Sicario 2 is a very solid sequel

With the loss of four of the key principals from the first outing – the star, the director, the cinematographer, and the composer – this sequel may appear to be hampered coming out of the gate. However, although it lacks a lot of the nuance and political subtext of Sicario (2015). Sicario 2: Soldado is still a very solid piece of filmmaking which is well worth the price of a ticket.

Although Emily Blunt, Dennis Villeneuve, Roger Deakins, and – tragically – Johan Johannsson are gone, Josh Brolin and Benicio Del Toro are back and in fine form. The most important thing about this second film however is the screenwriter Taylor Sheridan. He is being described in some quarters as the master of the modern Western. Certainly with both Sicario movies, Hell and High Water (2016) Wind River (2017), and the current Kevin Costner series Yellowstone to his credit that seems a fair description.

Having written the 2015 movie, Sheridan had originally conceived the story as a trilogy so this is properly a second instalment rather than a sequel as such. The first film dealt with the war on drugs but now the Mexican cartels have moved on to people smuggling and, we are told, they control most of the illegal cross border trade between Mexico and the United States.

As federal agent Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) points out people trafficking is a no-brainer for the cartel; they don’t have to grow or process the crop and, if it fails, they will come back for another attempt usually at a higher price.

When a terrorist atrocity in the United States is linked to bombers who were smuggled across the Border, the US government intends to make people trafficking a terrorist offence. Graver is thus given carte blanche to do whatever it takes to stop the cartel so he turns to prosecutor turned hit man Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) to take on the job.

Brolin and Del Toro plan to kidnap the daughter of the cartel boss – the man responsible for the deaths of Del Toro’s family – and make it look like the raid was planned by another cartel. With the gangs then at war the US government should be able to step in and clean up.

If you are familiar with Sicario you will appreciate that such an apparently straightforward plan is destined to become mired in betrayal, bad luck, and political cowardice. The upshot is, without giving too much away, is that Del Toro and the girl are stranded on the Mexican side of the border deep in cartel territory.

Given America’s current immigration scenario the release of this film could hardly come at a more appropriate time. The difficulties of the Trump administration are referred to only obliquely but they provide an interesting backdrop for the story to play out.

Sheridan’s script does a great job of world-building, especially at the start, as we become aware of the tangled web and full extent of the people trafficking operation. The action moves along crisply carrying several story strands at once and managing to tie them together fairly effectively. There was one, for me, unnecessarily sentimental episode at the end of act two which was tonally awkward but otherwise it is highly efficient storytelling.

The action scenes are similarly well-handled, director Stefano Sollima is best known for his Italian crime series Gomorrah (2014) which covers similar territory. However, and this may seem a small quibble, although the violence is brutal at times there is very little moral dimension to it.

In the first film we had Emily Blunt as the audience’s eyes and ears to take us through this moral maze. Without her Sicario 2 deals in absolutes; it’s them and us and the implicit rightness of the US cause means Brolin – good as he is in the role – doesn’t have to have a single moral qualm about his actions.

Despite this lack of layering Sicario 2 delivers on every other level and sets things up nicely for an eagerly-anticipated final instalment of the trilogy.

Ocean's 8 hits most of its marks...so why don't people like it?

There was a fairly high profile article on the BBC’s entertainment website which asked whether Ocean’s 8 was a waste of talent. Leaving aside the obvious and inherent click-bait I still couldn’t help but wonder about the question.

Not about whether it was true but mostly why no one had asked the same of Ocean’s Eleven (2001), Ocean’s Twelve (2004), or indeed Ocean’s Thirteen (2007)? The latter two qualify as a waste of celluloid never mind talent, but there is a whole load of cinematic snobbery in the enquiry.

Ocean’s 8 has no grander ambition than to entertain which, for the most part, it does. Its USP comes from being a gender-flipped version of the Ocean’s Eleven series. Sandra Bullock and Cate Blanchett take the George Clooney and Brad Pitt roles, Clooney’s Danny Ocean having died sometime in the past 11 years. The cause of death isn’t mentioned but I’m going for a combination of shame and embarrassment after Ocean’s Thirteen.

However by the BBC’s lights we’re invited to see something inherently unworthy in a predominantly female cast. It’s okay for Clooney and Pitt and Matt Damon to exercise their ludic tendencies but Bullock, Blanchett, Anne Hathaway are presumably only allowed out for serious stuff. They are evidently condemned to a career full of Lysistrata and assorted anguished maternal roles.

Like I said, click bait and I’ve spent more time on it than it deserves.

Moving on. Ocean’s 8 is far from perfect but it is good fun and, to its credit, not once does it make a big deal out of its largely female cast. There are no nods or winks and, to a certain extent, the plot unwinds on a gender neutral basis.

