We are "A" Go

Seeing a movie in the theater is a trying experience.

Now I don't know if it's different in the suburbs' multiplexes and I know it's not the same as the above statement would suggest at smaller, independent theaters that would show you something like, say, Cyrus. I'm talking about the multiplexes in the city. I live in Boston, and when I want to see a big blockbuster movie, I head down to the AMC Loews Boston Common to watch it. And for the most part, the theaters are in great shape. Everything works. Then you take into account the people around you.

To be fair, most of your fellow viewers in the theater are quite normal. But all it takes is one pair of teenaged parents bringing an infant into a PG-13 movie or one guy shouting out "Yeah, boyeeeee!" When the guy on the screen gets the girl. It's annoying. It's disrespectful, and I can only think to myself how the hell do these people graduate to regular society? Be a jackass at home, leave the outside world to the more mature of us.

And that's what's wrong with watching movies in city multiplexes. And yet even those people can't disturb the image of one of the best action films I've seen in years. The A-Team is everything you expect, fantastic action, unbelievable circumstances, and, possibly most importantly, a believable group of friends who'd go to hell and back for one another in a heartbeat.

Director Joe Carnahan, producers Ridley and Tony Scott and original series creator and producer Stephen J. Cannell and their crew have done something amazing here. Not only did they create a fantastic action movie (lately an oxymoron with more examples than will be recounted here) but in the first thirty minutes they created a sequence that, rest of the movie be damned, I could watch back-to-back for days with a smile if I had to. That I could enjoy the rest of the movie after a chase on land and in the air is a tribute to the overall quality of the film, and the charisma of the characters.

Ah, the casting. It's always a challenge to cast actors when the parts they're trying to land are characters beloved by millions around the globe, perhaps most notably Mr. T's B.A. Baracus. So to land four actors who can perfectly embody the souls of such characters it's a glorious thing indeed. Starting with Baracus, we have an almost-unknown (except perhaps to fans of UFC or Pride Fighing) Quinton "Rampage" Jackson, who for all anybody outside Hollywood was going to be a disaster. And you know what? Label Jackson "B.A." right now because I honestly thought he captured the part perfectly. It helps that the character was written very faithfully to the original, complete with Baracus' fear of flying and physicality (though thankfully leaving out the gold chains). He truly pities fools and that's what the part needed to keep the film afloat.

District 9's Sharlito Copley was perhaps the surprise casting decision of the foursome. Copley, who's only prior major role had been in last year's Oscar-nominated sci-fi film, worked out great in Dwight Schultz's "Howling Mad" Murdock shoes. It helps that in District 9, Copley had to be a bit crazy, because that was a perfect lead-in to this role, which makes R.P. McMurphy look like the man on the street. Copley is afforded the best comedic dialog, which he delivers with perfect precision, such as in one scene in a customs gate in which he gets a chance to show off his Swahili, an allusion to his African descent.

The most unsurprising of the cast is possibly Bradley Cooper as the lothario Templeton "Faceman" Peck. Originally portrayed by Dirk Benedict, Cooper makes the perfect chameleon, able to mask his appearance via subtle methods and also seduce the ladies, his specialty. This is the first movie I've actually seen Cooper in (That's right, I've yet to see his breakout in The Hangover) and I was definitely pleased by his performance. He toed the line between charm and honesty perfectly, and the performance was all the better for it.

Finally we get to Hannibal. Who would have thought that such a distinguished and serious actor like Liam Neeson would do a film like this, but something must've been right in his mind, because he's here, he's awesome, and he kicks ass as John "Hannibal" Smith, the leader and brains of this rag-tag outfit on the run from the law and out to get back at those who set them up. Neeson, like the others, gives a fantastic performance, not allowing himself to be bogged down by his signature catchphrase. He comes into this role as a more believable military leader than in the original series (with respect to the late George Peppard) and doesn't fail to inspire us with his ability to totally become his character completely: There's Hannibal, and there's Neeson. Two different souls.

The cast is rounded out by Patrick Wilson as CIA operative Lynch (a reference to the original series' first season villain, Colonel Lynch) and Jessica Biel as Lt. Charisa Sosa, A DOD operative who once had a relationship with Face before leaving him and is now in charge of hunting him and his fellow teammates down. Both are good in their roles, with Wilson doing an outstanding job in developing his character throughout the film, and Biel being solid overall pulling double duty as Face's love interest as well as s serious hunter with killer instincts. She doesn't let feeling get in her way, and she could be the team's most dangerous enemy.

It may be somewhat unbelievable for a group of men to escape an exploding plane in the safety of a parachuting tank and then safely land in a lake in sed tank, but that's the A-Team. I don't expect normal people to do it, but then again, when were these people ever normal? Most importantly, the effects are actually believable, unlike those you occasionally see where it's obvious it's green screen, or it's obvious it's CGI, and so on and so forth. The effects actually feel fluid to the rest of the film, and it simply makes the experience even better. Some film editing, however, seems a little choppy, but that's just picking at gnats at this point. A great editing job would have secured the incentives, not nailed the contract.

The A-Team is not only a great action film, but a good movie overall with great effects, perfect casting and a sense of humor that didn't get too out of hand. I'm glad I was in the theater to see it, even if the jackasses of the world continue to congregate there. And on top of that, I saw for the first time theatrical trailers of Predators and Scott Pilgrim, so I came away with perhaps two future posts for you guys. It's win-win-win, and as Hannibal says early on, "I believe that no matter how random things may appear, there's still a plan."

