Stalingrad (2013) aka Fedor Bondarchuk's big fuck you too vets of the second world war

Not to be confused with the excellent German film of the same name from 1993, Fedor Bondarchuk’s take on what is the most harrowing of human depravity is nothing short of an atrocity in and of itself. It is a beautifully shot mockery of the horrors of war and the sacrifices made by those who suffered through it. It fails on almost every level in which a film can fail. Avoid at all cost, for details continue reading.

Stalingrad takes its inception from the true life events of Pavlov’s house. This was an apartment building in Stalingrad where twenty-five Russian soldiers held off hundreds of German soldiers under the command of one sergeant Pavlov. Bondarchuk takes this epic premise and infuses it with stale romantics, over-choreographed action sequences and so much heavy handed propaganda that it to feel like a soap opera with Spielbergian production values.

The script is the first and foremost problem. Like Enemy at the Gates before it, Stalingrad seems to think that a war story cannot be told authentically without a love story. In this case Stalingrad one ups Enemy at the Gates by cramming not one, but two stale and forced romantic angles. The first is between Katya, the Russian civilian who stays behind in the ruined shell of a city and her valiant defenders, six Russian soldiers. The script routinely points out that there are in fact six main soldiers at the house and yet she only falls in love with five, for whatever reason. It’s okay though, the sixth guy is in the navy so he’s probably gay or something. At no point in the film does any kind of truly romantic action actually occur. Throughout, she routinely becomes a liability, a distraction and yet for whatever reason, five men fall in love with her. Instead of manning defenses and planning strategies on how to survive, they bake her cakes, run across trenches with bath tubs while under fire and gawk and awe. Out of what do they bake this cake? Fuck you, that’s what. This movie is not about logic or authenticity, don’t forget that. In the end this angle winds up becoming very creepy as they all begin to treat her as a prize, gazing upon her as a sacrificial lamb destined to be their salvation. They all see her as a ticket to their own salvation, always ready to  unload their personal deamons on her, but never once taking her issues into account. This might have been some kind of super deep point made in the script. If it is, it was done very poorly because it comes off as a shallow way to artificially extend runtime.

The second love story is the better of the two, not that, that’s saying much. This ‘love’ story is between the German captain Khan (Thomas Krietschman) and Masha a Russian civilian. This arc fails miserably as well. The two do not speak one anothers language, but through the power of love they find a connection. Does it matter that Khan rapes her and treats her as a valued ornament? Of course it doesn’t, because they love each other deeply, even as she tightly grips a knife for defense in anticipation of his return. The film at one point does try to address the issue of wartime rape, but quickly brushes it away as if it’s something icky that is nothing more than a footnote. Add another check in the shamefull column for this film. The last point of contrition with the love stories is how they treat the women. They are eye candy, porcelain dolls to be saved by greasy patriotic men with conflicted morals. This causes the biggest flaw with the romantic arcs, they are one sided. This essentially means we only get half the story and miss out on some crucial parts.

Now that we have the forced romance part taken care of, let’s take a gander at the characters, shall we. The Russians, bold, patriotic, heroic, valiant and whatever other propaganda like descriptor you can throw out. You won’t learn their names because that is unimportant. Bondarchuk seems to think that character development only gets in the way of cool explosions. At least Bay tries to give his characters cool names so as to be memorable. There is the stoic captain, the bear like naval marine, the boyish artillery officer, the silver tongue sniper, the silent badass and the father figure. They all get a forgettable backstory that is only good for a laugh through quite possibly the worst narration ever put into a major production, more on that later. All you really need to know is that these guys are, badass. Like, really badass, so badass in fact that all their fight sequences automatically go into slow motion and they never miss a shot.

On the other side of the conflict we have the Nazis. These aren’t the Nazis you will find in a film that is dedicated to authenticity. They have no character, no humanity. They are cartoon villains worthy of some terribly animated Hannah-Barbara cartoon. Their level of cartoonishness knows no bounds, they offer sacrifices to the pagan gods and then pray to the one true god for protection, they bumble about like idiots in a city full of snipers. They scream and stomp and you can almost see the steam shooting from their ears as they scream at their freshly foiled plan. This level of cartoonishness does not heighten their monstrousness, rather it neuters it. You can take them no more seriously than a Scoobie Doo villain of the week as they fumble about, failing to catch zem pesky Ruskies.

Yet none of the above is even the most egregious of faults to be found in the film although it ties into it. Yes I did just use egregious, deal with it. Where Stalingrad (1993) and Enemy at the Gates attempted and by in large succeeded at showing you the horrors of war, the brutality of combat and its effects on those who witness it or participate in it, Stalingrad (2013) glorifies it. The only way to describe it is, imagine if Call of Duty marketed itself as a war simulator. The film shows us the battles as these over-choreographed MMA matches, where everyone has a blackbelt. It strips away the reality by glossing over the brutality of the battle and the suffering and trying to make it look cool for the sake of Americanizing the film. Watching the action scenes was sickening. Bondarchuk and company, perversely fetishize the brutality of war, there were some moments were I could feel tears of disgust swelling in my eyes. That has never before happened to me. There were times that the choreography of the shots and action became indistinguishable from a videogame. I was shocked and stunned. It is one thing for an action or war movie to revel in death and destruction for the sake of entertainment. It is a wholly different matter when said film seeks to honour veterans through this form of tasteless mockery.

The final nail in the coffin for this atrocious garbage is the narration/dubbing. Having watched the dubbed version I cannot conclusively say whether the Russian narration was any good. What I can say though is that it is completely unnecessary. The script has the narrator either describing the scene you are about to watch verbatim or giving you some melodramatic description of feelings that would be more at home on a soap like “All my circuits”. The dubbing only serves to compound all of this. It sounds as if they hired the producers bag boy and had him record all the dialogue the afternoon before the film’s release. The voice sound stale, robotic and worst of all, way too young to be coming from the faceless narrator. But hey, if you’re gonna shit on heroes, you might as well go all out right?

But why would they do this? 3D, that’s why. Three dimensions is the curse and extremely minor blessing of this film. Billed as Russia’s first 3D film, it pays more attention to the format of the camera, rather than the tail. Every scene and shot is framed in service to three dimensions. The slow motion is reminiscent of 300 and works perfectly well with the 3D element. Frankly told, the 3D is eye popping and the cinematography is fantastic. It is one of the only two good things about this film. Sadly what the filmmakers fail to realize is that, a movie that is a slave to 3D gimmicks is a terrible idea, no matter how pictueresque each and every frame of your film is.

