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The Girl With All The Gifts Review

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During the early 2010s, the zombie craze was huge. While zombies had been a part of entertainment all the way back from the 1950s (mainly through George Romero), as soon as The Walking Dead came out, along with things such as Call Of Duty‘s Zombie mode and others, the zombie craze blew up. Now, a few years after the buzz has died, a new zombie film.

The Girl With All The Gifts stars Sennia Nanua, Gemma Arterton, Paddy Considine and Glenn Close and is directed by Colm McCarthy. Set in the near future after a zombie outbreak, a young girl called Melanie (Nanua) finds out she is immune to their infections.

Most zombie films deal with the immediate aftermath of the outbreak. Even films such as 28 Days Later, a corner stone of the new zombie films, are set during the initial breakout of whatever creates the monsters. Here, it is a few years after the disease first struck, meaning there has been some developments. Bases are set up that house the half-breed human/zombies, anti-zombie drugs are rationed and the mutation is ever evolving in the towns and cities, now overgrown with fauna and flora. It’s a set-up that apart from Dawn Of The Planet Of The Apes, I can’t think of many films that have explored it, but is brought to life wonderfully through the film. It’s got hints of John Wnydham’s Day Of The Triffids, with the abandoned cities and oppresive atmosphere, just this time with zombies instead of plants.

The cast are good in their respective roles. Paddy Considine and Glenn Close, who are both part of the military detail that is working towards a cure, have clear arcs and motives. None of them are reduced to silly stereotypes or have odd reveals, they react like real characters, with emotion and thoughts, rather than what the script needs them to do. Gemma Arterton is alright as teacher Helen, but nothing really standout. The best though is young Sennia Nanua as Melanie, the titular character, who has the bloodlust of a zombie but can regulate it and appear like a human girl. Through the film she moves from eager youngster, reading books and writing stories, before having to grow up and become a vital member of the survivors. Her full range of emotions and states, including when she goes into full-on zombie mode are incredibly good for an actress as young and untested as her (this is her second production, and first feature film).

The film has a relatively low budget (£4 million), but it works to the films favour. The stripped-back effect of the films creates a better world. This isn’t a big-budget Hollywood zombie film like World War Z or even a American-style satire like Dawn of The Dead. It feels more like a real-world event rather than a staged film, without zombies running left and right. The zombies are to be feared rather than fought. The biggest set-pieces hardly involve fighting the monsters but rather tip-toeing past them and hoping that they don’t sniff you out.

There is only one real action scene, just after the first half an hour. At the beginning, I wasn’t really sure where the film was going, it’s slow paced and focussing more on characters than giving us a creature feature. But once we are lead out of the underground facility where the first act is confined to, out into the open, we get a glorious raging battle between soldiers and zombies. The entire scene is done in one long take, spanning a few minutes and involving well over a hundred extras. The work and effort to create it must have been astounding, and is worthy of praise.

In the end, The Girl With All The Gifts is an interesting addition to the zombie canon. For those waiting on a The Last of Us film to come out, go watch The Girl With All The Gifts while you can. It’s the closest you’ll come to getting it.

Score: 7/10 A refreshing blend of horror and science-fiction.

London Has Fallen Review

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Finally, it’s March. We’re going to be having some great films this month, Hail Caesar!, Anomalisa and even though I’m not looking forward to it, many film-goers are eagerly anticipating Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice. But, before we can enjoy those, I have to clean house one last time for London Has Fallen.

London Has Fallen stars Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Morgan Freeman and Alon Moni Aboutboul and is directed by Babak Najafi. The films follows secret service agent Mike Bannng (Butler) who must protect US President Benjamin Asher (Eckhart) after terrorists attack London.

I’ll start by saying that I haven’t seen Olympus Has Fallen. I’m much more of a White House Down kind of guy, but due to the former being a box office success and the latter flopping, we get an unnecessary sequel. But anyway, how does London Has Fallen stand as a film?

The answer is poorly. Very poorly.

The action scenes are passable. Most are just confusing jump-cut affairs, apart from one pretty good long take of a firefight in the London streets. Several explosions open the terrorist attack and it seems every single object in London has been doused in petrol and is a hair away from catching fire. Everything that can explode does explode, it starts to become almost comical. Director Babak Najafi seems to be giving Michael Bay a run for his money in the unnecessary explosions department, as we have around seven explosions delivered in a montage.

As the set-up for the film is the state funeral for the British Prime Minister, several heads of state are present in the film. Just in case we get confused between them, each one has a lapel pin of the flag of their nation attached to them, it’s like the film is holding your hand in case you get confused. The leaders on screen are thinly disguised versions of each the real life version, with Merkel, Berlusconi and Holland in all but name on screen. But as nearly all of them get wiped out in the opening ten minutes it falls to Gerard Butler as the world’s most Scottish American to save the day. He makes the British police and army look like bumbling fools, but that might be because Banning himself seems to be like a video game character in comparison, with the unlimited ammo and auto-aim cheats turned on.

