Tag Archives: Film Review

I Saw The Hobbit

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

The_Hobbit-_An_Unexpected_Journey_74

Full disclosure (this paragraph is something of an insane rant and has nothing to do with the Hobbit, so feel free to skip it): I am in the incredibly tiny minority who was not overly impressed with the Lord of the Rings films. While I thought that they did an exemplary job of capturing the setting, sights and sounds of Middle Earth, and even the grand scope of Tolkien’s masterwork, I found some of the inexplicable changes to the core story that started appearing in The Two Towers (why is Faramir a dick? The whole point of his character is that he is unlike Boromir in aspect. He is something greater. Like Aragorn. He’s a reason to hope. Why does Faramir take Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath? So we can see it under siege? Probably. Sam then somehow fends off a Nazgul on winged steed by tackling Frodo and crying out. Hmmmmm…swiss cheese. If Aragorn’s army of ghosts can simply sweep across the field and massacre Sauron’s entire army without apparent effort or effect… and Aragorn knows Sauron has another, bigger army… why doesn’t he just go ahead and spend the ten minutes to kill that army too? I’m sure the spirits of the dead would be willing to stay off their eternal rest for ten minutes. Especially because they’re under you control, Aragorn. King of the Dummies.) In addition, Return of the King in particular is much too long. Since the Hobbit has now been split into a stunning three films (!) … in retrospect it seems like Return of the King could definitely have occupied two. Particularly since some of the action elements from The Two Towers were woven into it and… okay.

Moving on.

I saw The Hobbit! Against my wishes, and against my better judgment, I went on a double date sort of affair in the bitter cold to take in this pre-coronated motion picture just days after its release. Fearing the worst, I brought along a large flask filled to the brim with Kraken spiced rum and decided I wouldn’t be shy about pulling off of it. I didn’t really end up needing to, much to my surprise… because here’s the thing about The Hobbit: I liked it. Sort of. Mostly. Oh, more full disclosure: I saw the film in two dimensions at the standard twenty-four frames per second. We didn’t feel like driving to a fancy theater.

As I’d come to expect from Jackson’s Lord of the Rings films, the production here is outstanding. From the very instant The Hobbit begins, we’re drawn back into the realm of Middle Earth. Dwarves, Elves, and now… a dragon. Of course, one of the major reveals that Jackson is keeping for his second film is Smaug, so we don’t see more than the ophoid slit of his eye in what really amounts to an extended intro that describes the history of Erebor, its fall, and the escape of a few dwarves, including Thorin Oakenshield (Richard Armitage). Once we’re all caught up, we return to Hobbiton, and meet Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman). Freeman is excellent as the earnest, earthy Bilbo, who is friendly and considerate, but really doesn’t feel like he wants to be involved in an adventure at all … at first. It’s in this first section at Bilbo’s hobbit hole that, in my estimation, the film shines most. The dwarves of Thorin’s company arrive in a steady stream, along with the wizard Gandalf (Ian McKellen), and treat Bilbo to a night of drinking and feasting… and reminiscing about their lost home, the twilight of the dwarven people, and their enmity with the goblins of the mountains. The music, the mood, the performances, are superb, and by morning… I was as ready as Bilbo was to follow Thorin on his damn fool idealistic crusdade.

The film’s tone throughout mostly remains what I feel to be appropriate to the story being told. The Hobbit is a much more lighthearted affair than the ponderous material of The Lord of the Rings. Instead of twisted Uruks made by the unholy marriage of man and goblin, we have goblins that do a lot of singing and arguing among themselves, and who ultimately don’t seem particularly organized or threatening. Perhaps without the all-possessing will of Sauron behind them, goblins are an essentially pathetic people. There are stupid trolls, dumb goblins, and running axe and sword fights to spare, including some invented and extended action sequences which are a necessity in any three hour long fantasy film epic. The problems that the Hobbit suffers, and they are relatively few but fairly damning, universally occur when it drifts away from this lighthearted tone and fast pacing.

Without going into too much detail, let me just say that Jackson crams the final meeting of the White Council (if you don’t know what that is, believe me, there is not time for a lengthy explanation, but check the footnote at the bottom for the cliff notes version) as a scene in the middle of the film that, frankly, goes on forever. Christopher Lee and Cate Blanchette reprise their roles (Saruman and Lady Galadriel, respectively) from the Lord of the Rings films and join Elrond (Hugo Weaving) and Gandalf in some lengthy pontificating about the threat posed by The Necromancer, the evil force which is corrupting Mirkwood from within. Because this film doesn’t ever reach Mirkwood, we haven’t seen enough of Mirkwood yet to really understand its corruption, and while the White Council’s final meeting does happen concurrently with the events of the Hobbit, it has essentially nothing to do with that story, this scene is dead weight. It absolutely kills the momentum of the film. Worse yet? It’s book-ended by two long sequences where Bilbo Baggins has, essentially, no lines at all and spends huge periods of time off the screen. Now, I may not be a famous movie director, but I have watched a lot of movies in my life… and I can tell you that there’s a problem if your character driven fantasy story about a single unlikely hero and his friends excludes that unlikely hero from a third of its run time. It’s triply aggravating because Freeman is so magnetic as Bilbo when he’s on-screen.

Because of this real problem in the mid-point of the film, the Hobbit very much loses its way for a while, even if you happen to have read the novel and already know how the story is going to play out. This was a real disappointment for me, as I actually thought one of the few genuinely great bits of the script and directing in the Lords of the Rings trilogies was editing action and plot points smartly to keep the films moving. That doesn’t happen here. The setting and music eventually drug me back in (also, the riddle-telling sequence with Gollum (a returning Andy Serkis) is delightful. It has a lot to do with Martin Freeman. I might have a little man crush.) and I was with the movie again by the finale, but I really did feel disappointed when I walked out of the theater, and that sucked after such a promising start.

Anyway, if you’re looking for a recommendation, see The Hobbit! I can’t speak as to the technology additives I’m afraid, but the film itself is enjoyable enough. Just don’t expect a masterpiece, because this film, while good… falls well short of great.

Tolkien Nerd Footnote: The White Council – This is a group comprised of the wizards (Saruman, Gandalf, Radagast the Brown, and two Blue Wizards who are MIA) and the leaders of the Elves (Elrond, Galadriel, and Ciridan), though as Gandalf bears Ciridan’s ring and he spends all his time building escape ships, he doesn’t show up for this dance. Basically, the White Council was the body of good powers in the world that kept things peaceful and friendly during Sauron’s long slumber. They’re mentioned only in passing except during The Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf tells the story that is recounted for us live in this film. Their last act was to put the Necromancer out of Mirkwood, after Gandalf discovered that the Necromancer was, in all likelihood, Sauron garbed in a lesser form to pull the proverbial wool over the council’s eyes.

James Bond Review: Casino Royale

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

Welcome, one and all! Leading up to the North American release of the latest James Bond film, Skyfall, The Shattered Lens has taken on the task of reviewing each and every one of the twenty two James Bond films that precede it. Today’s is the penultimate review, Casino Royale, the first film of the series to star current-iteration Bond Daniel Craig. It serves as a reboot of the James Bond character, looking back to the beginning of his career, and entirely unconnected from all of the previous films in the series. The only returning actor is Dame Judi Dench, who reprises her role as M, in a more maternal overseer role looking out for a young Bond, despite his rash actions potentially causing trouble for MI6.

Our cold open this time has a black and white Bond confronting a crooked MI6 section chief – one who has been selling secrets to make money on the side. Bond kills both the section chief and his contact, which is enough to earn him his 00-status. The freshly minted 007 heads to Madagascar in pursuit of an international bomb maker. He attempts to find a way to apprehend the bomb maker alive, but is made, and is forced to pursue this man across the city. Bond eventually corners the bomb maker in an embassy building and kills him, blowing up part of the wall, and effecting his escape.

Back in England, M chides Bond for his itchy trigger finger, pointing out that while the world has one less small-time terrorist, they had hoped to get information which would let them fight international terrorism on the organisational level. Bond seems suitably chastened, but M goes further, asserting that she promoted Bond too early, that he is reckless, and a danger. Bond coldly replies that, since the 00-agent’s life is not typically a long one, she will not have to live with her mistake for long.

That’s the sort of Bond that we’re dealing with under the handling of Daniel Craig. While the character is still capable of being charming, he’s a very far cry from Sean Connery’s easy smile and one liners, or Pierce Brosnan’s especially terrible puns. This is sort of the crux of the movie; what controversy exists surrounding its qualities is heavily tied into how you respond to this new take on James Bond. Like all things 2000s, our hero is much grittier than before. Absent is all of Q’s high tech wizardry, and as I stated before, we are not even dealing with a seasoned killer in James Bond, but rather a freshly minted 00 agent. As a result of all these factors, this film has a distinctly different feel from every Bond produced before it. If you like the changes, everything is cool. If you don’t, you may still find yourself appreciating Casino Royale, which has a relatively simple plot, but spends quite a bit of effort on setting up and establishing its characters, including this new James Bond, for the audience.

The main plot of Casino Royale revolves around a high-stakes Texas Hold ‘Em tournament held at the titular casino, located in Montenegro. James Bond is assigned to win the tournament which is being staged by terrorist financier Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen) to recoup the terrible losses he suffered when he used the money of his clients to short sell stock, predicting that a terrorist strike which he himself had planned would send prices into free fall. M hopes that by pushing Le Chiffre to the point of desperation, they can force him to cut a deal with MI6 – sanctuary in exchange for everything he knows about terrorists around the world. Bond is assisted in his goal by fellow MI6 agent Rene Mathis (Giancarlo Giannini) and Vesper Lynd (Eva Green), this iteration’s Bond girl, an agent from HM Treasury, who is assigned to manage Bond’s $10M buy-in, and to provide him with a $5M re-buy if she believes it would be a good investment. However, since a failure on Bond’s part would mean that Her Majesty’s Treasury was directly funding international terrorism, there is incentive to be cautious.

It takes us nearly an hour to begin to engage in the meat of the film, at the titular Casino Royale. Or, at least, this should be the meat of the film. However, the structure of Casino Royale is a little bit off. It feels like it has enough action, but it doesn’t feel properly paced, with the front half of the film (really just a series of subplots to get us to Montenegro) feels like classic “action Bond”. The scenes in the Casino could have been pulled (well, if Daniel Craig could smile, at any rate) from any other Bond film, as his history is littered with a rich litany of casino sequences. Before and after the casino sequences, however, are framing bits that involve idyllic locations, and if I may be so bold, it doesn’t exactly zoom along. The spacing between the casino sequences and the finale, in particular, made the final act feel very tacked on and a little out of place, even as deliberately intended setup for Quantum of Solace. This can also be off-putting, as it feels like there are two different movies going on here.

For the most part though, I think Casino Royale works. If you can live with a grimmer, grittier, low-talking James Bond, you may really appreciate this low-tech return to basics for our favourite 00-agent.

Tomorrow you’ll get a healthy dose of Quantum of Solace, but before I sign off, let me leave you with the theme from Casino Royale, one of the cooler James Bond themes in the franchise, performed by Chris Cornell.

James Bond Review: Die Another Day

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

Leading up to the North American release of the latest James Bond feature film, Skyfall, The Shattered Lens is reviewing each and every James Bond film in the history of the franchise. Today’s film is the controversial Die Another Day, the twentieth film in the James Bond franchise, and the final such film to feature Pierce Brosnan in the titular role as 00-agent James Bond. Despite launching to mixed reviews – particularly overseas, where it generated significantly negative reaction in North and South Korea – it was at the time the highest grossing Bond film of all time.

Our cold open for this film has us in North Korea. There, 007 is assuming the identity of a diamond smuggler who is assisting a North Korean Colonel, Tan-Sun Moon, in laundering blood diamonds as part of an ongoing search for advanced military hardware. In order to bypass the landmines of the Korean Demilitarized Zone, the good Colonel has constructed an entire army of hover vehicles which can cross the region without triggering the mines, allowing for a land invasion of South Korea. Bond proceeds with the exchange, but is identified by Zao (Rick Yune), Colonel Moon’s right hand man. Bond triggers an explosion which badly disfigures Zao’s face, which becomes embedded with dozens of diamonds. Colonel Moon attempts to escape on a hovercraft, and Bond pursues him, eventually chasing the Colonel off the edge of a waterfall, apparently killing him. Afterward, Bond is captured by General Moon, the Colonel’s father, and is imprisoned.

After over a year of imprisonment and torture, Bond is traded during a prisoner exchange for Zao. Upon returning to MI6, M (Dame Judi Dench) tells Bond that his 00-status has been suspended. Both she and the Americans believe that Bond cracked under torture and revealed classified information, necessitating the prisoner exchange that brought him back. However, the release of Zao leaves both M and Bond extremely bitter. Determined to recapture Zao, Bond evades MI6’s security and disappears. He travels to Hong Kong, seeking a way back into North Korea, but his contact there informs him that Zao has attempted to disappear in Cuba and provides him with the necessaries to travel there instead.

