Danger, Will Robinson: They know you took the cookies.

Handsome, Pretty Handsome.

One of the formative TV shows of our youth, LOST IN SPACE, is rebooted as an enjoyable Netflix series, capturing all the dynamics of the original show, and leaving out the camp and the bubble-headed booby.

In the year 2046, the space-faring Family Robinson leaves a dying Earth, onboard a mothership of colonists, headed for the star system Alpha Centauri. En route, they are thrown off-course by an alien attack and separated from the mothership in their “pod,” the Jupiter 2 spacecraft. Crash-landing in uncharted territory, the Robinsons struggle to survive and regroup with other mothership survivors, or risk forever being – lost in space.

Clint Eastwood lookalike Toby Stephens (BLACK SAILS) is John Robinson, pilot of the Jupiter, a former Marine and absent father; sensual Molly Parker (HOUSE OF CARDS) is John’s estranged wife Maureen, aerospace engineer and captain of the Jupiter. 12-year-old Maxwell Jenkins is youngest child to the couple, Will Robinson, a scientific polymath; Mina Sundwall is teen Penny (whose scientific expertise I couldn’t quite figure) and Taylor Russell is 18-year-old Judy, oldest child from a previous father, and accredited doctor. (In the original 1965 series, only the unaired pilot episode detailed the scientific qualifications of the Robinson family, and since the public never saw that episode, there was no real nod given to science in that whole series. I’m so glad to see the explicit lean on intelligence and hard learning in this 2018 series.)

And the coolest cat of all – the Robot. But it isn’t part of the Jupiter crew (as the original Robot was) – it is an alien technomorph that Will befriends. There are many criticisms of the writing in this series, and the Robot’s “rescue” is a large plothole in Episode 01. With the powers it displays in later episodes – even in the scenes directly after its rescue! – it could not possibly have been trapped in this manner in a tree. Its incapacitation was a device for Will to “save” it, so it would be indebted and devote its power cells to Will’s service. Reminding us a little of Val Kilmer’s dog-robot A.M.E.E. (from RED PLANET), his face like a swirling stream of stars (like Rorschach from WATCHMEN), this A.I. Robot is inhabited by Brian Steele, the man second only to Doug Jones as the man-behind-the-motion-capture-monsters.

And Dr. Smith is a woman! Parker Posey (SUPERMAN RETURNS) is sociopath June Harris, a character exactly like Dumbo Donald Trump, in that every single thing she says is a lie. She steals the identity of a “real” Dr. Zachary Smith (cameo by none other than Bill Mumy!) and masquerades as a psychiatrist. At times, we wonder whether Posey’s wily, cynical grifter goes too far, her lies causing life-threatening situations, but upon re-viewing some of the original 1965 episodes, we see Dr. Smith has always been a liar of Dumbo Donald-ian proportions. For example, in episode 2-26 “Trip Through The Robot,” when Professor Robinson is inside the Robot saving Dr. Smith, he asks Smith, “Where’s Will?” and Smith replies without hesitation, “He’s outside,” so that Robinson will save Smith without the distraction of going back to save Will, whom Smith KNOWS is still trapped in the shrinking Robot! And once you accept that Smith is a sociopath (no matter how fruity or funny Harris made him), you start to realize how many of his lies might have led to peoples’ deaths, and you really wonder how the Robinsons never threw him out the airlock, as Don West suggested so many times…

Ignacio Serricchio (BONES) is Major Don West here, a mechanic on the mothership, The Resolute. Don is combination Jeremy Piven, Andrew Dice Clay, and every mobbed-up Italian from Little Italy. We imagine women put up with his braggadocio because he tempers it with that roguish smile; he’s a good-hearted con-man, not like the treacherous con-artistry of Smith. He might lie that he could fix your ship “with the right tools,” but he’ll be there to haul you out of the burning wreck, after it wasn’t fixed correctly by him. We discover in a later episode he is a smuggler of alcohol to the colonies—wait, so Don is a pilot, a smuggler, and a… rogue? I guess the galaxy needed another Han Solo after what Kylo Ren did.

The series creators (showrunner Zack Estrin and head writers Matt Sazama and Burk Sharpless) have artfully re-crafted all the characters we know so well and forged the same types of interactions between them (i.e. Dr. Smith’s grifting with Will, Will’s obsessive TO CATCH A PREDATOR relationship with the Robot, Don’s quest to get lost in Judy’s space, Don’s hatred of Smith, etc.); not only that, the series ethos can only be described as “woke” (i.e. Maureen is the female captain rather than just the dutiful wife who prepares meals from their hydroponic garden, Judy is bi-racial and doesn’t pine after Don, all the female characters from other Jupiters are as integral to their missions as the females on the Jupiter 2. And Dr. Smith is a woman!).

That epic theme music from Season 3 of the original (written by John Williams) is a recurring motif, but rewritten by Christopher Lennertz so that it doesn’t “resolve” but floats off lost in space somewhere. Very annoying. There are scenes where the Jupiter 2 breaks out of a smoke-bank or into space, and the theme kicks in, and it brings tears to the eyes, and then – NO RESOLUTION. The theme just dies on the vine where the original would resolve and “turn around” for another stab. I thumb my nose at your street cred, Christopher.

In this first episode, “Impact,” the Robinsons must fight for survival against some very distressing situations (although Judy getting trapped in ice could only occur with the non-scientific unreality of a lake freezing from the bottom to the top!). The tale flashbacks at intervals to flesh out the characters and story: the Robinsons’ Jupiter 2 and scores of other Jupiters are part of a pioneering mission to Alpha Centauri, onboard a mothership called The Resolute, which suffers an alien attack that prompts the evacuation of all the Jupiters and their families.

We see the Robinson family before the mission, when John Robinson and Maureen were deeply in love (something about their relationship feels strained in the first episode and it is written and performed very subtly). Dr. Smith’s and Don West’s fateful insertions into the tale would be seen towards the end. And we also glean the scope of the colonization mission when we see The Resolute mothership in all its massive glory, the scores of Jupiter pods attached to it like flowers on vines. (The Jupiter shape is very cool – a cross between the original’s flying saucer design and the Millennium Falcon.

“I KNEW I shoulda taken that left turn at Albuquerque!”

