Apocalypse Now is the new Spartacus. Certainly, declaring yourself to be a film in imitation of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1979 Vietnam war classic seems very much in vogue this year.
For those who found the poster for Kong: Skull Island ‘on the nose’ just wait until you see the shot for shot likenesses to be found in War for the Planet of the Apes, the third in Matt Reeves’ Planet of the Apes reboot series. Heck, at one point – getting one up on hacks ready with the puns – the slogan: ‘Ape-ocalypse Now’ can be seen sprayed over the walls of an underground tunnel. Unlike Kong, however, Reeves’ film borrows both style and substance in his homage. War is a hugely satisfying round off to a superlative trilogy.
Peter Parker is a geek. He’s a bit lame too; a BIG fan of the Avengers and a bit of a doofus. A whizz in class, Peter’s hopeless with girls, kind of unreliable and a tad goofy. To his favour, he just happens also to be ripped, hyperactively acrobatic, armed with spiderweb wrist shooters and, in the hands of a youthful and effervescent Tom Holland, boy is he endearing.
There’s a moment in Karl Freund’s original 1932 The Mummy – a then original feature designed to replicate the themes and successes of Universal’s contemporary horror films: Dracula, Frankenstein etc. – in which the Mummy himself (Boris Karloff playing Imhotep) is awoken from his sarcophagus slumber behind an unaware Ralph Norton (Bramwell Fletcher). It’s a scene that’s not quite as effective as it might have been but one that works by virtue of the brilliant tension of expectation that comes with viewers knowing exactly what is coming.
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