That the "Resident Evil" movies are actually getting BETTER as it goes on is kind of quaint and alarming at the same time - alarming because you realize that "Extinction," a mostly-solid 'not bad' had two LESSER entries still make enough money to justify it's existence; but quaint simply for the notion that a mini-tentpole action franchise is still being executed at a workmanlike level where trial-and-error/learning-from-mistakes growth is going on organically between sequels. The original entry was simply dreafully, the second hugely entertaining but largely because of it's "whatever" vibe of startling-ineptitude... and now here's number three, a competently-made action/horror/scifi hybrid B-movie in it's own right. If they keep this pace up, in a few more sequels they'll make an entirely good movie.
Loosely following the broad plot-outlines of a long-running series of survival-horror video games, the series revolves around the sinister machinations of The Umbrella Corporation; a biotech conglomerate apparently powerful enough to build massive underground cities for research and keep private satellites in orbit even though the only thing we've been shown that they sell (in jokey ads for the second sequel) are high-tech anti-aging drugs. A chemical component of said drugs called the T-Virus, ostensibly designed to revive dead tissue, wound up doing it's job so well that it's caused a standard-issue Romero-esque zombie outbreak.
The living-dead and other assorted mutants ALSO unleashed by Umbrella's cavalier research overran a subteranean city in #1, a whole city in #2, and now in #3 they've taken over the planet and (somehow) turned it into "Mad Max" land in the span of a few years. Pockets of humanity roam the deserts looking for supplies and trying not to get eaten, while what's left of Umbrella toils safely in their underground shelter as the wicked Dr. Isaacs tries to find a "cure" for zombie-dom - or, rather, since it's Umbrella after all he's mostly trying to "domesticate" them in order to create a slave-race. Umbrella, evidently, got it's biotech feet wet in the conversion of lemons to lemonade. Give it credit where credit is due for finding SOME fresh material in the drained Zombie genre by focusing on the death of a humanity-deprived planet as opposed to the undead hordes.
In any case, Isaacs believes that the key to his 'cure' is the unique blood of series-heroine Alice, (still-stunning Milla Jovovich, again securing her crown as THE queen of B-movie action heroines,) who has been turned into a telekinetic superhuman by Umbrella meddling and now stalks the wasteland doing telekinetic superhuman stuff. When she hooks up with a convoy of human survivors in the ruins of Las Vegas, it puts her back on Umbrella's radar and sets up a confrontation between the good guys, an Umbrella-loosed hit-squad of Barry Bonds juiced zombies and eventually Dr. Isaacs himself - who seems to be going mad(er) with power.
Bad news first: Sorry, game fans, Alice is once again the prime focus and game heroes like Claire Redfield (Ali Larter) do the supporting gig. Things still look a bit on the cheap side, at least for a theatrical film. Mike Epps' annoying, ebonics-spewing caricature from #2 is still hanging around. "Tyrant" isn't nearly as much fun a monster as "Nemesis" was. Someone has made the (baffling) decision that Jovovich's closeups required digital-airbrushing, resulting in odd-looking shifts from shot-to-shot where she switches from being an insanely-gorgeous human to an insanely-gorgeous digital manequin.
Good news: As movies about spectacular-looking women kicking the tar out of zombies go, it doesn't get much better than this. Underrated genre veteran Russell Mulcahy ("Highlander," "Razorback," "The Shadow") is easily the most talented filmmaker to tackle the franchise yet. Larter holds her own and looks great doing it. Oded Fehr, the mas-macho Israeli action guy from "The Mummy" and "Sleeper Cell") is back in an expanded role. "Tyrant" LOOKS a lot less cheezy than "Nemesis" did.
Yes, fine, this is at best a goofy diversion of a movie, "best of the series" and all. Yes, you're going to get a more intellectually-uplifting, spiritually-satisfying experience going to "Eastern Promises" or "In The Valley of Elah." But if diversion of junk-food fun are what strikes your fancy, and you're perhaps not QUITE after the dizzying, mainling-pure-caffeine high of "Dragon Wars" (or you already saw it) this'll probably do it for you.
FINAL RATING: 6/10
Sunday, 23 September 2007
Friday, 21 September 2007
DOUBLE FEATURE: EVIL BEHIND YOU & THE BURNING HELL
EVIL BEHIND YOU
TYPICAL REVIEWS
"Stripped of in-your-face blood and gore, adult language and nudity, Evil Behind You is a supernatural film that refreshingly promotes both the power of prayer and consequences of non-faith, but sadly fails to deliver any of the promised good old-fashioned terror." - Brandi L. James, Reel Reviews
THE PLOT
Lisa and Debra awaken in a sealed windowless room with no idea where they are or how they've gotten there. (The noticeable lack of blood and excrement should at least reassure them that they're not stuck in the latest Saw sequel.) In the center of the room Lisa's boyfriend David and Debra's husband Tony, along with two unconscious strangers, lie strapped to gurneys. It seems the couples have been kidnapped by Islamic terrorists who have injected the men with an experimental formula in hopes that it is the antidote to their latest biological weapon. You see, the diabolical villains plan on inoculating themselves with the antidote before releasing the virus on the Great Satan that is America. (I guess that whole martyr thing is becoming passé.) What nobody realizes, however, is that the serum actually alters the brain in such a way that the victim is able to see into the spiritual dimension. As all of those under the influence of the drug begin to freak out over the demonic figures lurking in the corners of the room, the terrorists rejoice in the belief that they have found exactly what they were looking for. But when the two strangers become possessed, attack the couples, and finally die screaming that they are being drug off to hell, the two Christians in the building start to figure out something real might actually be happening. Thus begins a desperate struggle to halt the experiment, escape the terrorists, and save the souls of those dying from eternal damnation.
THE POINT
Forget blockbusters like The Passion of the Christ and The Chronicles of Narnia. Forget even the success of modest Christian themed movies like The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Following the triumph of the in-your-face evangelistic Facing The Giants (budget $100,000, domestic gross exceeding $10 million,score one for the Georgia Baptists), expectations were running high at the 2007 Biola Media Conference over upcoming Christian movie releases. Christianity Today's coverage of the event, however, sounded a bit skeptical. "While some are excited about the potential of these efforts, some are also frustrated about the "bad art" that has already spun out of these initiatives..." Lisa Swain, Interim Chair of Biola University's Mass Communication Department, talked about her student's films. "We get a lot of prayer scenes, a lot of lingering looks, a lot of swelling music. And it's just superficial. There's no subtext whatsoever... We get so caught up in wanting people to see Christ, we forget that they also have to see us. And by seeing our struggles, then they will see Christ. You don't show Christ by showing them grace first. You have to show them the wound first."
