Ain't Got Time To Bleed

Conditions: So very tired

Film Review: Inside Out

Well I think it’s safe to say Pixar have bounced back from a bit of a slump over the last few years with Inside Out. It tells the story of what’s going on in the head of a young girl as she and her family moves to a new town, with a new school and new friends. Up to now life has been pretty cruisy, but suddenly things have become difficult, and even a little depressing. The principle emotions she has are Joy, Fear, Anger, Sadness and Disgust. Joy has been running the show since birth, but now as things are starting to change Sadness is beginning to influence how the girl actually feels. Then an accident puts Joy and Sadness out far away from the control room. As the girl’s internal world literally starts to fall apart it’s up to Joy to try and get herself and Sadness back in charge.

It’s a very imaginative and heartfelt film, that really delves into the interactions of emotions and how they influence they way you can interact with the world, and how they can colour your memories. The voice talent is naturally spot on. Everything makes sense, and looks brilliant. It doesn’t pander to the kids either, the interaction of the emotions and the struggles the girl goes through are pretty emotional. Also, there’s a very sad sequence regarding memories and what happens to them that doesn’t pull any punches either.

It doesn’t really have any big problems, it’s a careful, thoughtful, emotional and well crafted. Who’d have thought that an extensive and well made exploration of emotions inside a teenager’s head would come in the form of a Pixar movie? But here we are. Good to see Pixar swinging for the fences once again. Four and a half bubbles out of five.



Film Review: Terminator Genisys

When you go to the IMDB trivia page for the latest entry in the Terminator franchise, the very first item sums up all you really need to know about why this film even exists. Apparently before it was even released the studio announced that two further sequels will be made for it. And you may wonder why they would green-light sequels to a film that hasn’t come out yet, and the answer is money. For while James Cameron is the father of the Terminator, he’s not the owner. The owners have been a series of corporations that have churned out the films over the years. However their time is coming to an end. James Cameron is set to have the rights returned to him in 2019. And because of that, the current owners of the rights have decided to squeeze out as many Terminator films as they can in the time remaining. So here we go again.

The funny thing is that while every franchise is built to make money off successive sequels, prequels, reboots or whatever, Terminator in particular is poorly setup for them. The story was neatly wrapped up by the second film, and every entry since then has essentially been reinventing the wheel. Except the fourth film of course, which was set entirely in the future war, but didn’t perform well enough in the box office. So now we have this new one, which has gone back to the well of sending-robots-back-in time. Arnold Schwarzenegger stars as the T-800, sent back in time by someone (we don’t know who) to protect Sarah as another robot is sent back in time by someone (we don’t know who) to kill her (1973). Arnold ends up rasing Sarah after her parents are killed so, many years later when Kyle Reese arrives to save her (1984), she saves him instead, from a robot sent back in time by someone (we don’t know who). Basically, the Terminator franchise has started to eat it’s young.

This film eliminates Terminators 4, 3, and sadly 2 from existence. Parts of Terminator 1 remain, but it’s all different now as a fully militarized Sarah and her pseudo robo-dad “Pops” work on a plan to take out Skynet before it can attack. This proceeds chaotically (via a time machine that Pops built) through time up until 2017, when (as the trailers foretold) none other than John Connor himself arrives on the scene. And since we all saw the trailers we know the big secret: he’s been turned into a robot thanks to Skynet. This reeks of flat out desperation by the writers to come up with something, anything, to surprise the audience with. It’s horrible: a complete betrayal of what that character is. Sigh. Anyway, here he is in 2017, working on a cool new app (with the Dyson family) that will connect your mobile phone to your fridge, or something, and that’s now how Skynet is invented. It’s up to Sarah, Kyle and Pops to take on evil John and blow up the servers before the app gets released to the world. And we’re completely overlooking the fact that Sarah and Kyle did not conceive John in 1984, so he then doesn’t exist, and so couldn’t come back in time to try and kill them in 2017 anyway.

This film is a complete load. Lazy. Stupid. Derivative. Awkward. Silly. The film is full of callbacks and oddly humorous moments. The action sequences lack any weight to them. And of course, there’s a terrible pervading feel of desperation and imitation going on. Some scenes have been literally repeated from the original 1984 film, but with different actors who, somehow, just aren’t as good as their 1984 counterparts were. And speaking of counterparts, the new Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) is useless in this thing. He comes across as a bored L.A dude, picking up another paycheck, more worried about looking cool and smirking than his actual job as an actor. He’s paired up with Emilia Clarke, who while able to transmit anger quite well, looks all of 12 years old. That is a significant problem. I cannot take Sarah Connor seriously when she looks like a child, even when she’s holding a big gun. It just doesn’t work. Surprisingly, you know who I could take seriosuly, who was not just cashing a paycheck on this thing? Arnold himself. Sure, his character is simple enough to play, but dammit he does the job admirably and is totally convincing as a father figure for Sarah who also is an aging killer robot. So the film winds on, crashing and exploding on a fairly regular schedule, until the final battle delivers us a non-ending to go out on. What a total waste of time. One explosion out of five.



- Peace out