Evolution started its life out as a serious sci-fi/horror film about a hyper-evolutionary, extraterrestrial eco system that invades earth.When director Ivan Reitman took it over he rewrote the script and made it into a sci-fi comedy much in the vein of his earlier Ghostbusters.Like his earlier hit, Evolution is centered on a group of smart misfits lead by a laconic slacker who are tasked with a huge pseudo-scientific problem.Dan Ackroyd even has a cameo towards the end of the movie.
While the special effects and science fiction aspects of the movie are well-executed (it is actually a pretty cool concept which makes me wonder what the original straight version of the movie might have been like), the comedy elements don’t come together so well.This might have something to do with the weak script or the shtick of the incredibly unfunny Orlando Jones (he’s a funny guy but he’s workin’ his Eddie Murphy act way too hard in this movie) or the frequently annoying Sean William Scott.The leads, David Duchovny and Julianne Moore work out a little better.The movie seems to be fighting a loosing battle between a very droll and smart sense of humor and jokes about bodily functions.
THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Evolution’s saving grace is the quality and variety of its creature effects, which run the gamut from microorganisms to a goofy/ terrifying amphibian to a towering blob monster.The best one is probably the winged velociraptor-like creature that rampages through a mall.Also interesting are the blue-furred ape-like animals that represent the highest shown level of alien evolution.Apes are great subjects for monsters because they are so like us anatomically and when we see an ape that is fundamentally wrong it strikes a disturbing chord with us.
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Widely available on DVD.Has some deleted scenes, including an unfunny alternate ending.
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
The flier’s attack on the shopping mall.
SEQUELS
None.
SEE ALSO
Ghostbusters (1984)
TRAILER
Patrick Garone www.patrickgarone.com twitter.com/patrickgarone facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel
INDEPENDENCE DAY (ID4) (1996) Director: Roland Emmerich Genre: Sci-Fi/Disaster
THE MOVIE
I learned a valuable lesson from Independence Day. It wasn't that people of all walks of life will come together to confront an insurmountable foe, with only their faith and patriotism to protect them. It wasn't that extraterrestrials have an overarching hatred for national monuments. It wasn't that alien computers are compatible with Mac OS 8 and susceptible to computer viruses.
It was that you should never, ever, trust a cool movie trailer.
I came into Independence Day with very high expectations due a very good trailer that should off some very cool visuals and ID4, promised to be a modern update of an old-school invasion stories like War of the Worlds. The story looked like it had shades of the great 1980's minseries V, which also featured a fleet of massive spaceships parked over Earth's cities.
But writer Dean Devlin and director Roland Emmerich-who were not well known at this point-give the movie a wide scope but almost no depth. Independence Day is not really about anything other than people fighting with spaceships. I like to compare this movie to M. Night Shyamalan'sSigns, which is another invasion movie, but instead of being globally focused, Signs tells the story from the point of view of one family living in a rural house. There are only a handful of characters and you actually care about them. The characters of Independence Day are not really worthy of being cared about because they are simply two-dimensional avatars with simple relationships calculated to give the movie "heart," yet it has no heart. At best, the characters are archetypes (Cocky Fighter Pilot, Idealistic Young President, Good-Hearted Stripper) at worst, out and out stereotypes (Old New York Jewish Guy, Big Gay Mama's Boy).
The great visuals and set up are not supported by any ideas. There is no exploration of what it means that we are not alone in the universe. The aliens never reveal their intentions, they simply exist to be antagonists. This movie is science fiction in the most shallow sense. The sci-fi elements only exist to make the kind of big stupid disaster movies that the filmmakers seem to love so much. So Independence Day is a movie with neither heart nor brains.
It should be noted that this is one of Will Smith's breakout performance and the first of his many hit July 4th movies. It's really striking to see just how much he has grown as an actor since ID4. Thankfully, he no longer feels the need to constantly "work it" on camera like he does in this movie. Just look at the wonderfully somber and nuanced performance he gave in I Am Legend a few years back for comparison.