 And I love it when a plan comes together.

There's No Place Like Home...

This week, The Latest Issue sets the WABAC machine for 2007, and the airing of the Emmy Award-winning miniseries Tin Man. This series was one I'd had my eye on for a while, but only providence and a Netflix streaming account brought it back to my immediate attention quite recently. Between the diverse cast and steampunk re-imagination of the original story, Sci-Fi's (now SyFy) huge miniseries event may have been three years late making it to my consciousness, but my interest in this piece did not wane even in it's absence from my immediate attentions.

The first thing you have to realize while watching Tin Man is that this is no Wizard of Oz. Whether you loved the original 1939 film or thought it was overrated, you can rest assured that while the spirit of the story is here (magic tornado sends girl to a mystical alternate world and she must find the Wizard), Tin Man is most certainly a total recreation, more inspired by the original idea than the story itself. It bears little to no resemblance to either the film or the series of L. Frank Baum books that created the whole franchise.

Zooey Deschanel stars as D.G., a waitress in the middle of nowhere, Kansas,  living with her loving parents while wishing for a more interesting life outside her family's farm. She's a fantastic artist, and constantly illustrates her fantastical dreams, which adorn the walls of her attic loft. Little does she know that there is another dimension, and it's evil ruler Azgadellia thinks D.G. is the only thing that can stand between her and total control of the O.Z., or Outer Zone. Unfortunately, Queen Azgadellia's plan to rid herself of this nuisance backfires, and D.G. finds herself alone and very shocked when she arrives in the O.Z. Gradually we're introduced to Glitch (Alan Cumming), a man with a zipper on his head and his brain removed; Raw (Raoul Trujillo) a "viewer" who's hairy race has been subjugated by Azgadellia; and Wyatt Cain (Neal McDonough), a "Tin Man", or lawman, who was locked up in an iron suit for defying the queen. They of course are this edition's representations of the Scarecrow, Cowardly Lion, and Tinman. They're all lacking in the same areas their previous incarnations had; While Glitch and Raw share the exact issues (a brain and courage), Cain's problems stem more in his coldness due to the loss of his family. Glitch even says to Cain at one point: "Oh, come on Tin Man, have a heart!"

Unlike in the earlier film, there's not much wait for our new quartet to reach Central City to speak to the Wizard (Richard Dreyfus), who was once the great ruler of Central City but has been reduced to a drug-addicted parlor act in the wake of Azgadellia's conquest. Throughout the story in which D.G. tries to understand who she is and where she belongs, there are many sly references to the first film (for instance, D.G. once refers to the O.Z. as being "in technicolor") that make their way seamlessly into the story, including a Toto you didn't see coming. For all that, it's never a show that you need to have seen the original movie or read the books to enjoy, though if you were to not understand at least half of the references I'd be forced to assume you were either naive or sheltered and only had these three episodes to keep you company. Either way you'd have no problem keeping up, the story is that easy to follow.

As for the acting, Deschanel is solid as the heroine placed in an impossible situation. She's not great, but I can't tell if that's just because watching her walk is unsettling. Remember the Seinfeld episode "The Summer of George"? When Molly Shannon plays the woman who doesn't swing her arms? Remember how that weirded everyone out? See, Zooey Deschanel is Molly Shannon. Good acting, dialogue delivered well. Doesn't swing her arms. She's regularly upstaged by her cast mates, which is a good thing. Cumming is very effective and perfectly cast as Glitch. If it was feasible for someone to not have a brain, Cumming could play them. In a heartbeat. He has regularly the best dialogue, and always delivers in spades. Trujillo is better known for his dance career, but of his sporadic acting appearances Tin Man might have been his biggest opportunity and he handled it with aplomb. There are fewer scenes for Raw to shine as compared to his friends, but what he does do, he does very, very well. McDonough rounds out the group admirably. Unlike Cumming or Trujillo or even Deschanel, he has to play the straight man, and for a man to play someone who's normal except for the fact that his surroundings are NOT normal to us is a challenge that he pulls off admirably. It's a shame McDonough has not had a star career that some might have predicted for him since his stint on 2001's Band of Brothers but his biggest role may not have been filmed yet: He's rumored to play Timothy Aloysius Cadwallader "Dum Dum" Dugan in the upcoming Captain America movie. He certainly did well by himself here.

Outside the main foursome, the casting gets a little weird. Kathleen Robertson portrays the evil Azgadellia, and unfortunately she's long on sexy and short on talent. As an evil sorceress, she's unbelievable, and that's not acceptable from a lead role. One of the more interesting things about Azgadellia are the tattoos on her chest. These tattoos are actually her flying monkeys and releasing them requires her to... um... unstrap her corset and shove her bosom at the camera. Then we see the tattoos change into flying monkeys and fly off. Well, at least Robertson had the cleavage (or at least outstanding support) for the role. Much better is Callum Keith Rennie (of pseudo-BSG fame) as Zero, captain of the guard who's got it out for Cain. He's the one who took Cain's family away and locked him in the iron suit in the first place, so their scenes together are definitely worth watching.

