Film Review - FIRED UP!: So NOT Worth Cheering Over...

Fired Up! is not a movie that any rational person would give a second glance. The trailers and TV-spots alone heavily implied that it would be a laugh-free ninety-minutes, packed with himbos, bimbos and prat-falling mascots. It looked like complete crap and, perhaps, evidence not only of the dark lord Satan’s existence, but definitive proof that he was active on Earth and working in the moving picture business.

Now, while all of those assumptions are, to varying degrees, correct, there was a lone bright spot. A radiant spark within the desolate abyss that pulled my long-buried sense of optimism to the surface: Mr. John Michael Higgins!

Name doesn’t ring a bell? Colour me unsurprised. While Higgins has, for over a decade, been carving out a brilliant comic career, filling supporting roles in films of wildly differing pedigrees, he unfortunately still remains something of an unknown. With his cartoonishly square jaw and absurdly severe expressions, which often betray a complete absence of frontal lobe activity, the actor specializes in inhabiting ego-maniacs driven by a resolute dedication to their own misguided, idiotic ideals. Whether playing Jennifer Aniston’s karaoke-loving, gay-diva brother in The Break-Up or the cowboy-loving Hollywood agent in Christopher Guest’s For Your Consideration, Higgins is a genius at creating characters you’d probably want to punch out if they weren’t so damn charismatic and fascinating.

Which brings us to Fired Up!, a dopey teen comedy which casts Higgins in a key supporting role as Coach Keith, the gung-ho, borderline-deranged leader of Fired Up (think about the acronym) cheerleading camp. Watching Higgins perform spastic dance moves and wave pom-poms with the single-minded intensity of R. Lee Ermey in Full Metal Jacket, the actor is a joy to behold in all his narcissistic glory. Too bad the film isn’t about him.

The real story of Fired Up! is centred on Nick and Shawn, two smug, womanizing High School football jocks – surely a terrible conceptual idea for building any sort of audience identification – who decide to skip out on football camp in Texas and instead enrol at F-U (ha...ha.), with the sleazy intentions of racking up as many cheerleader points as humanly possible. While Nick (Eric Christian Olsen – think Jim Carrey crossbred with Owen Wilson) cuts a lusty swath across the campus, Shawn (Nicholas D’Agosto – imagine Superman Returns’ Brandon Routh interbred with, er, Owen Wilson...) begins to fall for the cheerleading team’s smart, sassy leader Carly (Sarah Roemer). Wouldn’t you know it though, Carly has a goony, evil boyfriend, self-named Dr. Rick (David Walton), who threatens not only the two kids’ blossoming romance, but also the team’s chances to win the big cheerleading exhibition! Whatever will they do? Like you don’t already have an idea!

Reading over the plot of the film, you can probably easily connect-the-dots from cliché to cliché, and watching the flick is no different. Fired Up! is the generic type of movie that, if given just a slight twist by the filmmakers, could be a pretty good satire and hilarious entertainment. But they don’t. And it isn’t.

Of course, that isn’t to suggest that a game few don’t struggle, with considerable flop-sweat, to overcome the Alcatraz-like imprisonment of Freedom Jones’s stupid script. Eric Christian Olsen, who oddly enough is actually over the 30-year mark, tries valiantly to give his dim witticisms some zing through weird speech rhythms and goofy physical gesticulations. While he doesn’t succeed in making Nick particularly likable, I wouldn’t be averse to seeing him get future comedy work. Similarly, David Walton, as the jerk boyfriend, is an over-the-top hoot in a few scenes, fervently singing along to Chumbawamba’s “Tubthumper” and always appearing to be in constant peril of bursting blood vessels. And, of course, Higgins kills in his few scenes of ecstatic prancing grandeur.

The ladies fair far, far worse due to the fact that they are all playing half-dressed, brain-dead automatons with catty tendencies and inclinations for sporadic lesbianism. Lead actress Sarah Roemer has sort of a cute, spunky Kate Hudson thing going on, but she isn’t given a single clever line, while the massive female cast only has one humorous scene, watching an outdoor projection of Bring It On and, in unison, robotically reciting every single line of dialogue.

Throw in the film’s lazy use of its soundtrack songs to create emotion – pop-punk music in party scenes, The Jackson 5’s “ABC” for wacky montages – as well as its rampant product placements and complete lack of comprehension for staging believable cheerleading routines, and you have a pretty dead fish on your hands. I’ll continue my unyielding support of John Michael Higgins however and, judging from the copious credit outtakes, it appears that he and the rest of the cast had a great time making Fired Up!. Too bad we have to watch it. F-U, indeed...

2 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: March 2nd, 2009.

Epi-Cast: Episode 6 - "An Oscar-batory Exodus."

Hey there y'all, how's this for speed! No sooner had you de-stickified yourself from the couch apolstery after the 3.5 hour Academy Award television event, than myself and Tom Wytrwal have another shiny new Epi-Cast flyin' right at you, running down the highlights and lowlights of this years Oscar-fest! Sweet Moses Magnum is right!

Epi-Cast: Episode 6 - "An Oscar-batory Exodus."
In this rambling, disjointed, somewhat shorter (52 mins) affair, Cam and Tom throw their usual format out the metaphorical window and get down to Oscar-related biz-ness! Their thoughts on Sean Penn suplexing Mickey Rourke's golden dreams? On Slumdog Millionaire's hallelujah winning streak? On The Reader becoming a god-damned Oscar winning film? On Beyonce's seemingly larger-than-life presence? On Hugh Jackman's singing-est, dancing-est hosting job yet? They're all here, along with a multitude of exhausting, weird tangeants and beyond-lame insults. Consider this your OFFICIAL post-Oscar companion. Well, besides anti-depressants and liquor, that is...

To download, right-click and save on the green episode title above and then listen/suffer to your heart's content.

P.S.: We are also now available on dandy ol' iTunes as well. Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and BINGO-BANGO, there we be! Oh, we're the film-yak show, not the God-babble one.

Film Review - FRIDAY THE 13TH: Kill-Kill-Kill Yawn-Yawn-Yawn...

I suppose once one has trekked to New York, Elm Street and into the farthest reaches of space, doing bloody battle with the likes of hyperkinetic teenage girls, Freddy Krueger and Kevin Bacon along the way, there isn't really anywhere left to go but home again. So throw out the "Welcome" mat and sharpen the rusty machete, because Mr. Jason Voorhees has returned once more, to stake his claim on Crystal Lake, in the Michael Bay-guided "re-imagination" of the 1980 slasher-shocker Friday the 13th. All horny, nubile youngsters - and those hoping for good cinema - should consider themselves forewarned...

Opening with a brief black-and-white flash-back to the beheading of crazy ol' Mrs. Voorhees, Friday the 13th quickly jolts forward, tossing viewers into the creakiest of Slasher-film set-ups: the drunken camping party in the woods. A group of hip-talkin' youths, in search of an elusive much-rumoured marijuana crop, gather around a fire and tutor the audience and each other in the brutal, blood-spattered history of Crystal Lake. Nevertheless, no sooner do they finish their stilted, forbidding exposition before breaking off into duos to investigate, intoxicate and copulate. Three guesses what happens next.

Fast-forward to six weeks later, where we're introduced to the dogged Clay Miller (competent straight-man Jared Padalecki), a strapping young man in search of his missing sister. Having no luck with the local half-wits, who are iron-willed subscribers to the age-old rule that silence is golden, Clay fatefully crosses paths with a group of party-animal twenty-something's who are setting up shop in an expansive lakeside beach house. As is traditionally the case though, little merry-making is done before the lurking presence of Jason Voorhees descends on the hapless good-time goofballs. As the butchered bodies start piling up, it's up to our intrepid hero and obligatory nice-girl Jenna (perky Danielle Panabaker) to try to find help and elude the marauding combat-booted boogeyman lurking in the pitch darkness.

If this all sounds a little familiar to those of you who have endured any of Jason's eleven previous eviscerating exploits – I've made seven tours myself – you'll find precious little to celebrate with this new Friday the 13th. Perhaps wary of offending the legions of dedicated Friday-philes, who collectively fumed with irritation over the low-rent campy capers Jason Goes to Hell and Jason X, new series producers Bay, Andrew Form and Brad Fuller and director Marcus Nispel have gone to great self-conscious effort to deliver a generic grade-C product virtually devoid of depraved imagination.

