Saturday 23 April 2011

All-Star Superman

(2011)

Dir: Sam Liu

 

There are only a few moments in All-Star Superman which make you scratch your head and reach for your geek dictionary: an attack by subterranean lizard men, and an encounter with a husky-voiced sphinx to name two. But much of this adaptation of the acclaimed comic book series by Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely is solid, intriguing - dare I say it to those dogmatic comic book haters out there? - adult stuff. No, not in the pornographic way either.

It is no spoiler to say that the film opens with Superman - voiced by Desperate Housewives’ James Denton - doing something that results in him being told that he is dying. Of course, Anthony LaPaglia’s nefarious chrome-domed criminal Lex Luthor is behind the whole thing; in fact now happily accepting his own fate in the Electric Chair, content in the knowledge that Superman will go first.

There is a rather melancholy tone to All-Star Superman given this set up. The Man Of Steel is reduced to little more than a patient told he has terminal Cancer, and thus tries to tie up all his loose ends before it’s too late. The scenes featuring Superman/Clark Kent, Luthor and Lois Lane are, as ever, the most enthralling. It has always been fascinating with Superman lore that despite his immense physical power, his great nemesis is a mere mortal man; and this is played out extremely well.

Whenever things get a little too cartoonish, such as the arrival of the aforementioned lizards or even a pair of horny time travellers named Samson and Atlas, the film becomes less engaging, but thankfully these moments are quickly brushed over.

What remains is a Superman film that does not need to hang its head before its mighty live action predecessors. It retains some truly gorgeous visuals, including one at the end set within the Sun itself. It might not have Christopher Reeve, Gene Hackman and Margot Kidder, but it’s still a worthy addition to a great series of films. Because let’s face it, we’ve all erased Superman III and IV from our minds, right?

*** ¼ / *****

Cartoons aren’t kryptonite, folks.

The Crow

(1994)

Dir: Alex Proyas

 

Emo before emo was cool.

 

At one point in The Crow, Alex Proyas’ now sadly infamous 1994 supernatural action thriller, Brandon Lee’s recently revived Eric Draven sits atop a building in dark, rainy Detroit, clad all in black, strumming a melancholy tune on his guitar. It sounds daft. It sounds ridiculous. And it certainly is. But, boy oh boy, does it look nice.

Therein lays the dilemma of The Crow. Based on the 1989 comic book by James O’Barr, the film follows Lee’s Draven as he returns from the grave to wreak bloody vengeance upon the gang of pyromaniacs who raped and killed his fiancé, as well as offing him in the process.

It’s a fairly thin, unoriginal plot, taken right out of the Horror genre and transported to a noir action setting. If the word ‘emo’ had existed in 1994 it would have been stuck on this film like Eamonn Holmes on a buffet. There is nothing nice. Not one scene of daylight is featured throughout the entire 102 minutes, and rain covers every shot. The influence of such works as Ridley Scott’s 1984 Blade Runner or Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman are clear to see. Proyas, the man who later went on to make such underrated films as Dark City and I, Robot, clearly has an eye for the visual.

The Crow’s thin plot does suffer somewhat at times, but the sadly deceased Brandon Lee is enough of a morose, engaging presence to maintain our attention, whilst the always watchable, broken glass-voiced Michael Wincott chews the scenery with obvious and entertaining glee as the big, bad Top Dollar. The involvement of Rochelle Davis’ teenage Sarah and Ernie Hudson’s Sergeant Albrecht feels a little too narratively contrived, as a way to bring people into the story in an accessible fashion, which is disappointing, as a little ambiguity never hurts, and both of these characters go absolutely nowhere.

The Crow is flawed. Riddled with clichés, it runs dangerously close to accidental parody. But both Proyas and cinematographer Dariusz Wolski’s visual flair, and Lee’s solid yet sullen performance raise The Crow to a much higher, uh, perch. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

*** / *****

Megamind

(2010)

Dir: Tom McGrath

 

Let’s be honest, Megamind is the best film of the last few years featuring a blue protagonist. That’s right, James Cameron, I went there.

But enough of the random Smurf bashing, onto the review. Megamind is the large, blue brainchild of Dreamworks Animation and, of course, Will Ferrell. The year just wouldn’t be complete without at least five Ferrell comedies featuring him doing a funny voice. This time, that’s all we have: his funny voice.

