Yesterday’s rant about Rob Zombie aside, there are times when I can really enjoy a good, gory horror movie, and the Final Destination films are some of my favorites when it comes to mindless, gratuitous gory death. In fact, when it comes to Final Destination, we’re looking at gory death with a side of gory death, sprinkled with some gory death: it’s literally all the movies do. But for some reason they do it well.
Aside from the first Final Destination, these movies are anything but original. In fact, I can’t think of a movie franchise more rooted in formulaic story that Final Destination (unless, of course, James Cameron decides to make Avatar a multiple film endeavor). Your basic Final Destination plot goes exactly like this:
Main character and friends find themselves in a large group setting where a tragic and complex disaster occurs (respectively, a plane exploding, a freeway pile-up, a roller coaster accident and, in the newest film, a speedway collision). Several key characters are seen to die horribly in whatever this disaster is. The first disaster scene is always a vision seen by the Main Character, who then causes a commotion that pulls these key characters out of harm’s way just before the real disaster occurs. The rest of the movie consists of these characters being chased down by Death and being killed in rather complex, gruesome manners, in the exact order they would have died if they had not been saved from the disaster in the first place. Main Character and Love Interest decide that preventing Death from taking whichever victim is next in the chain should theoretically stop the progression of gory death altogether (because, you know, stopping Death from claiming all these lives in the first place worked so well). They inevitably save the person they believe is “next” to die, only to have a vision at the last minute showing them that whoopsie, they were wrong, and the next person to die is already in imminent danger. The story wraps up when they once again believe they have managed to stop Death’s rampage, only to have one final sequence at the end of the movie prove they haven’t stopped or changed anything at all, as another complex and tragic disaster strikes (presumably killing all the last survivors) right before the credits roll.
At least Final Destination 1 and 2 introduced and then attempted to put a new spin on this formula: in the sequel they discover all the key survivors are actually linked to the previous film’s survivors, having been saved from Death once before by events put into motion when Death instead took a detour to claim the folks he missed the first time around. But by the time viewers got to Final Destination 3, the film’s producers had caught on to the fact that no one was going to these movies to see any mystery solved: they were going to watch people crushed by falling planes of glass, tri-sected by whipsawing lengths of barbed-wire, decapitated by elevator doors and impaled by vehicle airbags blasting their heads backwards into the sharp, broken off edges of pipe jutting through the back of their driver’s seats.
Final Destination movies are all about who can come up with the most complex, over-the-top way to die. And they do a pretty good job of it! Of course, as the franchise has gone on, the deaths have become more and more unbelievable, to the point where, finally, in Final Destination 4, I’m not sure even a single death scene is even remotely possible. They rely on “worst-case scenario” logistics—what happens when a wobbly ceiling fan is coming loose from its joints right above a faulty stylist’s chair where one of our survivors is having her hair cut, and the condensation from the cup of water she’s requested makes the stylist’s table so slick that the hair-spray can slips into the waiting plates of a hot straightening iron? (The answer is: the hairspray can heats up to the point where the contents under pressure burst, turning it into a projectile that launches up into the air, hitting the ceiling fan and jarring it finally loose, so it crashes down to the floor right in front of the stylist chair, frightening the beautician holding a sharp pair of scissors right by the survivor’s eye, causing the chair to drop suddenly and nearly jabbing the scissors right into the survivor’s brain).
It’s all about building a better mousetrap. And after all that, of course, it isn’t even the exploding hair spray or the faulty chair or the falling ceiling fan or the scissors hovering just near the survivor’s eye that actually delivers the final death blow: no, just when you think our survivor has once again slipped out of the jaws of the Reaper, she steps out the door of the hair salon right when a riding mower across the street kicks up a pebble at such mind-boggling speed that it shoots right through her skull like a bullet.
Yep. That’s Final Destination for you. Completely random, often illogical scenes of gory suspense served up with a side of gory death. And there’s no escape. Ever. The survivors are never going to find that magic formula to outwit Death. They’re never going to live through the film and go on to the happy ending they actually deserve. Final Destination is about waiting to see when and where that final axe will fall.
Final Destination 4 measured up to its predecessors fairly well, to be honest. I say “fairly well” because as far as a formulaic horror film with a storyline laid out in black and white from before the opening credits are even through, it was entertaining. Ridiculous, yes, but entertaining. I think that my overly-analytic side has become so morbidly interested with the complexities of Final Destination death scenarios that the franchise has become more like black comedy to me than a serious attempt at grim horror. I truly enjoyed watching the fourth installment but that is because analyzing the impossible comedies of error that result in these better mousetraps of gory death is incredibly funny to me.
Here’s an example of implausible death for you: man struck by speeding ambulance explodes like an over-filled balloon. I mean, okay, sure… you get hit by an ambulance going that fast, chances are you’re not going to survive it… but the human body doesn’t just explode like a balloon from that force of impact! Break about a hundred bones, maybe. Go sailing through the air, probably. Die immediately, sure, I’ll buy that. But… exploding? Splattering like a blood-and-guts piñata? Yeah, no. Not unless the ambulance is speeding by at the speed of sound.
