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AFTERSHOCK (2013)

Posted in 2013, Action Movies, Bad Situations, Disaster Films, Eli Roth, Escaped Convicts, Exotic Locales, LL Soares Reviews, Suspense with tags Andrea Osvart, disaster movies, Earthquake, Eli Roth, Escape Convicts, Lorenza Izzo, Nicolas Lopez, Nicolas Martinez on May 13, 2013 by knifefighter

AFTERSHOCK (2013)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

Originally, Michael Arruda and I were going to see this one and review it together for CKF, but something went wrong with the distribution. Instead of coming to a theater near me, this one popped up only in theaters way out in the suburbs. And it wasn’t playing near Michael at all. I figured we would just have to skip this one, but luckily it is currently showing on cable OnDemand.

I have no idea why this one didn’t get a proper release, but it’s a decent little disaster flick. The one recognizable star here is director Eli Roth, who has appeared in such Quentin Tarantino films as DEATH PROOF (2007) and INGLORIOUS BASTERDS (2009). I guess someone else finally decided to utilize his acting skills. Director Nicolas Lopez puts him in good use in AFTERSHOCK as an American tourist, hanging out with friends in Chile. (Roth also produced and co-wrote this one, by the way.)

The movie begins with Gringo (which is what the other characters call Eli Roth’s American in this one) and his buddies Ariel (Ariel Levy) and Pollo (Nicolas Martinez) seeing the sights and trying to pick up women in discos. Ariel is the insecure one who has just broken up with his girlfriend and can’t seem to get his dating rhythm going. Pollo is his roly-poly Zach Galifanakas-look alike Chilean buddy, who has a rich daddy and has a much more confident rap when meeting women. Gringo is along for the ride. He’s a recently divorced Dad who is so devoted to his daughter, he’d rather take a cell phone call from her than seal the deal with a horny local girl (in another, slightly humorous scene, Roth comes on to another American tourist, played by Selena Gomez in a cameo).

Eli Roth proves again that he’s a decent actor in AFTERSHOCK, here putting the moves on a fellow tourist (Selena Gomez).

It’s at one of these discos, an underground club, that the guys get stuck in the middle of an earthquake. But first, they meet three girls who are also visiting from America: fun-loving Kylie (Lorenza Izzo), her uptight sister Monica (Andrea Osvart) who acts like a mother hen, and their Russian friend Irina (Natasha Yarovenko).

When the quake comes, the six of them run for their lives (unfortunately, Ariel loses a hand in the process) and by the time they make it to the surface, the entire town has turned into a violent, chaotic mess. They find at least one ally in a firefighter (Marcial Tagle) who Pollo and Monica save after his fire truck crashes.

Not only are there earth-moving aftershocks that continue to cause injury and death, but a nearby prison has collapsed and a group of marauding, vicious prisoners has escaped, roaming the streets, intent on raping and killing just about whoever they come across.

AFTERSHOCK becomes a study in survival, as we eventually lose more of our heroes, either to the disaster or the escaped convicts. Who will ultimately survive, and who will die? You’ve got to see the film to find out the answer to that one.

The movie begins kind of slowly, with the guys going to a vineyard and various nightclubs, joking around and trying to get laid, before things really shift into gear, but I’ve never had a problem with characterization, and the time we spend with these guys just makes them more believable as people. The trio of girls is equally likeable.

The danger doesn’t seem to kick in until half-way into the movie, but once the first earthquake hits, director Lopez does a decent job building suspense and keeping the main characters constantly on the move. Once the action starts, it maintains a solid momentum until the end. He’s also not afraid to turn on the gore when necessary. The script for this one is by Lopez, Guillermo Ameodo and Eli Roth.

The cast is pretty good here. Standouts include Roth (who acquits himself quite well, and shows he deserves more chances to act), Martinez, who is pretty good as the most extroverted of the friends, and Osvart, who proves herself to be pretty tough when she needs to be. Interesting enough, a lot of the cast here also appears in Eli Roth’s upcoming Amazon jungle horror flick THE GREEN INFERNO, so it will be good to see them again (Guillermo Amoedo also co-wrote the script for Roth’s new one).

When the going gets rough,Monica (Andrea Osvart) proves she can be tough when she needs to be, in AFTERSHOCK.

AFTERSHOCK was filmed on location in Chile, and the setting is refreshing, especially in the small details, despite one character’s complaint that she was visiting the country expecting something “Third World, but cool..” (Note: because many of the characters are native Chileans, about half the dialogue is subtitled, and half is in English, in case that affects your particular movie-going experience).

Not the most amazing film you’ll see this year, but a serviceable thriller that will keep you watching until the end. I liked this one, and wish I had had the opportunity to see it on the big screen.

I give AFTERSHOCK, two and a half knives.

LL Soares gives AFTERSHOCK~two and a half knives.

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Cinema Knife Fight COMING ATTRACTIONS for MAY 2013

Posted in 2013, 3-D, Action Movies, Bad Situations, Coming Attractions, Disaster Films, Dystopian Futures, R-Rated Comedy, Sequels, Superheroes with tags aftershock, Coming Attractions, hangover 3, into darkness, iron man 3, the purge on May 3, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT – COMING ATTRACTIONS:
MAY 2013
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(The Scene: The interior of a HUGE laboratory, with STARK ENTERPRISES logos all around, and various Iron Man suits on display. MICHAEL ARRUDA &. L.L. SOARES enter lab.)

MICHAEL ARRUDA: Welcome to the Coming Attractions column for May 2013.

L.L. SOARES: Our time to tell you what we’ll be reviewing in the month ahead

MA: We’re here at Stark Enterprises not only because we’ll be seeing IRON MAN 3, the first big release of the month, the weekend of May 3, but because this place is humongous, and it’s symbolic of the blockbuster movies that are finally starting to roll out in theaters this month.

LS: Whatever. I’m just glad we’re here. I can’t wait to try on one of these funky Iron Man suits.

MA: I don’t think that’s such a good idea. Mr. Stark explicitly said we could do our review from here if we don’t touch anything.

LS: Since when do I care what you think?

MA: If you blow yourself up fiddling with one of those suits, don’t blame me.

LS: I won’t blame you. I’ll come back to haunt you though.

MA: Oh joy. Anyway, we kick off the month of May with a review of IRON MAN 3, opening in theaters on May 3. I love the Marvel superhero movies, and so it goes without saying that I’m really looking forward to this one.

The original film in this series, IRON MAN (2008) is one of my all-time favorite Marvel superhero films. The second one IRON MAN 2 (2010), not so much. I realize this is the third film in the series, and so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it played like a third film in a series and wasn’t so good.

But I really enjoy Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, and I like Gwyneth Paltrow a lot, and the Marvel films have just been so good, I think this one will play better than a third film in a series. Of course, I feel as if I’ve already watched IRON MAN 3, when I watched last year’s phenomenal THE AVENGERS (2012), which I liked even more than the original IRON MAN.

IRON MAN 3 features Ben Kingsley as the villain, The Mandarin, and Guy Pearce and Don Cheadle. It’s directed by Shane Black, with a screenplay by Black and Drew Pearce. Looking forward to it.

LS: Yay, the Mandarin is finally in an IRON MAN movie! The Mandarin, in the comics, is like Iron Man’s big villain, the equivalent of the Joker for Batman, so it’s about time he made it to film. I wonder if the Mandarin’s giant blue killer robot ULTIMO will be making an appearance – with today’s CGI efforts, they’d be able to do him justice, but I didn’t see any sign of Ultimo in the trailers. The Mandarin’s main powers emanate from rings on his fingers that involve alien technology, and he’s a criminal mastermind. It looks like they have changed him a bit for the movie, making him more like an international terrorist, which is okay, as long as the basic essence of the character is there. The fact that he is played by Ben Kingsley means we should get a decent bad guy in this movie. Let’s hope they don’t waste him like they did Whiplash (as played by Mickey Rourke) in IRON MAN 2.

MA: Yes, Mickey Rourke’s Whiplash was very disappointing, surprisingly so.

LS: Then, the weekend of May 10, we’ll be reviewing AFTERSHOCK. Looks like another “End of the World” type movie, with a cast that includes director Eli Roth. Roth also acted in Quentin Tarantino’s INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, 2009 (and his Grindhouse entry DEATH PROOF in 2007), so he should do fine here. Aside from that, I don’t know much about it. But I hope to be entertained.

MA: I liked the trailer for this one. It looks like it’s going to be an intense movie.

Moving right along, on May 17 we’ll be reviewing STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS, director J.J. Abrams’ follow-up to his successful STAR TREK (2009) movie, which was a reimagining of the classic 1960s TV show which I thought worked very well.

It’s been hush-hush with this sequel, as very little information has surfaced as to what this movie will be about. Even the film’s trailers haven’t given too much away, which is a good thing.

The cast from the first movie are all back again, and this is also a good thing, since they all did a terrific job the first time around capturing the personalities of the iconic crew of the Starship Enterprise. Chris Pine is back as Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto returns as Mr. Spock (he was phenomenal in the first movie), Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Anton Yelchin as Chekov, and John Cho as Sulu.

I’m looking forward to this one.

LS: Me, too. I enjoyed Abrams’ first STAR TREK movie. It actually held up pretty well, even though he kind of put his own spin on these iconic characters. So I’m expecting more of the same with INTO DARKNESS. Should be a good time.

On the weekend of May 24, we’ll be reviewing THE HANGOVER PART III (2013). Do we really need a PART III? I don’t know. I liked the original a lot, the second one wasn’t as good, but it had some big laughs. I’m sure PART III will have laughs, too, but where else can they go with this series? As usual, Hollywood gets a hit and they flog it to death. But maybe THE HANGOVER series still has more to offer. We’ll see.

MA: I’m looking forward to it. I’m actually looking forward to the entire month of May’s releases. I don’t know about you, but I’ve been largely disappointed with the movies that have come out so far in 2013, generally speaking. I’m hoping that May’s releases change this.

LS: I haven’t been too disappointed. I’ve seen at least four movies so far this year that might make my “Best of 2013” list, so I can’t complain too much. I’m usually not a big fan of brainless big-budget blockbusters, but this year’s crop of May movies look better than average.

MA: I can think of two so far that would make my “Best of” list, and we’re about to enter May, so like I said, I haven’t been too impressed by this year’s crop of films.

But I do love THE HANGOVER movies, although I recently re-watched PART 2 on Blu-Ray and didn’t find it as funny as I did the first time. Still, how can you not enjoy the insanity which surrounds Phil (Bradley Cooper), Stu (Ed Helms) and Alan (Zach Galifianakis)? The stories in the first two movies are just so over the top I find it nearly impossible not to laugh at them. I suspect the third film in the series will be just as nutty.

If you like your comedy with an edge, then THE HANGOVER movies are the films for you.

LS: Don’t gush too much. I guess THE HANGOVER movies have kind of an edge for mainstream R-rated comedies, but I really haven’t found them all that shocking. I do hope there is more of Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong) this time around, though.

MA: It’s directed by Todd Phillips, who directed the previous two HANGOVER movies, but once again it’s not the original writers penning the script. It’s written by Phillips and Craig Mazin, the same pair who wrote PART II.

We finish May with a promising thriller, THE PURGE, which opens on May 31. Starring Ethan Hawke, this dark actioner tells the tale of a futuristic society that allows crime to run rampant for one night of the year and what happens to one family in particular on this brutal night. From the producers of the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies and SINISTER (2012), this one is written and directed by James DeMonaco, who doesn’t have a whole lot of credits, but he did write the screenplay for the remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 (2005) which I remember liking a lot.

This one looks like it has promise.