Ferrell is Megamind, an alien right out of the Superman mythology, sent to Earth by his parents at a young age. Unfortunately for Mr. Mind, another infant refugee is also jettisoned from this exploding planet, and he just happens to be the much pinker, much more chisel-chinned Metro Man, voiced by Brad Pitt. Whilst Metro Man ends up with the wonderful upbringing, Megamind finds himself raised in a prison, where the case for nurture over nature obviously results in him turning to a life of crime. Unfortunately for Metro City, Megamind is actually able to defeat their great hero one day. But is being the supreme ruler of the world all it’s cracked up to be? For ol’ Blue, apparently not.

If, like me, you thought that Dr. Evil was far and away the best thing to come out of the Austin Powers series, Megamind will probably appeal to you. That is essentially who Ferrell is playing, only with his own comedy voice instead of Mike Myers’. Overall, it’s probably more fun than that other recent supervillain vehicle, Despicable Me, and that is mainly down to its lead. Ferrell’s character trumps Steve Carrel’s Gru at every turn. Plus, for all you wise and clever Arrested Development fans out there, David Cross is utilised far better in Megamind than Will Arnett was in Despicable Me, and that’s never a bad thing.

The animation is nothing spectacular, but it’s perfectly fine. Let’s be honest about these kind of films, as long as the colours are bright and pretty, we honestly don’t care, because we came to see Will Ferrell talk in a funny voice and run into things. Right?

*** / *****

Ron Burgundy’s feeling a bit blue.

Monday 18 April 2011

Scraping the Barrel

 

None of these deserve a full review quite frankly, which is why they are being merged into this all inclusive B-Movie review. It’s strange, after another evening spent throwing yet more hours of my sorry life down the bog, I still don’t feel as depressed as I did when I came out of the cinema after seeing James Cameron’s Avatar. Admittedly that might be because 3D films give me a headache even Shane MacGowan would flinch at, but it really comes down to the simple fact that where Cameron’s blue nonsense cost close to $200 Million, these shitty B-Movies barely registered on the monetary scale. They are, when it comes down to it, harmless. They’re not going to have any great affect of the film business in the long term.

And what were these masterpieces, I hear you ask?

Return of the Killer Tomatoes

(1988)

Dir: John De Bello

 

Well, we begin our grubby journey with the infamous Return of the Killer Tomatoes from 1988, the sequel (if you can believe it) to 1978’s Attack of the Killer Tomatoes. See if you can guess what the plot is from that great title. If you went with attacking tomatoes, you’d be wrong. Return is all about Anthony Starke’s clueless klutz Chad and his literally juicy girlfriend, Karen Mistal’s Tara, as they try to avoid her creator, the brilliantly named Professor Gangreen.

This has to be one of the most annoying films I’ve ever seen. If, like some of the other films in this review, it just featured monsters attacking people, it would be at least some fun. As it is, Return of the Killer Tomatoes is so up its own backside with winking its big fat, fruity eye at the camera and Jimi Hendrix-fucking the Fourth Wall into oblivion that what we get is just one great, smartarse, ketchup mess.

The only humour that can be derived from this film is seeing a young, mulleted George Clooney strutting his stuff. And guess what? He’s playing the same character in 1988 too. Come on, George. We know you’re a suave bastard; make more films like Syriana please.

¾ / *****

 

You say tomato, I say … what a piece of shit.

 

Crocodile

(2000)

Dir: Tobe Hooper

 

 

Next on the list is Crocodile. Yep, that’s the title. Again, I’d like you to try and guess the plot yourself with this one. Fortunately, this time you’d be quite right with the obvious selection of a crocodile. But not just any crocodile. It’s a big fucking angry crocodile with a grudge, and plenty of annoying, nubile Spring Break youngsters to gobble up.

Believe it or not, this Millennium masterpiece is actually from the man who brought you such genuine classics as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist. That’s right, folks, whilst Michael Bay continues to get work, a truly talented director like Tobe Hooper gets stuck directing bollocks like this.

