Chris At The Pictures: disaster

Showing posts with label disaster. Show all posts

Thursday, 5 July 2018

'Adrift' - Review

true story 7/05/2018 09:46:00 pm 1

★ ★ ★ ½ ☆

Two great performances keep Baltasar Kormákur’s latest disaster drama resolutely afloat: Shailene Woodley and Sam Claflin star as real-life couple Tami Oldham and Richard Sharp, whose voyage from Tahiti to San Diego in 1983 took them directly into the path of Hurricane Raymond. The film plays out in a split time-frame, beginning with Tami waking aboard the wrecked vessel, before flashing back to detail their romance, and leading towards a dual finale.

This narrative structure - in sharp opposition to the linear unravelling of Kormákur’s previous film, Everest - contrasts the sun-kissed days of Tami and Richard’s growing connection against the survival thriller of Raymond’s aftermath. Turning up the cheese to reinforce the grit, it results in an incredibly effective sense of gnawing inevitability, always keeping us one match cut away from tragedy.

Woodley has grown a lot as a performer since the Divergent series that made her the household name of teenage audiences (even in rocky fare like Oliver Stone’s Snowden, she acquits herself well), and here she’s as steadfast as we’ve ever seen her. Her performance walks an impressive line between Sandra Bullock in Gravity and - strangely - Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games series: there’s that same grounded aura of rags-to-resolve as Tami deals with the devastation.

Claflin, too, is excellent. His endless charisma is a valuable asset during the scenes of seaborne young love (i.e. he looks good sailing into port with his shirt hanging open), and his ability to switch from wry humour to wan acceptance sees us through the darker moments. Richard was originally to be played by Miles Teller, and (no offence to Teller) I think the film owes a debt of thanks to those “scheduling conflicts”.

What small amount of artistic liberty the film takes is all to do with pathos, as opposed to narrative neatness. As the remainder pays attention rather than lip service to reality (its approach to the logistics of finding oneself shipwrecked would make for a fine double bill with All Is Lost), small fictional reveries can be forgiven. Adrift may not be a note-perfect depiction of a true event, but as a showcase for two stars at the top of their game; it hits all the right ones.

Sunday, 6 August 2017

'47 Meters Down' - Review

thriller 8/06/2017 03:33:00 pm

★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆

Murky, cheap, and laden with an oxygen supply-to-dialogue ratio to make critics of Gravity rethink their entire being, 47 Meters Down is a throwaway piece of sharksploitation from British director Johannes Roberts (Storage 24, The Other Side of the Door). Mandy Moore and Claire holt star as two American holidaymakers dumped onto the seabed when the winch holding their diving cage in place is broken.

Upon leaving the screening, an elderly gentleman from a few rows in front turned and exclaimed “Leaves you gasping for breath, doesn’t it?!”. My usual social ineptitude stopped me from responding with anything more than a polite chuckle, rather than the disparaging “I wish!” that later occurred.

The earlier comparison to Gravity wasn’t an entirely flippant observation: both Cuaron and Roberts focus on two people struggling in an inhospitable environment, cast adrift from help and with a limited supply of air. Stylistically, however, they couldn’t be more different, despite the latter’s attempt to copy the former. The frame is a grim soup that resembles dishwater more than seawater and the editing is all fast, choppy takes to try and cover-up the lack of a visual effects budget. It even (clumsily and awkwardly) mimics the outside-to-inside camera transition of the space helmets, but with scuba masks.

But what truly tugs the film into the abyss of awfulness is its script; an endless train of repeated dialogue that seems indistinguishable from an audio-described version produced for the blind. Moore and Holt are discernible from each other only by one’s characterization as ‘the cool one’ and the other as ‘the scared one’, their individual arcs (a word used in its loosest possible definition) as predictable as the tides. A hideously contrived and signposted twist (that had a fellow patron and I sighing and shaking our heads in perfect unison) is the final viscus in the chum bucket.

Obviously, the high watermark for any shark movie is Jaws, but the problem with 47 Meters Down isn’t that it’s not Jaws, it’s that it’s not The Shallows. Jaume Collet-Serra’s 2016 hit was a nippy, well-directed thriller with nail-biting scares, eye-watering injury detail and an actual visual identity; three components totally lacking here. The most one could salvage from the experience is certainty that, in the not-too-distant future, 47 Meters Down will end up on the SyFy channel during a Sunday afternoon, and give someone expecting the sort of dreck produced by The Asylum a pleasant surprise.

Thursday, 28 August 2014

'Into the Storm' - Review

sarah wayne callies 8/28/2014 07:20:00 pm 0

Into the Storm is a found footage film that follows a team of storm-chasers, a father and his two sons, plus a pair of hillbillies as a series of cataclysmic tornados rips through the town of Silverton. Sporting a military-grade vehicle covered in cameras, the storm-chasers (headed by The Walking Dead’s Sarah Wayne Callies) attempt to document the phenomena for their next big break while the father (Richard Armitage) is drawn into a race against time to rescue his oldest son before the disaster claims him.

