Talien & Maleficent's Reviews

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The Wolfman

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 20:04:00 +0000

My dad is a big werewolf fan. I wrote a book on werewolves. So the notion of bringing the Wolf Man back to the screen is near and dear to my heart.

This version is actually a new incarnation of the classic Wolf Man movie of 1941 from Universal Studios, which in turn was preceded by Werewolf of London. The new version incorporates elements from both movies. From Werewolf London, we get the origin of the werewolf originating in Tibet, dueling werewolves, and death by gun. From the Wolf Man we get the Talbot family line, the "wolfbane" poem, and the silver wolf-headed walking stick. Perhaps the biggest inspiration is the makeup itself, which eschews the now standard gorilla-werewolf transformation for a form that looks distinctly like the original Wolf Man makeup.

Shakespearian actor and American Lawrence Talbot (Benicio del Toro) returns to his family manor after a long separation at the bequest of his dead brother's fiancé Gwen Conliffe (Emily Blunt). Conliffe is central to the plot; she enamors Lawrence as well as his father, Sir John (Anthony Hopkins), and it is her presence or lack thereof that drives the lycanthropes to murder. As the body count rises, Francis Aberline of Scotland Yard (Hugo Weaving) arrives to solve the mystery. The hunt is on, but who's hunting whom?

Benicio del Toro is undeniably wolfish-looking, but he seems wooden and out of his element compared to Blunt, who uses her big soulful eyes and gothic Victorian attire to good effect. Unfortunately, they lack chemistry. More imposing but erratic is Hopkins, who lends a cold menace to the cast. Weaving doesn't have much to do but glare and shout orders, but then that's what we're accustomed to by now. He does add "horrified stare" to his trademarked expression.

Interspersed throughout the mystery is the family rivalry between sons and father. The best part of the movie takes place in an insane asylum. It provides an ironic take on lycanthropy as a mental disease and contrasts Victorian logic with the lurking world of magic and curses.

The Wolfman stays true to its roots. This is not a remake as much as it is a reimagining, filled with lush backdrops, gloomy settings, ancient moors, and a Tim Burton soundtrack that pays homage to Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula. This incarnation is a gothic period piece set in Victorian times

Unfortunately, you get the sense that this new version is very insecure about its choices. The movie isn't particularly scary -- the horror is meant to be from the doomed plight of the protagonist -- but it nevertheless resorts to random shrieks and jump cuts. The Wolfman, while undeniably violent, transforms into an over-the-top death machine capable of tearing off heads and limbs with one swipe of his claws. This isn't just a new version of the Wolf Man, he's the Wolf Man on steroids.

Like Dracula, The Wolfman does not end well for any of its characters. As a gothic romance the best we can hope for is a resolution, not a happy ending. And that's exactly how it should be. The Wolfman respectfully carries a legacy of violent beasts on its hirsute shoulders, but mainstream audiences will probably hate it.

9

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 03:34:00 +0000

At a glance, it's hard to figure out what 9 is all about. There are ragdolls fighting in a post-apocalyptic landscape, but beyond that the trailers don't convey much. It probably didn't help that 9 was released amidst a swirl of movies with "nine" in the title.

9 takes place in a steampunk cross between Terminator and Little Big Planet, where the soulless Fabrication Machine known as BRAIN has destroyed all of humanity in an alternate history version of World War II. 9 is a Tim Burton tale of good and evil, as evidenced by the soft cloth of the "stitchpunk"-style green-eyed homunculi and the soulless red eye of BRAIN (Binary Reactive Artificially-Intelligent Neurocircuit). Similar to the premise of the sci-fi flop Virus, BRAIN sees everything as raw material, including organic remains. It fashions a series of increasingly lethal scouts, all with the sole purpose of absorbing and retrieving the souls of the heroic homunculi.

These poor little dolls are in for a world of hurt. Not much larger than a human hand, they embody all the traditional survivalist tropes of the post-apocalyptic genre: the power hungry leader (1), the befuddled but kind scientist (2), the innocents (3 and 4), the apprentice (5), the crazy prophet (6), the tough chick (7), the muscle (8), and of course or titular hero (9) who bucks the system. In this little slice of hell, the homunculi battle for both dominance and survival.

But really this is about fights between little stitch dolls and cyborgs. And what fights they are! There's the Cat Beast, the Winged Beast, and the Seamstress, and of course the BRAIN itself. The battles are as much symbolic as they are exciting, contrasting human vs. machine, soul vs. soulless, emotion vs. logic.

There are problems however. The biggest issue being that 9 is as much responsible for the plight of the homunculi as he is the solution. There are twists along the way, but the emotional heft lent to the struggle of these human-analogues is weakly supported by its simplistic setting. Because the ending is largely open to interpretation, a viewer's level of satisfaction depends on his perspective on evolution, faith, and the meaning of floating green dots in a drop of water. 9 is more metaphor than movie and certainly not for children, but it's a story worth watching.

Jennifer's Body

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 16:49:00 +0000

You might think, judging from the commercials, that Jennifer's Body is about some high school queen bee that uses her unholy popularity to cut a bloody swath through cliques and clichés of all types. Alternately, you might think it's basically soft-core porn featuring Megan Fox. None of these marketing approaches served Jennifer's Body well. Please note: this review contains spoilers!

Diablo Cody, who earned a reputation for smart dialogue from Juno, isn't interested in writing a horror flick. She wants to delve into the issues of friendship and sexual maturity, as viewed through the lens of demonic possession.

Right, about that. In a fashion similar to Ginger Snaps (which combined lycanthropy with puberty), Jennifer (Megan Fox) is now the sexiest girl in high school. Her best friend, helpfully identified as "Needy" (Amanda Seyfried), has nothing in common with her. In a twist on the old trope, it's Needy who has the boyfriend (Chip, played by Johnny Simmons).

The two end up at a dive bar for an emo band, Low Shoulder. Low Shoulder is actually a band of amateur cultists who believe, on the strength of Jennifer's transparent lie, that the hot chick oozing sexuality is in fact a virgin. This leads to a hilarious misunderstanding with hell, in which Jennifer is sacrificed only to return from the dead as a succubus.

Jennifer's Body waffles between horror tropes of stupidity – the band believing Jennifer's lie; Jennifer's ability to get away with murder; victims doing really dumb things – and mood-killing reality checks. The murders are drawn out over time, such that the high school deals with them in a realistic way reminiscent of other real-life high school tragedies. Midnight vigils are held, jocks cry, and camera crews roll tape.

Although Jennifer's Body is supposed to be about its namesake, we get precious little insight into Jennifer's thoughts. The film is actually about Needy, who is a typical "Final Girl" of horror movies. Like the legions of Final Girls that have gone before her, Needy is psychically connected to Jennifer in a way that's never explained. This movie is much more about Needy, her boyfriend, her "nerdy" persona that's never convincingly portrayed, and her awkward relationship with Jennifer. Jennifer's Body tries hard to imply there's some chemistry between the two of them, but it just doesn't click. Jennifer comes off as uniformly one-dimensional and Needy as a disconnected cipher.

The pacing in this film is incredibly jarring; at various points, Jennifer just jumps out the window and exits a scene. The movie starts to feel more like a series of vignettes than an actual plot. Cody uses the Lovecraftian technique of "I was there!" that is no longer in favor because it saps a film's momentum.

The ending, such as it is, is something of a foregone conclusion – we know that Needy is committed to an insane asylum because as narrator she tells us in the beginning of the film. But don't worry, Jennifer's condition is some kind of super-virus (you can "get succubus" on you, apparently), which destroys any pathos around Jennifer's transformation and turns our Final Girl into a superhero who can fly. That's right, fly.

Still, Jennifer's Body isn't terrible. Slickly produced, with competent special effects, the movie tries hard to be both sexy and cool. All the navel gazing around why it "failed" is unwarranted; Jennifer's Body made back twice what it cost to produce. It's just that Jennifer's Body, despite using lots of "hip" dialogue, wants you to like it so much that it throws everything at you: a contrived horror plot, prolonged seduction scenes, a lesbian kiss, and a superhero revenge sequence. In the era of the Internet, that's not enough to make a great horror film anymore. It could just have been easily called Needy's Movie.

The Book of Eli

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Wed, 03 Feb 2010 15:43:00 +0000

The Book of Eli is a vastly underappreciated film that mixes martial arts swordsmanship, a post-apocalyptic setting, and a biblical narrative.

A war, over thirty years ago, killed off many people in the United States. Others were blinded from the blast. This creates an interesting disparity between those over thirty years of age who received an education and those under thirty who know nothing of the modern world (at one point, one of the thugs asks, "What's a television?").

This is an unpleasant world. Cannibalistic brigands ambush unwary travelers, identifiable by their shaking hands. Water is at a premium. Batteries are hard to find. The Book of Eli makes it clear that there's no currency, only barter.

Roaming the land is Eli (a subdued Denzel Washington), carrying a book with a cross on it. This book is greatly desired by Carnegie (a greasy Gary Oldman), who is also old enough to remember the power such a tome can have over the people. While Eli has been wandering for thirty years in pursuit of such a destination, Carnegie has been sending illiterate henchmen to retrieve every book he can find. The encounter between the two has all the fire and brimstone of a battle between heaven and hell.