And it is bollocks, I’ll be honest. It’s essentially just a series of very gory deaths at the jaws of a fairly terrible CG croc. But at least Hooper knows what he’s doing. He knows he doesn’t have a budget. He knows he doesn’t have a full model. And he knows all anyone watching a film like this really wants is to see these attractive wankers have their limbs chomped off one by one like a fat kid in McDonalds. He doesn’t waste time being a savvy prick like in Return of the Killer Tomatoes.

What’s funny is, with a better cast, Crocodile would actually be a pretty decent flick. Just look at this year’s Piranha, a well-made, smart and funny remake of Joe Dante’s 1978 original. That film had a budget and had stars like Elisabeth Shue and Ving Rhames to at least make it watchable. Crocodile has neither of those things, and so poor Tobe Hooper is left fighting a losing battle.

** / *****

 

Hell Comes to Frogtown

(1988)

Dir: Donald G. Jackson and R. J. Kizer

 

Number three B-Movie is a strange one. I give you Hell Comes To Frogtown from 1988, starring former WWF wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper. This one doesn’t quite have the easily decipherable title that the others do, so I’ll do my best to summarise the plot for you.

In a post-Apocalyptic future wasteland, Piper is the absolutely brilliantly named Sam Hell, a random wanderer, who just so happens to be the most fertile man on Earth. Lucky him. He is dispatched, along with a team of sexy and sassy scientists/soldiers to rescue and impregnate a group of equally fertile human women, who have been captured by a gang of mutant amphibians in the accurately named ‘Frogtown’.

Great stuff eh?

The funny thing is, Frogtown is actually not that bad. It’s certainly leaps and bounds better than Return of the Killer Tomatoes, and in the same category of fun as Crocodile. It’s helped by the fact that Piper is actually not that bad a leading man. Doing his best Han Solo impression, he wanders through this frankly bizarre plot with the same wide-eyed look that made him a star during his battles with Hulk Hogan. With some of the weird bastards he’d been wrestling all his life, the crappy, villainous frogs he was faced by here probably didn’t look that bad.

Frogtown actually has an excuse for the overtly sexy women accompanying Hell on his quest. His, uh, ‘Jewels’ need to be both protected and kept in a constant state of readiness, so it wouldn’t be much good having Susan Boyle sitting next to him giving him the eye. It would actually be interesting to see what a proper film would make of this plot, as it raises all kind of ethical issues, which obviously get about the same attention as they do in a Sex in the City film. Hell is essentially going to be impregnating these women whether they want him to or not, using a variety of drugs and other coaxing methods. Those of us who aren’t professional footballers would probably call that rape, but the film doesn’t touch on it.

It wants to be Mad Max with sex and frogs, from every dusty track to the crappy cars they drive - women would drive pink cars apparently - but it really, really isn’t.

* ¾ / *****

 

**************

 

The opening of Hell Comes to Frogtown concerns the usual apocalyptic tale. The world has ended in a flash of mushroom clouds and now everyone who survived need never worry about mortgage repayments again.

Why exactly does every post apocalyptic story have to begin in this way? I’m pretty sure we can figure out where we are. It’s clearly an apocalyptic wasteland. I can see that straight away.

Anyway, the film’s opening few segments actually have rather a lot to be praised about them. The cold, static perspective shot that kicks the movie off is a genuinely inventive one. The Statue of Liberty is shot like it is sinking into the rubble that surrounds it. The filmmakers actually show a modicum of clear shining talent with that shot because it does a job of subverting expectations. Moments later, a gloved hand reaches into the scene and picks the statue up and so we can see that it was just a tourist model all along. The rest of the movie never quite manages that same level of inventiveness again. The characters all suffer from a lack of imagination and dress up like typical Mad Max rejects. The guy holding the statuette at the start of the movie is a particular example of it because he appears to be clad entirely in an extreme bee keeper’s outfit, complete with a protective helmet to keep all those pesky radioactive bees out of his face. All this however is nothing when compared to what the inhabitants of Frogtown look like…

 

Lucky he hasn’t got opposable thumbs.

