I think its fair to say director Christopher Nolan is up there in the very high echelon of “great current directors.”
His first full film, Following, presented a story which was told in reverse order, something he would subsequently use for his breakthrough follow up, Memento.
Mr. Nolan would release several incredibly well reviewed films, including his Batman trilogy (though, to be fair, the final movie in the trilogy did have its detractors), The Prestige, and Inception.
I’ve read interviews with Mr. Nolan and clearly he’s a BIG movie lover. He loves celluloid and, interestingly, seems to have similar tastes to mine with regard to films he admires.
One of them is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, which happens to be one of my top three all time great films (for the record, my other two all time favorites are Metropolis and Orpheus, though there are many, many films that fall just outside this category… and in time may supplant a film or two there!).
Anyway, Mr. Nolan, while in Cannes, showed a unrestored (yes, you read that right) copy of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and… I’m left scratching my head. So too was Stephen Garrett over at Slate.com, who wrote about it here:
Understand: As a film lover, I very much want to see films look as good as they can. I know that film stock can degrade over time, some dangerously so. Colors tend to fade and this is why restorations, IMHO, are vitally important.
Yes, restorations of films often involves turning them from film stock into digital media and I understand that, as mentioned in the article, digital media wasn’t always the greatest way to show all the sparkling colors film stock manages.
But…
Digital technology is always improving and, as the author of the article mentions, what digital media produced 20 or even 10 years ago is at a lower level than what can be produced today. I suspect it won’t be long before digital images will capture anything/everything film stock can.
However, here’s the thing: UNrestored print?!?
Again and according to the article, the image was generally good but the author noted scratches in the print, wobbling sound here and there, and the cigarette burn looking edges of the print which, in the old days, indicated a reel change.
Look, I’m all in favor of seeing things as they were, but given the film’s age, the “unrestored” copy that Mr. Nolan is showing has to display such age related wear and tear. And seeing these little glitches… does it really enhance one’s appreciation for the film?
I would think not.
But that’s just my opinion. Who know, maybe there is something to replicating the original theater experience, warts and all.
I point this article out not only for the fact that it sounds (at least to me!) like a fun idea for a continuation of the Austin Powers film “universe”, but because of the comments he makes regarding Margot Robbie, who produced and stars in the heist thriller Terminal, in which Mr. Myers also plays a role (his first in a while!).
A fun little article and I’m not going to spoil it by giving away anything. Check it out!
That’s what the film made in its opening “week” (though its really a weekend), which means that the movie has had the strongest opening ever.
I’ve said it before and I’ll repeat it here: I’m certain the film is quite good, exciting, fun, etc. etc.
And I’ll repeat what I said before: I don’t care to see the film.
Every week new films/TV shows/books, etc. etc. are released and the fact of the matter is that one can’t see/read/hear ’em all. Further, those you do spend some time on may wind up thrilling you while others might wind up seriously disappointing you.
It’s the nature of the beast.
With regard to Avengers: Infinity War, I feel like I’ve had my fill of Avengers films. With the current film’s release, we’ve had four so far: Avengers, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: Civil War (though a “Captain America” film, it was essentially an Avengers film), and now Avengers: Infinity War.
I’ve seen the first three and I know I’m in the minority here (at least with two of them), but I didn’t think all that much of the three.
I felt the original Avengers film was “ok”. Didn’t hate it, but didn’t understand the fangasms. Avengers: Age of Ultron is the film that may get the least amount of love from the fans and I won’t dispute the fact. The film did feel more than a little confusing (the whole Thor going away -even with the extra/cut scenes- made little sense). Captain America: Civil War had a well realized fight scene at an airport and involving almost all the characters in the Marvel Universe… but the rest of the film was something of confusing mess as well, to me anyway.
So here’s the thing: If I didn’t really like the previous three Avengers movies all that much, what incentive do I have to see the latest one, especially given all the many, many spoilers which make me feel like the film is trying to create excitement/suspense/sadness out of something that is temporary at best?
I’ll repeat for the thousandth time: I know I’m in the very small minority here.
But it is what it is.
