Avatar [3D] (2009)

Posted on December 20, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #89
James Cameron | 162 mins | cinema | 12A / PG-13

Avatar is The Film That Changed Cinema. The past tense can safely be used, despite the film only having been out a couple of days — it doesn’t matter if we like it, filmmakers and Hollywood executives have decided it’s the artistic and commercial way forward, and so it shall be. It barely even matters if people actually go to see it; not that it’s in much danger of flopping, coming in the wake of years of extreme hype and numerous sycophantic reviews.

What’s almost more irritating than that, however, is that it’s actually quite good. Flawed, unquestionably, and probably undeserving of the volume of advance praise heaped upon it, but far from a disaster.

It’s too long, for one thing. The end of Act Two feels like the end of the film… until it insists on going on for goodness-knows how long (my watch stopped working, I couldn’t check). It might not be so bad if it didn’t take its time getting to this point. Swathes of it feel like a dramatised nature documentary, only this time it’s about a fictional alien world. Talk of Cameron having created a fully-realised, living, breathing ecosystem are over-egged: there’s a half dozen creatures, at most, and their only relation is that they have these weird tentacle things in their hair that allow them to connect up to one another, like nature’s own biological USB. Maybe he knows who eats what and when and how and mating rituals and all that jazz, and if he does we should be thankful it’s not plastered all over the screen, but the creature creation/world realisation here isn’t anything beyond Jurassic Park.

The story itself isn’t bad. It certainly has an epic quality, which at least justifies the running time, though it’s a collation of elements from elsewhere. Of course, such things can be said of most stories these days, but with Avatar it seems even more obvious — a bit of Aliens here, a bit of The Matrix Revolutions there, a bit of An Inconvenient Truth for good measure, and so on with countless other recognisable tropes. The sin Cameron commits is that he mostly does it in quite a clichéd manner — it’s not just that you have seen it before, but it feels like you have too. Even the learning-to-fly bit, much praised in some quarters, reminded me of something else: slightly-rubbish TV miniseries Dinotopia, of all things. And don’t get started on the dialogue — “Try not to think of anything. That shouldn’t be too hard for you.” Dear God, how many times have we heard that line?

Towards the end Cameron does pull a few things out of the bag, mainly involving who gets killed and who doesn’t. Mostly, the story is a framework to allow the visual spectacle and an ecological/anti-war message. It’s as subtle as a nine-foot-tall blue alien. From crystal clear uses of familiar phrases like “shock and awe” and “hearts and minds”, to unconcealed references to our dying planet, Cameron attempts to criticise both American military tactics (invade, crush the locals…) and the destruction of the planet (…take all the natural resources for ourselves, no matter what the cost). It’s not that the message is wrong, it’s just that Al Gore did it with greater subtlety in a 90-minute lecture on that specific subject. From the outset, the military — specifically marines, of course — are quite clearly The Bad Guys Here, which is a refreshing change from the man who brought us Aliens. Quite what the American public are/will make of this outright criticism of both its military and energy consumption remains to be seen.

All this is realised through unrelenting CGI. It’s very good, but here Avatar falls victim to its own hype once again, because it’s still not 100% perfect. Perhaps it’s the closest yet seen — it certainly remains consistent throughout — but nothing had me wondering if they’d perhaps used prosthetics in addition to the CGI, as Davy Jones did at several points during Dead Man’s Chest, and I remain convinced that wonderful modelwork, as seen in the likes of Lord of the Rings, is still an unbeatable tool for creating convincing environments. Some will argue that we remain unconvinced of the alien creatures’ authenticity because we know they can’t be real, but some occasionally exhibit the plasticky shine of CGI or the jerky movement of motion capture. The Na’vi are certainly a step up from Robert Zemeckis’ dead-eyed humans in The Polar Express or Beowulf, but are they that much better than Gollum? Or even Jar Jar Binks? (In terms of the competency of the effects, I hasten to add.)

It’s hard to resist flaw-spotting with Avatar after reading so many praise-filled reviews. At the risk of sounding like one of those irritating people who sits at their keyboard declaring “ah-ha, I’ve realised something all you professional reviewers weren’t clever enough to see!”, I think this is in part due to the final act. Avatar has a stonking finale, from a huge Apocalypse Now-styled 9/11-echoing moment of destruction, to a thrilling and epic final battle (albeit interrupted by a mass of unwelcome pace-challenging plot). These sequences excel on almost every level, from visual wonder to the odd spot of emotion. And this is what your final impression of the film is, which can banish memories of the crawl through the middle, replete with those niggling flaws. I won’t be surprised if DVD/Blu-ray reviews commonly lose a star, robbed as it will be of the huge screen spectacle and reviewers forced to remember what they had to sit through to reach the big climax.

Oh yes, and Avatar’s meant to be convincing us that 3D is the future, isn’t it? And actually, 3D is quite nice. This is the first time I’ve seen a film in RealD, so I was pleased to discover how perfectly it works. No ghosting that I noticed and minimal discomfort even after such a long film, so from a viewing point of view I was happy with it. It adds depth to the image as well, rather than throwing things in your face — this too was pleasant. As I’ve noted on previous 3D reviews, this depth can bring a scene to life… not in the sense that you believe it’s genuinely happening behind that screen in front of you, but it does liven the images up.

