David Knowles reviews this summer's offerings on the big screen
World War Z
I’ll admit it: I was excited for World War Z. As a fan of zombie films I was interested to see how a cult favourite book, a wicked and cutting satire on modern politics, would be treated by the moneyed might of Hollywood.
Sadly, it was total, unrelenting trash. Brad Pitt, playing the strong-jawed and utterly anodyne Gerry Lane (probably the only character whose personality would have been improved by zombie infection) plays the entire film with one face: jaw set, mouth firm, hair back. The plot is very simple; nation after nation is caught unprepared and governments and armies are wiped out as a zombie infection sweeps across the globe. Gerry Lane leads the investigation into the outbreak, racing from continent to continent away from a tumbling tsunami of the recently deceased. His adventures culminate in a lab in Cardiff in which he finds a chemical compound which enables him to become invisible to the un-dead.
For such an expensive project and despite featuring the multi-award winning and not inexperienced Pitt, World War Z was a poor take on a usually exciting and popular genre; the acting skills of the living were as mechanical and unconvincing as those of the un-dead and the clichéd script ensures this film fails every high expectation.
Star Trek: Into Darkness
While not as new and shiny as the first instalment in J.J Abram’s new, revamped, cameras-sliding-everywhere-and-pointing-into-flashing-white-light series, Into Darkness has a lot to offer. Unlike World War Z it knows it’s inherently ridiculous and plays up the swift banter between Spock and Kirk, ladles on the lasers in the battle scenes and still manages to present a few interesting ideas as well (how far should a government deceive its people to protect them?) The film has as many plot holes as a colander and Simon Pegg’s accent is ropier than the Cutty Sark but the wholesome characters continue to charm its audience; Spock is witty and snide, Kirk zooms around shooting missiles at everyone and Benedict Cumberbatch plays a genetically enhanced super-man.
Despite the plot holes, the story is actually more logical than that of the first film: Kirk is on the tail of the alleged terrorist Khan, who has fled Earth after murdering most of Starfleet command. During his pursuit and capture of the assassin, Kirk discovers some worrying information about his own organisation - Starfleet have been secretly building a super-spaceship to use against the encroaching Klingon Empire. Kirk decides to unveil this plot, heads home and, after many obstacles, is successful in revealing the duplicitousness of his employers and saves Starfleet.
However, it is the epic set pieces which give this film its blockbuster status. Those moments which deserve to be seen magnified on the big screen. Those moments are dominated by the spaceship itself; Starship Enterprise rising out of the sea, Starship Enterprise hovering around the rings of Saturn and, my favourite, Starship Enterprise dropping through Earth’s cloud cover, before finally breaking through the mass of white and the silence with the brilliant reprise of the theme tune.
Although World War Z and Into the Darkness are arguably as riddled with problems as each other, the crucial difference is that the latter knows it, and has irrefutable charm.
The World’s End
The last in the ‘Cornetto trilogy’ is by far and away the oddest. Zombies, small town cults and supermarket shoot outs seem terrifyingly tame in comparison with the extra-terrestrial madness of The World’s End. The plot is simple; bored of adult life, Gary King (Simon Pegg) decides to recreate his greatest night out, a bar crawl in his home town of Newton Haven. This time however, he and his four friends will finish the ‘Golden Mile’, a legendary pub crawl terminating at an establishment named ‘World’s End’.
The opening fifteen minutes are tedious; King is an irritating bore and his friends are worse, stuck in dead-end jobs and stultifying relationships. The film feels as uncomfortable and tiresome as a dull night out in the local Wetherspoons. And then, with little warning, King destroys a youth in the gents’; a robot that bleeds blue ink. Suddenly, the night is immeasurably improved by the threat of alien annihilation. Pub by pub, the characters giggle and stumble their way towards obliteration as the peril increases and the end of the world creeps nearer.
Despite a strong and imaginative plot The World’s End is not quite as good as the pinnacle of the trilogy, Shaun of the Dead. Apart from a few poignant moments at the end, the characters are almost daringly shallow, and the quality of the script is erratic – moments of comedy gold exist alongside long-winded, trying dialogue. Like a great night out, The World’s End starts out slow, gets very good after the 3rd pub and coherent memory starts to dissolve soon after into a happy blur of killer robots, blue ink, and fire culminating in the worst hangover ever.
