The Final Destination (2009)

Posted on December 15, 2012 by badblokebob

The best thing about The Final Destination is its title, because turning the series’ familiar name into a definitive article for the final entry is really quite a neat move. Sadly, it was a hit and they’ve made more. Why it was a hit… God only knows.

For starters, the story (such as it is) is a complete and utter rehash of the plot of every other film in the series. The only thing on its side is efficiency: it races through ‘plot’ scenes in a quest to find the next set piece. For example, the Rules are explained to this all-new cast because they Google “premonitions” and find out what happened in the previous movies. The overriding sense of familiarity makes for kind of depressing viewing. Previous films tried to find new twists on the rules, ways the cycle might genuinely be broken, etc, whereas this seems content to merely move from one death to the next. Aside from creative ways to kill people, literally the only new idea is that the premonition-haver sees two people die at almost exactly the same time and can’t remember who was first, meaning instead of traipsing to warn the next person they have to find two people. And that’s it.

Production values are low too, featuring very cheap CGI and very poor acting. I’d say both are below the standard of US network TV filler, so for the fourth entry in a fairly successful big-screen franchise that seems even more woeful. I know it’s only Final Destination, but still… The cast aren’t helped by the woeful screenplay, but I don’t think they could’ve enlivened a better one either. They’ve clearly been cast just for being Young and Pretty, but surely there are some Young, Pretty people who can act?

The focus is clearly on the deaths — at 11 it has the highest of the series, and with its short running time that means there’s a fatality every seven minutes. They’re also very gory, more so than in previous films I’d say, but they’re not commensurately more inventive. There’s a very thorough line in misdirection at times, but the whole enterprise feels painfully lacking in creativity. I’m not sure some of them even make sense. But then do they need to? Similarly, there’s some customary low-rent-horror-movie completely-gratuitous nudity too, which I’m sure delighted teenage boys even more in 3D.

None of the deaths matter because nothing is done to make us care about these characters, or even be broadly interested in them, unlike the best of the earlier entries. So there’s zero tension, zero emotion, just elaborate death after elaborate death. It’s one of the most hollow films I can think of. It may even have been better if they’d ditched the attempts at a plot and gone for a series of vignettes in which, unbeknownst to one another, the survivors were bumped off in order. That’s basically what this film wants to be anyway. At least it would’ve been something different. And shorter. And when you want an under-80-minutes (before credits) film to be shorter… oh dear.

The 3D factor was a large part of the film’s promotion, and it makes full use of stereo visuals in exactly the way you’d expect a schlocky horror to. Problem is, it’s so designed for 3D that some of it doesn’t work in 2D. It’s not just the usual array of stuff flying at the camera for no reason — that’s a sure sign it was meant for cheap 3D thrills, but otherwise fine — here, stuff pokes straight out. That means in 2D you see, say, the flat end of a pole, with absolutely zero sense of depth. This happened with one trap in Saw 3D, but in The Final Destination it keeps coming up. It might not sound like a serious problem, but again and again it jars as you try to work out exactly what’s where in the very flat straight-on 2D rendering. Maybe it’s good that 3D films are so thoroughly designed for their intended medium, but I’m not convinced.

As mentioned, this was sold as the final Final Destination — hence the definitive-article title — but it was a surprise hit (thanks in no small part to the 3D, back in the Avatar-hype era when it guaranteed anything a significant boost) and so the series has continued. What’s perhaps most odd, however, is that it makes no serious attempt to bring the whole series to a close. Sure, #3 ditched any links to the first two with a brand-new cast as well, but you’d think, knowing this was The Last One, they’d try to bring it full circle somehow. But clearly not.

Then again, I’m not sure anyone involved could have if they wanted too. The evidence for that is on screen: some of it is unbelievably boneheaded. “Where’s Lori?” “I dunno, I’ve been calling and texting all afternoon, she won’t pick up her phone.” Oh, maybe she’s, I dunno, in the film she told you she was going to see in the scene before last! Dear God.

Elsewhere, one character starts talking about déjà vu before getting killed in the same way as the first film’s most famous death. I suppose it’s meant to be Meta and Funny, and maybe it kinda is, but again the CG is so cheap that the half-trained eye will spot an effect is about to happen, and the manner of death once again doesn’t really make sense. Later, we learn that shopping mall sprinklers can instantly extinguish all fires — handy!

I could go on. I have half a dozen more examples in my notes. But no. It’s so woeful that it’s kind of frustratingly bad — you want someone with half a brain to come along and make the film work.

There’s a somewhat amusing way to judge the Final Destination series: its posters and/or DVD covers; and, specifically, what they tell us about the decreasing importance of character to the franchise. You see, the first prominently features head shots of the central cast (albeit half turned into skulls). The second offers either blurry head shots or full body shots, reducing their recognisability. In the third, the cast are still there, but reduced to near-facelessness seated on a roller coaster, often upside down. And by the fourth, they’re not even there at all. It’s true that Final Destination has never really been about the characters — it’s about how they die — but it’s also true that the more attached you are to them, however superficially, the better (as it were) their deaths are. Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that the characters, deaths and films get weaker at about the same rate, or perhaps each really is connected to the others.

