Movie Review: Alone in the Dark

Alone in the Dark (2005) 

Directed by Uwe Boll

Written by Elan Mastel, Michael Roesch, Peter Scheerer 

Starring Christian Slater, Matthew Walker, Tara Reid, Stephen Dorff

Release Date January 28th, 2005 

Published January 27th, 2005 

German born Director Uwe Boll did not exactly set the world on fire with his first atrocious major motion picture, the horror video game adaptation House Of The Dead. Yet, because of the films low budget, success can be judged by lowered standards. Thus it's not entirely surprising to see Mr. Boll directing another low budget horror film based on a video game. What is a little surprising is that he was unable to improve on one of the worst films from any director in history.

Christian Slater, a long way from Heathers, stars as paranormal detective Edward Carnby, a former member of a secret government agency that fights the forces of evil. Now working freelance, Edward has just intercepted a rare Indian artifact and someone wants to kill him to get it. Turns out the artifact is part of a key that could unlock the gate to hell.

The bad guy chasing the artifact is Professor Hudgens (Matthew Walker) who, thanks to his assistant and Edward's ex-girlfriend, Aline (Tara Reid), has assembled all but one part of the key. The Professor has more links to Edward's past as well.  He was involved in some strange way with the disappearance of Edward and the entire population of his childhood orphanage.

The orphans, except Edward who escaped, were turned into zombie assassins who could be called only by Professor Hudgens. He calls when he is ready to open the gate to hell and it's up to Edward, his ex-girlfriend, and his former colleagues at that secret government group led by Stephen Dorff to kill the zombies and stop the Professor from opening the gate. There are also some demons from hell that are unleashed to provide some CGI carnage but God help me if I can remember why the hell they were in the movie.

Poor Christian Slater. He used to be so cool. Pump Up The Volume, Heathers even Broken Arrow, Slater had the calm sardonic cool that you can't teach. Even in a bad picture like 1992's cop comedy Kuffs Slater had the ability to bring charm to a charmless and idiotic plot. In Alone In The Dark, you sit and you wait for him to crack wise, to show how much smarter he is than the movie he's trapped in, but it never comes. Slater just looks tired, as if he has just given up and resigned himself to fate as a straight to video actor. That's a real shame.

The rest of the cast actually seems right at home in this awful material, especially Stephen Dorff who chews the scenery like a B-movie legend. Listening to Dorff bark his every line as if belting every word to the back of the theater is almost camp enough to be entertaining. Alas he can't resist taking himself and this ridiculous movie seriously as something that might actually scare someone. Like with his stolid performance in Fear Dot Com, Dorff earnestly believes he's making a good movie and that makes his performance more sad than laughable.

Director Uwe Boll is a hack, plain and simple. He is a directorial machine, built to transcribe bad scripts to filmed images. Whether those images coalesce into anything resembling a movie seems to be none of his concern.

Missing from the plot is any kind of motivation for Professor Hudgens to open the gate to hell. The professor has very little backstory for explanation, aside from turning orphans into future zombies, so the only explanation is that the professor has a case of the "movie evils". "Movie evils" occur when a movie character does something horribly evil only because the plot requires it. The professor does not benefit from opening the gate, and seems perfectly aware of what will happen if he does open it. If he has any demonstrable motivation it was left on the cutting room floor.

But hey, who needs character motivation or a coherent plot when you've got oodles of fake blood, dummie bullets and CGI demons. In a so-bad-it's-good movie that might be all that you need in order to provide some giddy cheap thrills. Unfortunately Alone In The Dark is much too dour and takes itself way too seriously for any real good camp, aside from casting Tara Reid as a scientist, HA! That's pretty funny, but they did not mean it to be a joke amazingly enough.

Watching Alone in the Dark makes me wonder-- with its imbecilic plot, bad special effects and dull witted characters, was it even a very good video game? A gamer friend of mine told me that there has not been a new Alone video game since Playstation 1 sometime in the late nineties. So why did this game get the big screen treatment?

Asking that question is as futile as asking why Uwe Boll continues to get directing assignments when clearly his real talent is inhumane torture. Or maybe it's Svengali-ism, how else to explain how he has convinced real life professional actors that he is a filmmaker.

