The Man from Earth (2007)

Posted on June 19, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Jerome Bixby’s The Man from Earth

2011 #98
Richard Schenkman | 87 mins | DVD | 1.78:1 | USA / English | PG

IMDb’s Top Rated lists tend to be full of films you’ve heard of; the kind of features that are sufficiently well-known to have been seen by a lot of people and so attract enough qualifying votes, and are well-regarded enough (be that critically or the baying masses) for those votes to be fairly high. So The Man from Earth has been an odd fixture on the Top 50 Sci-Fi Films for the last few years. It’s a low-budget, low-key feature from a TV writer (the titular Jerome Bixby) that stars mainly TV actors (the kind of faces recognisable to those who watched a lot of ’90s US SF and no one else). It’s not very widely seen, but has managed to maintain a permanent place on the list’s lower end for years now, despite increased awareness no doubt due to that very list (the number of votes it’s received has gone up considerably; as of this posting it sits at 42nd, whereas I swear it used to be in the top 25).

So does it deserve its place? Well, that’s a trickier question. The low-budget roots show through plainly: it’s all shot on grainy digital video, looking cheaper than even lower-end TV shows do these days, and all takes place in one location where a group of characters sit around and have a natter. You could perform it on stage and not have to lose anything. But that doesn’t make it inherently bad, just more surprising that it’s upheld its place on a public-voted list. You can see reviews on IMDb that bemoan the digital video, the wordy script, and so on, and yet they’re clearly not influential enough to pull it down.

Judged on its own terms, however, The Man from Earth is what one might call Proper Science Fiction. Most films classed as sci-fi just feature aliens or what have you; they’re space opera, or just action movies where Americans fight off-planet enemies instead of out-of-country enemies; the kind of thing Ray Bradbury termed fantasy rather than sci-fi (I’m inclined to agree, but that’s a discussion for another time). Instead of Shooting And Blowing Up Stuff, or even comedy antics with a twist, The Man from Earth deals in Ideas.

To say too much might spoil the setup, though I imagine it’s given away in the blurb, but let me try anyway: a college professor has decided to quit his job and move on, trying to slink away without anyone noticing; his friends and colleagues arrive at his house to cheer him on his way, but get sidetracked into a long discussion about a revelation he has for them. Something like that. This is why its IMDb place continues to surprise me — because the wider voting audience generally don’t like movies where nothing happens but chat.

As you may have guessed from repeated statements of surprise, I don’t think The Man from Earth is for everyone. You have to be able to look past the budget production values, the occasionally lower-end-TV level acting, the limitations of setting and action. If you sit down to view it as a filmed discussion between friends that you are a silent part of, and are prepared for all the slowness of pace that involves (because compare the experience of doing anything in real life for an hour and a half to how much gets crammed into a movie’s 90 minutes — that’s the speed Man from Earth moves), and are open to a movie that posits an idea and then explores it — including twists and turns of variable merit — then you might enjoy this film. I did.

I’ll continue to be surprised by its IMDb placement (unless it ever drops off, of course), but I’m glad it’s there. Whether it’s one of the 50 best sci-fi films of all time, I’m not sure, but it’s the kind of SF that should be on the list, and if by being there it reaches a broader audience than it would otherwise, that’s a very good thing.

And that concludes the reviews for 2011! I’ll try not to take until June next year.

The Alien Series

Posted on June 16, 2012 by badblokebob

With Ridley Scott’s not-an-Alien-prequel-honest Alien prequel Prometheus currently doing solid-if-unspectacular business in the wake of largely positive critical reviews and a more mixed reception from the general public (everyone I’ve seen comment on it has been unsure or hated it, anyway), I thought now would be as good a time as any to bring my reviews of the six previous films in the franchise over to my new blog. Plus my review from last year of the Alien³ Special Edition.

Check them out below. They’re in chronological order, if the pictures aren’t clear enough.

The Book of Eli (2010)

Posted on June 4, 2012 by badblokebob

After last week’s reviews of Priest and Legion, here’s another disappointingly religious action blockbuster…

The directors of From Hell (what did they do for nine years? Struggle to find work perhaps) helm the tale of Denzel Washington being a sunglasses-wearing loner mofo in a post-apocalyptic America. I really enjoyed it… for maybe 50 minutes, before it gradually slid away, ultimately degenerating to a Christianity circle jerk ending.

I warn you now, this review contains spoilers, because I don’t care if I ruin the crap bits for you. Indeed, I’d say less “ruin” and more “prepare”.

Much like the film, let’s start with the good stuff. It has a slow, almost elegiac pace early on, punctuated by bursts of violence and action. This section is very good. Then it begins to slip into more typical action blockbuster territory. A fake-single-take shoot-out might’ve seemed virtuoso filmmaking in the right film, but here it seems like director willy-waggling in preference to serving the mood and tone thus far created. Same goes for other independently cool things that follow, like the explosive destruction of a truck.

Ironically, one of the earlier good action sequences (a bar brawl… to sell it short!) is included in a beautifully-choreographed single-take form in the deleted & alternate scenes. That should’ve been left in the film. The final version isn’t bad — the Hughes brothers use a variety of static and wide shots to lens all the film’s fights in a way that reminds you that all handheld close-up shaky-jumpy super-fast-cut modern action sequences are inferior to an old-style well-staged, well-shot sequence — but if they’d had the restraint not to intercut some sequence-extending close-ups they would have had a massively more memorable sequence.

The music is by Atticus Ross, which was interesting because I’d thought it was reminiscent of The Social Network. So that’s nice.

There are nice, subtle CG effects (I presume) for much of the film, making the world brown-grey and bleak with green-tinged clouds… but all that is ditched for the digitally stitched together ‘single take’ gunfight and, even more so, a vision of a desolate San Francisco during the closing minutes. It’s decent enough in itself — I’ve seen worse — but like, say, the ‘vampires’ in I Am Legend, it’s jarring and awkward because it doesn’t fit with the tone and style established elsewhere.

A bit like Mila Kunis, who is kinda fine but also an acting weak link. Washington and Gary Oldman (especially) are as great as ever. After years of Harry Potter, Batman and recently Tinker Tailor, it’s quite nice to see Oldman back as a villain! He knows how to pitch it perfectly, and while the lack of out-and-out crazy means this one isn’t as memorable as Leon’s Stansfield (well, who is?), it fits the film like a glove. It can’t withstand the blockbusterised let’s-go-get-’em second half, but then not much can. Certainly not the directors’ skills. The oft-underrated Ray Stevenson even offers a cut-above-average lead henchman figure. But there’s something about Kunis… something too present-day and preppy for someone who’s supposed to have been born and raised in a deeply post-apocalyptic back-of-beyond world. She’s nowhere near rough enough.