What it doesn’t do is improve the storytelling — but then, what does? Some actors in a black box can convey a story wonderfully — look at Dogville, or any number of theatre productions — you don’t need sets, or costumes, or CGI, or even music or any number of other things we associate with the film experience. You could lump 3D in with these, or you could say it’s even less necessary — sets, costumes, and all evoke a time and place and create a realistic world in a way a black box doesn’t, but what does 3D bring to the table? It’s purely about spectacle, in the same way CGI or helicopter shots or using IMAX usually are. And that’s fine. But directors who’ve expressed an interest in shooting a ‘normal’ domestic drama in the format may be overestimating its import.

But for all the derivative plot, blunt message, cheesy dialogue, thrilling action, spectacular imagery, pretty good CGI and debatable 3D, Avatar may have a greater problem in gaining anything like widespread acceptance. It’s set 145 years in the future, on an alien world with floating mountains and other such fantastical elements, where a significant chunk of the story centres on a group of nine-foot-tall aliens (who fall in love and kiss, much to the loud derision of a group of 13-year-old boys in my screening) in a weird alien jungle with prehistoric-like alien creatures, and semi-scientific religious imagery and plot points that I haven’t even touched on… It’s pretty hard science-fiction, to put it simply. It’s not the accessible historical romance/disaster of Titanic, it’s not the real-world-styled action-based superheroics of The Dark Knight, it’s not an accessible adaptation of a widely-loved book like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter… One could go on in this vein through all the highest-grossing movies of all time.

Instead, it’s the cover art from a pulp science-fiction/fantasy novel or short story magazine writ large with the budget required to pull it off, and it’s that for almost three hours. For every SF/F-loving sycophant there’ll be a member of the general public who thinks it’s a load of old tosh. The truth is somewhere in between, as ever, but I won’t be surprised if the style of Avatar’s business is closer to Watchmen than Titanic. (I don’t think this is too delusional, incidentally. It will perform more strongly than Watchmen, obviously, because it has that all-important PG-13 certificate in the US and a helluva lot more hype in the mass media. But I remain convinced it won’t manage to be a phenomenon to rival Titanic or The Dark Knight, or The Lord of the Rings, or Harry Potter or Pirates of the Caribbean or Star Wars.)

Avatar is a significant film. Thanks to the hype and importance attached to it, by both Cameron and the industry at large, this can never be taken away from it — even if we’ve heard its story before, seen 3D before, seen effects as good before. I don’t believe The Future Of Film is riding on it as much as some would claim — after all, so convinced are They of its status as a hit that an endless stream of 3D movies heavy on CGI have arrived ahead of it and will continue for years after. In itself, it’s quite entertaining and probably deserves to be seen on the big screen. But, as expected, it’s not the revolution that was promised.

The Thief of Bagdad (1940)

Posted on December 16, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #66
Ludwig Berger, Michael Powell & Tim Whelan* | 102 mins | TV (HD**) | U

The Thief of Bagdad is, in many respects, one of the forefathers of the modern spectacle-driven blockbuster, packed with innovative effects designed to dazzle the viewer. One can only imagine how incredible the special effects looked to a 1940 audience. Today the flaws are obvious, but, surprisingly, not by much.

There are too many enchanting sequences to mention — the ginormous genie, the flying mechanical horse, the giant spider, the toys, the flying carpet… Models, huge life-scaled props, matte paintings, early blue screen — all this and more are put to use beautifully. The ingenuity of the effects work contains more artistry and charm — and, frequently, more excitement — than the bland, wannabe-perfect CGI we’re force fed today; and, because of this, and in spite of being almost 70 years old, the sense of wonder remains. It doesn’t matter that it’s not 100% believable — in fact, that’s almost the point: the child-like ability to suspend one’s disbelief and accept the fantastical seems to be the message of the film (or, at least, one of them).

All of this is emphasised by the cinematography. This is one of the earliest films to use Technicolor and use it it does. Everything is vibrant and lush, vivid and otherworldly; especially to the audience of the time, I should imagine, not accustomed to foreign holidays and endless TV travel shows as we are today. But the film’s world is a heightened version of reality and, as with the effects, the fantastical style means it doesn’t really date. Wish You Were Here has nothing on this.

The story itself has a bit of everything: romance, fantasy, action, adventure, humour and, no doubt, more. The cast are up to the task, with John Justin swashing his buckle Errol Flynn-style as dethroned prince Ahmed; Conrad Veidt perfect as slimily evil vizier Jaffar “the usurper”; Sabu suitably valiant, amusing and clever as a peasant hero; and Rex Ingram making a memorably self-centred genie. If Disney fans think some of this sounds familiar, it must seem obvious to anyone who’s seen Aladdin that The Thief of Bagdad was a major influence on the 1992 animated classic.

These days, The Thief of Bagdad may be something of an acquired taste — some viewers will struggle to engage their sense of make-believe enough to accept the rough-round-the-edges effects and fantastical storyline — but that’s their loss, quite frankly. For those of us with some imagination to spare, it remains a magical experience.

