Review: Django Unchained (2012) - Quentin Tarantino

"D-jango, you black son of a bitch!"
"The "D" is silent, hillbilly."

          This films reputation and history definitely precedes it, not only for its subject matter the Ill touched upon topic of slavery in America, but also for the film’s director and writer Quentin Tarantino’s style and presentation. I think Tarantino is the kind of director you either love or hate, very few people feel impartial about his movies, Django is very typical of his style and presentation and storytelling, so fan’s of his will love it for this, while the unconverted will not appreciate it. So as someone who loves his films, I loved this movie, but I’d like to state that it doesn’t just get a free pass because it’s a Tarantino movie; it genuinely earned my respect and admiration.

          Most people will know the basic plot so I will outline that here and try to keep it spoiler free. The basic premise is that Django Freeman (Jamie Foxx) a slave is bought and freed by Christoph Waltz character (Dr. King Schultz) a bounty hunter, who then help Django free his slave wife Broomhilda von Shaft (Kerry Washington) from Leonardo DiCaprio’s character’s (Calvin J. Candie) plantation “Candyland”. Ok that’s pretty much what you see in the trailer, no spoilers. The film despite being two hours forty five minutes long, never once felt like it was dragging and really flew by in my opinion, which is a testament to how good a director Tarantino is. The thing that surprised me most about this film was how genuinely funny it was at time and had everyone in the cinema where I saw it in hysterics and then the very next scene had you wincing or look away from the violence (a few scenes are very graphic, mostly though the violence is in that Tarantino nearly cartoony style).

          The characters and story are flawless and just beautiful. It’s very hard for me to pick out an actor, who wasn’t great in the role they played; each of them gave it their all. I couldn’t write this without mentioning how beautifully everything was shot, Tarantino did an outstanding job in selling the time period the film took place in and also made the film feel like it could have been an old western movie. And while I can’t say for certain how accurate the portrayal of slaves in America at the time, I can say it felt very real and while it might have been stylised it’s based in a real place.

          I would highly recommend this film to anyone who loved Tarantino, this movies for you. If you’re not a fan I don’t think this film will do anything to change your mind, but you should still be able to appreciate how great the film looks and the story. If I was to describe how this film, I’d say it like Kill Bill crossed with Inglorious Bastards, but set in a western universe, if that makes sense. For me personally I’d give this film a 10/10, it’s a great movie and I had a great time watching it.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (2012) - Mark Webb

           I remember when I first heard they were planning on rebooting the Spider-Man film franchise, I was completely against is. The only reason to reboot a film franchise is if the previous version has taken the series to far from its original roots or there are no more possible stories that could take place in the already established universe and then there’s the third option that at least ten years has passed and it would be too costly/impractical to bring back the original cast. None of these reasons existed in my opinion in Sam Rami’s Spider-Man universe; different actor’s could have been cast and moved the timeline on a few years with little impact on the story in my opinion. But I can understand why they didn’t do this, I could of even forgiven it, if it wasn’t for the simple fact this would be another origin story, which is a little much to take in seems as we already saw this less than ten years ago, and was still fresh in our minds and was an amazing film and should have been left alone again in my opinion. But despite mine and many other people’s negativity towards the project on initial announcement the film went ahead and I have to admit I did warm to the idea of it especially as we were promised a film more faithful to the comic books origins and ideas fans know from it and the 90’s animated television show (web slingers). So to say the least I wasn’t looking forward to this film, but I wanted to see how it turned out.

          My first impression of the film is it’s the closest we’ll get to seeing Spider-Man in The Avengers at least for a while, people have said it might happen in The Avengers 2 but I won’t hold my breath just yet. Stylistically the film has a similar feel to the films set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as in its very grounded in reality, the characters behave like real people and the choices they make even the ones we know they have to are made for very logical reasons and with one exception are very true to the character and reflect the maturity level of them. So when Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield) dicks around with his super powers and in some way’s abuses them it feels natural, like something we all would do if we had superpowers and then when he matures again it doesn’t feel like the script just told him to start acting differently we see the decisions that lead him to step up and become a man. So to talk about plot for a bit, this version of Peter Parker is still in high school and is very much the current everybody, he’s still a good student (but not someone who sits in the front row), he’s still a photographer and he’s still good at science, and I like this change kind of making him an everyman instead of a nerd instantly makes him more relatable and likable as a character and makes his relationships with (eventual girlfriend) Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone) and school bully Flash Thompson (Chris Zylka), very believable.

          It’s nice to see a fresh take on certain aspects of the Spider-Man character, like Sally Field portrayal of  a younger Aunt May but with others it feels quiet distracting and you’d rather they got it over with like Uncle Ben’s (Martin Sheen) infamous “With great power, comes great responsibility” spiel and eventual death. However for the most part I liked the retelling the one main issue I had though was having Dr. Curt Connors/Lizard (Rhys Ifans) as the baddie in this film I feel Rhys Ifans did a great job with the role and was very enjoyable, the only problem was in the previous films we got to know Dr. Connors for two films as a minor background character and got attached to him so if Spider-Man 4 had of been made we would have been more attached to the Lizard and felt some of Peter’s resentment and hurt at having to attack and potentially kill him again I like what they did with the character but would of preferred if they had merely teased at it this film and have him as the baddie in the sequel but that’s personal opinion. And seems as though I’ve mentioned the rest of the main characters how could I leave out Captain George Stacey played brilliantly by Dennis Leary, I felt in many ways the film sets him up as the Commissioner Gordon, to Spider-Man’s Batman, but leaving that aside I feel the character is brilliantly developed as not only a police captain but also as a father, my main problem with him though is the promise he makes Peter take to stay away from Gwen when he’s dying and the fact that Peter does so immediately going so far as to not even attend the funeral of his then girlfriends father (this it the above mentioned character development gone amiss moment as no matter what he should have been there for her in my opinion).

          Ok final thoughts time, would I recommend this film? Yes I would highly. While I might not agree with the decisions behind its development I love the outcome and will defiantly be going to see the sequel when it comes out.