The LEGO Movie

Of all the places you'd expect to find an exploding helicopter, The Lego Movie (2014) is perhaps not the most obvious - a surprise moment in a surprisingly enjoyable film. This is despite, on the face of it, looking like it's a recipe for disaster.

Littered with cameo appearances, parodies of much-loved film characters, and a repeatedly-played annoying sounding song, this looked like it was going to be a gruelling 100 minutes.

Emmet (voiced by Chris Pratt) is just an everyday generic Lego construction worker. He lives in a world where every day is the same and everything operates like clockwork. Everyone follows the instructions of their overly-chirpy leader, President Business, watches the latest episode of a repetitive sitcom and joins in a daily singalong of 'Everything Is Awesome'.

But all is not as it seems. President Business is actually the evil Lord Business (voiced by Will Ferrell), who has grown tired of a rogue band of rebels (led, sort of, by Vituvius, voiced by the Almighty Morgan Freeman) that like to construct Lego in their own more interesting way.

Business plots to end the plastic brick universe as we know it by unleashing an ancient relic - the Kragle - to cement all the Lego blocks in place - permanently. The only thing that can stop this evil OCD plan is The Piece of Resistance (a seemingly plain bit of red plastic) that a prophesied special one will pick up. That someone turns out to be Emmet.

With the help of Vitruvius, Wyldstyle (voiced by Elizabeth Banks), Batman (voiced  by Will Arnett) and other Lego characters from the last few decades, Emmet must escape capture by Business's two-faced cop (voiced by Liam Neeson) and save the universe.

The plot is so utterly bonkers it's like a child wrote it, but it actually holds together extremely well. The screenplay and direction come courtesy of Phil Lord and Christopher Miller, the minds behind the similarly mad Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs.

It's easy to dismiss the film just as a cynical money generating exercise to get kids' to mass-purchase Lego (which they certainly will), but the film is full of heart and subtle comedy. And frankly it was a great film for nostalgia too. As someone that grew up with Lego (pirate ship and governor's fort, Robin Hood set, random spaceman set etc), the appearance of past Lego characters were a nice addition.

Crazy plot, a world made of Lego, engaging characters, and an exploding helicopter to boot? Yes indeed, everything is awesome. The helicopter explosion occurs when Emmet is pursued by Bad Cop's police squadron. Making for what appears to be the edge of their world (a big wall) it seems there's nowhere to escape to. But wait! A gateway appears just at the right time for the escapees to speed into. This promptly closes - with the pursuant cars smashing into the wall. A moment later, the police helicopter follows them into the wall, before falling on top of the cars - causing a smattering of flaming wreckage.

Artistic merit

This fireball marked the end of a decent chase scene, where Lego pieces fly everywhere. The explosion is pleasingly understated - just a simple crash and fall into some other Lego pieces, with a dash of flames.

Exploding helicopter innovation

This is undoubtedly the inaugural cinematic Lego chopper explosion.

Do passengers survive? 

Inconclusive. For starters, there didn't seem to be any resultant melting, which from my childhood experience usually happens with the addition of fire to Lego. There is death in the film though, with one character returning as the classic ghost Lego Man, however there were no other ghosts visible on screen.

Positives

Chris McKay, who is best known for his work on Robot Chicken, was also involved in the film which might help to explain why I found it so hilarious. There are some particularly good scenes where Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill voice Superman and the overly attentive/annoying Green Lantern, notoriously one of the lamest of superheroes. Superman' discomfort is a pleasure to watch. But really Batman steals the show - Will Arnett is straight in above Kilmer & Clooney on the Best Batman list.

Negatives

One of the random highlights features a scene where the Millennium Falcon pops up. It's a really small scene, with a really small number of lines. Anthony Daniels voices C3P0, and Billy Dee Williams voices Lando. Han Solo is disappointingly not voiced by Harrison Ford, who the directors described as "too busy" to record one or two lines for that scene. Sadly, Ford wasn't too busy to appear in last year's woeful Ender's Game.

Favourite quote 

Batman: "I only work in black...and sometimes very, very dark grey."

Interesting fact 

It's Morgan Freeman's very first appearance in an animated film. Which given he seems to add his voice to virtually everything is rather surprising to find out.

