Iron Man 3

Let's face facts, once they hang up their cape most superheroes are as dull as ditchwater. Clark Kent is a socially inept wet blanket, Bruce Wayne a reclusive misery guts and Peter Parker a dweeby geek. Put it this way, they'd be deadly dull company if you ever invited them out for a few beers.

Tony Stark on the other hand would be a riot. Loaded, charismatic, with more one liners than Tommy Cooper, he'd be the life and soul of the party.

The success of the character is due in no small part to Robert Downey Jr's suave, sardonic portrayal of the millionaire playboy. You don't feel he's acting, so much as portraying a slightly exaggerated version of himself.

Coming after recent po-faced excursions into the comic book universe (we're looking at you Christopher Nolan) Downey's perpetually cocked eyebrow performance made the first film feel like a breath of fresh air.

Sequels though rarely improve on their predecessors and Iron Man 2 is a case in point. Foregoing the knockabout fun of the original, it’s really just a convoluted excuse to set up Stark's appearance in franchise crossover Avengers Assemble.

And it’s from the end of that film that the action in Iron Man 3 (2013) picks up. Having successfully battled an alien invasion alongside his superhero buddies, a shell-shocked, burnt-out Stark is recuperating in his Malibu mansion - which mostly consists of him tinkering with an army of Iron Mans suits and arguing with Gwyneth Paltrow.

As Stark licks his wounds, a string of terrorist bombings are perpetrated by The Mandarin - a flamboyant Osama-like character played by Ben Kingsley - causing chaos across the US and injuring Stark‘s head of security (Jon Favreau).

Agitated, Stark misguidedly goads the terrorist into taking him on personally and The Mandarin is only too happy to oblige. He sends a trio of heavily laden attack choppers to Stark's hillside hideaway to, let’s say, "redesign" Stark's premises through the medium of air-to-ground missiles.

The lead chopper flies in over the sea and fires off a couple of rockets, blowing a huge hole in the property's art deco frontage. Stark quickly dons his suit and returns fire by launching a huge chunk of masonry at the helicopter. Disappointingly, despite hitting his target, the chopper does not explode and flies out of shot.

A second helicopter swoops in, but this time Stark hits the jackpot. He hurls one of the explosives from his Iron Man suit at the helicopter. Then just as it reaches the chopper Stark uses a blast from one of the jets on his suit to ignite triggering an explosion. The damaged helicopter spins in classic dying whirly-bird fashion. Unfortunately, the stricken chopper crashes straight into the mansion causing the entire building to collapse.

Only a miracle now saves Stark from being crushed in the carnage and the last chopper pilot, thinking his work is done, pootles off for a well-earned pint.

Artistic merit

It’s a juicy set piece, nicely shot with plenty of destruction. But the helicopter explosion is delivered with a reddish glow which betrays its CGI origins. Though the sight of the cliff top mansion tumbling into he sea after succumbing to the helicopter wreckage is a nice touch.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Whilst the destruction of the chopper is pretty routine it’s not often you see a helicopter reduce a mansion to rumble.

Do passengers survive?

Unusually the first chopper pilot, despite being hit by a massive slab of concrete, looks like he may have been able to make an emergency landing. The second chopper pilot would have definitely came a cropper though.

Positives  

As to be expected with a Marvel adaptation, action fans will feel as satisfied as Lindsay Lohan holidaying in Colombia with the Green Bay Packers for company. All the set pieces are executed with aplomb (I particularly enjoyed the skydiving sequence) and there is more shiny CGI than you shake a stick at.

The producers have also managed to corral an ensemble of great acting talent together so Downey isn’t left to prop up the picture on his own. Guy Pearce delivers another convincing performance as evil mastermind Aldrich Killian that continues to make his time as Mike Pearce in Neighbours seems like a cheese induced dream.

Ben Kingsley, as always, is a delight and delivers an unexpected character twist that is usually absent in this genre. Topping it off we get ultimate movie asshole Miguel Ferrer, of Robocop fame, popping up as the crooked Vice President Rodriguez.

Negatives

Despite the acting chops on display not everything is rosy in the Iron Man universe. Director Shane Black may be responsible for writing the classic Lethal Weapon series, but its wise-cracking buddy formula doesn't work so well here.

Stark befriends a precocious brat (Ty Simkins) whilst investigating the dubious explosions that maybe linked to the accident that befalls his head of security. Their "banter" during these scenes feels forced and not a little ridiculous.

The pacing of the film is also questionable, lurching as it does between knockabout one-liners and gruesome deaths with nary a gap in between. Whilst the original film had its moments of levity rooted in Downey's louche portrayal of Stark, here the comedy is overdone giving the film a schizophrenic character.
 
Also, the technology in the original movie felt like it was grounded in reality. But here the audience is required to take a greater leap of faith. Stark's new remote control Iron Man suits and Killian's DNA regeneration programme feel like one step too far and possibly a case of jumping the shark.

Overall the film is more enjoyable than Iron Man 2, but fails to capture the magic of the original. I wouldn't go out of your way to see it.

Favourite quote 

Brandt: “Is that all you've got? A cheap trick and a cheesy one-liner?”
Tony Stark: “Sweetheart, that could be the name of my autobiography.

Interesting fact

Shane Black is a bit of a jack of all trades. Not content with being a mere screenwriter or director he has also dipped a toe in the acting world. Keen eyed exploding helicopter fans might recognise him as the bespectacled radio operator Hawkins from the action classic Predator. This bit of trivia is just an excuse for me me to quote the following lame joke:

Hawkins: Billy. Billy! The other day, I was going down on my girlfriend, I said to her, "Jeez you got a big pussy. Jeez you got a big pussy." She said, "Why did you say that twice?" I said, "I didn't."
[Billy stares blankly]
Hawkins: See, cuz of the echo.

