Braveheart (1995)

Mel Gibson moons some English guys, stares dreamily off into space for three hours and instils so much courage in Brendan Gleeson he takes on the British army with a rubber axe!

Braveheart is a 1995 epic directed by Mel Gibson and starring Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson, Mel Gibson and Mel Gibson.

The vast majority of criticism I hear about Braveheart is that it’s ‘historically inaccurate’. I’m certainly critical of a few things about this film, but that’s not one of them. If I want historical accuracy, I’ll watch a documentary. I watch movies to be entertained. In this regard, Braveheart is a huge success.

Yet, this movie is one of those odd films that seems like the greatest thing ever when you first see it but when you revisit it you begin to pick up on how uncool a lot of it is. For instance I’d forgotten what a Mel Gibson love-fest it is. This is hilarious given that he actually directed it. He claims he was under duress – that the studio basically strong-armed him into starring in it himself or they’d pull the financing. Well, maybe so Mel. But then how do you explain the long, lingering close ups of…your own face!

And a helicopter shot of yourself bounding up a mountainside while an orchestral score swells and booms doesn’t really scream “ensemble picture”. This scene is supposed to be heroic and inspiring but instead it’s just incredibly silly. Particularly the fact that the rest of the Scottish rebels are nowhere to be found. So, William Wallace was just fond of taking solo jogs? Did he need some time alone? You’d think with food scarce he’d want to conserve his energy rather than dashing up hillsides to do nothing more than stare off into the sunset.

I don’t mind Mel Gibson. Sure, he’s basically Mel Gibson in everything he’s ever starred in, but he has charisma and a definite screen presence. It’s not hard to understand why he was a huge box-office draw for so long. So yeah, I’m a Mel Gibson fan, even after he went batshit crazy.

So it’s an odd paradox for me that this film starts to go downhill as soon as he appears in it. There’s a long prologue depicting William Wallace as a young boy (a sort of superhero ‘origin story’ if you will), written to give you an idea of how he became the rebel leader we see later. For me this is the best part of the film. This, and any scene with Angus McFadyen as Robert the Bruce. I believe it was he, and not actually William Wallace, who is known as the “Braveheart” in Scottish history. His story is far more interesting and I could have done with a movie about him, with Wallace either a peripheral character or not in it at all.

Anyway, Mel shows up and the first thing that’s distracting is his hair. It’s too clean. It always looks like he just took to it with Pantene and a blow dryer. Plus he plays Wallace like some kind of medieval superhero. His character arc is more a character flat line. He shows up and he’s awesome at everything – sex, strategy, diplomacy, and kicking in heads. As the film goes on, he remains awesome. Then at the end, yep, he’s still awesome.

Okay, I’m being hard on the guy. For a debut directorial effort, the film was ambitious to say the least. For the most part, it’s superbly made. The battle scenes, aside from a few continuity errors, are great. They must have been a logistical nightmare to shoot. Massive CGI battles were still a few years away in 1995, so all the soldiers here are real, and all the blood spatters are practical effects.

My favourite scene is where Robert the Bruce confronts his father, the leprous would be king of Scotland, after betraying Wallace at Falkirk. McFadyen is a superb actor, and his line delivery and emotion during this scene is just pitch perfect. He plays the tortured leader perfectly; a man torn between loyalty to what he knows is right, and duty to his country and father.

I also really like Sophie Marceau. She’s stunning, and has the most epic braid in the history of cinema. Her slutty friend is also really awesome – I love her line about Englishmen not knowing what a tongue is for.

Patrick McGoohan is also brilliant as the English King Edward “The Longshanks”. He is so slimy he practically slides rather than walks. The character would be a ludicrous caricature in the hands of a lesser actor, but McGoohan pulls it off nicely.

Steven the mad Irishman is also a favourite character. What I love about him is his unswerving loyalty to Wallace. I like that he and Hamish go to Wallace’s execution, risking their own lives but determined to stay with their friend to the bitter end.

I also get a kick out of Hamish’s dad, but not the classic scene where he punches the guy out after the wound cauterization. No, I prefer the bit where he laughs at his own son getting clocked in the head with a rock.

I guess my biggest gripe with this film is that it’s way too black and white. There’s no ambiguity. It’s the good Scots versus the evil English. The film would have been far more interesting with more grey areas. As it is, it’s an enjoyable big budget battle film and rewatchable simply for the final scene – the “I can’t believe they missed that” glaring error of a burly Brendan Gleeson charging towards the camera carrying an axe with a blade so rubbery it flaps like a flag in a breeze. Priceless.

Dawn of the Dead (2004)

Zombies pop in to the Crossroads mall for a spot of Saturday afternoon shopping but are hampered by the pesky bunch of humans holed up inside.

Dawn of the Dead is a 2004 remake of the 1978 Romero zombie film of the same name, directed by Zack Snyder and starring Sarah Polley, Ving Rhames and Mekhi Phifer.

In 2004 Zack Snyder did the seemingly impossible – directed a remake that was as good, if not better, than the film it’s based on. The success of Dawn of the Dead is due in no small part to Snyder’s graphic novel-like visual style, and the fact he simply based his remake on George A Romero’s original, rather than attempting to do a scene-by-scene re-creation.

From the brilliantly tense opening sequence (capped by the inspired music choice of Johnny Cash’s When the Man Comes Around), to the nail-biting conclusion as the heroes smash their way out of the mall in souped-up courtesy shuttles, everything about the film just works.

I love the way Snyder implies the chaos is worldwide through a series of news flashes played during the opening titles. Through a mixture of quick cuts of zombies mauling people and stock news footage of riots and natural disasters, we get a sense that the world is doomed before the story focuses entirely on our survivors in the mall. The breakdown of authority is handled nicely by showing secret service guys overrun while ushering the President to a helicopter outside the White House.

