Bill the Galactic Hero (2014)

Posted on March 25, 2015 by badblokebob

2014 #128
Alex Cox, Merritt Crocker, Amanda Gostomski, Danny Beard, Alicia Ramirez, Jordan Thompson & Raziel Scher | 90 mins | download | 16:9 | USA / English

Alex Cox was once the director of noticed movies like Repo Man and Sid and Nancy, tipped for Hollywood success. That wasn’t really his style, though, and he wound up heading into ultra-indie territory, ultimately to “microfeatures” — films made so cheaply they fall below the Screen Actors Guild cut-off of $200,000. I confess that the only previous film of his I’ve seen is one of these: Repo Chick, a non-sequel to Repo Man that most people hate but I kinda loved. So when it turned out he was crowdfunding a new film, and a satirical science-fiction comedy at that, I jumped on it (readers with long memories may remember I mentioned it at the time). The finished result finally came out back in December, and… well…

To start at the beginning, Bill the Galactic Hero is an SF comedy novel by Harry Harrison. It’s a spoof of right-wing militaristic sci-fi, specifically Robert Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (which was also lampooned in its own film adaptation (apparently — I’ve still not seen it)). The story sees a lad from a backwater planet, Bill (James Miller), being tricked into joining the intergalactic military, who are locked in a never-ending war with reptilian aliens called Chingers. We follow him through his training, his dispatch aboard a war(space)ship, and adventures beyond. The novel is very good — not packed with gags and perhaps not often laugh-out-loud funny, but consistently wry in its outlook. You can see it would be a tough sell as an adaptation, mind, so an alternative director like Cox is probably the perfect fit.

The way he’s gone about filming it is as, essentially, a giant student film. Cox currently teaches film at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and it was along with his students (plus some professional colleagues from previous films) that this movie was produced — that’s partly why there’s the lengthy list of directors (Cox actually directed “most of the first act and all the third”, as discussed in this interview with Quiet Earth). For various legal reasons, it’s a not-for-profit venture; indeed, any venue in the world can acquire a good-enough-to-screen quality copy from Cox for free, so long as it’s being shown in aid of charity. (That, and other interesting points, are discussed in this interview with Boulder Weekly.) The film is also available online, for free, here. This combination of factors (student film; shown only for charity; etc) makes it a little hard to be judgemental about it — witness, for instance, this ‘review’ from Boulder Weekly. But judge we must, and, sadly, in many ways it’s just not very good.

Things start badly with a colourful animated opening. I can see why this was judged to be the most cost-effective way to relate that part of the tale, as it’s set on an alien planet and filled with background extras and future-technology, but considering the amount of cardboard-and-Sellotape set dressing later in the film, surely they could have rustled something up? I also simply don’t like the style of the animation. Its painfully-bright colourfulness provides a contrast to what follows that is nearly appropriate, but there’s no transition from it into the black-and-white live-action main film, just an abrupt cut (a good place to have put the title credits, at the very least!) Worst of all, no effort whatsoever is made to establish that the cartoon guy we saw being enlisted at the start is now a live-action guy with a teddybear strapped to his spacesuit. It took me a minute to get it, and I’ve read the book.

The cast are kept in full spacesuit gear the whole time. This sounded like a bad idea, and it is. It’s hard to relate to their facelessness, harder still to tell the supporting characters apart. That’s also a flaw of the screenplay and direction, neither of which allow enough time to establish anyone. A lot of the supporting cast are fleeting anyway — as I said, we follow Bill across multiple situations, each with a new group of people around him — but the potential impact of certain scenes involving characters like Eager Beager and Deathwish Drang is lost thanks to the lack of early investment. Even central Bill is lacking in personality or identifiability, particularly so considering he’s the main character. This is in some ways a problem inherited from the novel, where Bill is a blank canvas floating through his various adventures. I don’t know if that was intentional on Harrison’s part, but it didn’t work for me in the book and it doesn’t here either.

After a hurried start, the film does settle down to slightly longer scenes with more of a point, like Bill’s encounter with the Laundry Officer-cum-Chaplain, and some of these work pretty well. Sadly, too much of the time it’s a race through the novel’s story, feeling like a filmed recap for those who’ve read the book. Goodness knows what someone who hasn’t would make of it all. Goodness knows if they’d even be able to follow it at all, to be frank.

Not all of the adaptation’s ideas are poor, though. The novel was written in 1965, bang in the middle of the Vietnam War. For the film, Cox has substituted the final act’s Vietnam-inspired jungle planet for an era-appropriate Middle East-inspired dustbowl. An ingenious idea, though there’s little (or no) commentary on the past couple of decades of Western military intervention once you get past that obvious observation. Ah well.

The live-action parts (i.e. most of the film) are shot on black-and-white film stock, though I’m not convinced they should have bothered — video would’ve been cheaper, and probably looked much the same in the end. That said, there’s an oppressively dark feel to much of the cinematography, with numerous deep blacks crowding in, which is surely the result of using real film. It’s quite appropriate to the story’s tone, a very dry satire of a controlling future dystopia. Conversely, the special effects look great. They’re the kind of lo-fi models-and-basic-CGI style that I had been expecting, and they nail the intended tone in a way other elements are too amateurish to quite reach.

Unfortunately, the audio quality is quite poor. The spacesuit decision reveals itself to be a bad idea once again when it muffles all the dialogue. Halfway through one character is subtitled, and I’m not sure why — she’s just as clear as everyone else. That is to say, not very; but no one else has subtitles so why does she? Possibly this could all be to do with the film being mixed for 5.1 by people inexperienced in doing so (Cox admitted as much himself) and then poorly downmixed to stereo for the online version that I watched. Perhaps the 5.1 version on the DVD comes over better? (I do have a copy, but haven’t brought myself to watch it to find out.) The end credits scroll under a new song by Iggy Pop, which I actually rather liked.

