The Possession

            Teenagers:  The bane of the movie going experience.  Second only to young children, their incessant noise is difficult to ignore when in large groups.

            PG-13 horror movies:  Teenagers are oddly attracted to them, hoping for a few scares from a film they're legally allowed to watch without adult supervision.

            On Friday, I went to see The Possession.  Since it's produced by Sam Raimi, I wish I had mostly positive things to say.  But just like Santa Claus, wishes aren't real.

            So let's start with the positive: The acting is excellent. 

            Okay, I'm out of positive.

            On to the review!

           

            In  The Possession, Clyde (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a newly-divorced father who gets his girls on the weekends.  Of course, mother Stephanie (Kyra Sedgwick, whom I will always have a crush on) is a bit of a new-ager, so the kids aren't allowed pizza or junk food, as the youngest has 'allergies.'  Clyde tries his best to be a fun and caring father, but he too often puts his career as a basketball coach ahead of his family.  Hence the 'newly-divorced' part.

            The older sister Hannah is played by Madison Davenport, and she's more or less exactly what I expect from a Hollywood version of a teenage girl.  Her little sister Em is played by Natasha Calis and she brings actual nuance to the movie.  Yes, nuance.  To a horror movie.

            The plot gets going when Hannah makes dad stop at a yard sale, commenting on how he needs new dishes.  While there, Em finds a large, hand-crafted wooden box that she asks her father to buy.  After some horrible, blatant foreshadowing, we watch as Em discovers how to open it up completely by accident, and then we get to the creepy. 

            As the days go by, Em starts to act more and more out-of-sorts.  She even claims that she 'doesn't feel like herself' at one point.  Yes, as good as the acting is, the script tries its best to force everyone down to its level.  As Em gets more and more erratic, Clyde becomes ever-more-concerned.  Finally, he confronts her in an effort to figure out what is going on and, without ruining anything, he ends up losing his joint custody.

            Stephanie, having been privy to none of this, genuinely believes that Clyde has turned into an asshat, but it doesn't stop Clyde from continually trying to help his daughter.  Finally, with the help of a completely random college professor, he learns what the box truly is and who he needs to go to for help.

            Of course, that person is Matisyahu, playing Tzadok, a very kind-hearted Orthodox Jew.  Tzadok takes Clyde and the box to his father, but daddy refuses to help, deciding that it's too dangerous.  Tzadok can't bear to see a child suffer, so he offers his own services. 

            By the time Clyde and Tzadok get back home, Em has been hospitalized due to her erratic and dangerous behavior.  So all that stuff you saw in the trailer?  Yeah, it mostly happens in the last 15 minutes.

            Here's the biggest problem with The Possession.  It doesn't know what kind of horror it wants to be.  It builds slowly.  I mean really, really slowly.  The plot takes its time to develop and reminds you of some of the older horrors like The Exorcist or Poltergeist.  Unfortunately, the scares are nothing more than modern day meh.  Every time you expect a jump, there's a jump.  When you expect the character to do A, they do A.  There are no twists, no surprises, and everything is so neatly laid out that it becomes just another crappy PG-13 horror. 

            What I really want to do is take all these actors and put them in a better, scarier movie.  One that's not afraid to take chances and risk alienating the audience through some bold decisions.  Like maybe actually killing someone you don't expect to die, or at the very least leave some genuine emotional scarring.

            Final verdict?   Save your time and money.  Go rent TheExorcism of Emily Rose instead.

Total Recall

            After taking nearly two weeks off, I’ve learned a few things about my little film review blog.  First, I genuinely missed typing out my opinions, quips, and comments, then posting them to the interwebs.  I guess after you do something regularly for 18 months, you start to look forward to it.  So, like video games and pornography, I’ve made Mainstreamin’ a pleasurable habit.

            Secondly, I feel like Mainstreamin’ has made me a quicker thinker, or at least a thinking quip-er.  I’m sure some of you would like to argue this, but I believe my writing has gotten tighter, my jokes are slightly less lame, and my style has definitely improved.  I only ramble when I want to, damnit!

