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Reviews
The War of the Worlds (2019)
Offensive
I disagree with many of the reviews on here. This did not start well. I think it's best described as controlled descent into terrain; that's what they call it when a pilot knowingly crashes a plane.
Watching this is like reading the BBCs balanced scorecard.
Strong woman - Check
Explore taboo - Check
Highlight how far we've come as a society - Check
If you want to write a story that's basically a vehicle for contemporary morals then by all means do that. I don't think it's possible to make a good story that way but go for it anyway; indulge your weird preachy fetish. But why try to crowbar it into an existing classic? That's what i don't understand.
It seems clear that the actors know it's a stinker. I mean i'm a huge fan of H.G. and The War of the Worlds is my favourite (Well some days it's the island of doctor Moreau) but i think if i'd never heard of H.G. Wells and someone handed me this script i'd still know. That must be why the characters appear to have succumbed to despair even when there's no specific reason for it.
Seriously world, whats with the complete lack of respect for literary classics? What are these people thinking? I can write a better story than H.G. Wells is what whoever made this was thinking! Which is arrogance beyond belief!
And another thing! The setting and the costume are period but the special effects are not. The fighting machines in the book were shiny, lurching, fast moving, clanking, and belching green smoke. They're described as healing over on one leg, like a milk stool bowled across the floor if i remember right.
The fighting machines in this are somewhat magical in that they are able to lift one of their three legs without having to lean or compensate in any way. They're also dull and plodding and of course they have a big blue light. That's a must have for any modern alien machine. Don't know why; don't think anyone knows why. Awful.
What's next? An adaptation of Moreau where the animals learn to respect each other's boundaries and value their differences?
Just stop it!
Left Behind (2014)
Modern Christian message?
Well... I've just watched this on TV and it's left me feeling very uneasy. I think I'll leave the ludicrous action of the last half hour to others because there was one thing about this film that really shocked me: The Rapture.
I'm not religious and I'm not anti religious; I just think it's a waste of my thoughts sitting around wondering about something that can never be proved either way; I'm Agnostic basically. However, this film did make me think more than I ever have before about the modern (1800s to present day) Rapture doctrine, specifically what it says about people who believe it. I mean, if I was a believer in something and my wife and son weren't, and I was magically transported to safety while they were left to die, I really can't see myself feeling good about that. Not even my family, just vast numbers of my fellow human beings would be enough for me not to enjoy it if I'm honest! So having foreknowledge of such an event and still viewing it as a great thing, even lording (sorry) it over people who don't believe, comes across as quite twisted.
This film – and I'm sure this was not its intent – has really opened my eyes to the extraordinary narcissism that lies at the heart of modern (and predominantly American) Christianity. I'm not anti American either; I have family in America; but America does appear to be a spawning ground for the really toxic breeds of Christianity.
Just to be clear. I go to church with my wife and I've read the bible plenty, and I can tell you that the bible describes no single, irrefutable chain of events for the Rapture. Accounts are varied, contradictory and very much open to interpretation. This film portrays a version of the Rapture that is not accepted by mainstream Christianity (the Catholic Church for example).
So in summary, while this is a technically terrible film with pathetic script, feeble supporting cast, and a pace that would put snails to sleep, it is all overshadowed by the fact that it really does raise questions about the basic morality of modern Christian beliefs.
The only saving grace here is that the whole thing is so married to the Hollywood blockbuster apocalypse formula that it ends up belittling its own message.
Dexter (2006)
Brilliant most of the way through
I'm going to write a lot here because I loved this show for a long time. The lead characters were distinctive and fun and strangely likable (Deb is probably one of my favourite characters ever on TV); the central plot was really out there; the acting was excellent; the surrounding drama was strong.
It went so well for so long. In season one Dexter is isolated and his life revolves around his need to kill, but over time he develops meaningful relationships and has to work the killing around an increasingly full life.