Late on the film pulls out surprise appearances from Michael Gambon and Frances de la Tour. Their roles aren’t even close to needing thesps of such calibre though — they appear fleetingly, the actors underused. Particularly Gambon, who really has nothing to do except fire a gun. I know it’s usually a joke to comment that a usually-better cast member must have needed the money, but that’s the only reason I can imagine he’s here.

Worst of all is a pat ending, which doesn’t make a lot of sense in various ways. They really destroyed every Bible? He really memorised all of it? He wasn’t blind all along, surely? Because you assume he is and then no one says so you think maybe you’ve read it wrong but then it’s meant to be a twist that he’s blind — what?! Why is that facility on Alcatraz? Why have they just been collecting for 30 years? For 30 years?! I could go on.

As well as being religiousified to extremes, these attempts at giving surprising twists just don’t wash. To quote Kim Newman in Empire,

Given that the leather-bound tome Eli treasures is embossed with a crucifix, it’s not much of a surprise when we find out what it is…

Eli’s literary devotion is more giggly than inspirational. Frankly, it would be more affecting if humanity’s last hope rested in almost any other book than the one chosen here – Tristram Shandy, David Copperfield, the Empire Movie Almanac.

So, so true. This must be why American reviewers seem to have loved the film, but our more secular nature sees it as Just Daft. Thank God for that.

Newman concludes that “you can’t help feel you were invited to a party with fizzy pop and cream cake and got suckered into a sermon instead.” I couldn’t have put it better. Eli starts off with the potential for an arty 5; slips slightly to a solid 4 when the standard post-apocalyptic trope of a gang fighting for local power comes in to play; unsteadies that 4 with an increasingly atonal second half; and quite frankly borders a 1 with its sickening ending.

I land on a generous 3, because anything less would be unfair to the good stuff it achieves early on. What a shame it couldn’t continue in that vein.

The Book of Eli featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2012, which can be read in full here.

Priest (2011)

Posted on May 28, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #15
Scott Stewart | 84 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 12 / PG-13

In a dystopian church-ruled future (could there be any other kind of church-ruled world), in which a war between men and vampires raged for centuries but has recently been settled (in man’s favour), no-longer-needed warrior-priest Paul Bettany is called upon to go against his vows and leave the city to rescue his niece after her parents are murdered and she is kidnapped in a vampire attack. I could go on, but it’s the kind of plot that sounds far more complicated in a short summary than it is to watch on screen.

This marks Bettany’s third turn as a Christian killer, after an albino monk in The Da Vinci Code and a deliberately fallen angel in Legion. One’s a villain, one’s the hero; here he’s the good guy again, tipping the balance towards Bettany’s filmography being in favour of Christians Who Kill For A Cause. Legion was also directed by Scott Stewart, so perhaps they share a penchant for kinda-Christian action movies? God knows why.

It begins with a contextless, pointless 90-second ‘flashback’ action sequence. Then there’s a bloodily violent animation re-shaping history’s major wars (Crusades, WW1, more) as one long fight against vampires. Quite good, that bit. It’s designed by Genndy Tartakovsky, creator of Dexter’s Laboratory, Samurai Jack and the 2D Star Wars: Clone Wars series. Then there’s another pre-titles-style bit. For a film under 90 minutes long, it takes its time to get going.

And after all that meandering, the story is a bit rushed. It tries to generate character and tension, but hasn’t spent enough time building them to earn it. There’s lots of awful dialogue, flooded with clichés… as is a lot of the plot, and the stock dystopian future setting, and the overuse of slow-mo. There’s some ideas with promise, but they’re largely shunted aside in favour of something from The Big Book of Standard Character Arcs. And I say “promising” — you know exactly how they’d play if the filmmakers had bothered to make more out of them.

Plus there’s a blatant “end of Part One” ending — the story isn’t even close to resolved. It flopped though, so there’s no chance of it being sequelised. And the world doesn’t make complete sense: if “everyone” lives in big cities, why do so many people live in Old West-styled townships in the wasteland? Why are there vampire reservations, why not just kill them all? Etc.

It’s like someone thought of lots of Cool Bits and strung them together irrespective of world or story. And, in fairness, some of the cool bits achieve their aim, in a largely derivative way. And the story’s not that badly constructed — I’ve seen plots that hang together much less well.

None of this is helped by weak acting, which considering the largely quality cast is probably down to the script and direction. How unlikely is Paul Bettany as an action leading man, eh? I thought Jason Statham was odd enough… And if you want a preview of Karl Urban as Judge Dredd, I imagine his early scenes — face in shadow, gravelly voiced — will be a fair indication.

Visually, I don’t know what’s going on with the lenses used — people’s faces are occasionally noticeably stretched. I at first wondered if my chosen viewing method (Sky Movies Anytime via Virgin Media On Demand — potentially less reliable than a DVD or BD) had for some reason squished or stretched the film, but in most shots things look fine. Maybe I was imagining it, who knows. And while he was getting his lenses muddled, it seems the DoP forgot to bring any lights for most of the shooting. The climax takes place in daylight, but a lot of the rest of it…

I dread to think how it fared in 3D. It’s perhaps telling that most of the action sequences are staged either outdoors or in previously-dark locations that somehow gain a bit of a glow; or, to put it more bluntly, “here’s where you’ll want to see the 3D so we’ve made it brighter”. And 3D is so essential to the film that I didn’t remember it had been released that way until the mysteriously bright cave fight over halfway through. It was post-converted too, so I doubt it looked great.

Priest isn’t bad per se — well, depending on your tolerance levels. It’s no Max Payne, put it that way. And it’s better than Legion. If you can withstand a clichéd plot, laughable dialogue and sorely underdeveloped characters in order to get your fix of brain-in-neutral action, this is a quick (under 80 mins sans credits) and moderately satisfying way to go about it.

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Posted on May 12, 2012 by badblokebob

Superhero films have been a significant regular part of the summer movie season for over a decade now, but this year really looks like it’s going to take the biscuit: The Avengers obliterated box office records Stateside last weekend, and has spent most of the week knocking down more worldwide; there’s a Batman sequel/finale to look forward to, which everyone has been expecting to do the same; and sandwiched somewhere between the two is a Spider-Man reboot that, provided it doesn’t get dwarfed by the other two and/or poor reviews, is likely to make a pretty penny. (If I recall correctly, the initial Raimi Spidey film was the first movie ever to make over $100m in its opening weekend; and now, 10 years later, The Avengers is the first to beat $200m — how neat.)

