Movie Review: Age of Ultron

When I was 7, my dad gave me a pile of his old comics from when he was a kid. I had Captain Britain, The Defenders, and Dan Dare amongst many others, and I had a lot of favorites. The character that leapt off the page at me though, the character that stuck with me ever since; was the philosophical, maniacal robotic arch nemesis of the Avengers, Ultron.

You can imagine how excited I was when Ultron was revealed as the antagonist in the sequel to Marvel’s immensely successful The Avengers. When his actor was revealed as James Spader, with his gravelly southern voice, I was at first skeptical. I was expecting the announcement to be of an actor with a famously recognizable voice, like Malcolm McDowell.

The moment I saw that first trailer, all my fears were put to rest. Spader’s commanding drawl is so perfectly condescending, intellectually superior, even bored sounding, it fit the character wonderfully.

From that moment on, going into this one, I was excited.

I was not disappointed.

With every step forward into Marvel’s Cinematic Universe, it feels more like the spirit of the comics. From the very beginning, we see the Avengers working together as a coordinated team battling their old enemies Hydra. It’s fluid, and fun and incredibly put together visually. Each member seems to have been developed since the last film, both in the way they function within the team, interacting with their fellow members, and how they act on a personal basis. We see a little more of everyone here, more personal scenes, more fight scenes, more everything.

Most of all, this is a character based movie. It’s wall to wall action, sure, but everyone has their moment of drama, and the dialogue is well written for pretty much every personality involved. It isn’t just Iron Man starring the Avengers anymore, every character has screen time on and off the field of combat. 

Not an easy feat, considering they are juggling five popular main characters, and some major satellite characters too. While Downey Jr’s Stark is still the funniest character in the film, with comebacks and dialogue so sharp and well delivered it almost seems improvised, there’s also great moments from the supporting cast, Don Cheadle’s War Machine standing out in his scenes by far. Conspicuously absent amongst the ensemble are fan favorites (and eternal girlbait) Agent Coulson and Loki, however.

There’s great scenes of casual interplay between the Avengers. The snappy dialogue in hectic combat is even better in casual situations, with great scenes of macho competition, honest flirtation, and scientific ambition. It’s difficult not to love each of the Avengers, with even the less focal ones getting great scenes here.

No time is wasted on early exposition, or introducing characters we already know. The setup is here and ready from point one, and it doesn’t take long for the main plot to kick in after the brilliant opening scene. During a celebratory party in the Avenger’s tower, the first form of the titular villain shows himself. 

At first I was taken aback by the frank quirkiness of Ultron’s dialogue. There’s no technobabble or stereotypical ‘robot character’ dialogue, he’s very human. He’s cocky, even funny. I realized that the character, a product of alien technology mixed with Tony Stark’s automated Iron Army program, has taken on some of Stark’s personality traits, and shares his cynical, comical side. It works. Ultron is an enjoyable villain to watch, he talks like Stark, with his constant megalomania and superiority turned up to eleven. His first scene, analyzing the simple flaws in the existence of the world as we see it, is just brilliant.

By instantaneous access to all the worlds information, Ultron goes from birth to master plan in a matter of minutes, so it all kicks off pretty soon from there on, with a globetrotting series of events pursuing Ultron across the world. The story is kinetic, never staying in one place for long. The Avengers are dragged through a series of trials, facing more new enemies in the Maximoff twins, not named as such here but better known to comic fans as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch. These two are more enjoyable than I expected, having never been a fan of either before. With some acceptable neutral Slavic accents, they form the basis of Ultron’s cadre of main antagonists. Quicksilver snatching arrows out of the air with his super speed and Scarlet Witch bending the minds of our heroes to show them their worst fears. With a team of heroes as powerful as the Avengers, turning them against one another has long been the classic way to deliver a challenge.

Quicksilver’s inclusion will inevitably be compared to the characters recent appearance in X-Men: Days of Future past, and I have to say, regardless of some fun visual gags, he isn’t half as exciting here. In DOFP, we saw incredible use of the characters super speed in a variety of ways, Age of Ultron’s Quicksilver is just not up to that standard, although he is well performed and enjoyable to watch.

The twin’s inevitable heel/face turn is one of the movies short order points, in my opinion, a little brief, and they are awfully quick to ally with a character that was revealed in a prior monologue to be the source of a lifetime of constant fear and oppression for the two. Also, without the twins as sidekicks, Ultron is the lone antagonist for most of the films runtime, and as great a villain as he is, there’s something video-gamey about the Avengers battling an endless supply of identical robot drones. These large scale battle scenes, all inclusive of almost every character, are a visual masterpiece, certainly, but they don’t have the urgency or intensity necessary in a lot of the situations. We know any member of the Avengers will defeat a hundred of these enemies in a scene like this, so there’s no genuine threat there. The real joy in the films battle scenes come from other sources, like the brilliant punch up between a pissed off Hulk and the long awaited Iron Man Hulk-Buster armour. This one is fantastic. Hulk is his absolute finest here, made genuinely scary by showing us that he isn’t just the strongest thing on the battlefield, but that he’s fast too. Iron Man attempting to stop the rampaging green menace whilst simultaneously trying to protect the undefended city and the populace around them is just great, and will be the main event of the film for many viewers.

