Film Review - THE INFORMANT!

Almost precisely a decade ago Matt Damon, in The Talented Mr. Ripley, disappeared into the chameleon-like skin of a sociopathic serial killer who was intent on climbing the social ladder to wealth and high esteem, using words and sharp cunning to gain supremacy over his clueless victims. The genius of the performance was how it allowed the hungry young performer, still fresh off of being drafted into the Big Leagues with Good Will Hunting, to portray the most gifted of actors, a virtuoso master of drawing emotional responses from his audience through an intoxicating mixture of calculated subterfuge and inspired manipulation.

One has to wonder if there was a conscious inkling to re-explore that character-type lingering in the back of Damon’s cranium when he chose to tackle the role of Mark Whitacre, the paunchy, goofy-moustachioed corporate executive- turned-whistleblower, in Steven Soderbergh’s frequently too cool-for-school absurdist comedy, The Informant! Like Ripley, Whitacre is a deceptively affable and non-descript blank of a man who attempts to construct his own larger-than-life personal narrative by confusing and misleading those around him. He bases it on the crowd-pleasing novels of Michael Crichton and John Grisham, and that is what gives the film its own unique mad-ball spin.

Based on a true story — which informed the best-selling book by author Kurt Eichenwald — The Informant! doggedly follows the often bewildering exploits of Whitacre, an Ivy League-educated biochemist, who maintains a successful, if mundane, existence as a family man and top-ranking VP of the Archer Daniels Midland group, which specializes in the manufacture of corn-based products. However, as fate would have it, in the midst of a crisis involving a new virus strain depleting the company’s lysine stock, the shlumpy exec casually reveals to his superiors that he has received extortion demands from a rival Japanese corporation, who claim responsibility for the contamination.

Soon the FBI is involved, and the ultra-cooperative Whitacre, drunk with delusions of grandeur, decides to turn informer against his long-time colleagues by cheerfully divulging the details of a Byzantine price-fixing scheme to the special agents working the case, Brian Shephard (Scott Bakula — wonderful as a study in comic aggravation) and Bob Herndon (Joel McHale). Yet, as the scope of Whitacre’s story deepens, and the complexities of the situation mutate and multiply, the players, not to mention the audience, become trapped in an often incomprehensible web of false information and lunacy.

There’s a tangible aura of fidgety anxiety through much of The Informant!, as Soderbergh, a gifted talent unproven in the comedy arena, constantly battles to capture the dry zany tone which the Coen brothers regularly trade in, but is unable to ramp the movie’s energy level up past a casual amble. This is a film that cries out for screwball-level pacing to properly keep up with Whitacre’s intensely escalating tall-tales, but instead it just casually strolls, sometimes agreeably, often lackadaisically, from scene to scene without any sense of rising tension.

Soderbergh’s aesthetic choices are also puzzling and undercut the story with insecure tongue-in-cheek flourishes. Despite being set in the earlier part of the ‘90s, the characters inhabit a world decorated in ‘70s decor, and the cinematography intentionally paints the characters flesh-tones to match the copious amounts of wood-paneled wall units and furniture dominating almost every set. Perhaps it’s the director’s intention to capture the distinct flavour of the period’s paranoid thrillers, but instead of setting an evocative tone it feels distracting and precious. Likewise, bright splashes of neon Exploitation-style graphics and, most gratingly, Marvin Hamlisch’s obnoxious score, which plays wacky circus and spy theme music over moments of “humorous” tedium — a technique which is amusing early on, but grows infuriating as The Informant! meanders into its second act stretch and beyond — do little more than provide unwelcome jokey commentary upon the dense unfolding events. It’s frustrating to attempt to derive any sense of emotional fulfillment or intellectual engagement from a film that goes out of its way to deflate itself every time we become actively involved.

Nonetheless, despite Soderbergh’s hamhanded tactics, The Informant! is not without its gifts thanks to the jittery charms of Damon, whose Whitacre is a brilliant tragicomic creation, spouting a daffy ADD-fuelled stream of bizarre non sequiturs in his wittily unreliable narration. Surrounded by a gifted cast of comedy- trained actors playing it straight, the actor’s contagious relish in hiding inside this frumpy nerd-savant is astonishing to behold. It’s truly a kick to watch this venerable leading man let his go-for-broke character actor freak flag fly.

Damon is the life force of Soderbergh’s flawed effort, a dynamic (if impenetrable) force of nature that consistently pulls the film back from the brink of quirkiness-for-the-sake-ofquirkiness monotony. Indeed, the most curious irony of The Informant! is that, like Mark Whitacre himself, it overestimates its own cleverness in the face of great odds, and to regrettable detriment. Mr. Ripley wouldn’t approve and, unfortunately, I just can’t quite either.

2.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept 28th, 2009.

Film Review - JENNIFER'S BODY and SORORITY ROW

Considering the limited opportunities offered to young actresses working under the current youth-oriented Hollywood paradigm, it’s no wonder so many aspiring starlets wind up screaming for their supper. For where else, beyond romantic comedies, can promising talent find an opportunity to sidestep the Boys’ Club job postings for superhero girlfriends and comedic lust objects and achieve top billing in a boffo weekend-winning release? Strange then, that despite the ever-present supply of female casts and content, criminally few creatively inclined women in directorial or writerly positions, take the ultra-lucrative off-ramp into Terror Town. Due to the current release of duelling blood-spattered buffets, the genre is seeing its first true battle of the sexes in eons, with the hotly anticipated snark-a-thon shrieker Jennifer's Body, overseen by Girlfight helmer Karyn Kasuma and Oscar-winning Juno scribe Diablo Cody, facing off against the fetid Stewart Hendler-directed Slasher Sorority Row.

