Here it is if you’ve been living in a rock for the past day or so and this is your first foray into the interwebs…
What to make of this?
Well, the look remains good. I’ve not had any complaints against the look director Zack Snyder is going for. Indeed, everything I’ve seen so far,including this far longer trailer…
…have looked pretty good.
Further, I’m excited to see, for the first time (ignoring the 1979 TV Legends of Superheroes) on the silver screen Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman –THE three best superheroes ever created which, IMHO, form the cornerstone of almost all superheroes that followed- together at last in a big budget film.
And yet, I have a terrible confession to make considering how much I love the characters: We may be reaching a point of superhero (ahem) supersaturation.
The mini-trailer/teaser presented above is interesting but I get the feeling it represents some kind of “dream” that Batman/Bruce Wayne is having. From the bits and pieces I’m gathering in the longer trailer, it appears this movie is very much a continuation of the previous one. In Man of Steel, Superman and General Zod essentially destroy Metropolis and, the critics/fans noted, must have caused the deaths of many thousands of people in their wake.
This movie takes that idea, which was essentially ignored in Man of Steel, and runs with it. It would appear that Bruce Wayne witnessed the destruction and faced very personal losses when one of his buildings went down. Needless to say, he isn’t coming into this film looking at Superman as a great savior.
Anyway, so are those small sequences of Batman in chains (come on, Batman would get out of those chains in seconds!) part of a nightmare Bruce Wayne has regarding what will become of Superman? That he will use his powers to make himself a god (note the security guards who bow before him when he arrives) and therefore he has to be stopped?
Or could it turn out that this film isn’t as dour as it seems and that in reality it is a lighthearted tribute to the 1950’s comic books? You know, where the “real” plot involves Mister Mxyzptlk and Bat-Mite uniting to mess with our heroes’ heads and having them fight each other before Wonder Woman pulls them out of their alien-made mess?
The last film in the Hunger Games series was split in two. Mockingjay Part 1 and 2 are both sourced from the third and final Hunger Games novel, a book many fans of the series feel was the worst of the three. Further, there were many who read the book and who wondered why, other other than to make more money, two films were created out of it. They felt there wasn’t enough in that third novel that merited making two films out of it.
Second point: Viewer fatigue may be setting in. As much as we may like a series of movies and/or characters, there inevitably comes a point where we grow tired of seeing them. It’s part of the reason I’m determined to conclude my Corrosive Knights series. Though I’ve introduced many characters and there isn’t one “big” central character in the lot and the books’ various settings/stories are vastly different, I’m well aware that there’s danger in treading the same grounds.
To take one example: I loved the works of author Clive Cussler until I realized he was essentially writing the same novel over and over and over again.
Third point: A $101 MILLION dollar opening is considered, based on this article and its headline, bad?!?! Sure it may be a “low” opening versus the other films in the franchise, but for Gods’ sake, the film scored $101 million dollars…on its opening weekend!
If I could make one one-hundreth of that on my novels I’d be a damn happy camper!
As I said in the headline, sometimes they look for a story where there may not really be any. Yeah, Mockingjay Part 2 made a little less money than the other Hunger Games movies.
Nonetheless, I seriously doubt the studios are crying over the results.
Not interested in clicking the link? Don’t worry, the article essentially presents this video by Brainstuff, which examines the above question and offers a fascinating explanation:
What is most intriguing, to me, apart from the fact that the accent was something created during that time and was not a “real” accent/form of speech, was how it may have been used because speaking this way allowed announcers/actors to overcome the technical limitations of audio equipment (in radios, theaters) of the time.
While casual moviegoers today may be most familiar with director/writer David Cronenberg’sA History of Violence, Eastern Promises, Cosmopolis, or his most recent film, Maps of the Stars, there was a time not so very long ago he was known for creating some very edgy horror films.
These same casual moviegoers may recall his 1986 remake of The Fly, a movie made very near the end of his “horror” producing phase…
While he would go on to make the chilling psychological horror-themed Dead Ringers (1988), Mr. Cronenberg’s subsequent films tended to move away from the horror genre from that point on.
If you found The Fly intriguing and were curious to see Mr. Cronenberg’s earlier horror efforts, you should begin with 1975’s Shivers and 1977’s Rabid.
