Baby Driver

Edgar Wright is a bit like Pixar. You think he can do no wrong (Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim), then he goes and makes the unfunny, genre-confused clusterfuck that is The World's End (I honestly couldn't care less if it's Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes - all the other critics are wrong, because it is shit). Well, a good run has to end at some stage. Just like Cars 2 was a blip on an otherwise upward trajectory (okay, throw in Monsters University and The Good Dinosaur in there for good measure - Pixar have made more than he has), it made Wright's follow-up - in this reviewer's eyes at least - have all the nail-chewing appeal of root canal treatment.

Okay, so that's a bit of an exaggeration. But when the first trailer for Baby Driver was released (I refuse to say 'dropped'), I viewed it with brow-furrowed trepidation. A supposed jukebox musical with all the stock crime-and-cars thrills of a modestly-budgeted Fast and Furious knock-off. But The World's End was just a blip, right? Well yes, as a matter of fact, it was. Baby Driver is nothing if not original (well, as original as anything can possibly get these days) and sits comfortably alongside Wright's best work - possibly even right at the top of the pile.

Having survived a car accident as a child, which killed his parents and left him with severe tinnitus, the only way the titular Baby (Ansel Elgort) can drown out the noise is by carting round a selection of iPods with various playlists he's curated. Under the watchful eye of Kevin Spacey's Doc - a charming but cut-throat rich guy with a nice line in planning elaborate robberies - Baby has become his go-to getaway driver, repaying a debt with each robbery he assists with.

There's all manner of classic tropes on offer here - the good kid trying to right a wrong, an evil boss, a rogue's gallery of hoodlums (Jamie Foxx, John Hamm, Eliza Gonzáles) - plus a love interest in Lily James's Debra who, if not quite out of the manic pixie dream girl playbook, certainly peddles enough sunshine-hued fresh-faced beauty to beguile Baby and make him dream of a life away from crime. Which obviously is going to be put to the test because, well, how else would these things go?

It sounds so unambitious and generic on paper but trust me, it isn't. The alleged 'jukebox musical' term isn't entirely accurate, the film opting to use Baby's playlisted songs as a jumping-off point for action sequences and audio-synchronised gun battles that initially reminded me of the godawful Clive Owen / Paul Giamatti vehicle, Shoot 'Em Up (again, let's not dwell on the fact that many critics liked this too. They are all incorrect, for it is rubbish). Suffice to say, Baby Driver pulls off exactly what that film was attempting to do with a tank load of style, charm and razor-sharp wit in reserve.

Putting relative newcomer Elgort front and centre was a canny move, too. Hanging a roster of A-listers off the back of a fresh face isn't a new concept, but it allows Elgort to more or less sit back and let the big boys do the heavy lifting while he concentrates on kicking ass and chewing bubble gum (okay, wearing sunglasses and listening to Queen). Christopher Nolan has gone this route too for Dunkirk, the film's literal poster boy Fionn Whitehead the kind of anonymous but model-beautiful central character you can place your Tom Hardy's and your Kenneth Branagh's around, letting them do the big acting while the audience walks in the boots of the everyman.

It feels like Wright may have made Baby Driver - whether intentionally or not - as a backhanded fuck-you to the studio system that turfed him off Ant-Man. It manages to tick all the boxes a studio would want (action, comedy, drama, a marketable cast) whilst also having an essential ingredient which too many studio pictures panic about these days (an original script with genuine heart), plus an indie spirit which meant no CGI when it came to the car chases. No matter how fast and furious Vin Diesel and Dwayne Johnson might be, when you know a driver is pulling those stunts for real, it adds a layer of tangible reality that CGI simply cannot emulate (see Rogue One's Peter Cushing for another example of this dilemma - almost there, but not quite).

While there's already talk of a sequel, Baby Driver feels like it should be a one-off, a standalone work to show aspiring filmmakers it is possible make unapologetically commercial cinema without having to sacrifice the earth. It ticks over at an unrelenting pace without ever feeling rushed or compromised, a cavalcade of ideas both old and new thrown into a mixer with all the best stuff sticking. It's how blockbusters should be. On which note, I'm off to book tickets for Pixar's Cars 3. I mean, it was just a blip, right...?

War for the Planet of the Apes

Downer films - at least ones costing north of $150m - are in short supply these days. With the shambolic state of the world of late, it could be argued that's no bad thing; no-one wants to be emotionally pummelled by a film only to walk out into the shit sandwich of actual reality. But sometimes, when the allegories run so close to home that a story takes on more meaning than perhaps its creators originally envisaged, a film fizzing with nihlism and fatalism becomes wholly necessary. I'm going on record (for now at least) to say that War for the Planet of the Apes is my film of the year - a downer film for the ages perhaps, but one that had me enthralled and exhilarated from the first frame to the last.

In a handy recap for anyone not quite up to speed with the current Apes series, the film opens with brief plot outlines of what's already happened to get us where we are. Caesar, an ape who's intellect was greatly enhanced due to his owner's experimentation with a cure for Alzheimer's (experimentation which led to the outbreak of so-called 'simian flu', all but wiping out the human race) leads his species in an ongoing struggle between apes and humans - a battle started by Koba, a fellow ape experimentee who's lust for war ultimately led to his death at the hands of Caesar.

While Caesar wants nothing more than for apes and humans to live separately and in peace, the surviving humans fear the apes will become the dominant species and "treat humans as their cattle" - or so says Colonel McCullough, played with typical Southern charm/menace (delete as appropriate) by Woody Harrelson. Far from being a one-dimensional villain, McCullough has sound reason and logic behind his aggressive sentiments, very much a Joker to Caesar's Batman (I'm not sure that metaphor works, but I'm standing by it).

