May 16th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Comic Book, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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Christopher Reeve’s reign as The Man of Steel comes to a rather ignominious end with this, his fourth outing. Not that Reeve is bad, in fact he clearly still had a lot of affection for the character, and the basic idea is a good one - Superman taking on an almost godlike role in order to save mankind from itself – it’s the execution that lets it down.
Sidney J. Furie was once a director with talent, producing, amongst others, The Ipcress File, here though he displays none of the flare he once showed. The Quest for Peace is the work of a talentless hack, the Superhero equivalent of Plan 9 from Outer Space but without that films charm. Superman decides to rid the world of nuclear weapons and the world governments (and I mean ALL of them) say “gee thanks Mr Superman, without you to throw the nasty bombs into the sun we’d never have thought of getting rid of them”.
Rather than pit Superman against the world’s leaders, the filmmakers give us, once again, Gene Hackman as comedy villain, Lex Luthor. The problem is he’s just not funny anymore. Batman, Spider-Man, and The X-Men all get new villains in each new outing but it’s like Superman has only got one bad guy. Someone should really buy the producers of the Superman films some comics, after all Bryan Singer continued this preoccupation with the bald headed master of menace in Superman Returns.
April 17th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Comic Book, Horror, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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Anyone expecting the serious minded superheroics of X-Men, or the angst-ridden thrills of Spider-Man would perhaps have been a bit disappointed by Fantastic Four, but for me it does a decent job of capturing the fun tone of the original comic. The X-Men are outcasts from humanity, Spider-Man is a masked vigilante who does what he does out of guilt over the death of his Uncle Ben, the FF on the other hand are public figures, they don’t hide their identities behind masks, they’re celebrities and the film portrays them as such, or rather there evolution to celebrity status following the accident that gives them their powers.
The film’s heart may be in the right place, but its casting is a hit and miss affair. First the misses - Ioan Gruffudd as Reed Richards/Mr Fantastic and Jessica Alba as Sue Storm/Invisible Woman. Gruffudd lacks the presence for Reed Richards, the part calls for someone who can command the screen, whereas when Gruffudd’s with the other three he’s the last one you look at.
I like Jessica Alba, she’s undeniably beautiful and a capable enough actress given a part that plays to her strengths, said strengths not including playing a technobabbleing scientist. The film tries to get around this by that old standby when depicting intelligent characters – have her wear specs. Sadly this ruse doesn’t work, and Alba only gets to make an impression in the scene where she suddenly becomes visible in her undies. That she and Gruffudd have little onscreen chemistry doesn’t help matters.
April 14th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Action, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction, TV Reviews, Thriller |
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Evil organisation THRUSH (the series never explained what the acronym stands for) attempts to infiltrate UNCLE (that one stands for “United Network Command for Law and Enforcement”) by replacing their top agent, Napoleon Solo, with a doppelganger. There aim is to crack an operation codenamed “The August Affair”, and get their hands on Project Earthsave, a top secret energy source.
Unlike Flint and Helm, The Man from UNCLE series played it (relatively) straight, at least it did until its third season. This “movie” is really a couple of first season episodes cobbled together, along with some extra footage that was a bit too risqué for television at the time. The film holds together relatively well considering, although it does plod a little in the middle. The series and these spin-off films would get better as the series found its feet. The villains improved as well, with some big name guest stars making an appearance. Here all we get is Senta Berger, who, while certainly not unpleasant to look at, isn’t particularly threatening.
Still at least Mr Smooth, Robert Vaughn, is on hand. Snappy dresser, seducer of beautiful women and no slouch when it comes to mixing it up with the bad guys, Napoleon Solo is America’s answer to James Bond and Vaughn is the perfect choice to play him. Here he also gets to play his double but doesn’t really get to have much fun being evil as he’s just pretending to be the real Solo.
April 13th, 2008
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Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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It’s one thing to read how bad a film is but until you actually experience it first hand it’s hard to appreciate just how truly awful it can be. Case in point Battlefield Earth, a film that scores a measly 2.3 and ranks at number 89 in the IMDb Bottom 100 films and gets just 3% on Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer. Yet those figures don’t prepare you for just how bad this is, it’s a galactic sized turkey, the sort of film even Alan Smithee wouldn’t want his name on.
