#44: The Happening (2008) July 1, 2008
Posted by badblokebob in : Horror, Drama, Sci-fi, 2000s, 3 stars, 2008, M. Night Shyamalan , add a comment2008 | M. Night Shyamalan | 90 mins | cinema | 15 / R
This review contains spoilers.
While others have been lamenting the slide in quality of Shyamalan’s work since his breakthrough 1999 hit The Sixth Sense, I’ve been quietly enjoying most of his films since then. I liked Sixth Sense and appreciated its ingenious twist, but it was the fantastic real-world-superhero tale Unbreakable that did the most to cement him in my affections. Signs was another strong effort, an unusual perspective on alien invasion backed by decent family drama and a few good laughs, helped by the always-watchable Joaquin Phoenix and a sweet kid. On the other hand, it suffered from a stretch of a resolution, and that it starred Mel Gibson. His next was the The Village, in my opinion his biggest misfire thanks to a story disappointingly reliant on an easily-guessed twist, further undermined by a third act structure that bent over backwards to hide the reveal for as long as possible. Most reviewers seem to disagree slightly though, as Lady in the Water was widely panned. Personally I liked it, at least on the level at which it was intended, as a modern fairytale.
This, his latest effort, falls mostly in the middle of the road — a bit like a few of its extras, then. You see, the plot concerns the release of a toxin (from where, no one knows) that causes people to begin committing suicide en masse, by jumping off buildings, or shooting themselves, or a variety of other, more gruesome ideas. It’s in these sequences that The Happening is at its best — Shyamalan can still craft chilling scenes and effective jumps, even if their onset is obvious to a moderately seasoned film viewer. Unfortunately, the rest of the film is a tad weak. Mark Wahlberg’s performance is flat, John Leguizamo struggles to do much better, and Zooey Deschanel gets by in a kooky role that is by turns endearing and slightly irritating. The script is mostly passable, though occasionally heavy-handed, repetitive and clunky — one moment especially jarred for me, when in a middle-of-nowhere diner it seems one person’s dialogue has been split between two actors.
Shyamalan nicely keeps the cause of the toxin up in the air — though the most probable cause is first suggested fairly early on, other theories continue to float around — but with no last-minute revelation such juggling feels unwarranted. Instead there’s just a “it could happen again” final scene, that might be chilling if it weren’t so predictable. Part of the problem with the film’s central conceit is that it’s not very believable. Now, I know, being able to see dead people, developing superpowers or finding a mermaid-like girl in your pool are hardly realistic plot points either, but here it strays too close to the realm of “I expect you to believe this is possible” pseudoscience and so, unlike Princeton gardeners, my belief struggled to be fully suspended.
Ultimately, I’d rank The Happening as Shyamalan’s worst film to date. While it’s pleasing that he doesn’t force everything to rely on a final twist, the overall quality is variable — at least The Village had something going for it before the poor climax. The cod-science explanation feels like a big excuse for a topical eco-message, otherwise just being a basis to string together a collection of well-executed creepy sequences. Perhaps Shyamalan should stop trying so hard to come up with amazing new ideas and just concentrate on telling a good story. There are things to like though, enough to scrape the film into the middle of the road. Sort of the opposite to those suicidal extras then.
#40: Cloverfield (2008) June 16, 2008
Posted by badblokebob in : Documentary, Horror, Action, Sci-fi, 2000s, 4 stars, 2008 , add a comment2008 | Matt Reeves | 81 mins | DVD | 15 / PG-13
This review contains major spoilers.
Ah, Cloverfield — probably the most hyped “film no one knew was coming” since The Blair Witch Project, if not even longer, and the most widely-discussed marketing campaign since Snakes on a Plane (all of two years earlier). And then, in what can only be described as a surprise, it got good reviews. Less surprisingly, it did pretty well at the box office. Even less surprisingly, they announced a sequel. So far more Blair Witch than Snakes on a Plane, then. Of course, not all reviews were good, and with all this in mind I finally come to see it myself.
Cloverfield works. It has flaws, but overall it works. The opening 20 minutes set up the characters fairly well, though it does take its time. One would hope the idea is to increase the tension by delaying the monster’s appearance, but I can’t help feeling it’s probably just because they think they’re providing a great emotional background. Those who compare these bits to Hollyoaks clearly hasn’t seen that risible C4 pile of tosh — Cloverfield’s performances (largely improvised, at least in the early scenes) and direction are much better than that, even if the plot would probably fit snuggly on the teeny soap. I found the opening held my attention well enough, so one has to wonder about the attention span of those who switched off during it. The characters and their relationships may be archetypes, and consequently rather one-dimensional, but at least they show an attempt to make it more than a Big Monster Go Smashy Smashy movie.