But that’s Final Destination for you: if it isn’t over-the-top gory and a little bit ridiculous, it just isn’t good enough.
Friday, March 12, 2010
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Plot? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Plot!
We had a yen for gory horror last night; so, we decided to give Rob Zombie's Halloween II a try.
Mistake.
Really, they ought to have just titled this mofo Rob Zombie Needs Another Excuse To Throw a Couple Of Hours of Gore Porn up on The Screen. Although admittedly this particular attempt was better than his earlier version: The Devil’s Rejects. And really, who could blame Rob? It’s been quite a few years since he’s had license to feed us blatant scenes of boobs and stabbing without having to worry about those pesky little details like sympathetic characters and plot progression.
I’ll give it to the Zomb: he really had me with his first Halloween remake. After TDR, I was fairly sure I would never be able to watch a Rob Zombie film again. And that’s not because I have a problem with gore or violence—hell, I’ve seen every Living Dead movie George A Romero made, every Final Destination (except this newest one; that’s being saved for tonight’s cinematic enjoyment), and a great deal of the horror film parodies out there like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I can appreciate some good, gory FX. No, my problem with Rob Zombie and TDR was that the film was just plain stupid. Stupid, gratuitous, pointless and mind-bogglingly bizarre… and not in a good way. So when the husband brought home Zombie’s first Halloween remake, I—as both a literary analyst and a fan of the classic Halloween series (yup, every one of them… except of course H3)—was highly skeptical. But, surprisingly, Rob’s version of the film was actually pretty damn good. I mean, he took the classic elements and updated them well; he introduced a great cast to take over for the good old ensemble, and he added just enough new material—specifically regarding the childhood development of Michael Myers and his crescendo into full-blown crazy-cakes—that it didn’t feel over-explained, didn’t take away from the looming, silent predator that is our main villain, and still brought something really neat to the table. Rob had a strong cast to work with, too, with Malcolm McDowell taking over the role of Dr. Samuel Loomis (originally played by the wonderful and often underrated Donald Pleasance), and Scout Taylor Compton playing Laurie Strode (originally played by, of course, Jamie Lee Curtis). Sure, Zombie also threw his wife in there for some gratuitous stripper fun, but hey, we expect that. All in all, the film was pretty solid.
Which is why I was foolish enough to give Zombie’s Halloween II a chance… but good lord, whatever grace of cinematic talent seized Zombie during the writing and filming of the first movie, this time it was used up, thrown out a window and pissed on by his usual technique of “Boobs and Gore, Now THAT’S Entertainment!”
I think the biggest problem with Halloween II is that you don’t like or even want to like either of the two main characters, Laurie or Loomis. While in the first film you had a pretty sympathetic Laurie—sweet hometown girl, with just a tiny bit of a bad side brought out by her wilder friends—and a patient, dynamic Loomis—compassionate and yet professionally embroiled with his psychotic young patient—the second film changes both these characters to the point where you actually want them to die. Laurie is now a pill-popping hot mess with no apparent intention of dealing with the rampant emotional and mental breakdowns that have arisen as a result of her past trauma—although she will decorate her bedroom with pictures of Charles Manson, pentagrams and repetitions of the number 666. Because what better way to communicate to the audience that Laurie is now all effed in the head than by having her display icons of Satanism that are already blatantly overused and commercialized by pretentious emo teens? Loomis, on the other hand, is no longer the protective, inquisitive, concerned physician we know and love; no, he’s become a greedy celebrity-seeking glory hound out to make a fast buck, and what better way to communicate his descent into jackass-hood than by seeing him shout—ridiculously and without provocation, I might add—at his female PR agent, and threatening to beat her publicly? Because that’s realistic character interaction, uh huh.
Beyond these two complete assholes blowing any hope of caring about the characters, Zombie blows any hope of relevant plot in the first ten minutes by thrusting us right into a stabby slaughter fest. I mean, don’t get me wrong…. Halloween movies and stabby slaughter-fests are pretty much one and the same. But I usually like to see a little set-up, a little atmosphere, some sense of story involved in why we have suddenly found ourselves in a stabby slaughter-fest. How is Michael Myers back after being shot in the head? What happened to Laurie and Loomis between then and now? Who else is now in the path of violence, swept into the maelstrom by a seemingly innocent coincidence? Really, Rob, give us a little time to get invested in this film, would you?
Instead, we get about five minutes of uncomfortable sex humor between two coroner’s men transporting Michael’s body, right before they crash, Michael gets up, and kills them both. Oh, and let’s not dismiss the 5 minutes of watching one of these coroner’s men gaping at the camera, blood and cuts all over his face, spitting out more blood and screaming in pain… while we have absolutely no idea what is happening to him. It isn’t Michael, not yet. Is this man trapped by twisted wreckage? Is his leg broken? Does he have a shard of glass from the windshield embedded in his shoulder? Who knows? All we do know is that he’s bleeding pretty badly and can make some pretty over-exaggerated expressions of pain with his cut up, bloodied face. And I’m not kidding… this goes on for five minutes. That’s a long damn time when you’re waiting for some form of explanation.