After he arrives in Havana, Cuba, Bond investigates a clinic there which specializes in gene therapy that is virtually unknown in the first world. Bond’s local contact describes it as prolonging the lives of their leading citizens, and the richest folks in the West, but Bond also learns that the gene therapy would allow a person to totally restructure their appearance and assume a whole new identity. During his investigation, he meets a woman who introduces herself as Jinx (Halle Berry) who, initially unknown to Bond, is an NSA agent on a similar investigation, albeit one with presumably very different goals. Bond locates Zao inside the clinic, and a chase ensues. Although Zao ultimately manages to escape by helicopter (and Jinx in dramatic fashion by diving off the sea wall and boarding a waiting boat which drives her off), Bond recovers a pendant left behind by Zao. Upon unscrewing it, Bond discovers a cache of diamonds. Upon inspection, the diamonds are chemically identical to diamonds found in Sierra Leone, but they bear the identifying mark of a diamond mine owned by a British billionaire and thrill seeker, Gustav Graves (Toby Stephens). Bond is determined to investigate.

This forms the basis of the remaining plot. Our set pieces this time aren’t quite so varied, as much of the remaining story plays out in Iceland, where Graves’ diamond mine is situated, and where he has constructed a special ice hotel for the purpose of a technology convention. Eventually, we return to Korea, for a final showdown that seems somehow empty, despite the increasingly high stakes in terms of both explosions and technology.

The truth, ultimately, is that Die Another Day is a bit of a mess. It has a seemingly incessant procession of action sequences, but they raise the stakes primarily through CGI and improbable wizardry, in a way that threatens our suspend disbelief. I know that this is Bond, and that in 80s-early 00s Bond very much fell into the trap (who didn’t?) of ‘bigger and better’. However, this film takes things a bit too far in my estimation. Its villains aren’t quite as fun as the ones in the past two films (well, Mr. Stamper is kind of a drag I suppose), and don’t really fit the Bond mold. The story is pretty straightforward, but probably doesn’t receive quite the treatment that it deserves to get us established in it. The interactions between Bond and M are a bit too stiff, and I say that even keeping in mind tomorrow’s review piece, Casino Royale. There’s something about Die Another Day that made me think everyone involved was just going through the motions, like a sense of fatigue just hung over the proceedings. It was a bit of a bummer.

As for the women of Bond, Die Another Day actually has a lot to recommend. Breaking convention, this section is heavy with spoilers, but I’m going to risk it just this once. Don’t read on if you’re new to this film and planning to watch it!

Die Another Day continues to feature Dame Judi Dench as a pleasantly strong and uncompromising intelligence chief (I probably haven’t made enough of how much I enjoy her in the role of M in my reviews up to this point). In addition, we’re treated to Halle Berry as Jinx, an ass-kicking NSA agent who seems to do a lot of getting outmaneuvered and captured for being so adept. I didn’t care for Berry’s performance in this film, and I’d be lying if I said she stacked up well against Tomorrow Never Dies’ Michelle Yeoh as a Chinese intelligence agent. Still, compared to some of the other Bond girls, Berry is definitely a warrior. The other major female character, however, is Miranda Frost (Rosamund Pike), a frigid and beautiful MI6 agent… actually, a double agent, who betrayed Bond in the cold open. Pike’s character definitely gives off the edge of competence and deadliness that I, for one, am rooting for in female characters in any Bond movie, and she sells it well. Unfortunately, she’s not nearly as fun as Elektra King, as her motivations are completely unexplored and she just feels like an add-on to the existing plot surrounding some dangerous North Koreans.

Overall, this is probably not one of the better Bond films, though I’d argue that it doesn’t deserve the bad rap that some have given it either. It’s not a terrible film, just overwrought in a kind of Michael Bay way that undermines the characters and concepts. This is a common complaint of all four Pierce Brosnan films, especially, as well as some of the Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton efforts. However, this is the one that I most agree with that assessment of. This film really gets out of control with effects and gadgetry.

That’s it for today’s review. I leave you with the theme from Die Another Day, performed by Madonna. Tomorrow’s review will be of 2006’s Casino Royale.

James Bond Review: Tomorrow Never Dies

Posted on by Semtex Skittle

In anticipation of the North American release of the latest 007 adventure, Skyfall, we here at The Shattered Lens are systematically going through each and every film of the James Bond franchise and reviewing them for you! Today, we’ll take a look at the eighteenth film of the James Bond franchise, and the second one to star Pierce Brosnan as James Bond. It’s one of my personal favourites… Tomorrow Never Dies.

It’s the return of Pierce Brosnan as Agent 007, a cold-war relic modernized for a more discerning audience. While the Bond of old – Connery in particular – could flash his smile, make a pun, and have a girl in bed, the modern Bond is often challenged by the women in his life. As a modern viewer, I’m much more comfortable with this view of the sexes, though it would be quite a stretch to say that Bond has ‘struggles’ trying to find the affections of women. Anyway.

Our cold open takes us to the Russian border, and a so-called Terrorist bazaar. Yes, it’s more or less a marketplace of weapons, illegal technology, and mercenary services. And it’s under surveillance by MI6 and the British armed forces, led by M (Dame Judi Dench) and Admiral Roebuck (Geoffrey Palmer). MI6’s analysis is being led by the strangely memorable Charles Robinson (Colin Salmon), M’s Chief of Staff in this film, and the next two. Although his part is minor, Salmon impressed me enough in this part (the first time I can recollect seeing him; Tomorrow Never Dies was a first day viewing for my father and I when it released) that I instantly associate him any time I see him with his role in this film, not in the newer Resident Evil franchise, or in any of his other work. Robinson is in contact with an unidentified (but I’ll bet you can guess!) agent on the ground who is observing the terrorist bazaar through a telephoto lens. In addition to the formidably terrifying hardware, the as-yet-un-named agent also identifies cyber terrorist Henry Gupta (Ricky Jay) an American wanted for all kinds of technology-related crimes. Although he seems to have obtained an extremely secret, extremely valuable, American GPS code cracking machine, I’m sure he won’t turn up later.

Eager to be rid of “half the world’s terrorists” as he describes it, Admiral Roebuck first attempts to negotiate a Soviet strike using ground assets against the bazaar. When the Soviet liaison reports that casualties would be inconvenient to the electorate so close to party elections, Roebuck instead opts for a British naval strike which will dismantle the bazaar – cruise missiles launched from afar. Overriding M’s objections that the survey of the bazaar is not yet complete, Roebuck provides authorization for missile launch, and in no time, two massive cruise missiles are en route.

It’s about this time that we learn that the mysterious, unnamed, ground agent in Russia is Agent 007 – an unsmiling Pierce Brosnan. Bond has detected a pair of L-39 Albatross fighters, one of which has been outfitted with nuclear-yield weapons of Soviet origin. At best, the cruise missile attack will scatter weapons-grade plutonium over a huge area, and Admiral Roebuck immediately orders the cruise missiles to be aborted remotely. Unfortunately, the missiles are already out of range in the network of (presumably Afghani) canyons they are maneuvering down. If nuclear disaster is to be averted, it’s up to an unsmiling 007 – now revealed as M’s agent in the field.