While layered story-telling in the Friday universe is obviously a big no-no, the best series instalments have depended on a kicky-cool mix of deliciously sadistic kills, carnal glee and sicko humour to build momentum. This new film, however, proves as lumbering and unwieldy as Jason himself. With a flat-lining pace and a grab-bag of slaughter-scenes which are undermined by their lousy editing and lack of ingenuity, the film often feels far longer than it actually is. Additionally, while the filmmakers have wisely packed this Friday the 13th with excessive amounts of unnecessary nudity and graphic sex, these childishly diverting moments are surrounded by so much plodding monotony that their impact is harshly dulled. Only one moment, featuring a topless water-skier being skewered under a dock, manages to strike the perfect balance of winking sensationalistic sadism and repulsive cruelty.

The actors, by and large, struggle awkwardly to deliver lazily written dialogue which often sounds like really bad amateur improv. A scene featuring Aaron Yoo, playing a blissed-out stoner named Chewie, endlessly fumbling around a work-shop, prior to being speared with a household implement, feels like an extended out-take in which no one bothered to yell "Cut!". Likewise, Arlen Escarpeta, the film's lone African-American presence, appears, based on interactions with the rest of the cast, to have been shipped over from another movie entirely. Only Jason himself, played by Derek Mears, seems to be investing any real effort, erasing the memories of Jason's zombie-like past incarnations with his hard-charging animalistic physicality.

It's hard to fathom why, after investing all the money and effort into resurrecting Jason, the filmmakers have so stubbornly refused to try to spin their kick-started Friday the 13th into anything more than a lethargic, dated retread. The Slasher genre is ripe with opportunities for transcendence and reinvention, an avenue which Rob Zombie has explored with wildly mixed results, and it would be refreshing to see an iconic killer such as Jason Voorhees taken in a thrilling new (non-sci-fi) direction. Because, as evidenced by the lifeless compilation of lacklustre stabbings, filletings and impalings in this Friday, it's definitely time for Jason to find himself a script a little more on the cutting edge.

2 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 23rd, 2009.

Film Review - THE INTERNATIONAL: A Political Thriller That's Fairly On The Money!

Nobody in North America is particularly enamoured with the banks at the moment, so what better time to release a high-concept political-minded thriller featuring a dogged quest to end the sinister machinations of a terrorist-funding financial institution? Especially one which features the roguish, dark charms of brooding Brit Clive Owen, and the concentrated, sprite-ly pluck of Naomi Watts, packing heat, taking names and pounding the pavement? Why, if I were a studio executive I’d say The International was guaranteed to be money in the... Umm, well, you get the drift.

Playing Louis Salinger, a strong-willed, bedraggled Interpol agent, Owen is at his Children of Men-intense finest, battling tirelessly to expose and topple the Luxembourg-based International Bank of Business and Credit. It seems the IBBC counts, among a plethora of assorted illegal interests, selling armaments to Third-world countries in order to create astronomical debt as a viable and lucrative business opportunity. However, after the bank stealthily murders Salinger’s American colleague in Berlin, he finds himself perilously close to being in over his head.

In teaming with dedicated Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Eleanor Whitman (an underused and underwritten Watts), Salinger finds a partner as strong-willed and resolute as himself. As the two investigators begin the pain-staking process of tracking and uncovering the morally shady participants (led by the intensely slimy Ulrich Thomsen) behind IBBC’s bold, deadly power-play, they quickly find the degree of threat towards their personal safety escalating. Nevertheless, in slowly discovering the implications of the conspiracy’s true intentions, which also involves political assassination, Salinger and Whitman must choose whether to stay on the straight-and-narrow or to attempt to beat the bank at its own dishonest game.

While The International aims for lofty levels of political relevance and insight, it’s actually far more superior, and accessible, as a down-and-dirty espionage vehicle. Director Tom Tykwer, who earned our undivided attention with 1998’s pulsating attention-grabber Run Lola Run, has crafted a sharply engaging paranoia-drenched slice of labyrinthine fun. With tension-dripping dramatic scenes, such as the aforementioned assassination attempt, as well as an extended section of the film, which owes a great dept to The French Connection, following Owen and two NYPD colleagues as they trail an IBBC-funded hired gun, Tykwer holds our attention (and breath) with the skill of a sharpened professional. He also shoots the architecture of the film’s steel-edged buildings and European cobble-stones with a travelogue-maker’s passion and flair.

