Baby Driver (2017) Review

Time: 112 Minutes
Age Rating: Strong violence and offensive language
Cast:
Ansel Elgort as Baby
Kevin Spacey as Doc
Lily James as Debora
Jon Hamm as Buddy
Eiza González as Darling
Jamie Foxx as Bats
Jon Bernthal as Griff
Director: Edgar Wright

Talented getaway driver Baby (Ansel Elgort) relies on the beat of his personal soundtrack to be the best in the game. After meeting the woman (Lily James) of his dreams, he sees a chance to ditch his shady lifestyle and make a clean break. Coerced into working for a crime boss (Kevin Spacey), Baby must face the music as a doomed heist threatens his life, love and freedom.

Baby Driver was a movie that I’ve been keeping an eye on for a while. I’ve loved every movie from director Edgar Wright, and with the cast with actors such as Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm and Jamie Foxx involved, it had a lot of potential. Baby Driver blew me away. Entertaining from start to finish, directed and written perfectly, Baby Driver is one of the best films of 2017. Edgar Wright has made yet another fantastic film.

Now the movie doesn’t have the most original story, they’ve been plenty of crime, heist and car chase movies. However, Baby Driver is a love letter to those movies (and to music as well), and this movie has a lot of fun with it. Edgar Wright’s writing is top notch as always, from the dialogue, to the foreshadowing, humour and the plot overall, everything is written to perfection. Like Wright’s other movies, there are bits that most people won’t necessarily notice on a first viewing, so I can see people loving this movie even more on repeat viewings. I was entertained from start to finish. It is quite a fun movie overall but its also serious enough that you care about what’s going on. If there’s any flaw I can find with the movie its that the romance just sort of comes out of nowhere and starts abruptly. That’s it really, and even then the romance does work overall because of the leads’ chemistry (more on that in a bit). Honestly aside from that aspect, there wasn’t really a low point of the movie.

This movie has a very talented cast, the one actor in the cast that I was unsure about was Ansel Elgort, he’s a decent actor but I hadn’t seen him great in anything … until now. He really impressed me in Baby Driver, he’s likable and he fully embraces his role. Baby Driver really is his movie and he shines in it. I did mention that the romance is rather sudden and its unbelievable how quickly it starts, but what makes it work is the chemistry between Ansel Elgort and Lily James, they work perfectly together, without them the romance (which is one of the main points of the movie) wouldn’t work at all. This movie has a lot of talented supporting actors with Kevin Spacey, Jon Hamm, Eiza Gonzalez, Jamie Foxx and Jon Bernthal and others and they are great. The stand outs to me were Kevin Spacey and Jon Hamm, they really left an impression on me the most.

Edgar Wright’s direction is perfect once again, you can definitely feel his attention to detail and is so incredible to watch. The car chase scenes feel real and not fake at all, the stunts are so great. I’m not sure if any CGI was used, but if it they did I certainly didn’t notice it. The most stand out parts of the movie is how it uses music in the film. This movie has a large and fun soundtrack but what’s even better is how it uses it in the film itself, for example a lot of the time, the film times the sound effects of the scenes with the music perfectly and it is glorious to watch. The first scene of Baby Driver gives you a good idea about how music is used.

Baby Driver is a really entertaining movie with great acting from its talented cast, as well as Edgar Wright’s smart and funny writing and direction. I’m not sure where this ranks among Wright’s other movies but I can say that it’s at the very least fantastic on its own. Baby Driver is one of the best films of the year, and I would absolutely recommend checking it out.

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Nine Lives (2016) Review

Time: 87 Minutes
Age Rating:
Cast:
Kevin Spacey as Tom Brand
Jennifer Garner as Lara Brand
Robbie Amell as David Brand
Cheryl Hines as Madison Camden
Malina Weissman as Rebecca Brand
Christopher Walken as Felix Perkins
Mark Consuelos as Ian Cox
Director: Barry Sonnenfeld

Tom Brand (Kevin Spacey) is a billionaire whose workaholic lifestyle takes him away from his loving wife Lara and adorable daughter Rebecca. Needing a present for Rebecca’s 11th birthday, Brand buys a seemingly harmless cat from a mysterious pet store. Suddenly, a bizarre turn of events traps poor Tom inside the animal’s body. The owner of the business tells him that he has one week to reconnect with his family, or live out the rest of his days as a cute and furry feline named Mr. Fuzzypants.