As anyone could have predicted, Bond chooses a heroically stupid solution. He charges into the bazaar, knocking out several terrorists and seizing an automatic weapon. Clearing enemies from his area, he makes his way to the L-39 with the nuclear payload. After dispatching the pilot, Bond boards the aircraft, and barely manages to get airborne before the cruise missiles detonate behind him, wiping out most of the terrorists involved. Suspiciously, it seems that Henry Gupta survived the naval strike. I continue to remain convinced that he won’t pop up again later in the story, though. After escaping aboard his stolen aircraft, Bond’s reel man inexplicably feels the need to strangle him which will crash and kill them both while Bond is pursued by a second L-39. Eventually, Bond manages to eject his would-be strangler straight up into the other aircraft, neatly eliminating his problems, and he heads home.

In a reveal with our evil super-villain, Elliot Carver (Jonathan Pryce), we learn that he is manipulating headlines for the profit of his super powerful Viacom-esque media conglomerate. I wonder if that Gupta fellow and his stolen GPS controller will show up again?

I probably don’t need to spoil much more about the plot than that. Suffice to say that the concept behind this Bond yarn is actually a touch on the original side. It correctly anticipated the importance of mass media, its complete transformation into a corporate entity (rather than a ‘news’ entity), and some of the possible consequences. Of course, the plot of the film has also aged terribly, because the internet has changed everything about communication in a way that we would never have anticipated in the mid 90s. Still, Tomorrow Never Dies has always struck a chord with me for both the nature of its villain, and his designs upon the world. The rest of the villainous cast is somewhat less impressive, as beyond Carver, we have the eminently forgettable Mr. Stamper (Götz Otto) and the certainly-not-a-plot-point Henry Gupta to satiate our need for nemeses. Oh, and a hired assassin, but I’ll get to him in a moment. Suffice to say that Mr. Stamper is not exactly this generation’s Oddjob, and we can probably leave it there.

Once we pass the initial setup, the action of Tomorrow Never Dies doesn’t really let up. It’s very tech-heavy, the true realization of the gadet-heavy accusations that are often levied against post-Connery bond. Yes, Pierce Brosnan has a huge variety of gadgets at his disposal. Notable in this particular film is Bond’s seemingly indestructible BMW, which leads to a humourous exchange between he, a hired hitman named Dr. Kaufmann (Vincent Schiavelli), and a gaggle of minions attempting to break into the vehicle with hammers and other tools.

As usual, the women around Bond are beautiful. In this incarnation, we get a heavy dose of Paris Carver (Teri Hatcher), Elliot’s trophy wife, and a former flame of James Bond’s (to, I assume, no one’s surprise) as well as Colonel Wai Lin (Michelle Yeoh) an ass-kicking Chinese intelligence agent who is assigned to the same case as Bond. Yeoh’s character enters the film relatively late, but repeatedly proves her chops as Bond’s Chinese counterpart. She is healthily proficient with firearms and has all of the ninja skills that we would expect from any slight Asian female character in a Bond film.

The set pieces of Tomorrow Never Dies are probably also worth noting, as they range from Elliot Carver’s bizarrely fortress-like mass media headquarters (notably, also, a haven for both digital media and the printing of a newspaper), to extensive time spent in China, to Elliot Carver’s special stealth boat. The production values of the film are certainly not lacking, and unlike so many more ‘modern’ action films, Bond is not immersed in a CGI universe, but rather surrounded by practical effects that make it easy for us to fall into the story and its various locales.

Let me leave you with the theme to Tomorrow Never Dies, also oddly amongst my favourites!

Review: The Dead (dir. by The Ford Brothers)

Posted on by Arleigh

Zombies.

I’ve heard the collective groans from many who have achieved zombie oversaturation. For some reason the renaissance of the zombie subgenre which began during the early 2000’s continues unabated. One just has to look at the huge popularity of Robert Kirkman’s long-running horror comic book The Walking Dead right up to the even more popular tv adaptation of the comic book which now enters it’s 3rd season on AMC TV. Yet, not everything zombie-related in entertainment could be considered scary or even entertaining. If one looks at the dozens of direct-to-video which seems to come out month in and month out that barely rises above amateur production and execution one does have to feel that the subgenre should just die and go away. Then something like The Dead by the British sibling filmmakers The Ford Brothers comes along and breathes some fresh blood into the scene.

An indie film shot pretty much in northwest Africa (Burkina Faso and Ghana), The Deadis a throwback to the classic Romero zombie films before the new millennium and, even moreso, the Italian zombie films of Lucio Fulci with emphasis on Zombie. The Ford Brothers pretty much shot the film in some of the worst conditions a film crew could find itself in. It doesn’t matter whether it was the baking mid-day heat in the open plains and desert right up to the very real armed conflict which continues in the region to this very day. These two British siblings definitely took some guerilla filmmaking lessons from their hero Romero in how to stretch their tiny budget and still come out with a very good production.

The Deadis a pretty straightforward zombie film and acts more like a road film than your typical zombie story which tend to focus heavily on the siege aspect of the genre. We don’t get sieges in this film. The openness of the African plains and desert made for an interesting change of pace to the typical urban and/or countryside locales past zombie films ended up using. The film also spent so much of it’s running time in broad daylight which also made it stand out from it’s zombie film brethren which used night time as a prop to create dread and mounting terror. The Ford Brothers were able to use that very brutal heat and searing African midday sun to give the film a beautiful look but also one that highlighted it’s apocalyptic and hopeless situation. The light showed zombies shambling along from every direction, slow as they may be, in that steady, silent pace that was as inevitable as Death itself.

The story of the film is quite bare bones with the opening sequences pretty much introducing the two storylines that would intersect very early and combine to become one. There’s the lone survivor of a military evacuation flight out of the area and back to America (at least Europe) in Lt. Brian Murphy (played by Rob Freeman) whose role as a flight engineer in the doomed flight gives him the necessary technical skills to fix an abandoned vehicle he finds, but who is not what one would call a hardened soldier unlike Sgt. Daniel Dembele (played Ghana actor by Prince David Oseia) whose role as a soldier gives him the skills to protect Murphy. The two become traveling companions who must traverse the post-apocalyptic West African landscape that always have zombies, silent and sure slowly and patiently finding their way to the two no matter how fast and far they go.

Murphy wants to get back to his wife and daughter back in the States though he doesn’t know if they’re still alive or not. Daniel wants to find his son who was rescued by soldiers in the beginning of the film as their home village succumb to an attack of the dead. These similar goals become the very thing which helps the two bond together despite their cultural and ideological differences.

The film doesn’t go too heavy with the themes and ideas of Africa and zombies, but they’re there and the Ford Brothers don’t try to avoid them either. Throughout the film one could see that the film could easily be a metaphor for the birthplace of mankind also becoming the beginning of its end. There’s also the shadow of the crimes of Western colonialism and interference in a land whose people have been exploited and used like chess pieces on the grand world stage. Like some of the best zombie films, The Deaduses the apocalyptic setting and the danger of the zombies as a way to explore serious themes and ideas but do so without being too obvious or heavy-handed. In fact, the Ford Brothers actually were quite subtle with their handling of these ideas throughout the film. This made for a much more streamlined story, but also kept the film from heading into epic territory.

