Cats (2019)

Cats was a film that had a lot of notoriety before I even saw this film because it was apparently terrible and it had a 2.7/10 on IMDB. Its directed by Tom Hooper who is a director I like. I think The Damned United is a brilliant film and The Kings Speech is also brilliant. I haven’t seen Les Mis but its meant to be good so it was quite surprising that Cats got the negative reaction that it did but recently it seems that people are quite quick to give a film a kicking.

Plot is a group of cats are trying to get picked to have another life which is given to them by Judi Dench and Idris Elba captures the other contenders so he is the only one that gets picked. I’m not a huge fan of musicals and think that only the old ones like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Mary Poppins. The film wastes no time in starting the songs. As the film progresses we are introduced to certain people who are going to be chosen but we are of course introduced to them via song. James Corden and Rebel Wilson were clearly there to be comic relief and I normally find Corden to be irritating but I actually thought that he was one of the best things in it. He’s actually quite funny and Rebel Wilson is also funny. 

The problem with this film is that the songs get in the way. There was no breathing space between the songs. They would get a couple of lines in before they burst into song so the plot never really gets going and we know everything we know through song. 

Cats isn’t as terrible as the 2.7 would suggest but its not much better. This version I saw was slightly different to what originally came out as they worked on the special effects and if they did then they did it well because I was quite impressed with the effects. As I said a musicals fan so I cant give this film a big thumbs up but I think that it was a brave attempt by Tom Hooper which ultimately didn’t work out.

Knives Out (2019)

Knives Out is a Who-dunnit which sees a bunch of big names star. I couldn’t help but think about Murder on the Orient Express which came out a couple of years ago which like this film has an impressive cast and a single setting. In the case of this film, it’s a beautiful looking house.

Christopher Plummer plays a rich writer who it appears at first is killed but as the film progresses turns out killed himself because he thought he was going to die and didn’t want the nurse to have her family deported. I really liked Plummer ever since All the Money in the World and thought it was nice to see a nicer performance from him. His family in this film are all horrible in different ways and you could see why he left everything to the nurse.

Chris Evans is really good as Ransom Drysdale. He’s the only one of the family that doesn’t act like their better than everyone (as much). I’m so use to seeing him in Marvel films that it was nice to see him in something different and playing a different type of character. Daniel Craig isn’t playing Bond in this which is a reason worth watching this film. His accent is slightly odd and distracting at first and I couldn’t help but think of Russell Crowe in Robin Hood where his accent seems to go around the world sometimes a least twice in the same line. He’s having fun not playing Bond and the script allows him to just have fun. I don’t think he was giving it 100% but it was still a great performance. Other performances worth mentioning include Jamie Lee Curtis who was quite restrained as Linda, Michael Shannon who seemed less restrained than usual as Walt, Toni Collette as Joni was really good (as she always is) who is more worried about where her money is going to come from and an almost unrecognisable Don Johnson as Richard who is ok.

Rian Johnson wrote and directed this and the last film I saw directed by Johnson was Episode 8 of Star Wars which wasn’t that great but I think that this is a better film because its funnier, has a better story and all the characters are well used. I think that Knives Out is a good film but does come close to outsmarting itself and does go on slightly long but only by about 10-15 minutes. Some of the less big named characters suffer from not being particularly interesting such as Meg (Katherine Langford) but there aren’t many negatives for this film. Most people say that you cant make a bad film when you have so many big names in it and I say you can the second Avengers film (Age of Ultron) shows that some care and thought has to go into making sure that the film doesn’t collapse under the weight of the stars in the film. Thankfully Knives Out is a funny and enjoyable film.

The Irishman (2019)

A Martin Scorsese film is always something that delivers big news and the news that he was doing a Netflix film was very big. One of the things that stood out to me when I heard that this film was on its way was that it would see the return of Joe Pesci. The film tells a story over six decades of the lives of Frank Sheeran (Robert De Niro), Jimmy Hoffa (Al Pacino) and Russell Bafalino (Joe Pesci).

The film is an eye watering 3 and a half hours which means that the story doesn’t feel like it has to rush things and allows things to breathe and there means that there are some wonderful scenes between De Niro/Pesci or De Niro/Pacino and these scenes are so fun to watch. One thing that is noticeable is the de-aging that they did. It’s become common place now to do this and in some films it works but not all the time and it in this film it does and you have to marvel at the way that it looks so real.

There are Scorsese things in this film. Firstly the soundtrack, its amazing and what he’s good at (amongst other things) is choosing the right songs to play at the right time which sound like an easy thing to do but I don’t think it is and Scorsese has managed it in every film he’s done.

Al Pacino and Robert De Niro’s careers have taken a nose dive in recent years because of their film choices but this film reminds you why they were brilliant in the first place. De Niro is solid from very beginning. He never gets angry or aggressive, he’s quite passive for most of the film and it was perfect for the film. When you up against Pacino and Pesci who are two very different actors, De Niro manages to hold his own without going over the top. Pacino has some great moments in this film especially when he’s having a rant at people and it did remind me at times of his performances in the Godfather trilogy. Joe Pesci is also very good in this. It’s quite a tame performance from him compared to Goodfellas but everytime he’s on screen I enjoyed watching him and was missing him when he wasn’t. It doesn’t mean that I was bored with everyone else but I think Pesci is always dependable.

This film follows most of Scorsese’s great films. Someone from humble beginnings, becomes a big guy and then things start to fall apart in quite dramatic ways. It’s a formula that has always worked for Scorsese and if it works then use it. I enjoyed The Irishman. It’s not up there with Casino or Goodfellas but its still a very good film. I do think it could have lost about 30 minutes but I enjoyed The Irishman. It’s a film that is weak(ish) on plot but is held together and driven by the central performances.