BLACK WIDOW : Wednesday 28th July 2021.

I finally got around to watching the M Rated 'BLACK WIDOW' this week - the long awaited superhero film based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name. This is the 24th film in the Marvel Cinematic Universe and the first film in Phase Four of the MCU. Its release was delayed three times from an original May 2020 date due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. 'Black Widow' saw its World Premier screenings on 29th June this year at various red carpet fan events in London, Los Angeles, Melbourne, and New York City and was released in Australia and the US on 8th and 9th July respectively, having garnered generally favourable Critical acclaim off the back of a US$200M production budget. This film is Directed by the Australian multiple award winning and nominated writer and film maker Cate Shortland whose three prior feature film credits are 'Somersault' in 2004 with Abbie Cornish and Sam Worthington, 'Lore' in 2012 with Saskia Rosendahl and 'Berlin Syndrome' in 2017 with Teresa Palmer. The film has so far grossed US$320M and is also available to stream on Disney+ with Premier Access.

The film opens up in 1995 in Ohio where two young sisters, Natasha (Ever Anderson) and Yelena (Violet McGraw) are playing in their back yard. Their mother Melina (Rachel Weisz) calls them in for dinner. Their father Alexei (David Harbour) joins them saying to his daughters that the adventure he had always promised them is happening tonight and that they need to leave immediately. They bundle a handful of their belongings into the family car and drive off into the night. They turn down a dirt road and into a field, where under a concealed canopy is a light aeroplane. The two girls jump in, as does Melina, leaving Alexei to fend off a convoy of advancing patrol cars all guns blazing. Melina sustains a gun shot wound leaving Natasha to take the controls. With Alexei hanging onto the wing shooting at the patrol cars Natasha guides the small aircraft into flight leaving the carnage below. They land in Cuba and are greeted by General Dreykov (Ray Winstone) who has Natasha Romanoff and Yelena Belova drugged and carted off for training and indoctrination to the Red Room. It turns out that Alexei Shostakov and Melina Vostokoff are Russian undercover agents who posed as a model family in Ohio with two surrogate daughters for three years before making off with S.H.I.E.L.D intel which they passed onto Dreykov (a nod to James Bond here), who also runs the Black Widow programme. Dreykov has Alexei imprisoned for life, while Melina becomes a top tier scientist within the Red Room.

We then fast forward twenty-one years and Natasha Romanoff (Scarlett Johansson) is on the run for violating the Sokovia Accords after she had defected to S.H.I.E.L.D and following the bombing of Dreykov's office in Budapest seemingly killing him and his young daughter Antonia. The US Secretary of State Thaddeus Ross (William Hurt) is hot on her heels but she successfully evades him and escapes to a safe house located in remote Norway that has been provided to her by a close friend and former S.H.I.E.L.D ally Rick Mason (O-T Fagbenie). In the meantime in Morocco, Yelena Belova (Florence Pugh) kills a Black Widow but comes in contact with a synthetic red gas that neutralises the Red Room's chemical mind-control agent. Belova sends the small case of antidote vials to Romanoff, hoping she will send the Avengers to free the other Widows. Romanoff unknowingly drives off with the vials to get fuel for her generator when her car is bombed and she is attacked by Taskmaster (Olga Kurylenko) who is after the case of vials and not her. 

Romanoff manages to escape Taskmaster by jumping off a bridge into a river and when she surfaces with the clutch of vials she notes from a childhood photograph contained therein that they were sent by Belova. The pair reunite in Budapest and after some intense close quarter hand to hand combat they call a truce (a nod to Jason Bourne here) and Romanoff learns from Belova that Dreykov is still alive and the Red Room is still very much active. They are then set upon by a group of Black Widows and Taskmaster from which they successfully escape and then meet up with Rick Mason again who supplies them with a beat up old Russian helicopter. 

Flying their helicopter into what looks like a Siberian prison camp located at the base of a snow covered mountain range Romanoff and Belova break Shostakov out of prison, in a high stakes extraction that ultimately sees the prison complex flattened in a cascading avalanche of snow and ice. They expect him to tell them the whereabouts of Dreykov and he tells them to speak with Vostokoff, who now lives on a farm outside Saint Petersburg raising pigs. There she developed the chemical mind control process used on the Widows, that she perfected on her now very obedient pigs. 

There, Belova reveals that while they were not a real family, she believed they were so, given that she was only six years of age when the family returned to Russia. Afterward, Vostokoff admits to Romanoff that she sent their location to Dreykov and within thirty minutes or so his agents arrive and take them to the Red Room, a floating facility located above the cloud line, and therefore above radar detection capabilities.