It starts out innocently enough; humanity’s last few survivors have reverted to little more than barbarism, a bit like one of those cheap ‘80s Italian Mad Max knockoffs. Everyone has scruffy clothes, dreadlocked hair and perfectly made-up faces (particularly Sabine Karsenti). It’s all a bit silly but no worse than many other films I’ve seen. Thinks reach a whole other level of crap though with the arrival of John Travolta and the other eight feet tall Psychloians, an alien race that has taken over the earth in order to steal its natural resources, primarily gold. Quite why these intergalactic thieves have such a need for gold is never really explained, but that’s just one of the many holes in the story and doesn’t come close to our intrepid survivors being able to learn how to fly jets after a go in a flight simulator.
April 10th, 2008
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Ian W |
Action, Comedy, Comic Book, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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With Superman II we got a blend of two visions - Richards Donner and Lester - and while the finished article wasn’t perfect it was certainly an entertaining ride. With Superman III we got the full undiluted Richard Lester and oh boy, was it bad.
Lester must have misunderstood when Ilya Salkind asked him to make a comic movie and made a comedy movie instead. How else do you explain Richard Pryor as one of the films villains? Or a credit sequence that’s akin to Benny Hill (and even features Bob Todd!)? The juvenile comedy runs throughout the film but the laughs are few and far between.
Of course Lester isn’t completely to blame, he was after all hired by Ilya Salkind, and it’s Salkind who’s responsible for the lower budget which doesn’t just mean special effects that are a lot less special, but a cut price cast as well. Why pay Gene Hackman a small fortune when you can get Robert Vaughn to play virtually the same part for a fraction of the cost? And while you’re at it why not do away with Valerie Perrine in favour of Pamela Stephenson? Margot Kidder not happy as Lois? Cut her part down to a cameo and introduce Annette O’Toole as Lana Lang to provide another love interest for Clark Kent, that’ll show Kidder she’s not indispensible. In every sense this is a budget Superman, an attempt to milk a little more money out of the Superman cash-cow.
March 30th, 2008
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Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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George Lucas tries to fool the viewer into thinking this is art but art usually has heart behind it and this is a fairly shallow exercise that dresses up old ideas in new clothes, it’s Orwell’s 1984 bleached white. The idea of Lucas railing against a society that programs its citizens to be consumers is, these days, pretty ironic, this is the guy who makes Gordon Gekko look like a charity worker. Add a little to one line in the film and you pretty much get Lucas’ ideal world –
“Let us be thankful we have commerce. Buy more. Buy more Star Wars DVDs now. Buy. And be happy.”
You can guess what I added I think. And he may well have said this one to Spielberg about Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull –
“Remember, thrifty thinkers are always under budget.”
Am I being a bit hard on Lucas? Probably but I’ve given this film a try twice now, once when I was much younger and now in its shiny new Director’s Cut form (actually the DVD cover proclaims it The George Lucas Director’s Cut as if we were expecting someone else’s). That first time I could put my dislike down to the fact it lacked the bells and whistles I wanted from my science fiction back when I was in my teens, this time though I’m older and more open to an intelligent piece of SF, but spending ninety minutes watching Lucas do the directorial equivalent of navel gazing while wasting the talents of two fine actors is not my idea of fun.
January 31st, 2008
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Ian W |
Action, Comic Book, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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The problem with Superman is that he’s Superman. He’s almost omniscient and it’s hard to find a worthy challenge for him. Superman II manages it by pitting him against three Kryptonian villains, each with powers equal to his own.
When I first saw Superman II at the cinema I thought it a better film than the original. As a fifteen year old comic geek it had what the first film lacked, namely super villains. For the first time we got to see a real Superhero vs. Supervillain knock-down-drag-out fight. There were faults - the romance with Margot Kidder never really worked for me (and still doesn’t) and Superman’s mum lying to him that, after choosing to become human, he can never go back, was always a pretty big plot hole.
