Netflix – Page 16 – Blue Ink Alchemy

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IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Avatar

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Some of the best stories out there are simple stories that are well-told. A straightforward plot doesn’t necessarily make for a bad escapist experience, if there are elements of that plot that transcend its simplicity. Take District 9, for example. Aliens come to Earth in bad shape and they’re exploited by corporate douchebags. Simple, right? Yet that story is so well told, expertly executed and subtle in its soapbox moments that the simplicity of the story can be completely ignored. How about Daybreakers? Alternative energy sources are good things, we get that, but the point is made without distracting from the fact that the lack of energy in that film’s characters causes them to bite people’s throats open, and getting Willem Dafoe in a 1978 Firebird Trans Am with an arsenal of crossbows to go after cannibalistic bat-monsters is so cool I don’t care what soapbox he’s standing on.

Avatar is no District 9. Avater is no Daybreakers. Without its stunning visuals, embarrassingly good hero cast and the word of mouth given by legions of fans whose eyes were short-circuited thanks to the insidiousness of 3-D, this film wouldn’t have a blue spindly leg to stand on.

Avatar introduces us to Jake Sully, the reluctant brother of a scientist who was gunned down in a back alley mugging. Jake’s brother, a twin, was part of the research team interested in making contact and establishing relations with the native population of Pandora, a moon 6 or so light-years from Earth. Earth has become something of a strip-mined deforested smog-covered pipe-dream-of-the-military-industrial-complex wasteland, and humanity is hungry for more resources. Luckily, Pandora is home not only to a thriving, vibrant, nature-conscious sentient race of ten-foot-tall aboriginal blue feline humanoids called the Na’vi but also a universal powers-anything totally-not-an-allegory-for-oil mineral called Unobtainium. In order to mine their MacGuffinium, the corporation in charge needs to move the Na’vi off of rich deposits. Jake’s brother was part of the Avatar program, designed to reach a diplomatic solution. Right behind them, though, are butch manly gun-happy violence-for-pleasure-seeking beer-swilling cigar-chomping Americans. Okay, they’re probably not ALL Americans, but I think you can see where I’m going with this.

Anyway, Jake’s a paraplegic and he’s told that if he helps get the Na’vi to abandon their homes that sit on top of the Plotdevicium, they’ll pay for the spinal operation to restore function to his legs. Unfortunately, somebody’s been looking at way too much shiny Plotconveniencium because they didn’t realize that an avatar, a genetically grown artificial body composed of both human and Na’vi DNA, not only gives Jake his legs but also enhanced senses, a USB interface with the world’s wildlife and, oh yeah, makes him a ten foot tall warrior crystal dragon Jesus. Nice work there, guys.

“Sam, go over there and emote. I’ll stay back here and think about how much money this movie’s gonna make me.”

Before I get to what bugs me about the film, let’s talk about what works in it. The visuals, as I’ve said, are jaw-droppingly gorgeous. The eco-system of Pandora is designed to take one’s breath away, and it certainly does do that job. There’s an organic feeling to everything that belongs on Pandora. By the same token, the sense one gets from the human contraptions, from the modular buildings to the badass fighting mechs, is that these were welded or hammered together by human hands, not assembled in a graphics program on $300 million’s worth of computers.

The other really good thing about Avatar is the cast. I’m not just talking about Sam Worthington, who’s quickly becoming someone I really enjoy seeing on screen but needs to stop attempting an American accent, or Sigorney Weaver, who’s right at home being in a film like this. (Oh, and side note, thank you James Cameron for putting Michelle Rodriguez in Na’vi war paint. Rawr.) No, the Na’vi themselves are rendered beautifully. Now, I know they were pretty much designed to be appealing to a human audience in an aesthetic, emotional and sexual way, but that doesn’t stop the end result from being impressive. I think it was pretty clear from the outset that if the Na’vi and their world didn’t truly come to life, even on the flat screen upon which I saw it to say nothing of 3-D, the whole opera’d fall apart. Thankfully, Pandora and it’s flora and fauna do pull you in, and the scenes in the lush, luminous forests are some of the most immersive I’ve seen in quite some time.

