It’s been a fairly slow month with regards to my usual gluttony of films. I’ve lacked significant time to just lay back and watch some good movies, and Netflix seems to have misplaced my top ten choices for the past month and a half so I’m mostly getting movies that I only sort of want to watch. I just don’t have the energy, at the end of the day, to stay up late and watch a couple of flicks in a row.. I’ve been falling asleep to Caillou, Kipper the Dog, and various other “Sprout” shows for the past three weeks with my son and that leaves out a lot of zombie smashing goodness that I might normally lounge back to watch. I have to wait for my four year old to fall asleep before I even think about throwing on a fright flick, and the Samurai films can get fairly risqué as well. Ah well… so goes the life of a family man, I suppose.
But I am the Mad Mark and I do watch a lot of crap, so here go my reviews for the week. From Victorian horror to grindhouse chambara, the Mad Mark runs the gauntlet and flips a few hours from the clock.
I Sell The Dead:
This beautifully macabre film recounts the adventures of two grave robbers sentenced to the Guillotine in some unspecified time before modern technology. Apprenticed at a young age, Dominic Monahan headlines the film as he learns the tricks of the trade and sparks a lifelong friendship with his partner, whom we see beheaded in the opening moments of the film. Convicted of grave-robbing and murder, the young man recounts his life story to a curious monk played by Ron Perlman; a life story that includes grave robbing, thieving the body of a relative, blackmail from an insidious doctor, and an eventual series of confrontations with the blatantly supernatural. The stories are delivered with a morbid humor and self deprecation, endearing us to the decidedly un-wholesome duo around which the film revolves. Both men lack courage, decency, tact, and reasonable sense. But they have a fondness for one another that is very brotherly, occasionally even paternal as the older man continues to look after his young charge.
We have vampires, zombies, ghouls, violent criminals, some “otherworldly” threats and experiences wrapped in the context of what is wholly a satisfying romp. Monahan is fantastic in his flippant manner and total disregard for social niceties. Though Perlman only plays a small role, his characters’ transformation allows the story to propel itself toward a climactic conclusion that wraps many loose ends and builds to a satisfying twist that may seem a little too obvious at times. And that’s really where the only problem with this film lies… there are a few welcome surprises, but the film becomes largely predictable and you see several twists coming before the characters start to turn the corner. At times, this becomes amusing as you can see the set up for a good number of punch lines but the characters come off as woefully inept and dense. This actually feeds into the humor at several points, but a less accepting audience might find the film a little too cliché for their own tastes. I loved it, though.
4 out of 5.
Quick Draw Okatsu
Slashing a bloody path of vengeance, Quick Draw Okatsu is typical chambara fanfare with corrupt officials forced to come eye to eye with the deadly blade of a former victim. Okatsu is the adopted daughter of a Samurai sword instructor, her father’s greatest pupil and the towns’ local beauty. When her brother shirks his duty and decides to run off with his commoner girlfriend, Okatsu attempts to atone for his numerous mistakes when he’s tricked into losing money at the local gambling house. Her brother is killed, his pregnant girlfriend sold to a brothel, her father betrayed and murdered by a former student, and all of these events orchestrated by a corrupt official who also brutally takes her virtue… someone done messed up, and Okatsu is going to deliver the whoopings to the left and too the right with a few dozen slashes from her deadly blade.
3.5 out of 5.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
4 Reviews at the redcap's Blog!
How to Train Your Dragon
After finally managing to wrangle my son into the van, my wife and I managed to catch a Sunday afternoon screening of the latest 3-D Animated film for kids. Because the Pup doesn’t like to wear the glasses and my wife gets dizzy, we only managed to catch the film in regular 2-D and I sat back with a little package of nachos in order to avoid the stomach tearing effects of the popcorn my son regularly purchases for these little flicks. This is your fairly standard little “coming of age” story set to a Viking background and featuring a beautiful display of animated dragons. It was a satisfying afternoon film, something I’d probably wind up buying for both my wife and son to catch on a lazy evening at home but I’m not sure where else I could take the review.
Honestly, it’s not a bad film and I had a lot of fun watching it. But it was pretty much a “paint by numbers” story that didn’t try too hard to be much more than what it was, though the animation was absolutely top of the line and the action sequences were extremely well conceived. There were a number of moralizing points the story tried to make, and it pretty much succeeded on all counts without being too preachy or offensively condescending. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.
4 out of 5.
The Graves:
Two sisters on a “last hurrah” road trip make a wrong turn and wind up in your typical Midwest bible-thumping “crazy” town with lunatic locals and homicidal maniacs. In what started off with some promising moments from one of the “eight movies to die for”, The Graves delivers some early gore and a terrific performance from Bill Moseley in order to fall through on the last two acts in a disappointing reach extra padded time. Our protagonist sisters are chased, tortured, and run to ground by a number of somewhat colorful characters in an attempt to appease the demonic ghosts that reside within the abandoned mine that once fueled the lifeblood of the small town. In developing a mystery and a number of characters, the film ultimately fails to give us any real answers to the number of questions that pop up. Moseley delivers a line that may have been seen as profound when it was written, but within the context of the film it ultimately gives you the gist of what ultimately fails…. He explains that there is no reason, but the entire film works to show us that there is but never stops to tell us what that reason is.
It could have something to do with the hanged miners accused of demonic possession, the insanity of the mines’ founder, the skull buried atop the gold that kicked off the rush that built the town, the flies that buzz around, the insane spirits, demonic forces, or too much chlorine in the water for all we need to know. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, but I guess she’ll die. What we do know is that whatever “force” inspires the town to commit their bloody deeds sucks out eyeballs and makes a horrific screaming sound when it feeds. You would think at least one nut job would cave and give us a long monologue in answer to the sisters’ continuous questions, if not just to shut them up… but alas! Bubkus!
3 out of 5.
Shadow Hunters
“Moonlight”, “Daylight”, and Jubei are three ronin Samurai who sell their swords for the sole purpose of foiling Ninja schemes and protecting the Clans from the confiscatory practices of a corrupt Shogunate. When a distant mountain family is threatened by the “Shadows” (ninja operatives for the Shogunate), the three swordsmen ride in and deliver sword slinging justice in bloody geysers of furious vengeance! They are tasked with accompanying a Clan Samurai as he presents a document bearing the Shoguns’ seal that guarantees possession of the fiefdom to the mountain family. The tale of each Ronin unfolds throughout their journey, so we understand precisely why they hunt the shadows and why they’ve accepted their station in the order of things as lowly “wavemen.”
Another furious chambara release from the folks over at AnimEigo, Shadow Hunters is a fairly standard sword epic with colorful characters and fantastic martial arts. Look, I just really love these movies… they might not be for everyone. There are a ton of other films who take the same cues and similar action sequences, from the Lone wolf & Cub series to Zatoichi. Shadow Hunters ranks up there with some of the best, and I look forward to watching additional films in the series. The DVD is packaged pretty nicely with some additional liner notes in the subtitles, including explanations on some of the terminology and historical annotations for events at the time. We also get a few trailers for additional AnimeIgo “samurai cinema” releases.
4 out of 5.
Shadow Hunters II: Echoes of Destiny
The second installment of the Shadow Hunters series delivers much the same action as the first film. Swords slash, blood sprays, and the ninja flip and fly around the screen as the Samurai cut them down and send their souls to jigoku. We continue shortly after the last film left off, with the Shadows demanding seppuku for the failure of their first lord to succeed in his duty and destroy the Hunters. A new Shadow is placed in charge, and he tasks the female Ninja with tracking down the Hunters and we’re treated to a number of scenes with the Shadow Hunters fending off attacking ninja. They are then summoned to a beleaguered province threatened by the political machinations of the shogunate and their Shadow spies. In this convoluted plot, the Wavemen are basically tasked with protecting the delivery of a canon to fief of a Clan honored with the task of protecting it.
I’ll take this moment to give you a spoiler warning as I discuss a fundamental truth about the nature of Samurai Chambara films. There is rarely ever a happy ending… in point of fact, the “heroes” usually succeed in their task; kill all the bad guys, deliver the goods, and kiss all the girls. But things are often worse off than when they started and the price they paid in order to achieve their aims becomes a terrible burden that they are forced to carry the rest of their lives. When they talk about their miserable lot in life and their haunted steps, you understand precisely what they mean by the end of the film as innocents suffer, people die, and honor is lost to various betrayals and political machinations. There is a cursed misery that continues to haunt the characters for the rest of their days and there is almost always a form of seppuku performed in the course of the film, a reminder that even this honorable release is denied to men such as our main characters. Considering how prone I am to depression, I’m not entirely certain why I love these movies so much… but I do.
4 out of 5.
Frightmare
I swear I caught this film at some point in the 80’s, but completely forgot anything at all related to the story or any scene involved. This is an almost entirely uninspired rehash of several plot points found in “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” when an aging actor passes away and his body is stolen from his gimmicked death trap of a mausoleum. There is very little to set this film apart from the hundreds of mind-numbing low budget horror releases at the time, and yet Frightmare must have had something going for it because I had not once considered throwing my remote control through the screen. In point of fact, my wife actually found she was somewhat engaged by the films primary antagonist and kept tuning in from her WoW game to take a gander.
3 out of 5, worth watching.
After finally managing to wrangle my son into the van, my wife and I managed to catch a Sunday afternoon screening of the latest 3-D Animated film for kids. Because the Pup doesn’t like to wear the glasses and my wife gets dizzy, we only managed to catch the film in regular 2-D and I sat back with a little package of nachos in order to avoid the stomach tearing effects of the popcorn my son regularly purchases for these little flicks. This is your fairly standard little “coming of age” story set to a Viking background and featuring a beautiful display of animated dragons. It was a satisfying afternoon film, something I’d probably wind up buying for both my wife and son to catch on a lazy evening at home but I’m not sure where else I could take the review.
Honestly, it’s not a bad film and I had a lot of fun watching it. But it was pretty much a “paint by numbers” story that didn’t try too hard to be much more than what it was, though the animation was absolutely top of the line and the action sequences were extremely well conceived. There were a number of moralizing points the story tried to make, and it pretty much succeeded on all counts without being too preachy or offensively condescending. There are worse ways to spend an afternoon.
4 out of 5.
The Graves:
Two sisters on a “last hurrah” road trip make a wrong turn and wind up in your typical Midwest bible-thumping “crazy” town with lunatic locals and homicidal maniacs. In what started off with some promising moments from one of the “eight movies to die for”, The Graves delivers some early gore and a terrific performance from Bill Moseley in order to fall through on the last two acts in a disappointing reach extra padded time. Our protagonist sisters are chased, tortured, and run to ground by a number of somewhat colorful characters in an attempt to appease the demonic ghosts that reside within the abandoned mine that once fueled the lifeblood of the small town. In developing a mystery and a number of characters, the film ultimately fails to give us any real answers to the number of questions that pop up. Moseley delivers a line that may have been seen as profound when it was written, but within the context of the film it ultimately gives you the gist of what ultimately fails…. He explains that there is no reason, but the entire film works to show us that there is but never stops to tell us what that reason is.
It could have something to do with the hanged miners accused of demonic possession, the insanity of the mines’ founder, the skull buried atop the gold that kicked off the rush that built the town, the flies that buzz around, the insane spirits, demonic forces, or too much chlorine in the water for all we need to know. I don’t know why she swallowed a fly, but I guess she’ll die. What we do know is that whatever “force” inspires the town to commit their bloody deeds sucks out eyeballs and makes a horrific screaming sound when it feeds. You would think at least one nut job would cave and give us a long monologue in answer to the sisters’ continuous questions, if not just to shut them up… but alas! Bubkus!
3 out of 5.
Shadow Hunters
“Moonlight”, “Daylight”, and Jubei are three ronin Samurai who sell their swords for the sole purpose of foiling Ninja schemes and protecting the Clans from the confiscatory practices of a corrupt Shogunate. When a distant mountain family is threatened by the “Shadows” (ninja operatives for the Shogunate), the three swordsmen ride in and deliver sword slinging justice in bloody geysers of furious vengeance! They are tasked with accompanying a Clan Samurai as he presents a document bearing the Shoguns’ seal that guarantees possession of the fiefdom to the mountain family. The tale of each Ronin unfolds throughout their journey, so we understand precisely why they hunt the shadows and why they’ve accepted their station in the order of things as lowly “wavemen.”
Another furious chambara release from the folks over at AnimEigo, Shadow Hunters is a fairly standard sword epic with colorful characters and fantastic martial arts. Look, I just really love these movies… they might not be for everyone. There are a ton of other films who take the same cues and similar action sequences, from the Lone wolf & Cub series to Zatoichi. Shadow Hunters ranks up there with some of the best, and I look forward to watching additional films in the series. The DVD is packaged pretty nicely with some additional liner notes in the subtitles, including explanations on some of the terminology and historical annotations for events at the time. We also get a few trailers for additional AnimeIgo “samurai cinema” releases.