LS: The trailer for this one looks really cool. And there are more sinister villains in masks, reminiscent of THE STRANGERS (2008). Ethan Hawke also had a really good showcase in his last movie with these producers—SINISTER, which I liked a lot—so I am eager to see what they come up with this time.

MA: Also opening on May 31 is the thriller NOW YOU SEE ME (2013), an interesting-looking yarn about a team of illusionists who rob banks. It’s got a great cast which includes Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, and Elias Koteas.

It’s directed by Louis Leterrier, who directed the CLASH OF THE TITANS (2010) remake, which I didn’t like, but he also directed THE INCREDIBLE HULK (2008) starring Edward Norton, which I really liked.

It’s written by Ed Solomon, Boaz Yakin, and Edward Ricourt. I hope to review this one solo as well on this last weekend of May.

LS: Yeah, if you review that one, you’ll be seeing it by yourself. However, I might be reviewing a few movies solo this month too, if they are showing near me. Some films coming out in limited release in May include THE ICEMAN, starring Michael Shannon as a real-life hitman and serial killer; the indie vampire movie KISS OF THE DAMNED; and the new movie by Ben Wheatley, who made my favorite film of last year, KILL LIST; this one’s called SIGHTSEERS, and I’m sure I’ll be reviewing at least one of these before the month is over.

MA: All in all, it looks like May is going to be a good month for movies.

LS: Okay, I have my Iron Man suit on. Now it’s time to take it on a flight.

MA (shaking head): I’ve got a bad feeling about this.

LS: Ignition! (Rockets ignite, blasting MA in a fiery ball of flame.) Oops!

MA (charred and smoking): Oops? That’s all you have to say?

LS: How about, “See ya!” (Ignites rockets and flies off into the sky).

MA: He really burns me up (drum beat). Anyway, folks, we’ll see you this weekend with a review of our first May movie, IRON MAN 3.

LS: Look out below! (LS in IRON MAN suits flies into the ground, creating a huge smoky crater.)

MA: Oops!

—END—

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This Year’s Christmas Turkey Review: BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, Animals Attack, Apocalyptic Films, Based on a True Story, CGI, Cult Movies, Disaster Films, Horror, Indie Horror, Just Plain Bad, Man vs. Nature, Message Movies, Strange Cinema with tags Alan Bagh, Animals Attack, Awful Acting, Birdemic, James Nguyen, So Bad They're Good Movies, Tippi Hedren, Whtiney Moore on December 25, 2012 by knifefighter

A Special Christmas Day Movie Review

BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010)
Review By L.L. Soares

Ever since PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959), started showing up on critics’ “Worst Movies of all Time” lists, people have been on the lookout for comparable bad cinema, and it’s not hard to find. But movies that are truly bad and yet very entertaining aren’t always so forthcoming. In recent years, we’ve seen some great examples of “So Bad It’s Good” cinema with films like TROLL 2 (1990) and Tommy Wiseau’s THE ROOM (2003).

For the past year or two, I’ve been hearing a lot about BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010) and how it deserves a place in the bad movie pantheon. I’ve been reluctant to check it out for some reason (what could be better than THE ROOM?), but figured that the time had come to finally subject myself to this one. And, it actually does a good job living up to its hype. It’s certainly bad, and yet it’s also quite enjoyably bad.

Directed by James Nguyen (who also wrote the screenplay), BIRDEMIC is what he calls a “romantic thriller,” in that the movie really starts out like a romantic film, but, as it progresses, the “thriller” elements make themselves known. In this case, the thriller elements amount to a low-budget “homage” to Alfred Hitchock’s classic, THE BIRDS, but with only birds of prey (eagles, hawks, falcons) involved.

The film begins by introducing us to Rod (Alan Bagh), a telemarketer who is waiting for that big day when someone buys the company he works for a fortune, and he can cash in his stock options and retire young. The thing is, Rod has a little trouble expressing his emotions, because he talks in the same monotone whether he is talking about stock options or declaring his love for someone (do you think it could be the fault of Bagh’s awful acting?). This guy just doesn’t show enthusiasm or passion very well.

So, his job is going well (and guess what company gets bought up by a rich parent company soon afterwards?), but Rod is lonely. One day, while eating breakfast in his usual diner, he notices that a girl at another table, Natalie (Whitney Moore), looks familiar and goes to meet her outside after she leaves. He gives her the line, “Don’t I know you from someplace?” and immediately your eyes will start rolling in your head, except she says, “Hey, yeah, you do look familiar.” Turns out they went to high school together, where she was pretty and popular, and he was probably invisible (she has no clue they were in the same English class back then).

Natalie is now a fashion model, and at first it looks like Rod is irritating her, but she soon gives him her number and suddenly shows interest. He says he’ll call her.

When his dream of early retirement becomes a reality, Natalie is the first person Rod calls (while he seems to be friendly with a guy at his job, I guess he doesn’t have a lot of friends). They go out to dinner and find themselves falling for each other. This is the romance part of the film.

About 30 minutes in, however, something goes wrong. After a chaste few dates, they decide to finally go to a motel together (although she leaves her underwear on and he’s fully dressed in their “love scene”). When they wake up the next day (still in their clothes!), there are birds screeching outside their window, trying to get in.

What the hell is going on? It seems that some of the world’s birds have suddenly turned deadly. The reason that most of the characters in this movie give for this scary turn of events is global warming. In fact, before the birds show up, Rod and Natalie double-date with another couple and go to the movies. What do they see? The Al Gore documentary AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH (2006). Not very heavy-handed, is it?

Rod and Natalie wait until the birds go away before they leave the motel room. They find another couple downstairs who have survived as well and, armed only with clothes hangers, somehow make it to a SUV alive and drive away. The birds hover above, constantly screeching. We never see them actually bite anyone, but after they hover around you long enough, you’ll end up on the ground, bleeding. Probably with your eyes poked out. Scary stuff!

With a seemingly unlimited supply of ammunition, the survivors drive around, shooting at the birds, hitting a lot of them (they spurt blood and drop to the ground, kind of like in a video game). Eventually they save two kids whose parents have been killed by the birds, and they just drive around, trying to figure out what to do next, and where to go. But nowhere seems safe.

Along the way, they try to save people in trouble. One particularly hilarious scene involves a double-decker bus where the birds have trapped some passengers who are screaming for help. Our heroes stop and Rod starts shooting at the birds (they just start shooting in the direction of the bus, but somehow don’t break any of the windows or hurt any of the people inside), while some of the others go inside to grab the people in there and pull them out. Turns out they were better off inside the bus. Once outside, the people who have been “saved” get splashed with some kind of liquid by the birds (bird poop?) and start to scream and disintegrate as if they’ve been doused with acid. So much for saving the day!

Sometimes you just shouldn't get out of the bus. Just asking these unlucky souls from BIRDEMIC.

Sometimes you just shouldn’t get out of the bus. Just ask these unlucky souls from BIRDEMIC.

We’re also never sure how many people are left in the world. Most of the time, Rod and Natalie and their “friends” drive around empty highways with no signs of other people. We think they’re the last people left on Earth. Then they’ll be parked somewhere, and we’ll see tons of cars driving by in the distance (oops!). So is this the end of the world or not??

Another funny scene involves them getting to a gas station where a guy who can barely speak English tells them that because of the gas shortage it will cost them a hundred dollars a gallon! Instead of just shooting the guy, they pay him, but drive away in the middle of pumping the gas when some birds show up. Soon afterwards, a guy in a cowboy hat (Joe Teixeira) pretends to have car trouble. When they pull over to help him, he holds them up, pointing a gun and demanding their gas. Rod goes in the back to get an extra gas container. The guy takes it and is immediately killed by a low-flying bird that slits his throat with its beak. He drops the container of gas and—instead of grabbing it and putting it back in the car—Rod just leaves it there and runs back to the driver’s seat and drives away. Maybe five minutes later, they run out of gas! Duh!

They stop at a few places, and this gives them a chance to hear some words of wisdom, as cheesy characters pop out of nowhere to pontificate about the consequences of global warming. These include a doctor wearing a surgical mask named Dr. Jones (Rick Camp), who goes on to explain what’s going on (that global warming crap again). Later, they come across a character called “the Treehugger” (Stephen Gustavson), some weird hippie guy who lives in a treehouse up in some redwoods and who speaks for the trees (what is he, the Lorax?).

If they hover around you and screech for ten minutes, you are probably doomed.

The acting is just short of abysmal. Whitney Moore as Natalie is easily the most talented one here. But male lead Alan Bagh as Rod is just laughably bad in every scene he’s in. Even funnier is an interview on the disk (one of the extras) where director James Nguyen speaks glowingly to a (really bad) interviewer on cable access television about how good BIRDEMIC is. You just know that after it became a cult classic for being so bad, he probably went the Tommy Wiseau route, declaring that he made the movie so bad on purpose. That it was meant to be a comedy. But here, in this interview, Nguyen is pretty serious and talks as if BIRDEMIC is a really important message movie.

Oh yeah, and there is an appearance by a big-name actor in this one. It’s Tippi Hedren in some footage from an earlier James Nguyen movie, JULIE AND JACK (2003), that is used again here in a “blink and you’ll miss it” moment. How’s that for star power? The thing is, I watched the movie twice, and I still can’t tell you where the scene is.

With bad acting, lame-ass gunfire (it’s obvious the guns are fake and little CGI blasts show up around the nozzles when they’re fired, along with sound effects), really pathetic CGI birds (the screeching alone will drive you mad) and a script that gives you more belly laughs than life lessons, BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR is a completely inept, but thoroughly entertaining, journey in the land of truly awful cinema.

And if you’re good in 2013, Santa might just bring you a special treat called BIRDEMIC 2: THE RESURRECTION, which is rumored to be coming out next year.

What are you waiting for? Go check this one out. As William Carl would say in his “Bill’s Bizarre Bijou” column, “You won’t believe your eyes!” Especially if they’re pecked out by CGI birds.

Coming to an abandoned theater near you in 2013.

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Cinema Knife Fight: THE GREY (2012)

Posted in 2012, Action Movies, Animals Attack, Cinema Knife Fights, Disaster Films, Man vs. Nature with tags cinema knife fight, frank grillo, Joe Carnahan, liam neeson, Man vs. Nature, The Grey, Wolves on January 30, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: THE GREY (2012)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: A vast snowy wasteland. L.L. SOARES is warming his hands by a crackling fire, while a wolf turns on a spit. MICHAEL ARRUDA looks disgusted)

MA: Do we really have to eat a wolf? It smells awful!

LS: Are you kidding? I’ve got a bottle of STUBB’S Real Texas barbecue sauce right here. It makes any meat taste great.

MA: How’s it on skunk? Anyway, what are you doing with a bottle of barbecue sauce in the middle of Alaska? Are we doing commercials now?

LS: Hell, I bring it everywhere! Makes meat taste better. You’re lucky I’m not eating YOU after that big plane crash.

MA: And that’s supposed to make me feel better? Just make sure you fill your gut with plenty of wolf meat so you satisfy that voracious appetite of yours.

LS: I dunno. This cold air is making me plenty hungry.

MA: That’s what I’m afraid of. We’ll just find you a nice supply of berries, nuts, and pine cones.

LS: I’m not eating that crap!

MA: Put some of that magical barbecue sauce on it, and it’ll taste just fine. You said it makes everything taste great.

LS: No, I said it makes any meat taste great!

MA: Anyway, how about we get off the subject of food, and you take a break from cooking and start our review of the new Liam Neeson movie, THE GREY?

LS: Okay.

THE GREY is a movie about a team of guys in Alaska who are working for an oil drilling corporation. Liam Neeson plays Ottway, a guy who was hired to shoot wolves if they get too close to the workers. He and a bunch of other guys take a plane to Anchorage for some R&R and it crashes.