Although neither film is successful in crossing into the frightfully fruitful ground tilled and harvested by this summer's Drag Me To Hell, Jennifer’s Body comes closest to providing the worthiest BOO! for the audience’s buck. Featuring Cody’s distinctive hip-to-the-max vernacular (my favourite line featured a shock victim being referred to as a “Zombie mannequin robot statue”), the film is a quirky yet under-baked hybrid of horror hijinx, sharp-tongued ironic comedy and John Hughes-ian teen drama which never quite gels into the anarchic giggle-and-jolt fest that it aspires to be. Still, it is interesting to watch the gifted behind-the-scenes pair attempt to mine art from demon vomit and exposed innards.

Megan Fox, no stranger to type-casting, stars as a nubile High School cheerleader transformed into a ravenous succubus after a run-in with a mysterious emo band fronted by a mascara-wearing Adam Brody. Now a vampy, trampy carnivorous force to be reckoned with, making insta-meals of the school’s lusty male population, Jennifer’s lone opposition is her insecure, frequently trod-upon best friend, the appropriately nicknamed Needy (Amanda Seyfried), a saucer-eyed wallflower unprepared for the role of town saviour.

It’s when highlighting this friendship that the movie works best, as it allows Cody – who cameos briefly cameos as a burnt out bar patron – to delve into the cruel and combustible nature of self-serving High School friendships. Even when the disappointing deficiency of scares becomes apparent, and the energy flags, the two central actresses, deftly mastering the scribe’s snap, crackle and pop dialogue, keep the film from flatlining with their charismatic and recognizable, if not relatable, characters (Fox even gets to stretch intermittently beyond her standard porn-doll mode, nicely selling Jennifer’s tragic side). The film also gives Adam Brody and J.K. Simmons, as a hook-handed teacher bearing an unspeakably tormented past, hilariously rich comedic turns.

Unfortunately, while Kasuma has made a good-looking flick, turning Vancouver into a supernatural Gothic wonderland full of portentous forests and glumly desolate suburban sprawls, she can never find a consistently effective tone, with the movie’s final third becoming mired in mucky melodramatics. Ultimately, observing the film’s rickety structure acts as a sage reminder that horror-coms are tough ventures to pull off, and that for every Scream, Evil Dead 2 or Shaun of the Dead, there are a dozen noble failures like Jennifer’s Body lying by the wayside.

Still, Kasuma and Cody’s effort is a masterwork compared to the aggressively stupid and vile Sorority Row, a remake of 1983’s The House of Sorority Row, which features a gaggle of detestable young Theta Pi sisters, headed by Briana Evigan and Leah Pipes, on the run from a hooded tire-iron-wielding killer after a morally bankrupt prank involving roofies, date rape and murder goes wrong (What if it had gone right?!). Whereas Jennifer’s filmmakers attempted to find humanity in their archetypes, Sorority Row’s cast of characters are people you’d chew off your arm to get away from, a batch of hateful harpies and jerks whose only joys are spreading VD and viciously mocking each other’s eating disorders, sluttiness and cosmetic surgery.

Director Hendler captures these obnoxious women through jittery, bleary camera-work , like a drunk pervert’s leer, often cropping off his heavily made-up and grotesquely underlit actresses’ heads in favour of grimy, sweaty close-ups of their chests and behinds. The film also boasts one of the most moronic and nonsensical culprit reveals in recent memory and unimaginative, insipid gore. Only Carrie Fisher’s campy prescence as a shotgun-wielding denmother keeps us from bolting for the exit.

Oddly enough, while Jennifer’s Body knows exactly how to portray the playful pin-up girl sexiness of its fetching stars, Sorority Row stews in its misogynistic tawdry trashiness convinced that mean-spirited nudity equates entertainment. Watching the two back-to-back, it becomes head-slappingly obvious that, as far as trendy teen horror flicks go, there’s an awful lot that Jennifer’s creators and their ilk could teach their male counterparts, as films like Sorority Row make me yearn for a day when the Scream Queens rule Horror-land.

Jennifer's Body: 2.5 out of 5

Sorority Row: 1 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept 21st, 2009.

Film Review - 9

The best scene in director Shane Acker’s post-apocalyptic animated adventure 9 occurs in the film’s opening minutes, with the quiet awakening of its titular gear-powered hero. Hanging from one arm by a lean, weak piece of string, the fragile little creature abruptly breaks loose, falling clumsily to the worn wood surface of a workshop table. As he inelegantly pulls himself to his feet, tiny camera-lens eyes softly clicking and whirring, taking in this strange new world around him, there is a real sense of discovery taking place. This isn’t simply a collection of pixels we’re seeing stretch its tiny puppet-like fingers and cautiously zipping up its exposed abdomen, but a living thing who instantaneously stirs within us deep-rooted feelings of wondrous enchantment. Over the course of but a minute or so, we come to understand this curious diminutive being and become wholly invested in both his future and the mysterious universe around him.

If only the film’s screenplay shared our inquisitiveness and astonishment, we may have really had something special on our hands. Alas, despite the odd-ball beauty glimpsed in this delightfully involving introduction, new-fangled ideas are at a base minimum in 9, a visually rich, yet underwhelming spectacle that favours derivative action movie tropes and one-note characterizations over creative invention and depth. Perhaps we’ve been spoiled by Pixar’s apparently bottomless wellspring of artistic marvels, observed at its most potent mere months ago with the triumphant Up, but a film bearing the names of cinema’s premier fantasy goth-father Tim Burton and current hyperkinetic hot-shot Timur Bekmambetov, mastermind behind last summer’s Wanted and the Russian cult hits Night Watch and Day Watch, attached as producers shouldn’t feel so sluggish and, well, ordinary.

