jpatrick-68632 Reviews

Red Sparrow (2018)

Better'n we thought it'd be

[7/10 · 11 March 2018]

We went to see RED SPARROW as our date-day treat. There was nothing else we particularly fancied and we were near the reclining-seat cinemas so we thought 'why not'?

A ballerina with the Bolshoi with the oddly alluring name of 'Dominika' suffers a stomach churner of an injury that puts an end to her dancing days. She has a super-creepy uncle who explains that she will be kicked out of her Moscow-posh Bolshoi funded apartment. She lives with her sickly mother, and she, creepy uncle assures her, will be victim to health-care-for-the-uninsured. Must've been horrified intakes of breath in America. Or at least the parts of America that call themselves 'America'. Parts of America that call themselves 'Canada' would have been indifferent.

Creepy uncle blackmails her, and offers her a job as a sparrow. A sparrow is a secret agent who is trained to get under the guard of hapless Americans by rogering them. Dominika's secret rogering name might have been 'Stormy Daniels'. She is trained by Charlotte Rampling who reprises her 'Night Porter' role. Sort of. I think creepy uncle really just wanted to see her without any clothes on.

Stormy has a gift for rogering and is very convincing. She can also give a bloke a VERY bad time if she so chooses and she so-chooses for a fellow trainee who has a very miserable time of it indeed.

She's sent to Budapest to extract the name of a high-level mole from an American agent played by an Australian who also played an Egyptian. Why? Dunno. Although if those under MAGA hats are anything to go by, good-looking roosters are light on the ground in the US. As are teeth. As any devotee of spy fiction knows, moles are either traitorous dangers to the very fabric of the universe, or heroes. Depends on whether they are ours or theirs.

Now, we lived in Budapest for three years, so we spent a fair bit of the Budapest part of the movie whispering excitedly "Oooo; we've been there". I looked back longingly and wondered in the way of wonderings why I hadn't been subjected to a steamy Stormy adventure, and consoled myself by thinking maybe I had, but I was subjected to a memory-erasing drug and couldn't remember. Or I was pissed. In reality I just didn't know very much.

Anyway Stormy does what Stormy does with the American agent played by an Australian who also played an Egyptian in an attempt to get him to whisper the name of the mole so she can be a hero. She also does a lot of stuff that had us thinking "Hmmm, why is she doing that" and the same thoughts occurred to her bosses and suspicion falls upon her devotion to the cause and she goes back to Russia for a bit of torture.

She becomes the first Russian EVER to be released after a trip to the cells and heads back to the American agent played by an Australian who also played an Egyptian. She skins him.

She rings her boss with name of the mole, although the skinning bit is sort of peripheral to this. The rest of the movie is the ending-bit and I shan't go there.

Is it any good? Well yes it is. It has all the bits that make a good movie good. Uppances are come. There are bits that had us whispering 'well I didn't see that coming' and there are lots places where we have been. I would maybe have liked Champs Bar on Dohány ut to have featured but it wasn't and that's OK. I have been counselled about using maguffies (tee-hee) as a rating tool so I won't.

Heaps better'n we expected 7.5/10 from a hard marker

Black Panther (2018)

Melanistic Leopard

[4/10 · 20 February 2018]

We toddled off to see BLACK PANTHER and I renewed my Hoyts Seniors card and got in for nothing! Yay me! And it was worth every cent too.

The Black Panther is the newly minted king of Wakanda, a super-dooper advanced country hidden in Africa like skull Island is hidden in the Pacific but there's no giant ape although there are ginormous CGI armoured rhinoceroses but more on them later.

A black panther is the melanistic color variant of any big cat species but in this case, it being Africa, izza Leopard! So to remove any reference to colour (although the educated will know that black isn't actually a colour) King T'Challa could have been non-judgementally called 'Melanistic Leopard' but that doesn't, I suppose, have the same ring to it.

Wakanda has heaps and heaps of a metal that I can't remember the name of but it's terribly, terribly useful and rare and it is the reason that they are so advanced. Aliens might've given it to them. Dunno. Can't remember that either. They also have some purple plants that give the king his Melanistic Leopard powers and this is just what the Dockers need. Except Nat Fyfe. He doesn't need it.

There are also some fierce warrior chicks who are like Amazons but aren't from an island. They scowl (a lot!) and are the King's special bodyguards. But not like Colonel Gaddafi's bodyguards, at least I don't think so. There is a lovable sidekick who is a CIA operative and a nasty villain who is a Yarpie (obviously!)

King T'Challa's father has just died and this sets the scene for the sort of conflict that is central to any Marvel movie. Yes, there is another claimant to the throne who appears and he has hundreds and hundreds of what appear to be little boils, each of which represent someone he killed. I think. Who they were or why they were killed I cannot recall, but he's from America, so anyone really.

His father was killed by T'Challa's father so there's bad blood aplenty. T'Challa has a sister who is terribly good at inventing things like new Black Panther suits sort of like Tony Stark except she doesn't get to wear 'em and she's a chick..

The new claimant wants to take over the world and right centuries of wrongs done to Africans and their descendants worldwide and violence is his weapon combined with other weapons made out of terribly, terribly useful and rare metal. And he wants to do it NOW! King T'Challa favours a more measured approach to world domination using a creeping goodness and mercy and understanding strategy. No-one is stepping up to redress the wrongs done to Australian Aboriginals, or first nations folk from other, more heavily armed, countries.

In the finest tradition of Marvel there is a really big battle between the two forces, and the usurper has the CG ginormous rhinoceroses who cut a swathe though King T'Challa's forces but are tamed by someone that they used to know and she gets her face licked. They, the CG armour clad rhinos, don't look very real. Although I've never seen a real ginormous armoured rhinoceros so I might be judging them unfairly.

In my view, the battle scene would've been heaps better if there had been a contingent of Welsh infantry singing 'Men of Harlech'. I suppose some will ponder upon who was good, and who was evil, or were either of them good or evil or on infinite variations of the two. But I didn't.

Is it a parable? Does King T'Challa represent Martin Luther King? Does usurper-guy represent Malcolm X? Or the prophet Mohammed? Dunno.

Is it any good? Look. I may not have been part of the target demographic. Lots of clever and self important reviewers have compared it, favourably, to bees-knees. Me? Not so much. It's better'n Interstellar, but so is having an eyeball removed with a spoon that has just been licked by, say, Jabba the Hutt.

A bit dull.

Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (2017)

A black comedy, because I can't think of anything darker

[8/10 · 22 January 2018]

3 Billboards In a departure from our usual diet of super heroes and starfighters, we toddled off to see a movie called "Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri". It was in fairness my choice because I'd seen the shorts (Americans call it a trailer) and I thought it looked pretty funny in a bad language/knee-lifting tough-chick kinda way.

It is about a woman, Mildred, whose daughter was raped and murdered by person/persons unknown some 7 months previously, and who is despairing of the lack of progress in the hunt for the killer/s. Fair to say it is not your standard comedy fare. She berates the local law enforcement officers by taking out a lease on 3 billboards on a road less travelled and using them to query their efforts. Names are named; questions are asked.

The good burghers of Ebbing, Missouri are miffed, particularly given that the much loved Chief of Police (CoP) is mentioned by name. The CoP has significant problems of his own. In the interests of those who have not seen the movie, I shall not reveal the nature of these problems. Suffice to say they are resolved. He is married to an Australian of whom I was previously unaware.

Mildred's billboards attract media attention. News crews appear. Live crosses end badly.

Tyrion Lannister is in it too and he reprises his GoT panty-burgling persona. I hesitate to comment upon his success. But.....nah.

There is a really BAD cop (rBc) whose really-badness has clearly Freudian roots. One may ask, with some justification, "aren't they all?" but that would be a digression too far. He tortures prisoners but justifies it in an oddly correct way.

There is a priest who lectures Mildred on the morality of her billboarding and has pointed out to him that, as a priest, morality is something of a touchy issue, regardless of whether he was a touchy priest.

There is an ex-husband who is prone to violence and partial to young zoo keepers. Mildred too is prone to very significant violence. She is not a woman to be crossed. There is a son whose school life deteriorates as Mildred's war develops.

Is it resolved? Are murder(ers) found and justice visited upon them?

I shall not say.

Is it any good? It is so dissimilar as to be incomparable to the benchmark 'Starship Troopers' although both are morality tales. But yes, it IS good, and well worth a Senior's discount. And were we so blighted, worth a full price ticket (FPT)! High praise indeed.

There are genuinely funny bits in a comedy I'll describe as black because I can't think of anything darker.

Justice League (2017)

We saw it, so you don't have to.

[2/10 · 17 November 2017]

I wasn't too sure about 'Justice League', but was assured that it was the sort of movie we liked, so off we toddled.

There are clearly gaps in our knowledge of super hero recent events. Mebbe they were on Fox. Anyway, Superman is dead! How the hell did THAT happen? Who is Cyborg? When did Khal Drogo eschew the steppe for the deep?

The earth is under attack. No surprises there. This time it's Steppenwolf and a host of dodgy CGI's. Steppenwolf looks to be your standard or garden earth imperiler. I don't know why he is called Steppenwolf. Hermann Hesse might. Dunno. Haven't read it.. Logic would indicate that it was to segue into "Born to be Wild' but it didn't and the movie is the poorer for it.

Steppenwolf is looking for three mystic boxes to put together to bring something that might be his mother back to rule the universe. I think. One was held by the Amazons, one by the Atlanteans, and one by a Russian farmer with a shotgun. Batman sets about putting together a team to defeat Steppenwolf. There is Aquaman, Cyborg, the Flash and Wonder Woman. But the Wolfster can go a bit and they are overmatched. To be fair, it's hardly your superhero 'A' team. They decide to bring Superman back from the dead. As you do. I thought that it was lucky that he hadn't been cremated then slapped myself for my stupidity.

Superman is bought back from the dead!

It was my fervent hope that he 'S' on the outfit would be changed into a 'Z' and his vocabulary would have been reduced to one word; and that word would be 'Brains' but alas, the 'Doom of ZombieMan' was to be a dream unrequited. It starts off promisingly enough with Superman being confused and very cross about recent events and generally smiting hither and thither but Lois Lane turns up and he, Superman, rogers her and gets over his temporary death and subsequent resurrection. The Justice League, now with Superman coming off the bench, set about saving the world.

Is it any good?

Nope. It's crap. Think 'Interstellar' in tights. The two people sitting next to us were drunk (at 10.00am; well done you!) and they clearly enjoyed it. We weren't and we didn't.

Would've been improved by;

1. Superman being reborn as one of the living dead 2. 'Born to be Wild' 3. Daenerys Targaryen 4. Being drunk

Thor: Ragnarok (2017)

Hunt for the WilderThor

[8/10 · 30 October 2017]

Me'n the missus were looking forward to seeing Thor: Ragnarok. We'd seen the shorts and were impressed. So off we hopped to see it in a manner that holders of the 'Holy Seniors Card' grandly imagine to be 'nimble'. It was made in Australia and has Australians in it and some New Zealanders too who aren't yet famous enough to be claimed as Australians.

Odin, Thor's dad has flown the coop and left Asgard to live in Norway and look at the ocean. Thor, and his brother 'Loki the Dodgy', go to visit him via Dr Strange in a bit that I didn't quite understand. Loki, I discovered is/was Taylor Swift's squeeze! Thanks, Doctors waiting room magazines! Next visit I'll try and find out who Taylor Swift is.

Odin tells the Thorster that he isn't really the firstborn and he has a big sister and she has been hidden away because she is temperamentally questionable, in the manner of a youth who might feature in the first episode of a 'Kids who Commit Genocide' documentary series is temperamentally questionable. Not only is she super-mean, but she's really REALLY strong and has no need of a hammer; she has attitude! She is called Hela but is really darkside Galadriel who has covered her ears up. Being the firstborn she has dibs on the throne.

Thor ends up in a sort of fighting pit run by Wilderpeople and Jurassic Park'ers. I didn't really understand how he got there except there was a drunk chick involved. Doesn't really matter, but. It was pretty funny. Thor meets Korg who is a gladiatorial support act made out discarded drystone and is one of my favouritest characters. They become friends.

Thor takes his shirt off and there was a sharp intake of breath from the female audience members, as well as the two blokes sitting behind us. He also gets a haircut.

Thor fights the Hulk in the fighting pit. How the Hulk got there isn't explained but it doesn't really matter. It's a good fight too! I want to know who makes the Hulk's trouser because I too have gotten heaps bigger over time and a pair of expanda-pants would be handy.

There is a sort of alliance formed and they all head off to Asgard to take care of Darkside Galadriel/Hela. It's not going to be easy. Making up a name for the alliance is tricky too.

There is a big battle and 'Immigrant Song' is played. I still think it should be our national anthem. I grandly consider myself a visionary, and as such it is my lot to have my great ideas ignored. I won't ruin it by telling who wins.