Bonus fact

Hang about till the end of the credits to see Stark on the psychiatrist couch with Dr David Banner. Worth waiting for.

Review by: Neon Messiah

Listen to the Exploding Helicopter podcast episode on Iron Man 3. Find the show on YourListen, iTunes, Podomatic and Stitcher. 

Olympus Has Fallen

Fallen asleep, more like.

Rarely has an action movie seemed so lazy. No doubt pitched as ‘Die Hard in the White House’, this generic piece of floss also plunders plot lines, characters and whole scenes from a dozen other movies. It’s the cinematic equivalent of a hoary tribute band, ruining old classics and expecting applause for it.

Adding to its woes, the star is Gerard Butler – a kind of Scottish Steven Seagal, only with less emotional range.

The movie’s high standards of verisimilitude are established at the outset when a bunch of North Koreans manage to fly a lumbering military plane right to the centre of Washington, largely unchallenged.

As the plane blasts DC to smithereens, a crack team of 40 enemy agents, disguised as tourists, quickly overwhelms the famously not-well-guarded White House and takes the President hostage in his own underground bunker.

Luckily, disgraced Secret Service agent Butler also manages to blast his way in, kicking off what will become a truly prodigious body count. Once inside, he establishes phone contact with acting President Morgan Freeman (I know, I was surprised too) and the inevitable conference room full of worried politicos and grizzled generals.

Will our Gezza be able to single-handedly despatch all the nasty Norks, save the President and stop the USA’s nukes going off with seconds to spare? Obviously, Exploding Helicopter wouldn’t dream of spoiling things so you’ll just have to go see for yourself. (But yes.)

Hokum it may be, but there’s some entertainment to be gleaned from playing ‘Spot the Steal’. Look! There’s that close quarters choke-fight-in-a-tiny space from Air Force One. Hey! Aren’t those the hooded hostages in identical overalls from Inside Man?

Butler: uber-violence specialist

More impressively, entire scenes – the snatched phone call to the missus, unknowingly befriending the baddie, jumping off an exploding building – are lifted wholesale from Die Hard without the merest attempt to put a fresh gloss on them.

This is a very particular type of action thriller. Where Bruce Willis brought quips, Van Damme the corny kung fu and Arnie a bovine semi-comedy, Butler unapologetically specialises in uber-violence. Within minutes of entering the White House, he’s bludgeoned one baddie and tortured another two to death. Knives going into necks – and actual heads – quickly becomes a common feature, almost a calling card.

Unsurprisingly, there’s nary a giggle to be had. Butler, realising every three seconds spent crafting a witty aside is a lost opportunity to stick a skillet knife into a Nork’s right temple, largely lets his bladed instruments do the talking. It’s pretty artless stuff.

Still, there is a solid, if predictable, supporting cast. Aaron Eckhart (who seemingly stole Dennis Quaid’s career overnight) is suitably lantern-jawed and stoic as the kidnapped President. Robert Forster turns in a heroically hammy turn as the gun-happy General who, in time-honoured fashion, bungles a military rescue and has to be given a public dressing down.

The magisterial Morgan, meanwhile – who exclusively seems to play either the President or God these days – churns out his lines with a pained look that suggests the actor beside him has just dropped one. But we all know that what really stinks is the script.

Like many modern action films, Olympus suffers badly for want of a half-decent villain. The muscle-bound Kang (Rick Yune) is a bland presence, largely reduced to explaining plot points. In the absence of a personality, his calling card also (oh, happy coincidence!) turns out to be uber-violence. His stand-out scene revolves around him repeatedly kicking a 60-year-old woman [the Secretary of Defence] in the stomach. Alan Rickman, this is not.

Equally dull is Dylan McDermot, playing the good agent gone rogue who, when asked why he’s turned sour, yelps: “Wall Street! Globalisation!’ Really? The existence of a financial sector and the steady growth in international trade agreements is what finally tipped him over the edge? Deep stuff, indeed.

Freeman: Cast exclusively as God or the President

The fact that McDermot, with his moany, equine features, looks more like Ross from Friends with each passing day only makes him all the more slappable. Against all the odds, our Gezza ends up stabbing him in the throat.

But, to the helicopters. General Bob Forster, his voice so gravelly it’s being picked up on nearby submarine sonar equipment, orders six military choppers to land on the White house roof. But Kang, taking a brief respite from pummelling pensioners in the lower abdomen, has worked out how to use the White House’s own ‘Hydra Six’ defence system – essentially a huge automated machine gun.

By the time Butler stabs his way to the rooftop, the Hydra gun has already biffed five choppers. Our Gezza heroically blasts the Hydra with a rocket launcher, but the final helicopter smashes into the White House right where he’s standing. As the flaming vehicle explodes, our anti-hero leaps off the flaming ledge (Die Hard), falls through a few storeys of the collapsing building (Die Hard 5), then is trapped on his back as the rotor blades come swishing down and stop just before his meaty features (Mission Impossible). So: not at all derivative, then.

Artistic merit

Very weak. The whole scene plays out at night, the editing is Michael-Bay-on-acid fast, the CGI is hazy and, frankly, it’s not at all clear what’s happening for most of the time. Note to Hollywood: this scene probably cost hundreds of thousands to put together, and yet was met with a palpable sigh by the cinema audience.

Exploding helicopter innovation

You’re joking aren’t you? This is a film that has been constructed exclusively from the scenes of other films.

Number of exploding helicopters

Two.

There’s a second helicopter explosion to enjoy when the terrorists try to make their getaway from the White House. Seemingly all set to fly to safety aboard a chopper that’s been provided for them, the whirlybird mysteriously blows up. Turns out the whole scene has been deliberately staged to cause enough confusion for the terrorists to make their real getaway.

Positives

Has anyone seen Monica?