MA: Yeah, that crash scene is pretty intense. I loved the way it was shot, entirely from the inside of the plane, so you’re feeling like you’re right there with the passengers, and we’re spared any potential fake-looking CGI planes crashing into the ice. It’s a riveting sequence that takes full advantage of people’s fear of plane crashes.

LS: Yes, it is rather intense, isn’t it? I thought the crash was very well done.

Anyway, after the crash, Ottway wakes up in the middle of nowhere, covered in snow. He goes over the next hill and sees the plane in pieces and only a few guys alive after the crash.

There are bodies everywhere, and Ottway, being an expert in the local animals, takes charge and instructs everyone in what to do to stay alive. Some of the people question his authority, until the wolves start hovering around.

The movie becomes a quest for survival, as Ottway and the rest of the survivors struggle to stay alive. Knowing that the chances of a search party finding them are slim, they decide to keep moving. This entails not only keeping an eye out for vicious wolves, but also struggling to stay warm in sub-zero temperatures, and trying to maneuver through knee-high snow (with blizzards on the way). It’s rough going, and even though these guys survived the plane crash, there is no guarantee they are going to live to see civilization again, especially with those wolves constantly on the edges of the darkness, waiting to pick them off, one by one.

I really like Liam Neeson, and he’s been on an action movie roll lately, with starring roles in films like this one, and TAKEN (2008) and UNKNOWN (2011). Neeson is starting to become a one-man industry all by himself, regularly turning out interesting action movies. Sort of like another entertaining actor, Nicolas Cage.

MA: I tend to enjoy Neeson a bit more than Cage, but I think you’re dead-on about Neeson becoming a one-man industry. People I talk to always cite Neeson as one of their favorite actors, and I know the theater I was in last night was packed. I’m guessing they were Liam Neeson fans. It’s not like this movie had a lot of hype or an amazing trailer. If anything, the trailer was rather boring.

LS: Yeah, I didn’t think much of the trailer for THE GREY and I was bummed out that we had to see this one. I went into that theater with zero expectations.

MA: Me, too. I was ready to call THE GREY, “The Blah.”

LS: I just expected another by-the-numbers action movie. But I was completely wrong. THE GREY was something completely different. And it captured my imagination.

MA: Ditto. I really didn’t think I was going to like this movie, but I ended up liking it a lot. And again, I have to agree with you about it capturing the imagination. That’s what made this movie work so well. It really was a step above your standard action movie, thanks largely in part to a well-written script by Joe Carnahan, who also directed, and Ian Mackenzie Jeffers, based on a short story by Jeffers called “Ghost Walkers.”

LS: Carnahan is a pretty interesting director. He gave us some quirky action/crime flicks in the past, like NARC (2002) and SMOKIN’ ACES (2006). He also directed the recent movie version of THE A-TEAM (2010)— which also featured Neesom in the ensemble cast. Carnahan does a terrific job with THE GREY.

(FROSTY THE SNOWMAN approaches the guys)

FROSTY: Hey guys, I’m really c-c-cold out here. Mind if I come sit by your fire?

LS: Sure thing, Frosty, take a load off.

MA: Is that really a smart idea?

FROSTY: What do you mean? Are you trying to say you don’t want me to join you guys?

MA: No, no, not at all. It’s just that you’re made of snow and….

FROSTY (sits down next to fire): Ahhhhh! This is the life.

(FROSTY promptly falls asleep.)

MA: You know he’s not going to last the night.

LS: Are you kidding. He won’t last the hour! I just added a lot more kindling to the fire. Frosty isn’t the brightest bulb in the tulip patch.

(MA and LS laugh)

MA: Ultimately, THE GREY is about death and how we face it. As you would imagine, in a movie about a small group of plane crash survivors stranded in the brutally frozen Alaska wilderness, hunted by a pack of wolves that are upset because these survivors have landed too close to their den, there’s a lot of death scenes in this movie, and so there is ample opportunity to address how people deal with death.

It gets into faith in God vs. faith in the here and now, and a recurring theme is not being afraid of death. It’s about meeting death on your own terms, because you know what? It’s inevitable.

LS: It also washes over you like a warm wave, if Neeson’s character is to be believed. He tells a character this early on who is about to die.

MA: Yes, early on in the film, there’s a scene where one of the survivors is bleeding out, and Neeson’s Ottway tells him straight out, you’re going to die. Ottway then guides him, in the gentlest yet confident way, to his death, asking him who he loves and telling him to let that person take him to where he’s going. It’s a poignant scene, and sets the stage, thematically, for the rest of the movie.

LS: It is a poignant scene. And not what you’re expecting when you sit down to watch an action movie. I have to admit, that I really started to care about these characters, especially Ottway, as the movie continued.

Another thing about Neeson is, the movie opens with his character trudging through the snow at night, and a voiceover where he’s talking to us. Normally, I hate that kind of thing, but when Neeson does it, it’s strangely reassuring. Like “this is a Liam Neeson movie, and you’re in good hands now.”

Along with Neeson, there are some great performances by Frank Grillo (some people may remember him from TV shows like PRISON BREAK and he was the father on the short-lived, but pretty good, supernatural series THE GATES)—in THE GREY he plays a hard-ass ex-con named Diaz who is Ottway’s nemesis for a lot of the movie, and he steals several of the scenes—and Dallas Roberts (from shows like THE GOOD WIFE and the AMC series RUBICON) as Hendrick. The supporting cast is actually quite good here, but it’s clear from the start that Neeson is the main attraction.

MA: I liked those two guys a lot, too. I also enjoyed Dermot Mulroney as Talget. The scene where Talget, a man who is afraid of heights, has to cross a high cliff on a wire to reach the tall trees for safety, is another exercise in intensity, well-executed by both the actor and the director.

LS: That is a great scene. This movie is full of them. Scenes that could have been generic action sequences, but because of character idiosyncrasies or fears, they’ve been turned into something more personal.

MA: Joe Anderson is also memorable as Flannery, a guy who seems to have a negative comment about everything and quickly gets on his fellow survivor’s nerves. Anderson was even more memorable as Deputy Russell in THE CRAZIES (2010).

I liked that for the most part, these actors were unrecognizable. It added to the believability of this tale.

LS: Yeah, I really could not identify who they were until the end credits rolled. Aside from Neeson, nobody looks very familiar here.

MA: And speaking of believability, I agree with you that Neeson is the main attraction, mostly because he is so believable. After the crash, Neeson’s Ottway immediately takes charge, and like the audience, several of the survivors initially question why Ottway is qualified to lead them. Ottway professes his knowledge of wolves and survival, and Neeson makes us believe every word and action that comes from this guy.

LS: Yeah, at first some of the other guys are like, “Who the hell are you to tell us what to do?” But it’s gradually clear that he’s the only one who really knows what he’s doing, and Neeson does seem like a natural born leader.

MA: There’s a great scene where Diaz challenges Ottway, and Ottway decks him and knocks him on his ass, and he gets in his face and tells him straight out that he is not going to put up with his crap. It’s a commanding moment, and Neeson pulls it off without a shred of doubt.

LS: Yeah, not only is Ottway the smartest guy in the group, he can also kick ass when he needs to.

My one complaint about THE GREY is that the movie does move a little slow in spots. A few scenes seem to last a bit longer than they should. But, as it progressed and developed its own odd rhythm, it really won me over.

MA: Yep, there were some slow parts.

LS: Even the way it’s paced isn’t like a normal action movie.

I found the odyssey of these guys in their struggle for survival to be really compelling. I also found some of the more personal moments involving Neeson’s character to be especially moving, since they deal with the character’s loss of his wife, something that Neeson experienced himself not too long ago in real life (his wife, actress Natasha Richardson, died in 2009 after a skiing accident). The scenes where Neeson thinks back about his wife really have a strong kick to them. You believe that he is a man in pain. In fact, at the beginning of the movie, before the plane crash stuff even happens, Ottway contemplates suicide. And yet, when they’re struggling to stay alive in the aftermath of the crash, Ottway is also the one guy who most desperately clings to staying alive.

As the movie progressed, it drew me more and more into the story of these characters. And by the end, I really grew to like this movie a lot.

MA: Same here. Like you, I really enjoyed Ottway’s personal story, and I thought Neeson handled this terrifically. Although I liked Neeson in UNKNOWN a lot, I thought his performance here was better, deeper, and richer. He makes so many movies we tend to forget just how good an actor this guy can be.

As much as I liked the entire package of THE GREY, I found myself liking Neeson the most. But the whole film is great. Director Joe Carnahan creates several memorable scenes in this movie. The aforementioned crash scene is about as riveting a crash scene I’ve watched in a long time.

I loved the sequence where they have to cross over the cliff to the pine trees on a makeshift line. The scene where Hendrick falls into the river is another nail-biter. And then, pretty much any scene where the wolves were involved.

LS: The scenes with the wolves are well done, and suspenseful. You never know when they are going to strike. They almost take on a supernatural aspect as the film progresses, as if they’re everywhere.

And that scene with Hendrick in the icy river – man! That might just be the most intense scene in the whole movie.

MA: I liked the look of the wolves in this one. They looked much better than the CGI werewolves we’ve seen in the movies the past few years. Sure, one of the reasons they look so good is the scenes they’re in are so damn scary, but another reason is we hardly ever see them clearly. We see them at night, or in the snow, or in a mist, and this isn’t a cop-out, but an effective use of special effects to really make the wolves a credible threat in this movie.

LS: Yeah, you won’t soon forget those glowing eyes in the darkness. And you’re right. The wolves in this one are scarier and more threatening than anything in the TWILIGHT Saga, or the latest UNDERWORLD flick we just saw. This is the way scary wolves should be done!

MA: The wolf scenes are genuinely unnerving. I really believed the men’s lives were in danger from these animals, and I found myself looking behind these guys, expecting a wolf to come out at any moment. The wolf scenes in this film were that good.

(Behind MA & LS, run a pack of WOLVES followed by a SHEEP.)

SHEEP: Wait up guys! Are we there yet?

WOLF: It’s right around the corner.

SHEEP: I’m starving. What’s on the menu?

WOLF: You— I mean, you’ll see. (to LS): Hey mister, can we borrow your barbecue sauce?

LS: Are you kidding me? Have you seen what I’m roasting?

WOLF: Gulp! Forget I asked.

(WOLVES flee, followed by the SHEEP)

SHEEP: Wait up guys! Hey, was that man back there roasting a wolf? That sounds good! (Looks at camera and smiles, revealing rows of mega-sharp silver teeth.) What? You think all sheep are herbivores? Think again! (Exits)

MA: That was freaky.

LS: Well, it’s time for us to give our ratings. By the end of this film, it had won me over completely. I give THE GREY ~ three and a half knives.

MA: I liked this one a lot too, and enjoyed it from beginning to end. That being said, I wasn’t overly crazy about the ending. It was a little bleak.

LS: There you go again with your “I can’t stand bleak endings” attitude. What a wuss. Here. Put these on. (Puts a pair of Mickey Mouse ears on MA’s head.) Go smile and wave at little kids.

MA: I didn’t hate the ending. I just wasn’t crazy about it. I’d go on, but I don’t want to give anything away.

LS: That’s good, because I don’t’ want to talk about the ending too much either, but I will say that what happens stays true to the movie up to that point. This isn’t an easy movie where everything magically falls into place. There’s a certain honesty to it—another thing that sets it apart from your typical action movie. And the ending harkens back to a poem Ottway’s father had written when he was a kid and that he knew by heart.

A lot of the movie was like this—little powerful moments spread out throughout the journey—just a really good script.

