Monster Movie of the Week: The Mist (2007)

THE MIST (2007)
Directed by Frank Darabont
Genre: Horror/Survival


THE MOVIE

For a long time, the idea of a good Stephen King adaptation was laughable. After a strong starts with Carrie. The Dead Zone, and (arguably) The Shining, Hollywood became saturated with rushed and crappy King adaptations in the 1980's. His reputation was rehabilitated with strong adaptations of some of his less overtly horrific works like Stand By Me and Misery, movies which often did not advertise their Stephen King origins. When The Shawshank Redemption was released in 1994, it was universally acclaimed and is widely considered on of the best films of its decade. Many were surprised that it was in fact based on a novella from King, as it lacks most of the traditional genre elements that audience expects from the author.

The movie was adapted and directed by Frank Darabont, who also had previously been known for his genre work, writing films like A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors, The Fly II, and The Blob. He went on to become a prolific adapter of Stephen King's work, with The Green Mile and, most recently, 2007's The Mist. The Mist gives us full-on horror Stephen King, in which a group of desperate survivors are holed up in a grocery store surrounded by a creepy mist which conceals all manner of horrible Lovecraftian monsters.

The best thing about The Mist is that it has a kind of elegant simplicity to it. It is a pure horror story about a group of people surviving an onslaught of monstrous foes and how they react as a group to survive. The movie smartly never definitively tells you where the mist and the monsters are from, you are with the survivors and only know as much as they do. Some of them speculate that some experiments at the near-by military base have gone awry and opened a gateway to "another dimension" but no one really knows and, to be honest, it really doesn't matter.




The Mist is also a commentary on human nature and we witness many of the survivors begin to break off into different factions and turn on each other. This works early in the movie as the film does a good job of giving us a broad spectrum of people and nicely underscores their differences in gender, race and social class. We see the societal bonds begin to unravel as the situation becomes more stressful but the movie really over-reaches in its second half. It goes a bit off the rails when the characters start actually openly discussing this theme. Also, the town's local religious nut, Ms. Carmody begins accumulating followers among the survivors. I don't think the movie really earns where it goes to with this character and this story arc seems to be go a bit too fast and is missing a few connections.



Darabont fans will see a lot of familiar faces in The Mist. Character actor William Sadler returns from playing a prisoner in Shawshank. You may remember Laurie Holden from her brief stint on The X-Files as recurring character Marita Covarubbias (The Unblonde) and she goes on to do Darabont's The Walking Dead. Jeffrey DeMunn has them all beat having appeared in Shawshank, The Majestic, and The Walking Dead.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the movie is its controversial and monumentally downbeat ending. I won't spoil it but will say that it aims to be very big and Dramatic. Perhaps too much so because it aims for big Tragedy, which doesn't play that well in a movie. Imagine the biggest and most tragic version of a Homer Simpson "D'oh!" and you'd be pretty close.




MONSTER/EFFECTS

There are a lot of nasty creatures in The Mist but we don't get a good look at many of them. Our first creature encounter is with a full fledged Tentacle Monster, which reaches in under a big loading dock door. We first see some fat tentacles, but we then see that they unfold into spiky appendages capable of ripping bloody chunks of flesh out of a man. In keeping with the movie's style of not giving us too much, we never actually see the rest of this creature.

We next see some large flying insects, which look like large mosquitos. The insects are pursued by some very interesting pterodactyl-like animals which have four membranous wings. Also in the mix are some very large and mean skull-faced spiders which breed inside human corpses and are able to spin webs which violently burn people's skin.

In the mist is also what appears to be a large mantis-like creature. Sadly we only see it as a hazy shadow and we never get a good look at it. The movie's best creature shows up at the end, when our small group of survivors are attempting to drive out of town, it is a truly unearthly creature like a giant dinosaur/insect hybrid with dozens of writhing tentacles. It may even be the original tentacle monster from the loading dock scene.



MOST MEMORABLE MOMENT

See above. I really like that the horror comes to a halt in this scene and the characters take a moment to experience a kind of awe in this scene. I love that there is room for a small moment of amazement. It really is a beautiful and unearthly creature.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available on DVD and Bluray. The deluxe DVD even features a black and white version of the movie.

TRAILER







Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: District 9 (2009)

DISTRICT 9
Directed by Neill Blomkamp
Genre: Science fiction/Body Horror/Action

THE MOVIE

A sleeper hit back in 2009, District 9 stands out as one of the best science fiction films of the naughts, with great special effects and performances as well as thought provoking themes that, like many of the greatest sci-fi films, feature a veiled social commentary. This movie was so well-received that it was even nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award, which is a rare feat for a genre movie like this.