Ah, Gerard. What will movie historians say of his schizophrenic movie career? No other actor in Hollywood has so effortlessly straddled the contrasting genres of rom-com and gut-wrenchingly violent thriller, while seemingly being equipped for neither. His ripe awfulness, almost McConaughey-esque in places, makes for compulsive viewing.

You’re never sure whether he’s going to be breaking limbs or mending hearts. In Law Abiding Citizen, for example, he (inevitably) stabs someone in the neck then continues a steak dinner as blood pumps fitfully out of the corpse beside him. But that film came only shortly after P.S. I Love You, where he lolled like a puppy and boyishly charmed Hilary’s Wank (sic) with a crashingly bad Oirish accent. At this juncture, it’s still not clear which of the two was the more distressing.

Best of all is The Ugly Truth, a magnificently mis-judged rom-com in which Butler plays a lothario shock-jock, but with some of the latent nastiness intact. Poor Katherine Heigel never looks sure whether he’s going to kiss her cheek or snap her tibia with a single, well-aimed kick.

Negatives

In the initial attack, the plane bombs Washington in a taboo-busting fashion that is plainly meant to evoke 9/11. (The collapsing Washington Monument, for example, falls exactly like the Trade Center buildings). There’s something genuinely distasteful about a middling piece of cinematic whimsy using America’s largest modern tragedy to try and grasp at ‘edginess’.

Also, there’s a bizarre (and mercifully brief) ‘Home Alone’ sub-plot, involving the President’s cute kid being trapped in the White House. Presumably, even the makers of this film realised how creepy it was – if not downright weird – to have Butler offering avuncular advice to the young boy, before filleting a screaming Nork in front of him. The child is quickly allowed to escape via a drain, to everyone’s relief.

Favourite quote

“They’ve opened the gates of hell…”
Morgan Freeman has presumably just seen the script for Olympus Has Fallen 2.

Interesting fact

In Hollywood, no idea is so bad that it can’t be done twice in quick succession. Expect to see White House Down (essentially the same movie but starring younger, less Scottish beefcake Channing Tatum) at a cinema near you very soon.

Review by: Chopper

The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou

Bill Murray is Steve Zissou, a puffed up Jacque Cousteau wannabe. Once the toast of the movie world his star status is now on the wane.

In years gone by his glamorous undersea adventures had made him into a famous public figure. Zissou's face adorned the cover of magazines and he enjoyed lucrative celebrity endorsements (Adidas no less).

But the Zissou we meet cuts a pitiful figure. The public have grown tired of his oceanic explorations, forcing our Steve to scrounge a living by releasing kitschy documentaries to ever diminishing returns.

As if this wasn't a heavy enough blow to Zissou’s self-esteem, his wife (Angelica Houston) is on the verge of leaving him and his successful nemesis Alistair Hennessey (Jeff Goldblum) seems to pop up everywhere just to rub his nose in his decline.

But just when it seems life can’t get any worse for Zissou it administers another sharp bony knee to the balls. During the making of his latest documentary his best friend (Seymour Cassel) is eaten by the elusive, and perhaps even fictional, Jaguar Shark.

This leads Zissou and his ragtag crew of oddballs on one last adventure to track down the mysterious creature, avenge his friend and perhaps find some kind of redemption.

Director Wes Anderson follows Rushmore and The Royal Tenebaums with another bittersweet comedy/drama dealing with his usual preoccupations of age and strained family relationships.

The story’s gentle humour and trademark quirks won’t be to everyone’s tastes, and the plot does meander along. But - to use an appropriately watery metaphor - it’s rather like being on a rolling river in a foreign country. You can look at the strange flora and fauna passing by and be pleasantly surprised by every quirk that emerges around the next bend.

One such curveball is the helicopter explosion that gets thrown at us during the film’s finale. Zissou and his long lost “son” Ned (Owen Wilson) fly out to sea in search of the Jaguar Shark in a bright yellow chopper.

Unfortunately, due to Zissou’s funding problems it seems the helicopter has not been maintained in quite a while. As soon as it reaches cruising altitude there’s a loud snap as the rotor mechanism breaks. There are no histrionics or flashy pyrotechnics, just a shot of Zissou’s trademark Adidas as the sea looms in front of them. The stricken chopper and its passengers then complete their journey to Wetsville.

Artistic merit

Shoe's eye view of the helicopter crash

As to be expected from Wes Anderson the scene is chock full of imagination. Rather than use flashy CGI or old school pyrotechnics to create an explosive climax, Anderson chooses a ‘less is more approach‘.

Instead of the normal fire and flame combo as the chopper crash lands in the water, the explosion is depicted in avant-garde fashion. Rapidly cut shots of fizzing bubbles fill the screen spliced with flashes of red and a bizarre a flashback sequence with Owen Wilson in a cinema auditorium.

In place of the usual crash-bang sound of an explosion, there is just a high-pitched hum and some weird atmospherics. Once the chopper has “exploded” we cut to Murray, cradling a stricken Wilson as burning debris bob around them. Exploding helicopter purists may be aghast at the sight of so many genre conventions being subverted, but I found it all rather refreshing.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Its not often we see choppers crash due to matters as mundane as inadequate maintenance. It’s hard to see the insurance company paying out on this one, assuming Zissou could even afford to keep up the policy.

Do passengers survive?

Tragically, and in contravention of Exploding Helicopter’s Second Law of Filmmaking, one of the good guys gets killed. Overcome by his head injury, Ned drowns in the arms of the helpless Zissou after first making a few oblique metaphysical references.

Positives

Fully intact: the helicopter used in the film

On top of fabulous performance by Murray and Goldblum, this is an ensemble piece for which you would struggle to put together a better cast. Zissou’s crew of misfits includes a rare comic role for Willem Dafoe as German engineer Klaus and Cate Blanchett as a National Geographic reporter imbedded within the team.