The other good part of the film is Thomas Kriestchman. He is fantastic in the film. He brings ethos and humanity to his character. His performance is all the better when you factor in the fact that his character is a scatter shot of emotions and reasoning. His vacant stares and hallow declarations of love fit perfectly into the beautiful rubble created for this film. Kriestchman’s Khan perfectly encapsulates the collapsing world all around him. I imagine this comes from the fact that Stalingrad (1993) was one of his first films so some of the experience must have carried over to this turd of a production. Too bad that the role was buried by hammy dialog and action found in the script.

At the end of the day, all one can say about this movie is that it is a polished turd. By far, this is the worst film I have ever had the displeasure to watch. Poorly made and insulting.Fuck you Fedor Bondarchuk and who ever gave you the money to make this piece of shit. I hope you never get funded again.

Godzilla 2014

Godzilla 2014 is a strange film, but not in the sense of its general quality or some psychedelic plot. Rather, the film is a great monster movie, but not all too great a Godzilla film.  Unlike most reboots and remakes, this film is not an origin story, it is an introduction story. The best comparison is to The Incredible Hulk (2007). The opening credits serve as an origin to the world which this film inhabits, before jumping to the start off point for the film. In 1999, a mining corporation discovers an underground cavern in the Philippines containing the bones of ancient beasts as well as some eggs (referred to parasites in the film, but way too big to actually be parasites). Investigating these bones and eggs is a secret (for once not evil) multi-government agency called Monarch, headed by Dr. Serizawa (Ken Wantanabe) and  Dr. Graham (Sally Hawkins). Things go south and a nuclear reactor in Japan is destroyed and turned into a gestation nest for the newly birthed MUTO. 

This is where the Brody family comes into play. The father and wife (Bryan Cranston and Juliette Binoche respectively) work in the nuclear power plant while their son Ford goes to a school nearby.  When the nuclear power plant is destroyed, the mother dies (not a spoiler, not only is it in the opening, but it’s also in the trailer!) and the family is left broken. Flash-forward fifteen years later and Joe Brody discovers that a monster attack is imminent.  Que, monster battles as Joe and Ford Brody become stuck in the middle of a battle of the gods.

That last bit there is what this film does perfectly. Garth Edwards, perfectly captures the enormity of the conflict. The battles between Godzilla and the MUTOs are massive in scope and scale. These aren’t your generic monster battles. They’re battles between gods, where man is nothing more than an insignificant ant, hoping to not get squashed. Edwards and co. really play that part up really well, reducing the main characters too little more than spectators to a boxing match where the Earth is the ring. The destruction is on a scale truly deserving of the Kaiju title. The only other films in recent memory that can be used as a point of comparison are Cloverfield and Pacific Rim. Cloverfield, while having the same scale, is shot from a human’s perspective, so you can never truly appreciate the size of the beast. Pacific Rim on the other hand, while massive, is dwarfed by the Godzilla beasts, they are about the size of his leg and half as thick at best. Truly, the only comparison is the murals of Cthulu. A monstrous god, too whom humanity is an insignificant ant. The shots of the actors and even buildings scale truly drives this home. When the lizard drops, a skyscraper goes down beneath him. The best among these is definitely the HALO jump scene. Riders into a massive storm to a bone chilling soundtrack.

The next thing to note is that of the score. It’s fantastic, perfectly infusing the film with the much needed dread of a monster movie, while keeping the later style of fun. Desplat truly did something great  with the score. It’s never brash, nor annoying. It pops up to highlight the scene when needed and slips into the background when it’s nothing more than decoration for the world. An early contender for best score, perhaps?

The mixture of sight and sound would have been masterful all on its own, but with the help of a mostly excellent cast, the movie goes above and beyond. Bryan Cranston, Ken Wantanabe and David Straitharen are the shining points. Cranston plays Joe Brody with earnestness and compassion. Cranston aptly, handles carrying the massive weight of being the emotional anchor of the film. Even when he is not on screen, his impact echoes all throughout the film. Ken Wantanabe, plays the impassioned scientist, hoping to uncover the secrets of these ancient beasts. His roles harkens back to the old films, where he would played entirely as a straight man scientist spouting cheese one liners that make you either cringe or laugh. Wantanabe does the same here, except in his case, he carries the lines with conviction and seriousness. Lines like, “let them fight”, earn no cringes or smirks, but instead, shivers along your back. When Wantanabe speaks, you listen. Straithern plays the American military muscle, but a more sensible military man than what American cinema has given us. Straithern is the perfect actor to bring us a military leader who uses prudence and caution when dealing with unknowns. Even when he is forced to extremes, Straithern strives to make you believe that he has no other choice and would be the first to consider it (this character should really be used more often as a thinking man soldier, rather than the RAH-RAH-RAH, Hollywood usually spits out). All is not jolly in the casting department though.

Hawkins and Olsen are both lift with little too do. Hawkins’ talent is wasted on a role that amounts to little less than an assistant who speaks the obvious and ‘oos’ and ‘ahhs’ when required. Olsen fares little better, being reduced to a role which she surpassed in her first film. Neither character is really essential to the film in the way Cranston, Wantanabe and Straithern are in there supporting roles and serve more too highlight faults rather than heighten story or tension.

Then we have Aaron Tyler-Johnson. The man is a plank, a black hole of acting, the Michael Cera of action movies. Unlike Olsen and Hawkins, Johnson is given too much and he cannot shoulder it. He did fine in KickAss, because he was supposed to be out of place and lacking in confidence. In Godzilla, he does not play a rookie, but still sounds inexperienced (he actually sounds like he’s still going through puberty for most of the film). He has no gravitas, no conviction. Maybe it will come with time, but that’s still a ways away.

My final, ‘problem’ with the film is the lack of Godzilla. Yeah he looks and sounds amazing, but his time in the film is short. There is a distinct lack of focus on him as he only shows up in the last third of the film really. The reveal is handled really well and plays out fantastic, which would’ve worked out great in any old regular monster movie. When you have Godzilla in the name though, you have a very different set of priorities when it comes too who is the lead of your film. The film spends far too much time on the indestructible Ford and not enough on everyone’s favorite giant lizard.

On the other hand, the film is filled with an abundance of shout outs to Zilla fans, young and old. The soundtrack has little bits that sound like the old scores with a modern twist. The Godzilla vs Mothra wink on a background poster. Hell, even Wantanabe’s character is a reference/bridge to the legacy. All the winks bring glee to anyone who’s experienced a Gojira film before.

Overall this is a fantastic monster movie. Its lows are easily overlooked, while its highs are stunning and leave you breathless. It’s most glaring flaw, is the lack of lizard, that said though, when the green-man is on screen, he is handled perfectly and leaves you wanting more. Garth Edwards really knocks it out of the park with his second feature. Everything he has learned with his debut Monsters, is improved upon in every way in Godzilla. By the end, the film does two things. First, Godzilla has comeback with a solid bite, mimicking the return of Planet of the Apes. Secondly, the film Establishes Edwards as a new voice in filmmaking, who can aptly handle, small intimate films as well as large scale summer blockbusters.

Transcendence aka Fuck you Johnny Depp!

I went into this movie expecting a bad movie, all the reviews said so. And yet, the bland looking trailer passive aggressively insisted that this would be innocuous mediocrity, at worst. Sadly, I failed to appreciate how bad this film was really going to be. I assume that it was due to a mixture of, hoping against hope that Paul Bettany finally gets a good live action movie where he is more than a voice and  the thought that Pfister had picked up a thing or two from Nolan. I can hear you laughing at me know and it’s okay, I deserve it. Simply put the film is a series of panoramic vista shots with a thesaurus reading for dialogue. All the while, the filmmakers painstakingly remind you of all the better films this movie is influenced by.

Transcendence is a film about great ideas. It’s about one couples (the Casters, played by Johnny Depp and Rebecca Hall) desire to create a better world. The movie is also about one psycho Luddite group’s hate for social media (led by a blonde Kate Mara who seems upset that she couldn’t get a role in Interstellar). This group, called RIFT (cuz everyone loves abbreviations that take a minute to go through), wants us to know that they are on the bleeding edge of the science/morality debate, by quoting fears from the 70s. It really made me think, was it too late to get a refund? Anyways, when these two groups collide, it’s bland and unexciting and Will Caster has his brain uploaded into a computer. It’s all very reminiscent of Lawnmower Man but nowhere near as fun and it’s upsettingly Pierce Brosnan free. What follows is a whole dictionary’s fill of pseudo-techno babble and quasi-philosophical bullshit that makes one squirm and fidget like a pregnant woman having contractions. Sadly, there is no bundle of joy at the end, merely a lingering foulness, as if Johnny Depp had just wiped his sweaty underwear on your tongue and expected you to thank him for it.

The biggest problem with the film seems to be an identity crisis. No one involved with the film seems to know what they want it to be. Is it a serious, hard science love story, like a realistic Her? Is it a hard science disaster film, in the vein of Soderbergh’s Contagion? Is it an action thriller? It’s all of these things really, but it never once does any of these things well. It jumps back and forth between the settings and characters, all of whom have a different thematic tone. It’s very jarring and does not allow for any of the themes or characters to have an anchor to the feels section of your heart and mind. Whenever an emotional investment does begin to form between the audience and the character, there is a seismic tonal shift that hits restart on any connection you may have formed. All the while you will be left shuddering at how all these aspects are reminiscent of other, better films. The other odd thing is that, much of this, could’ve been mitigated with a clear cut villain, but we never really get one. The film jumps back and forth, trying to decide who’s the real villain, like the asshole at Tim Horton’s who can’t decide between the apple fritter or cruller (just take the cruller, everyone always takes the cruller).

It doesn’t help that the script is a shoddy mess of clichéd writing and tensionless suspense scenes.  Take the scenes involving the Casters, they all sound like they were written by a highschooler with a thesaurus. They croon and pang with heartbreak as their lips sing about quantum processing and monkey brains. There is no passion in the words and the actors don’t even try to pretend there is chemistry the two of them. They’re like two breadsticks put side by side and ordered to make out. Will Caster himself is probably the worst character in the film. As an audience member, you’re supposed to question his motives, you’re supposed to question whether he really is Will or if he’s a machine gone rogue (I think they were trying to create a Hal 9000 for hipsters). This could’ve been a cool mystery had it been done right. Sadly, there is no tension since every suspect action is followed by an overwhelmingly altruistic one. Even his suspect actions are never all that dastardly or menacing to begin with (it’s like they were trying to make Will Caster Jesus, but Mary Magdeline is the Judas). Will’s progression as a potentially psychotic AI is ridiculously inferior to Jobe’s in Lawnmower Man.

The rest of the characters kind of just mull about as the story renders them neutered, left with their hands in their pockets, kicking dirt while they wait for something to happen. They watch and wait as things get better and better throughout the world. There is literally nothing bad or sinister conveyed in this period. As they mull about, they contemplate their actions and attack peaceful hybrids. Watching the luddites and FBI I kept asking myself, how are the filmmakers expecting me too root for these guys? They spend most of their time being sinister and shooting healed cripples, how did anyone think these are people anyone but Ed Bundy would root for? They have the education of a freshman philosophy student and try to kill that which they don’t understand. The film actively tries to make the audience root for the uneducated villains with no good justification. The cast seems to have figured this out and is evidently confused as they play their roles, evident by the strange glares they give one another after their lines.

The cast itself is remarkably wasted. We’re told that Mrs. Caster is this genius, but all we see is a stereotypical wife who seemingly has a growing alcohol addiction. Rebecca Hall does her best, whimpering face, forced tears, the whole package, sadly she’s got nothing to work with. All the shots of her in the lab, longing for her husband are wasted as soon as she opens her mouth and reads those neutering lines. All the fawning is forced and draining. Hell, hire Kristen Stewart, at least that way you won’t be damaging a serious actress’ career. Oddly enough, while her character is more poorly written, it doesn’t make me hate her as an actress, Depp on the other hand.

This film makes me outright hate Depp as an actor. He does not exude self-confidence or naiveté in his role. Instead we get a kind of smugness, one that comes from an actor who has yet to realize that he has become a joke.  He has this sort of vacant stare and bland delivery, almost as if he thinks scientists have all the emotional output of Robbie the Robot. Whereas Hall is let down by the script even as she tries to make sense and quality of it, Depp tries his best make each line as flat as possible. He really should go do a film with someone who won’t pandered to his celebrity, maybe then well get a real performance from him again.