But that’s all still to come (I haven’t even seen The Avengers yet myself, and I won’t now until at least sometime next week, for various reasons. Grr.) Instead, here’s a review of my personal favourite from last year’s crop of comic book adaptations — indeed, I ranked it the second best film I saw all year.

I made sure to see First Class soon after its cinema release back in June 2011 — an increasingly-rare cinema trip for me (previous one before this was Inception in July 2010), and even rarer to go so quickly, but it earnt it as probably my most anticipated movie of the summer. I’ve been a fan of the X-Men since the ’90s animated series was a defining part of my childhood; Matthew Vaughn has become one of my favourite filmmakers thanks to Stardust and Kick-Ass, both of which earnt 5 stars and spots on my end-of-year top 10s (and Layer Cake was 4-star-ly entertaining too); and the idea of doing a superhero film that was definitively set in a specific point in the past (namely the early ’60s), rather than the perpetual Now of every other entry in the sub-genre, is the kind of thing creative fans long for but risk-averse studios rarely greenlight. Plus the trailers looked brilliant.

So my long-held high anticipation (unlike many whingy comic-continuity-obsessed inexplicably-Vaughn-dubious internet fanboys, who needed the trailer to even consider thinking the film might be good) led me to the cinema quickly. Why so long to post a review, then? Because I’ve been waiting for Blu-ray to see it properly.*

As “Film fans”, rather than “movie consumers”, we’re supposed to believe 35mm cinema projection is the best way to view a film, rather than the cold hard digital realm that’s taking over, or the home cinema that is increasingly the viewing location of choice as people seek to avoid inflated ticket prices and noisy crowds, and gain a huge degree of convenience in the process. Well, sod that. I saw X-Men on 35mm. It was blurry, the sound was muffly. I saw a clip in a summer movies trailer just a few days later when I saw Pirates 4 in 3D (i.e. digitally projected), and had a genuine moment of, “oh, that’s how it’s meant to look”. So thank God for Blu-ray — never mind prices, crowds or watching when I want, the real advantage is seeing it as sharp as a pin and being able to hear everything the characters are saying. I can enjoy the cinema experience, but at the end of the day it’s about the film, and if the only way to see, hear and appreciate it properly is to watch it 5+ months later on a much smaller screen from a digital source, so be it. The fact that it’s usually cheaper to buy the Blu-ray to own forever than take two people to see it just once doesn’t hurt either.

But I digress massively. X-Men: First Class takes us back to the origins of the X-Men (at least, the movie-universe X-Men): it’s the 1960s, mutants aren’t widely known about yet, Charles Xavier is uncovering some interesting ideas at Oxford, and Erik Lehnsherr is travelling the world taking revenge for Nazi atrocities. But when some Evil People are plotting to do Something Nasty, the US government winds up bringing them together, and the road to establishing the X-Men begins…

I should give up on plot summaries again, I never write good ones. There’s so much more to First Class than that might suggest. Firstly, it’s very much a prequel to the other X-Men films, rather than a reboot. So no Cyclops and co in the original team-up, which really annoys some fanboys, but pfft, it doesn’t matter. It’s fair to say the characters who make up the eventual first X-Men team aren’t as iconic or memorable, but that’s fine because here they’re just supporting characters. This is the story of two other young men, Xavier and Lehnsherr, aka Professor X and Magneto.

You need some pretty fine talent to replace two of our greatest actors — Ian McKellen and Patrick Stewart, of course — and in Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy you certainly have that. Fassbender carries much of the emotional weight of the film, and certainly received much of the praise from critics, but it’s thanks to McAvoy’s support that the film is lifted to a higher level. He provides calm, humour and fundamental decency to balance Fassbender’s rage and emotion. What’s fascinating about them as characters is that they are half-formed people. That is to say, while they are Wise Old Men by the time of X-Men, here they are still flawed and finding their way; witness Charles’ insensitivity toward Raven, for instance. That’s quite aside from all the little character-building touches. It all builds to the fantastic, heartbreaking climax on the beach. I’d also say it adds weight to the relationship between McKellen and Stewart in the original X films. Not significantly, perhaps, because those films are about other things, but I think you can feel their shared history more keenly.

The rest of the cast is suitably well equipped. There’s 2011 Best Actress Oscar nominee Jennifer Lawrence as Raven, aka Mystique. Little more than a henchman designed to bring sex appeal in the trilogy, here she’s given a significant degree of backstory that makes her an important piece of the overall series. Indeed, she comes across as woefully underused if you watch X-Men after this — the flipside to the Xavier-Lehnsherr relationship working better, if you will. There’s also Kevin Bacon, playing his second superhero villain in as many years, who does sterling work as a former Nazi seeking world domination — remember the ’60s, when world domination was a valid aim for a villain? There’s more than a little Bond in the mix here.

Rounding out, we have the likes of Vaughn regular and perpetual “I’m only doing it for the money”-er Jason Flemyng, in an almost dialogue-free part that, while visually striking, doesn’t fare much better than his Kick-Ass ‘cameo’ in terms of screen time. There’s also a very flat (in every way apart from her frequently highlighted chest) turn from January Jones as a villainous sidekick, feeling every bit like the last-minute casting she was (after various other actresses walked away — considering the small size of both the role and costume, I can see why). Plus Rose Byrne, who’s always worth mentioning.

Much was made in some circles of a rushed production schedule leading to some of the film’s flaws. I think that’s only an issue because people know it could be one, because (on second viewing especially) I noted no such problems. The earlier parts are probably the film’s best — with Lehnsherr and Moira being all Bond-y, and Kevin Bacon’s Shaw being very much a Bond villain, making it feel more like a big ’60s spy thriller than a superhero movie in many ways — and when it tries to introduce an X-Men team made up of second-string leftover characters it loses its way slightly. But balance is everything with ensemble casts like this, and watching the film again gives a better perspective on its pace and its actual balance. First time through these things are distorted because you don’t know how far through the story you are, how long’s left, how long each scene will last, and so on; a second time, with an idea of where it’s going and so forth, you can better appreciate how it’s all actually weighed up, and I think First Class achieves a balance better than most have given it credit for.

Also worthy of a mention is Henry Jackman’s score. He gives us brilliant driving, menacing action themes, alongside some evocative ’60s stuff too, especially when they’re on the hunt for mutants for instance. I love a good blockbuster movie score, and this is definitely one of those.