Finally, my movie IQ has risen.  I’ve always loved movies, but writing about something forces you to pay better attention to it. I’m still able to lay back and enjoy the spectacle, but after writing about film, I feel like I’ve trained myself to notice film.  Yeah, that explosion was sweet, but did you see they accidentally switched which hand was holding the detonator?  These are things I would never have noticed before.  Thankfully, I don’t let it pull me out of the movie, but it’s cool to actually see these multi-million-dollar filmmakers are just as fallible as the rest of us.

            And speaking of fallible multi-million-dollar movies…

On to the review!

            Do you fondly remember 1990’s awesomely schlocky action extravaganza starring Arnold Shwarzenneger, Total Recall?  I can’t say it was a good film by any means, but it had all the characteristics of a ridiculous, entertaining action movie.  Blood, violence, Ahhhnold beating up people, outer-space asphyxiation, and a woman with 3 breasts.  Also, Kuato.

            Well, Hollywood decided that, while entertaining in its own special way, that Total Recall wasn’t fit to be the definitive Total Recall.  You see, the story came (loosely) from a Philip K. Dick short story titled “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale.”  Hollywood felt it was too loose an adaptation, as Mars was never a factor in the original story.

            Bring on the remake!  Bring on the reimagining!  Bring on Colin Farrell!

            Whatever they brought on, there are more problems with the remake than there were for the earlier version.  For all the changes they made from the last film, just enough is the same to render any and all plot twists completely unsurprising, and almost every change seems to be for the worse.  Hands down the biggest mistake they made was neutering the film down into a PG-13 action spectacular.  Yes, PG-13 movies have a better chance at being a hit, as that 13-17 year old male demographic tends to show up when explosions and beautiful women are on offer.  (Kate Beckinsale as Lori Quaid and Jessica Biel as Melina most certainly take care of the beautiful women quotient.)

            Unfortunately, PG-13 action movies have to make sacrifices in order to maintain that lower rating: the action.  Too much violence gets you an R.  Easy enough, let’s throw in synthetic police officers, so we can kill ‘em bloodlessly!  Then we’ll make sure everyone else dies from bloodless wounds or explosions!

            Well, ok, sure.  But no realistic death makes the entire film feel less realistic, and the lack of consequences from the violence leads to a ridiculous amount of bystander casualties.  Seriously, I’d say at least 200 people die who just happen to be at the wrong time and place.

            Anyhow, plot.  After years of chemical warfare, only Great Britain and Australia (The Colony) are habitable.  Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is an unhappy wage slave living in The Colony, who travels The Fall daily and works in an assembly line putting together synthetic cops.  (The Fall is a transport that travels in a straight line through the middle of the planet, making the trip from The Colony to Great Britain in roughly 20 minutes.)  Quaid decides that life sucks, so he hits up Rekall, a place that implants false memories.  This way you can pretend you’ve lived a more exciting life than you actually have.  Quaid's dissatisfaction with life leads him to choose the super-spy memory package.

            From there, both the original and new Total Recall hit the same notes.  Some people want Quaid to think he’s still back in Rekall, others want him to help them free an entire group of citizens  (Mars or the Colony) from the evil, greedy clutches of someone else (this time it's Great Britain).  At least the new antagonist is Bryan Cranston, who seems to bring the awesome to every role he takes.

            Since this is getting a bit long, let me summarize.  Plot: Goofy, but not in a good way.

Acting:  Meh.  Fight scenes:  Disjointed, uninspiring.  Actors aside, they could just as easily be from The Island, I, Robot or any other lame, PG-13 action flick.  Plot twists:  What plot twists?

            In fact, the only truly awesome part of Total Recall is the scenery.  There has not been such a marvelous, dystopian future on screen since Blade Runner.  Unfortunately the rest of the film does not do the scenery justice.

            While not a total shitfest of a movie, Total Recall version 2.1 is a completely pointless remake.  No changes add to the film, and it’s pretty much a fluffy, meaningless romp where you don’t really care if Quaid’s life is real or not.  Just go play yourself some Deus Ex if you want to experience a luscious world that actually has a fun, interesting plot.