Then we get to the Wizard. I'm still not sure Dreyfus brought anything special to the role, though he certainly hammed it up a lot. Perhaps that was all the role asked for, so if that was it, he certainly did that. It's a success for Dreyfus just being in something good (Seriously, he's been in very few good things since Jaws in 1975!) so we shouldn't be too hard on him. He doesn't hurt the story, so we'll give him a pass. Other great performances by Blu Mankamu, Ted Whittall and a young Alexia Fast help add character to the story.

The world of the O.Z. is both beautiful and ugly, inspiring and reprehensible. It has many faces and many sides, and a populace to match. On the special effects side, much of the 3D animations are done very well, and the costume and set designers did quite well building places and people who would reliably inhabit these types of scenes, and should be commended (in fact, they won an Emmy for best makeup in a miniseries, and were nominated for four Emmys related to effects) for their hard work. The only instances that didn't look right or real were some blue screen moments, ones involving our heroes running and the camera looking up at them from below. It's painfully obvious that the actors are running in place, and the movement behind and above them looks like it's happening somewhere else, with the actor edited in later. It really kills the atmosphere when something like that happens. Thankfully, it's not often enough to really disassemble the otherwise outstanding visuals.

I may have been 3 years late reviewing this, but Tin Man was everything I hoped it'd be. Sure, some of the casting was a little skewed, and I'm sorry but the ending was a little anti-climactic (although perhaps ironically appropriate). What this series showed was just how much the Sci-Fi Channel could accomplish with it's own original material and an open license. After all, this is the same channel that's brought us Eureka, the new Doctor Who, and Battlestar Galactica, probably one of the best shows on TV, period. Tin Man, though not a regular series like the previously mentioned shows, had all it's strengths and was a lot of fun to watch. If you haven't seen this yet, I definitely recommend it.

Part Deux

In August, 2006, six chicks with picks descended into a cave system somewhere in the Appalachian mountains in the eastern United States. There, Juno (Natalie Mendoza), Sarah (Shauna MacDonald), Beth (Alex Reid), Sam (MyAnna Buring), Rebecca (Saskia Mulder), and Holly (Nora-Jane Noone) disappeared into caves deep within the mountains. There, they were tormented and confronted both by carnivorous human-like Crawlers deep beneath the surface and their own inherent distrust of the others. It was a great horror film, helmed by Neil Marshall, and despite good horror movies rarely being successful, The Decent raked in $8.9 million opening weekend en route to a $57 million worldwide gross. Sure, it's not Titanic, or even close, but with the exception of big Hollywood horror series like Friday the 13'th, Nightmare on Elm Street, Halloween or Saw, a small, indie, foreign horror film would be lucky to make a third of what The Descent made.

A sequel was never needed, but with the Descent's success, it was inevitable. And so in The Descent, Part 2 we once again meet Sarah (played once again by an excellent MacDonald), who has somehow found her way kicking and screaming from the depths of the mountains where after two days a search and rescue effort has been sent since she and her fellow spelunkers have not checked their equipment back in (It's not explained whether the US edited ending was used for the sequel, or the "true" original ending is canon). After Sarah is found, and seems to be suffering from amnesia, an effort is made to find the missing women, with Sarah brought along since she's the only one who's been to these caves. Why does Sarah have amnesia? Why, how else would she go BACK into the caves, then?

Right away, it's obvious we're on familiar ground. Neil Marshall may not have directed this sequel, but Jon Harris (in his directorial debut, but with tons of editing work on films like The Descent, Layer Cake and Snatch) knows how to use darkness as his medium once everyone's underground. It's always a strain to see ANYTHING in the darkness around the characters, and that's the way they want it. You'll see what you're meant to see, and if you're psyching yourself out waiting for something to jump out of the shadows, they're doing their job right. On top of that, we're also treated so several scenes we've seen before (if we've watched the previous film), such as the bone graveyard. Not that there's nothing new, we see much of the tunnel system we've never seen before, but it's nice to see these old touches that hearken back to the first film.

If there's one complaint I've heard about the original film, it's that the Crawlers were a stupid monster, not very threatening at all. Their "weakness", their blindness, was silly not because it's a cliche that they could then track by sound (despite not having any visually-obvious reason how their ears could register more than average) but that they couldn't track by any OTHER method; smell, for instance. Well, like or hate the cliche, the Crawlers are back, and they got a complete overhaul to make them look scarier, to actually make you think they COULD rip out your jugular with their teeth, which they do several times in this movie. For the most part, my reaction was positive, with Crawlers both scarier-looking and more individualistic, with no two looking quite the same. Some things should have been avoided (SPOILER: They just couldn't resist a big-ass-boss version of the crawler, could they?) but for the most part I was happy with the change.

If only I could say the same about the choice of cast this time around. While the six women in the first movie were all interesting and complex, the same can't be said about the meat that follow Sarah down into the mine depths. Sarah's forced amnesia is of course silly, but if it means McDonald is in the film, then fine. But the only remotely interesting members of the rescue expedition are the good-cop/bad cop duo. Bad-cop is Vaines of the Sheriff's department, played by Gavan O'Herlihy (Prince Valiant). Vaines is a big hulking brute of a man who tries to throw his authority around like he runs the place and secretly thinks Sarah has something to do with the disappearances of her fellow ladies (of course, even confronted with the crawlers, he still thinks Sarah's nuts) Good-cop is Deputy Rios, played by Krysten Cummings (a former Mimi Marquez on Broadway's Rent, she's making her film debut here). Rios is the compassionate one, and the one you sympathize with more when all is said and done. Sadly, the other three members of the rescue party are hardly worth mentioning, as they fail to capture even a glimmer of the likability or sympathy of the original cast.

