DJ Speaks Movies

Lights Out begins with Paul (Billy Burke) who is working late in a Warehouse and is on the phone to his son Martin (Gabriel Bateman) who seems to be struggling to deal with the problems his mother Sophie (Maria Bello) is having. When a worker who is closing up sees a strange figure which seems to shift position each time she turns the lights off, she tries to warn Paul but he is dismissive and sends her home however he soon learns that the figure is very real.

A few months later we jump to Rebecca (Teresa Palmer) who is Martins half sister and when she receives a call from his school as they are unable to locate his mother she finds out that Martin has been falling asleep in class as his mothers mental illness and depression seems to have fully kicked back in, she is acting strangely and taking to herself all night. Rebecca takes Martin to stay with her but when she too has an encounter with this strange figure it becomes apparent that she, her mother and her step brother are all in danger and must find a way to work out why it is targeting them and then how they can escape from its clutches.

The premise of the movie is great, having a figure that can only move in the shadows and darkness it does a very great job of playing on our primeval fears of the unseen terrors that lurk in the dark. However the big issue I had was that most of the best parts of the movie were shown in the trailers which defeated the purpose of most of the jump scares and the rest of the movie had a feel of a by the numbers horror film albeit with a new concept as the whole story was quite obvious. The acting was fine even if the casting was a bit one dimensional, a strangely acting mother, a terrified kid, a good hearted but skeptical boyfriend, a strong willed protagonist etc. and both Palmer and Bello were wasted talent as there was no requirement in this film for them to stretch their range so despite the supposed danger I never felt that there was any real tension on the screen and found myself noticing gaps in the plot points which is not a good sign.

Director David Sandberg started this film as a short and there was enough to peak my interest in seeing what he could do with a second movie using this as a learning curve but even with the talents of James Wan on the list of producers this was not the great movie it could have been. So despite having a good idea, some good camera work by switching from third person to point of view to build moments well and some very good trailers it ends up being a run of the mill horror movie with none of the originality it promised. It’s a decent watch and if you like the genre you will most likely enjoy it but it didn’t fulfill my high expectations and the fact that they have already started working on a sequel is a disappointment as it doesn’t warrant it and while I was sold on this movie, it will take a lot more effort to get me interested next time.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10

When you see a cast of Oscar winners Kevin Spacey and Christopher Walken appearing alongside Jennifer Garner in a movie directed by Barry Sonnenfeld who brought us the excellent Addams Family Values and Men In Black it should be peaking your interest but I had great trepidation about this as the trailers were just awful so I hoped that perhaps there was a clever of funny movie behind the scenes but I couldn’t have been more wrong.

I can only assume that the stars of this film owed a few favours otherwise there must have been more of this film on the cutting room floor than a Warner Brothers movie and even allowing for the fact that it was a French story to begin with, which was translated into English before shooting, I can’t excuse it.

Kevin Spacey is Tom Brand a multi millionaire business tycoon who is putting all his efforts into constructing the highest building in North America but is battling against a similar project in Chicago. Tom is all business and has little time to spend with his wife Lara (Jennifer Garner) or his young daughter Rebecca (Malina Weissman) who still adores her father despite his absence. He also has his son from a previous marriage David (Robbie Amell) working for the company and all he wants to do is impress his father but can never seem to do well enough.

When Tom is late for his daughters birthday he runs to a cat shop to pick her present out. This shop is run by Felix Perkins (Christopher Walken) in a way reminiscent of the Mogwli owner from Gremlins. On the way home Tom is in an accident which leaves him in a coma but transports him into the body of the cat where Walken then advises him that he has a week to change his ways and appreciate his family otherwise he will be stuck in the cats body forever and so should begin a series of cat capers which keep us chuckling away to the inevitable happy ending unfortunately that is not the case.

