Showtime, A-holes

It's taken me two viewings and just under 24 hours of rumination, and now I think I'm ready to talk about Guardians of the Galaxy, Volume 2.

First, a caveat - I love the original Guardians of the Galaxy. Like love it in a way that is visceral and utterly independent of logic or objectivity. I did review that film for my own review site that I ran at the time, but even then my bias was apparent. When I walked into the cinema to see that film, I was already excited by months of trailers and having read one Brian Michael-Bendis comic book starring the titular characters. I literally danced off with the guy who sold me my ticket, as Hooked on a Feelin' played from my phone. I looked like a jackass, but I didn't care. I'd thoroughly enjoyed every MCU movie to date so far, and this one looked like being just as good.

It wasn't.

It was better. In every conceivable way, GoTG moved the whole bar of the MCU up for me several notches. Avengers Assemble, the previous high point of the franchise, paled in comparison. Something in that movie spoke to me on a deep, primeval level. I loved every joke, every line, every scene. I drank in the visual splendour of the sets and costumes, sat slack-jawed at the set pieces and for every single minute that I sat through that glorious first two hour watch through, I was overwhelmed by a feeling - nay, a conviction - that James Gunn had made a film just for me, and it was perfect in every way. I came out of the cinema that first time literally jumping up and down for sheer joy, high on a sugar rush of excitement that took me to see it another seven times at the cinema. I started writing, a lot. I listened endlessly to the soundtrack, I read more of the comics, and I started to love the MCU in a way I had never thought possible.

Yes, much like Winter Soldier magically retroactively made First Avenger into a better movie, GoTG breathed more new life and love for the entire MCU franchise into me than I had dreamed possible. I started not just anticipating MCU movies, but looking forward to them. I started watching all the tie-in shows. I became, in essence, a complete MCU fanboy.

I lay all of this out to make it clear that to me, the first Guardians of the Galaxy movie was not just a 'film I really liked' - it was a transformative and positive experience the like of which I had never gotten from a film before. I love it not just because it is, on its own merit, a superb little slice of quirky space opera in the tradition of Star Wars and Serenity before it, but because it was everything I ever wanted. I see the flaws (how could I not, after so many viewings?) but I don't care in the slightest - it is, to me, the perfect film.

All of which meant that going in, Volume 2 had a lot to live up to. I won't lie, on my first viewing I was nervous. Hell, I was petrified. I had that feeling of pent up emotion you get when you're going to interview for a job you really want, or about to sit a really important exam. I was excited, sure - it was a film I'd waited nearly three years to see, ever since those famous words 'The Guardians of the Galaxy will return' had flashed up in the end credits that first time. But I was also terrified - would it, could it possibly live up to the expectations that were built up in my mind. Could it be as utterly perfect to me as that first movie had been? Would it re-ignite all the same passions in me? And how would I feel if it didn't?

Let's get the obvious part out of the way: Volume 2 is a phenomenal movie, in my opinion. I'm going to offer absolutely zero spoilers here, but I am going to talk about how the first viewing of it made me feel.

Emotional.

I don't mean 'Oh it was a bit sad' or 'oh it was a rollercoaster of excitement'. I mean that after the 2 hours and 18 minutes were over, I was an exhausted, overwrought jumble of emotions. Friends messaged me knowing I'd seen it and wanting to know whether I was ready to squee all over the place as I had with the first, and I could only answer that I just wasn't ready. I went and sat somewhere quiet for a good ten minutes, and every time I tried to start examining details of what I had seen, tears would well up in my eyes, unbidden. I'd spent a good chunk of the movie weeping tears of various emotions anyway, but coming out, the whole thing fresh in my mind, I just couldn't unpack. My critical faculties had shut down and gone on holiday, and my emotions were just raw. I went home and carried on vaguely chatting to other friends who had seen it, but I kept it light, allowing tiny observations of micro portions of the movie to slowly slip out of me, the soundtrack album playing jauntily in the background as I did so. If the first movie had me punching the air for joy, this one left me hollowed out, exhausted and drained. I'd not seen a movie, I'd had an experience.

Part of me wondered, in a detached way, how much of this emotion was the film itself and how much was the 'comedown' of all that hype and nervous energy and expectation dissipating through my system, the adrenaline of the pre-viewing having drained out of my system. I couldn't tell you then or now, I can only say that I was not capable of thinking or speaking critically about the movie in any way whatsoever for several hours afterward.

After a few hours, it was time for viewing number two, the as my wife and I had a date night with it. Going in, I'd calmed down a bit, and I was looking forward to seeing the movie again, bereft of the mountain of nervous tension and expectation that had accompanied my first viewing. I was also a little excited to see what my better half would make of it.

Seeing it the second time, certain emotional points inevitably hit me with less force, because I knew they were coming. That said, I still cried, though not as much or as often. What really struck me though, was that I laughed as much as I had at all the jokes, snarks and asides.  The movie packs gags to spare, and the characters are all just as delightful as you remember them being before, while in many cases also having evolved. Baby Groot predictably steals the show on a number of occasions (like, basically every time he's on screen) but everyone else shines here too. Mantis is a more than welcome addition to proceedings, and Kurt Russell - well, he's Kurt Russell, so you know going in that he's going to be awesome.  For me though, the star of the movie overall is probably Drax. In the first film he stole a lot of scenes with the deadpan humour and a comic timing we'd honestly never expected from an ex professional wrestler. Here, we get to see an even deeper range from Bautista, and honestly it just makes me even sadder at just how badly wasted he was in Spectre. 

But fanboying aside - just how perfect is this new entry into the MCU?

The movie has flaws.

There, I said it. Like its predecessor, I can see faults in it. The main one this time is that the movie is just a little too pleased with itself. GoTG was a breakaway hit out of nowhere, and when you look at how tight that film was, with a bang on 2 hour run time and perfectly edited scenes, it's clear how 'safe' Marvel was in fact playing it. Here, it's clear that everyone feels a little more assured, and there is therefore inevitably some flab. Scenes and even individual gags go on just a few beats longer than narrative convenience should allow more than once, and some individual jokes aren't as funny as the rest. It also dollops on the schmaltz throughout, going for heavy-handed tugging at heartstrings at several junctures. Self-indulgent would be the best way of describing it - Gunn is comfortable with the characters and the story, and it shows.