* Although only these three are credited on screen, six directors were reportedly involved. The others were producers Alexander Korda, Zoltan Korda, and William Cameron Menzies. ^

** Though listed by the Radio Times as being in HD, the D didn’t look particularly H to me. ^

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004)

Posted on December 8, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #63
Kerry Conran | 102 mins | TV (HD) | PG / PG

If the Indiana Jones series was a bit more sci-fi (even than Crystal Skull, that is), it might be rather like this. First time writer-director Kerry Conran evokes ’40s cinema serials more thoroughly than Lucas or Spielberg ever dared with a globe-hopping tale of a mad scientist’s giant robots doing all sorts of damage in a quest for… well, that would spoil the ending.

In the telling, Sky Captain is every inch a Boy’s Own adventure, packing every facet of that genre of storytelling into its brisk running time. There’s secret bases, ray guns, giant robots, flying aircraft carriers, snow-bound Himalayan treks, creature-infested secret jungle islands, huge underground bases, space rockets, planes that are also submarines, tree bridges over impossibly deep gorges… If it’s part of the genre, it’s probably here, and all finally executed with ’00s-level special effects. In some respects it does move between set pieces and locations in an episodic fashion, but then that’s more a trait of the films it emulates — i.e. episodic serials — than a flaw in Conran’s plotting.

Still, some might view Sky Captain as little more than an exercise in filmmaking — it was one of the first movies to be shot entirely on blue-screen, around the same time as Sin City and a couple of others. There’s more to it than that, but it’s also hard to ignore the style this creates. The shooting process is far from perfect if one were trying to recreate real life, but here the whole look is so stylised that it hardly matters. The period setting is nicely evoked, combining myriad influences into an intricately realised retro-future style, coupled with a lovely sepia sheen over everything. It’s beautifully lit, while individual shots and editing are frequently reminiscent of a style from the ’40s (and earlier). Again, Conran is being deliberately evocative of films of the period, rather than a modern film set then; more La Antena than Star Wars.

Another much-discussed feat of technology is the resurrection of Sir Laurence Olivier as the film’s villain. Unfortunately, his brief appearance is underwhelming. Perhaps we’ve become too accustomed to modern technology resurrecting deceased actors for ‘new’ performances (not that it happens that often); but then again, what was done with Oliver Reed for Gladiator — four years before this — seemed more impressive than the small amount of hologram we see here, even though the digitally created shots were equally brief. It’s a shame, because using Olivier for this key role is quite neat, certainly better than casting a glorified extra. In fairness, then, it’s a part so small that very few appropriately-big names would agree to it, which perhaps permisses resurrecting Olivier after all

Among the real performances, the acting is a bit flat. Perhaps this is deliberately in-keeping with the emulated style, though Jude Law is always this bad so maybe not. Similar comments could be made of the screenplay, if one were being unkind. What it does manage is a good amount of humour — an essential part of the genre, as any Indiana Jones fan will tell you, but it’s by no means guaranteed in these over-serious times (thankfully, the likes of Star Trek and Transformers are occasionally breaking down this barrier to fun).

Breaking free of any self-imposed period constraints, Conran also produces a few exciting action sequences, such as a plane chase through the streets of New York. It’s incredibly hard to create spectacle these days, but Sky Captain occasionally manages it. There are also lots of fun little references to other things for the keen viewer to pick out. 1138 crops up, inevitably, but my favourite is some dialogue lifted from Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds.

Sky Captain is a healthy dose of retro-styled fun. Perhaps that makes it an acquired taste, but there’s certainly nothing wrong with that.

My review of the proof-of-concept short that inspired Sky Captain can be read here.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Posted on November 29, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #80
Michael Bay | 150 mins | Blu-ray | 12 / PG-13

If Transformers was “from the director of The Rock and Bad Boys”, then Revenge of the Fallen is “from the director of Pearl Harbor and Bad Boys II”. If you don’t get what I mean by that… well, let me explain…

The most striking thing about Transformers 2, as it inconveniently isn’t called, is that it’s over-long and indulgent. Has Bay never heard of an edit suite? The writers of a delete key? Anyone of quality control? There are too many ideas, when some should’ve been dropped for clarity and speed; the film could — nay, should — have been seriously trimmed down at every stage of production. By my reckoning, as much as an hour could be lost while still retaining all the best bits of action, humour and plot. Consequently, it’s simply not as much fun as the first film, exacerbating rather than fixing all its flaws and losing most of its charm (it didn’t have the last in spades, but it had enough).

There are good bits though. The humourous scenes highlight this contrast the most: some are genuinely amusing, others simply not, and typically go on too long. All the stuff with Sam at college — why? Especially his mum accidentally eating drugs. Or the jive-talking twins, who’d be this decade’s Jar Jar Binks if only they were as memorable. There are countless other examples — if you’ve read almost any other review you won’t need me to mention the robot balls. When the writers don’t try so hard, however, there are pleasurably funny scenes.