The CGI in this film is awful and it is so obviously not a cat in most of the scenes that it is criminal in this day and age of technology. The attempted humour is terrible, calling the cat Mister Fuzzy Pants is not funny, Walken calls himself a cat whisperer, when Spacey is ‘talking’ to his family in the cats body it sounds like two Tom’s fighting in an alley and was grating on my nerves, the cat toilet humour and threat of castration scenes were cheap and the supposed emotional scenes achieved nothing since the rest of the movie had already made me feel dead inside. There were about ten people watching this movie at the same time I was, including some young kids, and not one person laughed or even chuckled throughout which must be a first for an comedy movie that I’ve watched.

I don’t know who the movie is actually supposed to be aimed at as some of the themes like divorce and euthanasia were too adult for young kids to understand, there were references to movies and images from the 1970’s and 1980’s which older kids won’t get and there was nothing to make an adult want to see the movie. I reckon even the most ardent of cat lovers will struggle to like this so this says it all about how bad this film is.

Do yourselves a favour and watch the very underrated Fluke if you want a good film about a man trapped in an animals body. If you want to keep cat loving children entertained for an hour or so stick an hour of cat videos on You Tube and save your time and money, in conclusion this movie you will wish to FURget. Come on, there were so many options for silly puns in the review you have to allow me one.

DJ Speaks Rating: 3 Out Of 10

A remake of the Disney animated feature Pete’s Dragon switches to the mix of live action and CGI which worked so well in their earlier attempt from this year, The Jungle Book. Kicking off in 1977 (a nod to the year of the release of the original movie) Pete is on a road trip with his parents when a car accident leaves him orphaned and at the mercy of wolves but at the last moment he is rescued by a huge hairy (not scaly) dragon who he names Elliot after a character in his favourite book. They are shown happily living in a vast area of forest which has not been encroached upon but modernisation is catching up on them and some local logging is beginning to reach the areas of their habitat.

When a young girl Natalie (Oona Laurence) is accompanying her father Jack (Wes Bentley), owner of the lumber mill, to the work site she spots Pete (Oakes Fegley) and follows him into the forest. When her father and mother Grace (Bryce Dallas Howard), a park ranger, come looking for Natalie they find Pete and take him back to town. At this stage Elliott has realised that he cannot find his friend, while searching for him he is spotted by Gavin (Karl Urban) a hunter who is also Jack’s brother and works for him, and he rounds up a posse to catch the legendary Millhaven dragon.

As they find out more about Pete they begin to realise that Graces father (Robert Redford) who’s stories about the time he spotted the dragon when he was younger look like they may not have been as fabricated as everybody thought so they set off into the forest with Pete to find his friend but it becomes a race against time as Gavin is also on the look out for the dragon with a very different agenda.

While watching this movie I began to notice that that there was something different in this movie when compared to recent Disney efforts and for a while I couldn’t work it out. The CGI was good but still a far cry from the aforementioned Jungle Book, the acting was decent with Howard doing a good job as the sympathetic mother like figure and it was great to see Redford still light up the screen when he appeared, showing that you cannot replace pure charisma and even at almost eighty years of age it still shines through. Urban and Bentley were wasted however as their characters never had any real chance to develop and the kids, Laurence and Fegley ware okay given what they had to do. Then I finally realised that what I was watching was a Disney movie of my younger years. The movie didn’t fill the time with exposition and a few moments of Redford narrative told us all we needed to know. There was no attempt to use comedy in the script to get some cheap laughs. The villains of the piece are not evil, they are just guys who don’t understand the situation and go about their ways with an almost comic ineptitude and the star of the film was, as it should be, the dragon.

So as much as this could have been a tale about a young boy who is rescued from a life in the forest and finds a family or of a town who are shown the error of their ways after their initial response to capture the ‘monster’ but instead it was a tale of a dragon who has become separated from it’s family, who befriends a child in the same situation and who learns that while humans may still be a danger, not all people are and is shown how important family is by his friend. Thrown in was a little nod to the consequences of deforestation and the down side to the instinct of the caveman hunter which is still embedded in our DNA. Most of all what this movie had, which has been lacking in a lot of recent kids film is heart and that is what the Disney films of my youth always had. On the downside I will say that a little more of the relationship between Pete and Elliot in the forest and less on the dragon hunt side would have been nice but I walked out having enjoyed it more than most of the other movies I have seen this summer. Unfortunately this film seems to have been swept aside in the melee of the recent bid budget filmaand that is a shame because there is a feel good factor to this story which is missing from a lot of this years releases.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 Out Of 10

Blake Lively is Nancy Adams, who is on holiday in Mexico, taking a sabbatical from her studies in medical school after her mother has passed away following a battle with cancer, in order to track down a secluded beach which was her mothers favourite spot. When her friend bails on a day on the water with her she decides to continue with her plan regardless and heads out for a day enjoying the waves.