The last of the big three is Paul Bettany. Usual Paul Bettany does the supporting role in good films and stars in terrible shit. This time around he is left mulling about, looking lost. He is supposed to be the down to earth, “let’s think of what could go wrong” character in the trio. This only comes into play when he is against the AI. The script derides and lampoons this character at every turn and yet Bettany takes the abuse and pushes forward. It’s like he is the only one in the cast who saw the potential and was thus blinded to the rotting carcass that was his role. He does that whole, British best friend who is not as hyper intelligent as the lead thing, with a lot of conviction. Really, Bettany does deserve a clap since he wades through the shit-monsoon of lines and the pendulum of emotions and conflicts his character is put through and still manages to be the only character you can really connect with.

The rest of the cast is kind of just, there, waiting for something to happen. Kate Mara plays the crazy terrorist, she channels her sister Rooney’s performance in Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. It’s a lot of brooding and ridiculous assertions that are never really fleshed out.  Cillian Murphy is criminally wasted, confined to the role of FBI guy, with no room to actually give his performance any life. Lastly, Morgan Freeman, plays Morgan Freeman, minus the charm and wit we have come to expect from him.

Sure the acting and story are shit, but what of the look of the film, this is a Wally ‘Nolan’s protégé’ Pfister film we’re talking about. Sure it’s well shot, filled with eye catching vistas and slow motion shots worthy of an Imax commercial. Sadly, none of it is fresh or original. We’ve seen it done and we’ve seen it done better before, by Pfister himself.  In many cases the vista shots are out of place and are crudely jammed into the narrative, further clogging the pacing up. For whatever reason, Pfister seems to use the same vista shots over and over again even though they have no particular importance to the grand narrative or any of the characters in particular.

Last time I posted a review, I said that I had wished for the Robocop remake to be a trainwreck, at least that way the film would have been memorable. This film is that trainwreck I had hoped for. Filled with grand ideas, a terrific cast and a director who has spent as decade learning from one of Hollywood’s best. Every single thing about this movie fails, spectacularily. The plot is muddled, dull and childish, more concerned with sounding smart, than connecting with the audience. The acting is lost between shoddy direction and an overreaching but, underachieving script. The direction is more concerned with having sweeping vista worthy of an Imax commercial than providing the audience with something worth watching. Mix that with a pompous actor who has finally stripped away all his credit and dived head first into confused absurdity and you have your first true trainwreck of the year. Save your money, save your time, go watch Lawnmower Man instead, at least Pierce Brosnan won’t let you down.

Double feature, Machete Kills and Robocop (2014) aka the night when I couldn't wash away my anger with liqour

Hey there gang, today we have my first double feature review; Machete Kills and Robocop (the remake not the classic). I had intended this to be a fun, ‘let’s review bad movies while drinking’ post. Instead I got, the liquor was bad and I could sit through one and a half of those movies. So let’s begin!

Machete Kills, what can I say about you that hasn’t been already said? Probably nothing but let’s give it a go. I will not attempt to explain what the movie is about, if you expect a serious story, skip to the next movie and save an hour and half of your life. In fact, do so anyways, trust me on this one. As usual we get a fake trailer in the opening this purposefully bad movie, usually these are hilarious and awesome too watch.  The first Machete trailer was gold and Hobo with a Shotgun is a classic, Machete Kills in space? Not so much, it’s a parody of a parody. It’s not fun, it’s just dull, on the Brightside it’s the fair warning of what’s to come, so you can just turn off the movie before it really starts. Yay!

The movie begins as typical as possible, with Machete and his partner stopping some corrupt soldiers from selling stolen weapons. If you’re still watching this movie, you will instantly see that all the joy from the original has already been sucked out. Alba and Trejo strain to maintain enthusiasm that is just nowhere to be found.  “Fuck it, let’s move ahead, maybe it’ll get better. Carlos Estves will be gold” I thought to myself. When good old Charlie does show up onscreen all I could think was, “Why is Charlie Sheen trying to do an impression of his father?” and then I thought, “God Martin Sheen did not pass along much of his acting talent did he?”  This thought repeats itself every single time Charlie Sheen appears on screen, gone is that ‘WINNING’ attitude, all we are left with is a husk of a clown. A sad, sad clown.

Then the movie jumps to a beauty pageant where we are introduced to Amber Heard’s character, who doesn’t actually get a name, she gets a title and a job. Beauty Queen and CIA agent. Oh what fun, we might get an amusing examination of women’s roles in film with satire, nope, que the porno music! Does this porno music add anything? No, it is not bad funny, it is not well made (hell 70s porno music was more eloquent). All it does is remind you that this film is made by hokey gags not fit for Mad TV. This entire section, serves to outline how characters are treated in this film. Unlike in the first Machete, where the characters were boiled down to their most extreme and insanely fun. The second one, boils all of the characters too bad gags. Sofia Vergara’s character, is not a character, it’s a composite of every bad “woman, fucked over by men” trope ever put to film. All Rodriguez did too add flavor, was add on a machine gun brazier and the dick pistol from, From Dusk till Dawn. Oddly enough, it seems as though Rodriguez noticed this flaw in his film and decided to add a little serious comedy with Bichir’s character, a crazy CIA/Drug Lord gone Castro. Except, he goes so overboard, that the character just drains the fun from the screen, every time he pops into frame. By this point I was already busy finishing my drink while chit chatting on Facebook about how the Community episode was.

There was one bright, albeit wasted performance, Walton Goggins. He plays El Chameleon, the only character name aside from Machete I could remember. Walton Goggin’s brings the exact air of levity that this film requires. He, genuinely understands his role and how to make it work. It’s mix of Clint Eastwood and Tarantino, if that makes sense. Sadly he’s onscreen for less than five minutes and then we occasionally hear him doing voice overs for lesser actors. Hell, this character was essentially created to jam in cameos by the look of it. He hired Lady Gaga to be, Lady Gaga. Why Robert, why? She steals time from everyone else and is somehow devoid of any stage presence. Then again it’s not like there is much to Gooding Jr. and Banderas’ performances. They just show up, say something wacky and go away. What a waste.

