Jamie Alexandre Hall's Blog, page 9

Futureworld (1976)...A Bit of a Slog.

Once upon a time, the guy who wrote Jurassic Park wrote a movie called Westworld (on the same basic premise as Jurassic Park, except that instead of dinosaurs ruining a dinosaur theme park, it's cowboy robots ruining a cowboy robot theme park. This story was written long before Jurassic Park -- so, yes, theme parks breaking down was apparently a favorite topic of his).

And then, three years later, they made this movie without that guy's involvement, but starring Henry Fonda's son and Gwyneth Paltrow's mom. And thus, Futureworld was born.

"Or are THEM you YOU you you YOU?"The Premise: It's the 1970's version of the future. It's been a couple years since the "public relations disaster" that was the opening of Westworld (you know, when all those robots killed all those people). Well, they've rebuilt the entire park with fail safes and several different themes -- a "spa" world, a "medieval" world, an "ancient rome" world, and a "future" world. Hard-nosed reporter Peter Fonda, and (presumably soft-nosed) reporter Blythe Danner go to Futureworld to check it out -- and Peter Fonda immediately suspects something is wrong. He gets even more suspicious when it turns out that robots are actually the ones running the park now -- in other words, it's robots managing robots, with very, very little human involvement. It gets even weirder when the two of them are drugged and probed by the robots in the middle of the night. They have to figure out what the sinister secret of Futureworld is before it's too late...

You get the picture.The premise sounds kind of exciting... but, really, it wasn't. The film had a lot of problems. First of all... I'm not sure that I believe that they could re-open this park just two years after an incident where all the guests in their park got pulled apart by robots. BUT I'LL GIVE THEM THAT. I mean, we accepted that they would open Jurassic World despite not one, but two major incidents where dinosaurs got loose and publically killed tons of people, right? You have to give them that, because you can't have a sequel unless you accept that premise, so, fine, whatever -- it's dumb but we'll leave that alone.

However, there are several things that I can't leave alone. Namely:

1. The acting. Blythe Danner was all right in her role as "spunky girl reporter" -- but Peter Fonda (as hard-nosed reporter) largely had no expression in his face. (Did they mistakenly tell him he was playing a robot?)

Peter Fonda's expression during 95% of this movie. The glasses didn't help.2. The story. Okay, I talked up "the sinister secret" of Futureworld in my description above -- but, really, about forty minutes into this 1 hour 40 minute movie I had already guessed "the sinister secret" -- and after that point, it was kind of slog to get to the ending. There were lots of scenes of our heroes running through pipe-filled corridors... and that's about all. The film left room for a few interesting twists... which didn't pay off. Characters got set up in the beginning of the film... and then disappeared and never had a resolution for their involvement (for instance, in the very beginning, they set up this obnoxious guy who won a game show and therefore gets to go to Futureworld. I assumed he would be murdered by robots at some point... but no, after one point where we get to see him debating which of the robots to have sex with, he's simply never seen again. Not as in, "he was killed by robots so we never saw him again" -- just, "He just wasn't important, so we didn't write any other stuff for him to do.") Also, there's a story involving one of the few remaining humans that work for the theme park. It seems he has a live-in robot buddy...


... And since he's bald, and doesn't have a face, and it's stated that he was salvaged from the original park... it would have made an interesting twist if this turned out to be the Yul Brynner robot from the first movie. Right? If he pulled his face out of a bag, and there's Yul Brynner, the robot who killed so many people, now working to help people? But... no. That plotline doesn't really go anywhere.

Of course, that poster down below this shows Yul Brynner, right? I mean, he's bigger even than Peter Fonda -- so, somehow Yul Brynner has to make an appearance in the movie, right?

This is how they shoehorn him into the film:

At one point, the people running the park tell Peter Fonda and Blythe Danner that they have a dream machine that allows people to watch other people's dreams and record them and stuff! They try it out, and Blythe Danner immediately has a weird, sexy dance-themed dream about making out with Yul Brynner. She wakes up, and this whole incident is never mentioned again.

SO, IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THE ROBOTS AND DOESN'T FIGURE INTO THE PLOT. It was just an excuse to get Yul Brynner back into the film without actually coming up with a valid excuse for him to be back in the film. PRETTY LAME. If I had been a big Yul Brynner fan, I would have felt cheated. Heck, I'm not a big Yul Brynner fan, and I still felt cheated!

SO MISLEADING.3. The music. Now, at first I kind of liked the music, because I really like TV mystery shows from the 1970's -- which is exactly what this sounded like. Music from a 1970's made-for-TV mystery movie. If you've ever seen the failed pilot for Code Name: Diamond Head (a Quinn Martin Production) you know exactly what kind of music I'm talking about.


Of course, you might ask yourself whether that sort of music is entirely appropriate for a film called 'Futureworld' -- and that would be a valid concern. But, ultimately, the biggest problem was that the main theme was extremely repetitive and kind of began to get on my nerves after a while... so it didn't even ultimately work for someone who liked it to begin with.

4. Waste of Sets and Themes: Okay, they establish we've got a Futureworld, Medieval World, Spa World, and Pompeii World. We can probably guess that because the movie is called Futureworld (and not Spa World), Futureworld is going to be the main park featured. So even if the other parks are barely featured, we can expect a lot of "future" themed stuff, right? ... Honestly, I felt like we mainly got that in the first twenty minutes or so, and the rest of the film could have taken place in any resort, anywhere.

5. Wasting time. This movie's biggest problem, ultimately, was just plain wasting my time. Like I said, the "secret" was not a hard nut to crack... and after that, there wasn't a lot to keep me watching. Mr. Hall fell asleep. I opened mail and wrote some checks, and flipped through Better Homes and Gardens. But the most telling thing of all is that Mr. Hall wound up sleeping through about thirty minutes of this movie... and he really didn't miss anything.

So, ultimately, is Futureworld worth a spot on your shelf? Well, I guess if you love Blythe Danner or Peter Fonda, maybe. But Yul Brynner fans will be sorely disappointed -- as will fans of Sci-Fi, and of well-written stories. Probably give this one a miss.

Off the Shelf: Doctor Strange (2016)

So, we didn't feel like watching election coverage on the 8th of November, (didn't feel like getting excited or depressed) so we went to the movies instead -- and watched Doctor Strange. (SPOILERS in PINK!)

I'm not the biggest fan, but there will be no Cumberbashing.The Plot: Doctor Strange is an actual doctor; a famous surgeon, but also a smug jerk. He gets into an accident and his hands (i.e. his career) are destroyed. In desperation, he goes to Nepal and meets some mystic people who he thinks can help him... who gradually teach him to be slightly less of a jerk and gain his assistance in working against evil.

And they're really, really good at writing with sparklers.That's... the movie, pretty much. I more or less enjoyed this film -- more in some spots than others. More in the beginning, because I actually felt that the "origin story" part of this movie was the most entertaining part. When they got into the second half, which is the traditional Marvel "Extended Fight Scene"... it began to lose me a bit.