Shauna McDonald said (and I'm paraphrasing from the special features) that she came in with the express goal of making a better film with The Descent, Part 2 than she had in the original. If she can't do that, she says, what's the point? And I certainly can't argue against that sentiment. If more sequels were better than the originals, the stigma against them in society would be far less. That said, The Decent, Part 2 is barely as good a film as the original, perhaps slightly less so. Despite the great work by MacDonald, the great set design, and a great launching point for Cummings to make her debut, the film slightly lacks. It lacks that chemistry the original cast had. It's missing the originality the first film truly possessed. And thanks to an ending that ultimately makes no sense (though perhaps setting itself up for a prequel), It's definitely not treading any new ground for future indie horror filmmakers to garner inspiration. But with the ground as eminently likable as this is, let's call it 4 out of 5 and say I was definitely happy overall. Definitely rent-worthy.

Game On

Yes, I watched Gamer. Yes, I know it was largely panned. Yes, the trailers looked poor and the movie seemed to be completely unimaginative. Yes, it seemed ridiculous, even. Yes, I had better options for movies to watch (Descent 2 being one of them). No, I'm not sure what I was thinking.

But I was curious. Here was another movie loosely based on the video game industry and reality shows (among other things) and a treatise about how jaded and unsympathetic our world may become if someone really wanted to take that next step.

Some time in the future, the real world sucks. It's a bleak place, with society in general mostly in the toilet. The only bright spots in the future are reality entertainment, created by multi-billionaire Ken Castle (Michael C. Hall). First, Castle created Society, a game not unlike the hugely popular Second Life in which the player takes control of a remote avatar and controls all their actions and interactions with others playing the game. Unlike the digital world of Second Life that people nowadays can subscribe to, however, those avatars are living, breathing people who are paid to be part of this fake reality.

We'll get back to Society later. The reason people tuned into this movie was Castle's other creation: Slayers. In Slayers, Death Row inmates are given the chance to compete in a real-life death match not unlike those in games like Team Fortress 2 or Day of Defeat. The idea is that if they survive 30 battles of Slayer, they get their prison sentences communed. The contestants don't control their own fates however, as their actions in-game are controlled by gamers on the outside. The best of these combatants is John "Kable" Tillman (Gerard Butler), an inmate we meet with just three games left until he can be released. His wife and daughter are on the outside, and are the only things keeping him sane. But even with freedom so close, as the story is told we learn that Ken Castle would very much rather not see Kable go free.

Gamer is a very different film. A large-budget film that feels like a movie half it's budget size, it portrays society in three different lights. The brightest of these shades is Society, where the colors are so vibrant, the sunlight so bright, that you can't help but feel it's fake and showy, which of course is exactly what was intended. The users in Society are portrayed as connoisseurs of the seven deadly sins, exposing themselves, fulfilling rape fantasies or setting up their avatar to suffer bodily harm and laugh as their blood spills from gashes. The people who would subject their bodies to this treatment are usually of the desperate variety, not happy with their predicament but so desperate to escape the cruel outside world that it seems largely appealing by comparison. On the other end of the spectrum is Slayers. It's a dark, gritty, violent existence, where color rarely permeates unless it's blood red. Death can come suddenly, and it's only by the skill of their controllers that the participants make it to the end, or the "Save Point". In between is real life, where it seems poverty is up and nobody seems happy unless they're watching or playing the latest reality PPV. It's arguably the bleakest of the three existences, as people are more than willing to escape into something else, and unwilling to change the things around them.

If there's anything I found surprising about Gamer, it's just how GOOD the movie actually is. The twin writing/directing of Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (Crank 1 & 2) is solid, especially the camera work, which was often done on the fly by either director. There are definitely some faults, but we'll get to those later. The casting, however, was the truly inspired part of this film. Of course Butler has since moved on to romantic comedies at this point, but this was his first big action hit after 300. He's really a force to behold both in his combat scenes and in his more insular scenes which are more of the film than you might go in expecting. Hall (Six Feet Under, Dexter) is fun as Castle, the villain. He really seems to enjoy being the bad guy here, and it's always good to have a "fun" villain. Amber Valetta (Hitch, Transporter 2) plays Angie, Kable's wife on the outside and works as an Avatar on Society to either pay the bills or escape reality, or both. She was truly the surprise of this film, as I never would have expected her to play this part with such depth, and there's a stark difference in her performance between when she is herself and when she's played by a lascivious user, as there should be. Kyra Sedgewick (The Closer, Justice League: A New Fronteir)  plays an unscrupulous TV reporter and talk show host who is seeking out Kable. Honestly, it's great to see her in a movie but her character is largely unimportant. At least she does it well. Logan Lerman (3:10 to Yuma, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief) is great as Kable's controller, a widely respected cyber-athlete who's only 17-years-old. He's portrayed as being pretty spoiled and naive in the beginning, but the character goes through changes as the story progresses and Lerman pulls it off very well. Christopher Brian "Ludacris" Bridges (Hustle & Flow, RocknRolla) rounds out the main cast, playing the leader of a (for lack of a better word) terrorist group who call themselves "Humanz" who oppose Castle's evil plans. Kable finds himself tugged between these two factions during the course of the film, and it's good that they are led by Hall and Brown, who are both charismatic and good to see on screen.

