Ex Machina - why so much hype?

Only back in the UK for a couple of days last week and I went to see a new Science Fiction film that had been heavily trailed and well-reviewed while I was away.  Ex Machina is a film that presents a view of the near future, a future in which true AI is beginning to dawn, and a billionaire entrepreneur (Nathan - played by Oscar Isaac) has created a female robot AI (Ava - Alicia Vikander) that he believes can be the next step in evolution.  To test his creation, Nathan brings in Caleb (a programmer played by Domhnall Gleeson) to carry out a series of Turing tests on the robot, and determine if she has consciousness.

This is a film that looks great, has a simple aesthetic and even simpler setting - the entire film (save for a few moments at the start and end) is set inside the underground bunker where Nathan has carried out his research.  The film consists of a series of interactions between characters.  Firstly Nathan and Caleb get to know each other and Caleb comes to realise what Nathan has created, then Caleb and Ava get to know each other as part of a series of tests, finally Caleb comes to realise the true nature of the relationship between Ava and Nathan, and must work out what is real and who to trust.

Now all of this is fine.  But I cannot understand how this film is sporting a 8.0 rating on IMDB at the moment.  Ex Machina is nothing more than a reasonably good episode of the Twilight Zone.  It's 45 minutes of television padded out into 2 hours through the use of moody shots of scenery and endless scenes of flat conversations that rarely build character, tension or plot.  The plot isn't rocket science.  At it's best it's a rehash of 2001 with a bit of misogyny thrown in and without the awe-inspiring vision of space and exploring the unknown.

Put simply; I just don't get the hype.  It's nothing new, and although the effects used to create Ava are clearly impressive, they're hardly a paradigm shift in film SFX - the are no Jurassic Park dinosaurs here.  Watch Ex Machina if you must, but please don't believe the hype.

22 Jump Street - Funnier than you would think

Having been pleasantly surprised by the amount that I enjoyed 21 Jump Street, it wasn't too difficult to decide upon the second film that I would watch on the long haul to Buenos Aires.  22 Jump Street is obviously the sequel to the reboot of the TV series, again starring Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill as a pair of douchebag cops who are drafted in to investigate a dodgy ring of drug dealers - this time on a college campus (last time it was in a school).

The running gag in the film is one that has carried over from the previous, and to be fair to the writers they've done a pretty good job of making something that could have been tedious into something funny.  The joke is that everything is the same as last time; playing on the idea that the sequel needs to be as similar to the first to appeal to the same audience.  In 21 Jump Street the gag was that everything happening was exactly the same as the TV series.  And it really is the same as last time, but somehow the postmodern acknowledgement of that isn't tedious, it's pretty funny.

I guess the thing that makes the film work is a combination of smart writing and excellent comic performances from Tatum and Hill - aided by Ice Cube ably bringing his performance as the archetypical 1980s style angry black police chief.  It's crude and not subtle in the slightest, but it's undeniably funny with its penis jokes, weird trips, lampooning of the buddy cop genre and general refusal to take itself seriously.  The film ends with a montage predicting future iterations of the xx Jump Street genre, with Hill and Tatum going to all sorts of schools and academies solving exactly the same crimes as they age and pretend to still be in their early 20s.  It's surprisingly funny as end-credit sequences go.

As this kind of stuff goes, it's no Bridesmaids, but it's definitely better than most.

Edge of Tomorrow - not edge of my seat though

The first film I watched on my flight to Buenos Aires a few weekends ago was Edge of Tomorrow, the recent science fiction / time travel / action adventure starring Tom Cruise playing off against a potential love interest who is literally young enough to be his daughter (Cruise is 21 years older than Emily Blunt).  Would this ever happen the other way around without the age difference being a plot point in the movie?  If anyone can think of any examples then I would love to hear about them.

The premise of Edge of Tomorrow is that in the nearish future there is some kind of alien invasion of Earth in progress.  The aliens have no apparent agenda, they're simply evil-looking blobs with tentacles and claws waiting to be dispatched in a variety of ways before they dispatch you.  Tom Cruise's character is press-ganged into joining the marines after insulting his commanding officer Brendan Gleeson.  Cruise protests but ultimately joins the human invasion forces on the beaches of Northern France - which are horribly defeated.  Cruise himself is killed, but he immediately awakens back on the previous day, ready to live the day again and repeat his death in a Groundhog Day style.

And this is the plot for the rest of the film.  Cruise must work out how to try and survive the day.  Not only that, but he soon discovers the reason for his time travel is intrinsically linked with the aliens' victory over Humanity.

Let's be honest, Edge of Tomorrow sounds like a fun idea, but in the end it's science fiction filler.  There are plenty of nice effects, different types and styles of guns and body armour and aliens, plus some cool arse-kicking action, but that's all.  The story is incredibly simple when it's all boiled down, and by its very nature pretty repetitive and full of CGI.  It's fun to look at if you're a fan of the science fiction action genre, but I think that even the most hardened of fanboys will be unable to give it more than average marks.  This is a film very few people will be watching in 5 years time.

Been away - here's some Goodfellas

Been away for a bit, some reviews of films watched on the plan are coming up soon.  In the meantime here's a classic scene from a classic film, Martin Scorsese's epic steadicam shot from Goodfellas: