District 9 Review

So I just got back from seeing District 9, the newest film from Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson. It was a science-fiction allegory for the Apartheid era, substituting aliens for blacks; a high-minded thought experiment about the nature of man's inhumanity towards man, the overwhelming allure of power and greed, and a commentary on society's eagerness to embrace hatred over understanding...

...well, not really.

Oh sure, it sort of starts out that way. The film begins by explaining that an alien spaceship landed over Johannesburg, South Africa in 1982. I want you to think about this for a second: aliens land over Johannesburg in the 80's. Why on earth would they do that? Even assuming (reasonably) that the aliens would have no prior information regarding the Apartheid regime, why would they position their giant spaceship over a major city? Why wouldn't they find someplace that's in the middle of nowhere?

Already we see one of the film's major flaws: the premise itself. While the concept of doing a movie on racism involving aliens can be pretty effective, the whole thing falls apart piece by piece as you watch the film. The film shows us how the aliens (numbering somewhere in the neighborhood of two million) are relocated from their spaceship into a temporary camp, which eventually becomes the eponymous District 9, essentially an alien ghetto. This raises a good question: how can beings who are so advanced that they possess spacecraft capable of intergalactic travel be successfully persecuted by humans with 1980's levels of technology? Furthermore, the movie specifically informs us that the aliens possess incredibly advanced weapons which cannot be used by humans, due to their technology requiring alien DNA to activate. Why was there no resistance from the aliens when we moved them into the alien slum? The aliens are a little naive, sure, but their reactions throughout the movie suggest that they highly dislike their mistreatment at the hands of humanity and are willing to resist. I'm not saying they should have annihilated us all, but at least they could have responded to our relocation efforts with a simple "uh, no thank you."

You'll notice I haven't really touched on the story of the film yet, but that's because the story is a little...scarce. Part of this has to do with the style of the film, but I'll get to that in a bit. Our main character is Vikus van der Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley (try saying either of those names three times fast), who is an employee of Multi-National United, or MNU for short, a para-military corporation who deals directly with the aliens and has been trying to exploit alien technology for their own weapons programs. Vikus is selected to oversee a large-scale operation to move the aliens from District 9 into District 10, which appears to be a work camp of some sort. During this operation, Vikus is accidentally exposed to a mysterious alien "fluid," which had been collected by alien residents of District 9 so that they might return to their mothership and escape Earth. Vikus soon finds that the "fluid" has initiated a transformation in his own body, turning him into some sort of alien-human hybrid. MNU soon finds that Vikus can now use alien weaponry, and hopes to dissect him and reverse-engineer his DNA for their own purposes. Vikus escapes and hides out in District 9, hunted by those he once served.

Sounds like an exciting film, doesn't it? Only...here's where it gets a bit stupid on us. Vikus finds the alien who created the "fluid," who explains that it was intended to get him back to the mothership. They strike up a bargain: Vikus helps the alien recover the fluid canister, and the alien will reverse the changes to Vikus's DNA.

And the rest of the movie is pretty much this:
"BAM! BOOM! POW! RATATATATATA! EAAAAGH- BOOOOOM! COME ON! COME ON! MOVE, MOVE, MOVE!!! BOOOOOOM!"

Yeah. The second half of the film is pretty much one big firefight. No introspection, no awe-inspiring revelation about racism or humanity, not even much of a story, really. Just lots of guns, explosions, lasers, special effects and a mech. Yeah, remember that from the trailers? We get to see it blow some Nigerian dudes up. How riveting. Truly, this is a film for the ages!

Part of my frustration stems from the shift in filming style. The first half of the movie is shot mostly like a documentary, using a in-scene footage coupled with recorded interviews and archival news footage to add a sense of depth and realism to the story. Vikus even talks to the camerman at several points. However, as the film progresses, this documentary style is used less and less as the film slips into a more conventional style (although I notice that the 2000's-era trademark "shaky-cam" seems to persist throughout the whole thing). By the second half, that is to say the giant firefight, the film seems to have stopped and said: "Well, I think we've stretched this documentary thing as long as we can. Let's have some guns and explosions, and oh, what about some kind of electric laser thing that makes people explode into little chunky bits? That would kick ass!" And yes, there is an electric laser thing that makes people explode into little chunky bits. And no, it doesn't quite kick as much ass as you might think. You can just feel the social commentary leap out at you, can't you?

But perhaps what annoyed me most of all was the ending, so avert your eyes if you care about that sort of thing. Vikus gets inside the mech-suit and fends off the MNU troopers and the Nigerian dudes whilst the alien and his son activate the tractor beam on the mothership and get back inside. Then they just sort of leave. So, what, the alien's not going to use that tractor beam to, oh, say, pick up a few of the other aliens stuck in District 9? What the hell?! This guy was supposed to be the sympathetic one to contrast to Vikus's selfish desire to see himself human again. Vikus abandoned his selfish wish to risk his life to protect the alien, and now the alien is basically like: "Well, at least I'm back on the gigantic mothership. Sorry guys, I have to go, sucks to be you, bye!" Ugh. And you know what happens after that? Nothing, really. There's this short epilogue saying that the aliens got moved into District 10, and Vikus is fully alien now. So...nothing got solved really. Yup. Now don't get me wrong, I wasn't expecting a happy ending, but I was at least expecting something to get accomplished! This movie basically takes its entire ending to say: "Yeah, thanks for your ten bucks, but that's all you're going to get out of me. You want a real ending? Watch 'Return of the King,' it has like eight. See ya!"

Seriously. The story is pretty much unresolved, nothing was accomplished, and the audience didn't take away any message other than "RACISM=BAD," and I didn't need a movie about bug-aliens who eat cat food in order to get that (by the way, the aliens eat cat food. Yeah, I know, I just rolled with it.). Oh sure, the special effects are amazing, but that's really all the movie has to offer us, and I could get a more developed plotline from "Tron."

It's really disapppointing, because I was looking forward to this movie. I thought it would be a science-fiction examination of basic human flaws and a morality tale about the nature of irrational hatred. All it gave me was a very rational hatred of the filmmakers, who had a great idea but then abandoned it about halfway through in order to give us some slow-motion explosions and eletric laser guns that make people explode into little chunky bits. Whoopee.

Did I mention that the film rips off other films, too? Oh, it sure does. When Vikus is first being affected by the transformation, his nose starts leaking this weird black stuff like he's infected with the Black Oil Virus, he peels off his fingernails, (my God, the aliens are turning him into Jeff Goldblum!) one of the aliens sort of looks like E.T., the spaceship is sort of like if the U.F.O. from Independence Day was built by the Combine, and the display inside the cockpit of the mech-suit looks as though it was designed by a certain Mr. Stark, if you catch my drift.

Frankly, I haven't been this disappointed in a film since Matthew Broderick was being chased around in a taxicab by some abomination pretending to be Godzilla. District 9 is perhaps 2009's biggest letdown, and I can't in all good conscience recommend this film. I just can't. Mr. Jackson, you're terrific, but I guess you can't win them all. Live long and prosper, everybody.

More Demotivational Posters

Vampire Rant Addendum

So I was perusing Youtube when I came across this.

In a way, Daybreakers seems to represent everything I've been talking about when it comes to vampires. It's a grim depiction of the future where the vampire has become commonplace and mundane. As several of the characters in the trailer point out, this is also a very stupid future (for logistical reasons alone: a society of vampires would obviously need to enact strict measures to ensure that the ratio of human to vampire is enough to sustain a renewable food source, which it appears the vampires in this film are not doing). This could be interpreted as an allegory for the state of vampire fiction and its followers in the modern world: growing at an exponential rate to the point where it becomes like a plague (any guesses as to what created the vampires in this film? Anyone?) and leaves the world a bleaker, hollowed-out place.

Of course, the irony of this is that this film is yet again presenting a "new" spin on the vampire that will surely create copycats or at the very least continue the trend we've been seeing for the past few years. You're damned if you do and damned if you don't, it seems.

On a marginally related note, who do you think would win in a fight between Count Chocula and the Count from Sesame Street? Wouldn't that be awesome?

God, now even I'm doing it.

Just Call Me the Poster Child

Demotivational posters. God, how I love these things. I've been making them for about a year now. I've made over 1,000. I think I have a problem. And because I spend far too much time on the Intertube, I thought I'd share a fraction of them with my adoring nonexistent public. Don't say I didn't warn you...

The Vampire Rant (or: I May or May Not be Entertaining the Suggestion to Suck Your Blahd)

It's high time I unleashed some pent-up nerd rage on the citizenry of the Internet. I feel that this issue needs to be addressed, so I'll put this as delicately as possible:

STOP SCREWING UP VAMPIRES!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, though. I don't claim to be a psychic, but I'm starting to notice a disturbing trend that's been going on for a few years now. Now back when I was a kid, there was some halfway-decent vampire fiction out there. From the Eastern front we had Vampire Hunter D and Hellsing and all that good stuff, and from the West...well, admittedly it wasn't always so great. But we had the old classics to look back on, Lugosi and Lee and the like. We had Blade, bitches. And let's not forget I Am Legend (the book, not the movie). Hell, even Lifeforce was OK in a sort of mid-80's kind of way. My point is, vampires used to have some dignity. They used to be symbols of fear, intrigue, and the dark side of the human spirit. They were demonic yet sympathetic, and they were a powerful literary tool; in short, they were legends.

But it's all gone down the drain now, hasn't it? What happened, you may ask? What could have possibly driven the final wooden stake into the heart of vampire fiction? I'll tell you what happened: Twilight happened.

Oh sure, it started innocently enough. I thought it was another fad at first. "Vampire romance novels? Big deal. Anne Rice has been doing it for years, and you don't see me complaining." Oh, how young and naive I was then. I'm an older, more cynical bastard now, and I can see Twilight for what it really is: a sick joke with no punch line.

Now, I don't have a huge problem with teenage romance novels. I just let them have their space and they don't bother me. But when they muscle in on the vampire territory, that's when I bust out my katana and carry on about how there can be only one. The scenario of Twilight has been played out endless times before, and more competently at that. But now this new generation of genre-blind teenage yahoos is getting sucked into this latest maelstrom of mediocrity, and C'thulu help them if they fall in.

Oh, and it gets worse. Now that Twilight has spread throughout popular culture like a skin deformation, imitative vampire fiction seems to have popped up, as if this were some insidious game of Whack-A-Mole. HBO brings us True Blood. The recent remake of Blood: the Last Vampire just came out. Even the Underworld series has fallen victim to the curse of Twilight. It's only going to get worse from here. This influx of vampiric entertainment is overexposing the vampire, like exposure to the sun. Only vampires aren't just going to sparkle like Ed Cullen. They're going to burn, and we'll never be able to reconstitute their ashes. They'll be gone from the face of the earth. And it'll be all our fault, too. Because we eat this up. Like any other phenomenon, Twilight has a vocal fanbase. And, well:


Exactly. It's a sad day when we begin to humanize our monsters to the point where they essentially become us. Don't get me wrong, the humanization of the vampire, the werewolf, etc., is all well and good, but too much of a good thing is blasphemy. It's madness! (Madness? THIS! IS! TWILIGHT! *boot to the head*) Now if you'll excuse me, I'll just mosey on out of here. But before I go:

The Guyver Review

Long time, no see. I've been busy.

Let's face it: we all love Mark Hamill. C'mon, you know it. It's like the man said: "don't f*** with the Jedi Master, son." Whether we were watching him beat James Earl Jones's ass with a rotoscoped laser sword or hearing him murder our inner child, Mark Hamill helped define an entire genre and lent his talent to films, television shows, and video games everywhere. Try very hard to remember that when watching The Guyver, a 1991 motion picture mutation that leaves the viewer with sympathy for Mr. Hamill and ridicule for just about everything else.