There were also a large number of recognizable D and E-List stars who made appearances throughout the film, and it was fun to recognize John Leguizamo (Spawn, Romeo & Juliet), Aaron Yoo (21, Friday the 13'th), Allison Lohman (Drag Me to Hell, Beowulf), Terry Crews (The Expendables, The Longest Yard), Keith David (Platoon, Mass Effect 1 & 2), Milo Ventimiglia (Heroes, Rocky Balboa), Sam Witwer (Battlestar Galactica, Dexter), John de Lancie (Star Trek: The Next Generation, Stargate SG1), and Zoe Bell, who has yet to truly get out from under the shadow of the best damn car chase scene EVER (Death Proof). Even though most of these characters did little to move the pace of the story forward, it was good to see so many recognizable faces, even if they were most definitely not big stars.

Now onto the bad stuff. To be fair, I only have two gripes with this film, but they're big ones.

Gripe #1:  One-dimensional bad guys

Remember how I praised Michael C. Hall's performance? I meant every word. He did an amazing job with that character. The problem was the character was a third-rate James Bond villain, all posturing and posing, never one to miss overlong speeches detailing his great plans and how wonderful he is. Even a surprise song and dance number near the end doesn't make him any more deep or complex, and his mindless exposition makes me wish he at least had an interesting second in command. No such luck, as his cronies are even more boring than he is. At then end, after the day is saved, the second in command says to the hero: "Well played." Yes, he says THOSE exact WORDS. No excuse.

Which brings me to the second gripe:

Gripe #2: Bad ending

There's not really any excuse for how badly the movie ended. The story leading to it was actually pretty good, cloak and dagger mixed with bullets and explosions mixed with exploitation. But the end felt mostly anti-climactic, without anything original, charming or intelligent, followed with a cliche hero driving off into the sunset. For the story to have done so well to end on such a sour note is distressing, after I'd been so pleasantly surprised with the rest of the content.

If you combined Gamer's strengths with that of a more popular summer movie in '09, say Terminator Salvation, you might have had a fantastic movie on your hands. Instead, the duo known as Neveldine/Taylor have made us a merely okay film, with a strong first half, good acting, and great action sequences and camera angles but marred by an incomplete second half and cliche ending. I don't regret watching it.

I just regret watching it FIRST.

A Film Jamboree!

It's been a busy week for me with movies. Between the Redbox and the old-fashioned movie theater, I've seen five movies this week, and that didn't even include some movies I've really wanted to see , such as Iron Man 2, The Losers, Descent 2 and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. With my week so filled, was everything I saw worth the viewing?

Pandorum was the first film I watched, starring Ben Foster (3:10 to Yuma, The Messenger) and Dennis Quaid (Vantage Point, The Rookie) as deep-space astronauts who awake on a broken ship, the Eden, with no memory from a long hyper-sleep and unable to get out of their sleep chambers and to the bridge, where they can assess the situation. Foster eventually escapes through some air ducts, but the situation only gets more dire, as he finds himself stumbling blind through a dying hulk of a ship, with something, or someone, hunting him.

 Pandorum didn't make too much at the box office (about $19 million gross worldwide, but the movie cost $33 million to make) and that's unfortunate. It's definitely difficult surviving as a sci-fi film these days if you're not directly descended from a popular author's library (Jurassic Park, Minority Report) or part of a popular franchise (Star Trek, Star Wars) or have big names like J.J. Abrams attached (Cloverfield). When a film is as good as Pandorum, that quality should be front and center, but it will always carry the stigma of being a sci-fi movie and non-sci-fi fans will never take part. Like the Oscar-overlooked Moon, Pandorum goes down as one of 2009's best ignored sci-fi films.

It's scary, but GOOD scary, with tension dripping off the screen as you feel you're in this dark, claustrophobic place with Foster and Quaid, waiting to see what insane thing happens next. Add atop that great support acting by Cam Gigandet (The O.C., Jack and Bobby), Eddie Rouse (Observe and Report, the upcoming Green Hornet) and the beautiful Antje Traue (in her first English-speaking film). Even former World Champion kick boxer Cung Le does a good job despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he doesn't speak a single English syllable the entire movie. Overall, Pandorum was a great way to start the week off, and I definitely recommend it to anyone who liked The Descent or Event Horizon, as comparisons to both are warranted.

2012, after seeing Pandorum, is cheese. No, wait, maybe it's not Pandorum's fault. 2012 may be just be cheese all by itself. but you know what? It's more like a sharp cheddar than a plain old American cheese. First of all, it's very visually pretty, and any movie in which you see a subway train fly through the air is completely worth price of admission. All in all, 2012 might just be the most fun movie I didn't see in the theaters last year.

