Elysium

When District 9 was released a few years back it introduced audiences to a talented new voice in film as well as the science fiction world in the form of writer/director Neill Blomkamp. Not only did he deliver the prerequisite bombast of a summer tentpole feature, but also some scathing sociopolitical commentary about Apartheid and human nature. It was a breath of fresh air and was a huge hit.

That was 2009. Now in 2013 his newest feature, Elysium, aims to further solidify Blomkamp’s place in geekdom via a huge budget and a major star in Matt Damon. Does it live up to the hype?

The Earth of the future is in chaos. The poor and downtrodden live on the dying surface while the rich and elite occupy an orbiting luxury space station known as Elysium. Ex-con-turned-factory worker Max (Matt Damon) is injured on the job and must find a way to get to Elysium in order to obtain treatment. In doing so he inadvertently starts a war between the two classes.

I stated in my review of Prometheus that I’ve always preferred science fiction to sci-fi. I love a movie that makes me think and ponder concepts and ideas that I normally take for granted. I also enjoy seeing things blow up real good, so when a movie can combine the two successfully I am in hog’s heaven. That was the case with District 9. Sadly it’s not the case with Elysium.

For starters there’s way too much sociopolitical commentary this time around. So much so that as an audience member I felt like I was being lectured to as I watched it. Not only is there the class warfare plot, but there is also a lot being said about immigration and universal healthcare. At times I didn’t feel like I was watching a movie, and was instead watching a documentary about the last two presidential administrations and the issues they faced. Overbearing and intrusive were the words ringing in my head as the film spun on, and in the end I felt like all the fun of the concept had been stripped away leaving me feeling indifferent about the project as a whole. I do encourage filmmakers to inject ideas into their films to make the audience use their brains, but this was definitely the wrong way to do it.

Another issue is that it speeds by at such a breakneck pace there is no time to get to know the characters, become accustomed to the world(s) they inhabit or even understand how integral plot points or devices work. For example – the exosuit worn by Damon’s character. We get a lot of explanation on how it works, and once it’s installed on his body it’s like he already had been using it for years. There are no scenes showing the acclimation to the strength/agility augmentation on the character’s part. He just gets off the operating table and KAPOW! he’s an instant superhero. And what’s worse is that he barely uses it to do anything out of the ordinary! Sure he rips a robot’s head off and is able to jump farther than usual, but that’s about it. Lamesauce.

Yet another issue is, and I’m blaming this mostly on the writing, Jodie Foster’s character of Delacourt, the head of Elysium’s security forces. Not only is she terrible in the part (her performance reminded me of her turn in Flightplan), but Delacourt is so underdeveloped and one-dimensional that the role could have been left out completely and it wouldn’t have made much of a difference in the overall scheme of things. Basically the part comes down to the fact that if she had a moustache she’d be twirling it like some old school western villain for the entire film. Foster adds fuel to the fire by speaking in a horrible French accent as well.

One more is the overuse of the shakycam. For crying out loud can we retire that style of filmmaking already?! Not only does it make it hard to see what is going on during the action scenes but it is used just for the hell of it most times. Lock that bitch down and let us actually get a look at the world you’ve spent all this time and money creating, would ya?!

My final major issue is that Elysium is, for all intents and purposes, a big budget remake of the 1995 crapfest Johnny Mnemonic. The main plot device is exactly the same - dude has information that was downloaded into his brain and he must get it from point A to point B before he dies. I will say that this film pulls it off way better than its predecessor did, but that wouldn’t have taken much effort. But like most of the film it gets lost in the myriad of way too many other things to keep track of, and by the time the conclusion rolled around I was like “Oh yeah, that’s still a thing. I forgot.”