Here's what I didn't like:

1. The Mysticism: The mysticism in this film was heinously underdeveloped. If you're going to use Eastern Mysticism as the heart of your film, you really, really, should maybe read a book on Eastern Mysticism. Or even mysticism of any kind, for that matter! Read about meditation techniques, actual energy channeling techniques... anything. Because here's a pattern I've noticed -- every good story involving mysticism has a grounding in actual mysticism. Lord of the Rings? Tons of Catholic mysticism with a healthy dose of Norse Mythology. Star Wars? DRIPPING with Eastern Mysticism and mythological archetypes. Chronicles of Narnia? More Christian mysticism than you can shake a stick at.
Tilda knows!Whereas, Dr. Strange's training in the mystical arts was flying through a colorful screensaver -- and then reading books on the subject, off-screen. Those two things somehow gave him the power to channel such powerful magic through his body that he can teleport through space.

2. The Relationships: The relationships in this film were heinously underdeveloped. Dr. Strange used to date Rachel McAdams. They broke up because he was mean and selfish. He later... appears to feel kind of bad about that, since the one thing he treasures from his life was a watch she gave him that was engraved with some kind of "love"-type sentiment. He then hassles her for free medical care, and walks out on her. TWICE.

[image error] You know how important Rachel McAdams was in this movie?
THIS is the best picture I could find of her in it.3. The Mysticism... AGAIN: Okay. At the end of this movie, we find out that the wise elder who helped Dr. Strange learn to do magic was, in fact, DRAWING HER POWERS FROM THE DEVIL. Dr. Strange's sidekick, Mordo, is entirely put off by that, and leaves. And, you know what? That's an entirely reasonable stance to take. If I found out that the Pope was drawing his powers from the Devil (even if he was doing some transient good with those powers), I would be more than concerned, and probably leave the Church, because ultimately NOTHING GOOD COMES FROM THE DEVIL, even if it temporarily looks good. And they didn't touch on this problem in anything more than a cursory fashion. In the end, Dr. Strange resolves to go on using his magic (presumably from the same evil source) to go on fighting evil. Really doesn't make much sense.

4. The Humor: The humor felt as though it had been awkwardly shoe-horned into the script after Guardians of the Galaxy came out. Dr. Strange -- this humorless, angry man -- occasionally just throws out a pop-culture zinger (he starts randomly mentioning Adele and Beyonce at one point; again, nice pop-culture references your average 12-year old would get, but seem a bit forced to anyone over 12). It just... didn't work. I mean, Dr. Strange's problem is that he's a self-consumed jerk, and -- in my personal experience -- those people really have very little sense of humor. They just take themselves a little too seriously for that sort of thing.

5. The Visuals: I mentioned previously that Dr. Strange spent a while in this movie falling through a screen-saver. I felt as though I might have seen this screensaver before... like, maybe some point after it first came out in 1968:

2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) "Star Gate" sequence.
And the rest of the fantasy visuals in the film, I felt like I had seen previously in an extremely more recent screensaver: 
Inception (2010) "City Bending" sequence. 
I'll give it to the filmmakers that they took both effects a bit further than they were taken in the original movies... but I was still left feeling as though I was watching something I had already watched. (Because I HAD.) I'm honestly surprised more people weren't crying foul at the derivative quality of the effects ("We've seen it before!") but, I suppose all the 12-year olds in the audience probably haven't. 

My review up until this point probably gives the impression that I overall disliked the film -- but that's not wholly accurate. Here's what I liked:
1. Benedict Cumberbatch: I'm not really a fan of his -- in the sense that I go out of my way to watch his movies -- but I'll give it to Benedict Cumberbatch: he's a decent actor. He does have more charisma than your average modern Hollywood leading man. And in this film he was doing an American accent, which made him sound like Tom Selleck, which delighted me. (The drawback of that is that, when I mentioned this to Mr. Hall, we went off on a tangent about what an awesome "Doctor Strange" Tom Selleck would have been. I mean, just think of it!!) But all and all, I give it to Cumberbatch. He was good in this movie.
But I can't stop thinking about how awesome this would have been...
2. The Mysticism... For the Third Time: Okay. You might be wondering why I'm saying that I liked the mysticism when I just spent two paragraphs above telling you that I disliked the mysticism -- that it was underdeveloped, under-researched and underthought. Well, here's the thing... at least it had some. One of my biggest gripes with the majority of the Marvel movies so far is their strident attempts to remove any mystical or spiritual elements from their films -- even when it made sense to have some. (The "magic" used in the Thor movie is hidden under the blanket of, "You call it magic, we call it science." [And, presumably, "You call us gods, but we just call us really old people with excellent reflexes."]) Dr. Strange actually allowed the possibility that there is a spiritual dimension to life, which I highly appreciated. Hollywood doesn't need to be so terribly afraid of admitting that there might be more to life than meets the eye.
3. Story and Pacing: For the most part, the story and pacing were pretty good. As I said, for me it kind of lost it once we got into the traditional Marvel "second half of the movie extended fight scene" -- and then it felt like it ended kind of abruptly -- but I still had an overall positive impression from the film. I want to see more. (Although I also object to the fact that no Marvel movie can  just be a self-contained story... but that's an objection for another time.)
RECOMMENDATION : So, ultimately, do I recommend Dr. Strange for a potential spot on your shelf...? Depending on two things: a) that you basically like Marvel superhero movies, and b) that you don't need your movies to be deep. This move was pretty-looking (if a little bit dizzying... or, perhaps, nauseating, at times). It was a piece of light entertainment; mostly harmless escapism. So, I'd issue a tentative "yes" to that question. With any luck they don't jack it up with a horrible sequel.

The Star Wars Holiday Special (1978)... Is Unwatchably Great!

The Star Wars Holiday Special just might be the worst thing ever. And yet, I've seen this thing more times than I've seen Citizen Kane... I've watched it around the 17th of November (its original air-date) for the past twelve or thirteen years -- and had a few repeat showings as well.


Wikipedia: The Star Wars Holiday Special is a 1978 American musical science fiction television film set in the Star Wars galaxy. It stars the series' first film's main cast while introducing the character Boba Fett, who would appear in later films. It is one of the first official Star Wars spin-offs and was directed by Steve Binder.

This statement kind of avoids the wrap-around plot of the special, which is this: Han Solo and Chewbacca are rushing to get back to the Wookiee home planet for "Life Day" (the Wookiee equivalent of Christmas) and they run into some delays. Therefore, we spend the majority of the special with Chewbacca's non-English-speaking Wookiee family, waiting for Chewbacca to get home.

I will admit that I like the decoration esthetic at the Chewbacca family residence.They cook, they Skype some people, they watch TV, they put together Christmas presents. In the process, we run into such great Star Wars characters as... Trader Saun Dann! Ackmena the barmaid! And the ever-popular Chef Gourmanda!