2012, of course, refers to the widely-held obsession that the end of the Mayan calendar signifies the actual end of planet Earth. To that end we focus on an anonymous author played by John Cusack and his family as they escape destruction after destruction. Remember when you saw Titanic, and James Cameron forced you to watch the two least interesting people on the WHOLE SHIP when all you REALLY wanted to see was the damn boat sink? Well, here you go. To be fair, I might not be as critical if they had focused more on a couple of minor story lines that actually focused on other people but were almost completely discarded until they were needed, as means to an end as it were. One, about a Chinese family, is introduced in the very beginning but don't make any reappearance until at least the third act. The other involves a couple of elderly Jazz musicians on a cruise ship (great work in limited roles by Blu Mankuma and Geoge Segal) in the middle of the ocean who only make sporadic appearances. All in all, seeing Cusack's family escape danger after danger can get a little drab, as little is done in-between to ease the tension, especially when after the first BIG disaster scene, the tension actually scales DOWN rather than UP. The big climax is actually smaller than the FIRST one, which from a storytelling focus makes no sense, since you'd want to save your big guns for the finale. No such luck, which might not be much of a surprise from the director who ruined Godzilla for the western world (Rolland Emmerich).

But it's a movie I still loved. In fact, it taught me to love! I loved the special effects, big or small. I loved Chiwetel Ejiofor (Serenity, the upcoming Salt), the Jeff Goldblum of this movie.  I loved Tom McCarthy (The Wire, Boston Public), who had a sizable role. (What the hell, I just love the director of the underrated The Visitor) I loved Woody Harrelson's cameo performance, which was spot on. I even loved a Russian pilot named Sasha (Johann Urb).

That's not to say the movie has little in the way of problems. It's not usually my way to be all gender-focused and feminist, but like his former film Independence Day, the heroes are largely male-heavy. The few female roles act mainly as support systems for the male characters to hang onto. Just as Constance Spano and Mary McDonnell were sorely underused in ID4, so are Amanda Peet and the extraordinarily talented actress Thandie Newton in this film. The only remotely strong woman (the Vivica A. Fox character, to keep the metaphor going) is Lisa Lu (Joy Luck Club) who, after her big scene, promptly has no subsequent dialogue. Does it detract from enjoying the movie as a whole? No, but it surely does make you think afterward.

Despite these gripes, you're not watching 2012 for the social commentary. You're watching it for the cheese, to grip the arms of your chair and shriek as your hero once again escapes calamity. And despite not being as good as the aforementioned Independence Day, 2012 was a great by-the-numbers action flick which succeeds in getting it's point across with a maximization of body count. Worth renting and seeing on a good TV.

Am I the only one who believes a movie about Fallen Angels toting machine guns and blasting all hell from the Apocalypse, one starring Paul Bettany (Master and Commander, Young Victoria) to boot, should be a GOOD film? Apparently so, as there's little to recommend Legion to anyone with a pulse, not anything that you haven't already pretty much seen in the trailers, anyway.

The cussing old lady? The one who turns puts the bite on a guy and then goes crawling on the ceiling in all freaky fashion? And the ice cream man, the one with the elongated limbs and the stretched out face? Yeah, those parts, which combined last all of three minutes, are the BEST parts of the movie. And they're in the TRAILER. Actually, come to think of it, there is one more good part, but I'll keep that under wraps so perhaps someone else will join me in my misery which is this film. Oh, and Paul Bettany. He was good too. Awesome, in fact. But he's just not enough.

The story, for anyone who hasn't already watched the trailer, is thus: Almighty God, pissed at us for all the bullshit humanity carries out on a daily basis, sends his Angels to Earth to wipe out mankind.The only one to defy his order, Michael (Bettany) makes his way to Earth ahead of the invasion force and seeks out an unborn baby who would be mankind's salvation. That baby is currently in the womb of Adrianne Palicki (Friday Night Lights), who up to this point was considering giving up the baby for adoption since she has trouble taking care of herself, working in a greasy-spoon diner in the middle of nowhere. It's at this diner that pretty much everything happens.

The problem is it doesn't matter what big names you get to fill out your roster (Dennis Quaid, Charles S. Dutton, Kate Walsh, Tyrese Gibson) if you don't care enough about them when they die. For a film that was supposedly the "baby" of director Scott Stewart (What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, the upcoming Priest), it's not well done, especially the storytelling aspect, which ends, but not in any ways remotely satisfying. Even the arrival of Kevin Durand (Lost, 3:10 to Yuma) as Archangel Gabriel is nowhere close to how well he played Martin Keamy (which will now forever be his signature role). All in all, Legion is a mess from front to back, with very little to recommend this movie or be hopeful for any of Stewart's future projects.

The one movie I actually saw in the theater this week, Kick-Ass, might be the best of the bunch. It's equal parts action film and nerd fantasy shtick, as any true comic fan has thought at least ONCE about what it would be like donning a costume and becoming their favorite hero.Great storytelling, combined with perfect casting and adapted well on the same-titled graphic novel by Mark Millar (who's excellent Wanted I reviewed two years ago), it's no surprise that a sequel has already been announced for release in 2012.

Kick-Ass follows Dave Lizewski (Aaron Johnson), a normal kid who's grown tired of living in a world where crime pretty much does at it pleases and nobody will stop and intervene in a crime taking place. So, he dons a costume, gets his ass kicked in fights, but nevertheless earns a reputation for the work he does, knocking petty thugs down a notch. This in turn gets him noticed by crime boss Frank D'Amico (Mark Strong), who targets Kick-Ass thinking him the source of his late difficulties distributing his drugs throughout New York City.