The nods to the original Romero trilogy are subtle and brilliant – like the TV news helicopter and the van crashing into the gas station, and of course make up guru Tom Savini’s cameo as the TV Sheriff and Ken Foree looking decidedly creepy as a TV preacher. But the departures are where the film truly shines.

I like the departure from the slow, shuffling Romero zombies to the frantic sprinting zombies. It gives the scenes immediacy and ups the scare factor considerably. It was a bold move by Snyder, and paid off in spades given it’s now become an accepted part of the whole zombie genre. There’s also the zombie plague being more virus-like rather than supernatural, which works well and leads to nice, tense uncertainty among the characters as they are not entirely sure who among the dead will rise, and who will stay down.

The other part of the film that could have been sink but winds up swimming laps is the memorable characters and great cast. Sarah Polley is a great ‘everywoman’ hero as nurse Ana and Ving Rhames is fantastic as the cop, Kenneth. Medium-guy and the others are also great, my favourite is CJ (Michael Kelly) the mall security guard. At first he is a complete tosser, but redeems himself admirably as the film goes on. He gets some of the film’s best lines (“I’ll kill each and every one of you to stay alive.”) and arguably the film’s best death scene.

Another inspired departure from the original is the inclusion of Andy, the gun store owner across the parking lot. I love his relationship with Ving Rhames, the white board communication, and the wrong-but-oh-so-funny celebrity zombie game they play. It’s one of the film’s best moments.
While the big set pieces are wonderfully staged and brilliantly executed, I love the film’s quieter moments. One of my favourites is when Sarah Polley goes to get medical supplies from a closet, and while she has a moment alone, quietly breaks down and cries. It’s superbly acted and a wonderful character moment, the fact she pulls herself together before returning to the group is great and speaks volumes about her character – she maintains the illusion of strength for the benefit of the group at first, but it’s nice that as the film goes on, her strength grows. She’s easily the film’s best (or at least most well-rounded) character.

Another small moment that always makes me laugh is Medium-guy wandering through the sports store and the fact he decides a freakin polo mallet is a better weapon than a crowbar. Yeah…um swapping gauge steel for a piece of balsa wood? Makes a lot of sense.

Of course no good horror film would be complete without a character you ‘love to hate’, and that role is filled by the incredibly obnoxious Steve (played brilliantly by Modern Family’s Ty Burrell). From the moment he enters frame you can’t wait to see what grisly end they have in store for him. He’s a smarmy prick and lets everyone know it. He immediately condescends to everyone in the group, while making himself right at home with a huge grin you just want to slap off his face. And what’s more he’s the only member of the group who still gets laid while in the middle of a zombie apocalypse. And he spends the entire time Patrick Bateman-style – filming himself with a camcorder. God I wanted him dead.

The other character I really enjoyed was Bart, one of the other mall security guards. He doesn’t get a lot of screen time, but what a colossal whack-job. At first he seems quite stupid and harmless (the moment where he slings his gun holster on over his underwear is hilarious, made more so by CJ’s reaction to it), but his true colours show in a couple of key moments – firstly his oblivious and woefully disrespectful comments about banging the chick from Dairy Queen, then his remark about ‘someone should show her how to use it’ (referring to Ana’s mouth). But most telling is his reaction to ‘Ben Cosine’. He has a quietly callous disregard for the ‘twitcher’ in the fountain - a former colleague of his. These moments show what he’s really made of – he’s a sociopath. His end cannot come soon enough, and it’s satisfyingly gruesome.

In a lot of ways, zombie apocalypse stories feature a bit of ‘wish-fulfilment’ – the characters are suddenly freed from all societal constraints and personal responsibilities. These films ask us the audience to ponder: ‘what would you do?’ No more bills to pay, no more boring jobs to attend, no more saving for a rainy day or having to behave responsibly to avoid offending people or going to jail. Dawn of the Dead covers this in a brilliant montage (set to a fantastic Richard Cheese cover of Disturbed’s Down with the Sickness) that sees characters’ indulging in the various pursuits the mall offers. It’s not quite what I’d do (find the nearest pharmacy, a couch and a big screen television) but it’s an entertaining scene.

Of course the other cool thing about Romero’s original and this version is the commentary on humanity as a whole – that while facing a zombie apocalypse outside the confines of the mall, the survivors within cannot help but squabble and fight amongst themselves. This ranges from petty jealousy and drama (one character teasing another for becoming attached to a dog) to murder – Mekhi Phifer’s character Andre blowing a woman away because she executes his pregnant zombie wife.

For a directorial debut, Dawn of the Dead is an impressive first entry in what has gone on to become a mixed bag of offerings from Snyder. He seems to be at his best when adapting works as opposed to his hit and miss original efforts.

I’m not a huge fan of the original. I’m in the ranks of Romero fans who regard Day of the Dead as the best of the original trilogy. The original is too long and hasn’t aged well, but in other ways as well, this film outclasses it. Snyder’s Dawn of the Dead stands at the forefront of a small number of horror remakes that are actually worth watching, and practically alone in being worth watching more than once.

Defiance

Daniel Craig does his best Eastern European accent while leading a rag tag bunch of resistance fighters against faceless evil Nazi scum!

Defiance is a 2008 war film directed by Edward Zwick and starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and Mia Wasikowska.

There are countless amazing stories of survival during World War Two. The story of the Bielski Otriad in the forests of Belorussia is one I had never heard about until seeing this film.

To quote a character in one of his films, director Edward Zwick “has a flair for melodrama”. This could be a point against him, but the fact that he gets such talented actors and writers to play out the melodrama he directs makes it amazingly effective. I have no problem with having my heartstrings tugged if it’s done in such a fantastic way.