MA: And the title of the movie, THE GREY, aptly describes the tone and themes of this film. THE GREY is rather gloomy, albeit exciting.

But all in all, like you, I liked THE GREY a lot, and I’m giving it three knives. I almost gave this one three and a half knives, but the dreariness factor prevented me from doing so.

LS: I still say you’re a wuss, Mickey. Anyway, we done? I’m hungry.

MA: Yeah, we’re done. How’s that wolf coming along? Well-done enough for you?

LS: Dammit! I got so carried away with the review I forgot to check on the wolf. It’s burnt! Oh well, lucky thing I got my STUBB’S.

MA (steps in a puddle): Where did this come from? I almost slipped in that mud.

LS: That is our good friend Frosty!

MA (laughs): Here, have a pine cone appetizer (tosses him a pine cone)

Well, folks, that’s it for now. We’ll see you next week with a review of another new movie.

LS: I wonder if you can smoke this thing? (Lights pine cone and takes a puff.)

Not bad!

—END—

Michael Arruda gives THE GREY ~ THREE knives!

LL Soares gives THE GREY~THREE AND A HALF knives.

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Screaming Streaming: JUGGERNAUT (1974)

Posted in 1970s Movies, 2011, Action Movies, Disaster Films, Michael Arruda Reviews, Screaming Streaming with tags anthony hopkins, Juggernaut, Richard Harris, Richard Lester, Suspense on September 16, 2011 by knifefighter

SCREAMING STREAMING!
Movie Review: JUGGERNAUT (1974)
By Michael Arruda

My jaunt through the 1970s continues with today’s SCREAMING STREAMING! column, a look back at Richard Lester’s suspenseful disaster flick JUGGERNAUT (1974).

I loved JUGGERNAUT when I first saw it on TV back in the 1970s, and seeing it again today, I liked it even more. While JUGGERNAUT is a contemporary of disaster flicks like AIRPORT (1970), THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) and THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974), it has more in common with John Frankenheimer’s BLACK SUNDAY (1977), in terms of grittiness and edge-of-your seat suspense.

On the luxury liner Brittanic, Captain Alex Brunel (Omar Sharif) has little to worry about other than rough seas and keeping his lady friend Barbara Bannister (Shirley Knight) happy, until that is, Nicholas Porter (Ian Holm), the man who runs Brittanic’s parent company, receives a phone call from someone who calls himself “Juggernaut.” Juggernaut informs Porter that he has rigged the Brittanic with seven bombs that are set to go off within 24 hours unless Porter pays him an exorbitant amount of money. To demonstrate that he is serious, Juggernaut detonates one of his bombs immediately, and it causes only minimal damage. The others, he says, will sink the ship.

Porter informs all the necessary authorities, and to his disgust, he’s informed by the British government NOT to pay the money, not to give in to the demands of this madman Juggernaut. Scotland Yard dispatches Inspector John McLeod (Anthony Hopkins) and his team of agents to find Juggernaut before the bombs explode, and McLeod is particularly interested in this case because his wife and young kids are on board the Brittanic.

Bomb specialist Anthony Fallon (Richard Harris) and his crack team of explosives experts led by his protégé Charlie Braddock (David Hemmings) are sent to the Brittanic via military plane to diffuse the bombs, which are booby trapped. Fallon and his men must first endure a parachute drop into very rough seas to reach the ship, and one of Fallon’s men is lost in the drop. The rough seas also prevent Captain Brunel from lowering his passengers into lifeboats. They wouldn’t survive the treacherous ocean.

Fallon and his team set to work on diffusing the bombs, a process that quickly becomes a cat and mouse game between Fallon and Juggernaut. The bombs are housed inside steel barrels, so even the first step, how to enter the barrel- through the top? Through the sides? Through the sealed hatch in the front?— becomes a guessing game, and initially, Fallon and his team guess wrong and one of the bombs explodes.

Meanwhile, on land, McLeod and his team of Scotland Yard agents are having no luck locating Juggernaut, as they fail to turn up any promising leads. On the ship, as Fallon and his team get deeper and deeper into the bombs, the booby traps get trickier and costlier, until ultimately the solution comes down to a 50-50 choice- cut one wire and the bomb is diffused, but cut the other, and the ship explodes. As Fallon asks, is it the red or the blue?

The most impressive thing about JUGGERNAUT is that it’s a movie made for adults. So many of today’s movies are geared for teens, and, as a result, hard-hitting adult thrillers are difficult to come by. In that light, JUGGERNAUT is exceedingly refreshing.

JUGGERNAUT is a suspenseful edge-of-your-seat thriller that is compelling and thoroughly believable, not silly or superficial, and certainly not filled with elaborate CGI effects of bombs exploding on a cruise ship. Obviously, these effects didn’t exist in 1974, but the good news is JUGGERNAUT is a better movie without them.

JUGGERNAUT is driven by the strength of its talented director, Richard Lester, who makes this one gritty and even scary, a superb script by Alan Plater and Richard Alan Simmons, who create memorable characters by showing us what these folks do in times of stress and panic, and an absolutely wonderful top-notch cast.

Leading the way is Richard Harris as bomb expert Anthony Fallon. In Fallon, Harris creates a cool confident character who is certainly up to the task of solving the booby traps planted in the bombs by the evil Juggernaut. Fallon oozes confidence as he hums “Fallon’s the champion” repeatedly. But he’s not stupid, and he knows one wrong move and he’ll be blown to bits. Like the rest of his team, Fallon does his share of sweating, in moments captured brilliantly by director Lester in extreme close-ups during some of the more suspenseful bomb diffusing scenes.

Richard Harris as bomb expert Anthony Fallon in Richard Lester's JUGGERNAUT.

Harris had me hooked instantly when I first saw this movie when I was just a kid, and his performance is just as good now, all these years later. It remains my favorite Richard Harris performance. Harris, a fine actor, died in 2002.

Another favorite actor, David Hemmings, who I mentioned in my previous column on MURDER BY DECREE (1979), is excellent here as well as Fallon’s protégé and right hand man, Charlie Braddock. It’s my favorite Hemmings performance, and the sequence where Fallon and Braddock work as a team on two separate bombs, Fallon making the first move and Braddock following, the plan being that if Fallon makes a mistake and blows up, Braddock will correct the mistake and continue, is a classic, and is so brilliantly filmed by Richard Lester that at times the suspense is painful.

A very young Anthony Hopkins plays Scotland Yard inspector John McLeod, whose wife and kids are on the Brittanic, and Hopkins is excellent. Ian Holm (ALIEN [1979]) and Bilbo in the LORD OF THE RINGS movies) is also very good as Nicholas Porter, the man who wants to pay the ransom money to save the lives of the people on his ship and does not see eye- to- eye with his government’s decision to play hardball with the madman.

Omar Sharif makes a very distinguished Captain Alex Brunel, and JUGGERNAUT is blessed with a fine supporting cast as well. Shirley Knight is memorable as Barbara Bannister, the woman who’s vying for the captain’s attention, and when she realizes he’s not all that interested, and that she might die alone, she begins to wonder about her life’s worth. Clifton James, who played the memorable sheriff J. W. Pepper in the Roger Moore James Bond films LIVE AND LET DIE (1973) and THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN (1974), plays a politician here and makes the most of his scenes. Roy Kinnear [THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973), TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA (1970)] is social director Curtain, who has the dubious job of trying to keep the passengers happy, but he’s not a very successful “clown” and you get the impression that even on a normal cruise, Corrigan would have had trouble entertaining the guests.

And Freddie Jones— who debuted as the tortured “monster” in the Peter Cushing Hammer Frankenstein movie FRANKENSTEIN MUST DE DESTROYED (1969), and went on to play numerous madmen in the movies, and has always been one of my favorites— is Sidney Buckland, aka Juggernaut. He’s excellent here.

But the biggest star of JUGGERNAUT is its director, Richard Lester. The movie is chock-full of suspense, and it’s more than just the subject matter. It’s the style. There’s a real gritty feel to JUGGERNAUT which distinguishes it from Hollywood disaster pics like THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. Lester also does remarkable work with close-up shots during some of the movie’s more suspenseful scenes, as we get in real close to the characters’ hands and fingers as they cut wires and feel around inside the bombs.

JUGGERNAUT is full of memorable scenes. There’s the aforementioned bomb diffusing sequence involving Fallon and Braddock, which is intercut with scenes of the passengers dancing to fend off their anxiety; the scene where the little boy wanders into the bomb area; and McLeod’s frantic search for the bomber.

Richard Lester has always been one of my favorite directors, with films like the Beatles’ A HARD DAY’S NIGHT (1964) and HELP! (1965), THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1973) and THE FOUR MUSKETEERS (1974), and SUPERMAN II (1980). JUGGERNAUT is one of his best.

JUGGERNAUT works because it’s thoroughly believable. It tells an exciting tale of bombs on board a cruise ship and shows the professionals in a race against time doing what they do best to stop the disaster from striking. It’s well-acted, well-written, and deftly directed by a talented director at the top of his game. I bought it all, hook, line and sinker.

JUGGERNAUT is a classic of the “disaster” genre, just as powerful today as it was in 1974, maybe even more so since it was largely overlooked back then, as it was released in the shadow of bigger budget “disaster” flicks like THE TOWERING INFERNO (1974). Unlike those Hollywood big budget disaster movies, JUGGERNAUT is much more gritty and realistic, and as a result much more satisfying.

JUGGERNAUT is now available on streaming video. I recommend you take the voyage.

—END—

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CONTAGION

Posted in 2011, Apocalyptic Films, Cinema Knife Fights, Disaster Films, Disease!, Michael Arruda Reviews, Thrillers with tags Contagion, Gwyneth Paltrow, jude law, Kate Winslet, Laurence Fishburne, Steven Soderbergh on September 12, 2011 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: CONTAGION (2011)
By Michael Arruda

(THE SCENE: A crowded restaurant. MICHAEL ARRUDA sits alone at a table as a waiter approaches with a food tray. The waiter places a plate of food in front of MA.)

MA: Thank you.

WAITER: You’re welcome. Aaa-choo!!! (He sneezes onto MA’s plate.)

MA (looks at camera): Now, that’s contagion!

WAITER: I’m so sorry. Let me get you another plate.

MA: Yes, well, when I ordered the pasta and clam sauce, that wasn’t the type of clam I had in mind.

(Waiter takes plate and scurries away, coughing and sneezing on everyone in his path.)

MA: Welcome, folks, to another edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. I’m dining solo tonight, as L.L. Soares is out and about on another assignment. Tonight I’m reviewing CONTAGION, the new thriller by acclaimed director Steven Soderbergh, and featuring an A-list cast that includes Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, and Gwyneth Paltrow.

Does all this talent add up to a great movie? Let’s find out!

If you’ve seen the preview, you know the plot, and then some. Yep, CONTAGION had one of those previews that pretty much showed the entire movie. Why see the movie when you’ve seen it all in the preview? I seriously wish someone out there would do something about movie previews that give everything away. It’s a disservice to movie audiences.

Anyway, CONTAGION begins with a woman Beth Emhoff (Gwyneth Paltrow) returning home from a trip to Hong Kong. She’s sick with a cough, fever, and splitting headache. The next morning, she suffers a seizure, and her husband Mitch (Matt Damon) whisks her to the emergency room, where to his shock, she dies.

This same scenario plays out in other areas around the world, and suddenly the CDC (Center of Disease Control) is on the case, led by Dr. Ellis Cheever (Laurence Fishburne). He sends Dr. Erin Mears (Kate Winslet) to Chicago to investigate firsthand the case involving Beth Emhoff.