I hate to ruin your appetite, movie fans, but indeed Mr. Boll will have another horror video game adaptation very soon. Bloodrayne stars Sir Ben Kingsley and will be in theaters early 2006. Just what we have done to deserve this I do not know but repenting our sinful ways might be a good idea before some other obscure video game receives a script commitment and comes knocking on ol' Uwe's door.

Movie Review: After the Sunset

After the Sunset (2004) 

Directed by Brett Ratner 

Written by Paul Zbyszewski, Craig Rosenberg 

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Salma Hayek, Woody Harrelson, Don Cheadle, Naomie Harris

Release Date November 12th, 2004 

Published November 11th, 2004 

Director Brett Ratner has a flair for escapist action junk.  He is the man behind the Rush Hour series. His latest escapist mainstream popcorn fare is After The Sunset, a heist comedy that is lacking a good heist and some comedy but does feature a supremely hot Salma Hayek in various stages of undress. Sometimes even bad movies have a bright side.

Pierce Brosnan stars as Max, a master thief with a particular affinity for the very rare Napoleon diamonds. What he seems to enjoy even more than the diamonds however is humiliating FBI agent Stan Lloyd, (Woody Harrelson) who is guarding the diamonds and who was held responsible when Max lifted the first one. As the story requires, Max once again humiliates Stan in a convoluted little plot with remote control cars, cat and mouse antics at a basketball game, and finally a gunshot wound for Max, though nothing serious enough to keep him from the diamond. 

The heist would not be possible without Max's better half Lola (Hayek) who runs important interference on the heist and even gets to wear a neat costume. It is Lola who decides that they are now retired and she who chooses their retirement home on a gorgeous unnamed Caribbean tourist trap island. She's happy but Max is miserable with no loot to steal and no agent Lloyd to mess with.  He is bored stiff.

Then out of the blue pops agent Lloyd and a cruise ship that just happens to be carrying the third Napoleon diamond, the only one Max hasn't stolen....allegedly. Can Max resist the temptation of the complicated and once again convoluted and over-wrought pilfering opportunity and another chance to show up Stan or will he follow Lola's admonition that they are retired and it's not worth the risk. Whether he steals the diamond or not he is guaranteed to be involved because of a local gangster (Don Cheadle) who threatens to kill him if he won't help lift the diamond.

Pierce Brosnan is trying hard to settle into post-Bond  life, though he still has one more Bond yet to come. Sadly Brosnan once again misfires on his image makeover. Brosnan is a stiff and casting him as a colorful thief in colorful surroundings only serves to show off his weakest qualities. He's charming and handsome and so very, very boring when compared to his co-stars and even the sunrise of the title is far more interesting than anything Brosnan brings to this film.

If they really wanted to have some fun with After The Sunset they should have switched a few of the roles around. Have Cheadle play the thief, Harrelson the American gangster running the island and Brosnan the straight-laced FBI guy. That at least would give Don Cheadle something more to do than just show up when the plot needs him to look mean. For some reason I can really imagine him sparking with Salma Hayek as well, something Brosnan fails at miserably.

For his part Director Brett Ratner is his calculated mainstream self. Always well aware of what test audiences are looking for, Ratner ratchets up the formula story, the recognizable faces and the entirely "lowest common denominator" plot that only few will find complicated or surprising. I will say this for Ratner, his camera loves Salma Hayek and finds new and wonderful ways of capturing her magnificent form.

As the plot clicks away through poorly executed buddy humor and lazy action setups with little if any payoff the one thing that is clear about the making of After The Sunset is that everyone on the crew must have gotten a nice tan and plenty of umbrella drinks. Otherwise there isn't much reason for this film to exist at all. This is a vacation for all involved, a chance to go to paradise on a studio dime. Can't say I blame them for living it up but would it have killed them to make a halfway decent film while they were sunning themselves?

