IT (2017)

Year of Release: 2017

Genre: Horror

Run Time: 135mns

Age Rating: 15 (UK)

Director: Andrés Muschietti

**SPOILER ALERT**

Synopsis

When Bill Denbrough's (Jaeden Lieberher) young brother Georgie goes missing from their home town of Derry, Maine the adults of the town treat it as just another missing child on an ever growing list of similar cases. Refusing to accept his brother's fate, Bill, along with his gang known as the 'Losers Club', try to uncover the mystery surrounding the recent spate of child disappearances. Soon however almost every member of the gang has a run in with Pennywise, a child eating creature in the guise of a clown, these meetings lead the gang to the conclusion that Pennywise is behind the disappearances. Knowing that adults would not believe the truth, the 'Losers' decide that they must deal with 'IT' themselves, overcoming bullies, parents and their worst fears for a final confrontation with 'IT' they must come together in order to stop the bloodshed that plagues their town.

Review

My usual opinion of horror films is that if I wanted to pay to soil myself I'd fork out the 20p for the use of a public toilet, as opposed to doing it in a room full of strangers. However when I heard that they were making a film out of Stephen King's 'IT' I was drawn to interest immediately as I had heard good things about the 90's miniseries. Having never watched this miniseries myself due to both my lack of existence upon it's original release and a crippling fear of clown like beings, I put the 'IT' [2017] in the back of my mind as one to watch for reasons unknown to even myself. I eventually decided that it was the impending arrival of my long overdue transition into manhood that got me into that theatre seat. This theory however was overruled approximately 3 minutes into the film when any testicles that may have been growing recoiled in terror as I realised that I had 132 minutes left of the film and a countdown clock on my bladder that was measured only in seconds.

The Problem with 80's horror films

Whilst I have nothing against horror as a genre, I feel that it can be one of the weaker genres in terms

of overall quality. I know that many people will disagree and spout about the 'classics' such as 'Nightmare on Elm Street' and that's fair enough, horror as a genre did have quite the golden era in the 80's with memorable campy horror flicks flooding theatres throughout the decade. But, like a French aristocrat in the 1700's these old horror films sorely lack something. The heart's in the right place but it doesn't look quite right as storytelling is only half the experience of cinema and sadly these films sorely lack the visuals to appeal to today's audience. This trope reversed in more recent years with horrors using updated visuals but completely forgetting that they needed writing staff. The combination of both of these aspects is where 'IT' scores it's [skid]marks for me.

The writers for 'IT' admittedly had very strong source material to begin with but even baring that in mind they created one of the best screenplays I have ever witnessed. The film was a truly terrifying spectacle throughout, not because I was worried that something would jump out but because most of the film had a constant dark and uncertain atmosphere only emphasised by Pennywise's unpredictable nature, it was due to this that I spent a great portion of this film trying to retain both dignity and control over my sphincter. This feeling of dread was juxtaposed entirely by the scenes in which the young cast were on the screen together. These moments contained some of the most heartwarming acting I've seen, the friendships seem genuine with quite a few of moments of hilarity provided by Richie (Finn Wolfhard), who's character fires off juvenile jokes like Adam Sandler on speed. Unlike Adam Sandler however these jokes are not forced or out of place and fit the character perfectly, providing a sense of ease before throwing you back into the turbulence of the horror, this contrast amplifying both the horror and calm equally. 

The casting for 'IT' was quite the ball-pit of unknown actors which, when recreating a much beloved material that has a fanbase the size of a small country, is the equivalent of sticking your genitals into a tank of prejudgemental piranhas. Andrés Muschietti however must have decided that he had a manhood to spare because he took the risk to include no real well known names in his cast. However, as they so frequently do, the fanboys had to eat their words and whatever else they'd claimed they would consume if the film turned out well because the cast all gave astounding performances not least Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise. It would have been a near Herculean task for even a seasoned actor to fill Pennywise's size 32's, previously occupied by the legendary Tim Curry, however Skarsgård, a man with fewer acting credits to his name than I have GCSEs, managed to give one of the most chilling and memorable performances of a villain in recent memory.

Skarsgård at 6'3" falls towards the top of this
Fear to Limb Length chart.