I’m glad people -and most critics!- seem to like the film and I’m glad you feel, at the very least, you’ve gotten your money’s worth seeing the film.
These include songs, books, movies, and even works of art. It’s an intriguing list and it does bring up, at least for me, the issue of copyright in general.
As an author, I feel copyright is a very important tool to protect one’s works (duh) from being appropriated by others. I would certainly go ballistic if someone comes up, without my authorization, stories set in my Corrosive Knights universe and subsequently released them. If it’s “fan fiction” and posted where anyone/everyone can read them, I don’t mind.
But if a conscious attempt has been made to create something for sale/profit, then that crosses a line. I created the Corrosive Knights “universe” and the characters that inhabit them. I feel I should have the ultimate say, as long as I live, to what becomes of them.
However, issues regarding copyright aren’t always so clear cut.
Years ago and way, waaaaay back in the 1980’s I was an early fan of the brilliant writing of Alan Moore. For those who don’t know who he is, Alan Moore is considered, even today, one of the best comic book writers there ever was. Among the works he wrote, several made it to film: V for Vendetta, Watchmen, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell.
Most of his very best works appeared in DC Comics, including Watchmen, Swamp Thing, and V for Vendetta. In the case of V for Vendetta, the initial stories were serialized in a British comic book magazine called Warrior but after the magazine folded it appeared the work, which hadn’t reached its conclusion, would never be finished. DC Comics picked it up and Mr. Moore, along with original artist David Lloyd, were able to finish the series and get the full story released through DC.
Mr. Moore had a big falling out with DC Comics in the late 1980’s and left the company, never to return again. According to interviews, the main issue Mr. Moore had with DC was regarding the rights to Watchmen, which according to the contract he signed with DC would revert to him once the book was no longer in print.
Thing is, Watchmen was so very successful DC’s been able to keep it in print since it was originally published and therefore have retained the rights to the work. Mr. Moore, who signed that contract in an era when reprinting works in near perpetuity seemed unlikely, feels he was shafted and DC has taken advantage of him.
Did they?
I suppose.
DC must have seen at least the possibility of retaining the work to include that provision in the contract, though one could also argue that maybe Mr. Moore, who was a red hot creator by that point, should have read the contract more carefully before signing it (or at least had a lawyer read it and advise him on the provisions).
However, just how “original” is Watchmen?
As a story, it is quite original, though I very much believe Alan Moore took -whether deliberately or unconsciously- the ending of the Outer Limits episode The Architects of Fear… or some other similar work (You can read more about that here). My feeling, at least based on interviews with the recently deceased Len Wein, who was the editor of Watchmen, suggest that at the very least Mr. Wein knew the ending was going in that direction and told Mr. Moore to watch out. Mr. Wein stated in these interviews that Moore didn’t really care.
Regardless of who/what the ending of Watchmen was taken from (or not!), what is not in dispute is the chain of events that led to Watchmen being made, which bends the issue of copyright to a near breaking point.
Back in the 1980’s DC Comics bought the defunct Charlton Comics line of superheroes. The characters, with a few exceptions, were for the most part forgotten. But Alan Moore was given the opportunity to write a story for these newly acquired characters. Thing is, the story he came up with would have effectively “ended” any future Charlton heroes story, something DC wasn’t about to do, having invested good money in buying the rights to the characters.
So Mr. Moore modified the story and “created” new characters to inhabit it and, voila!, Watchmen was created. Here’s a visual comparison of the Charlton Comics heroes and their eventual Watchmen “twins” (click on the image to see it larger):
Here’s where the proverbial rubber hits the road: I feel sympathy for Mr. Moore. Of all the comic book works he’s done in his life, Watchmen was his most ambitious, at least IMHO. He clearly poured his heart into the story and, even if the ending may be suspect, nonetheless wrote an intricate work that deserves to stand the test of time.
Yet it probably never would have come to be had DC not acquired the Charlton Comics heroes and asked him to come up with a story involving them (he might, to be fair, have come up with a story similar to Watchmen eventually, on his own). Further, the characters he “created” for Watchmen were clearly meant to be thinly veiled versions of the Charlton Comics heroes.