4 out of 5.
Shadow Hunters II: Echoes of Destiny
The second installment of the Shadow Hunters series delivers much the same action as the first film. Swords slash, blood sprays, and the ninja flip and fly around the screen as the Samurai cut them down and send their souls to jigoku. We continue shortly after the last film left off, with the Shadows demanding seppuku for the failure of their first lord to succeed in his duty and destroy the Hunters. A new Shadow is placed in charge, and he tasks the female Ninja with tracking down the Hunters and we’re treated to a number of scenes with the Shadow Hunters fending off attacking ninja. They are then summoned to a beleaguered province threatened by the political machinations of the shogunate and their Shadow spies. In this convoluted plot, the Wavemen are basically tasked with protecting the delivery of a canon to fief of a Clan honored with the task of protecting it.
I’ll take this moment to give you a spoiler warning as I discuss a fundamental truth about the nature of Samurai Chambara films. There is rarely ever a happy ending… in point of fact, the “heroes” usually succeed in their task; kill all the bad guys, deliver the goods, and kiss all the girls. But things are often worse off than when they started and the price they paid in order to achieve their aims becomes a terrible burden that they are forced to carry the rest of their lives. When they talk about their miserable lot in life and their haunted steps, you understand precisely what they mean by the end of the film as innocents suffer, people die, and honor is lost to various betrayals and political machinations. There is a cursed misery that continues to haunt the characters for the rest of their days and there is almost always a form of seppuku performed in the course of the film, a reminder that even this honorable release is denied to men such as our main characters. Considering how prone I am to depression, I’m not entirely certain why I love these movies so much… but I do.
4 out of 5.
Frightmare
I swear I caught this film at some point in the 80’s, but completely forgot anything at all related to the story or any scene involved. This is an almost entirely uninspired rehash of several plot points found in “Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things” when an aging actor passes away and his body is stolen from his gimmicked death trap of a mausoleum. There is very little to set this film apart from the hundreds of mind-numbing low budget horror releases at the time, and yet Frightmare must have had something going for it because I had not once considered throwing my remote control through the screen. In point of fact, my wife actually found she was somewhat engaged by the films primary antagonist and kept tuning in from her WoW game to take a gander.
3 out of 5, worth watching.
Monday, April 5, 2010
4 Reviews: Clash of the Titans, 1408, Zombies of Mass Destruction AND... Atropia???
Clash of the Titans (remake)
Sam Worthington headlines Clash of the Titans, a remake of the original 80’s fantasy feature that many people consider a classic in the genre. It’s a theatrical adaptation of Greek Mythology and the story of Perseus, a son of Zeus. Using several gifts from the gods, the young man sets out to slay the Gorgon Medusa and win the hand of Andromeda. The original took several liberties with the story, but yet managed to keep hold to several key factors in the myth. For those of you curious, I suggest you use this wonderful on-line medium to Wikepedia the mythology or do some research of your own… it would probably be far more research than the writers of the “remake” script ever attempted. The story is only marginally similar to the Mythology and then only somewhat less disjointed from the original film. Worthington is quickly proving himself as a magnetic leading man for action films, but much of the film tends to rely more on the Captain of the Guard in order to supply us with an identifiable character while the story continues to introduce a variety of characters who lend their support to Perseus.
The film moves at an exciting pace and tells a good story about a young man coming to grips with his dual nature and the legacy of his bloodline. He has no wish to be a hero or a son of Zeus, preferring the solace of a simple life as a fisherman. Unfortunately, the gods are upset with the world of man because they are no longer worshipped and adored, while the world of men have grown resentful of the power and prestige of the Gods. Events spiral out of his control, and Perseus is forced to take up a mantle in order to defend the city of Joppa from the ravages of the Kraken. Alternatively, the Princess Andromeda may also sacrifice herself to the beast in order to spare her city and her people. These events are being masterminded by Hades, whose desires are fueled by revenge against his brother Zeus for trapping him within the damned earth and presiding over the dead souls that enter Tartarus. Look, I’m trying to keep with the topic at hand and discuss the story but it leaps and flips from one point to another at various stages with the introduction of several characters and the rise of one threat after another. Kalibos emerges as a pawn for Hades, given a glutton of powers to stand in the way of Perseus, and yappity yapyapyap… I think you get the point.