Further hampering the film is its neutered style. The nudity, the gore, the bravado, it’s all stripped of the glee and merriment we had from the first. In place of nostalgic nudity we get titillation, which would be fine, but it’s ham-fisted in a way that only a fourteen year old boy could make it. The gore, in place of cheesy but fun looking effects, we are treated to CGI blood and dismemberment that looks like it was made by someone who just learned how to use Adobe. The effects are layered onto one another, using no blending, leaving all the scenes looking like a grade school collage. It’s not endearing, it’s distracting. The bravado and fun of the first one, is forced onto screen by a script and direction that is so overly specific that it leaves no room for fun and creativity. Hell even the guys at Asylum can write better shit than this.

At the end of this day, this film (more of a turd sandwhich really) suffers from Rodriguez drinking too much of his own Kool Aid. The characters are poorly thought out, the story simply drags on and on, while the actors try so damn hard to be camp that they veer off into Nic Cage territory, only they don’t have Cage to guide them. You will be looking at your watch after thirty minutes, if not sooner.  By the 86 minute mark, I gave up. This movie was so bad that, it is only the second film I have had to quit (and I watched the piece of shit Hitman movie all the way through, it was as painful as it sounds). By the end, this film left me with three thoughts. Firstly, I miss the old, EL Mariachi Rodriguez. The one who wanted to make good fucking movies, rather than simply top the last one. Secondly, Rodriguez should not be allowed to work with Alexa Vega, it`s creepy (she was the daughter in Spy Kids). Lastly, this made me have a sinking feeling that maybe, Sin City will not be as awesome as it looks. Lord Jebas, may you guide Rodriguez back into the light. Anyways, now that torture is over, let`s move onto something less painful.

Next up we have Robocop. You know the story, it`s an age old one. A good cop with a heart of gold, takes on corruption and crime, gets killed and then is turned into an unflinching killing machine who finds his soul. It’s a timeless tale really. Too be entirely honest, I had extremely mixed feeling going into this. On one hand, it seemed like a desecration of something holy. A classic piece of my childhood, one of my first film loves (my parents thought it was fine for me to watch this as a six year old, boy were they right!). On the other hand, the remake was handed off to Jose Padhilla, the guy who made Elite Squad 1 and 2 (if you haven’t seen these films, stop reading this, go watch them and then comeback, I’ll just watch some cat videos on YouTube while I wait). This guy knows action and he knows how to balance it with a story you can invest your heart into.

The film begins of promisingly as we are introduced to the world by Samuel L Jackson. Having Sam Jackson in your movie is never a bad thing, but if Oldboy taught me anything, it is that the Jackson factor can be highly deceiving. In this case, though it does a fairly bang on job at giving you a layout of what to expect from the film, a lot of fluffy talk about the ills of society, wrapped up in a flashy package brought to you by Hollywood. It screams generic from the very onset. From the poorly handled social politics about today, to the cool, but woefully mis-imagined technology of the near future.

The changes made to the story seem very tacked on, as if they couldn’t figure out how to make it feel fresh. In its two hour span, the film drags out what was the opening forty minutes or so of the original. The nuance of Padhilla’s previous films is gone, instead we are left with a by committee affair. Badass cop with a justice boner? Check. Minority sidekick? Check. A shady corporation filled with characterless drones? Check. A totally hot wife, who cries and whines a lot? Check. Meaningless winks at the superior original? You better believe it. A vague moral message, that isn’t well thought out? You bet your ass!

This vague moral message of corporate greed, versus moral righteousness that is portrayed in the film is made unnecessarily complex. Where is in the first, these drones were a new thing and the corporation just needed to test it, this new version decides to bring in politics. It’s immoral, it’s untested, it’s un-American for a robot to kill a man, when a person will kill just fine. It’s unnecessarily complex. Omincorp, could have just said, ‘fuck the states, let’s sell these cop drones to every country that doesn’t have a law against it’, problem solved, movie over. Think about it, China, North Korea and Russia would’ve bought it no questions asked. Also, the writers seem too think that they are writing this film for children. They write on screen the name of every location, even if the building or newspaper on screen already says the location. Example, every time the movie goes to Omnicorp’s headquarters, there is a prompt on screen telling you “Omnicorp’s Headquarter”, its ridiculously unnecessary, considering the building in the shot has Omincorp’s scrawled all over it in big bold letters.

This isn’t to say that the story isn’t without its merits though. It a few vague flourishes of greatness, the movie does attempt to tackle some good questions. How would Robocop deal with his family moving on? Whereas the first movie doesn’t dwell on it too much, the remake does make a valiant attempt at addressing this, it’s too bad that this is drowned out by Ms (Mrs?) Murphy’s overwrought hysterics. As well, the overall training is handled well, as is the whole mental stability thing. Like the family affair, the mental stability is mostly alluded to in the original, where as in the remake, it is worked into the plot quite nicely. The film is a mix of some neat ideas, with shoddy execution, that mental stability everyone is so concerned with? Well Alex Murphy does not seem all that mentally stable, unless you think Harry Calhoon was a stable member of society.

I’ll say this right out of the gate, the only character worth a damn, is Gary Oldman’s, Dr. Norton. He’s basically Oldman playing Commisioner Gordon as if he were a scientist. It’s a solid performance with nuance and emotion, only hampered by a script that puts him into brain numbing situations. Beyond that, the characters are mostly cardboard cutouts. Kinneman’s Murphy is a husk of Weller’s Murphy. Whereas Weller was able to juggle, the robotic and human side of his character, Kinneman seems flat. Now this might have something to do with the script. In the original, Murphy is a ray of sunshine. He looks forward to his day, to helping make the city better, a different flavour to the brooding action heroes and the comedic heroes of the 80s. He is a cop who has a really shitty day. In the remake, they throw all of that out and make him a stock action hero. A rough and tumble family man, with a TUDE! This causes problems with the whole, the experimental cop must be stable thing. Then we have Valon, in the original he’s is fun. He is a villain that you enjoy watching and you enjoy watching his death even more. Kurtwood Smith brought charisma and bravura too the role. The guy who plays Valon this time, is generic. Put him in a line up with his henchmen and you won’t be able to tell the difference. Hell, remove him from the film and you would barely notice. Lastly we have, Lewis. In the original, Lewis, played by Nancy Allen was the badass. Murphy could have just as easily been her sidekick and her being a woman, brought a breath of fresh air to an overly macho film. In the remake, we have a wasted Michael K Williams. Where, Lewis was useful in the original, in the remake, Lewis doesn’t do much. He could be replaced by any old cop. Essentially, everyone but Oldman is wasted.

