Tag: Channing Tatum

Dog

Rated: MDog

Directed by: Channing Tatum & Reid Carolin

Story by: Reid Carolin, Brett Rodriguez

Produced by: Gregory Jacobs, Peter Kiernan, Brett Rodriguez

Starring: Channing Tatum, Ryder McLaughlin, Aavi Haas.

‘You’re more than just a dog.’

Opening the film to puppy pics then written assessments, Lulu, a Belgian Malinois Army K9 is no ordinary dog.

With eight military tours to her name, Lulu was part of the Ranger Battalion team.

But after injury and her master, Rodriguez dying in a high speed car crash, she’s not the same dog.

US army Ranger, Jackson Briggs (Channing Tatum) finds out the hard way, ‘You do not want to touch her ears.’

Banged up and on forced leave but desperate to get back into the action, Briggs has one more job to complete before his sergeant signs off the last document, clearing him for active duty: he has to drive from Washington to Arizona to take Lulu to her master’s funeral.  Then take her on her last journey to be put down because now, she’s a killer dog that’s unmanageable.

It’s understandable to think, Oh, it’s another one of those tear-jerker dog movies…

But there’s something unique here that’s funny and kind, with man and dog damaged in a job they love, where they were, ‘kicking doors, getting our murder on.’

Dog is a movie that surprises in its depth.

It reminded me of how Hemingway writes men: stoic with a soft spot when understood – think, the character Thomas Hudson and his cat in, Islands in the Stream.

Channing Tatum is great in his role as an army brute with a scar running up the back of his neck on a road trip with a ferocious dog he can’t stop talking too.

Of course they win each other over, that’s kind of expected with this type of movie, but the military angle added another layer so it was two brutes that save each other.

There’re light-hearted moments that are so strange that it feels like real life, while also touching on sensitive subjects like PTSD, war and suicide.

So yes, it gets emotional but without any forced sentiment.  Because more than anything it’s a cracker of a well-paced story about a man and a dog.

I’ve never liked Channing Tatum as much as I like him in this film.

Smallfoot

Rated: GSmallfoot

Directed by: Karey Kirkpatrick

Screenplay: Karey Kirkpatrick and Clare Sera

Screen Story by: John Requa & Glenn Ficarra and Karey Kirkpatrick

Based on the book: Yeti Tracks, by Sergio Pablos

Produced by: Bonne Radford, Glenn Ficarra and John Requa

Starring: Channing Tatum, James Corden, Zendaya, Common, LeBron James, Danny DeVito, Gina Rodriguez, Yara Shahidi, Ely Henry and Jimmy Tatro.

The only thing stronger than fear is curiosity.

Living above the clouds on the peak of a snowy mountain, a yeti named Migo (Channing Tatum) has been waiting to train to be like his dad and become a head-butting, gong ringer to call the sun-snail to bring the light of the sky every morning.

That’s what the stones say, and the Stonekeeper (Common) is always reminding the yeti tribe that below the clouds is the Big Nothing.

So when Migo is launched in training, only to miss the gong and be flung outside the yeti community, he’s as shocked as the human when he finds a smallfoot, as the smallfoot human is to find a yeti.

Disappearing from view and leaving no trace, his father and the rest of the village can’t believe Migo found a smallfoot.  Except the SES (Smallfoot Evidentiary Society).

Meechee (Zendaya) and her SES gang, Kolka (Gina Rodriguez), Gwangi (LeBron James), Fleem (Ely Henry) and Cali believe not just in the smallfoot, but that there’s far more out there then the stones have led them to believe.

On their research expedition into the Big Nothing they find Percy, a smallfoot with a career as a wildlife expert; a celebrity made famous by making a TV series that’s about to be cancelled because of a dwindling audience.  Percy will do anything to get his face out there.  Including faking a yeti sighting.  So, when he actually finds a yeti and the yeti finds a smallfoot, they’re both terrified and fascinated.

There’s this, ‘curiosity killed the yak’ theme versus the search for truth being more important than all else.

Which I felt dangerous for a young audience – to go out there searching for the truth no matter what.  I had an understanding for the want to lie to protect… which adds that needed obstacle to overcome in the film, giving the story a bit of grit.

The safety of the yeti and the threat of murder felt a little serious with nutty mountain goats and pink Snuffleupagus look-a-likes needed to soften the vibe of the film.

I just didn’t find the film very funny.

And I think some of the seriousness of the film may have been confronting for a really young audience.

Visually, the artwork and animation was smooth and beautifully put together with realistic fur and chase scenes seen from above like watching a game of Pacman.

But the story didn’t really work for me.  It wasn’t until the film got close to the end that I started to appreciate what the film was trying to achieve.

Mostly, I felt mildly uncomfortable with too many teachable moments for my taste.

Kingsman: The Golden Circle

MA15+Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Directed by: Matthew Vaughn

Written by: Jane Goldman, Matthew Vaughn

Produced by: Adam Bohling, David Reid, Matthew Vaughn

Starring: Colin Firth, Julianne Moore, Taron Egerton, Mark Strong, Halle Berry, Elton John, Channing Tatum, Jeff Bridges, Edward Holdcroft, Michael Gambon and Poppy Delevingne.

I like to think I have a dark, somewhat, twisted sense of humour, but about 15 minutes into, Kingsman: The Golden Circle, it stopped being funny and became ridiculous.

As with the first, Kingsman (Kingsman: The Secret Service), there is the intentional push into the bizarre with sociopathic villains sporting robotic attachments – akin to a Bond film, yet modernised.

Which led to the huge success of the first Kingsman: entertaining action with a spot of difference that refreshed the British Secret Service while retaining all the charm.