Show them the wound? Well if that doesn't sound like a job for a horror movie, then I don't know what does. And I suppose that's also what the good folks at Given The Boot Ministries were thinking when they produced Evil Behind You, a self-professed "sci-fi thriller with Christian overtones". The recipe for Evil Behind You looks simple enough. Start with the basic premise from one of the most inexplicably popular ongoing film franchises (Saw III: budget $10 million, domestic gross over $80 million, someone explain that to me please), remove anything potentially offensive to the Lifeway Christian Stores crowd (a store which ironically doesn't seem to stock Evil Behind You), add a dash of evangelization, and voilĂ , instant Christian horror movie. Why not? It's certainly not as bad an idea as those Left Behind video games. (What kind of "Christian" video game gives you the option to play as one of the Anti-Christ's Global Community Peacekeepers? "I know we have to leave for the tent revival, Ma, just let me finish persecuting a few more of the faithful and I'll be ready!")
So how is our overtly Christian sci-fi horror movie? As a Christian myself I'm sorely tempted to go easy on Evil Behind You. After all, it does have its good parts. The actors are unmistakably amateur, yet earnest. The filming is competent, avoiding a lot of the errors so many shot-on-video productions make (poor lighting, dropped sound, etc.). The attempt to make a modern suspense film minus the gore is laudable. (However, if you're going to do this, don't stretch credibility by having a scene in which your lead actress beats a man to death with a metal chair. I'm no doctor, but I'm pretty sure in real life this would leave some kind of stain. It would at least dent the chair.) And, except for maybe the Universalists, the theology presented in the film is generic enough so as not to be offensive to any particular body of Christian worshipers. It's an admirable first effort.
Unfortunately, while the movie's heart is willing, its flesh is weak. The problems with Evil Behind You are just too crippling to let it off easy. The characters are scripted way too broad. The "bad" couple of Debra and Tony are so obnoxiously self-centered and unloving that even an atheist would swear on a stack of Bibles that those two were going to hell long before the demons show up to verify the fact. Lisa, a Christian supposedly undergoing a massive crisis of faith, really ends up being about as far from God as that little kid who gets mad at Mommy and runs away... all the way to the back steps until Mom calls him in for dinner. (Yeah, I did that once, but so did you, so stop snickering.) As for the Christian doctor forced to participate in the experiment, well, he's SO good you may as well start the beatification process now. (And use that fast-track one Mother Teresa is getting, not the slow bureaucratic one everybody else is stuck with.) But nobody in the movie is as broadly scripted as the eeeevil terrorists. Now unlike a lot of other reviewers, I'm not really offended that the terrorists are portrayed as Islamic extremists because, last time I watched the news, there were indeed Islamic extremists running around the world killing people. But I am offended by how unnecessary they are to the story. With any number of creative ways to place a group of people in a Saw-like setting, did we really need to use one-dimensional Muslim caricatures just to get in some theological jabs at Islam? Besides, you would think that in a movie whose underlying theme is ostensibly about personal salvation, at least one terrorist might have repented his murderous ways and avoided eternal damnation. But alas, such is not the case.
There's also just no way to get around mentioning the budget. While Evil Behind You actually had $200,000 to work with, twice the budget of the aforementioned Facing The Giants, the first time filmmakers just didn't seem to have the experience necessary to overcome the budgetary restraints. After a substantial part of the film's running time has passed in which the actors do a credible enough job building up suspense over the unseen forces lurking in the room, we finally get to see the demons themselves. Hmm. Yeah. Looks like someone on the crew learned how to use the free tool set to Neverwinter Nights... Neverwinter Nights 1. The effects are an absolute mood killer. Truthfully, the movie would have been better served never showing the creatures but rather just playing up movement in the shadows. (It can work. Go watch 2006's Salvage, made for only $25,000, and see what they do with stuff like half-glimpsed faces in doorways and such.) And if the climax of your movie is going to involve a huge explosion, at least try to leave enough money to actually blow something up. If you can't do that, at least leave enough for bus fare so you can travel to where somebody else is blowing something up and film that instead. Instead, the destruction of the medical facility in Evil Behind You is indicated by an anemic offscreen "boom" and an orange spotlight which momentarily flashes on the back of the main actresses' head. Breathtaking.
But what's most lacking in this Christian sci-fi horror movie is, well... the horror. Stephen King, who knows a little something about the subject of suspense and terror, wrote in Danse Macabre that a work of horror functions on two levels. "On top is the gross-out level... the gross-out can be done with varying degrees of artistic finesse, but it's always there. But on another, more potent level, the work of horror is really a dance - a moving, rhythmic search. And what it's looking for is the place where you, the viewer or reader, live at your most primitive level." Since the makers of Evil Behind You purposely avoided the gross-out effects, that leaves them with the task of mining those "primitive levels" in order to be an effective thriller. But despite all the talk about hell (and those eeeevil terrorists, of course), Evil Behind You somehow feels just a little too timid.
Okay, that's a little vague. You know what? Maybe I can explain it better if we take a look at a another no-budget Christian horror film which can be called a lot of things, but never timid.
THE BURNING HELL
TYPICAL REVIEW
"Although the blood looks as if someone spilled red fingernail polish, and the performances from the parishioners functioning as on-camera talent are unbelievably stilted, the blood-spattered events and unrelievedly grim tone sent impressionable viewers screaming for the altar." - David D. Duncan and Jim Ridley, Psychotronic Video Magazine
THE PLOT
Tim and Ken, two aging hippy-biker types, talk to the Reverend Pirkle about their new church, the one down the street that doesn't bother with that hell stuff because it brings people down. When the two realize that they are talking to a preacher (somehow having previously missed this fact even though they're sitting in his office INSIDE his church) they apologize and leave, but not before Tim has one last laugh at the pastor's antiquated teachings on hell. Tim immediately crashes his motorcycle and has his head ripped off. (Which we get to see!) The grief stricken Ken leaves Tim's headless corpse behind on the road and returns to the church just in time to catch a sermon by Reverend Pirkle detailing stories from the Bible in which various people are cast into the fiery pit of The Burning Hell. (Which we also get to see!) Afterwards the preacher sadly informs Ken that, like all those sinners from the Bible, Tim is also burning in hell this very moment. More depressed than ever, Ken attends another service in which the message is (you guessed it) all about hell. Throughtout the sermon Ken is stared down and poked by a number of people who feel he needs to respond to the altar call. As the 20th verse of Just As I Am is sung, Ken is torn between his doubts and his desire to save his soul from eternal damnation.