Freeman spends almost the whole time on the screen which stretched his performance somewhat. At times his dialogue came out natural and then on another sequence he would come off stilted. It’s not surprise that some of the best scenes Freeman’s Murphy had was when in the presence of Oseia’s Sgt. Daniel Dembele. Hiss presence on screen almost overshadows Freeman at times and one could almost wonder how much the better the film would’ve been if it was just Daniel searching for his son and no Murphy character to distract things. Oseia’s performance becomes the moral center of the film and as the story unfolded one felt like rooting for the man to find his son even though the odds on him succeeding rises with each passing minute.

The Dead is not a perfect film and one could say that it’s very straightforward nature becomes too generic and evident at certain times during the film. Yet, the rough and raw way the Ford Brothers wrote and shot the film with some very good performances from it’s cast made up for any shortcomings the film had. Even the gore effects wasn’t hampered by the minuscule budget. This film should satisfy gorehounds and story aficionados both. That’s something that most indie zombie films can’t boast about that this film can. The film’s ending leaves things somewhat open for a sequel (something the brothers are open to exploring as a future project) with the final shot evoking a “Lone Wolf and Cub” vibe before the fade to black.

The Ford Brothers’ The Dead saw a very limited release in 2010 and 2011 but has now seen a wide DVD/Blu-Ray release for 2012. For some it would be a buy and a keeper, but at the very least it deserves a rental to see what all the hoopla was about.

Review: The Amazing Spider-Man (dir. by Marc Webb)

Posted on by Arleigh

It was in the summer of 2002 that the superhero film genre finally entered it’s Golden Age (or Silver Age for some). X-Men had come out two years before to positive acclaim and, most importantly, in the box-office. It wasn’t until Sam Raimi released the first in what would be his trilogy in the Spider-Man film franchise that superhero comic book films became the power in Hollywood it remains to this day. The first film from Raimi easily captured the pulp and campy sensibilities of the source material and for an origin story film it was done quite well in that it introduced the titular character and what made him tick. In 2004, Raimi and company released what many consider the best comic book film with Spider-Man 2. The film brought a level of Greek tragedy to the fun of the first film and it definitely brought one of the best realized comic book villains on film with Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus. Then the franchise hit a major bump in 2007 with Raimi third entry in the franchise with the bloated Spider-Man 3.

Sony Pictures, who owned the film rights to the Spider-Man franchise, were so quick to churn out a fourth film, but in doing so lost the filmmaker and cast that made the trilogy happen. In the studios’ thinking they needed to get a fourth film up and running in order to keep the rights to the film from reverting back to Marvel and Disney. So, out goes Sam Raimi, Tobey Maguire and Kirsten Dunst and in comes Marc Webb, Andrew Garfield and Emma Stone. Instead of getting Spider-Man 4 we get The Amazing Spider-Man which doesn’t continue what Raimi had established with the first three films, but reboots the franchise all the way to the beginning.

Marc Webb takes the screenplay worked on by a trio of screenwriters (James Vanderbilt, Alvin Sargent, Steve Kloves) and reboots the origin story of Peter Parker’s transformation into Spider-Man. We find Peter Parker back in high school as a student and still getting bullied by Flash Thompson while remaining awkward around girls (especially one Gwen Stacy played by Emma Stone). yet, before we even get to this part of the film we get an introductory coda where we find a preadolescent Peter Parker playing hide and seek with his scientist father. These early scenes show hints that the enhanced spider thatwill bite and give eter his abilities may have had his father’s research and work written all over it.

This intro influences much of the storyline and leaves a huge impact on the character of Peter Parker which the previous three films never explored. The rest of the film has Peter investigating the circumstances of his parent’s disappearance and his adjustment to having been given the superhuman abilities by the spider that his father may or may not have been responsible in breeding.

First off, the film does a good job in re-establishing Peter Parker as a high school student. The original film spent some time in this part of Peter Parker’s life but never truly explored it. We see Peter not just the class genius, but also one who also shows an affinity for photography (something that the original trilogy never really explained other than he needed the job and money). There’s also some added layers to the character as this version of Peter Parker is more than willing to stand up to the bullies picking on the weaker students other than himself. It’s a huge departure from the meek and geeky Peter Parker of the past. We still get a geeky and smart Peter, but one who is also a sort of a well-intentioned slacker. We also get a proper introduction for Gwen Stacy (something the third film criminally mishandled)

The film introduces once again many of the characters the first film in the series had already done. From Uncle Ben (played by Martin Sheen this time around) and Aunt May (Sally Field) right up to the robber who runs into Uncle Ben and changes Peter Parker’s outlook on his role as a hero forever. Again these were character that had already been explored by the first three films and they’re scenes that had an air of familiarity to them though Sheen performance as Uncle Ben added more layers to the character who becomes Peter Parker’s moral center.

Another thing that the film did a good job with was the design of the film. It has been ten years since the first film and the technology in CGI-effects has leapfrogged exponentially since. The look of the OsCorp Tower was a beautiful piece of architectural design. The building loomed over New York City like something dark with a hint of malice. There were changes to the suit Peter wears that really harkens back to the McFarlane years of the Spider-Man comics. Even the return of the web-shooters was a nice surprise that I had some reservations when first hearing about it.

A third good thing about the film was the extended montage when Peter Parker realizes he has gained new abilities and begins to test them out. It’s familiar territory from the first film, but Marc Webb and Andrew Garfield adds a new level of youthful exuberance to the proceedings. Even the use of parkour by Peter Parker to show his growing abilities didn’t come off as silly. Garfield’s performance as Peter Parker in this montage was pretty great. One could believe at how much fun he was having at discovering each new level of abilities. Even some of the growing pains he goes through after getting bit were some of the more hilarious moments in the film that ultimately lacked much of it in the end.

Which brings us to what made this entertaining film end up becoming a failure in the end.

I admit that the film entertained me in the end, but there were things aboutThe Amazing Spider-Manwhich nagged at me throughout and afterwards. While the film was entertaining the story self and most of the characters were inconsistently written. Once one looked past the action and some of the witty dialogue in the beginning the film’s many plot-holes and head-scratching moments become too glaring to ignore.

