Double Review Spectacular - Warcraft and The Nice Guys
Yes, another double review spectacular so soon. Four movies in two weeks which is either great news if you actually enjoy reading the blog or is awful if you're still hate reading it. Regardless, this week we review two films, one of which I'm very interested in, the other of which I'm incredibly excited to see because it looks like exactly my kind of film. See if you can guess which is which out of Warcraft and The Nice Guys. Read the Warcraft review first and see if you can work it out after that.
I want to start by making sure my allegiances to this film are clear. I'm not a huge fan of fantasy films and despite being a fan of video games, I've never played any games in the Warcraft universe. My only interest in this film was my love for Duncan Jones and I have been quietly pessimistic that the studio involvement would damage his tight and smooth directing style. Safe to say, it has not but I'll get to that. The story is pretty standard high fantasy stuff. It's a tale of Orcs vs Humans but we see both sides and on these two sides, there are sympathetic characters and villainous characters and it makes it a balanced story. Despite this high fantasy backdrop of war and magic and griffin type creatures flying around, the story is a lot more grounded than you may expect. For a film with a lot of focus on Orcs, it's a very human film. I never really remembered a character's name but I empathised with them and I cared about what happened. With their ridiculous names and my lack of knowledge about Warcraft as a franchise, it seems a lot to ask I remember their names but their stories and their relationships are truly memorable and they give the high fantasy high stakes.
I guess I talk about acting here but it's difficult. Not because the acting is bad, it's great, just because either the humans are actors I don't recognise or are doing motion capture so it's impossible to recognise them. Toby Kebbel plays one of the main Orcs and he gives a great motion capture performance again after the new Planet of the Apes films. It also means he gets to join Kate Mara and Michael B Jordan as the actors who have moved on after Fantastic 4 so congrats for finally shaking off the identity of Doctor Doom/Mummified sex doll. Dominic Cooper plays the king of his little area of Azeroth with its silly name and he was good. Good enough that I'm now even more excited to see Preacher and his role in that. The rest of the cast, be they mo-cap or real are great. There's not much that can be faulted about the acting, there's not much of the typical fantasy over acting so that's definitely a plus.
Finally, I'll get to the odds and sods bit of the review. Warcraft would live and die based on the quality of its CG as pretty much every shot requires it and for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. The CG characters are all believable and look convincing for towering, tusked towers of muscle. My one gripe would be that there are multiple occasions where it feels painfully obvious that you are watching actors standing in front of a green screen. It's a silly gripe as we all know that but I lose my immersion which is vital in fantasy. I'd also like to compliment the fight scenes. I didn't think Duncan Jones would be up to action as he usually does quiet scenes best but I really enjoyed the fights. Don't get me wrong, they won't go down as some of the best of the year or anything but they were good fun and did exactly what they needed to do.
Warcraft is a very different film to the two others that Jones made before but it holds its own among them. For me, this is another case where the critics have just got the reviews wrong. Warcraft is by no means a bad movie. Indeed, I found it a really good, if somewhat silly, time. For me, the movie ranks up there among Source Code, although it occasionally came close to some of the magic of Moon. I think that fans of fantasy will find a lot to love in this film and although it may be somewhat derivative to them, they'll find real enjoyment if they can look past it. That's why I give Warcraft a surprisingly good score of an
So as it turns out, Warcraft is good, despite my worries. How does my anticipated movie stack up against it then? I think it's going to be pretty nice, guys. Get it? Because it's The Nice Guys? Urgh, I hate my jokes.
The Nice Guys is a neo-noir crime film that takes place in the seventies and is proper noir. There's sex, there's violence and there's charismatic leading men. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this film is basically its own genre of neon noir. Yes, I made that up and yes, I'm far too proud of it. The story is, as I said, typical of neo-noir in that it's story twists and turns all over the place and while everything eventually ties together, we spend most of the film following Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as they try and figure it out. The story kept me hooked and I'd be interested to watch the film again to try and see any other hints throughout. Of course, this isn't the only reason I want to re-watch the film but the story, while relatively inconsequential, was good enough to keep me invested.