The Hulk has a lot of character development here, and along with Black Widow and Hawkeye, forms the Avengers that we see a much more intimate side of. An emerging romance and personal secrets  are introduced that we hadn’t previously seen, and it serves to remind there’s a lot more going on here than just saving the world. 

Speaking of which, the exact peril the world is in, isn’t as clear as it perhaps could have been. Exactly what Ultron’s plan was I felt wasn’t all that obvious until the films finale. It feels at times like the storyline is moving to a time limit we aren’t really seeing. It doesn’t make it any less fun, but the real feeling of tension generated by threat through the second act just wasn’t there.

The film’s final act introduces a major hero in the form of one of the comic’s most mysterious, enigmatic characters. If you’ve made it this far without knowing who that is, I don’t want to spoil it for you. I’ll say he’s played beautifully, with just the right edge of childlike wonder and enlightened gravity that the character needs, by a brilliant British actor who has long deserved a role so big. One perfectly played moment in his first scene had the whole audience cheering, and you’ll know it when you see it.

Age of Ultron may not be the epic entry in the MCU it could have been. It serves to develop characters and move the whole story forward rather than end anything or bring it all together, but it’s sharply written, well put together, and has some truly enjoyable performances by characters both old and new. There’s so much going on in the MCU, with developments in this film leading to at least 4 separate future films, and it’s hard not to want to get involved in all of them. It’s just like reading the comics, you can’t read only one, there's too much fun to be had by diving right into the whole world.

Comic Review: Rage of Ultron

Marvel thought they were clever with last year’s wildly disappointing bait and switch event Age of Ultron, a time travel story that featured almost none of the titular character, but will likely go on to disappoint plenty new comic fans seeking to get in on the new movie of the same name.

It was undoubtedly time for a story that went back to the basics of one of the best villains Marvel has ever created.

The Avengers, Earth’s mightiest (and most profitable) superhero team, only have one true arch-nemesis, and Ultron is a character that deserves great stories, not cash in crossovers. Marvel’s OGN print, a run of one-shot hardback format graphic novels, have just released the story that Age of Ultron should have been. 

A dark and futuristic action packed story, filled with the brooding intensity of the father-son struggle that makes Ultron so interesting, Rage of Ultron chronicles the events following a grand defeat of the titular villain in a climactic battle. After nearly leveling New York in the battle, the Avengers think they’ve seen the last of the cybernetic terror when he is rocketed into space trapped in a broken Quinjet.  Hank Pym, Ultron’s creator and father, has become self-loathing and depressed over his relationship with his son. He desperately wishes to find love and worth in that which he has created, but in Ultron he finds only anger and hate. In his distress, he finds himself driven to create a weapon that can nullify cybernetic brainwaves, snuffing out Artificial Intelligence in a genocidal instant. This in turn forces the whole team to consider the worth of artificial life as true, or disposable. The Vision, Ultron’s own creation and therefore Pym’s grandson, is distraught that Pym can take android life so casually, and tension rises between these two founding members. It brings into question the concept of just how powerful Pym is when dealing with artificial life. He can create it, and just as easily he has the power to snuff it out, and seems prepared to do so.

Far off on the moon of Titan, serial misogynist and satellite Avengers member Starfox is drinking with a horde of beauties when a Quinjet crashes into the surface of the moon, and begins burrowing towards the world’s hyper advanced technological core. In minutes, Titan’s finest are overcome by Ultron’s power, sending Starfox hurtling across the solar system to Earth In search of help. 

Still amidst the repercussions of their argument, the Avengers are threatened with the arrival of the most powerful incarnation of the robotic villain ever seen, an entire planet repurposed and possessed to suit his apocalyptic intentions. Planet Ultron looms down over Earth, ready to begin the systematic conversion of all life in the universe to become one with Ultron. 

As huge as the scale of the story is, Rage of Ultron is chiefly a character driven story. It explores the fascinating relationship between father and son that exists between Pym and Ultron, and the conflicting love and resentment the two bear one another. The tenuous relationship that both share with The Vision is touched upon, as Vision is forced to compare himself to both Pym and Ultron and find he can truly identify with neither.

Although a short story, it has some truly brilliant moments, and is more worth your time than the ten issue adventures of a time travelling Wolverine that Age of Ultron turned out to be. Pym’s descent into hatred is believable, and Ultron’s voice is as brilliantly malevolent and utterly condescending as ever. The reveal of planet Ultron is a damn fine panel, and the use of the new Avengers team over the classic we’re growing tired of is a nice touch. We see the hard headed female Thor throwing her weight around at the discussion table, and Captain America’s new identity as Sam Wilson, previously the Falcon, giving the orders as the incumbent leader of the team. In the tradition of Ultron only being able to be defeated by characters he’s never encountered before (with the notable exception of Scarlet Witch, whose power is by definition improbable), an interesting development occurs when Ultron is faced with an entirely new power, but I won’t spoil that surprise.

The finale is maybe less grand than it could have been, and we’re left with some glaring unanswered questions regarding the resolution, but the ending is emotional. It isn’t a triumph of good over evil, it’s about an entity who was born of anger and hate attempting to understand itself. Right from the beginning, as Pym reminds Ultron that regardless of all the atrocities Ultron has committed, that he still loves his son, is pretty powerful stuff.

