Black Sheep Written and Directed by Jonathan King Released March 29, 2007 (New Zealand)
Want to hear four words that can get me to automatically rent a movie, sight unseen? How about "Genetically engineered killer sheep?"
Still, as slapped my money down at the rental counter for the New Zealand-made Killer Sheep, I tried my best to keep my expectations at bay. I remembered seeing a feverish preview of this film floating around online a few years back that made Black Sheep look like an insane bit of Sam Raimi-esque, Evil Dead meets Peter Jackson's Dead Alive craziness.
And for a brief moment, that's what you get. After an extended prologue that sets up the relationship between the young versions of our protagonist Henry and his evil brother Angus, along with the establishing the roots of Henry's fear of sheep, we meet the adult Henry upon his return to the family farm. Returning to wrap up some unfinished business with his brother, Henry cannot wait to leave his past behind.
Meanwhile, his brother is up to no good, having turned the family farm into an experimental genetics lab that has -- for reasons I can't seem to remember -- begun working on a mutated form of the seemingly harmless woolen animal.
This is a horror film... what do you think happens? If you guessed, "The sheep hits the fan," you're right.
Problem is, as batshit crazy as the premise sounds, the potential for insanity here is touched upon but never capitalized on the way you might want from a movie like this one. It's not that the film takes itself too seriously, though there is a danger of that, especially early on in the film where everything is played straight (save for the arrival of two completely annoying environmentalist hippies).
There's a scene right after the "outbreak" begins where a sheep pretty much goes all Toonces the Driving Cat, hilariously taking the wheel of a truck and plummeting to its death. I cheered inside, thinking that this was finally turning into the movie I wanted to see. Bring on the camp! Bring on the gore! Bring on the insanity!
Don't get me wrong, there's plenty here to crack up about. I just wanted more. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it felt like the comic timing was just a little... off. Perhaps there was too much exposition, or maybe there were too many long (and not all that funny) exchanges between Henry and Experience, the female environmentalist. Once that Toonces moment hit, Black Sheep should have just gone off the rails and never let up. As it stands now, there are just too many breaks in the action.
There's still plenty to be impressed about here, especially in the cinematography and special effects work. The movie looks and plays better than any movie with a plot like this probably should. One of writer/director Jonathan King's most impressive feats is how he manages to make something like a sheep slowly chewing grass, or a herd of sheep advancing over a hill, seem completely terrifying by not doing much more than letting his camera roll. The special effects (done through Peter Jackson's WETA Workshop) were equally impressive, and again almost done too well for a horror comedy.
Good but not great, Black Sheep does master one particular idea of successful entertainment: always leave your audience wanting more.
For more on Black Sheep: - Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia. - Some pretty decent reviews at Rotten Tomatoes.
Anyone who may have been following this blog last year might remember that October marked the most fruitful, challenging task I set for myself: reviewing one horror movie per day for the entire month.
Fortunately, this time around finds me in a loving relationship with a few better ways to spend that time every night than punishing my psyche sitting through soul crushing filth like Cannibal Holocaust. I am, however, also fortunate enough to have found a woman who appreciates a good horror movie... or at least appreciates my enthusiasm about horror movies enough to allow me to force her to sit through them.
So, tonight I'm posing a handful of brief reviews of movies recently viewed. While I obviously won't be putting myself through the ringer this month, I'll try to post reviews of as many movies as possible before the Trick or Treaters hit the pavement.
(Oh, and if you live in Chicago, please do me a favor and allow me to live vicariously through you if you happen to check out the 24 hour horror marathon going down at the Music Box Theater's "Music Box Massacre 5." Looks to be an amazing festival, and it all winds up with tonight's lead off movie...
#138: Carrie Written by Lawrence D. Cohen (based on the novel by Stephen King) Directed by Brian De Palma Released November 3, 1976
Do I even need to give a plot synopsis here? I mean, if you're reading this column you had to have seen Carrie by now, right? If I had to sum it up in a single sentence, I guess I'd just say: "Don't fuck with the weird kid in school, because you never know when they might have psychotically triggered telekinetic powers."
