Classic Movie Review: The NeverEnding Story (1984)

For people of a certain age, this film is considered to be an epic movie for them. Whilst the movie was a while before my time, there was a short-lived animated series in the mid-90s that I watched so I do know the characters without knowing the story.

It is the story of Bastian Bux (Barret Oliver), a schoolboy who has just lost his mother. One day, while being chased by bullies, he finds refuge in Mr Koreander's (Thomas Hill) bookshop. He steals a volume called The Neverending Story and goes to school to read it. He hides in the attic during the day.

In the land of Fantasia, a mysterious force known as the Nothing is swallowing the everything and leaves only darkness behind. At the Ivory Tower, the people of Fantasia have come to see if the Childlike Empress (Tami Stronach). But the presence of the Nothing has made her sick, but she has summoned a powerful warrior known as Atreyu (Noah Hathaway) to find a cure.

Atreyu travels across the land of Fantasia encountering many of it's people. In the Swamps of Sadness, Atreyu loses his horse, only to be then saved by a luck dragon, Falkor (voiced by Allen Oppenheimer), who takes him to the Southern Oracle. The Oracle tells him that he must find a Human boy to give the Empress a new name, thus saving Fantasia.

Meanwhile, in the real world, night time has fallen and Bastian remains in the school attic. As the story progresses, he discovers that he is the boy that must save Fantasia. He has an internal struggle and finally gives in, naming the Empress at the very last moment.

This is one movie that all kids must see (and by that, I mean everyone up to the age of 30). It gave me a feeling of warmth inside because it really does inspire hope for those with big imaginations.

It is amazing to see the pre-CGI effects in this movie. It has a lot of early blue screen images as well as some visual editing techniques that you just don't see anymore. The most fantastic elements are the puppets. To see Falkor interacting with Atreyu in a physical way that is real is amazing to watch.

There are some elements that don't fly in our modern world, and one of those is negligence that adults have. No one cares that Bastian doesn't show up for classes or that he's not been seen all day. Nor does anyone stop the kids who are obviously harassing him in the middle of the day in the middle of the city. And then, an obviously deranged bookshop owner actively starts a child's early shoplifting career. No wonder this kid wants to escape to Fantasia.

One scene that apparently gets everyone sad, is when Atreyu's horse, Artax dies in the Swamps of Sadness. You don't need to cry. We've known this kid for like five minutes when it happens, there's no need.

Verdict: An overall fun movie that everyone has to see. So go out, watch it with your friends, your kids, whoever.

The Company You Keep

This movie is kind of like The Expendables, but instead of washed up action heroes of the 80s, all the actors are classic 70s stars, some of whom you'll recognise and some of whom you won't, and instead of brutal action, it is a complex thriller storyline.

The story focuses on young hotshot reporter for the Albany Sun-Times Ben Shepard (Shia LaBeouf), who after seeing the capture and arrest of a fugitive wanted for a bank robbery in the 70s, Sharon Solarz (Susan Sarandon), follows the story of trying to find the others involved. One of these suspects is James Grant (Robert Redford). Grant, after seeing the capture of Solarz, decides to track down the other person involved in the robbery, so that he can clear his own name.

This leads Grant on a journey through a web of people from his past, all involved in anti-war and anti-government groups in the 70s. Shepard is figuring out some of these connections himself, but hot on Grant's tail is the FBI, led by Agent Cornelius (Terrence Howard). These three people all have their own motivation for finding the third person involved.

I personally have never been a huge fan of Robert Redford. I've seen a few of his films from the 1970s and his last film that he directed as well (2007s Lions For Lambs) and none of his work has ever resonated for me. I found that this film was just motivation for a lot of actors of his generation to come out and play.

There are some good performances in the cameos. Susan Sarandon is haunted by her past actions and needs closure. Julie Christie plays a still psychotic terrorist. The performances from Chris Cooper (American Beauty) and Richard Jenkins (Cabin In The Woods, still one of my favourites that I will get around to reviewing) are stunning. However brief these performances are, there is a resonance that comes through.

