Posts Tagged ‘Matthew Macfadyen’

Deadpool & Wolverine

Director: Shawn Levy

Cast: Ryan Reynolds, Hugh Jackman, Emma Corrin, Matthew Macfadyen, Channing Tatum, Wesley Snipes, Jennifer Garner, Chris Evans, Henry Cavill, Morena Baccarin, Rob Delaney, Aaron Stanford

Running Time: 2 hours and 8 minutes

Film Rating: 7 out of 10

You can picture the writers and studio executives at a pitching session for new film ideas for a North American summer blockbuster. Let’s put Deadpool and Wolverine in a film together. Let’s take a reprobate like Deadpool and a washed up X-man and see if they gel.

In director Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine, superstars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman team up for that bitchy bromance film that gives audiences that warm fuzzy feeling needed in a time of global chaos and strife.

Note the title of this film is not Deadpool vs Wolverine, it is Deadpool & Wolverine. It’s a buddy superhero movie in which the crazy duo enter a different space time paradigm thrusted upon them by the immaculately dressed Mr Paradox brilliantly played with a brittle British hysteria by Golden Globe and Emmy winner (Succession) Matthew Macfadyen, who appears to be the villain. Soon the fast talking and annoying Deadpool and the grumpy hard drinking Wolverine confront the real villain Xavier’s sister Cassandra Nova expertly played with sociopathic coolness by Emmy winner (The Crown) Emma Corrin.

Both Emma Corrin and Matthew Macfadyen balance the crazy antics of Deadpool & Wolverine which at times goes completely off the reservation with foul language and bone cracking brutality, not to mention sexual innuendo and inappropriate comments.

With a host of screenwriters including Ryan Reynolds, the script pokes lots of self-reflexive media fun at the studios including 20^th Century Fox, Fox news and of course the parent company of Marvel, Disney. Deadpool & Wolverine looks like a nightmarish pastiche of all past superhero films which will satisfy the geek squad.

While Deadpool is aspiring to become an Avenger, Wolverine wants to go back and save the rest of the Xmen, the dynamic duo come across a weird group of superheroes stranded in a Mad Max inspired wasteland, a significant nod to Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga.

See cameos by big stars including Wesley Snipes (Blade, New Jack City, One Night Stand) as Blade, Jennifer Garner (Daredevil, Juno) as Elektra and Channing Tatum (The Lost City, Magic Mike) as the card throwing Gambit.

Deadpool & Wolverine contains some very weird and downright silly scenes while constantly pushing the envelope which is a bridge too far for Disney. Maybe this is auto correct for all of Disney’s political correct remakes of the last 5 years.

If you like your action bloody and your superheroes foulmouthed and disgruntled then catch Deadpool & Wolverine in cinemas now. Unfortunately the craziness weighed down any narrative relevance making the plot indistinguishable despite the humorous banter and high production values.

Better than Deadpool 2 but not as good as one expects, yet still entertaining, Deadpool & Wolverine gets a film rating of 7 out of 10. Recommended viewing strictly for fans of Marvel films.

The Current War

Director: Alfonso Gomez-Rejon

Cast: Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Shannon, Nicholas Hoult, Tom Holland, Katherine Waterston, Tuppence Middleton, Matthew Macfadyen, Damien Molony, John Schwab, Conor MacNeill

Film Rating: 8 out of 10 – Highly Recommended Viewing

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon served as second unit director to Martin Scorsese, Nora Ephron and Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu and follows his second feature film Me and Earl and the Dying Girl with The Current War featuring a host of British and American stars including Oscar nominee Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) as electricity inventor Thomas Edison opposite Oscar nominee Michael Shannon (Nocturnal Animals) as George Westinghouse.

Set in America in the 1880’s and the events leading up to the Chicago World Fair in 1893, Westinghouse develops alternative current electricity while Edison creates direct current electricity. As both Westinghouse and Edison woo the financial support of investment banker J. P. Morgan wonderfully played by Matthew Macfadyen (Pride and Prejudice, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms) they develop electricity and its current at an alarming pace lighting up first the American eastern seaboard and then stretching West to the Mid-West and beyond.

Soon the ethics of producing powerful electric currents are called into question when a New York government official Rudolf Young played by John Schwab is planning the first execution via the electric chair of convicted wife killer William Kemmler played by Irish actor Conor MacNeill.