Cut to the hospital where Laurie is resting after the attack that formed the end sequence of the last Halloween movie. Will we see if her friend Annie is going to survive? Will we get to know any of the nursing staff taking care of our damsel in distress? Will we even get to know what the diagnosis is for Laurie herself, who appears to have at least one full leg cast and an arm-cast?
Nope, Michael Myers is already here. And he’s already killed her nurse. And as Laurie struggles to run away from him (in her aforementioned full leg cast and arm cast), we find he’s already somehow murdered and crucified another nurse and left her in the stairwell for Laurie to find. Is this getting to be too much yet? We’re only about 15 minutes into the whole movie… seems like we’re hitting the climax already. Well, we must be, because Laurie, in her mad dash for escape, has just stumbled upon a whole basement loading bin full of dead bodies.
Really? Really, Rob Zombie? You’re going to throw that many bodies at us and never explain how Michael Myers managed to kill all these people we’ve never even met? How did he get into this hospital? Where are the cops? Are you going to tell me there are no cops at the bedside of a girl who has just survived attempted murder by a serial killer? Where are the doctors and nurses? Why are there no cars in the parking lot? To quote a very admired internet critic of nostalgic film, “Explain, movie, explain!”
You see, there’s this thing called Rising Action. It’s somewhat essential to a full, developed plot. We’ve already somewhat touched on its absence in The Dark Knight… but at least that film had about an hour of setup before we hit the explosions. Here I am, 20 goddamn minutes into Rob Zombie’s film, and I’m thinking, movie over? Really?
Well, Ol’ Rob done pulled a fast one on us, because guess what? This entire 20-25 minute segment of the movie is a dream.
Yeah, on the one hand, how stupid is that? Dream sequences, especially at the beginning of a film, are best served quickly and with lots of eerie details that won’t make sense until later, not as one great big 20-minute fake out sequence. I’m left wondering, why did we even film this segment? To prove that Laurie is having nightmares? Well, big fucking DUH there.
Of course, on the other hand, Zombie saves himself from having the sequel to his surprisingly good remake ending up as a pointless, gory short film with the world’s easiest cop-out explanation. Just kidding, guys! It was all just a dream!
To top that off, now we have to sit through an hour and a half more of Laurie screaming obscenities at her therapist because she’s just too darn effed up to be helped, and screaming obscenities at her former best friend because she’s just too darn effed up to be helped, and going out to Halloween raves to get wasted and drunk and shout more obscenities because—say it with me—she’s just too darned effed up to be helped.
Gee, Rob Zombie… I think you made your point. Chick’s pretty messed up. Too bad I don’t care about her enough to, well, you know… care.
And, by the way, on another note… clever attempt to use the F-Bomb in place of any other possible adjective you might use, in order to distract us from the lack of plot development. Really made for a stellar script. I also applaud the directorial decision to have actors scream the damn word every time they say it: it really communicated their deep emotional turmoil in such a subtle and eloquent manner.
Is there anything good about this movie? Well, Danielle Harris, who played young Jamie Lloyd in the original Halloween films, does an excellent job with her character, Annie Brackett, another survivor of the first film struggling to come to terms with her trauma and succeeding far more brilliantly than her friend Laurie. Brad Dourif, playing Sherriff Brackett, also put in a great performance, proving that somewhere within all this needless porn, gore and swearing there can be sympathetic characters that we actually feel for and want to see. Of course, you know by the end of the movie, likeable Annie is killed and her father is left with nothing… too bad, so sad. I swear this whole thing should have been about them and Annie should have survived using the old Scream trick, “knife-went-in-to-some-old-scar-tissue”. In fact, that is what I choose to believe. Annie Brackett survived because Laurie Strode is too pathetic for me to care about.
I am left with nothing but a foul taste in my mouth and a sad, deflated feeling of disappointment. Rob Zombie actually had me believing he could do something good with the Halloween movies, but alas, he cannot. Fool me once and all that, I suppose… I definitely won’t be giving RZ another chance, anytime soon.
Mistake.
Really, they ought to have just titled this mofo Rob Zombie Needs Another Excuse To Throw a Couple Of Hours of Gore Porn up on The Screen. Although admittedly this particular attempt was better than his earlier version: The Devil’s Rejects. And really, who could blame Rob? It’s been quite a few years since he’s had license to feed us blatant scenes of boobs and stabbing without having to worry about those pesky little details like sympathetic characters and plot progression.
