Best Movie of 2013

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (2013) Ben Stiller, Kristen Wiig, Sean Penn

 

A day-dreamer escapes his anonymous life by disappearing into a world of fantasies filled with heroism, romance and action. When his job along with that of his co-worker are threatened, he takes action in the real world embarking on a global journey that turns into an adventure more extraordinary than anything he could have ever imagined.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty is the exciting tale of the ordinary man with extraordinary dreams. Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller)  is a 40 something “negative assets” manager at Time magazine and has been for 16 years. When Mitty was a teenager he had aspirations of worldwide travel, unique experiences and an exceptional life. He dressed different then most, had a mohawk and was determined not to develop into just another socialistic clone riding the predictable merry-go-round of life until inevitable death. He wanted different. Unfortunately for Mitty, his plans and decision making stemmed from a safe place, a comfortable family environment with no perceived downside, until his father died when he was 17.  All of a sudden Mitty was quickly acquainted with life’s harsh realities and it scared him into a life of anonymity. Over the next 30 years he began playing it safe, he found himself obeying the predetermined occupational path of most, ultimately securing an unstimulating and anticipated job with LIFE magazine processing negative photos sent in from travellers and photographers from all over the globe. Mitty becomes particular absorbed with the life that one particular photographer, Sean O’Connell, (Sean Penn) is living. Receiving his pictures regularly Mitty identifies with O’Connell as living the life he had once dreamed about but was seemingly out of his reach at this stage. This is until Mitty is informed that LIFE magazine print is to be shut down in favour of an online edition in line with the times. There is to be one final print edition of LIFE and it is to be cover paged with a particular photograph that O’Connell has sent to Walter Mitty’s office, however Mitty cannot locate it and his job is on the line.

This in turn forces Walter Mitty to have to find the nomadic O’Connell and embark on a life changing journey that will alter the very fabric of his being. Commencing an international search he finds himself jumping from helicopters in Greenland to being arrested exiting Afghanistan. In chasing O’Connell, Mitty is in fact chasing himself, chasing the man he  thought destined to be until modern civilisation was enforced upon him. The LIFE magazine motto is“To see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to, to draw closer, to see and be amazed and to feel that is the purpose of life.” and during the movie O’Connell sends Mitty a personalised wallet with this written on it. Mitty’s love interest in the movie Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig) tells him at one point to follow his wallet, meaning the message written inside but interestingly some viewers will note the double meaning subtly intended here, as Mitty’s whole life he has followed his wallet; constantly setting aside his dreams and life goals in favour of unfulfilling jobs and a mediocre existence to stay financial secure and never to take any risks. That is until now.

An inspirational and uplifting story about courage and entering the unknown, this movie promotes a feeling of Carpe Diem as you will be intoxicated with spectacular landscapes and exclusive experiences. In this reviewers humble opinion this movie is the personification of the the Robert Frost poem “The Road Not Taken” and indeed Walter Mitty “took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.” Eventually.

FutureProof Movie Review Score: 7.5

Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues (2013) Will Ferrell, Steve Carrel, Paul Rudd, David Koechner, Christina Applegate

With the 70s behind him, San Diego’s top rated newsman, Ron Burgundy, returns to take New York’s first 24-hour news channel by storm.

The Adam McKay and Will Ferrell partnership is the gift that keeps on giving! What a team these two gentlemen make when they collaborate, bringing us comedy classics such as The Other Guys (2010), Step Brothers (2008) and the original Anchorman (2004), they seem unable to do wrong! The original Anchorman movie was the brainstorm of Will Ferrell, although the original script consisted of a planeload of news anchors who crash in the mountains and discover that the plane which they collided was carrying monkeys and martial arts equipment, leading to a battle between cannibalistic newsmen and star-throwing monkeys, thank god for the organic evolution of the modern day movie script and rewrites! But what emerged was Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, a movie that would fast become a cult classic then explode in popularity.