They discover that they are dealing with a new disease, and after some research, deduce that it most likely originated in Hong Kong. Dr. Leonara Orantes (Marion Cotillard) is dispatched to Hong Kong to learn more about the disease’s origins. Meanwhile, there’s a mad scramble to find a cure.

Journalist/blogger Alan Krumwiede (Jude Law) tells his readers that the real cure is a natural remedy called Forsythia, and that the government, CDC, and drug companies are ignoring this truth, keeping this cure from the public, so they can make money on their own new drug which they hope will treat the disease.

While the doctors search for a cure, ordinary people like Mitch Emhoff and his surviving daughter stay at home and hope for the best, while around them, the world begins to fall apart as looters take over, and law and order breaks down.

(Cue LAW AND ORDER theme music.)

MA (looks at camera with a puzzled expression) (Music stops.): That was weird.

The first word that comes to mind when I think of CONTAGION is restraint, and for a thriller, that’s not a good thing.

The movie gets off to a quick start. Things happen right away, as Gwyneth Paltrow’s Beth Emhoff gets sick right off the bat and dies within the first few minutes of the movie. From there, the film takes on an almost a newscast feel to it as we watch events unfold and follow multiple storylines as the doctors and scientists race to find a cure.

But the movie never hits a home run with this material. It moves along at a moderate pace and later, when things should be heating up, they don’t. For a film about a worldwide contagion, CONTAGION just isn’t that intense.

About the most intense thing in this movie is a neat scene early on (at least neat for horror fans) of an autopsy in which we hear the grotesque sound of the saw cutting into a skull and see a scalp peeled back. That’s about it for intensity.

There were certainly opportunities for intensity, but the film drops the ball with all of them. For example, when looters run rampant, and people are shooting and breaking into homes and stores, all of this tends to happen around Mitch Emhoff and his daughter, but none of it seems to directly impact them. I mean, nobody breaks into their home and holds them at gunpoint trying to steal food or medicine. I never really felt that they were in imminent danger. They seem to be safe inside their home the whole time. Ho hum.

By the end of the movie, this particular storyline had pretty much put me to sleep.

When Dr. Leonara Orantes (Marion Cotillard) goes to Hong Kong to investigate the disease’s origins, she is abducted and held for ransom, the ransom being the antidote. But is her life in danger here? Nope. In fact, she’s treated well.

And there are hardly any scenes of people dying, suffering, or panicking. This is a contagion!!! Why aren’t people going to pieces? They are, but the movie doesn’t really do a good job showing us this. CONTAGION is more interested in pointing out that we touch our faces an incredible amount of times per day, that it’s so easy to pass germs from just touching things like door handles, glasses, cups, etc., but don’t we already know this from dealing with flu season every year? At times, the movie plays like a public service announcement on how not to catch the flu. It certainly doesn’t play like a major theatrical thriller.

Another problem with CONTAGION is its multiple storylines. There are just too many characters. There really isn’t one strong main character to hold this film together, and the movie suffers for it. Sure, Laurence Fishburne’s Dr. Cheever is a nice guy, but nice guys can be boring, and as such, Cheever doesn’t carry this movie.

My favorite part of CONTAGION is the Jude Law storyline. His character, blogger Alan Krumwiede, is supposed to be shady, and I’m not sure we’re supposed to believe him. Trouble is, I found his arguments believable. When he talks about drug companies wanting to make money off the disease and purposely not telling the public about the homeopathic treatment Forsythia, it makes sense. In the real world, drug companies do often ignore natural remedies, and they do make tons of money off drugs that treat diseases rather than cure them.

With an A-list cast, it’s hard to find fault with the acting. As I just said, my favorite character was Alan Krumweide, and as such, I thought Jude Law delivered the best performance. But like Fishburne’s Dr. Cheever, he’s just one part of this movie and so, while he’s excellent, he doesn’t carry this movie.

I also really liked Marion Cotillard as Dr. Leonara Orantes. She’s fun to watch, and there’s an aura about her that makes it really difficult NOT to watch her. Cotillard, if you remember, was also excellent in INCEPTION (2010) as Leonardo DiCaprio’s wife, Mal.

Kate Winslet—coincidentally another DiCaprio love interest, in TITANIC (1997) —-is also very good as Dr. Erin Mears, and I wish she had been in the movie more. These three actors/characters probably fare the best.

Matt Damon is OK as Mitch Emhoff, the character audiences probably will most identify with, since he’s your everyday ordinary guy, but his best moments definitely come in the first half of the movie, especially early on when he’s dealing with the death of his wife. Later, his character and his storyline simply run out of gas.

(Behind MA gun shots ring out, and suddenly MATT DAMON is in hand to hand combat, kicking butt against several assassins. He makes short work of these guys, dusts himself off and waves at the camera.)

MA: Not that I want Damon to be typecast, but he’s certainly much more fun as Jason Bourne.

(WAITER reappears and sneezes on MATT DAMON, who promptly slugs the waiter in the face, sending him and his food tray crashing into a wall.)

MA: I guess I’ll get my food someday.

Gwyneth Paltrow is hardly in the movie, but I like Paltrow a lot, and so I did enjoy her brief screen time. Laurence Fishburne is also very likeable as Dr. Ellis Cheever, but he always seems to be outside the action. He’s always on the phone asking questions, getting information, and dishing out instructions. He never seems to get down and dirty.

Elliot Gould has a nice bit as Dr. Ian Sussman, and he has one of the better lines in the movie, when he confronts Jude Law’s Alan Krumwiede, attacking his credentials, saying, “Blogging is not writing. It’s graffiti with punctuation.”

Enrico Colantoni makes his mark playing the “heavy,” a government official named Dennis French, and Bryan Cranston is also memorable as Homeland Security Officer Lyle Haggerty.

So, you have all these fine actors displaying their talents, but it’s still not enough to save this movie, and that’s because there are too many of them, and no single player is allowed to carry this movie and take it to the next level.

Director Steven Soderbergh, [SEX, LIES, AND VIDEOTAPE (1989), ERIN BROCKOVICH (2000), and many others] crafts a film that succeeds in being entertaining for about two-thirds of the way through, before it simply runs out of steam. It does present a believable story—I buy that such an outbreak could happen—, and it does give us believable, likeable characters. Unfortunately, these likeable characters for the most part also happen to be boring. You’d like them helping you in a crisis, but you wouldn’t want to go out for a beer with them.

Scott Z. Burns wrote the screenplay, and while he succeeds in writing a believable tale with credible information regarding its threat, he doesn’t provide the whole package. What’s missing? The thrills!!! CONTAGION is boring! It’s about as thrilling as a PBS documentary on contagion. It’s interesting, no doubt about that, but it’s never on-the-edge-of-your-seat exciting.

CONTAGION simply lacks the necessary intensity to succeed as a thriller. I was never scared, never disturbed. I give it two knives.

(Waiter returns with a tray of food.)

MA: Well, it looks as if my dinner is finally going to arrive. (To waiter, who’s looking scary pale): Er, excuse me, but you don’t look so good.

WAITER: I feel terrible. I think I have a fever, I can’t swallow, I have a splitting headache, and—.

(WAITER passes out and lands face first into MA’s plate of food.)

MA (rolls eyes): I think I’ll just go pick up some fast food. Well, folks, thank you for joining me for another edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. L.L. will be back next week, and he and I will be reviewing another new movie. So long for now!

(MA exits the crowded restaurant, walking past the patrons and wait staff, all of them coughing and sneezing, and some of them collapsing onto the floor.)

—END—

Michael Arruda gives CONTAGION ~ two knives!

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SANCTUM (IN 3D)

Posted in 2011, 3-D, Action Movies, Daniel Keohane Reviews, Disaster Films with tags 3D, Alister Grierson, Dan Wyllie, Disaster Movie, Ioann Gruffud, James Cameron, Sanctum, Underwater Caves, View Master on February 8, 2011 by knifefighter

SANCTUM IN 3D
Film Review by Dan Keohane

SANCTUM (2011) is loosely based on the true story of Andrew Wright (SANCTUM’s co-writer, with John Garvin) being trapped while cave-diving (exploring underground lakes and rivers) with fourteen others for two days when the main entrance collapsed, forcing them to find a different way out. Very loosely-based, I assume, since I pray what happened in real life wasn’t as bad as what happens to folks in the film. Important note: SANCTUM is not a James Cameron-directed movie. He produced it (along with about six other producers… film producers are like bank vice presidents, you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting one). However, Cameron being the best-financed pioneer of REAL 3D (in which this film was shot), you know you’re in for a visual treat if nothing else, regardless of who directed (in this case, Alister Grierson, known mostly for short films).

Let’s talk about the 3D effects first – they were quite good, even excellent at times. Is it worth the extra money the theaters are taking from you? Well, that depends—probably not—in this case not because of the 3D wasn’t good, it was, but the story itself was weak. Unlike AVATAR (2009), where the story, coupled with the 3D effects, made it such a perfect combination, paying a little extra for the experience was well worth it. In SANCTUM, the combination of story and visuals is not nearly as strong to warrant, for most viewers I assume, the extra cost. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

There were some amazing things to see in SANCTUM. The opening scene of a helicopter flying over the massive hole in a South African rain forest, the entrance to the Esa-ala caves, was thrilling. I’m not sure if this is a real location or not. It could have been a uber-cool special effect, but I don’t think so. The carpet of rain forest broken by this deep, deep cave, in 3D, offers such depth on the screen that it almost takes your breath away. There were a couple of other moments in the film where this happens. For example, after newly discovering a massive cavern deep in the film’s elaborate cave system, the main character free-floats in deep, deep water off an underwater cliff. It’s beautiful. When he looks up, far, far above him is the underside of a surface, leading to a new cave… well, it’s simply an amazing thing to see, and feels like you’re there. Although there are other moments like this in the film—and here is an important point to make, especially when doing the inevitable comparison to Cameron’s visual masterpiece AVATAR—although the entire movie SANCTUM is in 3D, there are only moments when the audience will go “oooohhh” or “aaaahhhh.” The rest of the scenes, underwater or in a fresh air cave with our actors doing their acting-thing, simply have added depth. AVATAR had an advantage, in that more than half the film was a CGI-rendered world, and computer-generated images are much easier to monkey with and render for 3D than real-life action films. So, overall, SANCTUM was rich and deep, though I wasn’t constantly lifting my jaw to chew my popcorn as I had done watching AVATAR. In fact, I found myself comparing what I was seeing to my innocent, youthful days as a child, staring through my View Master 3D toy, looking at 3D-rendered scenes of PETER PAN (1953) or SPACE: 1999 (1975).

Truth in lending time: if I can digress for a second. When I was a kid, I was never too wowed by the View Master. It did not look very 3D to me. Until one day, in my teens, when my brother noticed I had one eye closed. I did that because I had trouble lining up both eyes at the same time. He explained that it’s not 3D without using both eyes. So I managed to line my eyeballs up and, well, wow. Those View Master images really were in 3D. So there’s an experience that would never be recaptured from my lost youth. I suppose if that’s the worst thing to lose from my youth, aside from my teddy bear, Teddy, who died of strep throat, I did alright.

