July’s cinema selection was a fairly mixed bag.
After 12 years of waiting, Die Hard 4.0 finally makes an appearance. You mostly get what you expect with this one: a bunch of action sequences held together by a somewhat ridiculous plot, some over the top villians with questionable motives, and John Mclane killing everyone. You get that all here, but it’s all a bit too ridiculous, too over the top. If you can switch your brain to off, then you can enjoy it. Otherwise, this may be a bit wide of the mark.
Having only seen Glengarry Glen Ross recently, it was a pleasure to see another film by the same playwright, David Mamet. Edmond is about a man who loses his place in the world and goes about trying to find it amongst the seediest parts of New York. Surprisingly dark in tone, this film doesn’t hold back in its vision of the terrible things people can justify to themselves. Superbly shot, with exceptional dialogue, the one caveat being that it’s origins as a play are fairly apparent, Edmond is an excellent film. Highly recommended.
The Simpsons Movie is what most people expected, a long episode of the series. Thankfully, though, it would be an episode from one of the later single-digit seasons. While not as good as the earlier episodes, it doesn’t degenerate as far as the later series which were almost entirely variations on “The Simpsons go to [insert place and vaguely racist jokes here]” or “Homer works as [something stupidly unlikely and unfunny here]”. Although the best joke was spoiled by the trailer, there are still enough set-ups here to make it worth seeing.
Finally, Transformers is Hollywood at its very worst: crass, loud, brainless, and without style. If it had been two hours of robots fighting, I could have gotten behind that. If it had been built-up with any tact, that’d been fine. Instead we’re treated to an episode of Dawson’s Creek, numerous advertisements, some terrible comic relief, and more plot holes than I’ve seen in any other film in recent times. Even the few action sequences on offer are merely perfunctory. I mean, no-one should’ve been expecting a masterpiece here, but if the action scenes aren’t up to much (they’re either mostly off-screen or a blurry mess), then what is the point? The film is almost entirely without merit.
The obvious winner this month is Edmond.