This applies to the action too. Some of it is exciting, but Bay has no genuine concept of rest or pause — sequence after sequence is thrown at the viewer with mind-numbing intensity. There are good beats liberally scattered throughout, but so many sequences means no stand-outs are left because there’s no time to properly process any of them. As in the first film, robot-on-robot fighting is hard to decipher. These Transformers are too realistic (as it were) — they’re all made up of thousands of gunmetal-grey parts; as soon as they come into contact you can’t tell which bit belongs to who and what exactly is hitting where. Even with the extended slow-mo shots — of which there are a lot more than in the first film — by the time you’ve actually worked out what you’re looking at, Bay cuts to the next confusing ShakyCam moment.

When things do slow it’s for brazen ‘character development’ or clunky plot exposition, both coming in great big tell-don’t-show info-dumps. At one point, one character literally urges another to “explain the plot”. The character scenes are equally forced, the dialogue functioning at a level of state-the-obvious inanity. Bay treats women with a similar absence of subtlety — every scene featuring a female is shot like a moving version of FHM, all skimpy clothes and slow-mo jiggling. The only exception is Sam’s mother.

Technically, the CGI is almost flawless, only the occasional brief shot failing to achieve little less than photo-real perfection. Bay’s typical tech fetish is also in evidence, suggesting he looked at a couple of car and military mags when he picked up that inspirational FHM. Bizarrely, however, the sound mix strikes me as a flawed technical element. I found it so odd that I had to download the digital copy and listen in plain old stereo to check there wasn’t something haywire in my surround setup. By the end it’s sounding as you’d expect (largely), but throughout there are unusually spartan patches, lacking in the music or hard-hitting explosive sound effects one expects. Perhaps we should be grateful that it’s less bombastic and wall-of-noise than you normally find in such action films, but it renders the soundtrack disconcerting at times.

On its cinema release, Revenge of the Fallen unsurprisingly jumped on the recent bandwagon of having an IMAX release, although at least some parts of the film were shot for the format — just like The Dark Knight, although with nothing like the same level of attention lavished on this in press coverage. According to the BBFC, the IMAX-exclusive version ran 91 seconds longer — 151:16 as opposed to 149:45. According to my player, the Blu-ray runs 149:53. It seems that, despite Bay’s promise of releasing the slightly-extended IMAX cut, complete with Dark Knight-style shifting aspect ratios, Paramount have been less faithful than Warner. Perhaps they considered the typical Transformers 2 fan incapable of grasping such a concept. Not that it really matters — if there’s one thing this film doesn’t need it’s to be any longer.

At times it’s like an uncomfortable amalgamation of Saturday morning cartoon and more adult-orientated action-comedy. On the one hand you’ve got a top-secret organisation with a semi-plausible acronym for a name (NEST) that sees soldiers and good giant robots travelling the world fighting bad giant robots, all without the public noticing. On the other, you’ve got whole sequences about drug use, almost brutal fight scenes, and lad’s mag-level slow-mo shots of girls running, changing and having their short dresses hiked up by robotic tails. (To be fair, there’s only one robotic tail.) In other words: if you’re an average 13-year-old boy, this is the Best. Movie. Ever.

For the rest of us, Revenge of the Fallen is, at best, the kind of blockbuster that might benefit from a second viewing, though probably after some time has passed. It’s not likely to create a better impression of the character development or comedy, but perhaps the MacGuffin-packed plot (there are at least three) would be easier to comprehend, the mythology-dumps easier to stomach, and the massive fights easier to follow. At worst, it’s a hurried production that would have benefitted greatly from some judicious editing from script level upwards. This is what happens when a studio allows someone like Bay an essentially limitless budget and less than two years to turn a blockbuster around.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is released on DVD and Blu-ray in the UK tomorrow.

Watchmen: Director’s Cut (2009)

Posted on November 26, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #79
Zack Snyder | 186 mins | Blu-ray | 18 / R

This review contains spoilers.

Hitting US Blu-ray so long ago that it’s shameful I haven’t watched it ’til now, and finally arriving in the UK next Monday, the Director’s Cut is Zack Snyder’s final vision of Watchmen: The Movie. The Ultimate Cut (currently available in the US but with no confirmed UK release), which integrates the animated Tales of the Black Freighter into the main feature, is, in Snyder’s words, “an experiment”. Maybe one day he’ll change his mind and say that’s actually his definitive version; I suppose these days — when it seems every major film has a proliferation of different cuts across theatrical release, home entertainment release, and home entertainment re-release — such a thing as a “definitive version” doesn’t necessarily exist. But that’s a debate for another day: for now, this — not The Ultimate Cut, and certainly not the theatrical cut — is Snyder’s Watchmen.

That said, I wouldn’t be inclined to say it’s vastly different to the previously seen version. There are some obvious new scenes and extensions, especially if you’re familiar with the original novel, but ultimately I didn’t find the additional 24 minutes created a vastly different experience. Most of the flaws still remain, from the unfixable — Malin Akerman is somewhat miscast; sometimes episodic storytelling (a largely unavoidable side effect of faithfully adapting a novel that is very much a story in 12 parts, as opposed to a story divided into 12 chunks) — to those that Snyder could potentially have rectified — the alley fight/Manhattan interview crosscutting still doesn’t quite work; Bubastis is inadequately explained; too little time is devoted to the large cast of secondary characters in New York to give Adrian’s plan the same emotional kick it has in the novel; and so on.