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
The aliens of ID4 were designed by Patrick Tatopolous, who also worked on Devlin and Emmerich's hated Godzilla movie and are cool if derivative. The exoskeleton is biomechanical and looks a good deal like Giger's Alien, with the addition of a series of tentacles that come out of its back. This armor is apparently vulnerable to being punched in the face. Sadly, we see very little of these guys in the movie and we don't really see how they move around. Do they walk around on the tentacles like Doc Ock? These guys were briefly popular as toys in the '90's.
Inside the exo-suit are little guys that resemble the "grays" that are prevalent in UFO mythology (especially in the 1990's). They are given flared, manta-like heads and iridescent skin and eyes but are otherwise pretty typical aliens. They do resemble the alien from Devlin and Emmerich's previous movie, Stargate, giving some continuity in the Devlin/Emmerich cinematic universe (such as it is).
MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE
I will say that there is an interesting detour midway through the movie where the main band of characters end up in Area 51. The movie has some fun working some contemporary UFO mythology into its story in an almost clever way. There is also a very fun cameo from Brent Spiner (Data in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series and movies) as a wild-eyed scientist who looks to have been locked in the facility since the 1960's. This is a great bit of sci-fi casting in what is otherwise an unimaginatively cast movie (Jeff Goldblum as ascientist? Where'd you think of that?)
HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY
Available on DVD, Bluray, and currently streaming on Netflix.
MINORITY REPORT
Verdict: The gay guy dies first!
So this movie pretty prominently features the pioneering openly gay actor Harvey Firesteinin a supporting role.While he never actually says that his character is gay, it not unreasonable to assume it based on his performance and the fact that the character has a stereotypically overbearing mother. So this character that a savvy audience will be lead to assume is "gay" is the first speaking character to die and doesn't get to party with Fresh Prince, Brundlefly, and Lone Starr at the end of the movie.
The message: Diversity is great! We just don't want you around when we rebuild civilization.
SEQUELS
None yet but then Will Smith's career hasn't hit the rocks.
Thirty years after the release of the classic movie The Blob, writer Frank Darabont (who would later do a series of successful Stephen King adaptations, including The Shawshank Redemption) and director Chuck Russell (who had previously collaborated on A Nightmare on Elm St. III: The Dream Warriors) released this brand new version of the killer slime movie, complete with updated gory effects for a 1980’s audience.Chuck Russell’s remake follows the original movie in the broad strokes, with many characters and situations which correspond to those in its predecessor.
It is again set in a small town—this time a California mountain town that is anxiously awaiting its first snowfall and the upcoming ski season.Kevin Dillon plays Brian—a young trouble maker who-with the exception of his ‘80’s mullet—could have ridden his motorcycle out of any number of ‘50’s youth movies.He even makes it a point to say, “I have a problem with authority.”We get it, Brian.You’re a rebel.
Brian discovers a local hobo who has come in contact with an object that crashed to earth in a fireball.The old man is crazed and his arm has a weird pinkish growth, which he is trying to cut off with a pick axe when we first encounter him.Brian comes across with another young couple on a date and the four go to a local hospital, much as in the original movie.Soon the blob begins feeding on the townspeople, growing larger and larger.
Lady Gaga tries out a new look for the VMAs.
The biggest plot difference in the two movies involves the arrival of a government team to contain the creature and we learn that this version of the blob actually is a government experiment that crashed to earth on a wayward satellite.The government is working to capture the creature alive and is spreading misinformation about a viral outbreak.The townspeople are considered expendable.In the original, the blob was an alien lifeform that crashed to earth on a meteorite and this new origin seems a little unnecessary.After all, if ever there were a believable movie alien, it is the blob.