The younger generation get a good representation in this film. LaBeouf has come very far from his Transformers days (until another one comes out). His Shepard is a driven reporter who just wants to know the truth, rather than anything else. Brit Marling, who is a relative newcomer, portrays the daughter of one of the officers who initially investigated the robbery. She is only in a few scenes, but she plays them with conviction.

Verdict: Robert Redford has weaved a complex thriller about the past that is decent enough, but could do better.

Oblivion

I think someone is going to have to face some copyright infringement charges soon and if they don't it's a damn shame. Instead of reviewing this movie, I could review about five others, but I'll keep it simple.

Jack Harper (Tom Cruise) is a technician working on Earth sixty years after a race called Scavengers (Scavs, for short) destroyed the Moon and sent the world into disarray. Tsunamis and earthquakes wiped out most of the population, with the rest escaping to a space station (almost like the Death Star), called the Tet. He lives in a tower with his communications officer, and implied lover, Victoria (Andrea Riseborough).

Harper's main job is to maintain drones that patrol the area around massive harvesters, which turn sea water into fusion energy. Whilst out on these missions, he routinely has run ins with Scavs. One day whilst chilling out in his hideaway, he sees a crashing spaceship, where he finds human survivors. One of them is a woman from the dreams he has been having. Turns out this is his wife, Julia (Olga Kurylenko). They are then attacked by Scavs and taken back to their stronghold.

When they get there, the Scavs reveal themselves to be regular humans and that the drones are actually there to wipe out humans. We meet their leader, Malcolm Beech (Morgan Freeman), and his lieutenant, Sykes (Nickolaj Coster-Waldau). Beech initially tries to get Jack to reprogram a drone with a bomb to destroy the Tet. After Jack refuses, Beech tells him to go into the radiation zone for an explanation. Jack and Julia go there only to find a clone of Jack. We find out that there a thousands of Jack Harper and that they really destroyed the Earth.

Jack decides to go back and help the humans destroy the Tet, but not before a big battle that claims the life of Beech. Both Beech and Jack go and destroy the Tet.

Now unless you have seen a lot of sci-fi movies you may not see the copyright problems. Lucky for you, I'm here. This is all just a big budget remake of the 2009 independent film Moon. In that, an engineer on the Moon is weeks away from coming home. His main task is the maintenance of harvesters that extract Helium 3, a clean energy power, from the surface of the Moon and send it back to an overpopulated Earth. Oblivion just reversed that to take it to a Death Star. As the film progresses, we find out that the main character is just one of many clones that gets recycled every three years. Oblivion just does this on a larger scale.

Last week, I read a funny article on HuffPost that showed the similarities between the Oblivion poster and the poster for Top Gun. I thought it was funny and it soon left my mind. The parallels didn't stop there. Jack Harper also is an ace fighter pilot, only this movie lacked Val Kilmer and a volleyball. Keen eyes will spot references to Planet of the Apes and Alien as well.

Now, the acting. Tom Cruise seemed very hollow and distracted in this movie. It's as if the Tripods took it out of him in his last sci-fi film. I am normally a big fan of Olga Kurylenko, but I wasn't too keen on her performance this time around.

Morgan Freeman did his job as an exposition teller and ended the movie in a big bad way. Nickolaj Coster-Waldau (the Kingslayer himself, Jamie Lannister), seemed to be playing future Jamie Lannister with a high power rifle and Academy Award Winner Melissa Leo wasted her talents for a couple of minutes.

This movie did look good though. Lots of great landscapes and worn down monuments we all know. I had a good debate with my friend about whether it was all green screen, but we ended in a stalemate.

Verdict: A blatant rip off of others that came before. I would only really watch for the good CGI. Not too much action.

Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies isn't your average zombie flick, nor is it your average romantic comedy. Yet Warm Bodies seems to fulfil both genres.