In the opening sequence of this film we see Nazi soldiers wantonly killing innocent people, and the scene ends with a man being shot dead at point blank range. As his body crumples to the ground the title of the film is superimposed over this horrendous image. It’s a purely stylistic move designed to give the audience goose bumps, and it works admirably.

Defiance tells the true story of four Jewish brothers in Belorussia during World War Two. After their homeland is taken over by the Wehrmacht and SS they flee into the massive forests near their home that they know like the back of their hands, and start the ‘Bielski Otriad’ – a small resistance movement that eventually grew to number in the hundreds.

The title of the film is very important, because to these men, being “defiant” means different things. Daniel Craig (as eldest brother Tuvia Bielski) represents defiance as pacifism – he is focused on survival by hiding and trying his best to be ignored and forgotten by the Nazis, only fighting when forced into it, or to survive. Whereas Liev Schreiber (as Zus Bielski) represents defiance as violence. He is angry and wants to fight back and disrupt the Nazi war machine that’s taken over his country.

It’s easy to agree with Schreiber’s character – the Nazis murdered his wife and child and he wants revenge. But Craig’s character’s point is illustrated really well in a scene where they attempt to be resistance fighters. They are on a high, having just stalked and killed some Nazi sympathisers. They have rifles, they are pissed off, and they feel invincible. So they decide to ambush a German soldier riding a motorcycle on a deserted road. They make short work of him, and then a car full of German officers shows up. They deal with them just as swiftly, but one of them is wounded doing so. Then, a whole truck full of soldiers shows up, and they get their asses kicked and are forced to flee, getting separated in the ensuing melee. This is probably my favourite scene in the entire film, because it illustrates beautifully the point Daniel Craig’s character makes soon afterwards – they cannot possibly fight the entire German army by themselves, because no matter how many soldiers they kill, more will just keep coming in greater numbers until they overwhelm any opposition the peasant brothers can muster.

But while Tuvia and Zus both see the madness in trying to resist by themselves, Zus cannot let go of his anger and decides to run off to join the Russian army so he can continue to fight, while Tuvia returns to the forest to face the logistical nightmare of trying to ensure the safety and survival of the (eventually hundreds of) Polish and Russian Jews who flee to the forest to join them.

Long gone are the days of John Wayne’s ‘clean’ World War Two movies. This film shows the ugliness of war and the lengths people will go to in order to survive it. The Bielski’s are forced to raid their own people’s farms for supplies, they beat and execute a German soldier they capture, and they brutally murder people in their town who collaborated with the Germans.

One thing I found startling is the hatred the Jews find on all fronts. Even the Russian partisans don’t care much for the Jews. You get a real sense of the persecution these people must have felt, surrounded on all sides by fanatical and ignorant hatred.

Despite the ugliness though, this is an Edward Zwick film, so there is a decidedly schmaltzy tone to some of the scenes. There’s scenes that are pure Hollywood rather than realistic (one of these scenes involves Daniel Craig riding in to deliver an inspirational speech on the back of a white horse…sigh…there’s symbolism and then there’s just shit), there’s the love affair between younger brother Asael (Jamie Bell) and his ‘forest wife’ Chaya (Mia Wasikowska) that is so drenched in sentimentality you know it’s going to end in tears.

Now this is going to sound contradictory given I’ve just complained about sentimentality, but I always find it disappointing when a character whose wife or girlfriend gets murdered early on in a film finds another love later in the film. Zus too gets a ‘forest wife’, and this to me erodes a bit of the power of his earlier scenes where the motivation for his violence is revenge. Yes, this is because I am a hopeless romantic but it’s also because Zus’ anger is great part of the film and I know that guys are far more pissed off when they are not getting laid.

Anyway, pacifism can only go so far when the forest hideaway is infiltrated time and again by those pesky Nazis and the ground begins to shrink beneath the Bielski Otriad. They are eventually forced out of the forest in a fantastic scene involving Stuka dive-bombers and lots of machine gun mayhem. This scene has a requisite “character deafened by bomb blast” moment ala Saving Private Ryan, but it’s forgivable because Stuka dive-bombers are awesome. The Nazis were detestable, deluded monsters, but they sure knew how to build cool planes.

My favourite part of the film is a scene where Daniel Craig’s leadership of the group is challenged. I was expecting another inspirational speech or some other kind of cop out. Instead, he just blows the guy away. His character could have used more moments like this – he wordlessly implies that they have enough damn problems trying to eke out a living in the forest without having to worry about assholes causing friction within the group.

The climax unfortunately contains a moment that is simply laughable – the desperate survivors of the forest are surrounded by German troops and facing off against a tank. And just when it looks like our heroes are doomed, good old angry brother Zus shows up with his Russian troops to save the day. The moment is atrocious, not helped by the fact that Schreiber all but screams “Yeehaa” as he emerges from the woods blasting Nazis with a machine gun.

Despite this gung ho finish, Zus is still my favourite character. He knows that the only real way to deal with a bully is to stand up for yourself.

It’s not the best war movie ever made. It’s a little uneven, but it’s an exciting film with great performances and not a bad way to spend a couple of hours.

The Thing (1982)

A grumpy old alien woken from his afternoon nap gets revenge by interrupting Kurt Russell’s drinking time and driving some Swedish guys insane.

The Thing is a 1982 sci fi horror directed by John Carpenter and starring Kurt Russell, Wilford Brimley, Keith David, Richard Masur and Donald Moffatt

For me, John Carpenter’s The Thing (a remake of the 1951 The Thing from Another World in turn based on the John Campbell short story Who Goes There?) is pretty much a perfect film.

It has solid performances, direction, score, special effects, production design. It’s atmospheric, tense, gory, and scary – everything a good horror film should be. And it doesn’t insult audience intelligence by spoon feeding us plot points and explaining everything (well, besides the computer simulation scene…but I’ll get to that doozy a bit later), something most of today’s mainstream horror films do way too much of.

