STACK #132 Oct 2016

CINEMA

REVIEWS

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MAZE RUNNER: THE SCORCH TRIALS

EVEREST

RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Wes Ball CAST: Dylan O'Brien, Thomas Brodie-Sangster, Aidan Gillen RATING: M

Everest might look like a traditional Hollywood disaster movie with an all-star cast in a mountain of trouble, but once you strap in for the ascent, you'll realise it's anything but. Based on the 1996 true-life tragedy that befell a group of climbers led by Kiwi Rob Hall (Jason Clarke in one of his finest performances to date), this is the cinematic equivalent of scaling Everest, right down to the minutiae involved in reaching the summit from base camp. In the hands of a more flashy filmmaker, Everest would have been a disaster of a movie, but Icelandic director Baltasar Kormákur balances the spectacle and high adventure with verisimilitude and the most immersive use of 3D since Gravity. This dedication to realism makes several scenes particularly difficult to watch ; flesh blackening from frostbite, bodies freezing solid on the mountainside, and the debilitating and life-threatening effects of high altitude. Moreover, the time taken to get to know the characters (from Jake Gyllenhaal's hippie guide to Josh Brolin's rich Texan) before the mother of all blizzards sweeps in and disaster strikes makes their respective fates all the more impactful. You'll exit the theatre exhausted and with a newfound respect for those with the fortitude to conquer the world's highest peak. Scott Hocking FURTHER VIEWING: Touching the Void, Cliffhanger RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: Baltasar Kormákur CAST: Jake Gyllenhaal, Jason Clarke, Keira Knightley RATING: M

When we last left Thomas (Dylan O’Brien) and his fellow Gladers, they’d successfully completed the maze trials and discovered that the Earth has been scorched by a solar flare that also unleashed a deadly virus, to which they are all immune. And that WCKD – the World Catastrophe Killzone Department – is every bit as sinister as its acronym. Transferred to a way station, Thomas discovers the true nature of WCKD’s possible cure and what it means for his group (it's not good), necessitating an escape into the “Scorch” where they must negotiate a desert wasteland and the ruins of civilisation in order to reach the mountains and a revolutionary group opposed to WCKD, who offer sanctuary for the immune. The Scorch Trials is a much bigger and more visually impressive film than its predecessor, and for the most part delivers a familiar but rousing trip across a blasted landscape overrun by hordes of zombie-like infected (known as Cranks). But it ultimately slips into the familiar groove established by prior YA adventures. The Maze Runner raised more questions than it answered. The Scorch Trials provides the answers, as well as the realisation that it’s time for the young adult dystopian sci-fi genre to diverge from formula and play a different kind of game. Scott Hocking FURTHER VIEWING: Divergent, The Hunger Games

STRAIGHT OUTTA COMPTON

THE WALK

RATING KEY: Wow! Good Not bad Meh Woof!

"F*** the Police!" we hear you cry as director F. Gary Gray delivers his epic opus on the true story behind NWA, the group that forged new roads into rap/gangster popular culture. It’s all here in glorious colour and no punches pulled (well, maybe a few) as we watch Ezy E, Dr Dre and Ice Cube change the face of American popular music during the late ‘80s, early ‘90s; complete with automatic weapons, copious drugs, countless women dancing near pools in bikinis, and crooks aplenty. Clocking in at just over two hours, SOC packs in as much as possible between a young Cube writing lyrics on a school bus and Dre walking out of Death Row (records, that is). To say the young actors portraying these figures of legend are ‘good’ is a gross understatement; uncanny physical resemblances aside, they are simply amazing. The tone, texture and delivery of this piece is worthy of any mega-budget offering you’re likely to see, with set-pieces that are intimidating to say the least. Drama and cinematic tension does take a back seat to the ‘factual displays’ we all want to see, but hey, that’s the biz, yo! Yes, you need to see it, even just for the feeling of that bass during the live performances alone. Chris Murray FURTHER VIEWING: Boyz n the Hood, 8 Mile RELEASED: Now Showing DIRECTOR: F. Gary Gray CAST: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell RATING: MA15+

Robert Zemeckis made the amazing Back to the Future trilogy, but he also made the self-important horror that was Forrest Gump . Thus while capable of brilliance, he’s also able to deliver slices of over-sweet sponge cake you know you’ll be vomiting up later. Somewhere in the middle is this visual spectacle that's being sold on the popularity of the award-winning 2008 doco Man on Wire – the story of a crazy Frenchman who pulled off an illegal high-wire walk between the Twin Towers in 1974. Squinty talent-bucket Joseph Gordon-Levitt is perfect as the over-the-top French annoyance, Philippe Petit. An ‘always-on’ performer, Petit is the kind of guy you don’t mind meeting at a party, but you want him (and his unicycle) out the door after an hour. A love story is explored, then quickly abandoned, and it’s full steam ahead to the greatest coup of all – sneaking up the World Trade Centre and setting this mad caper up. This is where the film shines brightest; played with such solid tension and panache, you can forgive the ‘oh my, isn’t this quaint’ hour or so leading up to it. The 3D and FX are brilliant, and the fact we know this actually happened stops us from thinking the scale is way too far fetched. The Walk is safe, A-grade family fun all the way, unless you’re scared of heights. Chris Murray FURTHER VIEWING: Man on Wire RELEASED: Oct 15 DIRECTOR: Robert Zemeckis CAST: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ben Kingsley, Charlotte Le Bon RATING: PG

OCTOBER 2015

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