There’s potential in the concept of the Final Destination films, but clearly it’s either limited or the people in charge don’t know how to exploit it, because after making two quite-good films they’ve turned it into a repetitive, stale, uncreative, formulaic disaster. And there’s now a fifth too, and a sixth hasn’t been ruled out — surely it/they can’t be any worse than this? Based on form, maybe they can…

The Final Destination is on Film4 and Film4 HD tonight at 11:05pm, and again on Friday 21st at 11:10pm. Because I’m sure you really want to see it now.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

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

The Last Airbender (2010)

Posted on December 4, 2012 by badblokebob

Consensus holds that the work of once-acclaimed director M. Night Shyamalan has managed a near-perfect trajectory of decreasing returns. I’m not talking about box office — I have no idea (or much interest) in how that’s gone for him — but quality, starting with supernatural chiller The Sixth Sense and sliding gradually to the nadir of The Happening. I’m not as convinced (I quite liked some of his efforts along the way), but it’s fair to say The Happening was pretty awful and certainly his worst… until this.

Adapted from a US animated series (but having to drop the series’ Avatar prefix thanks to a certain other 3D blockbuster), Shyamalan’s live-action rendition condenses the storyline of the first season into a 90-something-minute movie. You can immediately see some problems are going to arise just from the maths involved. I should say, I’ve never seen the original series, so I have no idea how Shyamalan succeeds in translating it. There was plenty of controversy in his casting, which included Caucasians in the roles of apparently-Asian characters in the original, but happily using them for the villains. I don’t know that that bothers me so much, but it seemed to be a watershed moment for some.

Even ignoring the inevitable prejudice of an adaptation not living up to fans’ expectations, however, The Last Airbender is a mess. You don’t even need to see it in the notoriously too-dark post-production 3D to find yourself confused about what’s going on. The plot pings back and forth between locations and characters, basing itself in a heavy mythology that isn’t adequately explained. Chunks of it seem to be missing, conveyed through clunky voiceover rather than on-screen action. The first rule of screenwriting — literally, the first — is Show Don’t Tell, but Shyamalan does exactly the opposite.

In fairness to him, there’s some defence to be found in the trivia section of IMDb: “Almost 30 minutes of footage was cut from the theatrical release because Paramount Pictures wanted the film converted to 3D as quickly as possible, in an effort to save money.” That certainly might explain some of the awkward jumps in plot, and at times we can see a conversation taking place but only get to hear a narrated summary. Still, I don’t think these edits cover all of the film’s flaws — not even close — but it explains some of them.

About the only good thing I can recall is the CGI, which is fine. But you get good CGI everywhere these days, so it’s far from a reason to watch. The action sequences it’s employed for are largely uninspiring, their style stolen from 300 or other equally familiar sources. The acting is routinely appalling too — Dev Patel, for instance, is more like his lacklustre first role in Skins than his BAFTA-nominated, worldwide-attention-grabbing turn in Slumdog Millionaire.

I wouldn’t call myself a Shyamalan apologist, but I think he has at times suffered harshly at the hands of critics and audiences disappointed that he’s never re-reached the heights of The Sixth Sense (though, personally, I prefer Unbreakable anyway). Unfortunately, The Last Airbender is more fuel to the fire. It’s not only Shyamalan’s worst film, it’s a plain bad film by any reasonable measure. Laughably awful, even.

This review is part of the 100 Films Advent Calendar 2012. Read more here.

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

The Spiral Staircase (2000)

Posted on August 30, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #49
James Head | 88 mins | TV | 1.33:1 | USA / English

A couple of years ago I discovered the ’40s Gothic noir thriller The Spiral Staircase, an exceedingly enjoyable film that I would heartily encourage you to see. It’s been remade twice: first a British effort in the ’70s, then this turn-of-the-millennium US TV movie. I find remakes immensely interesting — they’re almost always reviled, but that doesn’t mean they’re all bad; and even when they are, they can be interesting as an indication of what one era thought was a good idea for updating (or not) something originally made in a different time. The ’00s Spiral Staircase is definitely one of the bad ones, but if you want a snapshot of ’90s (not a typo) US TV movies, it’s bang on.

I believe it was made for a Women’s Network in the States, and it feels like an adaptation of one of those doorstop-sized airport romance paperbacks that I imagine are their stock in trade. (In fairness to doorstop-sized airport romances and the novel from which all versions of The Spiral Staircase stem, I’ve never read either.) Despite the implications of an “X months ago” prologue in which someone is followed by a spooky pair of eyes (presumably a whole person, but we only see the eyes), the first half is more cheap, tacky, romance-of-the-week TV movie than serial killer thriller.

The second half tries harder, seeing a bunch of potential victims locked in an island mansion, cut off by a terrible storm, and then finds reasons to have them wander back and forth around the place until they start being bumped off for no particular reason. This half isn’t necessarily good, but it has more atmosphere and more excitement, if not any more originality, even while contriving ways to divide its characters.

There are about three suspects in the entire tale. One is so clearly being set up from the off that you know it can’t be him; one barely even registers as a suspect; and it’s not the third one. But the film doesn’t pull off a twist because the attempt (by dragging that middle character back into it) comes so out of the blue as to make no sense. They don’t even bother to try to explain it properly! It’s about the only time the film holds back on painful over-exposition, and it’s about the only time it needs it. Either way, it’s not the same as the original film’s, and it’s not as good.

