Tag Archives: James Franco

The Interview (2014)

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the-interview-2014.31431Roze-Rating: 3.5 / 5

After weeks of controversy and leaks at Sony Pictures, we are finally able to feast our eyes on a film pertaining what can only be described as “the weirdest moment in Hollywood history”. Struggling with their Spider-Man franchise, receiving threats from North Korea and having their personal emails leak on the internet, it isn’t hard to assume that this hasn’t been a golden year for Sony. It has been said that this could just be a huge marketing stunt to bring in the big bucks, but I doubt screening the film in limited release is anywhere near ideal for Sony’s bank account. That being said it could still make a massive killing on VOD, already topping the charts on Google Play and Youtube Movies as people use the film as a way of celebrating Hollywood’s victory against censorship. Nevertheless it feels almost unreal that a Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg film could even be considered a credible attack on a country despite their past projects. A comment I saw online described the situation as “like a South Park episode”, which perfectly sums up the whole debacle. Now that we can all watch it, we can get past the controversy and enjoy the film for what it is, a gross out comedy starring our favorite Hollywood Bromance brought to us by our favorite comedy screenwriting duo.

The film is ultimately about David Skylark (James Franco) and his show producer Aaron Rapoport and their desire to report on real news. Being a big fan of Skylark’s show, Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of DPR Korea accepts an interview to be taken place in his country. Of course in his own terms. The CIA soon see this as an opportunity to finally take Kim Jong Un out.

The brilliance of Seth Rogan and James Franco is that their chemistry alone can carry a film, and it’s pretty apparent here. The Interview, despite it’s unique blend of real life and preposterous fiction, never really sucks you into the story. I was happy whenever the two leads were together in frame, but the moments which would veer off into the political/spy stuff was harder to care about. Even if the criticisms of North Korea are pretty much on point, I think finding that balance of seriousness and comedy needed more revision from Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg. Effectively making their points about North Korea hard to take seriously. At times it felt like there were opportunities to be compelling but it never really amounts to anything more than a few lines of dialogue. This was more apparent during the third act of the film where it started to feel a bit preachy. With such a wacky character in James Franco and a crazy plot, it would have paid off more to have kept in that vein until the very end and attempted to be more satirical. Luckily only a small part of the film is burdened with this problem, and for most of it I was laughing my ass off.

Most of the jokes stem from the actors personalities and their style of comedy. The first act alone is brimming with James Franco wackiness and Seth Rogen mannerisms, which is what makes the film so enjoyable. Despite it being entertaining and the reason I love these guys, there are moments in this film which are far from original. How many times have we seen a guy conceal an object in their butts by pure necessity, I’ll always find it amusing because that’s the kind of person I am, but there’s no denying it’s overdone in comedy films. Nevertheless a lot of the jokes work, as we would expect from the Rogen-Goldberg combination.

Without the controversy, I’m sure this film wouldn’t have attracted as much buzz as This Is The End or Neighbors. Which is why it will be interesting to see how much it makes on VOD. The Interview is ultimately what we expected from the start. It has a lot of laughs, a lot of bromance and surprisingly a lot of slapstick violence. It’s not as memorable as some of the other comedies we’ve had this year, but it’s definitely not a “mundane” Adam Sandler film as Sony would put it.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (2014)

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Dawn-of-the-Planet-of-the-Apes-WallpaperRoze-Rating: 4.5 / 5