Adding considerably to the suspense and intrigue is the grounding presence of the hard-edged Owen, really engaged and on his game here, as well as an ace supporting cast of great-looking faces and personalities. Armin Mueller-Stahl, who last shone as a Russian mob godfather in David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, provides a weary, cynical charisma to the film, playing an emotionally-conflicted IBBC conspirator. Also grittily efficient are the realistic performances of Jack McGee and Felix Solis, as the NYPD cops who aid in the show-stopping hitman-trailing set-piece, who look and feel like genuine tough-talking Big Apple flatfoots, as well as the peculiarly threatening Brian F. O’Byrne as their clean-cut, yet shadowy prey.

Where The International invariably fumbles unfortunately, is in the resolution of its globe-spanning story. Following a nail-biting scene of undercover surveillance at the Guggenheim, the film inexplicably turns a bizarro corner into James Bond-ian territory, with half-a-dozen uzi-packing assailants turning the gorgeous interiors into a landscape of bullet-holes and shattered glass. The scene, while gripping, and expertly directed and edited, feels at complete odds with the events leading up to it. One almost has to wonder if it was simply added on to jostle viewers with short attention spans. Likewise, a final confrontation in Istanbul with IBBC head-baddie Thomsen feels underwhelming and needlessly complicated, providing no real sense of satisfaction or conclusion.

To be sure though, the sheer abundance of slick film-making proficiency helps overcome these slightly disconcerting problems, as well as the obvious preposterousness of the plot. Ultimately it’s a decent film aimed at those who enjoy a good political-based yarn full of straight-faced performances, edgy intrigue and clipped, complex dialogue full of detailed jargon and strong declarations. So, if you, like me, are growing tired of the profusion of juvenile junk currently crowding into theatres, you could do immeasurably worse than investing your time and money into The International.

3 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 23rd, 2009.

Epi-Cast: Episode 5 - "Jason Voorhees's Private Dancer"

Holy smokes! After too long of a hiatus (2 measly weeks), we've found the time in our busy, busy lives to throw together another one hour and change of film-focused entertainment for you, the little people! So kick off those galoshes, pop some corn, and prepare for Tom Wytrwal and I to amuse you against your will until you just can't takes no mores.

Epi-Cast: Episode 5 - "Jason Voorhees's Private Dancer."
If you thought Cam and Tom's in-depth discussions on The Wrestler or Valkyrie were intense, just wait and see how hyper the two nitwits get while passionately jibbering and jabbering over the return of Jason Voorhees in the Michael Bay-produced Friday The 13th revamp. Naughty language is sure to follow. In addition, the duo of dunces get alternately angry and happy over the trailers for Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra and Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds. Finally, they also find time to review Coraline, The International, The Uninvited, Babylon A.D., The Siege and... Hook. It's an episode guaranteed to make you feel like you've been lobotomized!

To download, right-click and save on the green episode title above and then listen/suffer to your heart's content.

P.S.: We are also now available on iTunes as well. Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and PRESTO!, there we are! Oh, we're the film-discussion show, not the God-talk one.

Interview - Jared Padalecki for FRIDAY THE 13TH

Taking part in a conference call to promote the Michael Bay-produced Friday the 13th “reimagining”, Texas-born actor Jared Padalecki proved to be a genuinely down-to-earth interviewee, effortlessly funny and filled with cheerful enthusiasm. A veteran of television, having starred on both The Gilmore Girls and the Vancouver-shot hit series Supernatural, the actor was eager to communicate his excitement over the highly anticipated Slasher film project, as well as to tell some amusing anecdotes regarding on-set hijinx and surreal shooting situations. Unfortunately for Mr. Padalecki, however, the topic of conversation often tended to shift away from the affable young man on the phone, and over to the hockey mask-wearing, machete-wielding white elephant in the room: the unstoppable, immortal horror icon Jason Voorhees.

So how does this Friday the 13th film differentiate itself from the eleven previous films in the series?Well, Jason got a little cheesy towards the end of [the latter instalments], I mean it was like “Jason Goes to the Moon”, “Jason Shops at Target”, "Jason and the Muppets"... What started out kind of scary became cheesy and campy... Which is fine, I mean that has its time and place, but I don’t think that kind of place is with Jason Voorhees and Camp Crystal Lake, you know?

The guys who put together the Texas Chainsaw Massacre remake and The Amityville Horror remake, they’re also behind [this film], and if you see any of those you see how they’re kind of new and hip and scary.