Michael Gambon pops up as louche film producer and musician Seu Jorge appears as safety expert Pele dos Santos, who spends most of his time randomly playing samba versions of David Bowie songs on deck. It is completely bizarre but it works.

Mercifully this film is a CGI-free zone with Anderson aiming for a handmade look with his emphasis on colour saturation and stop motion animation for the undersea elements. The whole thing feels like a pop-up movie made in kindergarten by toddlers with film degrees.

While I found it charming I can easily see why this film would not appeal to a mainstream audience. You either buy into Anderson’s whimsy or you don’t. For those who didn’t enjoy it I’m sure another Adam Sandler movie will stink along in the near future which will better satisfy your tastes.

Negatives

When a movie shows this much charm and innovation it would be churlish to criticise it, so I won’t.

Favourite quote

Festival Director: (asking a question about the Jaguar Shark): That's an endangered species at most. What would be the scientific purpose of killing it?

Steve Zissou: Revenge.

Interesting fact

Most of the film was shot on the Italian Riviera where Bill Murray became a certified diver during the filming of the movie, logging over 40 diving hours between takes. And he got paid. Tough business this acting lark.

Review by: Neon Messiah

Still want more? Then check out our podcast episode on the film. Find it on iTunes, Stitcher, YourListen, Podomatic, or Acast.

Skyline

In the 50’s, low budget genre films were all the rage. In the US, to feed the boom in drive-in theatres, studios churned out movies with simple plots, stock themes, and reliable shock effects to satisfy punters more interested in copping a feel than character development. Let’s not mess about - most of these films were crap.

A popular staple of these genre efforts were alien invasions, tapping into the public’s Cold War paranoia and the suspicion that those dirty Commies were lurking somewhere in the laundry basket waiting to take over.

Amongst the B-movie dross a few classics did emerge, Invasion Of The Body Snatchers, It Came From Outer Space and War Of The Worlds remain enduring examples of the genre.

The reason I’m waffling on about these second tier features is because Skyline (2010) is a direct descendent of those exploitation efforts. In fact, Skyline is little more than a pedestrian retread of War Of The Worlds but with added special effects gimmickry.

Unfortunately, for a film which has decided to put the emphasis on providing smorgasbord of special effects, the aliens are poorly designed and look about as convincing as those in Plan 9 From Outer Space.

The end result is neither scary, funny or remotely thought provoking. Indeed, the whole film feels like nothing more than a straight-to-DVD X-files spin-off.

In an effort to cover-up the entertainment vacuum, the directors have piled on the CGI in much the same way a budget fast food joint uses melted plastic cheese to mask the flavour of your three day old donkey burger.

Confronted by this utterly disinteresting sorry affair, I struggled to write even a single page of notes. Fortunately, my torpor was briefly alleviated when an army helicopter hovered into view and with it the impending prospect of a chopper fireball.

Thingy-me-jig and whats-her-name in Skyline

So, let’s set the scene. Skyline’s two anonymous protagonists Jarrod (Eric Balfour) and Elaine (Scottie Thompson) are holed up in an up-market apartment complex. But, with the aliens closing in, they try to escape by hailing down a passing chopper from the rooftop.

As it approaches, a large alien climbs up the side of the building and shoots two sticky tentacles from its claws which fix onto the chopper’s chassis. There is a short tug of war until the chopper succeeds in overpowering the alien with a volley of gunfire. Unfortunately, it’s here the problems begin.

As the alien tumbles off the side of the building it drags the chopper - to which it’s still attached - down with it. The doomed whirlybird is pulled into the tower block’s glass and concrete structure and goes up in flame, its rotor blades spinning off and narrowly missing the heads of our protagonists.

The rest of the fiery debris plummets to earth and crashes through a glass foyer.
Artistic merit

The exploding helicopter set piece is competently executed and I liked the way the shell of the helicopter comes straight at the camera from above, adding to the impact.

Exploding helicopter innovation

As a mostly innovation free film it comes as a surprise that the destruction of the helicopter is executed in such an unconventional manner. Until a giant chameleon sticks out its tongue and brings down a helicopter this will remain a unique set-piece.

Do passengers survive?

Rule 1 of the helicopters pilot’s character arc: if you haven’t got any lines and you tangle with a bad guy you will only ever end up as slightly charred worm food.

Positives

Apart from the helicopter explosion there is absolutely no need to watch this film.

Negatives

It’s hard to know where to start as this film misfires on almost every level.

A no-mark cast of actors are understandably unable to make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear. Donald Faison (Turk in Scrubs) pops up as a rapper and is mercifully dispatched half way through the film before he can tarnish his resume any further.

David Zayas (who you might recognise as Latino gang leader in prison drama Oz) plays a strangely aggressive concierge who has some awful lines: sample dialogue, “Vaya con Dios, you son of a bitch”. When the aliens come calling Zayas decides he’d rather take his own life and kills himself in a gas explosion. After watching this turkey you might want to do the same.

Despite being an effects driven movie nothing much interesting seems to happen for the bulk of the film. The dialogue is flat and, as most of the film is shot in the confines of an apartment block great swathes of the film are just plain dull.

A one location shoot is not a barrier to a good film. Phone Booth, 127 Hours and Glengarry Glen Ross prove movies with smart dialogue can use their restrictive environments to ratchet up the tension. The directors could have tried to show a siege mentally or evidence of cabin fever, but this is ignored in favour of more shots of clunky looking aliens floating about outside.

There’s no exploration of wider themes, such as the public’s reaction to an alien invasion, the possibilities of societal anarchy, or even why the aliens are there in the first place. No allegories to commercialism, secularism or politics are discussed let alone contemplated. Perhaps I’m expecting too much.