The character of Peter Parker does get some new layers of characterization in the beginning, but as the film played out the more the Peter Parker of this film began to stray away from not just what Raimi had created and guided through the first three films but also most of the character’s decade’s long growth in the comics. Yes, we see Peter Parker as the science-genius and even moreso than the one portrayed by Tobey Maguire, but we also don’t get the awkward teen who grows into his abilities, but most importantly, one who learns through tragedy that he has a responsibility to the people around him to protect them even if it means sacrificing his wants and dreams to do so. We don’t just see Peter Parker saving people, but also one who seemed to relish beating up and abusing those who used to do the same to him and/or others. Spider-Man in this film acts more like a bully than a reluctant hero by film’s end. Even the events that should’ve taught him the lessons of self-sacrifice and heeding the needs of the many fail to make much of an impact on the teen superhero. All one has to look at as the perfect example of this darker and more selfish turn to the character was Peter’s whisper to Gwen about promises not being kept being the best ones.

Other characters get inconsistencies in how they’re written. The other big one being Dr. Curt Connors who begins the film as a scientist so intent of not just curing his disability but also helping the world. It’s a character similar in tone to Alfred Molina as Dr. Octopus, yet where that villain remained a tragic one throughout the film and we could see the path which led him to become a villain with Dr. Connors in this fourth film there’s such a huge turnabout in the character’s motivations that whatever sympathy we may have had for Connors was squandered.

Not every character fails to impress. Martin Sheen and Denis Leary as Uncle Ben and Capt. Stacy respectively were fully realized characters who become Peter Parker’s moral centers and voice of reason. In fact, both Sheen and Leary helped anchor the scenes they appeared in and thus made their characters’ fate have the sort of emotional impact that a growing hero needs to move from being reluctant to accepting of his lot in life. It’s a shame that the writers failed to capitalize on the performances of these two character actors to help make Peter Parker more a hero and less a teenager more in love with what he can do instead of realizing that he has more to offer those who are weakest.

This is not to say that the performances by the cast was bad. From Garfield and Stone right up to Ifans, Sheen, Leary and Field, the cast did a great job with an uneven and inconsistent script that was too full of themes and ideas but no focus on any one of them. It’s a wasted opportunity to build on what the previous cast of the three films had created. Even the third film which many would agree as being a huge, bloated mess actually had a singular focus. It was a story that tried to explore Peter Parker’s darker side andhow his life as a superhero negatively impacts everyone around him he cares for. With this Marc Webb production we get a Peter Parker who at times was compassionate when it came to others being bullied and then we get one who relished on doing the same to those he now sees deserving of payback. Even Parker’s hunt for his uncle’s killer which the film spent a considerable time following just got dropped without any sort of resolution. One of the most significant events in Peter’s life gets dumped to the wayside to concentrate on finally pitting Spider-Man against the film’s Lizard.

Did The Amazing Spider-Man need to have gotten made? The answer to that would be a yes.

Did Marc Webb, the three writers in Vanderbilt, Sargent and Kloves and the new cast get the reboot correctly? I would say no.

This was a film that spent too much time reintroducing characters both comic book and film fans already knew intimately. The storyline itself shared many similarities to the second film in the series yet none of the cohesiveness which made that first sequel such an instant classic the moment it premiered in 2004. The Amazing Spider-Man spent so much time trying to come off as a grittier and edgier version of the character (I call this the Christopher Nolan-effect) that what should’ve been coming off as a fun-loving, albeit self-sacrificing hero, came off as a dick once he finally got the full costume on. The people in charge of this reboot sacrificed what was fun about the film franchise for realism that the character and his universe were never steeped in to begin with.

Gritty, edgy and realism may work for Nolan’s take on the Batman film franchise, but for Spidey it fails and just turns what could’ve been a fresh new take on the franchise into another entertaining, but ultimately forgettable entry in the series. Maybe it’s time Sony just realize that it’s just pushing this franchise downhill and let the rights revert back to Marvel who seem to have found a balance between pulpy camp and serious realism.

Quickie Review: Running Scared (dir. by Wayne Kramer)

Posted on by Arleigh

Director Wayne Kramer’s follow-up to his directorial debut (The Cooler) shows that he has a flair for drama and suspense that borders the line between reality and surrealism. Running Scared has such a gritty, washed out look right from the get-go that one starts to think it’s a film lifted right out of the 70’s. But that is only part of what Kramer does in creating a look and feel for Running Scared. Kramer actually uses every kind of trick in a director’s book to give his film such an over-the-top sense that the audience really doesn’t know what to expect just around the next dark corner.

Running Scared‘s first ten minutes sets up what the rest of the next two hours are going to be like. Kramer direct’s this ten minutes like a man possessed. The direction and editing is frantic and frenetic. Some have said that it’s all been done before by Tarantino, Woo and a dozen other action-stylists out of Hong Kong, but I disagree. Kramer’s style owes alot more to the grandfather of excessive film violence and that’s Sam Peckinpah. I’m not comparing Running Scared to Peckinpah’s seminal classic The Wild Bunch, but the pace and look of the chaotic shoot-out in the tiny apartment to start the film brings to mind the opening and closing shoot-outs of Peckinpah’s film.

Kramer knows he’s not making a social statement or even an intellectually relevant film. What he does know is that he wants to tell a fairy tale of one man’s hectic day and all the craziness he has to go through during that day. And this is what Running Scared really has turned out to be. A fairy tale set in an modern, dank, urban landscape where our hero (though anti-hero is more like it) and the two kids in his life must travel a surreal place filled with mack-daddy pimps, hooker with a heart of gold, corrupt cops and even a pair of child pedophiles who also turn out to be husband and wife. Running Scared is a like Grimms fairy tale as seen and told in a modern setting.

The cast of actors Kramer has assembled all do a good job in populating this violent, profane modern fairy tale. I’d be the last to think that Paul Walker was an actor who had any talent, but his performance in this film has given me pause to think that maybe its not him, but the projects he’s been doing that’s given him a bad reputation as an actor (which continues to this day as he continues to put himself in bad projects). Gone is the California surfer dude persona he seems to saddle himself with in most of his roles. He actually inhabits the low-level mobster soldier he plays as Joey Gazelle. This film may not be his breakout performance but it will open up some eyes. The boy’s got some skill he’s never been able to show before. The other actor who makes a standout performance is one Cameron Bright who plays Oleg. The neighbor kid whose theft of a mob gun Joey is suppose to make disappear turns Joey’s life upside down. Cameron’s almost like Pinocchio in that its through him that we see all the crazy characters he runs across. It’s a testament to Kramer’s direction that he’s able to get such good performances from Walker, Bright and the rest of the cast in a film that’s as confusing, complicated and surreal as this film turned out to be.

Running Scared was a wonderful surprise of a film for 2006. It’s an unabashed fun, thrilling urban fairy tale that goes for broke in everything it does. Wayne Kramer’s direction shows that his very good work in filming The Cooler wasn’t a fluke and one-time deal. He’s no Tarantino and surely not in the same league as Sam Peckinpah whose films this one owes alot to in style and feel, but he’s slowly making a name for himself as one who can do good work. Oh, Paul Walker does a good job in it as well.