Perhaps the thing that most impressed me about First Class, however, was its genuine sense of spectacle. The climax features master-of-magnetism Magneto hoisting a submarine out of the ocean with his powers. That’s not a spoiler, it’s in the trailers — so we’d all seen it going in. And we’re in an era of anything-goes CGI — nothing looks impressive any more because we know not only that it can be done, but how it was done too (greenscreen and pixels, essentially). But that’s not what happens, at least for me, especially on the big screen.

Between Vaughn’s direction, Jackman’s score, Fassbender and McAvoy’s performances, plus those of other supporting cast members, and sterling work by the visual effects team(s), the moment when that submarine floats dripping into the sky is hair-raising. It played to me as a moment of genuine cinematic spectacle; the kind of thing you used to get when big stunts had to be done for real somehow. It’s not a feeling I expected to get from a new film ever again.

I’ve mentioned a couple of times how it ties in to the earlier (set later) films in the series, and how some complained about it messing up X-Men comics lore. But this is an adaptation — it’s not beholden to what’s established in the comics. And it’s working around fitting into the world of the later films, so of course they’re not going to have Cyclops in a ’60s X-team, and so on. It’s a complete non-issue for non-fans, and the same for any open-minded fans who realise they’re not trying to faithfully bring the X-Men canon to the big screen. Earlier films should already have shattered that illusion anyway.

As to the former, it largely fits well with the earlier films. There might be some questions about ages and events not lining up precisely (especially with the flashbacks in The Last Stand), but these are minor points that I think we can overlook for the overall quality of the film. Largely, a use of certain effects, call-forwards, cameos and little touches here and there really tie it in to the existing films. You don’t need to have seen them to get this — indeed, I imagine the ultimate way to experience it would be with no foreknowledge whatsoever of where Charles & Erik’s relationship is going — but for all those of us who have, it works very nicely.

Yet despite these links, and the 40(-ish)-year gap between the end of this story and the start of X-Men, if First Class never received a follow-up it would work perfectly as a standalone ’60s X-Men film. But I’m ever so glad we’re getting more, because I want to see this crew and this cast tell us more stories of the X-Men.

After seeing First Class in the cinema I thought to myself that, while I would dearly love to give it a full five stars, in all good conscience I couldn’t; for whatever reason, it didn’t quite come together enough. Watching it again on Blu-ray, however, I’ve completely changed my mind: I wouldn’t change a thing. All my anticipation is more than paid off — I love this movie.

X-Men: First Class placed 2nd on my list of The Ten Best Films I Saw For the First Time in 2011, which can be read in full here.

* That was released back in October 2011, I know. The rest is general tardiness. ^

Captain America: The First Avenger (2011)

Posted on April 20, 2012 by badblokebob

The final entry in Marvel’s multi-film campaign leading up to big team-up The Avengers (Avengers Assemble this side of the pond, don’t forget) sees them tackle a big name in comics that hasn’t previously transferred quite as well to the big (or small) screen. And, to jump to the end, it did well: $358.6m worldwide, which is about two-and-a-half times its budget… though still $91m behind the next-highest grossing of Marvel’s new wave, leaving it fourth of the five films.

But box office does not tell of quality, as the highest grossing films of all time surely tells us. That said, rather than fourth I’d probably rank it fifth.

Despite how such a negative start may sound, I didn’t dislike Captain America. In fact, I largely enjoyed it. It was, as I’m sure you know, released the same summer as Thor (that’d be last summer), and they make quite a good pair within Marvel’s little universe. They both begin by grounding the viewer on present-day Earth, before spinning off to a different time and place for a second prologue, before heading off to a third time and place to kick off a different kind of superhero story. In Thor it was a sci-fi/fantasy tale of God-like beings; in Cap it’s a World War 2-era superhero-without-powers. Not to mention the fact that they’re tied together by brief second prologues in the same small Norwegian town and a super-powerful artefact called the Tesseract.

The connections don’t stop there. Some people complained that Iron Man 2 had too little focus on its own story and too much stuff setting up The Avengers. I disagreed, but I’d consider levelling such a criticism at Cap. While it doesn’t do it so overtly as the second Iron Man (this is set around 70 years before Nick Fury will come along with his Avenger Initiative), it feels at times as if it’s drawing together disparate threads from previous films in preparation for the team-up. Sure, most of the film works without knowing the connections — the fact that Cap’s shield cameoed in Iron Man 2, or that the super soldier programme plays a central role in The Incredible Hulk, won’t destroy anyone’s understanding of this — but, having seen those films (as surely most of Cap’s audience will have), it does feel almost as much a prequel to The Avengers as a film in its own right. Maybe the subtitle should’ve given that away.

Even aside from the inter-film connections, the story feels like someone gave the writers a checklist of “bits of mythology you must include” and they battled to shape a story around including them all. This results in a bitty narrative that jumps about, trying to include various WW2-era elements of Cap continuity ready for an ending that sends him to the present day in time for The Avengers. (Sorry if you consider that a spoiler, but I think the fact he’s in The Avengers rather gives it away.) To top it off, they also attempt to leave holes so that a sequel could be set in WW2 too, if so desired. While I appreciate that as an idea — the ’40s setting is a clear marker of why Cap is different to other similar heroes — it’s part of the reason it doesn’t feel like the whole thing quite ties together.

It also has the same problem that the first Iron Man did: there’s a lot of backstory involved in establishing Cap’s origins, leaving the villain to hover around the periphery until he’s needed for the climax. When said villain is Cap’s equivalent of the Joker in terms of significance, it’s a bit of a waste. They should be equals and opposites, and there are attempts to build that in, but the two don’t face off enough for it to really work. They both go about their own business, until they more or less bump into each other a significant way through the film, eventually leading to a climactic battle.

In short, I appreciate the attempts at creating a different structure for a superhero movie, but by trying to avoid the straight-up “hero encounters villain, fights against villain to end” shape of a tale, I think they’ve made something a bit too disjointed. I felt it was a series of shorter narratives connected by being placed end to end, not a single film-length story.

While I’m on things I felt they got wrong, let’s tackle the special effects. There are too many of them, meaning a lot looked quite fake to these eyes. OK, they tell the story just fine, and you might argue it gives a heightened comic-book-y feel, but I feel like I was seeing stuff of this quality six or more years ago, and I don’t believe I should be feeling that way on a movie this big. In fact, to be honest, the first Pirates movie was eight years old when this was made, and that was light-years ahead of this. Now, I think that movie had exceptional effects work, and it was well ahead of the average at the time… but that time was eight years ago. It’s hard to say what exactly is wrong here, but it’s mainly an abundance of CG backdrops, green/blue screen stuff that doesn’t scan. Heck, in one shot you can see a blue glow around the edge of a character’s hair! That’s bordering on the amateurish.