On the flip side, Blomkamp knows how to fill the worlds he created with interesting technology and cool gadgets. I especially loved the weaponry. Bullets that explode in front of their target to cause collateral and shrapnel damage? Check. Rail guns that obliterate anything in their path? Check. Surface to space rocket launchers? Check. Laser targeted micro tracking personnel mines? Check. Seeing all these things in action put a smile on my face. I also thought the idea of the medical devices that can fix any issue, including cancer and genetic abnormalities, was kind of rad until its use is overused and turned into a generic plot device. The same goes for the exo-suits. Cool idea, bad execution.

Little details are also plentiful and very welcome. The fact that the population of Earth speaks Spanish with English as a second language is a nice addition, and the fact that the inhabitants of Elysium all speak French is as well. Robotic parole officers and police are fun and more than a little awesome too.

Blomkamp can certainly make a movie look amazing. He knows when to keep things simple (the dramatic bits) and when to go batshit crazy (those slo-mo shots of bullets exploding or people’s faces being ripped off). Sadly the shaky cam debacle ruins most of the shots when it rears its ugly head. The design of the locations is like a combination of what was seen in District 9 and Blade Runner.

Matt Damon and Sharlto Copley give strong performances, but I just wished that their parts were reversed. Seeing someone as lanky as Copley take on the hero role would have been more appropriate since Matt Damon looks like he could eat that scrawny dude for breakfast. Diego Luna also has a great part as Damon’s pseudo-sidekick. Unfortunately Alice Braga, who I have not liked in any movie I’ve seen her in (Predators, I am Legend, City of God), doesn’t even look like she’s trying to act here, only react. I already brought up the Jodie Foster debacle.

Look, I know I’m bashing this flick pretty hard. It has a lot of problems. That’s not saying that it’s not entertaining. It is. It’s just not nearly as good as District 9, Star Trek: Into Darkness, Pacific Rim, Man of Steel or even Oblivion. There are some cool action scenes, lots of wanton violence (Blomkamp loves having people explode in his movies) and the FX are rad. It’s just that there is such a thing as too much story, and for a movie crammed to bursting point with so many ideas and creative touches that only runs for 109 minutes it implodes on itself. There’s a lot to like, but the bad outweighs the good by far.

3 out of 5

p.s. Did it bother anybody else that Elysium looked at times like the Halo ring? Was it a coincidence that Blomkamp nearly directed a massively budgeted Halo flick before District 9? Hmmm…

You're Next

There are movies that live up to expectations and there are movies that surpass them. I have to admit, if I hadn’t already heard of You’re Next on some of the movie websites I frequent I would have shrugged off the horror/thriller based on the lame and overly clichéd antics shown in the trailer. Word of mouth from various film festivals and conventions where the film played talked about how it toyed with expectations and delivered a healthy injection of awesome into a tired genre staple, that being the home invasion sub-genre.

After having seen an advance screening I can definitely agree that all the accolades the fans have been pouring over You’re Next are well deserved in every respect. This flick rocks hardcore.

The basic premise is that a family get-together turns into a never ending nightmare when three masked men begin picking them off one by one.

That sounds like a generic horror film, and the set-up at its core is. However, the film becomes much more than that. What looked like a simple rehash of The Strangers turns into one of the most involving and well-made thrillers in years.

The script by Simon Barrett (Frankenfish) takes its time getting to the main inciting incident where the three madmen begin their attack upon the Davison family, and thankfully developed the main characters enough that when the hammer falls we actually give a shit about them and are rooting for their survival.

Another plus is that the screenplay doesn’t make the characters out to be complete idiots. Usually in a movie of this type the characters do exactly the wrong thing at the wrong time. Sure a couple of the characters do make this mistake once in a while, but it doesn’t feel forced in order to rack up another kill for the body count. Events unfold organically for the most part and thankfully so.

Yet another refreshing plus is the writing for one specific character, Erin, played astoundingly by Sharni Vinson. Typically films from this genre are filled with scared, quivering women who can’t seem to do anything other than screaming, crying and holding onto the nearest man for protection. Not so here. Erin is written as a capable, confident and brave young lass who is not only sassy and instantly likable, but can hold her own at every turn against her would-be killers. As far as final girls go, she’s currently in the top spot as far as I’m concerned.

