Twelve Things About Man of Steel

1. Isn’t it just Thor? A strange handsome man comes down to Earth, makes me feel inadequate, struggles to adapt to human life, has a fight in a small isolated town, and bags himself a girlfriend.

2. Or isn’t it just Superman?

3. But a Superman without a maniacal bald man or Richard Pryor on skis.

4. How exactly does Clark/Kal-El/Superman find that big ship in the middle of nowhere? I get he can fly and shit but an innate sense of direction? That’s just too farfetched.

5. Henry Cavill looks good with a beard.

6. Perry White is Perry Black!

7. Henry Cavill looks good in a cape.

8. Metropolis appears to be populated entirely by journalists.

9. How many times does Zod fly off in his ship only to return minutes later? How often do Kryptonians need a poo?

10. Henry Cavill looks good on fire.

11. 70% of the film is just geezers crashing through walls.

12. A screaming Henry Cavill can fly into my hole any time.  

Wonder

In an age where a quiet night in involves pointing and laughing at Embarrassing Bodies or The Boy who had testicles for arm pits and didn’t have a head and looked a bit like an odd but sort of more attractive Anthony Costa, you could be forgiven (even though you shouldn’t) for forgetting that people like Wonder’s August Pullman exist in the real world.

Though being a book for children, Wonder will still inevitably attract an adult audience hungry for their next fix of freak. It is impossible to produce a documentary about a boy with a facial abnormality and truly move your audience. Some will tune in to have a good ol’ laugh and tweet about “mongs”, some will watch only to improve their own self-esteem (“thank god I don’t look like that”), and some will sympathise right up until 2 Broke Girls comes on. Thankfully, R.J. Palacio’s Wonder does not have that problem...sort of.

Wonder may be about a boy with a facial abnormality, but it is more About a Boy than About a Boy with a vagina for a face and like really big kankles where his nipples should be and he’s got like this really weird smell that’s a bit like a farm but he’s not actually a farm, he’s a boy. While a perpetual obstacle, August’s face is not the sole source of his misery. Starting at a new school and making friends is difficult, being a Star Wars nerd certainly doesn’t help either, and any child and adult can relate to this. Wonder is not so much a novel about a boy with a facial abnormality but a boy who is bullied, and the cruel nature of not only school children, but also adults.

More shocking than August’s face is the behaviour of other characters. Julian, who is the popular kid despite being called JULIAN, is a pre-pubescent Gossip Girl character, the sort of horrible shit Roald Dahl would have brutally murdered by Oompa Loompas or a suave fox. Julian is that Dahlian brand of nastiness, scheming against August and his friend Jack Will (product placement?) presumably because he just loves to be a douchebag. August experiences cruelty from a host of characters but it is his beef with Julian (akin to that of Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy) that keeps the narrative flowing. It may fizzle out and end in an anti-climax and not the car chase and sword fight I had hoped for, but this is a relatively realistic novel, and more often than not, bullies stay bullies.

Wonder is narrated by several characters and as a result gives perhaps a more balanced view on the novel’s subject matter. Not only are we given August’s perspective, but also the perspective of his sister, friends, and one slightly grating hipster. Their lives may gravitate towards August and we are shown how they feel about him, but Palacio grants them the freedom to have their own problems and issues. As the novel progresses it becomes less about August and more a story of growing up.

As sad, moving and inspirational as the novel is, it can at times suffer from its extreme sentimentality. Quoting Christina Aguilera’s Beautiful is as cringey as a book can get, and even though the song might encapsulate Wonder’s sentiment...well let’s just not do it eh? For such an honest novel, it comes as surprise to read such a contrived ending. First and foremost Wonder is a children’s book teaching the importance of kindness, but this lesson is so explicit in the final pages that it becomes more like a morality tale than the moving and heart warming story that it is. You have to be a pretty cold hearted bastard not to empathise with August or even one of the characters, so to have the novel’s message told to you so explicitly - be kind - is patronising even for a child.

Despite its flaws (and there aren’t many), Wonder provides a refreshing perspective on an issue that is often treated with insensitivity, as well as accurately conveying the troubles and emotions of being bullied and growing up. The world is full of cruel and mean people, and Wonder demands that it changes for the better. No matter how explicit the lesson may be, it is a lesson that most people need to learn. Maybe those adults hoping for The Undateables: The Novel can learn a thing or two. 

Jenga!

Is it just me or are a lot of films about tall buildings these days?

A Good Day to Stop Making Die Hard.

Die Hard. We’ve all seen it and we all love it like Romanians love to put horses in lasagnes. There is no need for a mass debate, Die Hard is the greatest action movie of all time. It’s also the greatest Christmas movie of all time. It is a multi-purpose movie, suitable for all occasions. You are bored, what do you watch? Die Hard! You are feeling down, what do you watch? Die Hard! You find out your girlfriend/boyfriend has never seen Die Hard? Die Hard! Those clinic results are positive? Die Hard!