The sad thing is, I think the film could have been so much better. And I don’t mean by making it ‘properly’, either. Cox has shown he can make microfeatures work, and I don’t believe student films (which this essentially is) are fundamentally meritless. Even the production values, low-rent as they are, are fine if that’s what you’re expecting (and, given the film’s background, you should be). No, the problem lies in the storytelling: a pace that rushes through the novel at such speed that only someone familiar with it could keep up; a lack of time spent establishing characters and situations; rough editing and sound design that obscure elements and, without any breathing room elsewhere, leave you no space to work out the gaps and catch up.

Bill the Galactic Hero might be best described as a noble failure. It’s been created with the best of intentions, both in terms of adapting a quality novel that Hollywood had no interest in, and in training up a new generation of filmmakers in an independent and proactive way. It’s a shame the end result isn’t wholly as enjoyable as it might’ve been.

Bill the Galactic Hero is now available to stream or download, for free, on Vimeo.

Godzilla (2014)

Posted on March 6, 2015 by badblokebob

The second attempt at a US re-imagining of Godzilla received mixed reviews last summer, though there can be little doubt that it’s much more successful than the first, Roland Emmerich’s 1998 attempt. Where that movie basically starred a generic dinosaur-esque creature, here British director Gareth Edwards (director of the exceptional, five-star low-budgeter Monsters) has endeavoured to stay faithful to the style and structure of the original Japanese movies starring the titular beast, albeit brought in to the Hollywood fold with slick storytelling and a modern CG sheen.

In many respects, Edwards’ work is the real star of the film. Other elements are successful, but sometimes fitfully so, and it’s his choices and vision at the helm that hold the whole together. This is none more obvious than in the way the movie treats the titular beast — essentially, it’s a giant tease. It’s a slight spoiler to say when he first turns up on screen (the unknowing, like myself, will expect him in one specific bit considerably earlier), but we’re made to wait for it… and then Edwards abruptly cuts away. Godzilla disappears off under the water, heading for the next plot location, and he’s off screen for yonks. When he does (literally) resurface, we’re again teased with glimpses, and any full-on shot is a quick few frames before jumping to something else.

Some viewers and/or critics have questioned this as a bizarre attempt not to show the monster, but they’re entirely missing the point, and Edwards’ genuine filmmaking technique. It all becomes obvious in the finale (or should, anyway, but clearly some people don’t get it): after over an hour and a half of teasing us, there’s an almighty brawl, and Godzilla is shown off in all his glory. Edwards isn’t trying to hide the monster, he’s saving it. He’s denying us shots of it not to punish the viewer or to trick us, but literally to tease us, to build excitement and suspense and desire for the final battle. Too many people aren’t used to this — modern blockbusters have trained them for non-stop show-us-all-you’ve-got action from start to finish — and that’s a shame, and their loss, because Edwards’ method is superior to, and ultimately more entertaining than, 95% of other similar blockbusters.

It’s fair to say that around the monster action is a fairly rote plot. The human characters get some drama early on, but then are largely swept away by events. I can’t say I minded this too much — I don’t come to a Godzilla movie for the emotional relationships of the characters. At any rate, I’ve seen an equal number of reviews that criticise the film for not making more of the Aaron Taylor-Johnson/Elizabeth Olsen storyline, to those that think there’s too much of it and it should have been dropped. I guess it depends what you want from the movie — for me, Edwards almost hits the Goldilocks point of getting it just right, though I think Olsen is ill-served by how little she has to do.

The cast is full of actors who you might say are better than this — Bryan Cranston, David Strathairn, Sally Hawkins, Ken Watanabe, Juliette Binoche — which, again, is a bone of contention for some. Why are such quality actors in this? Why are they given so little to do? Again, this is a decision I think worked. For one, they’re actors you’re not used to seeing in this type of movie, which immediately brings a freshness. For another, no, the script doesn’t give them all it could. But because they’re such good actors, they bring it anyway — Hawkins and Watanabe, in particular, bring all kinds of layers to their characters that simply aren’t present in the functional dialogue they have to work with, simply in the way they stand, the way they look at things… It’s not the focus of the film, it’ll pass many people by (indeed, it has), but I think there are some fine performances here. Not awards-winning ones, obviously, but in the hands of lesser actors, they would’ve been so much poorer.

If the human drama isn’t always up to scratch… actually, I’m going to stop myself there, because this is a blockbuster about giant monsters — how many of those have human drama that’s “up to scratch”? Very few, if any. I’m not saying that to excuse the film, but rather to point out that the fact it manages any at all (and it does) is a greater success than most of its ilk achieve. Nonetheless, the stars of the show are the action sequences. Rather than assault us with them, Edwards keeps them nicely spaced out. Each one feels different from the last — not an insignificant feat for a movie about a giant monster that stomps on things, which is more or less what these movies usually do ad infinitum. They’re clearly constructed, cleanly shot… I don’t always mind ShakyCam, but it’s too easy to do, and as such is most often used unintelligently. This is proof that a well-executed classical style is the way to go.