Acting plays a huge role in the success of The Nice Guys as a film. I won't talk too much about the exact details of the supporting cast as the surprises they bring are what makes them so exciting but they're all fleshed out enough, interesting enough and frequently hilarious enough that each of them earns their time on screen fully. Where the acting, or rather the actors, excels is with the three main characters. There are the two primary characters of course and they're a delight. Ryan Gosling is a PI who is pretty crap but has his heart kind of in the right place and if nothing else, proves himself a slapstick comedy master. Russell Crowe is kind of a PI but one who punches faces instead of solving mysteries and that kind of sums up his personality. Their chemistry as the titular Nice Guys is fantastic and the film rides on that, although as the tagline says, they're not very nice, despite being giddily entertaining. A surprise star was the girl who played Gosling's daughter, Holly. In most buddy cop movies, she'd be a simple moral compass or a maguffin for Gosling to want to stay alive but she's smarter than both the guys, can look after herself well and has a few cracking lines herself. Basically, the cast and their performances are kind of perfect.
We also have to consider the sharp writing and directing that went into this film. Shane Black, the writer and director, wrote the original Lethal Weapon and his skill at writing buddy cop films hasn't got any worse clearly. Every line is there to either propel the story along or deliver a gut buster of a laugh. I wasn't alive in the seventies in LA but it feels authentic. On that not, the directing was also great and captured the seventies perfectly. The mix of the slick and confident direction with the intelligent script made the film barrel along at a breakneck pace and if there's one complaint I have with the film, it's that it went too quickly for me to properly appreciate it. I can't wait to watch it again and relive that incredible world Shane Black brought to us.
I know I've already given one film this year a 10/10 and The Nice Guys isn't quite that but Anomalisa was very much for me. The Nice Guys is a film that I recommend more than any other this year so far. Despite the hardcore violence and occasionally uncomfortable sexual nature, this film is so easy to recommend. If you like films that take joy in their originality while paying homage to the films of the past or just like laughing along with two of the coolest men in Hollywood, this film is for you. That's why I give The Nice Guys, without hesitation, a strong
I want to start by making sure my allegiances to this film are clear. I'm not a huge fan of fantasy films and despite being a fan of video games, I've never played any games in the Warcraft universe. My only interest in this film was my love for Duncan Jones and I have been quietly pessimistic that the studio involvement would damage his tight and smooth directing style. Safe to say, it has not but I'll get to that. The story is pretty standard high fantasy stuff. It's a tale of Orcs vs Humans but we see both sides and on these two sides, there are sympathetic characters and villainous characters and it makes it a balanced story. Despite this high fantasy backdrop of war and magic and griffin type creatures flying around, the story is a lot more grounded than you may expect. For a film with a lot of focus on Orcs, it's a very human film. I never really remembered a character's name but I empathised with them and I cared about what happened. With their ridiculous names and my lack of knowledge about Warcraft as a franchise, it seems a lot to ask I remember their names but their stories and their relationships are truly memorable and they give the high fantasy high stakes.
I guess I talk about acting here but it's difficult. Not because the acting is bad, it's great, just because either the humans are actors I don't recognise or are doing motion capture so it's impossible to recognise them. Toby Kebbel plays one of the main Orcs and he gives a great motion capture performance again after the new Planet of the Apes films. It also means he gets to join Kate Mara and Michael B Jordan as the actors who have moved on after Fantastic 4 so congrats for finally shaking off the identity of Doctor Doom/Mummified sex doll. Dominic Cooper plays the king of his little area of Azeroth with its silly name and he was good. Good enough that I'm now even more excited to see Preacher and his role in that. The rest of the cast, be they mo-cap or real are great. There's not much that can be faulted about the acting, there's not much of the typical fantasy over acting so that's definitely a plus.