However, when they are characters as strong as these - characters who the first movie just made me want to spend even more time with, you can get away with this. Also, I like schmaltz, and I'm not afraid to admit it. I am the guy who will shed a tear at the heartstring-tugging animal charity ads on TV, so I'm never going to complain about this sort of thing in a movie featuring characters I love. Similar applies to the lengthier gags and scenes - I could feel them slowing the momentum of the movie, and envision them having been cut from the first outing, but I didn't care, because every second I got to spend with these guys was a delight.

And that's mainly down to the excellent cast. The guys coming over from the first film are all as likeable as before, and the new additions fit well. Pom Klementieff is particular is just adorable as new character Mantis, and I sincerely hope we see more of her not just in the inevitable Volume 3 but other parts of the MCU as well. There's also a couple of familiar, if highly unexpected faces that pop up, and they're exceedingly welcome as well. It's clear that everyone had fun making this movie, and whereas that may not make it critically speaking the perfect movie, it certainly helps cement its brilliance to me.

Of course, the main criticism of MCU entries is that - Tom Hiddlestone's Loki aside, there are no really decent bad guys. Even GoTG suffered from this criticism, with many people voicing the opinion that Ronan the Accuser was just another templated one-film villain. Whether Volume 2 solves this will be down to your personal tastes. It's an inevitable part of its rogueish charm that there's more than one threat facing the team, but whether this will be seen as more or less satisfactory to audiences remains to be seen - it certainly worked for me.

So the important thing - the thing I know that anyone who knows me and my love for the first film will want to know - did I think this one was as good?

Honestly, it's a weird one. I grew tired of early critic reviews saying it suffered inevitably from lacking that 'surprise factor' the first film had, though I see their point. It's also impossible to view the film as a stand alone, because if you see this having not seen the first one, you won't get at least half of what's going on, and you certainly won't connect as much to various story and character beats.

What I will say (and to some this will seem a copout) is that it's different. The first movie had emotion and comedy and heart, but it was also dealing with giving introductions and backgrounds to several separate leads, jamming them together and then telling an actual story over the course of one two hour film where Avengers had had five movies dealing with the individual characters first (another reason why I see the first as a towering achievement for Gunn).

This one doesn't have that - sure, there are additional characters introduced but the core guys - you already know and love them, you already know where they came from. You can learn additional bits and pieces about them, sure. But what you really have here is a nearly two and a half hour hangout with the guys the first movie sold you on. That surprise factor is replaced by (for me) a comfort factor in reveling in the company of the gang. Where I came out of the first triumphantly punching the air, I came out of Volume 2 drained and emotionally wrecked. It moved me, though inevitably a lot of the rawest emotional parts lost a little of their immediate, visceral impact second time around. I will say this though - there aren't many two hour and twenty minute movies that I can think of that you can watch twice in a day and have the second time fly by even quicker than the first.

Do I love this movie as much as I had hoped? Absolutely. Is it a worthy successor to my favourite ever movie? Yes. Do I hold it in the same ridiculously stratospheric regard as its predecessor? I'll tell you after I've watched it a few more times.

We need to talk about Brexit

I mean, really talk.  Let's ditch all of the emotive rhetoric from both sides. Let's stop trying to reframe the whole discussion to fit whatever ideology we each feel is most agreeable to us.  Let's talk about honest to goodness facts.

First of all, lets acknowledge something - the referendum on whether the UK should remain inside or leave the European Union drew a substantial turnout in voters.  More than the last General Election in fact.  That means that regardless of which way you dice it, people cared about their vote in this one.  Dismissing the direction in which somebody voted in this would therefore be a mistake.

Tied up in that first acknowledgement though, is a second, equally important one - the vote was close. Really close. In popular vote terms, near as makes no difference close.  48.1% of the voters wanted to remain. 51.9% wanted to leave.  That means, broadly, that the population was more or less split down the middle on what the answer to this historically important question was.

Let's also acknowledge that BOTH sides of the referendum campaign did their jobs badly.  This can be seen firstly in that split - neither side was able to articulate well enough their reasons for their argument to gain a substantial majority.  It can also be seen in the fact that NEITHER side seems to have had any coherent plan as to what would happen in the event that the Leave vote won.  On the part of the Remain campaign, backed officially by HM Government, this is an oversight which can be blamed on simple hubris.  On the part of the Leave campaign, it seems entirely odd, objectively, that no coherent set of ideas had been established to implement the very change for which they campaigned so stridently.  Neither position is forgiveable, in people of status and office with the power to change the very fabric of our society.  We vote in the assumption (however misplaced) that those we vote for can be trusted to do their jobs. This set of circumstances would appear to suggest otherwise.

In the days following the result, a petition to Parliament requesting that, in the event of less than 75% electoral turnout and a vote either way of less than 60%, a second referendum should be enacted.  The petition eventually attracted over 4 million signatures, but was rejected by Parliament on the basis that the act to implement the referendum contained no such thresholds and had passed with overwhelming support.  This is the right answer based on the facts - the act in question did indeed set no such thresholds.  It also did not explicitly set out that the result of the Referendum would be binding, although government literature surrounding the referendum, issued to the public, did say that the government would 'implement what you decide'.

This last point is interesting, feeding as it does into the frenzied debate around whether or not the result of the referendum is binding on Parliament.  Here the technical answer is no - a referendum, constitutionally and legally, cannot be binding, absent some wording in its enacting legislation specifically setting such out and being ratified by Parliament.  However, as many commentators have pointed out, regardless of the fact that in it leaflets the government would appear to have made an unconstitutional promise which sat outside its powers to grant, it would be a mistake for a government already so weak to ignore a referendum result.  It risks, in this age of populist politics, a government being perceived as 'out of touch' and 'elite' - words which are the kiss of death in an era in which Donald J Trump sits poised to become the next President of the United States.