Perhaps the best thing of all is the sense of scale. I believed in the monsters’ size and the effect it had. That was something I never got from Pacific Rim (as I noted in my review). Some have claimed the monsters’ relative size shifts around, or that their effects on the environment are inconsistent (at one point Godzilla’s arrival causes a veritable tsunami; later, he slips quietly into the bay). Maybe, maybe not, but they always look big — more importantly, they feel big. There are various reasons for this, including Edwards’ shot choices: we often see them from a human perspective on the ground; when we do see wider shots, they’re from suitably far away, or high up, like a helicopter shot (if it were real…) Too many directors shoot their giant monsters with angles and perspectives as if they’re human-sized, which makes them come across as human-sized even when there’s a building next to them, never mind when they’re in places without reference points (coughatsea,PacifcRimcough). Edwards never does this, and it pays off. More than once I regretted that I can never be bothered to go to the cinema any more, because I bet this looked stunning on the big screen (I know I’m certainly not alone in this feeling).

Another point worthy of praise is Bob Ducsay’s editing. It’s hard to convey in text exactly why, but the size of the monsters is used to wondrous effect when it comes to scene changes. For instance: we might be in part of the story following Olsen’s character. The monsters appear fighting in the background, so we follow the action. In the last shot of that particular sequence, the camera pans down to find Taylor-Johnson and pick up his thread of the story. The film does this multiple times throughout; it’s a distinct style, even. Written down like this it sounds kind of cheesy and forced, but it isn’t in the slightest: it’s subtle, seamless; I’d wager it goes unnoticed by most, even, but I was impressed.

Godzilla clearly isn’t a perfect film, but Edwards has done a great job of taking the essence of Toho’s long-running character (celebrating its 60th anniversary in the year of this film’s release) and rendering it in a Hollywood blockbuster style, one that’s pleasingly more classical (as it were) than the crash-bang-wallop instant-‘gratification’ style of most present big-budget summer tentpoles. That it got a little lost and under-appreciated in a summer of mega-hits is a real shame — it may not quite match summer 2014’s high points of X-Men: Days of Future Past or Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, but, for this viewer at least, it edged closer to them than to Marvel’s two widely over-beloved offerings.

And it wraps itself up as a completely self-contained film to boot — bonus! A sequel is forthcoming, however, just as soon as Edwards is finished with his Star Wars rumoured-prequel. I think both films are something to really look forward to.

Godzilla debuts on Sky Movies Premiere today at 4pm and 8pm.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

Posted on February 25, 2015 by badblokebob

This year’s Best Animated Film Oscar winner is not this year’s best animated film. Not by a long stroke. What it is is one great character, one great emotional plot/subplot, and a lot of stuff that feels like every other big-budget action-orientated CGI animation of the past few years. Most succinctly, this is little more than (as a reviewer on Letterboxd dubbed it) “How to Train Your Baymax”.

Set in a world where teenage kids seem to be constantly inventing groundbreaking robotic tech that multinationals spending billions on R&D haven’t come up with, the plot sees 14-year-old genius Hiro (Ryan Potter) bonding with his brother’s invention, a medical diagnosis/treatment robot called Baymax (Scott Adsit), while they investigate the theft and abuse of Hiro’s own invention. After stumbling across a mysterious masked supervillain, they team up with a gaggle of equally-skilled college friends to transform themselves into a superhero team.

Adapted from a Marvel comic book — albeit so loosely that Marvel didn’t even feel they could justify issuing a tie-in edition of the original — this is “Disney does superheroes”. Unfortunately, that’s not what Disney does best. The real meat and fun of the film comes in earlier sections, where Hiro and Baymax bond, where the emotional storyline is explored. I’m working hard not to spoil the latter plot — other reviews merrily do, because it’s kicked off in act one, but I went into the film blind and think it worked better for that. Based on interviews, some of the filmmakers seem to be under the impression that part of the film is up there with the infamous “Bambi’s mother” narrative. I don’t think it’s that striking, nor that universal, but it’s a bolder move than you normally see in kid-focused US animations.

The element that is an unequivocal success is Baymax. A soft robot — made of inflated vinyl so as to be genuinely huggable — he’s sweet, funny, and always entertaining. Memorable moments abound, in particular a sequence where his batteries run low, and his interpretation of a fist-bump (a recording booth improvisation by Adsit that was worked into the film). The movie truly comes alive whenever he’s on screen, but conversely loses some magic whenever he’s pushed into the background.

Otherwise, there’s some nice animation and design. It’s set in the city of San Fransokyo, which is imagined as what San Francisco would be if Japanese immigrants had rebuilt it following the 1906 earthquake. The design work is top-notch and the amount of world they built incredible, but it then goes underused, only glimpsed as background detail during one flying sequence. Worse, much of the movie’s story is sadly derivative, especially towards the end. It’s a bit hole-y too, and uncomfortably pushes at the boundaries of plausibility — I know it sounds silly to say that about a future-set superhero movie for kids, but c’mon, the way our young heroes can just merrily invent all kinds of super-advanced stuff just doesn’t make sense.

Big Hero 6 is by no means a bad film. It will certainly entertain its target age group, especially if they haven’t seen the other CG spectacles it nabs from. That aside, the entire thing is worth a look purely for Baymax and a few stand out moments — all of them involving the aforementioned vinyl robot, of course. Otherwise, it’s pretty by-the-book. The five-star-level praise it’s attracted in some quarters is completely unwarranted.

Big Hero 6 is released on US DVD and Blu-ray this week, and is still in UK cinemas.

What Do You Mean You Didn’t Like 2001: A Space Odyssey?