You can’t blame them for rolling the dice on Acker though, who attempts to expand his clever 10-minute Oscar-nominated short to full-length, giving “9” a voice through Elijah Wood, and plugging him into an adventure which requires the brave miniature “stitchpunk” – a term used extensively in pre-release press-notes, but unmentioned in the film – to battle a relentless horde of manufactured doom-machines for possession of a powerful life-giving talisman. Journeying over the war-scarred remnants of a decimated Earth, which was annihilated by biological warfare and towering War of the Worlds­-style walking weapons unleashed by a fascist dictator, “9” comes into contact with a handful of fellow “stitchpunks”, including domineering wannabe ruler “1” (Christopher Plummer), one-eyed survivor “5” (John C. Reilly), mentally scattered idiot savant “6” (Crispin Glover), and valiant feminine warrior “7” (Jennifer Connelly). Forced together, the rag-tag group of clothe-and-clockwork crusaders must place their differences aside and band together to trounce the massive marauding robo-octopus (which bears an unmistakable resemblance to Aliens’ towering queen Xenomorph) hot on their collective trail.

Acker fills his dusty movie wasteland with jagged shapes and ugly, crumbling structures, where only the faintest of light filters through the rusted scrap-metal ceilings. Indeed, there is an impeccable craftsmanship to the rich visual world of 9 which recalls the desolate ominous environments of the Mad Max films. Similarly, each of the “stitchpunks” has a unique look and feel to their design and motion, an achievement which helps surmount the flat and distractingly clean-sounding voice-work (a little distortion and grittiness would have felt more organic), and helps us differentiate them from one another when the chaos begins to reign. The clomping, stomping villains are also highly detailed constructions, bearing recognizable animal body-structures akin to spiders, cobras, crabs, pterodactyls and fireflies, and made up of revolting fragments of bone, metal, wire and junkyard refuse.

Make no mistake; as a pure exercise in animated design 9 works, and director Acker’s attention seems solely focussed on the most minuscule details – there’s a particularly chilling second-long shot into the front seat of a car, where the petrified corpses of a mother and child remain eternally locked in a frightened embrace – but he seems more or less ambivalent about the trajectory of his film. The plot meanders when it should soar, and never settles into an engaging rhythm (it’s never good when movie-goers are checking their watches in a 79-minute movie). By the time the admittedly well-crafted heartfelt ending rolls around, it was hard, even for this historically easy mark, to raise much more than an iota of warmth for these sewn-up ciphers.

Arguably 9’s worst problem, however, is that its near impossible to discern who the potential audience for the film is, as it is far too grim and intense for children, yet features a dull, shallow script and protagonists too juvenile for adults. So it remains stuck in a weird limbo, revealing dazzling bits and pieces only during momentary breaks in its formless storyline and impressive-but-wearisome action sequences. Despite good intentions, 9, like its cute central character, feels shabby and confused, a work-in-progress that’s escaped into the world before it was truly ready. Too bad.

2.5 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept 14th, 2009.

Film Review - HALLOWEEN II

Watching Rob Zombie’s 2007 Halloween re-imagining, it was impossible not to detect the pungent odour of frustrated flop-sweat emanating from the disjointed final product. While the first half of the film was a continuation of the gonzo hillbilly exploitation themes of the director’s schlocky-but-promising debut House of 1000 Corpses and its sick-in-the-head brilliant sequel The Devil’s Rejects, the latter portion felt like a reigned-in and creatively bloodless retread of Carpenter’s 1977 original. The result was a movie more laughably bad than scary, with the buck wild-lunacy of the Zombie-influenced early scenes of Michael Myers childhood utterly destroying the suspense of his climactic Haddonfield, IL. home-town murder spree.

Now, with Halloween II, Zombie appears to have been let off the leash, free to explore his own obsessions and eccentricities to the fullest without having to adhere to the mythology of the earlier entries. Indeed, with this film the director seems to seeking, feverishly and gracelessly, to transcend the entire Slasher flick genre and create an unsettling quasi-artistic minded study in post-traumatic suffering, evidenced by the juxtaposed mental decay of Michael Myers (Tyler Mane), now tormented by hallucinations of his deceased mother (Sheri Moon Zombie) and his younger self (Chase Wright Vanek), and his chief victim Laurie Strode (Taylor Scout-Compton), a scarred and emotionally rattled teenager battling schizophrenic visions and night terrors. This is unexplored territory in the franchise and, in theory at least, a fresh and intriguing approach to very creaky material. Sadly, however, Halloween II is an unwatchable slop-bucket of a film, filled to its grimy brim with incoherent editing, grainy, ugly cinematography, wretched performances and tensionless brutality. If there is a worse film looming ahead in 2009, I weep for the future.

Set mere minutes after the first film, wherein Laurie had blown most of Michael’s skull to paste with a revolver, we pick up with the blood-soaked, trembling girl being consoled by Sherriff Lee Brackett (Brad Dourif) and put through gruesome post-attack surgery (one of the film’s oh-so-rare neat touches), while the skull-smashed slasher is taken away in an ambulance driven by an inept pair of medics who ponder the finer points of necrophilia. After the vehicle is destroyed in a car-on-cow calamity, Michael escapes and pulls a Kwai Chang Caine, nomadically wandering the earth on foot (and growing a nifty beard in the process). In his Halloween: H20 review back in 1998, Roger Ebert queried how Michael survived between homicidal rampages. Well, Zombie shows us: he whiles away his time butchering obnoxious rednecks and devouring their dogs raw. Nice. As Myers slowly winds his way back home in time for October 31st, Laurie must confront the cause of her fractured psyche and prepare for another blood-drenched holiday.