Review by: Joseph Clift

Battleship

Who hasn’t wanted to be a soldier? Running around in the mud with a machine gun and a camouflaged, paint-smeared face. Wot larks.

If you didn‘t, then you probably wanted to be a pilot, scorching through the skies at Mach-2 while locked in a deadly aerial dogfight.

Odds are, however, you never longed to be in the Navy, meandering slowly around the world’s oceans doing, doing…..what is it they do, exactly?

Yup, there’s no hiding it: the Navy is boring.

It’s just a duller world – geared towards the complexities of fleet management, integrated modern weapon systems and sophisticated engineering mechanisms. Sorry, did you drop off for a moment there..?

When the brains behind Battleshit (and no, that’s not a typing error) came together, they no doubt swiftly realised they had a problem. How the hell do you make the dull logistics of modern Navy life thrilling to cinema’s key audience: pimply-faced teens?

Their answer, while not pretty, does have a certain base logic to it: give ‘em aliens, sex and guns. So they make the Navy repel an alien invasion, squeeze Rihanna into a booty-licious sailor outfit, and get Liam Neeson (cast here as a grizzled Admiral) to gruffly shout ‘Fire!’ a lot.

And that’s it, frankly. In the face of such brutal reductionism, nothing so flagrant as a coherent plot was ever going to make the cut. Everything here is about maintaining the attention of pubescent boys. That’s probably why – and try to keep a straight face here – the alien trouble starts when scientists try to contact another world by tweeting them. (Presumably something like: @E.T. r u aliens LOL.) See, kids, the movies are just like your life!

Rihanna: "Bring me a baby panda to cuddle NOW!"

Incredibly, this genius idea backfires. (Maybe one of the scientists got drunk and sent a snapchat pic of their knob.) Whatever, the cousins from outer space send their reply in the form of five heavily-armed attack ships, rather than an amusing video of a cat repeatedly falling off a sofa.

As intergalactic conflict breaks out, Hopper, the buff hero, flexes his pecs and starts saving the day. It’s never explained why a work-shy pussy-hound is in the Navy, where slacking-off and fraternising with women are court martial offences, but that’s the least of this film’s inconsistency worries.

Oh, yes. Very soon, a much bigger question looms: does this day actually need saving? Weirdly for an alien invasion movie, these evil spacemen don’t actually seem too bothered about global conquest. For long stretches, they do na-da. Like intergalactic pikies, they just shuffle up, make a big mess of the ocean, then loaf around doing nothing.

This boring stalemate continues for ages, leaving the audience in the awkward position of having to watch actors hired for how buff they look actually trying to speak. (Neeson, the sole capable thesp, looks pig miserable in these scenes.)

It’s snore-worthy fare, though Exploding Helicopter was impressed by how they got Rihanna to stay in front of a camera for two consecutive minutes without baring her arse.

On and on it goes, like a leaky old boat taking on water. And by the time an old WWII battleship performs a handbrake turn (The Fast and the Funnelled, anyone?), everyone’s too weary to point out that ships don’t really do that.

Neeson watches his own soul die as he delivers
another deathless line of dialogue

And yet, just as the eyelids start to close, Battleshit comes up with chopper fireball action aplenty.

In a honking great blockbuster like this, one exploding helicopter was never going to be enough for the film’s conflagration-hungry teen audience. Instead we're treated to a record breaking eight helicopters being blown to smithereens in one short orgy of rotor-bladed mayhem.

It begins peacefully enough, with the octuplet of helicopters parked innocently at their base posing no threat to anybody. Nevertheless the aliens head straight for them, providing a visual treat as the weird spherical spaceship devices barrel through the parked whirlybirds.

At times like this, one bemoans the lack of a collective noun for exploding helicopters. If a murder of crows or a conspiracy of lemurs, then why not a con-flame-gration of choppers? Hey, it could catch on.

Suffice to say, the eight vehicles explode spectacularly.

Artistic merit

There’s much to be said for exploding helicopter scenes that are unnecessary and gratuitous – and this one is the very apogee of needlessness.

The helicopters here aren't strategically important, they're not fitted with secret anti-alien devices. There's no reason to think they pose any kind of danger.