It was the success of these two early horror films that gave Mr. Cronenberg the clout to make the next step in his directing career: Create larger budgeted movies featuring veteran and sometimes very well known actors. And so his next feature, 1979’s The Brood. is arguably the start of this phase which continued with Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Dead Zone (1983) and finished off with either The Fly or Dead Ringers.
Featuring starring roles for veteran actors Oliver Reed and Samantha Eggar, The Brood is a great example of David Cronenberg’s disturbing brand of horror. Having said this, watching the film the other day was a curious experience. I recall first seeing it when either when it was originally released or shortly thereafter and finding the entire experience terrifying.
Watching the film now, however, I found most of the graphic material not quite as chilling but the movie nonetheless presents a very deep and (here I go using this word again) disturbing vision of a family breakdown. Today, the movie’s horror is therefore more psychological than graphic, though the film’s most graphic scene, presented toward the film’s end, retains its power even today.
The movie’s plot goes like this (and I will try to avoid major spoilers):
“Every-man” Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) shows up at a remote psychological retreat run by Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) to pick up his daughter Candice (Cindy Hinds). We find that Frank’s wife, Nola (Samantha Eggar) is in therapy with Dr. Raglan and, while their marriage is crumbling and she is isolated while in therapy, she has visitation rights.
We further find that Dr. Raglan’s brand of therapy is very much “out there”. It involves a great deal of theatricality, role playing, and outbursts of rage. Dr. Raglan’s ideas fall on almost Lovecraftian lines for the rage he forces his patients to unleash, he has discovered, sometimes manifests itself physically.
After Frank takes Candice home, he discovers she has bruises and cuts on her body. He is outraged by this and knows his wife is responsible for this abuse. However, as she is in isolated therapy, he cannot see her and is forced to confront Dr. Raglan about this abuse. He demands the visitations be discontinued. Dr. Raglan notes that Nola has the right to see her daughter and rejects as harmful terminating the visitations.
Thus rejected, Frank leaves Candice with her grandmother -Nola’s mother- and visits a lawyer. He finds that terminating visitations is a tricky thing and could work against him.
However, while he’s away, Candice finds and goes through old photographs of her mother and grandmother. She finds that as a child, Nola was often “sick” and hospitalized. Further, we find her grandmother is a heavy drinker and the implication is clear: The grandmother abused Nola as a child, just as Nola is doing the same now.
And then things get very strange…
Something appears in the grandmother’s kitchen and tosses plates and food onto the floor. The grandmother goes to investigate and is attacked by what appears to be a Candice doppleganger, a blond child with deformed features. This creature viciously kills the grandmother but leaves Candice alive, and the mystery begins…
As I said, I don’t want to go into too many spoilers (other than what I’ve just mentioned above) but the most fascinating element of The Brood is that while it is a horror story, at its heart it is about familial dysfunction.
Oliver Reed delivers a terrific performance as Dr. Raglan. He is a calm, cool character who nonetheless can act out in therapy sessions to bring out the rage in others. By the time the film’s over we realize he’s essentially a modern day Dr. Frankenstein, a man who pushed the limits of science and decency and, ultimately, must pay the price for his hubris.
Even better is Samantha Eggar as Nola Carveth. She is equal parts frightening, pitiful, enraged, jealous, and protective. Make no mistake: Ms. Eggar had a very tough role to play in this movie and I doubt many other actors could have done what she did here. In this movie conveys so many different -and at times paradoxical- emotions, sometimes within the very same scene. Despite her monstrous nature, in the end we can’t help but feel pity for her as she’s very much a victim of her abusive upbringing and inner madness rather than some crazed monster that needs to be “taken down.”
While The Brood likely won’t make your heart race like it did when originally released, it remains a startling journey through psychological horror made real. If you can handle the film’s slower pace, you’ll be treated with a very deep disturbing film.
This is something one doesn’t say that often regarding a would be summer action blockbuster: Terminator Genisys’ biggest failing (though there are others I’ll get into) is that, story-wise, it was overly ambitious.
Seriously.
I know what follows is going to sound like a litany of what’s wrong with the film and you’ll be forgiven for thinking I absolutely hated it. But it isn’t the case. In spite of the fact that so much went wrong, I’d give the film a thumbs up. A mild thumbs up, I grant you, but a thumb’s up nonetheless.