Zombie has shown in the past a bitter spitefulness towards his critics and has this time found a mouthpiece for his aggravations in Dr. Loomis (Malcolm McDowell), Myers’ former psychologist who, having survived a vicious assault in the previous film, has become the glory-seeking author of an opportunistic expose of Michael’s eviscerating exploits. As the director’s film spins frantically away from him into a numbing black hole of unintelligible Marilyn Manson video-esque dream sequences - not to mention an aggravating extended cheat which recalls 1981’s own Halloween II - and misplaced 70s nostalgia (a black-and-white live performance of 10cc’s “The Things We Do For Love” apparently gets lots of airplay in Haddonfield), Loomis hurls insulting barbs regarding “journalists” and even resentfully yells that “I don’t think you understand what I’m trying to do here!”. Oh, we get it Rob, but it stinks.

Despite the movie’s lofty aims, all drama is sucked out of Halloween II by its tin-eared dialogue (Do kids really say things like “too coolio for schoolio” and “I’m starvin’ like Marvin”?) and feeble lead performances. While a bored McDowell often seems to be channelling his obnoxious Tank Girl villain, Scout-Compton, perhaps the shrillest Scream Queen ever, wildly overplays every scene, succumbing to endless fits of headache-inducing hysteria by the third act. A scene featuring a fateful revelation has the potential for true disquieting horror, but instead the actress thrashes around like a grounded mackerel and shrieks the F-word in endless succession. By the time we get to the overwrought climactic showdown in a dilapidated shack we yearn desperately for gunfire if only to silence the grinding cacophony of ear-splitting sound-effects and banshee-like screeching.

Sitting through Halloween II is a punishingly dull experience, where even the ferocious kills feel exhausted and mundane. In attempting to mould the series into a pretentious weirdo experiment Zombie has delivered a true fiasco which, fingers crossed, will inspire him to regroup and rediscover the sly wit and stylishness which made him such an electric talent in the first place. For the only mark Halloween II seems destined to leave is a greasy stain on theatre screens across the world.

1 out of 5

*Originally printed in SFU's The Peak: Sept. 7th, 2009.

Epi-Cast: Bonus Episode - "An Inglourious Supplement"

This is the 30-minute bonus spoiler-filled chat which occured after the last episode of the Epi-Cast. Continuing with hosts Cam Smith and Tom Wytrwal, plus special guest Kris McRonney, this supplement is intended solely for those who have seen Inglourious Basterds and would like to hear some deeper analysis into the flick. It's a meandering, occasionally frustrated, but all-around well-intentioned attempt at peeling back of the layers of Tarantino's wonderful film. Enjoy.

Again, if you haven't attended the movie yet, please don't download this mini episode. It can and should wait until after you checked it out.

To download, simply right-click and save on the green episode title above. Then you are free to indulge in the interweb's finest joys.

P.S. We are also available on iTunes! No guff! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, RITA-MORENO!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Net speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast". Avoid those nitiwt clowns.

Epi-Cast: Episode 17 - "An Inglourious Discourse"

Voltaire. Locke. Darwin. Kant. All great minds to be sure, but, to be frank, a bunch of dullards. Want a party in your ears? One which will tickle your frontal lobes and perhaps inspire the next evolutional step in mankind? Then download the latest Epi-Cast, which features two virtuoso rants from the very talented Mr. Wytrwal, rants which take human speech to a level of artistic genius never before thought possible. There's also the incisive rapier wit of very special guest star Kris McRonney, who helps the much-beaten-down Epi-Cast hosts crawl out of their post-summer funk and rediscover the magic which can only found in mocking crappy slasher movies and bowing at the altar of Quentin Tarantino.

Epi-Cast: Episode 17 - "An Inglourious Discourse"

Wherein Cam, Tom and Kris hoist up their fanboy flags (or at least 2 out of the 3 of them...) in support of Tarantino's stupendous WWII epic. Yes, I realize how dirty that sounds. Grow up, all of you. Anyhoo, they also review brand-spankin' new films both soul-molestingly wretched (Halloween II, The Final Destination, G.I. Joe) and angel-wings-dazzling wonderful (The Cove, District 9). Not to break the routine too much, Tom once again impresses with his takes on a pair of films no one in their right mind would bother taking the time to watch (Lions For Lambs and, um, Severed Ways). As expected, they also tackle the most glossy and shiny new trailers, providing pithy flash judgments on the new promo spots for Chris Nolan's Inception, Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story, Joe Johnston's The Wolf Man and the Grant Heslov-directed George Clooney comedy The Men Who Stare At Goats. It's one unholy chunk of an episode so big that it also required the recording of a 30-minute spoiler-filled discussion on Basterds which will be posted later in the week. Yowza. Enjoy people.

To download, simply right-click and save on the green episode title above. Then you are free to indulge in the interweb's finest joys.

P.S. We are also available on iTunes! No guff! Simply do a store search for "Epi-Cast" and, OTTO-OCTAVIUS!, you can subscribe to our feed and receive insta-dl's (Net speak for downloads). Oh, and we are the "Epi-Cast", not the "Epicast". Avoid those nitiwt clowns.