Despite being positioned as a remake, this Friday is completely unlike the 1980 original, based on Jason’s presence alone.
This is totally a reinterpretation! And not just of the original, but of the whole franchise. I think the writers have done a great job with paying homage not just to the first [film], but also to some of the ones in the middle as well. I mean, the original, with the mom being the killer and Jason just being a little boy, is not as scary to me. In my opinion, people go to see Friday the 13th movies to see Jason! You don’t want Jason to be some punk little kid! And you don’t want the killer to be Pamela Voorhees!

Our Jason, played by Derek Mears, is fit and capable, and he feels like a guy who could’ve survived in the woods for however many years. He’s like a pitbull with a machete, chasing you down so you feel like there’s no escape!

Is he Jason 24/7, even off-camera?No, not at all! In fact, one scene we were filming on top of a bus, we had a fight, and I don’t know what happened, like the camera got messed up or I missed a line, and so in the middle of the take we just started dancing. It was like 5 in the morning, and I’m all beat up and having a dance-a-thon with Jason Voorhees on top of an over-turned bus!

Have you seen the finished film yet?
Actually, I saw twenty minutes of it...

How was it?It was bad-ass, it’s amazing! And I’m not even saying that because I’m in the movie! I had a smile on my face the whole time. It’s better than it needs to be, I think, [and the movie] looks beautiful. It’s scary, it’s loud, it’s abrupt! The sound effects, the special effects, the gore and everything!

Now you’ve done a number of projects involving the horrific and frightening, ranging from TV’s Supernatural to the film House of Wax. Is there anything challenging that draws you to these types of roles?No, I mean there’s definitely a technique to acting scared because, you know, they’re about to role camera and they’re like “Okay, you’re running from Jason, you’re fighting Jason!” And then as they start rolling film your hair-stylist comes up and fixes your hair... So definitely it’s hard to be scared, but luckily one of the greatest things about acting in this genre is that my acting has very little to do with makes the movie scary.

Once I do my work, then that’s when the magic happens. They add sound effects and jump-cuts and weird point-of-view shots where somebody’s spying on me, [which] makes it exciting to watch because there’s so much done after my work is [finished] that I feel like an audience member!

So, was there any competition between you and your Supernatural co-star Jensen Ackles (who recently headlined My Bloody Valentine 3-D) over who could make the better Slasher film?
There is no competition. We are actually pretty close buddies man, we get along really well. We’ve worked together for years now. We actually live in the same house up in Canada where we shoot, so it’s nice man. And I think we both know we’re not in competition with each other. It’s like, it’s good to know a guy that’s happy for my success and vice versa. That’s cheesy, I’m like the Brady Bunch, but it’s cool, man. He’s a Texas

boy and I’m a Texas boy, and its not like the L.A. bullshit of “I want what you have and what can you do for me?” It’s like “You go get yours, I’ll get mine, and that’s fine!”

So how did you prepare for this particular film? I actually filmed Supernatural until April 28th, and [then] filmed Friday the 13th on April 29th, so there was no time to changeover. So what I do, when I’m preparing for a role, is try to familiarize myself with the script as much as possible and try and get some idea about what the director is doing, what the editors are gonna do, and what kind of movie they’re making.

Had you seen all of the previous Friday’s?I haven’t seen all of them. I guess I’ve seen one through four, and the last one; Freddy Vs. Jason.

Did you do any stunts?I did some of the fight scenes, but I also had a stunt man to do everything. I think I heard Harrison Ford say one time “I don’t do stunts. I run, jump and fall.” I guess that’s how I feel.

What was the most enjoyable part of being in this movie?I get to go head-to-head with Jason... More than once! So that was really cool, having grown up watching those movies, and watching Jason Voorhees, and never thinking I’d ever be a part of it.

Why do you think Jason is such a lasting character?
Yeah, he’s been around for a long time. I think with any villain, and with any of these iconic movies, I think the villain is such a huge part. But what makes Jason so exciting to me is the mask. I mean, with Freddy it’s kinda, like, corny. Like “I’m gonna be in your dreams!”. [Jason] doesn’t have to do any cheesy one-liners, you don’t have to hear him talk, you don’t have to see his face... It’s just this huge guy that lives in the woods, which is scary enough, and you don’t feel that you can reason with him. You can’t go, like, “Well I’ll just stay awake!” or “Maybe I can talk him down from the ledge...” It just feels like he’s big and he’s bad and there’s just no escape.

