Movie Review The Eye

The Eye (2003) 

Directed by David Moreau, Xavier Palud

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Jessica Alba, Alessandro Nivola, Parker Posey

Release Date February 1st, 2008

Published February 3rd, 2008 

Growing slowly into her star power, Jessica Alba steps up to the solo lead role in the Japanese horror remake The Eye. Alba is hoping to find the same kind of mainstream success that Naomi Watts and Sarah Michele Geller found after each topped the box office in their respective remakes, The Ring and The Grudge. Alba has the advantage of having the best source material of the three, the original The Eye was a creeptastic freakout. The dumbed down American version, clipped for mass PG 13 consumption, fails to do justice to the source material but doesn't stink nearly as bad as The Ring or The Grudge, financial success never an indicator of artistic success.

Sydney Wells (Jessica Alba) has been blind since a childhood accident at the age of five. Now, more than 20 years later, her sight is going to be restored. A donar retina has been found and the surgery perfected to apply it and give her sight for the first time in decades. Unfortunately, with her new sight comes the visions and memories of the former owner of the eyes. According to scientific studies, there are documented cases of transplant patients who take on the personal habits of the people who donated to them. The case most cited is of a marathoner who received a donated liver from a smoker. After the surgery she started smoking.

Nevertheless, her sister Helen (Parker Posey) and her new doctor Paul Faulkner (Alessandro Nivola) both believe she is cracking up. Maybe she is but we believe her because we see everything she sees.

David Moreaux and Xavier Palud co-directed The Eye from Sebastian Gutierrez' watered down, PG 13 script. In typically sub-genre fashion Moreaux and Palud are pigs at the Hollywood trough, willingly dumbing down their work for the benefit of their bank accounts. Gee guys, why not just make another The Ring movie, or another The Grudge. We don't confuse audiences by challenging them too much. The Eye is close enough that the audience you think is rather pea brained anyway will get the close association with those other The.... horror flicks, but you don't want to confuse the children.

Kids 13 to 17 I understand that you are desperate for entertainment but the more you are willing to watch movies like The Grudge, The Ring and The Eye, the more Hollywood will make them. These producers really think you are stupid. And you aren't helping change that. You've seen the same movie, counting the Ring and Grudge sequels, 6 times now. Hollywood has given you PG-13 photocopies 6 times and you keep going back. It's the same with those awful spoof movies. When you throw away money on Meet The Epic Date Scary Movie, you give Hollywood the idea to make more of them.

Kids, you must stop this yourselves! Demand something different or they will continue to think you are stupid.

The Eye is not the worst of this genre, merely the latest. Jessica Alba continues to be an engaging presence but she needs to fire her agent for putting her in a series of bad movies meant solely to pad her bank account. Then again, that may be the only reason she got into the biz. Maybe she's just after the fat cash. She took that role in Fantastic Four despite obvious issues with those two awful scripts. She took the lead in Awake, a unique but flawed thriller from late last year. Now she stars in a Japanese horror remake and picks up a fat paycheck and little else.

If it's just about the money it makes sense. If however Ms. Alba is serious about her craft or about entertaining people, I hope she begins finding better roles. It's not that she lacks the talent to play better roles. Rather, she has simply chosen badly thus far in her career.

Movie Snakes on a Plane

Snakes on a Plane (2006) 

Directed by David R. Ellis 

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez 

Starring Samuel L. Jackson, Julianna Margulies, Rachel Blanchard, Flex Anderson, Lin Shaye, David Koechner 

Release Date August 18th, 2006 

Published August 17th, 2006 

The phenomenon that is Snakes on a Plane is one of the more remarkable marketing triumphs in history. New Line Cinema with the simple decision to abandon their preferred title of Pacific Air Flight 121 in favor of the working title placeholder Snakes on a Plane, created an uncontrollable internet sensation that they could not have planned or even imagined.

Now that the film itself is replacing the faked trailers, posters and audio clips, could it even come close to matching the pre-release hype? Yes and no. Yes, the film features seriously campy moments of ridiculous gore and foul mouthed fan requested dialogue. And no, the film was supposed to be either so bad it's good or actually be pretty good and it turned out to be neither.