This guy’s evil. You can tell because he drinks coffee while burning down trees.

But just like the fist of an angry corporate-funded gung-ho jarhead trying to punch his way to a deposit of Bullshitium, the illusion of Pandora’s perfection is shattered by so many bad story elements it’s difficult to say where one should begin. There is no way in hell this operation should run the way it does. Too many military and money-grubbing types are at the top while the scientists who might actually have a clue as to what humanity has stumbled across are treated like a nuisance rather than an asset. If it weren’t for the fact that these bozos exist for the same reason Adhominemium does, it’d be completely incomprehensible how these clowns even got off of Earth, let alone ended up in nominal control of Pandora. But James Cameron has a point to make here, and as much as he spared no expense bringing his vision to life, he pulls no punches in letting us know exactly what he’s trying to say, about whom and why it’s bad. Those bombs in the back of the shuttle in the film’s climax might as well be goddamn anvils.

The villains’ aren’t just evil for evil’s sake. Oh, no. They’re evil for America’s sake. Beyond the obvious “respect for nature” message and other aspects of the story discussed to death elsewhere in other reviews, parodies, tired internet memes and episodes of South Park, Avatar does everything within its power to underscore the major flaws in the neo-conservative movement. The villains see the worlds before them in black and white, foster a strong “us versus them” mentality, disregard a multilateral approach to solving their problems and opt instead for military intervention in the extreme. I’d say that the corporate stooges were Germans and the Na’vi Polish Jews, if it weren’t clear Cameron were going after Bush-era Americans instead of Nazis. Hell, at one point, Colonel George Herbert Walker Whatever-The-Hell-His-Name-Is uses the words “shock and awe” when discussing his pre-emptive war. It’s clear that James Cameron is underscoring the evils of deforestation and corporate greed. But hey, these are Americans we’re talking about, and they on the whole really don’t give a shit. Deforestation is only something that happens in other countries that didn’t have the good fortune to be America, and Americans love themselves some corporate greed. Just look at how our banks and real estate markets are set up.

“So wait, there’s no civilian oversight and your career military men are basically mercenaries? Come here, let me teach you the Na’vi word for ‘Bullshit’.”

The interplanetary love story is a bit trite, but it works because it’s well-acted. We do feel something is at stake during the action sequences and they’re not confusing at all, being well-shot and choreographed, but the messages that drive the action are so obvious and ham-handed you can hear the bacon sizzling when the Hometree burns. All in all, there’s stuff to like in Avatar and it’s worth seeing for the visuals and sweeping sci-fi/fantasy warfare that honestly rivals some of the set pieces in Lord of the Rings. So put it on your Netflix queue.

Oh, and don’t worry about not seeing it in 3-D. Let’s face it, 3-D’s a fad. It was a fad back in the 50s and it’s a fad right now, people are just a bit thicker than they were back then so it’ll take somewhat longer for the fad to go away this time. I mean, look at the way some people reacted to Avatar. Other than the immediate declaration that it is THE BEST MOVIE EVER and dumping piles of money and adoration on James Cameron, who probably can’t get it up unless he’s contemplating how fucking brilliant he is, some people actually fell into suicidal depression when they beheld the landscape of Pandora and had to be told it’s not real. I was personally reminded of some of the vistas from games like Aion and World of Warcraft, which makes me a pretty massive nerd in case that wasn’t clearly obvious. While I could see a lot of the flaws in this movie – I didn’t even mention the weird application of physics on Pandora, what with floating mountains and “low gravity” that operates just like Earth’s gravity – I still enjoyed it, which I guess means I’m powered by just as much Retardium as anybody else.

Spotting the flaws, though, and calling them out without mentioning all of the other films Avatar plundered like Doctor Frankenstein in a graveyard looking for fresh parts, probably means my internal derp furnace is running a bit low.