THE POINT
Readers of this blog might remember the name of Ron Ormond. He was the auteur responsible for the legendary Mesa Of Lost Women as well as other freaky B-movie offerings such as 1963's Please Don't Touch Me and 1968's The Monster and the Stripper. (On my honor, those are 100% real titles.) But in 1970, Mr. Ormond had not one, but two forced landings in an airplane which caused him to reconsider the path he had chosen in life. Embracing his newfound Christian faith, Ormond decided he would no longer make bad low budget exploitation films. Instead he would make bad low budget CHRISTIAN exploitation films. Teaming up with Southern Baptist evangelist Estus W. Pirkle (On my honor, that's 100% his real name.), Ormond made three pictures using money the preacher raised from collections. As Psychotronic Video Magazine notes, "Each of them was a "soul winner," a term for movies that were shown in rural churches across the South and immediately followed by an altar call. The number of converted sinners replaced grosses as the measure of success."
And in terms of "soul winning", the most successful of these collaborations would have to be 1974's The Burning Hell, a film to which Ormond brought all of his low budget tricks into play to create a truly disorienting, yet oddly compelling, viewing experience. It starts with the very structure of the movie itself. In order to take advantage of the verbal arsenal that was the Reverend Pirkle's sermons, Ormond eschewed straight narrative, and instead filmed The Burning Hell in the psuedo-documentary style which was in vogue with all those cryptozoology films (The Mysterious Monsters, The Legend of Bigfoot, etc.) popular during the mid-70s. In those movies a narrator would lead the audience from skepticism (Is Sasquatch real or just a hoax?) to possible acceptance (Haven't we convinced you this is a real possibility?) using vignettes and reenactments to hammer home the films "evidence". It's the same thing here, except instead of the Loch Ness Monster, our narrator Pirkle want us to accept the existence of hell.
But not just any hell, my friends, he wants us to accept... THE BURNING HELL! Pirkle, being the good Southern Baptist boy he is, wants us to accept as literal truth the Biblical imagery of hell as a place of fire and brimstone. Oh, and don't forget the worms, the tormenting worms! (Out of all the graphic imagery this movie throws at us, Pirkle seems really, really concerned with the worms, mentioning them several times over the course of the film and even discussing the word's translation from the Greek.) Now, of course, Catholics have no trouble with the idea of hell. The Catechism teaches that "to die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice." and that "this state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell." But the Catechism is rather non-committal as to what hell actually is other than a state of being in which there is "eternal separation from God." Maybe it really is a literal pit of fire or maybe that's just the best image we have to describe something our human minds aren't capable of comprehending yet; we just don't know. (This is probably a good time to point out again that if you want a very good overview of all the differences between Catholic teaching and Pirkle's take on things, you owe it to yourself to check out D. G. D. Davidson's excellent review of The Burning Hell over at the Sci-Fi Catholic.) Acknowledging these theological differences, however, I'm forced to grudgingly admit that Pirkle and Ormond accomplished what they set out to do.
Which is hard to imagine given what's on screen, because by most standards this movie is utterly ridiculous. The closest thing this film has to an actor is director Ron Ormond himself who plays Tim the biker. And he kills himself off in the very first reel. Every other character is played by the finest pew sitters a pot luck dinner and chance to be in a movie can buy. (You've never seen King Herod until you've seen him portrayed by a guy with a thick Mississippi drawl who pronounces every word phonetically. Bet you didn't know the high priest of the Sanhedrin was named Kay-eye-foos.) And what about that dialog? I'll be quoting this movie for months to come. "The chances are he's burning in the flames of Hell right now, but I'm worried about you." "They relished his gluttonous intestines, what a nauseating stench." and my favorite "If you were in hell right now, in all probability, you would change your mind!" To top it all off, we get to meet Satan himself, complete with cape, horns, and clown-like stained glass face paint, bwah-hah-hahing maniacally as the damned claw at the worms, the tormenting worms, glued to their faces. Watching this movie today in gape-mouthed wonder, it's nearly impossible to believe anyone could ever have been affected by this stuff.
And yet I know from personal experience that this movie worked. As I've mentioned elsewhere, I was not raised in a Christian household. But one fine Summer during my elementary school days I found myself spending Sunday mornings with a school friend at his small Southern Baptist church. And on one such glorious morning the preacher skipped his sermon, lowered the lights, and started a projector. By the end of The Burning Hell grown men were sobbing at the altar and I was scared ****less. As soon as I got home I rushed to my mother and asked if I could be baptized the following week. (Not only did she say no, but I was never allowed to step foot in that church again. This was the moment I discovered my family was supposedly Catholic, which was news to me but also kind of neat, because in the movies those were the guys who kept gallons of holy water around in case the vampires attacked.) Sound crazy? Oh sure. Decades later, after scores of slasher movies, the advent of Industrial Lights & Magic, and now CGI, everything about this movie now seems quaint and camp. But in its day, this movie kicked people's spiritual butts.
But why? Why was this over the top cheese fest so frightening to people? I think if we go back to Stephen King's two criteria for a work of horror, we might be able to figure it out. On his first point, the gross-out, The Burning Hell is an obvious no-brainer. In this movie we get beheadings, slit throats, burning flesh, wailing & gnashing of teeth, and spears in the gut. Oh, and the worms, the tormenting worms! And while you can argue over the "degree of artistic finesse" in the movie's violent imagery, there's no denying that it effectively portrays the Dante-esque Hell it wants you to accept as real. But even Stephen King admits the gross-out only gets you so far. It can evoke a visceral reaction, provide a momentary shock to the senses, but it rarely leaves a deep or meaningful lasting impression.
I think where The Burning Hell ultimately succeeded (again, in its day) and where Evil Behind You fails is in their application of King's second criteria, in finding a place where the viewers live at their most primitive level. For the most part people have a basic desire to live, and if possible, they want to live happily. And if they're religious, they want to live happily ever after. Hell, whatever it may turn out to be, is the opposite of that. In both of our movies tonight, eternity in hell is the ultimate threat. Yet in Evil Behind You, they spend almost no time exploring what exactly that might mean for the characters. (Oh sure, it's apparently full of bad CGI demons, but so is the Sci-Fi channel.) The hell of Evil Behind You is too vague to invoke true horror. That's not a problem with The Burning Hell. They make sure you know what the stakes are and then some. Hell is not a plot point in Pirkle's movie, it's a matter of life or death, even after the credits roll. He and Ormond want to burn that fact into the viewers conscious and (again, for its moment in time) they pull it off.