 

I think this is where most of my particular trouble with Hell Comes to Frogtown is rooted. The film as much as it might be thought otherwise given the title, is so much better before Hell gets to Frogtown. The rubbery looking frog things are just so dumb and also as far as I can recall are never explained properly in any way whatsoever. The second half of the film is just not as exciting as it so easily might have been. The filmmakers could have used their time far better by developing the first few parts of the movie instead. The stuff about his reputation for being a sort of big pimp daddy of the wasteland is far more interesting to me. The whole frog thing when it’s added into the mixture as well is I think too much craziness for just one movie to handle. Nevertheless Hell comes to Frogtown ends up as a decent B-movie flick but it’s just to put it bluntly never really in any risk of being mistaken for anything more than what it is – trash.

*/*****

“No wait! Keep the Austin Powers glasses on. It does something for me.”

 

 

Spiders

(2000)

Dir: Gary Jones

 

 

Next comes 2000’s Spiders from director Gary Jones. Probably the most genuinely disgusting of the B-Movies viewed, based solely on the fact that spiders are just fucking horrible, and a film about them fucking people up is always an uncomfortable watch, even if the actual eight-legged freaks themselves look about as convincing as Sylvio Berlusconi’s hair dye.

Like Crocodile, the plot is summed up by the oh so catchy title. There’s, uh, spiders. Think they’re friendly? NASA, in their usual cinematic wisdom, are conducting experiments in space with a rare breed of spider, which, as you might have guessed, goes a tad wrong, resulting in them bringing back down to Earth with them the most horrendous fucking creature imaginable. Of course, a trio of pesky young college reporters sneak into the top secret military base and witness the carnage that follows.

Spiders benefits from the same simplicity as Crocodile, understanding that the only reason anyone is watching this piece of shit is out of some sick curiosity at seeing people being ripped apart by a giant spider. Unfortunately, Spiders also suffers from that same old B-Movie disease that everything looks terrible, with shot after shot of someone writhing around on the floor with a crappy looking plastic spider on their face. The acting is on a similar level of shit, although one tightarse government agent played by Mark Phelan provides at least some entertainment as the angriest man in the world. But unfortunately even his scenery chewing and random doctor killing can’t save Spiders from the plughole.

* ¾ / *****

 

Return to Horror High

(1987)

Dir: Bill Froehlich

 

And last and most certainly fucking least comes Return to Horror High, a 1987 ‘classic’ from director Bill Froehlich and starring once again George bloody Clooney. How Clooney got the career he’s had after starring in these tedious turds is beyond me.

The plot revolves around a film crew who return to a high school where a series of grisly murders were previously committed, intent on making a film about them. Unfortunately for them, it seems as though the killer isn’t quite done yet.

Just like Return of the Killer Tomatoes, Horror High seems to forget what it is, a sodding B-Movie, and starts to think it’s The Sixth Sense. Which is the film and which is reality? How are we supposed to care about this when the acting and everything else is so turgid that it’s hard to pay any attention whatsoever? About the only fun to be had from this film is seeing George Clooney playing, you guessed it, a suave actor.

For a horror it lacks any chills, although one scene in which a science teacher is dissected whilst still alive is rather creepy and bumps the overall rating up a smidgen. Other than that, there’s not much fun to be had from this crap. Like Return of the Killer Tomatoes, it disappears up its own rear end fairly quickly, and just keeps on going. Even hearing Alex Rocco of The Simpsons fame can’t save this cinematic massacre. An episode of Itchy and Scratchy would be more effective.

¾ / *****

 

The mullet is mostly hidden away in this movie. For decency’s sake it has to stay under the policeman’s hat.

Sunday 17 April 2011

Source Code

(2011)

Dir: Duncan Jones

 

Source Code is such a positive film. Not positive in its plot exactly, but it’s hard to leave the cinema after seeing it without feeling good about both the world and, more importantly, the future of movies.

It’s pleasing on two fronts. First of all, it continues the trend of intelligence that is slowly creeping back into the realm of big Science Fiction pictures. Christopher Nolan’s Inception obviously set the modern standard last year, but even before that we had the underrated District 9 from Peter Jackson’s South African protégé Neil Blomkamp, and even Duncan Jones’ own Moon; and earlier this year we had the latest Philip K. Dick adaptation in the form of George Nolfi’s The Adjustment Bureau. Intelligent, exciting, slick Sci-Fi thrillers that make you proud to be a fan of the much maligned genre, something which James Cameron’s Avatar and Michael Bay’s Transformers flicks certainly did not. And also, it becomes the second consecutive hit for new director Duncan Jones, and God knows we need more creative brains like him in Hollywood.