The biggest draw of Terminator Genisys, of course, is the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his most famous role as a robotic killer from the future come back to the “present” to either kill or protect (he’s done both) someone whose life has a great bearing on an apocalyptic future. Upon its initial release, Terminator Genisys (TG from now on) received mediocre reviews from audiences (58% positive) and generally poor reviews from critics (28% positive) over on Rotten Tomatoes. Further, the film, which was originally planned to be the first of a new trilogy of Terminator films, also didn’t do as well in the U. S. box-office. My understanding is that it made good money overseas and therefore likely earned a decent profit for the studios. However, I’ve heard the profit was not enough to continue the series as originally planned and therefore we will likely not see a TG 2 and 3..
When I heard this film was conceived as the first part of a trilogy, I was very worried. Would this film deliver enough of a story on its own or would we have all kinds of cliff-hangers/plot points left behind to resolve in future films? And if there is no next film, as it appears at this moment (this could, of course, change), will audiences be left frustrated and angry?
To allay that worry, let me say this: TG presents a for the most part very complete story. There is at least one major plot issue left unresolved (and it is a big one) but its unresolved nature doesn’t destroy what you see here. (I’ll reveal that point after the trailer below)
Now that I’ve finished my preamble, let’s get to the movie itself…
While it pains me to give away much of the movie’s plot, I give tremendous credit to the screenwriters of TG. Instead of giving us a by the numbers sequel, they presented a story that doubled back in time and created a fascinating alternate 1984 universe.
The first part of TG takes place in the apocalyptic future we’ve come to know from the previous Terminator films. We witness the defeat of Skynet at the hands of John Connor (Jason Clarke) and Kyle Reese (Jai Courtney taking over for Michael Biehn) before moving back to this alternate original Terminator timeline.
In this vastly different 1984 we meet up with Sarah Connor (the role made famous by Linda Hamilton is played by Game of Thrones‘ Emilia Clarke this time around) who is far from the meek waitress presented in that film and more like the battle ready version in Terminator 2.
Those opening scenes, which confound our expectations, are among the movie’s best but, unfortunately, this is also when the film starts to go off the rails.
As clever as this twisty-turny alternate timeline concept is, the screenwriters lamentably decided the dialogue between Sarah Connors and Kyle Reese should be “cute” and “humorous” and, for the most part, it is neither. Worse, when all is said and done there wasn’t all that much chemistry between these two actors versus the originals.
Still, the concept of this new alternate timeline kept me interested in the goings on. We’re given an “older” Schwarzenegger Terminator and this aging is explained quite well. We’re also offered some more surprises in the movie’s second half but, unfortunately, several of the movie’s trailers gave at least one of the biggest surprises away (Why would they do that?! Why?!). The international trailer I’ve embedded below, thankfully, keeps the surprises to a minimal.
As I mentioned above, the movie suffers from being too ambitious and I’ll get to that now.
To begin, the film introduces us to waaaay too many characters. For example, we get a great actor like J. K. Simmons in a smallish role that, while interesting enough, could nonetheless have been eliminated entirely from the film with absolutely no ill effects. We’re also introduced to several law enforcement/homeland security types, along with the a couple of high-tech scientists/industrialists, who have a few short scenes which also could have been eliminated or trimmed significantly. Then there’s ex-Doctor Who Matt Smith’s role. While important to this story, it amounts to (I kid you not) maybe two or three scenes for no more than 3 minutes of screen time in total. Did he take the role because it would be more prominent in the theoretical second and third TG movies? One wonders.
In fact, there’s so much storytelling and introduction of characters going on that at times the movie’s main draw, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator, fades into the background. Sadly, his function in this film is to be involved in the action sequences and, when things are slow, provide yet more “humor” bits, many of which are forced and/or not all that funny to begin with.
Clocking in at a little over 2 hours, its clear that as clever a concept as TG presents, the film’s script could have used another pass to tighten it up but, of course, that was not to be.
In sum, Terminator Genesys is a decent though very flawed action film whose greatest triumph is in the way it cleverly reworks the previous Terminator films’ well-worn concepts and therefore tries to give audiences something surprising and new.
Sadly, because of bloat, I can only offer a mild recommendation. It’s a decent enough film but it could have been –should have been- great.
Ok, now about that plot point that is left dangling…
SPOILERS FOLLOW!!!