Film Review - THE FINAL DESTINATION

Despite being depicted as a doggedly pitiless and unstoppable elemental force, capable of dragging even the most wide-eyed and innocent of souls screaming to their horrifying and unavoidable final ends, Death sure does seem to possess a wicked sense of humour in the Final Destination series. While Jason may stab, Jaws may devour and Leatherface may chainsaw, Death seems forever fixated on crafting an endless series of the most creatively Rube Goldberg-ian fatalities possible. I suppose that, being immortal and all, Death must have an infinite amount of time to sit around, surrounded by pencils, calculators and graph paper, to figure out how a routine trip to the carwash can lead, courtesy of a broken antenna, faulty moon-roof and shorted-out electrical box, to a shrieking young girl facing certain decapitation (or at least brutal, flesh-pulverizing scoring.). Boredom will do that to you, it would seem. Now, are these efforts somewhat pointless? Pretty much. A tad too cruel? Certainly. Kind of amusing? Well, yeah.

Unfortunately, though, Death’s cartoonish machinations are the only thing keeping the fourth film in the franchise, stupidly titled The Final Destination (Does the “The” mean that we have finally reached the definitive final destination?), afloat amidst a sea of indifference and lethargy. Whereas the better series’ entries tapped into a certain interesting, if superficial, universal fear regarding the nature of mortality, and man’s anxieties regarding the uncertainty of what lies beyond the Pearly Gates, this latest entry feels more like a contemptuous pre-packaged compilation of kills than an actual film. Blame it on a non-existent script, which even stoops so low as to utilize a lengthy Next-style dream sequence to pad out its 81-minute run-time (Including credits, kids!) and gore-factor, or the obvious boredom of returning director David R. Ellis – who helmed the superior second entry – but even the added 3-D gimmickry can’t make this Destination feel any less mundane or familiar.

As we’ve already seen the splatter-tastic horrors associated with exploding airliners, fender mutilating traffic accidents and, um, broken-down roller-coasters (They were already running out of ideas with that one), The Final Destination introduces us to the grisly joys of a NASCAR rally race gone awry. Crushings: Check. Impalements: Check. Beheadings: Check. Mopey but fresh-faced protagonist (Bobby Campo) preternaturally envisioning the gruesome event before it actually occurs and then dragging his friends, including a few cute girls (Shantel VanSantern, Haley Webb) and one douchey jock-type (Nick Zano – a poor man’s Travis Van Winkle), plus a few one-note bystanders (Mykelti Williamson, Krista Allen, Andrew Fiscella), away from the impending danger *breath* before all havoc breaks out, thus throwing Death’s fateful plan out of whack and dooming the survivors to even uglier alternative demises: Check. A fresh approach to this timeworn premise: Well, four outta five ain’t bad!

Although sparkling characterizations and transcendent dialogue shouldn’t be expected, nor deemed necessary, to sell this type of material, it’s often confounding how badly The Final Destination falls on its face every time it calls on its actors to actually, you know, talk and express feelings and stuff. They sit around tables and living rooms spewing creaky exposition and having the exact same quarrels and freak-outs that the protagonists of the previous flicks had. You could literally erase the audio from the film and dub in dialogue from Final Destination 2 or 3 and it wouldn’t make a lick of a difference. Even more damaging is that this entry boasts the blandest cast yet, with star Campo blankly and droning on about premonitions, while the while the supporting players, appearing like deer caught amidst of blinding mass of headlights, weakly sob, squeal and vent. The only actor actually capable of delivering of any level of effective pathos, Mykelti Williamson, seems brought over from another film, staring gloomily out at the world through wounded eyes and tearfully reminiscing over his painful past. He also must endure the film’s ugliest scene, where a redneck creep calls him the N-word and attempts to light a burning cross on his front lawn. Now, look guys, I’m all for edginess in my horror flicks, but this addition felt mean-spirited and cheap. Frankly, screenwriter Eric Bress should be ashamed of himself for tossing it in there when an ounce of subtlety would have sufficed (Yes, I recognize the irony in demanding subtlety from a film that features a man being sliced, Julien style, into squishy pieces by a chain-link fence. Humour me.). And where in the name of Sawa is series regular Tony Todd? You know you’re running a dubious production when even Todd, star of the impending Hatchet 2 and Murder for Dummies, won’t sign on the dotted line.

Now, I’m sure that the past 700 words have mostly read like “blah blah decapitation blah blah cute girls blah” to you Final Destination fanatics (Do you guys have a catchy acronym or moniker yet?) and you just want to know how cool the assorted collection of death scenes are. Well, there are a few corkers, such as a nasty variation on the ol’ pool-filter-sucking-out-your-insides urban myth, a squishy trip through an escalator belt along with a number of icky-drippy moments during the opening NASCAR car-tastrophe. But unlike the first two instalments, there’s no sense of tension or dread attached to the CG ghastliness, as it seems Death has read the script and, like us in the audience, knows exactly how the pecking order works and whose jig is up next. A little unpredictability would go a long way, especially since the Real Doll© cast dilutes any feeling of increasing stakes. They, like the filmmakers, are just running through the motions in order to help the enterprise draw in some easy teen summer-movie-going cash. I should probably also add that this is the second film in as many weeks to feature an exploding movie theatre. However, while Tarantino, in Inglourious Basterds, fashioned a nightmarish inferno of cackling damnation, The Final Destination creates... an exploding movie theatre. Like everything else in the flick, it all just feels too little, and far, far too late.