I can’t believe this movie actually exists, nor can I believe that director Barry Sonnenfeld (Men in Black films) and actor Kevin Spacey is involved with this movie. Everything from the premise to the trailer looked like a bad kids movie from the 90s. And this movie is just as bad as it looked in the trailer. It is unfunny, stupid, silly and just doesn’t make any sense. But we all knew that it would be like that, just look at the trailer.

This movie is really lazily written with mostly unfunny jokes and is just overall not written well at all. Before anyone dismisses this movie as “just a kids film” and that no one should be too harsh on this movie, this movie has no idea what it’s target audience is. Sometimes it’s trying to appeal to kids with childish humour. Other times it’s filled with long business meetings that no kid would be interested in. Also there are some really adult stuff in this, way too much alcoholism in this movie and some jokes that kids won’t understand at all. They felt really out of place. And this film really isn’t right for kids. I’ll give an example, at one point (spoiler alert but who cares?) someone tries to commit suicide. In this movie. A kids movie. About someone who turns into a cat. This movie also has many jokes that didn’t land at all. The only points that I found the movie funny were some of the jokes that only adults would get and some moments which were so ridiculous.

Maybe it’s just because I’m a Kevin Spacey fan but I enjoyed seeing (or in this case mostly hearing) him in this movie. However, it’s not really a good ‘performance’ and this might be the worst movie he’s ever been in. At times it sounded like he really didn’t want to be in this movie (which I admit I found a little entertaining). Christopher Walken is enjoyable in this movie, but it’s probably because he’s Christopher Walken, and his mere involvement with a movie automatically makes said movie better. Everyone else is wasted. Jennifer Garner is in this movie and doesn’t get to do much. Basically this movie is a paycheck for the actors involved. The performances aren’t good but to be fair, it’s not like they have good material to work with.

This film is incredibly cheap. Everything feels off about this movie, direction wise. This film uses green screen so much and it is painfully obvious, which is especially shown in the first scene. It’s so embarrassing. And of course this film has a CGI cat and the animation is horrible. It is Garfield: The Movie level bad. The CGI is straight out of the 90s (which fits as this whole movie is straight out of the 90s).

Nine Lives is really bad but everyone sorta knew that it would be that way. The acting is not that great, the writing is all over the place and not even the direction is that good. If you for whatever reason were expecting this to be a good film, it’s not that at all. But I will admit there is something fascinating about this movie, the fact that it exists in today’s world. So I can’t really say that I hate this movie, it was a weird experience for me as I watched it, I still feel confused after watching it. But yeah, the movie is still awful.

L.A. Confidential (1997)

Time: 138 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence
Cast:
Kevin Spacey as Jack Vicennes
Russell Crowe as Bud White
Guy Pearce as Ed Exley
James Cromwell as Dudley Smith
Kim Basinger as Lynn Bracken
Danny DeVito as Sid Hudgens
Director: Curtis Hanson

In 1950’s Los Angeles, someone’s killing imprisoned mob boss Mickey Cohen’s gang. After some shotgun slayings of the patrons at an all-night diner, three very different cops are all after the truth, each in their own style: Ed Exley (Guy Pearce), the golden boy of the police force, willing to do almost anything to get ahead, except sell out; Bud White (Russell Crowe), ready to break the rules to seek justice, but barely able to keep his raging violence under control; and Jack Vincennes (Kevin Spacey), always looking for celebrity and a quick buck until his conscience drives him to join Exley and White down the one-way path to find the truth behind the dark world of L.A. crime.

L.A. Confidential is the best representation of 1950s Los Angeles I’ve seen in film. It is also a magnificent movie with a brilliant script, stellar performances, great production designs and countless other things that make a great movie so great. It is truly one of the best movies of the 1990s and one of the greatest films of all time.

The writing of this movie is absolutely perfect, it is always entertaining from start to finish, and every piece of dialogue is constructed flawlessly to suit the characters, along with fitting the era of the 50s as well. The story is very interesting and takes many twists and turns as it progresses. It also successfully shows these three main characters and the ways they go around serving justice. The screenplay rightfully earned the Oscar for best screenplay adapted from a source, the book written by James Ellroy, which I haven’t read yet.