In many places, the film manages to entertain and excite with a number of battle scenes and several monsters that crash and bang across the screen. Perseus’ battle with the giant Scorpions is the stuff of fantastic movie making, with a number of terrific stunts and creeping tensions as the creatures rise from the sands of a strange desert. His confrontation of the three fate witches leaves no room for complaint. His battle with the Kraken itself is absolutely fantastic, with an additional obstacle of three harpies who attempt to steal the Medusa’s head from our hero before he can complete his task. The threat of the gods is ever present in the form of an obsessive street preacher whose devotion to Hades is only matched by his addiction to crack as he screams and blubbers his way from one scene to the next. Unlike the original film, we are also given time to build a relationship with those who travel alongside Perseus so that their various sacrifices hold deeper meaning when they take place. The film is, ultimately, a very good adventure film with some good acting and a decent amount of direction.
Where the film goes wrong, however… it REALLY goes wrong. In what I can only assume was another “robot Spider” moment in production meetings, Perseus is joined in his quest by one of the Djinn… ancient sorcerers bound and imprisoned by Solomon in the Old Testament with a fair amount of mythology surrounding their existence to begin with. Nowhere in the Myth of Perseus, but someone really REALLY wanted to film some Djinn and I suppose this is the movie where they managed to get their keen idea thrown in. Another epic failure was in execution of the quest through Medusa’s lair. It was great action, but ultimately failed to build any real suspense or drama with regards to the gaze. Additionally, the decision to film Medusa as 100% CGI didn’t really work because she just wasn’t believable in her facial reactions. Actually, she seemed very plain-jane and unthreatening in anyway. The decision to portray Andromeda as somewhat disconnected from the rest of the story didn’t really help the production all that much, either.
If you want a good action film with plenty of monsters, than Clash of the Titans is going to fit that niche pretty well. If you wanted a modern interpretation of Greek Mythology, you’re much better served watching the Percy Jackson movie.
3.5 (maybe leaning toward 4) out of 5.
1408
I haven’t really been a fan of Stephen King for a number of years. Sometime around the early 90’s, his writing became somewhat stale for me and his stories didn’t really take me anyplace I hadn’t already been before. He also had a way with writing various characters as stereotypes instead of truly fleshed out characters with real thoughts and desires, they became more like caricatures of previous characters he’d already dealt with and continued to deal with as each main character was either a writer or some variation on the same theme. Kings’ work simply stopped impressing me when I was old enough to stop believing in stereotypes. I did, however, read the story from which this movie is based and I was… bored. Honestly, it didn’t shock or amaze or horrify me. It was bland and typical of the kind of stuff King had been writing for years. So I didn’t feel any real need to watch the movie when it was released some short years back.
My wife, however, decided to rent it and so I pretty much just lounged back and watched it with her. The fairly standard “haunted room” story had some pretty good things going for it, including a fantastic performance from lead actor, John Cusack. The room almost immediately begins to move in on Cusack, who plays the stereotypical “Stephen King Writer” looking for a story as he seeks to debunk haunted room myths in various hotels. He’s got alcohol problems, he’s just recently quit smoking but constantly carries a last cigarette in case the world ends, and he’s avoiding any sort of resolution with the death of his only child. There’s also some vague “father-son” relationship issues, as well… so John Cusack is playing yet another small version of Kings alter-ego as he comes face to face with the horror of this one haunted room.
All in all, the film was pretty much a standard little ghost story with some good special effects and nothing much more important than that. It was a popcorn-muncher that kept my wife interested and didn’t bore me to tears, so for that it gets an unremarkable …
3 out of 5.