Source Code features Jake Gyllenhaal’s Captain Colter Stevens, a US Army Pilot, who wakes up on a train opposite the lovely Michelle Monaghan, who seems to think he is someone else entirely. As it turns out, Stevens is in fact in the ‘Source Code’, a computer programme that allows you to live the last eight minutes of someone’s life. Those eight minutes mean rather a lot on this train, as it is destined to explode, and Stevens must discover the bomber to prevent further attacks.

Some people may decry Source Code for its overly intelligent plot, but that’s exactly what great Science Fiction is. They’re ‘idea’ pictures. And director Duncan Jones has a great one here. It’s hard to describe what is only Jones’ second feature accurately, with its combination of films such as Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day, Terry Gilliam’s Twelve Monkeys, and even the aforementioned Inception blending seamlessly.

Gyllenhaal is fantastic as ever, carrying the film effortlessly, whilst Monaghan is lovely enough as his doomed fellow passenger, and Vera Farmiga’s straight and serious computer programmer provides some much needed restraint amidst all the chaos aboard the locomotive.

Visually Source Code is fairly straight forward, although the scenes of Stevens within the computer system are so dark, grimy and bleak that they are reminiscent of the murkiness of the future world inhabited by Bruce Willis in Twelve Monkeys.

The ending will no doubt split people right down the middle, but I feel, just like Inception did, that it retains enough sweet, succulent ambiguity to be interpreted in any number of ways, and so long as Duncan Jones doesn’t tell us what is really going on, everyone can go home happy.

**** ¼ / *****

“I was excited at the prospect of a film about the formula for creating the perfect sauce.”

 

Time Travel versus Alternate Reality Travel

 

One of the most overused science fiction movie tropes is that of a good time travel narrative. The once rich seam has been rather relentlessly mined away by many of your budding science fiction writers. The cinematic gold once contained therein has probably all but withered away. So then where to go next? The answer apparently is the direction Source Code takes. The infinite number of alternate (or is it alternative?) realities is the rather mind bending topic this movie attempts to explore. And for the most part it succeeds with aplomb.

Source Code is a big conceptual science fiction story that takes place almost all the time in either a narrow train carriage or in a cramped sardine like pod. The pod and the train are symbolic of the exact situation Stevens himself is in. He appears to be trapped, a prisoner of a military experiment. The reality bending, changing and jumping plot of this movie has an all too familiar effect of forcing you into what I like to call the Inception setting. Although that being said it’s not as ambiguous as Inception by any means. What the source code does is explained pretty comprehensively by the end of the movie. The reality we jump into each time is slightly different as it’s a new reality from the last. The version of Stevens from reality A each time travels backwards in time and then adjacently to form part of a new reality. It’s possible you’ll be left scratching your head by this but not I don’t think in the way Inception did. For a start, we’re never left questioning what is real like in Inception. But nevertheless, Source Code still makes you think and it is a million times more intelligent that a lot of the crap that is out there right now. This is great, solid, science fiction storytelling with a really strong and clever overall premise underpinning it all.

****/*****

 

 

In fact it was only as I was walking home and ruminating over the film’s plot that I detected a few issues that I had with it.

(Spoliers)

One – when disarming a bomb surely you would check to see if it had a back up mobile detonator hooked onto the back of it? Just turn the bag around Jake. Come on!

Two – He finds the bomb straight away and then I guess he forgets about it for most of the movie and only comes back to it much, much later....

Three – When he ventures outside in an early scene he has an absolute bitch death where he falls like a spaz in front of an oncoming train and gets his head caved in. I’m sorry but I just thought that was so clearly contrived. Almost as if the exact same scene from Final Destination 3 had got smuggled into the script by mistake.

Four – Whatever happens to Sean Fentress? He’s had his life stolen for pity’s sake. Oh, it’s all fine and dandy if Stevens gets to have coffee with Michelle Monaghan. But what is really strange about all this is that for such a big hero he seem to have no qualms about any of this body swapping skulduggery.

But really I’m just jesting.

 

By not respecting Donnie Darko this may happen to you too.