Episode 01 begins with the family in full spacesuits and helmets, strapped to their seats around a circular table (I like it already! A modern spaceship with spacesuits, helmets and seatbelts!), playing cards in weightlessness onboard their Jupiter – but we know from the tension in the air it is only to take their minds off something horrible. We would have to wait for the final magnificent CGI scenes of this episode to reveal the cause of the terror – as we see the destruction of the mothership, while many Jupiters try to fly from its exploding debris; we see the first indications of atmosphere (of the planet this mêlée is orbiting) as the Jupiters and the debris start making slight contrails – and then the fleeing Jupiters are caught in the jetstream of flaming debris…

The number of negative reviews for this new LOST IN SPACE is startling. I am guessing these negative critiques are from people over 40, who compare the 2018 version to the original 1965 series that still lingers in their nostalgia memory banks. However, connecting to the original as insensible kids is not the same as viewing the reboot as cynical adults. If these critics are being honest, after its first innovative season in 1965, the original TV series morphed into THE WILL & DR. SMITH SHOW, FEATURING THE ROBOT, and skewed intentionally camp, to please younger audiences. Just because they’ve read a couple of screenplay books and know the word “CGI” now, these kitchen critics think they can judiciously complain about the acting in the 2018 version (which is very good), the effects (which are tentpole-movie standard), and rail about the non-science (which is no better or worse than any “science-based” TV series that has to bend physics for dramatic effect). All this vitriol, as if the 1965 series had Oscar-winning performances, seamless effects and watertight science, what with the mincing of Dr. Smith, the appearing and disappearing aliens in a flash of smokebomb, and every planet having breathable oxygen and every alien speaking English and never once re-fueling the Jupiter 2…

For those who don’t obstinately dismiss this 2018 LOST IN SPACE due to nostalgic idiocy, there is much to enjoy: the sincere character development is all here (dad who was away at war trying to reconnect with his kids, mother trying to find the balance between harridan and encourager, a grifter posing as a psychiatrist who can actually read people’s psyches correctly – because that is an unspoken talent of grifters!; a mechanical man stultifying his inner Hyde, and inspiring with his superhuman power), and the production values are astounding. A noteworthy aspect is that all the roles are scientists, even though some of the science is iffy – but for every bad science item criticized by faux-physicists, two commendable science aspects go unnoticed. And for those who miss Guy Williams’s smug, there is the constant Clint-squinting of Toby Stephens (he can’t help it, yeronner – it’s just his face!); and you gotta admit, you over-40s, that Molly Parker makes a ravishing MILF Maureen; for the millennials, I presume the kids might come off as smarty-pantsy (so Penny is thrown in to balance the nerd factor); and accepting Dr. Smith and the Robot as two very different beings from the originals will depend on your level of wokeness, I guess.

END

The Corporatization of Dumbification.

There are a few above-average jokes in ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES, but most of them are quite average.

Underpinning the plot of a TV news anchorman struggling to find meaning in his job and love life, there is the cheeky indictment of the vapid 24-hour news culture and, by association, indictment of all those responsible for perpetuating it – you dummies. This saves the movie from being a crumpled, directionless ad-libathon.

Once again set in the Swingin’ ’70s, Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) leaves his wife Veronica Corningstone (Christina Applegate) when the network chief (a grizzled, deadpan Harrison Ford) promotes her as the first female anchorwoman and fires him. A New York network producer (Dylan Baker) recruits Burgundy for a new concept – a 24-hour news channel. Burgundy: “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard – news going round the clock?!” Called GNN (The Global News Network) and funded by an Australian entrepreneur (Josh Lawson), “We own the news – we can say what we want!” (cough-Rupert Murdoch), it’s starting to look dangerously close to FOX marrying CNN.

Like a League of Retarded Gentlemen, Ron assembles his news team that had gone their separate ways: aggressively-gay-for-Burgundy Champ Kind (David Koechner), managing a fast food chicken store that served fried bat; sexual panther Brian Fantana (Paul Rudd), working as a kitten photographer; and thick-as-a-Brick Tamland (Steve Carrell), who was dead.

Not only does Ron’s team have to conquer the resident super-pretty, super-smarmy anchormantastic Jack Lime (James Marsden), Ron also discovers his wife has started dating a psychiatrist, Gary (Greg Kinnear as the pony-tailed 80s lover, with sweater tied evocatively around neck). To regain his pole position as top anchorman and regain his wife in pole position, Ron tries anything to make his news sexy and score ratings…

Strangely enough, just by being their dumb selves, Ron’s news team spikes the ratings (“It’s crap but they can’t stop watching!”), but when Veronica on the competing network scores an interview with Yasser Arafat and threatens to usurp all their viewers, Ron must up the ante.

He sees a car chase on a monitor marked “Not Intended For Broadcast” and in desperation orders the producer, “Give it to me live!” “But that’s not news, Ron!” And ANCHORMAN 2 crosses over into simultaneous satire and indictment, as Ron – in his supposed ignorance – replies, “This is the pulse of what is going on in the country right now!” Never a truer word said in jest, as every “reporter” and “newscaster” in the real world should hang their head in shame between their limp phalluses for actually broadcasting such cheap thrill crap because they sincerely believe “this is the pulse of what is going on in the country right now.”

When Ron is told, “Speculate on who’s driving the car,” we’ve arrived at CNN.

Meagan Good plays a badly written and badly acted producer. We know it’s the ’70s, but there are still innumerable problems in the way the filmmakers portray her seducing Ron and then later knocking him out. For example, stating that you “grew up with five brothers” might give you backstory on why you can fight, but that doesn’t give you license to knock someone out in front of numerous witnesses for verbally insulting you, especially if it’s a double-standard woman-on-man knockout (i.e. think of how offensive it would be were it the other way ’round?). There might be numerous wink-wink politically incorrect jokes about the outdated manner women were treated in the ’70’s, but why isn’t it seen as politically or just ethically incorrect to hit a defenseless man?

Written by Ferrell and Adam McKay, and directed by McKay, released 9 years after its predecessor, ANCHORMAN 2: THE LEGEND CONTINUES is a stream of disjointed jokes and ad-libs peripherally or hardly related to the plot. Each bit is unevenly funny (like the original), and as usual the gag reel is funnier than the movie.