By the same token, none of the great bits are ruined, while some are enhanced. Although mostly faithful to the novel, the changes Snyder and co have made are almost all for the better: Rorschach’s “what do you see?” beats the fan-favourite landlady scene (goodness knows why it’s a fan favourite), and Matthew Goode’s slightly built, faintly Germanic Veidt seems a more natural fit for the character now than Gibbons’ more butch version (possibly only in my opinion, that one). Best of all is the modified climax, which retains all the significance of the original but, by changing the way in which it’s brought about, streamlines and tidies up the storytelling. The giant squid is a great comic book image, but this is superior plotting, especially in the abridged form a film adaptation must take.

As for the new bits themselves, some are slightly misguided — Rorschach’s escape from Blake’s apartment, for example, is wholly unnecessary; it shows him injuring a policeman, an incident now referred to over the next few scenes, but we don’t need to see it to follow the references, and showing it gets in the way of the previously perfect match-cut from the Minutemen photo in Blake’s apartment to the same one in Hollis Mason’s. By and large, however, the extensions add depth via little lines and moments. The most noticeable are a better building of Laurie’s backstory, and Hollis Mason’s death. The latter is a little ancillary to the main plot, its excision from the theatrical version easily justified to keep the running time down, but in itself is a well-played and tragic scene that adds further resonance to the end of Dan’s story.

Whatever you thought of Watchmen after the theatrical cut, this extended version is likely to change your opinion no more than any other re-viewing would. That said, with a little extra room to breathe and a few worthwhile extensions, and in spite of the odd tweak that doesn’t work, this is the superior cut of the film.

Most of the comments in my lengthy review of the theatrical cut still stand, so I invite you to read it here.

Watchmen: Director’s Cut placed 3rd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2009, which can be read in full here.

AVPR – Aliens vs Predator: Requiem (2007)

Posted on October 7, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #19
The Brothers Strause | 97 mins* | DVD | 15 / R

Aliens vs Public Relations? Sadly not. And when a joke plot like that sounds more appealing than a rematch between two of sci-fi’s greatest monsters, you know you’re in trouble.

In my last Alien/Predator review, I made sure to attack director Paul W.S. Anderson a bit. As well as being renowned for making rubbish films, Anderson is also quite well known for being sequel-shy… and so it is with the AVP franchise, here handing the reins to the less-than-capable special effects-creating Brothers Strause. They supposedly set out with a fan-pleasing remit: primarily an R-rating, but they even make sure to use familiar fonts and sound effects right from the title card. Though said title card is blurry and unclear, obscuring the film’s very name — a sign of things to come, because their ability to please fans extends no further than some vague surface essentials.

To be fair, it can’t be easy to marshal all the familiar tropes of two different franchises into a single film that does something original with them. But that’s no excuse — things like facehuggers and skinned humans are present as if simply ticked off a list, having neither the surprise and mystery of the original appearance (obviously) nor anything new to make them worthwhile. They’re there because they ‘need’ to be, and while it makes some kind of sense to not play them as surprises, there’s nothing remotely new or different to hold our attention instead. Much of it is so poorly done that it’s not even set pieces strung together, it’s ideas for set pieces strung together.

If you thought AVP spent too much time focusing on the Predators rather than the humans (and I did), you’ll find AVPR even worse. It again tries to emulate the build-the-characters-first approach of the best Alien and Predator films, but intercuts their mundane lives with what the Predators and Aliens are up to. No, no, no. Part of the point of the character-based slow-build is to create tension — there’s none of that here. And by not withholding the monsters, the dull lives become even duller. One of the Alien series’ strengths was in making the extraordinary (space travel!) seem mundane (space truckers), but AVPR makes the ordinary seem mundane, and that’s no achievement at all; in fact, that’s a great big failure.

Even the action sequences are a mixed bag. There’s a nice line in harsh and surprising deaths — major characters are suddenly picked off, and with a cast so full of minor actors you can never be certain who’ll make it; and among them are a young boy, pregnant mums, and most of the town gets nuked by the army because the townsfolk trusted them. The final fight makes admirable use of suits and animatronics over CGI, but it’s so dark you can barely tell what’s happening. Similarly, the PredAlien may be great or it may be rubbish — you never see it well enough to tell. It’s not only the climax: over-dark cinematography and typically choppy editing obscure every action sequence. Why is it that in an age where special effects are so improved and there’s a preference for real actors over stunt doubles, action sequences have become harder to follow?

The overall feel is of a horror B-movie — a direct-to-DVD one. It may be a stock phrase for reviewers, but in this case it’s actually true: AVPR genuinely makes AVP look good. It’s a new low even for the Predator series, and it drags the Alien franchise from once lofty heights right down into the gutter with all the other too-long-running horror franchises. However permissable parts of AVPR might be (when judged on its own terms) (with a kindly eye), the inconceivably thorough degradation of a once-great franchise is its greatest crime.