To top it all off the ending, and here we should issue a *spoiler alert*. is complete and utter baloney. The aliens, it turns out, use human brains as fuel. But, when Jarrod is captured and his brain harvested, he amazingly has the power to control the alien he‘s just been ingested by.

No-one else has this ability. And, this point cannot be made strongly enough: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO F*CKING EXPLANATION FOR HIS SPECIAL POWER! It comes apropos of nothing. All the poor viewer can do is throw up their hands and accept this important plot point like the moron the directors clearly expect you to be.

Favourite quote

(As the aliens revive themselves after being blasted by a rocket)
Jarrod: “They’re not dead. They’re just really p*ssed off!”

Interesting fact

A special mention should go to directors, The Brothers Strause. They have a background in effects work having been involved on the visuals for the Fantastic Four, The Day After Tomorrow and Terminator 3.

They then moved into directing and were responsible for the sh*tfest that was Alien v Predator: Requiem. All in all, tthey have an unenviable record of routinely making bad films.

Out of the $20m this cost to make (chicken feed by today’s mega-budget standards) only 2.5% of the budget went on physical production. The vast majority went on the effects costs.

Despite the thoroughly negative reviews the film made over $78m at the box office and you will probably see a sequel as a result. It goes to show the movie going public are mostly made up of f*cking idiots.

Review by: Neon Messiah

Mega Piranha

I blame Steven Spielberg.

With Jaws, the bearded boy wonder created the ‘blockbuster’, a cinematic carnivore that greedily devoured any movie minnow unfortunate enough to swim in its path.

More than that, Jaws’ success has spawned a veritable ocean full of watery creature-features over the years, including this one.

So, landlubbers, is this a prize catch? Are we going to fall for it hook, line and sinker – or is it just another old boot, fit only for throwing back into the water? Look at that title again, and take a wild guess…

The story begins with the chewed-up remains of an American ambassador and his boat mysteriously washing up on the shore of a Venezuelan river. Suspecting something (ahem) fishy, the US government send their top secret service agent (Paul Logan) to investigate.

But Logan doesn’t really need his deerstalker for this case, which most definitely isn’t a three-pipe problem. Far from it, in fact. Within minutes of flying into the country, he’s greeted by a helpful scientist (improbably played by Eighties pop princess Tiffany) who immediately tells him a shoal of genetically modified ‘mega piranhas’ are to blame.

It turns out the murderous meat-hungry fish are, predictably, the product of an experiment gone horribly wrong. (Do they ever turn out any other way in films like this?) With the mutated fish now the size of double-decker buses and chomping their way through legions of screaming extras, Logan and Professor Tiffany team up to try and prevent everyone from becoming glorified fish-food.

But wait! I hear you cry. Where’s the pointless, confusing and vaguely racist sub-plot involving a dusky military type up to no good, which has for so long been a staple of these films? Fear not, my friends, for here comes Diaz – a shady Venezuelan army colonel who’s up to something dodgy and mysterious in the jungle.

Paul Logan plays a top (and topless) secret agent

And yup, this boy really knows his mystery onions. Indeed, so secretive are the good colonel’s nefarious activities that, come the closing credits, you’ll most likely be none the wiser than you were at the start. There’s something almost Beckettian about Diaz’s involvement in the film, and the way in which his character sails blithely over such hum-drum concerns as plot and sense. It’s positively post-modern.

But sadly, none of this can stop Mega Piranha (2010) from becoming a poor addition to the pantheon of fishy thrillers? As a denizen of the cinematic deep, it’s a definite bottom-feeder.

Exploding Helicopter is by no means adverse to cheap and predictable thrills, but here there’s a sense that the filmmakers had ‘adequate’ as the very summit of their aspirations. A viewer needs to believe that somebody, somewhere is at least trying, but this is the film-making equivalent of watching someone treading water.

Contributing to this jaundiced feeling, literally, is the weird yellow tint that the whole film is shot in. Presumably meant to add a dusky ‘golden hour’ feel to the cinematography, it merely looks like the cameraman has dunked his lens into an egg yolk, or simply forgotten to adjust the contrast.

Even worse, for an action film, very little actually happens. Amid the conversational longeurs and paucity of thrills, the viewer is left flailing around for positives like a flounder on a line. Fortunately, as you’d expect in a film of this ilk, there’s some extremely questionable science on display, which thankfully provides a few fleeting moments of amusement.

Mutant piranhas should be fought with your feet

Particularly watchable is the credulity-stretching scene where Logan manages to top up his mobile phone battery by sucking on it, because “the acid in your saliva gives you ten per cent extra charge”.

Granted, most of the fortysomething DVD-viewing audience would probably have preferred to see Tiffany orally giving some ‘extra charge’ to a hard, rounded object, but the ridiculousness is enjoyable nonetheless.

Even better, it turns out battery blowjobs are just an entrée. Our heroes really up the bonkers-science gauge in a later scene, where they hotwire an aerosol can into the fuel supply of their helicopter to give it a ‘turbo boost’. Don’t try this at home, kids.

On the subject of helicopters, there are in fact two explosions to report but, like much else in this movie, they are pretty sub-standard fare. In the first scene, Diaz and his henchmen – armed with a couple of choppers – engage in an aerial dogfight with Logan and the good Professor, and the colonel fires a rocket at our heroes.

In the finest tradition of the exploding helicopter genre, Logan makes his helicopter dodge out the way just in the nick of time and the rocket naturally hits the other baddie whirlybird, which has conveniently chosen to circle round right into the missile’s path.

Later in the film, Diaz manages to destroy a helicopter he was actually aiming at, this time a rescue chopper called out by Logan. In both these scenes, admittedly, helicopters do actually explode – but, sad to say, this lacklustre movie never really seems in any real danger of catching fire.