You Were Warned!
Still there? Ok, here goes…
So in this alternate 1984 we have a Sarah Connors who is fully aware of Skynet and her role in the revolution (ie, as the mother of John Connors and with an awareness that his father, Kyle Reese, is about to appear from the future).
She came to this realization, we find, because when she was a young child her parents were killed and this Schwarzenegger Terminator appeared and, apparently, rescued her and became her surrogate father. He was the one that subsequently trained her to become the warrior she was and prepared her for the arrival of Kyle Reese and the other (bad guy) Terminator in 1984.
But these bits of the past are presented in a very nebulous way within TG. and we’re never told who sent this now older Schwarzenegger Terminator to “save” Sarah Connors when she was a child.
Note how I put the word save in quotations. I do so because as a viewer I was left wondering if he actually did save her or, perhaps, was the one who killed Sarah Connors’ parents so that he could then raise her?
We never see who attacks and kills Sarah Connors’ parents when she was a child, only that the Schwarzenegger Terminator subsequently appears and takes her away. Did he kill Sarah Connors’ parents because this allowed whoever sent him back to create this alternate timeline or did he fight off other Terminators? If he did, who sent them back?
Alas, there are no answers provided within the movie itself and the older Schwarzenegger Terminator states that his memory of who sent him back was wiped out, presumably to keep the information away from Skynet.
No, haven’t gone to see the film. As I said in my previous post, reading the reviews and discovering the “big” spoiler created a really bad taste in my mouth, one which I’ll get into in a moment.
In that previous post, I didn’t want to get into spoiler territory but now that the film has been out for several days and no doubt word of what this spoiler is has circulated among fans of the James Bond franchise, I feel safer in exploring it.
There are two “big” reveals in the review. The first was to be expected: The character of Oberhauser (Christoph Waltz) turned out to be Blofeld. Considering this film was named “Spectre” and anyone with even a passing knowledge of the fictitious evil organization knows that its head is Blofeld, I can only scratch my head as to why they chose to “hide” this fact.
I mean, EVERYONE knew that Mr. Waltz (despite the actor’s protestations) was playing the character. It was a weak repeat of the weak “surprise” that John Harrison was in actuality Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). I suppose one of the earlier examples of the use of this concept in modern times (and modern blockbuster films) was in 2005’s Batman Begins where Liam Neeson’s Ducard is revealed to be…someone else. This concept was used again in The Dark Knight Rises (2012) with the revelation that Marion Cotillard’s Miranda wasn’t who she said she was, though even by that point audiences were already suspecting she was a certain character’s daughter.
Moving beyond this by now well worn trope, what really infuriated me -as well as Mr. McWeeny- regarding Spectre was this:
…the reason that Oberhauser became a criminal mastermind in charge of an international organization that is involved in human trafficking, drugs, terrorism, and myriad other destructive crimes is because when James Bond’s parents died, Bond was sent to live with the Oberhausers, and Papa Oberhauser decided he liked James Bond better than he liked his real son, Franz.
Yes. It’s true. Blofeld is Blofeld because his daddy liked James Bond more than him.
Wow.
I mean, wow.
Talk about cheap, pseudo-psychological crap. One comes away feeling Oberhauser/Blofeld needs to get a grip. I take it back: the screenwriters of Spectre need to get a grip. How could they use this concept (already used as a joke in the last Austin Powers film!) and think it would come out as anything other than silly?
But like the “revelation” that Oberhauser is in reality Blofeld, the links between villain and hero also have a history. A history that, by this point, has also slid into cliche.
Who can forget…
Many were totally blown away by this revelation though it, like the concept that Luke and Leia were siblings, was clearly a post original Star Wars creation.
A few years later, Tim Burton’s original Batman introduced this element which, though not familiar per se, created a sense that Joker/Batman were intertwined more than had ever originally been conceived:
In the comic books, the Wayne’s killer was a low level hoodlum named Joe Chill. In this movie, Jack Napier/The Joker “creates” Batman and Batman, later in the film, creates the Joker. Its one of those “neat” concepts that are perhaps a little too neat and can only occur in films that deal with the fanstastic.
