jethro-17881

Hacksaw Ridge is a solid war film. It portrays the horrors of war, the chaos, the blood, the hopelessness and futility of it all. Its also shows the story of a man of principle who wanted to serve despite a misalignment of those principles and the army he joined. It looks mostly good, the acting is solid and the script mostly good too.

Gibson is a good director but he does have a few blind spots. Hawksaw has a number of them.

First of all there's a fine line between moving and cheesy. On a number of occasions HR goes from good war film to cheesy war film. The action becomes a bit silly, the behaviour of the players cartoonish, the portrayal of combat too staged and convenient to the story. Soldiers are crazy brave, like stupid brave, they bunch up contrary to the most basic military doctrines. The Japanese are silly villains without humanity who behave on the battlefield to serve the story little else; they are dumb, conveniently break cover to be shot or flame throwered, infact line up to be on the recieving end.

The first half is also a bit frought as the love story is just a bit too perfect, Doss and his wife to be are just a little bit much, their story feels contrived.

Gibson's other flaw is religion. He has a strong tendency to want to not just show his characters as religious but to be pushing it a bit much. Its central to Doss' motivation, I get that, but damn does Gibson lay it on thick. A soldier runs to Doss to give him his dropped bible after he's wounded, the whole company waits while he prays, as a child he stares intently at a 10 commandments cross stitch.... and more. I suspect it would be more effective if it was more subtle and nuanced.

In saying all that I did find the film genuinely moving at times and despite its flaws its solid. However people saying this is 'the greatest war film ever' have got it more than a little wrong (see Saving Private Ryan, Deer Hunter, Glory, Platoon, Das Boot and. Come and See - all superior by some margin)

Well, no, not horrible in a bad way anyway. To a point that is.

I'll admit to having a few reservations going into Alien Romulus. They were quite simple really; firstly the trailer showed a cast that was very young for some reason and that felt, based on very little info, a little manufactured.

Secondly it's the first Alien franchise film since Disney bought Fox and lets face it the House of Mouse hasn't had a great track record with existing franchises. Seems that Mickey and Donald seem less interested in study and bringing back and more interested in wiping them franchises out... Lastly there were a few elements that I recognised immediately as concepts or story line devices from the other films... I am proud to be a connoisseur of this franchise so it is very hard to make a call-back subtle enough for me.

Despite these I was always going to see it in theatres despite having a bad feeling about this drop. Not just because its an Alien film but also because Fede Alvares has made some good films and I thought it might be safe in his and Ridley Scott's hands.

So. The good news. Romulus looks great. A great deal of effort has gone into the sets, the effects both practical and CGI look (mostly) very good. The opening has a real Blade Runner feel and one gets real moments where its as if Ridley Scott's presence is behind the frames as you watch them. The sound and lighting were excellent. The feel of the film was desperate, claustrophobic, scary and tangibly gritty. Nice.

The cast does a commendable job. No weak links as such though it is hard for the cast to really jump out at you as individuals. David Jonsson is the highlight for me; as the synthetic... I mean artificial person... he owns every scene he is in bringing just enough of Bishop and Ash to the story while also having some really unique and different characteristics.

There are a few scenes that are very respectful of Giger's original creature design and I'll give props to Alvarez and his production design for effort made. The writers too have added some nice world building to give us a wider bigger scope of humanities presence among different worlds without going full Carl Sagan and tending towards a more realistic capitalism in space isn't really much different than capitalism in 2024 for good or ill feel. Anyone else for a lifetime of indentured servitude to Weyland Yutani corporation? I thought not but fun to see as a fiction. It will remind to question which species is worse.... Romulus also forges its own path in the genre. Is it science fiction horror, or science fiction action, or is it science fiction philosophy... Is it a stand up fight like Aliens or a bug hunt like Alien? Its more Aliens than Alien but with a Promethius slant that lacks the philosophical high brow writing and is more just in the creature designs and story devices. So solid, near full marks for taking a different course.

Now the bad news.

Romulus takes the existing lore and builds on it. Some of that building is... er, shall we say... off. Some is good - new elements founded on the original Alien and Aliens movies, and the Promethius ones too had me going. 'Eh??' And then... 'well alright that was pretty interesting.' But then there were ones that weren't so good. Not so good at all. I want this review to be pretty spoiler free so I wont give it a detailed analysis blow by blow but you will see what I mean. There was definitely stuff that I didn't like.

At times, not the whole time, Romulus felt like a soft reboot. There were many call backs to the other films and some of them so unsubtle as to feel like Kathleen Kennedy had impregnated the writers with a quota. (My mommy always said there were no monsters, no real ones, but there are and Kennedy is one.) They were way too blatant for me. Some were fine nuanced enough to get past anyone but the most discerning franchise devotee but others almost had me say 'urgh' out loud.

Like a lot of writing these days film did feel a little rushed at times - the creatures life cycle especially felt faster in this film than any of the others. There was no time taken to establish that the what was formerly a 'weird little critter' has now with time become a 'deadly big critter.' The same goes with the creature gestating inside a living human host only to have that gestation period be about ten minutes. Yikes! Why hang the hosts in the nest at all? Seems a lot of Xenomorph effort to me, why not just hold them down if its measured in just minutes.

So is Romulus worth it? Yes it is. If you like this franchise you will like this film. Like me you will have your criticisms but you should see it on the big screen as they mostly come out only so now and then. Mostly.

...this documentary seems very thin. Interesting but no where near the depth that the case and victims deserve.

The horrors of this well documented and well recorded series of crimes by this couple deserves better than a documentary that seems to be mostly interviews with experts, still shots of the family and victims and a bit of footage of Police press briefings and news footage.

My main criticism has to be related to its length; being so short it has little depth or insight, nothing that a reasonably active reader or studeious true crime consumer could figure out for themselves.

For those interested the book 'Happy Like Murderers' is a far more thorough, insightful and dare i say graphic account of Fred and Rose West's life and crimes.