, and having that twist back about the whole thing being for a heist is a nice return to formula. The only problem with him is that he is perhaps a little bit too much of a return to formula. But I would argue that he has enough to distinguish him from his brother. For one thing his politeness seems more genuine, rather than Hans’, which masked a cruel underside. His revenge based motivation against John is also a nice change of pace.

So the next big thing for a Die Hard film is the setting, which this time has been broadened even more to the island of Manhattan, a far cry from a single office building. But unlike the second movie this one manages to keep the tension up by not allowing John to have a break and feel he’s gotten out from under the yolk of his tormentor. While the airport setting of the second film gave plenty of breathing room, with the only issue being the time limit of fuel in the planes, here Simon sets up the feeling that John is always being watched, and therefore doesn’t have time to take stock and sit and think. It does a pretty good job at keeping at least some of that oppressive feeling of the first film, even despite the much expanded scope.

The plot itself is well laid out and unfolds nicely, with the big twist hitting at a moment of good emotional payoff, something else the second film lacked. Again it might be considered too formulaic to have it be another heist, but I think it actually plays to this movie’s favour, by making it feel more cyclical and resonate to the first film. The actual scene by scene plot is also well done, taking us properly through the day that McClane is having and making us feel as he continues to get beaten up and exhausted by his exertions. The scenes with the rest of the police also harken back to the first film, doing a nice job of fleshing out the world around McClane, which can get very focused at times on what his next specific task is. Being reminded every so often that there are other people out there helps to give the movie some scale. And as mentioned above Simon’s scenes are delightful every time. There’s just something about a good British villain hamming it up that every action film needs.

There is a big new element to this film though in the shape of Zeus Carver, as played by Samuel L Jackson, and if nothing else you can really see that this film was originally going to be a Lethal Weapon sequel. Some of their dialogue interactions are straight out of Riggs and Murtaugh’s playbook but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Lethal Weapon films are good action films with snappy dialogue so adding some of that to Die Hard gives it a refreshing new breath of life. McClane has typically been a very lone hero, interacting with others only when he can or needs to. Him having a constant companion allows for some more character to break out and after two movies of solo heroics it does give it a new feel that keeps things fresh.

And of course we have McClane himself. The same as he ever was, and still actually feeling like a human being in this film. He still gets tired, he still bleeds, he still hurts. You could tell that by this point Bruce Willis had settled very comfortably into the role and it feels like the most natural thing in the world for him. Nothing more really to say after my previous reviews, it’s just good.

In the end your personal appreciation for Die Hard 2 will probably come down to just how much a retread you think it is of Die Hard 1, and whether you appreciate the similarities and enjoy them for what they are, or if you would rather this movie had more of its own identity. For me, the first Die Hard established such an identity that the sequels which deviate more significantly from it, like 2 and the sequels following 3, don’t really capture the essence of that first film. This sequel is the only one which actually to my mind captures some of that feeling. It’s also the last Die Hard film where John McClane was a real human being who actually made some sense instead of a stoic damage sponge action hero, which I really appreciate.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder (1990)

Die Hard 2 is not as good as Die Hard. Let’s just get that out of the way first.

How could it be really? Compared to one of the most tightly plotted, perfectly directed and excellently balanced movies of all time that broke ground in whole new ways and redefined and invented a genre, how could anything stack up against that? Analysing Die Hard 2 should pretty much always be done trying to make as little comparison to Die Hard as possible, which is naturally impossible. I made the point in my Back to the Future 3 review that just because a sequel is not as good as the phenomenal original it came after doesn’t make it a bad film, but for me Die Hard 2 highlights just how much even a good film following an incredible film can feel like a much bigger step down.

Let me try a different tactic. If I compared Die Hard 2 to a similar film in a similar genre, but one that wasn’t quite so perfect as Die Hard, suddenly it looks a lot better. Take Die Hard 2 and compare it to something more like Lethal Weapon and actually Die Hard 2 comes out looking like a much better movie. (the irony here being that Die Hard 3 began life as a Lethal Weapon sequel script). In the end comparisons to the original are inevitable, but that doesn’t mean that we should dismiss a movie just because it isn’t ‘as good as Die Hard 1.’ If we did that then we wouldn’t be able to give out Oscars every year because the only category would be ‘Was it better than Die Hard?’ and the answer would have to be ‘no.’