District 9 was produced by filmmaker Peter Jackson and helmed by first-time director Neill Blomkamp. The two had originally teamed up to make a movie adaptation of the popular video game Halo but after that project fell through, the commenced work on a project that Blomkamp had been thinking about for a while, a story set in an alien refugee camp in South Africa, which would be an expansion of his 2005 short film, Alive in Joburg.



District 9 quickly establishes a faux-documentary style (which it abandons when convenient) and introduces its protagonist, the feckless bureaucrat Wikus van de Merwe, who comes across as an Afrikaner version of Michael Scott from The Office. The movie uses "archival footage" to show the aftermath of the arrival of a massive alien ship over Johannesburg and how humanity had cut its way into the vessel to find a population of starving insect-like beings, who were eventually relocated to District 9, which has become a squalid shanty town by the beginning of the movie.


Wikus is tasked by the giant multinational company that operates District 9 to obtain signatures so that there can be some semblance of legality when the aliens are forcibly relocated to District 10, a new, more prison-like settlement. The aliens, who are referred to as Prawns by the humans, are largely considered of sub-human intelligence (it is speculated by the humans that they were the ship's workers and subservient to another group of aliens, unseen in the movie) and are mostly uneducated and easily manipulated (they have a strange obsession with catfood). However, the movie soon introduces us to the alien known as Christopher Johnson and his young son. Christopher, unlike most of the other aliens, can read and reason and has been toiling away on a secret project involving a mysterious cylinder filled with an unknown substance.

When Wikus comes across this cylinder while doing his rounds, it sprays him in the face and initiates a transformation that recalls that of Jeff Goldblum in The Fly. Wikus' hand suddenly begins to change into something resembling one of the prawns and he soon finds himself on the run from the government and his former corporate employers. He turns to the only place where he can hide: District 9.

Arriving at the shack of Christopher Johnson, Wikus learns that the cylinder is the missing component of the long lost command capsule that will allow Johnson to return to the alien ship and escape from the Earth with his son. He also promises that, once on the ship, he will be able to treat Wikus and reverse his transformation.

Needless to say, things don't go as planned. District 9 really kicks up the action in its last act, almost jarringly so for those who had been previously invested in the movie's heavy themes and interesting characters. The ending is fairly open-ended, and there's plenty of room for a sequel or two. District 9 is a great movie, although there are some story things that don't make a whole lot of sense, like who being sprayed in the face with fuel would change one into a totally different species or the mysterious disappearance of the beings that were actually running the ship, conveniently leaving behind these "primitive" creatures or how the alien ship is not crawling with human technicians when Johnson arrives on it.

The movie takes what could have been a very heavy handed analogy-the Prawns as proxies for black South Africans during apartheid-and deftly creates a story that stands on its own but feels very rooted in our world. Like the fantastic Alfonso Cuaron movie, Children of Men or Duncan Jones' amazing Moon, District 9, takes the world that we live in, adds a sci-fi premise and extrapolates a believable future from it. Corporate exploitation, poverty, tribalism, these things are all fodder for District 9 and, even without the inconsistent documentary style, make it feel like something that could actually happen.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

Where the movie really shines is the realization of the prawns both in design and characterization. Despite the fact that he is a revolting bug moo-cap creature, I actually found myself deeply invested in Christopher and by the end of the movie I was very concerned about his fate. His relationship with his small son is quite touching and provides a nice emotional hook allowing the audience to empathize for the rather alien-looking prawns.



Designwise, the prawns are pretty good creatures and mostly avoid the "Cloverfield trap" of creature design, which is to make monsters into incomprehensible wasp-waisted hodgepodges of different scary animals. The prawns are a pretty coherent design and not overly complicated, so that you can take a quick look at them and understand how they work. They are bipedal insectoids, seemingly with a chitinous exoskeleton, and generally of human height or taller.

They possess a pair of large antennae on their heads which are covered in movable plate-like scales, which allow them a good amount of recognizable facial expression. Unlike most arthropods, they posses lensed eyes with a distinct pupil, a design decision that makes them easier to relate to than, say, more bug-like compound eyes. Instead of jaws or mandibles, they have a set of short tentacle-like organs that presumably hang in front of their mouths. The prawns do not speak English in the movie but in their own alien language of clicking sounds. Their dialogue is subtitled for the audience and understood by the human characters who are trained to interact with them.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

During the movie's climax, there is a harrowing sequence in which Christopher Johnson has to race to the crashed command capsule where his son is waiting for him. By this point, I was so invested in this relationship that I was practically cheering for him to get to his son in one piece. And I really hate bugs.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

District 9 is widely available on DVD and Bluray. The Bluray transfer is really nice and brings out a ton of detail, really showing this movie off in its squalid glory. The movie has also been available on-and-off for Netflix streaming.

