Eleanor Reviews

*** Humans and mutants alike are being hunted by the Sentinels, apparently sentient and ruthless beings set on destroying everything. In a desperate attempt to save mankind, the remaining X-Men decide to send Wolverine back in time to stop the Sentinels ever being created. Well, this is a completely ridiculous film, even more so than a radio-active lizard and, perhaps more importantly, the other X-Men films. Whenever time travel becomes a major plot point, massive loopholes open up and this film is just not good enough to distract the audience from these issues. The script leaves much to be desired – there is rather a lot of forced exposition at the beginning, and later on we have some seriously poor one-liners that sent ripples of amusement through the audience when they were meant to be inspiring and heart-felt. There is also a bonkers side-note about the assassination of JFK that never should have made it into the final cut, but there it is, sticking out like a sore thu...

***** DVD Release Based on the true story of Captain Richard Phillips, the film follows the story of how the Maersk Alabama was hijacked off the coast of Somalia in 2009. Tom Hanks is Captain Phillips, a seasoned captain of cargo vessels, who, in 2009, was charged with delivering a vast quantity of goods around the Horn of Africa and across the Somali Basin. Everyone seems to know that it is dangerous, and yet that is the route they must take to have the goods delivered in the time set out. Hanks is excellent as Phillips, and we go on an emotional roller-coaster with him, from leaving his wife at the airport to having his ship overrun with pirates, to then being taken hostage (not a spoiler – this is shown in the trailer!). With this being a Paul Greengrass movie, the dialogue is very naturalistic, feeling almost improvised, and this allows Hanks to play the part with complete realism – there are no epic speeches, just short replies and interjections. Opposite Hanks is ...

  ***/**** (3.5 stars) In 1999, something is unearthed in the Philippines. Soon after, a nuclear power station in Japan is breached, with disastrous consequences. Over the course of fifteen years, Joe Brody tries desperately to prove that what happened that day was not the result of nature’s power, but that something else caused it. His quest for answers leads him and his son to discover the truth, and soon the whole world is in danger. This is pretty much what you would expect from a summer blockbuster – there are numerous explosions, lots of wide shots of destroyed cities, a couple of jump moments and, in places, some pretty cheesy dialogue. To me, it actually felt a lot like Independence Day , and I don’t mean that in a bad way – we are back in familiar humanity versus monster territory, and it’s actually rather pleasant. I am not learned in the Godzilla legend having only seen snippets of the 1998 version, but this film appears to wipe the slate clean and start ag...

  **** Jon is searching for his big break in the music industry when he ends up joining a small indie band, fronted by Frank. Frank is notable not only for his musical vision, but also his enormous fake head which he never removes. Jon is drawn into his strange world when the band moves out to a remote woodland cabin in Ireland where they hope to record their album. Some critics have labelled this film a ‘black comedy’ but I would have to disagree – this is a study into the lives of the band members through the eyes of Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) and, like in all lives, there are moments of extreme sadness, but also moments of genuine humour. The quirky humour offsets the tragedies of the film (and there are a few), but the tone of the film is wholly melancholic rather than darkly comic. The whole band, and even Jon in the end, is made up of people looking for some way of expressing how they feel, which is mirrored in their strange, abstract pieces of music which we witnes...

*** Dr. Will Caster and his wife, Evelyn, are at the forefront of artificial intelligence, having created a powerful piece of technology known as PINN. The next step in their plan is to make a piece of machinery so clever that it will be become sentient and more intelligent than all the human minds in the history of the world. After Will is left seriously ill following an attack by an anti-technology group, Evelyn seeks to save him by uploading his consciousness. There can be no doubting that this is an ambitious idea for a first time director, and it certainly has some poignant themes regarding where we stand today with technology and our ability to ‘play God’. The first half is pretty solid – we get to hear the arguments from both sides of the story about whether creating such a powerful piece of technology is a good thing, but the second half fails to live up to the opening and veers into the utterly absurd. I know that Will, or the Will-like figure (Johnny Depp) is meant...

** Leaving work one evening, Locke goes on a long drive to London. On the way, his life crumbles about him as he makes a series of telephone calls. I should perhaps make it clear from the outset that one of the stars I have given this film is down to pure creativity – I have never before seen a film such as this, wherein one character spends the duration sitting in a car making phone calls to various acquaintances. We only see Locke (Tom Hardy) outside of the car at the beginning of the film – for the rest he is behind the wheel of his car, speaking into his phone as he drives along various motorways. Even though I don’t think the film ‘works’, I think it is an interesting idea and could have potentially worked if there had been any kind of human interaction, perhaps through flashbacks. As it is, all we have are the various voices that come across the loudspeaker, and this is quite alienating – Tom Hardy is the only face we see. So, seeing as this is technically only a on...

  **** Following the events of Avengers Assemble ( The Avengers for you overseas types!), Steve Rogers is now a fully-fledged member of S.H.I.E.LD., taking part in various missions. However, it soon becomes clear that all is not well within the Intelligence Service and with the appearance of the Winter Soldier, it soon becomes apparent that Steve’s past is bleeding into the present. This latest film in the Avengers franchise is different from the others – it is deeply political and looks at very controversial issues such as security, crime and how best to neutralise threats, both within America and outside of it. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans) still remembers a time when it was fair simpler, but he is about to receive a wake-up call as the truth about the agency he works for is relieved to him. Whilst the other films focus on the fantastical, this is deeply founded in the world in which we find ourselves today – in essence, this is a spy thriller and no one knows who they...