Posted on February 20, 2015 by badblokebob

2015 #26a
1968 | Stanley Kubrick | 149 mins | Blu-ray | 2.20:1 | USA & UK / English | U / G

As suggested (and named) by the ghost of 82, this is the first in an occasional series* in which I revisit films that are highly acclaimed but I didn’t enjoy first time round. First up, Stanley Kubrick’s monumental sci-fi opus, 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Now, let me begin with a point of clarification: I don’t remember when I first saw 2001, but I was very young, and most likely looking for SF films in the vein of others I’d enjoyed, like, say, Star Wars. I think we can all agree that 2001 is not like Star Wars. Nonetheless, while I wouldn’t have said I disliked 2001, I didn’t understand it either — and not in the “let’s debate its meaning” way in which no one else really understands it either, but in a more “well I didn’t get that, let’s ignore it” kinda way. I tried to watch it again in my teens, but it was late and I fell asleep. Some bits of it are very calming…

I think whenever it is someone first watches 2001, it’s the kind of film a viewer needs to be ‘prepared’ for. You can’t just watch it like “any other film”; it doesn’t quite play by the normal rules of mainstream narrative cinema. There is a story, but it’s slight, and told almost incidentally, half in asides and snatched exposition amongst other goings-on, and it’s never thoroughly elucidated. It exists to serve the film’s themes, or explorations, or whatever you want to call them, which I think is contrary to how most people (outside of the arthouse crowd) view cinema.

In reality, 2001 probably is an arthouse film. The final 20 minutes, with their bizarre and initially-inexplicable imagery, certainly are. The opening Dawn of Man sequence probably is too. The long, slow shots of spacecraft drifting, or of people silently riding said spacecraft, fit in that box ‘n’ all. These may be groundbreaking special effects, but the feelings they generate aren’t exactly the same as Star Wars, are they. The everyday mundanity of the space travel as seen in the film is almost its point, even if it’s conveyed through awe-inspiring effects work. Today, a mainstream director producing an expensive effects-heavy movie with this kind of pace and uncertainty would be unthinkable, but I guess audiences were a little more mature in the Good Old Days. Even then, Kubrick cut 19 minutes after the film’s premiere in order to “speed up the pacing”. Maybe he succeeded, but no one’s going to be calling this a fast-paced thrillride any time soon.

The effects, incidentally, are magnificent. They still look spectacular today — one can only imagine the impact they had on the big screen in the mid-’60s, nearly a decade before Star Wars came along to blow people’s minds. There are incredible sets too, which, even when you know the kind of behind-the-scenes techniques they likely employed, make the mind boggle — “that circular room on the Discovery is massive; it can’t be one giant rotating set, surely?” The sound design, an often overlooked element of filmmaking, is amazing as well. The EVA with Dave’s breathing echoing constantly around the soundstage, making the experience feel claustrophobic even when what you’re seeing is a giant craft in the vastness of space… And the music, of course. It’s completely unnerving whenever the monolith is near, a score filled with freaky voices that wouldn’t be out of place in a horror movie. The movie’s influence is perhaps most clearly seen in what you might call its title track, Richard Strauss’ Thus Spoke Zarathustra, which 2001 established as the soundtrack of space exploration.

Technically, then, 2001 is undeniably stunning. Thematically, though… what’s it all about? What does it mean? Author Arthur C. Clarke once said that “if you understand 2001 completely, we failed. We wanted to raise far more questions than we answered.” Some find such goals unsatisfying, especially when it comes to storytelling, but the very spirit of space exploration, of science, is to keep asking questions that don’t necessarily have answers. Of course, the ending is actually very easy to explain: the evil alien monolith kidnaps Dave, ages him to death, then mutates him into a giant Space Foetus, which it sends back to Earth. Why they didn’t make 2002: Invasion of the Giant Space Baby, I don’t know. Who doesn’t want to see that movie?

(Just so we’re clear, I’m being facetious. Probably. Though if 2010 is actually about an invasion by a giant space baby, somebody please let me know.)

Having said the film looks to expound the scientific virtues of asking questions and pushing forward, it’s interesting that it’s very easy to read it as technophobic — arguably, the entire point might be, “be wary of technology”. Such themes are expressed succinctly in possibly the most striking, probably the most audacious, and certainly the most famous, jump cut in movie history. The strange presence of the monolith leads ape-man to discover tools, and almost immediately use them to kill, first a beast for food, then another ape for territory. Then, in a literal split second, we jump forward millennia, as that simple tool turns into a nuclear weapon drifting in orbit — the entirety of human technological innovation summed up in a single cut.

And then there’s a new monolith and things all go to shit again.

The simple point is, technology has led us to develop, to literally reach for the stars, but it also drove us to savagery, and still does. So is it a good thing? Surely the film can’t be condemning it entirely…? Whether it is or isn’t, it’s ironic that themes of “bad technology” should be expressed in the most technologically-driven of all entertainment media (at the time), and created largely through advanced and innovative technological effects at that.

Leaving aside those effects and themes and all the questions we’re left with, what amazes me most about 2001, in a way, is how well-regarded it remains by a general audience, exemplified by public-voted lists like the IMDb Top 250. Of course critics still love it, but you’d think its artiness would have caused a gradual decline over time as the wider viewership immatures. But no; or, at least, not enough that it’s disappeared from consideration. Yet.

In the end, I think 2001 is a film that’s very easy to admire, for all sorts of reasons, but to enjoy in the traditional sense of “enjoyment”? Surely it’s far too removed, too obtuse, too joyless, for that? Some people will like those qualities, of course, and all power to them. For me, 2001 is a film to be impressed, even awed, by; but not one to love.

2001: A Space Odyssey is on BBC Two, in HD, tonight at 11:05pm.