Every character is a cliché: the sweet new girl, the stern housekeeper, the drunk cook, the no-nonsense bed-ridden matriarch, the intelligent brother who stayed behind to look after mother, the playboy brother who only comes home when he needs a loan, his latest gold-digging floozy… The performances don’t help. As the mute heroine, Nicollette Sheridan only has her facial expressions to work with, and they don’t seem to change; she’s also at least a decade too old for the part. As her love interest, former Brat Packer Judd Nelson is awfully wooden. The rest of the cast are various degrees of adequate.

Head’s direction is flat and cheap, which I suppose is exactly what you’d expect from a late-’90s cable TV movie. The sequence where a character stumbles across the titular staircase is quite atmospheric, given added creepiness by it featuring about the only character whose fate doesn’t seem inevitable, but that’s all. Even given a storm in a house with no power, the only atmosphere generated is that which such a situation offers by default.

The original story is clearly suited to a Gothic historical setting (the ’40s film didn’t keep the novel’s time period, but it chose one similar enough), but that doesn’t mean a modern-set rendition isn’t without potential. Or maybe it is — it’s hard to be certain from a movie that certainly doesn’t realise what potential there may be. Yet for all its countless weaknesses, I can’t quite bring myself to entirely despise it. Can I really give this wholly derivative remake 2 stars? It may be some kind of Stockholm Syndrome — after 90 minutes with it, I can’t help but find some point in it all; some thing to like.

But no, it’s woeful; and unless you have a fondness for romance-focused late-’90s US cable TV movies, or for seeing just how remakes have changed things (like me… the second, that is, not the first), then I recommend you stay clear.

The 1945 version of The Spiral Staircase is on BBC Two tomorrow, Friday 31st August, at 12:50pm. You can read my review here.

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

The Batman Series

Posted on July 20, 2012 by badblokebob

In the run up to the release of The Dark Knight Rises I’ve been re-watching all of the modern-era live-action Batman films. I haven’t watched any of them since 2006, well before The Dark Knight was released and only shortly after Batman Begins had signalled a new direction for the Bat-franchise. I think everyone’s view of Batman on film has changed considerably in the last six years, so it’s quite an interesting context to be viewing them in.

I’ve decided not to provide full-length reviews because, quite frankly, I can’t be bothered (I’m 47 behind for pity’s sake!); but because I’ve been having New Thoughts, I thought I’d share a few below. Plus a score, because these are really reviews nonetheless. (I’d give them each their own page, but I don’t want to swamp you yet again, dear treasured email subscribers.) I know I’ve reviewed The Dark Knight twice already, and I didn’t especially want to get into the habit of reviewing it every time I watch it, but I’ve made a couple of quick observations on it in this context.

And with that said…

It’s important to re-emphasise what I just said: that this Bat-retrospective was provoked by my realisation that I hadn’t watched these films for six years, since a time when Begins was the pretty-successful new kid on the block. To an extent the changed perspective brought about by the events of the last six years (primarily, The Dark Knight, and (I perceive) a boost in acclaim for Begins by association) colours how we see all of these films now, but I think none more so than this first.

This used to be the dark and serious take on superheroes, treating them in a more grown-up fashion. In the wake of memories of the camp ’60s Batman and the colourful, optimistic Superman film series, that’s certainly what it is. Watched today, it looks positively comic book-y. Sure, it’s a bit grown-up — there’s elements of psychology and adult relationships, not just Boy’s Own Adventure — but the level of heightened reality and camp… it’s nothing like comic book adaptations now. I honestly can’t think of anything made in the current wave of superhero movies that has this tone.

Also, you forget just how true it was that the earlier Batman films focussed more on the villains than the hero. Batman’s in the first scene, but that’s it for a while, and it takes Bruce Wayne ages to appear; when he does, he barely speaks and the scenes aren’t really about him. The story instead follows Jack Napier/the Joker and a pair of journalists, primarily Vicki Vale, though (again) I think it’s easy to forget how prominent her partner (Alexander Knox, played by Robert Wuhl) is. The film puts a little more emphasis on Wayne/Batman later on, but for a hefty chunk it’s not really about him at all. You can really see why Nolan & co thought that was a seam waiting to be tapped when it came to Begins.

Batman feels dated today. I know it’s 23 years old, but it really feels it, in a way the next few films just don’t. There’s still a lot to like here, but it doesn’t impress me in the way it used to when I was younger. It still retains huge nostalgia value at least. Perhaps, with the scales now fallen from my eyes, when I next come to watch it (whenever that may be) I’ll enjoy it more again.

P.S. The first three Batman films have a chequered rating history, but Batman has perhaps the least explicable. Rated a 12 in cinemas in 1989, it’s consistently been given a 15 for home video. since 1990. The first two times it was classified (in 1990 and then 1992) this would’ve been because the 12 certificate wasn’t available for video, but why it wasn’t downgraded to a 12 in 2004, God only knows. It certainly feels like a 12.

Tim Burton’s first Batman film is great, no doubt, but Returns is a much better film in so many ways. The direction, writing, acting, action and effects are all slicker. They spent over twice as much money on it and it really shows. Plus they have exactly the same running time (to the very minute), but Batman feels surprisingly small scale and Returns feels epic. Watched today, Batman feels Old, whereas Returns… it’s from ’92 so of course it doesn’t feel New — but it feels more like newer films, in a good way.