While this wasn't the first time I'd seen Carrie, it was definitely the first time in at least a half dozen years. I'm happy to report that this classic Horror flick (mostly) stands the test of time. Sure, there are moments when the score sounds ridiculously dated, and sure, William Katt's hair is a singular monument to the indescribable excesses of 1970s awesomeness.
But man, once you get to that third act Prom Night scene? The build up of tension starting at the moment the titular Carrie (played by Sissy Spacek, who was rightfully nominated for an Oscar that she rightly lost to Faye Dunaway for her performance in Network that year) begins preparing for her date all the way through to her return home is almost unbearable. By the time Carrie steps out of those heavy gymnasium doors, I honestly felt relief. It helps, I must add, to have your television turned up loud for this sequence.
Carrie was the first Stephen King novel ever adapted to the screen, and it was also one of the most successful and well made. Director De Palma, who made a career out of aping Alfred Hitchcock, puts his own stamp on things here (or at least apes a director with less identifiable hallmarks).
I can't stress enough how much this entire movie falls on the shoulders of Spacek and, even more so, Piper Laurie (also nominated for an Oscar here) as her religious, overbearing and abusive mother. Had the relationship between these two stunk for a moment of inauthenticity or comedy, the entire film would come crumbling down. Picture a lesser actress doing those reaction shots where Carrie taps into her telekinetic powers; you'd be howling with laughter.
One caveat if you intend on watching this movie through Netflix's streaming service: they use the (inexcusable) fullscreen version of the movie, making the entire flick look like it was shot for TV. This effect is especially frustrating during the moments of split-screen violence in the Prom sequence, or the dance scene where the camera spins dizzyingly around Katt and Spacek.
Remember kids, unless you're watching on a 10" TV, ALWAYS GO WIDESCREEN.
#139: Zombieland Written by Rhett Reese Paul Wernick Directed by Ruben Fleischer Released October 2, 2009
Getting a little too hyped for its own good lately, the Woody Harrelson action/comedy Zombieland is merely an okay horror movie, a better-than-average entry into the Zombie Horror subdivision with a few decent scares and a handful of laughs. Though inspired by Shaun of the Dead it reaches but can't hope to match the heights of that film's perfect balance of satire and unflinching violence.
Harrelson does an okay job as basically a redneck Natural Born (Zombie) Killer, though he is given some hard to stomach lines ("Nut up or shut up," comes to mind) and a somewhat annoying character motivation (finding the last Twinkie on Earth, though his explanation for this fixation at one point is actually acceptable). Jesse Eisenberg fares okay with his mannered Micheal Cera impersonation, and the first scene where his character lays out his Rules for Survival is amusing and fresh.
Zombieland is definitely entertaining, and those of you out there who may be less jaded or inundated with zombie lore might enjoy it even more than I. Director Ruben Fleischer comes up with some cool, memorable moments, especially in the hilarious opening credit sequence. Perhaps a little too stylized (we are reminded via onscreen text of Eisenberg's "rules" about two or three too many times), the film falters when trying to be poignant by finding the humanity among all the onscreen destruction. Problem is that the film establishes itself so early on as an anarchy-fueled amusement park ride that you just don't trust it when it tries to get your waterworks going.
HOWEVER, and this is a massive HOWEVER, there is a 10 minute segment of Zombieland featuring a brilliant cameo from one of my all time favorite comic actors, that elevates this flick from "okay, not bad" to "you have to check this shit out." Some sites out there have taken to spoiling the surprise, but trust me, even if you know the identity of the person, you won't be prepared for how batshit crazy this segment of the movie gets. Take what you want from the rest of Zombieland, but I defy you to keep your jaw from hitting the floor when you see what happens to this "character."
#140: Deadgirl Written by Trent Haaga Directed by Marcel Sarmiento and Gadi Harel Released 2008
Gee, what a surprise that a movie directed by the same hands that made films like Operation Midnight Climax, in collaboration with a writer who normally acts in dreck like Tales From the Crapper, turns out to be absolute shit.
What's really surprising is just how abhorrent a film Deadgirl is, starting with the basic premise: two high school losers explore an abandoned mental hospital and find in its basement a naked female strapped down to a gurney. The two quickly realize after a few violent encounters that this woman cannot be killed. So, what do they do? Do they call the cops? Do they let her go?