Lastly I’d like to touch on the technical aspects of the film. This is the only part of the film that truly crashes into a wall and explodes into a ball of fiery shit.  The art design and special effects, seem dated. It brings nothing new to the table. At least Transformers made you pause and look at it for a moment, even if you thought it looked horrible. In Robocop 2014 all the deisgns and effects look drab and uninspired, like the left over from Value Village. Then we have the sound, boy is it a clunker. Rarely do I say anything about this technical aspect, but here it warrants a bashing. Like the effects and art design, it’s very Value Village. A Frankenstien of stolen effects that don’t play nice with one another. The films solution? Make it so loud, so that the audience can’t tell it’s shit. This movie shows us why you can’t apply the wall of sound philosophy to a film’s special effects.

At the end of the day, this is not the catastrophic disaster that I had originally envisaged. It’s mostly a quiet wet fart. It’ll be forgotten before you know it. Which is kind of a shame, I think I would’ve preferred a train wreck. At least that, I would remember in a week.

So, there you have it, my double bill. Watching these two films back too back, was most definitely not worth my time and it surely is not worth yours. Go watch The Raid 2 instead, you can thank me later.

Blog Tour

This blog tour is where writers and authors answer questions about their writing process. Last week, my friend and former classmate Lucas Armstrong wrote one up last week, check him out here, http://lukethoughtbubble.blogspot.ca/

What I’m working on:

Hard to nail down specifics, since I’m always working on two or more projects at a time, but here is a slice. I’m working gritty crime drama pitch bible, with two female leads and a psychedelic murder mystery, about a porn star. These two projects are my main focus right now. On the docket I am also bouncing around a trans-humanist sci-fi story. Between all that I also work on this review site. Currently I am working on expanding it from merely reviewing films and TV. I’m trying to write up several other types of reviews such as; reviewing the drunk hobos that I encounter day to day at work or maybe reviewing other people roommates for them. It’s all in the early stages but, soon you might be reading about that time everyone at work had an HIV scare after we arrested a pirate.

How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I would like to imagine that all my work is wonderfully original and differs from everything else in the ocean, but at the end of the day I don’t think that is what should be my main focus. When it comes to my fiction work, I prefer to tweak the existing stylistic flourishes that I enjoy. Kind of like a collage of everything I find exquisite, except told through my eyes and hands. As for my reviews, well that differs in how I give ratings. More specifically, I don’t. Scoring a film, game, music or whatever by boiling it down to a number seems a tad absurd, unless it is compiled into an aggregate review. By boiling a film down to a series of numbers or stars seems like a poor way to convey ones feelings about a particular art form. Furthermore, it tends to steal the readers gaze and thinking from the content of the review. I prefer to not give a number, instead having my words explain my feelings.

Why do I write what I do?

I have always had a fascination with history and science, although I am terrible at the latter. In particular I love crime history and war history as well as space operas. As such, I voraciously consume everything about these subjects as I can; film, news, books, pulpy novels that you wouldn’t be caught dead reading in public (well I would, I’d just call it research). As time passed, I found myself wanting to tell these stories myself. Create my own worlds that abide by my rules. If that sounds a tad megalomaniacal, it’s because it is. Let me have my fantasy!

As for my reviews, well that comes from my lifelong love of films and my egotistical desire to explain to people why The Thin Red Line is ten times the war film that Saving Private Ryan is.  Well that and the fact that my friends keep telling me that I should write up my vitriol filled rants to share with the internet.

How does your writing process work?

My process is hampered by a full-time job so it’s a struggle to actually sit down and write properly at home for an hour or two as opposed to scribbling notes in a journal. What I usually do is, take a notebook and jot down ideas or work on an outline while at work. The notebook phase consists of either jot notes for ideas to develop later on or full blown outlines.

Once the notebook phase is complete I move onto either a more structured outline or go straight to first draft. At this point, most of what was written in my journal is ditched as new ideas take the place of old ones. When this happens I use the ideas from the notebook as an anchor, so what I write does not wildly veer off in every direction. After each draft I then usually take a cooling off period, working on another piece, before I go back and edit.

When I write reviews the process is a little bit different. As I watch whatever it is I am reviewing I jot down all the various points; cons, pros, interesting tidbits etc. Afterwards I try to immediately to write the first draft of the review, one filled with all sorts’ typos and grammatical errors.  Sadly this is not always the case, an example being that my Captain America review won’t be up for a few days, even though I have already seen.

Editing works the same for both my reviews and my fiction. It is a hate fuelled experience, filled with swearing, coffee and self-loathing as I lament my inattention to high school English.

Next week on the blog tour circuit:

Robyn Lester, an Ottawa based screenwriter who is busy living the high life.  When she’s not writing screenplays, she keeps herself occupied working retail and foraging for free, sometimes discarded, food.  In addition she writes theatre reviews for the Charlebois Post and does script coverage for a local production company. Read her here,http://robynlester.wordpress.com/

Keely ‘Zoidberg’ and Ashley are not-so-secret nerds and will latch on to almost anything with hype. But don't worry, they do more than gush (Note: wehaveartsdegrees.com is not code for tumblr) they also take an in-depth look at why the hype behind Veronica Mars or Saturday Night Live is warranted while giving little tidbits of life observations along the way. Read about them at; We Have Arts Degrees www.wehaveartsdegrees.com

Alyssa and Sarah are two aspiring screenwriters with a New Years resolution to make 2014 the year of 'women in film' both in front of and behind the camera. We aim to watch and review 100 women made films in the coming year. All you really need to know about is is that we love Beyonce, reality TV, and the Ikea monkey. You can find them at, http://fempiremovieclub.blogspot.ca/

Snowpiercer, The best film of 2013, not released in 2013

The world of Snowpiercer takes place in the not too distant future. In this world, the attempt to reverse global warming has gone terribly, terribly wrong, resulting in a new ice age. The only survivors are left living aboard a train, power by perpetual motion. These survivors exist in a world of strict order and classes. The upper class live at the front of the train and eat good food, their children are educated and are allowed windows amongst other things. The poor on the other hand, live at the back of the train, in squalor. They are all dirty, ragged and subsist on protein squares. Having had enough of this Curtis (Chris Evans), the reluctant leader and his mentor Gilliam (John Hurt) decide to stage an uprising. The movie itself, starts shortly before the uprising begins.