There’s Ron’s flute solo on ice, channeling BLADES OF GLORY, there’s an extended isolation sequence of blind Ron, eking out an existence in a lighthouse with his reunited family, there’s unnecessary narration, there’s Fred Willard delivering the best line about the new 24-hour format (“I think they’ll stick with their integrity”); and Brick even finds true love with a woman-child as odd as he (Kristen Wiig). There are three KISS references. (I’m beginning to suspect Paul Rudd is at the root of ad lib KISS references: innumerable references in ROLE MODELS which he also starred in, the only other common denom being Judd Apatow. Now we wait for ANT MAN to gag about looking like Eric Carr and my suspicions will be confirmed…)

An example of an uneven gag: the crack smoking bit. After Ron’s team toke on air, we cut to the punchline shot of them being uncuffed while on the street, with Ron concluding, “Well, now we know you can’t smoke crack on TV.” Mildly funny, mostly perplexing. If we imagine the scenario, we can presume they were chased out here, tackled and cuffed before this scene, but to achieve this shot, the producers had to dress the whole street and light it for a night shoot (which is harder than a day shoot), including wetting it down, organizing background action and extras, including cop costumes, a prop cop car, the rights to film at that fountain, etc. Couldn’t they have donated this money to a museum or cancer foundation, instead of waste it on a joke that could have worked just as well if they were being uncuffed on the studio floor?

The audience watching Ron’s “entertainment news” is shown to be all rednecks. But let’s face it: anyone who subscribes to this hijacking of quality media is being a redneck in mind and body. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE for what ultimately seeps through to our square eyes and numb brains. Says Ron, “Why tell them what they need to hear? Why can’t we tell them what they want to hear?” And isn’t that how this crap fest started rolling downhill like a trolley with no brakes?

As in ANCHORMAN (2004), the best bit is the gladiator battle between the news networks, with “no touching of the hair and face.” Featuring power cameos by Sacha Baron Cohen for the superior BBC, Jim Carrey and the incredibly polite Canadian News Team, Liam Neeson for the History Network (replete with minotaur and John C. Reilly as The Ghost of Stonewall Jackson), Amy Poehler and Tina Fey for Entertainment News, Will Smith for ESPN, Kanye West as an anachronistic MTV VJ, and – wait for it! – Vince Vaughn reprising his Wes Mantooth (I die laughing just thinking about that name).

Strangest aspect of this biting movie is that real life entertainment news networks (which is – let’s face it – all news networks) embrace Ron Burgundy as a compadre, as if he is promoting their existence as worthy. Either they have a really good sense of humor, or they are, in fact, as dumb as ANCHORMAN 2 makes them out to be. As I watch another interminable car chase on a major news network… I’m guessing the latter.

END

Horror Movie Handbook meets Callous Director.

Another good scientific story sacrificed to Hollywood’s Lowest Common Denom. THE RELIC finds a field researcher dabbling in tribal drugs on the dark continent shipping a crate containing a strange fungus back to his lab at the Chicago Natural History Museum. Also in the crate is a relic of an ancient god that could supposedly transform into a monster to ward off enemies. What this has to do with bizarre murders at the museum, involving sucking out the victims’ hypothalamuses, is where science and pseudo-bullshit collide.

As do Detective D’Agosta (Tom Sizemore, all Chicago mob ‘tude) and evolutionary biologist Dr. Margo Green (Penelope Ann Miller, all slinky waistline). He wants to close down the Museum to find the killer, who may be lurking in the subterranean crawlspaces, while Margo’s boss (diminutive Linda Hunt) wants to keep the Museum open for a gala for political dignitaries.

We’ve seen this flow chart before. The people who don’t believe – die. And of course, innocent bystanders die – because they’re working too late, because they walk into dark rooms without turning the lights on, because they insist on trying to escape through a sewer chest-high with water, because they’re too far down in the credits…

THE RELIC is a formulaic quickie from mediocre director Peter Hyams; a linear, straightforward monster movie with good scares, good tension and not revealing too much monster in the first act. That being said, it could have been tighter, as Hyams seems to have shucked off the science and storyline of what appears to be a very interesting novel by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child – Relic – and replaced it with thriller movie convention. I mean, with four screenwriters, they’ve even got the cat jumping out at us from a cupboard, in a jump-scare attempt. Yeah, someone actually wrote that into a screenplay without being sarcastic or ironic. It didn’t help that the lame acting for the subplots (especially Chi Muoi Lo’s atrocious line-reads) made us wish more people would get eaten more quickly.

There is an underpinning of science to this whole escapade, where DNA identifies the killer as not quite human, a mutation with other genes spliced in. This, of course, encourages ignorant talk about “evolution” – a precept that no one on this film understands, least of all the writers and director. “It’s rapidly evolving into something else!” No, it’s mutating. One solitary creature cannot “evolve.” The creature feeds off hormones in the human hypothalamus; chilling sequences where bodies are found decapitated with the brains sucked out – which sparks more scientific conversation sprinkled liberally with dumbo-jumbo. So though the movie has some visceral scares, it is tempered by everything around those moments.

When revealed, the monster is fantastic. Blame the great Stan Winston; a half-galloping artiodactyl, half-reptile, half-Predator half-ManBearPig, an excellent roaring powerhouse of special effects.

The problem with the pseudo-science is that it leads to nothing: Uncovering the mystery of the beast doesn’t lead to an understanding of how to kill it, capture it or study it. It’s pretty much on the chopping block with guns and explosives from the get-go, no matter what it’s composed of – shyeh! Real “scientists” you got here! It was just a device to run from and to blow up in a fiery finale. While eating a lot of people along the way.

Thrills, chills, kills. Ills.

END

Doggy doo.

Brandon Routh is soooo Christopher Reeve. He wasn’t this much Christopher Reeve even when he was Superman.

You would think that anyone who hired Reeve – I mean, Routh – post-SUPERMAN RETURNS (after which he was unfairly stripped of the cape), would cast him as a character as far from the Man of Steel as possible, but in DYLAN DOG: DEAD OF NIGHT, Routh is the eponymous paranormal investigator who, like Superman, keeps the peace – between supernatural folk and humans – in begrudging vigilantism; like Superman, his acting style resembles a block of wood and his hairstyle resembles a little Lego man; like Superman, his signature clothing colors are red and blue. And like Superman – he has Jimmy Olsen!