SEE ALSO

Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011) is another tale of man's relationship to a mistreated, non-human "other" which also features amazing mo-cap/CGI characters that are far more compelling than the humans in the movie.

THE TRAILER




Patrick Garone
Follow Me On Twitter
Author of City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl

Monster Movie of the Week: Alien VS Predator (2004)

ALIEN VS PREDATOR (2004)
Director: Paul Anderson
Genre: Sci-Fi/Survival Horror

THE MOVIE

The AVP concept goes back to the 1980’s when Dark Horse comics created a series of cross-overs using both the Alien and Predator licenses (of which they had been running successful comics series). The original story was set around the time of the Alien movies on a distant colony planet. It established that the Predator race kept the Aliens in captivity to be unleashed on distant planets to be hunted as part of their coming of age rituals. In the original comic, a group of human colonists are caught in the middle of the struggle and a lone female colonist teams up with a surviving Predator to destroy the Alien menace.

This was a very cool and exciting combination in the late 1980’s and spawned a slew of similar concepts featuring unlikely comics cross-overs (such as Robocop Vs. Terminator, Batman Vs. Predator, Superman Vs. Aliens, etc) and fans wondered if we would ever see a movie of AVP. We got a tantalizing hint at the end of 1990’s Predator 2 which featured a nice easter egg in the form of a bleached Alien skull among the trophies on the Predator ship at the end of the movie. In the early 2000’s, with the Predator series dormant after its only sequel and the Alien series having fizzled out with two financially unsuccessful movies, 20^th Century Fox began to seriously consider doing a movie version of AVP.

They turned to Director Paul W.S. Anderson who had directed a number of hyperactive video game adaptations (Resident Evil, Mortal Kombat) that were popular with the Playstation crowd. This choice irritated a lot of people, particularly fans of the Alien movies who were used to a certain amount of respect for the material and quality directors. Also, irritating to fan boys was the continuity-bending fact that the film was to be set on Earth in the present (probably for budgetary reasons), and that the movie was being produced with a PG-13 rating in mind. Therefore, the movie was panned by hardcore sci-fi fans as well as critics who don’t like it when titles are not prescreened for them. Critics are also dismissive of anything with the word “versus” in the title, bringing to their minds Godzilla movies (to which I ask, what’s wrong with that?) As far as the tone of the movie, Anderson seems to be emulating Ridley Scott’s cool and austere British horror style more than James Cameron’s balls-on-the-wall American action movie style (like Scott, Anderson is a Brit). This might be another reason American fan boys don’t appreciate this much underrated monster flick.

So, what’s the deal with AVP? The movie has a lot going against it. The Earth setting is kinda dumb and negates the fact that the characters in the Alien movies were all working to keep the aliens from getting to earth. The characters are mostly dull. I hate the Jurassic Park-y exposition. The movie is frustratingly underlit and so frenetically edited that it is hard to see what is going on sometimes. What the hell are Predators doing in the Antarctic? And why do the Aliens mature so fast? What’s up with the ridiculously literal production design on the ice pyramid, with hilarious Alien and Predator hieroglyphics?

On the other hand, for all his reputation as a hack director, Anderson is clearly a big fan of the Alien and Predator movies and his film is filled with loving visual references to both the movies and the original AVP comics, which was pleasantly surprising. His knowledge of the Alien series and sci-fi in general goes deeper than expected and much of the inspiration for the pyramid comes from discarded early story ideas and concept art from Alien and much of the story itself seems to have been inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s “At The Mountains of Madness.” There are even references to the fun but silly theories of ancient astronauts as proposed by Erich von Daniken.

The idea of a human female survivor who is “branded” into the Predator clan comes straight from the original AVP comic series from Dark Horse. And while the idea of Alexa suiting up with make-shift Alien weapons doesn’t work that well on film I have to respect that they put it in. It’s ironic that a movie that is such a labor of fan love is so reviled by fan boys.

THE MONSTERS/EFFECTS

One of the main reasons that I enjoy this movie so much is the fact that Giger’s Aliens have never looked better than they do in this movie. The Aliens go back to a classic design that resembles the creatures from the first and third movie with the domed head and they are brought to life with a combination of life-sized hydraulic puppet and CGI and as far as I know, there is no suit acting in this movie at all. This gives us Aliens that are more skeletal and less anthropomorphic than they have been before.