Snakes on a Plane is simply nothing more than a bad movie with an eye catchingly simpleminded title.

There really is not much to describe in terms of plot. The title says almost all you need to know. There is a plane with snakes. To be more specific, a flight from Hawaii to Los Angeles carrying a federal witness, Sean played by Wolf Creek star Nathan Phillips, and a pair of FBI agents Neville Flynn (Jackson) and his partner John (Mark Houghton), is filled with poisonous snakes by a mob boss whom Sean witnessed murdering a prosecutor.

Also on board this flight are a group of caricatures and stereotypes who line up to be victims of the hissing, slithering bad guys. Flex Anderson plays a germ phobic rap star, Kenan Thompson -from Saturday Night Live- is his sassy, video game loving bodyguard. Julianna Marguilies, once an Emmy candidate on E.R, plays a flight attendant on her last trip alongside Farrelly brothers regular Lynn Shaye whose character just turned down early retirement. Comic actor David Koechner shows up to give the film a little comic jolt as the plane's politically incorrect pilot but his energy is quickly dissipated.

Maxim magazine regulars Rachel Blanchard and Elsa Pataky round out the cast of those with the best chance to survive, process of recognizability elimination, if we have a vague idea who you are you have a better chance of surviving. It's what would happen if the love boat turned into the titanic.

Blame director David R. Ellis who had shown a modicum of suspense skill in his previous high blood pressure thrillers Final Destination 2 and Cellular. In Snakes on a Plane Ellis can barely ring a few minor seat jumps from this story which would seem to have built in thrills. Snakes are falling from every opening, slithering up from every hole in the floor, the possibilities for them to strike are endless and yet Ellis never really establishes the tense situation beyond his colorful ideas as to where to attach a rubber snake to the human body.

As for star Samuel L. Jackson, it's difficult to decipher whether Jackson is in on the joke of Snakes on a Plane or the subject of the joke that is Snakes on a Plane. In interviews Jackson blasted the idea that the film would be full on camp and yet he was more than happy to include the joke phrase that internet fans demanded the creators put in the film. His delivery of the line "I'm tired of these motherf*****g snakes, on this motherf*****g plane" does rouse the audience but it seems to lack conviction and feels more than a little forced.

With something as cheeseball goofy as Snakes on a Plane you can't help but have a few cheap thrills to enjoy. It's nearly impossible not to enjoy watching the plane's resident jerky passenger, the pushy fastidious complainer guy, get his snakey comeuppance. There are also some very creative ways to dispose of snakes such as with a lighter taped to the side of a bottle of hairspray or the kickboxer with the quick squishing kick.

These momentary thrills along with a high gore quotient will be more than enough for some people. For me however, I checked out during the scene in which a nameless extra is using the toilet and ends up with a snake attached to a very sensitive portion of his body. There are cheap jokes and then there is simple crass exploitation. I should not have expected anything less from Snakes on a Plane but that does not dismiss my disgust and dismay.

Criticizing Snakes on a Plane for being mindless is as futile as... well.. being trapped on a cross pacific flight with boxes of angry poisonous snakes. You simply have to accept fate. Snakes on a Plane was going to be brainless from the moment it was conceived. It was a dullard idea when the first screenwriter put fingers to keyboard to type it out.

Still there was the potential here for some camp fun, there in fact is a little camp fun, but there is simply not nearly enough fun for me to recommend Snakes on a Plane.

Movie Review: The Big Bounce

The Big Bounce (2004) 

Directed by George Armitage 

Written by Sebastian Guttierez 

Starring Owen Wilson, Sara Foster, Charlie Sheen, Gary Sinise, Vinnie Jones, Morgan Freeman 

Release Date January 30th, 2004

Published February 3rd, 2004 

The books of Elmore Leonard have been adapted for the screen more than John Grisham’s have and almost as often as Stephen King’s have. And like Grisham and King’s adaptations, they are extremely hit and miss. When they're good, like Out Of Sight, Jackie Brown, or Get Shorty, they are very good. When they are bad they are very bad like 1997's Touch starring Skeet Ulrich. Or bad like the first time Leonard's novel The Big Bounce was brought to the screen in 1969--a humorless, dull caper flick with Ryan O'Neal and Leigh Taylor Young. The latest adaptation of The Big Bounce at least brings a little light humor to its throwaway caper plot, but it is just as inconsequential as the original and yet another letdown of it's source material.

