Film Round-Up: Pig, Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins and The Addams Family 2
Welcome to 2022!
Pig
Nicholas Cage has his pig stolen so he returns to the city he abandoned for off grid living to find the people who took it. When the film kicks off, you think this is going to end up being John Wick but with a pig instead of a dog. Especially when you realise a lot of the plot is built on Cage’s character being a legend known to everyone and him using that to get what he wants. Instead though, there’s a lot of talking. That’s me being a little sarcastic as it’s actually an introspective drama about family and knowing what you really want in life. Cage shows that he is actually a very good actor, something that is often forgotten with some of the rubbish he ends up being in, by doing a lot with not that much dialogue. It does take a while to get on board with it’s slow pace but you’ll find a lot to like when you do.
Rise of the Footsoldier: Origins
Tony Tucker gets his start working on the wrong side of the law after becoming a bouncer in Essex. Hello and welcome to the East London geezer movie! Yes this one is set in Essex but they are all pretty much the same thing, working class men punching each other a lot and maybe there’s a plot in there somewhere. I thought this genre had died when people stopped buy straight to DVD movies but I suppose there are still people who drink Dark Fruits so there must be an audience for this. Well maybe not this film as it is complete rubbish. The film lacks any focus in its plot as it jumps around what it thinks a gangster film plot should look like without realising that you do need to work on characters and allow things to build rather just throwing a character from event to event. The point of the movie is the fighting but when you have movies like John Wick and Nobody around giving you incredible action scenes and this just has the sort of thing you’d see down at the Dog & Duck in Clacton. A waste of time.
The Addams Family 2
Desperate to reconnect with Wednesday, Gomez Addams takes his family on a road trip across America. I’m really annoyed. The Addams Family is perfect for an animated film yet after a mediocre first one, we now just get one which is plain bad. The main tension in the film is whether or not Wednesday was actually swapped at birth and isn’t really an Addams which considering Wednesday’s personality is the less tense than a puppy party. It’s made even less tense considering a flashback literally shows she isn’t swapped so that makes everything feel pointless. That is the barest thread keeping this film together as they go on this road trip which feels more like various sketches at American landmarks than a cohesive plot building into something great and profound at the end. It’s definitely one of those films which you hope might be able to keep your children quiet for an hour and a half rather than something you think your kids will adore and repeat forever.
