Pandemic (2016)

This week’s apocalypse is of the viral rage zombie type, though, to give the film its due, it is one that develops somewhat more like an actual pandemic in five increasingly horrifying stages. We’re in the larger Los Angeles area. After the fall of New York, things are getting rather desperate, with a few survivors holed up in a military base whose commander Greer (Paul Guilfoyle) is still trying to find a cure for or a vaccination against the infection causing what nobody in the movie calls zombie-ism.

We’ll be watching most of the film’s proceedings through the hazmat suit helmet cameras of Doctor Lauren Chase (Rachel Nichols) – for the last of the CDC and a survivor of what reads very much like the end of New York rather lacking in battle-hardedness as you’ll notice –, a traffic cop turned, well, gunner (Mekhi Phifer), con and driver Wheeler (Alfie Allen) and local guide – which seems to mean she’s able to operate a simple GPS device without it exploding or something – Denise (Missi Pyle). These guys are a freshly minted team sent out in an armoured school bus to try and pick up a bunch of survivors another team that’s missing in action has hopefully secured in a school. Obviously, things won’t go too well, and not just because Lauren has a wee little secret, Gunner’s a bit too battle-hardened, and their mission makes little sense.

Which really is par for the course in John Suits’s film, seeing as it features a pretty astonishing number of huge plot holes and thinly “it’s in the script!” reasons for much that happens in i. Or could anyone explain to me why Greer would risk his oh-so-precious final survivor of the CDC by sending her out only so that she can apply a simple test for the infection you could teach a monkey inside of five minutes? Or later on, how Wheeler finds Lauren and Denise again? Or how the film and the characters could forget a weapon Lauren and Wheeler will be threatened with is actually empty? Now, as my imaginary readers probably know by now, I’m not one of these people who are always nitpicking and spending their time watching a movie more interested in looking for mistakes instead of actually watching it, but some of these things are so egregious it’s impossible not to notice them. Most of them are completely unnecessary to boot. Would it have really killed the script to find a better reason for the doomed mission, for example?

Still, it’s not all bad. Particularly in the early stages, Pandemic promises a vigorous and depressing variation on the zombie apocalypse, with violence that actually feels unpleasant, and the proper feeling of futility. Unfortunately, for every scene of unpleasant violence, there’s another one where the film uses its helmet camera conceit to turn into a really crappy first person shooter for a scene or two, throwing believability and a consistent mood out of the window for a shitty action scene; and for every believable human moment given to the more than decent cast, there’s another one that is either undermined by the script’s laziness (or stupidity, depending on one’s tastes) or just a lack of imagination.

There are some good moments in here, but these are moments buried under way too much business as usual in zombie land and and a huge number of implausibilities and plain bad plotting, so I don’t think anyone should run out to see Pandemic.

In short: G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra (2009)

US soldiers Duke (Channing Tatum) and Ripcord (Marlon Wayans) and their team are transporting some frightfully effective new nano weapons made by the company of one McCullen (Christopher Eccleston armed with the Scottish accent to end all Scottish accents) when they are ambushed by a group of masked, futuristically armed soldiers lead by Ana (Sienna Miller) the woman Duke would have married if not for Traumatic Flashback happenings, though for practical reasons, it’s best to call Ana the Baroness from now on.

Fortunately, another group of futuristically armed soldiers – hey, it’s our heroes of G.I. Joe (among them Rachel Nichols, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Ray “Snake Eyes” Park) – swoops in to the rescue at the last moment and manage to keep the Baroness and her men from getting the nanomites (I’m so sorry, I didn’t write the script, though). Duke and Ripcord are eager to join up with the group, and they’ll have important contributions to make once it turns out that McCullen himself is actually behind the attempted theft of his own merchandise, the bad guys attack the Joes secret headquarters, and a lot of things explode while also ninja stuff and mad science happens.

Yes, yes, yes, I know, Stephen Sommers, the worst, did something unpleasant to my childhood, and so on and so forth but honestly, despite my general loathing for most of the films the man has made, I had quite a good time with what was the best movie adaptation of a toy I knew before I watched the sequel, though the film of course generally doesn’t come close to the mad awesomeness of Larry Hama’s classic comics.

Given the film’s toy pedigree and Sommers’s usual modus operandi, it should come as no surprise that G.I. Joe isn’t exactly on the clever side, but then it is based on the adventures of a oh so secret group of soldiers calling themselves G.I. Joe fighting an evil terrorist organization that’ll get official embassies once it has provoked the Joes into accidentally bombing them an island to annex, so I don’t think that’s something I want to blame Sommers for. For a single movie, it’s clearly best to stick with the whole franchise as a delivery system for loud action, explosions, ninjas, bad jokes, and random weirdness, and as such, it’s pretty effective, though I don’t think any of the actual changes the film makes to franchise canon is one for the better.