It’s also a really effective examination of paranoia and the darkest side of human nature.

The film starts out by showing an alien space craft entering Earth’s atmosphere. We don’t know where the ship has come from or why. We don’t know whether it’s crash landing or if it’s come on purpose. We don’t know, because it doesn’t matter. We don’t need to know.

We’re then straight into the story – some seemingly insane Norwegian guys show up at an American research station in the Antarctic, chasing a Husky into the camp, bent on destroying the dog. The understandably confused Americans try to stay out of the way as one of the Norwegians starts firing at the dog, but are forced to kill him after one of his wild stray shots catches one of them in the leg. The other guy blows himself up with a slippery grenade (I love the comedic way he reacts as the grenade flies out of his hand – one of many moments in this film that makes me chuckle).

Helicopter pilot R J MacReady (Kurt Russell) and Doc (Richard Dysart) fly to the Norwegian camp to investigate but find it deserted. They also find evidence that the Norwegians found something, presumably some kind of alien life form, frozen in the ice near their camp.

Back at the base, Husky handler Richard Masur has taken the dog in. But little do our heroes know that the dog is actually The Thing – an alien life form that absorbs other beings and then perfectly imitates them. As the dog has been roaming free around the camp, any one of the men may have been infected. Then Blair (Wilford Brimley) using an amazingly advanced computer simulation, figures out that the alien’s aim is to escape Antarctica and reach populated areas, eventually absorbing all life on our planet. MacReady (or Mac as he’s known throughout the film) reluctantly takes leadership of the group as paranoia sets in and they are cut off from the outside world by a storm. There’s nothing they can do but watch each other closely, and wait.

We have the perfect setting for a thriller here – an isolated Antarctic research station. It’s established early on that radio contact with the outside world is haphazard even in good conditions. It’s also nicely set up early on that there is some friction within the group.

The film has some fantastically creepy moments. I especially love the dog (the canine actor’s name was Jed). He is so quietly menacing. The way he stands at the window and watches Mac and Doc return from the Norwegian camp. And the way he stalks from room to room down a corridor in a quiet scene where he first infects a member of the crew. He is such a well-trained animal. Watch him carefully; he does these weird pauses at the doorways, taking his time. He doesn’t behave like a dog stalking prey. He’s like a killer looking for a victim.

The character moments are great too. Carpenter managed to pull together a great bunch of actors. I love how sozzled and nuts Kurt Russell is at first. When we first see him he’s swilling scotch and talking out loud to his computer. As he plays chess with the computer opponent he remarks “you’re starting to lose it aren’t you?” and I can’t help but wonder if he’s commenting on his own mental state. Then when he loses the game he tips his scotch into the computer and calls it a “cheating bitch.” He also wears a really wacky sombrero while flying his helicopter and has a hopeless sense of geography. He not once but twice mistakes the Norwegian guys for Swedes, even shouting “Hey Sweden!” when they go to the deserted camp. He really is enjoyably nuts.

I love how on edge some of the other characters are too. Wilford Brimley is great as Blair. He starts out the “voice of reason” character, the most level-headed of the bunch. But then there’s his scene with the computer simulation. His computer miraculously figures out that the Thing is able to replicate life forms by imitating them on a cellular level, and strangely the computer is also able to deduce that it’ll take “27,000 hours from first contact” for the Thing to take over the entire planet. That computer is a one amazing piece of technology, what is the program called exactly, Microsoft Exposition Pro?

But what I like most about this scene is how Blair handles the news – he goes completely off his rocker. He grabs a revolver from his desk drawer, a bottle of vodka, and heads for the radio room to smash up their only means of communicating with the outside world. You can kind of see where he’s coming from – I mean, he figures it’s probably too late to save themselves and their responsibility now is to save the rest of humankind. But I also just love a character going round the bend and Brimley pulls this off in such a believable and hilarious way I just can’t help but giggle like a loon every time. It also leads to a great moment later in the film. The crew manage to subdue him from his rampage and they lock him in a small hut outside. When they go to check on him later, he’s got a noose hanging from the rafters. They can see he’s gone completely crazy, but he starts to plead with them to let him back inside, speaking in this sort of mental patient-calm way. Brimley is magnificent in this scene – he strikes a really nice balance between being calmly rational and completely unhinged.

But I also like what this means for the rest of the crew. With their sanest member going around the bend, what chance do the rest of them have?

There are other moments that make me laugh. Like Nauls (T K Carter) roller-skating into the room after the Norwegians have just opened fire on them and remarking, “Maybe we’re at war with Norway?!” I wish I was loopy enough to show up at work one day and make an announcement like that.

The performances are just universally awesome. Donald Moffatt is great as their initial leader. I love the look on his face after he shoots the Norwegian guy dead. He is obviously really disappointed at having to do it. He emerges from the hut and looks at the body with a resigned sadness that breaks my heart a little every time, especially given the insensitive comment a bit afterwards from Palmer (David Clennon) that “El Capitan” couldn’t wait to use his “pop gun”. I love Keith David as Childs too. Once the shit hits the fan his first suggestion is always to just kill those they suspect of being infected. His attitude is pretty much “fuck you, I know I’m not the Thing so that means one of you guys must be”.

The way the characters’ personalities clash is a great examination of the effects of paranoia on the human mind. We come to know and like these characters, but Carpenter keeps us detached, and this allows for great moments like a character posing the question “if you were the Thing, would you know it?”

Carpenter also masterfully dishes out the red herrings and genuine clues as to who might be infected. From subtle glances, to strange behaviour, to characters disappearing at odd times with no explanation. My favourite moment in this regard is the long johns. Mac finds a pair of thermal underwear that is torn to pieces because whoever was wearing them was killed and replicated. But the name tag is missing. I love the way he sighs resignedly, “They could be anybody’s…”

And though we never know what to expect, none of the requisite horror film ‘scares’ come off as cheap shocks, and none of the characters feel one-dimensional.