Movie Review: A Very Long Engagement

A Very Long Engagement (2004)

Directed by Jean Pierre Jeunet 

Written by Jean Pierre Jeunet 

Starring Audrey Tautou, Gaspard Ulliel, Ticky Holgado, Jodie Foster

Release Date October 27th, 2004 

Published December 25th, 2004 

French Director Jean Pierre Jeunet can pack more artistry into one scene than most American directors conjure up in an entire career. For his latest effort, A Very Long Engagement, Mr. Jeunet has topped himself with a strikingly beautiful work that evokes an early twentieth century postcard and a grim Private Ryan-esque war picture. The mixture works because Jeunet is more imaginative and daring than many more well known or better compensated directors in the world.

Audrey Tautou, whom Jeunet made a star of in his last picture Amelie, stars here as Mathilde, a starry eyed romantic twenty year-old who lives every day awaiting the return of her fiancé Manech (Gaspard Ulliel). Even after receiving word from the war office that Manech has been killed, she refuses to accept it. Thus begins a journey, a mystery that will take her from the French countryside to Paris to the frontlines of WW1.

Through Mathilde's numerous inquiries into Manech's fate we see several different versions of what happened from soldiers and those with second hand recounting. With the help of an oddball private eye named Pire (Ticky Holgado), we learn that Manech was one of five French soldiers sentenced to death for self-infliction of wounds. The death sentence was carried out by sending the soldiers into what was called no man's land, the area between the French and German encampments on the frontlines.

Five dead men, five different explanations that range from the expected to the surprising to the miraculous. With the help of family, friends, and fellow soldiers, Mathilde pieces together a mystery that relies a little too much on chance and coincidence, but is too well directed and populated with too many great characters to not work.

Director Jean Pierre Jeunet puts more artistic imagination into one scene in A Very Long Engagement than we have seen in every mainstream feature in 2005, not that that is a very high standard. With Cinematographer Bruno Delbonnel and some stunning CGI, Mr. Jeunet casts an amber glow over all of A Very Long Engagement that gives the film an aged look that fits the World War I time period. This is a remarkably beautiful looking movie and it is no surprise it was nominated for the Oscar in Cinematography.

For her part Audrey Tautou delivers another star defining performance. At once dramatic and precocious, Ms. Tautou awesomely conveys Mathilde's naivete and determination. She is aided by a terrific supporting cast of oddballs, tough guys and simply great actors, including Jodie Foster as the wife of one of the five soldiers, and Marion Cotillard as the girlfriend of one of the five soldiers who murders her way through the same mystery as Mathilde.

Director Jean Pierre Jeunet is a gift to true film fans. A director who cares about all aspects of his films, the visual and the scripted page. Unlike some of the assembly line hacks working in mainstream Hollywood who simply transcribe the scripted page to the screen with no imagination or thought, Mr. Jeunet carefully crafts every scene for maximum effect. A Very Long Engagement is yet another example of his genius.

Documentary Review Michael Jackson This is It

Michael Jackson's This is It (2009) 

Directed by Kenny Ortega 

Written by Michael Jackson 

Starring Michael Jackson 

Release Date October 26th, 2009 

Published October 25th, 2009 

The morbid truth of Michael Jackson's This is It is that many in the audience will spend much of the film's 2 hour run time searching for clues to how Michael Jackson died. Shot just weeks before his death on June 30th 2009, This Is It shockingly shows a Michael Jackson who is lithe, agile, adroit and in control. A musical auteur crafting his music like a pro and creating a whole new musical experience that could have changed his legacy.

The Michael Jackson of This Is It does not look like a drug addict or a man in desperate pain. Granted, these two hours were cut from likely hundreds of hours of footage where Jackson's troubles may have been readily apparent. Nevertheless, based on what we see, Jackson is healthy and mentally he's not merely aware he is adept and fully in control, in fact he is the vision of a visionary artist.

The footage compiled for This Is It was meant for Michael's private collection. After he died Michael's family and business partners convinced Jackson's friend and This Is It director Joe Ortega to cut the footage and give fans one last glimpse of The King Of Pop. Ortega has done that and more giving us the musical legacy of Michael as well as glimpses of a star who never whined or cried, never acted like a diva, but a perfectionist and a creator.