The much-discussed ‘Skinny Steve’ — where effects wizards turned muscly star Chris Evans into a wimpy little guy for the film’s first act — is an intermittently good effect. Sometimes it’s astonishing, the equal of similar work from Benjamin Button; a completely plausible human being. Other times, not so much: in some shots his head is obviously disproportionate, or a character pokes the air when he’s surely meant to be poking Steve’s chest, or he looks oddly squished, or cartoonishly exaggerated… Like all the effects, the makers seem to have overstretched their means/budget.

I know special effects are a means to an end, and we don’t routinely criticise the fakery of back-projection and what have you in Old Movies, but I think the difference is filmmakers don’t have to go as far as they do nowadays. We’ve seen similar shots and scenes and effects that have been done more convincingly, and when lesser versions begin to distract you from the storytelling, there’s something at fault. Whether that’s the effects themselves or something else, like the story not being engrossing enough, is another debate.

Perhaps it was that episodic story, because one of the other main things I got from Cap was a long game of Spot The TV Actor In A Small Supporting Role. So prevalent did they seem that at times I was more focussed on that than anything else. Oops. Still, do look out for Spooks & Robin Hood’s Richard Armitage, Boomtown & Desperate Housewives’ Neal McDonough, The Ruby in the Smoke’s JJ Field, The Tudors’ Natalie Dormer, The Mentalist’s Amanda Righetti, Doctor Who’s Jenna-Louise Coleman, and Scott & Bailey’s Ben Batt (blink and you’ll miss him). There are probably others, but those were the ones I knew. I imagine there are so many Brits in relatively small roles because it was shot over here. Not sure why, but it was.

Of the main cast, Chris Evans is fine as Steve Rogers, a guy so Honourable that it’s almost a thankless role — much like Superman, he’s almost too nice to be interesting. Not as bad as Superman can be, though, because at the start his good intentions surpass his physical means. It’ll be interesting to see how he plays in future films, especially The Avengers, where he’s going to have to face the awesomeness of Tony Stark. But that’s for other films. Romantic interest Hayley Atwell is perfectly up to task. Among the rumoured contenders for the role was Emily Blunt, who I can’t really imagine playing a character so supportive and fundamentally nice (a perfect match for Rogers, then), so I’m glad she didn’t get it. Shame for Atwell they bumped Cap into the future, automatically leaving her out of future franchise entries.

Elsewhere, Tommy Lee Jones could play roles like this grumpy-but-good-at-heart-General in his sleep, but at least claims the film’s best line. Equally, Hugo Weaving could be in a similar state of unconsciousness and give a good villain, and while he does his best to chew the scenery, I thought he was fine but unmemorable in an underused role. As I said, the screenplay positions him as a “we need a villain for a climax”-level enemy when his character should be The Hero’s Nemesis, leaving a waste of both character and actor. Co-villain Toby Jones is similarly ill-treated, although at least he may return, semi-reincarnated as another villain (no explicit clues in the film, but he is one in the comics).

Everywhere-man Dominic Cooper channels Robert Downey Jr and John Slattery to portray a young Howard Stark (Tony’s dad, natch), who had a bigger role than I expected. The rest of the cast appear for fan box-ticking (see my mythology comment), which means they also go underused. There’s only so much room in one film of course, and the focus is rightly laid on Cap’s journey. The small roles given to his team of army mates would have been fine as setup for a sequel, but as it’s been confirmed that Cap 2 will be set in the modern day, once again it’s good casting and character establishment gone to waste. Again, the film is attempting too much.

And I haven’t even mentioned the over-graded sepia hue, because it’s Set In The Past. Digital grading brought much potential to the film industry, but instead it’s pathetically and predictably overused. Whenever you compare a film itself to some B-roll footage in a behind-the-scenes documentary or somesuch, you suddenly noticed how not-like-real-life the film looks. In every thriller whites are actually blue, for instance. Here, I imagine if you compared it you’d find whites are actually bronze. I don’t imagine this kind of thing is going away now though.

I realise I’ve consistently laid into Captain America here. It has good points. I forgot to mention Stanley Tucci, for instance, who as an early mentor for Rogers is vital to the story and well played. There’s also some solid action sequences (eventually), and not too much 3D tomfoolery, and some humour, though not as much as Iron Man or Thor unfortunately. I did, overall, enjoy the film… just not as much as any other in Marvel’s Avengers lead-up. I wound up wondering if it would’ve worked better as a condensed 15-minute pre-titles to that film.

But hey-ho, here it is. Like I theorised at the end of Iron Man, maybe with this setup out of the way they can produce a better sequel… but considering the skinny-little-man-turned-muscly-superhero is one of the more interesting aspects of Cap, and they’ve done that now; and the World War 2 setting is another unique facet, which they’re leaving behind… sadly, I’m not holding out quite as much hope.

Captain America: The First Avenger is on Sky Movies Premiere from today (hence why I’ve reviewed it before Thor).

Avengers Assemble is in UK cinemas from Thursday 26th April. The Avengers is in US cinemas from Friday 4th May, and on various other dates worldwide.

Battle Los Angeles (2011)

Posted on January 25, 2012 by badblokebob

aka Battle: Los Angeles

Battle Los Angeles (on screen; Battle: Los Angeles on posters — c’mon, let’s have some consistency with punctuation! Punctuation matters) seemed to come in for a wall of criticism when it hit cinemas way back whenever. For my money, though, it wasn’t that bad.

Others have described it as “Independence Day meets Black Hawk Down”, and for once that formulaic “X meets Y” description is bang-on. Like ID4, there’s a worldwide alien invasion in progress by a superior species that dominates Earth’s forces pretty quickly. Unlike ID4 (and therefore more like Black Hawk Down) there’s no multiple perspectives or look at the command level; we just follow a small band of men on a very particular mission — head to a police station and extract civilians before the US Airforce bombs the area in three hours’ time — with only snatched glimpses of the wider conflict on news reports, Cloverfield style. It’s a different way of handling a military-focused big alien invasion movie, so that works.

For the most part, anyway. It’s thrown away at the end as our particular band of heroes wind up the only military presence left in LA and happen across the command & control centre of the enemy, promptly setting out to destroy it with laser-targeted missiles. Small scale “one force in a much larger battle” drama is exchanged for world-saving grandeur. Ah, America.