The original movie and indeed Will Ferrell himself are an acquired taste. You really have to understand and enjoy the type of humour they deliver or this won’t be for you. Anchorman is Will Ferrell, it is his style and always has been since his SNL days. Assuming you, the reader, have seen the original Anchorman (2004) as part of the $90 million it recouped worldwide to date I will jump to this movie. Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) and his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) find themselves as co-anchors at Channel 4 news and everything is seemingly going great, until, Ron finds himself fired from the news network by his boss Mack Harken (Harrison Ford) and Veronica is bumped up to the prime time slot. Understandably, Ron is furious which causes a break down in their relationship and is kicked out of their home and leaves Veronica and their son Walter (Judah Nelson) behind. Burgundy, now homeless and unemployed is asked to be part of a new and unprecedented 24 hour news network but is told he needs a news team. This sets the stage for the original news team to reunite and change the face of news reporting as we know it.

Anchorman 2 is approximately 119mins long and struggles at times to carry the demand of the time frame, seeming a bit forced at the start but resolves itself organically. The advantage the original movie had over this production was the lack of expectational weight, people expect a lot from this movie and after nearly 10 years of die hard fans waiting, the pressure is on. Does the movie deliver? I would be lying if I said it didn’t, but it repeats and re-stages a lot of the original scenes and jokes from its predecessor e.g. News Team Gang War. Ferrell’s unusual jokes and anecdotes about everyday life are just hilarious and will have you in stitches. The news team are back at their best and you will notice the character of Brick Tamland (Steve Carell) who fans loved from the first movie has a lot more screen time and engages in a romantic sub plot to the main story. Comedy fans will love the aforementioned News Team Gang War version in this production as its the opportunity for Ferrell and McKay to get some of their famous friends in modern comedy and culture on the big screen including: Sacha Baron Cohen, Kirsten Dunst, Tina Fay, Harrison Fay, Greg Kinnear, Liam Neeson, Kanye West, Vince Vaughn, John C. Reilly and excitingly Jim Carrey. Could the dream movie with Jim Carrey and Will Ferrell ever happen outside of the SNL studio? Fingers crossed.

In summary, Anchorman 2 is very funny but encompasses a lot of the original movies jokes. The storyline is weak but the weight of the movie comes from the one liners and interesting exchanges. Well worth a look, Watch it with the guys, its always funnier.

FutureProof Movie Review Score: 7.0

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) Dee Wallace, Henry Thomas, Peter Coyote, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore

A troubled child summons the courage to help a friendly alien escape Earth and return to his home-world.

Oh, Where to start with this Steven Spielberg classic! Released in 1982 and unlike anything released before it! Spielberg released E.T the same year as Poltergeist (1982) with the intention of making enough profit with Poltergeist to cover the expected losses he would endure with the movie E.T. It was however, the movie that he really wanted to make and where his real passion lay. Poltergeist was the complete opposite of E.T, it was a kids worst nightmare brought to movie. E.T however, grossed nearly 6 times as much as Poltergeist, reaching $436 million.

We begin our story panning across a starry sky at night and cut to a spaceship comfortably sitting in a Californian forest with its lights on. Revealed to us are extra-terrestrial creatures harvesting the local plant and rock life for further study. About 3.5 feet high, with long fingers and a large torso. Their torsos begin to light up and they begin to return to their spaceship. Simultaneously a car pulls up not too far away and 5 men exit the vehicle with flashlights. Hearing a stranded creature cry for help and seeing the glowing torso they begin chasing it. The creature runs in the direction of its ship but it is too late and it is abandoned. In a haze of confusion and searching for safety it enters the local town, enters the back garden of and is found by Elliot (Henry Thomas). Elliot with the help of his brother Michael (Robert MacNaughton) and Gertie (Drew Barrymore) begin bonding with the creature and try to help and domesticate it. They discover that the Aliens health is getting progressively worse in our atmosphere and needs to get home or it will die. While all along a man (Peter Coyote) from the car at the forest closes in on his search for the Alien and his intentions are not positive.