I can’t write a review of this film without of course mentioning Rob Bottin’s practical effects. The creature models and gore effects are just awesome. My favourite is of course the scene involving defibrillator paddles and a detached head. Upon seeing the head, which has sprouted legs like a spider and is now running across the floor, David Clennon utters my favourite line in the entire film. I always laugh, because not only is his line delivery fantastic, but it’s exactly what I was thinking the first time I saw that scene.

It would also be remiss of me to not mention the blood test scene. It’s so incredibly awesome that even when I watch the film now, having seen it more than a dozen times, I still struggle to remember every time who is actually the infected one at this point. The scene is a textbook example of how to stage a suspenseful moment.

I watch certain films at certain times, and The Thing is one of my favourite winter films. I especially like to put it on late at night when it’s windy outside. I love the atmosphere. I love Kurt Russell in a goofy sombrero. I love characters going bananas. And I love horror movies that scare the beejesus out of me but also make me think. The Thing is a great film and one I revisit often. Definitely a great way to spend two hours.

Critters

Extra-terrestrial fur balls try to kill the mum from ET while being chased by a guy with a mullet toting a leaf blower! This could only be an 80’s movie!

Critters is a 1986 movie directed by Stephen Herek and starring Scott Grimes, ET’s mum, Billy Greenbush, and M Emmet Walsh

Stephen Herek directs New Line Cinema’s answer to Joe Dante’s Gremlins and this is a sadly forgotten gem from a decade that gave us some of the most memorable practical special effects and tongue-in-cheek humour in the history of movies.

Critters tells the story of the Brown family, they live on a farm in rural Kansas. Their idyllic existence is interrupted one evening by a meteorite that crashes to earth nearby. The meteorite is actually a space ship containing the “Krites”, little aliens that resemble rabid Furbies. The Krites are some kind of galactic criminals who were on their way to a prison asteroid but have escaped and have now crash landed on earth. This spells disaster for this small rural community as the Krites pretty much only have one basic need – the need…to feed!

The Krites (or Critters) are pursued by a pair of shape-shifting bounty hunters who have to be one of the most inept duos I’ve ever seen. For most of the movie they succeed only in terrorising the townsfolk and causing needless destruction. One of them shape shifts into some fictional 80’s pop icon, Johnny Steele, who has a tremendous mullet, while the other seems to be having some issues with his shape shifting abilities and so takes the form of several different townspeople throughout the film. Their weapons appear to be modified leaf blowers too which is just a great bit of low-budget awesomeness. And their dialogue pretty much only consists of the phrases “We’re here for the Krites,” and “Where are the Krites?” which is just hilarious.

The character who does a far better job of dealing with the Critters is Brad (Scott Grimes), the annoying little brother of the Brown family who has a fondness for homemade fireworks (God I miss being a kid in the 80’s – I long for the days when toys were lethal). Brad is the rambunctious youngster who realises the danger before anyone else and spends the first act of the film trying to convince the idiot grownups that something is wrong. Once he’s got them on board it’s a frantic rush to the finish to save his family and the town and rid the planet of the evil little fuzzball menace.

There’s a lot to like in Critters. The Critters themselves are great – some really nice puppet work and they get some fantastic dialogue. They are foul-mouthed too which makes them incredibly enjoyable, they really steal the film. They actually also manage to be quite threatening, not only do they have little mouths full of razor sharp fangs, but they also shoot little poisoned spikes out of their spines. They are well-thought out little villains and would have been lots of fun to operate.

The film also features Billy Zane in a really early role. He plays the Brown’s daughter’s idiot boyfriend who has an amazingly low libido for a teenager in an 80’s horror movie. He seems disturbingly reluctant to get it on with April (Nadine Van der Velde) His excuse is he’s doesn’t want to get busted by her old man, but it’s still disturbing that even when she’s obviously keen to throw herself at him he seems more keen to watch her dad go ten pin bowling. Anyway, the Critters don’t hesitate to make short work of him which is nice. But not before he has a great line about mashed potatoes. He captures that “awkward dinner conversation with your girlfriend’s parents” thing really nicely.

I really like this film. New Line basically chucked out the PG-13 rules and made an R-rated creature feature. I’ve always liked New Line (the production company that was saved from bankruptcy by releasing a little R-rated gamble called Nightmare on Elm Street), they are not afraid to push boundaries and it’s this cavalier attitude that has established them as the successful movie house they are today (they also financed the LOTR trilogy). It also harks back to the days of drive in creature flicks like the 1960’s The Blob using the formula of a space menace terrorising a small town and the townspeople becoming reluctant heroes in order to save the planet. Far from being derided as a Gremlins rip-off, it was actually quite successful, which was both good and bad. Good, because it means it’s now available on dvd, but bad because it of course spawned a number of sequels which did the Planet of the Apes thing – became increasingly cheap and silly as they went on.

I hate to again compare this film to Gremlins but I’ll just say that it’s far more enjoyable than the other critter feature it’s often compared to. Gremlins is a good film but has Spielberg’s “group hug!” stank all over it. Critters chucks out any touchy-feely nonsense in favour of dark humour and lots of blood, and is a far better film for it. I’m nostalgic for a lot of flicks from my childhood. Some lose a lot of their magic when revisited. Critters remains just as awesome now as it was when I was still playing with toys that could kill me. A very cool way to spend 82 minutes.

Total Recall (2012)

Colin Farrell does his level best to act his way out of a wet paper bag and fails spectacularly, makes some really lame jokes about being married to Kate Beckinsale, and puts the beat down on some robots.