Nope. No, in today's world of torture porn like Saw, they do what pretty much no human being on the face of this Earth would do (especially after discovering that this "woman" has a deadly bite): they decide to keep her as a sex slave. Imagine, if you will, that shudder-inducing scene in Kill Bill where we discover the disgusting abuse Uma Thurman's character suffers in her coma... then multiply that by at least a thousand.
I'm not trying to take moral high ground here (with a movie like this, it's really not hard to do). I love plenty of movies that, on the surface, are hard to explain from a morality standpoint. Hell, I'm a big fan of shows (and music) like "Metalocalypse," where sometimes millions of people are murdered as a punchline or a slapstick gag.
It's just that I don't understand why this movie was made at all. I mean, I get why something like George Romero's Dawn of the Dead exists as both a horror movie and an allegory for consumerism. People are constantly trying to re-adapt the symbolic or allegorical meaning behind zombies (though thankfully, the aforementioned Zombieland seems to not give a shit about double meanings).
But what's the allegory here? What's the greater meaning, and is it really a lesson that anyone with more than a lizard brain needs to learn? The even better question to be asking: what kind of person invests their money in something like this? I understand there's always that need in a Horror film to shock... to go to that place no one in the audience thought you'd go. This, though, this is something else. The level of misogyny on display here is utterly disgusting, especially since the "redeeming" character, who spends the whole movie fretting about going to jail, exhibits just a modicum less disdain for women than everyone else in the movie. I mean, at least he never stabs her, right?
Even despite these protestations, the movie still fails on the most basic levels. Lame dialogue, idiotic characters making unbelievable decisions and a pacing that is just too slow to even maintain suspense are all weaknesses. It could have been a provocative film with a better, smarter script. Instead, we get this irredeemable shit.
(500) Days of Summer Written by Scott Neustadter & Michael H. Weber Directed by Mark Webb Released September 7, 2009 (UK)
I'm sad to say that, considering my near love for lead actors Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, (500) Days of Summer (I will be dispensing of the parenthetical after this mention) has turned out to be just a little less than the sum of its parts.
It's not that I don't appreciate the fact that director Mark Webb and writers Scott Neustadter and Mike Weber at least tried to bring us a love story (or, a story about love) in a fresh way. There are some really fantastic moments of whimsy, like an out-of-the-blue dance number set to a Hall & Oates song or a brief black & white homage to European cinema.
Unfortunately, these little scenes serve to highlight the fact that the filmmakers were capable of doing so much more, of having much more fun, of being so much more creative, than what we're left with for the rest of the movie. For every truly moving and interesting segment (like the split screen presentation of how Gordon-Levitt's Tom hopes a dinner party will turn out, juxtaposed against the images of how it actually turns out), there are pat, conventional ideas like the karaoke scenes or the not-so-clever observations about the sentiments behind greeting cards.
I read a review of this over at IMDB which said Days was "one hundred times more authentic than the usual romantic comedy fare churned out by Hollywood." Problem is, this isn't true. I just don't understand where this idea of authenticity is coming from. Is it because the soundtrack features The Smiths instead of Carrie Underwood? If you've seen the movie, think about that awful ending and try to tell yourself that it would seem out of place if Jennifer Aniston or Kate Hudson were the woman sitting on that couch.
Sometimes I worry the indie crowd is too easily swayed by something that, metaphorically, is wearing the same t-shirt that they wear. I have been in far too many heated arguments about why I think movies like Juno or Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist suck despite the fact that their characters may like what I like. (To put it more succinctly, if Juno was a kitten, I'd put it in a burlap sack and drown it in a fucking river.)
There's a line in the movie that, while directed at Gordon-Levitt's character and his seemingly instant affection for the titular Summer, perfectly sums up my feelings about these kinds of movies:
"Just because she's likes the same bizzaro crap you do doesn't mean she's your soul mate."
While I might appreciate the fact that I get to hear a montage set to the sounds of a Band of Horses song instead of a Nickelback fart, I'm still not going to be an easy lay. These things -- songs, images, pop culture references -- are supposed to accentuate a film, not define its personality.