Would you like to be Jason one day?I thought I would like to be, but seeing what Derek had to do, and what he had to go through, I don’t think I would like to be... I’ll just leave it to the professionals and [...] enjoy it from the other side.

If you could be murdered by Jason, how would you like it done?With a machete, man! Machete through the head would be the way I wouldn’t mind [going out]!

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 16th, 2009.

Film Review - THE UNINVITED: Ghastly, Ghostly Cliches...

Imagine, if you will, an ominously moonlit kitchen, filled with jumbled wooden furniture and half-eaten food gathering flies on discarded acrylic dinner plates. Sitting amongst these abandoned dishes and used silverware sits a raven, head curiously tilted, with its soulless gaze fixated on a closed door at the end of a long hallway. Moving past the raven, who barely acknowledges your presence, you make your way slowly towards the lone door. However, just as you are reaching out apprehensively towards the shiny black antique knob, a thick, oozing stream of glistening blood gushes from the keyhole. Then, just as you are recoiling in revulsion from this sinister spectacle, a pale, creepy child with corpse-like eyes elicits a piercing shriek and bolts towards you from the darkness.

This should feel like a scenario straight out of the most spine-chilling of nightmares, a portentous vision of a grim fate to come. So then, why does it feel so much like déjà vu? Perhaps the answer lies in the sheer number of pointlessly derivative horror films such as The Uninvited clogging up the collective arteries of fright-seeking filmgoers across the free world.

Adapted from the South Korean smash-hit A Tale of Two Sisters, The Uninvited (a generic title if ever there was one) stars the fresh-faced young actress Emily Browning, likely known best as the eldest child in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, as Anna, a young girl with a routinely tragic past. After her terminally ill mother perished in a burning guesthouse, under shady circumstances, poor despairing Anna became mentally unhinged and suicidal, causing her to be locked away in a loony bin for ten long months.

Returning home to her family's isolated sea-side home for the first time since that fateful occurrence, Anna quickly finds herself at odds with both her stern author father (David Strathairn) and his significantly younger new lady-friend Rachael (the ubiquitous Elizabeth Banks – who, despite a memorable scene involving a roast, goes a little too broad here). As well, she begins to experience disturbing nocturnal visions of ghostly cadavers, including her own char-broiled mother, who hint that Anna's new step-mom-to-be may not be who she says she is. Joining forces with her rebellious older sister Alex (Arielle Kebbel), our young heroine is tasked with solving the perplexing riddles behind the nature of her menacing apparitions and...

...I have to stop there. What little interest and surprise that the film holds is entirely dependent on you knowing as little as possible before dropping your dollars at the ticket booth. Nonetheless, I will warn you that learning The Uninvited's dirty little secret, which is sort of a cheat, comes at the often exasperating cost of being incessantly clobbered upside the head by a blatant red herring for about, oh, ninety-five percent of the flick's run-time.

Due to the endlessly tireless (and tiresome) efforts at misdirection in the screenplay by Craig Rosenberg, Doug Miro and Carlo Bernard, it's easy to overlook the brightest spot within the film, which is the lead performance by Emily Browning. With her pale visage, wide-eyes and child-like features, she comes across as being Christina Ricci's wounded and vulnerable little sister. The few effective moments within The Uninvited, such as an eerie night-time encounter with a creature under the bed or a tense encounter with a string of pearls, work solely due to Browning's ability to project real internal struggle. This kid has serious talent, and I look forward to witnessing great performances, in better movies, from her in the future.

British directing duo the Guard Brothers (Charles and Thomas, respectively) manfully attempt to differentiate The Uninvited from the rest of its ilk by embracing the film's sunny Bowen Island shooting location. Their exterior shots are often beautiful, and a refreshing alternative to the more traditional murky gloominess which overtakes the film's latter half. However, perhaps concerned with appearing too unique, they self-consciously crib the lion's share of their scare tactics from a smorgasbord of other Asian-influenced scary movies. I may have said it in my review of The Unborn, but I'll say it again: the effectiveness in using spooky youngsters as fright props died with the miserable final convulsions of The Ring and The Grudge series.

While The Uninvited is far from the worst fright-flick currently infecting theatres – that would be The Unborn - it's a sad testament to the current flagging state of modern mainstream horror, where the most minimal of quality is viewed by fans as a success. It's time for prospective filmmakers to embrace the art of the genre and start finding innovative and inventive ways to parlay our elemental human terrors into something that'll really leave us sleeping with one eye open. Because, as proved by The Uninvited, the notion of Hollywood trying something new at this point is far scarier than anything currently on-screen.