If this franchise is truly determined to continue (and I’m not crossing my fingers for it to do so), significant reinvention is going to be needed to keep drawing the required bloodthirsty packs of dedicated fans necessary to warrant further entries. As a horror film, The Final Destination is toothless, as a 3-D gore-a-thon it’s underwhelming and as a work of suspense it is just plain laughable. The Grim Reaper deserves better and maybe next time, God willing, instead of being forced to dutifully prop up another tired retread, it’d be better for all involved if Death just takes a damn holiday.

2 out of 5

P.S. The Final Destination has the worst recreation of a movie-going audience in the history of cinema. It's akin to the Friends episode where the gang goes to the Hootie And The Blowfish concert. Have any of the people behind these productions ever attended a large-scale entertainment event with the paying public?

Epi-Cast: Episode 16 - "Hooray For Spherical Trigonometry!"

The people have spoken, and yet still it continues: the dandy old Epi-Cast has resurrected its musty corpse from the grave of harsh public opinion with (yet) another fragrant blast of high energy film discussion. Be it reviews for trailers you haven't bothered watching, or movies you wouldn't be caught dead paying for, hosts Cam Smith and Tom Wytrwal run the gamut, bravely and boldly, sacrificing only their dignity in the process.

Epi-Cast: Episode 16 - "Hooray For Spherical Trigonometry!"
To help preserve the sanctity of your hard-earned dollar, Cam and Tom have done the unthinkable and unnecessary; they've watched and contemplated G.I. Joe: The Rise Of Cobra. Now their heads hurt and they're gonna bask in its glorious/wretched (Cam/Tom) idiocy. However, not quite sadistic enough to stoop so low as to make the cinematic return of Destro their big review, they have instead selected the far classier District 9 as the main topic of the episode. Does it meet expectations? Is it the greatest work of science-fiction storytelling in the history of the universe? Listen on and find out, little buddy. Asides from those two main events, Cam gets his french freak on with the francais prison break thriller Anything For Her, while Tom weighs in on whether (500) Days of Summer is 499 days too many. As expected, they also take on the most anticipated of trailers, with commentary on James Cameron's small indie Avatar, Denzel Washington's post-apocalyptic The Book of Eli and the Jamie Foxx/Gerard Butler thriller Law Abiding Citizen. Did I mention they also discuss The Good, the Bad and the Ugly? Well they do, gawrsh darnit! So saddle up! And by that I mean click, save and listen. Yeehaw!

To download, simply right-click and save on the green episode title above. Then you are free to indulge in the interweb's finest delights.

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Film Review - DISTRICT 9

The aliens residing in the unkempt slums of Johannesburg’s filthy District 9 compound are curious creatures to behold. Gangly and Insectoid - they sorta resemble a questionable cross-mating of Independence Day’s octopus-men with Davy Jones from the Pirates of the Caribbean series – these foreign beings, referred to as “prawns” by the disapproving human populace around them, have spawned a firestorm of political and social commotion since being discovered, malnourished and exhausted, in their disabled gargantuan space craft over two decades earlier. Forcibly confined to a fenced-in makeshift prison located directly under the ever-looming shadow of their damaged ship, a permanent reminder of their inability to return home and escape their day-to-day earthly torments, the “prawns” while away their pitiful hours scrounging through voluminous trash-piles, visiting Nigerian prostitutes and attempting to scrounge up money to support their nagging fix for cat food – an addiction preyed upon by a vicious local crime-lord who has become convinced that consuming the aliens’ flesh will provide him with great powers.

The plight of these unfortunate creatures informs the early sections of director Neill Blomkamp’s intriguing new science-fiction action film District 9, a meticulously constructed Apartheid allegory. Taking a gritty cinema vérité you-are-here-now approach, the director’s heady mixture of flash, wit and grit does wonders for helping sell the authenticity of his alternate reality universe; where intergalactic visitors are as commonplace as stray dogs, wandering nonchalantly and uninhibited around the corners of the frame. So engrossing is the visual wonder of the first-time feature-film helmer’s alien nation that, even when District 9’s cerebral daring gives way to less-compelling pyrotechnic mayhem, our eyes remain hypnotically locked upon his dusty, desiccated war-torn canvas.

Before all hell breaks out, however, the film follows the somewhat-bumbling government bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe (newcomer Sharlto Copley), a jovial member of Multi-National United (MNU) who has been promoted up through the ranks by his domineering father-in-law. Tasked with leading a large-scale relocation program, which will transfer the “prawn” population to the inferior new District 10 refuge, Wikus, along with a posse of trigger-happy military escorts, enters District 9 as part of a poorly-planned assignment to collect signatures from the subjugated creatures okaying their own eviction. As fate would have it, though, one of his stops brings him into contact with a “prawn” called Christopher Johnson (voiced by Jason Cope), an alien scientist who has concocted a suspicious chemical substance with dubious properties and purpose. After a clumsy accident leads to Wikus becoming exposed to the mysterious aerosol chemical, he finds himself, much to his anguished dismay, dispossessed and alone, trapped between his own prejudiced society and the frightening and enigmatic world within District 9.

It’s in these early sections that District 9 works best, establishing a recognizable cinematic sci-fi universe through a mixture of fictionalized documentary “talking head” footage and revealing fly-on-the-wall peeks into the MNU team’s journey through the aliens’ pitiful dwellings. Blomkamp shows remarkable restraint in his effects, portraying his often amazingly convincing photo-realistic creatures in a mundane light, free of sensationalistic money-shots and unnecessary focus. Unlike most Hollywood extraterrestrials, the “prawns” actually feel, well, alien, as opposed to thinly disguised humans-in-CG-clothing. By film’s end, they still remain a mystery to us. Where are they from? How does their culture operate? How do they feel about their lowly status and human suppressors? It’s thematically appropriate that these troublesome questions remain lingering in the air after we leave the theatre; for how can a race collectively stripped of its voice properly answer them?