Where Danny Ocean wanted to rob casinos, sister Debbie (Bullock) has her eye on robbing the annual Met Gala, specifically a rare necklace worth $150 million which will be on show there. She has been planning the robbery while she was in prison and now she is out she is ready to execute.

The film follows the standard tropes of a classic heist movie; first you put the gang together, then you outline the inevitably fiendishly complicated plot, then you carry out the robbery and, finally, you reveal what they were really up to.

It’s tried and tested and in the best of the genre – The Thomas Crown Affair (1968 or 1999), The Anderson Tapes (1971), or The Hot Rock (1972) – it works to create a soufflé-light confection.  Ocean’s 8 is no soufflé, it’s more of a fondant - mostly light but with a gooey bit in the middle – but it’s still satisfying.

That seems to be the fault of the director Gary Ross and the editor Juliette Welfling. The pacing of the film is fine for the first act but goes seriously awry during the heist itself and there are parts which should be crisp but turn out quite leaden. The gang’s big moment of triumph – to the tune of These Boots Are Made for Walking – should be the money shot. Instead it’s thrown away and a talented cast are sold short.

As is often the case in ensembles the balance of performance is uneven.  Sarah Paulson and Mindy Kaling, for example, don’t get enough to do and Awkwafina is pretty much just a plot point. However Sandra Bullock, for my money the most underrated female lead in the business, is marvellous and there is a nice chemistry between her and Cate Blanchett. Anne Hathaway, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Rihanna, also get their chance to shine.

At the end of the day the star power, the sheer scale of the crime and the brio and invention with which it is carried out should be enough to keep the audience happy. Inevitably I suspect a sequel may be in the works and that’s fine by me, I mean it can’t be worse than Ocean’s Thirteen.

Fallen Kingdom puts the Jurassic franchise back on track

Although it was a game-changer in film making terms the Jurassic Park franchise has been a victim of its own success. The first three films – and it’s hard to believe that Jurassic Park is 25 years old – were a throwback to the Cinema of Attractions: we went simply to see the dinosaurs. The human cast were just so much window dressing.

Any time the real world tried to intrude in the subsequent sequels, the results were disappointing. The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) features some of the poorest work Steven Spielberg has done as a director when he brought a T. Rex to San Diego. The least said about Jurassic Park III (2001) and its whistling dinosaur skulls the better.

The new trilogy, which began with Jurassic World (2015), is a clever and so far successful attempt to address the issues of the first trilogy, apparently using a template established by the new Planet of the Apes franchise.

Jurassic World was essentially a soft remake of Jurassic Park, this time with giant dinosaurs and a new species of super-predator. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom takes us beyond that in showing us a world where dinosaurs are now a commonplace. Indeed so established have they become that when a volcanic eruption threatens their home on Isla Nublar it is perceived as a potential ecological disaster. There are protests and demands that something must be done.

When these pleas fall on deaf ears it is up to our returning heroes Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard to save the day with a rescue scheme funded by a billionaire recluse who was the former partner of Jurassic Park founder John Hammond. They are however being duped and this is all part of a bigger evil scheme to sell off the dinosaurs to the highest bidder for various nefarious schemes.

None of this information spoils the film; it’s all in the trailer. Although my doubts from the trailer about why you would want to pay millions for a dinosaur are not allayed by the film. What would you do with it? There are vague notions of super dinosaur armies but this whole section is best left unexamined.

Once again the film turns on getting the dinosaurs off the island and the successful difference here is in the choice of director. J.A. Bayona is ideal for this film. He’s done the spectacular stuff with his tsunami movie The Impossible (2012) and the spooky horror stuff with The Orphanage (2007). He is in his element.

The first third of this film zips along at a ferocious clip since Bayona plainly can’t wait to get them off the island, although he does allow us a moment of pathos for the end of Isla Nublar. Then we are into what is essentially an ‘old dark house’ suspense thriller but with added dinosaurs which works very well. The decision to use physical dinosaurs in many of the scenes gives the film added threat and makes the creatures more menacing.

This is probably the first plot-driven Jurassic movie in that the dinosaurs are not treated as spectacle. Bayona has a lot to cram in and there are times when it feels a little over-stuffed even though some of the ideas are interesting and worthy of further exploration. Consequently Pratt and Howard don’t have a lot to do except run hither and yon but there is some nice villainy from Toby Jones and Ted Levine and it’s always nice to see Geraldine Chaplin. She is something of a lucky charm for Bayona having been in all of his features.

By the end of the film good has triumphed, evil has been vanquished and the bad guys have all met satisfyingly horrible ends.

But we are now left with a world much changed and consequences will have to be dealt with – not least in that bit from the trailer you had forgotten about. The implication is that we will be back in Planet of the Apes territory for the third one and, to be honest, I’m intrigued so see how this turns out.