Thrown into the mix is Solara (played beautifully by Mila Kunis, who finally sheds her trademark accent), a young, attractive girl who has grown up under Carnegie's protection but, as she flowers into womanhood, is about to become a bargaining chip, a piece of meat, and a lure. When there's no one left to protect her, she becomes a wanderer in Eli's footsteps.

From a religious point of view, it's educational to understand who Eli was in the Bible. In the Bible, Eli's children are cursed for behaving wickedly, a parallel for the war that destroyed civilization in the movie. God's curse assures that all men will "die by the sword" – in the movie Eli expertly cuts a bloody swath through his enemies with his machete. In the Bible, it was the job of Eli's sons to guard the Ark of the Covenant – the pact God made with man – just as Eli guards the holy book in the movie.

There's a twist ending that's not a twist of all if you read up about Eli in the Bible. But don't – watch the movie, then do some research, then watch the movie again. Like Eli, the experience will be rather eye-opening.

Sherlock Holmes

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 22:40:00 +0000

I am not a Sherlock Holmes scholar.

I KNOW of him, in the sense that I know that he's the fictional father of forensic science, was often portrayed with a deerstalker hat, pipe, and cape, and had a well meaning if bumbling sidekick known as Watson. He was also very British, a fact that looms large in this new interpretation of Holmes.

Holmes skill, and by proxy his creator Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, orbited around the fundamentals of British society, something I think we Americans don't always appreciate. The notion that you can tell something about a man by the way he dresses, by the stains on his shirt, by the way he walks, by the inclination of his head or how he swings his arms, all feed into the insidious belief that one does not rise above one's class. This is part of Holmes' brilliance in penetrating disguises and deceptions – the bad guys can pretend to be someone else, but their true nature gives them away.

Viewed through this lens, this latest incarnation of Sherlock Holmes (played with beleaguered smugness by Robert Downey Jr.) gives us glimpses of the society that helped shape him. We understand that Holmes can spot a tobacco stain, chalk dust, or a shoe scuff – but not the reasons that such details are intuitively obvious to a man of Holmes' intellect and perception. He's paying attention to things that the society of his time took for granted.

The plot revolves around Lord Blackwood (Mark Strong), a cultist capable of manipulating a secret society into believing that he can survive even the hangman's noose. The name is reminiscent of Algernon Blackwood, the author of the horror classic, The Wendigo, and a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The Golden Dawn manifests in the film as "The Temple of the Four Orders." Blackwood's sinister influence is perhaps more appropriately attributed to Aleister Crowley. The secret society is significant, because it blurs the social boundaries, with members from across high society (even Americans!). This is simply intolerable, and we look to Holmes to set the social order straight once more.

Guy Ritchie is no fool – he knew that to make Holmes palatable to Americans the Holmes myth would need to be punched up (literally). So all the vices, all the physical prowess, and all the eccentricities of Holmes are in full display here – his lack of tidiness, his familiarity with the marital art bartitsu, and his obsession with Irene Adler. There is evidence that all these elements existed in the Holmes canon. They were of course revealed gradually, whereas the film throws them all into the pot at once. Whether or not this is a good thing depends on your appreciation for pulp.

The pulp film style – non-stop action interspersed with little explanation – is in full force. Victorian England isn't explained; it's simply on display in all its gritty glory. The extras are really ugly, brutish caricatures while the leads are almost luminescent in their cleanliness and pearly-white teeth. Adler being the prime example (played by the delicious Rachel McAdams).

McAdams seems woefully out of her depth. While her character is supposedly so wily as to be the only woman to give Holmes a run for his money, it's established very early that Holmes has the upper hand. In fact, their relationship comes off as something of a schoolboy crush – understandable, but not quite a worthy foil for Holmes.

Downey is his usually disheveled, recovering-addict self. It's clear Downey's become the new go-to man for playing characters that closely parallel his own real-life troubles, and the actor inhabits them ably. Maybe a little too much so – the infernal "Downey mumble" is in full effect here—sometimes I can't make out a single word of what he was saying.

The real standout is Jude Law as Watson. Law's refined yet frustrated Watson grounds Holmes, as he should. He also upstages Downey with his easy British eloquence. This version of Watson is no fool but a worthy equal, establishing a buddy-cop vibe to the film.

Ritchie's cinematography is practically a character unto itself. Whether he's showing Holmes' calculating his attacks in slow motion or zooming through carriage and across cobblestones, he manages to encompass all of Victorian England with a sweep of the camera. It's a testament to Ritchie's skill that the film doesn't drag despite its long running time.

Loud, violent, fast-paced, and a little too blasé in its forensic explanations, Sherlock Holmes is nevertheless entertaining enough to make it worth seeing for fans who know of Holmes by reputation only.

Moon

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Judging from the advertisements, Moon seemed to be about a man going slowly insane on, well, the moon. I assumed it was more of a movie like Event Horizon, where a lonely person stumbles on some mind-blasting truth. Fortunately, I was wrong.

Actually, that's an accurate description of the film – it's jut that the mind-blasting truth is eminently relatable and human. Moon's a lot more complicated than it looks.

Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) is the sole inhabitant of a moon base dedicated to mining Helium-3 for Lunar Industries. His companion is GERTY (Kevin Spacey), a ceiling-hung robot that expresses itself through emoticons. For three years, Sam has overseen the various mining robots, worked on his wooden models, talked to his plants, and longed to be reunited with his wife Tess (Dominique McElligott) and daughter Eve (Rosie Shaw). With his time up, he's ready to go home. The catch is that Sam perceives everything through a filtered lens – even his transmissions to Earth are delayed. Sam isn't just alone for three months; he's alone without any synchronous human contact.

Red herrings abound. It's easy to focus on the HAL-like robot GERTY, a major character and foil for Sam. How can you trust something that sounds so benign as Kevin Spacey? Ironically, GERTY is one of the most human characters on the base.

Moon's twist isn't in the revelation of The Truth, but in its implications. Moon questions who Sam is, what he represents, and what makes him – and us – human. We are, the director seems to say, defined by our memories, and that's enough to fuel us in our daily grind. Sam is every worker who has been at it for years, always waiting for the next big break, the next reorganization, the next lotto ticket that will get him out of the crappy dead end job. It's a lot like Memento, high praise for a film that cost just $5 million to produce.

The fun is in watching Sam deal with the truth of his situation and how he rises above it (or succumbs to it). Moon is littered with clues, making it worth another view. This is a tightly crafted, smart film that takes a single science fiction element and explores it thoroughly.

Synthetic Worlds

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:13:00 +0000

Quite a bit has been written about virtual worlds recently, primarily by psychologists, sociologists, and other "people-oriented" researchers who dive in fingers- and feet-first into the synthetic landscape. What's missing is research from other disciplines. Castronova brings the important perspective of an economist to the table.

But that's not what you get at the beginning of the book. Castronova has much larger goals in mind, attempting to introduce the vast intricacies of virtual worlds to newbies. This, in my opinion, is a mistake – the first chapter derails the book and those looking for a more serious discussion might be turned off. But if you're willing to slog through or simply skip those chapters, you're in for a treat.

The hook here is the economics – that people can get rich off of World of Warcraft – and while Castronova addresses that possibility, it's an oversimplification of his premise. Castronova provides a perspective on the insane growth of virtual worlds. If he is occasionally starry-eyed about the possibilities it's forgivable, because in economic terms virtual growth is unprecedented.

Castronova occasionally strays outside economics territory, but his thoughts are still valuable. He posits that the "Wild West" nature of self-governing through player-killing simply doesn't work, which matches with my experience as an administrator on Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). He points the finger at "Coding Authorities," the companies who create and manage these worlds. At base, these companies have no interest in actually monitoring the goings-on of the world. Castronova skewers this sort of laissez-faire management with the statement "I've never once seen a customer service representative actually do anything." And he's right – the sheer burden of properly managing virtual worlds is much too onerous for a game company looking to make back its investment on the latest graphical avatars. Or in other words, until virtual worlds collapse in a flaming ball of anarchy (like Ultima Online nearly did) the programmers and developers won't lift a finger because it doesn't pay to. It's a refreshingly realistic take in a series of breathless books touting the wonders of virtual interaction.

Castronova concludes Synthetic Worlds by daring to make predictions about what will happen next. In a book about the exponentially increasing virtual worlds, this is risky. Within years of publication, some of his predictions have proven out (virtual interfaces are slowly advancing to include gestural interfaces, like the Wii) and some are just simply off base ("virtual citizenship" and its implications have shaky logic). But that doesn't detract from the book's value to those new to online worlds or beginning their research in this relatively new medium.

Public Enemies

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 20:57:00 +0000

On the surface, Public Enemies seems to be about bank robbers. But it's actually about the triumphs and travails of celebrities in a time of great upheaval – which is to say, it's about Hollywood today.

Johnny Depp, playing Dillinger, is charismatic, masculine, bold, even reckless. He seems unwilling to admit that his lifestyle is a dead-end, preferring instead to live in the moment. And yet he seeks human companionship in Billie Frechette (Marion Cotillard), swooping in to claim her as his "girl" without really asking her permission. He is a titan among men, striding into her humdrum life to sweep Billie off her heels and, throwing caution to the wind, seek his own fortune.

Christian Bale, playing Special Agent Melvin Purvis, is the man tasked with taking Dillinger down. He navigates the world of public opinion and the bumbling incompetency of a young FBI task force not yet hardened by adversity. Purvis has a lot to prove, balancing his own morality with a new era of government ruthlessness.