To the film’s credit, it also doesn’t go out of its way to make its human character particularly likable or sympathetic. While Wikus is our guide through the movie, he is portrayed in a number of differing lights: as casually cruel, jokingly describing the sound of torched and exploding “prawn” foetuses as resembling pop-corn, a loving family man, cowardly, friendly, selfish, loyal and, in one particular instance involving an alien ship, irritatingly stupid. Sharlto Copley, in his debut performance, bravely meets the role’s challenges, crafting a fully three-dimensional character whose Cronenburg-ian odyssey often requires multiple emotions portrayed within a single moment. Even when he’s only delivering an endless string of F-bombs, his un-mannered, improvisational style feels genuine and, most admirably, entirely professional.

Copley is so good, and Blomkamp so assured, that it’s difficult to not feel slightly crestfallen when, halfway through, District 9 transitions from thoughtful sci-fi parable into an extra-terrestrial-tinged Bourne actioner. Although the shoot-outs and explosions are skilfully directed and technically impressive, they feel remote and uninvolving. In establishing such a carefully modulated tone of realism early on, it becomes difficult to watch characters stand in the middle of intense warzones having heated arguments whilst bullets wiz around them without striking an extremity (or worse). As well, because Wikus has proven to be a somewhat unsympathetic protagonist, it’s hard to truly root for him during his far-fetched flirtations which action-star heroism, such as during an explosive break-in into a clandestine government facility and a climactic brouhaha featuring almost as many fiery detonations and skull-jangling sound-effects as Transformers 2 and Terminator Salvation (Though admittedly done much better.). In the end, the issues at the heart of District 9 just feel too complex and layered to resolve with gunfire and raining projectiles. Ending the film in this fashion robs viewers of the pleasures which a more honest and challenging finale would have provided.

The film, and Blomkamp by association, is also far too smart to be lazily relying on the sadistic one-note villains it uses to help fuel the drama. While Mandla Gaduka’s vicious Nigerian crime-lord is effective, projecting a terrifying level of frenzied, possessed barbarism, the same can’t be said about some key members of MNU, who seem to act cartoonishly evil for no other reason than to create obstacles for Wikus. Most annoying, it must be said, is the hateful mercenary Koobus Venter (a seething David James) who, like all standard bad-guy heavies, is irredeemably spiteful and, against all odds, survives just long enough to outlive all of his underlings and engage in a one-on-one showdown with the battle-worn protagonist before meeting a comeuppance of violent poetic justice. Venter would be better suited to a James Bond or Die Hard film, not a movie with ambitions towards breaking the mould of blockbuster science-fiction storytelling.

Despite its seeming preference for bombast and spectacle over perceptive social commentary, it’s notable that, walking out of the film, I felt more moved and affected by the film’s quieter, more emotional moments; Christopher’s horrified frozen reaction upon discovering the tortures inflicted upon his race, the small alien child picking through scraps outside his shack, the line of “prawns” lined up for food, an appearance of a small metal flower. It’s these parts of District 9, full of attention to detail and even subtlety, which make it a film worth seeing and remembering. Further, there’s also a tangible thrill to be found in watching Neill Blomkamp, a scrappy new talent on the rise, struggle valiantly and passionately with the material, his sights set, like District 9’s own dejected alien visitors, on the stars and beyond. Though his film falls short of achieving greatness, there are many joys to be found in simply watching him reach.

3.5 out of 5

Film Review - G.I. JOE: THE RISE OF COBRA

Remember those Hasbro G.I. Joe toy commercials from the mid-eighties? The ones with that hyper-active kid laying by a small, perfectly constructed, picture-esque stream, surrounded by a small fortune’s worth of 3¾ inch plastic characters and massive, ungainly, missile-firing vehicles, ecstatically spouting out combat noises (“KCH-POO!” “UH-UH-UH-UH-UHHH!”, “CCCHHHH-KUH!”) and smashing his beloved possessions through piles of small, see-through blocks? I know I do and, based on the evidence at hand in G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra, director Stephen Sommers sure does too, for he has crafted nothing if not the dopiest and most extravagant action-figure advertisement of all time. And I mean that in perhaps the best way possible.

Unlike Michael Bay’s bloated and insincere Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a tonal mess, which attempted to approximate adolescent giddiness through misogyny, mean-spirited violence and potty humour, Sommers' film is goofily earnest to a fault, illustrating an epic tale of good vs. evil with all the verve and intellect of a 10-year-old male subsisting on an endless nutrition-free diet of video-games, Saturday morning cartoons and James Bond and Star Wars movies. It’s the type of flick where Dennis Quaid can gruffly shout “release the sharks”, free of pesky irony or self-awareness, and clashing opposite-coloured ninjas icily refer to each other as “brother” (All the characters in G.I. Joe share freakishly coincidental interconnecting back stories, covered in countless cornball flashbacks which open and close with characters staring dramatically into space, which seem to imply that the screenwriters are huge fans of Paul Haggis’ Crash). Did I mention there’s also a robotic tracking device disguised as a fish? Or a jet which only responds to voice commands? In Gaelic? Well, there is, dammit, and although the film they’re haphazardly stuffed into isn’t any good by accepted critical standards, there is an almost admirable purity to be found in its aw-shucks, blow-em-all-up idiocy. G.I. Joe may be crappy and campy, but it’s also an almost pitch-perfect translation of the absurd, one-dimensional property which spawned it.