No kidding! Sam Huntington (who was Jimmy Olsen in SUPERMAN RETURNS) is here as Superman’s – I mean Dylan Dog’s – sidekick, Marcus! Coincidence? Yeah, and Krypton blew up by accident.

From the internationally successful Italian comicbook Dylan Dog (created by Tiziano Sclavi in 1986, publishing its 300th issue in August 2011), this action-horror comedy follows Dylan and his recently zombiefied sidekick Marcus as they track a killer monster through the supernatural underbelly of Louisiana.

Welcome to a world where zombies, vampires and werewolves co-exist barely under the radar of human society; the meat factory is run by werewolves-as-businessmen, headed by a delicious Peter Stormare; the nightclub is run by vampires-as-playas, headed by smooth criminal Taye Diggs; and zombies lead quite a normal existence, as long as they stay clean, eat a hearty meal of human flesh occasionally and renew their body parts at the, uh, “body shop.”

Someone is peddling vampire blood as a drug to civilians, and Dylan must infiltrate the vampire nightclub to interrogate head vamp Vargas (Diggs). To do this, he disguises himself by wearing exactly what he always wears – but adds a wool cap pulled down around his ears. Of course! Did we expect anything more from a graduate of the Clark Kent School of Disguise?

Speaking of superheroes, Vargas must have been watching some old Adam West BATMAN episodes, cos he tries to kill Dylan not by shooting him or ripping his throat out with his fangs – that would be too sensible; he puts Dylan and Marcus in a crypt and rolls a big stone over it. Then he leaves. That oughta work – provided no one rolls the stone off, and provided that they run out of air within two weeks, and that no small animals burrow into their enclosure that they can eat, and that they can’t burrow out, and– oh darn!

Amongst a host of publishers worldwide, Dark Horse publishes Dylan Dog in English. From reports, the graphic novel is a darker, more surreal vision than this simplistic film. Writers Thomas Dean Donnelly and Joshua Oppenheimer and director Kent Munroe try to imbue the film with interesting sights (a vampire’s coffin outfitted with an Apple laptop, a zombie support group, etc.) but surround themselves with a cast of insipid characters that hold our attention like actors in a car commercial.

Taye Diggs and Peter Stormare seem the only professional actors here. Even Routh and Huntington have zero onscreen chemistry, and are then expected to share some of that non-chemistry with vapid blond spinner Anita Briem, brought in as Dylan’s love interest, which would be interesting if Brandon Routh could play someone in love. And say good night to all the day players – they have a great future in car commercials.

It’s funny how some movies’ slogans turn around and bite them in the neck. This movie’s slogan: “No pulse. No problem.” Well, this soporific snoozer has no pulse. And that’s the problem.

When Vargas turns into a giant supernatural devil named Belial, to defeat Dylan, he doesn’t use any of his presumably supernatural powers, but – like a TRANSFORMER or a TERMINATOR – he would rather grab Dylan and throw him. Even in grabbing him, the fight would be over immediately were he to break Dylan’s back or neck, but no. Throw him. Now you’ve got to go get him again, pick him up again and… throw him again. Royt… All the powers of darkness are at this demon’s behest and he opts for WWE Smackdown?

Belial, will you stop throwing him like that?! That’s what crippled Christopher Reeve!…

END

Their Lowness.

The trailers fooled us with witty asides and raunchy innuendo, but YOUR HIGHNESS is a fast-paced slow-brainer for people who like to hear swear words unsurrounded by actual comedy.

Not only sophomoric – uninvolving and uncomfortably devoid of laughs, with sloppy, predictable writing, direction and story; Danny McBride at his unfunniest as a slacker prince; James Franco as his epic brother (always returning from a Quest and making McBride look bad), doing justice to his melodramatic prince, yet the script not reciprocating; Natalie Portman wasting her talent as a hot warrior woman; talentless Zooey Deschanel not wasting anything she doesn’t have, but putting her lack of it to good use as a trapped princess with either big implants or a champion push-up bra. And Charles Dance as the king? Did he trip over in the dark and land on this movie contract accidentally?

Writers McBride and Ben Best think that by substituting jokes with swear words they’re going to get laughs. Surely a comedian as mustered as McBride knows better! 80% of the punchlines are characters exclaiming “shit” or “fuck.” PINEAPPLE EXPRESS, SUPERBAD, TENACIOUS D – all these excellent comedies make use of vulgarity stitched into the fabric of the humor. Here, the vulgarity IS the humor. Nay, the failed attempt at it.

The splash-phrase on the DVD cover says, “A hilarious, raunchy homerun,” by Scott Wampler of Examiner.com. Find that guy and kill him. He obviously has no discernment and therefore shouldn’t be allowed to live lest he utilizes his right to vote.

At first I thought the effects budget was wasted on this excuse for a movie, but realized it was actually put to good use to disguise this excuse for a movie.

Sold as a medieval stoner comedy (which it isn’t – we see McBride toke but once), the story follows the misadventures of prince-brothers Thadeous (McBride) and Fabious (Franco) in their Quest to rescue Fabious’s betrothed maiden (the Talentless Zooey Deschanel) from villain warlock Leezar (Justin Theroux, also pretty talentless).

There is a labyrinth and a Minotaur with a full frontal dildo, a five-headed CGI dragon, lots of women with bare breasts, and an electronic bird sidekick which counts for nothing. The funniest two minutes of the whole lackluster endeavor is the brothers visiting the Wise Wizard, a DARK CRYSTAL-like Muppet with pervert proclivities.

Movie Maniacs, my advice is to embark on a Quest – for another movie.

END

Roaring Ripping Rending Rebirth!

At last – the sequel to PREDATOR we’ve been waiting for!

With the internet ablaze with derogation over the casting of Adrien Brody in the lead role (purely because action fans cannot comprehend life after Arnold), and the B-movie schlock of the ALIEN VS. PREDATOR movies sullying DVD rental racks around the planet, it would seem PREDATORS had little chance of being taken seriously by moviegoers or the men who make the moving pictures.

But Robert Rodriguez (producer) and Nimród Antal (director) have bowed their heads in fealty to the legendary 1987 PREDATOR film, shinked out their arm-talons and ripped forth a roaring rebirth for the franchise.