Some criticise it for being too dark. Well, it is and it isn’t — there’s a lot of black humour in there. I think it works as a tonal whole — it’s not one-note, but it doesn’t swing wildly around either. What’s wrong with a film having a dark tone? Should every blockbuster pitch for exactly the same light-but-not-too-light area? Because they went for that in Forever and it didn’t go down as well.

And that’s related to another thing — some people criticise it for being a Tim Burton film rather than a Batman film, as if that’s a bad or even valid thing. It’s directed by Tim Burton and you don’t expect a Tim Burton film? I’d rather have a director who puts his own stamp on the material than a hired hand who churns out something generic. What’s the point in hiring someone good if they can’t bring their own influence? You don’t think the current films are as influenced by Nolan’s sensibilities as anything else? Look at his personally-authored Inception and tell me that’s in a vastly different style. Then look at Burton’s Planet of the Apes and see what happens when an individualist director is forced into a studio style. Bad things happen, that’s what.

These are meant to be short reviews so I won’t go on about all of Returns’ plus points, but oh my are they many. This is easily the franchise’s best effort until at least Begins, arguably even until Dark Knight; and for those who prefer their Batman less grounded and more fantastical, it could well be the best of all.

P.S. Believe it or not (and some will know this and so believe it, but I didn’t until now), Returns is only uncut in the UK as of 2009! Back when the SE DVDs were classified in 2005 it was still cut by seven seconds for “imitable techniques”, and then got a 12. I don’t know if an uncut 15 was offered then, but that’s what it has now.

Four observations I personally hadn’t made before:

1) everyone goes on about how the pre-Begins Batman films dealt with the villains and ignored Bruce Wayne. That’s true of Burton’s pair, but this one spends a ton of time with Bruce (a lot of that’s about Robin, but it’s about Robin in relation to Bruce). The one who’s hard done by is Harvey Dent/Two-Face, who gets relatively little screen time and most of it is spent as a cackling halfwit sidekick to the Riddler. Not befitting the character at all.

But 2) talking of Two-Face, wow does Tommy Lee Jones over-act furiously! Perhaps that’s not news, but crikey it’s so unlike anything else I’ve ever seen him in.

And 3) I swear Elliot Goldenthal’s score referenced the music of the ’60s Adam West series on several occasions. Which, considering the overall tone of the film, feels entirely possible. (I watched the featurette on the BD about the music but they didn’t mention it, sadly.)

Finally, 4) I was aware they’d completely re-edited the first act to put an action scene up front (and get a lower certificate in the US after all the furore that accompanied Returns), but I wasn’t aware of all the casualties. At one point Batman and Two-Face engage in a car chase that happens for no good reason; in the original cut, Two-Face & co ambush Batman on his way back from attending a Bat-signal call. That at least makes some sense, whereas in the film as-is he seems to go out simply for the purpose of having a chase, then goes home.

Believe it or not, Batman & Robin isn’t a complete disaster. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not about to mount a defence of the film — it is mostly awful. But only “mostly”.

Relatively significant screen time is given to a subplot involving Alfred being very ill. Thanks to the general warmth of feeling felt toward the character, plus the acting abilities of Michael Gough and George Clooney (who is severely untested by the rest of the movie), this storyline deserves to be part of a far better film.

Also, the realisation of Gotham is impressive. Mixing gigantic sets, model work and CGI, Schumacher and co crafted a towering fantasy landscape straight out of the comic’s wilder imaginings. The neon colouring may not be to the taste of those who prefer Burton’s darkly Gothic interpretation or Nolan’s real-world metropolis (if forced to choose, I’d be among them), but this is an animated-series-style Gotham writ in live-action, and judged as that it’s a resounding success.

The rest of the film is an irredeemable mess, however. Characters speak almost exclusively in one-liners centred on dodgy puns, and even when it’s not a one-liner it’s delivered as if it is. Schwarzenegger is the worst culprit for this, but Uma Thurman overacts horrendously also. She’s defeated by being kicked into her chair, just another of the script’s multitudinous stupidities. Her origin is a weak rip-off of Returns’ take on Catwoman; Bane is reduced to a monosyllabic idiot (at one point he has to plant a series of explosives, grunting the word “bomb” every time he puts one down); Barbara ‘borrows’ a bike from Bruce’s collection and, thanks to editing, appears not to return it for about two days without anyone noticing; and so on. I know they were aiming a little more in the direction of the camp ’60s TV series, but even if you allow for that it just doesn’t pull it off (and I gave the ’60s movie 4 stars, so I believe it can it done).

The “toyetic” approach (i.e. focusing more on the tie-in merchandise that could be generated than the story, etc) results in a foul new look for the Batmobile (though the DVD featurette on the film’s vehicles almost makes you appreciate it — the behind-the-scenes version is much more impressive than what we see in the film) and, famously, the heroes arriving at the climax in new costumes with absolutely no explanation! All it needed was them returning to the Batcave, “we better put on our ice-suits”, something like that. Heck, it would’ve allowed Schumacher to indulge in his suiting-up T&A shots one more time. But no, they just magically change into nastily-designed toy-ready outfits. Ugh.

