Doomsday

0 stars

No… that’s not a typo. I’m really giving this zero stars. No stars. Not even half a damn star. It gets zero. Why? Because it’s unoriginal. I know what you’re probably thinking… “But Brodie, Hollywood has a long history of unoriginality, why is this so special?” Well, it’s so blatantly unoriginal, that based on the trailer alone I picked up on at least 3 movies it ripped off. Actually viewing it gave me a few more.

*SPOILERS HERE IN* Don’t read any further if you really want to see it. But I recommend you read further, because you shouldn’t want to see it.

In Doomsday, the deadly Reaper virus breaks out in Scotland, causing the British government to wall off the small nation from the rest of the world. In the year 2035, a whole generation later, survivors are spotted on satellite photos, roaming around the streets of Glasgow. An elite military team is sent in to the desolate landscape that once was the mighty Scotland to extract any survivors in hope for a cure, as the Reaper virus is now making it’s rounds in downtown London.

And then it gets weird. Because this is when the elite military team comes across the crazy, futuristic cannibal warrior savages that now inhabit and rule the streets of Glasgow and Edinburgh. Taken prisoner, someone gets cooked and eaten, big fight scene… Now they’re on the run from the Warrior-king, with King’s sister who is leading some sort of resistance against both ruling clans. The first obviously ruled by her brother, the second led by her estranged dad, who has set up a nice little Renaissance Fair in an old castle. Military team not welcome there… big fight scene… The escape, and now there’s a big chase scene with a souped up yet 25 year old BMW on the perfectly preserved country roads of Scotland. The cannibals are in this chase in standard post-apocalyptic modes of transportation. Lots of beat up old vehicles adorned with various parts of the skeletal structure. And armed to the core. Which product placement wins in the end?

YAAAWWWNNNNWho cares? Did you count ’em all? We’ve got Mad Max, Escape From New York, 28 Days Later…, 28 Weeks Later…(while we’re at it), Waterworld, Braveheart, Army of Darkness, The Village, James Bond (pick a flick), Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome and a little Warriors thrown in for good measure.

Admittedly, some of those movies have the benefit of time on their side. The Warriors and Mad Max came out the same year as Alien, Manhattan and Apocalypse Now. In 1979, who would have guessed that in nearly 30 years time, we’d still be talking about the former two, and ranking them up there with the latter three? No one probably. And who knows, maybe in 2035 we’re talking about Doomsday. Most likely cause it actually happened. Hopefully cause it actually happened, because that’s the only way this movie will stay relevant once you’re done reading this review.

Well… let’s move on to the crap production quality, shall we? Where do I start? Is it the complete lack of direction from writer/director Neil Marshall? Yeah sure. That sucked. And I liked his previous effort, The Descent. But this… it’s like he got through the first act and said “Fuck it! You remember Mad Max? Let’s do that for a while.” Then he got halfway through and said “Fuck it! Mel Gibson’s crazy… Let’s do Braveheart for a while. With Malcolm McDowell.” Which is admittedly cool. The Renaissance Fair town is run by Malcolm McDowell, which as a colleague of mine said, “would be a pretty cool Ren-Fair.” But then he got bored with the historical epic angle, and said “Fuck it! Let’s have a car chase.” Can you see why it’s hard to watch?

How about the painfully flat acting of all involved? Including the usually awesome Bob Hoskins. Rhona Mitra, who’s done a few episodes of Nip/Tuck and that’s about it, tries to keep the “Huge star out of nowhere” mojo alive. But… she’s a bad actress. She couldn’t even make the “Fake/Bionic Eye” thing cool. Oh yeah, her character has a bionic eye that she can remove and use as a spy camera. How one royally fucks up the bionic eye/spy camera thing, is beyond me.

I award this film no stars. None. Zero. You go home with nothing. You suck. Do not spend money on this film.

One more thing… if this does actually happen in 2035… could we wall of Wales, instead?

– Brodie

Brodie Fanns!

New review for you. I’m goin’ pre-historic on your asses.

10,000 B.C.

1 Star

So… Roland, if I may call you that. What the hell happened? You had us with Stargate, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow. And now this? I don’t even know what to classify this as. It’s barely a step above something the Discovery Channel would put together, only with a Sci-Fi Channel twist.