This palpable lack of threat lends the scene an aesthetic purity. It suggests exploding helicopters are an elemental property of film, above the mere petty demands of plot or logic – a phenomenon to be appreciated on its own terms and in reference only to itself. Which is to be applauded, of course.

Number of exploding helicopters

A historic and record breaking 8.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The destruction of helicopters by aliens in this kind of actiony, sci-fi movie has become a yawn-inducing commonplace. (See Independence Day or Battle: Los Angeles for just two examples).

Given the choppers always get absolutely pummelled – and that such a contest is the aerodynamic equivalent of Macaulay Culkin vs Vinnie Jones with a nailed club – it’s actually refreshing to see the lumbering helicopters not even make it off the ground. And more realistic.

Positives

Watching Rihanna trying to act never gets old. Even mid-line, she looks about ready to throw an insta-strop and demand one of her ‘people’ bring her a truffle smoothie and baby panda to cuddle NOW.

Throughout Battleshit, many of the cast wear t-shirts saying ARMY or NAVY, presumably so she can tell the difference. (In earlier cuts, rumour has it the invaders also had to wear ALIEN t-shirts for the same reason.)

Negatives

Almost everything. In particular, there’s a depressing certainty of knowing that, at some point, someone will have to drop the famous tag-line. So when Liam Neeson, of all people, finally says ‘You sunk my battleship!’ you can almost see his soul die a little inside.

(Fair enough: the film’s pay check probably bought the big man a swanky Malibu beach house. But if so, you can bet every time he sits out on the deck and suddenly remembers how he paid for it all, that iced cocktail will curdle in his mouth.)

Interesting fact

The most famous review of this lumbering, over-long mess was a model of economy from which the film could have learned much.

It was, simply: ‘Miss’.

Review by: Donny Pebbles

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Darkman

I never read comics as a kid, so I’ve always felt at a disadvantage when watching the latest big screen adaptation. Shorn of any background knowledge, it was as if a level of enjoyment was always going to be denied to me.

So, in that respect, Darkman should be perfect for me. Unable to secure the rights to The Shadow, director Sam Raimi created his own tragic hero hell bent on vengeance. In every respect it’s a comic book adaptation, just without being actually based on one.

Peyton Westlake (Liam Neeson) is a scientist trying to create synthetic skin. When his journalist girlfriend Julie uncovers a dodgy property deal, shady thugs led by violent criminal Robert Durant (Larry Drake) try to stop her writing about the story.

Westlake is confronted by Durant and his goons. He’s tortured and left for dead when his laboratory is blown up. Only Westlake survives, horribly disfigured and unable to feel pain.

With the world thinking him dead, Westlake vows vengeance. Using his knowledge of synthetic skin, he creates lifelike masks of Durant’s henchmen allowing him to infiltrate Durant’s gang, and search for the mastermind behind the conspiracy.

The story arc could be drawn from any classic DC Comic series, and is given some dramatic ballast by Westlake’s attempt to re-establish his relationship with Julie. But while the plot has all the right ingredients, it always feels somewhat less than the sum of its parts.

Maybe it’s because, aside from Westlake’s personal revenge, all that is at stake is the success of a property deal. And really, it’s too hard to care much about that.

Still there’s other things for us to care about, in this case the small matter of two exploding helicopters.

As the film moves towards the climax Westlake is hunted by Durant who, armed with a grenade launcher is buzzing around in a helicopter. Westlake tries to board the chopper, but is beaten off. It looks as if he’s going to plunge to his death, but he grabs onto a rope hanging from the helicopter.

Durant starts firing the grenade launcher indiscriminately at Westlake who’s continuing to dangle from the rope. A police helicopter spots the carnage and gives chase, only for Durant to take care of it with his heavy weaponry.

This leaves Durant free to finish off Westlake. They try to drop him in front of some oncoming traffic, but this only allows Westlake to attach the rope to the top a truck that‘s conveniently about to enter a tunnel. Unable to gain altitude the helicopter smashes into the entrance of the tunnel.



Artistic merit

We always like to see a lengthy helicopter sequence at the finale of a film, and this is a doozy. The coup de grace comes with two excellent pre-CGI helicopter explosions.