Artistic merit

There’s some extremely poor conflagration on display here. Low budget CGI is used throughout and the explosions are nothing more than artificial yellowy smears in the sky.

Exploding helicopter innovation

We were this close to exploding helicopter history

Sadly, director Eric Forsberg settles for two routine chopper fireballs and completely fluffs his opportunity to make exploding helicopter history.

A third helicopter is destroyed when a giant piranha leaps from the ocean and grabs it between its jaws. Unfortunately, the helicopter doesn’t explode and remains intact as the piranha swims away with it clamped between its lethally sharp teeth.

Forsberg’s abject failure to actually explode a helicopter under such promising circumstances instantly condemns Mega Piranha to also-ran status.

Positives

Logan’s boss, the US Secretary of Defence (Barry Williams), is a joy to watch and perhaps the most trusting person in Congressional history.

When Logan phones to report that, contrary to everyone’s belief that a terrorist or criminal conspiracy was to blame, the ambassador was actually killed by bunch of mutant piranhas, the whole call goes, well, swimmingly.

Now, most people might have been a little nervous ahead of such a call. Would the secretary of defence think you’d completely lost your marbles having spent too much time out in the Venezuelan sun slurping banana daiquiris?

Would he demand copious documentary evidence of your outlandish claim before even countenancing that murderous genetically-modified super fish were responsible for this diplomatic crisis?

No, he basically says ‘Jeez, that sounds awful. Well done for solving the case.’? Just imagine the excuses you could come up with for being late for work with this guy…

Negatives

Tiffany: rocking her 'I think we're at home now look'

One of the few attractions of watching this film was the chance to catch a glimpse of Eighties pop moppet Tiffany, the flame-haired songstress who had a massive worldwide hit in 1987 with ‘I Think We’re Alone Now’ at the tender age of sweet sixteen.

Unfortunately, Tiffany seems here to have arrived on set straight from the school run. At least, that’s the impression given by the seriously frumpy hairdo and frowsy outfit she sports throughout the film. The vibe is definitely ‘I Think We’re At Home Now With Three Demanding Kids’. Well, that’s another teen crush, crushed.

Favourite quote

Talking about the piranhas: “Oh we’ll stop them. But you Greenpeacers aren’t going to like it.”

Interesting fact

Mega Piranhas was rushed out by its producers ‘The Asylum’ to exploit interest in Piranha- 3D. If your aspirational starting point is the execrable Piranha-3D (a rotten trout of a movie where several former Hollywood stalwarts – Ving Rhames, him from Scream – literally went to die) then there really was never any hope.

Review by: Jafo

Angels & Demons

After The Da Vinci Code inexplicably made money, Hollywood was always going to squeeze a bit more out of the Dan Brown cash cow. But there was a problem. Having already used the big – and famously nonsensical – bestseller, they had little choice but to go back to an earlier, even more incomprehensible novel.

There’s possibly not enough room on the internet to explain the full plot of this impenetrable book, but here’s a dummy’s guide. The Pope’s been murdered and the four cardinals most likely to succeed him kidnapped by a shadowy, sinister sect called the Illuminati. They are threatening to kill one cardinal each hour then blow up Vatican City at midnight. How? Simples. By using a powerful anti-matter bomb they nicked from priestly scientists who had been constructing it to help find the ‘God’ particle.

If that doesn’t make any sense to you, don’t worry – it’s because it doesn’t make any sense.

Enter expert symbologist Tom Hanks, sporting the kind of hair only ever seen on Hollywood men of a certain age. (Yes, we’re talking about you, Nicholas Cage and Sly Stallone. Indeed, Cage coiffure-watching is almost a spectator sport these days – his hairline seems to bob backwards and forwards like the tide. And, as mentioned in this website’s review of The Expendables 2, it was often hard in that film to tell when Stallone was or wasn’t wearing a black woollen beret.)

The Hankster’s barnet here is a prime example of the ‘Hollywood hair’ form. It’s dark, it’s impressively lustrous, but not really like any recognisable follicle arrangement you and I have ever come across. It’s more like a hair-hat, really. And styled in a demi-mullet, no less.

Sad to report, the problems don’t end with mere tonsorial matters. There’s a fundamental flaw at the heart of this non-movie, which is thus: Angels and Demons is a plot-heavy, labyrinthine novel – virtually a puzzle, in fact – with next to no characterisation. As such, and it’s hard to overstate this point, it’s a terrible fit for film adaptation.

Hanks' hair: an unrecognisable follicle arrangement

This sequel could easily have been called The Exposition Code. As soon as the Hankster meets his obligatory foxy Italian sidekick (Ayelet Zurer), they start busily explaining plot points to each other in a way that doesn’t remotely resemble a human conversation. And they don’t stop for the whole film.

For a deadening first hour, the pair simply rush from church to church, spouting saints’ names and other religious gobbledygook to each other. It’s literally impossible to keep track of what’s happening, and the scriptwriter was clearly as confused as anyone.

All this expository tomfoolery tips over into the absurd during a bizarre scene about half-way through. Tom (a peaceable academic, remember) enters a church to find a cardinal strung up and literally burning alive, then sees his cop friend viciously gunned down and only escapes the assassin’s bullets by diving into a scary, pitch-black cellar. Ye gods.

Finally rescued by the police, he stands in the wrecked church, bruised and battered, his dead cop friend at his feet and the smell of spit-roast cardinal heavy in the air.

So what does he do: collapse into tears? Crumple into a ball on the floor? Show the merest sign of emotion? Nope, he just says: “Right, we’re looking for a statue of a cross-eyed angel pointing westwards next to the Holy Chapel of Saint Badger…” (or something. I may paraphrase slightly) and bounds off to find the next clue.

And that’s it – no hint of upset or trauma: of anything, in fact. The truth is, there’s so little character to Hanks’ ‘character’ – and just so much plot to get through – that director Ron Howard has clearly thrown his hands up in the air and not even bothered to try.