All starts well as she meets up with some locals who give her a few tips about the dangers under the water such as coral and rocks but what none of them realise is that a far greater danger is nearby in a huge great white shark which has claimed the area as a feeding zone. When she is chasing one last wave before calling it a day she comes across a whale which has been attacked and realises that the waters may not be safe. As she is making her way back to the shore she is attacked by the shark and barely manages to haul herself onto a rock which has appeared as the water approaches low tide. Badly injured and seemingly without any means of escape she must use all of her survival instincts in order to win the battle of man (or in this case woman) versus nature.

The first thirty minutes or so of this film felt like it dragged a little, although it was needed to give some background and exposition via phone conversations with her sister Chloe (Sedona Legge) and father (Brett Cullen), photographs of her mother and a section of surfing which threw me back to the original Point Break movie, I wanted to see a shark and I was waiting to see a fin or some ominous underwater presence. I will say that once the shark does appear however it is worth the wait as it looks spectacular. The movie then kicks into it’s main event and for an hour or so we are treated to a good, tense and dramatic film. Lively does a good job of making the situation and most of her actions believable however there are a few moments which go a little too deep into asking me to suspend my belief, for instance there is a part where Lively does a bit of self surgery with what I termed her Swiss Army necklace which, while graphic and with the desire impact to make your toes curl, and while doing a good job of showing just how tenacious Lively is, felt a bit over the top to be realistic and there were a few moments of co-incidencal events that just felt included to move the story along.

All in all for a movie which is for the most part, in essence, about a woman trying to escape from a rock, with next to no interaction with any other actors and only the shark and Stephen Seagull for company (you’ll see what I mean) it done a very good job of keeping you watching and engrossed. There are a few heart in your mouth moments so the sense of the danger and peril was always there and Lively held the screen very well with her performance.

While it is obviously going to be compared with Jaws and there are a lot of nods to that movie, it was going to be a tall order to live up to the standard of one of the greatest films of all time so take it on it’s own merits, enjoy a survival tale where director Jaume Collet-Serra has done a does a good job of keeping you on the edge of your seat despite the very basic premise. The movie does have a few nice surprises as you expect one event but it doesn’t quite occur like that as the shark does something different which was a nice twist.

Forget this being sold as a horror movie and take it for a good action film which, as most good action movies do, expects a certain element of leaving your analysis on hold and just going along for the ride. If you can do that then there’s a good film in store for you although I recommend you catch this one on the big screen as I feel that some of the drama may be  lost in the transfer to the smaller screen.

DJ Speaks Rating: 6 out Of 10

Miracles From Heaven is based on a real event and is the tale of the Beams, a religious Texan family whose ten year old daughter Anna (Kylie Rogers) develops pseudo obstruction motility disorder, an incurable condition which eliminates her ability to use her digestive system correctly, thus she cannot process food for nutritional purposes and is faced with a very short future given the nature of the affliction.

But Christy Beam (Jennifer Garner), is a tenacious woman and is not going to watch her daughter die without a fight so she decides to stop putting her faith in God and heads to Boston Children’s hospital to engage the services of Dr.Nurko (Eugenio Derbez) a world renowned paediatric gastroenterologist who confirms her worst fears. Even then Christy must battle set back after set back along the way in order to try and find a way to not simply give up on her daughter, all the while struggling against the judgement of the rest of her family and friends all of whom believe that God is responsible for the situation and it is a test of Christy’s faith which will be resolved if she stays strong and believes that it is all part of His plan.