Is it any good? YessirreeeBob. It's directed by the same person who directed 'Hunt for the Wilderpeople' and that is a fave. He's a New Zealander at the moment but we'll adopt him soon.

It's good enough that I'll prolly buy it on Blu-ray and take it away on golf trips to entertain the drunks.

Blade Runner 2049 (2017)

Worthy

[8/10 · 6 October 2017]

Date Day! And we used our Senior's discount cards to see 'Blade Runner 2049'. We'd dutifully watched Blade Runner 2019 again to whet our little appetites, and thusly prepared, off we trundled. I didn't fall over or anything and didn't have to go to hospital. WIN!

We were a bit hesitant because we like the first one, and also I am not much of a Ryan Gosling fan. He is both lugubrious and named after a young goose.

Gozza is a Blade Runner and a replicant and it's fair to say not much loved by his fellows. Or his neighbours for that matter. He takes insults with a shrug. He has a girlfriend. Sort of. In the way you might have 'sort of' had a girlfriend when you changed your relationship status on Facebook to 'it's awkward'.

He lives in a slummy sort of building in a slummy sort of city. The city will be familiar to those who know the first movie, although the holograms are more, well, naked. I am not sure what effect ginormous holographic pudenda are supposed to have. And on whom. I expect that this is a niche market from which I am excluded . It still rains a lot. The two are, hopefully, unrelated.

There are baddies and there is a new Tyrell. Not to be confused with 'Game of Thrones' Tyrell. Well you wouldn't. It's not his name. 'Wallace' is. But he doesn't wear a kilt, presumably so he cannot be confused with 'William'. He has got ball bearing eyes. To say that he treats his newborn creations with off-handed malice is a significant understatement. His chief helper is the inappropriately named 'Luv'. Her over-active tear ducts add a touch of undeserved humanity. She is not one whom you would want to cross.

'Not William' Wallace is manufacturing replicants like a madman but he can't make enough of them to meet demand and thinks that it'd be better if the replicants did their own replicating and there are rumours of some replicant-on-replicant or non replicant-on-replicant action and he wants the result of said shenanigans in the worst possible way. And most of the movie is about whether there is or isn't and if there IS who it is and how many there might be and if there isn't, well it's back to the drawing board for 'not William'. His poor attention to detail could be a reason for his failure.

Harrison Ford is in it and still plays Deckard, and you can't help think that he might like to play someone not called Deckard. Or Solo. Or Jones. He lives with a dog that is probably a replicant and a million bottles of scotch that seem legit.

The Gozza fights lots of replicants including the big bloke out of Guardians of the Galaxy.

There is a tree that is dead but has a date on it. It hasn't got a name. But if it did, I bet it'd be 'Groot'.

There is a Dickensian orphanage which may be the source of replicant memories; but are they real, and to whom do they belong?

Is it any good?

Well on a scale 1-10, where 1 is the execrable and pretentious 'Interstellar', and 10 is 'Starship Troopers', the greatest movie ever made, it's a solid 8. It goes alright.

It's a looong movie. The elderly or incontinent will struggle.

Dunkirk (2017)

No Bravado. No chest beating

[9/10 · 3 August 2017]

Dunkirk. It was raining so there was no golf and what do two elderly chaps and a vibrant youth do? They go to the movies!

Dunkirk goes alright too.

WWII actually started well before the Americans got involved and this is the story of a bit of the bit before they did. In fact there are no Americans in the movie so there is an absence of rock-jawed selfless heroism. Rather, there is stoicism from men and boys in cardigans and cheery nurses who serve tea to survivors.

The Germans are still very cross about the way they were dealt with after WWI. They are very well led and as a result they have cornered some 400,000 British, French and Belgians at Dunkirk. The French are fighting a rearguard action to keep the Germans at bay. It's going badly. They are surrounded on a beach at Dunkirk. There are a lot of them. About 400,000 troops. On a beach. Being bombed. And if they DO get off the beach they are bombed and torpedoed. So things are bleak. Churchill has said that they can evacuate, maybe, 30,000.

The movie is about the evacuation and it really happened.

Life on the beach is uncertain. They are being bombed and machine gunned and JU87's are largely unchallenged and if that's what they actually sounded like I now have a small idea of why they were so terrifying and I was watching a movie and not being bombed. There are a few RAF fighters in the air but a lot are held back because it seems likely that they will be needed later. In any case they don't have much fuel and can only stay for a little while before they have to fly home. They have some successes, but there are costs.

One soldier who has had enough of being on the beach strips off and walks into the water and attempts to swim home. There was a special poignancy about this.

Ships are sent to rescue the isolated troops and there is only one jetty (called 'the Mole') so evacuation is slow. It also means that the ships are all in one place and are pretty easy to bomb. Or torpedoed.

The Royal Navy decides to commandeer anything that can float and is able to get close enough to a beach to be clambered aboard by the troops on the beach. There are fishing boats, leisure cruisers and yachts all manned by the sort of people who you would imagine might own this sort of boat. About 700 of these small craft take part, and the movie is really about them. It was all I could do not to stand and cheer when they appear out of the mist. I have actually been to a place on the Thames where some of them departed

The soldiers and their unlikely rescuers are bombed and torpedoed and shot. Everyone tries very hard not to be the subject of a telegram or a glowing article in a local paper. There are cups of tea and these are strangely reassuring.

There are submarines too, but their presence is known only by the results.

The overall effect is the first 20 Minutes of 'Saving Private Ryan' going for about 90 minutes. There is no chest-beating heroism. No bravado. No speeches from the dying. Sometimes people just do whatever they can to simply survive. Sometimes they are selfless with an almost understated courage and do things that are unexpected.

But mostly it's about 700 little boats manned by normal people, men and boys in cardigans, sailing across the English Channel and back to save people

About 340,000 British, French and Belgian troops were rescued, mainly by little private boats. This is a very good result. However it does mean that 1 in 10 were killed or captured

The Mummy (2017)

Better without bandages

[2/10 · 12 June 2017]

Why would we choose The Mummy? This is a question we have since asked ourselves.

Anyway,

A Pharaoh has a daughter called Princess Ahmanet and she is an only child and is set to be Pharoahette when daddy dies. But there is life in the old boy yet, and he fills a second wife with arms and legs and a penis (it's a BOOYYY!). This being ancient Egypt and boys taking precedence, Princess Ahmanet is onnaouter, and will be forced to live a simple life of luxury and privilege. But she wants to be Pharaoh! Mind you, Cleopatra was a pharaoh. And Hatshepsut. So was Khentkaus I.