I particularly enjoyed how the wreckage of the second helicopter is towed into the tunnel by the lorry as it’s still attached to the line which dragged it to it’s doom.

Number of exploding helicopters

Two.

Exploding helicopter innovation

You have to admire Westlake’s improvisation in a tight spot when he attaches the line on the helicopter to the lorry. There’s a similar scene in Tomorrow Never Dies and Derailed, however, Darkman is the earliest example we’ve seen yet of downing a chopper by securing it to another vehicle.

Positives

There’s some actors I always think of as being old, so the surprise here is getting to see a youthful Liam Neeson in the film‘s lead role. Yet oddly he still looks kind of middle-aged.

Regardless, Neeson brings his usual bored solemnity to the role. Quite how he has managed to maintain a career as a Hollywood leading man eludes me.

Negatives

Frances McDormand cuts an unsympathetic love interest in this one. Apparently Julie Roberts and Bridget Fonda were both lined up for the role at various points. McDormand was only drafted in at the last minute and was apparently a pain in the balls to work with. It shows.

Interesting fact

Sam Raimi regular Bruce Campbell appears briefly in a cameo at the end of the film.

Review by: Jafo

The A Team

You'd have thought the makers of The A Team (2010) had pulled their trousers down and taken a dump on the faces carved into Mount Rushmore, such is the opprobrium heaped on this film.

Now I loved TV series when I was a kid, but that doesn't mean I can't recognise it's flaws in this Eighties cultural landmark. Formulaic, and often silly to the point of farce, the series required not so much a suspension of reality as a complete detachment from it. 

How else could tens of thousands of rounds of ammunition be fired without by our heroes without once injuring, letting alone killing, someone?

So, when Exploding Helicopter reads complaints about this film's infamous flying tank scene, we say it's no more ridiculous than being imprisoned in a warehouse with a old tractor and a welding torch. Not once, but every single week.

Don't get Exploding Helicopter wrong. We're not about to launch a full scale defence of this film. The film is far from perfect, but the idea that it's an act of sacrilegious desecration is to assign an utterly undeserved status to the source material.

The film signals it's intent right at the start and you either buy in then or it's best to just abort. Interestingly for us the sequence is the key one for us as it includes a helicopter explosion.

Having requisitioned an old chopper from a hospital, the newly assembled A Team attempt to affect their escape from Mexico. They're pursued by some corrupt army officers in another helicopter.

Unfortunately, the old air ambulance the A Team are in has no weapons, so all they can do is take evasive action. This involves an aerodynamically impossible 360 roll along with some other equally implausible manoeuvres avoid some missiles.

Having used up all their tricks, it looks like the A Team's chopper is about to blown from the sky. But unbeknownst to the Mexicans pursuing them, they've now crossed into US airspace. An American jet fighter appears out of nowhere and blows the pursuing helicopter to smithereens.

Artistic merit

We enjoyed the helicopter chase sequence even if it borrowed it's aeronautic acrobatics from Blue Thunder and Die Another Day.

The explosion was well executed but it's incredibly brief and director Joe Carnahan cuts straight to the whooping reactions of the A Team in the other helicopter.

Exploding helicopter innovation

While the fighter plane's missiles are the direct responsible for the helicopter's destruction, the ultimate cause was clever use of international airspace. First known usage as far as I can tell.

Number of exploding helicopters

One.

Do passengers survive?

No. If we were talking about the tv series the answer would obviously be, 'but of course'. However, unfortunately for everyone in the chopper we're no longer in the 80s.

Positives

I'll admit I'm struggling with this one. All told this is a pretty derivative actioner. Nothing's too great, nothing's too bad.

Negatives

Liam Neeson. Does the man ever enjoy himself? He always looks pained in everything he appears in. Every time he smiles it looks like he's been cued to do it by someone shoving a hand up his backside.

Favourite quote

"Overkill is underrated."

Interesting fact

The script for The A Team was written by Skip Woods who is quickly carving out a reputation as a guarantee of exploding helicopter action. He also wrote the screenplays for X Men Origins: Wolverine and Swordfish which both feature helicopter explosions and chopper sequences.

Review by: Jafo