A Quickie With Lisa Marie: Wall Street (dir. by Oliver Stone)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Yesterday, me and my friend Jeff were planning on seeing Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.  However, there was one problem — I’d never seen the original Wall Street.  Though I owned the movie on DVD, I’d never actually bothered to sit down to watch it.  Don’t get me wrong, I knew that this was the movie that won Michael Douglas an Oscar.  I knew that Douglas played a character named Gordon Gekko who, at one point in the film, delivered the line, “Greed is good.”  Who hasn’t seen that clip?

So, yesterday, before leaving to see the sequel (which I’ll be reviewing in the near future), I sat down and watched the original. I discovered that there’s a reason why everyone remembers Gordon Gekko’s little “Greed is good” speech.  It’s literally the only memorable part of the entire movie.

Wall Street tells the tale of Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen), a young stock broker who becomes a protegé to an intense and amoral businessman named Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas).   Gekko specializes in taking over other companies and putting people out of work.  He wants to take over an airline that employs Bud’s father.  Bud’s father is played by Martin Sheen and he’s such a self-righteous, judgmental, blue-collar asshole that you find yourself hoping that Gekko does put him out of work.  Anyway, Bud engages in insider trading (which is apparently a crime though I’m not sure as the film seems to assume that everyone already understands how the stock market works) yet then finds his conscience awakened when Gekko’s greed threatens his dad’s job.  Yes, this is yet another one of those laughably masculine films in which an overage boy has to pick a father figure.  

I guess we’re supposed to care about whether or not he picks the right father but seriously, Bud Fox is such a dull character and Charlie Sheen is so miscast that I found myself wondering when the film’s real hero was going to show up.  I had some hope when James Spader popped up in a supporting role but no, the lead character here is Bud Fox and he’s played by Charlie Sheen.

Not surprisingly, this is pretty much a male-dominated film.  There’s only two notable female characters in the film.  Darryl Hannah plays a ditz and Sean Young plays a bitch and neither one gets a chance to even have fun with the stereotypes.  However, we all know that this film is really just about Gordon Gekko plunking his twanger over money and Bud Fox jackin’ the beanstalk to Gekko.

However, once you see Michael Douglas’s performance as Gordon Gekko, it’s a bit easier to understand why he causes Bud to walk Willie the One-Eyed Wonder Worm.  Douglas truly is amazing in this role.  In fact, Douglas is so charismatic in the role that it actually hurts the movie.  It’s hard to take much pleasure in listening to Martin Sheen talk about how much he loves his union when you realize that all he’s doing is taking up time that could have been devoted to Michael Douglas fucking over poor people.  I don’t know if a bad film can ever be truly redeemed by just one good performance but Douglas definitely makes Wall Street — with all of its awkward moralizing and sexist (and sexual) confusion — worth seeing.

As little as I thought of Wall Street, I still found myself excited about seeing the sequel.  Why?  Because I knew Michael Douglas was coming back and Martin Sheen wasn’t.  Perhaps, I thought, this sequel will simply focus on Gekko being an over-the-top, charming viper instead of forcing us to sit through a repeat of the first film’s heavy-handed moralizing and simplistic political posturing.  Of course, I was wrong but that’s another review for another day.

Oh, one last note: Oliver Stone’s direction is far better than his script.  I once read an old review from Pauline Kael in which she said that Oliver Stone directed “as if someone held a gun to his head and shouted, ‘Go!'”  and this is certainly the case with Wall Street.  That said, I still find it hard to stay interested in any scene that features stock brokers screaming at each other and tossing around little bits of paper.  Seriously, how does the Stock Market work?  Whenever I see any footage from the New York stock exchange, it just looks incredibly silly.

Review: Lifeforce (dir. by Tobe Hooper)

Posted on by Arleigh

“I mean, in a sense we’re all vampires. We drain energy from other life forms. The difference is one of degree. That girl was no girl. She’s totally alien to this planet and our life form… and totally dangerous.” — Dr. Hans Fallada

1985’s Lifeforce, directed by Tobe Hooper, was critically panned and barely registered at the box office. Yet in the decades since its release, something curious has happened: the film has gathered a loyal cult following among fans of science fiction and horror. Hooper’s film fuses so many genre conventions that it resists classification—too strange for pure sci-fi, too grandiose for standard horror. The result is a striking and eccentric reinvention of the vampire myth, a lavish but uncanny blockbuster that feels imported from an alternate cinematic timeline.

The film begins squarely in the realm of science fiction. Conceived during the public fascination with Halley’s Comet ahead of its 1986 return, Lifeforce rode the wave of comet-themed media flooding the decade. Most were cheap cash-ins. Hooper’s film stood out for its ambition and its visual scale.

Coming off Poltergeist, Hooper received an unusually large budget—a far cry from the lean, feral energy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The story follows the crew of the shuttle Churchill as they discover a massive alien spacecraft hidden in the comet’s tail. Inside, frozen in suspended animation, are three humanoid figures. The ship’s dignified name feels ironic, even doomed; considering what’s to come, Demeter might have been more fitting. Like the sailors of Stoker’s novel, these astronauts inadvertently ferry an ancient predatory force home—yet this time, the threat arrives from the stars.

The horror unfolds once the crew retrieves its mysterious “specimens.” Members die in gruesome succession until only one survivor, Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), escapes in a pod back to Earth. Railsback’s performance is an intriguing mix of unhinged emotion and grim conviction. His intensity suits a film that constantly walks the line between pulp spectacle and cosmic tragedy.

When the story shifts to London, Lifeforce transforms into a supernatural thriller with procedural undertones. Peter Firth’s Colonel Colin Caine becomes the viewer’s compass: calm, authoritative, and determined to impose order on mounting chaos. As London succumbs to panic and outbreak, his steady professionalism anchors the outlandish events. His partnership with Railsback’s haunted, psychic Carlsen gives the middle act its volatile energy.

Among the supporting cast, Frank Finlay leaves one of the strongest impressions as Dr. Hans Fallada, a scientist fascinated by death and metaphysical energy. He serves as both philosopher and investigator, treating the vampiric invasion as a riddle of life itself. His restrained curiosity lends weight to scenes that might otherwise descend into absurdity. While the city collapses, Fallada studies the phenomenon with eerie calm, treating catastrophe as an experiment in cosmic entropy.

Patrick Stewart also makes a memorable, if brief, appearance as Dr. Armstrong, the head of a psychiatric hospital linked to the Space Girl’s psychic presence. His role builds to the film’s most grotesque and bizarre sequence: an exchange of minds, sudden possession, and an unnervingly intimate kiss with Railsback. The moment condenses everything Lifeforce represents—erotic, macabre, and unconcerned with boundaries. Stewart brings a gravitas that makes the absurd strangely compelling, a counterweight to Railsback’s volatility and Mathilda May’s silent allure.