There is ever so much to hate about Batman & Robin that even the really-quite-well-done Alfred plot can’t prevent me from placing it with the lowest of the low at a single star.

Chris Nolan’s first foray into Bat-world really is a stunning piece of work in many respects. It’s a film with the confidence in its story to take its time and do things its own way. The first 40 or so minutes jump back and forth constantly between Bruce Wayne’s childhood around the time of his parents’ murder, his college-ish days when he runs away around the world, and his present day training with the League of Shadows. But, as is Nolan’s trademark, this mixed-up chronology is never confusing, never unclear, and always serves a point.

Then there’s the fact that Batman himself doesn’t turn up for a whole hour. That’s nearly half the film. But that’s fine — we’re not left wanting, it’s just the right time for him to emerge. When he does, the film becomes suitably action-packed and drives its plot on. Until that point, we’ve had such a thorough basing in the world of Gotham City and the mental character of Bruce Wayne that it seems plausible he’d choose to fight crime by dressing up as a bat.

The Nolan Batman films have become known as the ‘real world’ superhero movies, but of course what we see depicted isn’t the real world, and things wouldn’t happen like this in real life. But it’s the way Begins identifies itself with other movies that creates that feeling. The previous Batman films occur in the exaggerated world of Superman and other superhero fantasy movies; here we’re in an exaggerated world more like James Bond, say, or indeed any other technology-driven action-thriller you choose. It’s not our real world, but it’s the real world of that genre; one closer to our own than the dark fantasy of Burton’s films or the dayglo cartoon of Schumacher’s.

There’s much more that could be said about Begins and naturally I’m limiting myself here (this is meant to be a short comment, after all), but it’s important to note what a fine job Nolan does of making Gotham City a character in the film. All of the Batman films have done this to some degree — it was Burton’s stated aim to make Gotham “the third character” in his first effort — but by giving the city recognisable landmarks, districts, a true sense of history and on-going interrelations, it feels like a real place. And those recognisable landmarks continue into The Dark Knight (particularly spottable are the split-level roads, the Narrows and its bridges, even if the vital-to-this-film’s-plot elevated railway completely disappears between films), cementing the importance of this cityscape. I do hope it continues into Dark Knight Rises. I’ve already read one review that said they should’ve named the final film Gotham City, so I’m optimistic.

The monumental achievement of The Dark Knight has come to overshadow Begins, which is now rendered as a functionary prequel to the next film’s majesty. Don’t let that reputation fool you: on its own merits, this is very much a film at the forefront of the action-adventure, blockbuster and superhero genres.

I was, oddly, a little nervous sitting down to watch TDK for the first time in four years. I’d had such an incredible experience viewing it in the cinema (twice) and, by not watching it since, it had built up some kind of aura in my mind. But I dismissed such silliness and damn well got on with it.

Thank goodness, it’s a film good enough to stand up to such memories. That’s the main thing I wanted to add, I suppose, because everything I had to say in my earlier reviews still stands. The IMAX sequences look almost as incredible on Blu-ray as they did in the theatre (as much as they ever could), but I’m sure you knew that.

What’s interesting is watching this directly after Begins. While Nolan’s first film isn’t even close to being as all-out fantasy as the earlier entries, it errs more in that direction than this one, in my opinion. Begins has a kind of fantastical warmth to it, alongside the more urban-realism aspects. I say “warmth” probably because of the sepia/brown hues of the sequences set in the Narrows and so on. The Dark Knight, by comparison, is set in the cold grey-blue steel world of skyscrapers and the modern metropolis, inspired by towering architecture in its visual style and by epic crime-thrillers in its plotting. Compare the two posters I’ve used here for the gist of what I’m driving at.

Begins is, at heart, still a superhero action-adventure; Dark Knight is a crime thriller that happens to take place in a world with superheroes. Does that make it inherently better? No. But it does make it more unusual for the genre. And as Nolan & co pull off the crime thriller style and feel so damn well, it flat out makes it a great film.

The star rating, of course, stays the same.

In case you missed the links above, my two previous Dark Knight reviews can be read here and here.

And that’s it for the Batman films… so far. Because at the exact time this set of reviews is posted, I should be sat in a large darkened room with a number of other people, about to embark on the concluding chapter of Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy. I imagine later today or tonight I’ll have some initial thoughts on that one too.

Legion (2010)

Posted on May 26, 2012 by badblokebob

2012 #21
Scott Stewart | 96 mins | TV | 2.35:1 | USA / English | 15 / R

The first of two Christian-themed action movies directed by former visual effects man Scott Stewart (this his first feature as director) and starring British thesp Paul Bettany (here he plays a gun-toting angel, next time it’s a warrior monk) — I don’t know if that’s a conscious theological choice of some kind (there’s no Book of Eli-style heavy-handed God-bothering in either film) or just an almighty coincidence. Even if not, the quality of the pair is consistent, for better or worse.

In the first of the Stewart-Bettany diptych, we find that for some reason it’s the end of days, and for some reason there’s a diner in the middle of nowhere, and a deliberately fallen angel turns up to defend the inhabitants of said diner from the celestial forces that are for some reason gathering to kill them. Something like that, anyway.