2 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 9th, 2009.

Film Review - UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS: A Bloodless Vampire/Werewolf Prequel Without Any Bite.

Out of all the cash-earning franchises available for prequel treatment, it’s difficult to think of one more undeserving and unnecessary than the Underworld series. Filled with warring factions of gun-wielding vampires and werewolves (dubbed Lycans) and digitally enhanced gore, 2003’s Underworld and 2006’s Underworld: Evolution were lazy, CG-stuffed supernatural riffs on The Matrix, whose only memorable feature was star Kate Beckinsale’s tight black latex bodysuit. At least in my lowly opinion...

Sadly, Beckinsale is largely absent from the series’ latest turgid entry, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, which instead shifts its focus towards the Lycan’s tormented leader, Lucian, played by Frost/Nixon and The Queen star Michael Sheen. Set in the Dark Ages, during a tumultuous time where vampires and Lycans battled for ruler-ship of the free-land, Rise of the Lycans begins in flashback, describing the miraculous birth of Lucian, a Lycan of unique attributes. Bearing a human appearance and rational mind, with little of his brethren’s uncontrollable bloodlust, he was adopted by the vampire lord Viktor (Bill Nighy), and used to breed a new race of subservient Lycan slaves.

Nevertheless, after defying orders and rushing to the aid of his secret lover Sonja (Rhona Mitra), who happens to be Viktor’s warrior daughter, Lucian is relentlessly whipped and imprisoned, thus losing what little freedom he once possessed. Under the threat of having his illicit love affair with Sonja revealed, and spurned by the suffering of his fellow werewolves, the reluctant leader doggedly plots to unite his Lycan people and lead a brutal rebellion against Viktor’s malicious forces in a last-ditch quest for freedom.

Curiously, despite a 35 million dollar budget, and an occasionally ambitious story featuring epic confrontations and dramatic revelations, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans comes across as a disastrously small-scale bore, seemingly lifted from a Direct-to-DVD pile. With shoddy production values, which apparently required that the film be staged almost entirely on a single location, or frequently jerky creature effects work, Rise of the Lycans seems less inspired by its forebears than by an obvious determination to become a bargain-basement supernatural rip-off of Spartacus.

Undoubtedly aware of his film’s shortcomings, Patrick Tatopoulos, a novice director taking over for the series’ founder Len Wiseman, attempts to mask the limited resources available to him by shooting the entire movie through an annoying foggy blue lens filter, and editing his action scenes into mish-mashy collages of Lycan fur, shining steel blades and more blood-splashed stone walls than you can shake a broadsword at. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to over-come budget constraints, Tatapoulos, in the process, has forfeited any sense of visual coherency or flow, making the film’s numerous climactic clashes about as exciting as staring a flickering screen-saver.

To make matters all the worse, Rise of the Lycans is a dour affair, taking its ham-fisted story and limited character development deadly serious at all times. While Bill Nighy manages, perhaps as a private joke, to camp up his later dramatic scenes in a last-ditch attempt to entertain, poor Michael Sheen - a dead-ringer, with his flowing locks and bugged-out eyes, for System of a Down guitarist Daron Malakian - is straight-jacketed by his goofy role as a lycanthropic Jesus figure (Passion of the Lycan would have been a more suitable title). When not being scourged to a pulp, the actor is forced to endlessly holler unspeakably awful lines such as “We are not animals!” and “We can be slaves... or we can be LYCANS!” Sheen does what he can with this flat material, but is eventually buried by the suffocating absurdity of the role.

The majority of the blame for why Rise of the Lycans falls apart so badly, and why it ends up being as terrible an experience as it is, lies mostly in the restrictions imposed by its framing device. As it is a prequel, there is an amazingly minute amount of story to tell, and we know exactly who will live or die. Hence, we find ourselves bored to tears by the film’s countless painful dialogue scenes, and waiting impatiently for the inevitable to occur. Excluding credits, the film runs roughly only 85 minutes, and even still feels padded for length, and the ending featuring stock footage intended to clumsily tie the three films together, is just plain embarrassing.