This movie isn't really about facts, though. A trip through Wikipedia shows the number of liberties – and there are many – that the movie took with actual events. Instead, Michael Mann tries to craft a narrative out of the battle between these two sides, creating the classic duality where two actors at the top of their game face off.

Purvis is the principled, dark, brooding character that bucks authority and follows his own noble path by being smarter and more dedicated than the authorities in charge. Dillinger is the wild man that criminals turn to, pushed to the edge because of the Great Depression and the law. Both men have nothing to lose but their very souls. If this sounds familiar, it's pretty much the same plot as The Dark Knight, only with gangsters instead of comic book villains.

For all the great action sequences, close-ups, and monologues, there isn't much we know about the characters in the end. Without the benefit of a prequel like The Dark Knight, Purvis is as much a cipher as Dillinger. Missing is the exploration of the environments that helped craft the careers of both men, and it becomes clear that Mann is more interested in making modern analogies (about torture, about wiretapping, and government abuse in general) than sharing a sense of history.

And that's the problem. While Public Enemies retells the tale, more or less, of the rise and fall of Dillinger, it fails to provide the backdrop for why it happened. We get occasional insights into the evolution of the FBI, but not of public sentiment, of the Great Depression, of how society helped create cops and robbers. At one point Dillinger provides a veiled reference to his past that's just as cryptic as the Joker's – because it doesn't really matter. This movie isn't about why things happened; it's more about giving two actors their chance to shine.

In that regard Public Enemies is a success. It's long, filled with philosophical dialogue and occasionally improbable shootouts. Although there's a stab at some kind of pathos, connecting Dillinger's own devil-may-care lifestyle with his romance ("blackbird"), it feels contrived. The most compelling character is steel-eyed Charles Winstead, played by the awesome Stephen Lang. I'd rather see a movie just about him…and got my wish with Avatar.

Brutal Legend

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 22:25:00 +0000

Growing up in high school, I was not a Heavy Metal fan. I looked askance at the dudes in their black t-shirts and doodling death symbols. I was struggling to be accepted as a gamer, and although the Metalheads played Dungeons & Dragons as much as I did, they came from a very different background.

As an adult it's much easier to embrace this form of counter-culturalism. Heavy Metal was rebelling at a time when 80s conformity was emerging, overhyped, oversynthed, and carefully marketed. Heavy Metal was at turns loud, angry, and violent or melodic, sorrowful, even romantic. But it's not too late. Brutal Legend will show you the way.

A lot of people criticize the short playing time of Brutal Legend, as if tearing from scene to scene, save point to save point, is the only purpose of the game. In fact, Brutal Legend is entirely the opposite – it's a world meant to be explored, a culture meant to be absorbed, a state of mind meant to be embraced. You've got to let go of your hang-ups if you really want to enjoy Brutal Legend.

Brutal Legend follows Riggs as he journeys through this strange land. He finds himself in a familiar role: supporting a better-groomed star from behind the scenes. With its twisty plotline of love and loss, allegiance and betrayal, players may be surprised to discover that Brutal Legend has a strong romantic element – an important part of Heavy Metal.

But mostly Brutal Legend is about music. Jack Black as Eddie Riggs is our comedic tour guide through this insane universe, which occasionally pretends it's part of pre-history but is actually a mad mix of Nordic legend, Heavy Metal sensibilities, and Frank Fazetta and Heironymus Bosch's art. It all ties together through a back-story that can be discovered piece by piece by wandering the land, digging up artifacts, musical solos that act as spells, and releasing bound and gagged stone dragons for blood tributes. On paper Riggs is a roadie, but in practice he's a bard of musical Metal, capable of summoning wild beasts, melting the face of his enemies, or even changing day into night.

Music is its own character in Brutal Legend. Riggs can create a vehicle known as the Druid Plow, an incredibly souped-up car that can drop mines, fire heat-seeking rockets, blast foes with sound, and – most importantly – provides the game's kicking soundtrack. This soundtrack is the perfect mood music for the game itself, which feels like you've been thrust into one of those Heavy Metal album covers.

Brutal Legend is highly original too. Forget the usual fantasy tropes of elves and dwarves. This game features carnivorous deer, porcupines bristling with metal quills, huge steel-headed beasts, monsters made-up like Kiss that breathe fire…and that's just the local wildlife. There's a whole coterie of Tim Burton-esque undead foes, the aforementioned Bosch-inspired demons, fire-trailing bikers, speaker-toting roadies…this game is as much as feast for the eyes as it is for the ears.

In fact, this game turned me on to groups I'd never heard of before: Angel Witch, 3 Inches of Blood, Motorhead, Riot, Omen, and KMFDM. I may not be a Metal-head, but Brutal Legend made me a fan of groups I would never otherwise have listened to. That's the highest compliment I can pay a game.

Waxwork II: Lost in Time

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 22:06:00 +0000

Quick, what movie features a murderous disembodied hand, zombies, buckets of blood, possession, projectile organs, time travel, and Bruce Campbell getting tortured? No, not Evil Dead II…Waxwork II: Lost in Time!

Picking up immediately where the first Waxwork left off, Mark Loftmore (still Zach Galligan) and Sarah Brightman (replaced by the considerably hotter Monika Schnarre) attempt to return to their normal lives. Sarah creeps back to her abusive stepfather's home where he berates her for ruining her dress. After she goes to bed, the zombie hand (also from the first film) murders the abusive stepfather because…let's face it, he had it coming.

In the typical Waxwork aside into "that makes perfect sense" territory, Sarah is blamed for her stepfather's murder, claims about murderous zombie hands not withstanding. She will likely be condemned to death unless she can prove her innocence. And that's where any semblance of realism ends, because Sarah and Mark concoct a scheme to find ANOTHER zombie hand by traveling backwards in time through a magic mirror. Because of course, that's where zombie hands hang out, right?

Waxwork II is of course not about time travel at all. It's about whatever the director (Anthony Hickox) feels like parodying, beginning with Frankenstein, alternating between Alien and The Haunting, and then throwing in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Godzilla, Jack the Ripper, Nosferatu, and Dawn of the Dead for good measure. And oh yes, a long fantasy sequence that has nothing to do with anything.

Waxwork II establishes a couple of things: They are NOT time traveling, but more dimension traveling, or perhaps film hopping. Mark and Sarah have stumbled into the world of Cartagra, "God's video game," as Sir Wilfred explains – in the form of a crow (it's complicated). Cartagra is a universe where good and evil duke it out for supremacy, apparently in the form of movie plots. Mark and Sarah are now Time Warriors, inhabiting the protagonist roles of each movie and ensuring the good guys win. Or something like that.

It is also a different form of dimension hopping than the pocket dimensions seen in the first movie. When Mark, facing down Igor the hunchback, attempts to disbelieve, he gets socked in the face for his trouble.

It's clear that Hickox a real fondness for all things Evil Dead and for swashbuckling romance. He has his cake and eats it too here (like he did in the first film) by including a long fantasy sequence involving what must be the first sword fight across movie genres. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

FRANKENSTEIN: Mark manifests as the butler, while Sarah is Frankenstein's wife. They are caught in the moment when villagers are about to set the place on fire. It takes awhile for Sarah to remember her true nature, during which time Mark battles it out with Dr. Frankenstein, Frankenstein's Monster, Igor, and angry villagers. Using a weird compass he found amongst his uncle's belongings, Mark can usually find the exit out of each movie by running in that direction, regardless of all apparent obstacles. Once he figures this out, Mark and Sarah are split up as they escape…

THE HAUNTING: Filmed in black and white, it's clear Hickox is a fan of The Haunting. And so is Marina Sirtis, collecting a paycheck. But the biggest winner here is Bruce Campbell in a hilarious series of slapstick. This is the funniest part of the movie. It's also the most overt homage to Evil Dead.

ALIEN: Sarah has taken on the role of Ripley. She faces down a giant Alien-rip-off – literally, the Aliens look terrible, with huge, lumbering heads. The Facehugger-equivalents are much more disturbing, with tentacles probing orifices. This scene drags on far too long, seeking to emulate the terrible silences and long pauses in Alien. Fortunately, Mark shows up and ends the madness just in time.

RANDOM FANTASY SETTING: Hickox may be a fan of horror movies, but what he really wants to do is write a swashbuckling romance. So stuck in the middle of the rest of the horror homage is this sloppy collection of Monty Python jokes, subpar special effects, and confusing elements. The best part is George (Michael Des Barres), a powdered, effeminate dandy who isn't afraid to murder people with a garrote. There are some laugh-out-loud jokes here, but they don't save the piece. Oh and David Carradine (?). There's also the aforementioned appearance of the talking crow, which is in fact Sir Wilfred reincarnated. His appearance presages a huge exposition dump explaining Cartagra. No matter, all is forgiven as Mark engages in a no-holds-barred sword fight with the villain, Scarabis (Alexander Godunoy) across the universe. In no particular order, their cross-dimensional brawl leads them to…

GODZILLA: A giant, poorly made puppet. The most hilarious part being that Mark is badly dubbed in English.

JACK THE RIPPER: Okay, not really a movie per se. Poor Jack gets kicked into…

NOSFERATU: Silent and with intertitles, Hickox nails the entire feel of a silent movie. And we get to see Nosferatu gnash his teeth after The Ripper.

INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS: Sarah takes a sneak peak at people running from a train. And alien pods.