Die Hard 2 carried over a lot of good elements from the first film. John McClane remains a vulnerable hero. Even if his physical durability seems to have been upped somewhat, he’s still not a superman. He still bleeds, he still gets hurt. And crucially he still emotionally reacts to things around him. One of the standout scenes from the entire series for me is John breaking down in tears on the runway because he was unable to save the British plane from crashing. And this isn’t some action hero manly single tear running down the cheek sort of breakdown, you can tell that he is really hurting, and he is terrified for his wife suffering the same fate. It’s those moments of emotional vulnerability that make him feel so much more relatable.

The action is another good thing they brought over. McClane still feels like an underdog in most of his fights, winning by guile and a willingness to resort to every dirty tactic he’s got. At no point does it feel like he could just waltz through the bad guys and get the job done, he always feels like he’s on the back foot, and he even still loses a couple of fights pretty badly. Every fight scene feels tense not because we think that John might die, but because he can still absolutely lose and get so badly beaten that he has to retreat.

So what’s lacking from this film compared to the first one? The biggest change is to the setting, which has broadened considerably, and not to the movie’s credit. The claustrophobic tightness of the Nakatomi building was a huge source of the first movie’s tension. Even when John managed to escape from the terrorists he wasn’t safe, he wasn’t out of the dangerous area. In the airport he’s able to have proper respite breaks, where the terrorists are not going to get him even if he’s fixing his wounds and taking a breath. In fact there are many parts of this movie where John actually has to seek out the terrorists in order to get involved, which is a marked change from Die Hard 1.

The second big thing lacking from this movie is the intelligent villain with a twist to the plot. As a bad guy Colonel Stuart is still clearly a smart, competent and capable bad guy more than able to outsmart McClane and those around him, but he’s not on the same level as Hans Gruber. The goals and motivations too make a difference. Hans Gruber pulling off his incredibly elaborate heist just to get some money comes across as being a level of twisted genius that sets him apart from other villains. Freeing a captured foreign autocrat would have required an elaborate plan no matter what other circumstances were going on and so it actually comes off as being less impressive. Hans Gruber didn’t need to do everything he did, Colonel Stuart did.

All in all I still like Die Hard 2 a lot. I think it’s a worthy successor to the first movie, even if it was never going to be as good. A rule I always try to keep in mind for sequels is, as mentioned before, ‘just because it isn’t great, doesn’t mean it isn’t good.’ And Die Hard 2 is still good. It’s got a whole lot of the important aspects that the first film had, and John McClane was still a very human character anchoring the whole thing down. For my money I will always consider the first 3 Die Hards to be excellent action movies.

Die Hard (1988) – Review

How do you even start reviewing a movie like Die Hard? A classic that’s so classic it not only redefined a genre it basically invented one? I’ve already reviewed two movies that were pretty directly inspired by the concept of ‘lone hero trapped with a lot of bad guys in a confined space’ and there’s definitely more to come. It would be a fairly defensible position to take that Die Hard is legitimately one of the most influential movies of all time for its lasting effects on the blockbuster action genre. The smart bad guys, the everyday heroes, the tighter plotting, so much of it traces directly back to this film. The only way I can even think to review it is by highlighting what it specifically does right that many of its later imitators didn’t quite grasp.

Let’s start with the hero, where Die Hard made one of its first significant departures from other movies in the action hero genre. John McClane in the first movie is very human, in more than just his physical responses to the action around him. He is visibly distressed by the death and destruction happening around him, he gets stressed, gets tired. The quippy one liners he throws out aren’t the same as the Schwarzenegger style of a context dependant pun, they are desperate attempts at glibness to stave off the mounting psychological tension he’s under. And in this first movie in particular he does show the physical signs of injury increasingly as the film goes on. These two facets are things that later movies, including other Die Hard movies, would get wrong. The heroes become increasingly durable to the point they might as well have been Terminators shrugging off bullet hits like they were gnat bites. Showing the physical wound isn’t enough, the hero has to act different because of it. Lose function in the limb that’s been shot, display blood loss leading to lack of consciousness (interestingly Desperado does this, despite the otherwise heightened reality of the setting). And the glib one liners are not as a result of the protagonist’s jaded and cynical nature, they are a direct response to his not being so cynical around death that he is able to easily shake it off.