Whether you’re looking to remind yourself who the real daddy is when it comes to Avengers villains, or if you’re wanting to get acquainted with him for the first time in anticipation of the film, Rage of Ultron is the book to pick up. Just try not to read all his dialogue in James Spader’s voice.

Movie Review: Furious 7

I haven't seen a Fast and the Furious movie since the first one.
It was in a tiny cinema in Truro, Cornwall with my two best friends, and if I recall, we were the only people in the entire audience.
I remember it being a semi-straight action story about an undercover cop busting a badass street racing crew by becoming a badass street racer himself. I remember seeing posters for the sequels roll by year after year, and assuming every one was basically the same.
I was not prepared for the wholly different monster that the Fast and Furious series has become in the last decade.

From the first scene, I realized it had clearly been a while since I'd seen a real action movie.
The villainous Deckard Shaw is introduced, musing about the concept of revenge from a hospital window where his brother lies broken from some previous encounter with Vin Diesel and his assembled crew. Now Vin Diesel's character does have a name, but when your real name is Vin Diesel, why bother? Upon leaving his reverie, we're treated to a slow motion walk-though as Shaw leaves the hospital, that he's apparently torn apart single-handedly, using nothing but cockney wit and hand held mines that produce explosions larger than C4. He slips into his fabulous Maserati, as the hospital collapses in the background, and declares his intent to tear apart the lives of our heroes.

From this point onward, I can honestly say the series lives up to its name. Vin Diesel and his crew, who are almost entirely new to me as a returning viewer, are an incredibly likable bunch of characters.
It's an easygoing beginning establishing the relative status-quo the characters have been living in since the last movie, with the old hero Brian starting a happy family, and Vin himself trying to rebuild his relationship with the ever sulking Letty, who at some point in the series appears to have lost her memory.
We see vignettes of every day life for these guys, with Brian playing with his son, or Vin taking his wife to a race competition in the desert to prove to her that her memory loss hasn't disable her driving skills. We're taught the cinematography style awfully quick in this scene, where you're either looking at intense close ups of bouncing bikini-clad behinds on soaking dancing girls, the shining curves of a supercar worth more than your house, or Vin Diesel giving a slow frown just off camera.
It all looks incredible, the camera work is amazing, and it's a close to mechanophilliac pornography as you could ever find in a mainstream cinema.

The film does not waste its time with exposition, however. As soon as we know what's up, just enough to get by, Shaw thunders into the setup, blowing up Vin's house (essentially making it look like any other in East LA) and broadcasting his dark warnings known to the crew.
This is the flow that the Expendables wanted to have so badly.
Within minutes, we're back in a tight revenge story, and then the story takes another left turn when a sharp suited G-Man played by Kurt Russel shows up to introduce a new subplot.
Soon enough, Vin and his whole crew are assembled to not only rescue a world class black-hat hacker from an extremist mercenary group, they have to steal state of the art cyber technology back, and use it to find and defeat the malevolent British Bastard who's blowing up their houses.
If you put the action side by side with the Expendables, by the time the crew are flying out the back of a plane over enemy territory in their supercars, we'd still be seeing Stallone and Rourke groan dialogue at each other like two half melted action men.

We're introduced to the most intense federal employee ever when Dwayne Johnson appears, playing the particular flavor of agent who doesn't play by the rules, wears a tiny muscle shirt to cover his massive bulging biceps, and wears a .50 caliber magnum on his hip, probably for dealing with all the stampeding rhinos in Los Angeles. Dwayne hams it up full force in this role, flexing, peacocking and dropping one liners that come straight out of an 80's Van Damme movie. It's like a look back at the old Rock again, and it's brilliant.

With the crew out on their cyber terrorism adventure, the film begins to follow a rhythm. Cobble together a plan, look damn fine doing it, bullets start flying, and then Shaw shows up out of the blue with a new gun or a better car and another huge fight starts. It's silly, the set-up and the plain insanity of the action are so huge that it just makes you angry and excited at the same time. We're introduced to more villains in the form of Shaw's new friends, Minibosses who come in Asian kung-fu fighting and African Mercenary flavors.
The notorious hacker the team rescue is quickly recruited, and when she turns out to be a gorgeous English girl, she becomes motivator for some of the films funniest dialogue as Ludacris and Tyreese Gibson squabble to impress her. The play between these two is actually great, and I was surprised at how good Ludacris was in the whole role.

 The action moves to a global scale, chasing bad guys and the illusive technical macguffin to the most stylized version of Abu Dhabi you've seen since Sex and the City 2 (I can't be the only person to see both these films). You've got your insane high speed battle scene, with the Italian Job style formation of supercars chasing a military primed bus with miniguns in the sides, and you've got your tuxedos and evening gown rumble in the heights of a penthouse atop one of the Etihad Towers. In fact, why only one of them when you can drive your bulletproof car between them?

After a wild ride of foreign affairs, hacking, and Michelle Rodriguez fighting Ronda Rousey in evening gowns (surely the second best thing we could watch the two of them do), everything comes back together in LA for the finale, where Vin and his crew plan to set a trap for Shaw and his men with some fascinatingly nonsensical technological requirements, involving a lot of tearing ass around surface streets in their cars. It's huge, it's crazy. They juggle so many characters and events in this sequence it's a recipe for a cinematic nightmare. With four different vehicles carrying seven different characters, some crossing between vehicles, evading an attack chopper and a super drone armed with rockets, a final climactic showdown between Vin and Shaw, on foot chases all held to a technobabble time limit, and still having time to have Dwayne Johnson bust out of hospital in a stolen ambulance wielding a minigun... you'd think you'd be watching a complete clusterfuck, but somehow, it all works flawlessly. There's no confusion, you know where everyone is, and you know whats going down in every scene. That shows an effort in screenwriting, direction, and editing that came together flawlessly.

