Jamie Chung

Fans of bright, flashy things will love this colourful, kinetic animated adventure, although anyone seeking originality or involving characters should probably look elsewhere. This is the first Disney animation based on a Marvel comic book, although they have essentially only retained the title and a vague semi-Asian setting. The result is a film that feels like something you've already seen before, with the usual Disney plot formula, characters and action beats, plus lots of sentimentality. At least it's witty and fast-paced enough to keep us entertained.

The futuristic setting is San Fransokyo, a slightly more Japanese version of San Francisco in which 15-year-old computer-geek orphan Hiro (voiced by Ryan Potter) lives with his Aunt Cass (Maya Rudolph). Both are shaken when Hiro's brother Tadashi dies in an explosion Hiro thinks he might have caused. Then he meets Tadashi's health-care robot invention Baymax (Scott Adsit), a cuddly inflatable creature who just wants to take care of Hiro. He goes along with Hiro's plan to turn him into a fighting machine that helps find the masked man who stole Hiro's microbot invention and actually caused the explosion. Baymax also helps Hiro assemble the Big Hero 6 team, adding Tadashi's nerd-inventor pals: goofy Fred (T.J. Miller), rebellious Go Go (Jamie Chung), nice-guy Wasabi (Damon Wayans Jr.) and girly Honey Lemon (Genesis Rodriguez). Together they set out to stop the villain before he enacts his nefarious plan.

All of this is animated with bright colours and a snappy sense of the technology. There are several exhilarating set-pieces along the way as the young heroes work out their special powers by inventing all sorts of gadgets. But nothing about the script meaningfully deepens these characters. Each person on-screen is essentially one personality trait, while potentially colourful side roles (including Aunt Cass) are left badly undefined. What holds the interest is the superb interaction between Hiro and Baymax, mainly because of the obvious affection between them. And also because Baymax has all of the film's funniest lines.

Continue reading: Big Hero 6 Review

The central joke in this low-budget comedy should have been a springboard to something either blackly hilarious or more amusingly complex, but the filmmakers seem to have run out of ideas after coming up with the title. A likeable cast almost makes it watchable, but a steady stream of misogynistic and racist jokes continually undermine any possibility of engaging with the story. And the clunky filmmaking undermines everything else.

Personal trainer Rich Johnson (Cam Gigandet) is a wanton womaniser with a string of angry ex-girlfriends, one of whom knees him so severely that his doctor tells him to avoid sex for six weeks. Of course, this is the moment he meets Jamie (Jamie Chung) and has a spark of romance. Then after waiting the prescribed number of weeks he has a momentary indiscretion with a stranger, and Jamie dumps him. Refusing to accept responsibility, he blames his penis. And when he wakes up the next morning, his man-part is gone, becoming a separate man (Nick Thune) who's even more of a jerk than he ever was. So Rich turns to his colleague Josh (Kevin Miller) for ideas. And just as he begins to get used to life as a eunuch, he meets Lindsay (Katherine Cunningham).

It wouldn't have taken too much to get this lazy script into some semblance of coherence, but director Huck Botko and writer Jeff Tetreault simply can't be bothered. Neither seems to understand even the first thing about either sex or relationships, so they instead lay on heavy moralising preachiness in every scene while pretending that this is a gross-out comedy. But none of this works because the humour is played far too broadly and the plot is gibberish, leading to one of the most appallingly lame finales in recent memory.

Continue reading: Bad Johnson Review

Director-cowriter Megan Griffiths refuses to sensationalise the tabloid aspects of this harrowing true story about human trafficking within the USA. As she follows the central character into a nightmare of forced prostitution, the film could have easily exploited the sexual situations. Instead, she takes a matter-of-fact approach that's deeply unsettling. The filmmaking may sometimes feel a little simplistic, but it raises issues in ways we never expect.

The true story begins in 1994 New Mexico, where 18-year-old Hyun Jae (Chung) goes on a date with a seemingly nice guy (Mechlowicz) and is suddenly sold into black-market slavery. She's renamed Eden and forced to work as a prostitute alongside much younger girls. Living in a series of warehouses overseen by crooked cop Bob (Bridges), Eden continually tries to escape and is met with brutal punishment as a result. Finally, she decides that her only hope is to get close to their pimp Vaughan (O'Leary), a young veteran with a drug-addiction problem. But as she gets to know him, she realises that he's trapped as well.

The film explores much more complex aspects of the captive-captor relationship, as Eden becomes increasingly close to Vaughan, helping him with his work and even ratting out some of the other girls who break the rules. Of course, there's an event that snaps Eden back to attention, leading to the necessary confrontation. But all the way through, filmmaker Griffiths focuses on the psychological and emotional side of the story, leaving much of the actual violence and sexual abuse off-screen. Just a bit more detail, and a clearer sense of the chain of events, might have made the film's gut-punch much stronger.

Continue reading: Eden Review