The real star of this movie, despite star turns by Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Superbad, Role Models) and "star" Nicholas Cage for the celeb factor, is thirteen-year-old Chloe Grace Moretz (Dirty Sexy Money, (500) Days of Summer) as Hit-Girl, foul-mouthed martial arts expert who can handle a firearm better than most adults and wants a butterfly knife for her birthday. She calls a roomful of grown thugs "cunts" and can single-handedly take down a whole warehouse full of armed goons in the dark. The movie may mostly focus on Johnson as the titular hero, but make no mistake, it's Moretz's character that keeps the story moving forward, and she steals every scene.

I don't want to give anything away for people who haven't seen this film yet (I don't know who you are, but my theater was fairly packed, so obviously there are some out there) so if you're in that category please please PLEASE see this film and let me know how it rocked your world.

In Daybreakers, last year's under-the-radar release by German directors Michael and Peter Spierig, vampires are the norm of society. As the opening tells us, humanity was given a chance to assimilate. They refused, and now it's estimated that of the world's population, only about 5% are human. Enter Ethan Hawke (Training Day, Hamlet) as Edward Dalton, a vampire who hates what he is, trying to create a substitute for human blood before the world runs out, and flat out refusing to drink human blood himself. Knowing he's in the minority and has no chance to change the way of things, one accident will change his future in ways he never would have imagined.

The great thing about the setup here is the society portrayed. Vampires treat the world around them the same as they did before they turned: They get up, they go to work, have their morning coffee (with a shot of type O, of course), and otherwise have extraordinarily boring lives. Soldiers go out into the world to hunt rogue humans to bring them back and harvest their blood. It's a bleak time for humanity. But something even darker lies underneath, only showing itself when there's almost no blood left in the world.

With such an original story and message to convey, you'd have to screw up royally for this movie not to pop, and with low-budget indie films like this, that happens more often than not. Fortunately, the Spierig brothers are extremely talented in not only bringing out the best in their actors' performances, but also in the scenery they create, the final product matching their visions beautifully. Hawke is perfectly cast as the conflicted Dalton, who refuses to partake in the extermination of the human race even as he knows that without human blood or some substitute, vampire society as he knows it is over. Other great performances from Willem DeFoe (Spider Man, Shadow of the Vampire), Sam Neill (Jurassic Park, Event Horizon) and Australian actress Claudia Karvan (Star Wars Episode III, Aquamarine) flesh out a cast that really come alive (or in a vampire society, is it the other way around?) in their performances. Neill especially chews the scenery with a sparkle in his eyes, and it's not just the special contacts he's wearing throughout.

In essence, Daybreakers is about us needing to adapt to survive. With resources only so finite, we have to ask ourselves how we would react were our dwindling supplies suddenly to run out.

When all is said and done, I've seen five movies over the span of a single week and that definitely means I'll be taking a break from them with the completion of this post. Most of the films were good or at least enjoyable with only Legion breaking my heart, but the best overall I think was by far Kick-Ass, with Daybreakers and Pandorum neck and neck at a distant second. With many big things happening in the future (The Lost finale and the recently released Robin Hood come to mind) I'll be looking forward to sharing my ideas and info with you in the future.

Until then, have a fun time.

XIII, Not so Unlucky

I finally started what I hope will be a long and fortuitous relationship with Redbox today. I went with one sole purpose: to rent a copy of Pandorum, which I hoped they would still have. They did, and while I added that to my cart, I decided to check if they had anything else in stock I might be interested in. Doing so, I saw they had something that I'd seen on shelves before and had been intrigued at it's very existence. It was XIII: The Conspiracy, and frankly, I had no idea why this story had been co-opted yet again.

For those of you who don't know, XIII was originally a Franco-Belgian comic book series written and drawn by Jean Van Hamme and William Vance, both with long careers in the European detective comics scene. But that's not from where I happen to know know XIII. In 2003, Ubisoft - a computer games company responsible for developing several outstanding titles including Splinter Cell, Prince of Persia, Brothers in Arms, Far Cry, and Beyond Good and Evil - adapted the comics into their own game, also called XIII. In it, the player assumes the identity of an amnesiac struggling to rediscover his past, the only clue to his identity being a tattoo on his chest reading XIII. The game appeared on several gaming platforms as well as PC and Mac, and is played from a FPS (First Person Shooter) perspective, and with a unique cell shaded look that was far different to watch than anything else on the market that year. It also featured the voice acting talents of David Duchovny, Eve and Adam West. Sadly, poor sales have all but guaranteed that despite it's "To be Continued" ending, no sequel has been announced and it seems extremely unlikely that there will be a followup.

Gratuitous head shots were often the most satisfying part of XIII, as shown above.

Back to XIII: The Conspiracy, though. It was developed as a Franco-Canadian two-episode miniseries directed by longtime TV director Duane Clark that originally aired in France during October 2008 and aired in the States on NBC in February of 2009, though I have no recollection of that. NBC was desperate for shows even then, I'm sure. Stephen Dorff (Deuces Wild) plays the titular XIII, completely without memory but also the prime suspect in the assassination of the President of the United States (Mimi Kuzyk). On the topic of the female President, this is definitely one difference from the game, which had been essentially set up with the idea that XIII had murdered the Prez in Dallas... from a book depository... I think you know where I'm going here. The late President's brother even had a thick New England accent in the game, if you want it even more clear. Obviously the filmmakers didn't want to have that kind of controversy, so instead we see an affluent white woman with no discernible accent become the dead President (and this was filmed before the 2008 Presidential election, mind you, when Hillary Clinton was still in the running). As Rorschach might say, "Hrm."

