TV Series Review: True Detective Season Deux – It gets the rating it deserves.

Hello again, it’s only been two years.

Just jotting this down now as I don’t want to ruin True Detective Season Two for anyone that hasn’t watched it yet. The views posted below are my own.

Colin Farrell, Rachel McAdams, Taylor Kitsch, Vince Vaughn.

It was never going to better the first season of the show, was it? But I’m hoping a lot of fans would have recognised that and didn’t expect something to be created with a new cast, new story (which I’m sure was written in a short and not so ideal period of time) to hit the dizzy heights of its predecessor, but I commend its effort and overall I did enjoy it even when I had to strain my ears when Colin Farrell was speaking.

With the catchy intro music and very decent cast assembled it looked like it just followed on from where it was left off the year before. The cast included Colin Farrell as Ray Velcoro, a detective whose heart isn’t in it anymore. His life has spiraled out of control since his wife left him and his ever straining relationship with his son, Chad. Simply put he is a dirty cop with a lot of issues. Ray has links with wannabe-not-so-great-gangster Frank (Vince Vaughn) which goes back twelve years, as it was Frank who had led Ray in to murdering the person who he believed raped his wife which also questions Ray’s legitimacy of being Chad’s biological father. And breathe.

Vince Vaughn portrays Frank, a gangster who loses a lot of money through a railway deal as his money was passed on to his boss “Caspere”, who you find out is that murdered guy at the start of the show. Rachel McAdams portrays (Ani) Bezzerides. Bezzerides is also a detective with a bit of baggage which has been carried around since childhood. Taylor Kitsch portrays Paul Woodwough, a local highway patrolman with a few secrets of his own. Woodwough finds Caspere’s body at the end of the first episode and that is where the story begins.

Ray, Bezzerides and Woodwough are bundled together to solve this case on who murdered Caspere, that’s the easy way of putting it. But with many side story-lines going on it did get a little unnecessarily over-complicated, It’s definitely a show that may be better on a second viewing and that is what I intend to do myself when I can muster up some free time for it.

The performances of Colin Farrell and Rachel McAdams I thought were top notch. Vince Vaughn maybe less so, but just like Matthew McConaughey he needs to stick with the serious roles and steer clear of those awful comedies and rom-coms. Taylor Kitsch did decently.

Looking back at the season it was wonderfully shot and it’s use of lighting was great and the music complemented it too. I do enjoy the dark scenes. I did think there was an unnecessary amount of talking/filler and not enough action as there were only a few notable scenes/shoot-outs (The end of episode 4 and the last two episodes). In a nutshell it needed more.

I’m looking forward on seeing what season 3 may bring, if of course it gets the go ahead.

My rating for True Detective Season 2 is a 6. It gets the rating it deserves. Sorry, I’ll see myself out.

-Maik

Film Review: Only God Forgives

Only God Forgives – Ryan Gosling

Well where do I begin with this? Very hard to put in to words what this film was all about. From what I’ve read and heard about this film leading up to its release in the UK was very mixed to say the least, probably with the critics heading more towards the dislike camp. I can see a lot of ‘Drive’ fans being left unhappy and annoyed after seeing this film, as really.. this is nothing like it. This is so much darker and heavier.

Personally I thought it was a feast for the eyes, there is no way I could better describe it. With hardly any words spoken throughout the film and a striking use of lighting, cinematography and framing I thought it was exquisitely shot. The use of shading was the best I’ve seen in any film in a long time with its dark red, black and use of shadows. I stand by the fact that if a film can flow and hold the intensity to almost breaking point without a word being spoken then it’ll just work fine and this film did. It reminded me a lot of ‘The Fountain’, when actions and visuals strike harder than any words could, it was very much a visual experience with a lot of gore and unthinkable things (You’ll know what I’m talking about if you’ve seen it) which you might just have to look away from. I also have to mention the soundtrack as it was wonderfully fitting.

The plot is that Julian (Ryan Gosling) has done something horrible in his past and had to leave to Bangkok many years ago, he is now in the drug trade and runs a Thai Boxing Club as a front for this. Julian’s brother Billy (Tom Burke) rapes and kills an underage prostitute and well, it just escalates from there doesn’t it? The father of this prostitute is given permission to kill Billy by Lieutenant Chang “Angel of Vengeance”. Julian’s mother Crystal (Kristin Scott Thomas) comes on to the scene and tells Julian to seek revenge for his brother and kill Chang.

I’m not going to lie to you, you probably won’t like it one bit and you’ll probably waste your money going to see it and I can see why a lot of people didn’t like it, I could say with confidence a good 80% will hate it and/or think it was far too much and maybe they’re right? Who am I to judge. I did after all witness quite a few people leave the cinema during the showing as I’m presuming it was just too much. It’s not a film to go and see on a first date lets just leave it at that.

But personally I loved it, I thought it was daring, dark and beautifully shot. The story itself was okay at best, everything else was brilliant. I’m really looking forward to see what Nicholas Winding Refn has up his sleeve for his next project.

My Rating – 7.5

-Maik

The World’s End?