I think that it's important to recognise here as well, the very polarised and emotional way in which both sides of the campaign presented themselves.  The Remain camp made the mistake of simply assuming that all 'right minded' people would vote to Remain, and that anyone who didn't was simply a racist or bigot.  Whereas I don't disagree that racism informed a lot of the Leave campaign, and undoubtedly fueled much of its support, by simply using such basic 'dog whistles', the Remain campaign left itself too open to easy attack from the Leave side, and that didn't help its chances.  Some nuance might have been useful.

Similarly, the Leave side postured and blustered and told all Remainers that they were simply deceived sheep, following the will of the Lefty Elites and contributing to the downfall of our great society.  They conjured fears of armies of immigrants roaming the country and taking all jobs and benefits, overloading the country, they lied about the amounts of money paid to Brussels for EU membership and they were at best economical with the truths that they chose to print on the sides of buses. 

Understand - I recognise and support the idea of 'false equivalency' which dogs much of political debate - the idea that there can be no 'wrong' answer, just differing views which must all be given equal and fair consideration.  This falls down when one side is simply shouting lies as loudly as possible, so whereas I wish to recognise that both campaigns (not both sides of the debate itself, but the official movements which 'represented' them) had flaws, I tend to think that those flaws are measured on rather different scales, and whereas the Remain camp were guilty of some massaging of truths and some (SOME) exaggeration of consequences and minimilisation of issues within the EU, the Leave campaign was flagrant and unapologetic in its continued abuse of facts in its quest to instil the fear of God (or at least of Juncker) in the minds of the Great British public.

But here's the thing.  What we have now, in practical terms, is a country which is literally divided down the middle.  In a UK wide referendum, no clear winner was produced.  yes, I acknowledge that the vote said that more people voted one way than the other, but in a scenario where the stakes are so enormously high, and where the impact of any decision taken is such that it will affect not only everyone in the country now, but future generations for the forseeable future and beyond, I question whether a margin of less than 4% is enough.

And the point is, as I said at the beginning, we need to really talk about this.  This isn't a case where there is a 'clear majority' who can simply ignore the minority and drag them along with it.  This is a case where the minority is very nearly the same size as the majority.  This is a case where simply dragging the other side along is not only not viable, but impossible. 

And still the polarised, nasty rhetoric continues to fly.  Still those who express doubt in the result are castigated as unpatriotic, undemocratic.  We live in a modern democracy in which one of the essential democratic principles - freedom of speech - is being perverted.  Not even ignored, but literally perverted, such that I must recognise the 'right' of my fellow humans to express their disgust at foreigners or homosexuals but I must not at any point venture the opinion that their views are abhorrent to me.  Worse, we live in some sort of post truth, unironic landscape in which the subject of immigration, which forms the basis of not only every Leave campaign argument, but also most news headlines on TV and in papers, and most 'Brexit' discussions on the internet, is described, straight-faced by Leavers as 'something that they can't even TALK about'. 

So here's my suggestion.  We need to be able to talk about Brexit.  All of it.  Not just which vote won on the day or what sort of Brexit we want.  We need to be able to speak clearly and objectively on every facet, from what such a close divide in the nation means, to how we come together and heal that divide.  On the way, we need to address the understanding of the UK population of terms like 'democracy' and 'sovereignty' and maybe also whether or not these concepts and others like them should form part of basic education.  We need to discuss the idea of civic duty, the importance of voting and participating in democracy and holding those who are granted power over our lives to account for that power.  And we need, most of all, to discuss whether we are happy to continue voting in ignorance.  I voted to Remain, and I am open and honest about the fact that I did so based on a pure gut feeling, which had never wavered at any point during the campaign.  I suspect that a great many people voted, whichever way they did, for similar reasons.  The point is that I don't believe that many of those millions of people who voted did so from a place of proper education as to the facts (and I include myself in that) and that isn't something that we should just willingly accept.  This isn't a decision that we can just undo in five years time if it doesn't suit.  This is a historic measure, and it was not treated as such.

In an ideal world, yes I would ask for a second referendum.  Not because I am a 'sore loser', nor because I 'only believe in democracy when it gives the result I want' but because I believe that people confronted with historic decisions which have the power to impact the world around them for generations to come should do so on the basis of facts, not lies. They should be spoken to by politicians who are held to account for the words they speak, who are not allowed simply to shape whatever lie makes them the most popular in any given moment.  And they should be allowed the opportunity for respectful discourse, absent the polarisation and emotive rhetoric so often employed.  Passion is good. The illusion of passion used to cover up base lies, is not.

And we don't live in an ideal world, so I'll end as I began.  We need to TALK about Brexit, and about what it means to everyone.  And we need to do it soon, before the split that divides the country becomes deeper than it already is.

Suicide Squad Review

Amanda Waller’s squad of good for nothing desperadoes are barely introduced to the viewer before being thrown into a mission to save the world or die trying. 

And that’s about the snappiest summation of Suicide Squad that I think is possible.  This latest entry into the DC Cinematic Shared Universe arrives with an awful lot of baggage weighing it down – less than stellar critical response to the first two movies (Man of Steel and Batman v Superman), the use of some of the most iconic characters in the DC stable (Harley Quinn and a post Heath Ledger Joker) and a premise that doesn’t really do anything in and of itself to remedy the persistent ‘problem’ of the DC/WB collaboration being ‘too dark’ next to Marvel’s bubblegum bright and laugh a minute MCU.  Given all of this, is it possible that David Ayer, a director known for gritty, dark characters in gritty, dark movies can pull all of this off and deliver the first true ‘hit’ in the DCCSU?

The short answer is no.  No movie can possibly succeed in the weight of so much expectation from fans and non-fans of the genre alike. This was never going to be a film which pleased all of the people all of the time, and the best it could hope was to avoid the fate of its predecessor, sitting at a measly 27% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The long answer though – now that’s where things start to be really interesting. 