May, as the unnamed Space Girl, says little but dominates the film through presence alone. She embodies an alien ideal of beauty and destruction, gliding through scenes with a composure that’s both sensual and predatory. Her nudity, much debated at the time, plays less as exploitation and more as elemental symbolism—the human body as an expression of both creation and death, desire and annihilation.

Supporting figures from the British military and government round out the ensemble, emphasizing the film’s descent into bureaucratic chaos. Michael Gothard’s Kane, a Ministry of Defence officer struggling to reconcile logic with the inexplicable, captures the helplessness of institutional order collapsing under cosmic threat. His pragmatic exchanges with Firth highlight competing instincts between reason and survival.

As the infection spreads, Lifeforce expands into a vision of urban apocalypse that fuses British science fiction and American spectacle. London becomes a nightmare tableau—crowds of shriveled corpses feed on energy while arcs of blue plasma swirl through the sky. The city’s fall evokes both George A. Romero’s zombie apocalypse and the metaphysical unease of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stories. Amid the insanity, Finlay and Firth remain the emotional touchstones, keeping the audience oriented as narrative logic begins to dissolve.

For all its ambition, however, Lifeforce suffers from erratic pacing and tonal whiplash. The first act unfolds with deliberate, moody wonder, then abruptly veers into frenzied exposition and psychic melodrama once the story reaches Earth. The balance between unsettling mystery and outright spectacle often collapses under its own weight. Scenes that should evoke cosmic terror sometimes tip into unintended camp, particularly in the dialogue-heavy middle stretch. Hooper’s direction, though visually imaginative, occasionally struggles to maintain coherence amid the script’s shifting identities—part creature feature, part disaster epic, part metaphysical drama. The editing, especially in the theatrical cut, undercuts tension with rushed transitions that leave emotional beats hanging. Railsback’s manic performance, while strangely compelling, can also verge on excess, blurring the line between conviction and chaos.

Tonally, the film wavers between awe and amusement. For some viewers, its earnest delivery will read as self-parody; for others, its collision of erotic horror and science fiction grandeur gives it a singular vitality. Lifeforce’s flaws are inseparable from its daring. It dares to fail boldly, and in that failure finds a kind of messy transcendence—larger than reason, too strange to fade.

In the end, Lifeforce lingers as one of the strangest hybrids of its era: part gothic fable, part erotic horror, part apocalyptic science fiction. It was too eccentric to find mainstream success, yet its sincerity and scope give it lasting resonance. The ensemble performances and tonal daring hold the film together, transforming potential chaos into something mythic—a story about possession, contagion, and humanity’s fatal pull toward the unknown.

Beneath its spectacle, the film engages in a deeper dialogue between gothic and cosmic horror traditions. Its characters represent a spectrum of responses to the incomprehensible: Fallada’s intellectual curiosity, Firth’s stoic resolve, Railsback’s frenzy, and May’s serene seduction. Together they form a portrait of human fragility in confrontation with the infinite. Where gothic horror finds fear in the collapse of reason, cosmic horror finds it in the vast indifference of the universe.

By fusing these lineages, Lifeforce becomes a mythic apocalypse that feels both intimate and vast—an encounter between flesh and void, terror and temptation. Its fusion of genres, ideas, and performances ensures its peculiar power endures, a reminder that some of the strangest failures of 1980s cinema are also its most visionary.

Review: A Dog Called Vengeance (dir. by Antonio Isasi)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I’ve always felt that a truly good movie should inspire the viewer to seek to confess something about themselves.  So here’s my confession.  When I was a toddler, I was mauled by a stray dog.  I don’t remember it, of course but I still have the small scars on my left arm as proof.  As a result, I’m scared of dogs and I always have been.  I jump when I hear one barking and the sound of one growling can easily set off a panic attack.  Whenever I see one nearby, regardless of whether it’s on a leash or not, my heart starts to race.  

For that reason, I suppose it was inevitable that a movie like the 1976 Spanish production A Dog Called Vengeance would get to me.

The film opens in an unnamed South American country.  Political prisoner Jason Miller escapes from a jungle prison.  As he flees, Miller runs into a tracker and the tracker’s dog, a German Shepard named King.  Miller kills the tracker and then continues to run.  King, after a few rather sad scenes in which he tries to revive his dead master, gives chase.

And that, in short, is pretty much the entire 108-minute film.  Miller runs and King chases.  Whenever Miller thinks that he’s safe (whether he’s taking a bath in a river or making love to a woman who has agreed to hide him), that relentless dog shows up and tries to kill him.   I have to admit that this movie did little to alleviate my fear of dogs because King is truly viscous.  The scenes were attacks both Miller and other assorted humans left me cringing and I don’t think it’s just a coincidence that Miller looks to be truly scared during some of the attack scenes.  King easily dominates the 1st half of this movie.

The 2nd half of the movie feels like a totally different movie from the first.  Jason Miller, having reached the city, is reunited with his comrades in the revolution.  Whereas the first half of the movie was almost wordless, the movie suddenly become a lot more talky as Miller and his associated debate the merits and morality of revolution.  Personally, I prefer the second half if just because a nice element of moral ambiguity is introduced here as it becomes pretty obvious that the “revolutionaries” are just as corrupt as the country’s dictator.  In the city, Miller finds himself still being pursued by his enemies but now his friends want him dead as well.  And, of course, that dog shows up again as well…

Anatonio Isasi’s direction is, for the most part, strong and Jason Miller (best known as Father Karras in the Exorcist) gives a good, low-key performance as the film’s lead.  But, of course, the real star of the movie is that damn dog and, despite not being a doglover, I have to admit that it did a pretty good job.  Not only did I believe that dog wanted to kill Miller but I believed that he easily could as well.  However, at the same time, it hard not to feel a little bit of admiration for King.  He was just so compellingly relentless in his pursuit.  It’s probably one of best unacknowledged canine performances in film history.

A Dog Called Vengeance is the epitome of the type of flawed yet oddly compelling film that could only have been made outside of the Hollywood system.  By refusing to shy away from showing either the full savagery of the dog’s attacks or in man’s response to those attacks, director Isasi manages to craft a political allegory that also works as a simple thriller.  By refusing to paint either Miller or the dog in purely black-and-white terms, he introduces a moral ambiguity that most Hollywood studios would never have the guts to even attempt.  Tellingly, the most shocking and disturbing scene in the film is not one of King’s many attacks on Miller.  Instead, it’s a scene in which our paranoid “hero” guns down an innocent dog while its 10 year-old owner watches in horror.

Unfortunately, A Dog Called Vengeance isn’t an easy film to find.  I saw it as part of the Grindhouse 2 DVD compilation and the transfer — taken straight from a VHS release — was terrible with frequently blurry images and terrible sound.  To a certain extent, this did give an authentic “grindhouse” feel to the experience of watching the movie but it doesn’t change the fact that it took a while to get used to just how bad the movie looked.  Luckily, the transfer seemed to improve as the film went on and, by the end of the movie, was no longer an issue.