THE MAN FROM M.I.N.I.O.N.S.
Not much time for the cinemas these days, but here’s a couple of amateur reviews to meet my blogging obligations.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
50+ years after its TV debut, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. finally gets the Big Hollywood Remake treatment, with Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin, with director Guy Ritchie aiming to do with Solo and Kuryakin what he did with Holmes and Watson - i.e. an action-packed period-piece buddy film with back-and-forth narrative jumps.
Wisely, Ritchie keeps the story set in the early Cold War 60s - trying to do a story in which a CIA and KGB agent are forced to work together wouldn’t really work in a 2015 setting. On the downside, it’s mostly an origin tale of how the U.N.C.L.E. team was assembled, built around a decent but average plot involving wealthy Nazi sympathizers trying to build their own nuclear weapon. It’s debatable whether we really need a whole film to explain the background, although maybe with the show being 50 years old, exposition helps.
Anyway, the real attraction here isn’t the story so much as the way Ritchie tells it, and the interaction between Solo and Kuryakin. Cavill is all suave and unflappable, while Hammer plays Kuryakin with barely controlled intensity. It’s good that they’re having fun with it, but I did find myself wishing they’d had as much fun as Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law had in the Sherlock Holmes films. This is good as light entertainment, but it just feels like more could have been done here.
Minions
Well, why not? Take what was really the best funny bits in the Despicable Me films (the Minion scenes) and give them their own film, which explains their origins and their purpose - to find an evil master to serve. Only they’re not very good at it.
After the Minion race spends several centuries in self-exile in Antarctica, three Minions strike out on a quest to find a new master, which leads them to a villain convention in Orlando circa 1968, where they land a gig with super-villain Scarlet Overkill to steal the crown of Queen Elizabeth II so she can take over England.
All of which is pretty much an excuse to stretch all those Minion skits to 90 minutes, set to a lot of classic rock tunes to amuse the parents while the kids laugh at Minion slapstick. Which isn't to say only kids will find it funny - there’s a lot of fun to be had. Overall it’s a film that knows exactly what it is - zany goofball entertainment with epic merchandising - and doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
God save the Queen,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at http://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1544612.html. Please comment there using OpenID.
The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
50+ years after its TV debut, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. finally gets the Big Hollywood Remake treatment, with Henry Cavill as Napoleon Solo and Armie Hammer as Illya Kuryakin, with director Guy Ritchie aiming to do with Solo and Kuryakin what he did with Holmes and Watson - i.e. an action-packed period-piece buddy film with back-and-forth narrative jumps.
Wisely, Ritchie keeps the story set in the early Cold War 60s - trying to do a story in which a CIA and KGB agent are forced to work together wouldn’t really work in a 2015 setting. On the downside, it’s mostly an origin tale of how the U.N.C.L.E. team was assembled, built around a decent but average plot involving wealthy Nazi sympathizers trying to build their own nuclear weapon. It’s debatable whether we really need a whole film to explain the background, although maybe with the show being 50 years old, exposition helps.
Anyway, the real attraction here isn’t the story so much as the way Ritchie tells it, and the interaction between Solo and Kuryakin. Cavill is all suave and unflappable, while Hammer plays Kuryakin with barely controlled intensity. It’s good that they’re having fun with it, but I did find myself wishing they’d had as much fun as Robert Downey Jr and Jude Law had in the Sherlock Holmes films. This is good as light entertainment, but it just feels like more could have been done here.
Minions
Well, why not? Take what was really the best funny bits in the Despicable Me films (the Minion scenes) and give them their own film, which explains their origins and their purpose - to find an evil master to serve. Only they’re not very good at it.
After the Minion race spends several centuries in self-exile in Antarctica, three Minions strike out on a quest to find a new master, which leads them to a villain convention in Orlando circa 1968, where they land a gig with super-villain Scarlet Overkill to steal the crown of Queen Elizabeth II so she can take over England.
All of which is pretty much an excuse to stretch all those Minion skits to 90 minutes, set to a lot of classic rock tunes to amuse the parents while the kids laugh at Minion slapstick. Which isn't to say only kids will find it funny - there’s a lot of fun to be had. Overall it’s a film that knows exactly what it is - zany goofball entertainment with epic merchandising - and doesn’t pretend to be anything else.
God save the Queen,
This is dF
This entry was originally posted at http://defrog.dreamwidth.org/1544612.html. Please comment there using OpenID.