The same cannot be said of its sequels. The order of quality is thus: 1, 3, 2, 4. There is reason to disregard Die Hard 4 (or Live Free or Die Hard or Die Hard 4.0) as part of the canon; the John McClane established in the first three films would never jump onto a flying jet. With Die Hard 4 drawing a line between 20th and 21^st century Die Hards could we really expect the fifth entry, A Good Day to Die Hard, to rival the first three films? No. In fact my expectations were so low that it would have been a miracle if it could rival Die Hard 4.

If there’s one thing A Good Day to Die Hard tells us, it’s that miracles don’t happen, unless they involve breaking the laws of physics. Die Hard 5 makes Die Hard 4 look like Die Hard. Quite simply, it’s fucking awful. From the moment we see the opening credit of “Written by Skip Woods” we know that we will not be witnessing a beautifully crafted script. Skip is not a writer’s name, it is a pet’s name. Did you read that new book by Skip Bronte? NO. It gets worse because he is the man responsible for writing Hitman. Director John Moore is responsible for unleashing Max Payne into our lives. Die Hard 5 is a video game adaptation of a video game that does not exist. It has more in common with Call of Duty than it does with Die Hard. Big guns, big explosions, faceless villains, and a political conspiracy that leaves more plot holes than bullet holes. If anyone ever thinks “Gee Whiz it would be neat if they made a Call of Duty film” this crock of shit should be shoved in their face immediately. This is a film for the COD generation: socially inept pubescent teenagers with anger issues who are only stimulated by LOUD NOISES and BIG EXPLOSIONS (and bad ladies in catsuits).

Without a comprehensible plot, discernible villain, or convincing protagonists the result is just a slide show of fiery bangs. Characters are introduced and discarded like used condoms, we are shown the now clichéd Bourne-esque CIA agent automatons at the beginning of the film only for them to never appear or be mentioned again, while the myriad of “bad guys” take turns at playing Hans Gruber. Bruce Willis is no longer John McClane but just an old bloke with a gun and a penchant for falling through things with his two dimensional son. There are homages to the first film and while some are a nice touch (McClane’s instinct to “shoot the glass”) others feel almost spoof-like while the obligatory “yippee ki-yay mother fu...*mumble*” appears like it was forced into the film at random. While perhaps a more conscious effort to make it more “Die Hard” than number 4 these moments do not save the film from its dire script and general shiteness.

Perhaps more appalling than a disregard for GOOD WRITING is the disregard for PHYSICS. During the course of the film both McClanes must/choose to drive from Moscow to Chernobyl. They steal a car full of guns, why is the car full of guns? Because their owners put them in there to enter a club. It is night time, it must be reasonably late because I assume Russian gangsters don’t go to the club straight after Pointless. When they arrive at Chernobyl it is still dark and presumably the same night as neither McClane have had time to wash their faces. As Google maps shows, Chernobyl is roughly 1000km away from Moscow and would take roughly 12 hours to travel. So what average speed must they have been travelling at to arrive in the same night? As we all know speed = distance / time, and even if we are to believe that the journey took them five hours they would have to travel at an average speed of at least 122.8 mph, including crossing the Ukraine border with a boot full of weapons. IS THIS POSSIBLE?

Pedantry this may be, but there was no real reason to relocate to Chernobyl. If any action film is proof that one setting is sufficient it is DIE HARD. All that long arse drives does is kill any tension that the film had. Did Hans Gruber give McClane time to embark on an uneventful road trip? They didn’t even have to go there anyway! The entire film is ridiculous! A lame by-the-numbers action blockbuster with a lazy garnish of Die Hard hallmarks on the side. It may still attract enough of the Fast and the Furious audience to be a success and warrant a sixth instalment but it’s a disgusting spit in the face of its predecessors.   

Eleven things about Les Misérables

1. The cinema hasn’t attracted a mob so middle class since The King’s Speech. I thought I was waiting in line to see highlights of the Queen’s Jubilee.

2. Attracting a bourgeois theatre going crowd ensured they all laughed at the “funny” bits as they would do watching the stage production. Just because you pay £60 for a ticket and it’s in a fancy theatre doesn’t mean the shitty jokes and dialogue become high art and hilarious. If you charged £60 for a peasant stoning they'd find that hilarious as well.

3. Helena Bonham Carter has only ever had one look in her career: The scatty wench pimped by Tim Burton.

4. Wolverine, Maximus Decimus Meridius, and Catwoman all feature, yet all they do is go on about their feelings through the medium of song.

5. Speaking of which, Hugh Jackman ages horribly in the film, what happened to his regeneration abilities?

6. Why do the revolutionaries all look like they’re in Mumford and Sons?

7. Revolution looks fun!

8. Oh no it doesn’t.

9. I wonder if Chris Klein auditioned for the film.

10. Why do girls love it so much? It’s two and a half hours of relentless depression. Valjean dying at the end isn’t sad. It’s like the dog dying at the end of Marley and Me. He’s fucking old. Write some lyrics for Schindler’s List and they’ll eat that shit up.

11. It was alright though.