Concussion

My main curiosity with regard to this movie was around Will Smith's performance and whether any of the Oscar protests were justified. In my view, they are not! His performance was very flat, he lacked gravitas and at times he was a caricature reminiscent of Eddie Murphy's fancy-dress on the train in Trading Places. I know Mrs Smith has been suggesting (stating?) that he should have been considered for an Oscar nomination, I think the only thing that proves is that love really is blind.

As for the movie itself, it was an interesting subject matter and not something I was very familiar with. It doesn't seem to be rocket science to say that if you are hit on the head repeatedly (in this case while playing American Football) you will develop brain damage, but apparently this was disputed for a long time and the NFL conducted 'research' to prove that NFL players sustained pre concussive blows, meaning they were below the threshold for brain damage and so nothing to be worried about.

When a Nigerian coroner, played by Will Smith, has a revolutionary insight regarding the cumulative effect of these pre concussive blows, it turns into a Big Football controversy with him battling it out against the money-making machine that is the NFL. While this was an interesting story, it lacked the degree of impact and compassion that Russel Crowe elicits as the whistle-blower in the Big Tobacco story, "The Insider". Essentially, the NFL were not as evil as Big Tobacco, plus the sport itself while causing these very significant consequences for some of their players, is nowhere near as insidious as cigarettes.

So, Concussion has a hero who is a bit flat, a villain that is a bit fuzzy and an audience reaction that was a bit lukewarm. I did enjoy it, and I would recommend it to anyone with any interest in the NFL, but I wouldn't recommend it beyond that.

Dead Pool

Yeah...I'm not convinced.

I had never heard of Dead Pool before, so I wasn't sure what type of character he was. I'm not sure, but I think I don't like him. I would probably like him if he was one of an ensemble, but a whole movie of him was a bit much for me to take. He's kinda horrible. He's got the wit of Iron Man, but none of the goodness or charisma. I know that he's not a super 'hero', but if he's not the hero, and the bad guy is certainly not the hero, who are we supposed to root for? His wit and crude sense of humour definitely made me chuckle, but it wasn't enough to get me on-side and really invest in the outcome. Of course I loved Colossus and the teenager-with-the-crazy-superhero-name, so they did bring me on-side more, but they weren't in it enough to salvage the movie overall.

Apart from the character himself, the movie was enjoyable. The slow motion, the flash backs and forwards, the music, breaking the fourth wall, the tongue-in-cheek gags, I loved all of it and special mention for the funny opening credits. And yet, when we add all those little bits together, what should have been a great movie just didn't do it for me! I think it tried too hard, maximum effort.