As I stated above, the Aliens in this movie seem to go from implant to chestburster to adult in a matter of hours (or perhaps even less) which is pretty fast compared to the previous movies. It seems to me in 1979’s Alien, the creature matures “overnight.” In Alien 3, the time period seems to be a day or two. These both seem too fast when you think about it but in AVP it is ludicrously fast. One gets the unpleasant feeling that the established continuity has been fudged to serve the plot needs of this movie. My own nerdy theory is that since these Aliens have been bred by the Predators to serve a particular purpose, they may have been altered to mature faster than normal. After all, it would suck to be a Predator and arrive at the temple only to be able to fight a bunch of chestbursters.

The Alien queen also makes a truly spectacular comeback in this movie after her rather lame appearance in Alien Resurrection. Her intro as she is frozen and chained in the bowels of the Antarctic temple is extremely cool and very inspired by the first AVP comic where she is similarly restrained aboard a Predator ship. She looks much like she did in Aliens only bigger, more skeletal and without the built in stiletto heels. Unless I am mistaken, she is completely CGI in this movie.

Unfortunately, the Predators in this movie don’t come out so well. Unlike the very tall and lean actor/dancer Kevin Peter Hall who played the Predator in the original two movies, the new Predators are very big and muscled and wear bulkier armor which gives them a weird linebacker-y appearance. Their arms also seem too short for their bodies. They also seem to have crazy extreme sports versions of their signature weapons. Their wrist gauntlets are now about four times longer than ever before and the very cool smart disc from P2 has been reimagined as a crazy giant throwing star. But, I guess if you are hunting aliens you need different equipment than if you are hunting humans.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

The battle against the Queen at the end of the movie. Look at her go!

DVD AVAILABILITY

Widely available in a couple of different versions. There is an unrated version which is not that much different than the theatrical cut.

SEQUELS

Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, also enjoyable and a lot more graphic with a more American sensibility. If Anderson is trying to emulate Alien, then the directors of AVP:R are trying to emulate Aliens and Predator. You may enjoy one more than the other depending on your tastes.

TRIVIA

James Cameron has apparently seen this movie and enjoyed it.

TRAILER

Patrick Garone
twitter.com/patrickgarone
www.patrickgarone.com
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Monster Movie of the Week: Negadon: The Monster from Mars (2005)

NEGADON: THE MONSTER FROM MARS (2005)

Directed by Jun Awazu

Genre: CGI/Anime/Daikaiju eiga, short film

THE MOVIE:

Fans of kaiju movies generally don’t have a lot to look forward to. Godzilla is retired for another five to ten years, with another American remake on the way. The status of the Gamera series is not known. We tend to have to make due with movies that have some kaiju elements like The Host or Transformers, or the Korean movie D-Wars. Once in a while, we'll get a Cloverfield or Pacific Rim but most actual kaiju movies are few and far between. That’s why Negadon: The Monster from Mars is such a nice and unexpected treat.

Negadon is a twenty-five minute short film that is little more than an exercise in kaiju action. But that’s a good thing, right? Although it is a CGI movie from 2005, the film goes out of its way to present a retrofuturistic setting that would have been at home in one of Toho’s movies from the 1960’s or 1970’s.

The narrative is short and sweet. It is the future and man is exploring Mars. A ship brings back a mysterious Mars boulder, which escapes and destroys the ship over Japan, unleashing a giant floating monster, the titular Negadon. Meanwhile a scientist laments the loss of his daughter who was killed in an accident involving the giant robot he had invented. Although he swore never to reactivate the robot, he pilots it in combat against Negadon.

Something tells me Negadon may be the future of kaiju movies, which are becoming increasingly unprofitable in Japan. As CGI becomes cheaper to use we may eventually see entirely CGI Godzilla movies, which would be both bad and good. Bad because we would lose the wonderful artistry that goes into building the sets and monster suits but good because the creatures would no longer be constrained by the technology used to realize them. Either way, despite its shortness and relative obscurity, Negadon: The Monster from Mars may end up being a very important film in the history of monster movies.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS:

I’m not a fan of the Negadon design, it’s a little too complex for my tastes. It almost looks like it could have come from one of the 90’s Gamera movies. However, I do like the design of Magara, the creature featured in the two micro-movies included as extras. Magara is wonderful firebreathing throwback to the classic Toho monsters. The director Jun Awazu has a wonderful grasp of the kaiju subgenre and I would love to see what he would if let loose on a franchise like Godzilla or Gamera.

MONSTERS FEATURED:

Negadon and the giant robot.