Let’s start with the relationship of two of the key characters in the film – Harley Quinn AKA Dr Harleen Quinzell and the Joker AKA Mister J. Much has been made in the run up to release of Jared Leto’s tattoos, shiny grill and on-set antics, and equally as much has been made of Margot Robbie’s costume, accent and general appearance.  Words like ‘problematic’ have surfaced often in any discussion of Robbie’s apparent appearance and use in the film judging by trailers, and many more explicit words have been used about Leto.  Getting the obvious out of the way first, yes Leto brings us a different take to previous cinematic incarnations of the Crown Prince of crime and no, it won’t be to everyone’s taste.  Arguably it’s irrelevant anyway because he isn’t in a whole lot of the movie and certainly several of the lines and scenes shown in trailers featuring him don’t appear. Harley is an interesting character and holds the attention of the audience less by way of her outlandish garb and more by way of her actions.  This is a film that doesn’t forget who Harleen Quinzell was, and as much as it doesn’t shy away from the dysfunctional, abusive nature of the relationship she shares with the Joker, it also doesn’t allow her to be defined by it.  Quinn has her own agenda, is capable of making her own decisions and importantly has insight into the issues of others.  Victims of abuse all too often get played on the large and small screen as only victims.  Nothing else stands out from their personality (if they are lucky enough to get one) but Robbie excels here in leaving her mark, her Quinn being every bit as intelligent, insightful and capable as she ever was while still having an Achilles heel in her love for the very wrongest man.  Leto plays into this dynamic well, and his Joker is equal parts abusive asshole and doting obsessive.  It isn’t love that he feels for Quinn, and nor is it sold as such – in the parts where he is ‘rescuing’ her, it’s clear that he does so because he can’t bear to be parted from a favourite plaything rather than out of any selfless feeling of attachment.  Of everything in the movie, it was this relationship which surprised me the most, Ayer having the restraint to not let it override the actual plot of the movie or the story of the other characters as well as the courage not to shy away from what it is, or try and smooth off the rough edges.  Leto’s individual performance may not be to everyone’s taste, but his execution as part of this double act is pitch perfect.

Next up we have Deadshot.  Many people expressed dismay at the idea suggested by the studio that it was Smith’s movie, anticipating a typical Fresh Prince-esque vehicle in which Smith quipped one-liner after one-liner and gurned to camera at every opportunity.  What a refreshing relief then that here Smith delivers one of his finest performances.  Deadshot, AKA Floyd Lawton is the world’s most deadly assassin for hire, a cold-blooded, quick-thinking murderer for money who has a very human weakness – his love for his daughter.  That summation alone may have you convinced that we will see Smith do his usual ‘bad boy with a heart of gold’ routine here, but disabuse yourself of that notion because that isn’t what we get.  Lawton is a stone cold killer, with a certain sense of (admittedly clichéd) honour (no women or children).  His journey here is a linear one through the plot – he doesn’t grow, doesn’t suddenly discover a wellspring of human compassion or a reason to turn good. He does what he has to so that he can see his daughter.  That he genuinely appears to bond with his fellow squad mates (especially one) doesn’t interfere with this. Yes, he gets some humorous lines, yes he can’t disguise that distinctive charm and screen presence that he’s always had, but this is a hard-edged performance for a hard-edged character and it works to a tee.

And then there’s Viola Davis’ Amanda Waller, as the hard-nosed government agent overseeing this bunch.  Unfamiliar as I am with Davis as an actor, here she is a revelation.  It is difficult to say too much without spoiling major beats in the story but suffice it to say that if the squad themselves are bad, it follows that the one holding their reins must be as bad if not worse, and in that respect Waller does not disappoint. Ruthless, manipulative and highly capable, she is a character to be reckoned with, and far from being the boring boss character to the circus of the Squad, she joins them as being every bit as memorable.

Other characters, as is inevitable in this sort of ensemble movie, get less space in which to shine.  Jai Courtney's Captain Boomerang is impressive enough with what little he gets to do.  Jay Hernandez as the reluctant pyrotechnic gangbanger with a dark past is a great, if mostly understated performance who suddenly gets a lot of backstory levered in for him during the third act and Karen Fukuhara is kickass but slightly anonymous as Katana, a part which ends up with precious little to do/say in the shadow of the more colourful members of the squad itself. Adewale Akinnoye-Agbaj as Killer Croc gets the odd decent line and some quality action, but his main scene in which to shine in Act 3 is let down by some messy cinematography which obscures the action and makes for confusion at one point as to exactly which side he's on.

And then there is Cara Delevingne as June Moon/Enchantress.  While I was personally stoked by the idea of a witch character in the traditional rather than mutant/gifted person sense that the MCU gave us in Scarlet Witch, the character itself delivers early promise which is then inexplicably allowed to fall flat. having established a brilliant introduction not only to the character but also her capabilities in scenes we saw in trailers, she is then allowed rather to fade into the background, only really returning for the finale. Certain critique has been raised at the costume (or lack thereof) of the character,  and it is tempting to think that perhaps Ayer is shooting for the trope of 'frumpy girl in suit and glasses gets possessed by hyper sexualised bad girl spirit' but honestly it didn't feel like that was quite what the movie was shooting for.  The idea seems to have been simply to contrast the two characters who inhabit the one body, but the issue is that Delevingne lacks the range to carry this through to her performance, the result being that the mostly CGI enhanced Enchantress is more interesting to watch not because she is less dressed but simply because the CGI of swirling mist and flies is combining with the makeup to do most of the work for her. This woodenness means that the romance between Moon and Joel Kinneman's Rick Flagg lacks any substance or depth, highlighted all the more by the contrast with the Joker/Quinn romance, which feels real and organic if dysfunctional.  Bottom line, I honestly didn't care about their relationship, or about the Moon half of the character, and that is problematic for certain elements of the plot.

The plot itself, as indicated by my opening, is fairly straightforward to the point of absurdity - Waller forms the squad to fight meta human threats, and immediately a threat arises barely after we have been introduced to them. The circumstances of the mission are convoluted at best, and on reflection show evidence of the heavily publicised re-shoots as well as some messy editing.  Suggestions are already in the air that the domestic release of the movie might get the same Ultimate Edition treatment as it's Batman v Superman stablemate and I would certainly be interested to see if we do, and if such a cut casts the movie in a new light in a similar way. But the plot is nothing if not relentless.  There are twists, plenty of action and many nice character moments for each of the motley crew which serve to endear them to the viewer.  Bad guys they may be, but likeable ones at that.