Alien³ was a charming mess. This is just a mess. An irredeemable one.

* AVPR on DVD is 7 minutes longer than in cinemas. This seems to be the only cut available (outside of Germany) and isn’t specially labelled, hence the lack of qualifying “Director’s Cut” or “Extended Cut” or “DVD Cut” in my title.

AVPR featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2009, which can be read in full here.

AVP: Alien vs. Predator – Extended Version (2004)

Posted on October 6, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #18
Paul W.S. Anderson | 98 mins | DVD | 15 / PG-13

This review contains minor spoilers.

Once upon a time — around the late ’90s, when he was only known for Event Horizon (and that video game thing no one wanted to mention) — director Paul W.S. Anderson was seriously and vocally attached to a film adaptation of Doctor Who. At the time it was such a good idea, a bright new hope for Who’s revival, with a Hollywood-level — yet, pleasingly, British — director at the helm. When it didn’t come together it was quite disappointing. In retrospect, I think we can breathe a collective sigh of relief.

Anderson’s films always come in for a critical drubbing and AvP was no exception. Sadly, it was well deserved. The main problems are a weak script, including an abundance of prologues in place of genuine character development, and poor performances, not helped by what sounds like a regular use of bad ADR. Characters make leaps of logic that would be reasonable if they’d seen the preceding six films, but make no sense whatsoever given what they know in context. The story begins moderately well, even pushing to the slow build in the franchises’ best entries (though without as much tension), until just 13 minutes in, when there’s a pointless scene on a Predator ship. Of course we know they’re coming — they’re in the title — but it’s a reveal too soon and ruins any mood Anderson’s managed to create. Constant updates on their progress exacerbate the problem.

There are actually some very inventive ideas scattered throughout — like the captured, frozen Alien Queen — but, in storytelling terms, their reveals are poorly handled, occuring too early and too far from the protagonists. However much time Anderson wants to spend getting his humans into position (a lot, just like the other six filmmakers before him), he clearly doesn’t trust the audience to go along with it without some hints of the creatures (unlike the best of the filmmakers before him). It’s not his only directorial misstep. He makes the fatal mistake of letting his monsters out into the light too much, though the choppy editing almost obscures them again. While effects can now withstand this level of scrutiny, the effect of the creatures can’t — they belong half-hidden in shadow, especially the Alien.

Elsewhere, every facehugger is treated to a graphic slow-mo shot. Once might’ve been cool, but it quickly becomes overkill — especially when the first instance features three, immediately rendering every solo example that follows unremarkable. And then there’s the ending nabbed from Predator 2. And the final beat that, though the groundwork is laid earlier in the film, still doesn’t really make sense (considering how fast chestbursters came out of the humans, or how long the Predator had been dead by the time it popped). When the director doesn’t know how to handle the titular monsters correctly, you know you’re in trouble.

That said, Anderson certainly delivers on the title’s Aliens-fighting-Predators promise. Most of the film’s limited imagination is lavished on these battles, but as with most monster-on-monster bouts we have no stake in either side, leaving them mostly heartless and only engaging on the level of “cool!” The human characters are left by the wayside at these moments, disappearing out of the way — and taking what little plot there is with them — for a few minutes. When they do appear there are some attempts at character development (yes, beyond those prologues) which are well-intentioned but painful. All things considered, Anderson has taken two horror franchises with an action-adventure tinge and turned them into an action-adventure film with a horror tinge.

This ‘extended version’ is a whopping 79 seconds longer than the theatrical cut, adding a whaling station prologue. This exacerbates the issue of revealing the monsters too early, but it does go some way to justifying the otherwise random glimpses of the Predator ship. Nonetheless, to be truly effective we shouldn’t know more about what the aliens are up to than the human characters do and it’s all a mistake. (An unrated version of the film is also available in some territories. It runs eight minutes longer, but the additions seem to just be the deleted scenes included on other releases.)

Flash forward however many years since that mooted Who movie, and Anderson’s career has mostly reverted to video game adaptations and trashing as many franchises as he can. AvP is surely the culmination of his efforts: here he manages to amalgamate a popular and acclaimed film franchise, its almost-as-beloved stablemate, and an equally popular and acclaimed comics & video game series, and then decimate all three in one 85-minute (without credits) swoop. Well done Mr Anderson, your efficiency knows no bounds.

Tomorrow, AVPR – Aliens vs Predator: Requiem.

The Right Stuff (1983)

Posted on September 19, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #49
Philip Kaufman | 181 mins | TV | 15 / PG

The Right Stuff ostensibly dramatises the story of the ‘Mercury 7’, America’s first group of astronauts, but in fact equally concerns itself with the tale of test pilot Chuck Yeager. But I’ll get to him.

I’ve recently steeped myself in dramas and documentaries relating to the US space program, from For All Mankind’s contemporary footage to In the Shadow of the Moon’s retrospective interviews, from Moonshot’s earnest docudrama account of Apollo 11 to From the Earth to the Moon’s thorough chronicling of events. But all of these have one thing in common: they cover the Apollo missions alone. Mercury came first, America’s initial attempts to put men into space before Apollo’s grand mission to the Moon.