Stylistically, a lot had happened in the thirty years between the two movies.The 1988 version of The Blob seems to have been informed by such movies as Alienand The Thingand the movie features an impressive level of gore and effects.The remake takes the horrifying idea at the heart of the story—an insatiable shapeless creature that suffocates and consumes its prey—to a more horrifying level.The blob is a great concept and there is a lot more room for development.It has been recently announced that there is yet another remake planned, this one directed by exploitation/horror director Rob Zombie.
He should have asked for them to make his Camarones a la Diabla "menos picante."
THE MONSTER/EFFECTS
Another controversial aspect of this remake was in its depiction of the monster, which is often seen forming “blob tentacles” which whip around its victims.Some blob fundamentalists have said that this is out of character for the creature and that it should always remain amorphous and incapable of forming appendages.This version of the blob is reminiscent of the monster from John Carpenter’s The Thing, which in its base form is also able to form simple appendages and orifices.
One thing that the movie does very well is show how the blob feeds and how it leaves its victims.There are lots of great shots of partially digested people floating around inside the creature.This blob is able to cleanly strip the flesh from people’s bones and seems to have a set of consistent and believable biological processes.
Kevin Dillon, after winning the "Sigourney Weaver from Alien look-a-like contest."
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
Like the first version of The Blob, the 1988 version has a scene set in a movie theater where people are watching a horror movie. The remake builds a little more suspense and has some more fun with the idea.First the blob creeps into the projection booth through the AC vent and kills the projectionist.Soon, we see the image on the screen begin to distort as the blob presumably works its way into and around the projector.Then the screen goes pink as the light shines through the semi-translucent monster.It’s a very cool sequence.
Sssssss! (1973) Director: Bernard Kowalski Genre: Body Horror
THE MOVIE
Can I just say that this movie has the best title of all time?I want to get that out of the way right at the beginning. I'm a sucker for onomatopoeia in horror movie titles. But there is more than just 1970's camp value in Sssssss! The first scene alone is genuinely horrifying, with two men carrying a casket-sized box up from a spooky basement and there is clearly something alive and struggling inside but you don't find out what it is until later in the movie. It's really a great and unsettling scene. Plus I think the guy who sold Richard Crenna's family the Devil Dog is the head carnie. Gross.
Much of the movie is a slow burn, as the mad herpetologist, Dr. Stoner, slowly transforms his new lab assistant, David, into a serpentine monster. Dr. Stoner is a kooky old guy who likes to get drunk with his pet snake. He and his majestically bespectacled daughter live in a an old house far outside town. Much of the house is devoted to a research lab in which Stoner keeps dozens of live snakes, frequently "milking" them for venom.
David is played by Dirk Benedict, who would later go to play Face in The A-Team and Starbuck in Battlestar Galactica. His most recent work consists of making strangely hostile and sexist comments about the re-imagined Galactica series. Here, he plays one of the most effete and passive heroes I have ever seen in a horror movie (well, until A Nightmare on Elm St. 2). He eventually hooks up with Dr. Stoner's daughter and the two have a nerdy romance. Sssssss! almost feels like a prototype of David Cronenberg's The Fly but without the great tragedy of that movie.
THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS
Sssssss! is not a particularly effects-heavy movie. Over the course of the movie we see David slowly transform into a more reptilian creature through make-up effects by John Chambers who worked on Planet of the Apes. We also get a glimpse of the fate of Dr. Stoner's first lab assistant, briefly glimpsed in the film's opening. We see the snake man in an old-fashioned carnival freak show, in one of the film's creepier moments.
What is somewhat disappointing is that the final form that David takes is not some snake/human hybrid but an actual Cobra. He literally turns into a Cobra like any one that you would see in the zoo. This is done through a pretty awful stop motion/cross fade/proto-morph effect. It kind of sucks that after sitting through the whole movie, he just turns into a big snake. In fact, some of the later phases of his transformation are much more visually interesting than his final form.
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT
The movie's creepy opening sequence, which manages to evoke a much different kind of almost Gothic horror than the light sci-fi tone which the movie eventually settles on.