Issues of ownership, thus, get stretched in a matter like this.
Curiously, though Mr. Moore’s arguments with DC involve the Watchmen ownership, he hasn’t been shy about using actual characters who have fallen into public domain. Indeed, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen was composed of a host of public domain characters!
Would the creators of those characters, were they alive today, be miffed about what Alan Moore has done with them? Would they be angry that someone has appropriated their works/characters and profited from their use?
An interesting question which will never have a proper answer.
I’ve made no secret -on the contrary, I’m likely beating a dead horse at this point!- regarding my enjoyment of Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice and, further, my interest in seeing the Zack Snyder directed version of Justice League.
One of the first times I wrote at length about being curious of, and hoping for, the release of the Zack Snyder “cut” of Justice League was here:
I happen to love the film, though I admit to not having watched it start to end in many a year.
Yet the film fascinates me even as many nowadays either don’t have the patience to watch it (the movie is awfully long), or feel it is too pretentious.
Taking the first point, the film clocks in, according to IMDB, at 2 hours and 29 minutes long. I’ll admit it here and now: That is a long time to sit before a screen and in these days of wild effects and speedy storytelling, 2001 must surely seem like a chore for any modern filmgoer to watch.
As for the film itself, it offers surprisingly little dialogue while giving audiences a story broken into four parts.
GOING INTO 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY’S PLOT HERE, SO BEWARE…
SPOILERS BE HERE!
Still there?
You’ve been warned!
The first part of the film involves the “Dawn of Man”, a sequence that effectively shows humanity the moment it makes the transition from animal to human. The sequence shows a pack (group?) of primates being run off their watering hole by a more powerful group of primates. There is -obviously- no dialogue here but the implication for the group is dire: They will likely die without their water.
But one of the primates is visited by a mysterious black monolith, which will figure prominently within the movie’s story. Upon seeing the monolith and while celestial objects are in alignment, a primate develops the ability to use a weapon, specifically a bone (there is irony in this!) which he then uses to attack that other group of primates and reclaim their watering hole, following which we have one of the most fascinating transitions in film…
Thousands of years of history are effectively “fast forwarded” through and the bone is now another, far more sophisticated weapon in the form of a satellite (the satellite is supposed to be an orbital weapon).
We then come to the second part of the film. Humanity in the year 2001 is presented as mannered, tight lipped, and pretty bored. While audiences may be wowed by the space travel presented, its clear that those doing the traveling view it much like we do a long car trip. It can be exciting, but mostly its a bit of a chore.
We follow as a man heads to the U.S. Moonbase and are given hints to a mysterious discovery on the Moon’s surface, something the U.S. is keeping from the Russians. Turns out the discovery is a monolith not unlike the one found in the Dawn of Man sequence.
The men head out to the monolith and, in a bit of wry humor, these modern sophisticated men are presented as not all that terribly different from the primates that came many years before. They take pictures of themselves in front of it, they touch it, they have no clue what it is.
And then the planets align and a very loud signal is released from the monolith, something so piercing the men present around the monolith are forced to try to cover their ears.
We then get to the third part of the film, where we fast forward months later to a spacecraft, the Discovery. As it turns out, the signal sent by the monolith on the Moon was directed toward Jupiter and the ship is on the way to explore what’s going on there.
Within the Discovery are a group of scientists in a cryogenic sleep. Awake are two astronauts who are accompanied by the HAL 9000, their artificial intelligence computer.
If the movie has any edge of the seat sequences, it is during this part, where the HAL 9000 malfunctions -or functions only too well- and decides to eliminate all the people on board the ship. This part also fits in well with Campbell’s hero mythology as the hero must overcome seemingly impossible odds before…
The film’s final -and to some most controversial- part involves our lone surviving astronaut reaching Jupiter and finding a very large monolith floating in orbit. The surviving astronaut heads to that monolith and then begins a bizarre, trippy, hallucinogenic journey. He then sees himself in a room, aging until he eventually dies, and then is reborn as a cosmic star child.
Whew.
John Byrne, a prominent comic book artist who is one of the major reasons the X-Men, and Wolverine in particular, is as popular as it is, wrote of the movie:
In an interview in PLAYBOY, (Arthur C.) Clarke said “If you understood it, we failed.” I’d clock (2001: A Space Odyssey) as about the most pretentious piece of twaddle on record.
As I’ve often stated, opinions about works of art are unique to each individual and who am I to say he -or anyone else with a different opinion than mine over any work of art- is wrong?
I love 2001: A Space Odyssey and feel the story presented is, even when simply looking at its surface, is easy enough to understand: Mysterious aliens have transformed primates to humans and, in the year 2001, they transform humans into the next stage, the star child.
But there are other elements present. Some have noted that the HAL 9000 is the most “human” of the characters in this film, and in many ways the character and the story presented with “him” is an updating of the Frankenstein monster story. Humanity has ventured into the realm of Gods, creating an intelligent being and getting burned for their hubris. An interesting element is that the monolith is essentially the true God here… whatever it may be.
There are also those who note the whole trip of the Discovery has a curious “look” about it. The Discovery itself, they note, looks very much like human sperm (I’m not joking here!) and when it reaches its destination and following that trippy journey into the monolith, what is produced is an embryotic looking star child!
But even ignoring away from all these elements, one can’t help but be impressed with the many practical effects (compare this film to the many science fictional works to come in and around that time… there is no comparison!) and world-building director Stanley Kubrick and author Arthur C. Clarke created for this movie. The idea of space travel being a chore is a fascinating and, at that time, unique take.
So, yeah, for these and many other reasons, I’m damn impressed by 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Even today, fifty years after its original release.
As the days go by and we’re getting more and more of these little tidbits from both Mr. Snyder and the actors involved in the Justice League film, the more convinced I am that there is indeed a pretty complete Zack Snyder “cut” of the film.
To Mr. Snyder’s credit, he hasn’t been overly negative or castigating regarding what went on in the creation of the film and his subsequent departure (though there are rumors he was indeed fired, he hasn’t, to my knowledge, come out and said anything about his departure other than the initial statement that he left due to his adopted daughter’s suicide).
The biggest clap back he’s had against the Joss Whedon theatrical cut of the film was a very mild statement poking fun at the use of CGI to hide actor Henry Cavill’s mustache.
This latest bit of news concerns actor Ray Fisher, who played the character Cyborg in the film, posting a picture from the filming of the movie which showed his character playing football. He also posted the following statement with the photograph: Life doesn’t always go how we plan it. The only thing we can do is keep reaching for what we believe.
The article above notes that the character of Cyborg in the Zack Snyder cut of the film had a lot more story. Mr. Snyder, for his part, quickly posted a reply to this, showing a second image from the football game along with a one word comment: Believe.
This is the crux of the article’s headline and I find it… interesting.
Will we ever get to see what Mr. Snyder was up to?
I admit, I vacillate between thinking it will happen to wondering if enough of the work was done (and I’m talking CGI effects here) to merit a formal release.
One thing’s for sure: I’d be lying if I said all this hasn’t intrigued the hell out of me!
Several years ago the term “jumping the shark” was coined by a very clever fellow to explain the point where a popular/enjoyable TV show reaches a point where it suddenly is no longer that.
The term/reference, for those unfamiliar, relates to an episode of the once very popular TV show Happy Days (it had a whopping 11 seasons, airing from 1974 to 1984), and had one of the most popular characters in Henry Winkler’s Arthur “Fonzie” Fonzarelli. It was his character in an episode presented in the 1977 season of the show that had the proverbial “jumping the shark” moment.
Quite literally!
Here it is -and, yes, Ron Howard (that Ron Howard) was still in the show and driving the boat. He was still primarily known as an actor and hadn’t yet transitioned to the powerhouse director he subsequently became:
The absurdity of the scene and subsequent pointing out of it made the term “jumping the shark” shorthand for the moment a TV show crosses the great Rubicon and, through the silliness of that moment, is no longer looked upon as the powerhouse it used to be.
In the case of Happy Days, the show would continue for several more years after presenting audiences with this particular sequence, so while it was silly (and that’s the nicest way to describe it), it was hardly “fatal” to the TV show.