It is the vision of Michael Jackson that fans, I'm sure, wish were the dominant image of Jackson rather than the alien figure of tabloid headlines. It is a sad irony that Jackson's death would deliver this change in Jackson's fortune, warping his image back to icon from oddball.

It's sadder still that the potential of This Is It, the actual London performances, could have done what his death seems to have done, restored Michael's legend. From the footage in This Is It, you can see such a spectacle and so much raw, visionary talent, that you can't help but speculate that Michael, barring any more odd behavior, might have clawed his way back to icon status.

The mystery of Michael Jackson's death provides an eerie and morbid fascination but the lasting impact of This Is It may be as the final word on Michael Jackson's legacy, beyond the oddity, the talent wins out and Michael goes into history as a remarkable singer and visionary showman. Oh, what might have been,

Movie Review Miami Vice

Miami Vice (2006) 

Directed by Michael Mann 

Written by Michael Mann 

Starring Colin Farrell, Jamie Foxx, Gong Li, Naomi Harris, Ciaran Hinds, Justin Theroux

Release Date July 28th, 2006 

Published July 27th, 2006 

Miami Vice the movie bares little resemblance to Miami Vice the TV show. Gone are the warm pastel colors, the linen suits and the alligators kept as pets. The trivial elements of the TV show are gone, replaced by a gritty sense of reality. Director Michael Mann, who created the TV show back in 1984, has eliminated the cheese factor of the TV show but in doing so also jettisoned the shows sense of humor and fun in favor of a grim belabored police procedural that is so consumed with presenting a realistic portrayal of the inner workings of being an undercover cop that it forgets to be entertaining.

Not that Miami Vice is a bad movie, hardly. In typically Michael Mann fashion, Miami Vice is sexy and violent with an air of undeniable cool.

Sonny Crocket (Colin Farrell) and Ricardo Tubbs (Jamie Foxx) are partners who, when we meet them, are about to take down a prostitution ring. Before the bust can go down however, Crockett gets a call from a frantic former informant, Alonzo (John Hawkes), who babbles about not having given up Crockett and Tubbs. Having given Alonzo to the feds, Crockett and Tubbs know that something bad is about to go down.

A group of white supremacists, cutting deals with Colombian drug lords, used Alonzo to ferret out FBI undercover agents and have killed them. Now only Crockett and Tubbs can go undercover and take down the supremacists and the Colombians headed up by Jose Yero (John Ortiz) and his partner Isabella (Gong Li). They work for another man, an untouchable named Arcangel (Luis Tosar). The game Crockett and Tubbs run involves inserting themselves into the transportation operations of the Colombians using high speed boats and planes.

The plot of Miami Vice is typical cops and criminals stuff that many other directors have presented before. Mann's only real twist on it is in indulging his love of the procedure of being an undercover cop. Mann loves the planning that goes into an undercover operation, he loves the execution and conclusion. Unfortunately his love only extends to a mere presentation of the facts of procedure. He fails to make these procedures come to life in an engaging and entertaining way.

Miami Vice is as slick and stylish as the TV series ever was. The difference comes in the general tone which is not merely serious but rather angry. Farrell and Foxx play Crockett and Tubbs as scowling, grim faced thugs with zero humor who only become human when they are bedding beautiful woman, Farrell bedding down the lovely Gong Li in a passion free subplot and Foxx in a simmering scene with a fellow undercover officer played by Naomie Harris.

Colin Farrell continues his war with stardom in Miami Vice by delivering yet another glum charisma free performance. Like his Alexander The Great, Farrell's Sonny Crockett is a mumble mouthed downer who barely sparks to life even when bedding a beautiful woman. His intensity does pick up near the end during a climactic gun battle but for most of the film Farrell is pissed off at some point in the distance that he keeps staring at.

Oscar winner Jamie Foxx deserves better than a role that has him playing second fiddle to Farrell. Where Farrell is mumbling and charisma free, Foxx gives a charge to his few featured scenes. There is simply no explanation why Michael Mann gives most of the movie away to Farrell while keeping the multiple Oscar nominee Foxx in the background. More Foxx, less Farrell, better movie.