Princess Ahmanet is cross and bitter about her lot, and makes a deal with Set (possibly played by a resurrected L. Ron Hubbard) who gives her a nasty-looking knife to kill daddy and his new wife and her baby and also her boyfriend who will be reborn as Set/ L. Ron Hubbard. He also gives her some smart body-art. She's going alright having killed everyone except her boyfriend when she's captured and wrapped in bandages and embalmed in mercury. Seems fair. Crusaders find the knife.

Her crypt is discovered by an Army-ranger-come-grave-robber played by Tommy Cruise. He has a lovable sidekick but I don't remember his name. Anyway Tom shoots him three times.

A mysterious and clandestine group of mystic archaeologists headed by Dr Jekyll take control of the mummy. The good Dr still has significant anger management issues. The mystic archaeologist's brief is to keep the world safe from ancient demons. Tom dies in a plane crash. We got up to walk out but the lights stayed off so we sat down again.

Dr Jekyll is played by New Zealander and Souths supporter, Rusty Crowe. Just when he thought it couldn't get any worse....

Ahmanet reanimates herself by sucking the life out of first responders and passers-by but is captured by Jekyll and his mystic archaeologists, who include the Cruiser's love interest. Tom gets better! They (the archaeologists) pump her (Ahmanet) full of mercury again, but LO!, the magic knife is found and this perks her up and she vomits up the mercury and breaks her shackles and creates some crusader zombies.

Her mission is to kill Tom (again) with the magic knife and he will be reborn, (again!), as Set and she (Ahmanet) and he (Set) will live happily ever after. The rest of us are PMF. Does she succeed?

No.

I only tell you that to save you from having to watch the movie. The monsters aren't very scary, the sidekick isn't very funny. The mummy is cute enough but nowhere near mean enough and wears disappointingly strategic bandages. Rusty looks as though Souths have just been pantsed. And it's got Tom Cruise.

The problem with any Tom Cruise move is that you just know that behind that boyish face is a batshit crazy scienfuckingtologist pretending that he isn't. And it just doesn't work.

Wonder Woman (2017)

Steel Skimpies

[4/10 · 2 June 2017]

If you are the sort of puppy that likes to watch buff females wrestling each other in their skimpies, this may well be the movie for you. God knows what Margaret Court would've thought about it, although I suspect that this is exactly the sort of thing she secretly likes whilst hiding her true feelings behind an interpretation of ancient text.

Wunder WOOMAN! is an Amazon and is descended from Zeus who bred them (Amazons) to look after the world if his brother Ares recovers from the mother of all floggings and decides to make mischief.

A British spy who is an American (before the days when American spies revealed their ineptitude) crashes his German plane near an island that is perpetually clouded in, but isn't, perhaps surprisingly, inhabited by a giant ape. Instead it is inhabited by Amazons. It's a pretty nice island. Not as nice as Lord Howe, but.

It's WWI

Anyway the spy is chased in by Germans who know that he isn't really one of them, and they have guns and the Amazons have skimpies so you can imagine how this ends. But Diana, Wunder WOOMAN! can go a bit and she takes on the Germans as is doing alright too but has to be saved by the British spy who is an American in a German plane.

He tells her about the war to end all wars and she decides that Zeus' brother Ares is likely the culprit, and, dammit, she's going to put an end to this nonsense.

There are all laughs aplenty when Diana is first exposed to WWI London. Baby-making (tee-hee) is explained, her steel undies are a sensation and baddies are thrashed mercilessly when they do a bit of recreational ogling.

Diana and her merry band (think Hogan's Heroes) head off to the front to show Jerry just who's boss and in so doing demonstrate a compassion to refugees that, in her days in the IDF, would have been deemed treasonous.

My mind was wandering at this stage and I wondered, idly in the manner of such wanderings, how she cut her underarm hair? In a similar vein I wondered why Daenerys Targaryen's hair didn't burn, although I think in that case I may have detected some charring as I freeze-framed through. Enough of that.

The is a villain called Dr. Poison who has, apparently, cut herself rather badly when shaving, and General Ludendorff who has a drug habit. There are snipers. There is poison gas! All the bad things are as a result of the Germans. The hero is an American! How times have changed.

'Wunder WOOMAN' is kitted out with a magic shield, a lariat, a sword, and bracelets (don't cross the bracelets!)

There are adventures, sort-of-pathos (which goes on for ages and ages and AGES and makes you wonder what is a safe bladder level) baddies and rock-jawed goodies. The hero is a heroine and that's a plus. She looks a bit like Kim Kardashian and that's a not so good thing.

Is it any good? Not really. On the scale 1-10 where 'Interstellar' is 1, and 'Starship Troopers' is a 10, it's about a 5. Prolly wouldn't see a sequel, even at Seniors discount prices. My wife didn't think much of it either.

King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)

Ragnar meets Voldemort; More betterer than you've been led to believe

[8/10 · 19 May 2017]

We took a guest to the movies for his birthday. We chose King Arthur. OK, the reviews had not been the best, but our guest had enjoyed 'Interstellar' so the bar was at ground level. He was sure to be gruntled The movie is, unsurprisingly, about King Arthur.

Young Arthur is set adrift in his boat by his father, Chopper Pendragon. Chopper has a magic sword, but it's not magic enough to stop him turning into a rock after being on the losing side in a medieval death-match with his brother, Vortigern, who wants to be king. He is rescued by some working girls on what is presumably Londīnium's east end and grows to manhood in a brothel and learns the ways of the warrior in the company of a Kung Fu master. Fair enough. He is a pimp with a heart of gold who looks a bit like Ragnar Lothbrook. Things take a turn for the worse when a real Viking called Greybeard beats up one of the girls and Arthur teaches him the sort of lesson that will not soon forgotten, but these Vikings are under the protection of Vortigern who has a side business in child trafficking and Arthur finds himself on the way to Vortigern's palace along with lots of other blokes to see if he can pull a sword out of a stone which he of course does, being Arthur.

The sword, which is possibly played by Prince Charles, is a serious enhancement to any young warriors wardrobe, and Vortigern wants it in the worst way but he can't have it while the real King, Arthur, lives and Arthur finds that the sword is a bit of a mystery and he can't use it anyway but Vortigern can so he decides to chop Arthur's head off. A woman mage (a madge?) steps in and saves him and the rest of the film is about whether Arthur can master the sword or will he lose out to Vertigan.