PREDATORS starts in free fall – literally – as eight nameless characters drop from the sky into a mysterious jungle. They’re all the best “predators” in their killing fields. They discover they’re on another planet – a grand vista of three gigantic moons in the sky and a sun that “hasn’t moved since we got here” tipping them off.

And they’re being hunted by something.

The planet is a game preserve and they’ve been dropped here for sport. The over-arching theme, which is sometimes used as the embarrassing tagline: “When the predators become the prey.” Oh, I feel dirty.

Adrien Brody, an American Special Ops merc, is the tacit leader and therefore has to put on the raspiest voice. There is the Russian Special Forces soldier (Oleg Taktarov, last seen with De Niro in RIGHTEOUS KILL and 15 MINUTES), a Mexican drug enforcer (Danny Trejo, last seen in any Robert Rodriguez film), a Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien), a Sierra Leone soldier (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, last seen buying another vowel), an Israeli sniper (Alice Braga), a death row inmate (Walton Goggins, last seen as Sam Rockwell in THE GREEN MILE) and a disgraced bean stem of a doctor (Topher Grace, last seen apologizing for being an actor).

(Of course, physics is once again given short shrift, as three giant moons that close to a planet would not make it humanly habitable: the planet would either be torn apart by gravitational forces, have no atmosphere or suffer continual tectonic upheaval and volcanism. Also, it’s very unlikely the sun would appear the same size in the sky as our sun, and if it doesn’t move, how come night falls?)

Onward to plot that makes sense if you discount everything else.

Luckily, Brody has read the script and rasps the exposition above. But you don’t need the script if you’ve got someone who saw PREDATOR; Alice Braga recounts the story of the Special Forces guy (that would be Arnold, fanboys) who killed one of the hunters and described its proclivities.

Can’t help feeling the cast is a leetle too international for the sake of worldwide box office – or maybe they’re just auditioning for a crowd of passengers in another SPEED movie.

First act is tight, effective screenwriting; characters introduced smartly, situation assimilated; inexplicable jungle mystery, thriller, action, even some horror. All the classic story elements that made PREDATOR so good. PREDATORS reminds us of ALIEN 3: back to basics to bring the solemnity under control again.

Suddenly – Laurence Fishburne. A surprise cameo, an eccentric old hermit, well-built, brain-fried, and whispering in that Morpheus velvet about surviving for ten seasons. He reveals the Predator hunting party travels in threes.

And then, in maximum cool – we meet The Predators…

They’re played by Carey Jones, Brian Steele and Derek Mears, and they’ve been given names by the filmmakers that we discover only by reading the credits: the captive, strung-up Predator is Classic Predator; the leader of the three hunters is Berserker, larger and scarier than Tracker and Falconer. The armor and headgear of these new Predators is akin to the development of Batman’s suits; more jagged and streamlined than previous versions. Makeup by Greg Nicotera and Howard Berger goes above and beyond the call of B-Movie duty. Like the rest of the production, they’re taking it very seriously indeed.

There are numerous homages to PREDATOR, creatively intertwined into this tale, and Little Richard’s Long Tall Sally (which is blaring in the chopper on the way to the drop zone in PREDATOR) plays us out over the closing credits. There are the unavoidable cliché moments: Walton exalts, “We killed it! We killed it!” and is suddenly shot in the back by “it.” There are the interesting twists of character, and even a grand moral dilemma: when Topher is injured, rather than carrying him as dead weight, Brody decides, “We leave him as a booby trap.” When Alice protests, he elucidates on how the Predators maimed Topher to slow down the fleeing humans, knowing they would carry him, “They’re banking on us being human.” I love the smell of sociopath in the morning.

And when Yakuza finds a samurai sword, we know there must be a reckoning – between an arm-bladed Predator and Yakuza gettin’ his Toshiro Mifune on. Like Billy on the log, Yakuza stops in a field as the rest of the humans continue to flee. He turns to face the oncoming Pred, who, true to form, decides to grant his prey the courtesy of a “fair” battle… as he shinks out his arm-talons…

It seems Predators are taken down not by their superior technology or weaponry, which, if utilized judiciously, can take down any prey in the galaxy – they are done in by their own hubris! They are arrogant beyond caution. Brody (covered in mud like Arnold) goes mano a mano against the last Berserker; when the Pred could easily shoot Brody as he lies squirming on the ground, he opts to grab Brody by the neck and throw him. Even picking Brody up by the neck could warrant an efficient killing stroke if the Pred just shinks his arm-talons up through Brody’s throat. Nope. They take toying with their prey to new levels of carelessness.

Maybe it is this inherent ego, conceit and pride that makes them hunters in the first place (those characteristics sure work for Man); maybe this same presumption of their superiority impels them to waste resources bringing animals from throughout the solar system to dump on this planet as prey; all we know is: “Pride goeth before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18). Another reason for Predators to read the bible – they’d kill us more efficiently. They should also stop watching 1960s Batman episodes.

It’s almost as if the words of the Little Richard song reflect the taunting hubris of the Predators, “We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ We’re gonna have some fun tonight – whooo!/ Have some fun, havin’ me some fun tonight!”– Oops! Blown up by humans again!

Whooo!

END

Overwrought Underworld.

Guns, Gore and Grrrrrls in growling leather.

The Salad Dealer

UNDERWORLD gives a shot in the arm, so to speak, to the vampire and werewolf iconographies, updating/reimagining both to be in an ongoing millennia-aged war that is escalating, plopping them in modern day Europe (or somewhere with underground rail transport and rain that won’t quit) with automatic weapons and computers. And leather.

Selene (Kate Beckinsale, who would soon marry the director – luckiest man alive, Len Wiseman) is a vampire “Death Dealer,” with guns bigger than her acting abilities and leather so tight and curve-hugging my Carnal Nerve nocturnally emissioned. She’s a lethal stalker and killer of werewolves (“lycans” in sexy new street cred).