Joon-ho Bong (The Host) directed this film along with Kelly Masterson (Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead) wrote it. The film is tight and lean, quickly summing up the world in a quick prologue and letting the story flourish on its own afterwards. The film allows no room for pointless rumination about society through stilted dialogue. Instead, it is jam packed visually. When the group of revolutionaries moves from the, dank dark cars to the luxurious cars near the front, their awe and bewilderment is not spoiled through pointless evidentiary squawking by the side characters. When a character asks how the gang can solve a problem or an impending crisis, we don’t see them mulling about discussing solutions. Instead we see them gather up a ton of barrels and watch as they make the solution happen. It’s this show don’t tell attitude that really keeps the pace rolling along smoothly, eliminating the need for distracting technobabble. The exposition that does occur, serves to enhance our understanding of the world of Snowpiercer. It strengthens ties of characters and bring about a better understanding of the horror in which the denizens of the live. By the end of the film, all of the questions that are left unanswered, don’t seem all that bothersome. Snowpiercer answers the questions that need answering, anything else, it will let you pondered the mechanics of it all. Much like the original Matrix, this film strives to make you believe that this world is real, not only through narrative though.

The art direction and cinematography carries its share of the load. The camera work is fantastic not because of the shots or use of filters, but rather how it is able to portray such a claustrophobic environment, with spacious shots that give the cast and train room to breathe. During the vicious revolutionary battles, it gives the viewer an all-encompassing view as well as the down in the trenches perspective and thanks to the editors this is down fluidly, without jarring transitions. These battles and fights are shot wonderfully. They know the constraints that bind them and work to make the fights engrossing within the tight space given. You get a sense that all these people have truly learned how to exist within this small space. Pay close attention to what the camera focuses on.

 The art directors too, do a great job. They are expertly conscious of the world. Every single car and room has the perfect feel. Like a tiny enclosed alien world, dressed up to look like home. But, there is always something nagging at you, telling you it’s wrong. This sense of unease helps to bring you to the right empathetic mindset, to sympathize with all who live trapped in their coffin of survival. The outifts chosen for the classes and characters are fantastic. They contrast each other wonderfully and do the talking for the characters. For instance, instead of a character flat out calling the guards and riot police monsters, they are dressed as riot gear, with aprons and butcher knives. Yes it sounds like a hammer over the head, but this simple decisions means we don’t need some holier than though exposition about butchery from some self-righteous character. Furthermore, the levels of extravagance and quaintness of each outfit, tells the viewer what class the character belongs to rather than having it verbally spewed upon the viewer awkwardly.

The people who live in this perpetual train are built upon archetypes and moments. They are simple characters in the sense that, the audience will not need to ‘figure’ them out. As a viewer, you can easily empathize with the character or conversely, despise them if that’s what needs to be done. The only trait shared among all the characters is, survival. Hero, villain, weird egg delivering bald dude, they all have an intrinsic need and desire to survive. The meaning of what survival is too each of them is how they differ. Tilda Swinton’s, Mason, will betray, lie and sacrifice others all to survive. She is like a rat who has found a nice warm coat pocket with a seemingly endless supply of cheese. Swinton, takes this role and barrels through it marvellously. She knows her character innately and is able to portray all the quirks and vileness through gestures and snorts, rather than scowls and dialogue alone. John Hurt’s Gilliam on the other hand, looks not for his own survival, but rather for that of his adopted children. His time has come and gone, no he seeks to teach the future, to ensure their survival. Hurt does an admirable job, but it is nothing special. His mentor role is not ground-breaking or rule bending. Instead he plays the mentor we have been watching for generations, and with his experience he pulls it of charmingly well. 

Chris Evans portrayal of Curtis, a man with a dark past who seeks life by attaining freedom for him and his, is really the only role that could have used a little more beefing up. Whereas Keanu Reeves might struggle with the extra layer of characterization and emotion required for the role, Evans seems to be confined within his role, up until the very end. Evans’ emotional outbursts can seem awkward and misplaced even when they are in the appropriate moment. If this sounds odd, it’s because it is very odd. It seems to be a problem with the script or the direction of the scene, because Evans is seemingly on the cusp of becoming Hollywood’s new intelligent action hero. Aside from those few odd scenes, he seamlessly transitions from being a bold yet reluctant hero, to a damaged man hoping to atone for his sins. One scene in particular near the end, breaks down the Adonis persona that he has built up over a decade, too give the viewer a wonderful moment where Evans steals all your feels. Lastly, Ièd like to speak of Kang-ho Song. Playing the role, of damaged security expert, addicted to drugs is an all too stereotypical role, thankfully, here it is done well. All his lines are in Korean, so you must pay attention to what he says, but at the same time you need to pay attention to how he says it and where his eyes linger. His mannerisms are just as important as his words. His character is how Bong, demands that we as a viewer pay attention to the film. This is not a film for the lazy or those who expect a simple Luc Besson-esque action thriller and Song’s character and the portrayal will show you why. The rest of the side characters are excellent as well. Allison Pill, Luke Pasquilino, Jamie Bell, Octavia Spencer, Ed Harris and so forth inhabit their characters wonderfully. They do not try to steal the show, instead they work as finely sharpened instruments, to keep a well-oiled machine, not only running, but running above and beyond our expectations.

As the title blatantly says, this is the best film of last year, not released last year. It has everything you could want from a film; ingenious action scenes, basic characters structures an underlying complexity that grows as the film progresses and its philosophical intelligence is one that rewards the viewer rather than punishes them. Snowpiercer is a film that demands your attention to be fully appreciated. To watch this film half-heartedly is to only see a tenth of the glory that lives within its frames. The film, dangles all your feels over the precipice, but then embraces them to give you that warm feeling of hope. But by the end of the film, you will know that the hope this film has left with you, came at a dire cost. And when you do come to that point, you will be sitting on the edge of your seat with anxious glee.