Madge tries to help him master it but he chucks it away and meets pond-chick who gives it back to him and tells him "to suck it up, buttercup". The sword is called Excalibur. I don't know why, but.

King Arthur may not have existed, and even if he did he was likely Welsh or French anyway and there has never been an Arthur II. It is as near as certain as a thing can be that he was not an American, even though he is something of a superhero from the days before Marvel. And as a superhero he goes alright too. He has a sword instead of a hammer and there is a bit of mysticism. There are no Mcguffies. Arthur's mates from the knock-shop sound like the characters from 'Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels' and I half expected them to call him 'Arfur'. There is a big tower where a Balrog lives, some Vikings, and a giant snake which could be a Voldemort, a dragon, or simply a Freudian nightmare. There are battles and humongous elephants. There is a villain that you just want to hiss at. Given the director's patchy personal marital history, it is unsurprising that he avoids a love interest.

Is it any good? Yessirree. Who doesn't go for swords and sorcery? We liked it a lot more than we thought we would. Well worth the Seniors Discount, and we'd fork out to see a sequel too. Heaps better'n 'Alien Covenant', and leaves 'Interstellar' whimpering in the corner.

Kong: Skull Island (2017)

No sympathy for the Ape

[3/10 · 11 March 2017]

Gimme a 'K'; gimme an 'O' gimme an 'N', 'G'.........well half a chant is better than no chant at all. This is not the case with movies. We went based on reviews, primarily the ABC brekkie show. Thanks for that, ABC brekkie reviewer guy.

The story is set at the end of the Vietnam War. Satellites have found an island that generates it's own weather and has therefore remained obscured from prying eyes.

It is called Skull Island but I don't know why unless someone had identified it as such in a Rorschach test. Me? I thought it looked a bit like a blood eagle. In my defence I've been watching 'Vikings'.

The Americans put together a team to go and drop bombs on the island. No surprises there. The team is headed by Sammy Jackson, who is so devoid of compassion that he'd happily groom kiddies for a lifetime gambling addiction resulting in abject poverty and eventual suicide by advertising an online betting site.

He has a team of hard-as-nails cavalry-helicopter types and he recruits The Night Manager to take this hard-as-nailness to the next level. He's an expert tracker although why you'd need an expert tracker to find a 90 foot ape is beyond me. He isn't even a very good tracker and at one stage loses the river they were following. In any case the Kongster isn't very good at hiding.

It starts off OK after the 'how we got here' preamble. An apocalypse of helicopters flies to the island and starts dropping their bombs. Kong doesn't take kindly to his island being Cambodianised and decides that the helicopters need swatting and swat like a crazy thing he does. He is a fine swatter! There is death and destruction. Paranoid, the Sabbath classic, is an excellent choice to accompany the swatting.

Inevitably, and somewhat sadly, there are survivors. And these survivors headed by Jacko swear vengeance upon the copter-swatter. Jacko loves war and killing stuff. He is an American. He is a hunter. But Kong is no Bambi.......

There are giant lizards and they do sterling work in thinning out the cast. There is a tribe of mutes, a WWII survivor and lots of miscellany who don't seem to have a reason for being there at all before (mostly) joining the ranks of the thinned. There are lizard birds too. They are unlikely to be first choice as pets, or kiddie-playmates.

Kong is shot and napalmed and has a death match with the mother of all lizards. Yes, echoes of 'The Great Wall'. Me? I'd like to see a haircut death match between the Trumpster and Kim Jong-un. Then I'd like to see Sean Spicer report it. Such are the dreams of ordinary men.....

The music is pretty good and we knew most of it. We got to meet Kong's parents. Well sort of.

Without wanting to ruin it for folk, a sequel is likely. We are unlikely to waste a Seniors Discount on it.

If your tastes run to death-and-destruction jungle movies with monsters, 'Predator' is a better choice. Even when he was being napalmed and shot and being bit by a ginormous lizard we didn't care very much. There were no sighs of 'poor Kong'. No moist eyes. Just a feeling of satisfaction that my bladder was not quite full when it ended.

On a par with 'The Great Wall'. Better than 'Interstellar'.

The Great Wall (I) (2016)

We saw it so you don't have to.

[1/10 · 17 February 2017]

Why did we go and see 'The Great Wall? Well we don't mind Matty Damon, we, or at least me, don't mind the odd Chinese action pic, and we've seen and walked along (a bit of) the real thing. AND there were monsters and the shorts hinted at a suggestion of 'Starship Troopers', the greatest movie ever made. And big walls are in the news! This is a movie with nothing to redeem it. Look. Some of the costumes are OK. And Matt Damon's sidekick might be called 'tow-bar and that was a funny bit. But otherwise, nope.

The dialogue is as if it may have been written in Chinese, gone through a google translation into, say Finnish, and then another google translation into English. There is a nameless order (who all have names) and are colour-coded in order of their expertise (blue is for bunjee jumping!).

There are big, toothy iguanas who are ruled over by a ginormous female frill-necked lizard. They (the lizards) are allergic to magnets. They would have been heaps better – and more relevant - if they wore sombreros and called each other Diego, Emiliano, Santiago and Juan (Hwaaahn). And funnier too. And the frill-necked lizard coulda been called 'Koylie and she could've had perky macguffies! Sadly, it was not to be.

There are hot air balloons too. Made of rice paper. Powered by hot air made using gunpowder. What could go wrong? What indeed! They drop like flies under a Mortein barrage.

There are many more questions asked than are answered and those are really not worth asking to the point that I can't remember what they were.

We left the movie nearly 2 hours closer to death. It was the sort of movie that makes one dwell on this.

La La Land (2016)

One for the Romantics

[7/10 · 9 February 2017]

We went and saw La La Land as a baby step on the long road to recovery following 'the Incident'. A journey starts with a single step. Unless you are driving. Although most folk walk to a car.... But what if that initial walk is away from your destination? I don't know. I don't care. Just put it in for the pedants.

The movie is about a struggling jazz musician. No surprises there. Is there any other kind? The only surprise is that he doesn't seem to be a smack freak. He plays Christmas music in a place where he has to give himself tips. He is unhappy. Fortunately the Gozza has a permanent preternaturally bleak look about him.

There is also a struggling actress, played by the Stoner who is good at crying and this is fortunate because her life as a struggling actress is as potholed as a Port Moresby road. Mebbe they've improved. Dunno.