One of the few things that Mann's Miami Vice movie excels in is hot transportation. The boat, the Donzi triple engine ZF -one of two different boats used in the film- is pure speed on water. The plane, the Adam A500 twin engine, is state of the art with props on the front and back for speed and maneuverability. And, of course the cars are hot and make you wonder just how police departments are spending your tax dollars. The Bentley that gets blown to smithereens certainly would set the average undercover unit back a pretty penny

Regardless of the many problems with Miami Vice there is still much to enjoy about the film. Michael Mann's direction is typically assured and his violence is first rate. Watch for a standoff scene between the Vice squad and some trailer dwelling white supremacists. Actress Elizabeth Rodriguez stars in this scene delivering a very quick, very powerful monologue before dispatching the scene with a violent flourish.

For Michael Mann violence is like a symphony building to grand awesome crescendos. From the street gun battle in Heat to Tom Cruise's charging nightclub chase in Collateral to the final gun battle in Miami Vice, Michael Mann proves himself a master conductor of screen violence. The action in Miami Vice is quick and visceral like a concerto at 33 rpm's. The blood that is spilled is spilled quickly and splatters with the explosive power of real bullets.

The look of Miami Vice, grainy, gritty digital video, bathes the picture in a documentary realism that is at odds with the mundane presentation of the plot. Michael Mann's obsession with the behind the scenes of an undercover cop plot never really gets any entertaining momentum. When Farrell, Foxx and their team are planning the next phase of their operation the film lapses into serious tedium that lasts even as they begin to get into the action where Mann excels.

Deeply flawed as an entertaining action movie, Miami Vice is undeniably artful and even at times very cool. With a more charismatic lead performance, a little more Jamie Foxx, and a little less of the inside baseball on being an undercover cop, Miami Vice could have been quite an awesome picture. As it is I recommend it for fans of Michael Mann, women who love to ogle Colin Farrell, and fans of screen violence.

For everyone else Miami Vice is just another TV spinoff.

Movie Review Metropolis

Metropolis (2001) 

Directed by Rintaro 

Written by Katsuhiro Otomo 

Starring Yuka Imoto, Kosei Tomita, Nono Wakamoto, Toshio Furukawa 

Release Date May 26th, 2001 

Published February 2nd, 2002 

I must admit I am not the most qualified person to critique Japanese anime. My only previous exposure to this art form is channel surfing past those god-awful Pokemon cartoons. Nonetheless, at the urging of my hero Roger Ebert, I rented the DVD Metropolis.

Metropolis, based on 60's the Japanese sci-fi comic book series by Osamu Tezuka, is the story of a futuristic city where humans and robots coexist albeit with robots in subservient roles not unlike slaves. Into the future city comes a detective and his nephew searching for a mad scientist accused of using human organs to create human-robot cyborgs. The scientist, named Laughton, is in the employ of the evil Duke Red who has paid Laughton to create a human robot in the image of his late daughter. 

The robot, named Tima, will not merely replace the Duke's late daughter, but also be used as a weapon to take over the world. The Duke’s plan goes awry when his jealous, adopted son Rock kills Laughton and attempts to destroy Tima. The detective’s nephew, Kenichi, saves Tima and they begin a journey wherein Tima begins to learn who she is while falling in love with Kenichi and vice versa. The real star of Metropolis is its awe inspiring animation which combines classic 2D cell animated characters with CGI backgrounds. They are absolutely breathtaking, even on DVD.

For years, Americans have had a bias against animation, relegating it to a genre only for kids. In Japan however, people are more open-minded to animation as an adult medium with film’s like Metropolis and Tezuka's previously adapted Astro Boy series. In America, the few attempts at adult oriented animation such as the recent Titan AE and Final Fantasy were colossal failures financially despite being artistic achievements. In fact, the last time an adult oriented cartoon was successful, it was the early 70's porno cartoon Fritz The Cat. Not exactly animation as art.

America's animation bias is likely to doom Metropolis to a long sit on video store shelves and that is a shame because, in my opinion, it is the most striking animated feature I have ever seen.