The forty-three year old comic geek who just watched the film still loves the fight scenes (although some of the effects seem a little less special than they used to) and Terence Stamp and Sarah Douglas are still excellent bad guys (even if General Zod does go a bit Cockney at times, particularly the TV broadcast from the White House).
Now though I can also see the faults - sllly comedy moments and some ropy dubbing (how many characters does Shane Rimmer voice?), Gene Hackman’s Lex Luthor completely superfluous to the plot, too little Ned Beatty, E.G. Marshall’s atrocious wig. Plus the whole Superman becoming human (for all of about five minutes) subplot isn’t really needed. The film runs over two hours, not as long as the first film, but then that had to tell the origin story, with Superman not making an appearance until an hour into the film. Superman II could have been trimmed by about thirty minutes and not lost anything of importance.
January 27th, 2008
Posted by
Ian W |
Drama, Science Fiction |
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Aiming for the cool indie weirdness of Repo Man, The Big Empty comes up way short. Its title is half right though, the film isn’t big but it certainly is empty.
To go into the details of the plot would be pointless, it’s both convoluted and at the same time vacuous. It feels like writer/director Steve Anderson woke up one morning and decided to write the most outlandish tale he could just for the sake of it. The film is populated by oddball characters from an FBI agent/frustrated actor to a cowboy clad serial killer but none of it has any real point.
Some of the performances aren’t bad, Kelsey Grammer has fun playing it straight as the FBI man and Sean Bean gets a dry run for The Hitcher as an English cowboy nutjob. But it’s all just wasted effort in a film as pointless as this.
The best thing about the film (by a long, long way) is the soundtrack, with both the songs (from Lazy Lester and John Lee Hooker amongst others) and Brian Tyler’s score providing more pleasure than anything in the film. This is one DVD that should have had a music only track.
January 6th, 2008
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Ian W |
Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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You wake up and find that everyone has disappeared, that’s the premise of this New Zealand science fiction classic. Bruno Lawrence is Zac Hobson, the man who finds himself seemingly alone, is he the only man on the planet and is the Project Flashlight he was working on somehow responsible?
The answer to the first part of that question is no, as he finds first a woman, played by Alison Routledge, and then a Maori man, portrayed by Pete Smith. The answer to the rest of the question depends on your interpretation of the film. One thing is abundantly clear and that’s the moral of the film. This is a parable for the dangers of nuclear war, of playing god with nature and of the individual’s responsibility for his actions. It’s also interesting to note that it’s the American’s, the country really behind project Flashlight, who are the bad guys, withholding information on the nature of the experiment. You almost expect the USA to be the bogeyman in modern movies (particularly foreign ones) due to there questionable foreign policy but to see them as the bad guys in a film that’s over twenty years old, at a time when the Soviet Union were still the villains of choice, is a tad surprising.
January 4th, 2008
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Ian W |
Horror, Movie Reviews, Science Fiction |
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With I Am Legend currently in cinemas and, inexplicably, breaking box office records, now seemed like a good time to revisit the first, and still the best, version of Richard Matheson’s classic novel.
With a budget that was probably less than a third of what the dog in I Am Legend got paid (inflation adjusted of course) this American financed and Italian shot film manages to create more tension, more suspense and more emotion than the mega budget Will Smith starrer could even dream of. For example it’s far more effective to have Neville, or Morgan as he’s renamed here, confront his dead wife when she returns from the grave than have her die in some unnecessary CGI explosion. The big bang may look more impressive but that’s just superficial gloss. The Last Man on Earth isn’t glossy, for one thing it couldn’t afford to be, but it works on a gut level that’s far truer to the original story.
I have to admit I was a bit surprised by Will Smith’s performance, he does surprisingly well (with the exception of the Bob Marley scene) even if he is miscast. I had feared we were in for a performance like I, Robot or, heaven forbid, Independence Day, instead he’s surprisingly restrained. He can’t hold a candle to Vincent Price though.