The movie starts off with a big production number that is reminiscent of a Pepsi max ad with bucket loads of young, wild (yet oddly responsible) young people dancing and singing and generally making the best of a bad situation. In my experience, both as an observer and an historical actual young person, this just doesn't happen without alcohol and drugs and almost always ends badly with one vomit-filled shoe, bruises, and no underwear. I hate Pepsi Max ads and their ilk.

Anyway they meet and there are production numbers and jazz concerts and auditions and successes and failures before they both became wildly successful. Most of the music was unfamiliar to me. I did recognise A-Ha and Flock of Seagulls but they were peripheral. I am not proud of this.

They fall in love. Those who wish to see MacGuffies will be disappointed.

There are lot of flash backs and these had me for one confused, presenting alternate endings and suchlike. If you nod off, you'll go insane with an absolute hydra of possibility.

But we did enjoy the music and had I been a toe-tapper, these mini digits would've been tapping out a machine-gun beat.

There is dancing too, but Fred'n Ginger expectations will be dashed against the rocks of despair. Still, they are better'n me although I have a hip flexor injury, and am off the turps.

We walked out thinking that it hadn't been a waste of a seniors discount. The in-laws were sitting next to us, and they liked it too, I think. Not the best movie we have seen. But far fromma worst. One for the romantics. You know who you are.

The Magnificent Seven (2016)

It goes OK!

[7/10 · 29 September 2016]

Remakes. The execrable Ben-Hur remake has made us suspicious. But we were excited and prepared to suspend reality at senior discount rates to take a chance on the Magnificent Seven. OK. The bald white guy in the original is replaced by black guy with hair called Sam Chisolm but he's still as cool as that part of the bed you save for emergencies on hot summer nights. The White Widow of Rose Creek likes the cut of Sam's jib and asks him to save her town from the sort of greedy landgrab that seems to have been commonplace in 1870's America and lived on in 20th century South America. Think Pale Rider. Think LaHood. Think a tanned Clint before he talked to chairs. Sam takes little convincing, the White Widow having lost her ability to do up bodice-buttons. Seems reasonable. He puts together a team that includes a marksman war hero, a wisecracking cardshark, an oriental gentleman with deadly hairclips, a mountain man, and a Mexican. But this is only six and the producers suddenly realised that the Magnificent Six doesn't quite have the ring to it so they introduce a Commanche called Red Harvest because you can never have too much ethnic diversity. Also LaHood whose real name is Bart Bogue and who looks nothing like Eli Wallach has an Indian too and he is a really bad bastard and as any cook'll tell you things need to be balanced. And Sam can show his empathy by eating raw liver. They arrive in town and clean up Bogues' murderous crew quick smart, after giving them the sort of friendly warning that says 'there can only be one outcome'. The warning is not heeded. So there's a fight. With guns. There are arrows and knives too and an axe from memory but mostly guns. There's lots of snappy one liners and they do an individual body count at the end and it shows that they (the Magnificent Seven) have killed 12,217,365. The war hero who holds down the Robert Vaughn role has a big zero next to his name. Iffy. But there is a survivor and he takes off lickety split to let the Boguester know that all is not well in Rose Creek. It is fair to say he is not best pleased and lets the bearer of the tidings know in terms that give lie to the metaphor. His face sets to stone and he orders chief-baddie-assistant to scoop the shallow end of the gene-pool for the sort of heavily armed lunatics who, in a different time, would consider voting for a special needs oompah-loompah a good idea. In the meantime Sam and his happy band of vigilantes are preparing for what will be the western equivalent of the mother of all battles. WMD's, it should be noted, are also absent in Rose Creek and it's surrounds. All that's left now is to guess which of the Magnificents will survive the bloodbath and whether comeupperances will be delivered with sufficient malice. To name survivors would be giving it away. Suffice to say we were a bit startled. Hottest member of the Magnifiques? According to my wife, Red Harvest wins hands down to the extent that I am writing this stripped to the waist with red face paint on. There may be a niche market for fatmen thussly presented but I'm damn sure that I would not want to meet anyone who lives in this dark place. So no photo. Was it any good? It goes OK! We were told to hush by an old(er) guy when we cheered. He nodded off. We both came out thinking it had been well worth the seniors ticket price.

Suicide Squad (2016)

Goes OK!

[8/10 · 25 August 2016]

We stepped right out of our comfort zone and went to the movies onnaSaturday and the movie that we saw was SUICIDE SQUAD despite the fact that it has been panned by those who make a living panning stuff. It appeared to be the sort of no-brainer that appeals to us. Given the choice between 'Starship Troopers' and 'Philadelphia' we are unlikely to take the latter path of social empathy.

A team of super-doopers is put together in case something bad happens, Superman being, it appears, no longer an option. Batman is still around I think but I might've missed his death. The team has all the bases covered with the standout being a perkily-buttocked Harley Quinn who is played by an Australian but sounds American. There is an Australian squadee called 'Captain Boomerang' (Jesus wept!) who sounds like an American playing an Australian but is played by 'Jai' someone or other and as Jai is a name much favoured by bogans he might well have been an Australian. Anyway he's not much chop.

The Joker is also in it and he goes OK too. Not as good as the Heathster, but runs a respectable second and he rogers Harley after giving her an acid bath.

The squad is put together by ominous CIA type who is not a prisoner taker. Think Bronwyn Bishop with less mercury applied. Lee Lin Chin was BORN for this role.

It being a super hero movie a disaster-with-villain is essential. This takes the form of an ancient enchantress and her dodgy brother who decide to destroy the world. Mind you they do have some justification. We've nicked her heart and implanted her into a love interest for a special forces guy. There is always a Special Forces guy. Enchantress is hot but a bad dancer. She doesn't look her age.

There are lumpy-headed zombie thingies and a tattooed torch with guilt issues. There is a Deadshot freshie from Bel-Air, and a native American warrior who, in keeping with the pilgrimcentric idea of Americana, is shifty and killed early. There is a big guy with bad skin and pointy teeth. He takes his shirt off but is unlikely to attract the attention of Tarzan who apparently had a 'V' which sends womenfolk into a girl-frenzy. REAL men, and I consider myself one, do not have a 'V'. We have a 'Q' And there is a soundtrack! Creedence, Leslie Gore, Norman Greenbaum, Rolling Stones, Queen and Black Sabbath. Eric Burdon and AckaDacka (ruined by Captain Boomerang). And SWEET. And these are just the ones I remember! It is Tarantinoesque and it was worth the seniors admission just to listen to it. We shall buy the soundtrack.