So while she initially struggles alone as husband Kevin (Martin Henderson) is also trying to keep his veterinary practice running in order to fund the mounting medical bills while their other daughters Abbie (Brighton Sharbino) and Adelynn (Courtney Fansler) are struggling with the lack of parental attention and supervision they are receiving, they all begin to realise that without their support Anna is struggling and they will need to pull together as a family unit in order to get through regardless of the outcome.

There is nothing wrong with the movie it just felt like a big budget made for TV film and aside from the excellent performances by Garner, Rogers and the Patch Adams like support from Derbez it was nothing worth shouting about. I’m sure there are many out there who will enjoy watching a mother fight for her daughter every step along the way and I’ve no doubt that tears will be shed by some. There are some scenes during Anna’s treatment which will hit hard and even the young girl has her moments of self-doubt all of which are excellently handled by Rogers and the scene where she is speaking about death with a girl battling cancer in the bed next to her is handled with a maturity beyond her years. But despite this the movie done nothing for me to elevate it into something above the Hallmark genre.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10

Based on the book written by Jean Hegland, Into The Forest is story of two sisters who live with their father in an isolated house on the outskirts of local civilisation but when massive power outages his the country they need to learn to let go of their need for modern amenities and utilise nature to survive in an increasing hostile situation.

Nell (Ellen Page) spends most of her time studying online for her upcoming SAT’s while Eva (Evan Rachael Wood) is a dancer who is struggling to compete with younger girls as she gets older and finds herself having to spend longer and longer practicing just to keep up. They live with their father Robert (Callum Keith Rennie) in a remote country house outside of town in the middle of a local forest and while they have all the modern technology, at times they find it difficult to deal with the isolation where the only physical link to the rest of the town is via their fathers jeep.

As news reports begin to appear on the television regarding power outages effecting the whole country it is not long until they too are hit by the same issue and left with only the use of a gas powered generator to keep the electricity running but, during a supply run into town it becomes apparent that this is a bigger issue than just a simple power problem as the supermarket is almost empty and all supplies of gas are already nearly depleted. The town is already showing signs of society breaking down and elements of lawlessness are creeping in but thanks to the resourcefulness of their father they are able to retain some semblance of normality despite their position.

When an incident occurs which takes their father from them the two girls are left alone to fend for themselves and as time passes with supplies becoming more sparse, the sense of isolation increases, their outlets of studying and dancing have been taken away from them and every decision can have major implications. Their relationship becomes strained but they must learn to put aside their differences and work together to ensure their survival but when Nells boyfriend Eli (Max Minghella) arrives at their house informing them of reports that power has been restored in Boston and that he and some others are going to take to the road further friction is caused as Nell is torn between leaving with Eli or staying with Eva who refuses to leave the family home and travel across the country on hear say.

While it’s hard to call this a post apocalyptic movie as we are never given details of the event it certainly has the feel of one especially as they months progress as we begin to see the increasing desperate situation the girls find themselves in but what the film does give is a look at how the family unit can be tested under pressure and particularly how sibling rivalry can manifest itself in the seemingly silliest of ways as tension grown and the situation becomes more precarious.

Both Page and Wood do an excellent job in portraying the sisters, Page initially looks like the head strong and purposeful Nell who knows exactly what she wants and is seemingly worst effected initially while Eva is more free spirited, has been the more effected by their mothers death and has put all her eggs in one basket in the form of her dancing but as they story progresses we see that they is more to both of these girls than meets the eye.

It’s a study at the human side of the situation and deals more in tension than action however but the couple of incidents that do occur are handled well and the impact of the does hit home so although it is key to the whole plot, the final third seems to drag a little and the fact that the ending can be interpreted in many ways depending on the viewers take on things will possibly frustrate some who were expecting closure. Nevertheless it’s still an interesting and well acted look at how human nature can quickly change once basic amenities are removed from every day life and the subsequent change in how attitudes and demeanor can quickly shift when the pressure hits.

DJ Speaks Rating: 5 Out Of 10