MattBayliss Reviews

The Night Of (2016)

Dramatically convincing and a pleasantly dark atmosphere (Revelry Review)

[9/10 · 3 July 2016]

HBO's new crime drama 'The Night Of' has sucked me in right from the very beginning. The pilot starts up very slow but builds suspense as it starts to tell the story, and that's where it shines; in it's storytelling. It was dramatically convincing and had a pleasantly dark atmosphere.

The pilot was very long (1hr 20min) but it felt much shorter, it was tense from start to finish, in the sense of the story it was actually very predictable, but it was the acting and how the story was portrayed that made it so gripping and watchable. Not a second went by where my attention wasn't glued to the TV screen.

What really made me love the pilot was how REAL the story felt, there wasn't a moment that made me think that it was a stupid story, it felt REAL. The acting was superb by everyone, the cinematography was perfect with it's overall dark tone and lighting, and the music just set the scene playing in the background to the tone of the show.

The overall mood of the show has been set for the series, and if it stays at this standard for the rest of the series it will be an ultimate success. I look forward to where the rest of this series takes us! No complaints yet!

9/10

Wolf Creek (2016–2017)

Great start, but ultimately ends in disappointment (Revelry Review)

[3/10 · 19 May 2016]

I am a huge fan of the Wolf Creek movies, John Jarratt does a great portrayal of outback killer 'Mick Taylor', when I first saw the preview for this it got me genuinely excited. It looked a lot more deeper than the conventional slasher type Wolf Creek movies, this one had the vibe of being more psychologically involved.

The show started off fantastic, we were thrown right into the action, meeting front runner Lucy Fry, depicting the main character whose family gets brutally murdered which ultimately sends her on a revenge trip to kill Mick Taylor. The suspense was great for the first 3 episodes, building slowly until we got to see the final showdown, the predictability was okay, it was entertaining so that is what kept me enthralled.

But after the 3rd episode the show took a turn for the worse, from what was a 7/10 show went directly down to a 3/10 show, mostly because of the filler scenes that made absolutely no sense and may as well have not been put in there. The portrayal of the 'Aussie Outback' is shown like something from a Mad Max movie, like it was a post apocalyptic wasteland...but really it was meant to be 2015. The nonsensical parts of the story started to gather up and it started to make the show very unbelievable and frustrating, all of the injuries that the main character suffered seemed to have gone away shortly hours after, when any normal person would have simply died from them.

This show had so much potential, leading on from the great legacy of Mick Taylor it could have gone many different ways. But the way in which the director chose definitely wasn't the right one. The show started fantastically and I honestly could not fault it for the first 3 episodes, but after that it became very cheesy in it's story-line and if you were an Australian watching this it was enough to make you cringe.

If the director actually portrayed Australians as normal civilians like we actually are, Mick Taylor would have been seen as more menacing and frightening. But apparently the director decided that all Australians act in a caveman manner and dress like the apocalypse had happened.

This was Wolf Creek, not Mad Max! Hopefully the director can learn from the mistakes he had made in this show and bring it to his next project. Such a shame for a show that had such great potential.

3/10

The Survivalist (2015)

A bleak, yet harrowing take in a post-apocalyptic world

[6/10 · 16 May 2016]

The Survivalist is somewhat of a very grim movie, with very little dialogue throughout the whole film (at least 20 lines) it was more of a visual feast. Extremely well shot scenes and spot on direction made this low budget film one worth seeing, whilst it is definitely not for everyone it does have some great performances which make it more intriguing.

The opening scenes to the film show you what it is going to be about, with no dialogue, just visuals to fill you in of the story. The film is ultimately about survival with the unnamed main character fending for himself in the forest, until 2 women come along and threaten his existence. That's all I'll say for now as the films visuals tell the story extremely well (see it for yourself)

Martin McCann plays the protagonist very well, his emotions and morals are directly clear through his facial expressions, there need be no dialogue as everything can be seen visually. This is what makes the film so unique and great in itself that it is able to stand alone without any dialogue at all. The co stars who play the women Mia Goth and Olwen Fouere were outstanding, I could not fault their acting at all and they made the story very believable and real.

