Greed (2019)

Greed is comedy which tells the fictional story of a billionaire who is trying to throw a ridiculous party to show how wealthy he is. The story is told partly in flashback building up how Richard McCreadle (Coogan) goes from public schoolboy to King of the High Street. The film was suppose to be a comedy but NOBODY laughed and the week before I saw Parasite and people laughed multiple times and there were more people in this screening.

There is a thread where one of the children is in a reality TV programme. The fact it’s in the film shows that it’s current because reality shows are popular but I don’t think it will age well. The only good part about this particular thread is that former Doctor Who companion Pearl Mackie appears in this which got my attention.

I thought that Steve Coogan was quite good as Sir Richard McCreadle who is playing a charicature of a certain billionaire and there is quite a lot of Coogan’s other characters in the movie but I just didn’t connect to the character. When McCreadle got killed by a lion, I found it amusing but not much beyond that. I was distracted by Coogan’s teeth. I thought that David Mitchell was quite good in this. He plays the person who is writing the book on McCreadle and he seems like the most normal person in the entire film. He is tasked with making someone loathsome seem like a nice guy. 

I haven’t seen any films featuring Isla Fisher. She appears in films that I don’t really have any interest in seeing but I have to say that I thought she was quite good as the wife/ex-wife of McCreadle. She seems to like him but they aren’t in love and she gets to make a few digs about Richard. She does provide the right kind of humour. The film features a lot of people from the British comedy world so its an interesting query about how well this film will do out of the UK. 

It turns into a PowerPoint presentation at the end which felt like I was being lectured at. I understand why they put the stats in and they are shocking but I think that it wasn’t done in the right way and that’s my overall issue with this film. It felt it could have been handle a bit better. I was surprised that the people playing the refugees on the beach were actual refugees but by the end of the film I just found myself being slightly numbed by it. It’s not terrible but it lacks the killer punch that this film should have had.

Parasite (2019)

I went in to the screening of Parasite wanting to dislike it because I thought that 1917 should have won the best Picture Oscar and also because it felt like people were hyping it way too much and I thought that all it was going to do was disappoint. What I felt 2 hours and 12 minutes later was pretty much the exact opposite. I don’t think I have seen a film that bonkers for a very long time. I knew that I loved this film but it took me a while to figure out why.

The set-up of the film is that a family that are fairly poor and they integrate themselves into a wealthy family and each family member has a role. The film has a lot of comedic moments in the first two thirds of the movie. In the screening that I was in, there was several moments where people were laughing and its not hard to see why and I was chuckling with them. All the actors playing them are perfect. They are treated as quite smart and they have to come up with a plausible plan to get rid of people who they are working for them. 

The final 15-20 minutes is bonkers because it just comes out of nowhere. People are getting stabbed and skewed and bashed over the head with rocks and the reality of what becomes of the father is quite sad and it shows how much they have fallen is quite remarkable. It ended in a perfect way and as the credits played, I sat there for a few moments to try and take in what I saw. This is a film that didn’t drag at any point from the very beginning to the very end. The humour is well placed and when it turns, its does so in such as way that you don’t really notice it until its happened and by then the film is moving along towards the end.

If I had to nit-pick then I would say that there were a couple of moments when I was worried that the characters were going to be too unlikable but Bong Joon Ho managed to pull it back. I hear there is a black and white version and I hope to see that film because I think that this will only enhance my enjoyment. Parasite thoroughly deserved its Oscar. I love 1917 but I think that I love this film more. A film that is as close to perfection as its possible to get.

Underwater (2020)

Underwater is a film that is an unwanted movie. It was made by 20th Century Fox and when Disney brought Fox, this film got pushed back (it was filmed in 2017).  This film invokes several films such as Alien, Cloverfield, Event Horizon and Poseidon. The set-up of the film is that Kristen Stewart plays Norah where she and a band of fellow researchers have to get from A to B whilst trying to avoid some buggy parasites. 