Now that Spectre is out (and doing fairly well in theaters, though its box office wasn’t quite as high as Skyfall) and it might be Daniel Craig’s last go at the James Bond character, I suspect a major re-evaluation of his films is in the offing. While the Pierce Brosnan films were box-office successes, following his departure people gave his run a second look and it turned out those films didn’t have legs. Most today dismiss the Brosnan run as weak even though it did well enough to warrant four films.
I wonder if the same may happen with Mr. Craig’s four film run. For my money and without having seen Spectre yet (I will, but probably not in theaters), the only really good Daniel Craig Bond film is Casino Royale, but only because it so very well created an “origin” of the Bond character. I was hoping subsequent films would fully grasp the fun/action/suspense nature of the other Bond films but that was not to be. Quantum Of Solace was torpedoed by a writer’s strike. Skyfall was a beautiful film to look at and enjoy while watching it for the first time but immediately afterwards you realize the plot made absolutely no sense. Spectre appears to be not unlike Skyfall in the sense that it is also a beautiful film to look at but one whose plot -and the character motivations- again suffer.
In time, will we look back and say that Mr. Craig made one really good Bond film and followed it up with three forgettable features? Is this not what essentially happened to Pierce Brosnan? Goldeneye, Mr. Brosnan’s first Bond film, is considered by many his best while the others…not so much.
I’m a curious guy and as much as I was (note the past tense) eager to see the 007 film Spectre, released today, I just had to read some of the reviews.
To be fair, the earliest reviews, appearing earlier in the week and following, I assume, the UK premiere of the film, were generally positive and my hopes were raised. I’m a fan of James Bond and have a love for many of the films, even as I’m clear-eyed enough to recognize there is plenty of chaff among the wheat.
My favorite Bond is Sean Connery though even his run of films weren’t perfect. Thunderball was a great spectacle but in retrospect was probably the first of the Bond films to show both formula and bloat but its follow-up, You Only Live Twice, was the only Connery Bond film (including the non-canon Never Say Never Again) to leave me cold. While others loathe the tongue in cheek campiness of Diamonds Are Forever, I happen to like that film for just that reason.
Between You Only Live Twice and Diamonds Are Forever we had On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, the only Bond film featuring George Lazenby in the title role. There are many who consider this one of the all time best Bond films ever but I’m not one of them. I found the film rather flat, though it was fun to see Diana Rigg and Telly Savalas in it. Continuity-wise, I never understood why Mr. Savalas’ Blofeld didn’t recognize James Bond and vice versa. Despite the change in actors, the two characters had come face to face in the previous film, You Only Live Twice.
The first Bond I encountered was the Roger Moore version. Though many hate Mr. Moore’s take on the Bond character, I enjoyed his work. The biggest problem, IMHO, with Mr. Moore’s Bond films is that one good film was almost always followed with a really bad one. Further, two of the worst Bond films ever made, Moonraker (a silly Star Wars inspired affair) and A View To A Kill (an uninspired work -you need only check out the totally ho-hum opening action set piece to see how uninspired the rest of the film was) both featured Mr. Moore. Yet the highs were very high. The Spy Who Loved Me and For Your Eyes Only are two of my all time favorite Bonds.
Timothy Dalton would replace Roger Moore in the underrated The Living Daylights, a damn good Bond film that would have benefited even more had the producers/creators tailored their script for Mr. Dalton rather than Roger Moore (as good as Mr. Dalton is, there are moments in the film that appeared designed specifically for Mr. Moore’s interpretation of the character). Mr. Dalton’s second (and last) Bond film, License to Kill, however, was a big disappointment and I wasn’t too surprised when it was announced he was out.
Pierce Brosnan, the actor who the studios originally wanted to take over for Roger Moore following A View to a Kill, would be hired for the next four Bond films which, frankly, didn’t do all that much for me. I love the idea of Pierce Brosnan playing Bond but the films, apart from the first, felt like a cookie cutter product. One film fades into the next and if pressed, I’d have a hard time telling you the plots of his Bond run.
Then came Daniel Craig with the 2006 “reboot” Casino Royale. Based on the first Ian Fleming penned James Bond story, Casino Royale was what Timothy Dalton’s first Bond film should have been. Serious, sexy, and tragic. Here we had James Bond presented as a new agent and, by the end of the adventure when he states he’s “Bond, James Bond” it feels like you’ve just seen his origin story and away we go…
…only we didn’t.