World War Z: *
Star Trek Into Darkness: ***
The World’s End : ****
I’ll admit it: I was excited for World War Z. As a fan of zombie films I was interested to see how a cult favourite book, a wicked and cutting satire on modern politics, would be treated by the moneyed might of Hollywood.
Sadly, it was total, unrelenting trash. Brad Pitt, playing the strong-jawed and utterly anodyne Gerry Lane (probably the only character whose personality would have been improved by zombie infection) plays the entire film with one face: jaw set, mouth firm, hair back. The plot is very simple; nation after nation is caught unprepared and governments and armies are wiped out as a zombie infection sweeps across the globe. Gerry Lane leads the investigation into the outbreak, racing from continent to continent away from a tumbling tsunami of the recently deceased. His adventures culminate in a lab in Cardiff in which he finds a chemical compound which enables him to become invisible to the un-dead.
For such an expensive project and despite featuring the multi-award winning and not inexperienced Pitt, World War Z was a poor take on a usually exciting and popular genre; the acting skills of the living were as mechanical and unconvincing as those of the un-dead and the clichéd script ensures this film fails every high expectation.
Star Trek: Into Darkness
While not as new and shiny as the first instalment in J.J Abram’s new, revamped, cameras-sliding-everywhere-and-pointing-into-flashing-white-light series, Into Darkness has a lot to offer. Unlike World War Z it knows it’s inherently ridiculous and plays up the swift banter between Spock and Kirk, ladles on the lasers in the battle scenes and still manages to present a few interesting ideas as well (how far should a government deceive its people to protect them?) The film has as many plot holes as a colander and Simon Pegg’s accent is ropier than the Cutty Sark but the wholesome characters continue to charm its audience; Spock is witty and snide, Kirk zooms around shooting missiles at everyone and Benedict Cumberbatch plays a genetically enhanced super-man.
Despite the plot holes, the story is actually more logical than that of the first film: Kirk is on the tail of the alleged terrorist Khan, who has fled Earth after murdering most of Starfleet command. During his pursuit and capture of the assassin, Kirk discovers some worrying information about his own organisation - Starfleet have been secretly building a super-spaceship to use against the encroaching Klingon Empire. Kirk decides to unveil this plot, heads home and, after many obstacles, is successful in revealing the duplicitousness of his employers and saves Starfleet.
However, it is the epic set pieces which give this film its blockbuster status. Those moments which deserve to be seen magnified on the big screen. Those moments are dominated by the spaceship itself; Starship Enterprise rising out of the sea, Starship Enterprise hovering around the rings of Saturn and, my favourite, Starship Enterprise dropping through Earth’s cloud cover, before finally breaking through the mass of white and the silence with the brilliant reprise of the theme tune.
Although World War Z and Into the Darkness are arguably as riddled with problems as each other, the crucial difference is that the latter knows it, and has irrefutable charm.
The World’s End
The last in the ‘Cornetto trilogy’ is by far and away the oddest. Zombies, small town cults and supermarket shoot outs seem terrifyingly tame in comparison with the extra-terrestrial madness of The World’s End. The plot is simple; bored of adult life, Gary King (Simon Pegg) decides to recreate his greatest night out, a bar crawl in his home town of Newton Haven. This time however, he and his four friends will finish the ‘Golden Mile’, a legendary pub crawl terminating at an establishment named ‘World’s End’.
The opening fifteen minutes are tedious; King is an irritating bore and his friends are worse, stuck in dead-end jobs and stultifying relationships. The film feels as uncomfortable and tiresome as a dull night out in the local Wetherspoons. And then, with little warning, King destroys a youth in the gents’; a robot that bleeds blue ink. Suddenly, the night is immeasurably improved by the threat of alien annihilation. Pub by pub, the characters giggle and stumble their way towards obliteration as the peril increases and the end of the world creeps nearer.
Despite a strong and imaginative plot The World’s End is not quite as good as the pinnacle of the trilogy, Shaun of the Dead. Apart from a few poignant moments at the end, the characters are almost daringly shallow, and the quality of the script is erratic – moments of comedy gold exist alongside long-winded, trying dialogue. Like a great night out, The World’s End starts out slow, gets very good after the 3rd pub and coherent memory starts to dissolve soon after into a happy blur of killer robots, blue ink, and fire culminating in the worst hangover ever.
World War Z: *
Star Trek Into Darkness: ***
The World’s End : ****