I’ll give it to the Zomb: he really had me with his first Halloween remake. After TDR, I was fairly sure I would never be able to watch a Rob Zombie film again. And that’s not because I have a problem with gore or violence—hell, I’ve seen every Living Dead movie George A Romero made, every Final Destination (except this newest one; that’s being saved for tonight’s cinematic enjoyment), and a great deal of the horror film parodies out there like Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland. I can appreciate some good, gory FX. No, my problem with Rob Zombie and TDR was that the film was just plain stupid. Stupid, gratuitous, pointless and mind-bogglingly bizarre… and not in a good way. So when the husband brought home Zombie’s first Halloween remake, I—as both a literary analyst and a fan of the classic Halloween series (yup, every one of them… except of course H3)—was highly skeptical. But, surprisingly, Rob’s version of the film was actually pretty damn good. I mean, he took the classic elements and updated them well; he introduced a great cast to take over for the good old ensemble, and he added just enough new material—specifically regarding the childhood development of Michael Myers and his crescendo into full-blown crazy-cakes—that it didn’t feel over-explained, didn’t take away from the looming, silent predator that is our main villain, and still brought something really neat to the table. Rob had a strong cast to work with, too, with Malcolm McDowell taking over the role of Dr. Samuel Loomis (originally played by the wonderful and often underrated Donald Pleasance), and Scout Taylor Compton playing Laurie Strode (originally played by, of course, Jamie Lee Curtis). Sure, Zombie also threw his wife in there for some gratuitous stripper fun, but hey, we expect that. All in all, the film was pretty solid.
Which is why I was foolish enough to give Zombie’s Halloween II a chance… but good lord, whatever grace of cinematic talent seized Zombie during the writing and filming of the first movie, this time it was used up, thrown out a window and pissed on by his usual technique of “Boobs and Gore, Now THAT’S Entertainment!”
I think the biggest problem with Halloween II is that you don’t like or even want to like either of the two main characters, Laurie or Loomis. While in the first film you had a pretty sympathetic Laurie—sweet hometown girl, with just a tiny bit of a bad side brought out by her wilder friends—and a patient, dynamic Loomis—compassionate and yet professionally embroiled with his psychotic young patient—the second film changes both these characters to the point where you actually want them to die. Laurie is now a pill-popping hot mess with no apparent intention of dealing with the rampant emotional and mental breakdowns that have arisen as a result of her past trauma—although she will decorate her bedroom with pictures of Charles Manson, pentagrams and repetitions of the number 666. Because what better way to communicate to the audience that Laurie is now all effed in the head than by having her display icons of Satanism that are already blatantly overused and commercialized by pretentious emo teens? Loomis, on the other hand, is no longer the protective, inquisitive, concerned physician we know and love; no, he’s become a greedy celebrity-seeking glory hound out to make a fast buck, and what better way to communicate his descent into jackass-hood than by seeing him shout—ridiculously and without provocation, I might add—at his female PR agent, and threatening to beat her publicly? Because that’s realistic character interaction, uh huh.
Beyond these two complete assholes blowing any hope of caring about the characters, Zombie blows any hope of relevant plot in the first ten minutes by thrusting us right into a stabby slaughter fest. I mean, don’t get me wrong…. Halloween movies and stabby slaughter-fests are pretty much one and the same. But I usually like to see a little set-up, a little atmosphere, some sense of story involved in why we have suddenly found ourselves in a stabby slaughter-fest. How is Michael Myers back after being shot in the head? What happened to Laurie and Loomis between then and now? Who else is now in the path of violence, swept into the maelstrom by a seemingly innocent coincidence? Really, Rob, give us a little time to get invested in this film, would you?
Instead, we get about five minutes of uncomfortable sex humor between two coroner’s men transporting Michael’s body, right before they crash, Michael gets up, and kills them both. Oh, and let’s not dismiss the 5 minutes of watching one of these coroner’s men gaping at the camera, blood and cuts all over his face, spitting out more blood and screaming in pain… while we have absolutely no idea what is happening to him. It isn’t Michael, not yet. Is this man trapped by twisted wreckage? Is his leg broken? Does he have a shard of glass from the windshield embedded in his shoulder? Who knows? All we do know is that he’s bleeding pretty badly and can make some pretty over-exaggerated expressions of pain with his cut up, bloodied face. And I’m not kidding… this goes on for five minutes. That’s a long damn time when you’re waiting for some form of explanation.
Cut to the hospital where Laurie is resting after the attack that formed the end sequence of the last Halloween movie. Will we see if her friend Annie is going to survive? Will we get to know any of the nursing staff taking care of our damsel in distress? Will we even get to know what the diagnosis is for Laurie herself, who appears to have at least one full leg cast and an arm-cast?
Nope, Michael Myers is already here. And he’s already killed her nurse. And as Laurie struggles to run away from him (in her aforementioned full leg cast and arm cast), we find he’s already somehow murdered and crucified another nurse and left her in the stairwell for Laurie to find. Is this getting to be too much yet? We’re only about 15 minutes into the whole movie… seems like we’re hitting the climax already. Well, we must be, because Laurie, in her mad dash for escape, has just stumbled upon a whole basement loading bin full of dead bodies.
Really? Really, Rob Zombie? You’re going to throw that many bodies at us and never explain how Michael Myers managed to kill all these people we’ve never even met? How did he get into this hospital? Where are the cops? Are you going to tell me there are no cops at the bedside of a girl who has just survived attempted murder by a serial killer? Where are the doctors and nurses? Why are there no cars in the parking lot? To quote a very admired internet critic of nostalgic film, “Explain, movie, explain!”