Based on a long-running Japanese manga series, The Guyver's plot concerns the eponymous Guyver, a semi-biological suit of advanced power armor created by aliens, who also created humans as some sort of "perfect killing machine" thousands of years ago. I think. Frankly, the whole thing comes off as more than a little ridiculous, although this may have more to do with its origins as a manga than anything else. Regardless, our story begins as a scientist hides the Guyver from some thugs who transform into rejected monsters from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II. The Guyver is found by a young man named Sean (Jack Armstrong), whereupon it bonds with him (symbiote-style) and he is hunted down by a megacorporation led by one of the aliens who seeks to harness the power of the Guyver for himself. Along the way, Sean runs into a cop played by a mustache-sporting Mark Hamill (easily the best performer in the whole film) investigating the disappearance of the scientist, but his importance to the story is suspect. The same goes for the scientists' daughter Mizky (Vivian Wu), who happens to be Sean's girlfriend. She and Hamill spend most of the film running around while Sean dons the Guyver suit and does battle against the aforementioned alien monsters, all of whom would probably be laughed off the set of Power Rangers.

In fact, laughing is what I was doing for most of the film. Not that the film is intentionally funny; I've seen better humor out of Family Circus. No, The Guyver is entrenched firmly in the soil of the Mystery Science Theater brand of comedy, the kind where one is inclined to add the word "pilgrim" at the end of every one of Mark Hamill's lines as he spouts out a terrible John Wayne-esque dialect. Looking back, it's almost as if the movie was trying to achieve this exact variety of B-movie status, not good enough to be a film, but not bad enough to be unwatchable. The kind which induced both a cringe and a spasm of guffaws when I noticed Jeffrey Combs in a cameo as a scientist named "Dr. East." And that's only the tip of the iceberg: the Three Stooges-style special effects, the rapping lizardman, the Russian monster with some sort of wiggling proboscis, a scene near the beginning where the alien overlord mind-controls his hapless minion into punching himself in the face (from which we recieve the immortal line: "I'll make you slap yourself into OBLIVION!"), watching Mark Hamill get transformed into a low-budget animatronic giant cockroach (oooh, big spoiler), and let's not forget the obvious and over-the-top "whoosh" sound effects that play whenever the Guyver hurls someone across the room.

But don't be so quick to dismiss The Guyver as nothing more than a cinematic toilet drain. Despite being a 90's film, the film always has one foot in the good old 80's, and I suppose I'll watch anything with a little blue lightning thrown in there. It's cheesier than the Cheesecake Factory, but it's a good kind of cheese, the kind you can enjoy with friends, or if there aren't any reruns of Quantum Leap on to satisfy your 80's mania. Well, that's all for now. Peace out.