Is it any good? Depends on what you want to compare it to. Ghostbusters? Tarzan? Seen 'em both and it's much more better. There are some funny bits and some serious bits but they might've just been poorly written funny bits.

Ben-Hur (2016)

Expectations met - but not in the way the makers intended

[5/10 · 25 August 2016]

Who doesn't like a sword and sandals epic? We sure as hell do so we skipped happily off to see the remake of BEN HUR, it being date-day and we being in a movie mood. We weren't expecting much because we hadn't been particularly enamoured of the original starring Cold Dead Chuck. So we went along with low expectations and these were met although not perhaps in the way the makers intended.

Judah-Ben is a Jewish prince who is good to his slaves in a 'please' and 'thank you' kinda way. His adopted brother might be a Roman and his name is Garam Masala although it isn't spelled that way in the credits. It's spelled that way in our spice rack but.

Judah and Garam are besties as well as being nearly-brothers. Garam goes off to fight for Rome mostly because his attempts at the burgling of Judah's sister's panties have been met with the furrowed brow of stern disapproval of his nearly-mother. Foreskin issues? Mebbe. He gets in a lot of battles none of which are nearly as good as the Battle of the Bastards. Jesus pops up every now and then and says something enigmatic.

Garam comes back to Jerusalem and him and Judah-Ben cuddle and are back to being besties in a heartbeat and there is a sword prezzie but nothing lasts forever and they squabble and Garam sends Judah to the galleys . He spends 5 years row, row, row your boating and it's tough. Fortunately, scurvy hasn't been invented so he keeps all of his teeth and they get even whiter if that is even possible.

He survives a battle and has a Life of Pi adventure and is discovered by Morgan Freeman who wears a dress and is, if anything, even more prone to making enigmatic observations than Jesus. One of the great voices, has Morgan. However this loses much of it's potency when exposed to a script that sounds as though it may have gone through a series of translations from the original Aramaic before it arriving in a form of English.

Morgs is a horse trainer and race fixer and has a team of ringers and no driver so he offers the job to Judah-Ben because he was a vet. Sort of. He challenges the Pilate to race against his team of white horses and you just know that this's going to be good.

The gun roman driver is,you guessed it, none other than our old friend Garam Masala. He's the villain too, although in fairness his villainy is more Wascally Wabbit than, say, Ted Bundy. You can tell that he's iffy because he has black horses.

The big chariot race is an absolute ball-tearer! We were on the edge of our seats cheering and 'Hyaaar HYAAAR-ing' and 'GO you good thing-ing' like there was no tomorrow. The Zambuks were flat out like lizards drinking. Talk about carnage! I half expected that the crowd would start singing 'You'll Never Walk Alone' and that was about the only thing that could've improved it.

I won't ruin it by saying who wins. Even Pilate has a go at being a bit enigmatic after the race.

Jesus says a couple more mystic things and is crucified and makes it rain and cures some lepers.

Was it any good? Nah. Rubbish.

Unless you look at it as an action/comedy and then it is oddly satisfying.

The Legend of Tarzan (2016)

Digital Animals just don't cut the mustard

[4/10 · 8 July 2016]

Our cinematic adventure this week was The Legend of Tarzan. We chose this because we had seen the shorts for it when we saw Central Intelligence last week and we saw THAT because Dwayne was in it and my wife is a bit keen on Dwayne and it went OK and I laughed a bit and the wife tittered quite a bit.

Tarzan's father buries his mother (she was dead so it's OK) and then get's killed by FBDA's (Great Big Digitized Apes) but Tarzan is just a little baby and a chick FBDA takes a shine to him and adopts him and raises him and teaches him to do FBDA stuff like walk on all fours. As a result Tarzan has ginormous hands and thoughts sprang unbidden of prostate examinations Tarzan sniffs Jane's crotch and so they get married, it being the Victorian era and they being the rules.

Tarzan (now known as John Clayton III) and Jane (still known as Jane) move to England and live in a FBH (Great Big House). He is talked into leaving his FBH and going back to the Congo by Samuel L. Jackson who has taken time off from grooming children to ruin their lives gambling.

King Leopold is the worst Belgian ever, at least until Mathias Cormann, and he is broke and needs to get money to raise an army to get diamonds so he isn't poor anymore. He has a FBB (Really Bad Baddie) working for him who strangles folk with a spider web crucifix. He (the FBB) knows Gambling Man from 'Django Unchained' and he killed people in that too.

To do this he enslaves Congolese to build a railway line and Tarzan thinks that this is wrong and he's right too so he has a fight with his FBDA brother and cops an absolute flogging the like of which I haven't seen since Lenny took onnabear in 'The Execrable'.

Tarzan signals his readiness to Jane by hiding and imitating the mating calls of various animals. I kid you not. Most men are simply 'conscious'.

Anyway there are fights and Mr Zan calls upon his animal wantoks. Wildebeest (digitized – Digi-Beests?) are turned into deadly weapons of war. All the animals are digitized and it is abundantly clear that the technology just does not yet cut the mustard. There are Digi-lions, Digi-diles and Digi-potamii. And of course FBDA's This means, I presume, that lots of the acting was in front of blank screens. And it shows.

Tarzan's jungle call is pretty cool All in all it's about as plausible as Noah. Jane is pretty cute. Better'n 'Interstellar'. Nowhere near as good as 'Deadpool' or any other good movie you might think of.

X-Men: Apocalypse (2016)

Would've been heaps improved with Deadpool and Daenerys Targaryen.

[3/10 · 20 May 2016]

Me'n the missus headed off on a date-day to the movies and we saw, by mutual agreement, X-Menapocalypse. It's always a good opportunity to suss out what may tickle our future fancies and there was a poster advertising 'BFG' which quite took my fancy until the child-bride hushed me correcting me in front of strangers by pointing out that it was a 'Big FRIENDLY Giant'.

The X-Men starts off quite well. It is set in ancient Egypt and there is a pyramid and we get the chance to say 'Oooh, we've been there' and there is a Klingon who is going to be made live forever by getting dead-guy juice from, well, a dead guy. But things go amiss due to various heroic efforts by blokes with spears and a great big rock that slides into the pyramid. The Klingon, who turns out to be the first mutant and who is called Apocalypse, is buried. I think that's his name anyway. I can't remember anyone actually calling him that but.