It all made sense up until season six. The direction the show seemed to be going in up to that point was that Dexter was actually not a psychopath and that he had been brainwashed from an early age by a jaded dirty cop. Vigilantism by proxy I thought. The flashbacks of his foster father explaining his condition even started to feel like manipulation.
My belief that the show was going in that direction made it all internally consistent. It made sense that Dexter was able to make connections with others, get married, and have children. It all seemed to point to a suppressed humanity coming to the surface.
Anyway. So it didn't go where I expected and instead it increasingly reinforced the idea that Dexter was indeed a psychopath. I think that's where the show began to lose me. It meant that none of what had gone before really made sense or meant anything.
So the first thing to go was internal consistency. The next was probably the humour. It didn't occur to me until well into season six that Dexter hadn't made me laugh since season five. I mean it was never laugh out loud hilarious but it was kind of a dark comedy. Then the writing nosedived. I know even the best TV shows will have highs and lows, and at first I thought season six was just an ill conceived plot, but then came a rapid descent into lunacy.
I feel like I should mention that I'm not religious. I am aware that some people of faith found season six very offensive. I did too, just not on religious grounds.
The writing in the first five seasons was fairly consistent, but from season six on it became increasingly incoherent and eventually just plain silly. Dexter's internal monologues began to reveal extraordinary gaps in his memory, most strikingly the belief that he had never been in love before even though his admission that he genuinely loved Rita appeared to be a landmark event at the time.
Then Deb began falling in love with everyone, and then out of love again, the lowest and most ridiculous point being when her therapist explained to her that she was in love with Dexter.
Dexter then unlearned everything he had come to understand. Repeatedly.
Hannah was probably the worst thing about the last seasons. She wasn't very likable and it was difficult to see why Dexter liked her (other than that she was smoking hot obviously). Apparently she was the only one who ever accepted him for who he was. This was another enormous hole in Dexter's increasingly poor memory because Hannah wasn't the first. There was Lila and Lumen before her. I really hoped Dexter would kill Hannah. He should have. It would have made more sense than immediately falling in love with a serial prisoner and continuing to love her after she tried to kill his sister. I like to think a thing like that would put me off just about anyone. Still, it's just the sort of thing that happens when the writing on a show goes down the toilet.
In the end it became so schizophrenic it was like that game where you pass round a sheet of paper and each person writes a sentence of a story.
Dexter is going to kill Hannah – Pass it on – Then he falls in love with her. Deb gets shot but recovers – Pass it on – Then she dies.
I think Dexter probably just ran too long. It happens all the time now. A show gets really popular and the makers wring every last drop of blood out of it before it dies. I often find now that if I do make it to the end of a show I feel cheated. A lot of the time I just give up but I liked Dexter so much that I felt I had to see it through. I suppose that's what the makers rely on.
I actually liked the end of the last season. Possibly because by that stage the poor writing had blurred the lines of Dexter's character to the point where I no longer knew who he was and so I didn't care enough about him to want a happy ending. Having said that, it was always on the cards that it would end badly for him and I was cool with that side of it.
Bizarrely, the final episode actually felt a lot like the ending to the story that I wanted the show to tell. In the end he gives up everything he has to protect his son and the serial poisoner that he inexplicably loves, the ultimate proof that he is not a psychopath. The issue of why Dexter killed people as he began to realise he was not what he had always been told would have been a strong story, but in the end it drowned in a quagmire of repetitive melodrama.
I think I need to work out an average here because 1 – 5 were 10s, 6 was maybe a 5 or a 6, and 7 and 8 were about 3 a piece.
I'm rounding it down to 7. 8 is just too high given the awfulness of the last two seasons.
You're Next (2011)
A modern horror classic
Really wanted to catch this one at fright fest but was sold out.
Normally I don't like home invasion movies. They often lean too much toward sadistic mental and physical abuse with no revenge payoff. I think that is the defining characteristic of torture porn.
Anyway, just watched You're Next on DVD.
It was brilliant.
There's a really good mix of gore and dark humour and more of a plot than you might expect going in.
The acting is solid. Sharni Vinson is especially good as Erin.