Josh Loomis can’t always make it to the local megaplex, and thus must turn to alternative forms of cinematic entertainment. There might not be overpriced soda pop & over-buttered popcorn, and it’s unclear if this week’s film came in the mail or was delivered via the dark & mysterious tubes of the Internet. Only one thing is certain… IT CAME FROM NETFLIX.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Octagon

May 14, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 0 Comments

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Ninja…

I wasn’t sure I was going to be doing this. Reviewing a Chuck Norris film from 1980 involves two problems. One is that diehard fans of the martial arts genre might chalk a lot of the problems with The Octagon up to different standards of production and fight choreography from 30 years ago. The other is that saying bad things about Chuck Norris might have fans of the most memetic badass ever to be referenced on the Internet trying to sneak into my bedroom in black pajamas to practice their neck-snapping techniques on something other than the local squirrel population. However, given that the past week has been somewhat chaotic with moving and changing commutes and ensuring my cats know to attack wannabe ninjas on sight, I really have no choice but to review The Octagon.

Chuck Norris is Scott James, a martial artist and former soldier who’s hung up his nunchuks to lead a more peaceful life doing odd jobs and helping out in the community. His last mission put him in the unfortunate position of watching his best friend get murdered, so it’s no surprise that he’s been trying not to punch people in the face to earn a living. However, his past catches up with him when a wealthy & good-looking woman meets him almost by accident and recruits him to take care of some mercenaries who want her dead. It turns out that these mercs are actually part of a vicious group of terrorists who have been trained in the deadly and ancient art of the Ninja, an art Scott himself learned as a boy with his brother, or possibly just a rival, or maybe he’s an Easternized clone or something. He’s played by Tadashi Yamashita. Anyway, it turns out that this other guy from Scott’s past is behind the ninja, and only Scott can punch, kick and slice his way to the truth, or justice, or the end of the plot at the very least.

Let’s get a little praise out of the way first. Chuck Norris knows action. When the scenes that involve Chuck and a fight happen, they’re engaging. It’s nice to know that this was all practical effects and stuntwork. The lack of wire fu and CGI not only means that these guys worked their behinds off to make the scenes work, it also lends an old-fashioned charm to the action. And the action is pretty much all The Octagon has going for it. When you first see Chuck and realize he is without his beard for this film, you know you’re in trouble. He really could have used that extra fist.

Not that he couldn’t give every terrorist in the world a roundhouse kick to the face without his beard, but seriously, it’s a sure sign of trouble.

This film has a real pacing problem. A long, tedious and overly wordy scene of exposition will cut inexplicably to the training at the ninja camp, which seems like it might be building up to some real tension or at least a bit of action. Then, WHAM, right back to awkward exposition. It makes the film frustrating to watch, and this was after I’d had a few beers in me. Normally at that point I’d be willing to admit that Jumper has some interest effects or that I like Jason Statham and Ray Liotta even when they’re in something like In The Name Of the King while laughing at the badness. I wasn’t laughing at The Octagon. I was too confused to laugh.

At one point, you get to see what good actors and bad actors do in a movie like this. Lee Van Cleef, pretty much the ‘go-to guy’ for classic Western villainy, tries to breathe a little life into his role and the film in general with his smirking gun-loving militia type character. On the other end of things, you have Karen Carlson, and… wow. If you ever feel the need to suffer through a performance that makes Hayden Christensen look like Harrison Ford, look no further. Using the words ‘stiff’ and ‘wooden’ to describe this woman’s work in this film would incur the wrath of corpses and trees alike, and I’ve already got to be on the lookout for ninjas. Her character is an utter contrivance, a walking plot device of the worst kind and she just sucks what little life there is right off of the screen. Those overly long and tedious expository scenes I mentioned that make you forget this is a martial arts flick? She’s in most of those. And Chuck looks just as bored as we feel when he’s in them.

I think Lee was bored, too. I think he got his ear pierced during production just to stay awake.

Speaking of Chuck, if The Octagon is to be believed, there’s a huge echo chamber in his head. When we hear Scott’s inner monologue, it’s in a hushed tone of voice that bounces around between the speakers because apparently the makers of this film wouldn’t know good storytelling if it sat in their laps and offered a happy ending. Instead of showing us the moral conflict of the protagonist through any number of film-making tools, Chuck narrates his character’s feelings, and his tone of voice is so soft, the echo so ridiculous and the accompanying score so melodramatic that you need specialized ninja training just to understand what the fuck is going on. We are told things, over and over again, instead of being shown, and this extremely bad form of telling a story coupled with the tedious expository scenes and inexplicable jumps between locations makes the whole affair almost sickening in its badness.

