A Quick Bite

I really like my new sidekick.

After my first "loyal" partner in cinematic crime decided to go all Nightwing and embark on a solo career due to those pesky "irreconcilable differences", I've been forced to go out in search for her potential replacement; the Flixmobile won't drive itself, after all. Well, my Jason Todd (no, that's not her real name) has finally arrived, and so far she seems perfectly suited to the role of following me around to watch films all the time (seriously, what does your sidekick do?). The big reason we've meshed so far is that, like me, she's a total sci-fi and comic book geek. Ask her anything about Babylon 5, Supernatural, or Doctor Doom and there's a good chance she'll be able to tell you the answer. That's why she and I saw Underworld: Awakening this past Saturday: it was HER idea, and my mind was blown. For me, this would be the first revisit to the modern-day vampire action series since 2003's release of Underworld in theaters. Despite some universally poor critical reviews, the film was hugely successful, enough to spawn off an even more disliked and profitable sequel and a prequel that broke records despite not featuring franchise star Kate Beckinsale. This new release (entirely in 3D, since that's apparently the new standard) takes place after the events of Underworld Evolution, promising some interesting, if not entirely original material for the audience to sink its teeth into.

You might want to get rid of that Axe body spray, boys

After Selene's (Beckinsale) actions in the previous films throw the remaining Vampires and Lycans (werewolves, for the uninitiated) into disarray, things pretty much go downhill. After centuries of remaining hidden from the human population, these supernatural creatures suddenly find themselves at war with their nominal food source. The sheer force the living bring down on the undead is staggering, and before long the few Vampires and Lycan left are hidden as deeply as they can to avoid detection. In attempting to leave the city with her hybrid love Michael, Selene and he are discovered and captured. Twelve years later, Selene awakes from cryogenic suspension to a world she barely recognizes, and the ongoing war between three foes has barely abated, leaving Selene to seek a new purpose in her unlife while trying to locate Michael once more.

Yes, the catsuit is back

Another Underworld film, another case of character development hell. Beckinsale is once again playing the role that arguably made her a star (yes, I know Pearl Harbor and Serendipity came out first; do you actually remember her in those?), and she returns to it as though to a second skin. Or second catsuit, whichever one might be tighter. Getting past the part where Beckinsale is indeed quite the visual masterpiece, her command of the role of Selene is the real reason to see this film. Her icy, commanding tone and suave and determined body language take charge and allow the film to successfully revolve entirely around her, a feat few performers can pull off. However, there's little here you haven't seen in her previous outings, and Selene's near-continuous search for Michael undermines her role as a strong woman to be reckoned with. Still, she's easily the strongest part of the film, for good or ill.

I doubt that pea shooter will do much...

It's too bad the rest of the cast has a difficult time keeping up with Becks. The closest in quality are almost polar opposites. Charles Dance plays a Vampire Elder who is distrustful of Selene's presence in the world, and wants to keep hiding until the Vamps can regain the strength they once had. India Eisley is Eve, a mysterious girl who is a hybrid (shares traits of both Vampires and Werewolves) like Michael, whose presence is thankfully explained quickly (if you've sight unseen already guessed where she came from, I guarantee you're right). While Dance is classic British theater and plays the role brilliantly as one, Eisley is far more raw, which allows her some interesting moments that are very different than her regular role on The Secret Life of the American Teenager. But the rest of the cast falls flat, from the young and excitable vampire David, played without conviction by Theo James, to Steven Rea as the film's uninspired antagonist, to Michael Ealy as a human police officer with deeper involvement than he'll let on. None of these characters inspire much in the way of interest, strength or intelligence, and if none of them return in future installments, I'll be quite happy with that.

Pregnant teenagers have NOTHING on this!

Let me just say how bad this movie is... no, I'm well aware how bad Underworld was. However poor you might think the original, at least the stylistic, moody settings and Vampire/Lycan backstory set it apart from a mythology that had been running on fumes of late. All of that is recycled in Underworld: Awakening, but piled on top are retreads of older, better sci-fi themes. The motherhood aspects of Aliens or Terminator 2? Yup, that's there. How about Resident Evil's evil super-corporation? Yeah, that's a major factor. In all, you could probably point to any scene and state what influenced that exact moment and how it was better in the original. It's not all bad, though: give credit to the series for never making an ass-kicking Selene boring, and the copious amounts of blood and gore present are the most realistic seen thus far. So for what it's worth, the serious lack of plot and believability (which would usually be a deal-breaker) are reliably replaced by purely aesthetic enjoyability, thanks to greenhorn directors Mans Marlind and Bjorn Stein.

Whatever you do, Kate, don't turn those to your right

After such a successful opening weekend, I wouldn't be surprised if this was not the last time we saw Selene and her bloodthirsty cohorts on the big screen. While it lacks in anything resembling depth or originality, I still had a lot of fun with Underworld: Awakening, and the 3D IMAX theater in which I watched it was the perfect atmosphere to take it all in. It also helps when the person you see a bad sci-fi flick with is also super-excited about what you both have just seen. But even if YOU don't have a loyal, sci-fi-loving sidekick, this film will soothe that nervous tick that only a full-bore action title can cure. It's the #2 film of 2012.