Before I get into the Story part of the review, one last thing about the overall experience of SANCTUM. Although there was a plot, and there was acting—mostly good—I couldn’t shake the feeling that Linda and I were sitting in an IMAX theater watching one of those nature documentaries. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy those, but IMAX theaters have the added experience of starship-sized screens, and seats raised so high if a booger falls out of your nose it’ll land on the head of a person two rows down. Showcase Cinemas mostly have regular-sized screens. So if you see this movie, maybe try to watch it at an IMAX for the full effect. They’ll probably charge even more for a ticket, though. So, SANCTUM: there is a plot, and a story and fictional characters, like a real movie, so it has that going for it over the IMAX films. Sort of. To wit:

The basic plot of SANCTUM is that there is a labyrinthine series of caves snaking though a mountain in Papua, New Guinea. An expedition has been mapping these for months, trying to find a spelunking route, from the massive opening in the rainforest up top, to the water/river’s exit point at the base, where it flows into the Solomon Sea. Exploring and mapping these caves requires an expert combination of mountain climbing, cave spelunking, and deep-sea diving skills. The explorers repel into the bowels of the mountain, work their way through tight cave passages, then suit up and swim into deep waters of underground lakes and rivers, looking for the next open-air pocket cave from which to continue their explorations. In this manner, they work their way closer to the other end of the system. As the film opens, they’ve made it a good distance, hitting dead ends, returning to the base camp mid-way down, trying new pathways. Fortunately for our cast of characters, they make an important pathway discovery just before all soggy-hell breaks loose. If they hadn’t, well, we wouldn’t have much of a movie.

Leading the expedition is a rough and tumble explorer named Frank, played with, well, rough-and-tumbleness by Richard Roxburgh (VAN HELSING, 2004, MOULIN ROUGE, 2001). Roxburgh’s performance was by far the glue which held this film together. He played the part naturally, and with such confidence you believed he was able to lead such a hazardous expedition. Rhys Wakefield (HOME AND AWAY, 2008), played his angst-ridden teenaged son, and also had a terrific run in this film. I see some good things in Wakefield’s acting career, if his turn as son Josh is any indication. Not so with everyone in this film, however.

The film opens with the corporate director of the expedition—himself very comfortable with cave-diving and exploring—named Carl arriving to check on things with his girlfriend Victoria. Victoria is a mountain climber, too… though as we learn later, diving is not her forte. Ioann Gruffudd (Mr. Fantastic in the two FANTASTIC FOUR films, 2005, 2007) plays Carl, and though I thought he was great as a stretchy superhero, he wasn’t too convincing in his role here. In fact, Gruffudd’s performance was pretty weak. I kept thinking he looked a lot like Paul Reiser in ALIENS (1986), in many more ways than just physical appearance as the film went on. Still, Reiser was great in ALIENS, Gruffudd was not in SANCTUM. His girlfriend, played by Alice Parkinson (X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, 2009) played her part decently, and was convincing as a stubborn jock itching for adventure. I want to give kudos to the other major supporting actor, and by far the best of them: Dan Wyllie as George, Frank’s long-time friend and exploration partner. Adding a bit of humor to the scenes he was in, he also came across as a real person, and played the part of George in a natural, easy manner.

The concept and setting of SANCTUM is original and interesting, but I have to admit it was a bit predictable overall. A small band of people caught by nature and using their wits to escape, or trying to—in this case, it’s a typhoon that hits base camp early and dumps so much water into the cave system it floods, forcing our heroes to find a new way out, or die a watery death. SANCTUM is THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE (1972) played out underground. The world even feels upside down, an effect common in caves and diving. I assume. People talk, you hear things. When things get nasty, we have the characters led with calm confidence by Frank, trying to keep ahead of the water. Some don’t make it, of course. Without horrible deaths where would the tension come from? Good question. Let’s talk about that for a moment.

I think this film might have worked better without so many people dying. Being trapped in a cave, underwater—that’s not tense enough for you? No, Hollywood needs a cast of potential dead people in disaster films—and that’s what SANCTUM becomes—a disaster movie, with a strong hero and some characters who start confident and strong but go to pieces and cause havoc. Unfortunately, with such a great chance to creep an audience out simply with this claustrophobic, underground, underwater world, it falls quickly into a “see who escapes alive” scenario. It’s been done before, and so there’s less tension, knowing most of the characters will bite the big one before all is said and done, than if the writers kept them all, or most of them, alive throughout the film, and working together to get through it all.

A few plot turns did not feel natural, actions the characters took but which real people, in a situation like this, simply would not do if their life was at stake. Linda pointed out one specific moment which bothered her. Victoria refused to wear the wet suit removed from a dead woman, preferring to risk hyperthermia than do something so icky. This, from an experience mountain climber? No, she would have put the friggin’ thing on. Near the end, an action taken by a character (which I’ll not bother specifying for “spoiler” reasons) had the effect of “Oh, of course, this is the point where this person does this because it’s what they always do in these movies to make trouble for everyone else,” instead of “Oh, no, what is he doing? Stop!” Does that make sense? No? Ah, well. I’ll just say that Paul Reiser’s ALIENS character had a legitimate reason for turning on everyone.

In summary, SANCTUM was a visual treat. Not as good as other shot-for-3D films like AVATAR, but far better than other films, like THE LAST AIRBENDER (2010) which were shot traditionally, then converted. Again, the overall experience might have been enhanced if we’d watched it in on an IMAX screen, so try that if you have the extra moolah to see this movie. The story is not the strongest or most original, so you likely won’t walk out of the theater completely blown away by SANCTUM. If you have a 3D television and glasses at home, wait for the Blu Ray version to come out and save some money for a better movie. Otherwise, if you got your taxes back and have the cash, it’s an enjoyable film to watch, if not a bit average. Better yet, use your refund to go to the Museum of Science’s OMNI theater and watch MYSTERIES OF THE GREAT LAKES (2008). At least then, when you’re done, you can wander over and look at the cool dinosaurs.

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UNSTOPPABLE

Posted in 2010, Action Movies, Disaster Films, Michael Arruda Reviews with tags Chris Pine, Denzel Washginton, Rosario Dawson, Runaway Trains, Tony Scott, Unstoppable on November 30, 2010 by knifefighter

MOVIE REVIEW: UNSTOPPABLE (2010)
By Michael Arruda

What do you get when you put Denzel Washington and Chris Pine together on a runaway train? Unstoppable entertainment!

Well, almost.

UNSTOPPABLE (2010) is the latest teaming of director Tony Scott and lead actor Denzel Washington. It’s the story of a freight train accidentally set in motion by a nincompoop of an employee who carelessly allows it to take off on its own. Oops!

It’s Will’s (Chris Pine) first day on the job, and he is paired up with Frank (Denzel Washington), a veteran with 28 years experience as a railroad conductor. There’s tension between the two almost immediately, as Frank views Will as a threat to his job, since the railroad company has been forcing experienced workers into early retirement and giving their jobs to the younger men just joining the company. Will tries to tell Frank that it’s not that way at all, that he’s not after his job, but as Frank explains, that’s not how the majority of the workers see it.

Meanwhile, the company has a runaway train on its hands, giving the regional coordinator Connie (Rosario Dawson) a major problem to deal with, especially since the train is carrying toxic materials. If the train derails or crashes, it will explode, creating a disaster of epic proportions since it’s traveling through a densely populated area. To make matters worse, the higher-ups in the company are more concerned with how the incident will affect the company’s stocks, and so they make hasty decisions in order to quickly quell the situation.

These boneheaded decisions provide plenty of excuses to show some cinematic rescue operations, including an exciting sequence where the attempt is made to slow the train down by placing another train in front of it, while at the same time lowering a man from a helicopter so he can get inside the train and manually stop it. I guess these folks never watched the old AIRPORT movies from the 1970s. This sort of thing never worked, and it doesn’t work here.

Of course, as everyone expects, it’s going to be up to Denzel Washington and Chris Pine to save the day. Frank believes that the only way to stop a train that large going that fast is to come up behind it with another train, hook onto the runaway, and then gradually slow it down. And so, this is exactly what Frank and Will set out to do. How they go about doing this, and the problems they face, make for some exciting cinema.

There’s no shortage of excitement in UNSTOPPABLE. It is a little short on depth, though, but the exciting train sequences and fine acting performances more than make up for it.

Director Tony Scott, Ridley Scott’s brother, has a directorial resume a mile long, including three recent movies also starring Denzel Washington, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1,2,3 (2009), DÉJÀ VU (2006), and MAN ON FIRE (2004). While I liked MAN ON FIRE a lot, some of Scott’s movies have played like elongated music videos [He’s the man, after all, who brought us TOP GUN (1986)].

The acting is excellent. What more can one say about Denzel Washington, except that he almost always delivers a compelling performance. He’s extremely enjoyable to watch, and UNSTOPPABLE, while no classic, provides him with better material than he had to deal with in THE BOOK OF ELI (2010)) which we saw way back in January of this year.

Chris Pine as Will is just as effective here as he was playing Captain Kirk in the recent STAR TREK (2009) movie. When Pine and Washington’s characters decide to play hero, you believe them. You believe that they really would do this, and that they could pull it off.

Rosario Dawson also delivers a strong performance as Connie, the woman behind the scenes giving all the pertinent information—most of it bad—to Denzel Washington and Chris Pine. She also has the unenviable position of having to deal with the headstrong higher-ups in the company who constantly make the wrong decisions. Dawson recently appeared in GRINDHOUSE (2008) and SIN CITY (2005).

Lew Temple also stands out as Ned, Connie’s go-to guy in the company. Ned spends most of the movie chasing down the runaway train in his pick-up truck, accompanied by a police escort. His scenes are lively and memorable.

Then there’s the train itself. Huge, menacing, roaring along the tracks at speeds in excess of 75 miles per hour, it comes off as almost alive, like the uncontrollable beast in a giant monster movie.

In terms of suspense, UNSTOPPABLE doesn’t miss too many beats. Director Tony Scott is quite adept at setting up suspense scenes in the dramatic disaster film fashion.

Writer Mark Bomback, who also wrote LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD (2007), deserves credit for setting up a tight story (the movie clocks in at a brisk 98 minutes) about a runaway train and the two men who decide that they have the wherewithal and ability to stop it.

Where UNSTOPPABLE does lag is in its character development. While I enjoyed the two main characters, Frank and Will (as played by Washington and Pine) a lot, the movie would have benefited from more screen time from both of these guys. While we do get some background story on them, it’s mostly fluff. Frank has two beautiful adult daughters who he loves very much, and his wife had recently died of cancer. Will is separated from his wife and child, and the story of what precipitated this separation, Will’s jealous confrontation with a cop, is ludicrous and lame.

I also would have liked more screen time for Rosario Dawson. All three of these characters are compelling and believable, and the movie’s just begging for them to be in it more.

One thing I did find annoying were the CNN style scenes of “breaking news” coverage. I know, this was supposed to add to the realism, to make the movie more suspenseful, by making the audience feel as if the events in the movie were really happening, but all these scenes did for me was make me feel as if I were watching the news on TV, and I don’t like watching the news on TV. I found these scenes distracting, and they detracted from the movie’s cinematic feel.

But for the most part, UNSTOPPABLE succeeds in what it sets out to do, which is generate some pretty good suspense around a story of a runaway train.

UNSTOPPABLE is a high energy exciting thrill ride, and with Denzel Washington and Chris Pine at the helm, it soars all the way to its riveting climax.

I give it 3 knives.

—END—

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2012!

Posted in Apocalyptic Films, Daniel Keohane Reviews, Disaster Films, Science Fiction with tags 2012, end of the world, john cusak, mayan calendar, roland emmerich, say goodbye, woody harrelson on April 27, 2010 by knifefighter

DVD Review : 2012 (2009)
by Daniel G. Keohane

OK, well, this is a big movie, so let’s get right to it. 2012 is a good old-fashioned disaster movie – a disaster of Epic Proportions, yes, but still a disaster movie. Was it a good one? If I told you that in the first paragraph, you’d stop reading, so on we go:

Directed by today’s disaster master Roland Emmerich (who also gave us INDEPENDENCE DAY (1996), GODZILLA (1998) and DAY AFTER TOMORROW (2004), this film delivers what his movies usually offer: a lot of screaming people dying in disturbingly large numbers, a cast of hundreds doing a good day’s work and eye-popping special effects.