Skarsgård's performance was constantly brilliant on a mentally scarring level throughout the films runtime with every minute of his screen time seeping with menace. The slow burning threat that is always in the background of 'IT' is what makes this such a strong film and the simple fact is that this threat would not be present without Skarsgård providing his unique take on the character, introducing a new generation of viewers to the joys of coulrophobia. I can't however talk about the cast without mentioning the child actors. Now child actors can normally only fall into 2 categories: shit or cute enough to cover up the fact that they can't act, however the children of 'IT' all gave colourful and believable performances that culminated into the most watchable 2 hours and 15 minutes of film that I have viewed through tears of terror.

Overall 'IT (2017)' is a well shot, atmospheric ode to a classic novel that I would rank with the likes of 'Stand By Me' as it was as rewarding of an experience as it was terrifying. Both lighthearted juvenile fun and dark disturbing imagery brings 'IT' into a league of it's own with the image of Pennywise's dismaying interpretation of a Cossack dance staying with me until my dying breath.

Scoring:

Final Score: 18

Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):

Q- What is the thickness of your ideal writing paper?

A- It's has changed over time, currently it is 80gsm however I did go through a rather embarrassing stage in my teen years in which I would only write on 100gsm paper.

Q- Did you copy and paste Bill Skarsgård's name every time you used it in this review because you couldn't figure out how to get the 'å' symbol?

A- Yes.

The Nice Guys

Year of Release: 2016

Genre: Comedy

Run Time: 111mns

Age Rating: 15 (UK)

Directed By: Shane Black

**SPOILER ALERT**

Synopsis

After the sudden and mysterious death of a porn star, a private detective called Holland March (Ryan Gosling) is hired to look for a missing girl however hired thug Jackson Healy (Russell Crowe) is hired by Holland's only lead to stop him making any progress. After coming to blows the two discover a case far more complex than either of them could have imagined and start working together. During the course of their investigation the two encounter psychopathic assassins, crooked officials and a rather confused old lady and along with the help of Hollands' daughter Holly (Angourie Rice) they try to uncover the links between the seemingly unrelated clues.

Review
Since my first review was somewhat negative I thought long and hard about what I would like to review next that wouldn't make me sound like the whinging fanboy that I am. So I sat and looked through my film collection to find a movie that I could distance myself from sufficiently as to watch, note down and review it without having a red storm cloud of pre-judgement in front of my eyes. However I got bored of trawling through them so I went to HMV and spent my 'hard earned cash' on a film I had never heard of instead ... and what a brilliant decision that was!

'The Nice Guys' is an American neo-noir comedy starring Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe and to get this across from the off it is a wonderful example of what modern American comedy should resemble. The dialogue is sharp and witty, the action scenes are tight and well directed and there is a heavy element of slapstick comedy within this movie, which I have to say is a welcomed change to the more recent trend of over the top obnoxious humour we've been exposed to by the likes of the Lord himself, Adam Sandler. Now I have gushed my emotions like a love-struck 13 year old Tumblr user I feel that I should expand on my feelings.

First and foremost I'm going to talk about the writing and acting within this film as it pretty much hit the nail on the head. The story itself is at heart a buddy-cop comedy which in my humble opinion is a genre that has been stretched out using the same rinse and repeat formula for some years now, yet somehow the writers managed to make a script that not only felt fresh but also seemed somewhat original. The performances of the three leads (Gosling, Crowe and Rice) are exceptional and their on-screen chemistry is a wonder to behold, the way they bounced their lines off each other seemed so relaxed and natural. It was the lead's chemistry that really held this film together even in the story's weakest points, which came for me around the halfway mark.

The characters themselves are also a high point of the film for me as even though they are in essence all slightly over exaggerated caricatures of 70s stereotypes e.g: Gosling's hapless private detective character with more mustache than he has career prospects. It was also nice to see a change in what I'd expect to see from roles played by Gosling and to some extent Crowe who for this movie dropped their respective typecasting. Usually when it comes to a Gosling character I would expect equal parts romance & abs however in this film neither appear, instead Gosling more resembles a Jar Jar Binks-esque character with a bumbling nature. Crowe starts out as his usual unshaven badass character, a man who is willing to kill on a whim but as the film goes on and his relationship with Angourie Rice's character evolves he softens and for me this is what makes these characters' special, behind the slightly over the top nature of  them there is a vulnerable human side to them to which makes it very easy to relate to them.