It's easy to invest in Erin as it quickly becomes apparent that she is an innocent bystander in a nightmare family environment. That is probably what makes many of the kills so satisfying. Of course Erin isn't the only killer and one other death in particular is very funny. I'm talking about the one in the basement for anyone who has seen the film.
The effects are suitably bloody, mostly in a fun way but there are a few moments that made me wince.
Overall I really enjoyed You're Next. The only thing I didn't like so much was the very last bit where the police man opens the door. Think I would have preferred Erin to just walk away. Even so it was good enough and didn't take anything away from the film as a whole.
I must say the last ten years or so has seen a real resurgence of old skool bloodthirsty horror. As a long time horror fan it pleases me greatly.
Breaking Bad (2008)
Wildly overrated
I watched four seasons of this show and then lost interest completely.
It's not a terrible show but it is a wildly overrated show.
Before I started watching it people said the first season was just OK but it got much better after that. I think the opposite is true.
The first season was all about the meth side of things. That made it interesting. It quickly developed into a kind of dark, dramatic farce that I found most enjoyable.
Also, the characters were great. I really enjoyed the development of Walter and Jessie's relationship. It was strained but funny because of it.
From my point of view the show jumped the shark between the end of the first season and the start of the second. Only a small shark; maybe a barracuda; and it spent the rest of its run straining against the urge to execute a further, much bigger leap, like a superman punch over a great white.
1. It quickly regressed to the mean and became a soap opera. Soap operas are popular. That must be why it got MORE popular. The humour took a back seat and the melodrama grabbed the wheel.
2. The characters became unknowable. They felt and acted in whatever way was necessary to progress the story regardless of who they had been before. They made more and more out of character choices until they lost all definition. It began to appear that everyone in the show had some sort of borderline personality disorder.
3. It became increasingly reliant on hang time. This is when a very predictable chain of events is set in motion but takes an excruciatingly long time to resolve, by which time any resolution feels unsatisfactory. It's like you feel like you need to sneeze for weeks and then the feeling just fades away.
4. The lack of coherent character development seemed to lead to an inability to progress the story. The characters seem to start down one path; then backtrack; then try another; and they just never go anywhere. They keep having the same arguments and making the same mistakes and doing random inexplicable things.
5. Jessie. In the beginning it looks like Jessie is a smart kid that has gone off the rails. Bit of cliché but it still had merit as an opportunity to see what kind of person he might grow into as a result of the journey he and Walter had embarked on. What actually happens is that he turns into an idiot. People are affected by their relationships and their actions; that's how people develop/grow/change. Jessie did not grow. He devolved into a half wit. He had to because the Jessie from the first series, while not a Mensa member, was not stupid enough to end up where he did later on.
6. Coincidence driven. This is one of the main reasons why I can't understand all the talk of great writing on this show. Using coincidence to progress a story is a sign of very poor writing.
7. The end of season four felt like the end of the show to me. Walter had emerged victorious but in doing so he had become just like his mortal enemy. I thought that was quite a cool ending. Then another season happened but I just couldn't get interested.
Having said all that, I did watch four seasons and I did enjoy it a lot in patches. It retains some of the season one humour throughout, the acting is great, and there are a few great characters skirting around the central group of narcissistic personality disorder sufferers. Mike, Hank, and Sol are my favourites.
I think I'm just a little disappointed in the show. There were so many interesting directions to go in after the first season and really it didn't go anywhere. I think of I knew how to make meth and I decided to go into business today I'd expect to be a long way from where I started in five years time; a long, long way.
The Devil's Business (2011)
Great suspense
I can't think of another instance where I've felt the need to comment on a film that wasn't especially good, or especially bad. I think it might be because this film is nearly brilliant.
--- THE SPOILER ---
It's the end that lets it down. I don't mean the homunculus. I do like a homunculus. I mean how it was done. I can't say there was anything wrong with any of the elements, and I think the bit where the dead bloke leads the homunculus away like a child could have and should have worked really well. Maybe just poor execution of a good idea.