I popped this movie into the player not expecting anything more than to be entertained, and maybe a little depressed. Do that, this movie will blow you away.

2012 opens as all well-behaved End of World stories open, showing the earth from space with the planets aligning. Racing through 2009, 2010 and 2011 in the first five minutes, the stage is set for the coming carnage. The governments of Earth learn that its core is being microwaved by a new kind of neutrino from the sun. No special drill-ship is going to dig to the center of the planet and save us this time. In fact, nothing is. What follows are quick scenes taking place over the next couple of years. The world’s most beloved artworks are being replaced with perfect replicas. The richest people in the world are being asked for a lot of money to fund Something Big.

With the appropriate Ba-Doom of music, the year 2012 arrives, and we meet our characters and learn the status of the sun’s flares and weird neutrinos via background news broadcasts (a method which works well because we can actually hear what they’re saying without having to use subtitles)

From here on in, the End of the World (sorry, those words need appropriate Capitalization) is told through two distinct groups (with a million extras looking skyward and screaming in between): The White House, spearheading a secret project aimed at saving vestiges of the human race before it’s wiped out, and a fractured family thrown back into each others’ arms (there’s always a fractured family thrown back into each others’ arms in these stories) as they try to find this fabled salvation before they’re sucked into the bowels of the dying earth with everyone else.

Everyone playing a part in this film did a superb job. They took their roles seriously, seemed to put everything they had into their roles. More so than some of Emmerich’s earlier films. I enjoyed INDEPENDENCE DAY, but it felt a little campy at times. In 2012, everyone played it straight, and did so really, really well.

The best: tough call, but I’d have to say from the opening scene, I was very impressed with Chiwetel Ejiofor. He played science advisor Adrian Helmsley with such an understated intensity I immediately wanted more of him in the film, and was happy to learn he was the main character in the White House storyline. His co-lead, in the Hapless Family storyline, was John Cusak - also excellent as writer and estranged dad Jackson Curtis. Oddly In the two scenes where these actors shared the screen, however, it didn’t work. Not sure why, and I won’t waste your time trying to figure it out. No chemistry, or maybe it was simply two great actors dimming when their respective lights shone… sorry, it’s National Poetry Month as I write this. The best White House scenes were between Ejiofor’s Adrian and the Secretary of State, played by one of my favorites Oliver Platt. Platt’s Carl Anheuser is the no-nonsense, tunnel-vision leader of the project. The fate of humanity rests on him being as cold (and secretive) as possible. Against this, Adrian’s passion for the individual’s Right To Know constantly battled. Neither is wrong, and I appreciated that neither was elevated to the Noble Right Thing… until the end, which I was a little disappointed in.

Honorable Mentions: Thomas McCarthy as the hapless boyfriend of the ex-wife, a stereotype always thrown into the Fractured Family storyline as the scapegoat for the male lead’s angst. He was played as a nice guy. I enjoyed that about this movie – the filmmakers had a large canvas, and used it to full force on the Big Things, but took the time to throw in smaller plot elements, like spice to a stew, enough to add color and depth to what could have otherwise been a flat plot with nothing but a series of progressions toward the inevitable end.

Woody Harrelson is a major presence in any movie he’s in. He plays an over-the-top radio personality who points the Curtis family in the right direction with perfectly crazed flair. He’s in only three scenes, but steals them when he does (another nod to Cusak: he keeps up). Hell, I could list everyone, from Blu Mankuma’s aged lounge singer stuck on a cruise ship with buddy George Segal, to the small but memorable role of bodyguard played by Johann Urb. Everyone was peachy, and this facet elevates this movie above the more two-dimensional DAY AFTER TOMORROW.

And there’s the End of the World, itself. All we can do is sit back, watch it happen, and hope someone survives.

It begins in a supermarket being ripped in half and falling into the earth. Most of this scene looked shot on a full set which was then torn in half, illustrating just how big a budget this movie had. The special effects in this film really, really impressed me. I think they did a lot with the old “mix & match” approach Peter Jackson used in the LORD OF THE RINGS, fooling the eye before it got used to seeing the “strings.” For example, Las Vegas’ destruction was a combination of CGI and modeling like the old masters used. As you probably read in the papers, however, the filmmakers actually destroyed the city of Malibu so you wouldn’t be able to tell what was real and what was not.

Speaking of Malibu… this was the first Oh WOW That’s An Amazing Scene! scene. If it wouldn’t be in very poor taste, it’d be a cool Islands of Adventure ride. Now, there’s only one way to watch this movie and still come out with a smile on your face – and not because the revolver is pressing too hard against the roof of your mouth:

By the time the End of the World begins with the Malibu scene, you need to have been watching the first 20 minutes carefully and with an open mind. The filmmakers added many winks and nods to get you ready for the sheer impossibility of our Hapless Family’s escape from mortal danger without making the film seem annoyingly cute. There are subtle nods to other disaster movies and disaster movie stereotypes, both in dialogue and in quick background images. The first scene between Cusak and Harrelson is a good example. By the time the Curtis family take off through Malibu airspace in a plane (freshly refueled by a Union actor whose character seemed to have died before their arrival from nothing more than fear) you’re not mumbling to yourself, “Oh, please, there’s NO way they could have done that…” These characters are simply anatomically-correct human cameras through whose lenses we see the apocalyptic events and how they contrast to the We Have All Information and Know We’re Screwed view of the scientists and government. You expect these people will see it all, so sit back and try to think happy thoughts as they do. Even so, I found myself gripping the arms of my couch in a scene where Yellowstone Park explodes and our Hapless Dad races to make it back to the plane in time. Gotta give kudos to the crew for making me do that.

Time for a sidebar, before we skip quickly through the remaining carnage.

I wouldn’t let my 12-year old daughter watch this movie. Why? She already got her “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” scare a few months back when I let her watch KNOWING (2009), another end-of-the-world flick. When the latter was over, she was as quietly terrified as any Innocent Young Thing would be after seeing such devastation. Could that happen, she asked? Is the end of the world going to be like that? When I was her age, two things scared me like that: the above-referenced Outer Limits episode, and the movie WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE (1951). I was probably younger than twelve when I saw that OL episode, “Don’t Open Till Doomsday” (which first aired in 1964), but remember asking Mom, “Is Doomsday real?” The same question Youngest Daughter asked, in so many words. Mom gave the same “Um”-filled half-answer I offered to YD, including the requisite “Oh, but it won’t happen in your lifetime” wrap-up. We’re so clever, we parents. Still, it’s either say that, or stare in horror and shout, “Is that a spider in your hair?” Either method effectively ends the conversation. Seeing Earth completely destroyed in WHEN WORLD’S COLLIDE hit my younger self the way a film like that is intended: Some fates cannot be escaped, so you may as well see it all unfold now with popcorn, because when it really happens you’ll probably have no head. Unless, of course, you build a ship and save the remnants of humanity like both films offer.

So: Malibu, toast. Las Vegas, toast and now Hapless Family is in a bigger plane crossing the Pacific Ocean. Via the frenzied-announcements-of-news-anchors trope we witness the terrible events across the world, and see most of the scenes we’d become inured to from the trailers. The Vatican, toast. Washington DC, toast. It was during this barrage of destruction when my psyche began to take a bruising from watching billions of people – fictitious as they are – die swift and terrible deaths. It was akin to the horrific sinking scene in TITANIC (1997), where most characters we’d gotten to know throughout the film meet a brutal end. I remember watching the James Cameron’s opus and, when the back of the ship rose and so many frightened people fell into the water, closing my eyes. Couldn’t watch any more. Since I watched 2012 at home, I simply looked left and gave my dog Molly a scratch. She appreciated it.

The White House crew (now Air Force One en route to the escape plan) gets word: all communication on the ground has ceased. The carnage has mostly ended. Quiet falls. Now, we simply have to deal with saving the Remnant on modern day arks. Much like a novel I wrote a few years back and haven’t sold yet and probably never will now.. sigh….

Welcome to Tibet, a mountaintop retreat in this mysterious (and high elevation) country. Nice scene, calm, until a little later when we get the infamous bell ringing / oceans drowning the world scene which graces the DVD cover.

Through a series of impossibly lucky breaks (like a near-immediate Continental Shift), our heroes reach their destination – a few characters lighter. By now you’re either swearing off disaster movies for another few years or, like me, have been more than happy with how they carried this movie off and simply want to see which of our heroes survive. The final survivor list will not surprise you – at all – which I found a little disappointing.

One last point and I’ll wrap this puppy up: The soundtrack was great. Composed by Harald Kloser (who also co-wrote the script) and Thomas Wanker (snicker) it wove non-stop throughout the film, but subtly. The score played to the mood of each scene, fell silent when required to and when it did, its absence was strong enough for an effect. Never overbearing. Good stuff. First time I’ve noticed how good a soundtrack was since SIGNS (2002). I also liked the closing credits song. Can’t remember the lyrics, but it had a general theme of, “Everything’s OK, life is really good, honest, don’t go doing anything rash on the way home. Have a nice day.”

I gave this movie 4 out of 5 stars because I’m a Movie Reviewer and we like to give stars to movies. Though 2012 isn’t much of a date movie, for what it is, it’s terrific. The Special Effects are mind-boggling; the actors took their jobs seriously and played their roles with enough gusto and vigor to make this over-the-top ride of a movie, human enough to make diehards like myself occasionally grip the arm of my couch.

-THE END…………(of the WORLD!)-

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THE CRAZIES

Posted in 2010, Cinema Knife Fights, Disaster Films, Remakes, Zombie Movies with tags breck eisner, contamination, crazies, george romero, joe anderson, movie, radha mitchell, remake, timothy olyphant, Zombies on March 1, 2010 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: THE CRAZIES (2010)
by Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES are seated on the bleachers of a high school baseball game in small-town America. They are eating hot dogs and chips, and drinking soda).

MA: This sure beats winter back home!

LS: I’ll say! And I don’t even like baseball! But hot dogs, sunshine, 80-degree weather, it just puts me in the mood to watch a horror movie!

MA (Basking in sunlight): Here’s to the American dream. Baseball, apple pie, and zombies! (They toast their soda cans).

LS: Here, here!

(A little KID with a mustard mustache is staring at them from the lower bleacher.)

LS: What are you looking at, kid?

KID (Looking directly at LS): I haven’t figured out yet.

LS: Why, I oughtta—.

MA: Later, later. We have a movie to review.

LS: You’re lucky, kid!

KID: I’m lucky I don’t look like you!

MA (chuckles): The kid’s pretty funny.

KID (to MA): I was talking about you, four eyes!

LS (to MA): That kid’s crazy! You were saying— about that movie we’re reviewing?

MA: Riiight. (To audience) Okay, we’re here today sitting at this baseball game in small-town America because today’s movie, THE CRAZIES (2010), opens with a key sequence at a baseball game just like this.

Sheriff David Dutton (Timothy Olyphant) and his deputy Russell Clank (Joe Anderson) are taking in a high school baseball game in their small town of Ogden Marsh, population 1260, when one of the townspeople suddenly steps onto the field carrying a shot gun. Sheriff Dutton quickly confronts the man while deputy Russell helps clear the players off the field. Dutton attempts to talk the man into surrendering his weapon, but he won’t cooperate. He simply stares at Dutton with a blank look in his eye before making the move to shoot the sheriff. Dutton shoots first, killing the man in front of the terrified crowd.

LS: The character’s name is Rory Hamill (played by Mike Hickman), and he’s suitably creepy.