The fact is that TV shows that become popular can do so in several ways. It can be a relatively slow process, where the show may start out barely hanging on while interest grows each and every day to the point where the show becomes a powerhouse. It can explode almost from the get-go, a so-called “water cooler” type show that almost everyone comes to love almost right away (The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones are two such recent examples).
Here’s the thing though: Good as any TV show is, there is always a risk that things will get… stodgy. Dull. Repetitious. As funny and fascinating as the term is, many shows lose steam and audiences and eventually get cancelled without necessarily giving a “jumping the shark” type moment.
Way, waaaaaaaay back when a cartoon show appeared on one of the “big four” networks and, to put it bluntly, the show absolutely blew me and my future wife away. The show premiered in 1989 and it was so damn funny I distinctly recall gasping for air in a few of those very early episodes, so hilarious was the product.
I followed the show for a number of years but somewhere around the fifth season or so it was like a switch had suddenly turned off in both me and my (by then) wife and, quite suddenly, we no longer had an interest in seeing the show. In fact, the show, The Simpsons, continues today, having reached an incredible 30th season, easily the longest running TV show out there today.
And neither my wife nor I have seen a full episode of it in some 25 years. In fact, the very last full The Simpsonsanything I saw was the feature film, which I felt was pretty damn mediocre and didn’t exactly change my mind and make me want to see the show again.
Please note: There was no “jumping the shark” moment regarding the show. We just felt like we’d gotten our fill and no longer felt the need to catch any more of it.
As the saying goes, your mileage may vary and, given the show still airs today, clearly there is still considerable interest in the series. But for me, there is absolutely none.
Yesterday I watched the latest -the fifth- episode of Season 3 of Ash vs The Evil Dead. This represents the half-way point of Season 3 as there are 10 total episodes in the season.
I’m a HUGE fan of the character of Ashley “Ash” J. Williams (and Bruce Campbell, the actor who plays him), who first appeared in the movie Evil Dead, then Evil Dead 2 (the best of the lot, IMHO), then Army of Darkness, before disappearing for many years before being revived in the Starz! series.
As I said, we’re in the third season of Ash vs. The Evil Dead and as much as I like most of what’s come before, I’m finding this season… not that good.
Don’t get me wrong, the regular nonsense is there: Plenty of blood and guts mixed with tongue in cheek humor and a main character who remains a complete idiot. However, something about this season seems… off.
To begin with, the cast has been curiously split apart, with Bruce Campbell’s Ash often doing things on his own while the various other main characters we’ve followed to date (Ray Santiago’s Pablo Simon Bolivar, Dana DeLorenzo’s Kelly Maxwell, Lucy Lawless’ Ruby Knowby), seem to be off on their own doing their own thing. In fact, it occurs to me we’ve seen very little of these characters together. They are often split up in their own stories and, frankly, while interesting characters they don’t have the same level of interest in this viewer as Ash does. In fact, their best moments are their incredulous reactions to Ash, something that can’t happen if they’re not around him.
But it goes beyond that.
The story itself, after two solid season (which, for the record, I felt nonetheless stumbled in their conclusions), is starting to show its seams.
Ash is a blowhard idiot, a delight to watch stumble along yet somehow always get the upper hand over evil. But its becoming clear many of the show’s ancillary characters are simply cannon fodder, killed without much thought which makes you realize how capricious the story lines are. We present a new character, we kill them off, they come back evil, and are subsequently dispatched by Ash.
Ash, still standing, doesn’t seem to suffer so much as a scratch, even though he does get slapped around like one of the Three Stooges.
Thing is -and I realize I’m offering a “serious” critique on what is, at its heart, a purposely goofy show- why hasn’t the Evil simply gotten rid of Ash already?
I mean, he’s mortal.
If its too difficult (now anyway) to take over Ash’s body, why not simply have a spirit take over a human body, purchase a gun, stalk Ash, and when he least expects it, blow his brains out?