D’Leh (Steven Strait) is a hunter/warrior from what I only assume is a Sub-Saharan mountain tribe. After his tribal lands are attacked by Egyptian warlords, he embarks on a quest to save his one true love, who also happens to be his people’s saviour. I think. Along the way, he meets up with other tribes who have been attacked by the Egyptians, and they all stage a revolt to free the slaves being used to build the pyramids.

Where to begin with what is wrong with this film? Is it the laughably bad dialog? The maybe dead languages they use? Could it be the very obvious visual effects they use? Or how about the oddly perfect bodies they have? I’m not talking being fit. I’m talking nice skin, well maintained hair, perfect manicure, perfect make-up. On tribes-people.

There was nothing about this production that worked. It’s almost as if they wanted to fall in line with Mel Gibson’s historical epics, but decided they didn’t want to spend a lot of money. And good lord did it show.

And you could tell the actors were of the mindset “This movie sucks, but at least I have one more thing to put on my resume. And a paycheck.” I can’t comment on their performances… because to call what they all did acting is an insult to acting.

I’m being generous with my one star rating, as I usually don’t believe in the “Award for just showing up” philosophy. But come on… they tried.

But really, I can’t recommend this to anyone. Avoid it.

– Brodie

Brodie Fanns!

It’s been a week since I last saw you guys. Seriously, a week. Since the Oscars, really. And there is a perfectly logical explanation for that. That whole live blog thing I was doing, I was doing on 3 different blogs. And that took a lot out of me. It was tiring. Plus I had a few days off work, so I just sat around getting drunk all week.

Anywho!

Here’s a new review-

Vantage Point

3 Stars

It’s a good movie that keeps you guessing, has interesting plot twists and is well acted all around. It’s a bad movie where the plot would have been a really good season of 24.

Vantage Point is told Rashomon style (log onto IMDb and look it up), and we get several interesting perspectives on a terror plot to assassinate the president of the United States in Spain. And thanks to that nice little summary, my blog is now “one of interest” to several government agencies. We get the perspective of Secret Service agents Thomas Barnes and Kent Taylor (Dennis Quaid and Matthew Fox), tourist Howard Lewis (Forest Whitaker), the terrorists, their pawns, a news crew (Sigourney Weaver and Zoe Saldana and even the president himself (William Hurt). It all culminates in a pulse pounding series of chase sequences, ending in glorious American cinema fashion: dead bad guys, heroically and miraculously alive good guys.

For what comes off as Die Hard meets 24 with a little Bourne Identity thrown in mix, it really isn’t as bad as it could have been. The mixed narrative gets a little annoying because some versions overlap with other versions, so you’re getting the same story over and over, rather than multiple yet separate stories.

I’ve long thought of Dennis Quaid as the poor man’s Harrison Ford. Which I still stand behind. But you have to remember, even if you’re getting discount store Harrison Ford, Dennis Quaid is the Target version- still really cool. At least he’s not Tom Berenger, the K-Mart Harrison Ford. It was good to see Matthew Fox take on this kind of role, as you can see him start to shed the “Jack Shephard” image he’s been relishing in for the past three and a half years. I’m interested to see what he does as Racer X in Speed Racer come May. Edgar Ramirez continues his streak of roles requiring him to be the mysterious Latino with a steely glare. But if I were making a movie that had a mysterious Latino with a steely glare in it, I would pick Ramirez, as he’s not a bad actor, just needs to step out of the typecasting.

As I said before, my interest in the plot starts to fall apart during the first act when they’re constantly re-showing the assassination. Luckily once that’s over about 40 minutes in, we can settle in on some good, old-fashioned, pulse-pounding action fun. And it doesn’t skimp on that. It is an unfortunate page right out of Jason Bourne’s playbook though, and at times, I thought I had been magically transported to the summer of ’02 and was watching Matt Damon speed around a European city.

But while it does draw a lot of comparison to previous works, it still is an enjoyable film. I predict we’ll see some heavy rotation on the USA network in a few years, as this flick seems right up their alley.

– Brodie Mann