All of this raises an interesting question for today's Christian, especially for those who don't accept the idea of a literal Burning Hell. The Catechism plainly states that "the affirmations of Sacred Scripture and the teachings of the Church on the subject of hell are a call to the responsibility incumbent upon man to make use of his freedom in view of his eternal destiny. They are at the same time an urgent call to conversion." So it seems we are still expected to consider the reality of hell with the same intensity as Pirkle and Ormond regardless of whether it's burning or not. But how are we supposed to convey the urgency of the subject to others? Let's face it, on the surface "eternal separation from God" just doesn't sound as frightening as neverending hellfire, brutal torture, or even the worms, the tormenting worms! If we're going to avoid the gross-out, how do we portray a "state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God" for the horror it truly is?
Look for the places where we live at our most primitive levels, of course. There actually is a movie which does this beautifully. In the final scene of 1991's The Rapture, the character played by Mimi Rogers stands on the bank of a small stream in the middle of a dark, barren landscape. On the opposite side stands her recently deceased daughter begging her to ask for God's forgiveness and accept his love before the world ends and she no longer has a chance to join her family in Heaven. Tragically, the mother is unwilling to "forgive God" for events which have occurred over the course of the movie and she chooses hell rather than release the anger in her heart. As her saddened daughter fades from sight and the world begins to darken, the camera (and therefore we viewers as well) slowly pulls away from the woman, leaving her isolated and completely alone for all of time with nothing but her pain and bitterness for company. It's a chilling and powerful image of eternal separation from God and everyone else we've ever loved. And there's not one single scene of burning flesh, or skewering, or even the w... well, you know.
THE STINGER
The truth is Christianity is no stranger to horrific imagery. If you actually pick up a Bible and flip through it, you find that Holy Scripture is full of gruesome stories that never make it into the kid-friendly readings at mass. (You might want to stop eating for a minute.) For example, Samson has his eyes gouged out by the Philistines, Jezebel is eaten alive by dogs, The Baptist gets his head served up on a platter, a Levite priest saws his murdered concubine into twelve pieces and has them delivered to the 12 tribes of Israel as a sign of coming retribution, the harlot Jael nails the sleeping Sisera's head to the ground with a tent peg through the ear, and (have you stopped eating yet?) after King Saul demands a dowry of 100 Philistine foreskins in exchange for the hand of his daughter in marriage... David personally brings them to him in a sack. Aieee, aieee, aieeeeee!
"The term "flesh" refers to man in his state of weakness and mortality." says the Catechism. Besides the fact that these are the terrible things people do to one another, graphic stories like these remind us that we are creatures of spirit AND flesh. This is important in Christian theology because "The "resurrection of the flesh" (the literal formulation of the Apostles' Creed) means not only that the immortal soul will live on after death, but that even our "mortal body" will come to life again." It's just another way in which Christian teaching stresses that the unique individual lives on rather than just becoming part of some universal consciousness or just disappearing into plain old nothingness.
Tuesday, 18 September 2007
NOW SHOWING AT A BLOG NEAR YOU
It's hard to imagine that anyone who reads this blog is unfamiliar with The Sci-Fi Catholic, but just in case there are one or two who haven't found their way over there yet, now is the time. Our pal D. G. D. Davidson has proven his bravery by trudging his way through the entirety of The Burning Hell and I can tell you from experience, it ain't easy. His comments on the theological problems a good catholic would find with the film are, as always, very insightful and graciously frees me from having to address them myself. My usual goofy take on the film will be up in just a day or two.
While you're at the Sci-Fi Catholic, you might also want to check out D.G.D. & Snuffle's reviews of the Korean CGI fest Dragon Wars, The Invasion starring Nicole Kidman, the anime classic Akira, and the Neil Gaiman adaptation Stardust. They seem to have liked a grand total of one of them, but I'm not saying which. You'll just have to read them all.
Other than that, we're stuck in the celluloid wasteland that is the end of summer and back to school days. There's just not a lot of people going to the movies. If they are, they're not blogging about it. Teofilo de Jesus over at Vivificat did grab the DVD of Babylon 5: The Lost Tales however, and seems to be pleased with what he saw.
And although not technically a blog, Anthony Sacramone of First Things did get a look at Milos Forman's latest cinematic excursion Goya's Ghost and was left with the burning question, "Huh?".
That's about it, though. I'll see you shortly with the much delayed double feature.
Sunday, 16 September 2007
Michael Bay's "Legend of Zelda"
Yes, I DID in fact think the first gag was good enough to warrant a sequel. Enjoy!
REVIEW: The Brave One (2007)
A brief rundown of the sights and sounds awaiting you in "The Brave One:"
"I WANT MY DOG BACK!!!!!" BLAM!! (Yup! Somehow STILL in the movie despite being such a laugh-generator in the trailers.)
Jodie Foster, upon being told she "doesn't have the right" to vigilantism: "YES I DOOOOOOO!!!"
Terrance Howard, in a performance that suggests someone has dared him to try and do his "solemn, stoic dude tryin' hard not to cry" vocal bit for an entire movie.
BLAM!! "WHO'S THE BITCH NOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!????"
Foster-as-vigilante's only confidant, an older African woman, imparts sage-like wisdom about how "they give the children guns" in the old country. Because in bad "important" movies, every single person from Africa PERSONALLY experienced horrible violence, which has turned them into Gandalf and filled them with the singular desire to act as deeply-accented consciences to white people.
"You shouldn't smoke, it'll kill you." "I don't care." "Lots of ways to die. YOU gotta find a way to LIVE."
Jodie Foster stalking the neon-lit streets of New York after dark, hunting down scum to blow away while reading from Emily Dickinson in voiceover.
Yeesh.
If nothing else, you've gotta hand it to director Neil Jordan: When he's shoveling bullshit, he's using both hands. "The Brave One" a deathly-dull, horribly formulaic Lifetime-level script that slogs across the screen with all the energy and visual stimulant of a Z-grade "Law & Order" imitator. Every cliche of the revenge genre is mined and put to use, but drained of all life and vigor. Foster either looks like she's sleepwalking (it's supposed to pass for PTSD "numbness") or she's bellowing in over the top ACTING!!! moments so hysterical they'd get you thrown off of an Uwe Boll movie. The overall vibe, that of an attempted deconstruction of the "Death Wish" model, would reek of pretention if it weren't so hollow as to negate even an EFFORT toward pretense. Guys, listen: Making a lifeless clone of an "unserious" movie and plugging a take-this-movie-seriously actress into the lead isn't "deconstruction" - it's just making a bad movie. In this case, it's making one of the worst "serious" films of the year.