Every kid had this action figure, right?This statement doesn't mention its cast of guest stars (including Art Carney! Bea Arthur! Jefferson Starship!) It doesn't mention the painfully unfunny comedy sketches (written by people who clearly had only the vaguest notion of what Star Wars was) or the fact that all your favorite heroes from Star Wars are in this two-hour epic for about ten minutes -- or that Mark Hamill looks overly made-up and bored, Carrie Fisher looks stoned, and Harrison Ford just looks angry.

That's Chewbacca's "Life Day" robe. As in, "If we put them all in
robes, we don't have to come up with full Wookiee costumes
for all the extras!"The mystique of the Star Wars Holiday Special, back in the days before the internet, was that it was a "lost" piece of television history -- George Lucas (whose name is on it but had virtually no involvement in it) reportedly hated it. I have heard that there are no remaining "official" copies, because George Lucas destroyed them. (I don't know if that's true, but it's the story. Please confirm or deny, Mr. Lucas?) He has previously stated that, "If I had time, and a hammer, I would track down every bootleg copy and smash it." The only way to see a copy of this was to track down one of those bootlegs -- likely, a copy of a copy of a copy, of one of the three to five original "taped off TV" copies.

That's it, folks. Why were only five people in the whole USA taping this? Well, remember, this was taped off TV in 1978. Most people didn't even have VCRs yet because they were prohibitively expensive. I believe my parents' first VCR, purchased somewhere around that time, cost $3000! 

(For the record, I don't know why they blew that kind of money [$11,426.33, adjusted for inflation] on a VCR. We weren't rich, or anything like that. I guess they just really, really wanted one.)

But anyway, my point is that there were very few bootlegs copies of this, it was hard to find, and therefore actually tracking down one of those "copy of a copy of a copy" copies used to be a holy grail of sorts for Star Wars fans.

That's why Weird Al was so excited to get a copy in the
"White and Nerdy" music video.The internet ruined all that of course, because now any joker can watch a first-generation, cleaned-up copy on YouTube. Which I guess is okay. I GUESS.

But if you do that -- I want to warn you, half the charm of the Holiday Special are the vintage, 1978 TV commercials spread throughout, which are hilariously dated. As a preview, here's the commercial for the special itself:



So, if you look up a copy on YouTube, either look for a version with commercials, or just look for the cleanest copy and then look up the commercials separately and watch them at the breaks. (Thanks, Collective Internet Mind, for making this possible!)

Anyways, I'm getting off my main topic, which is this: why, when I'm telling you that this is a HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE MISTAKE OF A TV SPECIAL, should you watch it?

Precisely because of how bad it is! It's hypnotically bad. It's cartoonishly misguided and displays very little understanding of what Star Wars was. And it's beyond dated. However, it's not enough to call this bad and think that it was the one bad apple in the bunch that was the golden age of television and just dismiss it -- watching this, especially with the commercials for other shows around it, makes you realize that this was the STANDARD in 1978. The commercials prove that point. In other words, watching this is absolutely vital for an intelligent understanding of the medium of television.

Of course, beyond that... after seeing it between ten and fifteen times, I've actually grown rather fond of it. Not that I now think it's good, but I still like to watch it. Call it Stockholm Syndrome if you will -- but our copy-of-a-copy-of-a-copy bootleg (copied off a VHS copy Mr. Hall got at a convention about twenty years ago) sits proudly on the shelf with the rest of the Star Wars saga. I really enjoy getting together with a group of friends at holiday time to relentlessly mock and tear apart the Star Wars Holiday Special. It's a Hall Family Tradition. So, please, join us today -- won't you?

For more reading on this subject, please visit http://www.starwarsholidayspecial.com/.

(If you don't have anyone to watch it with, you could watch it with the cast of Rifftrax [for $9.99]
Or watch a substantive review of it with the Red Letter Media Guys [for free].)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)... Part II: Old Characters and Lack of Surprises

PART II: ...AND THE RESTLast week, I talked about the new characters, but this week I'm going to talk about the old ones, and my main problem with this movie. Let's get right into it, shall we? 

(Spoiler warning: There are spoilers throughout the majority of this post. More so in some areas than others, so if you don't mind slight spoilers, just watch for the posted warnings.)

GENERAL (PRINCESS) LEIA


She's a "General" now (although I'm pretty sure "Princess" trumps "General" as far as titles go)... and apparently the main job of Generals is to stand around, looking concerned. Seriously, what does she DO in this movie? Does she make hard choices? Does she do any strategic planning? Does she lead a battle? No, she just has a few sentimental moments and hugs a couple people. That's it. She's just kindly Grandma Leia -- and if "Grandma" had been her title, it would have been fine -- but her title was "General", so there should have been a pay-off for that. (There wasn't.) If she had been left out of this movie, would it have changed substantially? No. The movie could have gotten along just fine without her. (Note: I'm not blaming Carrie Fisher. There's just only so much you can do as an actor when they don't write you anything to do in the script.)

CHEWBACCA
It was hard to find a picture of him without Han Solo.
Chewie? He walks around behind Han Solo. Why was he in this film? Because Han Solo was in it, and Chewbacca walks around behind Han Solo! "Everybody knows that! You can't have Han Solo without Chewbacca!" (Although apparently you can have Chewbacca without Han, but that's a story for another time.) But he's treated like furniture. 

A lot of people have complained about the fact that Princess Leia doesn't hug Chewbacca at the end of this movie. It's a valid complaint -- so valid that even the filmmakers retroactively agreed -- yes, Leia should have hugged Chewbacca at the end of the film, and not Rey, this gal that she barely knows. That scene clearly demonstrated that the filmmakers thought of Chewbacca (even though he arguably just went through a worse trauma than anyone else in the film) as nothing more than a walking carpet that needed to get out of the shot.
C3PO and R2D2
If they had just framed this picture and featured it in the background
in any random scene... it would been no different than their appearance this film.
C3P0 has a red arm now, which is the extent of his appearance in the film. R2-D2 is literally gathering dust in the corner but still has screen time, in spite of the fact we have a new robot that totally adequately fulfills the "Cute Robot" quota. (Okay, I get it. I know these two haven't had a good reason to be around since A New Hope -- their function was fulfilled, and after that, they were kept around for comic relief. But in this, they weren't even weak comic relief! They might as well not have been present! It would have been funnier if Finn [you know, one of the new characters who desperately needed screen time?] had been the one awkwardly interrupting Leia and Han's first meeting. R2-D2's function in the film could have been fulfilled by a post-it note.)