Total Recall is the 2012 remake of Paul Verhoeven’s classic sci fi action film directed by Len Wiseman and starring Colin Farrell’s eyebrows.

Len Wiseman is a demented bastard. I don’t think he’s directed a single movie that doesn’t involve his wife banging another guy. They either have a ridiculously solid marriage or they are just into some really kinky shit.

As you’d expect from Len “Underworld” Wiseman, this film is shatteringly fast-paced and instantly forgettable. It almost completely jettisons every detail of the original film. In fact, aside from a few laboured references, you could be forgiven for thinking it was a standalone film just coincidentally also named Total Recall.

The plot, as far as I could be bothered to remember… Doug Quaid (Colin Farrell) is a working class stiff with a gorgeous wife living in a futuristic Earth where the majority of the planet has been rendered uninhabitable. Before you can say “didn’t Bladerunner do this?”, we find out the rich pricks live in the United Federation of Britain, while the dregs are assigned to the “Colony”. Quaid goes to Rekall to get some fake holiday memories implanted in his head, despite the objections of his co-worker Harry (Bokeem Woodbine). Predictably, it all goes pear-shaped and Quaid finds himself thrust into the midst of a global conspiracy when the procedure to implant his ‘secret agent’ getaway goes horribly wrong.

Verhoeven did the impossible with his version – he managed to make a solid action film that also had some subtlety, nuance, and actually made you think. There was the whole “is this real or just in his head” aspect that made what could have been a forgettable action film into somewhat of a masterpiece. Verhoeven can’t take all the credit obviously, as the film was based on a Philip K Dick short story, but he nonetheless managed to make a fascinating science fiction film that loses nothing through repeat viewings or geeky scrutiny. A film that works either way – you can choose to take it as a literal action film, or a more cerebral mind-fuck, and that’s what makes it great.

Wiseman’s remake has none of that, and it’s not a better film for it. Even if you disregard the original and just try to see it for what it is, it still fails miserably on almost every level. The acting is atrocious, the action scenes are forgettable in the extreme, the story is needlessly convoluted, and the special effects, though quite polished, are really nothing we haven’t seen before.

There’s some really lame nods to Verhoeven’s film that are so obvious and shoehorned in that they are not only laughable but completely jar you out of the film and serve only to remind you of how much better Verhoeven’s film is. I even gave this film the benefit of the doubt and watched it a second time in the vain hope that it might improve with a second viewing. But no. It’s a complete and utter disaster.

The film is so astonishingly forgettable that I also had to watch it a second time because the day after I watched it, I could remember almost nothing about it. I found this quite ironic given the film’s title and subject matter.

The other thing that’s wrong with this film is that it takes itself way too seriously. There’s not one iota of humour to be found here. Verhoeven’s film was laced with dark humour and an amusing lack of sentimentality of any kind. Wiseman’s film is trying way too hard to channel Bladerunner and Minority Report, and ends up just being incredibly depressing.

The performances are universally dreadful. Even Bryan Cranston spends the film alternating between being a cookie cutter bad guy and almost literally falling asleep during takes. Colin Farrell’s efforts to appear confused look more like he’s trying to pass a really stubborn shit.

When the best thing you can say about a film is “well, it didn’t completely suck” it’s a bit of a worry. I’ve now watched this film three times, which is three times too many. There are far better ways to spend 6 hours. For starters, rent the original.

Lucy

Scarlett Johansson interrupts Morgan Freeman’s quiet time to get him to help her turn herself into a USB stick and also manages to come up with an innovative new way to treat brain tumours.

 

Lucy is a 2014 Samsung advertisement directed by Luc Besson and starring Scarlett Johansson and Morgan Freeman.

Luc Besson is a hit and miss director with me. The Professional is one of the best films I’ve ever seen, while The Fifth Element made me want to claw my own eyes out. Lucy is more Professional than Fifth Element, but was still a little too migraine-inducing to ever get a second viewing from me.

Lucy has the kick ass heroine, memorably evil bad guys, and well directed shootouts that Besson excels at. The opening sequence that sees pre-cognitively enhanced Lucy delivering a mysterious brief case to a bad guy is incredibly tense. Johansson plays it wonderfully and the bad guy (some Yakuza-type gangster played by Min-Sik Choi) is delightfully intense. When Lucy first meets him he emerges from the bedroom of a hotel suite where he is performing some kind of chainsaw massacre while wearing a really expensive silk suit. Despite being way over the top, he is nonetheless very threatening. I really liked the way Besson cuts to stock footage of a cheetah stalking its prey as the Yakuza guy and his henchmen stalk Lucy. Yes it’s on the nose and jarringly devoid of subtlety but it just works.

So, the mystery package contains a shipment of CPH-4, a new designer drug. Lucy is forced to be a drug mule to smuggle the new drug into the US. But on the way, she is beaten by one of the bad guy’s henchmen and the package leaks inside her. This drug, a synthetic version of some enzyme a mother releases in tiny quantities to a baby in her womb that causes the foetus to grow. So in the massive dose Lucy gets, it starts her brain’s and body’s cells growing exponentially, ie she begins to use more of her brain than a regular person, accessing cerebral areas scientists can only hypothesize about.

Here’s where the film’s first problem begins. In order to convey this rapid increase in her intelligence, Johansson begins to act like a robot. In fact some of her line delivery and odd head movements reminded me of Data in Star Trek Next Generation, or even C-3PO.

And the fact that she also immediately becomes a La Femme Nikita-type badass is hilariously ridiculous. Here’s the second problem – it’s never really made all that clear what exactly is happening to Lucy’s mind and body as a result of the drug. From what I could gather, the substance causes rapid cell growth (brain cells too of course). But Lucy seems to develop superhero strength and resilience, x-ray vision, telekinesis, and the ability to read people’s minds. It’s all over the place.