One fault I did have with the movie was the unnecessary amounts of nudity, a lot of the scenes where it was present could have been made a lot better as we had the mental picture of what was happening regardless. Although I guess it added to the bleak tone of the film, I think most of it was not needed.

Overall the film had my attention from start to finish, as it was about survival you wanted to know what was going to happen next and if the protagonist would make it out alive. While this movie wasn't a masterpiece I believe it was different in it's own way and was well presented with great visuals and plausible acting. If you are into dark post apocalyptic tales, this one might be worth a watch for you.

Captain America: Civil War (2016)

This is essentially Superhero porn (Revelry Review)

[8/10 · 5 May 2016]

​I rarely have high expectations for Marvel movies, but if it is a Captain America film I tend to set them a bit higher, along with the mostly positive reviews the film was receiving I had to go to the cinema to see it. It didn't disappoint me, but yet again it didn't WOW me.

This was definitely Marvel's most ambitious attempt to date, bringing in a bit of a darker approach to the film, bringing out characters inner and deeper thoughts, this added a greater amount of value to the film as we got to see them as more 2 dimensional characters rather than the 1 sided action ones that we normally see in the Marvel movies.

The humor was your normal Marvel type, witty and quirky, but I felt as though it was really inappropriate at times, especially when there was an important feud between two parties and one of the characters stops to insert a witty joke which really didn't fall into the flow of the film. Although it didn't affect the whole feel of the film it happened a couple of times and it was noticeable. So some of the time it was hard to differentiate the humor and emotion, which I feel Marvel haven't quite nailed on the head yet, the pacing of a film is important and this wasn't spot on.

Onto the the new characters; Spiderman and Black Panther were great entries to the Avengers alliance, I feel as though Tom Holland is a perfect fit as Spiderman and I look forward to future films that he will be part of. The villain Baron Zemo is quite under cast I thought, the actor was great in where he appeared but Marvel's use of him being a threat as a villain was very underwhelming, once again it felt like there wasn't any real issue with the character, and we barely saw much screen time from him.

The soundtrack wasn't terrific, as with most Marvel movies, it didn't fit where it should have. If Marvel had the orchestral pull of Hans Zimmer this would add a lot more value to the creation of their films. That being said, music doesn't necessarily always make a film, it was substantial in this one but wasn't enough to make me feel any more emotion or epicness during any scenes that were meant to make us feel that way.

VERDICT:

I liked this film mostly for its awesomeness factor, for what it was it was great, the new heroes and existing ones choosing their sides to go to war was cool and the actions scenes were exciting.

But essentially this film was merely Superhero porn, there was so much substance in the fact that these heroes were fighting each other that we lost the point of the story altogether.

I don't feel this was as good as The Winter Soldier, but it definitely entertained me right to the end, a worthy entry in the Marvel collection

The Trust (2016)

Cage at his wackiest! (Revelry Review)

[7/10 · 5 May 2016]

Nicolas Cage is and always will be my favorite actor, his overall quirkiness and ability to play a complete different personality in every movie astounds me. In The Trust he is at his wackiest, this dark comedy thriller has him playing a deluded corrupt cop who has a plan to pull of a massive heist with his buddy cop played by Elijah Wood who has no idea of Cage's plan. Sounds like a great plot right? Despite this film getting below average reviews I still dived in and watched it, and I wasn't disappointed, this film managed to exceed the low expectations I went in with.

Surprisingly Cage and Wood had really good chemistry on screen together, the humor worked well when it was used and managed to get a few cheap laughs out of me. Cage has pumped out a lot of movies lately, most of which have been bad, but among the good ones that he has released such as 'Joe', this one I believe is up there with it. It managed to entertain right to the end.

The cinematography was pretty good, considering the budget was very low for the film. The acting was believable and had me engaged throughout the film. Whilst the film lost it's way in the last 20-30 minutes it still held it's self well as a solid B movie, with many different twists and turns thrown at the viewer it was very hard to predict how it was going to end.

The acting was on point for the entirety of the film with Cage and Elijah Wood both proving that they are still A grade actors. I believe that this one is another great entry into Cage's volatile filmography, it makes me happy to see that he still has faith in himself to bring out a good movie. If you are a fan of comedy/crime films, give this one a go!