Box office bomb – Page 7

Just your standard Giant Meets Boy Gets Chased by Female Assassins Riding Giant Worms Story. Really didn’t anyone learn anything from Dune?

Director: Alex Proyas
Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Horus), Gerard Butler (Set), Geoffrey Rush (Ra), Benton Thwaites (Bek), Chadwick Boseman (Thoth), Elodie Yung (Hathar), Courtenay Eaton (Zaya), Rufus Sewell (Urshu), Bryan Brown (Osiris)

Oh good lord where to begin. It’s not so much that this is a terrible film – although it is. It’s not offensive or unpleasant. It’s just a film that is almost impossible to take seriously whatever. It’s a fat, bloated, overblown mess where the plot makes almost no sense, the design is totally ridiculous, the acting bored or unengaging, and the directing totally lacking any charisma. It’s a film you can only laugh it, except for the fact that it’s so lamentably badly that it’s not even that funny. There is so little joy in the making of this bloated fart of a picture, that even as a joke it falls flat.

As far as I can tell, in a fictionalised ancient Egypt the Gods live among men. Horus’ coronation as the new king is interrupted by his uncle Set who seizes the throne, removes Horus’ eyes and sets about turning the realm into a dictatorship. He has some sort of overall plan but I’m really not sure what it was. Something to do with immortality or something. The film barely cares so neither should you. Set is a baddie. Horus is supposed to be a goodie, I guess, but he is such a humourless, arrogant, cold and (above all) boring God you probably won’t give a toss about him.

The film is a disaster almost from start to finish. In a decision that guarantees giggles every few minutes, the Gods are all 9 feet high, making the humans look like chippy midgets. Poor forced perspective hammers home this ridiculousness every few seconds. If this didn’t make the Gods silly enough, they also have some bizarre metal “battle modes” they transform into, which along with some piss poor special effects makes them look like refugees from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. The colours are bright and primary and the sets all have the sheen of CGI, lacking any substance. The design decisions cross swiftly from daring into dumb. If you ever wanted to see a flying chariot pulled by winged scarabs or to see mix and match female hitmen ride giant worms chasing a giant and his normal sized friend, well hallelujah your day has come, this is the film for you.

The script, such as it is, is a loosely connected series of incoherent events. The acting is simply awful. Coster-Waldau completely lacks the big screen presence to carry the movie, his upper crust arrogance from Game of Thrones here comes across as insufferable and dull. Thwaites comic relief is about as funny as a hernia and his quest to save his true love has all the drama of running to catch a bus. Boseman aims for wisdom and grace but delivers camp and affectation in a truly terrible performance. Butler does at least have a bit of charisma, even though Set is such a poorly defined character he’s impossible to get interested in. Various other actors chip in autopilot performances for the cash. The female characters are little more than props. Geoffrey Rush needs a new agent: seriously how much money does he need?

The biggest problem though is it isn’t quite ridiculous, campy or shite enough to be a camp classic. Instead it’s just boring. It doesn’t have the sort of cosmic sweep or visual splendour to give you something to look at. Instead it’s loud, boring and stinks like animal droppings. That’s the worst thing of all: not even as a camp classic will this be remembered. Simply crap.

Johnny Depp works overtime to make this film unpopular. He succeeded.

Director: Gore Verbinski
Cast: Johnny Depp (Tonto), Armie Hammer (John Reid), William Fichtner (Butch Cavendish), Tom Wilkinson (Latham Cole), Ruth Wilson (Rebecca Reid), Helena Bonham-Carter (Red Harrington), James Badge Dale (Dan Reid), Barry Pepper (Captain Jay Fuller)

In 2013 this big budget misfire produced a record loss for Disney. Spiralling out of control the film cost a bomb then blew up like one at the box office much to the delight of film critics and audiences alike who enjoy nothing more than watching some suits and A-list stars fall flat on their face. Reviews were damning and the film took its place as one of the ultimate box office turkeys.

All of which is a little unfair, as to be honest this isn’t really that bad a film. Which is not to say it’s that good either, because it ain’t. It’s an average B picture with a huge budget and an over inflated running time, but it has a decent Act 1 and Act 3 and ends with an excellent train chase sequence that I enjoyed so much I watched it again immediately after the film finished.

So what are the problems? The main one for me is Johnny Depp, who here is at the absolute peak of his wave of replacing acting with a bunch of mannerisms and quirky moments. This is one of the most irritating Depp performances on film, his Tonto a pile of odd costumes, muttered gags and winks to the audience. I can see Depp is amused, but I’m not sure anyone else is. I also suspect Depp announced this was how he was going to play the role and if Verbinski didn’t like it he could get stuffed.

But other than that, Armie Hammer is rather sweet and endearing as the straight as an arrow Ranger, displaying a lot more wit than Depp’s painted showing off. Ruth Wilson does her best with a truly thankless damsel in distress role. Tom Wilkinson, William Fichtner and Barry Pepper present three very different villains. Helena Bonham Carter gives a bizarre performance as a madam with ivory legs (yes you read that right.).

The film’s main problem is it is far too long and too poorly structured. The opening act is engaging and introduces the characters effectively with a decent action scene or two, but it starts to overdo its welcome after 40 minutes or so. A framing device of Tonto narrating the story to a child in the 1920s offers nothing more than padding and more Depp showing off. Act 2 meanders around slowly, working up to showing that all the suspicious people in the film are working together, draining the momentum out of the film. Shock baddie reveals are only surprising to those of us who have never seen a film before.

However the film is partly redeemed by its final 30 minutes, in particular an astonishingly high octane, exciting and fun train chase sequence, brilliantly cut to the Lone Ranger theme that gives every character a chance to shine and both grips the viewer and leaves them with a smile on their face. Shame the rest of the film can’t match it, but it’s still better than many others manage.

A single sequence doesn’t make it a classic, and an engaging actor (Hammer) who creates a character that you care about doesn’t keep the attention throughout the whole 140 minutes, but it’s far from a disaster and much better than many successful big budget hits. Shame about Depp. And sorry for those who loved turkeys. This is just an average film. In about 10 years it will probably be getting a re-evaluation.