In this context it’s nice to actually get some coverage of these earlier, vital missions, though such an in-depth knowledge of what was to follow has its problems for The Right Stuff’s narrative, just as knowing the facts always does for a historical movie. Equally, it gives the emotional resonance a helping hand — knowing Gus Grissom’s tragic fate lends the poor treatment he received following his unfortunate splashdown an extra poignancy; or when Alan Shepard asserts he’s going to the Moon you know he’ll make it (eventually).

Exposure to other such works makes quality comparisons inevitable too, though the only one of serious relevance here is From the Earth to the Moon. It’s an unfair one, of course: despite The Right Stuff’s epic running time, it’s nothing to the twelve hours afforded to an HBO miniseries. Conversely, where the miniseries is effectively twelve one-hour plays, shifting focus every episode, director Philip Kaufman’s film does follow a more linear — albeit wide-reaching — progression. While Yeager may disappear for long stretches, for example, his story is revisited and continued; while Gordon Cooper isn’t introduced until after we’ve had plenty of Yeager, the film closes on his first spaceflight. Flitting from character to character could make the film feel fragmented — and the brevity in dealing with many of the supporting characters, especially the wives, does suggest this — but the missions move ever on and take the narrative with them.

The other effect of having seen so much about the space program of late is that the trips to space lose some of their wonder. The handful of spaceflights actually depicted here are often praised, both for their special effects and their pure effect on the viewer, but having seen many others recently does tarnish the sense of wonder somewhat. The effects work is faultless however, as is the integration of footage of the real missions, and the unique qualities of John Glenn’s flight make it stand out regardless of how many other real spaceflights one’s seen recreated on screen.

A handful of these sequences aside, Kaufman leaves the technical aspect of proceedings alone. The various test flights and rocket launches we do see are undoubtedly important set pieces, but they’re not a thorough catalogue of events. Attention is only lavished on the scientific and engineering challenges when it has some direct impact on the characters, and just as often Kaufman is concerned with the family — specifically, the wife — behind the astronaut. These touches of family drama are well played, most affectingly with Glenn and his shy, stuttering wife, but each astronaut’s tale comes and goes, not even one relationship going through an arc that lasts more than two or three scenes. Even when powerfully portrayed, these are portraits not stories.

There are some injections of humour and symbolism too, but again in keeping with the piecemeal style. A pair of NASA recruitment officers, played by Jeff Goldblum and Harry Shearer, provide some comic relief early on for quite a sustained stretch, but then more or less disappear — excepting a recurring motif of Goldblum telling a room of Important Men news they already know. Similarly, the film opens with a fantastic image of Death, a black-clad preacher arriving to inform a wife and child of their husband/father’s fiery death. He crops up again, demonstrating his presence as symbol and not character, but is too often forgotten about. Plaudits are due for not overusing him, naturally, but a few more appearances wouldn’t have gone amiss.

And so what of Yeager? Why so much of a test pilot who was denied the chance to apply to be an astronaut, even if he’d wanted to? It’s hard to disagree with the assessment of screenwriter William Goldman, who left the project over disagreements with the director: it seems Kaufman, for whatever reason, is set in a belief that Yeager had ‘the right stuff’ pumping through his veins, while those chosen to be astronauts were just ordinary guys who got lucky; that Yeager was a pilot proper, brave and skilled, while the Mercury 7 were little more than living computers to perform a handful of tasks atop a huge rocket. If this is Kaufman’s belief it isn’t overbearing, but you can see where Goldman’s coming from. After all, if this is purely the story of the Mercury 7 and their trips into space, why is Yeager there at all, never mind so prominently?

By eschewing a straight trotting out of facts and incidents, even a dramatised one, for a selection of events and experiences, Kaufman made a film that is perhaps less about the real-life story and more thematic — that theme being, primarily, heroism. If he winds up uncertain whether or not the Mercury 7 were heroes, perhaps that’s the point: these were just ordinary men, thrust into an extraordinary situation. Except Yeager, of course, who is never anything less than the flawless embodiment of the titular virtue.

~~The Right Stuff is on ITV4 tonight at 10:35pm.~~

Sherlock (2002)

Posted on September 15, 2009 by badblokebob

aka Case of Evil / Sherlock: Case of Evil

2009 #46
Graham Theakston | 89 mins | TV | R

Sherlock Holmes is a character so well known in the international psyche that he is open to seemingly endless reinterpretation — a wartime spy in the Rathbone era, his younger self in a Temple of Doom remake, or cryogenically frozen to reawaken in the 22nd Century (no, really). Indeed, this year alone we can expect to see him re-imagined as both a wisecracking martial artist in a period-set action/adventure film from Guy Ritchie, and as a detective in the present day in a new TV series from Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. All of which are considerably more exciting than this lame Young Sherlock effort from 2002.