Maybe it wouldn't read quite as bad had we not already seen a vastly superior "Death Wish" reworking in the criminally-underpraised "Death Sentence" earlier this year. That film actually succeeded in finding new life in the genre by ripping out any semblance of sociology or "message" and focusing on the breakdown of a lead character's psyche - following Kevin Bacon's collapsing sanity into the darkest abyss... and then beyond it. With "The Brave One," sadly, we're right back to square one with Foster (in her default mode of seething semi-tomboyish indignance) filling the creaky genre-mandatory role of the naive "liberal" forced to confront grim "reality." This year's model: Erica Bain ("BAIN?" We're goin' there? Really?) the host of an NPR-style radio show in which she loving pines for "the good old days" of edgy, ugly/beautiful pre-Giuliani cleanup New York.
The business surrounding Erica's show, for the record, is the closest the film ever comes to establishing a coherent or even interesting theme: That of a bitter-raised middle finger to the romanticizing of war-zone era NYC. It's thusly meant to carry some note of irony when, after another day of waxing nostalgiac for the days of Punk Club scuzz and "Eloise," Erica and her fiancee have a horrific encounter with a very "old New York" element: Jumped by a gang of thugs (one of whom is recording the attack with a video camera to help add chaos to the editing - way to think outside the box, huh?) during a midnight park walk, both are savagely beaten and the fiancee winds up dead.
Suddenly, Erica's beloved city is feeling mighty dark and unsafe, and it's not long (in fact, it's quick enough to strain believability) before she's buying herself an illegal handgun ("30 days? I WON'T SURVIVE 30 DAYS!!!!") and morphing into a steely-eyed urban crimefighter. She starts out blowing away burglars and muggers, then quickly moves up to rapists and organized-crime kingpins before remebering to track down her initial attackers so that the film can stage one of the goofiest endings since "The Village."
She can have her dog... I want my MONEY back.
FINAL RATING: 3/10
"I WANT MY DOG BACK!!!!!" BLAM!! (Yup! Somehow STILL in the movie despite being such a laugh-generator in the trailers.)
Jodie Foster, upon being told she "doesn't have the right" to vigilantism: "YES I DOOOOOOO!!!"
Terrance Howard, in a performance that suggests someone has dared him to try and do his "solemn, stoic dude tryin' hard not to cry" vocal bit for an entire movie.
BLAM!! "WHO'S THE BITCH NOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!!????"
Foster-as-vigilante's only confidant, an older African woman, imparts sage-like wisdom about how "they give the children guns" in the old country. Because in bad "important" movies, every single person from Africa PERSONALLY experienced horrible violence, which has turned them into Gandalf and filled them with the singular desire to act as deeply-accented consciences to white people.
"You shouldn't smoke, it'll kill you." "I don't care." "Lots of ways to die. YOU gotta find a way to LIVE."
Jodie Foster stalking the neon-lit streets of New York after dark, hunting down scum to blow away while reading from Emily Dickinson in voiceover.
Yeesh.
If nothing else, you've gotta hand it to director Neil Jordan: When he's shoveling bullshit, he's using both hands. "The Brave One" a deathly-dull, horribly formulaic Lifetime-level script that slogs across the screen with all the energy and visual stimulant of a Z-grade "Law & Order" imitator. Every cliche of the revenge genre is mined and put to use, but drained of all life and vigor. Foster either looks like she's sleepwalking (it's supposed to pass for PTSD "numbness") or she's bellowing in over the top ACTING!!! moments so hysterical they'd get you thrown off of an Uwe Boll movie. The overall vibe, that of an attempted deconstruction of the "Death Wish" model, would reek of pretention if it weren't so hollow as to negate even an EFFORT toward pretense. Guys, listen: Making a lifeless clone of an "unserious" movie and plugging a take-this-movie-seriously actress into the lead isn't "deconstruction" - it's just making a bad movie. In this case, it's making one of the worst "serious" films of the year.
Maybe it wouldn't read quite as bad had we not already seen a vastly superior "Death Wish" reworking in the criminally-underpraised "Death Sentence" earlier this year. That film actually succeeded in finding new life in the genre by ripping out any semblance of sociology or "message" and focusing on the breakdown of a lead character's psyche - following Kevin Bacon's collapsing sanity into the darkest abyss... and then beyond it. With "The Brave One," sadly, we're right back to square one with Foster (in her default mode of seething semi-tomboyish indignance) filling the creaky genre-mandatory role of the naive "liberal" forced to confront grim "reality." This year's model: Erica Bain ("BAIN?" We're goin' there? Really?) the host of an NPR-style radio show in which she loving pines for "the good old days" of edgy, ugly/beautiful pre-Giuliani cleanup New York.
The business surrounding Erica's show, for the record, is the closest the film ever comes to establishing a coherent or even interesting theme: That of a bitter-raised middle finger to the romanticizing of war-zone era NYC. It's thusly meant to carry some note of irony when, after another day of waxing nostalgiac for the days of Punk Club scuzz and "Eloise," Erica and her fiancee have a horrific encounter with a very "old New York" element: Jumped by a gang of thugs (one of whom is recording the attack with a video camera to help add chaos to the editing - way to think outside the box, huh?) during a midnight park walk, both are savagely beaten and the fiancee winds up dead.
Suddenly, Erica's beloved city is feeling mighty dark and unsafe, and it's not long (in fact, it's quick enough to strain believability) before she's buying herself an illegal handgun ("30 days? I WON'T SURVIVE 30 DAYS!!!!") and morphing into a steely-eyed urban crimefighter. She starts out blowing away burglars and muggers, then quickly moves up to rapists and organized-crime kingpins before remebering to track down her initial attackers so that the film can stage one of the goofiest endings since "The Village."
She can have her dog... I want my MONEY back.
FINAL RATING: 3/10
SHORT FEATURE: LOVE STORY
Okay, so I'm supposed to make my "big" return with the promised review of our hellish double feature, and I will in just a few days now that the work crisis is becoming manageable. But I'm suffering from blog withdrawal (Is that normal?) and happen to have some old writings lying around. All I really need is an excuse to throw something quick together in order to get my blog fix.