--- END SPOILER ---
A lot of the film was really nicely acted and it did a great job of building tension. Billy Clark's monologue about the dancer at the club was excellent. He really stole the show for me. I suppose a bloke from Belfast his age working as a hit man for a mainland gangster is nicely plausible now that the local hooding industry has dried up. Even so I thought he really carried some real menace, and it's just nice to see a fellow Belfastard in a central role once in a while.
It's also nice to see another film about the occult. It was all the rage back in the 80s but it's really fallen out of favour in the last decade or two. The very mighty House of the Devil seems to have revived it a little, and I'm very much in favour. The Devil's Rock, The Devil's Business – Bring back films with 'The Devil' in the title! Overall I think this film deserves a six for a brilliant first fifty minutes.
The Devil's Rock (2011)
Old Skool
It's been a long time since I saw a horror film like this. By that I mean one that has a coherent and well thought out story told through believable dialogue.
I've read a few bizarrely negative reviews here. When I say bizarre I mean some of the reasons for giving it low marks.
Here are my two favourites:
It's not going to make money – This is honestly the first time I've seen a film marked down on cost/benefit analysis.
There's only three people in it – Really don't know what to say to that. Maybe Australia would be more up this person's street; I hear there's loads of people in it.
Anyway, here are my positives:
Well acted.
Sets and setting looked great – stark, grotty and bloody. Everything a growing horror film needs.
Didn't rely on cheap window rattling and supernatural wind 'Scares'. Made what the Nazi soldiers were doing more believable somehow.
Resisted the modern-day urge to crowbar humour into the dialogue.
The demon was played by a real person in makeup. Looked great as a result. You just know that a big budget film would have made it a ridiculous CGI creature with wild, over the top magic powers. It's a bit of a beef I have with modern films but I just think that actual people put in much more real and believable performances than computer graphics. And of course they look like they're actually there in the set, because they are.
And the negatives:
German soldier didn't have a German accent? I know the jury is kind of out on that one. Some people think that context is enough and an accent can be in poor taste or whatever. I sort of agree sometimes because I'm from Belfast and I've heard some really shocking attempts at the accent over the years. Maybe it's because I'm not German but I think I would have liked an accent in this instance.
The gunshot wound – Now I know it might seem silly to question the plausibility of something like this in a film about a captive demon on a Nazi held island, but unlike the accent issue this one is all about context. In the context of the film all the occult elements make sense, but the Nazi soldier seemed to get a lot better after the bullet was pulled out. I mean I'm not a doctor but it just appeared that the bullet was the real source of pain and suffering, and not the gaping wound it created.
Gina Varela looked fantastic as the demon but I would have liked to see more of her. She was naked and painted red and I think it would have added something to the disturbing nature of such a demon if we had seen more of her very fine body beneath the demon's face. This isn't some sad need to see T & A; I could have just watched some mindless rubbish like the new piranha film for that. I found it really got under my skin that she was still attractive as the demon. Could have made more of that perhaps.
Overall:
Loved this film. Really good example of what can be achieved in the horror genre by just doing old skool film making well.
Unlike others who enjoyed this film I've given it ten out of ten, not because of the disproportionate negative reviews, but because it was just right up my street.
Defiance (2013)
Why
Yet another attempt to trick sci-fi fans into watching a soap opera.
Well, not quite a soap opera, more like one of those old western drama shows - The High Chaporal or something. But with sillier, soap opera style plot and dialogue. Although in fairness I'd have to say that the quality of the acting fits perfectly with the overall style.
It's not even amusingly bad like Falling Skies, it's intelligence assaultingly bad like Astrology, or The Daily Mail news paper.
Recycled, seen it all before rubbish.
Where some shows rapidly regress to the soap opera mean, this one has nailed it first time.
If i was to describe it in one line i'd say -- It's Dallas in drag.
Gladiator (2000)
Is this the same guy that made Blade Runner? Seriously?