You see, there’s this thing called Rising Action. It’s somewhat essential to a full, developed plot. We’ve already somewhat touched on its absence in The Dark Knight… but at least that film had about an hour of setup before we hit the explosions. Here I am, 20 goddamn minutes into Rob Zombie’s film, and I’m thinking, movie over? Really?
Well, Ol’ Rob done pulled a fast one on us, because guess what? This entire 20-25 minute segment of the movie is a dream.
Yeah, on the one hand, how stupid is that? Dream sequences, especially at the beginning of a film, are best served quickly and with lots of eerie details that won’t make sense until later, not as one great big 20-minute fake out sequence. I’m left wondering, why did we even film this segment? To prove that Laurie is having nightmares? Well, big fucking DUH there.
Of course, on the other hand, Zombie saves himself from having the sequel to his surprisingly good remake ending up as a pointless, gory short film with the world’s easiest cop-out explanation. Just kidding, guys! It was all just a dream!
To top that off, now we have to sit through an hour and a half more of Laurie screaming obscenities at her therapist because she’s just too darn effed up to be helped, and screaming obscenities at her former best friend because she’s just too darn effed up to be helped, and going out to Halloween raves to get wasted and drunk and shout more obscenities because—say it with me—she’s just too darned effed up to be helped.
Gee, Rob Zombie… I think you made your point. Chick’s pretty messed up. Too bad I don’t care about her enough to, well, you know… care.
And, by the way, on another note… clever attempt to use the F-Bomb in place of any other possible adjective you might use, in order to distract us from the lack of plot development. Really made for a stellar script. I also applaud the directorial decision to have actors scream the damn word every time they say it: it really communicated their deep emotional turmoil in such a subtle and eloquent manner.
Is there anything good about this movie? Well, Danielle Harris, who played young Jamie Lloyd in the original Halloween films, does an excellent job with her character, Annie Brackett, another survivor of the first film struggling to come to terms with her trauma and succeeding far more brilliantly than her friend Laurie. Brad Dourif, playing Sherriff Brackett, also put in a great performance, proving that somewhere within all this needless porn, gore and swearing there can be sympathetic characters that we actually feel for and want to see. Of course, you know by the end of the movie, likeable Annie is killed and her father is left with nothing… too bad, so sad. I swear this whole thing should have been about them and Annie should have survived using the old Scream trick, “knife-went-in-to-some-old-scar-tissue”. In fact, that is what I choose to believe. Annie Brackett survived because Laurie Strode is too pathetic for me to care about.
I am left with nothing but a foul taste in my mouth and a sad, deflated feeling of disappointment. Rob Zombie actually had me believing he could do something good with the Halloween movies, but alas, he cannot. Fool me once and all that, I suppose… I definitely won’t be giving RZ another chance, anytime soon.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
It Makes My Brain Hurt....
We've had a string of pretty bad movies as of late... Twilight, of course, with the resounding theme of "People in General are Stupid Morons", and Wolverine, which was less like a movie with plot holes and more like a giant plot hole with bits of movie floating around in it, just to name two. But Transformers 2... Good Lord.
A note to Hollywood film makers: provocative shots of Megan Fox accompanied by a script that is 90% stupid sex jokes does not a decent movie make, and it does not make up for a painful lack of original writing and realistic dialog. Seriously, Transformers 2 was nothing more than a cliché-salad with lots of explosions and debris flying about in the mix. Every remotely intelligible spoken line was either a tired cliché (seriously, did the villains really just say, "This isn't over!", seriously? And did the cantankerous veteran robot really just say, "I'm getting too old for this crap?") or a cheap, dirty sex joke (Oh, look, a running gag where a little chihuahua is *ahem* "dominating" the other dog. And if that's not enough, lets have a gag where a small robot humps Megan Fox's leg, that ought to be good for a laugh. How about a gag where Megan Fox falls from the sky and lands face-down on a male character's crotch? Pure gold.). Every other line was spoken so quickly or with so many sound effects going on in the background that you couldn't hear it, and my guess is it was probably another round of clichéd sex jokes, anyway, so I guess I wasn't missing much.
I'm not exactly sure what today's adolescent generation expects of their coming college years, but if they expect that Michael Bay's representation that every single college girl will be falling over herself to jump into bed with them and college professors will conduct riveting Astronomy lectures using phrases like "heated, passionate, thrusting Orion and fair, seductive, nubile Virgo", they are going to be sorely disappointed. This just wasn't funny! It was a poor parody at best, and in a movie that was not intended as parody, it was just poor, cheap, writing that the director hoped would score some points with the masses.
Besides the painfully pedestrian and entirely unfunny "comedy", the first hour of the movie was a lot of stupid and mostly meaningless dialog fired between characters so rapidly you'd think the writers never heard the phrase "Take a beat". The last hour of the movie was a senselessly chaotic mishmash of explosions and robot parts flying around, and I think there MIGHT have been a plot point mixed in there somewhere, but honestly I was too overwhelmed by the amount of unidentifiable debris fighting for attention on the screen. When I go to a Michael Bay film I at least expect some worthwhile special effects and actions sequences, but for this film I might as well have just gone out, bought some Transformers toys, stuck them in the blender and watched them puree for an hour. At least then I might have had some idea which robot parts belonged to who and, incidentally, which side was winning.