The next Bond film, Quantum of Solace, fell victim in part to a writer’s strike and was a mess of a movie, IMHO. 2012’s Skyfall, however, hit audiences like napalm. Critics almost universally loved the film and, when watching it, so did I.
But as pretty and adrenaline pumping as Skyfall was to watch in theaters that first time, the movie’s story falls apart even under the most modest of scrutiny. Worse, this is the only Bond film I know of where the bad guy “wins”. His stated goal is to kill Judi Dench’s M and then die and this is exactly what he does. Which makes one wonder: Just how effective is this Bond?
Another thing that bothered me about the film, even upon first watching it, is that at the very end we again establish the “old” Bond setup of a male M, Moneypenny, and Bond. Didn’t we already do a “origin” story with Casino Royale? How come we’re now three movies into Mr. Craig’s run and yet we wind once again having an origin story with Skyfall?
Which brings us back to Spectre.
Despite the bumps in the road and the disappointing films, I maintain I’m a fan of the franchise and like nothing more than to see a good Bond film. The early commercials for Spectre indicated, at least to me, that this new movie would offer plenty of homages to the old ones, something that thrilled me.
In my mind I’m thinking: Now that we’ve finally gotten rid of the whole origin story stuff, we’re going into primo-Bond territory with, among other Bondian staples, a bruiser henchman whom he fights on a train (Shades of From Russia WIth Love and The Spy Who Loved Me)! You have the evil organization Spectre coming back after all these years (the organization that vexed Connery’s Bond for most of his run! Hey, it’s in the movie’s title!). You have car chases and snow and beautiful women (not that they ever left the series) and…
…and it looked like so much fun.
Then came the other reviews.
As I said above, its my own damn fault. When I read this HEAVY SPOILER review by Drew McWeeny, I was beside myself:
I’ll try to stay clear of certain spoilery material as best I can, but one of the first things to annoy me upon reading this review is that it appears we once again have a Daniel Craig Bond film that takes place BEFORE he becomes a “full on” Connery-Moore-Lazenby-Dalton-Brosnan Bond. In other words, we’re once again -on our fourth Daniel Craig film!- yet again dealing with a proto-Bond in an origin story.
Even worse than that was discovering in this review and others like it the identity and motives of the movie’s villain. I’m not going to give that information away (if you want SPOILERS, click the link above or search for other reviews), but the motives of the villain are -and there is no kind way of saying this- stupid.
Extremely stupid.
How stupid? So stupid one wonders if the writers forgot the same motivations and relationships were presented years before in one of the Austin Powers films (again, I’m being careful here to not be spoilery). In the Austin Powers films these were presented as broad comedy and the silliness was intentional. In Spectre they’re playing it straight and reading about it makes it feel all the sillier.
So here we are, four films into Daniel Craig’s run of James Bond and, based on some of the interviews he’s given, Spectre might well be his final appearance as Bond and, at least for some critics, if this is his swan song he’s going out on a low.
Whenever a movie has a very limited theatrical run and/or quickly appears on direct-to-video services, one can usually guess the studios decided -whether right or wrong- said features are not strong enough to spend the extra money in promoting it and having a full theatrical run.
These films most certainly could be good but, perhaps even more easily, might be a complete bust.
Often direct to video films star lesser known actors and are low budget affairs. This happens frequently but not always. Sometimes these movies may surprise you by featuring one time very big name actors. Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a trio of such big league actions stars, have nonetheless each had films released via this format. In their prime, this would probably never happen, but time passes and these stars no longer command the best and brightest directors and writers for their work.
There are other exceptions to be found, and one of the strangest of them all, to my mind, is the film Dark Places. Why do I feel this is a strange case?
Because the film features a very hot “A” list star in Charlize Theron who just appeared as what was arguably the star of one of this summer’s biggest box office/critical successes in Mad Max: Fury Road. Further, the film she’s in is an adaptation of a currently very hot author’s novel. Finally, the story featured in this movie may have drawn Ms. Theron because it touches somewhat on her own personal tragedy when growing up, which means Ms. Theron might have given the role an extra effort in the realization, perhaps something along the line of her critically acclaimed work in Monster.
If there were ever enough ingredients to expect a film would at the very least be a sure fire theatrical release it was this one. Yet Dark Places, as mentioned, only received a very limited theatrical release before being thrown into the home video market.