Morgan Freeman plays some wacky professor guy who pretty much takes care of all of the movie’s necessary exposition through delivering a lecture (literally) on how human beings only use 10% of their brain capacity and the hypothetical “what if we could use more?”

Lucy is also helped by a requisite tough guy and sort of love interest in the form of a bad ass Parisian police captain who helps her stay one step ahead of the bad guy and his cronies while Morgan Freeman wants to help her find a way to share all her rapidly accumulating knowledge before her cell reproduction reaches it’s natural and lethal conclusion.

Well, I actually hope what I just explained makes sense, because the movie really doesn’t.
It’s a little ironic that a film about the limitless potential capacity of human intelligence is so moronic. Fair enough it is not aiming to be anything more than entertainment, but I need a film like this to have some kind of internal logic – in order for me to be able to suspend disbelief I need the film itself to have a believable inner world.

So, the ending. As Lucy nears 100% brain capacity and thus the point at which her cell reproduction will kill her, she decides that the way in which she is going to share her limitless knowledge is by creating some kind of supercomputer to transfer her mind into…I think. Anyway, this rather cool sequence in which she sort of morphs into a bizarre computer is utterly ruined by the fact that…wait for it…the weird gothic-looking structure that is the computer becomes a fucking USB thumb drive! I can be pretty silly, but even I couldn’t make complete shit like that up. So, essentially, the next step in human evolution is nothing out of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001. No. It’s right there on the pages of a fucking OfficeWorks catalogue.

I’ll finish up by saying I instantly despise any script that ends a film by telling me I’m a clueless rube. Lucy ends with the condescending voice over from our heroine to the effect, “So, you were given life. Now you know what to do with it.”

Huh? Umm…let’s see, I need to overdose on a new designer drug and this will make me immortal? Ok, got it.

Pompeii

Mount Vesuvius takes way too long to erupt and bury a bunch of idiots who sum up pretty much every bad Roman movie cliché you can think of.

Pompeii is a 2014 movie directed by Paul WS Anderson and starring John Snow from Game of Thrones, Emily Browning, Kiefer Sutherland and the big black dude with crazy eyes from Oz.

When the best acting in a film is a CGI volcano, you know you’re onto a winner. Kiefer Sutherland has never been among my favourite actors, nor in my opinion a particularly good actor, but to say he was in this film for a paycheck is a massive understatement. He spends most of the film preening about in a robe ogling Emily Browning, so I hope he had fun at least. Because ‘fun’ is not this movie. ‘Laborious’, ‘annoying’, ‘pointless’, and ‘drivel’ are more apt descriptors. But to be fair, the special effects are pretty awesome.

Let’s start with the bad, because frankly, there’s a lot to get through. Director Paul WS Anderson (one of Hollywood’s go to guys for style over substance, developing a catalogue to rival even the likes of Michael Bay), must have had a checklist of every bad Roman movie cliché in movie history, and he’s ticked them all off, one by one. It’s astonishing. This movie belongs in the 1960’s and should have been in Technicolor. We’ve got the heroic foreign slave Milo (John Snow from Game of Thrones, I forget the actor’s name), the big badass black slave (Oz guy) who starts off his enemy but quickly becomes his ‘brother’. We’ve got the fawning princess (Emily Browning) who just longs for home and has morals that are way too modern for a girl living in that era, we’ve got the evil Roman Senator (Keifer) who uses his influence to force said princess into an arranged marriage. We’ve got gladiators who are far more noble than anyone else in the entire film, and whose dialogue consists of very little despite repeating very tired clichés like “those about to die, salute you,” (history geek alert – it has long been proven that gladiators did not actually say this –it’s a Hollywood invention). And lo and behold, we even have one of the gladiators hurling a weapon at the box seating the evil Senator. Yo, Paul WS, in Spartacus, it was cool. In Gladiator, it was less cool. In your movie, it’s just idiotic.

The movie also spends a lot of time setting up these characters we are supposed to care about. The problem is, they are so cardboard and clichéd it’s a really big ask. I found myself staring at the digital time display on the dvd player wishing the stupid volcano would just erupt already. Once it did, the movie became really enjoyable…for about fifteen minutes. There’s some fantastic shots of fiery molten projectiles taking out buildings, people, and ships in the harbour. CGI really has come a long way since Bruce Willis single handedly punched an asteroid back into space in the 90’s (that was how Armageddon ended, right?). Anyway, the film just doesn’t miss a chance to heap on the cheese, with our heroic black slave indulging in what is quite possibly the most laughable death scene in film history. Seriously, it would be more at home in a spoof movie like Meet the Spartans. I think we’re supposed to cheer. I was laughing so hard I almost pissed myself.

Okay, I need to spend some time on the good stuff. As I said, the scenes of Vesuvius erupting are really great. The fire balls tearing through the city and the subsequent panicked masses shots are really well executed and explain why Paul WS Anderson gets these gigs – he can direct an action scene with his eyes closed (I think he might actually direct dialogue scenes this way). It’s really tension-amped and enjoyable, especially the scenes of the ships in the harbour being taken out. Though the reason the volcano causes a massive tidal wave is never explained (okay maybe it is and I’d just tuned out by then, and there’s no way I’m watching this shit again).

The scene where John Snow calms the horse is also a really nice quiet little moment that is done well. The film could have used more of these, but at that point in the running time I was happy for just about anything from his character besides gratuitous shots of his oiled, bulging muscles. I’m being serious here, the guy can actually act, which is rare for a beefcake eye candy-guy, so put his talents to use, for fuck’s sake.