Story is interesting twist on the legends, yet if you enjoy werewolf slash vampire movies, this may or may not be your cup of blood. You see, whereas all other werewolf and vampire movies have been correctly slotted into the horror genre, UNDERWORLD is an “action” movie whose characters happen to be vamps and thropes. We’re in their world now, so their intrinsic alienness is the norm, rather than an anomaly. Movie can get on with the shooting and running and blood-fests as common occurrence between the two “races” (just as any two given races on Earth at any given point in history will engage lovingly in shooting and running and blood-fests). Subsequently, dialog is childish, and action is filmed in that style that suddenly slams into slomo to accentuate the flounce of capes and the thrill of tight butt-leather, with no meaning other than for the sake of capes flouncing and butt-leather bouncing.

Latent werewolf, Michael (Scott Speedman) is bitten by a vampire – to breed a hybrid race that will win the war for the lycans, who are jealous that the vampires have such cool leather. Even though he’s a transgender, Selene inexplicably falls for Michael. Because he’s hot, I’m guessing. But vampire-werewolf love cannot be. So it is written in the ancient scrolls of the TV Guide. For advice on her love life, she calls on the Dr. Phil of vampires, their sleeping king, Viktor (Bill Nighy), who in hibernation looks like a zombie husk of a mummy, until he is revived by fresh blood, whereupon he looks like Bill Nighy (i.e. a zombie husk of a mummy).

Casting Kate Beckinsale was not a mistake. Garbing her in such tight leather is. Because I am blinded to anything else when she is onscreen. She is just too breathtakingly beautiful, too achingly sensual– Those pointy incisors; those devil-blue eyes– Look at that cutie go! Two-fisted gun barrels blazing, Hard Guy Overcoat flouncing, rain dripping pruriently from hand-grab spinner waist in leatherbound corset, spike-heeled boots and porcelain-creamy neck–

Uh, what was the question again?–

END

The Manchurian Candidator.

For fuck’s sake, man, you’re amateur!
— Christian Bale on the set of TERMINATOR SALVATION.

That’s the best description *I* can think of for TERMINATOR SALVATION. What more could we expect from writers who penned the silly TERMINATOR 3: RISE OF THE MACHINES and a director whose claim to fame is the CHARLIE’S ANGELS franchise? James Cameron would be turning in his grave if he didn’t just resurrect himself with AVATAR.

A story about Heart that lacks it completely.

It is 2018. John Connor (Christian Bale) is leader of “The Resistance” against The Machines who have assumed intelligence and are trying to wipe out humankind by shooting at them one at a time. Will someone remind the machines that being such an integral part of humankind’s existence, all they have to do to bring humankind to its knees is to stop working – and mollycoddled humankind will start crying like little girls without dollies.

Those unfamiliar with TERMINATOR canon can apparently go suck an egg, as there are so many winks at 1984’s TERMINATOR and 1991’s TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY, newbies should expect to be crushed under heavy metal in-gags:

“Come with me if you want to live”; Guns ‘N Roses’ You Could Be Mine; battles on catwalks, boiling metal, liquid nitrogen, “There is no fate but what we make,” and of course, “I’ll be back” (delivered by Connor at a nondescript juncture)…

I know why Bale is so pissed off: Sam Worthington got the best role – as machinesexy Marcus, a cyborg programmed to think he’s human, who infiltrates and unknowingly draws out Connor for destruction. Bale is a brilliant actor, a chameleon, an artisan; Sam Worthington is a block of sexy wood – and so, like the original films, the coolest role went to the guy who could act the LEAST.

Helena Bonham Carter explains the Manchurian Situation via a Marlon Jor-El Brando holo-exposition – coincidentally, like a Batman Villain – that no one asked for and would have served her purpose better to have not explained.

Cybernetic vegetable

So have they invented time-travel yet? Didn’t machines send the Governor back first, forcing John Connor to send Kyle back to stop him? Which would mean MACHINES created time travel. Thanks, Diebold! Humans couldn’t find the time to invent it, not with all that hiding and skulking in portable underground labs covered in poo.Trying to tie it all in with canon, Connor narrates at the end that “the war is just beginning,” meaning that war Kyle Reese rasps about in THE TERMINATOR, even though the Schwarzenegger Terminator was like a toy soldier compared to the techno design of the Worthingtonator, which was so technologically covert it didn’t even know it was a Manchurian Candidator. And like George Lucas’s prequel-abominations-with-better-effects, the paradoxes and anomalous plotting of writers John Brancato and Michael Ferris comes back ’round to bite them in the assinator.

The irony of SALVATION is that it is continually yammering about “strong hearts” delineating humans from machines and “what it means to be human” and all manner of poignant story element so obviously cribbed from Screenwriting For Dummies – and lacks everything it yammers about.

Bale brings his Batman rasp and boundless temper; Bryce Dallas Howard brings her three unnecessary names and a spunky red coiffure; looking like Billy Bibbit from CUCKOO’S NEST, Anton Yelchin is young Kyle Reese (in one of those many nods to TERMINATOR fans that means nothing to first-time viewers); Moon Bloodgood brings a sexy disposition for metal man meat; Michael Ironside is Bad Guy emeritus; Helena Bonham Carter goes name to name with Bryce Dallas Howard but beats out Howard on looking like a bloodless horse junkie (i.e. like Helena Bonham Carter); and a bodybuilt guy with a face like an Arnold tips another hat to the fanboys.

The production values are as scorching as Bale’s temper. There is an amazing unbroken tracking shot 360 degrees around a helicopter in distress, that then tracks INTO the helicopter (John Connor piloting) and stays with the action as the helicopter crashes and lands upside down. John Connor crawls from the wreck and sees a mushroom cloud in the distance, blasted radar dishes littering the foreground and middle background. We know this is all green screen, yet it takes us right into the murderous battle heat of Termytown. Then it gets stupid immediately – as a skeletal Terminator grabs John Connor and throws him. Let me get this straight: this steel-belted Terminator’s one directive is to terminate humans, yet having the opportunity to simply clasp its mighty metal claw around Connor’s neck from behind and asphyxiate him or snap his neck, it opts to grab him by the shoulder and throw him?

And so it goes with every Terminator: they grab Kyle or Connor or Marcus and instead of simply crushing them – again with the throwing! Or shooting without aiming. (You’d think they’d have some kind of inbuilt aiming mechanism, but apparently Terminators were built by the same useless techs who made the battle droids for The Empire.)

Which proves that McG (the McDirector) has a great grasp of constructing action scenes – but don’t let him near your story. Unless you’re two bitches who wrote TERMINATOR 3. See how it all comes around and bites us in the ass?

