DEADPOOL 2

I loved DEADPOOL - the dark humour, the self-awareness, the bloody violence, and the surprisingly mushy love story at its heart.  And I can happily say that DEADPOOL 2 lives up to the promise of the first film, while giving the protagonist a motley crew of superhero buddies and poking even more fun at superhero films, its own actors, and everything else.

The movie opens with our cynical wise-cracking mutant hero murdering bad guys for pay before going home to his beloved wife who is murdered in turn.  Being worthy of meeting her in heaven motivates the otherwise self-interested Deadpool to try to save an angry young mutant called Firefist (Julian Dennison who could easily be Rebel Wilson's kid brother such are his looks and facility for comedy).  Deadpool has to do this in opposition to time-travelling tough guy Cable (a ridiculously ripped Josh Brolin), who just wants to kill Firefist to prevent  him wreaking havoc in future.  Along the way, Deadpool picks up a new super-lucky mutant friend called Domino - a charismatic scene stealing performance from ATLANTA's Zazie Beetz - while hooking up with Colossus and Negasonic Teenage Warhead from the first film, as well as her girlfriend Yukio.

What I love about this film is that while it has a filthy sense of humour it really does have a heart. It really is about family and reaching out to people. And it's values are rock solid. Not just in the classic mutant universe as a metaphor for civil rights way. But in making a point about having a protagonist who is plus sized, a teenage lesbian relationship, and a strong black female lead.  The film is also clever. The way in which it uses time travel is neat, and all of its jokes hit their mark, getting particularly meta in the credits sequence, and with a fantastic use of music. 

Having tired of the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, I can honestly say I'm genuinely looking forward to DEADPOOL 3!

DEADPOOL has a running time of 119 minutes and is rated R. It is global release.

GET HIM TO THE GREEK - They fuck you up, your mum and dad - Part Three

In fairness, the people doing the psychological damage in the alleged buddy-comedy, GET HIM TO THE GREEK, aren't just the parents. The record label, entourage, management and fans all take the blame in enabling viciously damaging pop star behaviour. That Aldous Snow, self-proclaimed white musical Jesus, manages to retain any humanity at all, in the haze of adulation and exploitation, is a miracle. This movie is about how Aldous Snow, washed up, alone, makes it from London to LA to play a comeback gig in spite of various attempts at self-sabotage. He does so in the company of a fan-boy turned record label chaperone, Aaron. It's meant to be a laugh-out-loud comedy, giving the character who stole every scene in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL more screen time. The problem is that while Russell Brand IS funny as Aldous Snow, he's also too good to leave his performance at the level of superficial pratfalls and lascivious word-play. Brand's Snow is actually a very sad man, and there's something faintly exploitative in the screen-writer, director and audience trying to find laughter in his pain. It's almost as though we're milking Aldous Snow in exactly the same way that his record company is milking him. "We know you're physically and psychologically harmed, mate, but go on, do that funny song-and-dance act!"

Maybe I'm taking it all too seriously. After all, this is a film in which Sean Combs is genuinely very funny spoofing himself as a hard-balled record exec. (I loved the line "you're three zippers away from Thriller"), It's a movie in which Rose Byrne is really very funny indeed as Aldous Snow's ex-wife and fame-junkie Jackie Q. Maybe I should just be happy with the laughs? But even as simple comedy this movie doesn't quite work. I know Jonah Hill is essentially playing the straight man to Russell Brand's comedy protagonist, but even then, Aaron could've been a lot more interesting as a character. Where's that slightly geeky creepiness that Hill brought to his cameo in FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL? And as for the scene where Snow tries to instigate a threesome with Aaron and his girlfriend (Elizabeth Moss) - excruciating just doesn't cover it.