Warm Bodies chronicles the story of R (Nicholas Hoult), a zombie who shuffles around an airport and occasionally spends time with his best friend M (Rob Corddry). During a food hunt into the city, R comes across Julie (Teresa Palmer), a human who was out looking for medical supplies. After eating Julie's boyfriend, Perry (Dave Franco), R sees Julie and immediately falls in love with her. He manages to calm her down and takes her to the plane where he lives. The two eventually bond, which causes R to come back to life.

After a couple of days, Julie is anxious to return home and R convinces her to let him join her, only to be abandoned by her. On his way back to the airport, R comes across M, who tells him that he and his group of zombies were kicked out of the airport by the Bonies, a form of zombie that has reached a new level of decomposition. M tells R that all the other zombies have started to come back to life and the Bonies feel threatened by this and that they are looking for him and Julie.

R uses the memories of Perry to find a secret entrance to the city, so that he can tell Julie the good and bad news. Once there, he meets Julie's friend, Nora (Analeigh Tipton), and her bitter and aggressive father, Colonel Grigio (John Malkovitch). R eventually convinces them of the Bonie threat by showing them that he can bleed (zombies don't bleed). Grigio turns his efforts to wiping out the Bonies.

This movie is really funny. Not in a hysterically funny way, but in a sustained and prolonged way, so that you feel satisfied by the humour in it. Most of the jokes come from R's internal monologue about his feelings toward Julie. That's another thing this movie does. It portrays the angst of youth and the feelings you get when you meet someone you like. Also the awkwardness. Lots of that.

Nicholas Hoult (Skins) is amazing as R. His portrayal of a thinking zombie is something that has never been done before and it certainly gives an insight into their motivations. His long and gangly body also helps get in the way of his movements (as we've seen before in X-Men: First Class).

Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer's Apprentice) fantastically plays Julie. At the start, we see her confusion about R saving her and then how she falls for him. The inner conflict in her character is always there, but her performance is so captivating that you don't notice.

The rest of the cast is rounded out with performances from Rob Corddry (Moses Taylor for you Arrested Development fans out there), Dave Franco (brother of James) and John Malkovich (who still haunts my dreams).

Verdict: Warm Bodies is a really satisfying comedy about a situation that isn't. Not since Zombieland have I laughed so hard at zombies. But that was also it's downfall. No Bill Murray.

Identity Thief

It occurs to me that Jason can only play two characters; Jason Bateman and Michael Bluth. While it may seem that they are two different characters, they aren't that far removed. In this movie, he is definitely playing Jason Bateman.

The plot of this movie is simple enough. Sandy Patterson (Jason Bateman) has his identity stolen by an overweight Florida resident (Melissa McCarthy). Sandy has just become a senior VP at a new financial firm when he discovers the bad news. The police inform him that they can do nothing about it, as it is outside their jurisdiction. Sandy hatches a plan in which he will coerce the other Sandy to confess her crime to his boss Daniel (John Cho). So off he goes to Florida, only to discover that he must drive back to Denver with his detainee.

So what seems like a simple road trip movie is slightly complicated by the fact that the other Sandy (real name Diana) is being followed by both a bounty hunter and two drug dealers controlled by a mysterious prisoner (Jonathan Banks). I found that these characters added an extra layer to the film that was not really needed, but didn't detract from the main storyline too much.

It seems that Seth Gordon has just taken Bateman's character from his last film Horrible Bosses and just put him in a new situation. The jokes in the film aren't hysterically funny, but they aren't unfunny either.

Jason Bateman's character Sandy is a kind of hapless sort who falls into the situation that causes him all this grief very easily. His role here is very much as a straight man to McCarthy, with lots of jokes at his expense about his feminine name. I feel as though Melissa McCarthy is quite up to the standard that she has been in the past. I found the funniest jokes from her were the ones where she tries to sing.

There were a few good cameos from Jon Favreau, Eric Stonestreet and Jonathan Banks (of Breaking Bad fame, fans of that character will recognise him instantly), but all these characters stories never got resolved and it would have been good just to have a round up of them in the closing credits.

Verdict: It's a bit of gamble seeing this movie. You could find McCarthy's antics hilarious or grating. It works well as a road trip movie, but Todd Philips has done better.