Rise of the Cobra’s story can be summed up in a single sentence: the good guys have to stop experimental metal-consuming nano-tech missiles from falling into the hands of bad guys, who would use them to take over the world. How or why is not important. What is of central concern, though, is that the main good guys are Duke and Ripcord (Every character in this film has apparently eschewed traditional Christian names in favour of bad-ass monikers.), played by a wooden Channing Tatum and, um, Marlon Wayans. They’re a couple of top-shelf army rangers who blunder and worm their way – rather easily, it must be said – into being recruited into the G.I. Joe task-force, an internationally made-up team of super soldiers operating from a secret subterranean base in the deserts of Egypt. Overseen by the crusty old warhorse General Hawk (Dennis Quaid), the team also features the silent ninja warrior Snake-Eyes (Ray Park), the British arms expert Heavy Duty (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje), communications genius Breaker (Said Taghmaoui) and the impressively pneumatic Scarlett (Rachel Nichols – doing her noble part to help single-handedly launch a new generation of young boys into the throws of puberty).

Despite being the new guys on the team, Duke and Ripcord are almost immediately thrust into leader-ship type roles, tasked with preventing the all-important WMDs from falling into the hands of the seductive, dominatrix-lite Baroness (Sienna Miller – wearing regalia that suggests that Victoria’s Secret may in fact have a separate catalogue for evil mercenaries), master-of-disguise Zartan (Arnold Vosloo) and the evil ninja Storm Shadow (Byung-hun Lee). They, in turn, are working for the slimy Scottish arms merchant McCullen (Christopher Eccleston – acting through an accent which makes Mel Gibson’s Braveheart brogue feel restrained), who is so uncompromisingly evil that he also employs a sinister deformed scientist named, simply, The Doctor (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), who has created an army of nano-injected, brain-washed mega-storm troopers. As these colourful baddies repeatedly clash with the no-nonsense Joes, by land, sea and air, for the fate of the free world, we are treated, in place of a story, to a continuous demonstration of the best computer-generated effects possibly imagined circa 1997 (this includes a cameo by a first-gen Coca-Cola™ polar bear). Certainly CGI Joe: There Will Be Explosions would have been a more apt title.

In spite of the often gaudily unfinished effects work, exemplified best by the expansive exterior shots, such as the sandy landscape outside the Joe’s base and the underwater sprawl of the villains’ headquarters, which resemble the shiny, polygon-rendered environments of a Turok: Dinosaur Hunter game level, the film’s action sequences still manage to build up a suitably enjoyable intensity. There is a chase through the streets of Paris featuring Duke and Ripcord, wearing Halo-like “accelerator suits”, and accompanied by a nimble Snake-Eyes and motorbike-jumping Scarlett, tearing after a multi-weapon-firing truck, that is impressive for both its scale and the stunning amount of collateral damage it accumulates. Later, Sommers’ rips a page from George Lucas’ Return of the Jedi playbook, with a ludicrous three-pronged assault on McCullen’s underwater base - which is seemingly still under construction considering the ever-present blow-torch wielding workman looming in the background of almost every interior shot - that includes two warring fleets of attack-submersibles (I have no idea how the Joe’s transported their forces to the Arctic – where ice sinks, apparently - so speedily), violent gun battles and a sword-slashing ninja mêlée. Heck, there's even a tacked on bit, with Ripcord chasing runaway missiles, that is an almost exact recreation of the climax of Moonraker. It’s goofy and unnecessarily violent stuff to be sure, but it’ll play like gang-busters to youngsters and those able to regress in maturity level for 120 minutes.

To Sommers’ credit, most of his actors are on-board with his cheesy vision, cranking up the lunacy of their performances to 11 and beyond. Quaid winces and frowns with aplomb (possibly reliving the traumatic experience of signing his three-picture contract), Sienna Miller vamps it up like a Hell’s Angels vixen-gone-wild and a gloriously flamboyant Joseph Gordon-Levitt croaks and guffaws through a death-metal growl. Rachel Nichols, whose Scarlett is the latest graduate from the Denise Richards University of Dubious Intelligence, spouts her inane pseudo-scientific dialogue with bubble-headed pep and jogs in a sports bra like nobody’s business. In arguably the film’s ultimate scene of coo-coo for Cocoapuffs logic, Nichols and Said Taghmaoui stick large electrical spikes into a dead bad-guy’s head in order to download his memories and make photographs from them. Yes. They then, utilizing a picture of a shadow as a reference point, pin-point the location of his headquarters by using “spherical trigonometry”. I felt like hugging someone when those precious two words were uttered.

When it’s all said and done, and the titular cobra has indeed risen (though, curiously, neither Nichols or Miller are responsible for this occurrence), and left the door gaping wide-open for the inevitable sequel, it’s hard not to feel a pang of desire for whatever stupid juvenile delights Sommers’ has left up his fromage-scented sleeve. G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is as synthetic as the butter on your movie theatre popcorn and as dumb as a Dolph Lundgren film festival. However, for sugar-addled kids or those seeking to relive the endearingly bald-faced tackiness of the original cartoon show, or, more likely, derive sardonic amusement from it, G.I. Joe is just the ticket for you. Sometimes, it`s nice to know that, just when blockbuster action movies couldn`t get any sillier, G.I. Joe is there. Yo, Joe!

*snicker*.

3 out of 5

*This review was sponsored by the good folks at Toys "R" Us.