* Read: there may be more but I’ve not got any planned. ^

The Last Days on Mars (2013)

Posted on February 13, 2015 by badblokebob

The first manned mission to Mars is reaching the end of its six-month tour. As they count down the final hours, battling a dust storm and its attendant power outages and communications blackouts, one of the team secretly discovers bacterial life on the surface. Attempting to recover further samples, a sink hole opens beneath him. When the rest of the crew try to recover his body, it’s not there. Then he arrives back at base… only, he’s not quite himself anymore…

Starting as a sophisticated, plausible vision of what a manned Mars mission might look like in the relatively-near future, The Last Days on Mars attempts an awkward transition into schlocky B-movie horror when Space Zombies turn up about half-an-hour in. Unfortunately, it’s not really trashy enough to work on that level, but equally, it’s not classily written enough to transcend the genre limitations the undead bring. The attempts at a kind of realist sci-fi are to be appreciated, particularly by genre fans who might fancy a change (though in the wake of Gravity, near-future realism may be in vogue), but it doesn’t gel with the often-rote zombie elements. To really succeed it needs a more original threat. These may not be zombies in the “magically brought back to life” sense, but having a semi-scientific explanation for their existence doesn’t negate their storytelling function, which is very trad.

These faults persist despite the best efforts of a quality cast, particularly Romola Garai as (in functional terms) the capable sidekick, and Olivia Williams as the bitch whose heartless practicality becomes an asset when the going gets tough. First-time feature director Ruairí Robinson assembled his cast on the principle of “people who aren’t normally in sci-fi movies”, and that does feed in to the sense of realism. It also looks great, the production, costume and effects designs gelling to create a believable Mars mission, all in spite of a tiny budget (funded by the BFI and the Irish Film Board, it had about a tenth of Gravity’s budget, for example). Credit, too, to cinematographer Robbie Ryan for lensing the Martian surface convincingly (it’s actually the Jordanian desert). The editing may descend into fast-cut blurriness during action scenes — only emphasised by Max Richter’s predictably derivative horror movie score — but during calmer moments the film looks very good.

All things considered, it plays a bit like an R-rated, traditional-zombie-emphasised remake of Doctor Who adventure The Waters of Mars (it’s actually adapted from a 1975 short story, but hey-ho). From the tail end of David Tennant’s time in the role, the award-winning Who episode concerns the first manned mission to Mars battling a previously-undiscovered alien menace that mysteriously turns them into zombie-like creatures and prevents them leaving the planet. And the similarities go further than that, including sequences involving a hydroponic dome, a race down the tunnel that links said dome to the main base, and fears about bringing the deadly virus back to Earth. Thinking through the comparison perhaps enlightens some of where the film goes wrong, as the Who episode had a more effective and original enemy, had more thematic weight to explore (in fairness, concerning Who-specific time travel issues), had characters who were better drawn than the repeated “I’d like to see my kids again” simplicity of the ones here, and was more sure of its tone. There may be elements to commend The Last Days of Mars in this comparison (the much bigger budget pays off in the scope of the visuals, of course), but as a story and viewing experience, The Waters of Mars wins hands down.

It’s not just Doctor Who — despite the film’s plus points, most of what The Last Days on Mars has to offer has been done better elsewhere. There are certainly superior zombie thrills to be found. The well-realised plausible Mars mission makes the movie more enticing for sci-fi fans, though your mileage will vary on how much that justifies the investment.

The Last Days on Mars debuts on Sky Movies Premiere today at 10am and 9pm.

Transcendence (2014)

Posted on February 6, 2015 by badblokebob

Christopher Nolan’s regular director of photography (he’s lensed seven Nolan films, from Memento to The Dark Knight Rises inclusive) makes his directorial debut with this near-future sci-fi thriller.

Johnny Depp plays scientist Will Caster, one of many artificial intelligence developers who are targeted in a coordinated series of assassination attempts by an anti-technology terrorist group. When he dies, his wife (Rebecca Hall) and best friend (Paul Bettany) use his brain patterns to recreate him as an AI. With access to the entirety of human knowledge as found on the internet, plus a mass of computing power and a lot of money, artificial-Will sets about research and development that will change the world. But his new advances may have a more sinister edge…

Transcendence is best known for the massive negative reaction it received on release, from critics and viewers alike. To be frank, I don’t really know why. Some say it’s too slow — well, I thought it moved like the clappers. What I thought was going to be the story was done in under an hour, from which point it spiralled off in new and interesting directions. How good is its science? I don’t know. I also don’t care — it’s about the characters and the spirit of what they do, more than whether it’s all literally possible. As a layperson, I didn’t think it was so ridiculously implausible that it took me out of the movie.

Another element that’s probably too challenging for some is where our allegiances are meant to lie. (Some spoilers follow in this paragraph.) At the start, it’s clear Depp & friends are the heroes and the murderous anti-tech terrorists are the villains. As events unfurl, however, artificial-Will perhaps goes too far, Bettany teams up with the terrorists, and eventually so do the government and Will’s other friends. There is no comeuppance for some characters who are initially begging for it; a good one self-sacrifices somewhat heroically. This doesn’t fit the usual Hollywood mould at all (well, the last bit does, sometimes), no doubt to some’s annoyance. The number of people who clamour for any sliver of originality or texture to their blockbusters, but then are unhappy when they actually get it…

Also up for debate is the film’s relationship with technology. It wouldn’t be wholly unfair to call it sceptical, maybe even Ludditish. That reading is only emphasised by Pfister’s Nolan-esque insistence of shooting on 35mm film, rather than now-standard digital, and going so far as to grade the movie photochemically rather than use a DI. This is an effects-filled film, too, so in all kinds of ways a computer-based post-production would’ve been the sensible way to go. Whether this insistence on old-school methods is artistically merited or not, it serves to underscore the film’s suspicion of where rampant technological advances may take us in the future.