With all that in mind, I nonetheless remained curious to see the film and, when given the opportunity yesterday, I did just that, though I lowered my expectations even more than usual. So, was the film a bust like the studios felt or were they wrong in showing such little faith in this movie?
Read on…read on…
Based on the novel by Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn, Dark Places is the story of Libby Day (Charlize Theron) a woman who, as a young girl, had her mother and two sisters brutally murdered by what was believed to be her then 15 year old brother. She was the only one to escape the massacre and, in court, fingered her brother for the crime.
Now an adult, LIbby is a woman who has benefited from the notoriety of this sensational crime. She’s made money by releasing a book (she later claims she never read it and didn’t write it) and, for a time, also received money from well wishers.
But twenty eight years later, the money is drying up and Libby is in deep financial straits. Her rent hasn’t been paid for two months and electricity to her house has been cut off. Her financial adviser presents her with some letters from organizations and groups interested in paying her to appear at their events, events that deal with crimes.
Desperate to score money, Libby agrees to meet up with Lyle Wirth (Mad Max: Fury Road co-star Nicholas Hoult) who runs a “Crime Club”. Though not interested in re-living the tragedy of her past, she accepts money from him to attend what turns out to be a fractious meeting of his Crime Club. The members of the club, Libby finds, all believe her brother innocent of the murders and want Libby to re-examine the crime. Libby tells the members off but something awakens within her. Later on she again contacts Wirth and, while insisting this is all about money, agrees to allow him to “hire” her for 3 weeks time during which she will go over her case.
What follows are flashbacks and detective work performed, for the most part, by LIbby. She re-establishes contact with her brother, who remains in jail. She is terrified by him yet he doesn’t appear to be the monster she expected. Nonetheless, the now grown man refuses to tell Libby whether he committed the crimes and that makes her believe there’s more to the story than what she remembers.
Despite lowering my expectations waaaay down with Dark Places, the movie proved a slog. Clocking in at just over two hours long, the film feels overlong yet curiously underdeveloped. The main mystery is never as intriguing as one would hope and the revelations, when they come, rely too much on coincidence. Without getting into too many SPOILERS, suffice it to say that the night of the crime several events magically lined up to create this singular event…and its a whopper of a thing to swallow, as much of a whopper to swallow when all is magically uncovered all those years later.
Despite a strong cast and decent acting, Dark Places is too slow, too un-involving, and ultimately too coincidental in its resolution to accept. It’s therefore not too terribly surprising the film wasn’t given a broader release.
The above article by Pamela McClintock and presented on CNN.com, examines the large uptick in failed movie released during the past month.
While The Martian is doing well, so many other films have severely underperformed.
Films such as:
The Walk.
This movie, directed by Robert Zemekis (Back to the Future, Forrest Gump, etc) received generally positive reviews but audiences stayed away in droves. Personally, I wasn’t all that interested in the subject matter. And if I was, why would I watch this and not Man on Wire, the 2008 documentary that focuses on, and features footage from, the actual tightrope walk?
Further to that, I have a big fear of heights and, from what I understand, this film really wanted audiences, especially those going to the IMAX presentation, to experience a strong sense of vertigo. Mr. Zemekis wanted audiences to feel the heights which Phillipe Petite (the man who did the walk) felt.
Regardless of how good the film might be: Why would I want to torture myself like that?!
Another film that didn’t do so well was Steve Jobs. Written by acclaimed screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and starring Michael Fassbender, Kate Winslet, and Seth Rogan (who in particular received great reviews for his portrayal of Steve Jobs’ partner Steve Wozniak), the film nonetheless also tanked at the box office…even though it too received generally positive reviews. On Rottentomatoes.com, the film has a positive rating of 85% and yet audiences weren’t interested.
I suspect the problem here might be that we’ve already had our fill of Steve Jobs documentaries…if there ever was a desire for such a thing in the first place. Only two years ago Jobs, featuring Ashton Kutcher in the title role, came and went and no one cared then -though to be fair unlike Steve Jobs this film was almost universally panned- so why should they care now?
Then there’s the Bill Murray vehicle Rock The Kasbah. While I felt the trailer was amusing, this one may have fallen victim to very bad reviews.