Director Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die, segments from TheABCs of Death, V/H/S and V/H/S/2) not only has a steady and self-assured grasp on what makes for a truly suspenseful and thrilling ride, he knows how to get each and every actor to give their all to sell the situation they find themselves in and make their characters truly likable/despicable effortlessly. It’s a shame that this movie has been sitting on a shelf since 2011 due to lack of interest on the part of the distributors, but thankfully Lionsgate saw the potential and snatched it up. Wingard is going places in Hollywood. Mark my words.

The actors, who are a unique mix of thespians and filmmakers, all turn in work that is far and beyond anything an audience would ever expect from a graphically violent film such as this. As I mentioned earlier, Sharni Vinson is a revelation as Erin. She instills such a likability into her character that I had it pegged that a major twist would occur that would kill off her character early on just to fuck with the audience. Thankfully that wasn’t the case and I was dead wrong. She gives the film the edge it requires to work and she shoulders most of the burden gracefully.

Co-stars AJ Bowen as Crispian, Joe Swanberg (who is also a director) as Drake, Nicholas Tucci as Felix, Amy Seimetz (who is also a director) as Aimee, Rob Moran as Paul and Barbara Crampton as Aubrey all feel like a family, albeit a slightly dysfunctional one which makes them more realistic in my book. I was pleasantly surprised to see the lovely Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Robot Wars, Castle Freak) once again. I’ve always admired her performances in genre films and she gives fans yet another knockout. Does she even age? Goddamn! But I digress… the supporting players, Wendy Glenn as Zee, Margaret Laney as Kelly and Ti West (director of House of the Devil and The Innkeepers) all fit in perfectly as well as the respective mates of the family members, although West does seem a little out of place in his truncated role.

The actors who play the killers, L.C. Holt as “Lamb Mask”, Simon Barrett as “Tiger Mask” and Lane Hughes as “Fox Mask”, are not only threatening physical presences but give their (sort-of) silent psychopaths a certain body language that is not only creepy, but completely effective. There is also a welcome sense of camaraderie between them that sets them apart from the villains in the aforementioned The Strangers as well. The masks they wore were somewhat unsettling too.

Although I did enjoy the film completely there are some bits that knock it down a notch or two. A couple of the characters do fall into that trap of doing something stupid in order to create false tension. For example - after one character is brutally murdered in the house in a closed off bedroom, another character stays alone in the room with the corpse. At this point in the story all the attacks have come from the outside in, and this particular death occurred inside the house. Therefore the killer is in the house, possibly even the same room as this idiot character. WTF?! Use your brain!

A particular kill is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever seen and was only added to get a rise out of the audience (trust me, you’ll know it when you see it), and the final shot is kind of a slap in the face just to add yet another “No!” stinger moment.

I also saw the big twist coming a mile away. There was a visual clue that was shown early on that clued me into it and I was disappointed that my prediction was correct. None of these are deal breakers, just minor slip ups in an otherwise awesome flick.

You’re Next is the kind of horror/thriller that is going to keep the genre alive and thriving for decades to come. As long as filmmakers like Adam Wingard, who understand what suspense is and can wring it out of any situation successfully, are working in the biz the genre will be in good hands. Smart, scary and filled with a stinging sense of dark humor, You’re Next is a sure-fire winner. I highly recommend you check it out when it is released in the next couple of weeks.

4 out of 5

#chicagoyourenext

Tower Block

I don’t exactly remember where it was that I read an article about Tower Block, a British thriller released in 2012, but it prompted me to track down a copy of it to check out. Why more movies from the UK aren’t given a wide release in the US is beyond me. This one was pretty damned good.

A few months after a man was beaten to death in their hallway, the tenants of a rundown and nearly abandoned apartment building find themselves the target of a sniper who has them pinned down and unable to escape.