LUKE SKYWALKER
Luke Skywalker? More like Luke MacGuffin.
**heavy spoilers** Luke was more or less was completely left out of this film except in name -- and why? Because they wanted to focus on the new characters, that's why! And that's fine, if you're going to commit to that, but if you do, don't mention Luke Skywalker thirty times in the opening credits crawl! I spent the whole film waiting for this guy to show up, and when he did show up, it was extremely unsatisfying. There was even a really good place for him to show up which would have been extremely satisfying (remember when Kylo Ren and our heroes are lightsaber fighting for the first time, and there's a moment when the good guys' lightsaber is loose, and then suddenly it's getting force-pulled by someone... and it lands in Rey's hand, and she very improbably fights off this man who is bigger than her, stronger than her, and has years more training in both force use and lightsabering? Wouldn't it have been much more satisfying [and made more sense] if the lightsaber went loose, it got force-pulled -- and landed in the hand of Luke Skywalker? That would have been a thrill! People would have cheered in the theater! It would have implied that when he sensed, via the force, that his good friends were in trouble, he immediately hopped in a ship and flew down to help out. Wouldn't that have been ultra-satisfying as his first appearance? 

But no, instead, we're treated to a Luke who doesn't care about the plight of his friends and HIDES IN A CAVE LIKE A HUGE WHINY COWARD FOR TWENTY YEARS BECAUSE THINGS DIDN'T GO HIS WAY. By the end, I didn't even want to find this guy! And ultimately, if they weren't going to do a good reveal, they should have just saved his first appearance for the second movie -- instead of writing that very tacked-on scene at the very end that serves no purpose except to leave us with a shot of Luke Skywalker, which they felt they had to include after promising him so heavily in the title crawl. **end spoiler**

HAN SOLO
"Just doing this so they'll let me be Indiana Jones again, folks. Please ignore."
**horrible spoilers**Han Solo was the only one who served a purpose in the film, and if he'd been the only one to make an appearance, it would have been fine. THAT SAID, his first line when he sees the Millennium Falcon ("Chewie... we're home,") never worked. That just isn't something Han Solo would say! He would say something like, "That's more like it," or "Why the hell hasn't this thing been washed...?!" It should have been a cranky and/or sassy line, and because it wasn't, it demonstrated that the filmmakers were pandering to the feelings of the audience and not being faithful to the character. 

ALSO, I thought his death was horribly undignified, and I absolutely hated our last shot of his tiny, frail-looking body falling into the reactor pit or whatever it was. Not that I didn't anticipate it...

You'll note that my comment up there was "edited". And before you try to claimthat I retroactively edited in this line about Han -- I can show you the original, if you ask.
Edited for grammar only.In other words, his death wasn't even a surprise (except for being surprised at what an undignified ending they were giving, arguably, the most beloved character from the original films -- not to mention the surprise at how uncreative they were being. Seriously? You're that afraid to diverge from the original formula?) **end spoilers** 
THE MAIN PROBLEMS
But, ultimately, aside from all the problems created by having to give a few minutes each to all the old characters and not having enough time with the new characters ...here's my single biggest problem with this film: THERE WERE NO SURPRISES IN IT.


I'm not saying that you have to have a "I am your father!" surprise in every single Star Wars movie. Far from it. If you did that.... it wouldn't be a surprise! But a film should treat the first time you see something important as a kind of surprise, and build up to it accordingly. It's called story structure. There were important revelations in this movie that did not build properly because the surprise had already been spoiled earlier in the film -- or spoiled by the fact that the scriptwriters were clearly terrified to leave the structure of the original film, and therefore we already knew what was going to happen every step of the way because we already saw this movie in 1977.
The first time Kylo Ren takes off his mask didn't have to be a "surprise" (in the sense that you're giving us a cheap thrill by having him all weird and mutated under there), but it should have happened only when he first confronts Han Solo. NOT when he is interrogating Rey (who in this film is, for all intents and purposes "just some girl"). Seeing his face is supposed to have some kind of impact on us... and it has less impact, and less meaning, if he takes his mask off for just anybody. If he'd only taken it off for Han Solo, it would have seemed important, and further built up the impact of that scene. Expression worn during the first read-through.The first time Rey uses the force should have been when she force-pulls the lightsaber into her hand. NOT when she suddenly is able to use Jedi mind-tricks on a random guard (which didn't come across as a surprise, just as a cheap way for the writers to get her out of a tight situation). I mean, come on, folks. It wasn't a surprise that the light saber landed in her hand (except for the fact that I was surprised and disappointed that it didn't land in the hand of Luke Skywalker) -- because that surprise that she can use the force had already been spoiled by her use of Jedi mind-tricks earlier! So she can use the force! Big deal! She's so sad, because... something. It's meaningful, dammit!The first time we saw the new mega-Death Star should have been a bigger reveal. If we had seen the First Order (bad guys) massing on this random snowy planet... our heroes are running around out there, fighting bad guys... and then, when we least expect it, the freaking planet opens up underneath them and we realize, Hell, this WHOLE PLANET is the Death Star!! Wow!! ... That would have been a surprise, right? Instead, we are treated to zero reveal. The Death Star is first seen in a totally throw-away establishing shot that gives away the whole surprise, and it's utterly underwhelming. It's the greatest destroyer of expectations in the galaxy!The first time we see Han Solo -- was every bit as lame as I feared it would be, and therefore, no surprise. You and I have been waiting for this man to speak again for twenty years -- and therefore, the first thing he should have said shouldn't just have been to vocalize the feelings of every Star Wars fanboy upon seeing the trailer: "Chewie... We're home." This isn't kindly old Grandpa Solo, folks -- this is a scoundrel (see below). Granted, a scoundrel with a heart of gold -- but he's still a scoundrel, and his first line should have affirmed everything about him -- that he's still a loveable but dishonest jerk. That it didn't do that demonstrates bad scriptwriting.

The first time we see Luke Skywalker... was horribly lame. No surprises there! Rey takes off from the base (which would have been a good place for the movie to end, by the way) with the intention of finding Luke Skywalker's planet. She arrives at his planet two minutes later, and locates him immediately. They don't speak. END SCENE. Wait, what? Really? That's how you're going to end this movie we've been waiting for for twenty years? REALLY?! It's not subversion of expectations. It's not even a good lack of payoff. It's just... stuff happening. 

"I'm sorry. They didn't write me any lines. This is all I've got."
I could go on writing about things that didn't surprise me all day... but I think I'll stop here. You yourself can probably pick out a few things that failed to surprise.  But ultimately, "no surprises" is just a symptom of a much bigger issue -- the fundamental flaw of the new Star Wars: Weak scriptwriting as a result of a desperate fear of taking risks and therefore losing money. 

In the end, did I like The Force Awakens? Meh. It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it was far from being the best, either. It was resoundingly...




I only recommend The Force Awakens for your shelf if you're a Star Wars completionist, or in danger of dying from lack of nostalgia. Otherwise, you can probably skip it. (Watch Mad Max: Fury Road if you want a years-later sequel that builds upon the previous films and makes something even better! Now THAT'S a movie!)

Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)... Part I: The New Characters

Part I: Because There's Just Too Much For One Post**Major SPOILER Warning, so just stop now, if that's an issue!**
Just in time for the launch of the yearly Star Wars-shaped product, here's my review of the last one!

We just recently added a copy of this film to our shelf. I guess the idea was, if we own the originals and the prequels, we can't very well justify not owning a copy of the sequels, right?