Vostokoff and Romanoff use face mask technology to swap places before being captured (a nod to 'Mission : Impossible' here),  so giving Vostokoff the chance to free Shostakov and Belova from their captivity. Meanwhile, Romanoff confronts Dreykov, who sees through her disguise. Dreykov reveals to Romanoff that Taskmaster is in fact his daughter Antonia, who suffered damage severe enough through the bomb explosion when she was just a child that Dreykov had to implant a chip in to the back of her neck. This turned her into the perfect compliant soldier, capable of mimicking the actions of anyone she sees. Romanoff attempts to kill Dreykov but fails to harm him due to a pheromone lock activated through her sense of smell. Dreykov reveals that he is in control of an army of Widows worldwide which he operates via his desk console. 

Romanoff intentionally slams her forehead down on his desk and breaks her nose, severing a nerve in her nasal passage to negate the pheromone lock, and then attacks Dreykov. Shostakov now suited up as the Red Guardian battles Taskmaster, while Vostokoff takes out one of the facility's engines setting in motion the eventual destruction of the entire complex. Belova goes off in search of the other Widows, who now have to guard Dreykov. Together, Shostakov and Vostokoff capture Taskmaster in a cell. The Widows arrive in Dreykov's office and he orders them to kill Romanoff and to make it long and painful. Just as Romanoff is about to be overcome, Belova arrives and detonates numerous vials of the mind control antidote over the Widow's so freeing them from their life of servitude. 

Romanoff gets into Dreykov's control desk and uploads the locations of the other Widows worldwide as the facility begins to explode and begins its free fall back to the ground below. Romanoff retrieves the two surviving vials of the antidote and frees Taskmaster from the locked cell. Vostokoff and Shostakov escape via a plane while Belova takes out Dreykov's aircraft, killing him and his Red Room soldiers, but Belova is blown clear in the explosion and begins plummeting towards the ground. In freefall, Romanoff gives Belova a parachute before battling Taskmaster. After landing, Romanoff uses one antidote vial on Taskmaster, freeing her from servitude. The freed Widows arrive as Belova, Vostokoff, and Shostakov reluctantly say goodbye to Romanoff, as Ross and a convoy of patrol cars arrive to apprehend her. She hands Belova the last vial of antidote and the portable drive, telling her to locate and free the other, still mind-controlled, Widows. They leave with Antonia, as Romanoff waits for the convoy to pull up.

Two weeks later, a now blonde Romanoff reunites with Mason, who has procured her a Quinjet. She leaves, saying that she came into this with no family, and now she has two intending to make amends and free the imprisoned Avengers. Stay tuned for the end credits sequence too. 

'Black Widow' is a fitting send off and a great big last hurrah for Natasha Romanoff in her own right. Cate Shortland here Directs her first superhero film with aplomb and proves that's she more than capable of helming big budget action spectacles on a US$200M grand scale. This is essentially a espionage story wrapped up in a tale of a dysfunctional family battling it out against a supervillain intent on world domination very much grounded on our humble blue planet rather than the standard MCU offerings of late centreing around intergalactic Gods, faraway planetary systems and those with superhuman powers. Johansson and Pugh are perfectly cast as the surrogate siblings with Pugh especially demonstrating her ability to carry the Black Widow universe in further instalments whichever direction that may go in, and Harbour provides much needed moments of levity amongst the more serious and emotional scenes. A well made stand alone entry into the MCU that delivers on the action, the emotion and the overall story arc. 

'Black Widow' warrants four claps of the Odeon Online clapperboard from a possible five claps.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

POINT BREAK : Friday 1st January 2016.

I went for nostalgic reasons to see 'POINT BREAK' on its 2016 release date with fond memories of  Kathryn Bigelow's action crime thriller of the same name and upon which this retelling is based. Released in 1991 that earlier film starred a young Keanu Reeves, Patrick Swayze, Gary Busey, Lori Petty and John C McGinley and would rate as one of this Reviewer's favourite films of all time. I have seen the film more times than I can recall, and still love it after repeated viewings and not because of the stellar performances but because of the dialogue, the action, the energy and the spectacle of the film - it was made for just US$24M and went onto make US$84M in the final analysis. And now in 2015 and released on New Years Day in Australia 'Point Break' has been remade for a whole new audience who probably don't even know of its 'classic' predecessor. This new version was made for US$105M and has so far grossed US$62M following its initial release in China on December 4th.