It's very hard not to like Furious 7 in almost every way. It's a return to action in a powerful, energetic way. No one will be winning any awards, but the acting is tight, and it fits the feel. If I had to change anything, it would be to make the villains as fun and enjoyable as the heroes. As they are, they're stock. British special forces, African warlord, Asian-Non-Specific-Martial-Arts. I'd also have loved to see Michelle Rodriguez enjoy her character as the rest of the cast get to enjoy theirs. The subplot of her memory loss makes her maudlin and subdued in almost every scene, and I would have liked to have seen as much energy and wisecracking from her as the rest of the crew. She's a powerful female presence and there's a gap left with her being so quiet.

The film closes down on an inevitably poignant note. It's sad that a film so full of fun and playfulness had it's face changed by the tragic loss of its long time star, Paul Walker. The final scenes are a goodbye from the film's stars both in character and out. One last ride on an empty California highway forms the end of the film that Paul sadly never lived to see.

You don't have to have seen the last 6 to have a massive time seeing Furious 7. There's a reason this series has proven to be Universal's most profitable of all time. It's loud, it's exciting, it's heartfelt and the whole thing is a return to a time when action movies really needed nothing more than just that.

Movie Review: Dracula Untold

'Untold' the title threatens.

Now there's been a lot told about Dracula over the decades, probably more than any other fictional character, to tell the truth. So that's a pretty big claim as far as subtitles go. At least it isn't Dracula 'Revelations'.

But as far as things go, it's not a far off claim. This is a story of a human Vlad Tepes, a family man, a soldier, and a hero to his people. A story set in the time before he was Dracula.

Untold. It definitely isn't anything Stoker wrote, and not remotely historically accurate, but it does live up to the title.

Like any movie with the 'Legendary' tag. Dracula Untold starts us off with glorious vistas and amazing costumes. It looks great from the first moment. A young, still human Vlad, prince of Transylvania, is scouting with his band of merry assholes through the forests, searching for the traces of Turkish soldiers, encroaching on the peace agreed between the two countries. Vlad is handsome, sharp, dashing, and intelligent, and essentially makes a lot of the other characters irrelevant by a few paces in.. The rest of his D&D party are there to bounce of his comments and give him occasional 'my lords' but not a one of them has a strong character behind them. They are all a little Jon Snow in nature, and entirely interchangeable. They're named, but you'll forget them soon enough, like I did, so for the remainder we'll call Vlad's crew Phil, Grant and Peggy.

Vlad senses something is off when he is led to the helmet of a turkish solier, mysteriously left in the Transylvanian rivers falling from a great mountain. Vlad knows what's up, and sends Phil, Grant and Peggy back to Castle Dracula while he goes to investigate the shadowy caves atop the mountain.

Deep in a bat filled cave high in the rocks above, Vlad and some unlucky redshirts are attacked by an inhuman entity, fast and strong, and only Vlad's speed and skill leave him to escape, noticing the terrible power of the beast he fought.

It's interesting to see an origin given to Dracula himself, as usually writers use Dracula as the no-questions asked first Vampire. An origin story is hard to do with a character so seminal, and I think they do a good job in that respect. He's your usual Ned Stark type, brooding and thoughtful, but he cares about his people, and his family.

As Vlad returns to castle Dracula, we get to meet the rest of the family, the doe eyed wife he loves above all things, and his spry little son. And just as we are introduced to the life of proud rulership Vlad has, the inevitable stake is thrown into the works. A group of sinister Turks bring an ultimatem to Vlad during a feast celebrating peace. Vlad must surrender a thousand boys to the armies of the Turkish Emperor Mehmed II.

Feeling betrayed by his old brother in arms, Vlad rides to meet Mehmed and parlay for the future of his people. Now Mehmed is your standard Thulsa Doom villain. An unquestioning military leader, he's bad, he's commanding. Apart from the vaguely alluded to past fighting alongside Vlad, we never really find much more about him. When you have a character as strong and dramatic by turns as Vlad in the lead, Mehmed seems a somewhat empty antagonist by comparison.

Naturally Mehmed is unmoved by the pleas of his brother, and Vlad returns to Transylvania in disgrace, and knows he must either give up a thousand boys, or condemn his people to war and extermination.

I had a touch of trouble swallowing this plot point, really. Vlad knows that the boys in the Turkish army are treated well, and grow up talented warriors. Vlad himself proudly was one of those surrendered as a child. He knows this, and he knows surrendering those boys will continue the peace with the Turks that his people love him for establishing. He also knows that he does not have any chance of defeating the Turks in open warfare, and still Vlad goes out, brutally does away with the Turks sent to claim the boys, and starts a whole new war. Nice one Vlad.

With the armies of Mehmed approaching to tear Transylvania apart, Vlad goes to the only power he knows that can strike fear into the hearts of men, and once more ascends the mountain to meet with the dark monster that lives above.