There have been plenty of movies where someone, or multiple people, are trapped or held hostage by a mysterious sniper made over the years (Phonebooth, Two Minute Warning, Dirty Harry), but in the case of Tower Block the plot device works pretty damned well. The script by James Moran (Torchwood, Doctor Who, Severance, Cockneys vs. Zombies) is at times smartly written and suspenseful with a great cast of fleshed out characters, some likable and some not.

The main actors are all pretty fantastic. Sheridan Smith plays the alpha female, Becky, with a great deal of courage and heart. I loved how her character refused to be bullied or pushed around by some of the other tenants of less reputable status and rallied the survivors together. Jack O’Connell plays drug dealer Kurtis who also demands cash from the tenants as a protection fee. He pulls off the part extremely well, coming off at first as a tough guy who later begins to break down into an insecure little twat as the film rolls on. Still, you have to root for him. He’s got moxie. Veteran actor Ralph Brown (Alien³, The Crying Game, Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace) is pretty awesome as the old timer of the bunch, Neville. He refused to take shit from anyone and did whatever it took to protect his wife. Out of all the major players, I enjoyed the performance of Russell Tovey (Being Human UK) the most. His recovering alcoholic with a crush on Becky is both relatable and sympathetic. He’s also extremely naturalistic so I bought into his role immediately. The rest of the cast is fine as well, but most don’t get a whole lot of screentime since a lot are wiped out in the first attack.

Directors James Nunn and Ronnie Thompson show off a modicum of style and a refreshing focus on the story and performances. Their inexperience shows at times when things get hectic, but for the most part they skate through reasonably unscathed. They know when to rely on the actors to sell a scene instead of showing exactly what’s going on. It’s a smart and economical approach to what is a very low budget flick. I don’t think they pulled off the big reveal successfully since we never got a good look at the participant(s) involved over the course of the film.

The above average acting and directorial choices aside, the script at times wanders into ridiculous territory for no reason. There are times where the characters do incredibly stupid things just to move the story along and nothing more. Example – there’s a sniper taking people out from the top floor of a neighboring apartment building. So let’s go up to the roof and attempt to dangle over the side and lower ourselves down to the ground. Sure it’s happening on the far side of the building out of the sniper’s sight, but he definitely can see people running around on the roof and tossing things over the side. You think it’s not going to catch his attention? This dude saw someone sitting fifteen feet away from a window covered by a curtain and scored a head shot. Another example is when people decide to just run out the front door hoping for the best. Want to guess how that plan worked out? One of my biggest gripes has to do with how one character manages to utilize the sniper to take out two troublemakers among the survivors. When you see it happen your eyes will roll. The ultimate motivation behind the sniper’s actions is also weak and kind of dumb. When the big reveal went down I screamed at the screen “Grow the fuck up!”

None of these issues are a complete deal breaker. Like I said earlier, the movie is suspenseful and gripping. There’s just a lot of rookie mistakes and dumb shit going on at times. When you look at the movie as a whole the good outweighs the bad and I can honestly say that I enjoyed Tower Block. It’s not the best movie to ever come out of the UK, but it’s pretty good in its own right. I recommend it.

3 out of 5

The Purge

Morality is a tricky subject to tackle in today’s Hollywood. It makes for great drama when handled correctly or can just become a mess of preachy junk in the wrong hands. Unfortunately in my opinion The Purge falls into the latter category.

In the near future the US government creates “The Purge”, a single night each year when everyone can embrace the 12-hours of lawlessness and indulge in their most violent tendencies. When a wealthy family comes under attack by a gang of ruthless psychopaths due to their taking in of a targeted homeless man they must decide if they will give him up to save themselves or fight for what’s right.