Overall, this was one of the most disappointing re-creations of our favorite childhood cartoons I have seen come out of Hollywood yet. For the love of all that is pure and good, I pray that movie-goers will start demanding better from the movie directors and producers and stop accepting such cheap, worthless imitation.
A note to Hollywood film makers: provocative shots of Megan Fox accompanied by a script that is 90% stupid sex jokes does not a decent movie make, and it does not make up for a painful lack of original writing and realistic dialog. Seriously, Transformers 2 was nothing more than a cliché-salad with lots of explosions and debris flying about in the mix. Every remotely intelligible spoken line was either a tired cliché (seriously, did the villains really just say, "This isn't over!", seriously? And did the cantankerous veteran robot really just say, "I'm getting too old for this crap?") or a cheap, dirty sex joke (Oh, look, a running gag where a little chihuahua is *ahem* "dominating" the other dog. And if that's not enough, lets have a gag where a small robot humps Megan Fox's leg, that ought to be good for a laugh. How about a gag where Megan Fox falls from the sky and lands face-down on a male character's crotch? Pure gold.). Every other line was spoken so quickly or with so many sound effects going on in the background that you couldn't hear it, and my guess is it was probably another round of clichéd sex jokes, anyway, so I guess I wasn't missing much.
I'm not exactly sure what today's adolescent generation expects of their coming college years, but if they expect that Michael Bay's representation that every single college girl will be falling over herself to jump into bed with them and college professors will conduct riveting Astronomy lectures using phrases like "heated, passionate, thrusting Orion and fair, seductive, nubile Virgo", they are going to be sorely disappointed. This just wasn't funny! It was a poor parody at best, and in a movie that was not intended as parody, it was just poor, cheap, writing that the director hoped would score some points with the masses.
Besides the painfully pedestrian and entirely unfunny "comedy", the first hour of the movie was a lot of stupid and mostly meaningless dialog fired between characters so rapidly you'd think the writers never heard the phrase "Take a beat". The last hour of the movie was a senselessly chaotic mishmash of explosions and robot parts flying around, and I think there MIGHT have been a plot point mixed in there somewhere, but honestly I was too overwhelmed by the amount of unidentifiable debris fighting for attention on the screen. When I go to a Michael Bay film I at least expect some worthwhile special effects and actions sequences, but for this film I might as well have just gone out, bought some Transformers toys, stuck them in the blender and watched them puree for an hour. At least then I might have had some idea which robot parts belonged to who and, incidentally, which side was winning.
Overall, this was one of the most disappointing re-creations of our favorite childhood cartoons I have seen come out of Hollywood yet. For the love of all that is pure and good, I pray that movie-goers will start demanding better from the movie directors and producers and stop accepting such cheap, worthless imitation.
Monday, March 1, 2010
And Now For A Completely Unpopular Opinion.
Let's dive right in with both feet and alienate the majority of potential readers in one fell swoop.
The Dark Knight is not a good movie.
Yes, I said it. It's not. It's an okay movie... it's entertaining enough. It does not deserve to be #10 on the IMDB Top 250 Movies list. It does not deserve to beat Rear Window, Casablanca and Citizen Kane. I think I might have a shitfit if it were still listed higher than Schindler's List. Thank God that lapse in popular judgment was rectified.
Hell, this movie doesn't even deserve to beat Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It just doesn't. I mean, come on, people... it's just not that great!
I'll give you this, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't even bad. It was overhyped, for sure, but it had its strong points. And no, I'm not going to blame the hype on Heath Ledger's death; the man certainly deserved recognition for his part in this film and if anything I wish he had gotten more attention for his actual performance and not the fact that he had passed away. I'm not sure why exactly this film got so much hype but I think it was because Batman Begins was so good, and so fresh, when it was released. Personally I blame Bale for this big disappointment... he just doesn't pull off Batman for me. But Christopher Nolan has to take some of the blame too, along with his writing team... the biggest problem with this movie is that there is way, way, way too much climax, and not enough rising action. Most people translate that to, "It was intense", but seriously, it was just over the top runaway train.
(Warning: here thar be spoilers, arrr)
I didn't have high hopes for this movie, anyway. Based on the previews, it looked to me like they were changing the Joker's character too much away from his intended place in the hierarchy of the Rogue's Gallery, and I didn't care for that. Much like I didn't care for the "re-imagining" of Catwoman they did a few years back. It wasn't Heath Ledger that made me feel this way, it was just the way the previews lined up the information, I think.