The Big Bounce stars Owen Wilson as small time criminal Jack Ryan, a con man looking to lay low on the big island of Hawaii. Unfortunately, Jack is the type who can't avoid trouble and while working a construction gig, he can't help but draw the ire of his bosses, evil land developers played by Gary Sinise, Charlie Sheen and Vinnie Jones. Jack's one friend, Frank (Gregory Sporleder), isn't much help either, encouraging Jack to get back into the breaking and entering racket to help Frank pay off his numerous debts.

Then Jack meets real trouble in the form of his former boss's mistress Nancy (Sara Foster), a sun-baked surf goddess with a penchant for those unfortunate criminal types like Jack. Nancy is working an angle to steal money from Sinise's evil land developer and enlists Jack to help her pull it off. This begins a fun little romance plot with the very sexy Foster getting Wilson's surfer dude con-man into all sorts of trouble. All of which leads to a major twist involving a local judge played by Morgan Freeman and Sinise's drunkard wife played by Bebe Neuwirth.

In the Elmore Leonard universe of hip lingo and languid humor, The Big Bounce is a fun, if forgettable little story, sexy and surprising and always cool. In the film however every bit of humor is strained for and the coolness that Leonard has always injected through dialogue and setting is replaced by Wilson's charming surfer attitude. Wilson is charming and funny but out of place. His character is so laid back and care free that there never seems to be anything at stake.

For his part Sinise would seem to be pivotal in the plot but he is merely a cameo in the film. Instead, the bad guy slack is picked up by Sheen in a role that is badly miscalculated and mind blowingly out of place. Sheen's dunderheaded character is never a threat to anyone and thus has no weight in scenes where he is seemingly the heavy. His character's relationship with Wilson's character is confusing; are they friends? He did bail jack out of jail. They fight, but why they are fighting and why does nothing of consequence happen after the fight? It all just adds to the confounding dynamic between Wilson and Sheen.

For his part, Owen Wilson is the film’s best asset. His laid back charm is fun and enjoyable but it has little context. The romance with Foster is fun and sexy, Foster is unbelievably gorgeous, but the plot is Byzantine in explaining whether they have feelings for one another or not and is noncommittal about those feelings all the way to the films unsatisfying conclusion.

On the bright side, when it's freezing cold and there is a foot of snow on the ground it is nice to escape for ninety or so minutes of fun in the sun on the beaches of Hawaii. But that is not nearly enough for me to recommend The Big Bounce. 

Movie Review Gothika

Gothika (2003) 

Directed by Mathieu Kassovitz 

Written by Sebastian Gutierrez

Starring Halle Berry, Robert Downey Jr, Natasha Lyonne, Charles S Dutton, Penelope Cruz 

Release Date November 21st, 2003 

Published November 21st, 2003 

The title Gothika seems curious even after you've seen the movie. Only after looking up the film’s website and consulting my dictionary for the definition of the word 'Gothic' does the film's choice of a title become clear. It relates in fiction writing as a horror mystery and in architecture as dark imposing stone structures, buttresses, arches and high ceilings. The title has a double meaning related to the film’s story and its choice of locations, but mostly it just sounds cool. In fact, everything about Gothika from it's super hot star to it's indie credible director sounds cool. Sadly the film never meets its cool potential.

Halle Berry stars in Gothika as criminal psychologist Miranda Grey. Dr. Grey works in a prison for the criminally insane treating female patients under the watchful eye of her husband Dr. Douglas Grey (Charles S. Dutton), the hospital's administrator, and alongside her good friend Dr. Peter Graham (Robert Downey Jr.). Dr. Graham seems to be harboring a rather obvious crush on Miranda.