DAWN OF THE DEAD: 1970s style attire, a funky beat, and a bunch of people bristling with guns shooting at zombies in a mall. It also conveniently provides a disembodied zombie hand, that flimsy "evidence" our heroes were looking for.

The swordfight ends back in Fantasy-land, but only one person can go back through the portal. Mark pushes Sarah through.

Sarah, with evidence of a zombie hand CLEARLY confirming her innocence, receives a note from Mark in the "past", attempting to establish that he was indeed time traveling. Yeah, right.

And the lovers are reunited. Eventually. The End.

Cue a gonzo song about the film, complete with rap lyrics that narrate the entire ridiculous story and 1980s style dancers.

Less horror and more a tribute to films Hickox happens to like, Waxwork II never seems to make up its mind as to what film it wants to be when it grows up. But that's part of its charm.

Crank

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 17:43:00 +0000

Definition of the word "crank": [KRANGK]:

1) An unbalanced person who is overzealous in the advocacy of a private cause. Chev Chelios (Jason Statham) is a hitman charged by West Coast Crime Syndicate boss Carlito (Carlos Sanz) with assassinating a rival gang leader, Don Kim (Keone Young). In a fit of revenge, Chelios' rival Ricky Verona (Jose Pablo Cantillo) injects him with a "Beijing Cocktail" while he's sleeping. Verona really, really hates Chelios – the kind of hate that goes beyond simply murdering his foe. The Cocktail will kill Chelios in one hour if he doesn't keep his adrenaline up. As the movie cheerfully explains, there are three ways to keep said adrenaline up: fear, rage, and sex. So Chelios sets out to destroy the man who destroyed him, buying himself just a little more time through a series of increasingly reckless attempts to keep his adrenaline up.

2) A nasal decongestant used illicitly for its euphoric effects. The most obvious, and the first tactic Chelios resorts to, is drugs. He snorts them. He injects them. He snorts them again, all under the orders of his Mafia doc. This may be the first action movie that has a pro-drug message: Hey, at least it's keeping your heart rate up!

3) To increase the volume of an electronic device. Crank is loud. Big, dumb and loud, filled with kicking beats, whip cuts, video game flashes, surreal moments reminiscent of Naked Lunch (Chelios is, after all, under the influence of a great many drugs). Sometimes it's hard to make out what's going on over all the swearing and the explosions. Statham awesome martial arts talents are completely wasted here, with a few punches and a neck-break or two. Even his reputation as a driver is underplayed, although perhaps smashing a car through a mall and landing it on an escalator counts.

What's not quite as cool is the homophobia, misogyny, and racism on full display. Chelios' flamboyantly gay contact Kaylo (Efren Ramirez) doesn’t know how to fight even when he tries to help and then gets tortured, all the while being spat on with homophobic slurs. Chelios' girlfriend Eve (Amy Smart) who never picks up her cell phone because she doesn't have one, hangs around her apartment all day stoned out of her mind, and stupidly believes Chelios' claim that he's a video game programmer. Throughout the escalating attacks that Chelios tries to keep from her, Eve blathers on about shopping and her nails and her clothes. When Chelios sexually assaults her (remember that third way to keep his adrenaline up?), Eve gives in. Then they rut in the street before an alternately horrified/curious crowd of Asians. Because apparently it's not as squicky if you do it in front of people of a different race who don't speak the same language as you.

4) To turn and twist; zigzag. Chelios carves a murderous path towards his foe. In the process he picks fights with thugs, robs a convenience store, and hijacks a hospital. But there's a twist, you see: Chelios never KILLED the Tong leader! See? Chelios is actually a nice guy! Shouldn't we forgive him for all the killing and the attempted rape?

Instead of sharing this plot twist at the very last moment, it telegraphs the whole scene much too early. We already know Kim is alive well before the "twist" happens. Which concludes, thankfully, with Chelios grappling Verona as they plunge to their deaths from a helicopter.

4) Bogus; false; phony. But the movie's not over yet. Oh no, not yet. Instead of splattering like a bloody pancake batter when he hits, Chelios BOUNCES off a car, landing in front of the camera, nostrils still flaring, eyes still blinking, as his heart beats once more.

And that's when we know this is a joke. If it wasn't clear, the credits concludes with a badly pixilated video game sequence of Chelios shooting bad guys, picking up power-ups, and his digitized beating heart. So all those drugs Chelios took? Power ups. All those bad guys Chelios killed? Points. That time limit on his heart? That was the time limit on the video game.

Chelios bounced off the car because the movie is a commentary about what a video game in real life might look like. Or rather, what a certain style of video game might look like. Except nowadays, even Grand Theft Auto has more pathos and plot than this tripe.

Crank earns an additional star for the irony. But that doesn’t make it a good movie.

Avatar

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 22:26:00 +0000

Judging from the name, you might think Avatar is about a young martial artist reincarnated in a series of spiritual warriors destined to save a world of kung fu magic. But that's a different movie. You might also think that Avatar is like Gamer and Surrogates, where a three-dimensional character acts on behalf of a real person in a virtual world. That's not Avatar either.

Avatar is everything James Cameron learned in Aliens and his undersea documentaries rolled into one.

On the one side we have an above-land version of all those beautiful underwater documentaries. The land is truly alien, colorful glow in the dark flora and plenty of six-limbed fauna. Inhabiting this land are the Na'vi, giant blue-skinned cat people with tails and neural fibers in their always-plaited hair braids. These blue critters most certainly didn't come from one of Cameron's documentaries. More likely, they came from a lot of furry art on the Internet – there's no discernible reason for how the Na'vi, who are surprisingly humanoid, evolved from anything else on the planet (remember those six-limbed monstrosities?). They look like they were completely made up. The weird neural fibers sticking out of their hair doesn't make much sense either, but Cameron's much more interested in the special effects of the IMAX experience, so whenever you start asking questions like this—

LOOK! 3D! OOOH PRETTY!

On the other side we have the United States Colonial Marines, embodied in this film by ex-Marines who are now working for profit. Their job: safeguard and if necessary cleanse Pandora for its precious metals. Specifically, "Unobtainium."

Now ya see, the term "unobtainium" is a joke. It's a reference to an exotic material in a plot to make some other plot-moving element work. Without it, the plot doesn't move forward. But Cameron, who is at this point demonstrating an interesting disdain for his audience, makes it clear that it's not important what the hell Unobtainium does. What matters is that people will kill for it. If that doesn't make sense to you, then why are you wearing funny glasses in a movie theater anyway?

The Marines are decked out with actual mechs (just like in Aliens), heavy weapons (just like in Aliens), flamethrowers (just like in Aliens) and oh yeah, Michelle Rodriguez as a snarky pilot…just like in…oh you get the idea. The Marines are led by the best character in the movie, Colonel Miles Quaritch (Stephen Lang).

He's so badass…
* he kicks open an airlock door, braving Pandora's lethal atmosphere just to shoot somebody.
* he jumps out of an exploding ship while piloting a mech with one hand.
* he would rather die in one-on-one knife combat with a Na'vi than give up.

In short, Quaritch makes the movie. I would watch an entire film of him kicking alien butt any day.

On the side of the aliens we have Jake Sully (Sam Worthington), a former Marine who has lost the use of his legs. He's replacing his brother, who died in a mugging, and because of their shared genetic ancestry Sully is uniquely suited to pilot an avatar – a Na'vi body, basically. So Sully gets shipped for FIVE YEARS across the universe to Pandora and promptly gets lost. Why doesn't this incredibly expensive avatar have some sort of tracking mechanism built into it?

LOOK! 3D! OOOH PRETTY!

I'm not sure why Worthington keeps getting these lead roles. It's not that he's a bad actor; it's just that he's terrible at disguising his Australian accent in roles that either obfuscates where he comes from or where he's not playing an Australian. Sigourney Weaver is radiant here, but her character is largely wasted. In fact, the movie is stuffed with so many characters that it's a relief when Cameron finally starts killing a few off.

Oh yeah, the killing. See, the Na'vi preach a love for all forms of life. When they kill a beast, they thank it for giving up its spirit, etc. etc. If you've ever seen any movie about noble Native Americans, Avatar hits all the important points. But apparently, this doesn't apply to greedy Marines, even those just doing their job in a war. Instead of allowing some moral ambiguity, Cameron makes it pretty clear who the bad guys are. He's also quite good at telegraphing exactly what will happen by foreshadowing certain events with a sledgehammer to your forehead. Every single plant and animal that appears in the movie has an important role later.

But you might not care about all that. Avatar's graphics are incredible. The Na'vi are giant, living, breathing beings. The bizarre life forms are terrifying precisely because they're so lifelike. The special effects are unparalleled. As for the plot…

LOOK! 3D! OOOH PRETTY!

Waxwork

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 22:06:00 +0000

You might think that a movie titled "Waxwork" is about some guy who kills people and turns them into wax mannequins, like in House of Wax starring Vincent Price. And for the first half of Waxwork, you'd be right.

But Anthony Hickox, who directed Waxwork, wasn't content to just direct a horror movie. He wanted to direct ALL of them. So he dreamed up this idea (he's also the writer) of a waxwork display serves as a gate to a pocket dimension, where unsuspecting visitors are put in the roles of the victims. If the victim dies, their dead bodies become part of the waxwork. Clever, huh?

Of course, this being an 80s movie, Waxwork is stuffed with characters from The Breakfast Club: the slut (China), the virgin (Sarah), the confused protagonist (Mark), miscellaneous female sidekick (Gemma), her "cool" boyfriend (Tony) and the prankster moron (James). They're all there to die of course.