Well, what do you know? Today marks the 18th anniversary of my wedding date, which is momentous enough. But my wife counts everything by our first date, which means yesterday was actually our 20th anniversary. (Using either date, that's really not enough time yet to have spent with this wonderful woman.) A few years back the folks who run my parish's religious education program asked me to write a little something about biblical interpretation which they could use as a starting point for further discussion. For some reason, I decided to approach the subject using the story of my first date with my future wife. It was meant to be a very basic introduction to the subject rather than a end-all be-all survey of biblical study. And that's all it is. But they liked it and they keep dragging it out every year, so I thought I would post it here in honor of this date and of the woman I'll spend the rest of my days with.
***************
There are a number of schools of thought when it comes to interpreting the Bible. There is the Historical-Critical Method, the Literary Analysis, the Canonical-Traditional Approach, and so on. And we're going to discuss every single one of them. Just kidding. Actually, before we even look at the Bible, it might be helpful to see what happens when we apply different methods of interpretation to other things in our life. For instance, let's talk about relationships again, in particular where they start. Let's try some different methods of describing that all-important first date.
THE HISTORICAL APPROACH: Shortly before lunch time on September 15th, 1987 I arrived to pick up my date. She was ready to go. She wore a pair of shorts and a top in the style appropriate for the time period we lived in. It took roughly forty-five minutes to drive to Zoo Atlanta, the location I had selected for our first date. The early fall weather was suitable for walking and the venue allowed for conversation. We made an effort to see all of the animals, although she was hesitant about entering the reptile house. On the return trip, my date informed me she had to be at work soon, but asked me to call her the next day, which I did. We were married two years later.
THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH: On the way to the zoo my physiology had already started to change. As she walked next to me my pulse rate increased and my palms became sweaty on the steering wheel. As we talked, her face and chest area flushed, producing a rouge-like effect. Her pupils slightly dilated. Entering the reptile house, her heart rate quickened. By this time we were both secreting pheromones, sending unconscious signals to each others brains about our general fitness. Our minds were also registering visual clues regarding physical symmetry. After two years of dating rituals, we made the decision to form a lifetime pair bond.
THE "SPIRITUAL" APPROACH: By the time I arrived to pick up my date, I was little more than a shell. After years of wandering through the wastelands that was dating in the 1980's, I was ready to call it quits. But as we wandered amongst the animals, something odd was occurring. Surrounded by beasts, my own humanity was resurfacing, and there was only one reason. The girl walking next to me, the one whose hand had slipped into mine unnoticed, she was the cause. There wasn't enough time that day to explore this new found love, but somewhere deep inside, we both sensed we had started a journey that would take the rest of our lives to complete. We told the rest of the world that very thing two years later.
The first two approaches give us some useful information. The historical facts provide a stage for the characters and set up the situations while the scientific facts let us know something is going on internally. But for most of us there's still something missing. Left with the first two approaches we're somehow…unsatisfied.
It's the third approach which more closely resembles how we actually communicate things to each other. There are facts, yes, but there is also exaggeration, symbolism, and even a little bit of bad poetry. Everyone knows that a person can't literally be a shell, but the phrase adds meaning in a way the historical facts can't. Humanity resurfacing is just imagery, but it tells us a lot more about what's going on inside the narrator than the list of bodily functions provided by science. Despite its apparent scientific "errors", the third way of describing the event somehow ends up being intellectually and spiritually truer than the first two approaches.
A knowledge of empirical facts is important, (Forget the anniversary of your first date and you'll find out from your significant other just how important.) but there are some things for which they are just insufficient. As human beings, we need those other modes of communication in order to reach greater truths. Is there any reason to believe that the God who created us wouldn't understand this and account for it the Bible? This is the context we should read Holy Scripture in, not as some historical or biological textbook, but as the inspired human effort to communicate the greater truths behind science and history.
***************
Ahhhh, sweeeet. What do you want, I love my wife. For those who made it this far, thanks for bearing with my sentimentality. Our regularly scheduled programming will return in just a few days.
Well, what do you know? Today marks the 18th anniversary of my wedding date, which is momentous enough. But my wife counts everything by our first date, which means yesterday was actually our 20th anniversary. (Using either date, that's really not enough time yet to have spent with this wonderful woman.) A few years back the folks who run my parish's religious education program asked me to write a little something about biblical interpretation which they could use as a starting point for further discussion. For some reason, I decided to approach the subject using the story of my first date with my future wife. It was meant to be a very basic introduction to the subject rather than a end-all be-all survey of biblical study. And that's all it is. But they liked it and they keep dragging it out every year, so I thought I would post it here in honor of this date and of the woman I'll spend the rest of my days with.
***************
There are a number of schools of thought when it comes to interpreting the Bible. There is the Historical-Critical Method, the Literary Analysis, the Canonical-Traditional Approach, and so on. And we're going to discuss every single one of them. Just kidding. Actually, before we even look at the Bible, it might be helpful to see what happens when we apply different methods of interpretation to other things in our life. For instance, let's talk about relationships again, in particular where they start. Let's try some different methods of describing that all-important first date.
THE HISTORICAL APPROACH: Shortly before lunch time on September 15th, 1987 I arrived to pick up my date. She was ready to go. She wore a pair of shorts and a top in the style appropriate for the time period we lived in. It took roughly forty-five minutes to drive to Zoo Atlanta, the location I had selected for our first date. The early fall weather was suitable for walking and the venue allowed for conversation. We made an effort to see all of the animals, although she was hesitant about entering the reptile house. On the return trip, my date informed me she had to be at work soon, but asked me to call her the next day, which I did. We were married two years later.
THE SCIENTIFIC APPROACH: On the way to the zoo my physiology had already started to change. As she walked next to me my pulse rate increased and my palms became sweaty on the steering wheel. As we talked, her face and chest area flushed, producing a rouge-like effect. Her pupils slightly dilated. Entering the reptile house, her heart rate quickened. By this time we were both secreting pheromones, sending unconscious signals to each others brains about our general fitness. Our minds were also registering visual clues regarding physical symmetry. After two years of dating rituals, we made the decision to form a lifetime pair bond.
THE "SPIRITUAL" APPROACH: By the time I arrived to pick up my date, I was little more than a shell. After years of wandering through the wastelands that was dating in the 1980's, I was ready to call it quits. But as we wandered amongst the animals, something odd was occurring. Surrounded by beasts, my own humanity was resurfacing, and there was only one reason. The girl walking next to me, the one whose hand had slipped into mine unnoticed, she was the cause. There wasn't enough time that day to explore this new found love, but somewhere deep inside, we both sensed we had started a journey that would take the rest of our lives to complete. We told the rest of the world that very thing two years later.
