Film Matters Magazine

Moonrise Kingdom (2012) is the story of the runaway love between Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward) and Sam Shakusky (Jared Gilman) on New Penzance island in the mid 1960s. He is a Khaki Scout without a real home, and she, a disturbed raven in the church play who would do anything not to have one. Together they are content to simply dance to French pop or listen to Suzy read, but only when they are not facing the challenges posed to them by all the authority that the adult world has to offer: Suzy’s lawyer parents (Bill Murray and Frances McDormand), an earnest Khaki Scout leader (Edward Norton), a sad police chief (Bruce Willis), and Social Services (Tilda Swinton).

It’s a good film. I realise this isn’t the most insightful, eloquent or objective way to describe such a massively expansive film but it’s definitely accurate. The Dark Knight Rises is certainly entertaining; the story is rich and finds something to do with its large cast of characters, and presents Gotham City in a way the cinematic audience has never seen it before. Broken.

Breaking things seems to be the main theme of TDKR, so much so that the film in itself comes across as broken as its characters at times, raising questions like “How did he get there?” “Why are they doing that on the floor when they’ve only met twice?” and “If that was supposed to be a dream then why is that character taking the information he learned in it as fact?” Occasionally the continuity and logic are such a shambles you wonder which episode of Breaking Bad it was that the Nolan brothers were being distracted by while they were supposed to be writing.

Marc Webb knows how to sling a movie together, he really does, and he seems to have honed his skills with each project he’s worked on; obviously that’s what any good director should do but the sheer amount of improvement to his stylistic vision is spectacular.

Among the many faults with the original Spider-Man trilogy, the one that most stood out was its lack of any recognisable Peter Parker. Fortunately this is very much not the case in The Amazing Spider-Man; Andrew Garfield’s interpretation of the awkward, dorky teenager with an inferiority complex and immense fear of women is perfect. Not just good, genuinely flawless. Not only in personality either; the stances and movements when in costume are so accurate they may very well have used the comic panels as storyboards.

“I’ll be shooting fer my own hand,” proclaims Merida in a TV spot for Disney and Pixar’s last animated movie, Brave (2012). This and other promotional advertisements for the film pitched it as a novel adaptation of a classic fairy tale, updated for 21^st century sensibilities and technologies. Brave follows a recent string of successful fairy tale animations released in the past decade—such as The Princess and the Frog in 2009 and Tangled in 2010. These three features all utilize the recognizable princess-centered plots that continue to bring success and popularity to Disney with each new generation of youth.

Finding a decent enough film about love these days will always be an endeavour, and finding a genuinely funny rom-com that doesn’t make you feel woozy with the diabetes it gives you from being so overly sugary is a very difficult task. While The Five-Year Engagement (2012) remains grounded and self-aware enough to not seem treacly, it doesn’t quite leave enough of a mark with its audience as it could do.

The Five-Year Engagement is a romantic comedy about a couple that are deeply in love, but can’t seem to find time to actually tie the knot, as they are inadvertently blockaded at every opportunity by work and family affairs.

The Raid is an Indonesian martial arts/action movie about a S.W.A.T Team who raid an apartment complex, taking on a crime lord’s henchmen, and there are a couple of fight scenes hidden away too.

I am always wary of action movies because they are generally, reliably tedious, but that’s why I love film because there are always exceptions that just blow your mind, The Raid finds itself up there with Taken (2008) to be one of the most beautifully crafted action films in existence. (Don’t argue with me: Snatch, 2000, was boring.)