Change Your Image
giv75
Reviews
Revolution (2012)
It's only SF, but it's still ridiculous
We live in a society which seems, to those of us more than a few decades of age, to be so driven by and in thrall to digital technology that we barely recognise it as being the same analogue world in which we spent our childhood. Our grandparents find the modern world baffling and struggle to cope with the same everyday technology which our children find so intuitive. Goodness only knows what those mechanical enthusiasts the Victorians would have made of it!
There is no denying that mankind's mastery of tools, and specifically electricity & electronics, has come a long way in a few generations; but are we too reliant upon its comforts? What would happen if it were taken away from us?
It's an intriguing question, and it's one that's not well-served in any meaningful way through this show's central premise of the power suddenly going off. One moment, electricity runs through the power grid and within batteries and dynamos as normal, the next nothing. Lights go off, aircraft fall from the skies (literally fall) and the world descends into a new dark age.
Except, people are still alive and the entire material universe hasn't fallen to bits at the atomic level. Why? How come there's still electricity on that level? If it's still a physical principle that exists within the universe, why is it only man-made constructs which are affected? One could postulate many reasons for this; a massive EMP for example. But let's be honest, most of the scientifically plausible explanations for this state of affairs come with their own solutions, all essentially involving changing the fuses and switching the power back on. However, within this story's logic a repair clearly doesn't and seemingly can't happen. It's like magic!
Now, apparently all will be explained at some point in the story. The biggest question is, can any educated person tolerate the agonising lack of logic at the heart of this tale long enough to watch until the revelation? This reviewer doubts it will even be worth the wait, but now I'm getting personal.
What's truly sad is that this offering from the modern master of SF mystery/drama-cum-soap, JJ Abrams, has a thematic predecessor which handled this whole subject much more elegantly. Back in the 1980s, the children's toy range 'Visionaries' (Knights of the Magical Light) had a spin-off comic strip series created to help sell toys. In the story's prelude a high-tech future society came crashing to a cataclysmic halt when technology suddenly stopped working. The remnants of Humanity had to pick up and carry on, without their technological crutches, in the new paradigm. Sounds familiar.
The explanation? Due to a strange cosmic alignment, the Age of Technology came to an end and a new Age of Magic began. No need for pseudo- scientific explanations; complex technology simply no longer worked in the new magical nature of the physical universe. Now that's elegant. And a darn site more satisfying than Abrams' ill-conceived, half-baked affair.
Goodnight, Mister Tom (1998)
Is that a misfiring cylinder I hear?
This made-for-TV movie (or 'feature-length drama' as we call them in England) has a seemingly special place in the hearts of the nation and I fully appreciate why this might be. As a sweetly sentimental piece of family entertainment starring the undoubtedly popular John Thaw, it could hardly fail. Yet, curiously, fail it does on a number of levels.
Partly there is a problem with the cast, but I really don't think the fault is Thaw's. He was an actor of considerable merit and ability whose death elevated him to unofficial sainthood - making criticism of any work featuring him rather a tricky task as one might appear churlish. However, I rather enjoyed his gentle and satisfyingly nuanced performance in the curmudgeonly-yet-softhearted titular role. He certainly did well with the material to hand, and the story offers some potentially weighty issues which ought to be grist to any competent actor's mill.
Other characters, as has been correctly observed by various reviewers, are less satisfyingly fleshed out. This may be due in large part to their being allocated such little screen time & dialogue as to prevent the actors developing them to any degree. Even then, this might not greatly undermine the drama and it's worth noting that two supporting roles (the village woman who gently ribs Tom and the ARP warden in London) are well matched against Thaw.
The greatest fault lies with the scenes involving young William. There is a total lack of characterisation from the young actor and it's just the death-knell for the whole enterprise. As an example, when Will's best friend Zach has to leave (because his dad's been critically injured), Will just stands still with a blank expression on his face as though he can't remember if he's supposed to feel anything or respond or whatever. Who knows, maybe that was the best shot they could get out of him? Yes, the boy's meant to be emotionally damaged, but he barely displays any hint of genuine fondness for Tom. He smirks when he ought not to, he appears distant when he should be warm and human, and that's just me generalising. The intimate effect is very jarring and takes one out of the drama.
Thaw's acting might still have carried the day, if it weren't for the toe-curling shattering of mood in two scenes. I refer, of course, to the nightmare scene and to the cycling scene at the end. In the former, bad direction and poor acting combine when the boy sits bolt upright and yells wide-eyed to the camera as it zooms in; meant to be shocking but so unintentionally embarrassing that it becomes pure 'narm'. That I no longer believed in William as a character was merely reinforced right at the end in a final moment of narm when his cries of "Yaaay" as he cycles down the hill toward the great emotional climax come spilling out his mouth as though recited in a first year Latin class; it's certainly not from the heart.
In the end, the boy just couldn't act and it torpedoed the whole damn thing for me. It's pity; I might have really enjoyed it too.
Titanic II (2010)
Long Beach Iced 'T'
Wow! Where do I even begin with this film? Perhaps by addressing my present feeling of viewer's remorse? If I'd been thinking straight, I would have turned off the TV set at 10pm and just gone straight to video - sorry, bed. But I suppose I deserved everything I got when, having seen the movie's title and knowing that SyFy shows terrible movies, I rashly pressed on full steam ahead into this maritime disaster of a film. You see, I knew that I would be able to stomach this surely hilariously awful piece of...work.
From the opening premise of a luxury super-liner built outwardly as a replica of RMS Titanic (yet appointed even more luxuriously and engineered to ultra-modern specifications, apparently, despite the shopping-mall interior and concrete walls) setting sail on her maiden voyage precisely one hundred years after her ill-fated namesake, I knew this was a voyage into poor taste. Yet this film's jaw-dropping rubbishness left me astonished and bored in equal measure! Okay, so we know that unsinkable ships always sink, but sunk by Global Warming? That's audacious. I mark this leap of illogic quite highly, and there is much fun to be had from the film's many ridiculous and improbable moments; guy drops small object and splits entire glacier in half, or angry wave flings surfing iceberg at Titanic. Mega-mega-tsunami swatting an aerial tanker, anyone?
Sure, the first half delivered unintentional laughs, but these soon dried up, leaving just a nauseating sense of disjointedness. From the terrible CGI Titanic 2 and the dock-bound Queen Mary carrying quite literally several (inappropriately redneck) passengers, to the cast's bewildering lack of emotion, it all jarred. Still I stuck with it, even when - after the collision - the film slipped into tawdry melodrama, having lost interest in the massive scale of the human tragedy.
In the end, this film's lack of humanity killed me. None of it made up for the 'epic' cast of dozens; minor cast members being forgotten about, their fates undisclosed (weren't we meant to care?); engines being switched off to avoid possible breakdown whilst trying to flee from impending disaster; and how exactly did that nurse manage to fall and get squashed by the door anyway? I still don't get that.
The heroine's dad asks the helicopter pilot "How low can you get me?" Had he known just how low, he'd probably have shot himself out of shame...
Oh yeah, spoiler alert - the ship sank.