Why? Does anyone really care? Oh all right if you insist…

Mark's grandfather was a benevolent adventurer who, for reasons that make sense only in movie-land, collected trinkets from eighteen of the most evil people who ever lived. Mr. Lincoln (David Warner) has sold his soul to the devil and plans to bring about a zombie apocalypse by feeding victims to the wax effigies of each of the villains. Lincoln kills Mark's grandfather in the first few minutes of the movie, stealing his artifacts and embedding them in his wax effigies. This makes no sense, but Waxwork is unconcerned by your petty notions of plot and narrative. It's only out to show cool monsters killing people.

What we get, then, is a bunch of vignettes where some poor unsuspecting idiot stumbles into a waxwork display and, discombobulated and suddenly in the role of the victim, struggles to survive. Let the Battle Royale begin (this review contains spoilers)!

DING DING!

TONY VS. WEREWOLF: Actually, it's Tony vs. John Rhys-Davies as the werewolf, who must have been hard up for work. No matter, he promptly becomes a werewolf after sending Tony out for firewood. Tony, confused and thinking this is a trick (because that's of course what victims do), plays along until the werewolf bites him. Seconds later HE'S a werewolf and two hunters come in to finish the job. So actually it's TONY VS. OLD GUY WITH SILVER BULLET. Two guesses who wins.

But that was just the warm up act. What we really want to see how China, ahem, handles herself.

CHINA VS. DRACULA: Oh this is going to be good. China is in a gothic-style mansion where Dracula and his host as eating raw meat. What ensues is an oddly slow, creepy dinner scene that features no violence whatsoever. Until China goes to bed, a vampire tries to eat her, and as she flees she stumbles upon her fake fiancée strapped to a table. That's when the fun starts: the vampires have kept him alive while they feast on the bloody remnants of his leg. This leads to China fighting off a whole host of vampires, until she finally meets Big D himself. Does China "can't a girl get laid around here without being burned at the stake" have a chance? That's foreshadowing folks.

The movie then injects an odd dose of reality as Sarah and Mark go to the police to plead their case. Detective Roberts is unimpressed but decides to check it out on his own along with his silent partner (the one in the bad Miami Vice getup). But who cares about him? What we're really here for is…

DETECTIVE ROBERTS VS. THE MUMMY: Roberts, unlike the other idiots, knows how to handle himself. Roberts is thrust into the role of an adventurer along with his helpless female sidekick and a Howard Carter stand in. They open the tomb, only to release a black-ooze drooling mummy, who proceeds to kill fake-Carter and throw everyone else in the sarcophagus. See, even kick-ass cops get killed in Waxwork.

Of course, Sarah and Mark then have to investigate things themselves. Which leads to…

MARK VS. ZOMBIES: Mark ends up in Night of the Living Dead. He escapes by shouting that old D&D maxim, "I disbelieve!" And it actually works. Except for the whole dismembered zombie hand…

ZOMBIE HAND VS. WAXWORK: This zombie hand actually launches its own franchise later. Seriously, this has to be the first case of a zombie hand becoming so pivotal to a plot that it launches a sequel.

SARAH VS. THE MARQUIS DE SADE: Now don't get me wrong, de Sade is pretty villainous but…really? The Marquis de Sade? Fine. Sarah, virginal, sweet Sarah, falls under his hypnotic spell, whereupon R-rated tortures take place, including a prolonged whipping scene with lots of moaning. In fact, this whole scene drags for a while and starts to get a little uncomfortable. Eventually, Mark shows up to rescue her. The Marquis de Sade, who we didn't realize until now is apparently the main villain, promises revenge.

JAMES AND GEMMA VS. PLOT DEVICE: Lincoln needed four victims (poor Roberts doesn't count, I guess), so James and Gemma have gotta go. They take Sarah and Mark's place as corpses in the waxwork displays.

BABY FROM IT'S ALIVE!, AUDREY FROM LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS, RANDOM AXE MURDERER…YOU GET THE IDEA VS. EVERYBODY: Mark's wheelchair-bound uncle Sir Wilfred, his butler, and a bunch of guys with pitchforks and guns come in and burn the place down in a grand, awkward melee. Rubber masks are smashed with bats, miscellaneous extras are hurled through the air, and much mayhem is made. In the fracas, de Sade has a sword fight (?) with Mark, who wields his grandfather's magical saber (?!) bestowed upon Mark by his uncle. And then somebody falls into a vat of wax, because this movie is named Waxwork and somebody has to.

The end.

Waxwork was made by a horror buff that loved all these old horror movies but didn't feel like they had enough gore, so he went and filmed his own versions with a bigger special effects budget. By far the best effect is the dimensional transition between the scenes.

Oh sure, the acting is terrible, the jokes aren't all that funny, and the plot makes no sense whatsoever. But you know what? This movie is so fully of cheesiness, special effects, and gore that it rises above it all to turn into some kind of monumental tower of waxy, cheesy awesome.

And for that this movie gets four zombie fingers.

Planet 51

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 16:30:00 +0000

When my wife and I went to see Planet 51, it was a Sunday night in the pouring rain. We were the only people in the theater. And that was apt, because we're probably the only adults who actually bothered to see the movie and got all the jokes.

On Planet 51, things are looking up for Lem (Justin Long), an aspiring assistant manager for the local planetarium. He just got the job and he's about to ask out the girl next door, Neera (Jessica Biel). Until an "alien" shows up. And that alien is Captain Charles (Chuck) T. Baker (Dwayne Johnson), a human astronaut.

Chuck, you see, has landed on a planet he thought was uninhabited. His job was to plant a flag, play a few rounds of interplanetary golf, and then get back to his ship and report home. But all those plans are threatened by the military that wants to dissect him, embodied by the sinister General Grawl (Gary Oldman) and the resident mad scientist Professor Kipple (John Cleese).

On the one hand, Planet 51 wants to entertain the kiddies. It features a computer-rendered world full of lush retro-futuristic landscapes rendered through a 1950s lens. It has rocket ships, aliens both benign and belligerent, and not one but TWO cute dogs-that-aren't-dog characters.

On the other hand, Planet 51 wants to be an action homage to the sci-fi of yesteryear. It features characters smooching, gunfire, 50s-style nostalgia, 50s-style paranoia, and references to genitalia.

The problem is that Chuck's kind of a jerk. Put in the role of the kindly extraterrestrial, Chuck can't pull it off – he's not above intimidating people, playing into their worst fears, lying to get what he wants, and his cries of "not having the right stuff" are hard to believe given that he's, ya know, an ASTRONAUT. Lem spends most of the movie whining about not getting the girl, Chuck spends most of the movie whining about not getting home, and the only reason the plot moves forward at all is because Rover (one of the two aforementioned "dogs") saves the day.

In fact, Rover steals the show. Cleverly designed to look like a cross between the Mars rover and a dog, Rover propels the plot on his tiny wheels alone. If the movie was more about Rover and got rid of Chuck, it would have been a much more entertaining film.

Instead, Planet 51 teeters between tedious characters arguing, simplistic moralizing (Lem explains to the General that he's "afraid of the unknown." Really?), and lame side plots that are just mean-spirited (two citizens have their brains removed…hilarious!).

If you're a twelve-year-old boy who happens to remember 1950s science fiction movies, E.T., Populuxe architecture, Aliens, and The Right Stuff, then this movie's for you. But since the odds of that happening are about as realistic as a planet full of half-dressed English-speaking aliens, adults will likely find Planet 51 too childish and the shout-outs to older sci-fi will go over the kids' heads.

Godzilla 2000

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 20:57:00 +0000

I was a big Godzilla fan in the 80s, when the Monster Movie of the Week seemed to play every hour of every day of the week. Although I can't precisely remember every monster and every battle, I fondly remember "Godzy" (as my mom would call him, both of my parents are sci-fi fans) beating the rubbery stuffing out of his opponents. Sometimes he had allies (Rodan), sometimes he had recurring enemies (King Ghidorah, Mechagodzilla) and sometimes he just blew stuff up a lot.

Appreciating a Godzilla movie requires the viewer to adjust his expectations. Godzilla movies aren't about great acting, linear plots, or special effects. The Japanese movie industry understands its audience--if you're going to buy into a gigantic atomic-breathing humanoid lizard, pretty much anything goes. "Anything" includes robots, aliens, robots built by aliens, size-shifting robots (Jet Jaguar ROCKS!) and tiny singing faeries. And don't forget the giant moth.

Trying to make the Godzillaverse make sense is a huge mistake, as evidenced by the failure of the American version of Godzilla in theaters. There's nothing quite like creating a titanic lizard and then not giving him atomic breath because "that just wouldn't make sense." Godzilla 2000 is the Toho studio's response to the American movie. Which is to say it is both better and worse.

By the time we get to Godzilla 2000, the big lug has been around long enough to create two rival investigating forces. On the good guy side we have the Godzilla Prediction Network (GPN) led by Shinoda (Takehiro Murata) and his daughter Io (Mayu Suzuki). The GPN team (if you can call them that) is accompanied by Yuki (Naomi Nishida), who is trying to get a good picture of Godzilla for the local newspaper. Ironically, nobody can get a good close-up of Godzilla because he emits enough radiation to ruin photography. Which really does make one wonder...shouldn't just being in proximity to Godzilla fry every human being in a hundred mile radius?

