STACK NZ Aug #65

CINEMA

REVIEWS

RATING KEY:

Wow!

Good

Not bad

Meh Woof!

PAPER TOWNS

Paper Towns

is the tale of 18-year-old Quentin Jacobsen and how

he fell for his neighbour across the street. Writer John Green must

have appreciated his work as Isaac in his former literary adaptation

The Fault in Our Stars

, as Nat Wolff is back for round two – this

time in the spotlight, and rightly so. Portraying his mischievous

and mysterious childhood friend Margo is the upcoming

Suicide

Squad

member Cara Delevingne. The model-turned-actress is

surprisingly convincing in her first acting role (and will hopefully

impress as Enchantress next year). Margo is obsessed with

finding herself and her place amongst the paper towns and paper

streets. Following a night of vengeful escapades with her getaway

driver “Q”, she disappears, leaving little clues behind for her

friends to follow, sending Quentin and co. on the road trip of their

lives. Green's writing continues to strike a chord with his youthful

target audience, as does his penchant for casting Ansel Elgort.

There are many lessons to be learned from

Paper Towns

, and

while they won't be revealed here, consider this instead: if there’s

a tuba there, it’s not a party.

Alesha Kolbe

INSIDIOUS: CHAPTER 3

With James Wan defecting to the action genre to helm

Fast & Furious

Insidious

co-creator Leigh Whannell takes the reins for the third

chapter of their post-

Saw

horror franchise. Where the first film was

an enjoyably creepy take on

Poltergeist

, the disappointing

Chapter

couldn't sustain the horror and only served to unnecessarily

complicate matters.

Chapter 3

takes things back to the beginning

(so is really Chapter 1?) with a prequel that introduces gas mask-

wearing medium Elise Rainier, played by the fabulous Lin Shaye. As

the reluctant psychic enlisted to contact the deceased mother of high

school kid Stefanie Scott, Shaye goes for broke; moving her from

supporting player to centre stage was a stroke of genius and reason

enough to check out

Insidious Chapter 3

. Whannell and buddy Angus

Sampson are also back as ghostbusters Specs and Tucker, and the

former's familiarity with the material allows him to make a confident

directorial debut, expanding the series' mythology in new and

unexpected ways while retaining all the requisite jumps, sonic scares

and spooky apparitions we've come to expect. Much better than

expected and a return to form for the franchise.

Scott Hocking

RELEASED:

Now Showing

DIRECTOR:

Jake Schreier

CAST:

Cara Delevingne,

Nat Wolff, Halston Sage

RATING:

RELEASED:

Now Showing

DIRECTOR:

Leigh Whannell

CAST:

Dermot Mulroney,

Stefanie Scott, Lin Shaye

RATING:

THE GALLOWS

he first hour of

Terminator Genisys

is a full-throttle action machine that

smashes and mashes up the events of

The Terminator

and

in an alternate

timeline that rewrites the series’ mythology. The machines rise, John Connor

(Jason Clarke) sends Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney) back in time to 1984 to protect

his mother Sarah (

Game of Thrones

’ Emilia Clarke), and the T-800 (Arnold

Schwarzenegger) arrives in a crater beside a garbage truck. So far, so direct

remake of James Cameron’s original. But when another Schwarzenegger

Terminator shows up along with a liquid metal T-1000, and it’s Sarah who

tells Reese to “come with me if you want to live”, we’re suddenly in exciting

new territory. Unfortunately, the fantastic potential of the first hour is left

behind in the past and the film quickly begins to resemble the lesser sequels,

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

and

Terminator Salvation

. Unlike the

Star

Trek

reboot, which rewrote its own timeline but still retained its foundations,

Laeta Kalogridis and Patrick Lussier’s revisionist screenplay detours so far from

the original concept, it becomes a temporal paradox. Arnold slips back into

his signature role as though he’s never been away – “I’m old, not obsolete”

is his new catchphrase – and his presence does validate this as a legitimate

Terminator film. But James Cameron is sorely missed.

Scott Hocking

RELEASED:

Now Showing

DIRECTOR:

Alan Taylor

CAST:

Arnold Schwarzenegger,

Emilia Clarke, Jai Courtney

RATING:

o perplexingly prolific has the movement of found footage cinema become

that it’s now listed as a genre by Wikipedia. Regardless, ‘found footage’ is not

a genre but an aesthetic that can concern any number of genres, from sci-fi

(

Chronicle

) to teen comedy (

Project X

) and perhaps most prolifically, horror,

such as Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing’s film

The Gallows

. Curiously enough,

while the motivation for using found footage as a stylistic choice is realism

(and also generally budgetary), by being forced into improbable scenarios as a

result of those very conventions, a more drastic degree of suspended disbelief

is often required. Films such as

Chronicle

made vaguely appealing attempts to

explain the relentless presence of filming cameras, but in

The Gallows

, Cluff

and Lofing instead approach the dilemma with absolute denial. If the directors

never question why these characters continue filming long after logic has

subsided, then why should we?

The Gallows

is a horror film, succeeding in

that one regard but failing in almost every other. The narrative, dialogue, acting

and cinematography (perhaps no surprises there) are agonisingly meager, but

chances are an audience might be too anxious about jump scares to notice.

Horror aficionados may brush off the fright but the weak of heart may find this

tale of supernatural revenge too much to bear.

John Roebuck

RELEASED:

Now Showing

DIRECTOR:

Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

CAST:

Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos

RATING:

TERMINATOR GENISYS