These kinds of cues are really just a product of lazy writing. Why explain a certain character's background or worldview when all you have to say is, "He loves Joy Division" and your hip little audience will know exactly what you mean? And if they don't know about a certain band and therefore don't understand your shorthand, well, fuck them for not being cool. As a huge fan of The Shins, I can't tell you how embarrassed I was by the "The Shins will save your life" scene in the awful Garden State. Say what you will about typical populist Hollywood romantic comedies, but at least you can't accuse them of being elitist.
Another unique but not necessarily enjoyable quirk about 500 Days of Summer is the fact that the relationship presented in the movie is a story told in an episodic, out of order fashion. We learn from the beginning that this relationship is doomed to fail, and then explore the chronology to find the good and the bad. I found myself wondering if, without the gimmick of telling this story out of order, this movie would be a crushing bore. By cutting it into bite-sized pieces, Webb adds a little chaos into what would be a somewhat predictable bummer of a story. There are a few moments that are served well by this kind of editing, most explicitly the opening scene from Day 488 of their relationship which shows Tom holding Summer's hand as she wears a wedding ring.
Beyond those few scenes and the likable aforementioned moments of whimsy, the most enjoyable thing about Summer is the undeniable chemistry between Gordon-Levitt and Deschanel. Levitt's performance is especially affecting, as he is asked to cover the gamut of human emotions throughout the movie. He and Deschanel could have been just as satisfying reading the phone book to each other, as proven in this video for "Why Do You Let Me Stay Here," a song from Deschanel's collaboration with musician M. Ward. The three minutes in this video are more intoxicating than any moment in the movie:
For more on (500) Days of Summer: - Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia. - Check out movie clips, bloggage and more at the official movie site.
The Hurt Locker Written by Mark Boal Directed by Kathryn Bigelow Released October 10, 2008 (Italy)
Anybody else out there used to watch the A&E show The It Factor? When I lived in Chicago with two of my best friends, we obsessively watched a season of the short lived reality/documentary show which followed nine unknown actors and actresses in their daily lives in Hollywood. While the program was chock full of weirdos and inflated egos, there was one stand-out performer whom seemed so dedicated and yet humble that you couldn't help but root for the guy every time he was called for an audition.
Ever since that show, I've had my fingers crossed for Jeremy Renner. Near the end of that series, he lands the lead role in a motion picture about serial killer Jeffery Dahmer. Renner would occasionally pop onto my radar after that, most notably in midsize rolls in movies like S.W.A.T., The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford and as the hero in 28 Weeks Later.
With his lead role as bomb defusing specialist Staff Sgt. William James in director Kathryn Bigelow's (Point Break, Strange Days) newest film, Renner has taken the next and biggest leap in his career: a near definite Oscar nomination. That's because Renner makes what could have been a typical action movie role -- the "wild man" soldier whose addiction to high stress situations puts those around him in danger -- and throws in layers of complexity (charisma, humor, anguish) that humanize what could have been an unsympathetic superhero.
Of course, Renner is not without help from a fine supporting cast that includes bigger names like Ralph Fiennes and Guy Pearce, and lesser known talent like Anthony Mackie as Sgt. James's conflicted, by-the-book and utterly frightened next in command. While the movie follows Renner's company in the final days before its tour in Iraq is complete, the true focus of the movie is in following how everyone reacts to the presence of Renner's seemingly reckless bomb expert.
For Bigelow, who has made an entire career out of skewed takes on genre films (her Near Dark is an underrated classic vampire flick), The Hurt Locker is her masterpiece. In one sense it's an action movie, but it moves at a pace and level of constant tension that almost no action movie can pull off. Like an action movie, it revolves around a handful of setpieces, but unlike typical action movies these setpieces are not car chases or plane crashes, but rather isolated locations booby trapped with explosive devices. An action movie lets an audience live an adventure vicariously through its hero; by contrast, every time a character in Locker steps into a setpiece, we beg them to just walk away.