A flaw I will absolutely acknowledge, however, is the film’s opening: set five years on from Will’s death, we see Bettany in a power-less world, where laptops are used as doorstops and discarded mobile phones are strewn across the street. Regular readers will know how much I hate pointless flashforwards at the start of films, but this is one of the worst ever — it gives away almost everything that will happen, robbing the entire film of tension and nullifying any sense of surprise, and the movie doesn’t compensate with, say, a feeling of crushing inevitability. The climax in particular becomes a drawn-out exercise in connect the dots: we’ve been shown how this all ends up, now we’re just seeing the minutiae of how it got there. There’s no twist or reveal to speak of, just a wait for it to marry up with what we already know.

Some say Depp is wasted in a role where he cops it in the first act and is basically a computer voice from then on. There are pros and cons to this. From an acting standpoint, Hall and Bettany are really the co-leads; from a storytelling perspective, it’s them plus Depp. It pays off repeatedly to have a proper actor, rather than a glorified extra, as the third pillar of that relationship. Plus, having the film’s sole above-the-title star absent himself so early is an effective move — “he can’t die, he’s the star! …oh, he did.” Etc. As an acting showcase, it doesn’t give Depp much to do, other than reign in the flamboyance that is his go-to these days. Points for appropriate understatedness, then.

It’s left to Hall to carry the weight of their relationship. While he’s alive the pair don’t make for the most convincing “most in love couple ever” you’ll ever see, that’s true, but her emotions and dilemmas after his death and in the years that follow are more affecting. That said, this isn’t a low-budget drama. There’s definitely potential with this concept to make a film like that — one that focuses more firmly on the ethical and emotional effects of recreating someone after death (I think there’s an episode of Black Mirror that does something similar, in fact, but I’ve not seen it). Those considerations are in the mix here, but it’s a $100 million blockbuster too, so it has to allow plenty of time for military machinations and an explosive climax.

I guess that’s probably the explanation for Transcendence’s poor reception, in the end: it’s too blockbuster-y for viewers who’d like a dramatic exploration of its central moral and scientific issues, but too lacking in action sequences for those who misguidedly expected an SF-action-thriller. I maintain it’s not slow-paced, especially if you think it’s going to be, but nor does it generate doses of adrenaline on a committee-approved schedule. It’s not all it could have been, but if all you’ve heard is the mainstream drubbing, it’s probably better than you expect.

Transcendence debuts on Sky Movies Premiere today at 2:30pm and 8pm.

The Running Man (1987)

Posted on January 28, 2015 by badblokebob

2014 #116
Paul Michael Glaser | 97 mins | TV | 1.85:1 | USA / English | 18 / R

25 years before Jennifer Lawrence had to fight for her life on TV, Arnie had to do the same.

In an ever-so-’80s vision of the future (my God, those costumes!), Arnie’s wrongfully-convicted fugitive ends up on TV’s most popular show, where criminals fight for their freedom against a variety of imposing opponents. Secretly, he’s there to try to overthrow the corrupt regime.

The implications of the central concept have been explored better several times since, but, despite dated design, the solid direction from Starsky (yes, as in and Hutch) ensures this is an entertaining SF action movie for genre fans.

In the interests of completing my ever-growing backlog, I decided to post ‘drabble reviews’ of some films. For those unfamiliar with the concept, a drabble is a complete piece of writing exactly 100 words long. You’ve just read one.

Frankenweenie (2012)

Posted on January 12, 2015 by badblokebob

Inspired by two of Burton’s early-’80s shorts (which are most commonly found on Nightmare Before Christmas DVDs), Frankenweenie takes the black-and-white stop-motion visual style from Vincent and the storyline from the live-action Frankenweenie, and expands them out into a feature-length offering.

The story is as simple as one you’d expect from a short: young Victor Frankenstein’s dog dies; for a school science project, he resurrects him. It works surprisingly well stretched to a feature running time, although it goes a little haywire at the climax (what’s the point of all the monsters, really?)

Even if the narrative is no great shakes, there’s plenty of fun to be had along the way. The dog, Sparky (ho ho), is very well observed; indeed, all of the animation is naturally top-notch. It retains an indefinable but desirable stop-motion-ness, something I felt Burton’s previous animation, Corpse Bride, lacked — it was so smooth that while watching I began to wonder if I’d misremembered and it was actually CGI. Frankenweenie is attractively shot on the whole, with gorgeous lighting and classy black-and-white designs. Although US funded, I believe it was actually created in the UK, so hurrah us.

There’s lots of fun references for classic horror aficionados… though, actually, they’re not that obscure: they’ll fly past inexperienced youngsters, but be identifiable to anyone who has a passing familiarity with Universal’s classic horror output. For the kiddies, there’s some good moral messages tossed in the mix, though the best — a brief subplot lambasting America’s attitude to science — should be heeded by all.

Some say it doesn’t have enough of an edge. Well, maybe; but I thought it was surprisingly dark in places. Not so considering it’s a Tim Burton film based on resurrecting the dead, but for a Disney-branded animation, yes. Those edgier bits are here and there rather than consistent, but still, I’m not sure what those critics were expecting from a PG-rated Disney animation. I guess there’s an argument that Burton should have pushed it further and aimed for an adult audience, but can you imagine an American studio agreeing to finance an animation primarily targeted at anyone who’s entered their teens? Because I can’t.