Now on to the villain and his plot. Die Hard has an interesting plot in that it is both highly complex and alarmingly simple. At its most fundamental, Hans Gruber wants to steal a lot of money from a very secure location. Every part of the resultant complex plot is to overcome a part of the secure location and get the money. Need the power to be cut? FBI will cut power in emergency. Need to get the FBI on scene? They’ll respond if they think it’s terrorists. Need to escape without being pursued? Need to simulate your death. Hans Gruber doesn’t make a complex plot for the sake of complexity, he does it because there need to be a lot of things coming together in order to make it work. It’s also as a direct result of this complexity that John McClane is able to foil the plot, something else other movies should take note of. John McClane’s character and inclusion are something Hans didn’t plan for, and thus John is able to defeat him. If the villain is being complex just for the sake of showing how smart they are they lose something, and if they don’t fail directly because their complexity comes apart, then the movie will suffer.

The pacing of Die Hard is another major strength it has over other movies, specifically in that there are multiple quiet instances interspersed through the film. It also drives tension in multiple different ways, rather than relying on only the one source. For example the tension of the scene between John and Hans, where Hans is pretending to be a hostage and the audience isn’t sure until the very end whether John knows or if Hans has got the drop on him ratchets things up in a whole new way. Even the different types of gun fights and chases build tension in different ways. John killing Marco through the table is tense because the bad guy has the drop on him. John hiding in the air ducts while Karl tries to find him is tense because John needs to stay hidden. Other films lean too heavily on the ‘one man alone against many’ brand of tension, which doesn’t do enough to sustain the movie on its own.

The quiet scenes are also integral to the plot of Die Hard, especially when compared to other more bombastic movies. They make the louder action scenes stand out all the more because there are long periods in between, where the tension isn’t quite allowed to drop, but can abate slightly. Keeping the tension at max level the whole way through the movie would burn an audience out before too long, so allowing the characters all a moment to breathe and collect themselves gives the audience that same chance. Tension works best in films when it comes with a moment of relief, either by the ending of a climactic scene or by being allowed to subside.

Die Hard is damn near perfect, and influential in so many ways not just because it reshaped the landscape of action movies but because it ushered in a whole new way of telling these sorts of stories. No longer the one man army facing off against a thousand soldiers but never in any danger because he’s just that good, this was a story that knew it needed to add an element of real danger. Before this the tension might come from a hostage of the main character’s, like a girlfriend or family member, who needed to be saved. But now the hero himself could be vulnerable, and that was a formula that served Die Hard very very well, and still contributes to a standout action movie even twenty-five years later.

Despicable Me (2010) – Review

Rewatching this film the first thing that strikes me is how little the minions are in it and how little they do. It’s honestly surprising because given how all encompassing the little yellow buggers have become you’d expect them to be all over this film, churning out unfunny gags that give beleaguered parents something that almost resembles the humour and comedy they used to enjoy before their life became an endless parade of cutesy CGI and cartoon characters chirping in high pitched voices every waking second of their lives driving them slowly into an unending spiral of madness and despair where they aren’t sure anymore of where the boundaries between reality and Fireman Sam lie.

I had a point with this…

Oh yeah. Despicable Me series is now known as ‘the minions movies’ and will deserve its place in hell for all eternity for introducing that pop cultural polyp to the world. But I’m actually here to stand in defence of this first movie. Because despite it introducing the minions it actually still stands up as a pretty good family movie, on par with a Disney or Pixar film in a lot of ways.

For starters, the story is pretty good. Decently plotted, well paced, nice climactic resolutions that tie into central themes and narratives of family that are non-traditional and all the stronger for it. I’m a sucker for anything that doesn’t over-stress blood relation as being the be all and end all of family, and this movie doesn’t hint even for a second that the lack of blood connection between Gru and the girls makes their relationship any less real. It’s a powerful and important narrative that many movies could stand to take to heart, even more supposedly grown up movies that seem to think that a woman’s vagina is a magical artefact that imbues a sense of connection between two otherwise unrelated people.