The London displayed in the film was designed by someone who used tourist books as their research. The capital of England (not the capital of Britain, something the movie keeps getting wrong) is just made up of famous landmarks and tube stations. I guess this is to cater to the American audience, who only recognise London from Buckingham Palace and Big Ben.

While the first film had rogue elements of North Korea attacking the United States, for the sequel the bad guys are rogue elements of Pakistan. The films tries to put some motive into why the bad guys are staging a terrorist attack but it never really comes together. It tries to make the audience see their side of the conflict, with drone strikes killing their families, but then the film just turns around and becomes pro-US again, instead of staying with what could have been a good theme of the context of war. What we get is another modern action film that ends up painting all people from the Middle East as terrorists. For the finale it goes overboard, with Gerard Butler torturing the second-in-command bad guy while explaining why America is the best country in the world. I was half expecting to see an eagle fly overhead with the US flag in its talons and it screeching “‘MURICA!” for the end credits.

In conclusion, London Has Fallen is just a mindless action film with not much to recommend. If you want something as dumb as this to work, get Roland Emmerich to direct it. At least he knows how to make this stuff entertaining.

Score: 3/10 I can’t remember a single scene composition from the film…and I watched it yesterday. That should tell you all you need to know.

Legend Review

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The Kray twins have always been a source of media attention. Several books, television shows and even musicals have documented the infamous duos lives when they single-handedly ruled the backstreets of London. The first film about the Krays was all the way back in 1990 and starred Spandau Ballet brothers Gary and Martin Kemp. 25 years later, a new biopic about the twins arrives, this time called Legend.

Legend stars Tom Hardy (twice!), Emily Browning, David Thewlis and Christopher Eccleston and is directed by Brian Helgeland. The film follows both Ronnie and Reggie Kray (both played by Hardy), their rise through the criminal underworld and their eventual demise.

The standout of the film is the dual performance by Tom Hardy. The man is an acting powerhouse, and he manages to give both twins character. Their looks seem to be the only thing that is remotely similar as each twin has a different speech pattern, mannerisms and ways of holding themselves when speaking or being spoke to. It’s amazing to watch and it really does feel like it’s just two different actors rather than one man. Praise must also be given to Emily Browning as Reggie’s wife Frances. Browning’s whole performance is of a fragile and nervous woman who is constantly at her breaking point, trying to cope with her lying and violent husband. While this might have got stale very quickly, I thought it added more weight to her constant empty threats of leaving Reggie, as you could tell she would never go through with it for fear of being alone or what he would do. Browning also narrates the film, but I wasn’t convinced by it. Browning doesn’t sound interested or invested in the story (although she’s not as bad as Harrison Ford in Blade Runner) and it feels more like narration for the sake of it.

The film focuses on Frances and Reggie’s romance and marriage, which seems an odd choice for a film about brutal and notorious gangsters. While we do get the odd scene of violence (including my favourite, a fight in a pub that stars knuckle dusters and hammers) the film just keeps switching back to Reggie and Frances’ relationship troubles. It starts to feel less about the Krays and more to do with what a dysfunctional and abusive relationship looks like between a violent gangster and a quiet and shy drug addict.

Being set in the 1960s, the soundtrack is excellent. Recognisible and catchy songs such as Green Onions by Booker T and the Mg’s or I’m Into Something Good by Herman’s Hermits make Legend a pleasure to listen to. I can’t think of a gangster film that has reveled so much in it’s iconic music, but Legend has a string of songs that slip in and out of the film perfectly. The points in the film when the Krays are driving a flashy car, wearing suits fit for a king and listening to a crooner on the radio, those are the parts that stick with me from the film.

Legend has its flaws. As a biopic the film has to hit certain historical points, but the film doesn’t feel coherent at all. Several of the scenes could have been jumbled up and put at opposite ends of the film and it probably would have looked the same plot-wise. It’s less of a story and more a collection of events, each one disconnected from the last. This fluctuation in narrative ties in with another problem I had with the film, which was the ending. I won’t spoil the ending of the film (even though the true story is readily available to anyone with access to a library or the internet) but the film feels like it drags on for the last ten minutes so that it can tell us the final part of the Krays story instead of stopping at a more natural conclusion for the love-focused narrative of the film.

The film also tries to make jokes about Ronnie Kray’s sexuality, which felt a bit off-kilter to me. Early on in the film Ronnie bluntly states that he is gay (which is historically inaccurate but that’s besides the point I’m making). The film continues with these outbursts of his sexuality, and the jokes it tries to make about it feel a bit forced and more of a mockery of Ronnie’s sexuality rather than Ronnie himself.

In summary, Legend looks and sounds great, but the lack of cohesion in it’s narrative and story telling leaves it being nothing but superficial. If you like music from the 1960s or you’re a fan of Tom Hardy then it’s a definite watch.

Score: 7/10 A lot of style making up for very little substance.