Equilibrium Review

"You know, 1984 was a great book, wasn't it? But I have an idea...what if I replaced all those boring talky parts with explosions and katanas and gunfights? LOTS of gunfights! Wouldn't that be awesome?" I imagine that this was the question Kurt Wimmer posed to himself when he sat down to write one of the lesser known action movies of our time, a 2002 film entitled Equilibrium. Before he was Batman or John Connor, Christian Bale starred in Equilibrium as Grammaton Cleric John Preston, an elite police officer in the dystopian future city-state of Libria, where the populace is kept docile by a combination of an all-encompassing totalitarian dictatorship and regular injections of an emotion-inhibiting drug called Prozium. Clerics such as Preston are trained extensively in swordfighting and a new form of martial arts known as "gun-kata" to find and eliminate the citizens who do not take Prozium and are thus still capable of exhibiting emotion (called "sense-offenders" in the film). The story begins as Preston discovers that his partner is one of these "sense-offenders," and he wastes no time in dispatching him. The film then follows Preston as his doubts surface, he ceases his Prozium regimen, and he begins to question the system that he plegdged his life to uphold. The narrative works best without the dialogue, when the imagery of Libria is fully exposed to the viewer, combining a dystopian lack of color, a juxtaposition of cleanliness with filth, and the symbolism of reflection and obscurity. When the dialogue decides to appear, however, the film begins to tear apart at the seams. However, no one should be watching Equilibrium for its story. The action sequences in Equilibrium are well-choreographed, exciting, and brutal all at once. Keep in mind that the Matrix was still very new at the time, and Equilibrium cannot really be called a rip-off in that sense. John Preston is something of a modern-day Rambo, gunning down scores of faceless minions in practically every scene. One cannot help but enjoy a particular sequence where Preston effortlessly dispatches a dozen heavily armed men using nothing but the butts of his twin handguns, bashing in their faces and swatting away their machine guns like they were children's toys. This film is a love letter to the sort of action film which now permate the public consciousness; I daresay that had Equilibrium been released earlier, it may have become more well-known than it is today. As it stands, Equilibrium will be remembered by those with a love for on-screen ultraviolence; it's a competent and worthwhile demonstration thereof.

Clash of the Titans Review

The last two decades has seen a new trend in the prevalence of computer-generated graphics in television and film. The 1980's gave us relatively primitive computer effects with charming classics like Tron and The Last Starfighter, whereas the 90's gave us more complex effects; even films or shows created entirely using computer-generated graphics. As the 2000's come to a close, we have seen computer graphics grow in both complexity and frequency, from wall-crawlers to city-destroyers, and even robots in disguise. However, I want to take you back to a time before computers ruled the earth, a time when films had a different sensibility, a different viewing audience, and when they had one thing that can never be replaced: Ray Harryhausen. For decades, Harryhausen created fantastic creatures on the big screen with the use of stop-motion animation, special-effects that seemed wondrous in olden days, yet seems childish compared to the computerized creatures of today's films. Despite the massive gap in technology, there is a certain inexplainable quality about these older films which still manages to capture the imagination, and nowhere is this quality more evident than in one of Harryhausen's last films, the classic early 80's Greek mythological extravaganza called Clash of the Titans. Clash of the Titans retells the story of the Greek hero Perseus and his adventures, including his encounter with a giant sea-beast, his battle against the Gorgon Medusa, and his taming of the winged steed Pegasus (which the movie incorrectly attributes to him rather than Bellerophon, but it's best not to pull out D'aulaire's for this one). The cast is replete with some familiar and talented faces, including Lawrence Olivier as the god Zeus, Burgess Meredith as Ammon, a playwright, and Ursula Andress as Aphrodite. The story takes many liberties with its mythological roots, but this is easily overlooked for the film's other endearing qualities. Harryhausen's hand is evident in nearly every scene from the subtle (watching as the shadow of an individual changes and sprouts horns) to the dramatic (such as Calibos, the horned man in question as he skulks about the screen, a perpetual evil sneer affixed to his face). Even today, the sight of the mighty Kraken as it emerges from the sea is still a powerful and imposing image. It is an enduring testament to the pre-digital age of films, and proof of why those films are still so much fun to watch.