In the darkness of the caves above, Vlad finds himself confronting the Vampire that has been killing Turkish soldiers, and has apparently been living trapped in the darkness of the caves for centuries.

The elder Vampire is a kitschy part to play, rife with monster cliches, but luckily Charles Dance is a damn fine actor, and actually is the film's highlight performance here.

He's frightening, savage, temperamental, and commanding. He hisses a story of darkness and fear to Vlad, and offers him the power to defeat the Turks if he only drinks of the blood provided.

Vlad is warned of the terrible price for such power: If he partakes of human blood at any time in the next 72 hours, the change will be permanent, and he shall forever take the elder vampire's place in the dark.

Here's where things get going, naturally.

Waking up in the rivers washing down the mountain, the newly invigorated Vlad finds himself filled with the powers of the night. He is strong, fast, and can EXPLODE INTO BATS at will. It's great fun to watch. He takes an uncharacteristic delight in it all at first, blasting through the trees of the forest as he returns to defend Castle Dracula, from the Turkish assault, already fully underway.

Now Vlad is a complete badass, now that he has his powers.

A Turkish army one thousand strong charges into battle against him, and he goes out to meet them alone. (After donning a longer coat first, naturally) As his army watch on, Vlad completely obliterates the entire force in moments without a scratch. It's a brilliant fight. The powered up Vlad just tearing into his enemies with fist and blade and bats. One guy obliterating an entire army, it's like Dynasty Warriors. It's wild. It also makes it very clear to us that he is so powerful, nothing the Turkish army can possibly do can stand in his way. Here's another plot hiccup that I personally couldn't get over. With this power at his disposal, why doesn't Vlad take it to his enemies immediately?

There is nothing to stop him flying to tear apart the Turkish forces at their heart, give Mehmed a gigantic Vampire wedgie of darkness and ending the war right then. Instead, after Phil, Grant and the rest of the Transylvanian army hilariously trundle up after the fight is finished, Vlad commands them not to question his new powers, and to evacuate Castle Dracula for a monastery in the mountains instead.

With the powers that Vlad has, of course they need a shortcoming of some sort, a weakness, and we are only presented with two of the classic vampire weaknesses here. Neither of them elements present in Stoker's work, I might add. A vulnerability to sunlight, and a sensitivity to pure silver.

The passage of day into night as the rest of the film goes on becomes a little difficult to follow, I find. Some days seem to pass in minutes, other nights seem to pass in one battle scene. The three days of Vlad's trials resisting human blood pass in a flurry, and it's easy to get a spot lost how much time has passed since his original bargain took place. Vlad is holed up in his tent while his family and the rest of his army head up to the monastery, and is absent when they are set upon by a small Turkish skirmish unit.

His Vampire senses tingling, Vlad bursts from his tent the moment sunlight fails, to rush to aid his family. As a Turkish soldier takes down Phil in brutal combat, Vlad emerges just in time to rescue his wife and son in turn, and aid his people in making it finally to the monastery. Vlad's bat form is unstoppably powerful, he surges over opponents like a wave of death, and no one can really defend against it at all. The only reason Vlad didn't arrive in time to save Phil was because he was dicking around with theatrics elsewhere in the battle. If his bat form can pick up a Turkish soldier and toss him across a battlefield, why can't he fly by and safely whisk his family away from danger in the blink of an eye?

Arriving at the monastery, Vlad holes his people up to await the inevitable assault from the main Turkish forces. Amongst the monks that were previously his dear friends, Vlad encounters the first opposition amongst his own men. It's good to see an element of this addressed, because until this scene, his newfound powers haven't really been questioned by anyone. When his oldest friend amongst the holy men notices his vulnerability to sunlight, he confronts Vlad in a tense moment and asks that Vlad allow himself to be destroyed for the good of his soul. Not the best time for it, really, but a holy man is a holy man through and through. This escalates quickly into an out of the blue insurrection, with all Vlad's followers attempting to burn him alive. Almost as soon as this starts it's over, with Vlad promising his people that they are safe, and that he will stop Mehmet. It's a little fast a push towards that being resolved, it seems all these people are awfully quickly swayed one way or another, but it gets things moving.

Soon enough, the final battle approaches, there is something of a subplot with Mehmet convincing his entire army to wear blindfolds for the entire march so they don't fear Vlad, but it really wasn't relevant in the end. It makes the entire enemy army look ridiculous, as if they're just going to take the blindfolds off as soon as the battle starts, what was the point? These aren't superstitious militia we're dealing with, these are highly trained soldiers of the world's finest army. They aren't going to scare easily.

Vlad takes to the top of his highest tower, wearing his best long black coat, and takes in the size of the approaching army of a hundred thousand. Drawing on his power to command the creatures of the night, Vlad summons a colossal horde of bats to do his bidding. This was probably the most fun scene in the entire film, it's great fun. Commanding his squeaking, flapping army with movements of his hand, he drives the bats into the approaching hordes like a battering ram (Hehe, geddit?) and then, ordering them all up into the sky, bringing them down again to desolate the Turks like the meteor scene in Armageddon. It's awesome, it's like one of the crazier disciplines in Vampire: The Masquerade brought to life. However fundamental physics make it all a little silly when you think about it. These bats he's controlling thunder into the enemy, throwing armoured soldiers into the air like rag dolls. Regardless of how many he's controlling, they are still just tiny bats. In the end, the result of such an assault would feel less like a meteor and more like a million ping pong balls falling on your head.