This kind of gung-ho militarism is laid on too thick. It seems fine for much of the film, but then as it heads into the second half and, especially, the third act, we have to suffer all manner of speeches and Emotional Moments that lack weight due to characterisation issues. The latter is badly handled for all kinds of reasons. All of the marines are entirely clichéd; so too are their story arcs; too much time is wasted trying to make us care about them — there are too many and they’re too shallowly drawn; things are worsened when a couple of civilians are added to the mix, who suffer from all the same problems… except they’re perhaps under- rather than over-developed. As we reach the third act, anything approaching plausible characterisation is jettisoned. Like the small-scale focus, what begins as naturalistic ends up with Big Speeches and all manner of Emotional Moments.

Where the film excels, however, is the other side of gung-ho militarism: action. I don’t hold with the criticism some levelled that it’s too reliant on ShakyCam, confusing the action to the point of incomprehensibility. Maybe that happened on the big screen, I couldn’t say, but while these aren’t the greatest or most clear sequences I’ve ever seen, they’re certainly not hard to follow. The film uses its gritty, handheld, Saving Private Ryan-borrowed style to good effect for much of its running time, evoking the likes of the aforementioned as well as Black Hawk Down and The Hurt Locker in terms of conveyed realism. As I said, this is very effective for an alien invasion movie.

But, much like the early focus and characterisation, as things progress towards the climax this is slowly abandoned, showing a lack of the commitment to its world and story that Cloverfield or Monsters exhibited. There’s an increasing number of shots from the enemy’s perspective; the climax seems to abandon the earlier handheld style almost entirely for the sake of a grandstanding finale.

There is an even better film tucked away inside Battle Los Angeles. One brief dialogue scene discusses the similarities between the human soldiers and alien grunts, but the intriguing idea that they’re intelligent beings following orders just like us is sadly not built upon. There are obvious parallels with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but aside from the audience spotting shots that are reminiscent of news footage, the threads aren’t drawn out or commented on. Instead Battle LA does two things: military sycophancy, which is typically American and typically tiring or laughable (depending on your mood), and some stonkingly decent action sequences. They may take a little while to get to, but they’re relatively worth the wait.

What could have been a thought-provoking brain-switched-on commentary-on-the-world sci-fi film is instead a brain-switched-off gung-ho sci-fi action flick. I’ve seen better, I’ve seen worse, but treated as blokey weekend-evening entertainment this is fine.

The Damned (1963)

Posted on October 28, 2011 by badblokebob

aka These are the Damned

2011 #31
Joseph Losey | 91 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | UK / English | 12

Sometimes, at least for me, films improve in retrospect. My opinion while watching may be different to when I look back days, weeks, months, or even years later. Films I thought I disliked may benefit from a kind of nostalgia; some films just gain something from extended reflection, even if that isn’t conscious; films I underrated may improve when I gain perspective on their qualities relative to other works; in some cases, it’s just that I’m getting older and wiser.

There are several films reviewed on this blog that I think would warrant a different opinion if I watched them again now, but The Damned is the most recent example. I think if I’d got round to this review any quicker it would be less enthusiastic than what I’m about to write.

That said, it’s not as if I’ve had a complete turnaround of opinion: The Damned is an interesting film, certainly, but one that is perhaps somewhat undercut by its age; a kind of ’60s SF that would probably require a distinctly different approach if you were to attempt to make it today. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it has that kind of disconnect from reality that’s markedly ’60s. In his review for MovieMail, James Oliver notes that “despite his background in low-budget genre flicks, Losey was at heart an art house director, keen to communicate big themes and ideas”, which perhaps explains some of this.

It’s also oddly constructed (perhaps due to studio interference — see Oliver again), starting out as a kind of small town British gang B-movie, with some eccentric and apparently irrelevant characters turning up in asides, before segueing into a nuclear-age SF parable. As a post on IMDb’s boards put it (yes, sometimes those are worth reading — it astounds me too), The Damned is “continually in flux — just as you think you’ve got it pegged as one genre of film, it becomes another.” Again, not necessarily a bad thing, but unusual.

Once the film hits its genre stride, it shows that it is (to borrow further from that IMDb post) “true science fiction, in that it’s about ideas, and a commentary on current culture, and where that culture may be leading. In other words, science fiction for adults”. Obviously that’s the “current culture” of 1963, but in that sense it perhaps offers an insight into the thoughts and attitudes of the time, and the kind of inhumanity that might be reached in the quest to survive nuclear war.

My mixed reaction to The Damned leaves its score in the middle of the board, but I’d encourage those with an interest in intelligent science-fiction or ’60s genre films to give it a go.

Sucker Punch: Extended Cut (2011)

Posted on October 11, 2011 by badblokebob

Zack Snyder’s fifth venture in the director’s chair is his first not to be based on someone else’s pre-existing material; or, to put it another way, the first wholly original story from the director of 300 and Watchmen. On the strength of its critical and box office reception, he may be relegated from the chance of doing such original work in future (his next effort, as I’m sure you know, will be a reboot of Superman).

I read a good summary of the critical reaction to Sucker Punch somewhere: that critics (and viewers) split into two types, one who thinks it’s a shallow story-free brain-dead over-indulged video game of a movie, the other who think it has hidden depths and themes worthy of exploration. And both sides are likely to call the other stupid, one for not being bright enough to spot the subtext(s), the other for bothering to read stuff that isn’t there. I side with the group that thinks there’s something more to the film, which, as the minority, I guess makes this review a defence.

I’m going to start by discussing the difference between the theatrical cut and this Extended Cut, because for once I think it makes a notable difference. Indeed, why this isn’t called the Director’s Cut is unclear: Snyder reportedly had to submit the film to the MPAA five times before they were satisfied to give it a PG-13; the R-rated Extended Cut restores all that, so surely it’s the Director’s Preferred Version rather than Version With Extra Stuff Bunged In? Some of it is significant in terms of clarifying the film’s story, themes and real-world/dream-world juxtapositions. If you hated the film in its theatrically released form they’d likely struggle to change your mind, but for those seeking extra clarity they may help.

From what I’ve read, there are lots of changes here and there, but it strikes me there are four major omissions or additions:

An extended Orc fight in the fantasy/dragon world. Fine.

The dance number to Love is a Drug. I’d wondered why it got replayed over the end credits! Presumably it was cut because it was a bit too much like a musical, which is an understandable (people don’t like musicals allegedly) but disappointing decision. It adds to the film though, not just in terms of being Something Different, but also showing us what the club/brothel is like during working hours. It’s a great sequence.