Here, writer Piers Ashworth — who would go on to pen the new St Trinian’s and Goal! III (for which be sure to read the review at The Big Whatsit) — creates a kind of Holmes Begins, showing a young and unknown Sherlock break his first case against renowned criminal Professor Moriarty, gaining a bit of fame before he joins the investigation of a serial killer. Ashworth makes sure to complete the Begins format with introductions for various iconic elements, like the deerstalker (though only in the final scene), the pipe (though, only in the final scene), and even his drug addiction (though Holmes seems to have already been cured of it).

More fundamentally, however, Holmes is recast as a kind of Victorian James Bond, both in terms of his character and the plot structure. It begins with the end of the previous mission (which, GoldenEye-style, will become relevant later), before progressing through various familiar beats, like the villain helpfully explaining his plan and a climactic big shoot-out a la You Only Live Twice or The Spy Who Loved Me, except on a much, much, much smaller scale. To add to the effect, Dr Watson is revealed to be “a bit of an inventor” — a Q in the making? Even Holmes himself is not immune: young, dashing, and womanising. Yes, womanising. He even has a threesome, shot and scored like soft porn, though with a US TV-friendly complete lack of nudity. Or sex. It does feature an unintentionally hilarious striptease though.

The story itself moves at a decent lick early on, complete with some genuine detective work that even, occasionally, displays Holmes’ genius. Most of this (at least, most of it that’s actually relevant to the plot) occurs during a couple of autopsies, which choose not to stint on the gore. (Incidentally, this makes it even easier to believe it was created with US TV in mind. Nudity? Nooo. Gore and violence? Hurrah!) Unfortunately, the longer the film goes on the more it slows and begins to drag, and the mystery-solving is replaced with running around, backstory exposition, and semi-decent sword fights. The best of these is fortunately at the climax, which takes place (amusingly, like Basil the Great Mouse Detective) atop the Palace of Westminster clock tower — or, at least, a poor computer-generated version of it (also like Basil the Great Mouse Detective). To be fair, the interior is a decent-enough set… though quite how the clock faces function when no workings whatsoever are attached to them is a mystery worthy of Holmes. Sherlock was shot in Romania, so such dodgy effects work rears its head any time they wish to depict a London landmark. Thankfully this isn’t often, because every such shot is appallingly realised.

Much the same could be said of the performances. James D’Arcy initially seems miscast as Holmes, but… well, he is — it’s just that everyone else is even worse. Roger Morlidge’s Dr Watson feels like he’s being portrayed by Ricky Gervais — no, worse, like James Corden’s version of Gervais from Horne & Corden — while Vincent D’Onofrio’s accent wavers all over the place and takes his performance with it. In what amounts to a cameo as Mycroft Holmes, Richard E. Grant is dreadful too. I’ve never been much of a fan of his, but this is weak work even by his standards. About the only passable performance among the major characters comes from Nicholas Gecks as Lestrade. There’s nothing exemplary about his role, but by simply doing nothing wrong he fares better than the rest.

Sherlock probably sounds irredeemably awful, and for some it will be (Sherlock Holmes has a threesome for Chrissake!), but despite the numerous flaws it remains largely watchable and even has its moments, particularly for more forgiving non-Sherlockians.

Sherlock featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2009, which can be read in full here.

Stand By Me (1986)

Posted on August 17, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #29
Rob Reiner | 89 mins | download | 15 / R

Stand By Me is a film an awful lot of people love an awful lot, which it always seemed to me was down to first seeing it at the right age (more or less the age of the main characters, I think) and possibly to being part of a certain generation — would it have the same effect for kids today, when the relative innocence and freedom of the ’50s is arguably lost? As I say, “seemed”, because now I’m not sure either of these factors really matter.

Irrespective of age, generation, or being able to remember the kinds of experiences suggested by the film, Stand By Me is still an effective and affecting little film. The level of enjoyment for some may depend on how much they can stomach child actors, though as kids go they’re mostly very good. River Phoenix in particular is brilliant, highly natural while bringing a lot of depth to perhaps the most important role. Wil Wheaton also makes a good account of himself, just one year before attracting derision as Wesley Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Phoenix, of course, went on to have a tragically short-lived career.) Kiefer Sutherland is as effective a villain as he ever would be, though that aspect of the plot is almost an aside.

An aside, because the film isn’t about the fights between the young heroes and a group of older bullies. Rather, it’s a paean for childhood, with the adult perspective and the ‘lost age’ setting of the ’50s succinctly highlighting the nostalgic spirit. To be precise, it’s not so much reflecting on “childhood” as on “growing up” — the choices that are open when young that either disappear with time or, for whatever reason, become closed off. The whole film is arguably about choice: choice of friends, choice of social class, Ace’s constant listing of choices (the subtext breaking into the text, as many a film teacher would point out), even the obvious choice whether to follow the tracks or take shortcuts (surely symbolic). Thematically, it’s the choice to be put down or stand up for yourself; the choice to stick around and wind up a nobody or work hard and get out, also underlined in the present-day bookends.

Perhaps being the right age is helpful to a love for Stand By Me, but at any stage in life it’s easy to relate to its depiction of the experiences and choices of childhood, be they now lost, taken, or never even had.

Stand By Me is on Channel 5 today, Sunday 12th October 2014, at 2pm.

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