So the whole thing is a (ahem) unholy shambles, but aerial conflagration enthusiasts are given a whiff of potential early on when Ewan MacGregor, dressed in a priestly cassock and with hands clasped in prayer, announces for no earthly reason whatsoever that he knows how to fly a helicopter.

As mentioned previously on Exploding Helicopter, our Ewan never saw a bad script he didn’t like the look of: his cinematic CV has more turkeys than a Tesco refrigerated shelf in mid-December. But even by his own high standards, this is a colossally bad choice. He plays the Vatican’s Camerlengo, a top Vatican official who, following the Pope’s murder, is actually the acting Pope.

That means, after Obi Wan Kinobi, Nick Leeson and numerous other bad choices, we finally get Pope Ewan the First. Truly, the Lord does work in mysterious ways. No wonder Benedict resigned.

But what about that grinding plot? After an arse-numbing amount of time, the action does finally reach a climax of sorts. We’re in some catacombs! They’ve found the bomb! There just happens to be a helicopter parked outside St Peter’s! Pope Ewan is a trained pilot! Surely he’s not going to take off for the high skies with the bomb and sacrifice himself in a spectacular explosion? Oh, yes!

Artistic merit

Given the chopper is already up beyond the clouds, the explosion itself takes the form of a night sky lighting up over the Vatican. The producers haven’t shirked on the tasteful CGI, and there’s something aesthetically pleasing about a ghostly light hovering over such a spiritual location. But then Pope Ewan suddenly ‘appears’ on a parachute and the whole thing turns unintentionally hilarious.

Exploding helicopter innovation

Exploding Helicopter has carefully checked the records, and there’s definitely not a previous entry under: holy man goes straight upwards in a bomb-laden chopper until it explodes, then unfeasibly drops back down on a flimsy piece of tarpaulin. That’s innovation in action, folks.

Positives

Scarcely the only entertainment to be gleaned from this mess comes from following the progression of MacGregor’s accent. In his introductory scene, he’s clearly aiming, badly, for an Irish accent, but five minutes later has fallen into the default Alec Guinness clipped English setting he uses for all non-Tartan outings.

A little later, he gets angry and it all goes a bit Trainspotting for a minute, but next thing he’s telling the Hankster ‘I was orphaned at nine years of age by a bombing in Ulster’ and suddenly it’s like the Reverend Ian Paisley has been given a five-minute cameo.

Ewan’s grandstand scene, when he appeals to all the cardinals for more understanding between religion and science, is in itself a model of inclusivity, containing as it does a rich array of accents – including, at one point, possibly Cornish.

Negatives

Given the profundity of choice on offer here, it’s perhaps best to focus in on the single greatest error – namely, that someone showed Ron Howard the script for Angels and Demons.

Favourite quote

“You’re talking about THE moment of creation…”
This fatuous line, pompously delivered by Hanks in his most sonorous tones, neatly captures all that is hammy and terrible about the movie.

Interesting fact

This movie portrays the Catholic Church as a sinister and introverted organisation beset by deadly rivalries, which will stop at nothing to hide its dirty laundry from the public. So, entirely fictional, then.

Review by: Chopper

Listen to the Exploding Helicopter podcast on Angels & Demons on iTunes, Podomatic, Stitcher, or YourListen. Or hear it right now on the embedded player. 

Doomsdayer

For every hero, there must be a villain. And, as the cinematic canon expands, the need for ever more colourful baddies – with grander and more ingenious schemes with which to threaten the world – only grows.

Bravely rising to this challenge, Hollywood has exploited every possible reason and unlikely motive for villainous skulduggery, giving us a memorable rogues’ gallery of scoundrels in the process.

We’ve had terrorists out for a spot of nuclear blackmail (think Art Malik in True Lies), disgruntled ex-employees out to avenge themselves with oriental elaborateness on their old boss (Javier Bardem in Skyfall), even attempts by intergalactic-beings to enslave the human race (Terence Stamp in Superman II). 

Why, we’ve even seen Nazi war criminals try to recreate the Third Reich by populating the world with infants cloned from Hitler (hats off to Gregory Peck in The Boys From Brazil, featuring a plot so epically bonkers you almost want it to succeed. Well, almost). 

So where could Hollywood’s dark, twisted imagination go next? Surely the pool of poisonous evil-doers intent on destroying the world has been exhausted?

Oh, happy day – it is not so. There does remain, it would appear, one last group whose potential for unspeakable evil has yet to be utilised on celluloid. A twisted coven whose veneer of respectability harbours a secret desire for global Gotterdammerung.

But who are these evil masterminds, I hear you ask? Well, let me tell you. They are…philanthropists.
Yes, that’s right: philanthropists. Do-gooders. Charity types. People with spectacles and no shoulder muscles. Who, according to Doomsdayer (2000), apparently want to tear the world apart – presumably between tea breaks and reading The Guardian.

Udo Kier: millionaire and mentalist

Meet Max Gast (Udo Kier): a millionaire businessman and bleeding heart liberal who has already spanked away great chunks of his fortune funding good causes aimed at preventing disease, protecting the environment, promoting global peace and saving furry little animals.

Nothing to worry about there, you might think. But unfortunately, the world’s population are proving to be an ungrateful lot. And, much to Gast’s frustration, they’ve continued waging deadly conflicts and plundering the planet’s resources.

Now, men of more limited imagination would simply mutter bitterly about the ingratitude of mankind, put away their cheque book and get on with racking up a few more ka-squillion quid.

But our Max isn’t afraid to think big, and instead conceives of a bigger and altogether more radical plan. The basic idea, taken from page one of the Megalomaniac’s Guide to Really Getting Your Point Across, is thus: to create, first one must destroy.