Well I hated this film; I've hated nearly all Ridley Scott's films. Loved Alien; Loved Blade Runner. Then I hated everything up to American Gangster, which I thought was alright but not fantastic. Robin Hood was the next one I hated. Then came Prometheus, which I didn't hate, but after three viewings I'm still wondering if it was just a really expensive commercial for Christianity. Still, at least Russell Crowe wasn't in it.
Russell Crowe! Does he know something about all the big Hollywood directors that they don't want made public? Did he find their sex dungeon? Seriously, how is he getting all these roles? It certainly isn't on ability. I think he might actually be a worse actor than Sean Connery.
That's the main problem with Gladiator, and with many of Ridley Scott's films. Russell Crowe is in them, and I think it's a sign of Scott's increasingly poor judgement. Yes, I grant you, Russell Crowe may have appeared to be good in Romper Stomper, but we now know that he actually is a mentally challenged thug with delusions of grandeur so it doesn't count.
Anyway, there are other issues, like the mind numbing tedium of watching an unimaginative director play with his enormous budget for hours, or the excruciatingly familiar plot lurking beneath the costumes, or the pantomime bad guy hammed into the middle of next week by Joaquin Phoenix.
That brings me back to the acting, and the Crowe. Crowe time! That's what my inside voice shouts when he appears; it helps me get through films that he's in. The worst instance of Crowe time! in Gladiator is the bizarrely comical moment where he finds his character's family dead and tries to act accordingly; it's like an acting version of karaoke. I started to think that the original role was played by Harvey Keitel and he was probably this Australian bloke's favourite actor.
Story wise, it's like a badly remembered history lesson retold in the style of Dallas, or Prisoner Cell Block H, at least that's the way the "Dramatic" scenes come across; the action is much more in the direction of a period Arnold Schwarzenegger film where the bad guys appear to have run straight out of a computer game just in time to be slain due to their low skill level and intelligence. Don't get me wrong, I like Arnie; you know where you stand with Arnie. Ditto computer games. The problem here is that it seems really out of context.
Some people have complained about the historical accuracy; I don't care about that. I'm not overly interested in the Roman Empire and as a result the level of historical detail/accuracy would be lost on me anyway. I mean, if Attenborough started telling me that Gorillas are actually cleverly disguised Ninjas I'd be a bit annoyed – assuming peer review established such a claim to be untrue – but I went into Gladiator expecting a film not a documentary.
I'm not saying that accuracy is never an issue; I'm from Belfast and I know that a great many people were upset at the awful way the Titanic disaster was treated by Hollywood. You can't help but wonder if, somewhere in Hollywood, there's a script for a whimsical look at the Hindenburg sitting on someone's desk.
I think it's long past time we all stopped expecting the next great Ridley Scott film; it isn't going to happen. Ridley Scott is not a great director. David Lynch is a great director. David Cronenberg is a great director. David Lean is a great director. Why are they all called David? I don't know. In Britain high profile political journalists are called John. No one knows why
The Dark Knight Rises (2012)
Weak
--------- WARNING! ALSO CONTAINS SPOILER FOR THE DARK KNIGHT ----------
People are saying that The Dark Knight Rises is stupid compared to Nolan's other Batman films. I think that's unfair. The Dark Night was equally stupid, and Heath Ledger was its only salvation, kind of like how Jack Nicolson saved The Shining from being a turkey. Don't kid yourself. Imagine The Shining without him.
So I liked Batman Begins, and then hated The Dark Knight. Here's a few reasons why. - A variety of story threads that never really went anywhere interesting. - Bothering to create the whole Two Face back story only to kill him off before he did anything interesting as Two Face! - Increasingly fantastical hardware and general overuse of "Cool" effects (Especially the bat vision) - Emergence of terrible and generic Hollywood cheese – the thing with the bomb and the boat. An absolute behemoth of predictability. Agonising.
So on to the Dark Knight Rises, or Why Didn't They Just Make The Dark Knight Returns?
Much of the film felt like there was a real underlying desire to make the Dark Knight Returns. I can't help but wonder why they didn't. I mean the overall theme for Bruce Wayne is the same in the sense that it is about him trying to find a way to live without Batman. Did they think they could write a similar but better story than Frank Miller?