END

Spaceman, Beast, Demon, Lover – KISS 3000!

Hell-Tilt With The Wheels Comin’ Off.

PAN’S LABYRINTH smashed up against the Cantina Sequence from STAR WARS and Guillermo del Toro rode that bad boy all the way to a town called HELLBOY.

In HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY, writer-director del Toro has concreted his gleaming vision, found his devil stride, piling spectacle upon wonder upon bombastic fantastic. From Mike Mignola’s comicbook character, with Ron Perlman reprising his red-skinned lead role (his insouciance outa control), and eye-candy enough to choke a fragglewump, we almost touch heaven. And the fact that Danny Elfman composes the score is just So Right. Throw in Barry Manilow (Can’t Smile Without You) and it’s hell in a leather longcoat.

Poff Sapien

Sequel to HELLBOY (2004, also del Toro’s baby) opens with a prologue on his origin (spewed from a dimensional rift during WWII and adopted by American military as defender against paranormal evil), then into a kooky sequence showing Hellboy as a …uh, hell BOY (who still, surprisingly, looks like Ron Perlman – but acts like Beaver Cleaver). As young Hellbie watches Howdy Doody, so too are we treated to a puppet show – in old-school stop-motion – as Hellbie’s adopted father (John Hurt, phoning in a cameo) reads him a bedtime story – The Legend of the Golden Army, one of those completely illogical sagas that somehow transmogrifies into “history” (like the bible). Suffice to say, the Golden Army should not be woken from their endless slumber. Of course, that’s JUST what a crazed albino guy does…

Prince Nuada (played with sneering British contempt by accomplished music artist, Luke Goss) is the non-human albino guy so rampantly pissed at humans and everything else that we surmise he never got enough hugs as a child. (Yet if he hates humans so much, how come he’s always speaking English when everyone in the underground kingdom is speaking Undergroundese?) Kills his king dad for a piece of crown to wake the Golden Army; has to kill his albino sis (Anna Walton) for the last piece, but she lams it with Abe Sapien (Doug Jones, still blue and gilled and ineffectual as a fish-guy), who immediately falls in love with her even though she’s another species.

In HELLBOY, it seemed like the paranormal was battling to infiltrate the Real World: in GOLDEN ARMY, the paranormal exists side-by-side with us. Del Toro tries to establish a MEN IN BLACK nonchalance during the opening scenes, showing all manner of wackiness in the paranormal academy, while Tom Manning (Jeffrey Tambor) and Abe Sapien walk right past these oddities while chatting. MEN IN BLACK did it better.

It is too contrived here, especially when introducing Hellboy and his manic-depressive firestarter chick, Liz (still Selma Blair), in a stagey couple-fight that makes us feel dirty. In their quest to stop Nuada, Hellboy, Liz and Abe are joined by “ectoplasmic expert,” Johann Krauss (James Dodd, voiced by Seth McFarlane), who looks like a 1950s movie spaceman.

Abe Sapien reminds me of Aquaman from DC’s Justice League – unless evil was being perpetrated underwater, he was pretty useless. Abe is an empath, but he is neither a fighter nor a lover; the mentality of a fifteen-year-old virgin boy, which doesn’t help when confronted by foes like Wink – Nuada’s steel-fisted, ten-foot troll.

“He’s Mr. Green Christmas / He’s Mr. Sun /
He’s Mr. Green Christmas / He’s Mr. Hundred-and-one!”

HELLBOY II moves quickly from one spectacular vignette to the next, many times leaving strands dangling, which is why it has verve, but lacks balls; from the tooth fairy inundation, to the Troll Market (where even 100 viewings would not be enough to assimilate the visually-drooling alienscape), to Hellboy battling an Elemental (a tree-giant forest god that Nuada unleashes to kill Hellboy when he could have simply knifed him instead).

During the tree battle, Nuada almost poignantly entreats Hellboy to Come-To-the-Dark-Side, touching on this movie’s theme (which the movie itself runs from like a maniac) – that the very humans Hellboy protects look upon him warily as an outsider. When the forest god dies, it covers the ground with foliage, planting doubt that the humans might in fact be prohibiting Earth-friendly, natural elements from thriving. Before the dissent can wend its way through Hellboy’s filed-down horn-growths, he’s hitting something else with his Five-Fingered Mary.

When Hellboy’s life hangs in the balance, they approach the Angel of Death – a four-winged, hissing, eyeless thing who warns that if Hellboy is revived, his destiny is to destroy Earth with his mystical rock-fist. So Liz – thinking with her woman-bone instead of her head, chooses Hellboy’s life over the Earth’s existence – mighty white of her! Maybe because Hellboy has been busy with his hell-bone and Liz is carrying his, uh, hellspawn – so I guess she doesn’t want to raise the little devil (literally) on her own… what would the paranormal neighbors say?…

The inevitable TRANSFORMERS moment arrives when the titular Golden Army comes to life – “70 times 70 warriors” (let’s call it 4900 for the mathematically-challenged) – all eye-bending CGI machinery. And Hellboy and Krauss go into battlebot mode while Liz and Sapien stand around and hope we don’t notice them doing nothing behind the special effects.

As in the original HELLBOY, these dead-end moments are many, where del Toro drops story threads and hopes he will get by on spectacle alone. But if Abe Sapien can learn to cry (even though he has no tear ducts), I’m sure del Toro will one day learn to balance spectacles and testicles.

END

Part real. Part fable. All Night.

In his book, On Directing Film, David Mamet says of movies, “it’s all make-believe. The question is, how good is the make-believe going to be?” M. Night Shyamalan‘s LADY IN THE WATER is truly what it sells itself as – a bedtime story; make-believe of the highest order, taken with a generous pinch of sandman salt and a mountainous suspension of disbelief.

Artfully woven, beautifully shot and accidentally involving, this movie solidifies writer-director-actor Shyamalan as a tale-telling talent akin to Stephen King, a director rivaling the eye of Spielberg – and an actor only slightly better than Keanu Reeves.

Yet, redemption. Regarding his thespianic dabblings, I’ve got two words for Night’s naysayers: Darth Vader. Though he is far from usurping the thrones of Oldman or Ford, Night need only display two emotions onscreen to put him miles above the Christensens and Cruises – and he pulls off his emotionally-draining role in LADY quite commendably.