Zombies of Mass Destruction
Let’s bring on the grue with this selection from the much-declined in popularity “After Dark Horror Fest” featuring one of the better movies on the selection list in recent years. ZMD is part parody, and probably much more parody than it originally intended to become as a small conservative community is besieged by a plague of zombies. There are several references to the war with Iraq, neo-conservatism, prejudice, and the list goes on and on and on. This whole movie would almost seem like a slap in the face insult to conservative idealism if they hadn’t set up all the characters as flat out parodies of the things they were supposed to represent. There’s a minister struggling with a change of the times, his faith, and his “fire and brimstone” sermons regarding the nature of sin and role of his flock at the end of times. There’s a conservative mayor whose policies have become meaningless and lack the growth of an ever-changing world. The prototypical redneck “walmart” family of over enthusiastic bigots makes their own colorful narrative to the disaster at large, and we also have the struggling immigrant who has worked his fingers to the bone and yet finds his culture mocked and dismissed by his fellow neighbors. We’re given these outlandishly boorish stereotypes to boo while simultaneously offered a series of likely heroes to cheer; The immigrants’ daughter struggling with her cultural identity, the liberal teacher wants to drag her community to the present and open their minds and hearts to a world that is changing around them, and the homosexual couple who are only recently coming out of the closet. The whole formula could have worked as a largely insulting film with a far Left agenda but is, actually, so self parodying that it works to the opposite affect in many cases. When one member of the Ministers’ flock reveals a heavy collection of guns with typical far-right machismo regarding the Second Amendment, you can’t really find fault when the church is surrounded by flesh-eating zombies. You’re more likely to groan when the teacher talks about her hatred of guns, or laugh out loud at the utterly preposterous notions of what people on the Left actually think of conservatives. It’s so unbelievably stereotypical that you wind up shaking your head in shock.
One area where they get the film dead right, however, is in the two homosexual protagonists and their struggle with coming out of the closet and finding acceptance in a community that they honestly fear. These two characters have some of the best written dialogue throughout the feature and they are also the least stereotypical personalities in the film. They pretty much carry the bulk of the film, fighting off the zombie hordes with heroic flair before eventually finding shelter within the Reverends’ church. The film utterly fails, however, to really bring the same sort of connection its’ female lead who is captured by a neighboring family and tortured for information regarding “her terrorist attack” on their community. It sort of comes across as an overly awkward parody given the situation with the rest of the film.
4 out of 5 and one of the best entries yet in the annual 8 Movies to Die For selection.
Atropia
I am a multi-layered geek with interests in a number of things, from comics to games to movies and pulp novel book flings. So when Netflix recommended this title from Norway, featuring an awkward title and a subcategory in “romantic comedy” I nearly clicked this thing out of existence in order to pump some more filth out of the horror category when some keywords in the plot caught my eye… Role-playing Games? I clicked the “add” button and then threw it up to the top ten films behind several movies that have been on “long wait” for the past month or so… not expecting to get it so soon, but being pleasantly surprised when I popped it in the DVD player for a tumble.
Atropia is a haven for nerds in a small Norwegian town, and it’s the only place willing to hire a young socialite after her world come tumbling down. Her car salesman boyfriend is jailed after cooking his books for some unknown amount of time, she’s forced to move in with her sister and nephew, and the constant pressure from news organizations makes it hard for the young woman to find work or even a reprieve from the stress of her boyfriends’ situation. So she takes her nephew to the local comic book store where she manages to find employment and even a sort of purpose when she’s placed in charge of their role-playing games and helps to manage their books. Not at all comfortable in her new setting, the girl manages to learn what RPG’s are, in addition to finding friendship and companionship with the “nerds” of the store who also manage to find a true friend in our main character.
So there’s no blood, no death, no massive amounts of gore, cussing, or over the top action in any way but “Atropia” still manages to take the prize for best movie of the week by simply being an engaging story with likeable characters. It was easy to identify with the stores colorful characters because I tend to spend my time with the same types; nerdy geeks who love their games, their comics, their movies, and their friendships and just glorify their nerd-itude with pride.
5 out of 5.
Sam Worthington headlines Clash of the Titans, a remake of the original 80’s fantasy feature that many people consider a classic in the genre. It’s a theatrical adaptation of Greek Mythology and the story of Perseus, a son of Zeus. Using several gifts from the gods, the young man sets out to slay the Gorgon Medusa and win the hand of Andromeda. The original took several liberties with the story, but yet managed to keep hold to several key factors in the myth. For those of you curious, I suggest you use this wonderful on-line medium to Wikepedia the mythology or do some research of your own… it would probably be far more research than the writers of the “remake” script ever attempted. The story is only marginally similar to the Mythology and then only somewhat less disjointed from the original film. Worthington is quickly proving himself as a magnetic leading man for action films, but much of the film tends to rely more on the Captain of the Guard in order to supply us with an identifiable character while the story continues to introduce a variety of characters who lend their support to Perseus.