It doesn’t really matter, it’s all rubbish. It’s penned by writers who think speechmaking equates to character. All of the dialogue is appalling; even Big Lines — just before a heroic death, that kind of thing — are irredeemably bad. It’s performed by actors who aren’t even capable of delivering that tosh. They all overact in one way or another, especially a gurning turn from Dennis Quaid. Later on it aims for some kind of epic fantasy stuff, but it manages to be both underdeveloped and overplayed. The ending shoots for a ‘the story continues’ vibe, though goodness knows where anyone thought the story had to go.

Even the action sequences not up to much, just guns firing and things exploding in the dark with almost no choreography. As an action movie you might forgive it some of the plot and character points if it could manage that, but it can’t.

Also, there’s a character called Jeep… who’s a mechanic! Oh come on.

There are some scraps of good bits. The beginning is moderately cool, if a bit of a rip from the Terminator franchise. There’s some good creepy villains — to say how or who would ruin some of the film’s rare good bits, should you for some reason decide to watch it. Which you shouldn’t.

Legion is disappointing on pretty much every level. There’s some potential in the basic idea, but it’s not even close to being realised. Even the siege-based rendering of it they’ve gone for feels half baked.

Avoid.

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

5 Years of 100 Films, Part 1

Posted on February 27, 2012 by badblokebob

100 Films in a Year is precisely five years old tomorrow!

Happy Birthday to me!

I’m aware my fifth year ended in December, but here we’re talking about the fifth anniversary of my first ever post, from 28th February 2007, where in one fell swoop I covered most of the year to date. Sometimes I’m tempted to go back to those teeny-tiny reviews…

Anyway, in celebration of me managing to stick at something for so long, I thought I’d have a little week of it: five top five lists (see what I did there?), culled from the films officially counted as part of 100 Films during those first five years. So that’s the 545 films covered on these five lists, not the 585+ on here.

Five Top Fives

So what five top fives have I come up with? Well, there’s perhaps the obvious two: the five best and the five worst. There’s also my five favourite (distinct from best — essentially, one being Worthy Films and one being Entertaining Films), the five I think are the most underrated and, conversely, the five I think are the most overrated. The only rule is that films are only allowed to appear on one list — so nothing can be both a favourite and underrated, say. These lists are too short to go duplicating things like that.

And at the weekend I may post some statistics, if I can think of something suitably different to say than in my last regular year-end one. I hope I can — I do love some statistics.

If you’re not interested in any of this (party pooper!), normal service will resume next week. And also on Wednesday night, when I post my summary of February.

Oh, by the way…

Before I get on to today’s inaugural list, I’ve decided to take this opportunity to ‘officially’ announce this shiny new ‘simul-blog’. Y’see, I say new — I’ve been updating it with new posts for most of the year (it’s currently got everything going back to January 2012), and if you’d known to look (or happened to see me mention it on twitter) it’s been publicly available too.

As FilmJournal sadly seems to be slowly slipping away, I thought it time to start something new. I’ve no intention to stop posting there — hence “simul-blog” not “new blog” — but, yeah, this new one’s here now. It’s got some advantages, like a pretty front page and cool big banner pictures at the top of every page, which I’ve taken the opportunity to customise for every single review (goodness knows how quickly that’ll eat through my WordPress storage allowance, but it doesn’t half look good), and some disadvantages, like my lack of familiarity (and the fact I’m still formatting the posts for FilmJournal first) meaning the pictures sometimes look a bit awkward. But that’ll surely get ironed out in time.

I’ve not been able to export my blog in a way the new one will accept, for some reason, so transferring will have to be done manually. Which has its advantages — I can re-do all links and re-format pictures as I go — but also its disadvantages — over 600 posts! (Golly!)

Another advantage is that you can easily subscribe to get an email every time I post something new: there’s a little box to the left on the front page, just pop your address in there. That goes some way to getting over the lack of FilmJournal front page (I don’t know about anyone else, but that’s always been my main way of keeping up with other FJ blogs). Emails aren’t perfect right now — I’ve always uploaded pictures at a bigger size then used HTML to make them fit the page nicely, but the emails seem to ignore that and just bung them in full size — something I need to see to going forward. And when I begin back-posting it’s going to flood people with 600+ emails unless I find a way to stop it. Oh dear.

Anyway, please check it out — the URL, in case you somehow missed the link above, is 100filmsinayear.wordpress.com. Any thoughts welcome. (First one: I’m intending to change that big ol’ logo to a banner of thumbnails, a bit like the one on the old blog.)

And with that said and done…

The 5 Worst Films

Alone in the Dark
The first Uwe Boll film I saw, and quite possibly the last. It’s not just bad, it’s impressively bad — how do you make a film this shoddy? Of course there always has and always will be bad writing, bad acting, bad directing, but how do you create something with so little awareness of how to tell a story? It baffles me.

AVPR – Aliens vs Predator: Requiem
If you saw Alien vs. Predator when you were about 14 then you might love it. More or less everyone else hated it. That is, until you see this. It’s dull, it’s poorly constructed, it’s so dark you can’t even tell what’s going on… What a waste of the franchises. Bonus disgust for dragging the once-great Alien series so low.

Cube²: Hypercube
I love Cube; it might be one of my most favourite films. It doesn’t need a sequel, but if it was going to have one it really shouldn’t have been this. The original was great because of its simplicity and ambiguity; this ditches both, being over-complicated and with a woeful explanation ending. Pretend it doesn’t exist.