The one fault that I could pick with the characters is that I felt too much time was spent on the protagonists meaning that the film sorely lacked a villain with a Z axis, this did make it hard for me to comprehend which character was the primary villain or to fully understand their actions. Even though I doubt these villains could stand up in a strong breeze I still found that I enjoyed the screen time that was spent with them as the extravagant portrayals of the characters made them entertaining enough to fit right into the mold of this movie. A good example of this ridiculousness is when one of the villains, a hit-man named 'John Boy' sent after Gosling, starts shooting up the front of Gosling's character's home and as Gosling and Crowe return fire, the villain keeps changing his weapons starting with a small pistol and ending with a fully automatic assault rifle, his car boot channeling Mary Poppins' handbag but with more calibre in this situation.

This brings me onto my final topic nicely as I want to talk about the action scenes within this film as they are definitely some of the best I've seen in a while. Fights are fast paced and fluid for a comedy film and the deaths are pretty brutal whilst maintaining a certain level of realism, for example if a character dies they don't get a monologue before their expiry. This brutal realism juxtaposed with over the top characters genuinely shocked me on a couple of occasions as, unlike in other unflinchingly violent films such as  'Saving Private Ryan' in which the characters all seem so fragile due to death being so prevalent, the characters in 'The Nice Guys' are so fanciful that you are lulled into presuming that they are invincible rendering the idea of their sudden and violent deaths even more shocking.

Overall I'd say that 'The Nice Guys' is a very entertaining film with a strong script and an excellent cast who have a great onscreen chemistry. It is also an exceedingly well shot film which truly immerses the viewer in it's setting as although I wasn't around in the 70's I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing that screams 70's like seedy porn, hippies and Ryan Gosling's mustache.

Scoring:

Final Score: 16

1-5 Wouldn't be out of place in a sewer

6-10 Pretty Bad

11-15 Good

16-20 Excellent

Footnote (to answer the questions nobody cares about):

Q - What is your favourite consonant cluster?

A- I am a personal fan of the classic 'yrgyz' cluster due to its wide variety of uses.

Q - In your opinion is there anything worse than a clown?

A - Yes, a marionette dressed as a clown in a potholing crevasse. 

  

The Seventh Son

Year of Release: 2014

Genre: Fantasy

    Run Time: 97mns

Age Rating: 12 (UK)
Directed By: Sergei Bodrov

**SPOILER ALERT**

Synopsis
An old witch hunter, also known as a Spook, called John Gregory (Jeff Bridges) loses his apprentice to the 'dark queen' Mother Malkin (Julianne Moore), a witch and his arch-enemy. After years imprisoned she has sworn to get her revenge against the Spooks' order. John Gregory has only until the next full moon to find and train his new apprentice, Thomas Ward (Ben Barnes), a boy destined to be a great hero. After finding Tom it's a struggle against time to defeat Mother Malkin before she gains her full power by way of the Blood Moon and destroys John and Tom, the only remaining forces fighting against the dark.

Review
Well, as I stated in my first blog post, I will only review films that hold a particular interest to myself and in the case of 'The Seventh Son' I was interested in seeing this film from the moment it came onto my radar back in 2012 when I first heard that it was in production as I am a longtime fan of the book series this film was based on. So when I say I was interested in seeing this film, I was interested by it in the same way one is interested in taking part in a Banzai Skydive, i.e. the initial excitement was enough to get you there but when you realise what may happen after seeing a preview clip on YouTube there are a lot of tears.

Now as is usually the case with a film based on a series of books this film was very divisive with it's audience. Divisive meaning, in this case, that it successfully divided it's audience into 'fans of the books' and 'people who have evidently never seen a decent fantasy film in their lives' as this film was a clichéd mess. In fact, this film is so loosely based on the original books that the one thing more ridiculous than the claim that anybody involved in this films' production actually read the source material is the fact that Disney thought that 'Titanic' needed a sequel. Before I drive my way through this review of a film that has more 'potholes' than the average British B road, I think the best thing to do would be to give you an idea of my reaction to the opening scenes. I shall do this through the medium of a pictured flow chart.