So does the movie succeed? Yes.  It tells a decent story, rounded out with some excellent character work and nice twists.  It has flaws and weak links (Delevingne chief among these) but overall it entertains well for its two hour run time and manages to continue the DC/WB theme of examining the source material characters and the place that they would occupy in the modern world.  It is far from the best comic book movie that you will ever see, and like Deadpool before it, the desperation of its anarchic vibe is one that could only come from a corporate source.  Like the Merc with a Mouth, this movie screams counter culture from its every billboard, but beneath all that neon and graffiti is a slick, by the numbers entry into the comic book movie stable which isn't anywhere near as anti establishment as it might like to think it is, the one exception being that romance between the Joker and Quinn which I really hope we get to see explored more going forwards. 

It won't remake the world, nor change your view of the comic book movie genre, but if you enjoy a good comic book romp, you can do a lot worse than spend time with the Squad.

7/10 

Transformers: Age of Extinction - A Review

At a certain point, one wonders if film critics hate Michael Bay as much as they claim to, bearing in mind that he is a part of the very industry that keeps them in work, as well as a part which enables them to regularly flex their bile muscles as they pour huge streams of invective onto the page regarding the man and his work.  It’s got to the stage now where a film which even has Bay credited as an associate producer has the reviewers sharpening their knives in gleeful anticipation. 

But anyone paying any attention will also note that, regardless of how much critics fall over one another to profess that they are the one who hates Bay the most, the majority of his movies do fairly well.  Transformers: Age of Extinction is a pertinent example.  This was a film that critics almost exploded over. With an 18% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and such choice review quotes as “the worst and most worthless Transformers movie yet” (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone) and ‘an endless barrage of nonsense and noise” (Chris Nasahwaty, Entertainment Weekly), this was the film that united the critics in declaring Bay the very devil himself.

And what effect did that endless barrage of negative response from the critical community do to the global box office for the film? Nothing.  Nada. Zip.  In a year which brought us delights like Guardians of the Galaxy, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes and other shining critical gems, there was one movie squatting atop the pile with a global taking of over $1billion US.  Even the climactic instalment of Peter Jackson’s epic Hobbit trilogy couldn’t dislodge it from the top spot.

I myself have avoided seeing the film for a long time, having gotten bored after the execrable Dark of the Moon, which promised a serious, grown-up version of the franchise after everyone including the cast apologised for Part 2 and then delivered on that by basically including more swearing, more blatant sexual objectification of its female cast member and more graphic violence (including human beings vaporised in-camera).  It was a tragic, tone deaf, uneven mess of a film, and having paid money to watch it on DVD (because you used to be able to still rent them back then) I swore I would not be paying another penny for the privilege of watching another.

Then Age of Extinction popped up on Netflix, and with nothing better to do one day, I decided to sit down and see if it really was as bad as all the critics had said.

It wasn’t.  It was worse.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to get out my own critical baseball bat and go all medieval on Mr Bay’s head with it.  I’m bored of the invective, the endless posturing among critics who archly dismiss a movie based on a kids toy franchise because it’s just beneath them and fanboys crying that Bay has violated their childhoods somehow.  Seriously, enough already.  A movie is just a movie and a blockbuster director merely serves up what he knows will sell.

Let’s get the first thing out of the way – yes, the way that Bay treats female characters hasn’t improved at all. Yes, the whole cringe-inducing scene wherein the male love interest for the main female character proves that despite his being 20 and the girl being 17 (and therefore illegal for him to date as a minor) they have found a loophole.  Yes, it’s as awful as you imagine when Wahlberg’s daddy character tells the girl (his daughter) that her ‘shorts are shrinking by the second’ in a scene where tbh nobody was looking at her shorts. But that said, at least in those two scenes, the poor girl actually gets to do some of that ‘acting’ stuff after a fashion, in that she has lines (albeit she’s mainly just a piece of meat for Daddy and Boyf to fight over).  The rest of the time she’s mainly screaming, running away, and being told what to do.  I’m not even joking. The one tiny effort that the movie makes to have her rebel and do something that she wants to do against her Father’s wishes towards the end of the film ends with her basically getting herself in trouble, ‘proving’ that if she would just listen it would all be ok. Other female characters appear – Sophia Myles is wasted in a part which I literally could not tell you what was the point of – at one point she seems to be being set up as the love interest for Stanley Tucci’s weird Steve Jobs knock off, but then she basically vanishes somewhere in the middle of the final act and Tucci seems destined to walk off into the sunset with his Chinese assistant instead (who herself has been established as *yawn* a kickass martial artist with plenty of spunk, because god knows every Chinese person must know kung fu (if you think I am exaggerating, there’s another random man in an elevator who suddenly explodes into kung fu action and beats down a trained CIA Black Ops guy.  Up to the point he does this, he’s merely been standing there holding his groceries.)

So yeah, the women get a crappy deal, but then this is a Transformers movie, and after three preceding it which treated their leading ladies as arm candy to be won by the (thankfully now departed) Shia LeBouef, we should not be surprised by this.

Let us turn then to the male protagonists.  I don’t mind Wahlberg.  I know he gets a lot of stick, and he’s hardly the greatest thesp in the world, but given the right vehicle he can turn in a workmanlike performance.  Here, he’s supposed to be some sort of deadbeat self-employed inventor who just mucks around with junk.  His sudden attachment to the Transformers and involvement in their fight makes little real sense, and he might be a little more believable as an inventor if a) he didn’t keep telling everyone he was one every five minutes and b) he didn’t look quite so permanently bewildered by everything going on around him, but he’s doing his best within his limited range, and he’s far less annoying than LaBoeuf was in the third instalment.

Then we have Shane, Wahlberg’s daughter’s secret boyfriend.  The internet assures me that Jack Reynor, who plays this loveable rogue, is himself Irish, though from his accent in this film you wouldn’t really know.  Shane is a weird character – introduced as a ‘professional driver’ though we never really learn much more, he starts seeming to be a fearless, chiselled hero archetype, before suddenly becoming a scared, helpless little boy almost like a comedy relief partway through.  Then he traverses a full range from outright coward to cheating liar who takes credit for someone else’s achievement and finally ends up walking off into the sunset with the girl, having been given the blessing of said girl’s father who has alternately hated/pitied him the entire film.  It’s less a character and more a place filler, much like the girl, just there to do whatever the series of unconnected events passing for a plot needs him to at any given moment.