Flight 93
I despise this film. I think it’s disrespectfully bad. Maybe its poorness has been hyped up in my memory, I don’t know. Thankfully we also have the exceptional United 93, which is an absolute must-see to my mind. Funny that a single true story has inspired both one of my most reviled and one of my most esteemed films.

Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic
Comedy should be funny, but not everyone agrees what’s funny — that’s why some love Frankie Boyle and some wish he would die (insert the name of any comedian/’comedian’ you like there). I quite like Silverman, which is why I was disappointed by this. I don’t think I even laughed once. Maybe out of desperation.

To be continued…

Tomorrow I’ll list the five films from my last five years of viewing that I consider to be the most overrated.

Max Payne: Harder Cut (2008)

Posted on July 17, 2010 by badblokebob

2010 #57
John Moore | 103 mins | Blu-ray | 15

I was a bit of a gamer once. Not an especially hardcore one, but certainly a gamer. And I remember Max Payne, and I remember enjoying it, and I remember thinking it would make quite a good film, and I remember one of the biggest problems being that what made it so unique as a game was the bullet-time feature and what would make it so derivative as a film would be to use bullet-time. But it also had lots of other things going for it: the snow-bound nighttime New York setting, the dark revenge plot, the hard-boiled gravel-toned voiceover.

Luckily, director John Moore doesn’t use Matrix-derived bullet-time visuals, but, despite keeping a snow-bound New York and a revenge plot, he’s somehow managed to also throw out everything that made Max Payne: The Game good. Despite the similarities in plot and setting, this doesn’t feel at all like the game.

Max Payne: The Film, to put it simply, is a load of crap.

I’ll just reel off the bad points:

For something advertised as an action movie — at best, an action-thriller — there’s barely any action. Even the climax, where you might expect a fair bit, is virtually devoid of it. Moore exploits extreme slow motion to stand in for the game’s Matrix-esque combat. Unfortunately, he seems to be under the illusion that a couple of barely-moving slow-mo moments also stand in for a full action sequence. When an action movie can’t deliver any action, there’s a problem.

Instead, the budget seems to have been spent on some angel/demon CGI rubbish. Early on, one begins to wonder if the film’s headed toward Constantine-esque fantasy territory — it’s not in the game, but hey, that’s never bothered Uwe Boll. Eventually it becomes clear it isn’t, these are just some kind of junkie visions. At least, I’m sure they’re meant to be, but I’m not sure the film ever makes that explicit — I wouldn’t blame a casual viewer going away with the sense that these angel/demon/things are actually meant to be there and only the junkies can see them. Which would be just as irrelevant.

Despite this being the “Harder Cut”, it comes across as a PG-13 film playing at being an R. (Though the extended cut was released as ‘unrated’ in the US, the original MPAA rating was an R before a handful of changes needed to get it down to the more bankable PG-13.) It’s now around three minutes longer than the theatrical cut, but from what I can gather a significant chunk of that seems to be made up of people walking around longer. The ‘harder’ bit merely comes from a couple of frames (literally) of violence and the odd bit of CG blood. Presumably the extra walking around is to artificially lengthen the running time and persuade the more gullible that they’re getting a tougher experience.

Mark Wahlberg has all the charisma and emotion of a wooden plank. No one else in the cast can offer anything better, least of all a miscast Mila Kunis. In fairness, it’s not like any of them are given proper characters to work with: most display no kind of arc, and even those that have one — Kunis, for example — are ultimately ignored, the events that might affect them on an emotional level serving only to further what stands in for a plot. Only Max himself is allowed any genuine emotional connection. And by “genuine” I mean some supporting characters we never see again tell us it’s had a real impact on him. Wahlberg certainly doesn’t convey it.

Olga Kurylenko is also in this film. She tries to sleep with the hero and fails, as per usual.

At least some of it looks quite nice. The drifting snow-laden exterior shots are among the few bits of the film that might genuinely be considered good. But when you can get pretty images elsewhere, why suffer through this?

A short post-credits scene suggests a sequel. Why is this buried after the credits? Presumably so as the filmmakers didn’t embarrass themselves more widely by implying they thought this pathetic effort might earn itself a follow-up.

Uwe Boll wanted to get his hands on Max Payne. At times while watching this, I wished he had. You can’t get much more damning than that. Other than, maybe, something witty, like — “maximum pain is certainly what this film will cause you”.

Max Payne featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2010, which can be read in full here.

Three in 3D

Posted on November 23, 2009 by badblokebob

As you may have noticed, Channel 4 have just had a 3D week. Arguably lacking in content, it included three films. I subjected myself to all of them to provide you with the following…

#75
Flesh for Frankenstein
1973 | Paul Morrissey | 95 mins | TV | 18 / R

“The best thing about the extra dimension is that it provides some genuinely impressive visuals throughout, and not in the gimmicky, thrust-stuff-into-the-audience way — naturally there are some of those shots, but… there are also shots that demonstrate why 3D could be genuinely valuable, to visuals if not necessarily to storytelling.”

#77
Friday the 13th Part III
1982 | Steve Miner | 91 mins | TV | 15 / R

“They have a whale of a time shoving stuff out into the audience for almost no reason — just like the stereotype of 3D films, of course. That’s part of the fun of trashy 3D movies so I’m not criticising it, but what sadly doesn’t work is the ColorCode 3D system chosen by C4.”