All the actors do the roles very well, especially in portraying the type of characters they play. Guy Pearce, Russell Crowe and Kevin Spacey play the main characters and are absolutely excellent. As I said above, they have different ways of serving justice, as well as having different personalities. This film brought to audiences the attention of Guy Pearce and Russell Crowe; this brought them to huge success and kicked their careers off. Along with those three excellent performances, the film also has some other great performances from actors like Kim Basinger, James Cromwell and Danny Devito. The most surprisingly thing is that apart from Kim Basinger, no one here got any Oscar nominations for acting, but then again, great performances don’t always get Oscar nominations, we’ve seen this happen in the past.

The cinematography is decent but special credit should go to the people making the sets. The setting of Los Angeles in the 1950s is perfectly recreated here. The locations and the music are very convincing of the time period. The soundtrack particularly, which was composed by Jerry Goldsmith was absolutely perfect for the mood and vibe that the film was going for. The editing brought everything together and made the film even more enjoyable to watch.

L.A. Confidential has everything I ask for in a movie, it is engaging, it has actors successfully portraying their characters and it has a brilliant script. There wasn’t really anything that I could think of which I disliked in this film, nor was there any scene that felt out of place. I actually feel that at the Oscars, this film deserved the best picture award, Titanic was a pretty good movie; however I still personally find that L.A. Confidential deserved it more, not that the Oscars necessarily matter. I strongly recommend you check this movie out as soon as you can. It is a fantastic film that ever since watching it for the first time, has made my list of favourite movies of all time.

P.S. A reminder that until December, I will likely not be able to post many reviews due to exams.

Se7en (1995) Review

Time: 127 Minutes
Age Rating: Violence, sexual themes and content that may disturb
Cast:
Brad Pitt as David Mills
Morgan Freeman as William Somerset
Gwyneth Paltrow as Tracy Mills
Director: David Fincher

Two homicide detectives are tracking down a sadistic serial killer who chooses his victims according to the seven deadly sins. Detective David Mills (Brad Pitt) is a hopeful but naive rookie who finds himself partnered with veteran Detective William Somerset (Morgan Freeman). Together they trace the killers every step, witnessing the aftermath of his horrific crimes one by one as the victims pile up in rapid succession, all the while moving closer to a gruesome fate neither of them could have predicted.

David Fincher is an outstanding filmmaker and really establishes it here after the Alien 3 debacle. He isn’t a stranger to dark movies and none of his others are as dark as this one. Its dark feel captivates and holds the attention of the audience. From start to finish, Se7en is a brilliant, thrilling, horrifying, fascinating and well made movie that contains of the best aspects that Fincher has as a filmmaker.

The tone of this movie seems to always be dark and that tone is established with its opening credit sequence. The film is captivating from start to finish as we see these two detectives try to solve the murders. The murders that they investigate happen before they appear at the crime scene, so you don’t see the murder in process. Fincher also doesn’t show the murder scenes gratuitously, just as much necessary for the audience to see; we also learn more about how the victims died through discussions afterwards and the rest of it is left to the audience’s imagination. Nonetheless, some of the deaths are particularly gruesome, meaning that this movie is probably not for everyone, particularly the faint of heart. Se7en also has one of the best endings however without spoiling it; it’s not pleasant at all. It is haunting, depressing and a bit disturbing however I think that the ending was perfect for this movie.

The acting by Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt were very good. The idea of a retiring detective being paired with a rookie cop at first sounds like some buddy cop movies, but it is handled very well as both Freeman and Pitt play their roles with realism. Most of the best scenes in the movie is when it’s just them talking; investigating all those murders gets them talking about things that are just very interesting to watch. The rest of the cast are also really good like Gwyneth Paltrow who makes quite an impact, despite not having as much screen time. I won’t reveal who the killer is played by, but the actor did such a good job playing him and was on the level of Morgan Freeman and Brad Pitt as the best performances in the whole movie. Simply put, the killer embodies evil in all its forms, and it is rare to find many performances that does this successfully.

The film has a bleak dark feeling, which would be later used in a lot of other David Fincher movies. I’ve also noticed that the sun never shines during the movie, it rains a lot and it was often gloomy, which really added to the dark tone. Everything from the lighting, editing and cinematography is so well used to its fullest potential. The soundtrack by Howard Shore is also quite good, adding to the atmosphere.

David Fincher has successfully created a dark, disturbing film with a lot of atmosphere. Although the deaths didn’t really disturb me, I will say that this film is not for the faint of heart. It is one of Fincher’s best and as long as you know what you are going into before you watch it, it is a brilliant movie.