This retelling Directed by Ericson Core, speaks of a similar story involving Johnny Utah (Luke Bracey in the Keanu Reeves role) as the FBI Agent with a penchant for extreme sports who seven years previously in the opening sequence sees a close friend plunge to his death off a mountain top pinnacle having ridden their dirt bikes along a previously unridden ridge. Fast forward to the present day and Utah is a graduating rookie FBI Agent having put those extreme sports days behind him, until a band of extreme sports crims are on the loose seemingly robbing from the rich and giving to the poor. So its not long before Utah persuades Instructor Hall (Delroy Lindo) to let him go undercover to thwart a bunch of professional criminals who masquerade as extreme sports enthusiasts . . . or is it the other way around?

These crims are headed by Bodhi (Edgar Ramirez in the Patrick Swayze role) whose sports agenda is to chase the path to enlightenment via 'The Oaski 8' - named after Ono Osaki, an eco-warrior who challenged the extreme sports world to a series of eight ordeals that honour the forces of nature. After a series of 'Robin Hood' type robberies the FBI close in whilst Bodhi and his group strive to complete the eight challenges dragging Utah along to prove himself, with Angelo Pappas (Ray Winston in the Gary Busey role) as the FBI grunt on the ground and Utah's international connection.

What follows is a series of action set pieces that all showcase some beautiful locations, stunning practical stunt work (especially the wing suit dive through the Swiss Alps) and extreme sports that is sure to be any teenage boys wet dream, as Bodhi and his crew chase their 'path' and the '8'. Does this really advance the plot? Well not really, because the plot is verbalised every step of the way in by the numbers dialogue as Utah pieces together the puzzle and Hall and Pappas look on very puzzled thinking WTF is this young upstart rookie talking about with all this Ozaki enlightenment nirvana BS. This naturally is underscored with big wave surfing, extreme snowboarding, wing suit diving, free climbing up a vertical mountain side, and parachuting through the world's deepest sink hole from 40,000 feet up as the '8' are progressively notched up and Utah goes along for the ride as part of his undercover investigations and to win Bodhi's confidence - really all quite predictable.

The action is impressive enough no doubt, but is it enough to carry the film that takes the story off in a different direction whilst retaining one or two touchstones from the original film? These include the end of the epic foot chase sequence where an injured Utah has Bodhi in his gun sights but rolls over and shoots off his final rounds into the air, and the final closing sequence where Bodhi jumps into a once in a decade swell during a big storm for his final surf never to be seen again, by which time all his close buddies also on their 'path' have perished because of it.

This film has a lot more polish than its original predecessor - the locations, the set pieces, and the fact that this bunch are 'sponsored' by a young multi-billionaire with more cash than sense. This is how Bodhi and his cronies have all the equipment they need to jet off to exotic locations around the world at a moments notice to complete their quest and live out their lives fully funded thank-you very much!

Compared to the original however, Bodhi and his rag tag gang of adrenalin junkies needed to fund their own exploits hence they robbed banks, but, there was more grit, rawness, energy and connection between the characters as a result, and the chemistry then between Reeves and Swayze on screen was spot-on whereas here, there is very little. Give me 'The Ex-Presidents' any day of the week!

Worth seeing on the big screen for the action sequences and the stunt work which were all mostly carried out practically in the locations as seen rather than using CGI green screen and Hollywood chicanery, but, that's the only reason.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

RANGO : archive from 20th March 2011.

With my young lad I saw 'RANGO' this afternoon as Directed and Produced by Gore Verbinski at a cost of US$135M. This animated action comedy Western feature went on to gross worldwide US$246M and along the way picked up the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Animated Feature Film together with another 44 award wins and 22 nominations.






With an all star line up lending their considerable voice talents there is lots to like about this film. Johnny Depp is Rango, a pet chameleon who lives a life of action and adventure, in his own mind, but when confronted with real life action & adventure when his owner loses him in the Mojave Desert and he winds up in the isolated town of Dirt, he must learn quickly to stand out from the crowd rather than blend in as a chameleon does. He meets up with armadillo Roadkill (Alfred Molina)  - who is searching for the mythical 'Spirit of the West', and iguana Beans (Isla Fisher) who join Rango en route to Dirt.

When he arrives at Dirt, Rango presents himself as a tough drifter and promptly has a run in with a Gila monster Bad Bill (Ray Winstone) but avoids a shoot out confrontation when Bad Bill is scared off by a sweeping vicious red tailed hawk. The resulting fracas sees the hawk dispensed with, which in turn leads to the town Mayor - a desert tortoise named Tortoise John (Ned Beatty) - electing Rango as the new Sheriff. There is however, anxiety amongst the townsfolk now that the red tailed hawk has been thwarted, believing that local gunslinger Rattlesnake Jake (Bill Nighy) will return to do no good!