The film moves at an exciting pace and tells a good story about a young man coming to grips with his dual nature and the legacy of his bloodline. He has no wish to be a hero or a son of Zeus, preferring the solace of a simple life as a fisherman. Unfortunately, the gods are upset with the world of man because they are no longer worshipped and adored, while the world of men have grown resentful of the power and prestige of the Gods. Events spiral out of his control, and Perseus is forced to take up a mantle in order to defend the city of Joppa from the ravages of the Kraken. Alternatively, the Princess Andromeda may also sacrifice herself to the beast in order to spare her city and her people. These events are being masterminded by Hades, whose desires are fueled by revenge against his brother Zeus for trapping him within the damned earth and presiding over the dead souls that enter Tartarus. Look, I’m trying to keep with the topic at hand and discuss the story but it leaps and flips from one point to another at various stages with the introduction of several characters and the rise of one threat after another. Kalibos emerges as a pawn for Hades, given a glutton of powers to stand in the way of Perseus, and yappity yapyapyap… I think you get the point.
In many places, the film manages to entertain and excite with a number of battle scenes and several monsters that crash and bang across the screen. Perseus’ battle with the giant Scorpions is the stuff of fantastic movie making, with a number of terrific stunts and creeping tensions as the creatures rise from the sands of a strange desert. His confrontation of the three fate witches leaves no room for complaint. His battle with the Kraken itself is absolutely fantastic, with an additional obstacle of three harpies who attempt to steal the Medusa’s head from our hero before he can complete his task. The threat of the gods is ever present in the form of an obsessive street preacher whose devotion to Hades is only matched by his addiction to crack as he screams and blubbers his way from one scene to the next. Unlike the original film, we are also given time to build a relationship with those who travel alongside Perseus so that their various sacrifices hold deeper meaning when they take place. The film is, ultimately, a very good adventure film with some good acting and a decent amount of direction.
Where the film goes wrong, however… it REALLY goes wrong. In what I can only assume was another “robot Spider” moment in production meetings, Perseus is joined in his quest by one of the Djinn… ancient sorcerers bound and imprisoned by Solomon in the Old Testament with a fair amount of mythology surrounding their existence to begin with. Nowhere in the Myth of Perseus, but someone really REALLY wanted to film some Djinn and I suppose this is the movie where they managed to get their keen idea thrown in. Another epic failure was in execution of the quest through Medusa’s lair. It was great action, but ultimately failed to build any real suspense or drama with regards to the gaze. Additionally, the decision to film Medusa as 100% CGI didn’t really work because she just wasn’t believable in her facial reactions. Actually, she seemed very plain-jane and unthreatening in anyway. The decision to portray Andromeda as somewhat disconnected from the rest of the story didn’t really help the production all that much, either.
If you want a good action film with plenty of monsters, than Clash of the Titans is going to fit that niche pretty well. If you wanted a modern interpretation of Greek Mythology, you’re much better served watching the Percy Jackson movie.
3.5 (maybe leaning toward 4) out of 5.
1408
I haven’t really been a fan of Stephen King for a number of years. Sometime around the early 90’s, his writing became somewhat stale for me and his stories didn’t really take me anyplace I hadn’t already been before. He also had a way with writing various characters as stereotypes instead of truly fleshed out characters with real thoughts and desires, they became more like caricatures of previous characters he’d already dealt with and continued to deal with as each main character was either a writer or some variation on the same theme. Kings’ work simply stopped impressing me when I was old enough to stop believing in stereotypes. I did, however, read the story from which this movie is based and I was… bored. Honestly, it didn’t shock or amaze or horrify me. It was bland and typical of the kind of stuff King had been writing for years. So I didn’t feel any real need to watch the movie when it was released some short years back.
My wife, however, decided to rent it and so I pretty much just lounged back and watched it with her. The fairly standard “haunted room” story had some pretty good things going for it, including a fantastic performance from lead actor, John Cusack. The room almost immediately begins to move in on Cusack, who plays the stereotypical “Stephen King Writer” looking for a story as he seeks to debunk haunted room myths in various hotels. He’s got alcohol problems, he’s just recently quit smoking but constantly carries a last cigarette in case the world ends, and he’s avoiding any sort of resolution with the death of his only child. There’s also some vague “father-son” relationship issues, as well… so John Cusack is playing yet another small version of Kings alter-ego as he comes face to face with the horror of this one haunted room.
All in all, the film was pretty much a standard little ghost story with some good special effects and nothing much more important than that. It was a popcorn-muncher that kept my wife interested and didn’t bore me to tears, so for that it gets an unremarkable …
3 out of 5.