But the writing for the character of the Joker actually did surprise me, and it was in fact one of the only things about this movie I truly applaud and enjoyed. But the rest of the film disappointed me in other ways. What rising action there was was tired and cliche. The Spiderman-esque love triangle got old pretty quickly and Joker's antics were (while well-acted) fairly predictable. I also have to scoff at the God-Like powers the writers granted to the Joker, who always seemed to be able to set up hideously complex bombs and death traps in public places, without anyone ever seeing him or ever actually being there, and with a consistently diminishing pool of loyal goons (since he kept killing them all himself). Plus, glaring stupidity on the part of the police force: I'm just not buying the scene where the Joker, holding a man both taller and heavier than him with only a small knife to his hostage's throat, faces down a room of about 15 cops, all with their guns drawn and pointed at him, and NO ONE shoots him. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want the Joker to just get taken out by some cop in a stand-off, but it JUST DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. One of my movie-watching companions said of this scene, "If I were one of those cops, I'd have just shot him and said he'd gotten free and had a weapon."
To this I could only reply, "Why even make the excuse? He did get free and he did have a weapon. Any reasonable cop with half a brain would have shot him right there!"
Plus, there was just too much going on all at once. I couldn't keep up with all the sudden reveals and the switches in scenes and the several small plotlines weaving in and out of the main chase. Factor in some Michael Bay-worthy action and special effects scenes that dragged out way longer than they needed to for the sole purpose of impressing the audience with shiny pyrotechnics, and I was just done. I was ready for the movie to be over about an hour before it was. Which wasn't surprising considering it was over at about 2:30, meaning I got home at about 3, meaning I got about 4 hours of sleep before crawling into work. Thank god my boss decided to treat us to coffee the next morning.
The movie was definitely not worth it.
On the bright side, the acting was phenomenal (with the exception of Bale). I'm sorry, Bale, but one does not become Batman by simply snarling through his lines in an unintelligible growl-yell combo. You fail. Otherwise, possibly the best (and most realistic) Two-Face I have ever seen, and Maggie Gyllenhall was a great choice to replace Katie Holmes. I actually believed she and Christian Bale had chemistry, which was something sorely lacking with Holmes. And plus, you know, Katie Holmes is a brainless droid.
Top-notch job by Ledger, he did his part sooo very well. But above and beyond anyone else was without a doubt Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon). He was brilliant (but then again, isn't he always?). I didn't even like the movie that much and I'd see it again purely for him. He had both me and my brother in tears at some points. Bravo, Mr. Oldman. Bravo.
Though I obviously disagree with a vast majority of people when it comes to this film, I can give credit where credit is due. One line that will always make me smile:
Commissioner Gordon shouting directions at the driver of a police cruiser: "Mount the sidewalk!"
When Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is telling me to mount anything, I'm there.
The Dark Knight is not a good movie.
Yes, I said it. It's not. It's an okay movie... it's entertaining enough. It does not deserve to be #10 on the IMDB Top 250 Movies list. It does not deserve to beat Rear Window, Casablanca and Citizen Kane. I think I might have a shitfit if it were still listed higher than Schindler's List. Thank God that lapse in popular judgment was rectified.
Hell, this movie doesn't even deserve to beat Terminator 2: Judgement Day. It just doesn't. I mean, come on, people... it's just not that great!
I'll give you this, it wasn't terrible. It wasn't even bad. It was overhyped, for sure, but it had its strong points. And no, I'm not going to blame the hype on Heath Ledger's death; the man certainly deserved recognition for his part in this film and if anything I wish he had gotten more attention for his actual performance and not the fact that he had passed away. I'm not sure why exactly this film got so much hype but I think it was because Batman Begins was so good, and so fresh, when it was released. Personally I blame Bale for this big disappointment... he just doesn't pull off Batman for me. But Christopher Nolan has to take some of the blame too, along with his writing team... the biggest problem with this movie is that there is way, way, way too much climax, and not enough rising action. Most people translate that to, "It was intense", but seriously, it was just over the top runaway train.
(Warning: here thar be spoilers, arrr)
I didn't have high hopes for this movie, anyway. Based on the previews, it looked to me like they were changing the Joker's character too much away from his intended place in the hierarchy of the Rogue's Gallery, and I didn't care for that. Much like I didn't care for the "re-imagining" of Catwoman they did a few years back. It wasn't Heath Ledger that made me feel this way, it was just the way the previews lined up the information, I think.
But the writing for the character of the Joker actually did surprise me, and it was in fact one of the only things about this movie I truly applaud and enjoyed. But the rest of the film disappointed me in other ways. What rising action there was was tired and cliche. The Spiderman-esque love triangle got old pretty quickly and Joker's antics were (while well-acted) fairly predictable. I also have to scoff at the God-Like powers the writers granted to the Joker, who always seemed to be able to set up hideously complex bombs and death traps in public places, without anyone ever seeing him or ever actually being there, and with a consistently diminishing pool of loyal goons (since he kept killing them all himself). Plus, glaring stupidity on the part of the police force: I'm just not buying the scene where the Joker, holding a man both taller and heavier than him with only a small knife to his hostage's throat, faces down a room of about 15 cops, all with their guns drawn and pointed at him, and NO ONE shoots him. Don't get me wrong, I didn't want the Joker to just get taken out by some cop in a stand-off, but it JUST DIDN'T MAKE SENSE. One of my movie-watching companions said of this scene, "If I were one of those cops, I'd have just shot him and said he'd gotten free and had a weapon."