I went into this film truly hoping for the best as in my opinion the books on which it is based are some of the most original dark fantasy novels of recent years and I wanted, more than anything for this film to reflect that. However within the first minute I noticed a lot of inaccuracies that were so petty that no one, unfamiliar with the books would have cared. These inaccuracies were hit on the head for me, not even three minutes into the film, when a giant, badly animated dragon with the face of a surprised gargoyle erupted onto my screen. It was at this moment that I realised that I'd be watching the 2014 re-make of 'Eragon' for the next 97 minutes and not 'The Seventh Son', as dragons are so far from the lore of the Spooks books that I half expected the 'Dragonborn' to pop up midway through the film! Sadly even if I could have heaved my, already heavily damaged, opinion of this film over the fact that it was now apparently set in Skyrim as opposed to Lancashire (as the original books were), the worst was still to come.

Up until about 5 minutes into the film there isn't much in the way of dialogue. Actually, saying that, I would argue that there isn't much throughout the whole film as the script is so inconceivably poor that I am genuinely under the impression that a lot of it was copied and pasted from a fan fiction site. A good example of this is early in the film when Mother Malkin had captured John's previous apprentice, William Bradley (Kit Harrington, the Sean Bean of the film).

John Gregory: (In Latin) Let him go!
Mother Malkin: (In Latin) Why should I?
William Bradley: (Like Nicholas Cage in 'WickerMan') I can feel the dark! I can't stand   it!
John Gregory: Let him go! I will burn you!

The average romantic arc within a film
vs.
the romantic arc within 'The Seventh Son'

Well if that isn't the script for a rather camp pantomime then what is it? Another example of piss poor screen-writing on full display in this film is the full romantic arc of Tom and Alice (Alicia Vikander), his love interest. The arc being only slightly less shallow than 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. The couple have a short scene together near the start of the film when they meet for the first time that is punctuated by awkward stares, reminiscent of the infamous 'Twilight' stares of yesteryear, and very little dialogue. The next time the couple meet they get straight down to business, and after a quickie in a pile of hay they decide to barely speak to one another for the rest of the film. Now judging by the average romantic story arc being a rather bumpy up and down road before the characters even get to kiss let alone fornicate, I have a theory concerning the writers. Their single track mindset and overall shit screenplay from start to finish leads me to the conclusion that they are all either 13 year old boys who are just entering puberty or 40 year old divorced men who drive convertible Audis.

I found when watching this film that all the characters seemed unrelatable and had about as much depth and personality as a cardboard cut out of Kim Kardashian. Although this is partly due to the occasionally abysmal performances by even some of the more seasoned actors and actresses in this film, I sadly once again must complain about the writing staff. The prime example, as I have already mentioned, is Tom and Alice's rather "hit it and quit it" romance but there is another glaring example that I would like to bring up.

Tom's mam is a very pivotal character within the books, not so much in the films, however that isn't my problem in this case. His mam is in this film for approximately 10-15mns as a secondary character, and for this reason her character is not built upon at all throughout the whole film and remains very one dimensional. This was fine until approximately three quarters of the way through the film she carks it and all of a sudden Tom becomes teary and angry. Now, I didn't care one jot that she had died in fact I didn't realise who had died until Tom stated that it was indeed his mam. Try as I might I just couldn't seem to care that she died as she is such a poorly written character that she came across as more of a footnote. A footnote that was used as a cheap plot device to spur on the main character on to actually do something within the film other than shack up with Alice. Just the sheer fact that I couldn't relate to the main character as he grieved for his mother says it all about the quality of writing in this film.

On that note I have a sneaking suspicion that its not just the writers that are comprised of a team of horny 13 year olds as the casting crew made truly awful choices when handing out roles. The worst of which in my opinion was the casting of Mother Malkin. Now don't get me wrong, Julianne Moore is great in films like 'The Big Lebowski' and 'Crazy,Stupid,Love', but to cast her as a witch who is centuries old and meant to resemble a dried up slug is ridiculous. That's not to mention that she plays the character like an over-the-top Power Rangers villain when shes meant to be a mute, fetid but nonetheless foreboding character. It is my belief, therefore, that the casting crew made a beeline for women who look good in low cut necklines so their movie posters would be prettier. I am sad to say that sexualizing a witch/slug monster is only the tip of the iceberg of problems that is this film's casting.