Even if you have to make some allowances for the kid-friendly necessity of Disney animation, I think Burton and co have taken an idea which showed little promise to sustain a full-length feature, and produced a film that’s beautifully made and a lot of fun.

John Carter (2012)

Posted on December 28, 2014 by badblokebob

A box office flop (it made a once-astonishing $284 million worldwide, but that was off a $250 million production budget and a ginormous bungled marketing campaign), John Carter has gained something of a following among those who did enjoy it or caught it later — see this post by ghostof82, for instance. I approached it hopefully, then, buoyed by such positive after-reaction — many a good film has been ignored by the general audience. Disappointingly, I didn’t find John Carter to be one of them.

Adapted from a classic, influential science-fantasy novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs (that being A Princess of Mars, deemed too girly a title for a PG-13 SF/F blockbuster nowadays), the story sees American Civil War veteran John Carter (Taylor Kitsch) transported to Mars, which he finds populated by human-esque aliens, the two factions of which are at war, and giant four-armed green-skinned aliens, who are trying to stay out of it. Of particular interest is the half-dressed princess Dejah (Lynn Collins), promised in marriage to villain Sab Than (Dominic West) in order to end the conflict. Cue simplistic politicking and CGI-driven action sequences.

There have been many reasons cited why John Carter flopped, a good many of them centred around the marketing campaign (reportedly director Andrew Stanton, given power by his directorial success at Pixar (Finding Nemo, WALL-E), demanded a level of control Disney felt forced to give, and his belief that Carter was as renowned a character as (say) Sherlock Holmes or James Bond led to a misaligned campaign, one which the professional marketing people who knew what they were doing weren’t allowed to salvage). Also, the sheer importance of Burroughs’ novel was actually a hindrance — not because it’s so famous (among Normal People, I don’t think it is), but because its influence means its imagery and concepts have already been plundered (Star Wars and its sequels being the most notable example). A sense of “seen it all before” is not a good thing ever, but doubly so for a movie that is, at least in part, based on spectacle.

That’s why it failed to connect with the general public, at any rate, but none are particularly good reasons to criticise the film for the more discerning viewer. Sadly, I think there are a good few others. The storytelling, for one, a confusing mess of alien names and words that are thrown around with reckless abandon. This may again by the fault of Stanton’s familiarity with the material, a lack of awareness that newcomers (aka the vast majority of the audience) wouldn’t have the foggiest what was going on. Such things are not necessarily a problem — look at the success of Game of Thrones or Avatar, both of which introduce silly names and/or thoroughly alien worlds. The difference there is the new information is either doled out slowly or doesn’t sound too far beyond what we already know — monikers like Joffrey or Tyrion are pretty close to real-life names, for instance. Everything in John Carter has a high fantasy name, however, and dozens of them are hurled at you virtually non-stop for the first half hour or more, making it almost impossible to keep up.

It doesn’t help that the film is structurally muddled at the offset. It begins on Mars, a voiceover detailing the conflict — an instant bombardment of names and concepts. I don’t mind things that challenge you to keep up, but it still feels a bit much. Then we jump to New York in the 1880s, where Carter is running away from someone in the streets. Then to his house, where his nephew has just turned up to be told he’s dead. You what? We just saw him in the telegraph office! And then we jump back to the 1860s, where he’s searching for gold and getting arrested (or something) by Bryan Cranston in a wig as some form of army officer. Then it gets a bit more straightforward. If being transported to Mars and meeting four-armed CG aliens who speak in subtitles is what you call “straightforward”, anyway.

This is mostly preamble, and it takes a long time to get through. I presume it’s faithful to the original story, because Cranston and co add virtually nothing to what goes on on Mars. That said, apparently Burroughs’ original book sticks to Carter exclusively, whereas the film keeps darting off to show us what’s going on elsewhere. I presume the idea was to give things a bit of momentum — while Carter’s being dragged around the Martian desert by his captors, we get to see the beginnings of the arranged marriage, etc. To me it just felt jumbled, and undermines Carter’s sense of confusion and discovery. We know far more of what’s going on than he does (if you can decipher it, anyway), leaving us waiting for our identification-figure to catch up.

It feels a bit facile to criticise the quality of CGI these days, but that doesn’t stop John Carter from being over-ambitious in this regard. In fact, it’s not really the sometimes-half-assed green screen or occasional plastic-ness that’s the problem, but the design: those four-armed aliens are just a little too cartoony. Perhaps it’s a hangover from Stanton’s Pixar days, perhaps something just went a little awry during the process, but their design doesn’t look quite ‘real’ enough; a little like someone’s taken a real-life creature and then lightly caricatured it. I think it’s the eyes, which are perhaps a little too big and round and ‘cute’, but there’s something else indefinable there, or not there. These aliens aren’t just set dressing but proper motion-captured characters, played by the likes of Samantha Morton, Willem Dafoe, Thomas Haden Church and Polly Walker, so the lack of connection is regrettable.

The live-action cast don’t fare much better. You may remember Kitsch and Collins as co-stars of the poorly-received first Wolverine movie, where quite frankly they were two of the worst things in it (Kitsch was woefully miscast, for one). Doesn’t bode well for them being the leads, does it? Neither are as bad here, but neither quite click either. They’re surrounded by a gaggle of British thesps (West, Mark Strong, Ciaran Hinds, James Purefoy) who feel like they’re slumming it in roles that are beneath them.

