Joker (2019)

Joker is one of those films that has garnered some good attention and then bad attention. When it was announced that they were doing a spin-off Joker film, I was slightly sceptical because the question would be whether a film with the Joker could work if Batman work. The quick answer is yes it would.

Joker is directed by Todd Philips who directed the Hangover movies which are the last films that I would ever watch. He was asked about why he moved from comedy to drama and said it was because WOKE had killed comedy and whilst I think that it’s a bit of an over reaction, the fact that he has moved into a different genre is good because it shows the he can handle different types of movies.

The set up of the film is Arthur Fleck (played by Joaquin Phoenix) who lives with his mother and his day job is playing a clown and whilst doing a job he gets beaten up and then at another job he brings a gun to a children’s hospital. The film does a good job in presenting Arthur as a nice but slightly odd guy who gets badly treated by more than one person. He wants to be a stand up comedian but gets mocked on local TV by Murray Franklin played brilliantly by Robert De Niro. It’s nice to see De Niro in something good as opposed to the credibility damaging stuff he’s doing recently like Meet the Fockers. In terms of the Joker, I thought that Joaquain Phoenix was really good as the Joker. His big scene comes towards the end of the film when he talking to Robert De Niro and it’s a great scene. Phoenix has a great ability of acting made but showing it slowly.
One of the things that was raised in this film is on the subject of the violence. To be honest I’m surprised because I think there are way more violent movies than this and I don’t think it was any more graphic. It was just there and perhaps in shorter more intense bursts but for the most part I thought that this was more a character piece and the slow breakdown of a trouble person.

Now there is one part of the film which I just couldn’t believe that they included and that was when Joker was dancing down the stairs and a song by Gary Glitter and if you don’t know who he is and why it was wrong then just google it. I think though that the movie was deliberately trying to make itself seem as the anti-hero like the Joker. It was though the first time that I was quite shocked by a piece of music in a film.

Also the whole Thomas Wayne being Arthur’s father then turning out not to be seemed to be a bit pointless. I also thought the character of Thomas Wayne wasn’t the best. He’s always been a character that I imagined to be quite nice and here he is just a rather horrible person. They wasted Zazie Beetz who played Sophie Dumond. She was used as a ‘love’ interest to Arthur and once it was revealed that most of her scenes with Arthur were made up, she ceased to be used and it was like she had no importance in the film.
Overall I enjoyed this film. I think that is interesting what they did with this film and its clear that they are going to do a sequel but whether it will meet with Robert Pattinson’s Batman remains to be seen. Even if their paths don’t cross, another Joker film wouldn’t be the worse thing in the world.

Doctor Sleep (2019)

Doctor Sleep is the sequel to The Shining. I’ve not read The Shining or Doctor Sleep but I went into the film slightly hesitant because I really like The Shining and felt that this film could only disappoint.

There are problems with this film. Firstly it takes too long to get to the Overlook Hotel. It’s clear that this is where the film will end up and yet it takes its time to arrive. The first 10-15 minutes do plod along and it doesn’t seem to know how it wants to start but once it does then its fine. However my biggest issue with this film is that they go to the trouble of referencing The Shining even though Stephen King doesn’t like it yet they recast Jack, Dan & Shelley instead of animating them from The Shining and dropping them into the film. Technology allows actors to be de-aged and yet they somehow recast which did slightly ruin it for me. Also there were characters that were bought in yet didn’t really service the plot. I though Snakebite Andi’s role could easily have been wiped out of the story. Also Abra’s mother is sort of forgotten about, she leaves for some reason (which explained) and then doesn’t turn up until towards the end and the father is really also there just to get killed.

The performances are really good. Ewan McGregor is very good as grown up Dan and its probably one of his best performance I have seen him give. Dan is trying to get as far away from his past as he can and he’s a recovering alcoholic and there is a nice vulnerability to him. Rebecca Ferguson is a very good villain as Rose The Hat, every scene she’s in is great. Child actors are normally irritating but not in this film. Kyliegh Curran plays Abra who becomes friends with Dan and she more than holds her own. She might be a bit too cocky at times but overall she more than holds her own against Rebecca Ferguson and Ewan McGregor. Also I thought that Alex Essoe does a superb impression of Wendy Torrance and you easily forget that it wasn’t Shelley Duvall.