Ben Barnes as Jailbait Tom.

Ben Barnes, 32 at the time of release, plays Tom, a twelve year old boy. A boy who in this film has sex with Alice a twelve year old girl, played by Alicia Vikander, 25 at the time of release. When looking at it this way its rather disturbing because, whilst surprisingly accurate to certain parts of the UK, twelve isn't exactly an age you want to portray characters having sex at. In addition to this, Jeff Bridges, yet another 'The Big Lebowski' alumni, makes an appearance as John Gregory, yet sadly misses the mark in this film adding to his more recent pile of failures that include the likes of  'R.I.P.D' . Whilst I believe that, in terms of the way he looks, he was cast perfectly, as he is almost the exact replica of how I had envisioned the character,  he shoots completely off target in his portrayal of the Spook. His incarnation of the Spook is a mean spirited drunk, a man who is more reminiscent of a crappy version of Jackie Chan's Drunken Master, as opposed to the down to earth  humble man he is in the books. For this reason, along with the fact that the accent he attempts sounds like a cosplay Gandalf, I find this character too disagreeable to feel any real investment in his character's plight.

In conclusion I feel that this film was a let down from the first scene to the last as it had so much potential. For the most part I'd look to the writers to blame for this film's failure as they had such strong source material to work with and it's my honest belief that, had they stuck to the original storyline, this film would have been vastly improved. However, this film is yet another example of Hollywood taking a story (that would be best left to it's native country's film industry to produce), sapping all of it's character from it and leaving it as a hollow husk of what it could have been. I also feel that it should have been exclusively an all English cast with age appropriate casting of all characters, as opposed to the mess of questionable ages and accents that it turned out to be. Finally I'd just like to add that, even though I personally have nothing positive to really say about this film, and would actively discourage any fans of the books from watching it, I will say that if a person has not seen many fantasy films before, then this film may act as a decent stepping stone to introduce them to this genre.

Scoring:

Writing:       ✪✫✫✫✫
 Acting:        ✪✪✫✫✫                                                          
Casting:       ✪✫✫✫✫
Enjoyability:✪✫✫✫✫

Final Score: 5

1-5: Not Fit for Human Eyes

6-10: Pretty Bad                    

11-15: Viewable                    

16-20: Excellent                    

                 

Footnote (to answer the questions that nobody cares about):

Q- Have you ever broke the law?

A- I once stole a bag of frozen peas from a local supermarket when I was a toddler, so I suppose you could say I'm a well rounded criminal.

Q- Why haven't you referred to wet socks in this review?

A- I just did.....................................↑

My Introduction

Since I have just created this blog and have little to no clue how to work/edit this site yet I think I should probably say something to introduce it and what I hopefully intend to do with it over the coming months.

Right to start off I'll explain what I intend to be doing with this page. 'the39thhour Reviews', just in case my compelling and inspired title didn't help you come to any sound theories as to the content of this page, I can now reveal the fact that I will be writing film reviews hopefully for the foreseeable future and posting them to this blog. As for now I don't have any real schedule laid out in my head as I don't want to hold myself to any deadlines as state education tried to do that to me and it didn't turn out well for my future or the school's grade averages.

As I have said the larger percentage of reviews I will make will be on films however if there is anything I particularly wish to insult, you may see the odd game or TV show review on here too. To make it abundantly clear from the off, do not expect to see new films being reviewed all the time as I don't have a money dispenser shoved up my rectum unlike a lot of film reviewers that I have seen on YouTube. Saying that I will only make reviews on films that I am truly interested in so I really wouldn't expect to see many live action musicals here as to me they are the equivalent of wet socks... or Bubonic plague.

In conclusion I will review films, but only ones I find interesting, I don't have a schedule and live action musicals are as bad as something that once killed a third of the world's population...or Bubonic plague!



Footnote (to answer the questions that nobody cares about):

Q- Why did you decide to make a blog?

A- This blog has come to be due to both my passion for criticizing other people's hard work and my severe lack of things to do in my free time.

Q- Why is your username 'the39thhour'

A- There's a song by a bloke called Deadmau5 called The 16th Hour and I thought to myself, 'I wonder what happens if I multiply that by 2 and add 7.