The bad guys consist of the Crisis Control Intelligence (CCI) agency, led by Katagiri (Hiroshi Abe). The two groups have a bit of history: Shinoda used to work for the CCI before he left due to their "violent tendencies." Where GPN seeks to examine and understand Godzilla for the good of mankind, the CCI wants to blow him up into big, radioactive chunks.

Much of the movie centers on this philosophical argument as to how to treat Godzilla. It's pretty clear that Godzilla doesn't care either way, as he comes rampaging ashore in a quest to find Japan's power sources. Why? Because in a not very subtle way, Godzilla is a parallel for the dangers of atomic weapons. At least he was, when Godzilla first graced the screen. Godzilla is the result of our warmongering and he retaliates with a vengeance by attacking atomic plants.

The CCI takes the direct approach, accepting any human casualties that might be necessary to take Godzilla head on. Tanks, mines, armor-piercing missiles...none of it works, because Godzilla regenerates at incredibly high speed. That little tidbit of information greatly interests the GPN, who names Godzilla's DNA (Regenerator-1) and seeks to use it to save humanity. Well, maybe eventually. In another movie.

The unearthing of a meteorite by the CCI eventually interrupts Godzilla's rampage. Sure enough, the meterorite, which is millions of years old, awakens when touched by light. And that meteor is in reality an alien spacecraft with DNA mimicking capabilities. It immediately makes a beeline for Godzilla.

This alien being/ship is known as Orga, and it goes through several phases. First it starts out as a particularly feminine looking saucer. Then it transforms, for about thirty seconds, into a large jellyfish. This scene is so short and irrelevant to the movie that it seems like something was cut. Finally, Orga turns into a big guy in a rubber suit. And then we're back to the Godzilla movies from the 80s, where guys in suits slap each other silly until one of them falls down.

Godzilla has been redesigned for this film to make him look more feral looking. For the most part, it works. His dorsal spikes are particularly vicious, his fangs jut out over his lips, and his eyes are perpetually fixed in a cruel glare. Orga, on the other hand, looks ridiculous. He's a big, floppy-fisted monster with barely enough motion to move his gigantic oversized claws.

I never appreciated the physical acting required for Godzilla. When it's a rubber suit, the emotion that can be conveyed must be over-the-top pantomiming. This actor doesn't have it.

Godzilla has arms. Past Godzilla movies have made sure Godzilla ripped things apart with his claws, mauled his opponents, or twitched in agitation. This version of Godzilla doesn't have much to do but sort of wave his arms around slightly. It makes him look pretty foolish when he's trying to be scary or in pain.

The other problem, and this is a big one, is how Godzilla uses his breath weapon. In other Godzilla movies, he reared backwards and you got the sense that breathing atomic fire took a lot of effort. When the flames blew out of his mouth, it seemed like a true exhalation of atomic destruction. In this movie, Godzilla looks vaguely constipated, waves his head about, and then the flames sort of fall out of his mouth.

Throughout the first half of the movie there is some amusing dialogue (or at least, amusing translations), some real moments of tension, and a lot of human stupidity. During the second half, the humans stand around and watch the city get blown up real good.

Of all the characters, Katagiri steals the show. When staring down Godzilla eye-to-eye, Katagiri simply lights a cigarette and says "I've never been this close to Godzilla before." But as well all know, nobody stares Godzilla in the eye and walks away without glowing.

The movie spirals into bizarre territory at the end, with Orga trying to absorb Godzilla, who strangely complies (there's a whole Orga/female Godzilla/male thing going on too, ICK). Scientists spout about Regenerator-1 genes, military generals philosophize about aliens from outer space, and Shinoda tells his daughter in a voice over about how Godzilla keeps protecting humanity because there's a little bit of him in all of us...

Meanwhile, in the background, Godzilla sets the entire city ablaze with his radioactive breath.

This movie is more like two movies, bridging the original Godzilla film with the later Monsterama battles that Godzilla has become known for. In fact, it's more a homage to all the Godzilla films that went before. All in all, a worthy successor to the Godzilla series and certainly more respectful of its origins than the American version.

The Day the Earth Stood Still

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 21:16:00 +0000

The original movie version of The Day the Earth Stood Still is one of my father's all time favorite movies. A science fiction classic that permanently embedded the catch phrase "klaatu barada nikto" into the geek lexicon, the first film was a parable about the Cold War. Both the producer and director were criticized for the liberal themes of the film, which promoted world peace and a draw down of military hostilities. The "standing still" of the world was a reference to all electrical systems on Earth freezing for a half hour, with the exception of critical systems. In short, the movie's message was thought provoking, intended to begin a discussion about American policies.

The remake is no different (spoiler alerts abound). This new version features a hostile military led by Regina Jackson (the stalwart Kathy Bates), the monotone human-like alien (Keanu Reeves as Klaatu), an aggrieved scientist widow (the beautiful Jennifer Connelly) and her angry son (played by Jaden Smith). This new version pokes viewers with a stick: the Benson patriarch died in Iraq; the president's response to an alien invasion is openly hostile; and the Message is no longer about the Cold War but Global Warming. In other words: the movie's message is thought provoking, intended to begin a discussion about American policies.

But is it a good movie? Overall, the film bulks up special effects, smoothes over some of the rough edges from the original, and does its best to translate the original to modern sensibilities. GORT now stands for Genetically Organized Robot Technology, is a giant nanotechnology war machine, and the descending globes of light are arks to save the Earth. The computer graphics are outstanding.

The acting, not so much. Reeves sleepwalks through his role, which, while not inappropriate, doesn't stretch his acting chops either. Klaatu is suitably creepy as a blank-faced drone, but difficult to sympathize with as he becomes more human. Connelly has little to do besides plead at the camera with her eyes. Smith comes off as recalcitrant and unlikable, a weakness in the child actor who represents the sum of humanity's relationship. The sole stand out is John Cleese as Professor Karl Barnhardt, projecting a level of warmth and kindness that's we rarely see on screen. If I had to pick a person to argue for humanity's survival, Cleese would be an excellent choice.

The ending feels sloppy. GORT transforms from a giant robot (scary!) to a hissing swarm of metal locusts (biblical, but not as scary). The biblical parallels continue with Klaatu's birth and sacrifice, but the film seems conflicted as to how to wrap things up. The movie concludes with the Earth standing still, permanently – hospital machines and airplanes be damned.

Whether or not you agree with the movie's tenets is moot. If you're nodding your head or rolling your eyes then this version, like the original before it, did its job. But in comparison, the original has better acting and a tighter plot.

Twisty Little Passages

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:52:00 +0000

Twisty Little Passages, by Nick Montfort, addresses a much needed gap in gaming analysis and history: that of interactive fiction. The precursor to Multi-User Dungeons, interactive fiction was a form of text-based interactive game that sprang to life in tandem with the rise of the personal computer. Single player in scope but capable of taking its players anywhere the programmers could imagine, it relied primarily on the written word to share its world. Although the games initially started with VERB NOUN responses (e.g., "get book", "read book", etc.), they eventually advanced to natural language parsers.

Throughout the book is a history of interactive fiction and its development through the eighties and nineties. It also analyzes the comparisons between hypertext fiction and interactive fiction and the inequalities in how the two or treated. If you can't guess, interactive fiction isn't treated very well.

Montfort seems to have an axe to grind, citing shoddy research that conflates certain interactive fiction as being fantasy adventure games and confuses the origins of Adventure (or ADVENT). Montfort corrects all these misperceptions and more through personal interviews with Will Crowther, creator of Adventure, and Dave Lebling, one of the creators of Zork.

Twisty Little Passages seeks to redress these inconsistencies, positing that interactive fiction is more than just a game but a form of literature in its own right. Montfort makes a convincing argument, but then as an administrator of RetroMUD for over a decade, I'm one of the converted. It's unlikely that literature snobs are reading his book.

Although occasionally defensive in tone, Montfort's retrospect and analysis of interactive fiction is a welcome addition to any game developer's library. It's important to know what went before, and this book addresses an important part of gaming history that has been all but forgotten.

Moterhship Zeta

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 27 Nov 2009 04:31:00 +0000

There were two places I absolutely had to visit in Fallout 3: Dogmeat and the crashed spacecraft. With the new downloadable content, Mothership Zeta, what was once a visit to a spooky alien craft turns into a full-fledged abduction scenario.

After being beamed up by into a saucer, the player is subjected to a disturbing sequence in which the aliens conduct experiments with painful probes. You wake up naked in a holding cell with another abductee, Somah, and have to fight your way to freedom.

Like The Pitt and Operation: Anchorage, this content is an entirely self-contained environment. You're in a spacecraft, after all. The green men, with their guardian drones, pack personal force fields and painful disintegrators that make the weapon you found on the dead alien in Fallout 3 look like a pop gun.

Leading the way through the labyrinthine architecture is Sally, a little girl who is small enough to traverse the ductwork. With a nod to Newt from the movie Aliens, she is at turns annoying (not all of her advice is sound) and helpful. You eventually are joined by other abductees awoken from cryo-sleep, including a samurai, a cowboy, and a medic abducted from Operation: Anchorage.

Like Operation: Anchorage, Mothership Zeta forces cocky players to change their tactics. The aliens are physically weaker but they make up for it with powerful weapons and armor. They come in groups of three or more and attack in enclosed spaces. Mothership Zeta is no cakewalk.