It happens all the time. A character that has survived on merit for decades in another medium is handed to a flavour of the month director and, rather than pick up one of the classic stories that has kept the thing alive for so long, that director decides that they know how to do it better. In reality they almost never do and in this case, just to rub salt in the wound, there are more than enough classic Batman stories to keep a credible Hollywood franchise ticking over forever.
Who cares anyway. There's so much wrong with the movie that it doesn't matter.
The need to up the anti on the gadget front went into overdrive here with a strange flying machine and a fusion reactor that was astonishingly easy to weaponize. So after making so much effort to ground this iteration of Batman in contemporary reality they suddenly revert to Adam West world with a nice big round bomb. (Which – in case you didn't know – some days you just cant get rid of.) Then there was the inmate in the prison who can punch a broken back better! I suppose that might have made sense to some people. It's like a musculoskeletal version of Homeopathy.
Also, the action sequences have become increasingly silly as this trilogy has progressed and there were some moments that were hard not to laugh at. The stadium sequence especially. This is a common problem when certain directors are given too much freedom. The third Lord Of The Rings movie is another recent example, and all the new Star Wars Movies, and the Matrix 2 & 3. Is there a pattern here? Trilogitis?
Roll out the mega cheese.
First Mathew Modine's character. We all knew he was going to have a heroic change of heart. Why? Because we've all seen that same shallow character do the same thing a hundred times before in a hundred other movies.
Then came the horribly telegraphed ending. Once Alfred made his speech about the café I spent the rest of the film trying to pretend it wasn't going to happen, but of course it did, I knew it would, and it was even worse than I expected it to be. Why? Well because, in addition to being a cheese fest of epic proportions, it made no sense in the context of the Batman character or the movie. Batman is kind of a functioning borderline sociopath with strong narcissistic qualities and it seems ludicrous that he would one day just settle down and live a normal life, with a career criminal that he barely knows. But it was only later that it annoyed me on that level.
So are he and Alfred never going to speak again?
That was what I thought while I watched it happen. I mean Alfred is like a father to Bruce Wayne. Are they really going to go their separate ways? After everything they've done together? Just because of something Alfred said that related to a different time in both their lives? An extraordinarily superficial attempt to engineer an emotional farewell.
Some people that I have talked to about this have said that I am emotionally limited. Paradoxically, I think the same about them. There are people who cry at the end of ET, and there are people who cry at the end of Brief Encounter. The two appear to be mutually exclusive.
Then there's Bane. I never liked Bane in the comics. He was silly. So it was quite a surprise to find myself watching a movie where Bane appeared as a genuinely menacing cult leader, and everything around him became increasingly laughable.
Then we have one of my pet hates, the Deus Ex Machina. In this movie it comes when Talia reveals her true identity. Much like Bane, I never really liked Ras Al Ghul or anything relating to him and his, but the Talia revelation annoyed me on a basic plot device level. I blame M. Night Shyamalan for popularising this sort of nonsense as being interesting or cleaver. Every time I see it happen my brain involuntarily adds an orchestral Dun Dun Dahhh.
The only positive here is that the movie looks great, but even that becomes a negative as you begin to accept that you are viewing a classic example of style over substance.
Favourite bit: The hijack of the plane, before it all started to get on my nerves.
Prometheus (2012)
Confused Philosophy or deliberate paradox or neither?
I see many people have commented on this film's technical and logical failings, and while I agree the film has failings in those areas, I think some of those criticisms are unjust. Here's a couple of examples.
1) Why was the medical pod set up for a man? One person suggested that perhaps Vickers character was actually a man, but I think a more logical explanation might be that the pod was set up for her father.
2) Why did David poison Holloway? Well the philosophical core of the film revolves around the concept of creating life and the moral/spiritual questions it raises. My view is that David, clearly having had some sort of spiritual epiphany – maybe from watching Shaw's dreams – decides he wants to create life, and because he is an android the 'poisoning' of Holloway is his only viable means of impregnating another being.