The conflict within The Current War is between Westinghouse and Edison while the eccentric and penniless immigrant Nikola Tesla wonderfully played by Nicholas Hoult (The Favourite, A Single Man) invents the capacity for electricity to be automated and used in machines. Tesla was also credited with harnessing the power of the Niagara Falls for hydroelectricity which produces limitless amounts of current.

It’s no coincidence that Elon Musk’s electric car company Tesla is named after this enigmatic inventor who never received the credit due to him while alive as he got caught between the rivalry of Westinghouse, Edison and the manipulative banker J. P. Morgan who produced the capital to start one of the most famous electricity companies in the world: General Electric.

The Current War is a fast paced story of how 19^th century America was electrified by Edison and Westinghouse and the rivalry which consumed them yet changed society forever.

Director Alfonso Gomez-Rejon smartly employs fast paced editing and some stylistic flourishes to keep The Current War engaging, light and historically fascinating. Audiences should look out for Tom Holland (Spiderman, Far from Home, The Lost City of Z) as Edison’s loyal assistant Samuel Insull and Katherine Waterston (Inherent Vice, Fantastic Beasts) as Marguerite Westinghouse and Tuppence Middleton (The Imitation Game, Jupiter Ascending) as the long suffering Mary Edison.

For history buffs, catch The Current War which gets a film rating of 8 out 10 and is especially relevant today considering that now the human population depend upon electricity.

Robin Hood

Ridley Scott’s Epic and muscular retelling of Robin Hood is better than expected. With Scott’s usual visual panache, 12th century England gets a grand and lush veneer along with a muscular and slightly jocular Robin Hood, played by Russell Crowe who teams up with an equally feisty Lady Marion, played with all the haughtiness of a woman trapped by her grand situation by Oscar winner Cate Blanchett.

The action is swift, gritty and visually compelling without dwelling on the gore but hinting at the brutality of the times. Robin Hood, which surprisingly opened the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and is devoutly English in its version of the pending invasion by King Philip of the brittle and precarious English realm of King John in 1199.

Supported by a wonderful cast including Mark Strong as yet another evil villian in the role of the allegiance shifting Godfrey, Eileen Atkins as the delicate but influential Eleanor of Aquitaine played by Eileen Atkins and Max von Sydow as Sir Walter Loxley, Robin Hood is Ridley Scott back in the style of Gladiator with similar themes of an empire on the precipice of change, a slightly demented ruler and an anti-hero who leads the battle and starts a myth. Robin Hood also known as Robin Longstride is a brawny and hairy Russell Crowe who is forced to delve into the idealism of his youth where his father prophesied the Magna Carta and the saying Lambs become Lions….

Scott’s trademark elements of water and shadow are skilfully used to enhance a much larger and bolder canvas of a Kingdom ravaged by a ten year crusade to the Holy Land, rebellious noblemen and coffers which are far from full. The ever-menacing relationship with France is tested by the betrayals and ambitions of Godfrey and King Philip along with his niece Queen Isabella who is married to King John, younger brother to King Richard the Lionheart, a brief but great turn by Danny Huston brother of Angelica Huston.

Crowe and Blanchett make a fine team, both experienced actors with the right amount of gravity to pull off these mythic roles with depth and sensitivity without resorting to cliche. Had these roles been cast to lesser known stars the force of the film would have been lost. Robin Hood is an epic Historical tale which hints at the popular story of Robin Hood and his merry men, Friar Tuck and his beekeeping and the Sheriff of Nottingham, gorgeously underplayed by Matthew Macfadyen of Pride and Prejudice fame. William Hurt also makes an appearance as William Marshall to add weight to the already Oscar-laden cast. This film version is certainly not flimsy, but muscular, brawny, dark and partly comical without dwelling too much on the political intrigue, the costumes or the bloodletting of medieval England.

Robin Hood‘s arrow has the perfect shot and Ridley Scott’s film is superb, engaging and visually rewarding more as an historical epic than a special-effects laden blockbuster and will surely be noticed when awards season comes round next year. What would one expect from such an experienced film maker who has brought audiences such classics as Blade Runner, Thelma and Louise and the Oscar Winning Gladiator, which made Russell Crowe an international star.

With a sword he conquored Rome…

As for the French, Robin Hood did open at Festival du Cannes, so perhaps all that cross-channel animosity has slightly cooled! Watch Robin Longstride and his rise to iconic anti-hero and savior of the outcasts and the free…