The other interesting element here that makes The Hurt Locker different from most other action or war movies is the fact that there is no conventional plot or story arc. There is no face you get to conveniently attach the "bad guy" moniker to, and no ratcheting up of the action to help us know that things are coming to a conclusion. No, in this war, every single day of this company's tour could be its last. Your fate remains the same on your final day as it did two months prior: wholly uncertain.
One of Bigelow's greatest achievements with the film is the fact that, unlike most movies covering the war in Iraq, its stance is apolitical. There's definitely a message here (highlighted and hammered home a bit obviously by a quote in the opening frames), but it's not what you'd call a "message movie." For the soldiers portrayed here, politics are irrelevant. A ticking time bomb does not take sides; it obliterates all with equal prejudice. That's not to say the film lacks depth, because it's absolutely no stretch to see this movie (especially the final 15 minutes) as an allegory for our country's addiction to war.
No female has ever won an Academy Award for directing. If any one has ever had a shot, it's Bigelow. (Special note must also be given to the sound editing and sound design here. Oscars for these categories are typically awarded to big budget, bloated action flicks, but I think this year The Hurt Locker is going to give tripe like Transformers a run for its money.)
The Good Life Written and Directed by Stephen Berra Released November 4, 2008
Holy Film School 101, Batman.
I don't know why, but I cannot seem to resist watching movies set in my home state of Nebraska. At this point I should probably know better, since the movies -- with a few exceptions -- are typically horrible (if you happened to read my review of the Dave Foley disasterpiece California Dreaming, I touched briefly on this compulsion).
In all honesty, it wasn't the setting that drew me to this movie, but the appearance of Zooey Deschanel and the convenience of it streaming on Netflix.
Its title taken from Nebraska's state motto, The Good Life is writer/director Stephen Berra's cinematic and questionably unintentional manifestation of every jaded high school poet's secret diary. Berra creates a fictional Nebraska town (I guess this is supposed to be Lincoln?) that looks more like a bad part of Detroit, inhabited by one of the saddest fucking sacks of a character named Jason (played convincingly by Mark Webber).
Jason is basically a mutt of a puppy that gets kicked around before our very eyes for 100 minutes. His father tells him he's ugly, and the rest of the family barely pays him any mind. He gets harassed and punched in the face by the town bully (a believable, if cartoonish, performance by Nebraska native Chris Klein). He works two jobs, one at a run down movie theater that somehow survives screening movies to two people a night, and the other at a gas station where every single patron threatens or abuses him.
Deschanel appears here, as she does in most movies, as the beautiful and sexually aggressive dream girl whom would normally be unattainable if she weren't a complete writer's construct. Examine her catalogue of performances, from Gigantic to even The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, if you don't believe my claim that she has been officially typecast.
There is some question about her character's background and her sanity, until a completely unbelievable reveal late in the movie makes her character even more ridiculous. The chance encounter that enlightens Jason to her identity is the kind of coincidence that most teachers of creative writing must beat out of their adolescent students.
The plot itself can be boiled down to a singular thought that every whiny emo kid from any "small" town has had while toiling through Junior High: "These people don't get me, and I can't wait to get out of this town." But at no point in the film does Berra prove that it's the town that is holding this morose little mope-bag down. He shows us nothing to make us believe that Jason has squandered potential (beyond having Deschanel literally say it at one point), that he has an extraordinary mind or that he'd blossom under a different set of circumstances.
Sad to the point of being absurd, this shoe gazing wank fest's most redeeming qualities are its consistency of tone (DOUR) and some quality lighting and photography. Berra has definitely made a good looking film that never visually slips into the amateurish and pretentious traps of his script where he asks the audience to understand barely touched upon plot points and how they might affect our character. For example: we don't wind up understanding why he hates football, or even the city in which he lives; we are simply told how he feels.
The movie even manages to make the ultimate mistake by having its main character, in a bit of narration, LITERALLY SPELL OUT WHAT HAS HAPPENED. Here, read this and try not to roll your eyes:
But it's not pain. It's laughing with your friend at a time when you shouldn't. It's the sweat in your palms wanting to know someone you see and the pit in your stomach when they actually see you. It's being touched by hands that aren't your own. It's the thrill of an escape that almost wasn't. It's the embarrassment you feel, naked for the first time. It's helping a friend find something they lost. It's a smile, a joke, a song. It's what someone does that they like doing. It's what someone does that they like remembering. It's the thinking of things you may never do and the doing of things you may never have thought. It's the road ahead and the road behind. It's the first step and the last and every one in between, because they all make up the good life.