TJ Miller is the most likeable human character and here he is utterly wasted. Enough said. Others turn up and earn their paycheck with ill grace – Kelsey Grammer frankly looks like he is asleep and Tucci seems to think that maybe the big glasses and *ahem* ‘uncanny’ impersonation of the late Steve Jobs will maybe distract us from the fact that it’s him.  Oddly, in one improvement from previous instalments, the voice cast for the robots themselves includes some heavyweights, which lend real character to them.  John Goodman as Hound and Ken Watanabe as Drift are the standouts, each using their unique voices to good effect.  

And as to that plot.  Well, this film claims to be in the same universe as those preceding it (thanks to the ‘Remember Chicago’ posters and billboards and the constant references to the events of the previous film), yet it doesn’t really seem connected.  The overarching meta plot of an alien/transformer bounty hunter tracking down Prime, and the various mythos the movie attempts to inject with the painful Round Table rip off (it isn’t a metaphor, and if Bay thinks it is, then he needs a dictionary) and the idea of Prime being one of the mystic Knights sent forth by the mysterious ‘creators’ seems to sort of completely run counter to the mythos of the Primes established in Revenge of the Fallen.  It might fit better with Dark of the Moon (frankly I have forgotten whatever passed for a plot in that one) but overall one can’t escape a feeling that it’s just being made up as the writers go along.  And that’s just the one plot.  Then we have the secret CIA project to find and kill all transformers while pretending that they are only going after Decepticons, the fact that this plot ties in with another whereby Tucci’s company is making their own transformers from Transformium (the element from which transformers are created apparently, presumably mined on Pandora with the Unobtanium), Wahlberg is trying to make a living and keep his daughter in school and on the straight and narrow, Shane is…well ok I’m not sure what Shane is trying to do in all honesty.  It all just kind of smooshes together with each plot suddenly taking prominence for a moment depending on what sort of slow motion explosion stunt Bay wants to shoot next and then moves to another as he finds the next one.  

That last point is the one worth making. It is often pointed out that Bay has certain hallmarks in his film making – slow motion explosions, low camera angles, military fetishism and so on.  Nowhere has this penchant been more painfully obvious than in Age of Extinction.  There are so many plots and sub plots, most of which are paper thin and many of which go unresolved, and so little done to flesh out any of the characters beyond one dimensional cut outs, that one is left purely with the explosions.  And I don’t even mean action scenes because mostly it is impossible to make out what is going on in the action scenes beyond that stuff is exploding.  Add in the fact that Bay feels the need to constantly have human characters in the middle of the explosions and crashes and heavy things falling down without ever really getting hurt, and it all just becomes weightless and stakeless.  It doesn’t matter that the young girl is in a car which is being crushed and shunted about by giant robots because we know that she is going to be fine.  All tension is lost, because there is nothing to be tense over, even if you could understand what the hell was going on.

I’m not angry.  I’m not going to declare that Bay has sullied my childhood, or that he is wrecking cinema.  I’m not even going to say that it’s a bad movie, because between the product placement, the endless explosions, the lifeless human cast and the lack of any coherent plot or direction, it isn’t a movie at all. It’s the equivalent of a fairground ride.  You get on, your senses are assaulted for nearly three hours of noise and explosions, and then you get off. You haven’t been told a story, you haven’t taken away a lesson or learned anything.  You’ve just sat and had a lot of stuff happen at you, and then you’ve walked away.  Even now I can feel the details of what I have just watched slowly leaking out of my brain, leaving only an impression of endless fireworks.

Ultimately, Bay has honoured the original series perhaps more than even he himself realises.  What we have here is a three hour commercial for toys, underwear, beer, energy drinks, various car manufacturers and the Peoples Republic of China.  All he’s really done is expand the mandate of the original cartoon, to include the adults as well.  In that respect, his attempt to produce a more ‘mature’ entry in the Transformers series is an unqualified success.

1/10

Analogue critique in a digital world

Every so often (less so these days) I will involve myself in a 'debate' online about something.  I use those '' marks because my experience of these events strays a long way from what I would term actual debate, becoming instead a running series of arguments in the 'My Dad is bigger than your Dad' sort of vein.  Recently there have been a couple of articles circulating social media arguing about the 'death of fandom' and the toxicity that the internet seems to have brought to discussion of pretty much any subject, and as long and well-thought out as those were, I have been thinking for a while that the problem is actually a much simpler one, once we strip back the problematic language used, the threats of death and sexual violence and the sense of entitlement often found throughout many devoted fandoms.  The problem is that as we have become a digital society, debate has morphed from a discussion and exchange of ideas which promotes thinking and reasoning and even progression, into a simple binary scale.  You are either for something or against it.  You either love a thing or you hate it.

This lack of nuance has tended to encourage people to adopt entrenched positions, for fear (I assume) of being ostracised from whatever group it is that they identify with.  The current controversy swirling around the new Ghostbusters movie is a perfect (if depressing) example of this. The discussion (such as it is) which surrounds it seems willing only to admit one of two positions as being acceptable - either you  must think that it's an awful, hideous terrible thing that will be the death of our collective childhoods, or you must be in love with it, blinded by corporate loyalty/third wave feminism/a lack of sophistication in your taste in movies and humour etc.  Should you dare (as I did) to point out that criticism of an entire movie that you haven't actually seen yet is fairly redundant and not a little silly, you are a lefty SJW fascist, trying to trample down the voices of those people who just want to have an opinion.  It doesn't matter how carefully you phrase it, it doesn't matter if you say that you like the trailer but they didn't and that's fine because it's all a matter of taste.  It doesn't even matter if you didn't actually mention the troubling undercurrent of sexism and misogyny which seems to lurk, shark like beneath pretty much every vocal anti-ghostbusters opinion that there is out there at the moment, (I certainly didn't) you will still be told that you're simply trying to be a White Knight, pandering to the feminists in hope of sleeping with them (this is some of the milder stuff that was flung my way in this one conversation).