He's reanimated of course. If he wasn't it woulda been a PFS movie. He learns our languages by watching Egyptian TV. Good luck with THAT. I know two words of Arabic. 'Laa' and 'Insh'allah' both of which practically mean 'No' Apocalypse doesn't really carry off the super-powerful nasty. For a start, he wears platform shoes and these diminish his air of malice significantly. The impression is more that of an unimaginatively made-up Gene Simmons than, say, your full blown Sauron, the Dark Lord. Or Darth Vader. He puts together an army, and it's a pretty small one – 'the 4 Horsemen' but they don't have horses so the are just the 4 Men. Well they aren't all men so they aren't even that. The 4 Skins? Dunno. He gives them X-men gifts which are surprisingly modest given his supposed omnipotentness. Whips and skimpies are fine for relaxation, but not really your first choice for world domination. He does have a formidable weapon in Magnet-Man who gets a fancy-dan helmet and can do good hovering Apocalypse and his 4skins are pitted against Sansa Stark, whose time with the funster Ramsay Bolton has taught her a trick or two about survival and some of these tricks are going to make future intimacies unpredictable at best and positively lethal if she's 'just not in the mood'.

A contractual obligation is met when Wolverine takes out a heap of baddies then runs off to duel bears and suchlike.

Nuclear weapons are unleashed on an unsuspecting solar system. The Sydney Opera House is destroyed.

I won't spoil the experience by giving away the ending, although a sequel that is also a prequel leaves little room for maneuvering on the outcome.

Would've been heaps improved with Deadpool and Daenerys Targaryen. What wouldn't be improved by Daenerys Targaryen?

We've suffered so you don't have to!

The 5th Wave (2016)

I am clearly not 'target demographic'

[3/10 · 11 February 2016]

When I was a teenager, teenage movies were things like 'The Wanderers', and 'A Clockwork Orange'.

As a species, we have fallen far.

It all starts off well enough when the Feisty Young Heroine (FYH) executes a Christian. That was my favourite bit and it happens twice. The rest of the movie was collectively my least favourite bit.

A giant prop leftover from Independence Day circles the earth or at least the Ohio bit of it and after a little while visits all manner of miseries on the hapless Ohians and maybe on other folk as well in what, really, is a pretty poorly planned and executed invasion. It's a little bit biblical but the bible did it heaps better. Avian flu and EMPs just don't cut the mustard as fearful things. There weren't any pussy buboes or anything and rereading that it looks really nasty but I'll leave it.

FYH survives with Sam, her appalling, teddy hugging little brother but they are separated when it is demonstrated, yet again, that adult Americans simply cannot be trusted with guns. The kiddies are taken to a military base commanded by Colonel Vosch and as soon as you see THAT moniker you know that he is just going to be nasty. He is training teams of kiddies led by 'Zombie' who was FYH's high school crush to head out and slaughter other survivors because they are tricked into it. There is also a tough Goth chicky who is a good shot FYH is saved by an alien who burgles her panties. Aliens are identified by their designer stubble. Yes that's a spoiler or two, but I am in no way encouraging an investment of time on this – I have suffered for you. She escapes into the arms of evil Colonel Vosch and she meets 'Zombie' and Sam, her appalling, teddy hugging little brother. It was all I could do to stop myself screaming "just DIE!". He gets his teddy back and the alien panty-burglar plants bombs and they escape and Colonel Vosch says "we are not much different to you" and Zombie disagrees. FYH doesn't mention the inter-species fluid exchange to Zombie and that's probably for the best.

There will clearly be a sequel and I am betting that it will feature Doomsday Preppers and I'm not going unless there is a guarantee that they will be smitten with painful pussy buboes.

I miss Alex and his droogs and I even miss the Baldies. I miss them a lot.

The Revenant (I) (2015)

Chilly

[3/10 · 10 February 2016]

My wife didn't want to see The Revenant because she thought it might've been a bit blokey with all manner of violence and blood and miscellaneous gore. And in truth she probably wouldn't have liked it very much. So I went with a blokey-bloke , on a sort of mandate but there certainly wasn't any handholding and personal spaces were very much respected.

The movie is about a grizzled frontiersman with good teeth who, in the tradition of cinematic grizzled frontiersman was married to a native American who dies when she is shot and a bird flies out of her. The grizzled frontiersman with good teeth is called 'Glass' and played by Lenny DiCaprio Glass and his mates slaughter gazillions of merkins and they are attacked by vengeful native Americans who force them to row down the river. They get off the boat for reasons that eluded me but there were icebergs.

Glass sees some bear cubs and their mother sees him and, possibly having experience with grizzled frontiersmen with guns (or perhaps she had seen 'Titanic'), gives him an absolute flogging. She ambles off happy that lessons have been learned but they haven't and she returns to give him an even more severer lesson and Glass shoots her and stabs her and she is dead. We are given no information on what happens to the cubs. I hope they survived.

Glass doesn't die but more bad stuff happens to him than you could poke a stick at and he is bent on revenge. Most of the bad stuff is the result of a villain called Fitzgerald and a partial burial.

Other bad stuff happens too and is the result of the French who are likely all called 'Lucky Pierre'. Hey; it's an American movie! Americans hate the French after they sensibly and quite correctly stayed out of Iraq. I know some French folk and the loathing is reciprocated. I digress.

In keeping with the need for white grizzled frontiersmen to be seen as fully rounded, modern, caring sensitive and sympathetic, Glass meets a new native American bestie (with whom he shares Bison Liver Tartare) and saves a chiefs daughter from a fate worse than death involving Lucky Pierre. The bison was killed by a pack of digital wolves. To further prove empathy Glass looks sadly at piles of Bison skulls that appear at random throughout the film. The fate of the skulls he was responsible for are not recorded, but beaver skulls are pretty little I guess and without cinematic appeal.

In truth, the vengeance trail is more than a little Wile E Coyote. Every time he is about to succeed in his quest, something horrid and deadly happens to him but he inexplicably survives to continue his quest for the villainous Road Runner, Fitzy. Armed (presumably) with ACME powder and matches he keeps on keeping on. In a biblical twist, he is born-again! From a holy horse.

Leonardo doesn't have a face that lends itself to looking vengeful.

He has a magic coat that keeps him warm and toasty even after swimming in icy rivers. He is a good swimmer too.

In summary it is as plausible as a Bristol Palin abstinence lecture. But there is lots and lots of really REALLY nice scenery and it was all I could do to stop myself 'ooohing' and 'aaaahing' at the majesty of it. There is a lot of snow and sundry chilliness and you should wear a jumper if you see it, particularly if you are a sympathy-shiverer.