And so we got a copy of The Force Awakens, and added it to our shelf, and we watched it. This, counting when we saw it in the theater, makes the second time we've watched it.


And you know what? Even accounting for the lowered expectations from a second viewing... It's still just a low "B" for me... maybe even a "C". I'll give it this: The treatment of the old characters was (mostly) acceptable -- at least they weren't called on to do things that were majorly embarrassing or wildly out of character (for the most part). I mean, they didn't make Princess Leia rap or anything like that, so I guess that's a plus. The special effects were fine and the acting was good. I like the new characters.

And then again... Let's look at those new characters.

REY A.K.A. Luke Skywalker... but a girl!She's the only new character we really spent any significant amount of time with... yet she's not the most interesting character. She's okay. She's acceptable. But she's no Luke Skywalker. I found her abrupt transition from "not knowing she had force powers" to "fully-capable of using force powers at levels we only saw from Obi-Wan in the first movie" rather cheap. Also, for a movie that felt like it thought it was too good to have "easy surprises" in it -- who is she going to turn out to be in the second one? They heavily hinted in this one that she was related to the Skywalker family in some sense... so is she Luke's daughter, Han's daughter, or Obi-Wan's granddaughter? (I suspect the script won't be smart enough to pull off an actual twist, where they heavily hint that she's related, but she turns out to be "just some girl" -- because movie franchises love to have characters secretly connected and related to each other. This is a pet-peeve of mine, and remind me to talk about it sometime). There are also rumors that she turns out to be the actual "one foretold in the prophesy" about "bringing balance to the force" --  which would render the first six movies absolutely moot.

FINN The best new character.This guy was stolen as an infant and raised from birth to be a stormtrooper... so he should have some major psychological issues to deal with. Raised (one would imagine) by robots, in a weird, cult-ish atmosphere? He should be emotionally jacked-up six ways from Sunday, and yet, he's surprisingly okay dealing with normal human interactions, like hugging and whatnot. Besides a slight tendency towards cowardice and lying, he really seems surprisingly well-adjusted, with a healthy sense of right and wrong, so... way to go, Evil Empire? Having been raised in an inhuman atmosphere, Fin would have been a perfect "fish out of water" main character for us, our window into this weird world... but he's shoved aside so we can deal with Rey's psychological problems as a result of abandonment (which, honestly, as a plot device, just feels vastly less interesting than Fin's potential problems). I suspect the reason that Finn couldn't be our main character is that John Boyega has a wiener, and Hollywood doesn't like those at the moment. (#It's2014).

POE DAMERON (aka Ian McShane)... is One-Dimensional Quip Man. He seems likeable enough, and could have served the "loveable rogue" spot pretty well. Might have even made a good main character, and definitely a good sidekick... but WE JUST HAD TO HAVE HAN SOLO BACK AGAIN. Thus, all Poe Dameron is in this film is a plot-device delivery system. If he had been edited out of the film, no one would have noticed. (Except Ian McShane. I mean, Oscar Isaac).


MAZ KANATA a.k.a. "That is a story for another time."
Sometimes you have a character who exists only to provide cheap exposition, and that's... okay. Sometimes that sort of character has to exist just to drive the story along. But if that's what she is -- don't treat her like she's the new Yoda. And don't build her up like she's this amazing, wacky new character, like a combination of Urkel and that scary witch from Dark Crystal, and then give me something that should be in the supporting cast of the latest cheap Pixar knock-off.
Look, I understand that it's hard to computer animate a character that has too many moving bits and pieces (although Michael Bay somehow managed it in the execrable Transformers movies. And yes, I'm saying Michael Bay got something right that the Star Wars people evidently couldn't manage. Maybe because Michael Bay spent more than six months developing his movie? Just a thought?) So, if you don't want to computer animate something that's too complicated -- don't computer animate it! They promised us this movie would have "traditional effects" -- so what would have been so bad about Maz being a puppet, or a little person in heavy makeup? If she had looked like that scary witch from Dark Crystal I would have appreciated this character a whole lot more. As it is, I just find her annoying -- and the combination of being annoying and being just a cheap device for exposition means, to say the least, she does not make my "best new character" list. (Also, for a movie that seems to abhor surprises... is there a cheaper surprise than, "Little person with big voice that doesn't match their looks!"?)
BB-8 A.K.A. flash drive case.This character is just a plot device -- and possibly the plot device I like the least, because BB-8 is one of the most blatant examples of, "It happened in the first movie, so we've got to do it in this movie, too. We'll just make it a little bit different!" In the original film: R2-D2 escapes to a desert planet with a vital piece of information for the Rebellion stored in his body. In this movie, BB-8 escapes to a desert planet with a vital piece of information for the Resistance stored in his body. (You see what I'm getting at? I'm not saying cute robots are a problem, just that it might have been possible to introduce them a little more creatively.) BB-8's role in this film could have been served by a pocket in Finn's jacket. In fact, they could have cut to the chase and just have Max Von Sydow (yes, gentle viewers, they have Max Von Sydow in this film. His presence is utterly wasted) directly give FINN the flash drive (say, in a very dramatic scene where the dying Von Sydow takes a chance and gives a nameless storm trooper this piece of hope for the future -- who is so shaken by the experience that he decides to defect), and a lot of time could have been saved and two unnecessary characters would have been eliminated!

KYLO REN A.K.A "There Is No Way Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher
Could Have Produced a Child That Looks Like This."
They make it Very Clear, from the beginning, that they are not going to pull a cheap "I am your father!" moment, revealing (and telling us like five times) that Kylo Ren is the son of Han Solo and Princess Leia, long before before Han and Kylo have their big confrontation scene that would have been the logical place to have that revelation.

Really, my main problem with this character is not that he existed in the first place -- just with the way he is written. Is he supposed to be our intimidating bad guy? If so, why is he throwing big baby fits? Oh, I'm not saying he wouldn't be scary to the people who have to work with him -- but he's not scary to US, the viewers. He's not cool. He's just a whiner. So, Leia and Han raised a horrible, spoiled child ("Don't spank him, Han! It'll harm his force abilities! Oh, now he's upset! Han, apologize to your son for upsetting him!") who defected to the dark side and now is a big, spoiled man-child for the new evil emperor, Snoke.

How am I supposed to feel about him? It's clearly not the wished-for happy ending for Leia and Han, so that's a disappointment. He's not a scary villain, so that's a disappointment. He's just a big whiney baby. Am I supposed to disdain this character and find him a big waste-of-space? Is that what you were going for, Star Wars? If so... why? 
SNOKE Okay, not really -- but might as well be. In fact, this would
have been considerably more interesting!
Snoke (it's only one letter off "snake", and snakes are bad and scary! GET IT?!) is another overly-simplified CGI monstrosity. No complicated moving bits here -- just a screen-capture of Andy Serkis. He's the new evil-emperor character, and I really don't understand why he had to be CGI. I heard that the filmmakers claimed that you couldn't get an actor to look that thin and old with practical effects, which I call B.S. on. EVER HEARD OF MAX VON SYDOW?! That thin, old man you featured for three seconds at the beginning of your film? He would have made a great evil emperor! Maybe a bit predictable as far as casting goes, but let's just say it -- having a CGI character played by Andy Serkis is the apex of predictability.