The set-up is great. We learn that due to “The Purge” the unemployment rate has dropped to 1%, violence is extremely low and the economy is flourishing. This is all due to the fact that the homeless and poor are the prime targets during “The Purge”, mostly by the rich. The world created by writer/director James DeMonaco is a fascinating one, filled with so much venom aimed directly at the well-to-do that it’s almost as if he’s predicting that this is what will become of society if they continue to dictate the way the country develops.

We are then introduced to the main characters, wealthy parents James and Mary (Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey), their teenage daughter Zoey (Adelaide Kane) and adolescent son Charlie (Max Burkholder). They are about as generic as they come, except that Charlie is a little nutty, possibly autistic (it’s never explored). We see that they are the typical family with typical problems. They discuss “The Purge” a little at an overlong dinner scene but nothing of note is divulged except that the parents never participate due to the fact that they “don’t feel the need to”.

So when Charlie shuts down the house’s defenses during “The Purge” to allow an injured homeless man onto their property I promptly lost interest in the film. Why? Because it was never properly set up. Not once did the Charlie character voice his opinion on the morality issues “The Purge” presents, nor the fact that he is sensitive to the pain of others. We just know that he’s the weird one in the family and we are expected to accept the fact that this dumbass jeopardized the safety of his whole family because some random person ran down their street begging for help. What’s worse is the fact that his family barely reacts to it at all. It happens, they ask him what he did, he tells them and that’s it. The fact that not one of them got upset or pissed off that this kid could have just let a maniac into their home irked me to the extreme. And when the gang of Purgers shows up at their doorstep threatening to kill them all if they don’t turn over the man the family yet again doesn’t address that this little shitheel put them into this position to begin with. The writing is lazy, plain and simple.

Sure the movie features some suspenseful set-pieces. Once the Purgers manage to infiltrate the house the flick turns into a violent cat and mouse game with all the members of the family fighting for their lives. There are also some great twists and turns that present themselves, none of which I will ruin here. Trust me, they present themselves in organic ways unlike the main inciting incident I mentioned above.

Ethan Hawke is turning into the male equivalent of a scream queen (Daybreakers, Sinister). I’m not complaining since I think he manages to turn in awesome performances in these types of films - something horror movies usually are lacking in the extreme. He gives a very grounded performance here, as does Lena Headey as his spouse. I wasn’t a fan of the actors chosen to play the kids, but it wasn’t their fault since they are written horribly. I was mightily impressed with Rhys Wakefield (Sanctum) as the leader of the Purgers. With only a handful of scenes, most of which find him speaking through a monitor, he manages to project an insane amount of menace. I want to see him in more movies.

If it weren’t for the lame event that was devised by DeMonaco to get the ball rolling I might have liked this flick more. A few lines of dialogue are all it would have taken to set-up the situation and I would have bought everything hook, line and sinker. As it is, I consider it a major plot hole that ruins the film for me completely. Sure there are some cool things going on now and then, especially in the film’s final minutes involving the pettiness of certain individuals to further drive home the social commentary, but outside of that and the great central idea behind “The Purge” I will say the movie is a lot of wasted potential that could have been an amazingly interesting thriller, but due to some weak writing is brought down to a less than mediocre status.

Maybe the sequel, which is now on the fast track due to the unexpected success of this film, will fix the problems The Purge stumbles over.

2 out of 5

Bullet to the Head

I am all for this recent resurgence of classic 80s action stars. I may not like The Expendables franchise at all, but I get why it’s so popular – it’s a throwback to the glory days of old where men were big damn macho dudes with massive machine guns (aka their penises) taking out wave after wave of faceless minions without breaking a sweat or losing a drop of blood all to save some helpless chick with heaving breasts and low self-esteem. Seeing childhood heroes such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jean-Claude Van Damme and Sylvester Stallone up on the big screen once again doing what they do best is a big thrill for me, so when I say that Sly’s latest venture back into the spotlight is one of his all-time worst films I do so with a heavy, heavy heart.