Truth, starring Robert Redford and Kate Blanchett and focusing on the controversial George H. W. Bush military service story that sunk Dan Rather’s career also didn’t do well. The reviews for this film were decidedly mixed but I suspect the problem in finding an audience with this movie might lie in that almost everyone -including conservatives- wants nothing more than to forget all about George H. W. Bush and his presidency. Why go to the movies to revisit even one aspect of it?
Our Brand is Crisis, starring Sandra Bullock, in my opinion, simply didn’t look all that interesting. Then again, like Truth we’re again dealing with politics and maybe people just aren’t in the mood at this time to deal with it. Regardless, apart from some humorous content, the movie’s trailer didn’t grab me all that much. Your mileage, of course, may vary:
Burnt, starring Bradley Cooper as an arrogant chef, was even worse, trailer-wise. Does anyone want to see the film after this:
Slick though the trailer is, almost nothing about it grabbed me and the scenarios presented felt awfully familiar. If I want to see an arrogant chef scolding his “pupils” I can watch Hell’s Kitchen. If I want to see people making great culinary confections, I can watch any of a myriad of programs on the Food Network. Perhaps this subject matter is a little too overexposed?
My comments above, of course, benefit immensely from 20/20 hindsight. Though it may not sound it, I do not relish hearing about troubles at movie studios. As an author, I know the backbreaking efforts that go into creating a work and it must be crushing to see the end results receive (as some of those features did) great reviews but be met with public indifference. Besides, while these films didn’t appeal to me personally for the reasons I’ve listed, at least the studios were trying to do something different.
Unfortunately, it appears the studios entered a perfect storm of sorts and audiences simply weren’t buying what they were selling this past month.
Which means that with this past Halloween weekend premiere of “El Jefe”, the first episode of Starz! Ash vs Evil Dead, it has been a mind boggling twenty three years since we’ve seen a healthy dose of our anti-hero/screwup in action. Sure, Mr. Campbell made a cameo appearance as Ash at the very end (after the credits) of the disappointing 2013 remake/reimaging of Evil Dead, but that’s all it was, a few seconds’ long cameo…
Here we finally, finally get what we asked for: Ash front and center doing what he does best: Kick demonic ass while simultaneously making an ass out of himself.
For that’s what the crew behind the original Evil Dead films discovered: That graphic, splatter horror could be merged with comedy to create something unique for these times. While this wasn’t an entirely new idea (years before Abbott and Costello meet up with, among others, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, Dracula etc), the character of Ash, a knucklehead with a penchant for spouting some of the strangest/hilarious lines…
…was. He’s a clod, a dim bulb. An arrogant, selfish fool who nonetheless has one very unique ability: To effectively fight evil. Though the first Evil Dead movie was more of a straight up horror film, it was in the second Evil Dead this unique comic-Ash character really flowered. The clip above, from Army of Darkness, continued and expanded on that interpretation. Ash was the dufus character from a comedy that just happened to find himself in a full fledged horror feature.
Happily, Ash vs Evil Dead follows that path beautifully. Though older, Ash is certainly no wiser. In fact, other than dentures and a bigger belly, he’s the exact same fool fans have come to know and love.
The first episode of this 10 episode series (with a second season already approved! Yay!) succinctly re-establishes Ash while introducing us to his modern world, a place where he’s still a low level worker at the “Value Stop” chain (alas, the S-Smart found in Army of Darkness -and indeed all the elements present in that movie- could not be used in this show as that film is owned by another studio. No big deal: Strong continuity isn’t an important element in the Evil Dead universe). Ash also remains a lothario, readying himself in comical fashion in the opening scenes to cruise down to a seedy looking bar and pick up the only woman in the establishment…by lying and boasting about how he lost his hand (one can imagine how many times before he’s used this pick up line).
But all is (of course) not well and Ash realizes the evil he faced all those years before may be back. And the person responsible for its return could be…Ash himself.
I won’t go into all the details of this episode but we are introduced to a larger cast of characters who will accompany Ash on this new adventure. Some, like Lucy Lawless‘ Lucy appear only for a few seconds in this episode while three other regulars are given more time. Whether there are more characters to join in this journey, I’m not sure.
Yet.
If you’re at all into Evil Dead and, more specifically, the legend that is Ash, you’ll have a blast with this new series’ first episode. Let’s hope what follows is up to this highly entertaining premiere.