After the initial bat assault, Vlad takes to the field, and the full battle commences, but his physical prowess is let down by his battle planning, and a unit of Turks gets into the monastery to assault the defenseless people of Transylvania. Vlad's son is taken by the Turkish commander, and his wife is left hanging precariously from the highest tower. With all Vlad's speed, he can't quite get there in time, leading to an excruciatingly melodramatic falling scene, set to music, in slow motion, as she falls to her doom. By the time Vlad's done chatting with her remarkably unharmed but close to death body after that fall, the Turkish army has got away, and the monastery is left in ruins. If all this sounds like a weirdly paced and tumbly assortment of events, it's because it really was. Why did Mehmet himself even need to be there? Why leave only taking one captive? No booty? Did the Turkish soldiers even get to rest? You marched them the whole way here blindfolded and now you're marching them all the way back to Turkey after a battle? You asshole Mehmet!

Vlad does the only thing he can over the body of his beloved wife. He takes her blood, gaining the full power of the Vampire, and condemns himself to the darkness. Returning to walk among the fallen in the monastery, Vlad sees people are shattered and defeated, and his son and heir to the throne of Transylvania taken by the Turks. He knows he must go after them. In a quite great moment, he goes to Grant, who lies dying, and asks “Do you want revenge?”

The eyes of many of the fallen and broken look up to him, realizing what he offers. It is a good scene.

Mehmet's main camp watches as a storm approaches, lightening crashes, and the darkness surges in. The newly changed Grant and Peggy lead a group of vampires down on the Turkish army, slaughtering them wholesale, while Vlad make the final assault on Mehmet. In the silver coated finery of Mehmet's tent, where Vlads son is held captive, the final confrontation takes place.

Of course Mehmet has a silver sword. We've gone the whole movie with no one being able to remotely stand against Vlad in combat, there had to be some threat, but it feels somewhat forced, when we know he can explode into unstoppable bats at will, or just bring the tent down around him. But fight honorably Vlad does, somehow Mehmet seems the superior combatant, knocking Vlad around plenty. The presence of silver is a sort of excuse to this odd encounter, but Vlad wore a silver ring around his neck the whole film and still tore apart armies without trouble. That it would weaken him so much to as to lose most of the battle against an ordinary man didn't make much sense.

Vlad defeats Mehmet, drawing strength from his son, and returns outside to face his new brethren. Peggy suggests killing the boy, their last link to humanity, and Vlad is torn between his new existence and his old. The boy is saved by the inexplicable appearance of our hero monk from the monastery, who arrives to take the boy to safety, while the sun burns down from above and exterminates the vampires. The vampires that are standing around rows and rows of tents that are historically proven to keep out sunlight. That was a head scratcher.

Vlad himself lets out a cry of defiance as the sun comes down on him, and he falls, left in the dust of the destroyed Turkish camp. It would have been a fair ending, with the young son being crowned king of Transylvania, to carry on the peace into the next generation.

But no, we know Dracula can't end here. It must go on.

Dragged from the battlefield by a mysterious follower (He was around earlier, the only one in the whole movie who tries on a Transylvanian accent, we'll call him Dirty Den) who pulls the body of Vlad from the sunlight and into a tent, to force his blood down the throat of the vampire, and return him from the dead. 

Fast forward six hundred odd years. Yes it's one of those endings.

A modern day Vlad walks amongst the streets of a glistening city, when he comes across a woman who looks the spitting image of his lost wife. He introduces himself, sounding just like he did in the 1400's, and she says her name is Mina. Ah, so here we have come around at last to the Dracula we know. They walk off together, the threads of fate seemingly intertwining them again. All the while the elder vampire watches on (God DAMN does Charles Dance look sharp in a suit) 

There are a few mystifying turns about Dracula Untold. The exact mythology behind the 'curse' Vlad is under doesn't really make sense. The elder vampire states he's been trapped in the cave for years, until he found someone to take his place. There seemed to be no reason he couldn't leave whenever he wanted, and Vlad certainly wasn't compelled to take his place when he drank human blood. That didn't make much sense. It seems Vlad never really used his powers as well as he could, and everyone that dies manages to do it dramatically in Vlad's arms. That all said, it does a good job of not slipping into the melodrama you would expect. I could have done without a lot of the scenes involving Vlad and his wife, they just seemed to drag on, but not because she was bad, just because their relationship was very dull compared to the rest of the action.

It's also fun to play spot the Game of Thrones residue amongst the cast, with Paul Kaye and Art Parkinson both playing the exact same character they do in the HBO show (This will go triple if they bring back Tywin Lannister as a vampire in season 5)

As far as historical action/drama supernatural movies go, Dracula Untold is up there with other big, fun, stupid films like Underworld and Pathfinder. They have their place, and there are certainly worse choices for a bit of Dracula entertainment in the month of Halloween. At least you won't have to sit through hearing Keanu Reeve's English accent again.

Movie Review: The Guardians of the Galaxy.