Instead, the Evil creatures are becoming tediously predictable in their actions, taking over their human hosts, showing off their ugly mugs (usually while screaming/cursing at Ash), then moving around and around, slapping -or worse- Ash before he gets a bead on them and takes them out with maximum gore-age.
I really liked seeing this for a while but now, after three movies and while in the third season of the Starz! show, its becoming… predictable.
Dull.
There are still five episodes to go in the third season and, intriguingly, in an article by Nathalie Caron over at SyFywire.com, she notes…
The fact of the matter, it would appear, is that Starz! may well not renew the show after this season. Perhaps the costs are too high and the ratings no longer justify a continuation. Perhaps the principles in the show also recognize this particular creative endeavor is reaching its end-point.
Who knows.
But based on my current feelings regarding Ash vs The Evil Dead’s third season, I’ll repeat what I said before: The formula is starting to become too apparent and I’ve found myself far less impressed with this season versus the ones that came before.
Maybe it is time to lay poor Ash to rest, before he “jumps the shark”.
The film’s final worldwide total was $657,924,295, a handsome sum certainly but the least amount made of the five films that were part of the DC “universe” of films, which includes Man of Steel, Batman v Superman, Suicide Squad, Wonder Woman, and, of course, JL. Ironically enough, the film that made the most in this group is the much reviled (by some, not me) BvS.
In retrospect, I suspect people should have seen this coming. The circus and negative reactions to both BvS -which I feel were deeply unfair at times- and Suicide Squad -more deserved, the film’s story was a mess and the only thing that “saved” the film, if such a term can be used, was the acting by the principles- created in the fan community so much negativity that even DC/Warners knew they had to put up a brave front to get people to come back to their side.
They trotted out director Zack Snyder and had him assure people JL would be a brighter affair. They even had reporters and fans come to the active set and were shown props and scenes meant to give them a taste of the better film to come.
But then came word that Snyder left the project some six months or so before its scheduled release, ostensibly due to the tragedy of the suicide of his adopted daughter. Joss Whedon took over the film and was doing re-shoots -which the studios stated were approved of/OKed by Snyder- and would finish the film. Given the film we finally received, I can’t help but believe those statements were lies.
Mr. Snyder, it was revealed much later, had likely been fired from the production and, it should be noted, he stepped down when the re-shoots were beginning. In other words, Mr. Snyder finishedJustice League’s principle photography, reportedly presented a 3 hour cut (which some felt was “unwatchable”), and then was gone when the re-shoots began.
Could it be -and this is rank speculation on my part- that Snyder had no interest in doing the re-shoots? He’d been a “good soldier” for DC/WB, allowing the clipped theatrical version of BvS to be released when the much better Ultimate Cut was out there.
Could it be the studio meddling had finally become too much for him and, if he wasn’t outright fired, then maybe the studios and he decided it was time to part ways amicably?
Regardless of all that, the film essentially limped into theaters, the source of plenty of negative speculation and feelings that there was no way it could be a coherent work, given the speed in which it was released and the fact that the original director was gone.
When the film was released, it earned generally better reviews but not spectacular ones. There was more ridicule regarding the fact that Superman actor Henry Cavill had to keep his mustache due to contractual obligations with the latest Mission: Impossible film and the mustache was digitally removed after the fact (not well, to many).
When I saw the film, I liked it well enough, though at times it felt like I was watching a tug of war between the Snyder stuff and the Whedon stuff. I still hold out hope -perhaps misguided, given the box office figures- that DC/Warners will eventually allow Snyder to go back and release his version of the film.
Why do I say “misguided”? Because maybe DC/Warners wants to close the book on the Snyder run of movies and have no interest at all in reminding anyone of them. Given the weak box office they have every reason to close that particular chapter of the book, especially if completing the Snyder “cut” of the film might result in further expenditures to finish any effects.
Which is really too bad.
For better or worse I would have loved to see what Mr. Snyder was planning with Justice League. At least based on some of the trailers and scenes that never made it to the Whedon cut of the film, it appeared there was more stuff there with the ancillary characters, including Flash and Cyborg.
I’ve always been kinda/sorta fascinated by the works of director Peter Hyams. While he may not be a terribly well known director, he’s made some pulpy films that have lingered in my mind over the years. They may not always be the most original works, they do have their interesting elements.