After working late on a dark and rainy night, Dr. Grey is driving home when she swerves off the road to avoid a young woman standing in the middle of the road. When Miranda goes to help the girl, played by an almost unrecognizable Natascha Lyonne, the girl bursts into flames but not before touching Miranda's face. The next thing Miranda knows, she is locked up in her own hospital being treated by her own staff and her husband is dead.

What else can Miranda do in this situation other than break out of the hospital and investigate the situation herself in hope of finding out whether she actually did kill her husband and why she's being haunted by this ghostly girl? Mostly though, Miranda wants to know for herself if she really is crazy. There is also mystery surrounding her connection to one of her patients, Chloe (Penelope Cruz), who is also being haunted by a dark spirit that may be more real than Miranda's ghost.

Halle Berry is a terrific choice for Miranda because she quickly earns our sympathy and her understated performance early on perfectly sets the stage for her brief meltdown and finally for her more rational approach to accepting her situation and solving her problem. She plays her intelligence on her face with her eyes and her perfectly controlled emotions. Even as the film goes off the rails around her, you never question Ms. Berry's commitment to the role, she damn near saves the movie.

Sadly, no one in the supporting cast has much of an opportunity to make an impression. Robert Downey Jr. continues to be a welcome presence even in an underwritten role. I wished Downey Jr. had more to do in the plot. Mostly, he’s concerned about his friend and nurses his unrequited crush. He has a brief hero moment but the role is otherwise far too bland for someone as talented and charismatic as Robert Downey Jr. 

A big failure of Gothika is how director Matthieu Kassovitz and writer Sebastian Guttierrez never establish the rules for the film. Obviously a film with ghosts isn't playing straight with logic but in a horror film, the filmmakers must establish film logic, a set of rules that govern the film’s created universe. In A Nightmare On Elm Street, Freddy could only come out of a dream if Nancy held onto him and woke up. 

In the recent horror flick, Darkness Falls, you were only a target of the killer if you looked at her. That film repeatedly violated its own rules and thus failed. Gothika doesn't establish its own logic and without it, the story never feels grounded. Why, if the ghost can open doors and manipulate objects, does it need to possess a body? Why use Dr. Grey to begin with? Was it just because hers was the car that happened by at that moment? There are many more questions but they are spoilers. See the movie and see if you can answer those questions. A game might make the movie more interesting. 

There is one moment in Gothika where I was willing to forgive the film’s lack of story logic. It comes when Dr. Grey herself questions the necessity of logic. It's a very funny line of dialogue because it’s a haphazard comment on this moment in the movie and about the movie itself. It’s not an intentional joke, but it is one moment when the need for story logic didn’t matter and I didn’t mind being subjected to Gothika, an oasis of unintentional charm in a desert of horror atmosphere and murky motivation. 

Director Kassovitz does have the other important elements of filmmaking in place. He is terrific at manipulating the camera. The way he keeps the camera moving is hypnotic and unlike David Fincher in Panic Room, the camera moves never seem flashy. In the few moments when the camera isn't moving, Kassovitz finds interesting angles and visually interesting backgrounds.

Gothika makes excellent use of its gothic location though I would hope a prison for the criminally insane doesn’t look so frightening, the people inside are frightening enough.

Gothika has been compared with The Sixth Sense and The Ring but I found it had most in common with the Kevin Bacon ghost thriller Stir Of Echoes. Both films are about normal people driven to mental breakdown by ghosts. Both are about the mystery surrounding the deaths of the ghostly characters. The difference between the two movies is that Stir Of Echoes has the established film logic that Gothika lacked as well as stronger supporting characters. In addition, Stir Of Echoes has the Rolling Stones’ Paint It Black in a prominent role in the film. Gothika, on the other hand, features an awful cover of The Who's Behind Blue Eyes by Limp Bizkit. Ugh! 

Then, as the movie was mercifully coming to an end, they teased a sequel. As if what came before wasn’t misguided enough, this nakedly commercial, ‘just in case this movie makes money,’ sequel tease is a rotten cherry on the rancid sundae that is Gothika.