The Guardians of the Galaxy are a team that’s close to my heart. They’re my crew, my guys. A bunch of misfits awkwardly thrust together, their missions usually staggered and suicidal, yet somehow the bond of friendship between these guys is stronger than anything you find in the Avengers. The Avengers was a great film, why? Because it leapt in head first from the very start, full steam ahead, with action and fun and a story that could get going from the first scene and never let up. This was possible because every character within it had been established in a film all their own, the slow parts already taken care of, as it were. What do you do when you start a new film, and have to echo the same breakneck pace of story, with five all new heroes and a handful of new villains, without the time to fill in the backstory?

Guardians gives us hints at our heroes’ backstories, but this is no origin tale. Who they were perhaps isn’t too important, it’s who they are from now on that counts.

We open on our hero, Star-Lord. The sad story of the loss of his mother haunting his past, Peter Quill was raised to the stars by the happening by of the mercenary Yondu, and has spent his entire adult life among the world beyond. Our introduction to our new leading man sees him searching the mysterious ruin of an alien city, his treads light, observations keen, like a trench-clad Indiana Jones. That is of course, until he pulls out his beloved 1980’s era Walkman. Headphones on, Star-Lord dances and skips his way through the ruins with a swagger to rival Jagger. He’s got a sass smarmier than Tony Stark, and with it he saunters into the ruin to reclaim the film’s whole MacGuffin, the orb.

It’s a bit tired that the whole film, and indeed pretty much all our heroes and indeed our villains revolve around the orb. But then that is of course, pretty damn comic book: someone’s always trying to steal an Infinity Gem or a Cosmic cube, and wield the terrible power it grants. Simple as this premise is, story driven this film is indeed not. It takes a while to get started, and a few of the earlier scenes involving the protagonists are a little shaky. Our first introductions to Ronan, Gamora and Nebula happen all in one scene, which is a little much to swallow, especially to those members of the audience not familiar already with these characters.

A little better paced with their introduction are the films class act duo, Rocket and Groot. Both these characters are charming, funny, and well implemented. Rocket is crass and sharp from the first moment, as he almost narrates his own introduction scene. His buddy Groot being weird from the first moment, drinking from a water fountain. They’re bounty hunters, it’s an easy enough setup, and we don’t really need to know much more. The narrative here takes place on the idyllic future world of Xandar, the home to the Nova corps. The Nova corps are an intergalactic police force, and boast some tremendous character actors amongst their number, with Glenn Close, John C Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz all making appearances. It’s here on Xandar that our heroes are dragged together in a simple cohesion of events, Star-Lord trying to sell his stolen orb, Gamora on a mission from Ronan to steal it from him, and Rocket and Groot eager to catch the bounty on Star-Lord. It happens fast, they seem to be buddies awfully quickly, but it does the job. In short order four of our five heroes are thrust together, interacting. Hints at Rocket’s and Gamora’s past are suggested throughout these scenes, giving a little extra flesh to what we know about them, but we’re not dragged into any heavy exposition to slow down the narrative. It keeps up the pace, and lets us go with it.

 

 

Gamora, a green painted Zoe Saldana, is not terrible, but not the eye-catching ass-kicking female lead she really needs to be. Usual female character tropes are avoided for the most part; she doesn’t need help from the boys, suffers no romantic delusions, and no matter how hard he tries, Star-Lord just can’t get in her pants. Her outfits are modest, there’s no skin scenes, and the writers treat her like an actual woman, believe it or not. We’re introduced to Gamora and her sister Nebula as assistants to Ronan. I’m concerned that their relationship with Thanos, Ronan, and indeed each other isn’t quite clear enough to those who don’t already know it however, as it’s a fair bit rushed over.

 

Our heroes are thusly thrust together in a filthy intergalactic prison, and it’s here where they begin to really develop. Rocket’s technical genius shining, reminding the audience that this little furry guy is smarter than Tony Stark, Star Lord tries his hardest to romance Gamora, and is swiftly rebuffed, and just when you’ve forgotten about the fifth member of the team, he makes his appearance.

 

Drax is a surprising standout member of the cast. Comic fans may balk that his backstory, demeanor, and indeed overall character have quite changed from the source, but I’d say it’s a solid and enjoyable set of changes. Drax is a muscle bound, tattooed warrior, hardheaded and stoic, with his mind set on revenge against Ronan for killing his family. At first his character seems oddly played, but a few scenes in, it’s clear how much fun Dave Bautista is having playing Drax. The idea is that Drax takes everything absolutely literally, and it’s used to great comedy potential. Dave does a great job, and I was surprised to find just how much I enjoyed his performance.

 

Once the five Guardians are together, our story can continue. The separation between the act structures is a little tenuous, moving more or less at the same pace the whole film through. It’s a speedy pace, and keeps up the action throughout, but certainly leaves the whole experience feeling a little choppy here and there. After a daring escape from the prison that holds them, the orb in tow, the Guardians follow their information on the object’s original buyer to a location on the far edges of the galaxy, the mining colony of Knowhere, located in the decapitated head of a celestial creature the size of a planet.

Amongst the gritty mining colony of Knowhere, the archetypal sci-hi hive of scum and villainy, that we finally get to catch up with The Collector. Sadly, Benicio Del Toro’s wonderfully eccentric character only appears for a scant few minutes, which is mainly exposition as to the origins of the mysterious and powerful Infinity stone within the orb, and just why everyone wants to get their hands on it so much. I know there really wasn’t much more to do with him, and his character may have worn thin soon, but it would have been good to see a little more of such an interesting personality.