Now, I'm happy with the idea of people disagreeing with me - heck, I write reviews for a hobby and fiction as part of my living so I would be seriously boned if I was to roll up in a ball and cry every time somebody took exception to what I write. I'm even happy to alter my own position if someone advances arguments that cause me to reconsider my own view of the facts.  But herein lies one of the root causes of the problem we are experiencing in fandoms of late - the confusion between subjectivity, which is definitionally the way that all art is viewed, be it movie, TV show, comic, etc, and objectivity which is concerned with facts.  A picture or piece of music cannot be objectively BAD.  You cannot say, with empirical certainty, that a movie is without redeeming features.  And that's because art is a subjective experience - you will take your own reaction to the art presented to you, based on your own tastes, experience and personality.  But if you view the world through a binary lens, assuming that only your interpretation is the correct one and others are inherently incorrect - well, that's where fascism becomes a valid word to be throwing around.

Art is a peculiar craft to have for sure - as an artist, one bares one's soul to the world, pouring one's energies into creating a thing moulded in line with one's own tastes and vision and then hoping that there will be more people out there who appreciate and agree with that taste than don't.  And the truth is, there rarely will be.  Sure, a lucky few will create something that is more or less universal in its appeal, and they will become rich and successful, though generally only for a time (anyone heard from Stephanie Meyer or E L James lately?).  At risk of sounding snobbish (which is far from my intention) art which appeals to the masses tends to be art which doesn't maintain its shine for a great length of time.  Barely anyone bought the last Dan Brown book as far as I could tell, yet for a couple of years there you couldn't move in any train carriage or coffee shop for people with their noses stuck in a copy of the Da Vinci Code.  That sort of mass appeal tends to be fleeting, whether because there is only so much vanilla that people will tolerate or because there are simply only so many ways of doing the same thing before it becomes boring.  But Van Gogh was a man whose art was never really appreciated until long after his death and now s considered amongst the greatest ever produced by human hands.  Movies which critics adore fail miserably by commercial standards, while movies that critics despise succeed beyond all reasonable measure (see Transformers: Age of Extinction, which represented the point at which even critics previously forgiving of the franchise lost all patience, yet which went on to dominate global box offices, taking in over $1 billion worldwide and cementing itself as one of the most commercially successful movies of all time.)

And I think a lot of this is due to the binary nature of how we are now told to judge things.  Batman v Superman can't be 'just ok', it either has to be the best thing ever committed to celluloid or the death of modern comic book cinema. It isn't just art either - go look at any 'discussion' of any subject online and the measured and reasonable responses will be far outweighed by the extremes on either side of whatever it is.  Jeremy Corbyn can't be a reasonably decent man with some good ideas - he must either be the perfect saviour of humanity or the antichrist.  Johnny Depp can't be a man accused of domestic violence - he must either be a hideous, woman beating monster or the saint who couldn't possibly ever have laid a hand to a woman. It's ironic that in an age where superheroes are more a part of the common pop culture consciousness than they ever have been before, it's the comic books, and their associated movies, that are displaying more nuance in the way that they address important issues than the real world which they used to form a hyper exaggerated, over simplified picture of. It's almost like the profusion of comic book-based TV shows and movies has caused us to seek out perfect superheroes and evil super villains in the real world, while those movies and shows themselves often try to aim for more nuance and distinction, in an attempt to ape a real world that is rapidly disappearing from view.

Myself, I'm an eternal fence-sitter. I will always try and look at the balance.  Not because I am a special snowflake or because I want to feel different from the rest of the world, but because I am, quite simply, terrified of missing out on opposing views and ideas that might challenge and inform me.  I might not agree with them, but they still give me an opportunity to look at the things that I love in a new light, and what's not to love about getting to see a new angle on the object of your affections?

Fandom isn't broken.  It just forgot that opinions and facts are two very different things.  Love a thing or hate it - that isn't something I would ever deny anyone.  But be open to the possibility that sometimes, a thing may just be ok.

Let's talk about Sex in the British Media or Why We still really NEED feminism

Simon Danczuk, the most publicity-hungry politician in the UK who isn't Nigel Farage is once again in the headlines, for all the wrong reasons. Since he fairly publicly split with his girlfriend just after Christmas, having confessed to some 'inappropriate' messages between himself and a 17 year old young woman, accusations have come from his first wife suggesting that when they were married, Danczuk was abusive to the point of rape.  Danczuk has flatly denied all of these claims as untrue, but his initial defence of 'if I did these things why is she going to the press instead of the police' would appear to have lost some credibility with reports that the Greater Manchester Police are indeed investigating a claim of rape against a '49 year old man in Rochdale' dating back to 2006. 

Thousands of column inches are available for those who want them dealing with Danczuk's inept attempts to justify his increasingly erratic and bizarre behaviour, and I am not going to repeat what others have said about the man here.  My concern is with something altogether more insidious - the media establishment in the UK and its responses to and reporting of stories which involve sex. 

Let's start with the young woman with whom Danczuk shared a series of 'inappropriate' exchanges, who has since come forwards to the tabloids with her story, expressing concern and shock at the content of messages sent from her MP to her when she contacted him supposedly looking for work. Within hours, the Sunday People were running an article declaiming said young woman as a 'dominatrix' who sold sexually-based humiliation online through a 'specialised website'. According to its breathless prose, the time stamp on the pictures on said website would have put this young woman - who I will not name here - at 16 at the time they were taken. 

For starters, this reeks of victim-blaming and patriarchal bias.  Danzcuk was engaged in a relationship at the time the messages were sent, and was asking a 17 year old whether she would like him to spank her.  This is a man who 'tirelessly' worked to expose the child abuse committed by the late Sir Cyril Smith and the subsequent cover ups.  A man who has made a name for himself with a book on the subject and various high profile pronouncements and work with victims of abuse.  At best, one might describe his conduct with regards to this young woman as odd, given the whole circumstance.  At worst, one might say it was downright creepy. Nonetheless, the fact of the man engaging in extra-relationship 'sexting' is less important than the reaction of the young woman in question.  She had said to the papers that she was 'shocked' by the messages he had sent.  Then the papers dug up the 'revelation' that she was a dominatrix.  The message was clear - if she sold sex online, she couldn't possibly be shocked by the advances of a man.  Or to put it more simply, she deserved what she got, and was clearly now grubbing for money. 