Colossus: the Forbin Project review

Remember the Cold War? I sure don't. But that era in world history spawned a multitude of topical films, television shows, and all sorts of other media. A great deal of it has endured to this day, reminding us of just how crazy countries with too many nukes can get (after they've had a few martinis). And on a similar (completely different) note, remember when computers were the size of buildings and ran on tapes? Yeah, me neither. But you'll find a healthy dose of both in 1970's Colossus: the Forbin Project, or as I like to call it, the WarGames before WarGames. Colossus concerns the launch of a new, highly advanced supercomputer named "Colossus," built for the purpose of defending America from its Communist foes. Things go quickly awry when Colossus detects a similar Russian supercomputer called "Guardian," and the two systems begin to interact with one another. Dr. Charles Forbin, (Eric Braeden) the creator of Colossus and his team attempt to sever the connection, but both computers respond with launching nuclear weapons. The situation worsens from there as both countries are held in the thrall of the combined Colossus-Guardian entity, forcing them to build security cameras for it to access and granting it more and more functions. Eventually, Colossus assumes dominion over essentially the entire world, as it states clearly in its initial address to the people of the world: "This is the voice of World Control." The film is deeply rooted in its Cold War environment, and the sight of tiny dots on a radar screen approaching their targets is truly chilling for the characters and the audience. The human element of the film is well-developed and realistic, in stark contrast to the cold, impersonal menace of Colossus which looms over every scene, it's "eyes" and "voice" permeating every structure like a computerized Big Brother. The scenery is both larger-than-life and all-too familiar, and the dialogue is rendered almost too realistically, sentences are interrupted and relatively simple adjectives are used to give a feeling of verisimilitude which complements the film nicely, yet some lines manage to fall flat, and the ending is abrupt and leaves the viewer wanting more. All in all, Colossus is a solid example of Cold War-era science fiction, and a capable statement on the dangers of the technological singularity.

Kronos Review

The 1950's were a hotbed for alien invasion science-fiction films. Some were good, some were not so good, and some were legendarily awful. One film from this era which might not immediately spring to mind is 1957's "Kronos," also known as "Kronos, Destroyer of Worlds." The film depicts an alien invasion on two fronts: an alien presence possesses the body of a government observatory director, while simultaneously a massive mechanical behemoth emerges on the coast of Mexico, dubbed "Kronos." Kronos begins a destructive rampage across the countryside, absorbing nuclear energy as it goes. The addition of the more intimate human element of the invasion vis a vis the possession is a strong counterpoint to the looming presence of Kronos itself, which has a unique and memorable design. The sense of the monsters' size is easily conveyed. The special effects are above-average for the time, as is the tightly-paced storyline. It is a shame that "Kronos" does not share the limelight with its contemporaries, as it is a fine example of science-fiction cinema, and demonstrates the strengths of the genre without overindulging itself overmuch. As evidenced by the recent surge of remakes, 1950's science-fiction maintains a strong presence in modern popular consciousness. There is a charm and sophistication to these films which does not seem to have been replicated in modern science-fiction. The moviegoers of yesteryear were perhaps more patient, more cerebral, or perhaps simply had a different set of standards for their viewing entertainment. Perhaps "Kronos" has more to teach a modern audience than one would expect.

The Island of Doctor Moreau Review

Are we not men? This is the question posed to us by the 1996 film adaptation of the classic novel "The Island of Doctor Moreau" by H.G. Wells. The story begins as United Nations functionary Edward Douglas (David Thewlis) suffers a shipwreck and is found by a man named Montgomery, (Val Kilmer) who takes him to the eponymous isle. It doesn't take Edward long to discover that the island is populated with hideous half-man half-animal hybrids, created by the brilliant yet twisted Doctor Moreau, here portrayed by an aged, corpulent Marlon Brando. Faster than you can say "four feet good, two feet bad," the animal-men revolt and the island descends into madness, owing to Montgomery and Edwards' actions. The main problem with the film is that it is simply boring to watch. The plot only seems to last for the first half, after which the film wanders around showing us random, sporadic scenes of violence hoping to somehow stumble back into its narrative structure. The acting is for the most part lethargic, and Thewlis in particular delivers a particularly narcoleptic performance. The only halfway decent performance in the whole film comes from Brando, but it is clear he is straining just to deliver a mediocre job. It's sad to see a once-shining talent reduced to such a state, spending most of the film clad in ridiculous makeup and downright silly costuming. Speaking of silly costumes, the animal-men's appearance is unconvincing and look better suited for a second-rate monster movie, which by the end of the film is what it has become. Overall, "The Island of Doctor Moreau" is yet another example of how a great literary classic can be turned into a great Hollywood joke.