Oldboy 2013

Let me start off by saying that, when I first found out that Spike Lee would be directing the American remake, I was over the moon. He seemed like one of the few American directors who could do the film justice. Keep the soul, the suffering and the heart of the tale intact. I felt that it was a blessing that the undoubtedly neutered, Spielberg and Smith remake would never see the light of day. Boy was I fucking wrong. The movie reeks of unnecessary American remake syndrome, no soul, no heart. Like a teenage boy it puts the little head, before the big head.

Before we get into the bad stuff, let us get the few good bits out of the way. The performances are really the only good bits. Josh Brolin gives a rock solid performance. No, it doesn’t come close to rivalling Min-sik Choi, but with a better script, Brolin might have. He carries the pain and confusion as if it were a rock left upon his back. Sharto Copley and Sam Jackson both had loads of fun with their respective roles by the looks of it. Their screen presence is undeniable as they chew through each scene with glee. If anything, this film once more proves that being a villain is far more fun than being the hero. This is where the positives end and the shit sandwich begins.

The film  itself follows the plot of the original almost scene for scene, only diverging at the end and a few little things here and there, so if you’ve seen the original there really is no need to watch this remake.  Actually, some of the changes that are actually made only serve to damage the film. Take Joe’s friend Chucky, in the original the character owns an internet café. This is how Joe was introduced to computers and the internet. In the remake Chucky, owns a bar. Apparently every American badass is only allowed to have bartenders/owners as friends.

I said that the performances are the only good bits, I really should’ve said they are good in spite of the script. You must give the actors credit for overcoming the grand over simplifications imposed on them Protosevich. He peels away all the layers of each and every character, until only one core feature is left per character. Combine them all and maybe you will have a fully fleshed out character. Well that or Voltron, who knows.

The villain is stripped of all complexity and depth. He is no longer a broken man who can balance his desire for vengeance with keeping up appearances. No, now he is an offensive gay stereotype. In the original his vengeance wasn’t imposed by meaningless violence, it was calculated to a perverse sense of justice that could let him have a modicum of peace. In the remake, this complexity is thrown out the window, he is made into a one dimensional stereotype. They take a broken man, who lives in a sort of moral grey space and turn him into sadomasochistic gay stereotype. Lee and co., take no time to establish his frame of reference as was done in the original. In the original, his point of view is essential to establishing his mentality, but it is not present in the film. The POV explains his mentality, it gives us the flip side of the coin to the protagonist. It turns them both into monsters and messed up avenging angels. How could the man who has made so many classics let that tanker sized detail slip through the cracks? It is downright offensive.

Then we have Joe. Like Copley’s villain, in the original, Joe’s character is a complex character that exists in a moral grey. In the 2003 version, the violence aimed for a stylized realism. The violence perpetrated by Joe was part of his characterisation; it told us tons of detail about his pain and desires without ever spilling it out in a vomit of words. In the remake, the over-choregraphed violence, strips that away from Joe. There is the scene where Joe beats up and possibly kills several jocks in broad daylight. In the original, Oh Dae Su is not the aggressor, he does his best to end the fight as quickly and efficiently as possible. Joe is not a broken man trying to find meaning, he is an 80’s action star in a serious drama and that my friends, fails on every fucking level possible. In the remake, they try to make it all style and all flash, Joe is the vigilante aggressor in an over stylized fight. Instead of efficiently moving past the obstacle to go continue to his goal, he stops and fights. He kills not out of necessity, but rather in service of fulfilling the assumed blood lust of the audience. Yes that can be cool too watch, but not if that’s not what your film is about. Like sex in violence must have contextual reason in any film, otherwise it is a distraction. It should fit logically and meaningfully. Here it is jarring for all the wrong reasons. It betrays the film itself by depicting brutality as stylish rather than cringe-worthy. This leads us to the hallway fight.

Yes they kept it in the film and boy did they butcher the fight. Where the original fight was a brutal marathon of endurance, shot with a low key and grimy style, this new fight exemplifies everything wrong with the remake. Everyone involved struggles to make the fight even cooler than the original and in the process, misses why the original was so cool. Lee’s fight is all about style and flash, it’s about having Joe make cool looking kills and fancy blows, but they’re all fluff. The stylishness draws attention to the fact that the scene is over-choreographed. In the original, you would cringe with the blows, because you could see the restraint, the fear, the exhaustion in each of the participants faces. The attacks have an air of disunity to them. Every blow, block and stab left its mark on the viewer. In the original, the fight showed that Joe is a brawler, not a trained fighter. This was done to establish that even though he could fight goons, Joe could not stand up to trained professionals. By stripping this brutality from the remake they serve to create confusion when Joe does finally confront a trained fighter. Fuck you Lee and Protosevich for shitting on one of the best fight sequences ever filmed.

The costume and art design is yet another tumble down a cliff. It’s as if the costume designer thought that the outrageous outfits from superhero comic books would actually look good on screen. They dress up Sam Jackson as some sort of pimp who’s a bit to obsessed with Sin City. The man chews up every scene he is given, but I’m sure he was left famished as he hunted for a role that was a far more filling then the scraps of this train wreck.

This only scratches the surface of what’s wrong with the film:

-the scene with Joe on a bicycle belongs in a comedy

-the showdown at the bar with the scraggly looking goons who look like mercenary hobos

-the American desire for a thong wearing sex puppet assistant who’s more furniture than person

-every time Copley plays with his fingers

-why the fuck is it that only two characters have aged over the course of 20 years?

The ending, like everything else in this film, it tries to outdo the original in the ickiness factor. In some ways it does, but unlike in the original where the revelations are heartbreaking, in the American version the revelations are push so far beyond the boundaries that one can’t help but laugh as it dives head first into a comedy. It’s like Mark Protosevich simply did not understand it.

The film is like a circus freakshow. It begs to be gawked at. It calls for your attention with its vapid displays of shocking moments and CGI arterial spurts. It takes, truly heart wrenching moments and turns them into carnival amusment, defeating the entire point of the manga and the 2003 film.

In the end, you can see that the effort and desire was there. I truly believe that everyone involved thought they were making a good film. It is too bad that they decided to focus on how to make it cooler than the original instead of making something with soul. I guess Spike Lee just really needed a cash influx.

Only for those with morbid curiosity about how badly an Oldboy remake could be.