A climactic scene with Jon Hamm’s High Roller and Babydoll. I can only imagine how baffling it was for cinema audiences to see the Mad Men star turn up for one half-arsed scene (namely the scene which now follows the High Roller one, which had to be gutted to make sense in the theatrical version). It’s a tense, uncomfortable, challenging scene that adds a lot to chew over — especially in context of:

The smallest cut in length, but perhaps the most significant: when the Priest first brings Babydoll to the club, it’s discussed that she’s there to sell her virginity to the High Roller. Cut (like everything else) to get a PG-13 and because of the connection to that High Roller scene, it might sound like a minor omission, but restoring it clarifies both character motivation and some of the film’s themes, while juxtaposing the real world and dream world with, respectively, lobotomy and loss of virginity.

This is where the film is better than some would give it credit for: it’s not just a muddled excuse for some action sequences, it’s a dream-logic battle by a girl poised to lose her mind… or, maybe, already has. While her stepfather is taking Babydoll to the asylum for nefarious purposes, there’s little doubt in my mind that she’s already suffering serious mental health problems — PTSD, quite probably, seeing as she accidentally murdered the little sister she was trying to protect after almost being raped by the evil stepfather her dead mother has left them to. If you know anything of the crazy, fractured dreams/hallucinations someone with a damaged mind can have, and apply that to this film, it begins to make more sense as a story.

(Major spoilers in the next two paragraphs.) That doesn’t mean it isn’t a problematic depiction of this. Is the ending really saying a lobotomy is a great solution to mental health problems? It allows Babydoll to escape her guilt and remorse for killing her sister, but that’s hardly empowering — giving in to it is, thematically, tantamount to suicide. This is supposedly offset by the escape of total-innocent Sweetpea, which wouldn’t have happened without Babydoll, but that seems scant consolation. And Babydoll’s stepfather escapes unpunished, apparently! Oh dear.

That it was Sweetpea’s story all along is also an interesting conceit. Snyder does contribute to this — Abbie Cornish gives the opening voiceover, we first see Sweetpea in a stage-set like the one Babydoll was on at the film’s open, and when we enter the (first) dream world it’s Sweetpea rather than Babydoll who emerges from the rotating transition shot. But is that enough? Because we’re undoubtedly in Babydoll’s head throughout the film, the only exceptions being the real-world bookends in which we only follow her. (We do see the result of Sweetpea’s escape, but the visual style makes it clear it’s Babydoll’s imagining of what happened.) Maybe this is Snyder’s ultimate aim: it’s someone’s story told from the perspective of a (particularly interesting) supporting character. A little like the end of Super, actually.

This isn’t the end of Sucker Punch’s thematic implications though. Some say it’s a deeply misogynistic film dressed up as a female empowerment movie — look at the hyper-sexy outfits, the ultra-action, the fact it’s set in a brothel… Others probably argue it’s about female empowerment despite all that, but one of the more convincing arguments I’ve read says it’s about female oppression: these characters think they’re independent and fending for/defending themselves, but everywhere they turn there’s a man in control. Even in the dreams-within-a-dream where the action sequences take place, the girls are given orders by a male commander and they follow them unquestioningly. I suppose it’s all down to your personal perspective whether you see this as evidence of misogyny or of a deeper, more thoughtful approach. Let’s be kind and see the latter, I think — it makes the film more interesting, more thought-provoking, and therefore more enjoyable. And enjoyable is good — if you’re setting out to hate a film for the sake of hating it then… oh, then just sod off.*

A far wiser man than I once theorised that any work of art, once completed and released, belongs to the viewing public rather than the artist.** (This is a lesson I feel someone needs to put to George Lucas.) Part of what this means is, if one reads something into the work — a thematic discourse, a moral message, whatever — then it is there, whether the author intended it or not. And if the author intended a certain message and you get the opposite, well, that’s right too (heck, even if you subscribe to the notion the work still belongs to the artist and only their intentions are valid, clearly they mucked up their delivery if you got the opposite). So, in other words, it doesn’t matter whether Snyder wrote and directed his film to ponder or convey certain points or ideas, or whether he just set out to create something that was “effin’ cool maaan, with, like, action and hot chicks and stuff, dude” — what I (and other critics) have read into it is still valid. So there.

Like the rest of the film, the soundtrack is divisive. Some think it contains weak re-workings of excellent classic tracks, others that it contains interesting and appropriate re-workings of excellent classic tracks. I must again side with the latter. For instance, there’s a Queen/rap mash-up that I actually quite liked, and this is from someone who thinks the Wyclef Jean bastardisation of Another One Bites the Dust on Greatest Hits III is an offensive waste of disc space. The standout is probably the opening sequence, five minutes of dialogue-free brilliance with near-perfect visual storytelling (albeit aided by familiar imagery of abuse), set to a haunting rendition of Sweet Dreams (darkly, thematically apt for the entire film) sung by star Emily Browning herself.

Really, Sucker Punch is a musical. No, most of it isn’t sung, but every action sequence is accompanied by a cover song specially designed to fit with it, many (or all) of which in some way comment on or add to what’s happening. Not a traditional musical by any means, obviously, but the way it’s constructed around these musical/action interludes belies the truth.

Said action sequences are all inventive, but they began to feel a bit samey to me. There’s just too many, and though they should feel drastically different thanks to the variety of settings, Snyder’s style links them too well: they’re all shot in the same brown/sepia hue and our heroes all use current-day weapons and vehicles, blurring what should be a clear difference between World War I with steam-powered Germans, an Orc-riddled fantasy castle, and a robot-guarded train on a distant planet. They sound incredibly distinct on paper, but on screen it’s confusing whether they’re meant to be the same world or not. The last of these, a single-shot running gun battle along a train, should be a balletic triumph, but by this point the action’s beginning to wear. I love an action film, and especially a creatively-rendered sequence, and Sucker Punch does have a ton of originality, but there’s perhaps too much of an onslaught. Maybe it’s less battering on later viewings — another reason they cut back on it in the theatrical version, perhaps.

All of the dream levels (we go at least two deep) invite comparisons to Inception, though they’re radically different films. I’m sure there’s an argument to be made along the lines of Inception being a product of a very organised, methodical mind — all steel city blocks and precise Escher paintings made real — while Sucker Punch comes from a crazed creative place — a random grab-bag of ideas and concepts. For all those who complained that Inception’s real-world-influenced dreamscape lacked the creativity and madness of real dreams, Sucker Punch should be a marvellous experience.

Part of me wonders if, had I seen Sucker Punch in cinemas, would I feel the same way I do now? Would those big omissions have obscured the thematic depth I believe is there? To put it another way, how much do the changes really add? You or I will never know for certain. But I do think Sucker Punch has been underrated. It’s not the masterpiece I hoped it might turn out to be when I first began to notice the themes I think Snyder was (consciously or not) tapping in to, but I do think it’s a lot better and more interesting than most gave it credit for.