Another great thing about the film for me, is the ending. Don’t get me wrong, it’s absolutely woeful, but it made me laugh because as John Snow and Emily Browning are riding off into the sunset I was wishing for an ending where they both die but the horse gets away. And to my utter joy, that’s exactly what happens. John Snow tries to do the heroic thing by jumping down off the horse and thus giving Emily a chance to get away, but she then refuses because she loves him so much she wants them to go out in a blaze of glory together so they end up dying in each other’s arms while the horse does the smart thing and bolts away. I’ll argue with anyone who ever tries to tell me horses are just big dumb animals. Not so. The horse at the end of this film is easily the smartest character in the entire movie. In fact, the horses in general are depicted as pretty cluey. The reason John Snow needs to calm the horse in the first place is because it gets spooked because it knows the damn mountain is about to blow up and it wants to get the hell outta the way.

I think in some strange way that’s what the point of this movie is trying to be. The Romans care more about their games and sloth, sitting around with their wine and women ignoring the obvious signs that Vesuvius is about to blow it’s lid and a lot of them pay the ultimate price for this ignorance. The point is a bit lost however, or maybe it’s not, because the film cares far more about showing us spectacle than about delivering any kind of real substance or making us care a damn about what happens to any of the characters. Ironically, the film could be seen a great success in this regard but I doubt any of it was intentional. Instead it’s like an ancient version of 2012, with horses outrunning collapsing ground and lots of fiery destruction taking precedence over any good storytelling or memorable characters.

I suppose its passable popcorn entertainment. But though I’m in no way a movie snob, I can say I want more for my money than what’s here in this mercifully brief 90 or so minutes.

Commando

Arnold Schwarzenegger lies to the bottle-clinking guy from The Warriors, kills Fidel Castro twenty times and all the while manages to fight off the advances of a guy who looks like Freddy Mercury on steroids.

Commando is a 1985 action film directed by Mark L Lester and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rae Dawn Chong, Vernon Wells and Alyssa Milano.

Damn this is a glorious film! I don’t even know where to begin. It’s unashamedly homoerotic, hilariously tongue in cheek and represents Schwarzenegger in all his steroided-up glory.

Anyone who thinks the humour in this film is unintentional needs to watch it again. Mark L Lester was fully aware he was making an over-the-top 80’s action movie. All the laugh out loud moments are shamelessly intentional and the film is timeless because of it.

The Austrian Beefcake stars as John Matrix, a retired special forces killing machine who now lives in a cabin in the woods with his daughter (Milano) and spends his time lugging huge phallic symbols around and reminiscing about his days in The Eastern Bloc while chowing down on mystery meat sandwiches.

No sooner can you say ‘come on, this is a Schwarzenegger movie, kill somebody already!’ we learn that someone is offing all of Matrix’s former special forces brothers and Matrix is probably next.  Cue an ominous warning from Matrix’s former commanding officer, generic bad guys kidnapping Matrix’s little girl, and the beginning of a ridiculously high body count and we’re on our way to a pure, unadulterated shot of A-grade Awesome.

When Arnie’s attempt to rescue his daughter from the clutches of the generic bad guys lands him in their clutches too, they hold his daughter for ransom and insist that in order to get her back relatively unharmed he must assassinate the President of a fictional South American country named Val Verde so the bad guys can install their own dictator. However you can’t keep a big lug like Arnie down for long – he escapes their clutches and now the clock is ticking (they think he’s on a plane for Val Verde) for him to track down the baddies and his daughter, get greased up, and go all world war three on their asses.

The one liners start pretty much immediately and don’t stop for the entire film. In fact, this is one of the most quotable movies I have ever seen. From a guy taking out his garbage and remarking to the garbage men (who are his assassins in disguise) “I was worried you’d missed me!” and them replying: “Don’t worry, we won’t” before unloading on him with Uzis, to Arnie’s famous “I let him go” after dropping bottle-clinking guy off a cliff, they are punchy and irreverent. Well, not really. I just wanted to say the word 'irreverent'.

Bottle clinking guy (who is actually named Sully and is played by David Patrick Kelly) is one of my favourite characters. I love a good bit of sleaze and he is tremendously creepy when he follows Rae Dawn Chong through the airport and out to her car. He certainly doesn’t take rejection well. He also does the most limp-fingered wave I’ve ever seen, when he’s farewelling Arnie and the huge sleepy guy with the safari hat as they board a plane. It’s really odd.

I couldn’t even count the number of times I’ve seen this film. I love everything about it. I love the action. I love the cheese-flavoured dialogue. I love that Matrix is motivated to whoop ass by his love for his daughter. I love that when Arnie fights Bill Duke he throws him through a door into an adjacent hotel room, and for no reason other than to be completely gratuitous, the room contains a couple filming themselves having sex.  I love that Rae Dawn Chong’s brilliant plan to free Matrix from a police wagon is to fire a freakin rocket launcher at it. I love how camp Vernon Wells’ villain is (aside from his Freddy Mercury outfit, he not once but twice talks about slowly inserting things into Arnold Schwarzenegger, and his demise involves Arnie impaling him with a huge length of pipe).

But all the so-called ‘story’ is really just leading up to what the film is all about – kicking ass and taking names. And this is done in the fantastic climactic showdown between Arnie and a horde of throwaway enemies. As Arnie infiltrates the main baddie’s island hideaway, they are (in no particular order) mown down with machine guns, blown up with explosives, impaled with garden implements, cleaved with various types of blades, and just generally slaughtered like cattle. This sequence contains my favourite bit of the entire film, and indeed one of my favourite bits in any film, ever: Fidel Castro-guy. You see, with a reasonably limited budget they couldn’t afford hundreds of different extras for the final battle, so instead they just kill the same 10 or so guys over and over again. One of these guys has a very recognisable, Castro-type beard, and it’s hilarious to spot his numerous deaths.

In the 80’s, Arnie didn’t need CGI. He just used his fists. Commando is one of his best.