Zombies of Mass Destruction
Let’s bring on the grue with this selection from the much-declined in popularity “After Dark Horror Fest” featuring one of the better movies on the selection list in recent years. ZMD is part parody, and probably much more parody than it originally intended to become as a small conservative community is besieged by a plague of zombies. There are several references to the war with Iraq, neo-conservatism, prejudice, and the list goes on and on and on. This whole movie would almost seem like a slap in the face insult to conservative idealism if they hadn’t set up all the characters as flat out parodies of the things they were supposed to represent. There’s a minister struggling with a change of the times, his faith, and his “fire and brimstone” sermons regarding the nature of sin and role of his flock at the end of times. There’s a conservative mayor whose policies have become meaningless and lack the growth of an ever-changing world. The prototypical redneck “walmart” family of over enthusiastic bigots makes their own colorful narrative to the disaster at large, and we also have the struggling immigrant who has worked his fingers to the bone and yet finds his culture mocked and dismissed by his fellow neighbors. We’re given these outlandishly boorish stereotypes to boo while simultaneously offered a series of likely heroes to cheer; The immigrants’ daughter struggling with her cultural identity, the liberal teacher wants to drag her community to the present and open their minds and hearts to a world that is changing around them, and the homosexual couple who are only recently coming out of the closet. The whole formula could have worked as a largely insulting film with a far Left agenda but is, actually, so self parodying that it works to the opposite affect in many cases. When one member of the Ministers’ flock reveals a heavy collection of guns with typical far-right machismo regarding the Second Amendment, you can’t really find fault when the church is surrounded by flesh-eating zombies. You’re more likely to groan when the teacher talks about her hatred of guns, or laugh out loud at the utterly preposterous notions of what people on the Left actually think of conservatives. It’s so unbelievably stereotypical that you wind up shaking your head in shock.
One area where they get the film dead right, however, is in the two homosexual protagonists and their struggle with coming out of the closet and finding acceptance in a community that they honestly fear. These two characters have some of the best written dialogue throughout the feature and they are also the least stereotypical personalities in the film. They pretty much carry the bulk of the film, fighting off the zombie hordes with heroic flair before eventually finding shelter within the Reverends’ church. The film utterly fails, however, to really bring the same sort of connection its’ female lead who is captured by a neighboring family and tortured for information regarding “her terrorist attack” on their community. It sort of comes across as an overly awkward parody given the situation with the rest of the film.
4 out of 5 and one of the best entries yet in the annual 8 Movies to Die For selection.
Atropia
I am a multi-layered geek with interests in a number of things, from comics to games to movies and pulp novel book flings. So when Netflix recommended this title from Norway, featuring an awkward title and a subcategory in “romantic comedy” I nearly clicked this thing out of existence in order to pump some more filth out of the horror category when some keywords in the plot caught my eye… Role-playing Games? I clicked the “add” button and then threw it up to the top ten films behind several movies that have been on “long wait” for the past month or so… not expecting to get it so soon, but being pleasantly surprised when I popped it in the DVD player for a tumble.
Atropia is a haven for nerds in a small Norwegian town, and it’s the only place willing to hire a young socialite after her world come tumbling down. Her car salesman boyfriend is jailed after cooking his books for some unknown amount of time, she’s forced to move in with her sister and nephew, and the constant pressure from news organizations makes it hard for the young woman to find work or even a reprieve from the stress of her boyfriends’ situation. So she takes her nephew to the local comic book store where she manages to find employment and even a sort of purpose when she’s placed in charge of their role-playing games and helps to manage their books. Not at all comfortable in her new setting, the girl manages to learn what RPG’s are, in addition to finding friendship and companionship with the “nerds” of the store who also manage to find a true friend in our main character.
So there’s no blood, no death, no massive amounts of gore, cussing, or over the top action in any way but “Atropia” still manages to take the prize for best movie of the week by simply being an engaging story with likeable characters. It was easy to identify with the stores colorful characters because I tend to spend my time with the same types; nerdy geeks who love their games, their comics, their movies, and their friendships and just glorify their nerd-itude with pride.
5 out of 5.
The Crap Shack vlog show, Episode 2!!!
This is an embedded video for my Vlog, viewable by looking at either my youtube page or at my blog sight.
redcapjack.blogspot.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)