The best Judd Apatow movies are both funny and touching. FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL isn't just great comedy - at some level we really feel for Jason Segel's Peter as he tries to get over his girlfriend, and we're really routing for him to get together with Mila Kunis' Rachel. Okay, we've probably never been dumped for a rock star, but I think everyone can empathise with Peter's pain - and even Sarah's despair at trying to make the relationship work. At the heart of all comedy, there has to be an emotional core we can relate to. The relationship arcs in GET HIM TO THE GREEK - between Aldous and his dad; Aldous and his ex-wife; and most of all between Aaron and his girlfriend - just don't feel real, and as a result I didn't care about them. The only part of the movie that felt real was Snow's addiction and loneliness. And I simply wasn't heartless enough to laugh at that.

Additional tags: William Kerr, Michael L Sale, Sean Combs, Elizabeth Moss

GET HIM TO THE GREEK is on release in the US, UK, Kazakhstan, Canada, Iceland, Australia, Georgia and the Netherlands. It opens in July in Greece, Portugal and Estonia. It opens in August in Sweden, Turkey, France, Finland, Norway, Germany and Spain. It opens in September in Denmark and Argentina and in October in Hungary.

LA Diary Day 4 - CLOVERFIELD - cinema verite my ass

No LA Diary on Day 3 - the closest I got to the flicks was dinner in the excellent restau. Blue Velvet. But on Day 4 a somewhat ill-advised trip to Mann's Chinese Theater at Hollywood & Highlands. Ill-advised because we turned up half way through the Clinton-Obama debate live from the Kodak theater which is part of the same complex. The mall was filled with anti-war protestors, a dog on a skateboard, and a good handful of outside broadcast TV trucks. There were also a scary amount of tooled-up rozzers* as well as two bedraggled musicians vainly trying to whip up some attention atop a Rock the Vote van. Among this motley crew were a goodly number of ordinary shoppers and voters standing in front of the large outdoor screen watching the debate live and cheering every soundbite. They were cheering on the possibility of change. They were standing amid the dying embers of a failed administration, a disastrous war in Iraq, fear of foreclosure, unemployment and uninsured illness. The Fear and Loathing was upon us.

In such a sickly political environment, horror and disaster movies have historically thrived. They allow us humble movie-goers to face our fears, embodied in randomised acts of terror and impotent protection agencies. CLOVERFIELD is a perfect exemplar of this. A big beastie stomps through Manhattan, knocking the head off the Statue of Liberty, chewing up Brooklyn Bridge and generally indulging in Godzilla-like craziness. The film-makers don't attempt to explain how the beastie came into being - and they wisely choose to show it only fleetingly. They do, however, skirt very close to the line in echoing iconic and disturbing 9/11 imagery. In an early scene, New Yorkers are seen stumbling through wreckage, white with plaster dust, scraps of paper tossed by the wind. Later, a heroine will be trapped in twin towers. Note that as daring as the film-makers are in echoing 9/11, the beastie remains considerate enough of studio financing schedules to terrorise beautiful people. Despite this, you have to give credit to the film-makers for spending some time to let us get to know the protagonists and to believe that they care enough about each other to risk danger to come to each other's aid.

CLOVERFIELD works fine as a post 9/11 update of the Godzilla story. Producer JJ Abrams and director Matt Reeves create a real sense of menace and fear if not outright scares. But the movie has a flaw: it gave me motion sickness. Now I get that director Matt Reeves was going for a gonzo hand-held reportage look. It's a laudable aim. But all this crap about "authenticity" and "credibility" is under-cut by his America's Next Top Model casting decisions. So, dear film-makers, cut the pretentious filming style already. Make a great movie that feels authentic and credible by all means. Cast people who look real, use a grungy shooting style, but you don't actually need to make me ill.

CLOVERFIELD is on release in the US, Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Russia, Singapore, Thailand, the Netherlands, Peru, Portugal, South Korea, Estonia, Iceland, Latvia, the Philippines, Germany, Israel and Canada. It opens in Bulgaria, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain, the UK, Belgium, France, Argentina, Brazil, Norway, Sweden, Hungary and Finland in February. It opens in Turkey on March 21st and in Japan on April 5th.

*Giuseppe from EC2 asks, via e-mail, what "rozzers" are. They are policeman, but the implication is, corrupt policeman. Also known as The Fuzz, Pigs, The Filth and The Sweeney.