Let’s begin with the positives: the special effects sequences focusing on the apocalyptic power of the tornados are terrific, and the destruction left in their wake is a seamless blend of CGI and enormous sets littered with broke buildings, upturned cars and general debris. The visuals are incredibly striking and are brought to greater heights by the accompanying sound design, creating a sense of immersion rarely felt in a massive blockbuster. The tornado-proof vehicle named Titus is also an impressive addition to the visuals, bridging the gap between the Tumbler of the recent Batman movies and the research trailers from The Lost World.

The film also understands that it is at heart a sci-fi B-movie and keeps itself in check at a sharp 89 minutes, knowing when to pack the punch in terms of effects and develop a story without dragging aimlessly for a further twenty minutes. What a shame it is then, that a majority of those 89 minutes is spent in the company of a completely wasted set of characters. For one, there are far too many, and the division between the three main groups means that little time is devoted to actual investment in their problems, and you find yourself forgetting their names almost instantly.

Secondly, what character development there is has been done a thousand times over and is laughably predictable, such as the father who we all know will find a way to re-forge the bond with this sons thanks to the disaster and the seemingly apathetic storm-chaser who will prove his moral fibre by the end. Richard Armitage is wasted in a role that could easily have been filled by any C-list actor and Sarah Wayne Callies is reduced to the character who sits in the back of the van while all the men storm ahead in the Titus.

Which brings us to the biggest problem the movie has: there is a rampant stream of misogyny that plagues the narrative, where the women are either leered at, seen as a conquest to prove the worth of the teenage son, in need of rescue or – as mentioned previously – are simply given a back seat with regards to the main events, and I for one am frankly sick of this being the case in mainstream action movies. Just because B-movies are typically fond of utilising uninventive dialogue, favouring style over substance and treating women in this respect does not mean it’s allowed.

The found footage element is also hilariously fumbled, with all cameras – whether they’re phones, HD camcorders or CCTV – sporting gorgeous film-quality visuals. There are also several moments when a camera will be focusing on someone, then cut to the other side of the conversation to reveal that there was no camera and the entire scene has been confusingly been filmed live-action style.

To summarise, Into the Storm is impressive on merely a visual and audio level, but the predictable character arcs, confused narrative and irritating sexism render the spectacle quite inert. The final scene involves a shot of a somehow untarnished American flag standing tall above the carnage with the rising sun in the background should, which should tell you all you need to know.

2 stars

Thursday, 1 May 2014

'Pompeii' - Review

review 5/01/2014 05:07:00 pm

Pompeii is the latest big-budget disaster movie to grace cinema screens, and judging by the trailers and promotion you’d find it easy to simply dismiss it as ‘Titanic with a volcano’. Directed by Paul W.S Anderson, the film stars Kit Harington (Game of Thrones) as Milo – a gladiator with a grudge against the Romans who slew his family – and follows the young barbarian as he attempts to overcome his situation and save his newfound love Cassia (Emily Browning) from a bleak future of servitude and – once the volcanic calamity befalls the town – a fiery death.

The film’s greatest strength is its epic visuals, which are a terrific blend of CGI and practical sets, costumes and effects, creating a very impressive recreation of the Roman Empire in its prime, long sweeping vistas of the coastal town and Vesuvius lending a great sense of scale. This is continued when the volcano explodes, huge swathes of fiery rocks (technically not historically accurate) soaring across the sky and reducing buildings and entire stadiums to burning wreckage. An epic musical score supplied by Clinton Shorter and thunderous sound design are brought in to add finishing touches to a truly extraordinary spectacle. Even the 3D – though rather un-noticeable in the earlier stages of the film – adds a nice sense of dimensionality to the clouds of ash swirling about and flaming rocks swooping towards the camera.

As far as the character drama is concerned, it’s quite surprising to see a film from Anderson that at least takes its time to try and develop back-stories and relationships between characters rather than rush straight into the explosions. They may not be the best rounded characters and the attempt to make the audience sympathise with them is not entirely successful, but there’s plenty here to enjoy.

Kit Harington does his best with a rather flimsy script, sporting a believable air of someone who has been forged by slavery and battle, whilst Kiefer Sutherland is huge fun in full-on, high-camp mode as a leering Roman senator. Jared Harris also fares well as Cassia’s rebellious father, but is sadly criminally underused, and Carrie-Anne Moss (despite being touted as one of the leads by most of the film’s promotion) is given very little to do and feels like set dressing rather than a fully-developed character. The love story between Milo and Cassia (portrayed perfectly amiably by Browning as an oppressed but resourceful young woman) is rushed and under-developed, but reaches a rather surprising and quite freshly daring conclusion as the film reaches its climax.

Pompeii may not be the most character-driven disaster epic, but at a nippy 100 minutes it doesn’t overstay its welcome, sports blistering visuals and a good, old-fashioned popcorn spectacle sensibility that is certainly a lot more enjoyable than Anderson’s more recent turkeys. It’s not quite Event Horizon, but heck, I’ll take Pompeii over another Resident Evil sequel any day.

3 Stars

Chris At The Pictures

Thursday, 5 July 2018

'Adrift' - Review

Sunday, 6 August 2017

'47 Meters Down' - Review

Thursday, 28 August 2014

'Into the Storm' - Review

Thursday, 1 May 2014

'Pompeii' - Review

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