James Bonomo (Sylvester Stallone) is a hitman whose partner (Jon Ceda) has just been killed by rival assassin Keegan (Jason Momoa) in the name of local gangster Morel (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje). In order to avenge his friend’s death, Bonomo teams up with a detective (Sung Kang) to take down their common enemy.

For an action movie, this flick is straight up boring. Half the movie takes place inside Bonomo’s car where he and Detective Kwon talk about nothing important, make pointless cell phone calls and throw lame, unfunny bromance insults at one another. When there is action it is short, badly choreographed and unremarkable. Sure Jason Momoa (Stargate: Atlantis, Conan the Barbarian 3D) has what it takes to be a great action star if given the right material, but here he’s playing against an old dude pushing 70 that would probably go down after one right hook so it does his career no favors.

Stallone is in full arrogance mode here, and as far as I’m concerned his character was completely unlikable. Sure what happens in the last act is due to his daughter being kidnapped and his quest to rescue her, but he put her in the position to be taken so I felt no sympathy. He just snarls and recites crappy dialogue with attitude for the whole movie. I never connected with him or any other character due to the shitty writing and pedestrian directing. I like Sung Kang (Better Luck Tomorrow, Fast & Furious, Fast Five, Furious 6) just fine, but he is annoying as fuck in this flick. Jason Momoa looks like he’s trying his hardest to come off as a true threat to the characters, but the fact his part is so small and underdeveloped hampers all his efforts. Not even seeing the usually entertaining Christian Slater in a theatrical role again did anything to liven up this DOA turd.

The main problem is that it feels like it was tinkered with a little too much. Stallone is infamous for rewriting the movies he stars in to accommodate his own tastes and ego, so whatever he did to doctor up this script was a big mistake. He made the characters interchangeable and indistinguishable from one another, filled their mouths with some of the worst dialogue ever written (“Guns don’t kill people. Bullets do.”) and had them do absolutely nothing for 90 minutes. I would be curious to read screenwriter Alessandro Camon’s original draft before Stallone put his ‘roid raging mitts all over it.

Director Walter Hill (The Warriors, 48 Hours, Red Heat) was brought in at the last minute to take the helm after Stallone had original director Wayne Kramer (The Cooler, Running Scared) fired due to not sharing his “vision” for the film. Back in the 70s and 80s Hill was at the top of his game. That isn’t the case in the 2010s. His pacing is lethargic and he seems just fine with having the star walk all over him. The result is a film that is worse than his critical/financial megabomb Supernova. It goes nowhere, the reason for all the shenanigans is never fully explained (especially in the case of the villain’s motivations and the random memory stick red herring toward the end) and it doesn’t even come off as a throwback 80s action thriller, but more of a remake of The Specialist with Sung Kang standing in for Sharon Stone.

I will admit that the actress that plays Stallone’s daughter, Sarah Shahi, is easy on the eyes and the final battle between Stallone and Momoa is short, but entertaining (they fight with fire axes, to which Stallone comments, “What are we, fucking Vikings?”). Everything else is bottom of the barrel.

If these old school action stars want to stay relevant in today’s Hollywood they need to surround themselves with top tier collaborators and decently conceived projects. Schwarzenegger knows what’s up, and it shows in with his goofily entertaining The Last Stand. As far as I was concerned Bullet to the Head was rushed into production to capitalize on the popularity of The Expendables 2 and it failed miserably. If any of these guys are going to fall out of the limelight again, I predict it will be Stallone who goes first. At least Schwarzenegger was smart enough to sign on to new Terminator, Conan and Twins sequels. Stallone’s recent announcement to create a Rocky spin-off, Creed, seems like a desperate attempt to copy his friend’s business model. I just fear that it will be too little too late and once The Expendables 3 is released he will find himself attempting to mine that franchise for as long as he can because his standalone projects will be just as bad as this one.

I can best sum up this flick in one sentence, something a friend of mine said while watching it with me - “This movie is a whole lotta who gives a shit”. Truer words were never spoken.

1 out of 5