The first two approaches give us some useful information. The historical facts provide a stage for the characters and set up the situations while the scientific facts let us know something is going on internally. But for most of us there's still something missing. Left with the first two approaches we're somehow…unsatisfied.
It's the third approach which more closely resembles how we actually communicate things to each other. There are facts, yes, but there is also exaggeration, symbolism, and even a little bit of bad poetry. Everyone knows that a person can't literally be a shell, but the phrase adds meaning in a way the historical facts can't. Humanity resurfacing is just imagery, but it tells us a lot more about what's going on inside the narrator than the list of bodily functions provided by science. Despite its apparent scientific "errors", the third way of describing the event somehow ends up being intellectually and spiritually truer than the first two approaches.
A knowledge of empirical facts is important, (Forget the anniversary of your first date and you'll find out from your significant other just how important.) but there are some things for which they are just insufficient. As human beings, we need those other modes of communication in order to reach greater truths. Is there any reason to believe that the God who created us wouldn't understand this and account for it the Bible? This is the context we should read Holy Scripture in, not as some historical or biological textbook, but as the inspired human effort to communicate the greater truths behind science and history.
***************
Ahhhh, sweeeet. What do you want, I love my wife. For those who made it this far, thanks for bearing with my sentimentality. Our regularly scheduled programming will return in just a few days.
REVIEW: Dragon Wars
Assigning a numerical rating is the hardest part of writing any one of these reviews, and even harder to explain. That's why, when an example comes along that offers an easy insight as to how I arrive at these numbers, I feel a certain obligation to reveal it. So, then: "Dragon Wars," a hugely successful Korean-made (but American-set and English-speaking) giant-monster blockbuster, features a sequence in which a gigantic monster serpent easily the size of several city blocks coils it's way up a skyscraper and does battle with a fleet of armed Apache attack choppers - NO MOVIE WHERE THAT HAPPENS CAN GO BELOW A "5." It's that simple. There could be NOTHING else of value or worth in the entire enterprise and it would STILL be at least average, because it has a giant snake wrapped around a building fighting helicopters.
There's a period in the 2nd act when "Dragon Wars" achieves, if only for a brief time, a kind of transcendant greatness that some overall "better" films can only dream of: Buraki, the above-mentioned giant snake, wraps himself around the above-mentioned Los Angeles skyscraper. Down below in the streets, a combined force of SWAT troops, LAPD cops, Army troops and a squad of tanks engaged in a pitched battle with the Atrox Warriors - Buraki-worshipping evil soldiers clad in gleaming silver armor, astride dinosaur-like steeds and backed up by waves of lumbering slug/lizard behemoths with cannons mounted on their backs. Above, a flock of winged, dragon-like Bulcos engage in dizzying dogfights with attack-choppers. Fireballs are spewed. Giant monsters throw rows of cars about like piles of dry leaves. Swords clash with bullets. Monster-launched missiles tear through concrete.
It is, all by itself, instantly one of the single greatest scenes of monsters attacking a major city in motion picture history - fit to be displayed alongside "King Kong's" New York rampage, "Godzilla's" first seige of Tokyo or the genre-defining attack of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" Rhedosaurus. It's a revelation, a symphony of sights genre fans have been waiting to see for as long as they've BEEN genre fans. "Transformers," a far, FAR less delightful offering of giant-creatures tearing up urbania, WISHES it could be this portion of "Dragon Wars." If the rest of the film was able to measure up to this one glorious stretch of it's running time, we'd be looking at a modern classic right now.
Well... it doesn't, and so we're not. Truth be told, there are HUGE parts to the film that are laughably goofy, much of it borne from a palpable language barrier between the Korean filmmakers and their primarily American cast. It's labyrinthine, destiny-centered, flashback-ladden plot makes only the barest semblance of sense. And so we're presented in-whole a kind of raw-chaos mashup of elements: One-part gloriously-realized fantasy-infused creature feature, one-part unintentional-camp train wreck resembling nothing so much as one of the lesser "Highlander" installments. And yet, like some strange accident of evolution, the ridiculous result WORKS. It darts back and forth between hillariously-awful action-movie stock scenes and jaw-droppingly awesome giant-monster action, and BOTH paths are hugely entertaining in their own way - go for the dragons, stay for the howler dialogue and mind-bending exposition.
Some six full years in the making by Korean comedy icon turned FX-film groundbreaker Hyung Rae Shim (late of the far inferior "Yongarry" remake years ago,) the film does feature an interesting (if insanely over-complicated) setup. The central plot revolves around ancient Korea and The Imoogi, a species of king-sized snake monsters who wish to evolve into proper Dragons (of the flying, ribbon-shaped Asian variety) and can only do so via the sacrifice of specially-destined young virgins. There's also an evil Imoogi, Buraki, who wants to devour the gal and claim Dragon-hood for himself and has enlisted an army of followers to help him out (exactly WHY a seemingly-immortal super-serpent NEEDS help is a little vauge.) The whole operation hit a snag 500 years ago when a warrior fell in love with his sacrifice-to-be charge, and the two did themselves in rather than submit to the attacking Buraki. They've both been reincarnated as 20-somethings in modern day L.A., and right around the time destiny rears it's head again Buraki and Company are already about the business of tearing the place apart looking for The Girl. Most of this information is imparted to us by Robert Forster (!!!) as a reincarnated, shape-shifting Korean warrior monk who owns an antique shop. Really.
Despite the central presence of the big-bad Buraki, "Dragon Wars" has less in common with Godzilla than it does with the kitchen-sink lunacy of the Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" films - right down the dizzying menagerie of beasties and the one-damn-thing-after-another plotting. In a way, it's somewhat unfortunate that the bulk of "Dragon Wars" media blitz has focused on older audiences. While it's true that grownup monster geeks and fans of "what the HELL??" moviemaking will likely find a new guilty pleasure here, the real proper audience for this is kids. Fast-paced, not terribly gruesome and stuffed to the gills with monsters and magic, this film will be MANA to any young lover of monsters/dragons/dinosaurs for whom wooden acting and psyche-melting dialogue are infinitely forgivable in the face of colossal monster battles or armored, dragon-riding baddies charging against a phalanx of tanks.
Had this film existed when I was around 7, no force on Earth could've kept me from watching it into memorization. To the current generation of film geeks this will be an instant "camp" cult hit... but for the NEXT generation it's going to be a seminal title - non-monster-related parts that don't hold up notwithstanding. At the showing I attended, a pair of young boys sat a few rows ahead of me along with an older woman (probably a grandmother to one one or both of them); and while the grownups (myself included) were laughing like hyenas for much of it, these kids were enraptured. Got a kid in your family that collects toy Dinosaurs or seeks out Godzilla flicks on TV? Take him or her to see this, you'll be their hero.