The directing of this film is rather good. Mike Flanagan does a good job of keeping the story going and also resorting to clichés and jump scares. There was one jump scare that got me and it was just a light coming on but that was ok and I think that Flanagan is a good director because I quite like another film of his called Hush which also manages to maintain the story. He keeps the nostalgia to the final act and the shot where the camera is over the lake like at the beginning of The Shining was very cool and all the scenes in the hotel were mysterious and atmospheric.

I liked Doctor Sleep. I think that it’s an enjoyable if slightly flawed film. If you go in expecting this film to be better than The Shining then you will be disappointed but if you in not expecting it to be as good then you will enjoy it. The film is two and a half hours long and I actually thought that it was the right amount of time. 

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

I enjoyed Breaking Bad when it was on. I never saw it whilst it was airing but caught up with in afterwards. It’s an underrated show and one of those rare shows where it doesn’t go downhill towards the end. It ends at the right time and six years after the show finished, it was perhaps the right amount of time to bring some of the characters back. El Camino takes place straight after the series ended and Jesse is trying to get some money to be able to get away as possible. The film is told partly in flashback.

It’s good that they didn’t cop out and say that Walter survived when it was clear that he wasn’t going to. When he does make an appearance it was in a flashback and it occurred quite late in the film. I think that had Bryan Cranston not appeared in some form then it would have been a disappointment. It was clearly Jesse’s story but Walter was a big part of his life so there should be something but not at the risk of the good work that has been done before. It was good that they brought some of the Breaking Bad characters back. Skinny Pete (Charles Baker) and Badger (Matt Jones) were always underused in my opinion in the series but here they feature a bit more.

Mike (Jonathan Banks) is always fun to watch as Mike. I would like to have seen more of him but I suppose it wouldn’t have made too much sense in the grand scheme of the plot. The whole film is as good as it is because of Aaron Paul. I’ll be honest, I haven’t seen him in anything outside of this film and Breaking Bad but he was awesome in this. I was expecting to miss Bryan Cranston but I didn’t miss him at all. Some great moments include when he is getting the money from the fridge door and he has the gun pointing at his head and asked the guy what he was gonna do.

Vince Gilligan deserves credit for directing this very well. There are some cool shots that make this film seem special and yet part of the Breaking Bad series. That is the thing that surprises me the most. Most TV shows that become movies struggle to fill the extended running time and this film has a longer than usual running time (just over two hours), yet it never feels like its padding things out. El Camino is really good. I think you need to have a good understanding of Breaking Bad to fully understand the style and the characters

Crawl (2019)

Crawl is the best alligator film I’ve ever seen. Ok it’s a pretty short list with Lake Placid being the other film but its still number one. There haven’t been many good films about alligators which seems strange because they are a good monster. I say good because there have been plenty of Lake Placid films which aren’t anywhere as good. The story follows a young woman called Haley who is trapped in a house with her father (Dave) which takes place in the middle of a category 5 hurricane where alligators are in the basement. We learn quite quickly that she’s a good swimmer and she’s estranged from her father. It’s a simple enough set up which does take a while before we eventually get to the house and watch as Haley and Dave try and get out of the basement whilst trying to avoid the alligators. The film then becomes a survival film.

For the most part, this film is a two hander with Dave and Haley. I think that Kaya Scodelario is quite good as Haley who is basically the lead of the film and does well with the role. Barry Pepper is also very good as her father and I bought that they were father and daughter and they both do a good job of handling the majority of this film. There are some good moments in the film and they do a good job of making the alligators seem like an effective monster. The special effects are quite good especially in making the alligators swim around the basement and outside. Some of the storm effects aren’t quite as effective but there are only one or two times where I thought the effects were a bit ropey, the rest of the time they were well done.

I liked how people would show up to make us think that they would save Dave and Haley and then they would be picked off by the alligator which I thought was a nice twist. I also thought that the film dealt with the challenge of keeping them trapped quite well. They get to a point where they escape from the house at the right time in the movie and then just when you think they have reached the end of their troubles, the levy breaks and they have to try and get to higher ground.

Crawl is a silly but fun film. I cant deny that I found this enjoyable to watch. It’s the sort of film that you can watch with friends and laugh at what is going on and laugh at how ridiculous the whole thing is but the best thing is the film knows what it is and doesn’t try and be very serious or have a moral message to it. It just arrives, does what it does and then ends. That’s it and sometimes that all you want in a film.