"It's like 'Smoke', and smoking is bad for you! GET IT?!"Rumors about who "Snoke" really is abound -- he might be cloned Darth Vader, cloned Evil Emperor, or the fabled "Darth Plagueis" (who might, or might not, be Darth Vader's dad? It's really unclear). Then again, he might just be some guy. Honestly, I JUST DON'T CARE! He's not that interesting! He's a dull character who had nothing to do in this film besides issue some vague orders and threats. Some people would call the character "subtle" -- but they would be people who don't know what they're talking about and read too much into things. This isn't Shakespeare, this is Star Wars, a series of films with clear-cut heroes and villains (except in the prequels, but that's a story for another time.) If Snoke had been removed from this film -- or, if we couldn't remove him entirely, if you only heard his voice -- it would have been one thousand percent better.

Well, that's all the important new characters. Next, I'll talk about the old characters, and my main problem with this movie.

Clue (1985): I Apologize to Everyone... But This Movie Sucks

I had seen Clue once before, as a teenager. I believe I rented it on VHS and watched it on my own, and was utterly perplexed by it. Well, it's been quite some time since I was a teenager, so Mr. Hall and I decided we would give Clue another chance. After all, a lot of people really like this movie. It's one of those movies, along with Hocus Pocus, that my generation and the half-generation slightly after ours seems to utterly cherish.

I mean, it does feature a cast of people who have been extremely funny in other films. And you know what? With a total open mind and a desire to be entertained (and a willing acceptance of the fact that we might have to enjoy this film in an ironic way, the same way we enjoy watching The Star Wars Holiday Special)... we watched the whole darn thing.



If you have ever played the board game, you know the basic premise of the movie -- a bunch of strangers are summoned to a scary house and then there's a murder and we have to figure out who did it. In the end, watching the film was... a very mysterious experience. As in, it was a mystery to me how so many funny actors could be in this movie and produce zero laughs.

This is a PAINFULLY UNFUNNY FILM. Watching this film is such a comedy vacuum that it actually subtracts humor from the other films that these actors have done.

Here's the first joke of the film: Tim Curry steps in dog poop. (For the record, the sentence "Tim Curry steps in dog poop," is funnier than the actual execution in the film). Then, for the first fifteen minutes or so of the film, the aftereffects of his having stepped in dog poop (as in, the next few house guests who show up smell it and check their shoes) IS THE ONLY JOKE.

Everything except the casting was wrong with this movie, so it's very hard for me to break it down, but here goes:

1. The tone was... bad. (To the point that I began to wonder whether this was actually a straight drama and it was simply mislabeled as a comedy. I could have been swayed to that train of thought had there not eventually followed a wobbly train of terrible, unfunny jokes).

2. The acting was... subdued and restrained, which was a highly questionable call in a film that purports to be a wacky, slapstick, fall-down comedy. (To the point that I began to wonder whether or not, before each day of filming, the director called the whole cast together and went, "I just wanted to notify you that things are going a bit poorly on the production side and not all of you are going to get paid today...")

3. The color scheme of the film... was all wrong. I'm trying to remember the colors in this movie, and I feel like I'm color-blind... all I can recall are muted browns and blacks. If you're saying that your film is too realistic to have bright colors... then you have entirely mis-judged the "realism" that a movie based on a board-game should have. (See point 1 above).

4. The comedy beats were all wrong. There were momentary gaps where there shouldn't have been gaps -- just a breath of air between the joke and the reaction, or the joke and the punchline, that completely ruined the timing. An example is in the famed "Flies are where men are most vulnerable" joke between Madeline Kahn and Martin Mull. Besides the fact that Madeline Kahn's delivery of that line was lifeless, there was just a hair too much of space between her comment and Martin Mull's response... and I'm a bit confused about whether I ought to blame Martin Mull, or whether this film was simply butchered by an editor who has no concept of comic timing.


There were only two good things about this movie -- the casting, because these actors should have been able to pull off this film -- and the concept. And outside the "multiple endings" part, the thing of it is... This film wasn't a new concept. It was a tried-and-true concept. The "group of people go to a scary mansion where a murder takes place" has been done a billion and a half times -- and better than this. Abbot and Costello did it ( Hold that Ghost! ). The East Side Kids/Bowery Boys did it (Spooks Run Wild -- full film on YouTube).The Three Stooges did it (When a Body Meets a Body -- again, full video on YouTube). Laurel and Hardy did it ( The Laurel and Hardy Murder Case . Again, this is the whole film on YouTube -- please watch it. It's extremely funny and it's only like 20 minutes long.)

And, most importantly, it was done about ten years prior to this film, FEATURING ONE OF THE ACTORS FROM THIS FILM (
Murder By Death Trailer.
I'm not saying that movie was a masterpiece, but there were laughs in that movie!

I don't know what else to say about Clue, folks. I don't understand why it has the good reputation that it has, or why people love it so much -- I really, really don't.

I returned my copy to the library with this note:

The People Under the Stairs (1991) - Full of Surprises

We went over to watch "Halloween"-type films at the Warren residence, and I was given three choices -- Oculus, It Follows, and The People Under the Stairs.

Well, the latter was the oldest of the three, so I chose that.

This movie was not at all what I expected.

All horror movies had to have a scary face over a house
on their poster for a while there.The premise: It starts out in the Inner City. A young boy (nicknamed "Fool") is stressed out, as his family is about to be evicted from their crummy apartment, and his Mom is sick with cancer -- maybe dying. He's pressured into a life of crime by his sister's lousy boyfriend, and goes out to assist with a heist -- the boyfriend is going to use Fool to case a house. That plan fails, as the strange woman who opens the door won't let him in. The other member of their team finally gains admittance by posing as a man from the gas company... and he never comes back out. Finally, Fool and the boyfriend break in --  and that's when things start getting weird. The door locks behind them, they can't find their way out, there's a vicious dog after them -- and when they finally find their compatriot who came into the house first, he's dead -- frightened to death...

This movie is extremely strange. First, it seems like it's going to be this grim, "real life problems" type movie (of the variety I hate. I watch movies for escapism -- not to be faced with real life). THEN, it seems like there might be some supernatural stuff going on (and, if you're me, you get kind of interested). THEN, there's cartoonish physical comedy (which makes you go, WAIT, what did I just see? Did that ACTUALLY happen?) And THEN, this guy pops out...


... and you're like, "Did I unknowingly take a handful of powerful hallucinogens right before I watched this movie?"

Adding to the dream-like quality of this film, the eccentric owners of this weird house are played by these two actors:

Real names: Everett McGill and Wendy Robie....Which, if you happen to be a fan of Twin Peaks, actually means something.

