Rush (2013)

Now I am a Formula One fan so whenever there is a film about the sport that comes out then I want to go and see it. I saw the 2010 film ‘Senna’ in the cinema and loved it because it had Formula 1 in it but it was about the rivalry between Aryton Senna and Alain Prost. There has always been talk of a Formula one movie way back in the early 2000’s but it ended up being ‘Driven’ with Sylvester Stallone in a CART movie. When I heard that Ron Howard was going to direct this movie I was worried that the same sort of thing was going to happen but I am happy to report that this wasn’t the case. Rush tells the story of the rivalry between Niki Lauda and James Hunt during the 1976 season. The story starts in 1970 when they were both in Formula 3 and what the film does quite well is portray Hunt and the playboy and Lauda as the serious and focused driver.

The central performances were very good. Chris Hemsworth played the pretty boy role well and I thought that whilst Hunt did come close at times to being a pantomime character the action meant that he was always going to have to be a bit more serious. Daniel Bruhl is the better of the two as Niki Lauda. Some of the scenes where he is in the hospital having his lungs cleared are truly uncomfortable but I think it does a great job in making the viewer sympathise and even like Lauda despite Lauda not being a particularly warm person.

Some of the racing action is superb. It genuinely looks like they have filmed it during the races but some of the circuits don’t exist in their current form. The highlight came in the final race where it was pouring down with rain and there is a shot where we are seeing Lauda’s POV and all you can see is a red light and its not a sharp light. Most people who aren’t F1 fans question how hard it is to race well this is a prime example. Driving on the motorway at 70mph is difficult enough but times that difficulty by 5 and it might come close to what this must have been like. The ending might come across as a bit melodramatic but as that is how it happened then its just something to deal with.

I thought that the final scene was the perfect way to end the film. It was a nice scene where they both argued that their way of driving and lifestyle was the best way and how they were made better because of their desire to beat the other. The voice over from Daniel Bruhl when he say that when Hunt died aged 45 that he wasn’t surprised. I think that everyone is surprised that he lived to the age that he did. I thought that Rush was a great movie and despite the scene where Hunt attacks a reporter, both Lauda and Hunt were portrayed in the right way and its another great F1 movie that is more about the personalities in the sport than the sport itself.

Man at Steel (2013)

Now the last time that I saw a Superman film was back in 2006 when we all had to endure ‘Superman Returns’ which was only redeemed by Kevin Spacey as Lex Luther. Apart from that it was a complete dogs dinner. Some have said it was more due to the writing than anything else and whilst there might some truth to it the fact remains that it was a bit of a let down. I’ve never been as big a fan of Superman as other maybe for no particular reason but I was quite excited about this one because it was been produced by Christopher Nolan who was behind the Batman films and that is one of things that is clear in the movie.

The casting was one of the things that made this movie so good. Henry Cavill isn’t a name that I was that aware of and I think it was a better bit of casting than Brandon Roth was. I thought he was a more believeable Clark Kent and what I liked about this version of Kent was that how he seemed to be lost and not in a normal job and yet by the end of it he was a reporter at the Daily Planet. Another bit of good casting is that of Amy Adams who played Lois Lane. I thought that a problem from ‘Superman Returns’ is that Kate Bosworth was terrible and just seemed like a whiny reporter and I could believe that she was a journalist, now with Amy Adams I found that she was a really good Lois Lane and whilst there were a few iffy moments I looked over it.

Russell Crowe was very good and I was glad when he kept popping up every so often because he was very good as Jor-El. I’ve thought that when Russell Crowe was good he was Maximus and when he was bad he was very bad. Thankully he wasn’t quite as good as he was in Gladiator but he was very close to being that good. Michael Shannon is an intense yet very good actor. I’m fan of his based purely on his involvement in Boardwalk Empire and as General Zod he continued to impress. I thought that the goatie was a bit of a mistake but apart from that I thought that General Zod was an effective baddie.

It’s clear that this is the first in a reboot because this film does what Batman Begins does and that is the set up the backstory. There was a lot of Krypton in the early stages of the story and I liked how it good it looked because it seemed to give Superman something to miss. The story sees General Zod trying to terror-form Earth into the new Krypton and if I am honest then I cant say that I think it’s a bad plan. Ok humanity would be wiped out by Michael Shannon’s Zod basically scares you into wanting to help them.

The first half is the Christopher Nolan part because its all about set up and trying to create the background to Zod, Jor-El and Superman and then the second half is Zack Snyder because there is a lot of smashing into buildings and being a blockbuster and to be honest they blended in well and I never really noticed a shift in tone and thought that it all worked. As this film is part of the Justice League movie we get the Lexcorp logo on the truck and apparently the Bruce Wayne logo on the satalite (which I didn’t see). Like the Avengers movie it seems like there are links to this Justice League movie but it doesn’t strangle the film and its only noticeable if you were really looking for it.

I enjoyed Man of Steel far more than I thought I would. I thought that like the Batman films it was a nice mixture of realism and geeky comic books. When we get Man of Steel 2 I hope that it continues in the same vain because if it does then this will be another Batman franchise for Warner Bros and that can only be a good thing for Superman fans. The biggest compliment I can pay to this film is that for a non-Superman fan, I enjoyed being in the company of Superman and long may it continue.

Lincoln (2012)

There has been a lot of hype about this movie due to Daniel Day Lewis’ performance which is possibly going to earn him an Oscar. The film is based on a novel called Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abrham Lincoln written by Doris Kearns Goodwin and focuses on the final four months of Lincoln’s life where is trying to have the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constituion which outlawed slavery and involuntary sertitude passed through the US House of Representatives.

The whole movie is about this and the struggles that Lincoln has to deal with because as well as trying to get this through the house, he has to try and end the civil war. These two things work well in trying to create some dramatic moments throughout the film. At 150 minutes in length the film can afford to take its time telling this story and does so. As a result it allows you to get involved in the characters and of that period and understand why this was such an important in American History. Spielberg has a track record with important historical moments. I think Schlindler’s List is one of his best films and I thought that whilst Munich had its moments, wasn’t as good. Lincoln benefits not only from good performances but also from a good screenplay.

Daniel Day Lewis’ performance was superb with some of the speeches he gives to be fantastic and mesmorising. At times I got so involved in the movie that I forgot it was it was Day-Lewis in the role. He looked exactly like Lincoln and even though we don’t know what he sounded like, the voice seemed to suit the movie. Sally Field is also very good and does well as the first Lady. The character has issues and Field plays it perfectly. Tommy Lee Jones is one of those actors that you can trust to come up with a superb performance and here he continues that. He plays Thaddeus Stevens who comes across as a nice guy and we find out why at the end which I must admit I didn’t see coming.

Other good performances include Hal Holbrook as Francis Preston Blair and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Lincoln’s son. It seems to be impossible to watch a film with him in it.
If I had to pick an issue with the film it is that it deals with Lincoln’s death to rapidly. A large chunk of the movie is dealt with getting the amendment passed and then it feels like the next moment he has been assinated. I would have liked a bit more to this bit to have a greater sense of his loss. That said that is the only thing that I can find fault with and its not a major one which shows just what a great film it is.

Lincoln is a fanstastic film that has some outstanding performances as well as some truly wonderful directing. Spielberg knows how the tell a story and he manages to do it in this movie. One of the critiscm’s that I had heard before seeing this movie was that John Williams’ music is overbearing, well to be honest I thought the exact opposite. The music worked well and I think this may be the best movie of the year and if it wins the Oscar then I wont be too surprised.