3) What is the point of Charlize Theron in this film? Her purpose appears to be as counterbalance to a thread on God acting as a necessary surrogate parent figure in some people's lives. We know that Shaw's mother died when Shaw was very young and David obviously had no parents, and they both at times view the Engineers with a child like awe that the others don't appear to share. Vickers, I think, represents the other side of the equation. Her father has lived too long in her view and she actually wants him to die, she has no real interest in the mission and seems to have come along largely to make sure he snuffs it. Also she is very hot.
I must say first that I enjoyed this film but the points above are just my interpretation as the message, if there is one, is far from clear. I can't make up my mind if it is muddled nonsense or near genius or possibly trying to sell a particular brand of religion or maybe even condemn religion.
Here's what I did get.
Near the start, there is a statement on faith, presented in a positive, fluffy soft focus manner. The message is that faith is a positive influence in the life of Shaw's father. However, Shaw's faith in the Engineers, which appears to be tied to her spiritual beliefs, then leads directly to a catastrophic series of events that almost causes the destruction of the human race.
As the film delves deeper into the issue, spiritualism is repeatedly expressed as a life affirming concept, and the tone of those scenes is always positive, but the actions of the characters that are motivated by faith are either inherently negative (Impregnation of Holloway) or have extremely negative outcomes (Annihilation of humanity).
Then silliness arrives with a big bang when, having discovered that they are there to find the creators of the human race, one of the crew implies that because the Engineers can create life, Darwinism is no longer valid. Weirdly, there is no discussion and they move on which highlights another problem with the film: most of the main characters seem to be ambassadors for one viewpoint or another and it leaves very little room for any actual character or depth in the dialogue.
Later in the film when Holloway talks about how the Engineers created us, Shaw replies, 'But who created them?' The context of the scene suggests this statement refers to a spiritual creator, but since the Engineers created life with technology, extending that premise to validate the existence of a spiritual God is a conflation. Another issue is that, having been presented with proof that humanity's real creation story is not spiritual, what is the focus of her faith? It appears that she has simply shifted it to the next, as yet unknowable, creator up the chain. This raises a few questions. How many creators are there in this hierarchy? And even if there is a spiritual creator at the top of the tree why should humanity revere this being rather than their own creator? This is where David's spiritual awakening plays its part, or possibly plugs a hole. He does not revere his creators but it becomes apparent that he does share Shaw's faith. I must say at this point that I feel the use of a symbol associated with a particular religion as the primary symbol of spiritualism expresses a bias that undermines any attempt to comment generally on the nature and value of faith. As I implied at the start, at times I felt like this film was pushing Christianity. Anyone know if the writer or director have been saved? Having only seen it once I am left with the impression that if there is a deliberate message, it might be that faith is not tied to a particular mythology but if you remove the mythology from a faith exactly what do you then have faith in? What is the frame of reference? I'm not sure of the intent here but to me it presents faith as a sort of nebulous delusion that simply moves with changing conditions in order to perpetuate itself. So, is it a clever statement on the complex nature of contemporary spiritualism? Or are the paradoxes simply the result of the writers own confusion? Who knows. Watching it again might make things clearer.
The stand out moment for me is the reaction of the Engineer when David wakes it up. It looks at the humans as if they are vermin. It is established that the Engineers can and do talk to each other, but it doesn't even occur to this one to respond to David, it just looks down on him and the humans as humans would look at rats. In a film full of contradictory threads, this was an unusually clear and powerful challenge to the universally accepted notion that if we do have a creator, that creator will welcome us like lost children.
The Walking Dead (2010)
Regressing to the mean
I loved the first season. Lots going on and the plots largely revolved around the whole zombie issue. I'd give it nine out of ten.
Then season two kicks of with a very silly set piece that required a herd of zombies to sneak up on a group of people on the lookout for exactly that sort of thing. That set the tone for the level of thought that has gone into season two but it's not the worst thing about it.