Up against Paul Giamatti, he has to. As Night is the new breed of fantasist, turning Hollywood’s formulaic swill in on itself, so too is Giamatti – like Jack Black, through sheer talent – redefining the new breed of leading man. In LADY, Giamatti mines that put-upon Everyman character we know so well, yet taps into acting territory reserved for the De Niros, Hoffmans and Day-Lewises. Playing a lonely, stuttering caretaker – and making it look as painful as it must really be (a stutterer and a caretaker) – he turns in a gutsy performance that makes all his awards for SIDEWAYS and CINDERELLA MAN sit that much more securely on his shelf.

Poffy in the water

Giamatti is Cleveland Heep, caretaker of an apartment complex called The Cove, which has raised the condition of Nothing Ever Happening to an art form. Into this lusterless community, up through the swimming pool, comes Story (Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of director Ron), one of an ancient race of Sea People, called a narf (which translates as “great legs, but a face like Richie Cunningham”), whom Cleveland keeps finding naked in his shower, quickly buying her tale of being sent to mystically jog the inspiration of surface people (the nakedness can only help the inspiration).

The narf legends are intermittently revealed through one of the Cove residents: apparently, Story must gather together a group of prophesied icons such as The Guild, The Healer, The Wordsmith – but lands a coterie of Batman villains instead, in the form of The Whiner (Giamatti), The Puzzler (Jeffrey Wright) and The Stoners (a bunch of surfer dudes).

Even as a patch of Big Bad Astroturf stalks her – all the better to scrunt you with, my dear! – Story, with Cleveland’s unintentionally-comedic help, discovers The Writer (who is actually – wink wink – The Director) whom her presence inspires to complete a magnum opus which will “change the world.” (We presume The Writer’s inspiration has something to do with seeing Cleveland’s shirt sensually draped over Story’s milk-pale shoulders.) By casting himself as The Writer, Night brings down the wrath from all walks of entertainment wannabes (critics, directors and writers alike), who begrudge Night this indulgence of Ego and frankly, I’m getting sick of the hypocrisy – who gets anything done without Ego?! It’s all ABOUT Ego. As Gene Simmons so astutely sneers, “You wish you were me.” And because they can’t or were never given the opportunity to write, direct, produce and act, all they have is vitriol for someone who can and does. Try looking on the bright side of Night’s humble, Homeric character – it may be the only time we’ll ever hear him say he is “nothing special.”

As with his two previous movies (SIGNS and THE VILLAGE), Night once again creates an insular world where nothing outside its boundaries matters in the least. This is the movie’s great sleight-of-hand and simultaneously its great failing.

The tale works effectively as long as we believe that Cleveland believes wholeheartedly in Story’s veracity – but convincing one lonely, balding man you’re a magical sprite can’t be that hard with legs like those; we are distracted minimally when everyone buys into the fairy tale as readily as Cleveland. The Night sleight-of-hand is employed just when we feel secure with the story’s predictability – what we thought was a plan coming together was merely misdirection. We recall Night’s notoriously subtle foreshadowing – how he merely pencils in, rather than hammers home – and realize that he has once again concealed his mystery in full sight.

The failing of the movie is in its less-than-compelling climax, for even when the plan does come together, we ask ourselves what exactly came together; it seems too pat for Story to find every icon that she needs amongst The Cove’s residents, and except for The Guardian and The Healer, no one else seemed to be integral to protecting Story and The Writer; that is, anyone could have picked up a rake to fend off a twiggy wolf, you didn’t need to be “seven sisters” or “a man with no secrets.”

Yet again – redemption: the stirring and stunning music of James Newton Howard dynamically spirits us into this world of twigs shaped like wolves and mermaids shaped like Twiggy, salving the wounds of weak plot; Giamatti provides a surprising amount of humor amongst the suspense, at times, overlapping the sublime and ridiculous, as when he pretends to be an infant to glean more of the narf legend; Night’s film-making itself is a wonder to behold, with his penchant for making every frame count, his creative camera placements and artful use of out-of-focus shots; and beautifully simple aspects like lighting a night scene as if it is night! – i.e. no backlit trees and shards of light aimed at actors when they hit their marks, but an overall, enshrouding darkness.

LADY even gives us a self-referential movie critic (Bob Balaban, whom some critics take as seriously as he satires them), who didactically elucidates “movie formula,” specifically so that Night can show us how LADY ingeniously subverts that formula…

LADY IN THE WATER is a suspense tale, not easily forced into a horror mold – nor should it be. Yet marketers, reviewers and audiences alike insist on calling it “horror,” then complaining that “it ain’t that scary.” As much as he is lauded by film aficionados and fans alike, an unsophisticated coterie obsessively maintains that unless an M. Night Shyamalan film contains a “twist” exactly like that in THE SIXTH SENSE, it is worthless. Who made up that rule? Writing, acting, music, sound design, ingenious plot arcs matter not to these bent-parochial netherworlders. Either they need to get over their stone-stupid provincialism, or they need to get laid.

LADY is proof that Shyamalan still gives his audience more credit than they deserve, as the “dumb” contingent, complying with the saw of empty vessels making the most noise, are the most vocal in their deprecation.

Yet the same people who denounce this master storyteller for some of the stranger aspects of this fiction (the boy reading portents in cereal boxes, the wolf hewn from garden greenery, the aquatic lady not having gills) are the same people who believe in humans with wings in a cloudy habitat called heaven; who believe in extraterrestrial anal-probing; who believe that a man can absolve them of their vilest crimes by being flayed by Romans for two days straight two-thousand years ago; who believe planets influence their lives more than the dangerous stupidity which would lead them to believe that in the first place – and whilst vilifying Night for fiction which brings only entertainment to those intelligent enough to glean it, these people would readily bring suffering to those who do not regard their idiotic fictions as reality.

Maybe one of the most poignant messages of LADY IN THE WATER is that even the insignificant among us may have a significant role to play on some grander canvas. Unfortunately, only the “significant” will glean that message. And those who pule for twists and horror and moronically await SIXTH SENSE PART II: THE SEVENTH SENSE, or SIXTH SENSE III: OCEANS’ FIFTEEN should take my advice and get themselves a massage.

And – like this movie – include a happy ending.

END