Along the way, the aliens plans are revealed. Creepy tapes of abductees being interviewed and experimented are littered throughout the ship. At one point, the player must conduct a spacewalk – although there's not much of a challenge in doing so. The finale is suitably climactic as you attempt to command the ship to fire on another UFO while fending off wave after wave of angry aliens. The win is hard-earned.

Mothership Zeta provides a few items that will be valuable back on Earth: biogel (heals hundreds of hit points), a disintegrator (inflicts massive amounts of damage in a single shot), and the energy ball-bouncing drone cannon (acts as a grenade but is very imprecise). When I returned to the regular Fallout 3 game, I used the drone cannon to devastating effect, especially because you can bounce the shots around corners.

Motership Zeta isn't for everyone. The foes are a bit repetitive, and listening to the alien chatter (they don't speak English, natch) gets old fast. More often than not I had to resort to bashing their big green heads in with a shock baton – ugly work, as the aliens squeal with every hit. But for fans of 50s science fiction, little green men, and Mars Attacks, this is a must buy.

Titus Crow, Volume 2: The Clock of Dreams; Spawn of the Winds

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 13:34:00 +0000

After having slogged through Volume One of the Titus Crow series, complete with lisping dragons, green haired space princesses, and a narrative riddled with ellipses, I steeled myself for Volume Two. With the prototypical pulp hero Titus Crow and his trusty sidekick Henri de Marginy cleaning the clocks (pun intended) of the Cthulhu Cycle Deities (CCD, ugh), there wasn't much left for them to do. But like every good epic series, when the heroes become gods among men in the mortal realm…they leave the mortal realm behind to find adventure.

The Clock of Dreams begins with a rather peculiar scenario: Crow and Tiania have been captured in the Dreamlands. How this happened is hand waved; basically, Crow and Tiana are drugged and enslaved by the Men of Leng. Given that Crow is a cyborg that is highly resistant to damage, it seems unlikely that poisoning him would work…but perhaps that's because this is the Dreamlands and not Earth's reality.

The first half of the novel involves de Marginy's quest to find Crow in the Dreamlands. Once there, Crow takes up the second half as he seeks to rescue Tiania. What's interesting is that Clock of Dreams is one of the first to posit that Cthulhu's dream sendings actually infect the Dreamlands. Here, great nightmarish factories corrupt the land, guarded by three foul guardians: the worm-like Flyer, its tentacle-armed Rider, and a three-legged Runner. Overseeing the entire operation is a deathly titanic Keeper, who in turn servers Nyarlathotep.

Overall, this is book is an improvement over the first volume, if only because there's more for Titus to do. Unlike the previous books, it's told in the present tense, which lends much urgency to the narrative. There's plenty of combat, skullduggery, and a hilarious moment where the only way de Marginy can return to the Dreamlands is to get roaring drunk. With guest appearances by Randolph Carter and King Kuranes, flying airships, and shields that shoot laser beams, this is pulp Cthulhu at its wackiest. But it's juicy and satisfying, especially when Nyarlathotep shows up at the end to put our heroes in their place.

Spawn of the Winds, on the other hand, is a different breed of pulp. Crow and de Marginy are nowhere to be found in this book; its inclusion is primarily because of Ithaqua, who is assigned a peculiar set of personality traits here. Ithaqua, you see, lusts after human women (as all pulp villains inevitably do) because he seeks to spawn terrible progeny who will walk among the winds with him. The winds, as defined by Lumley, are the spaces between worlds, and occasionally Ithaqua kidnaps people and carries them across dimensions to the world of Borea.

Borea is a wind-swept frozen world filled with every snow land cliché imaginable: Vikings, Eskimos, white wolves, polar bears, ski-boats, and lots and lots of snow. I kept waiting for Santa Claus to show up. Ithaqua's penchant for turning people into wendigos is turned on its ear here – instead, Ithaqua alters the physiology of those whom he traps on Borea so that they are immune to the cold.

The protagonist is an American named Hank Silberhutte, a member of the Wilmarth Foundation out to avenge his cousin, whom he believes was killed by Ithaqua. Silberhutte is a Texan, which of course means he can punch anybody's lights out who dares mess with him. He is also a powerful psychic, capable of linking with Juanita Alvarez, a telepathic receiver and our narrator, across the gulfs of space.

Tagging along is Silberhutte's companions, Paul White (an oracle known as "hunchman"), Dick Selway, Jimmy Franklin, and Silberhutte's hot little sister Tracy. A fateful encounter with Ithaqua ends with Selway dead and the others changed. Only Tracy, holding onto her star stones, remains unaffected.

Awakening on Borea, a brutal war of attrition ensues between worshippers of the Wind Walker who want nothing more than to sacrifice Tracy to Ithaqua (she's a "damned good-looking girl" says Silberhutte). Leading the opposition is Armandra, Woman of the Winds and daughter of Ithaqua. She's basically Storm with wind powers. She flies about the wastes, her flame-red hair whipping behind her, with skin as pale as snow and eyes as stormy as a winter…you get the idea.

Silberhutte falls madly in love with her, both physically and psychically, and their escalating relationship only complicates the war between the two factions. If Armandra dares intervene directly with her wind powers, Ithaqua joins the fray as well. And yet Armandra refuses to let any harm come to Silberhutte, who also wants to join the fight as the macho leader of his Eskimo warriors. It's all very primal.

Unlike the other books in the Crow series, this is a lusty, gun-toting, fist-swinging, princess rescuing, rip-roaring yarn that chews up scenery like a bad actor in a Shakespearean play. It doesn't always make sense, but it's a heck of a lot of fun to read.

The Pitt

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 23:23:00 +0000

Part of the genius of Fallout 3 is that it mixes 1950s sensibilities with post-apocalyptic atrocities, striking the perfect balance between humor and horror. With the Pitt, the balance definitely shifts towards the nihilistic, more The Road and Swan Song and less Beyond Thunderdome.

Like Operation: Anchorage, the player enters former Pittsburgh stripped bare of weapons and armor. He is pretending to be a slave. Mingling among the slaves, the player must fight his way through The Hole, a series of arena battles against increasingly difficult foes. My high-level character tore right through them in record time.

Surviving multiple rounds in The Hole grants an audience with Ashur, the head slaver and a former Brother of Steel. Indeed, this title may be more apt, because Ashur has created a bustling economy using Pittsburgh's steel mill to churn out weapons and armor.

It soon becomes clear that things are a little less black-and-white than in the rest of the Fallout wasteland. With the population largely sterile due to the Troglodyte Degeneration Contagion, Ashur settled on slave labor as a short-term solution to his manpower difficulties. Those who are tough enough ascend to join the slavers in bullying slaves and raiding other communities. The twist-ending requires a sadistic choice with no real winners or losers. It's as grim as it sounds.

Also like Operation: Anchorage, The Pitt provides one of the best melee weapons: The Mauler. An auto-blocking, persistent damage-inflicting beast of a weapon, The Mauler gets blood and guts everywhere, but then, killin's messy work.

That pretty much sums up The Pitt too. I felt a little dirty after playing it.

Operation: Anchorage

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 22:27:00 +0000

Operation: Anchorage was the first downloadable content available for Fallout 3. Fallout is far too complex a game to explain here; suffice it to say that the paranoia and jingoistic patriotism of the 1950s became a permanent way of life due to the escalation of nuclear war between communist forces and America. Operation: Anchorage fills in the back story of the game by thrusting the player into a pivotal moment in Fallout's history: the liberation of Alaska from communist China.

Because this downloadable content is part of the Fallout universe, it's a game within a game. Brotherhood of Steel outcasts need your help to reach a stash of pre-war technology in a bunker (dangling the promise of loot at the end of the simulation). But getting in requires a user with a Pip-Boy interface – an interface only the player possesses -- to successfully complete the virtual simulation.

This isn't really an addition to Fallout so much as it's a complete mini-game more in the vein of the Tom Clancy sneak-and-shoot games. The mission involves a series of escalated attacks against Chinese forces in a windswept arctic climate. There are soldiers that can be commanded to fight on your behalf, enabling some rudimentary squad tactics. There are no mutations and therefore no mutants, no irradiated wasteland and thus no radiation concerns, and only the equipment Anchorage supplies you. In short, it's a completely different game with a similar interface.

Even ammunition and healing are doled out in unlimited dispensers, just like a virtual game. There's no scavenging; corpses fizzle out in virtual sparks and there are no crates that can be opened. In short, this is Fallout stripped down to sneaking and shooting.

And sneaking is critical here. It was a shock for my 20th-level Fallout character, stripped of his huge arsenal of drugs and equipment, to be regularly outmatched by sharpshooters who often had a tactical advantage. In fact, all of the opponents are considerably more difficult, including the invisible Crimson Dragoons. I faced down several threats by staying near a health dispenser and clicking it every few rounds as I was pounded by Dragoon fire. There were several points in the game where I died multiple times using the brute force approach, eventually forced to sneak my way through much of the content. In short, Operation: Anchorage gave me a good dose of humility.

The conclusion involves a final push against Chinese forces. Judicious use of a high Speech skill ended the battle quickly with minimal bloodshed. I didn't even bother to use any of my squad. But it was all worth it. What lies in the vault is some of the sweetest weapons and armor this side of the apocalypse…and a good measure of skullduggery to boot.