The World’s End cast

There is nothing like a great British Film is there? Especially a great British comedy. You can feel it’s sense of straight to the point edginess and jokes which just flow off the tongue with ease unlike many of the American counterpart films which sometimes feel very forced. Although maybe sometimes you just need to be from the British isles to get the humour and feel of such films. I personally find it hilarious seeing films like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, etc, being shot in little ol’ England and all hell breaking loose in a little village or town in the back-end of nowhere, it totally trumps New York in my view!

The World’s End is the lovechild of Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead simply put. It seemed like it was the next and logical step of the winning formula of the three amigos (Or was it five?) Edgar Wright, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The World’s End is set in their childhood village, Gary King (Played by Simon Pegg) reunites the 5 friends, Andy (Nick Frost), Steven (Paddy Considine), Oliver aka Omen (Martin Freeman) and Peter (Eddie Marsan) together to try and finish their 12 bar pub crawl which finishes at “The World’s End” which they tried and ultimately failed to do 20 years prior. With the others reluctantly to participate they all feel that they must come together for the much troubled Gary, little do they know the night ahead of them. The film sparks in to life with the sudden implementation of sci-fi and amazingly stupidly but hilarious choreographed fight scenes which will leave you chuckling. The film I thought had a great mixture of laughter, the odd and touching serious part with silliness chucked in which I’ve come to expect from an Edgar Wright film, and it didn’t let me down one bit.

Andy, Steven & Gary

Nick Frost stole the show. There is no two ways about it, he just stole it. Don’t get me wrong though the supporting cast of Paddy Considine, Martin Freeman and Eddie Marsan were great and even the minor roles of Rosamund Pike (Playing Sam, sister of Oliver) and Michael Smiley (Gary’s childhood drug dealing friend) all seemed right and really, who honestly doesn’t like a bit of Tyres in their films? But Nick’s portrayal of best friend Andy was head and shoulders above the rest with his killer fight moves and hilarious script particularly towards Gary (Simon Pegg) was genius. I can’t help but give Simon Pegg credit for his role as Gary. He really let go and played it brilliantly, Gary being a really loud and out there character stuck in the early 90’s with a lot of deep and emotional problems was portrayed wonderfully.

Edgar Wright

I personally loved the film, but then again I’ve loved pretty much all of Edgar Wright’s work so maybe I’m a little biased. His history of using quirky camera changes and implementing amazing switch over between scenes has almost become his trademark. With witty writing throughout and straight one line jokes which you can’t just help but laugh at. None of Edgar’s style and writing has diminished since his Spaced days which is great to see as he is staying true to his own, and it was just a pleasure to witness the third installment of the Cornetto Trilogy.

My rating – Somewhere in between 7.5 and 8 (Which personally I think is a brilliant rating for a comedy).

-Maik

Well then, Pacific Rim.

Let me start by saying a little something. When I see a trailer for a film which looks to have great potential I try not to look in to it too much more until it arrives in to the cinema. I always feel that If i read in to it too much beforehand it might just have ridiculous heights which it’ll ultimately fail when being watched. So I try and avoid all the hoo-ha of all the promotions prior to release.

Also there might be some spoiler material within this although I’ll try not to delve too much in to detail.

Unfortunately going in to this film I broke my golden rule a little bit. Having heard on the radio and friends that this was  “a great film”, “just amazing”, etc and so naturally I ended up having a little high expectations when going to see it. Unfortunately for me and all of this is in my own opinion it was very much the polar opposite. I thought it was a disaster from start to finish.

I found myself bored and just wanting to leave half way through. Don’t get me wrong there were quite a few things I enjoyed, the CGI was incredible, the score was brilliant at times and some of the cinematography was amazing (Young Mako running through the broken down city which you can see above).

But the negatives for me far outweighed these; the shoddy and almost incriminating screen-writing, some dodgy acting by mostly all involved and the general story just lacked substance, at times it was very mindless.

There were a few acting performances which were just bad, possibly down to some woeful casting. I have to admit though I did enjoy the Charlie Day bits that has to be said but that’s all they were.. bits, there wasn’t enough of him, he brought the film to life when he shot on to the screen 30 or so minutes in to the film with his crazy Zed-like voice.

I really gave it a chance after all I had no other choice as I was sitting there for 2 hours 10 minutes watching it, but I found it tantalizingly boring all in all even after the 589th explosion and close up shot of  the mech and/or monster.

If you’re in to a mindless action film were giant mechs fight giant monsters then you might and probably will just like it. I just couldn’t get engrossed at all.

My rating – 5.5/10

-Maik

Please allow me to introduce myself..

My name is Michael, Mike, Maik, whatever, really just take your pick.

I’ve set up this blog as a way to vent, revel or just express my feelings on a film, series or maybe sometimes a game that I’ve watched or played.

A little about myself; I’m 25 years old and I’m from Bangor in Northern Ireland.

I’m an avid watcher of films and TV shows and a keen player of games. I watch a wide range of genres of films, within reason of course. Films from Pixars Up to Scorcese’s Goodfellas, I’m mainly open to the majority of films out there.

I still play games, not as much as I would like to of course, and not as much as I used to but I still do occasionally dabble and get ingested in to a game every now and again. I’m very much excited about the PS4 arriving to us at the end of 2013, and really hoping it sparks the next generation of gaming. I currently own a PS3, Xbox 360, PS Vita and of course the average spec’ed gaming PC.

Anyhow, that’s enough about me.

-Maik