Folks, I'll be honest. I've had a massive downer of a week. Crappy time at work. Rainy weather. Just a big long "man does adulthood tend to SUCK" time... and "Dragon Wars" was exactly the tonic I needed. A huge-scale giant-monster B-movie complete with MST3K-worthy acting for laughs and extended sequences of fantasy/creature warfare for genuine thrills. I was laughing, I was applauding and, at times, I may as well have been ten years old again, amazed to be seeing Monster Movie scenes that I thought would only ever exist in my dreams. I'm not sure (though I'd hope) if director Shim's human characters would be less spectacularly dopey when his crew speaks the same language as his cast, but he's proven himself a prodigy at arranging sequences of giant monster carnage - and he gave me MORE than I wanted and EXACTLY what I needed.
FINAL RATING: 6/10
There's a period in the 2nd act when "Dragon Wars" achieves, if only for a brief time, a kind of transcendant greatness that some overall "better" films can only dream of: Buraki, the above-mentioned giant snake, wraps himself around the above-mentioned Los Angeles skyscraper. Down below in the streets, a combined force of SWAT troops, LAPD cops, Army troops and a squad of tanks engaged in a pitched battle with the Atrox Warriors - Buraki-worshipping evil soldiers clad in gleaming silver armor, astride dinosaur-like steeds and backed up by waves of lumbering slug/lizard behemoths with cannons mounted on their backs. Above, a flock of winged, dragon-like Bulcos engage in dizzying dogfights with attack-choppers. Fireballs are spewed. Giant monsters throw rows of cars about like piles of dry leaves. Swords clash with bullets. Monster-launched missiles tear through concrete.
It is, all by itself, instantly one of the single greatest scenes of monsters attacking a major city in motion picture history - fit to be displayed alongside "King Kong's" New York rampage, "Godzilla's" first seige of Tokyo or the genre-defining attack of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" Rhedosaurus. It's a revelation, a symphony of sights genre fans have been waiting to see for as long as they've BEEN genre fans. "Transformers," a far, FAR less delightful offering of giant-creatures tearing up urbania, WISHES it could be this portion of "Dragon Wars." If the rest of the film was able to measure up to this one glorious stretch of it's running time, we'd be looking at a modern classic right now.
Well... it doesn't, and so we're not. Truth be told, there are HUGE parts to the film that are laughably goofy, much of it borne from a palpable language barrier between the Korean filmmakers and their primarily American cast. It's labyrinthine, destiny-centered, flashback-ladden plot makes only the barest semblance of sense. And so we're presented in-whole a kind of raw-chaos mashup of elements: One-part gloriously-realized fantasy-infused creature feature, one-part unintentional-camp train wreck resembling nothing so much as one of the lesser "Highlander" installments. And yet, like some strange accident of evolution, the ridiculous result WORKS. It darts back and forth between hillariously-awful action-movie stock scenes and jaw-droppingly awesome giant-monster action, and BOTH paths are hugely entertaining in their own way - go for the dragons, stay for the howler dialogue and mind-bending exposition.
Some six full years in the making by Korean comedy icon turned FX-film groundbreaker Hyung Rae Shim (late of the far inferior "Yongarry" remake years ago,) the film does feature an interesting (if insanely over-complicated) setup. The central plot revolves around ancient Korea and The Imoogi, a species of king-sized snake monsters who wish to evolve into proper Dragons (of the flying, ribbon-shaped Asian variety) and can only do so via the sacrifice of specially-destined young virgins. There's also an evil Imoogi, Buraki, who wants to devour the gal and claim Dragon-hood for himself and has enlisted an army of followers to help him out (exactly WHY a seemingly-immortal super-serpent NEEDS help is a little vauge.) The whole operation hit a snag 500 years ago when a warrior fell in love with his sacrifice-to-be charge, and the two did themselves in rather than submit to the attacking Buraki. They've both been reincarnated as 20-somethings in modern day L.A., and right around the time destiny rears it's head again Buraki and Company are already about the business of tearing the place apart looking for The Girl. Most of this information is imparted to us by Robert Forster (!!!) as a reincarnated, shape-shifting Korean warrior monk who owns an antique shop. Really.
Despite the central presence of the big-bad Buraki, "Dragon Wars" has less in common with Godzilla than it does with the kitchen-sink lunacy of the Ray Harryhausen "Sinbad" films - right down the dizzying menagerie of beasties and the one-damn-thing-after-another plotting. In a way, it's somewhat unfortunate that the bulk of "Dragon Wars" media blitz has focused on older audiences. While it's true that grownup monster geeks and fans of "what the HELL??" moviemaking will likely find a new guilty pleasure here, the real proper audience for this is kids. Fast-paced, not terribly gruesome and stuffed to the gills with monsters and magic, this film will be MANA to any young lover of monsters/dragons/dinosaurs for whom wooden acting and psyche-melting dialogue are infinitely forgivable in the face of colossal monster battles or armored, dragon-riding baddies charging against a phalanx of tanks.
Had this film existed when I was around 7, no force on Earth could've kept me from watching it into memorization. To the current generation of film geeks this will be an instant "camp" cult hit... but for the NEXT generation it's going to be a seminal title - non-monster-related parts that don't hold up notwithstanding. At the showing I attended, a pair of young boys sat a few rows ahead of me along with an older woman (probably a grandmother to one one or both of them); and while the grownups (myself included) were laughing like hyenas for much of it, these kids were enraptured. Got a kid in your family that collects toy Dinosaurs or seeks out Godzilla flicks on TV? Take him or her to see this, you'll be their hero.
Folks, I'll be honest. I've had a massive downer of a week. Crappy time at work. Rainy weather. Just a big long "man does adulthood tend to SUCK" time... and "Dragon Wars" was exactly the tonic I needed. A huge-scale giant-monster B-movie complete with MST3K-worthy acting for laughs and extended sequences of fantasy/creature warfare for genuine thrills. I was laughing, I was applauding and, at times, I may as well have been ten years old again, amazed to be seeing Monster Movie scenes that I thought would only ever exist in my dreams. I'm not sure (though I'd hope) if director Shim's human characters would be less spectacularly dopey when his crew speaks the same language as his cast, but he's proven himself a prodigy at arranging sequences of giant monster carnage - and he gave me MORE than I wanted and EXACTLY what I needed.
FINAL RATING: 6/10
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