Among the many films he’s directed is the Mars landing conspiracy thriller Capricorn One, the remarkably not all that bad 2010 (a sequel to the classic Stanley Kubrick directed 2001: A Space Odyssey), and two of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s better movie outings, Sudden Death and Time Cop.
Mr. Hyams also made two films with Sean Connery, the Alien set/visuals-inspired and High Noon story-inspired Outland and The Presidio. Here’s the trailer to The Presidio:
I have to say up front: Unlike the many Peter Hyams directed films I mentioned above, there was little I recalled about The Presidio, which I only saw once many, many years ago. The things I remembered about the film were a) Meg Ryan looked really attractive and b) the characters played by Sean Connery and Mark Harmon were constantly arguing.
Anyway, fast forward to a few months ago and the film was airing on some cable channel and I recorded it to my DVR. It lingered there, recorded but unwatched, until yesterday when I had a little bit of free time and decided to give the film a go.
The first thing that struck me about the film, and you can catch glimpses of it in the above trailer, is the appearance of Jenette Goldstein as the victim of a murderer -this happens quite literally in the movie’s first few minutes so I don’t feel its a terribly big spoiler- and that sets off the movie’s story. I point her out because she’s only a couple of years removed from her role as Private Vasquez in Aliens and, because she’s dressed in military green, still looks very much like that famous character.
Anyway, so we have her mysterious murder within the Presidio, the famous San Francisco military academy, and that in turn leads to Mark Harmon’s detective Jay Austin meeting up with Sean Connery’s Lt. Col. Alan Caldwell, the head MP of the Presidio and the man in charge of the case there.
The two have, we soon find, a history. Austin used to be an MP under Caldwell and at some point he broke from the academy and became a police detective. He doesn’t care for Caldwell much and the feeling is mutual.
However, because the murder occurred on the Presidio’s grounds, of course the two are eventually forced to partner up. And it is when Austin heads to Caldwell’s home that he finds the man’s daughter, Donna (Meg Ryan, natch) and the attraction is instant.
Things move on and the conspiracy is eventually exposed but the fact that I couldn’t recall much of the film all these years later becomes more evident as I watched it.
To be blunt, the film isn’t all that good, even though it features a typically strong Connery performance, a charismatic turn by Ms. Ryan, and a so-so turn by Harmon. I can’t be too harsh regarding Harmon as his character is pretty one note as written: Brash and handsome, handsome and brash. What may be interesting to some is to see Mark Harmon play essentially a younger, brasher version of his character on N.C.I.S.
The story turns out to be a rather uninteresting one with one “big” surprise regarding one of the ancillary characters that is so obvious that even newborns should see it coming (though, of course, our leads didn’t).
Worse and especially early in the film it seemed we were jumping forward, story-wise, to the point of near incoherence. I feel like there were scenes missing which were meant to elaborate on Donna and Austin’s relationship. Perhaps they were filmed and clipped from the final cut or perhaps they were dumped in the screenwriting stage, but nonetheless there were times it felt like I was missing something.
For example, there is a scene which suddenly occurs where Austin and Donna are at an officer’s/military dinner and her father is at another table, seething as he watches them. Donna acts up and provokes Austin into a fight.
There is no lead up to this scene -either that or I fell asleep for a moment or two and missed it. One moment Austin and Caldwell are investigating the murder and suddenly they’re all at that military party and Donna’s acting like a crazy person.
A little before that scene there is one where Austin and Donna are walking on a beach and Austin very clumsily states his love for Donna, noting how he’s come to feel this way after seeing her all this time. At that point in the film I believe we only had them together twice, the first time they “meet cute” and then when they first go out!
Weird, huh? As I said, I get the feeling there was more to the whole Donna/Austin relationship but romance was torpedoed in favor of action/mystery.
Anyway, I can’t recommend The Presidio, even to hard core Peter Hyams (there are some of you out there, no?), Sean Connery, Meg Ryan, or Mark Harmon fans. There simply isn’t enough “there” there to justify the time.