After over an hour of this crap I was ready to consider the whole thing a failure on the scale of Attack Of The Clones. But at the very end, The Octagon seems to wake up from some sort of ninja-induced torpor and suddenly starts kicking ass. Well, Chuck does, at least. The last twenty minutes of this film has somewhat decent action, with Mister Norris infiltrating the ninja camp and confronting Yamashita-san. There’s a hefty dash of good atmosphere, some suspense and even a little drama. However, when the confrontation is over, so is the movie. It’s an ending so abrupt and inexplicable I can’t even put it into words. Also, when the climax occurs it’s clearly nighttime, but after the fight ends we see Chuck Norris sihouetted against what it clearly a sunset. Did the director think that a sunset and a sunrise were interchangable? Did they believe that fans of Chuck Norris would be too dazed by post-masturbation afterglow to notice the difference? Were they high?

Kyo, here, shows us that the most badass of ninjas have no subtlety whatsoever in their fashion sense.

We also get no real explanation as to how the conflict between Chuck and Tadashi began. We see what we assume is a mini-Chuck and mini-Tadashi being trained in flashbacks, with rivalry and lessons learned blah blah faux brotherhood blah blah I will never forgive you blee. I was reminded of the rivalry between Ken & Ryu in the Street Fighter series of video games, and you know what? I’ve read Street Fighter fanfiction with better characterization, pacing and action than this film, and no I’m not talking about that one where Zangief bends Blanka over a bench press. Or where Cammy is telling Chun-Li she doesn’t need a man in her life and can take care of her own needs. Wait, what was I talking about? Oh, right, The Octagon.

The forum in which I saw The Octagon was perfect. There were lots of friends, beer aplenty, and easy access to the bathroom should vomiting commence. Do NOT watch this film alone. Not even the mighty roundhouse-kick-to-the-face beats-the-odds-with-his-fists kidney-liquefying-glare-delivering power of Chuck Norris can save it. If you can find a way to just watch the last 20 minutes without sitting through the awful first three quarters, that’d be a fun lunch break. But you might still want someone to watch your back. You never know when your viewing of a film involving ninjas that reveals their secret, ancient and deadly training will be interrupted with a ninja sneaking into the room and breaking your neck.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Adaptation.

May 7, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 2 Comments

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In case you didn’t know, writing is difficult. It’s grueling on an intellectual level, isolating on a social level and ultimately unrewarding in terms of both criticism and payment. Despite the banality of their works, Stephenie Meyer and Dan Brown are rarities, in that they’ve managed to make fortunes for themselves (and, in Ms. Meyer’s case, the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints) in the world of printed fiction. Even more rare are gifted writers who tell good and deep stories, and then there are films like Adaptation.

I wasn’t sure what this movie was really about, when I put it on my Netflix queue. I’d heard it was quirky and funny, and I guess I was expecting the kind of dry, pretentious comedy that tries to be the polar opposite of populist slapstick. I was looking for something hard to watch because it was face-palmingly gut-wrenchingly bad. I should have known better. Adaptation. is not hard to watch for those reasons, but it can be a bit difficult for me because I relate a great deal to the protagonist, Charlie Kaufman.

Charlie, played by Nicholas Cage at his neurotic best, is a struggling screenwriter fresh from his work on Being John Malkovich. He’s hired to adapt the novel The Orchid Thief, a story that he believes is merely about flowers. This excites him since he’s not interested in cliché over-marketed screenplays (I can’t blame him). However, he begins to have serious problems, losing sleep and struggling with a way to even open his screenplay. He studies both the subject of the novel, John Laroche, and its author, Susan Orlean. The more we learn about these two, the more the story between them is revealed and yet, the more Charlie struggles with his work. His mooching twin brother, Donald, takes it upon himself to write a screenplay of his own, going right for the clichés that Charlie loathes. As the film goes on, we go deeper and deeper into all of these characters, and the film seems to become more and more self-aware, unfolding like a flower before our eyes.