Finally, I'll get to the odds and sods bit of the review. Warcraft would live and die based on the quality of its CG as pretty much every shot requires it and for the most part, I wasn't disappointed. The CG characters are all believable and look convincing for towering, tusked towers of muscle. My one gripe would be that there are multiple occasions where it feels painfully obvious that you are watching actors standing in front of a green screen. It's a silly gripe as we all know that but I lose my immersion which is vital in fantasy. I'd also like to compliment the fight scenes. I didn't think Duncan Jones would be up to action as he usually does quiet scenes best but I really enjoyed the fights. Don't get me wrong, they won't go down as some of the best of the year or anything but they were good fun and did exactly what they needed to do.
Warcraft is a very different film to the two others that Jones made before but it holds its own among them. For me, this is another case where the critics have just got the reviews wrong. Warcraft is by no means a bad movie. Indeed, I found it a really good, if somewhat silly, time. For me, the movie ranks up there among Source Code, although it occasionally came close to some of the magic of Moon. I think that fans of fantasy will find a lot to love in this film and although it may be somewhat derivative to them, they'll find real enjoyment if they can look past it. That's why I give Warcraft a surprisingly good score of an
So as it turns out, Warcraft is good, despite my worries. How does my anticipated movie stack up against it then? I think it's going to be pretty nice, guys. Get it? Because it's The Nice Guys? Urgh, I hate my jokes.
The Nice Guys is a neo-noir crime film that takes place in the seventies and is proper noir. There's sex, there's violence and there's charismatic leading men. In fact, I'd go as far to say that this film is basically its own genre of neon noir. Yes, I made that up and yes, I'm far too proud of it. The story is, as I said, typical of neo-noir in that it's story twists and turns all over the place and while everything eventually ties together, we spend most of the film following Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe as they try and figure it out. The story kept me hooked and I'd be interested to watch the film again to try and see any other hints throughout. Of course, this isn't the only reason I want to re-watch the film but the story, while relatively inconsequential, was good enough to keep me invested.
Acting plays a huge role in the success of The Nice Guys as a film. I won't talk too much about the exact details of the supporting cast as the surprises they bring are what makes them so exciting but they're all fleshed out enough, interesting enough and frequently hilarious enough that each of them earns their time on screen fully. Where the acting, or rather the actors, excels is with the three main characters. There are the two primary characters of course and they're a delight. Ryan Gosling is a PI who is pretty crap but has his heart kind of in the right place and if nothing else, proves himself a slapstick comedy master. Russell Crowe is kind of a PI but one who punches faces instead of solving mysteries and that kind of sums up his personality. Their chemistry as the titular Nice Guys is fantastic and the film rides on that, although as the tagline says, they're not very nice, despite being giddily entertaining. A surprise star was the girl who played Gosling's daughter, Holly. In most buddy cop movies, she'd be a simple moral compass or a maguffin for Gosling to want to stay alive but she's smarter than both the guys, can look after herself well and has a few cracking lines herself. Basically, the cast and their performances are kind of perfect.
We also have to consider the sharp writing and directing that went into this film. Shane Black, the writer and director, wrote the original Lethal Weapon and his skill at writing buddy cop films hasn't got any worse clearly. Every line is there to either propel the story along or deliver a gut buster of a laugh. I wasn't alive in the seventies in LA but it feels authentic. On that not, the directing was also great and captured the seventies perfectly. The mix of the slick and confident direction with the intelligent script made the film barrel along at a breakneck pace and if there's one complaint I have with the film, it's that it went too quickly for me to properly appreciate it. I can't wait to watch it again and relive that incredible world Shane Black brought to us.
I know I've already given one film this year a 10/10 and The Nice Guys isn't quite that but Anomalisa was very much for me. The Nice Guys is a film that I recommend more than any other this year so far. Despite the hardcore violence and occasionally uncomfortable sexual nature, this film is so easy to recommend. If you like films that take joy in their originality while paying homage to the films of the past or just like laughing along with two of the coolest men in Hollywood, this film is for you. That's why I give The Nice Guys, without hesitation, a strong
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