To this I could only reply, "Why even make the excuse? He did get free and he did have a weapon. Any reasonable cop with half a brain would have shot him right there!"
Plus, there was just too much going on all at once. I couldn't keep up with all the sudden reveals and the switches in scenes and the several small plotlines weaving in and out of the main chase. Factor in some Michael Bay-worthy action and special effects scenes that dragged out way longer than they needed to for the sole purpose of impressing the audience with shiny pyrotechnics, and I was just done. I was ready for the movie to be over about an hour before it was. Which wasn't surprising considering it was over at about 2:30, meaning I got home at about 3, meaning I got about 4 hours of sleep before crawling into work. Thank god my boss decided to treat us to coffee the next morning.
The movie was definitely not worth it.
On the bright side, the acting was phenomenal (with the exception of Bale). I'm sorry, Bale, but one does not become Batman by simply snarling through his lines in an unintelligible growl-yell combo. You fail. Otherwise, possibly the best (and most realistic) Two-Face I have ever seen, and Maggie Gyllenhall was a great choice to replace Katie Holmes. I actually believed she and Christian Bale had chemistry, which was something sorely lacking with Holmes. And plus, you know, Katie Holmes is a brainless droid.
Top-notch job by Ledger, he did his part sooo very well. But above and beyond anyone else was without a doubt Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon). He was brilliant (but then again, isn't he always?). I didn't even like the movie that much and I'd see it again purely for him. He had both me and my brother in tears at some points. Bravo, Mr. Oldman. Bravo.
Though I obviously disagree with a vast majority of people when it comes to this film, I can give credit where credit is due. One line that will always make me smile:
Commissioner Gordon shouting directions at the driver of a police cruiser: "Mount the sidewalk!"
When Gary Oldman as Commissioner Gordon is telling me to mount anything, I'm there.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Let The Bitching Begin.
You know those people who just can't help but nitpick over bad grammar and ruin your favorite movies by pointing out everything wrong with them? Well, I'm one of those people. I marvel at the cosmic joke that is the "bestseller", Twilight, and I cannot fathom how The Fountain has not been recognized for the true work of genius that it was. JK Rowling is second in my mind only to Stephen King, even though she's a far more fantastically skilled author and he scrapes by on what I lovingly refer to as "Stephen King Authority" (the ability to write absolutely ridiculous nonsense and have readers lap it up like warm cream). I liked Eragon better when it was called Dragonheart / Star Wars / Lord of the Rings / Pirates of the Caribbean / The Cheysuli Chronicles / Dragonriders of Pern, and I will go to my grave insisting that The Dark Knight is completely overrated.
So after ten years of absolutely ruining books and movies for my friends and loved ones, I've decided to take my show on the road and subject innocent web-surfers to the rants and raves of a self-righteous English major with an axe to grind.
The good thing about being so damn overly analytical and so very obsessed with all things literary (and literature-translated-to-film) is that I know my way around an editor's pen, and I've learned a fair bit about creative writing, argumentative writing, and the writer's market, including querying agents and publishers and preparing works for submissions. I've been published in several literary anthologies and even have a novel under review with a major fantasy and sci-fi publishing house, and I love trying out new writing exercises. So peppered in with the bitching I'll probably be able to offer some great constructive advice and suggestion in the realms of creative and/or persuasive writing and maybe even share a couple of notes on the editing or submitting process. Who knows, there may even be a point buried somewhere within all this overly-analytic hooplah. With that in mind, I hope you'll bear with me through the ranting and occasional throwing of the more craptastic books and DVDs (and believe me, the Twilight series is going to have its name written on more than a few dents in my walls), and enjoy a look at some real literary analysis and some good creative shop-talk.
Hello, interwebs. I'm here and I'm ready to bitch.
So after ten years of absolutely ruining books and movies for my friends and loved ones, I've decided to take my show on the road and subject innocent web-surfers to the rants and raves of a self-righteous English major with an axe to grind.
The good thing about being so damn overly analytical and so very obsessed with all things literary (and literature-translated-to-film) is that I know my way around an editor's pen, and I've learned a fair bit about creative writing, argumentative writing, and the writer's market, including querying agents and publishers and preparing works for submissions. I've been published in several literary anthologies and even have a novel under review with a major fantasy and sci-fi publishing house, and I love trying out new writing exercises. So peppered in with the bitching I'll probably be able to offer some great constructive advice and suggestion in the realms of creative and/or persuasive writing and maybe even share a couple of notes on the editing or submitting process. Who knows, there may even be a point buried somewhere within all this overly-analytic hooplah. With that in mind, I hope you'll bear with me through the ranting and occasional throwing of the more craptastic books and DVDs (and believe me, the Twilight series is going to have its name written on more than a few dents in my walls), and enjoy a look at some real literary analysis and some good creative shop-talk.
Hello, interwebs. I'm here and I'm ready to bitch.
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