Anchorage provides two items that will change your Fallout 3 experience. The first is the Winterized T-51b Power Armor. One of the most powerful armors in the game (DR 45), it never gets damaged. The other standout item is the Gauss Rifle, which has a scope, uses microfusion cells, and causes creatures to be knocked down for four seconds on a critical hit.

Words can't properly express how satisfying it is to hit a Deathclaw full in the face and watch it go flying off a cliff. Those four seconds can be a lifetime on a battlefield, bestowing a critical combat advantage to the player's companions who continue to pound away at the prone target; players using VATS and the right perks can knock an opponent around like a hockey puck.

Operation Anchorage isn't like the rest of Fallout 3 and that might be a turn off for some. But the Gauss Rifle and Power Armor make it all worth it.

The Spiraling Worm

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 17:27:00 +0000

Chaosium achieved a real coup for the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game (RPG) in a way that Dungeons & Dragons never did: it put RPGs on equal footing with Lovecraftian literature. Because Chaosium publishes fiction and RPG supplements it presents both as legitimate, best evidenced by the Cthulhu Mythos Encyclopedia, which draws on both sources to round out the Mythos.

So it's a bold move when Chaosium publishes a new modern work without the comforting bosom of the surrounding Mythos to prop it up. Even more daring, the Spiraling Worm is a collection of action stories set in the modern day.

Ignore the cover. The picture of Peel, with his oddly stubby arms and stiff posture, isn't particularly compelling.

David Conyers may be best known for his RPG contributions, but he's equally comfortable in the fiction realm. His protagonist of note, Australian Army military intelligence officer Major Harrison Peel, is a no-nonsense action hero waging war against a cosmic threat he barely understands. John Sunseri's character of choice is NSA agent Jack Dixon, who is a bit less stalwart than his Australian colleague. Rounding out the global trio and connecting the stories is MI6 agent James Figgs, who ranges from cold aloofness in Sunseri's stories to borderline psychopath in Conyers'.

The series starts out with Peel and Figgs in Vietnam in Made of Meat, featuring only a hint of the Mythos in the Tcho-Tcho and their worship of Shub-Niggurath. The conclusion is open-ended and unsatisfying.

To What Green Altar is Dixon's introductory tale, a less satisfying but interesting take on Cthugha, the Tunguska Event, and the Vatican. Unfortunately, the Mythos knowledge possessed by the Church doesn't seem to figure in the other stories.

Impossible Object, more a science fiction tale, is awesome. Peel fights a battle of perception in his native Australia, trying to grapple with a device nobody can truly perceive, much less comprehend. The ending is an awesome cliffhanger, leaving you wondering if the entire universe might implode…

Until you read False Containment, so the universe clearly did not end. It unfortunately saps some of the strength of Impossible Object, but False Containment is so strong that it's easy to forgive. Featuring time travel, body horror, and a gibbering monstrosity that cannot be contained by time or space. False Containment is one of the few stories in this collection that isn't afraid to drive home the insane horror of the Mythos.

Resurgence features two shoggoths gone wild, the inevitable conclusion of a monstrosity that eats everything. Resurgence isn't afraid to escalate tensions to an international level, forcing Peel to sacrifice himself to save his beloved continent…

Until, that is, the events in Weapon Grade. Dixon brings Peel into another mission, this one featuring another dimension and more shoggoths. It's interesting but not as powerful as the other short stories – it feels more like an excuse to keep Peel alive (he's cured of his ailment by the end of it) than anything else.

The title work, The Spiraling Worm, is a filthy, disturbing foray into the heart of the Congo jungle. Dixon, Peel, and Figgs are together again, and the circumstances are unsparingly brutal. This is a story that's not for the faint of heart. It features a suitably climactic showdown between helicopter gunships, Nyarlathotep, and an elder artifact. Unfortunately, the bizarre mask and its rotting cult steal the show. The conclusion is actually a beginning, as Dixon and Peel join forces to launch a secret organization dedicated to eradicating the Mythos…

If this sounds familiar, it's because it's been done already: Delta Green, wherein government agents with little infrastructure support wage a secret war against the Mythos. Chaosium has never quite fully embraced the enormously popular modern take on the Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, publishing its own brand of "Cthulhu Now" supplements. In fact, some of the stories in Spiraling Worm were originally meant to be part of Delta Green, but presumably they weren't able to get the rights from Pagan Publishing.

It seems as if the authors are intent on building their own, parallel, government-against-the-mythos series by connecting to Tim Curran's Hive. Which isn't a bad thing. But with the resurgence of Delta Green, I wonder if DG fans will be forced to choose.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 19:59:00 +0000

Quick, what movie features Britain in turmoil, three young children growing up under the tutelage of a sorceress, invocations of ancient demons and wizards, curse spells, and a modern school of magic that's not what it appears to be? Nope, it's not Harry Potter…it's Bedknobs and Broomsticks!

It's the beginning of World War II and Miss Price (Angela Lansbury, looking suitably spinsterish) has been saddled with three British war orphans: Charlie (Ian Weighill), Carrie (Cindy O'Callaghan) and Paul Rawlins (Roy Snart). Although she prefers to keep to herself, Price has no choice but to take them under her wing, at least until a more proper home can be found for them. As it turns out, Miss Price is a witch, a witch who hopes to help the British war effort if only she can master the final level of her training and thereby learn the spell "substitutiary locomotion."

The three orphans eventually stumble upon her secret. In an unlikely series of deals and skullduggery, Price bargains with the orphans to keep her secret in exchange for some magic, a bed knob that transforms any bed into a dimension-traveling device. Soon after, Price discovers that her tutoring via post from the mysterious Professor Emelius Browne (David Tomlinson), headmaster of the College of Witchcraft, has come to an abrupt end. Using the bed knob, Price and the three children track down Browne, who is in fact a con man that doesn't know much about magic at all.

Thus begins a quest to find the elusive substitutiary spell, first via double-dealings with a bookseller who has the other half of a mysterious spellbook, and then to an animated world of talking animals in pursuit of an amulet with the magic words inscribed upon it. Along the way, the motley band will face down the King of the Beasts, a razor-wielding thug, and of machinegun-toting Nazis.

Bedknobs and Broomsticks shows its age, both in its narrative speed and its approach to mature themes. The musical numbers often meander, with the characters speaking their lines and dance routines that are far too aggressive for the two older protagonists. There are a few misogynistic references (met with a frown by Miss Price) and…well, it's all very British, as it should be. The movie also isn't afraid to threaten the children with real harm, be it from a charging lion or a Nazi wielding a machinegun. Bad people in this movie are really bad, and there's a refreshing honesty about the whole thing.

By the time film gets around to its climax, young children will likely be bored. But what a glorious climax it is, complete with unrealistically numerous legions of animated suits of armor arrayed against the Nazis, who are there to "teach Britain a lesson." Although at times jingoistic, Bedknobs aims high and rarely sugarcoats the harsh realities of war.

This is as much a war film as it is a flight of fantasy, and in that regard Bedknobs and Broomsticks has some important lessons to teach young children. And in that regard, Miss Price and friends could teach Harry Potter a thing or two.

The Men Who Stare at Goats

noreply@blogger.com (talien) — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 02:27:00 +0000

When I discovered a movie was being made about The Men Who Stare at Goats I was excited, until I realized it was a comedic work of fiction. Thing is, The Men Who Stare at Goats isn't funny.

Oh, it's darkly humorous as the author, Jon Ronson, attempts to get to the truth while keeping a straight face. But it's not funny, and the conclusion Ronson reaches by the end of the book, after tracking the noble origins of a twisted, sadistic form of psychological warfare, is a punch in the face. So why was it made into a comedy?

Fortunately, comedy is too broad a stroke for the movie. It's actually a gonzo buddy journalism movie, where the actors play everything utterly straight. The humor is in what isn't said.

For example: When Ewan McGregor's journalist character Bob Wilton, he of Obi-Wan fame, asks "What's a Jedi?" nobody so much as snickers. Unfortunately the audience didn't seem to get it either: only my wife and I were laughing.

Wilton is on a mission to prove to his wife that he's more of a man than the one-armed editor who steals her from him. See? One armed men are funny!

Partnering with Lyn Cassady (George Clooney), a Special Forces psi-ops soldier, the two travel around Iraq on a mysterious mission. Just about every eccentric Ronson encountered in his book is collapsed into two characters in the film, Cassady and Bill Django (Jeff Bridges), Cassady's mentor.

And that's pretty much where The Men Who Stares at Goats loses its way…literally, as the two characters repeatedly get lost in the desert. Eventually, they end up at a secret base where more than just goat staring takes place.

The film is faithful to its source in surprising ways, from the Today show broadcast of Barney music used in torturing prisoners to a picture-for-picture reproduction of the First Earth Battalion manual (here titled the New Earth Army). The problem is that following Ronson/Wilton's journey to its logical conclusion should end with court marshals, public outrage, and an official inquiry. The strength and weakness of The Men Who Stare at Goats is that it unflinchingly deals with this problem…it's just that the solution is patently ridiculous. The film drives right off the cliff into a wish fulfillment fantasy that saps the strength of the rest of the movie.

The film ends with a sucker punch (SPOILER). Wilton publishes the truth, and instead of outrage, the world just laughs. The moral is that mass media turned the awful true story into a comedy…just like a comedic buddy movie did to a certain book you might have read.

Too bleak to be funny, too lighthearted to be serious, The Men Who Stares at Goats ends up as a hot mess of hippy idealism smashed together with modern conspiracy. It should have been a documentary.