After Earth

            Thanks to this song I can no longer say 'Earth.'  It's always 'Erf.'  Well, this part of Independence Day doesn't help either.  Fortunately you get to hear Will Smith say 'Earth' again.  Unfortunately(?) it's fully enunciated.

            On to the review!

            After Earth is, at its heart, a father/son movie.  For that, I cannot give it enough credit.  They could have easily turned this film into some sort of galaxy-spanning epic but to their credit, the filmmakers did not.

            The movie takes place in a future where humanity had to flee Earth after polluting it to the point that it was uninhabitable. A thousand years later, a new threat has arisen: aliens. Not just any aliens, either. Alien warriors that, while blind, are specially bred to smell the pheromones released by mankind when they feel fear.

            Enter the savior of mankind, Cypher Raige (Will Smith), a man who has learned to feel no fear, thus becoming invisible to the alien Ursa.  In order to make things a bit more corny, this ability is called 'Ghosting.'

            Now, General Cypher has a bit of a problem.  You see, his son Kitai (Jaden Smith) is trying very hard to follow in his father's footsteps, but he has a glaring disability in the form of being capable of actual emotion.  Even though he is still a teenager, he expects more from himself and believes his father does as well.  Just think of Cypher as the High Expectations Asian Father meme (with less racism) and you've got the right idea.

            So what is a father to do when his son wants to follow in his footsteps?  That's right!  Field trip!  In this case, Cypher takes Kitai with him on a training mission, where fellow Rangers will receive the benefits of his boundless wisdom.  At least in theory, because something goes wrong and they all crash land on--wait for it--Earth!
            Even worse, the father and son duo are the only survivors, they have limited food and water, Cypher is hurt, and the rescue beacon is 1000 kilometers away.

            That's just the first 30 minutes.  It's a very busy movie.

            The rest of the film is devoted to Kitai's trek across a verdant world that does not want humanity there.  He must fight off all manner of monsters and face dozens of fears in order to get to the beacon and save both his life and his father's.  Also, he falls down a lot.  No, seriously.  There may be close to a half-dozen instances of Jaden Smith laying on his back or side after being hurt/surprised/etc.  That was weird.

            So what about everything else?  Well, the film is gorgeous, there's no getting around that.  For such a CGI-heavy film, I wasn't really bothered by any sense of fakeness.  The futuristic technology is cool for the most part, but I didn't really get the hippie-vibe from all the man-made structures. 

            Jaden Smith continues to surprise me with his acting abilities, while Will seems to be coasting more and more on former fame.  What you have is a mindless summer film that doesn't really impress in any way unless you have zero expectations; then you're marginally impressed.  It is the ultimate inoffensive summer movie that you can probably take kids of any age to see as long as they are not frightened by CGI violence.

            Wait, there is one more thing.  The accents.  They were absolute bullshit.  They sounded like some sort of strange, country-boy-meets-British-nobleman thing.  It's like the director told all of his actors to talk like they moved from Alabama to Ireland, lived there for 10 years and then tried to become nobility.  What kind of idiot would fuck with accents that play no part in a film other than to cause a distraction?

            Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

            Oh.

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.

Dark Shadows

As many of you are well aware, I despise misleading trailers.  I hate them enough to bring it up whenever the possibility arises, and I’m always cautioning others to wait and talk to someone who has seen a movie if you’re on the fence about it.  There is nothing worse than walking into a theater with expectations of A, but being served B.

            Why do I bring this up? 

            On to the review!

            Before I get into why I feel like I was lied to, we must first answer a question:  What exactly is Dark Shadows?  Well, it’s an adored gothic soap opera that ran for hundreds and hundreds of episodes in the 1960’s and ‘70’s, was briefly revived in the 1990’s and turned into a TV movie in 2005.  So, yeah, it’s kinda popular.  You can call it the Dr. Who of fantasy soaps, only without enough studio backing to bring it back to stay.  Fortunately for fans, there was one man with the perfect amount of vision, gothic sensibilities and quirky humor who also had the clout to make it happen again, for the fourth time. 

            But was it worth reviving?

           

            In short:  Ehhhhhh.  Sure.  A little.  Maybe?

            My biggest problem with Dark Shadows is how everyone but Johnny Depp plays the straight man.  Actually, Depp also plays the straight man (or vampire, as it were).  Once again Tim Burton asks him to fall into the role of a very strange, fish-out-of-water character.  This time he is Barnabas Collins, a great, beloved man, cursed to be an undead vampire for eternity.  The curse comes about because he spurned the advances of a witch, Angelique Bouchard (Eva Green) and she decided that if she couldn’t have him, he’d just have to suffer for all eternity, buried alive.  Or is that buried undead?

            Of course, two hundred years later, his coffin is disturbed and he’s free to return home to the now-dilapidated Collins estate, where he finds the sad, pitiful remains of his once-mighty descendants.  You see, it wasn’t enough for Angelique to torture him.  She decided to stick around and make every Collins descendent suffer.  That’s right.  She was so obsessed over Barnabas that she feels she must ensure the Collins family slowly, pitifully slides into a mockery of their once-great power.

            Compared to the original soaps, the whole plot is fine, really. Well, except for one thing.  You see, every single damn trailer for Dark Shadows promised me a gothic comedy.  Every second of every trailer was jam-packed with quirky characters, oddball situations and general fantastical silliness that sold me on a goofy, gently mocking take on the original.