Holy shit, right? To make matters even worse, this monologue plays over the exact scenes from the movie the character is referring to, as if we've finally decoded some secret of the universe. Ugh.
The Good Life opens with a tracking shot that follows Jason to what seems like the site of his suicide. As the movie flashes back to the events leading up to this moment and you witness the pinnacle of hopelessness that has become his life, you'll almost find yourself hoping that the kid really goes through with it. It's the only ending that makes sense after this movie spends so much time staring at its own shoes.
Unfortunately, Berra doesn't let Jason or his audience so easily off the hook, giving us a completely unbelievable last minute reversal of fortune that rings even more hollow than anything preceding it.
I think Film Threat's review says it best in the opening sentence of their review:
"Honestly, the fact that I didn’t shoot myself in the face after this movie amazes me."
For more on The Good Life: - Movie information at IMDB and very little at Wikipedia.
Funny People Written and Directed by Judd Apatow Released July 31, 2009
Have you ever met, or known, a stand-up comic? They're certainly a strange lot. I've known or befriended a few in my day, and the first thing that you realize after spending some time with a comedian is that they just aren't funny. I knew a guy who was pretty uncomfortable to be around in social situations. He was loud, kind of rude and never seemed to be able to engage anyone on a personal level because it always seemed like he was trying out material.
Onstage, when the time came to ply his craft, he was actually pretty good at what he did. Shit, the dude even won Star Search. But he was living proof that funny people, for the most part, aren't funny.
The same can be said for Judd Apatow's new overlong and heavy-handed film about comedy. It's weird, socially awkward and really just not all that funny.
Funny People was not helped by a confusing ad campaign that not only misrepresented what the audience was getting into (is it a comedy? is it a drama?), but totally GAVE AWAY THE FUCKING MAJOR PLOT POINT that Adam Sandler's character beats the potentially fatal disease that forces him to examine his life in the first place.
I'm sure you already know by now, but Sandler plays a version of himself named George Simmons, a once-hilarious stand-up comic who has gone soft over the years by whoring himself out doing terrible concept comedy films about mermaids and dudes who have been turned into babies. Simmons professional life has gone the way of Eddie Murphy and, well, Adam Sandler, raking in piles of money at the expense of his credibility.
Upon receiving the news of his imminent demise, Simmons is inspired to get back to his roots in stand-up. After a disastrous surprise visit to a comedy club, Simmons meets Ira Wright (Seth Rogen), an up-and-coming (and fairly unfunny) comic whom he hires as his assistant and joke writer.
This was all Apatow needed for a plot, but he takes what could have been an informative and incisive look at comedy, fame and celebrity (shit, maybe even mortality) as seen from behind the curtain and instead totally fucks up his entire movie by throwing in a ridiculous third act attempt by George to reconnect with The One That Got Away.
It's with this turn of events that Funny People essentially becomes Dicks, with virtually no character becoming likable or doing anything that isn't completely selfish or despicable. We're presumably supposed to aim our laughter in the direction of Eric Bana's cheating husband Clarke, but by the end of the movie, you'll have more sympathy for him than any of the other characters.
It's an unfortunate thing that Apatow decided to go this direction, because the first half of the movie -- while still mostly devoid of big laughs -- is still fairly interesting, ambitious and handled pretty well. Rogen pulls of a friendlier than usual character, and Sandler -- while a bit detached -- has the dramatic chops to bring Simmons' angst to life. Funny People certainly looks a thousand times better than any Apatow movie that has come before, primarily due to cinematographer and frequent Spielberg collaborator Janusz Kaminski. Paired with tighter editing that does away with the typical Apatow-ian element that makes it feel like all the dialogue is being improvised, it's definitely the director's most "professional" work.