I don’t quite know what to do with Stewart. On the one hand I don’t believe her as a leading lady. It’s a shame really because she really throws herself into the movie and she gets thrown about a lot (sometimes quite literally). Vincent Cassel is quite good as Captain. It’s clear that he’s been told not to outshine Stewart but he gets by far the best death. T.J Miller is the comic relief and to be honest he was a distracting influence and I wasn’t bothered by his death. 

There are some issues for me in this film. Firstly the camerawork is terrible. There were times where the camera was shaking so much that it became quite difficult to follow what was going on and who was in peril. Then there is the fact that the characters all have character traits and that is who they are such as Kristen Stewart who is suppose to be Ripley from Alien, Cassel is the European, Miller is the comedian, Jessia Henwick as Emily is the scared one who has to overcome her fears. Mamoudou Athie as Rodrigo’s character trait is that he’s the first to die. I called it when he first appeared and I was proved right. The thing about a film like Alien is that even though they all have their own lives, you believe that they a crew whereas because this film gets going from the very beginning, there is no time for much character development which is a shame really. 

The film’s monster is quite good and they do a good job in hiding it for quite a while. Due to the fact its set on the bottom of the ocean, there is very little light so its not easy to see what the crew are trying to avoid. There are things that I like about this film so its not as terrible as you might think. I don’t think that it’s the best film in the world and its way better than The Meg because its got better acting and better effects. It’s also only 95 minutes long which is quite a good running time and didn’t last longer than it needed to.

Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Jojo Rabbit is one of those films that seems to be bound for controversy because anytime you do a film about the Nazi’s or Hitler you are going to put people on edge and when you do a comedy about them then your going to put people even more on edge. Taika Waititi directs this movie as well as doing the screenplay and most crucially plays Hitler or the imaginary version of Hitler. I reckon 90% of the laughs came from Waititi’s performance because what you have to bear in mind that its suppose to a performance that ridicules an evil and hateful man. It contains one of my favourite lines when Hitler says to Jojo “you burn the house down and blame it on Winston Churchill”. I also thought it was funny when after the news that Hitler had killed himself, Hitler pops up and talks to Jojo with a bullet wound in his head. It’s these moments that made the film so fun to watch.

The story follows a young boy called Jojo who isnt the most popular person around and only really has his imaginary friend. Roman Griffin Davis plays Jojo and does a very good job. Jojo has sadly becomes brainwashed by the whole Nazi ideology and there are times when I think the film is going to tip over into bad taste because of his and Davis’ performance style do make it difficult to fully dislike him. Thomasin McKenzie plays Elsa and her role is slightly underwritten bearing in mind that she’s quite integral to the second half of the plot. I thought the moment when she has to say Heil Hitler despite being jewish was quite a shocking moment but I thought that overall McKenzie was pretty good and worked well with Davis’ Jojo.

Other performances worth mentioning are Sam Rockwell as Captain Klenzendorf who is on the camp side of things but is superbly supported by Alfie Allen’s Finkel. Rebel Wilson is funny as Fraulein Rahm and its nice to see her in a good film after not being wowed by Cats even though she was one of the bes thtings in that film. Stephen Merchant pops up for a little bit but is still entertaining and Archie Yates is nice as Jojo’s friend Yorki. He has some good comic timing which helped in this film.

It’s weird to see Scarlett Johansson in something that isnt a Marvel film. She was very good as Jojo’s mom and seemed like a nice person because she was hiding Elsa in her house knowing what her son might say. If there are issues with the film is that the plot never dealt with that. When she dies I thought it was another shocking moment because we don’t see her just her legs and feet.

Despite the subject matter and the rather grim moments that the film has, I really liked Jojo Rabbit. I get that it wont be everyones cup of tea but I think that the film walks the fine line between satire and just being an unfunny comedy but this film manages to walk it and its one of my favourite films of the year.