Regression to the mean in TV shows is getting worse. No matter what a show starts out as it eventually turns into a soap opera. This has happened rather abruptly with The Walking Dead season two. Zombies are now very much a background issue, and even when the zombie danger is present it is largely just fuel for a character to have some sort of personal epiphany.
Season two reminds me very much of Lost in the sense that if you remove all the scenes that revolve around the boring soap opera plots, you have maybe ten minutes of actual story progression per episode. Granted there is a certain amount of drama in the comics but it is usually relevant to how the zombie apocalypse has affected the characters. One central theme of the comics that I really like is how Rick does terrible things for the sake of the group, slowly losing his humanity so they can hold on to theirs, but I doubt the TV show will be quite as dark as that.
Anyway, I'll give season two the same as I would give any soap opera and add a couple of points for having the occasional zombie in it. So that's a score of two. That makes my average score for the whole series five and a half so I'll round it up to six.
You might be thinking that's harsh but seriously, ask yourself, what has happened in seven episodes of season two aside from a whole lot of typical – seen it all before – soap opera nonsense like "Is she having his best friends baby" or "Keep your hands off my daughter".
Here are the events that actually progressed the story in my view.
1. Sofia went missing
2. Carl got shot
3. Andrea learnt to shoot (Only relevant if character progresses like comics)
4. Hershel's got a barn full of walkers
5. Shane does mutiny on the farm
6. Sofia is one of the barn walkers
If you took out all the superfluous drivel I think four episodes would have been a fairly spacious fit for all that has happened in the first seven.
Disappointed and losing interest.
---------- UPDATE ------------------
Just watched the first half of season three. Brilliant again. Not one dull episode. Going to add another star for such a great comeback.
Attack the Block (2011)
Ignore the naysayers
Hi there, Initially I wondered how such a great film could attract so many negative reviews.
Then I started reading other reviews by the same people.
One says Titanic is nearing perfection, another remembers Rutger Hauer for Wedlock rather than The Hitcher or Blade Runner, and another thought Terminator 2 was one of the best movies they had ever seen! If you agree with those statements, maybe Attack The Block is one to avoid.
I realise the ad hominem approach can be self defeating a great deal of the time but in this company, I use it with an almost Nietzschean conviction.
It looks like some of the people from the fancy side of the river have joined IMDb, but they have brought something with them from the Daily Mail forum: their beloved "Broken Britain" mentality.
Even ignoring the subtext, it's just a great, fun movie.
The Village (2004)
Its not big and its not clever
This chap has made a career out of what in modern times is considered a poor plot device that is indicative of a lack of writing skill, the deus ex machina or god from the machine. For those who aren't familiar with this it comes from Greek tragedy where a god character would be lowered onto the stage via a crane and would then solve a given plot line. Deus ex machina's meaning has expanded to include out of the blue resolutions to plot lines in modern fiction; this is what I tend to think of as a 'Dan dan Dahhhhhh' moment. It is a cheep trick and once you know that a particular writer/director is prone to it their work becomes very predictable.
In addition to using the same trick as many of shyamalan's other movies the village is also an excruciatingly dull, plodding affair filled with bland characters and incredibly silly plot holes but I think others have said all that needs to be said about that. What i really want to know is why everyone in the village talks like Yoda.
I don't comment here often but it really annoys me when this kind of thing gets a reputation for being clever. The Fountain is a clever movie that works on many different levels and is also extraordinarily beautiful in both story and look. Those of you who think the village has something to offer as a love story might want to take a look at The Fountain as an example of a movie that has real emotional depth.
In closing I would like to say that I think the deus ex machina can be a fun device in a popcorn movie like the statue of liberty appearing at the end of planet of the apes but it is not clever by any stretch. It's the kind of thing a bunch of stoned teenagers might come up with sitting around in a bedroom having one of those wouldn't it be cool if
conversations.
P.S. The comparisons with Spielberg are not unfair in my view, a plot that takes place as a backdrop to a seen it all before family drama? Awfully familiar.