            What was delivered ended up being a dark, depressing film that only delivers its humor via Barnabas’s observations and poorly timed comments.  On top of that, the humor falls flat after the first half-dozen ‘oh goodness look at this crazy technology, are you sure it isn’t Satan?’ jokes.  To be brutally honest, the jokes are one-note and cease to be in any way humorous after about 45 minutes.  That leaves almost 75 minutes of humorless, colorless movie.  Even worse, most of the truly clever jokes were in the trailer.

            I’m not saying that this film is bad.  I’m saying that it’s absolutely not what you may have been looking for.  It’s misleading, and that’s a shame.  I don’t think I would have gone out of my way to watch it if the trailers were honest, but I like to think that Burton and Depp would have delivered a better product if the studio had put more pressure on them, rather than just making a misleading trailer.

            As for everyone else in the movie, they’re pretty much single-note characters.  Eva Green isn’t impressive as the bad guy.  In fact, the camera makes her cleavage more important than her emotions. Michelle Pfeiffer is fine as the matron of the Collins family, but she’s not given much to work with.  Helena Bonham Carter and Chloe Grace Moretz are completely wasted in their roles; Moretz especially is creepy as an over-sexualized teenager, delivering all her lines with a constant sneer.  It’s unsettling, and not in a cinematically impressive way.

            Nobody else stands out, just as nothing in Dark Shadows stands out.  It’s blandly predictable, and I really think Tim Burton needs to take a break from filmmaking for a while or try something radically different.  Maybe a buddy cop comedy or a war movie?

            What I’m trying to say is, go see The Avengers again.  If you really like Dark Shadows, you’ll be fine with this version.  Same goes for those of you that really like Johnny Depp in white face paint.  For everyone else, this movie won’t make you a fan of the series, and it may even deter you from checking out the weird, oddly entertaining originals that I used to watch on SciFi during my summer vacations.

Netflix'd: Season of the Witch

Super bonus round:  My wife is joining us on XBox Live (hooray $120 a year for two accounts!) and is deep in her cups o' wine.

            As a bonus, we're shooting for absolute high budget schlock with Season of the Witch.  You know a movie is going to be fun for all the wrong reasons when you have late-period Nicolas Cage.

            On to the review!

            You know what?  I was wrong.  Overacting, ridiculous Nicolas Cage was not present in this film.  Ron Perlman was not particularly more or less badass than he usually is.  Christopher Lee was plague-ridden. 

            Basically, this movie was 97 minutes of disappointment.

            In fact, it was kinda boring.  Fortunately there were 8 of us filling up the Netflix movie chat, which enabled about 500% more fun from comments than the movie offered us.

            The movie basically follows our intrepid heroes Cage and Perlman as they realize the Crusades suck ass and try to run away.  They get caught and are forced by Christopher Lee to either escort a witch to some location or face death.  Then everything gets pretty boring.

            In fact, I really don't want to talk about it, because it was just incredibly boring.  Read our quotes and call it a day.

            Nicolas Cage, I am disappoint.

Thanks for everyone who showed up!  Full house of fun and awesome!  Special thanks to my wife for being cute and ridiculous!

As always, comments in quotes are ours and italics are from the movie.

"Don't burn me!  I'm not a witch!  I don't weigh as much as a duck!"

"It's the city of Bruce Vilanch."

"I hate the Middle Ages."  "I'm more of a fan of the awkward teenage ages myself."

"I can't hear you.  Ron Perlman is in the way."

"Wow, it's so green-screen!"

"Draw your arms!"   "This is hardly the time to sketch, sir."

"We've been fighting for seven months!  I just wanna take a nap!"  "I need a wenching break!"

"His name is Almost Russell Crowe."

"Sons of Anarchy has ruined how I view Ron Perlman.  He should be on a motorcycle, shooting all these people."  "Dude, this is a Nic Cage movie.  That's Act 3."

"Christopher Lee got some really bad Botox."

"This is a comedy, right?"  "It's a buddy comedy.  Just wait until they get the black knight."  "Is he played by Martin Lawrence?  I hope it is."  "Yeah, they learn to set aside their racial differences."  "Racial differences between Ron Perlman and Nic Cage?"

"Nicolas Cage is so crazy he can just pull fruit out of thin air."  "Are we sure he's not a witch?"

Kid swings the sword while holding the blade.  "You're doing it wrong!"  (Shouted by several people simultaneously.)

"I can totally imagine the reaction of the people.  They'd be all like *gasp*"  "Oh nooooo."

"You don't sleep in a plague town.  You stay away from a plague town.  I'm pretty sure it was a Bruce Springsteen song."

"Even this guy, from half a town away, felt the disappointment of the previous scene."

"It's black plague spooge.  Ewwww."

"I didn't know the dog from Resident Evil was in this.  Where's Wesker?"

"Meh."

"I thought Cage was gonna make out with his horse for a minute.  I was really interested, and the horse looked kinda concerned."

"Push harder!  What is your problem?"  "I wish I didn't hear my wife say that so often."

"This better save his life, 'cause that's Ron Perlman's juice."  "I think we should be in a stagecoach, selling it from town to town.  Come buy Ron Perlman's Juice!  It will give you the power of a thousand men!"  "Or two Ron Perlman."

"I'm not gonna lie.  I just imagined them killing all the wolves in Twilight."

"He's doing what comes naturally..."  "Masturbating."

"I just realized something.  Why is Ron Perlman the most levelheaded person right now?"

"Sorry, I'm not in to little Welsh boys."

"I think the moral of this story is 'Nicolas Cage.  For when Sean Bean turns you down.'"

"The special effects in this movie make me miss Stripperland."

"They're like cockroaches."  "Yeah, because cockroaches drop from the ceiling and try to stab you with knives."