This is a feeling I know very, very well.

I know there are people out there who don’t like Nicholas Cage. They’re not fond of his taste for the scenery he often chews on, and some find his popping up in action or adventure movies like National Treasure or Ghost Rider to be a gross misappropriation of talent. While I don’t think this is necessarily true, Adaptation. is hands-down one of the best Nicholas Cage performances I’ve yet to see. It’s like my favorite performance of Ben Stiller’s, way back in Zero Effect, in that it’s delightfully understated and leaves the scenery mostly free of bite marks. In playing both Charlie and Donald, Nick gives us a pair of unique, nuanced characters that are totally believable as twin brothers. The delivery of their lines, the way they move and interact, even tiny things like the shapes of their disparate smiles speak to a rare talent that often goes overlooked in those aforementioned blockbusters. It was so compelling that the Academy Awards nominated both Charlie and Donald for Best Adapted Screenplay that year, making Donald the first and only fully fictitious person ever nominated for an award.

That same year, Chris Cooper won the Best Supporting Actor for this film, while Meryl Streep was nominated for Best Supporting Actress. They so completely inhabit the celluloid personifications of real-life ‘characters’ John Laroche and Susan Orlean that at times the film almost feels like a documentary, and this is without the use of any major contrivances. I could go on about the cast, like Brian Cox playing story seminar luminary Robert McKee at McKee’s suggestion, but I think this starting to become another one of those reviews where I’ll need to really struggle to find something critical to say about the film.

Meryl Streep is stunning and Chris Cooper has no front teeth.

And here it is: it might be too intellectual. Most of the first two acts of this movie are in the head-space of very smart people, specialists in their field. Charlie Kaufman, for all of his neuroses, is a very gifted screenwriter with a unique point of view. Orlean is a journalist and novelist that should inspire lady writers everywhere, and even Laroche, played by Chris Cooper as something of a backwoods eccentric, is actually well-read and published in his own right in the world of horticulture. The mitigating factor that makes all of this brainpower interesting is that these people are every bit as passionate as they are intellectual. Kaufman is haunted by his previous success and his desire to continue to rail against the common conventions of the movie industry. Orlean is a deeply lonely woman, trying like hell to uncover some sort of meaning to her life. Laroche is driven by a series of personal tragedies that lurk just behind his toothless grin and devil-may-care attitude. Which leads me from Adaptation‘s only obvious flaw to its greatest strength.

To say that Adaptation. is about writing, or flowers, or the fallacy of writer’s block would be true in a sense, but would also be doing the film a disservice. What Adaptation. draws our attention to is people. The crux of this movie involves the depiction of its characters as something much deeper than the standard shallow stock ones that usually wander across movie sets. It seems to be telling us that people are a lot more multi-faceted and capable of more growth than that for which we typically give them credit. The ways in which a given human individual can both rise and fall are so different and endless as to boggle the mind, and yet it’s something taken for granted. Among other things, Adaptation. struggles to shake us free of that complacency, and in a sarcastic deconstructionist world delivers an optimism and appreciation for individuality – amusingly, in a deconstructionist and occasionally sarcastic way.

Happy together.

The last thing I’ll touch on here is that this movie is by no means afraid to take the piss out of itself. A few of the jabs here and there are aimed at the film industry in general, but Adaptation. has a level of meta-awareness that’s incredibly rare. When Charlie asks how his twin brother plans to convey the multiple-personality serial killer, essentially putting two people who are the same person into the same room, Donald shrugs and remarks, “Trick photography.” To put it another way, Nicholas Cage’s character tells Nicholas Cage’s other character that he’s going to achieve an effect to have two characters played by the same actor talk to each other with trick photography. It’s meta humor, and it’s not for everybody, but I got a big charge out of it, to say nothing of the film’s third act – which, without giving anything away, I believe all takes place as a conversation between Charlie and Donald that we never see or hear.