Dirt it is believed is a dusty dry desert dirt bowl of a town low on water reserves that one night gets robbed, to which Rango is an unwitting accomplice at the hands of a mole named Balthazar (Harry Dean Stanton). The next day with their precious little water supply gone Rango mounts a posse to go in search of the robbers and reclaim their water. After a chase through a canyon the robbers are caught but the water is gone!

Returning to Dirt the robbers are set to stand trial, but Rango has discovered that the Mayor has been buying up large tracts of land nearby, but the Mayor denies any wrong doing, instead claiming his intentions to build a new city to give them all hope, and a future. The Mayor though has a hidden agenda and so enlists Rattlesnake Jake to run Rango out of town. In the process Rango is humiliated and must confess that his high plains drifter image was a front to win favour. Turning his back on Dirt and its townsfolk he meets up with the mythical Spirit of the West (Timothy Olyphant) whom Rango pegs as The Man with No Name. The Spirit inspires Rango to return and finish what he started.

Teaming up with Roadkill again, Rango heads back into town but learns along the way that the towns water supply is being controlled by the Mayor by way of an emergency shut-off valve in the pipeline between Dirt and Las Vegas. Rango calls to Rattlesnake Jake for a shootout creating a diversion so that his assembled buddies can turn on the water supply, flood the town and free the wrongly accused robbers yet to stand trial.

Things though don't go quite according to plan and Rango and Beans are captured and thrown in the banks vault which when flooded will result in their demise. The Mayor turns on Rattlesnake Jake because he represents the Old West and he has plans for a New West that doesn't involve the low down snake. Luckily though the gun that the Mayor took from Rango is empty - the only bullet taken by Rango as a means of escape from the bank vault. As the flood comes so the Mayor and his men are washed away, Rattlesnake Jake is saved, Rango and Beans escape, Dirt is saved and refreshed with a new water supply, and Rango is hailed a hero.

This is a very entertaining and engaging film that features top notch animation that just gets better with every such creature feature. Watch out for the nods to others classics - 'A Fistful of Dollars', 'Mad Max', 'Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas' etc . . . see how many you can spot! Catch it now on DVD, Bluray or download - you won't be disappointed, and, it's a film for kids of all ages - young & old!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

THE GUNMAN : Thursday 16th April 2015.

I like a Sean Penn movie, and think his versatile acting talents are a drawcard in an age where often we have cardboard cut out characters, predictable personalities, and genre specific typecasting that can be summed up and pinned down in a 90 second trailer. And so it was that I saw Penn's latest offering 'THE GUNMAN' earlier in the week on its Australian opening night at my local multiplex. Directed by Pierre Morel who introduced the world to the Liam Neeson franchise 'Taken', in this film, based on the early 80's book 'The Prone Gunman' by Jean-Patrick Manchette, Penn takes a Screenwriting, Producing and Acting credit and doubtless chipped in with the US$40M production budget too.

The 54 year old Actor is looking more & more grizzled as every year passes with his weather beaten features, his lived in face and his increasingly rugged complexion, and maybe for this reason he is well cast as the ageing now retired ex-soldier Jim Terrier who eight years ago assassinated the Minister of Mining in the very fragile, politically unstable and economically retarded Congo.

Times are tough down Congo way in 2006 when the film opens, and so Terrier is part of a team supposedly acting as security on the construction of a new airstrip for use by a mining company who are exploiting various minerals, metals and mining opportunities from the resources rich country. But, Terrier is really part of an elite squad who have a particular set of skills that might just come in handy when the Minister of Mining decides to cancel all multi-million dollar mining contracts and put them up for grabs again in this corrupt economy. And so orders are given for Terrier and his team to take out the Minister and skip the continent pronto, with the job falling to Terrier to pull the trigger and get outta Dodge City leaving behind his love interest Annie (Jasmine Trinca) and his pals.

Eight years later Terrier has carved out a new life and decides to return to the Congo working for an NGO digging water wells to help the still downtrodden locals. A death squad arrive and seek to take out Terrier for reasons that at this point are unclear to him, but of course armed with his particular set of skills he dispenses with his quarry quick smart. Skipping Dodge City once again he ends up within 24 hours in London and seeks out his former employer for some advice, guidance, support and insight into who might be after him after all this time.