 

 

It’s here on Knowhere that we get glimpses into the inner workings of our heroes’ heads. We find Rocket and Drax bonding over betting on bloodsport, while Groot watches on in horror. Star-Lord tries in vein to tell Gamora just how much he loves music and dancing, failing to impress to stony eyed assassin, and when the team ends up in a drunken bar room brawl over an insult, you get the feeling this is the sort of back on forth camaraderie and animosity that real friends go through, the real personality of this team coming together.

Drax puts his foot in it, of course, when he stumbles drunkenly out of the bar and signals Ronan in an angry rage, challenging the accuser to come and get him, leading to an all-out Star Wars style space battle with mechs, lasers and explosions in space. All that good stuff. When the dust settles, a hero lies in jeopardy and the stone in the hands of evil, the only one the Guardians have left to turn to is the brutal mercenary forces of Star-Lord’s adoptive father, Yondu.

Yondu couldn’t be more different than he was in the comics, really. Gone is the contemplative native-American allegory in favor of a hard bitten biker type, played by the Walking Dead’s Merle, Micheal Rooker. With a glowing metal Mohawk that flares with power at the use of his sonic controlled arrow, Yondu rescues the Guardians and together they head out to rescue Xandar from the encroaching forces of Ronan, and take back the orb that caused all the trouble. Everything comes back to Xandar for the showdown, as Ronan descends from the skies to wreak havoc on the peaceful world below, the power of the Infinity stone enough to rend the whole planet asunder. While the combined forces of the Nova Corps gather to repel the invasion force, The Guardians form a splinter group to get into Ronan’s ship, and put an end to the big man himself.

The villain of the piece, Ronan the Accuser, is less of a character and more of a force. He reminds me somewhat of Nero in Star Trek. Both powerful men with armies below them, driven onward by a single cause. Be it revenge in Nero’s case, or simply utter destruction in Ronan’s. I personally was very disappointed with Ronan’s character in this film. When our heroes are so fleshed out, and so funny and enjoyable to watch, it’s a shame the villain isn’t nearly as much so. The character as written in the comics is remarkably complex, trying to do what is best for his kind, whilst skirting law and generally being a stone cold fascist, but an inherently moral man. Lee Pace’s Ronan, on the other hand, is simply a terrorist, bent on destruction. Seemingly not even against someone who personally wronged him, but simply the opposing side of a political treaty he disagrees with. It’s easy to see him as the villain, what with wanting to destroy planets and such, but when our heroes are so enjoyable, it’s a shame the villain isn’t equally so.

The arch villain on the other hands, the Mad Titan Thanos, is finally given his formal introduction to the Marvel cinematic universe here, and whilst he only gets a few short scenes, it’s a solid job of getting the audience familiar with a character who will be very important later. Played by a stern voiced Josh Brolin, Thanos controls the fates of hero and villain alike from behind the scenes, and is simply a looming threat in this story, waiting to take center stage in a later film. His scene will thrill fans of the comics, and does a good job of making you want a little more of the mad titan on your screen.

The film’s climax, compared to the rest of the film, might be considered overlong, it arrives a little before you might expect, and stays longer than you might desire, but regardless of its pacing issues, it’s a spectacle. Guardians incredible special effects are at some of their best here, between the glittering streets of Xandar and the stone cold tomb like interiors of Ronan’s ship, there is amazing stage design going on everywhere. So many characters are involved, it’s a huge ballet of team effort of a final battle, and here is probably what I liked most about it: It is a real team effort. Everyone has a part to play, a friend to support. This is not Star-Lord and the Guardians of the Galaxy. This is not Hulk defeating Loki and Iron Man stopping the bomb whilst somewhere the rest of the Avengers are standing around whistling. The film’s final crescendo on Xandar, as Ronan prepares to ignite the stone and lay waste to his hated enemy, with only the Guardians standing against him, as a united team, was a perfect example of this. I was thrilled to see the team united against him, as one.

What did I learn from Guardians of the Galaxy? I learned that five heroes can be written well, and given their own chance to shine. I learned that Bradley Cooper is a pretty damn good voice actor. He brings our snappy remarks and laughs and tears in a voice genuinely not his own, and all quite convincingly. I learned how to pronounce d’ast. I learnt that there is still a solid appreciation for creature shop out there, with everything but Rocket and Groot themselves being real people in incredible makeup effects as opposed to CGI characters. In the face of some of the most impressive special effects I’ve ever seen, the costuming and real makeup is still scene stealingly outstanding, particularly the hodgepodge of alien races that make up Yondu’s crew.

Most importantly, I learned that you can make a film, and make it about a team. Not the leader of a team with backup, but about the whole team. Star-Lord may be our lead, but nothing would happen without the constant interaction of the other Guardians. The villain is defeated by all of them, together. It’s a lot of work to squeeze in the characters they do, and the film certainly suffers for its high speed being crushed between plot development and characterization at times, but the people we meet are great fun, we’re introduced to a villain bigger than the whole story just waiting in the sidelines for a wider world to conquer, and The Guardians of the Galaxy are an enjoyable enough bunch of misfits to be welcomed back onto the screen.

All I can hope for is more Cosmo next time.