* This is not the same as disliking a film that merits disliking. But that’s a whole other discussion. ^

** The man in question where I encountered this theory was Russell T Davies, writing in his and Benjamin Cook’s book Doctor Who: The Writer’s Tale. A completely unrelated article that I just happened to stumble across later reminded me that credit for the concept “that once a work of art exists, it no longer matters what the author intended” more properly goes to Roland Barthes. ^

Browncoats: Redemption (2010)

Posted on October 7, 2011 by badblokebob

2011 #77
Michael C. Dougherty | 84 mins | Blu-ray | 16:9 | USA / English

It’s quite understandable if you haven’t heard of Browncoats: Redemption (well, other than for me mentioning it a month ago — pay attention!). In short, it’s an officially-okayed Firefly/Serenity fan film for the benefit of charity. There’s no doubting the enthusiasm and heart of the cast & crew of Redemption — on those factors they score a perfect 5 — but as a film in its own right… well…

It feels wrong to criticise a fan production for charity — it’s like berating a small child who on December 1st excitedly tells mummy what Christmas present she’s getting — but this is a film review blog, and so review it as a film I must.

Set a few months after the end of Serenity, Browncoats deals slightly with the fall out from that film’s revelation of the planet Miranda. Wisely we’re not following re-cast versions of Serenity (the ship)’s crew here, but the all-new crew of the ship Redemption, who get caught up in the Alliance’s desire to make a show of smuggler types in the wake of Mal & co’s actions. There’s also the issue of the murky past of Redemption’s captain…

The story idea is a solid one. It’s nicely spun out of Serenity without forcing an impossible re-cast of that film’s players. It requires knowledge of the film, and to a lesser extent the TV series, but as this is a fan film and therefore made with a fan-only audience in mind, that’s no problem. The main plot is little underdeveloped perhaps, coming across a bit flat in the telling, and it could do with better subplots for the extensive cast. This is a problem that easily blights a film where you have to feature the whole cast of a ship, and in a TV series you can get away with it — if someone’s not in an episode much, their own one is coming soon — but less so in a film. Serenity managed it with aplomb, but then that was created by an experienced TV & film professional rather than a group of fans.

The characters are, thankfully, not carbon copies of Firefly’s cast — some effort has clearly been made to differentiate the line-up, and that goes beyond inverting most of the genders. They’re surely cut from the same cloth though, but that’s understandable: this isn’t trying to be radical with Whedon’s ‘verse, it’s trying to emulate it for the fans, and the fans like what they’ve already seen. Ironically, despite being the most obviously gender-swapped, it’s Redemption’s female captain who’s most like her Serenity counterpart: Laura is, to be blunt, Mal with breasts. Her backstory is at least completely different, but the end result — the character we meet in the film — is more or less the same. When your leads are too similar it can override how different the rest of the cast may be.

Sadly, the acting is uniformly weak. Occasionally a decent line delivery will emerge, but only now and then. The cast aren’t helped by a script too keen to emulate the highly mannered style of Whedon’s original. The way these actors struggle to wrap themselves around the dialogue just shows how talented the original cast were to make it sound so natural. Even the extras are under-directed — obviously background artists (or whatever they’re officially called these days) shouldn’t be noticeable, but here they sometimes are because of what they’re doing or, more often, not doing.

The rest of Browncoats’s direction is a typical fan film minefield. Dougherty’s work is awkwardly flat: it’s all master shots and few close-ups; some sets are shot from the same two angles (and no more) in every scene; it ignores basic rules, like the 180 degree line; the camera is handheld or mounted indiscriminately; it’s loosely framed and poorly lit. And it’s loosely edited too, with some bits allowed to run indulgently long. There may be some places where it’s not so bad, but generally this is the work of someone who knows how to point a camera and press record, rather than direct.

Worse is the audio quality, which is simply appalling. Dialogue clarity and volume varies across a single line, never mind scene — there are several instances where you can hear the actor turn away from the microphone. There’s no sound effects work to speak of — we’re talking basic stuff like punches in a fight or papers dropping on a table (the lack of sound in space, on the other hand, is a Firefly-derived artistic choice). Music is indiscriminately applied and often drowns dialogue out. The wholly-original score is very professional and appropriately emulates the music of the series and movie, but it feels slapped on just so there’s some sound and doesn’t always fit the scene.

The supporting technical elements are all very good, however. As well as the solid score there’s an array of appropriate costumes, a surprisingly proficient spaceship set (considering the production’s scale & budget — it’s not going to rival professional work), good location work, and the handful of CG shots are above regular direct-to-DVD standards. Indeed, while much of Browncoats is below the level of even The Asylum’s work, its CGI puts theirs to shame.

I’ve seen many people online flat-out slag Browncoats off, which is patently unfair. Maybe it’s a generational thing: having been a Doctor Who fan during The Wilderness Years, I was aware of fan films long before anyone could realistically edit video on their computer, never mind use them to add CGI effects or upload it to the internet or film it in HD or master a Blu-ray release. Those who look at the trailer expecting something that looks like a bang-on continuation of Firefly and Serenity are plain foolish. In fan film terms, there are better and more professional examples than Browncoats, but the vast majority are a lot worse. As a super low budget independent film (another label the makers (less often) attach to it), it’s hard to deny that it looks amateurish. Comparisons to super-cheap productions like El Mariachi or Primer do have it coming up short. But then, we don’t see the surely hundreds (if not more) of similarly-budgeted independent features that are so poorly made — and lacking an in-built fanbase — to receive wider distribution than local friends-and-family screenings. It’s the exceptional ones that break through; and while it does mean that, yes, you can make a “proper film” for that kind of money, and so Browncoats’ makers could have done better, this is still (as a fan film) a respectable effort.

Undoubtedly the greatest thing about this project — fans coming together to celebrate and recreate something they love in aid of charity — is down to producer Dougherty’s thought and organisation. Sadly, the worst things about it — the writing and direction — are also his responsibility. We must be forgiving — it is made by amateurs, and for charity — but it’s a shame someone(s) more proficient weren’t found for the important creative roles.

If I scored films for effort, or for heart-in-the-right-place-ness, then this would be an easy 5/5. I just hope no one involved is hoping they can launch a career in ‘real’ film or TV off the back of it, because it doesn’t make that grade. (They’re trying the same thing again, at least, this time with an original zombie movie (because there aren’t enough of those) called Z*Con.) But as a for-the-fans nostalgia-driven charity project… well, it’s raised over $113,000. Shiny.

This was originally posted on the sixth anniversary of Serenity being released in the UK (crikey, time flies).

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