Be that as it may, I actually wound up being extremely entertained by this film. For one thing, I never knew where the heck it was going -- it just took so many unexpected twists and turns. For another thing, it switched up tones a lot -- which in some movies would be a bad thing, but in this film, it kind of worked. It did feel a bit 1990's-flavored at times (a bad thing)... but it got over it and got back to the story really quick.

Ultimately, do I think that you should have a copy of this movie on your shelf? ... I'm not sure. A lot of the entertainment value was simply due to not having the faintest idea what was going on. If I watched it fully knowing what was going to happen next, would I find it as entertaining? I'm really not sure. I need to re-watch it in about a year to find out.

In the meantime, though, if you haven't seen this -- and you're looking for a weird, entertaining new horror movie to check out this halloween -- please consider The People Under the Stairs. And then tell me what you think!

The Langoliers (1995)... Has Its Moments

I think I've already talked a couple times about how Stephen King adaptations tend not to work. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions to the rule (namely Misery) but, largely, they tend to be ruined by lack of access to the characters' internal monologues, by crappy special effects -- or by horror that simply doesn't translate to the big screen. Christine, IT, Children of the Corn... etc. etc. All hampered by these problems. Even The Shining, which most horror people seem to like, leaves me cold compared to the book.

Typical reactions to a Stephen King film: That's weird. That's kind of scary. That's scary! That's -- wait, that's dumb. It's just a giant spider?! What?!

Or the ever popular: That's weird. That's kind of scary. That's.... that's not scary. When's the scary part? Now, that's just rude, that's not scary. When does the scary part happen? I bet it's going to happen soon... Oh wait, that's the end of the movie. That's it?!

The Langoliers has these problems and others. And yet, I rather enjoy watching this film.

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It's extremely long, because it's actually a TV mini-series that (I think) ran two episodes -- so watching it is a time commitment. It does lag in spots. The things that this film does really well, though, are set up an interesting scenario and a weird tone.

The Premise: An ordinary plane full of passengers takes off for a cross-country flight. Mid-flight, a handful of passengers (all of whom had fallen asleep during the trip) wake up and discover that, somewhere during their naps, everyone else on the plane had disappeared. Even more concerning, they disappeared and left behind things they shouldn't have left behind -- like the money from their pockets, wigs, tooth fillings and pacemakers. There are all kinds of personalities amongst those left behind -- a seemingly psychic blind child, an ordinary school teacher, a hysterical businessman, a guy who might or might not be an assassin of some kind -- not to mention the obligatory guy who just wants to eat, etc. etc. Luckily, there is also a pilot amongst them and he lands them at the first available airport (coincidentally it's Bangor, Maine, home of Stephen King) where they get out and discover that everyone else in the world appears to have disappeared, too. As they try to figure out what's going on, they also slowly become aware that there is a strange crackling sound coming from over the hills... or maybe it's a munching sound...

Oh, and the businessman immediately goes insane, which doesn't help matters.Isn't that an interesting premise!? IT IS! It's a great premise! It keeps you guessing! It keeps you wondering what's going on! And there's a ton of drama that happens just in the interplay between the characters! But because it's a mini-series, the film isn't as tight as it could be -- it wastes a little bit of time setting things up -- and then, once things have been explained, they waste a bit more time giving our heroes a cool-down period where they think things are going to be okay. (Hint: It's not going to be okay. Well, not entirely).

Dean Stockwell still has some deductions to work on. (He's a novelist,
and therefore the smartest person on the plane. Really, Stephen King? Really?)
But the absolute worst thing about this film is the special effects. When we finally get to see the Langoliers themselves, we are treated to the worst CGI that I, or anyone else in the world, has ever seen (outside of Spawn). (Click here for spoilers). It turns a terrifying moment into a laughing-out-loud moment, which is really unfortunate. It doesn't entirely ruin the film, because it's still a great premise and there's some good acting going on in this thing, but... well... it's just unfortunate.

I have to get into some spoilers, though, to discuss my other problem with this film, so please skip the colored text if you don't want to be spoiled:

PROBLEMATIC MORAL SITUATION: All through the film, Mr. Toomey (the insane businessman) has been talking about these monsters called The Langoliers that his father used to scare him with. (Evidently, his father was not the nicest of people, and basically the one responsible for Mr. Toomey's insanity). Well, in the end (or almost the end), the psychic little girl uses Mr. Toomey to lure the Langoliers away from the plane so that they can take off. Mr. Toomey then dies horribly in the way he always feared he would. .... Hooray? Honestly, it doesn't quite feel like justice. Yes, he was a jerk and got people killed -- but he was also clearly insane, and not responsible for his actions in that sense -- they establish early on that in his eyes, all the people around him look like actual monsters. So, are we supposed to rejoice when this terribly sad, sick man suffers the horrific fate that he spent his life fearing he would? Even though he's been absolutely awful to everyone... you kind of feel sorry for him, and I'm not sure about whether that was the intention or not.

Anyways, despite these problems, I think that The Langoliers ultimately succeeds as a story and as a film, and that you should watch it... if you've got some time on your hands, and won't be absolutely turned off by cheesy 90's special effects. Recommended.

Friday the 13th (1980)... Ultimate Feminist Movie?

Friday the 13th! I wanted to watch this movie all last Halloween. We own a copy, so it seemed pretty certain that this would happen... except for the fact that our copy vanished. I went over our horror movie (slash Christmas movie) shelf a dozen times, going disc by disc, and the disc was nowhere to be found.

And then, a couple weeks ago our cat knocked all our DVDs off that shelf in a set of unrelated hijinx, and what do you suppose I found right on top of the stack in plain sight?

There it was, with dust all over the bottom of the case. So was it just sitting upside down on the shelf all along, and I kept missing it because the text was the wrong way? Is that all it was? No, I'm pretty sure it had vanished into some kind of vortex and chose that moment to pop out.
REGARDLESS, though, let's talk briefly about this movie, and how terribly feminist it is.
The plot is pretty well-known, so I probably don't have to describe it much... set of camp counselors waiting for a summer camp to open, and they get picked off one-by-one by insane killer.
Even Kevin Bacon.The thing you probably don't know is that this is a little-known feminist masterpiece -- even according to the famed Bechdel Test for movies.
In order to pass the Bechdel Test, a film must feature:
1. Two female characters,2. Who talk to each other,3. About something other than a man.
Guess what? Friday the 13th is lousy with this! (They do occasionally mention men, too, but they talk to each other and they all spend certain amounts of time talking to each other about things other than men. Like, the fact that they are all being murdered.) So, in brief, it passes the Bechdel Test.  
Now, let me just say, for the record, that the Bechdel Test is highly overrated. People treat the Bechdel test like it's some kind of hard-core scientific measure. But no. It was created by a comic strip. 