Sure, the action is not very convincing for most of the time but at least it’s crazy, and unlike the sort of stuff you see in a Michael Bay film, shot in a way that’s actually meant to provide its audience with the appropriate amount of eye candy. Plus, things explode and there are ninjas, underwater bases, mini-mech suites and stuff, so my inner twelve-year-old (and he’s the guy this was made for, I’m positive) was pretty satisfied with the proceedings.

Because why not, the film’s basically infested with actors who are utterly overqualified for the material (apart from those already mentioned, there are also Lee Byung-hun, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Arnold Vosloo and Dennis Quaid doing their respective things), most of them seeming perfectly willing to pretend it’s all perfectly dramatic and exciting, some chewing scenery like champs, some doing horrible accents, everyone buying into the silliness around them with perfect dignity, as it should be.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,action,sf,adewale akinnuoye-agbaje,christopher eccleston,joseph gordon-levitt,lee byung-hun,rachel nichols,dennis quaid,sienna miller

Things I Thought While Watching Conan The Barbarian (2011)

for it's really not worth a proper review. Yes, I know I've reviewed much worse films.

• Oh hey, it's another Robert E. Howard adaptation that has fuck all to do with the stories it's supposed to adapt. Now if it were at least good…
• The Hyborian age was so brown, people even bled a brownish hue. Remember when movies had colours in them?
• Wait, so Jason Momoa is Ron Perlman's son? I think that's the sort of situation paternity tests were invented for.
• CUT OUT OF HIS MOTHER'S WOMB ON THE BATTLEFIELD! EXCLAMATION MARK!
• Li'l Conan shows all the signs of becoming a psychopathic serial killer. I would not suggest forging a sword for him, but then I'm not Ron Perlman. Also, now I want to watch an all ages cartoon show named "Li'l Conan".
• Slow motion horsemen. I dunno how they ever manage to ride down anyone, what with them moving much slower than normal riders or people on foot.
• You gotta love how these war-like non-nomadic Barbarian movie tribes always have no defensive structures whatsoever at their places of habitation and always seem completely unprepared for any attack.
• Ron Perlman prefers death to being in this movie any longer. I do understand, Ron, I really do. The bad guy doesn't, though, so he just has to hold out for one scene longer. Say "War. War never changes", Ron!
• Is denositation a word? If it is, that's what Conan's good at.
• These barbarian tribe members all have fantastic teeth. Except for most of the bad guys, of course. I imagine time travelling dentists with high morals are to blame.
• Aha, so all the actual Howard stuff happened between little Conan shouting "Grraaaaar" and becoming Jason Momoa so that there's room for the crap the scriptwriter came up with instead of Red Nails.
• And now he's a leading member of a gang of hard-partying pirates.
• Conan is way too fond of decapitations for comfort. And of torturing people and then being a dick to them afterwards. I thought he was a Cimmerian, not an American.
• The Shadowlord? But which one? And where is Lord British?
• Conan has known his pirate friends since he was a child, but he only now mentions the name of the guy who killed Ron Perlman (and wiped out Conan's tribe, but that's obviously not worth mentioning). He's only playing to the camera.
• Hooray for martial arts monks!
• In a surprising twist, Rachel Nichols is actually allowed to be competent in a fight.
• It's rude to discuss the property rights to a woman in front of her. I think.
• "Woman! Come here! I said, come here!". That element of Howard they did not change.
• Stop the press! The big bad has a motivation apart from being evil!
• They're bickering and he's tying her up. Obviously, these two are meant for each other.
• "Why would you save me only to tie me up?"
• My incest sense is tingling.
• I think someone responsible for the production mixed up Conan and the Punisher.
• Exploding barrels! Why didn't I invent them? I'm sure I'd be rich now.
• You know, I'd totally watch a movie about Rachel Nichols' character having swashbuckling adventures instead of the one about Jason Momoa avenging his father in a very brown land.
• So Conan is a grunter during sex. Who'd have thunk?
• Obligatory kidnapping of female lead so we can have more scenes of Conan scowling and mumbling through his dialogue. Which is what this movie thinks is "being heroic and badass". Bored now.
• Why isn't this scene awesome? It has Conan fighting a tentacle monster below him and bad guys around him while also trying to protect a thief companion. There are cages and chains. And yet it's still not very exciting at all. I don't think Marcus Nispel is all that good at this directing lark.
• "Behold - in despair - your new master!". I wouldn't work as a henchman for this guy, but then I am something of a wimp.
• "Barbarian, I don't like you anymore". I assume when they taught smack talk in villain school, Mister Bad Guy did not attend.
• Dual-wielding broadswords looks dumb.

Technorati-Markierungen: american movies,in short,fantasy,sword and sorcery,marcus nispel,rachel nichols,jason momoa