#78
Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert
2008 | Bruce Hendricks | 72 mins | TV | U / G

“The only real exception is the 3D — being a very recent production, that was flawless.”

It’s quite easy to see why 3D’s never taken off before. Even here, there are some good and/or notorious 3D films they haven’t bothered to show, which is a shame. Now they’ve distributed all those glasses, maybe they’ll consider just slipping some 3D films into the schedule now and again in the future. Doubt it, but it could be fun.

Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert [3D] (2008)

Posted on November 23, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #78
Bruce Hendricks | 72 mins | TV | U / G

Rubbish. In almost every way possible.

I could expand on that in numerous ways, but what would be the point? The only real exception is the 3D — being a very recent production, that was flawless.

Take solace in the fact that one day — hopefully, one day soon — Cyrus, Montana, this ‘movie’, and all the rest, will be completely forgotten.

This was shown as part of Channel 4’s 3D Week. That’s why.

Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert featured on my list of The Five Worst Films I Saw in 2009, which can be read in full here.

Alone in the Dark (2005)

Posted on November 9, 2009 by badblokebob

2009 #69
Uwe Boll | 94 mins | TV | 18 / R

I’ve never played an Alone in the Dark game. I wanted to, when I was young and they were a widely-known cutting-edge franchise, but it was deemed too scary or adult or something like that and I wasn’t allowed. (By the time someone’s nostalgia revived the series nearly a decade later, I didn’t care.) I’ve also never seen an Uwe Boll film, though his reputation obviously precedes him. Considering the latter, having no attachment to the former is probably a benefit to assessing this — I understand that, story-wise, it bears virtually no relation — but I can’t say it helps much.

Right from the off, things don’t look good: it opens with an essay’s worth of backstory in scrolling text… which, just to rub it in, is also read out. It takes about a minute and a half. There are any number of screenwriting rules this not so much breaks as slowly and methodically grinds into sand. Some rules can be bent or broken to good effect if the writer knows what they’re doing, but others exist for damn fine reasons and breaking them just results in a lesser film. This is unquestionably the latter. There’s an almost-excuse: the text was added after test audiences said they didn’t understand the plot. But it’s not much of one. The relevant information is all revealed later in the film too, and neither manage to explain what the hell is going on. It’s not the audience’s fault they couldn’t understand the plot, it just doesn’t make sense.

Quickly, the poor quality opening is cemented with the addition of a dire voiceover narration from Christian Slater’s lead character. He addresses the audience in a chatty style that’s both irritating and incongruous, and primarily exists to continuously dump more useless info. That it disappears without a trace fairly early on is a relief, but proves how pointless and cheap it was in the first place.

And then there’s an action sequence, which defies logic in every respect. The editing mucks up continuity, the good guys turn into a dead-end marketplace for no reason — other than it provides a handily enclosed location for the ensuing fist fight — the bad guy rams cars, scales buildings and jumps through windows, also for no reason, and the fight seems to consist of a punch followed by some slow motion standing around (yes, it’s the standing around that’s in slow motion) repeated too often, interspersed with the occasional ‘cool’ move or shot. On the bright side, there’s one sub-Matrix, Wanted-esque shot of a bullet-time close-up as Carnby fires at the bad guy through a block of ice, which in itself is passably entertaining. You’ll note, of course, that that’s one good shot. One. Shot.

I could go through every scene in the film describing what’s wrong in this way, but no one wants to suffer that. Suffice to say it only gets worse — none of the initial flaws improve, but are compounded by more weak performances (Tara Reid as some kind of scientist?) and the story entirely vacating proceedings. Before halfway I gave up following the plot — after all, why try to follow something that makes no sense in the first place — and just hoped it could pull out some interesting or exciting sequences. But the horror sequences have no tension and the fights no coherence. One action sequence, which begins entirely out of the blue, sees soldiers shooting at beast-thingies in the dark, lit only by muzzle flashes, set to a thumping metal soundtrack. It probably seemed innovative when conceived, but instead is laughable for all the wrong reasons. Like the rest of the film.

Sadly, none of it’s laughable in a charming way — this is not So Bad It’s Good territory. Take the moment where the good guys arrive at an abandoned gold mine that’s actually the villain’s Super Secret Lair. They bring a whole army’s worth of heavily armed marines. Commander blokey insists it’s nothing like enough men… and then proceeds to enter the mine with just half a dozen of them. If there was no budget for more it might be funny, but the rest stay up top to be slaughtered by some Primeval-quality CGI. Even the ending, supposed to be ambiguous apparently, is just a meaningless cop-out that makes absolutely no sense. Like the rest of the film.

Sometimes I feel sorry for Christian Slater. He always seems a nice guy in interviews, yet this kind of drivel is all the work he can get. At the time of writing it’s the 82nd worst film of all time on IMDb (according to its own page, though not that chart). While this is the kind of status that’s often an overreaction (the number of people on IMDb declaring various films are “the worst film ever” suggests most of them have been fortunate enough to never see a truly bad movie), for once it’s justified: Alone in the Dark is irredeemably atrocious.

If you want to subject yourself to Alone in the Dark, ITV4 are showing it tonight at 11pm.

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

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