A decade after the fight of San Francisco, Ceasar and his following of intelligent apes have adapted to life in the Redwoods. Suffering the consequences of developing the drug which created these apes are the humans who have spent the last 10 years surviving a Simian Flu epidemic.The apes are convinced that the humans have lost their battle against the disease, until a member of Malcolm’s (Jason Clarke) group runs into two apes and shoots one in excitement. Ceasar still faithful to his no killing rule lets the humans escape, unaware that they are searching for a power source to get San Francisco running again.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes joins the ranks of great sci-fi blockbusters this year among the likes of X-Men: Days of Future Past, Edge of Tomorrow and Godzilla. Films which could really prompt the rise of genuinely good sci-fi films. For a sequel Dawn of the Planet of the Apes completely trumps its predecessor in all departments. Keeping Ceasar central to the story was a masterful decision and because of it we get a far more compelling story than that of the humans. We’re ultimately trying to get our way to the climax which is the planet of the apes, and it wouldn’t have felt right if Franco was still there fighting for screen time. Of course he is a massive part of Ceasar’s origin story which is where Ceasar’s compassion and empathy for the humans comes from, also a reason why Rise of the Planet of the Apes works so well, but telling the majority of the story from Ceasar’s perspective was definitely the right way to go. This way we have a protagonist who is unbiased and has an impartial view towards the world, a character we know we can trust in a broken society.

During Rise of the Planet of the Apes, we see Ceasar grow up among humans, absent to life with his own kind outdoors where he belongs. He doesn’t know what humans are capable of or where he came from, but asking the questions gives him answers he finds hard to swallow. Ten years on he and his family of intelligent apes have formed a sophisticated society living as one. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is great in so many ways, it could have easily turned into a cheap action crapfest but instead it’s an intelligent film not short of the human element. I think I join a large group of people who were attracted to this film purely because of apes with guns on horses, I mean I’ve never heard of anything as awesome as that. Anyone expecting 2 hours of apes with guns may be disappointed but I’d like to think that they’d be pleasantly surprised at the same time. We spend most of the film with Ceasar amongst his family contemplating how to deal with the humans. We learn their way of life and how they all live as one and care for each other, living without the modern necessities that we live with nowadays such as electricity and internet. It makes us question how we are as a modern society, everything that is wrong with it and everything right with it. Ceasar genuinely believes that Apes are better, but as the film unfolds he learns that ignorance and indifference is something you can’t prevent and maybe conflict is all but inevitable within nature.

This film not only shows us the potential of sci-fi but also how far performance capture has come. Andy Serkis has revolutionized the film making tool and proves that it shouldn’t be ruled out as a legitimate method of performance. A lot of buzz has gone around saying that Serkis deserves an Oscar nod after this performance, and I’ll have to agree. It’s amazing to even think that a man is literally playing Ceasar, all of his facial expressions, his movements, all these details which bring the character to life. Serkis expresses so many emotions just from these delicate details which is pretty amazing since Ceasar’s dialogue is quite limited. I’ve never felt such a strong connection with a non-human protagonist. That being said, Serkis is only one of many who use performance capture to play the ape characters. The likes of Toby Kebbell and Judy Greer prove that Serkis is not the only actor who can master performance capture. Kebbell especially puts in an absolutely terrifying performance as Koba, an ape who can’t forgive the years of torture ensued by the humans.

The only negative about the film would probably be the human characters, the only character which stands out is Malcolm (Jason Clarke), one of the few humans who see the apes in a much brighter light. He is to an extent quite an important character as he reminds Ceasar that not all humans are corrupt. Characters like Dreyfus (Gary Oldman) and Carver (Kirk Acevedo) represent how we find it hard to blame ourselves for the downfall of humans, even when the facts are right in our face. To an extent they mirror Koba’s same feeling of indifference.

As for the aesthetics, the CGI is a lot better than its predecessor by a large margin. The apes actually look real this time around, improving from the choppy CGI we had in the first film. The set design is incredible creating a post apocalyptic forest look to both San Francisco and the Redwoods, which sets up some incredible shots throughout the film. It’s just an overall great looking film. Also props to the sound mixing crew who created a genuine ape society atmosphere, sitting in the cinema and being able to hear apes surrounding you was not only awesome but put in perspective how many of them there were.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is definitely one of the best films of the year so far, not for its spectacle but more for its storytelling and direction. We’re being given an intelligent story about war and human nature, a film which makes us think rather than fry our brains, and for anyone who wants their brains fried, well apes on horses with guns!