Perhaps more impressive then the storyline of this movie is the absolutely spectacular score written to accompany it, a pleasure for all the senses and works in perfect tandem with the visual storyboard. E.T will be a favourite movie of most children in the late 80’s early 90’s as it’s made primarily for children. The combination of issues Elliot has in the movie such as his parents going through a separation or Elliot feeling unimportant as the middle child in the family, along with most of the movie being filmed at waist level, how a child would view the world, gives every child something they can relate to. The funny thing is Elliot says to Gertie at one point jokingly that “only kids can see him” but for the majority of the movie, only kids do get to see the Alien. The Alien itself is spectacularly constructed and a real feat of creative design, with multiple hands working behind the camera to operate its entire body and make it as lifelike as possible but also shares little animal kingdom nuances like exposing its neck to indicate trust. The Alien is not unlike the creatures featured previous in Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977).The movie is probably has the biggest product placement in history with ‘Reece’s Pieces’ attaining worldwide recognition following its release and use to lure the Alien from hiding in the movie. The movie was released twice for home entertainment, originally in 1983 and then again in 2002 in a special 20^th anniversary edition. The anniversary edition had a plethora of additional scenes and remastered a scene in the final third of the movie that Steven Spielberg had a 20 year issue with, Spielberg had a problem with the use of guns in this children’s movie. They instead were replaced by walkie talkies. Unfortunately in the final third of the movie were are subject to an emotional battering with too much emphasise on the rising volume of the music then the acting, which was sufficient enough.

A feat of film making and a movie that changed the course of movie history, you will experience every emotion possible. Fear, excitement, panic, devastating sadness, relief, hope and unbridled joy.

Futureproof Movie Review Score: 8.0

The Family (2013) Robert De Niro, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tommy Lee Jones

The Manzoni family, a notorious mafia clan, is relocated to Normandy, France under the witness protection program, where fitting in soon becomes challenging as their old habits die hard.

Career criminal and Mafia kingpin Giovanni Manzoni (Robert De Niro) saves his family by snitching on his Mafia associates to the FBI and enters the witness relocation program. Manzoni is accompanied by his wife Maggie (Michelle Pfeiffer), his son Warren (John D’Leo) and daughter Belle (Diana Agron). We pick up with the family at the tail end of yet another unsuccessful relocation and now find themselves in Normandy, France. The problem is, the family just cannot stop breaking the law. Giovanni has a bounty of $20 million on his head as a result of his double crossing of the Mafia and is forbidden to leave the house without permission, Maggie is your typical hard nosed Italian American with a short temper, Warren, eager to replicate the family business is a budding white collar criminal and Belle a beautiful young woman with traits not dissimilar to her mother. To keep this ticking time bomb family in check is Robert Stansfield (Tommy Lee Jones) an ageing FBI agent with a 19 year history with Giovanni and 2 agents on a 24 hour watch of the Manzoni house.

The movie itself  is 111 minutes long, far too long for the story being told. It does not keep a considerable pace and you will definitely ‘feel’ the entire 111 minutes rolling in. It is however revived a small bit by its funny nature and the entertaining performance of the timeless and loveable Robert De Niro. De Niro continues to build upon his career changing performance in Meet The Parents (2000) and show a more light hearted and satirical side with perfect comedy timing. Michelle Pfeiffer does a serviceable job in her role as his wife, she is however, exhibiting the consequences of surgery and older age on her face because of her previous continued search for perpetual youth and beauty. Introducing also for viewers that do not watch Glee TV series is Dianna Agron, who is the spitting image of a young Cameron Diaz which helped the viewing experience. It is not one of the best screenplays that De Niro has accepted in his glittering career and the writing is just awful. There is no flow to the movie just an enduring lull broken up on occasion with a ridiculous event. The star studded cast just about carry this production over the line but it won’t live long in the memory. Director Luc Besson has not directed a favourable movie since The Fifth Element (1997) and the search continues.

Futureproof Movie Review Score: 6.0