Film96

Whilst attempting to find his way home, Kong comes face-to-face with the devastating Godzilla; and with the world watching on, the fate of mankind hangs in the balance as the two begin their fight for supremacy.

The first thing to say is that it is never made explicitly clear why any of this is happening. There is talk of rituals of years gone by and the film also owes something of a debt to the plot of Batman vs. Superman, but at no point is it convincing that any of this has to happen, other than the fact that the VFX people have come up with a pretty convincing Kong and Godzilla.

We get almost an hour in before we see the monsters themselves, and by that point, most of the interesting dialogue has been spoken - and that's really saying something - but the studio knows that what audiences really want to see is the fight sequences. In that regard, the film works. The fight sequences are of a huge scale and are full of thwack, vim and vigour. Fortunately, the monsters never lose their sense of size and there are some really visually striking shots of the two going at it.

As fun as the fight scenes are, the film does make one fatally bad decision. Without going into any detail what I can say is that based on the majority of comments across social media about which of the two monsters should win, in the end, the wrong one does. Visually and technically, the film is more than satisfactory, but creatively it is not rewarding enough. The characters are disposable, the script seems like an after-thought, and the film isn't saved by its ending.

Godzilla vs. Kong will no doubt make a lot of money, but I don't think we are quite there in terms of a film about the world's most infamous movie monsters fighting it out. Not terrible, not great, just a bit - *sighs with a heavy heart*.

The premise of this film is what gives it 4 of the 6 stars I have given. It's actually a really smart plot, yet it is executed rather poorly, which is such a shame considering that if the film took itself a little more seriously, it could genuinely be put into contention as one of the great Psychological Thrillers of recent years. That is the problem, it's more "fun" than "thrilling".

The story and ingenuity start to slow down as the film goes on, with both gently coming to a halt by the final 10 minutes of the film, so it's a downward slope from (pretty much) the start but it does manage to cling on to its entertainment value long enough to be worth watching.

Don't expect a masterpiece, it's just a bit of fun.

DJ's and music producers live a life which many wish they had. A life of private jets, money and fame. However, as Avicii: True Stories shows, that lifestyle comes at a cost, and for the man behind the biggest name in Dance music, that cost became far more damaging than any loss of money or fame.

Avicii: True Stories shows the story of Avicii from the beginning, with a superbly chronicled time-line, showing the rise of success from the early days of Tim Bergling to the worldwide chart domination of Avicii, it's all in there.

Highlighting the immense health struggles that Tim suffered over the years, it suddenly becomes so clear as to why Avicii had to stop. The machine had beaten itself, the light was no longer to outshine the darkness, the madness of it all had finally reached its peak, and it hit that peak in devastating fashion, as shown in this extraordinary up-close-and-personal telling of Tim's career as a DJ and music producer.

It's a hard-to-swallow reminder that what we hear in his music, tales of uplifting nature filled with such positivity and joy, is not at all accurate to how Avicii is as a human being, as Tim. The trailer for the documentary quoted Tim saying: "Peoples perception of who Avicii is - isn't who Tim is" and it is that separation between artist and human being which proves to be so damaging, "the picture doesn't represent the painter".

The story-line of the documentary gives a sense of depth and shows the journey in a way that isn't too long to become uninteresting or too short to not be enough, it's perfectly shot and beautifully edited. We get to see it all, from the business aspects behind Levels to the incredible production process behind some of Avicii's biggest hits, Avicii: True Stories has everything and nothing is left unexplained, it's all there.

Avicii: True Stories is an emotional roller-coaster between pure euphoria and crushing struggle, with both shown in their most raw forms. The music brought so much joy to Avicii, but the lifestyle brought so much pain to Tim, it's an important lesson that what we see isn't always a true representation. This is a very unique piece of cinema, simply put - this is compulsory viewing.