The characters are strong too. We don’t actually spend a whole lot of time developing the girls, the movie more in favour of Gru’s development, but we see enough of the children to know who they are, and that characterisation remains consistent throughout the film. The supporting cast are similarly strong, with Dr Nefario and Vector both sitting very comfortably in their roles and the minor characters of Gru’s mother and Mr Perkins filling out some nice if somewhat stereotypical roles. But it’s an important lesson for writers that tropes and even stereotypes are not always bad. They can in fact be very helpful for setting up another character’s relationship with that stereotype or trope. And sometimes they just act as nice simple shorthand so you don’t have to waste valuable screentime developing a character who doesn’t have such a plot critical role.

Gru is an interesting one. His arc is a little derivative yes, but it’s all played so well that you almost forget that. And most intriguingly he doesn’t actually abandon his scheme for the girls (although he might have wanted to) he does succeed in getting the moon as he intended. It’s a refreshing change of pace to show the moment of revelation that he isn’t satisfied coming after, rather than before, such a pivotal moment. Everything about him is just very sincere, and that carries the movie very well. Of course a lot of this is also on the animators for making Gru such a big and engaging presence and Steve Carrell for his excellent voice work.

And then you’ve got the minions. Clinging to this movie and demanding they be talked about. So let’s talk about the minions. In this first movie they are no worse than any Disney animal sidekick or the Ewoks or any other cutesy mascot added to a kid’s movie to hawk some toys. It’s actually hard to really analyse them in this film because there’s so little to them. They could be excised completely without much changing, or replaced with a single human assistant running around and nothing much would change. It’s obvious they were designed to be the toy-selling mascot, but in this first film they don’t completely overstay their welcome and they don’t take up so much time with their unfunny bit humour that they detract from the main plot or the other characters and their development. Simply put, the minions in the first film aren’t that bad. Much like a suspicious mole that later turned out to be a sign of metastasised lung cancer.

Despicable Me is a good, fun, family movie that doesn’t try and beat you over the head with their unfunny side characters and at its heart contains strong messages of family well supporting by a good script with genuine laughs and well rounded characters doing a good job at balancing between genuine heartfelt emotion and zany antics. And really, what more could you possibly ask from a movie?

Desperado (1995) – Review

I first heard about this movie from watching a documentary on Hollywood stunts and stuntmen. The particular segment that featured this movie was showing how there was one stuntman who did three stunts, the guy who spins round and gets shot in the bar at the beginning, one of the guys exploded by the grenade and a guy who gets blasted into a metal door by a rocket. It’s funny the things that stick with you over the years.

There’s a semi-popular theory about the Mariachi trilogy, and it’s one I absolutely love and would pay good money to see a filmmaker approach as the basis for a film series. The theory goes that all three films in the Mariachi canon are depictions of the same events, only getting more and more wild in the telling. And this movie definitely plays that out if you’ve seen the first one (which I have, even if it isn’t in my collection anymore.) The story beats aren’t quite identical, but there’s a lot of crossover and similarity of actors, themes and even outright scenes, enough to make you feel as though you’re hearing the story of the last one being told by someone at a bar who is either playing it up or genuinely can’t remember the exact details. And given that this exact scenario plays out at the beginning of this movie and the third one with Steve Buscemi and Cheech Marin recounting a story of the Mariachi to a bar, it’s actually quite hard to think that Rodriguez didn’t have this in mind.

Do I honestly think that this was the plan all along? Nah. I think Rodriguez was just retreading a few concepts from the first movie now he had an actual budget behind him and he wanted to do things properly this time. But it’s still a very fun theory, and one I’ll talk about again when I get to Mad Max. Next time you watch this trilogy, try and imagine that the first movie is what actually happened, the second movie is the folk tale that sprung up around it, adding a few elements such as the brotherly connection, and then the third film is when the Mariachi has become a genuine folk hero, inserted into stories he had nothing to do with. Because that’s how the third film plays to me, like someone recounting the tale of a revolution and adding this mythical folk hero to make things more exciting.

As for the specifics of this film, it’s an absolutely phenomenal example of the ‘ballet of death’ style of action cinema made popular by John Woo and some would say perfected by the Matrix trilogy. But the Matrix clearly owes a great debt to this film. The action scenes are stunning a way that is still hard to match nowadays. Something halfway between gritty brutal enhanced realism and obviously completely fantastical. This film walks the line better than almost any other film of the sort I’ve seen, with the possible exception of the original John Woo films. There’s something about being able to almost believe that this is possible, that with a character as awesome and fearless as the Mariachi people really can perform these sorts of stunts. I think part of it does come down to the reduced budget (relatively speaking) that Rodriguez was working with. He couldn’t rely on a lot of wire work and fancy CGI, most of his stunts had to be really performed by real people, then enhanced by a few smaller movie magic tricks.