Anyway, those’re my thoughts on Adaptation. and I highly recommend it for the reasons I’ve cited. I’ll say that I’m sure it’s not the kind of film everybody is going to like. In fact, I can see people downright hating it. But as someone aspiring to make their living writing, someone who’s come to appreciate good meta humor and the kind of person who enjoys deep character explorations and interesting dialog just as much as car chases or gunfights, this film is an absolute standout. I can’t say the same for this review, however. I’ve once again gushed about a film that, while some people might not have seen, others will probably have seen the subject line of the review and rolled their eyes, as if to say, “Oh, here we go again, he’s going to love it and not tear it a new asshole.”

Tell you what, conjectural nay-sayer: You start paying me to review shitty movies, and I’ll be more than happy to tell you how shitty they are. Sound like a fair deal? Do you think MovieBob really wanted to sit through New Moon? How much do you think Yahtzee enjoys reviewing JRPGs? They’re professionals. I’m just an amateur center-of-attention pseudo-intellectual wanna-be pissing away hours of my life because this is something I’ve discovered people tend to think I’m halfway decent at doing. It’s the same reason I code websites for my dayjob. But hey, if someone out there on the Internet with hiring power actually stumbles across these reviews and thinks I’ll marginally increase their Google page rank, maybe I can get underpaid for doing this job, too.

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Predator

April 30, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 2 Comments

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Monster movies. People just love monster movies. Back in the 30s, the monsters were mostly human in appearance, with Dracula and The Mummy setting the stage for what came after. The 50s saw the type of monsters growing into the more surreal, with The Creature From The Black Lagoon, Them! and It Came From Beneath the Sea just to name a few. A lot of these films relied on models and rubber suits, and most of the memorable ones involved Ray Harryhausen. As special effects techniques progressed, the monsters became more complex, like Geiger’s xenomorph from 1979’s Alien. While the 80s were more concerned about action flicks with big manly stars, one film from the decade not only brought back the monster movie but had a bit of fun at other action flicks’ expense. It’s called Predator and is, among other things, a movie about a monster FROM SPACE!

Arnold Schwarzenegger, long before his ascent to governor of California, is ‘Dutch,’ the leader of an elite “rescue squad” sent into a South American jungle to rescue a cabinet minister. His team is accompanied by his former squadmate and current CIA operative Dillion, played by the equally manly Carl Weathers. Along the way to the enemy encampment they find a lost team of Dillion’s that had been brutally, almost ritualistically murdered and skinned. They find the enemy camp and blow it to smithereens, which to my mind makes it difficult to ensure a successful rescue, and find out the mission was a set-up. On their way back, though, the members of the team start dropping dead one at a time, and it turns out that these professional hunters are themselves being hunted by a single, alien being with advanced technology, a high level of cunning and an undying love for the hunt – the eponymous Predator.

One of the things Predator has going for it is relative simplicity. It moves from action movie to horror to science-fiction monster fight pretty smoothly, and doesn’t waste time with extraneous plot or elaborate character development. I’d be lying if I said the film was well-written, though. The lines were clichéd twenty years ago and are even more so now, and they’re delivered with such machismo-fueled ham-handedness that you can almost smell the bacon sizzling. Jesse Ventura (hey, another governor!) and Sonny Landham are particularly guilty of chewing the scenery in this flick. Some of the best moments in the movie come when nothing’s being said at all, and we read the characters’ expressions rather than hear them rattle off another self-congratulatory one-liner, which for Arnold is par for the course.

“Dillon, are you sure this vest doesn’t make me look fat?”

When Predator was being made, studio execs clearly were viewing the success of The Terminator, Platoon, and Aliens with envious eyes. They wanted another big loud macho gun-heavy action flick, and asked director John McTiernan for exactly that. His reaction is well-documented, as he crafted a five minute scene of the cast doing nothing but shooting guns at practically nothing. He got the impression that the producers’ and audience’s fascination with guns bordered on the pornographic, and so delivered this more than slightly sexualized depiction of large, well-toned men unloading their weapons in a swelteringly hot environment. The fact that they hit nothing at all underscores the impotence of such diversionary film-making, and about the only thing that survives the masculine ejaculatory fusillade is the lampshade McTiernan hung on the whole idea.