The attempt to modernised the spy genre here, however, was a script filled with the cliché and the just plain stupid.

The inclusion of the Glastonbury Festival and the aged-before-her-years bimbo and terrible dialogue with pick-up lines such as, ‘My crow is looking for a place to nest’, led to confusion with a blurred line between the film making fun of itself and being silly, or not, and therefore coming across as stupid, try-hard and gross.Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Funnily enough (ha, ha, there’s my lazy pun for the day), the apparent obsession with the sh#tter was some of the most amusing parts.

Following on from Clara (Poppy Delevingne), the Swedish Princess getting it Greek style at the end of, The Secret Service, we now have Eggsy (Taron Egerton) swimming in a sh#t filled sewer, an old man having the best sh#t in two weeks, and Elton John offering a backstage pass if Eggsy once again, saves the world.

So, you can tell the style of humour… And those were the funny bits…

The storyline had holes (ha, ha, just can’t stop those puns) as well.

Enter Eggsy, battling Kingsman-rejected, Charlie (Edward Holdcroft) leading to the Kingsmen being hacked by drug lord, Poppy (Julianne Moore) – a woman stuck in the 1950s, living her days in the jungle in a replica of the setting of, Happy Days, but with robotic killer dogs and a drive to serve-up minced human flesh as prime hamburger meat.

This is a super-successful business lady who’s getting no cred.

So, Poppy decides she wants illicit drugs legalised and therefore taxed to get credit for being a successful business woman?  And to give the government control of the drug trade?  The elaborate plot Poppy, the drug lord, devices is not going to give Poppy more money or a prize for, Business Woman of the Year.  It doesn’t make sense.Kingsman: The Golden Circle

Add the American branch of independent secret service, resplendent with cowboy hats, code names like, Whisky, and the sound track of Country Road that seems to be following Channing Tatum around after, Logan Lucky, you’ve got the original idea of Kingsman, a modern James Bond, to modernised B.S. (the sh#t included).

What I did like was the amazing camera work with the audience being spun around and skidding and kicking and Kung Fu fighting right along-side Eggsy.  And the character, Eggsy, was still likeable here.

But instead of the class of the iconic British gentleman, it felt like the entire cast was given a touch of the idiot.

Even Colin Firth as Harry Hart played a doe-eyed, brain-damaged, butterfly enthusiast for most of the film.

So, yes, there’s explosive, huge-budget action, but riding on a patchy plot, filled with the ridiculous.

Logan Lucky

Rated: MLogan Lucky

Directed by: Steven Soderbergh

Written by: Rebecca Blunt

Produced by: Gregory Jacobs, Mark Johnson, Channing Tatum, Reid Carolin

Starring: Farrah Mackenzie, Channing Tatum, Jim O’Heir, Riley Keough, Katie Holmes, Boden Johnston, Sutton Johnston, David Denman, Charles Halford, Adam Driver, Seth MacFarlane, Mark McCullough, Daniel Craig and Jack Quaid.

Logan Lucky is about the not-so-lucky Logan Brothers who put together a heist to rob the Charlotte Motor Speedway during the Coca-Cola 600 NASCAR race – one brother, Clyde Logan (Adam Driver), with one arm, I mean, one hand missing after being blown off on the way to the airport in Iraq, about to come home after fighting in the war.  And the other brother, Jimmy (Channing Tatum) with a limp, just fired from his truck driving job because of said limp – not that the limp would’ve affected his driving.

The Logan brothers enlist the help of demolition expert, Joe Bang (Daniel Craig) (ha, ha, Joe Bang), currently incarcerated; sister and hairdresser, Mellie (Riley Keough) and Joe Bang’s younger brothers, Fish (Jack Quaid) and Sam (Brian Gleeson).  Add these characters together and you’ve got a motley crew of robbers attempting a complicated job: the release of a prisoner, accessing the cash at the raceway, extracting and removing the cash from the site and the re-insertion of an escaped convict.Logan Lucky

After the introduction of these slow talking, seemingly thick-headed hillbillies, the film just kinda fumbled its way through the motion of the heist while expressing all those white trash clichés like child beauty pageants, John Deer trucker caps, long painted nails, big hair, NASCAR and energy drinks.  Well, the energy drinks were a bit different, as was the poodle-haired, race-car owner, Max Chilblain (Seth MacFarland) who owned the stuff and was forever trying to promote the drink by forcing it down his driver’s throat.

So, you can see there’s a parody here, of the backward North Carolina culture – but there’s also a paradox with smarts here too, like a tasteful martini made with one hand; a bomb made from bleach and gummy bears on the other…

I admit the dry humour eventually got me tickled and once tickled it was easier to laugh.  But the humour didn’t always hit the mark.

The stand-out for me was the one-armed Adam Driver as Clyde Logan.  Maybe I find amputee humour ticklish?  But, yes, his quiet take on the world was the highlight for me.Logan Lucky

There were some sweet moments, particularly between Jimmy Logan and his daughter Sadie (Farrah Mackenzie) – passing the flat-head screwdriver or the wrench or singing a heart-felt country and western song.  And there was a coming around and twist here and there with the story but I was too far gone on the hillbilly nature of the characters.

I got bored with the clichéd and any twists in the story felt cheap, like an Ocean’s Eleven (2001) (of which Soderbergh also directed) re-make, but starring hillbillies… without action…

So, it was a weird mix of: intelligent plan with backward characters.

The film outsmarted itself by building the hillbilly nature of the characters at the loss of story, so Logan Lucky ended up being kinda funny and kinda smart.

I wanted to like the film more, but didn’t quite get there.

PS. What was the deal with the Hillary Swank FBI character, Sarah Grayson? Brought so late into the film the character felt tacked on, a little like this PS.

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