A quick run down of the rest of the film. The plot is pretty nonexistent but then it doesn’t need a whole lot. The point of a film like this is to provide a small setup for the endless action scenes and then let rip. The chemistry between Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek is absolutely phenomenal, and that alone is enough to carry the love story, no matter how little actual time is devoted to it. The other actual characters are as fleshed out as they need to be and played well. It helps that there isn’t a wide supporting cast on display here of course. And the tone of the movie is kept very consistent, which I appreciate. Too many films of this nature try and either inject too much humour and fall into bathos or try and be too serious and ruin themselves by becoming dreary. But Desperado knows when to play a quick gag and when to hold back.

All in all the movie feels like exactly what it was made to feel like. It’s slick, it’s tight, it’s exactly as long as it needs to be with absolutely no chaff taking up any space anywhere in the run time. One of the all time greatest action films of all time and very well deserving of that accolade.

Demolition Man (1993) – Review

I spoke in my last review about the odd 80s and early 90s tradition of taking very high concept science fiction ideas, usually involving either the potential for deep character introspection or the possibility of big philosophical questions, and then dressing them up as action movies and sticking Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sylvester Stallone in the lead role (with the third choice of Jean Claude Van Damme). It’s just such a wild idea to me. I can half imagine some movie executives in a board room in the 80s, a gigantic mountain of cocaine between them, having a discussion.

Executive 1: ‘Hey, so some writer guy pitched a movie idea about a police officer who travels through time in order to make sure no one alters previous events.’

Executive 2: ‘I love it! People dig that time travel stuff and it has all sorts of intriguing questions about the nature of cause and effect and free will versus determinism.’

Exec 1: ‘Alright so this cop see he travels back, but when he comes forwards again he finds that someone has changed the time line, made him a criminal and changed the future so that he can have all the power and money.’

Exec 2: ‘Amazing! We can wrestle with the existential question of whether our lived experience is what forms the basis of our reality or whether it’s an objective construct outside of our perceptions, plus of course it brings up the idea of alternate realities and dimensions!’

Exec 1: ‘And the best part is the movie isn’t going to address any of those issues. We’ll case Van Damme and make him do the splits and no one will even think about the philosophical ramifications.’

Exec 2: (taking a massive hit of cocaine) Perfect! I’ll get a director on the line and we’ll start filming next week, now top up the cocaine bucket I’m starting to think straight.’

And thus Time Cop was born. I can only imagine that a very similar process led to the creation of Demolition Man. How else do you explain taking what could have been a character driven drama about a man out of time, forced to adapt to a world that has changed on every level to something completely alien to him while simultaneously pushed back into a pursuit he thought he had left behind a lifetime ago, and make that into an action comedy? It just doesn’t make any sense.

Does it work though? I’d argue yes. This film manages to hit a lot of key points on my ‘what makes an action movie good’ scale. The action scenes are well directed and easy to follow. The supporting cast is fleshed out enough to make them a good addition to the movie as opposed to background chaff. Sly is his usual self, but the director isn’t trying to make him do anything he can’t do as an actor. The setting has obviously been well thought out, with a consistency to the aesthetic that I really appreciate. They also draw clear lines between the two sides of the future civilisation and the older style of bad guy Simon Phoenix and his crew. The effects are still very good and hold up well, with only a few of them looking noticeably outdated. As always the use of practical effects from this era holds up far better than any CGI. All in the all the movie is well put together on every level, with really the only failing being that it doesn’t do a great deal to examine the potential stories that could have been attached to such an idea on an emotional level.

In the end I suppose it comes down to what sort of movie you want to engage with. If you’re looking for a fun 80s style action science fiction movie then Demolition Man will more than suit the bill. It’s an absolute stand out of the genre and every part of it still holds up today, even if it has been overshadowed by more modern fare. However if you’re looking for something that actually explores the more realistic effects of a human being undergoing such an ordeal then you won’t find it here.