Some of John Carter’s fans have accused audiences and critics of ‘bandwagonism’ — that is, hearing/assuming it’s bad and so treating it as such. I can assure you, that’s not the case here: I was expecting, or perhaps hoping, to like it; to find a misunderstood old-style adventure full of entertainment value. It may be an old-style adventure, but that’s beside the point, because whatever it is, I just felt it wasn’t particularly well made: poorly constructed, weakly performed, lazily (and wrongly) assumptive of the audience’s familiarity with the material. Disappointing.

The UK TV premiere of John Carter is on BBC Two tonight at 6pm.

Guardians of the Galaxy (2014)

Posted on December 23, 2014 by badblokebob

Marvel Studios takes its boldest step yet, moving away from the present-day superhero milieu of its previous movies to a galaxy far, far away for a space opera epic. Its success, both critically and commercially, has cemented the Marvel Cinematic Universe as an infallible force in the current movie world. But, really, how good is it?

The film, as I’m sure you know, sees a gang of misfits — Han Solo/Indiana Jones hybrid Peter Quill (Chris Pratt), Gamora (Zoe Saldana, adding “green-skinned alien” to her repertoire), literal-thinking muscleman Drax (Dave Bautista), racoon-like bounty hunter Rocket (voiced by Bradley Cooper) and his pet tree/bodyguard Groot (voiced by Vin Diesel) — come together around a mysterious item of immense power, that’s desired by villain Ronan the Accuser (Lee Pace) so he can do something nasty and destructive. Co-written and directed by James Gunn, of Super fame, Guardians of the Galaxy combines space-blockbuster thrills with irreverent comedy (the supporting cast includes the likes of John C. Reilly and Peter Serafinowicz) and an ironically-cool ’80s pop soundtrack.

Guardians is a massively entertaining movie — when it works. That happens when it’s character-driven, with characters talking and interacting and following the story (what there is of it). There should be nothing wrong with that, but as this is a modern blockbuster, there’s an unwritten rule about how many CGI-driven action sequences there must be. The point of such things is to provide excitement and drive, but they actually kill the film’s momentum rather than buoying it up. Gunn and co have plenty of originality and fun to dole out the rest of the time, but the majority of the action sequences are seen-it-all-before whizzy CGI.

The worst offender is the pod chase through Knowhere, a several-minutes-long sequence that registers as little more than a blur. There’s a shocking lack of clarity to its images, even by today’s standards. Maybe it’s better in 3D, when I guess the backgrounds would sink into the distance and important elements would be foregrounded; but in 2D, you can’t see what’s meant to be going on for all the fast-moving colour and split-second cuts. Almost as bad, though for different reasons, is the climax. It takes up an overlong chunk of the movie and at times feels repetitive of too many other Marvel climaxes — oh look, a giant spaceship crashing into a city! If anything, the film gets ‘worse’ as it goes on. Perhaps not in a very literal sense, but as the blustering action climax takes over, it moves further away from the stuff that makes it unique and interesting.

Sadly, those feature don’t include the lacklustre villains. Marvel have been rather lacking in this department lately: Ronan the Accuser and his faceless minions are as bad as Christopher Eccleston’s lot from Thor 2, who were already rather like Avengers Assemble’s alien army… Henchwoman Nebula (Karen Gillan) has some potential, but she’s barely used. They make a point of her escaping, though, so maybe next time.

Even if the villains are underworked, the film is so busy establishing its large roster of characters (five heroes, three or more villains, plus an extensive supporting cast) that it doesn’t have time to fully paint the universe, either. We don’t really care when Nova City is being destroyed, because we only saw it briefly earlier on and had no reason to suspect we’d be going back there. It isn’t even called Nova City, but I don’t have the foggiest what it is called because the film didn’t make me feel I should be learning it. Some more effort making sure we knew why that place mattered, even if it was just a clearer depiction of all the planning for its defence, might have sold the entire climax better.

Most people talk about Guardians in the context of its place in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, but it would probably be more interesting to compare and contrast it with other space opera films — that’s where its heart and style truly lies. These aren’t superheroes, they’re space rogues; to pick on two films from one of Marvel Studios’ top creatives, it’s more Serenity than Avengers. The main connection to the other Marvel films comes in the form of Thanos and his beloved Infinity Gems. It’s questionable if this is a little shoehorned in, and also a little bit Fantasy rather than Sci-Fi. Does forcing that in undermine the film? Or is it only because we know it ties into the Avengers side of the universe that it stands out? If we’re arguing that “it’s more fantasy-y than science-y”, perhaps we should pause to look at the most archetypal cinematic space opera, Star Wars: what’s the Force if not some mystical thingamajig?

Whatever the genre, Guardians leaves you with an instant feeling of having seen a top-quality blockbuster, thanks to its likeable heroes, abundant humour, frequent irreverence, uncommonly colourful visual style, retro-cool soundtrack, and so forth. Unfortunately, once you dig underneath that there’s a little too much that’s rote ‘modern blockbuster’, with the explosive action sequences being the main culprit. Many regarded it as the best movie of last summer; on the evidence I’ve seen, it would certainly seem to be the most fun. The character stuff will likely hold up well to repeat viewings, but the noise and bluster surely gets tiring, especially the overlong climax. Joss Whedon commented of his own Avengers film (as I quoted in my review) that it wasn’t a great movie but it was a great time, and I think that’s just as true here: when Guardians is firing on all cylinders, it’s difficult to imagine a more entertaining blockbuster space opera; but there’s too many merely-adequate bits that hold it back from joyous perfection.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2014. Read more here.

For my thoughts on re-watching Guardians of the Galaxy in 3D, look here.

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