My 5 Favourite Tom Hardy Roles

I love making lists so much that I have a list of lists in my blogging notebook! Sadly I haven’t got around to actually turning any into posts for a while, so I started a to-do list, and the top item was ‘make a list’. Heard the word list enough yet? 

In honour of Tom Hardy’s birthday today, I thought I’d share with you a list of my 5 favourite performances of his. I’d love to make it a Top 10, but my Letterboxd is telling me that I’ve embarrassingly only seen 9 movies that he’s been in. Yikes! He’s an outstanding actor, so I need to raise that number as soon as possible. Can anyone recommend somewhere for me to start? 

Before I start I want to throw in an honourable mention for his character Tuck in This Means War (2012), because that movie is such a guilty pleasure of mine, no matter how absurd it is. Petition for another rom com starring Mr Hardy?

#5 John Fitzgerald, The Revenant (2015)

The Revenant is a movie that I never want to see every again, and I honestly mean that in the best way possible. It was brutal from start to finish, and as much as Leo was great and deserved his Oscar, there wasn’t nearly enough love for Tom Hardy.

#4 Max, Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Mel Gibson himself gave Tom Hardy his blessing to play Max, and if that isn’t enough of a reason for being in my list, I don’t know what is. I think I could have counted the number of lines Max spoke during the entire movie on my fingers, but of course that’s all part of the persona.

#3 Stuart Shorter, Stuart: A Life Backwards (2007)

This might be one of Tom Hardy’s lesser known roles, but Stuart: A Life Backwards is a fascinating little made-for-TV movie. Hardy plays Stuart, a homeless alcoholic with some terrible issues. It’s certainly not a light hearted movie, but it’s certainly worth a watch!

#2 Ivan Locke, Locke (2013)

I swear, I’ll still be talking about Locke when I’m on my death bed. It’s such an underrated movie. It’s essentially a 90 minute movie in which Ivan Locke drives home from his workplace in Birmingham, having several conversations through his hands-free kit in his phone. That’s literally the entire movie, but it’s gripping.

#1 Reggie & Ron Kray, Legend (2015)

Boy, 2015 was Tom Hardy’s year for sure! It feels odd putting Legend at the top spot, because I didn’t really love the movie. That said, I’m ranking Tom Hardy’s roles rather than the movies themselves, and really, there wasn’t anything else that could take this spot. Hardy manages to play a set of twins with very different personalities and mannerisms, and he does it so well that it’s easy to forget that these twins are in fact the same person. Legend is worth the watch for those performances alone!

So please, let me know what other movies I need to see. Are there any I’ve missed that you would have put in your own Top 5?

Thursday Movie Picks: Post-Apocalyptic Movies

I can't believe Wanderer is into year 3 of Thursday Movie Picks! It was a blogging resolution here at Flick Chicks to get involved in this series more, and as all resolutions go, we missed the first week. Whoops!

Anyway, if you’re new to this, Thursday Movie Picks is a fantastic series hosted by Wanderer at Wandering Through the Shelves, where each week she picks a theme and we all choose 3 movies that we feel fit. This week’s theme is Post-Apocalyptic Movies.

I quickly came to realise when putting my thoughts down onto paper that I’ve seen quite a few apocalyptic movies, but actually very few post-apocalyptic movies! That made it a little harder, but I’m also quite excited because I know I’ll be adding lots of great movies to my watch list this week. Here are my picks:

Despite being a big Disney fan, I only watched WALL-E (2008) for the first time last year! Despicable. Anyway, the movie is set in a bleak, distant future where mankind has fled Earth after it gets taken over by garbage. WALL-E is a garbage collecting robot with a cockroach for a friend and a hoard of collectibles he’s found over the years. One day, he spots another robot, named EVE, sent to Earth to look for signs of life. Thus begins one of the most beautiful love stories you’ll ever watch.

This is perhaps an easy pick, and certainly a movie still floating at the surface of my brain, but how could I not include Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) in this list?! Set in a vast, desolate desert where humanity is broken and people struggle to simply stay alive, the greatest, craziest and most visually stunning car chase takes place. It really is a fantastic movie, and without a doubt my favourite action movie of 2015.

A movie I haven’t watched for a long time, but fully deserves a place in this list. In I Am Legend (2007), Will Smith’s character is the only survivor in New York City, and probably the world, after a deadly virus wiped out civilization. It’s one of the most upsetting movies I’ve ever watched especially one scene in particular (you’ll know what I mean if you’ve seen it!) and as much as I want to watch it again, I think I’ll need a hug afterwards!

Review: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

My main friends group who I still see after we all finished college is full of guys. To begin with, there was only 1 other girl in our group but we do have a couple more now the lads have found them! What it means is I get a lot of invites to ‘lads’ film nights that I tend to turn down. There were some last minute plans to see Mad Max on the opening night, and so I said yes and just went with it!

Now, I haven’t seen any of the other Mad Max films, but from what I gather, Max used to be in the police force until his family were murdered. I should probably go back now and watch the others for some backstory, but I was told I wouldn’t need to see the others before watching Fury Road to appreciate it.

Mad Max: Fury Road is set in a post-apocalyptic world in the desert where humanity barely exists. Immortan Joe (Hugh Keays-Byrne) rules a small town known as The Citadel with his  ‘War Boys’, farming women for their breast milk, and keep several wives to provide him with heirs. Joe’s most trusted Lieutenant, Furiosa (Charlize Theron) betrays him and makes a run for freedom with his wives, and whilst on the road, Max (Tom Hardy) joins them.

I’d heard beforehand that this would be one of the year’s biggest action films, but I wasn’t expecting what I saw. The film opens on what must have been a 10 minute-long action scene, and it never slowed down for a minute. You know when you’re watching an action film and you get an actual action scene every now and again? In Fury Road, you get a scene every now and again without it. Even when there isn’t any action, it doesn’t last for long!

Multiple viewings are definitely needed just to fully appreciate the visuals in this, from the colourful desert setting to the fine details in each of the vehicles. It’s just crazy, that’s my main way of summing this film up. I mean, there’s a huge vehicle in Joe’s army with 3 great big drums, a drummer at each, and at the front, a guy on an electric guitar hanging in suspense with elastic. How is that not crazy?!

I don’t mean this to sound like a criticism, but although this is Max’s film, I thought Furiosa was the leading character. She was everything a female character needed to be, and she rocked it! Even the wives weren’t silly, pathetic girls who needed looking after every two minutes. One thing that only really sprung to mind when I was trying to sleep that night was that this film didn't include any bad language or sex scenes. It's just pure action, and how could that not be awesome?

This has ruined any other action film for me right now, because I don’t think anything could live up to it. If you get the chance to see it in the cinema I urge you to do it, because the experience alone makes this a 10 for me. At home, it might be a 9, but ask me again when the DVD is out.