That said, it’s when the monster turns up that things kick off. From then the film does a great job of creating an unrelenting chase/escape, drawing the viewer in with its first-person/eyewitness style. You’re never going to be fooled into thinking it’s a real thing that really happened, obviously, but it comes as close as it’s likely too. This is partly thanks to the camerawork, which I’ll get into later. The deliberate drip-feed of information about the monster is well handled also. Those expecting lots of exposition and answers have clearly come to the wrong film, and should perhaps stick to a more straightforward blockbuster. Those who complain that the monster doesn’t make sense, or the bug-parasite-things that drop off it make even less sense, are clearly missing the point — the characters don’t know what this is or what’s going on, so we don’t either; and it’s a sci-fi movie, so any number of explanations you care to put forward could explain things. There are a couple of misfires in this respect — the military’s willingness to explain their plan is unbelievable, and a shot of the monster towering over Hud is a step too far — but mostly it succeeds.
Talking of Hud, he’s come in for criticism, it seems to me for two main reasons: he’s not a great character, and he can’t hold the camera steady. Have the latter viewers ever watched home movie footage? Cloverfield does a spot-on replication of it, which naturally looks odd if you think of it as ‘professional film’ (where even handheld is only slightly wobbly). I challenge anyone to take a normal home video camera and put it through the same things Hud does and come out with any steadier a shot. Sometimes credibility is pushed by having Hud film other characters instead of the more interesting monster (surely where any normal person would point the camera), but it’s only an occasional and minor point. As for his character, he may be dopey, dull, and occasionally even irritating, but his purpose is to be the cameraman — if he were notably likable or, well, notable then you’d want him in front of the camera too. For the sake of the style, someone has to be behind the camera, and Hud’s a perfect fit. You get so used to him as the almost-unobtrusive cameraman that when he’s killed it’s very nearly an audacious shock, though it’s such an obviously audacious move that it’s predictable to most film-literate viewers.
Unsurprisingly, there’s not a huge deal of originality in Cloverfield. The monster itself may look different to the norm, but it stomps through the streets like Godzilla, the attack of its minions/parasites/whatever in a dark tunnel is a sequence we’ve all seen before (nonetheless, it’s effectively done here), and their chestbursting-like birth is obviously straight out of Alien (even if it’s toned down to a PG-13-friendly silhouette). Even the (in)famous handheld style has, of course, been done before. But in marrying all these elements Cloverfield creates something that feels fresh enough (pasting the first-person/handheld/eyewitness style onto almost any genre would give it a new angle, I’d imagine), and, for the most part, it both entertains and intrigues. It may not be quite Empire’s 5-star wunderkind, but it pushes close.
#73: Night Watch (2004) August 6, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Horror, Action, Fantasy, adaptations, 4 stars, world cinema, 2007 , add a comment2004 | Timur Bekmambetov | 110 mins | DVD | 15 / R
Urban action fantasy from Russia; the first part of a trilogy (though, apparently, film two wraps the plot up and film three will be made in the US, looking at a different part of the story). It makes for a pretty entertaining tale, with a neat ending that both concludes this film’s plot and leaves everything wide open for what’s to come. It also has some very snazzy subtitles (sadly only available on the two-disc DVD; I won’t waste too much space ranting about how crap the one-disc is here). If you don’t like Films With Subtitles, this one might surprise you.
#18: Nosferatu (1922) March 3, 2007
Posted by badblokebob in : Horror, adaptations, 3 stars, 1920s, world cinema, F.W. Murnau, 2007, silent films , add a comment1922 | F.W. Murnau | 81 mins | DVD | PG
One of the earliest and most-referenced horror films, and the first screen adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula (faithfully, albeit unofficially). With such a weight bearing down upon it I found it quite hard to watch it objectively, and so was mainly left with the sense that I didn’t enjoy it as much as Sunrise and that I’d rather like to see a fully restored version. Perhaps Masters Of Cinema shall treat us to one soon. Whatever one’s thoughts on it, it really is a must see for anyone into sci-fi/fantasy, horror, or (again) the history of film.