MA: This is only the beginning, as soon other townspeople begin to act strangely, and more people die. Following a lead, Dutton and Russell discover the wreckage of a large plane hidden underneath the water in a local pond. They deduce that it’s possible that something on that plane has leaked into the town’s water supply, thus poisoning the townspeople, turning them into murderous zombie-like creatures.

LS: Zombie is the key word here. The original version of THE CRAZIES, from 1973, was directed by legendary filmmaker George A. Romero. It was after his classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and before its terrific sequel, DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978). In fact, it was exactly smack dab in the middle between these two films. While not technically a zombie flick, THE CRAZIES seemed to be a variation on NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, except instead of the walking dead, we have people who are infected with a virus that makes them go insane. However, there is definitely something “zombie-like” going on.

MA: Before Dutton and Russell can do anything about it, the town is overrun by the military, who begin separating townspeople from each other in an attempt to discover who is sick and who isn’t. Dutton is separated from his wife, Dr. Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), but once he and Russell escape their captors, they return and rescue her and her young receptionist, Becca (Danielle Panabaker).

What follows is a desperate race to get out of town, to flee from both the military hunting them and the crazies who will mindlessly kill them at a moment’s notice, in scenes reminiscent of the INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS movies (1956, 1978, and more).

LS: That’s the power of Romero’s best movies, as well. His zombies work because they’re monsters who look just like people we love and trust. The same with the new version of THE CRAZIES. And yes, this is definitely a trait they share with the BODY SNATCHERS films as well.

MA: THE CRAZIES is a non-stop rollercoaster ride of a movie that will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout. From the opening sequence at the baseball game, in a scene that is sweating with realism, the movie grabs you by the throat and doesn’t let go. For a movie like this, or any horror movie for that matter, the audience has to believe for it to work. From the get-go, THE CRAZIES will have you believing in every far-fetched thing that happens, and it’ll do it with great acting, directing and writing.

LS: I agree. I also feel this is something of a rarity – the remake that actually improves on the original material. I am a hardcore Romero fan, but I always felt that THE CRAZIES was one of Romero’s weakest films. To me, it just seemed too similar to his “Dead” movies to really have a personality of its own. So if someone was going to remake it, this was the perfect opportunity to take a flawed film and improve on it. In most cases, when we see remakes like this, they totally drop the ball. Just look at the crappy remakes of THE FOG (2005) and PROM NIGHT (2008), which made their flawed originals look even better than they were.

MA: There you go with PROM NIGHT again. I think you secretly like that movie, you mention it so much.

LS: I mention it so much because I like to point out how crazy you were for listing it among the “Top 10 Best Horror movies of 2008!”

MA: Hey, it was a weak year. But I will say that I liked the PROM NIGHT remake better than the original, and let’s leave it at that.

(A ZOMBIE-like creature stumbles behind them.)

ZOMBIE: Did someone say crazy? (Suddenly shoves a dozen hot dogs into his mouth at the same time.)

LS: That’s the best you can do? In my prime I could put away 20 of those dogs in half the time!

MA: I don’t need to hear things like that.

LS (To ZOMBIE): You wannabe zombie! Anyway, back to THE CRAZIES. In this case, director Breck Eisner riffs on the original material and turns in one helluva good horror movie.

MA: Yes, director Eisner crafts one compelling scene after another. The scene in the farmhouse where one of the townspeople, now a “crazy,” torments his family, is wonderfully done and terribly frightening.

LS: By the way, if the name Eisner sounds familiar, it’s because Breck is the son of former Disney head Michael Eisner.

MA: The image of the huge plane under the water is memorable, as I found it ominous and somehow very frightening.

And then there’s the scene where Judy and Becca are strapped to tables, and they are menaced by the man with a pitchfork. Talk about suspense!

LS: That was the school principal, Ben Sandborn (Larry Cedar) mercilessly forking people!

(WOMAN sitting next to them gasps and gives them a dirty look.)

WOMAN: There’s kids here, for crying out loud!

LS: I said forking people! Keep your shirt on! And I mean that literally, lady. We can only handle one horror show at a time!

MA: ..and then there’s the even better scene in the car wash.

LS: One of my favorites!

MA: It’s been a while since a movie has had as many compelling scenes as this one. It’s a terrific movie.

But my favorite scene of all these involved a knife going through Dutton’s hand. I liked this scene because here we have this extremely graphic scene but it’s also clear that it wasn’t done just for the point of grossing us out. There’s a lot of drama going on here. It’s just really good stuff. Still, it’s not for the squeamish!

LS: There’s a lot of drama, because Eisner and company have given us characters that we actually CARE about. This is one of the keys to great horror – horrible things happening to good people. That scene with Dutton’s hand is terrific. He has to protect his wife, save his own life, and somehow free his hand, that is pinned to the floor, all at the same time.

MA: There were lots of small things that worked, too. The scene in the funeral parlor, where Rory Hamill’s wife slaps Dutton across the face for shooting her husband is particularly painful, though it reminded me of a similar face slapping scene in JAWS (1975), when Chief Brody gets his face slapped.

Speaking of JAWS, when Dutton and Russell approach the mayor and ask him to shut off the town’s water supply, and the mayor replies by saying something to the effect that this town is a farming town, and it needs its water- the water stays on! I sat there thinking, “Dude, didn’t you see JAWS?”

LS: Yeah, the scene with the mayor reminded me a LOT of JAWS.

MA: Another scene, where a woman tells Dr. Judy Dutton that there’s something “not right” about her husband, was very reminiscent of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. These references aren’t bad things, but rather, serve as nice nods to some of the other great horror movies that have come before it.

LS: Yeah, it does riff on some other great movies.

MA: The screenplay was written by Scott Kosar, who also wrote the screenplays for the remakes of THE AMITYVILLE HORROR (2005) and THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (2003), and Ray Wright, and it was well done. It was filled with one memorable scene after another, along with realistic dialogue and fleshed-out characters, who you really care about.

LS: Now this amazes me, because I am not a big fan of either of those other movies. Especially the remake of TEXAS CHAINSAW. I couldn’t care less what anyone did with AMITYVILLE HORROR, but CHAINSAW is a bonafide milestone in horror film history. One of the titans. And I thought the 2003 remake was both unnecessary and pretty much insignificant. This new film, also a remake, is in a whole other league. This time Kosar (along with Wright) turn in a killer screenplay.

MA: I thought both Timothy Olyphant as Sheriff David Dutton and Radha Mitchell as Dr. Judy Dutton stood out as the leads in the movie…

LS: I’m a big fan of both of them. Olyphant was just terrific as Sheriff Seth Bullock on one of my all-time favorite shows, DEADWOOD. And he’s been good in just about everything he’s been in before and since. Radha Mitchell, some of our readers might remember, was in PITCH BLACK (2000) and was also the lead in one of the few good video game-related movies, SILENT HILL (2006). They’re both strong actors and they bring a lot of humanity to their roles here.

MA: ….and I thought Joe Anderson was even better in the supporting role as Deputy Russell Clark. I think his was my favorite performance in the movie.

LS: Anderson was also in THE RUINS, but I didn’t recognize him right away. He was terrific, too. Another great performance. He takes what could have been a throwaway character and really makes you care about him. Especially when you start to wonder if he’s going to get infected or not.

MA: Danielle Panabaker, who we saw recently in the FRIDAY THE 13^TH (2009) remake, also stood out as Becca Darling.

LS: Yes, she was very good, too.

MA: Now, the movie is not without flaws. I thought the scene where they meet up with the government agent, and he quickly tells them about the contents on the plane, was forced and obviously done for the benefit of giving the audience exposition. I don’t think a government agent, even with a gun pointed at his head, would speak so freely.

LS: Actually, the government soldiers were one of the only things I didn’t fully understand in this movie. They come to town and gather up the population, then for some weird reason they take off and leave all these people strapped to gurneys in the school. They just leave. And then they appear on and off. I wasn’t sure why they kept coming and going.

MA: Yeah, that scene where they take off and leave the people strapped to the gurneys, I think they flee because a pick-up truck smashes into the compound, and the soldiers are afraid of the crazies, so they run away. That’s the impression I got. Now, I’m not sure how realistic this would be. You would think there would be some commanding officer telling these guys what to do. So maybe that’s why this scene was left unclear and confusing, because the soldiers’ actions don’t really make sense.

LS: I also thought it was odd that they were all concerned about isolating the town, and yet they did a lousy job of blocking off the roads leading in and out of Ogden Marsh. There’s a scene where the main characters drive for awhile on the highway, and there are no roadblocks or anything. Eventually, helicopters show up. But they seem to do a sloppy job of cutting the town off from the rest of the world.

That was my only big complaint. The government presence wasn’t always consistent.

MA: There also is considerable time spent on whether Deputy Russell is becoming a crazy or not, and while I liked this as a plot point, I don’t think it was clearly explained why Russell, if he were changing, would take longer to change than anyone else.

I also thought the sequence near the end, when Dutton and his wife attempt to steal a truck, may have been one sequence too many. At that point, I knew where the movie was going, and I just wanted them to get into the truck so we could get to the inevitable conclusion. While the sequence was well done, I thought it slowed the pace a bit.

LS: I don’t know, I liked that scene. Especially Sheriff Dutton’s fistfight with a crazy underneath the truck. That crazy, by the way, was one of a group of redneck hunters who appear early on in the movie and then go on a killing spree once the contamination has begun. I thought they were interesting characters, too, and I wanted to know more about them.

MA: Yeah, I agree with you about the hunters. I actually thought we were going to see more of them. I thought they were going to be the wild card in the plot, you know, not crazy like the crazies, but just as dangerous, so whose side will they be on? That sort of thing. But the plot didn’t really go there.

Also, while I absolutely loved this movie, I couldn’t help but wonder about the government’s methods here. Their answer seemed to be kill everyone involved, and I wondered, how would far would this go? What are they going to do? Kill the entire population of the country? I thought this logic was flawed and unlike the events in the movie, not very plausible.

But these are minor faults, because the rest of the movie works so well on an emotional level, that you’re not going to care if a few things don’t make sense, especially when most of the film comes off as very believable.

Overall, THE CRAZIES is a relentless horror movie, one that goes for the throat early on and doesn’t let go. By far, it’s the best horror film of 2010, one that every horror fan should get out and see. You’d be crazy not to!

LS: I liked it a lot, too. This has been a good year for remakes so far. I really enjoyed both this one and THE WOLFMAN. Finally, directors who can take an idea and do something interesting with it. Instead of just turning out more crap.

Oh, and make sure to stay during the closing credits. There’s a news bulletin that pops up during the credits that ties up some loose ends.

MA: That about sums things up from here. We’ll see you next weekend with our review of SORORITY ROW, now showing on cable and DVD.

(To LS) We can head out now. This game’s pretty much over.

LS: Oh, there’s a game going on?

(As they leave, they notice the KID with the mustard mustache)

LS: That crazy kid is still staring at us!

MA: Go home kid, our review is over.

(The KID starts to foam at the mouth, and his eyes are wide and scary, like a zombie.)

LS: We don’t have time for this. I wanna go home.

(LS hurls his half-full soda can at the KID’s head, knocking him down)

(The crowd cheers!)

-THE END-

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Archive for the Disaster Films Category

AFTERSHOCK (2013)

Cinema Knife Fight COMING ATTRACTIONS for MAY 2013

This Year’s Christmas Turkey Review: BIRDEMIC: SHOCK AND TERROR (2010)

Cinema Knife Fight: THE GREY (2012)

Screaming Streaming: JUGGERNAUT (1974)

CONTAGION

SANCTUM (IN 3D)

UNSTOPPABLE

2012!

THE CRAZIES

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