Documentary Review Metal A Headbanger's Journey

Metal: A Head banger's Journey (2005) 

Directed by Jessica Joy Wise, Sam Dunn, Scott MacFadyen 

Written by Sam Dunn

Starring Documentary 

Release Date 2005 

Published October 19th, 2005 

Sam Dunn is an Anthropologist from Vancouver British Columbia and a huge fan of Heavy Metal music. These two disparate parts of Sam's personality collide in the documentary Metal A Headbangers Journey. An astute and insightful look at the music, the musicians and fans of metal music. In 1986 Sam Dunn discovered heavy metal music with his first glimpse of his favorite band Iron Maiden. That group's dark, screeching lyrics and crunching guitar noise struck a chord with the then 16 year old Sam and that fascination became a lifelong obsession. In A Head bangers Journey Sam attempts to legitimize his beloved musical genre with more than just metal fans.

Assembling interviews with metal artists is a small part of this journey, including talking head moments with Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden, Lemmy from Motorhead, and the oddly fascinating Dee Snider. These rockers speak to why they love the music, the rapport they have with metal fans and some of the odder social concerns of metal such as the oddly homoerotic nature of much of the heavy metal scene.

On the other and far more interesting side of Headbangers Journey are sociologists, musicologists, and journalists who offer humorous, insightful and intriguing outsider perspectives on the culture, history and art of metal. Most interesting among the outsider talking heads is UCLA musicologist Robert Walser who introduces us to the tri-tone aka the devil's note. It's that awe inspiring low chord guitar sound that is the backbone of much metal music. The tri-tone has its roots not in metal music but in fact in classical music where Wagner pioneered this bass heavy note in his composition to the consternation of many classical purists of the 1800's.

Touching on opera and classical music in its examination of metal the outsiders of A Headbangers Journey does more to legitimize the genre's artistry than many of its purveyors. Though guys like Rob Zombie and Ronnie James Dio come off as earnest and forthright lovers of the music and of the fans, other interviews with the likes of Vince Neil and the members of the oddball group Slipknot only serve to reinforce the metal image that Dunn seems intent on reversing.

That childish sex, drugs and rock n' roll image of debauched woman and drunkenness is fun to watch and I'm sure was often fun to experience but is also as shallow as that now coopted phraseology. Sex, Drugs and Rock n' roll. Sex, Drugs, and Rock N Roll is nice in theory but when it is the backbone of your philosophy it comes off less rebellious than childishly petulant. Legendary groupie Pamela Des Barres joins in the fun of A Headbangers Journey and while she is a lot of fun and clearly someone who made the most of her life, she introduces the sadder side of the groupie life that is something akin to Girls Gone Wild only sadder and slightly more pathetic.

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden sets the cause back with his honest assessment of metal and its fans. To quote the Iron Maiden frontman "The music appeals to everyone's inner 15 year old". That isn't necessarily a bad thing Bruce, but it's a little new agey for the genre that brought us WASP's "F**k Like Beast". The inner child as the rallying point of metal? Hmm... 

One of the more touchy subjects in A Headbanger's Journey is the genres homoerotic imagery. All of those guys in tight leather grinding their hips in front of crowds made up of 90% men is bound to bring about this type of analysis and Sam Dunn is relatively forthright about this topic, though he confines it mostly to talk of the metal sub-genre known as glam. In this section a reporter who covered LA's sunset strip in the 80's recounts a favorite story about the number of times a fan told him 'I would love to f!&k those chicks in Poison'. A funny and uncomfortable quote for childhood Poison fans like myself.

Sam Dunn's aim in A Headbanger's Journey is I believe to bring a new respect and acceptance for Metal fans to mainstream audiences and while he is successful in pointing out the highly artistic roots of the music and the talent inherent in many of its creators the film does little change the image of metalheads from shirtless, long haired guys you would not bring home to mom. Not all metalheads are as scary as say Lemmy from Motorhead but the stereotype is unchanged by A Headbanger's Journey.

The film overall is charming, often fascinating and insightful. It won't change many preconceived notions about metal or its fans but while it's on you will find much to enjoy about the journey.