A reminder that this weekend is the Mr. Anderson Awards. Full honors will be posted Saturday, January 28'th, celebrating the best that 2011 had to offer! I hope to see you all there!

Whiteout: Attack of the Sub-Par Comic Adaptations

Typically, you can tell how popular comic series are by how quickly they are adapted into other formats. 30 Days of Night, Sin City, Wanted, Kick-Ass and 300 have all been turned into big blockbuster movies, and that doesn't even include all the big superhero movies or series of movies like Spiderman, X-Men, Wolverine, Punisher, Batman, Superman, Hulk, and the upcoming Thor, Captain America, Green Lantern, and The Avengers, not to mention Linda Carter's popularity on the Wonder Woman TV show. And of course, the Scott Pilgrim series gets released in cinematic form next month. Frankly I'm surprised the excellent Pride of Baghdad hasn't had it's movie rights bought yet. The studios see it thus: The readers and people who love these comics or graphic novels are a built-in audience, so making these movies would seem to be as close to guaranteed success as you can get (see: video game to movie adaptations). But unfortunately, the visions of comic creators and movie studio execs rarely commingle, and the result is often less than the sum of it's parts.

So let's take Whiteout, based on the Greg Rucka (Hellboy, Batwoman: Elegy) series of the same name. Right off the bat, studio execs didn't like the idea of two female leads, and so scriptwriters Jon and Erich Hoeber wrote in a male replacement into their screenplay. Apparently the studios were afraid that the movie would not draw large audiences if the film had two females in the leading roles. Apparently, these studio folks forget the critical success of Thelma and Louise. Not that it matters much, as in the film there isn't a scene not involving US Marshall Carrie Stetko (Kate Beckinsale), often with no other speaking characters around. She's pretty much the movie's compass, with others having little to add to the scenery of the film.

The movie takes place in the most unlikely of scenarios, an Antarctic murder mystery. At a geographical research settlement in the middle of nowhere, people are getting ready to leave before winter sets in. Among them is Stetko, who is resigning her place as Marshall on the base to go home. Before she can get ready to leave, she's informed that a dead body has been discovered and so she checks it out. It looks at first like he fell from a cliff to his death, but a strange stitched-up wound on his leg is odd, and on further investigation it looks like he took an ice ax to the chest. Further investigation leads to a group of scientists who were searching a remote area for meteorites but may have come upon something much bigger, and murder for greed is certainly nothing new.

All the while, a large storm approaches the base, threatening to leave anyone not gone when it hits stranded for the winter. It's here that Whiteout gets it's name, from the storm in which you can't see anything in front of you and you can freeze to death in seconds. It's this phenomena that may be the scariest villain of the film. If you get confronted by the ax-wielding murderer, you might get away unscathed. If you get caught outside by the whiteout, it's over. This however also leads to the biggest disappointment of the film; The snow effects are terrible. Both real and fake snow were used in the filming of the movie, but unfortunately it's extremely easy to tell the two apart. Certain sections (including a big outdoor storm scene) fail to look the slightest bit realistic, and in this type of movie, you need those effects to look their best, because the rest of the movie needs a distraction.

Now I haven't read the original graphic novel, so I can't make any informed comparisons between the original and the movie, but I find it hard to believe that the original story was so simple and formulaic. Worst of all, there is no real mystery. We find out everything at the same time as our protagonists, with no clues left for the audience to form their own theories before the mystery is solved. Worse, coincidence seems to be paramount, as everywhere Stetko goes, there's the black-covered ax murderer to stop a potential source of information from talking. And yet the only cringe-worthy plot point has little to do with the murders or the storm. In a minor plot piece a major character accidentally loses their gloves while being chased  by the murderer outside, and they suffer major frostbite on two digits of their hand and later must have them amputated. It's easily the creepiest part of the film and also shows the dangers of just being outside in Antarctica.

There's little to the special effects or the story, so acting has to save this movie, right? Sorry, no. Though Beckinsale does everything right in her lead role, the supporting roles are played by little-known actors such as Gabriel Macht and Colombus Short, and not because they're such great unknown actors. It's not their fault, really, it's just that the characters outside of Stetko are given so little, there's no real character for the other actors to cling to. Even Tom Skerritt is underused, as the scene-chewing ability he's gained from almost fifty years of movie making are largely unneeded here.

For a film that took almost ten years and three production companies to make and at one time had Reece Witherspoon in the lead role, I was still largely hopeful for this movie. But Kate Beckinsale has a reputation for picking poor films (Underworld, for all it's leather catsuit fun, was by far the best and hardly a great film, and I still want to see Vacancy) that is exacerbated by this one. I didn't have a bad time watching Whiteout, but I can't in good faith recommend it to anyone else, certainly not if you've already read the graphic novel. Even if you haven't, I'd recommend you read instead of watch, and leave it at that. Then watch X-Men Origins: Wolverine. See, now there was a FUN comic book adaptation.

Just as a note: I'm going to start taking recommendations for future posts of The Latest Issue. I'm still getting by with my own concepts, but if anyone has anything they want to recommend me to see, whether movie, game, comic or even book, you might see it in the future here on the site! For recommendations, just pop me an e-mail (it's in my profile) and thanks in advance for your contribution! I'd be nowhere without the people reading, and it's for you all that I'm still writing at all. So thanks again!