McCullough has militarised a faction of remaining humans who are immune to the simian flu, caging up apes and creating what amounts to a concentration camp, complete with makeshift ape crucifixes (or rather 'scarecrows', for anyone familiar with the 1968 original) and a nice line in underground tunnels that would be a perfect escape route for the apes he's rounded up. Surely not...

It's this layering of emotionally-complex characters and allegorical brutality that gives War... a level of depth and nuance that is sorely lacking from too many franchise films these days. Director Matt Reeves - having already proved he could steer the franchise in a daring direction with the previous sequel - doesn't attempt to box-tick what he thinks an audience wants. It feels far more personal than any tent-pole studio film has any right to. However the real surprise lies in the structure. Far from being the war movie the title suggests, War... takes a slow-burn approach to what is essentially a riff on The Great Escape via Apocalypse Now, but with moments of unswerving horror that would struggle to pass censors if it wasn't for the fact it's CGI apes getting whipped and executed, not humans.

Not content with stripping back the action to a bare minimum and focusing on character development (I know, a good script - who'd have thought it?!), War... has great fun introducing new folk into the mix - namely the unbearably cute Bad Ape (a note-perfect Steve Zahn) who brings some subtle but much-needed comic relief to proceedings; and Nova, a mute young girl who's name - like the crucifixes - calls back to the 1968 original without feeling crowbarred (how she gets her name is one of the film's myriad touching moments).

While War... feels like a the end of a trilogy, more often than not these things never are. You could quite easily remake the original from this juncture (admittedly with the help of a two-thousand year fast-forward button) and continue rebooting apace. But Reeves has already suggested there's more stories to tell, not least with the introduction of Bad Ape, who's inclusion in the narrative hints at a wider ape evolution that we as viewers haven't yet been privy to. If further films are of this quality - downers though they may be - consider me signed up for the lot.

Dunkirk

You've not seen a fly until you've seen it in IMAX. Honestly, about six feet wide it was. All over the gaff, for a good forty minutes. Tom Hardy valiantly tried to gun him down from the cockpit of his Spitfire at one point, but it was to no avail. Such was my experience of Dunkirk, in stunning 15/70. Half of it ruined by a fucking bluebottle.

But I do digress. Despite the wing'd distraction, Nolan's latest (and shortest since his indie debut, Following) convinces as a technical marvel, a giant-sized paean to the despair and bravery of 400,000 men trapped on a beach in France, with hope of rescue fading as each ticking second passes (something Hans Zimmer's propulsive score acknowledges with an incessant urgency, even if it all goes a bit Chariots of Fire towards the end). With absolutely zero character development, Nolan's desire was to construct a film made up entirely of a third act climax, spread over the entire running time. And it almost works.

Focusing on the three perspectives of land, air and sea, it plays with time in a way many have compared to Inception (air = one hour; land = one day; sea = one week). But unlike Inception, it's not necessarily required to know exactly what's going on when; the timelines gel in a masterstroke of editing complexity that may very well be analysed by film scholars and cinephiles alike. Scenes play out from various viewpoints at completely different junctures, depending on where the three timelines are up to. It can feel somewhat haphazard on first viewing, but second time round it reveals itself as a wholly cohesive triumph.

Not unlike Alfonso Cuaron's Gravity, Dunkirk feels almost like an extended, immersive theme park ride - a visceral experience driven by thunderous audio and overwhelming visuals from start to finish. In this regard, despite quality performances from all cast members (including Nolan's good luck charm Michael Caine - answers on a postcard if you can spot him), the film takes on a sort of monolithic, impenetrable nature; at once throwing you head-first into the firing line, but at the same time leaving you slightly detached from it all.

Its unique ambition in being often solely driven by tension rather than character is no doubt part of the reason one feels a lack of investment in any of the main players. That said, by the time he's flying sans-fuel over the beach front, picking off Jerries and pulling back his cockpit to feel the wind in his face, I was definitely not detached from Tom Hardy. What an absolute man. I would gladly have his babies any time that suits.

A second viewing definitely helps with Dunkirk, such is the onslaught of sound and fury it brings to the table. But Nolan's best film, as some critics are hailing it? Not quite. When the credits of The Dark Knight hit the screen back in 2008, the grin across my face was a mile wide. While Dunkirk hits many of the same Nolan-flavoured notes, its deliberate lack of anything approaching conventional storytelling tropes cannot be ignored. A colleague of mine claimed it was experimental in nature, and he's not far wrong.

But then it's unfair to compare the two, Nolan stating he wished to challenge himself by doing something completely out of the confines of genre filmmaking he's become known for. Much as I love Memento, The Prestige, Interstellar et al., Dunkirk at least shows Nolan wants to stay (vaguely) fresh, even if his films - not unlike Spielberg or Hitchcock - have a distinct Nolan-esque vibe that cannot be shaken. But then not unlike his aforementioned peers, he's a crowd-pleaser. And in an age of endless franchises with studios afraid to gamble on anything approaching original - let alone borderline experimental - that's nothing to be sniffed at. I'd choose his latest over the next Transformers film any day of the week. Giant flies and all.

ADDENDUM: I missed the first ten minutes of my second viewing due to the 2.20:1 aspect ratio being incorrectly projected. I seriously cannot catch a break with this film. Film something in NormalVision next time, Nolan. Cheers.