If that wasn't disturbing enough, I decided to follow this one up and see for myself this 'specialised website' which showcased her sexual degradation.  What I found, after not much effort (given how willing the papers were to print not only the young woman's online persona but also her real name and photo) was a tumblr account, set up on the 2nd May 2014.  Every photo on there (there were about 5) was stamped as having been uploaded on the 2nd May 2014.  The update which proclaimed this to be the new location of her 'findom' (financial domination - a sexual kink whereby men send money in return for being humiliated and dominated by women) service was also dated 2nd May 2014.  There were no further updates after that day.  Not one. No entries, no pictures, no updates, nothing.  Even the pictures were no more shocking than anything you would see on the average newsagent shelf - a young woman in underwear type garments.  You would see nothing any more graphic on the front page of Closer! or Heat!, let alone the 'lads mags' which seem thankfully to be dying out, much less half the tabloid papers in the UK. Yet from this one element, this young woman's character had already been determined by the media to be that of a calculating sexual dominatrix, wise to the sexual ways of the world and therefore in no way entitled to be 'shocked' at a man thirty years her senior sending her sexually suggestive messages. 

What message are we sending to women here? As fast as Danczuk's (alleged) attitude of 'we are married so I can have sex with you whenever I wish' towards his first wife is being decried as a relic of a bygone, mysoginist era, the modern media tells us that if a young woman in any way takes charge of her sexuality in any area of her life, she forfeits the right to sexual agency, and must accept the sexual advances of any man, regardless of whether she invites them or not. This young woman, apparently a college student, is being trumpeted as a 'dominatrix' on the basis of a few tame pictures and a declaration that she is here to humiliate men for money made - it would seem - one day two years ago and then utterly forgotten. 

And then we have the accusations of the first Mrs Danczuk.  According to her, Mr Danczuk was a heavy drinker (which he himself has admitted, indeed blaming his drinking for his 'moment of madness' in the texts to the aforementioned young woman), a drug user and an abusive partner who told her that sex was his right as her husband, and allegedly had sex with her while she was asleep (which in itself is rape).  Danczuk's immediate response to this story, printed in the Daily Mail, was that it was all ridiculous and that if there were any grain of truth to it then his ex wife would have gone to the police, not the papers. This proved slightly short-sighted at any rate after it was revealed shortly afterward that the police had indeed been contacted and were investigating but again the response which troubled me the most was the insidious undercurrent which seemed to suggest that the former Mrs Danczuk was merely selling outrageous lies to make a buck.  What really disturbed me was the fact that one of the most strident voices declaiming this was none other than the second Mrs Danczuk. Taking to the airwaves in an interview with LBC's Nick Ferrari, the so-called 'selfie queen' (thus dubbed because of her tendency, when married to Mr Danczuk to post pictures of herself in low cut tops no more racy than those of the 'dominatrix' who caused Danczuk's 'moment of madness') brayed that she couldn't believe what her predecessor in the Danczuk marital bed was doing.  Why didn't she think of her children, she whined.  What would they think when they saw these sort of lurid revelations about their father in the papers? How dare she have said, days earlier, that she was changing the children's names because of her embarassment at the antics of her ex-husband? And anyway, it turned out that 'that young girl' was a 'dominatrix anyway' as if that explained everything.  She went on to give a sickeningly cloying account of Mr Danczuk's attendance at her church last weekend, at which he had been greeted with warmth and support from fellow parishioners.  Indeed, the local people, if his second ex wife is to be believed, absolutely love Simon and are happy with the job that he does. Which apparently includes texting young women about spanking them while moaning about having to work in Spain and getting very drunk.  Mrs Danczuk 2 did admit, when pressed by Ferrari, that Simon had a problem with drink, but insisted that she had given him a stern talking-to and would be maintaining her dignity for the sake of her own children by him.  And what a sterling example she is setting for those two young boys - that a woman who speaks out about mental or sexual abuse from a former partner is to be automatically disbelieved as a gold-digger or troublemaker. That it's ok if you are a drunk who sends inappropriate messages to women who are literally young enough to be your granddaughter as long as you say you regret it (when you get caught) and that you were simply drunk and 'have a weakness for young girls'.

That last is perhaps the most chilling facet of the story in itself. That Danczuk attempted to brush off the revelations as a 'drunken mistake' was to be expected in an age where politicians lead the way in abstaining responsibility for any of their actions.  That he went further, casually dropping the fact that he 'has a weakness for young girls' (which he then 'justified' with allusions to the fact that his first wife was 10 years younger than him and his second wife and most recent girlfriend were both 17 years younger than him) is indicative of the sort of mindset he has.  That the media at large seem not to have made much more of this than that it is a fairly lame excuse is downright chilling. 

As a man, it has taken me a long time to realise the extent of the privilege which I basically inherited thanks to the accident of my gender.  They are the kind of blinders it is difficult to remove, not least because the influence of the patriarchy is so very insidious and far-reaching.  A woman can go from a sexually precocious teenager to a 'dominatrix' in the tap of a keyboard.  A woman who alleges rape must be doing it for any other reason than because she was ever actually raped, and a woman who alleges rape should 'think of what her children will think of their father' before she considers her own wellbeing, or the wellbeing of any other young woman who comes into contact with her abuser.

Perhaps if the second Mrs Danczuk stopped and thought for a moment, she might think it appropriate that some of the sympathy she is so eager to gush about having for her hard-drinking ex husband and his 'weakness for young girls' might be better placed for the lives of the other women whose lives have been ruined by contact with the man, either directly or via the machinations of a scandal-hungry media and its willing public audience.  In a toss up between feeling sorry for a 49 year old man who gets so drunk while 'working' abroad that he apparently starts sending suggestive messages to young women or the young college student being systematically named and shamed as some sort of whorish temptress by half the UK media establishment, I know which side I come down on.  And it isn't Mr Danczuk's.