All of that talk of hot man-love segues me neatly into the next glaring thing I see about this film that had me laughing the whole time I was watching it. There’s a huge undercurrent of homo-eroticism that is pretty hilarious even if it’s unintentional. You have several large men in an intimate situation often shown slapping hands, shooting guns and showing an odd amount of concern for one another, with long looks exchanged between each other as sweat slides down their skin. Considering this is meant to be a manly movie, the sort of flick that would arm-wrestle 300 in the back room at a bar (which may or may not be lit by candles), and “perfectly straight” guys are meant to be whooping and hollering at the screen, it wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of this film’s devoted fan-base either indulge in the sort of self-denying homophobic ‘humor’ that typifies most random Xbox Live people I’ve encountered, or want to protect the institution of marriage from those ‘insidious’ gays. And I also wouldn’t be surprised if they were too dumb to notice.

Looks to me like the Predator’s wondering what Dutch uses to exfoliate.

Despite the nits I’ve picked about this flick, it doesn’t detract from the fact that as a monster movie, Predator does the job. The creature, a towering and truly alien hunter, is effective and exists as another example of Stan Winston’s genius, may he rest in peace. The slow reveal of the predator’s methods and technology build tension and suspense, and the final confrontation between it and Arnold do make for some decent action. It’s a shame that the suspense is undercut by lousy line-reading, but the gradual and unhurried pace of the build-up towards the end still persists as an example of relatively good story-telling in a genre that usually looks at story as a vestigial growth meant to string the audience along from one gunfight to the next.

Predator isn’t a bad movie, by any stretch of the word. It’s just so unintentionally hilarious, especially in retrospect. As much as the special effects hold up despite its age, the writing and implications of certain scenes are just raucous in comparison. What’s telling to me is that McTiernan went on after this to direct Die Hard which is not only one of my favorite action films of all time but is also what I’d call a ‘thinking man’s’ action flick. Predator by comparison doesn’t require much thought at all, but it’s still diverting and plenty of fun. It’s good to have on your Netflix queue if you have a summer weekend coming up and are looking for something to watch on a lazy sunny afternoon. From a guy’s perspective, it’s definitely best enjoyed with other guys, preferably in a dark basement with a cool beer at hand while you watch large, well-toned men unload their hot barrels.

…I mean, while you watch muscle-bound action heroes in close, intimate shots of their bodies sweating and slowly removing their clothes…

…that is to say, while leaning back to enjoy the back-and-forth action between…

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Fifth Element

April 23, 2010 / BlueInkAlchemist / 5 Comments

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Originality is a rare commodity in movies these days. Adaptations, remakes and wholly derivative works clog the cinemas and jostle one another in cajoling you for your money. There was a time when an original spectacle didn’t have to count on a phrase like “You have to see it in 3-D to get the most out of it.” I’m speaking here of films like Metropolis, Blade Runner and Akira, films with such singular and original visions that they blew minds when they first debuted, and in some ways still remain fresh by the light of modern screens. This is not to say The Fifth Element ascends to that sort of cinematic pantheon, but it does provide some stunningly unique visuals that speak to the ambition, passion and imagination of its creator. And it’s a blast to watch.

Our story begins in 1914, where an archaeologist in Egypt uncovers an ancient tomb where a desperate battle was once waged. Every 5,000 years, a great and powerful evil force crosses into our universe from parts unknown bent on wiping out all life – at least on Earth, it doesn’t seem to make any other pit stops. Anyway, the archaeologist translates the ancient depiction to tell us that the only way to defeat this evil is with the four elements – air, fire, earth and water – gathered around a mysterious fifth, an ‘ultimate warrior’. No sooner are we given this exposition than the imposing but benevolent Mondoshawan aliens arrive, revealing that the four elemental stones and the warrior (in a sort of statue stasis thing) were right under the archaeologist’s nose, and now must be removed from Earth due to the oncoming World War. It’s when the movie time-skips ahead 300 years that director Luc Besson completely assaults our eye sockets in a way most would probably thank him for.