To this end, Gast develops the ‘doomsdayer’ – a device capable of causing the simultaneous meltdown of every nuclear weapon and power plant on Earth. According to Gast’s wonky logic, the few thousand souls who manage to survive the subsequent cataclysmic Armageddon will be so chastened by the experience, they will build a new, better world - one more in tune with his own utopian vision.

It’s a lot to take in. And if you’re struggling to get your head round the rotten madness of this idea, just try and imagine Bill Gates suddenly deciding: ‘To hell with curing polio, what I really want to do is blow everything up, kill billions of people, and keep my fingers crossed that somehow magically solves everything‘. Think of it as a kind of ‘control, alt, delete’ moment for the human race.

Fortunately, a secret security unit run by the United Nations learns of Gast’s plans. Naturally, given the literally world-threatening nature of the evil plan, they opt for a softly-softly approach and send their top agent Jack Logan (Joe Lara) to infiltrate Gast’s base and stop the launch of the ‘doomsdayer’.

Cool African poster design

With a villain this unlikely, it’s obviously going to take one hell of an actor to sell the whole lunatic premise to the viewer. Luckily, in Udo Kier (Blade, Iron Sky), Doomsdayer has the perfect salesman for the job.

With an eerie, aloof demeanour, Kier delightfully portrays his character’s slowly-pickled evil.  His mellifluous German accent and purring delivery are wonderfully complemented by his pale grey eyes, which have all the humanity of a paving slab.

There’s an excellent scene early in the film where Kier chairs what turns out to be the final (in fact, very final for some) meeting of his charitable foundation. After running through its assorted failures, he outlines with chilling placidity his ‘doomsdayer’ scheme to the assembled trustees.

The earnest charity types are naturally appalled and start to protest. But Kier – having no further use for them – has had the forethought to poison their drinks. Before they can start droning earnest objections to his homicidal scheme, they all slump down dead on the boardroom table. It’s a hell of a way to chair a meeting. I guess they should have read the agenda more carefully.

Unfortunately, the vivid camp of Kier’s performance contrasts sharply with the hero, here played by Joe Lara. He’s a thoroughly bland presence. In fact, he rather started to remind me of a toaster: something that pops up every couple of minutes with a dry, plain, and unutterably dull product.

Still, aside from saving the world, Lara does serve one useful function in the film – and that’s to help explode that all important helicopter.

Trying to break into Gast’s headquarters, Lara is discovered and pursued by the villain’s private army. To stop the pesky protagonist, Gast despatches his attack helicopter – the sexily named Black Widow.

The rather white looking 'Black Widow' chopper

Quite why the chopper is called the Black Widow is somewhat mysterious. Not least because said whirlybird is completely white in colour. Anyway, the viewer has little time to quibble over this as the chopper fires a succession of rockets at Lara, who tries to escape in a truck.

It looks like only a matter of time before our hero is cremated. But luckily, the Black, White or Whatever Widow is fitted with a remote control, the purpose of which (like the confusing colour of the livery) remains obscure.

Still, said device does allow Lara’s buddy to hack into the chopper’s controls and command it to dump all its fuel. Sans petrol, the pursuing chopper plummets from the sky and crashes into the ground. No more Black Widow.

Artistic merit

Disgraceful. Despite an impressive amount of pyrotechnics throughout the film, the producer’s piggybank was clearly empty by this point.

Given that they couldn’t even afford a coat of paint to make their white helicopter look a little more, well, black, there was obviously little prospect of them being able to afford to blow the thing up properly.

To avoid showing a crash or explosion, the director cuts to what’s supposed to be the view from the helicopter’s cockpit. We see trees rushing towards the camera, while some poorly dubbed in, off-camera voices shout in fear, before we cut to a generic explosion which we‘re supposed to believe is the helicopter exploding. 

It’s a sorry, shoddy, sequence. In the general canon of chopper fireballs, Doomsdayer stands out as a larcenous crime, a permanent stain on the rich tapestry of cinematic helicopter explosions. Shocking.

Exploding helicopter innovation

The destruction of remote-controlled helicopters is not without precedent. We’ve previously seen it in Arnold Schwarzenegger’s cloning thriller The 6th Day and dire sequel Lawnmower Man 2.
But in the Black/White Widow, we do have the destruction of the most misnamed helicopter of all-time – a first of some sort.

Positives

Time was that no car chase would be complete without one of the pursuing vehicles smashing into a petrol tanker that just happened, with startling convenience, to be pulling out of a side road. This generic trope provided the perfect excuse to deliver many an audience-pleasing huge explosion.

Sadly, there then came a time, around the mid-Nineties, when even Hollywood – never usually overly embarrassed on the subject of clichés – felt even they couldn’t get away with that one anymore.

So, imagine my retro delight when Doomsdayer served up a superb, late example of the art, having a car crash into a fuel truck which was inexplicably parked in the middle of nowhere. Some pleasures never get old.

Negatives

Brigitte Nielsen or possibly Dolph Lundgren in drag

Brigitte Nielsen plays Gast's wife and co-conspirator in the ‘doomsdayer‘ scheme. Unquestionably a striking beauty in her Eighties heyday, the Teutonic Titaness always had an imposing physique which made her look just a little bit like a man.

Made at the turn of the millennium, there's noticeable rust round the Nielsen chassis. It’s probably the last time we see Brigitte before her looks completely disintegrated into the ‘Dolph Lundgren in drag’ look we know and love today.

Favourite quote

I loved this statement of the bleeding obvious when a top brass military type answers a telephone call in a packed conference room: “Yes, Prime Minister…Certainly, Prime Minister…Of course, Prime Minister…At once, Prime Minister.”

Grizzled general then replaces handset, before announcing to the surprise of no-one: “That was the Prime Minister.”

Review by: Jafo