The most frustrating aspect of Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, not to mention the entire Underworld series, is that it aims so painfully low. Content to pacify fans with tedious flashes of mindless blood and gore, and resemble little more than an extended PS3 pre-game cut-scene, the film fails to deliver on its kitchsy-cool premise. The filmmakers may have recognized the marketability in pitting vampires against werewolves, but movies as toothless as Rise of the Lycans sure don’t give movie-goers a whole lot to excitedly howl about.

1 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 2nd, 2009.

Film Review - NEW IN TOWN: ...But Same Ol' Story...

There are few actresses harder to dislike on-screen than Renee Zellweger. With her blond hair, perpetually pursed lips, and innocent doe-eyes with just a hint of mischief, she calls to mind Walt Disney’s classic depiction of Peter Pan’s Tinkerbell. In films as dissimilar as Bridget Jones’s Diary, Nurse Betty and Cold Mountain she’s shown a durable knack for mixing dramatic weight with a spot-on talent for comic timing that puts many of her peers to shame.

So what is she doing in a romantic comedy as exhaustedly formulaic and insipid as New in Town? Really, I want, no wait, make that DEMAND to know!

Initially set in sunny Miami, Zellweger’s Lucy Hill is a fashionable, business-minded consultant with a love of the fast-life and single-minded dreams for professional success, who tirelessly works for a powerful, faceless corporate entity called Munck Foods. Overshadowed and out-numbered by her male co-workers, Lucy is unanimously nominated to travel to a small Minnesota town (actually Winnipeg according to the film’s credits) and, in preparation for the company’s new line of “Rocketbar” energy bars, oversee the reconfiguration of their local manufacturing plant.

Arriving in the sleepy frozen burg of New Alms, however, Lucy quickly finds her assertive, domineering attitude at odds with the jovial, scrapbook-making, tapioca-eating, Jesus-worshipping town residents. Even more troubling is her constant conflicts with the local union leader, a tough but lovable single-father named Ted (played by Harry Connick Jr.). Over time, though, Lucy finds herself warming to her strange new friends (and Ted in particular), but when the new line fails, and the corporation demands the factory be closed, Lucy must decide what is more important: her friends or her work.

By now, you can probably easily connect the dots to figure out the ending, as well as every single possible plot development with the film, and therein lays the predicament. It’s as if the filmmakers simply tossed Notting Hill, Mr. Deeds Goes to Town, Welcome To Mooseport, Groundhog Day, You’ve Got Mail, Picture Perfect and Fargo (I’ll get to that part very shortly) in a blender and hit “goo-ify”. In fact, New in Town is so by-the-books predictable that had it been made in the forties or early fifties, and a variant of the blueprint likely was, it would’ve starred Doris Day or Jean Arthur. And still felt stale.

It’s hard to say whether writers Ken Rance or C. Jay Cox were attempting to add a touch of edginess to their floppy script by including blatant references to the Coen Brothers’ Fargo, or whether it was a last minute directorial decision, but either way it stinks. Not content to simply give all the characters cartoonish accents and cutesy-pie lines - which often recall Kathy Bates’ character in Misery - the filmmaker’s even cast an irritating Frances McDormand look-alike (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) in a carbon-copy role of McDormand’s Oscar-winning Fargo character. Hell, they even give her the same last name! (Gunderson, for those short of memory) Oy vey!

...And yet these self-conscious attempts to be endearing could be forgiven had the film bothered to come up with a single original idea. Even the romance between Zellweger and Connick Jr. is strangely under-developed and ill-fitting. She seems too prim and intelligent for him, while Connick Jr. just seems to darn weird and off-putting. The actor has a strangely unsettling look in his eyes, like he’d rather be hunting human beings for sport than romancing this adorably uptight cutie.

So, okay, the romance doesn’t work. But neither does the comedy, which relies on really awkward pratfalls and extended “naughty” comedy bits. Watching Zellweger furiously attempt to find a way to pee through a suffocating snowsuit is painful at best, while a bit featuring, ahem, the effects of cold air on a certain part of the female anatomy has the comic timing of a two-bit narcoleptic stand-up.

Regardless of its countless flaws, it’s hard to truly hate New in Town (although the use of “Walking on Sunshine” on the soundtrack pushed me ever closer!) due to the sheer good intentions behind it, and because of Zellweger’s effortless lovability. This is a square, junky, banal effort of minimal ability that will probably still manage to mildly entertain a certain demographic of middle-aged female viewers. But I’d urge that their friends, families and significant others would be significantly well-served in skipping Town.

2 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Feb. 2nd, 2009.