The story splits to many different viewpoints, from the confusion of the amnesiac XIII, to Acting President Galbrain (John Bourgeois) as he and his cabinet try to track down the president's killer while also fending off political opponent (and the former President's brother) Walter Sheridan (Ted Atherton) in the upcoming election, and then to General Carrington (the excellent Stephen McHattie) who may know XIII's identity, and may or may not be his only ally in the world. Add in a conspiratorial bunch with a lot of power to make things happen (like presidential assassinations) with the face of their enforcer The Mongoose (Val Kilmer) hunting down Dorff, and you have the idea that nothing is what it seems, that everyone and everything you think you know is suspect.

And that's what XIII has always been about. It's easy to see where the inspiration for the series came from, very Jason Bourne in it's execution, right down to the close-up fight scenes where you can barely tell what's happening, it's going so fast. It's also good to see that much of the characters from the game have been faithfully interpreted for use in the series, from Mongoose, to many of the conspirators, to Carrington and several other minor characters.

Dorff, who I'd never seen good in anything before, is surprisingly likable and sympathetic as the numerical assassin who is trying desperately to find out who he is. Kilmer, as the villain Mongoose, is however a laughingstock. I'm reminded of the episode of the Simpsons where Rainier Wolfcastle responds to weight criticism with: "It's for a movie! I'm playing a fat secret agent!" That's Val. Always overrated, Val used to have his looks for fall back on. Not now. All the peripheral characters are mostly only okay, with the exception of McHattie (a longtime scene-chewer who some might remember as the original Nite Owl in Watchmen) as a perfect General Carrington. The story is surprisingly gripping for a poorly-shot, overly fading to black miniseries that WANTS to blow you away but occasionally LOOKS like the bad film it's production values aspire to. In short, it's okay. If it had been filmed by Uwe Boll, I'm sure it would have been terrible. With someone of at least average talent at the helm, it's turned out surprisingly well.

As a miniseries that owes more to it's epic source material than it's own ingenuity and originality, XIII: The Conspiracy that is still surprisingly watchable in one sitting, with enough surprises and enjoyable storytelling that you won't regret having seen it... especially if you only pay $1 to rent it. And you can't go wrong going  back to purchase the XIII game, though right now it might only be available on Ebay.

Enjoy.

Target This

Successful television shows focusing on pure action are rare to see today. It seems every season there are three more coming on the air, usually as mid-season replacements for shows the network actually wanted, and they're gone before too long. Mostly such cancellation is truly warranted, as there's a good reason the show was never supposed to air in the first place.

Not so with FOX's Human Target. Based on the I assume little-known DC Comics character Christopher Chance (I didn't even know that much until the end of the first episode when the DC logo flashed on the screen), Human Target is a heady ride of thrills and chills that never lets down unless it's to unleash a witty repartee. Leading the way is uber-hunk Mark Valley (Boston Legal, Fringe) as the aptly-named Chance, as he's constantly taking chances to protect the clients who hire his bodyguard services. Right from the opening scene of the series we get the full feel for this character, an American James Bond (Daniel Craig style, thank you) with the right words and a plan for every scenario. The only thing we don't know is why he continually risks everything to save his clients, seemingly with no regard for his own well being. That will probably be something explained in future episodes.

The Bond connections link fast from the opening credits, which seem to borrow heavily from the Bond psychadelic themes that are so well known (complete with femme fatale ink-blot) and giving it a slightly American action hero twist. That's the best I can explain it, but it sure looks good. And add Bear McCreary's always good themes to the mix, and you've got an entertaining soundtrack. Bear's work may not be as unique or innovative as his work on Battlestar Galactica with it's booming crecendoes or Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles' blend of old-meets-new score, but it's good and I never doubt Bear's skills to set the mood and get me excited for some action with a few notes.

I'm sure someone out there thinks Mark Valley is just a pretty boy, but I tell you he is perfectly cast here. Carrying off Chance's charm and bravado may seem like an easy assignment, but the character is so complex and multi-faceted (while, yes, at first appearing simple) that it's a credit to Valley that not only does he pull it off, he truly becomes Christopher Chance. Chi McBride can only play one character type, but he does it well. That's all I'll say about that. What may really get geek fans watching this show, however, is third member of the cast, Jackie Earle Haley. Movie snobs might know him as the Academy-award nominated actor for playing pedophile Ronnie McGorvey in Little Children, but the rest of us know him (and love him) as Rorschach, one of the few reasons that Watchmen was, well, watchable. Once again he's inside a character so completely that if you hadn't seen his name in the opening credits, you'd never know who he was. A true chameleon, there doesn't seem like much wrong Jackie can do.

The show's not without it's problems. With only three principal characters, the show's main method of survival will probably rely on more guest stars than a Law & Order marathon. And no, while sci-fi geeks will love that Battlestar actors Tricia Helfer and Donnelly Rhodes (A better space doctor than McCoy, you heard it here first) appeared in the pilot, getting higher-rated actors to appear would no doubt attain a more mainstream audience and pay the bills. Also, with the possible exception of Chance's mysterious past, there doesn't seem to be anything akin to an overarching plot to attatch episodes to, raising questions as to what keeps us watching, what keeps the story moving forward.

But this was just the pilot, and it's early. Hopefully fans will watch, hopefully FOX won't cancel another promising series before it really hits it's stride. Come on, FOX.

Take a Chance.