From this point forward the hunt is on as Terrier uncovers more unscrupulous former colleagues, more dodgy dealings, and foils more attempts on his life as the truth behind his part in the killing of the Minister in 2006 is revealed. From here the cat and mouse game takes us to Barcelona and then Gibraltar and then back again with scenes that are reminiscent of 'Bourne', 'Taken' and many others of this type. That said, the hand to hand fight scenes, the close quarter gun fire, and the action sequences are well handled but in reality nothing that you haven't seen before . . . probably many times.

The cast is strong and add gravitas to the story line including Javier Bardem as former colleague Felix who hooks up with Terrier's former love interest Annie after he moved on in 2006; then there is Ray Winstone as Stanley as long term friend and former colleague going back long before the events of the Congo unfolded. Idris Elba is DuPont, the CIA Agent investigating dodgy mining companies, dodgy security contractors and dodgy third world services providers and the one that gave the orders for Terrier's kill in the first place; and Mark Rylance as Cox the former head of Terrier's elite squad and now head of one such service provider on the cusp of winning a new mega contract but needs first to ensure there are no loose ends leading back to the events of 2006 . . . and Terrier is a loose end!

All of this adds up to a familiar tale of revenge & retribution, thrills & spills, fast paced action, and Sean Penn toned up, buffed up, and pumped up adding kick-ass action to his Resume just as Willis, Washington, Neeson, Stallone, and Schwarzenegger continue to do well into their 50's and 60's. In the final analysis you don't have to see this on the big screen and could easily wait three months for the DVD & BluRay release, but there are redeeming features and you could find worse things to spend your $20 on. If formulaic genre type action films of this type are up your alley then you're likely to enjoy this, and Penn does a solid job trying to stay alive throughout, kicking butt, and looking grizzled, toned and stoic as the body count rises.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-

SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN - archive from 27th June 2012.

Saw 'SNOW WHITE & THE HUNTSMAN' and was a little sceptical about doing so, but the critics have been generally kind so gave it a go at the local multiplex. I was pleasantly surprised to see our image of young Snow and the evil Queen morphed into something far more sinister, bleak, foreboding & menacing!

This delivers the storyline you will remember from the saccharine infused Disney animated feature but brings it up to date and back closer to the origin tale. Evil Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), learns from her Magic Mirror that when Snow White (Kristen Stewart) comes of age she will gain the power to overcome and destroy her once and for all unless the evil Queen can consume the young girls heart, and in so doing become immortal. 

The Queen learns that Snow White has escaped to the Dark Forest where Raveena has no power, and so sends her men aided by a Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth) into the foreboding woodland to capture Snow White and return her. In the Dark Forest the Huntsman tracks down Snow White but quickly learns that Queen Raveena has spun him a yarn, and has no intention in keeping up her end of the bargain by letting him walk free when the job is done, and so he turns against the Queen's men and escapes with Snow White. 

In doing so they eventually meet up with a bunch of dwarves (who are the real the stars of this show and read like a who's who of male English acting talent - Bob Hoskins, Nick Frost, Ian McShane, Eddie Marsan, Toby Jones and Ray Winstone amongst others who clearly relish being miniaturised!) who assist in various pitched battles that eventually leads to Snow White biting into a poisoned apple given to her by the disguised Queen Raveena, which results in her falling into a deep sleep. The Queen flees however, when her true identity is revealed by the Huntsman, who then takes the seemingly lifeless body back to the Castle of her former childhood friend.

The Huntsman is now plagued by regret at not having saved Snow White, and in his sorrow he kisses her, and so breaks the spell, leaving Snow White to rally an army, storm the Castle of the Evil Queen and eventually overthrow her - good overcoming evil. In doing so Snow White is crowned Queen, the lands and its people are restored to peace and harmony, and everyone lives happily ever after!

This film was made with a budget of US$170M and took a worldwide Box Office haul of US$397M. Along the way is garnered 13 award wins and 31 nominations including two Academy Award nominations for Best Achievement in Costume Design and Visual Effects and a BAFTA nomination for Costume Design too. There has been speculation about a sequel since then, but it was announced earlier this year that in fact a prequel will go in to production for an April 2016 release - called 'The Huntsman'. It will not star Kristen Stewart, and will have another Director assigned to it after Rupert Saunders who Directed this feature was caught in an extra marital scandal post release.

In conclusion, this is a traditional story of good versus evil, the performances are solid enough - Hemsworth and Theron especially, not forgetting the merry band of dwarves, and you know the ending . . . or do you - it all ends abruptly and a little too quickly but nonetheless enjoyable action fantasy that adds a 21st Century spin on the Brothers Grimm fairytale!

-Steve, at Odeon Online-