Does it really mean anything if a film fails this test? NO! Because a movie can feature strong female characters and make good points about women and still fail this test. Marion in Raiders of the Lost Ark? She's strong, independent and has clear, non-relationship goals... but that movie fails the test because she never talks to another woman.

And, most importantly, Can a movie pass this test and still be a terrible movie that exploits women in horrible ways? YES! A wholly vile, exploitational, all-girl snuff-film could pass the test! Thus, this "test" ultimately means absolutely nothing. 
So, if a comic strip can come up with a revered test for films -- let's come up with a better test in this blog, shall we? Let's call this the Alice Test.

This is Alice. She has goals. In order to be a good feminist (in the classic, Susan B. Anthony sense of the term) movie, it must feature:
1. At least one strong woman with non-romantic goals. 

That's it. At least one woman with non-romantic goals. (Whether or not she reaches this goal or the goal changes is a moot point; it can still be a successful feminist film even if none of her original goals are reached, because there is a thing called character progression which is important in films.)

And the film doubles its score on the Alice Test if it has more than one woman with a clear-cut, non-romantic goal. (I count at least three strong women with clear-cut non-romantic goals in this movie, so I'm going to say that the Alice Test has a maximum score of three. One for one woman, two for two, and three for 3+). Zero strong women with goals (or zero women, period) equals a Zero Alice Test Score.

(Which, I would like to point out, doesn't make a film bad. Is John Carpenter's The Thing a bad film because it features zero [human] women? NO! It's a great film! The Alice Test is a feminism-only scale and does not take into account the relative quality of the film.)

I guess The Thing could be female? In some sense?And guess what... Friday the 13th passes both Bechdel and my newly made-up Alice Test. This movie is absolutely cram-packed with strong, independent women with clear goals, who also reach those goals. It's also got a few girls who are silly and boy-crazy, but, you know what? If you didn't have a good mix of personality types, it wouldn't be a believable movie. 
Ultimately, that's what Friday the 13th is... a taught, relatively believable, entertaining horror film, about women with goals. And it's not as stupidly gory as the sequels that came after, so if you don't like wholly outlandish gore, you're probably safe. And it's not as stupidly stupid as the ones that came after, so if you like movies for their quality rather than their lack-thereof, you're relatively safe, too. And, in the end, I think it's good to have watched this movie for pop-culture-knowledge reasons. So, definitely, Shelf-Recommended.

Bedazzled (2000)... Should work, but doesn't.

Last month, Mr. Hall was away on business, so I wound up having some free time to myself to watching some movies. I wanted to watch something I hadn't seen before, and was vaguely Halloween-themed, so I scrolled down through my options on Amazon Prime, and came across two films -- Bedazzled, and Interview with the Vampire. I really debated which one to watch... until I noticed that Bedazzled was a Harold Ramis film.

"Harold Ramis?! Director of my favorite movie ever, Groundhog Day, plus Brendan Fraser, star of numerous 90's-era films I enjoy?! I'm in!"


Well, it... it wasn't a terrible experience. It had a few mild laughs. But it started out much more promisingly than it finished.

Premise (from IMdB): "Desperate to gain the affection of a beautiful co-worker, Elliot (Brendan Fraser) strikes a deal with the Devil (Elizabeth Hurley) -- a drop dead gorgeous woman with a wicked sense of humor. In exchange for Elliot's soul, she will grant him 7 wishes. But with each wish, he gets more than he asked for."

Brendan Fraser, nerd. Orlando Jones - not having it.So, the "more" (for which he did not ask) includes:

1. He asks to be rich and powerful and married to the woman of his dreams -- and is made a columbian drug lord with a wife who hates him.
2. He asks to be the most sensitive man in the world -- and is made into a wuss that the girl hates.
3. He asks to be a successful, gigantic, well-beloved, athlete -- and is given a tiny wiener.
4. He asks to be the President of the United States -- and is made into Lincoln.

Etc. etc. Only a couple wishes pan out into anything substantive -- the majority of the rest of the scenarios feel like one-note, one-joke. The scenarios aren't funny enough. It just doesn't really work, nor does the ultimate resolution. I mean, in Groundhog Day, the film starts out with Bill Murray being a self-absorbed jerk (imagine that), but, ultimately, the whole movie is about this guy getting less selfish and becoming comfortable in his own skin. And [spoiler] that's the resolution we're given at the end of this film! The problem is, the character Brendan Fraser plays isn't really a jerk -- he's just socially awkward and obnoxious, which don't necessarily seem to be qualities he's purposefully aiming for -- he just doesn't know any better, and tries too hard. If it was about him learning to be less socially awkward... Well, is that really a philosophical issue that God and the Devil need to get involved in? There is a minor twist in the ending which I won't spoil for you, which I guess was the part I liked best --  but, frankly, I found the makeup he has to wear during his various incarnations to be downright distracting.

Brendan Fraser with big nose equals Columbian Drug Lord -- or Ron Jeremy?I do understand it was supposed to be "funny" makeup -- but, for the most part, it was just gross. Brendan Fraser is a funny actor! Don't stick goop all over his face and tell him to act through it! It's not necessary! And it kind of just ruined these scenes.

Seriously. This is so unsettling. Please stop.
Guh!! I'm going to throw up!
I really, really liked the opening of the movie, because it was a great chance for Brendan Fraser to demonstrate his range. He's played a lot of "dumb likeable man" in films -- but this film starts out with him as a wormy weirdo who's strongly disliked by all his coworkers. He reminded me so much of several co-workers I've known that I wanted to grapefruit this guy.

FYI, this is a grapefruiting.

But, rather than continue with that really nice, really convincing character work, the film just degenerated into those cheap comedy skits. When our hero finally realizes that selling his soul was  a bad idea, it feels like a very abrupt turn around, because he hasn't had any time to emotionally mature in this movie. (I don't blame Brendan Fraser. He can only work with what he's given.)

All and all.... It was a pretty weak film. There were bits and pieces I liked, but the structure just didn't hold up, and they made some technical errors of judgement (the makeup. Dear heaven, the makeup!!) Not to mention that the philosophy they use (you have to get into philosophy when you're making a movie that features both God and the devil) ... was Star Wars-level (prequels, not original trilogy) and sends confusing messages. Satan is a kind, friendly lady, and God is just personified "Force":


Which all degenerates into a weak "evil and good are just two sides of the same coin" "ooooh heaven is a place on earth"-type philosophical wrap-ups in the end. Pretty lame.

Now, in the course of writing this, I did a little research, and discovered that Bedazzled was actually based on a 1960's movie (also called Bedazzled) starring Dudley Moore and Peter Cook. So, it could be that a lot of what I perceive as problems with this film actually come from directly from that, and weren't the fault of Harold Ramis. I don't know, I haven't seen it.



But, regardless of whether it's problems were created or inherited, it Bedazzled still has problems. Watch it if you love Brendan Fraser (he's got a handful of really good moments in this film), Elizabeth Hurley and/or Harold Ramis, but it's probably not worth keeping on your shelf.