This tight editing is failed, however, by the movies absurdly long running time. Go see it with anyone you know... your best friend, your mother... and ask them when the movie is over which parts they would have left on the editing room floor. Chances are that the 20 to 30 minutes of footage they could do without might be different for each person, but each person's edit would more than likely result in a better film. Cut the ex-girlfriend, cut the James Taylor shit, cut the montage where George sings with his hired band. Hell, even cut the Eminem scene, probably the funniest scene in the movie but tonally stands out like a sore thumb. Give any jerkoff a pair of scissors and access to the negative and you'll probably wind up with a less boring film.
I realize my review sounds a little more harsh than I may have intended. It's not that I hated Funny People, it's just that I saw so much potential in it and was disappointed to see that potential squandered by the 90 minute mark. By going the direction he chose to go with his characters, Apatow winds up teaching them and his audience nothing about this world in which he has lived for the past twenty years. At best, the life lesson that George Simmons learns when all is said and done is essentially "I should be less of a prick."
For more on Funny People: - Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia. - Check out the fake NBC homepage for Yo Teach!, the terrible sitcom that stars Jason Schwartzman's character. A similar fake page exists for the works of George Simmons.
Terminator Salvation Written by John D. Brancato & Michael Ferris Directed by McG Released May 21, 2009
To paraphrase Ahhh-nuld from Total Recall, consider this a divorce.
Terminator Salvation sucks robo-cock.
Astoundingly, it's not entirely the fault of hack director Joseph McGinty Nichol, also known as "McG," or almost as frequently as "the bag o'douche who made the two Charlie's Angels movies."
No, for the most part, McG does a serviceable job here. The film has a definite aesthetic (washed out and grainy) and tone (dead serious) and moves at a steady pace that belies it's 2+ hour running time. The sound and special effects are decent (a few scenes, like the one where Christian Bale's John Connor jumps from the back of a plane into the ocean, don't work so well) and there are a couple of memorable set pieces scattered throughout.
Okay, so he's still probably to blame for a few missteps. The main one I want to harp on is the insistence on using call-backs or references to previous movies. Look, we're sitting here paying to watch the fourth installment of a series that really didn't need to exist after the first sequel. Some of us in the audience have even watched your spin-off TV show. We are FUCKING NERDS. We don't need a character saying "I'll be back" in every single movie. We definitely don't need to bring back that terrible Guns N' Roses song that didn't even belong in T2. If I'm sitting in the theater even after the turd that was the series' third movie, that means we're 4 films into this relationship and you can stop bringing up our first date.
Beyond that, the real disappointment here is in the writing, dialog and acting. I have to admit that my interest was piqued when I heard Bale had signed on. Not that dude hasn't made a few stinkers/cash grabs (anyone else remember him as the heavy in the Shaft remake?), but at least it was reassuring that the producers were possibly putting some thought into this endeavor. The addition of Helena Bonham Carter was the cherry on top.
Not so much. Bale punches the clock with a unmemorable performance that makes you half expect for part of his face to fall of and reveal the character to be a cyborg. Bonham Carter fares much worse as the "face" of Skynet. It blew me away when I read they filmed her performance over the course of 10 days, since it plays like she was given 10 minutes and was held against her will at gunpoint.
The script is laughable (one of my favorite moments is when a robot motorcycle launches an attack and a character yells "Moto-Terminators!") and full of insane coincidences like characters figuring out how to make a working radio signal at the precise moment that Connor is addressing them. There's even a mute kid who happens to have on hand the exact item needed at several crucial moments in the movie. I just spilled a ton of gasoline for a getaway and you just happened to have a road flare on hand? This kid is a walking Bat Utility Belt.
I think this thing is heading down the same path of George Lucas's recent Star Wars prequels: a long wait for very little return. My guess is that this series takes at least one to two more movies to get to the very boring conclusion of Kyle Reese finally getting sent back in time to the original Terminator. Six movies to finally show us a time machine.
Patton Oswalt has a great routine about how the Lucas prequels tell a story that we didn't even want. "I don't give a shit where the stuff I love comes from, I just love the stuff I love!"
For more on Terminator: Salvation: - Movie information at IMDB and Wikipedia. - The trailer can be found here.