New York City, 2263. Reports are coming to Earth of a giant ball of fire impervious to damage and on a collision course. With help from a terrestrial priest, the Mondoshawan contact Earth with the intent to return the five elements to battle the incoming evil, but they are intercepted by vicious thug-like and extremely unpleasant aliens called Mangalores. All that is left is the hand of the Mondoshawan’s passenger, and through super-science, Earth technicians reconstruct the ultimate warrior, revealing it to be a beautiful if waifish humanoid who promptly escapes. Korben Dallas, played by Bruce Willis as a mix between Butch from ‘Pulp Fiction’ and a futuristic John McClane, is a retired space fighter pilot and special ops soldier making a living as a cab driver when the warrior, ‘Leeloo’, drops literally into his lap. Korben and Leeloo end up working with the priest to retrieve the elemental stones, which are also sought by malevolent arms dealer Zorg, who employed the Mangalores but isn’t really the most scrupulous of business partners. He likes to blow things up, especially people who disappoint him.

I’m starting to think there’s no role Gary Oldman can’t absolutely nail.

What we have here is indeed a mish-mash of elements. Mysticism, cyberpunk, blazing sci-fi gunplay and some generous portions of ham are all mixed up in a very colorful and boisterous way. This is a film crafted and directed with a bit of abandon, a touch of whimsy that clearly has roots in the genesis of the story, which director Luc Besson wrote when he was a teenager. When it comes to cinematography, set design and special effects, this movie not only delivers but holds up despite the way in which graphics have marched on. The aliens not only feel real, given that they’re not composed entirely of pixels, but they also seem… well, alien.

To some, the entire film might feel that way. Some people might not be able to allow the visuals to overcome some of the way the elements of the film don’t blend as smoothly as they could. Others might feel it’s a tad long in the tooth, from the first scene in Egypt to sequences like Leeloo learning about war. And I’m sure that while I found Chris Tucker’s extremely flamboyant intergalactic DJ “RUBY RHOD!” to be hilarious more often than not, some might get rubbed entirely the wrong way by him. Other characters may feel one-note, underdeveloped or just outright insufferable. Broken into individual elements, there’s a lot in The Fifth Element that has no right whatsoever to work as well as it does in the final equation. It’s an over-the-top and completely off-the-wall sci-fi pantomime, which might put it in the “Pass” column for some people.

No, no, no, Leeloo, I said ‘Pass’. Not ‘Multi-Pass’.

However, to others (including myself), that’s part of its charm. Much like Flash Gordon, the sense of camp and self-awareness that permeates The Fifth Element keeps it from being taken too seriously. And when viewed merely as a feast for the eyes and two hours of escapist fantasy fun, rather than a treatise on The Power of Love or a would-be usurper of the Star Wars juggernaut, the film reveals a sense of humor not just about itself, but the genre in general. It’s light-hearted, surprisingly quotable and unafraid to make some of its set pieces, costumes and characters downright ridiculous in the name of having a little fun.

The Fifth Element is ultimately harmless, diverting and enjoyable if you can forgive some of the rougher patches in the storytelling in terms of scene length and characterization. It doesn’t make apologies for itself in that regard, however. It’s completely committed to delivering this campy, colorful and rather unique vision of the future, which in my opinion is a nice change from the many variations on dystopia that seem to have come to dominate a large portion of the genre. There are plenty of great moments to carry a viewer from one scene to another, and many stand out in retrospect, from Zorg introducing his multi-use BFG to the Mangalores to the show-stopping Diva performance. Fans of science fiction, unique costuming, great make-up work and actors having an all-out blast with their roles could do a hell of a lot worse than The Fifth Element. Throw it on your Netflix queue and give it a look. Some might say it’s “So bad it’s good” and others claim it’s “So cool it’s awesome.” Personally, I’m one of those balls-out weirdos who happen to think it’s BOTH.

Tag: Netflix (page 16 of 24)

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IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Octagon

IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! Adaptation.

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IT CAME FROM NETFLIX! The Fifth Element

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