DVD AVAILABILITY:

Can be bought easily enough online but you probably won’t be able to find it at your local video store or even on Netflix. Incidently, the DVD has a couple of nice little micro movies even more in the style of classic kaiju film.

TRAILER:




Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Monster Movie of the Week: GIANT EFFING ROBOT EDITION: Transformers (2007)

TRANSFORMERS (2007)

Director: Michael Bay

Genre: Sci-Fi/Action

THE MOVIE

The next best thing to giant monster movies is giant robot movies. Especially when the giant robots can physically change themselves into various vehicles and hardware. Michael Bay’s Transformers, of course, is based on the 1980’s line of robot toys and it’s accompanying cartoons and comics in which two factions of giant alien robots land on earth and assume alternate shapes based on common earth forms to hide themselves hence the tagline “Robots in disguise.”

In this reimagining of the original Generation 1 story, the Decepticon faction is already on earth as the movie begins and searching for information regarding their missing leader Megatron, who apparently disappeared here in search of the Allspark, a cube that grants sentient life to machines. The heroic Autobots attempt to head them off. The Autobot Bumblebee assumes the form of an old Camaro and arranges to be sold to young Sam Witwicky, who is unknowingly in possession of an item that will locate the Allspark (and trying to sell it on eBay.) Bumblebee befriends Sam and introduces him to the other Autobots before both are captured by agents from a mysterious government agency called Sector Seven which is in charge of monitoring Transformer activity on earth and are actually holding both the Allspark and Megatron’s frozen body in a secure location. Meanwhile the other Decepticons learn the location and both they and the Autobots converge there for a final battle.

Why does a robot need to have teeth?

As someone who knew and loved the original Transformers cartoon as a child I have to say I was very nervous about this movie. The robot designs I had seen were decidedly different from the simple cartoon designs and liberties are taken with some of the characters and there are many omissions of classic characters (like Soundwave) in favor of original or redesigned secondary characters. That being said, having seen the movie, I am very satisfied with the result. Michael Bay’s Transformers is a kinetic action packed reimagining of the “Transformers” I know and love.

Steven Spielberg produced this movie and his influence can be felt in the touching relationship between Sam and Bumblebee, which has shades of E.T. Sam himself is actually fun to watch and is one of the most realistic depictions of a teenager I have seen on screen (he would make a perfect Peter Parker/Spiderman.) Optimus Prime (Voiced by Peter Cullen who provided his voice in the G1 cartoon) and the other Autobots are beautifully brought to life and their transformations are very cool to watch often complete with the trademark sound effect you may remember from the cartoons. And, of course, the movie is filled with balls-against-the-wall action like a James Cameron Terminator movie on steroids.

MONSTERS/EFFECTS:

There are about twelve different Transformers in this movie. They are all much more alien and intricate then the classic designs and are composed of thousands of small moving parts. Their faces are composed of small metal flaps and lids that move to read emotions. For example, their eyes are colored bulbs (blue for Autobots and red for Decepticons) and they have little metal lids above and below the eyes that move in a particular way to convey different emotions. It’s all fodder for slow motion BluRay viewing.

While the Autobots are well realized in the movie and are all given lines and plenty of screentime, the Decepticons do not fare as well and this is my only real gripe with the movie and probably comes from being overly familiar with the characters in the cartoon. Of the Decepticons, most of the screentime goes to Blackout (the kick-ass giant military helicopter,) Scorponok, Frenzy (the small gremlin-like robot that can turn into a boombox,) Barricade (the police car,) and towards the end, Megatron. Starscream, Bonecrusher and Brawl show up later and are relegated to cameo roles. You never really get a sense of who the Decepticons are and how they work as a group. This is a particular loss when it comes to Starscream who was always a genuinely interesting character on the cartoon because of his constant Shakespearean power struggles with Megatron. This would have been a good and very obvious opportunity to make the Decepticons more than just hulking brutes. On the side, as a purely fanboy complaint, I wish they had gotten someone to do Starscream’s voice who sounded like the late great Chris Latta who had one of the most recognizable voices from the cartoon. His raspy high pitched voice was the essence of Starscream.

The most radically redesigned character in the movie is probably Megatron, who no longer changes into a gun to be wielded by others (thank God) and has a purely Cybertronian design as he does not assume an earth form during the course of the movie (his alternate form is a Cybertronian jet.) When he was first leaked on the net I hated his design because it is very pointy and alien and weird but I’ve grown used to it and now I quite like it (although it looks like crap in profile.) Megatron is voiced by Hugo Weaving in the movie but his voice is so electronically processed and deepened that I couldn’t even recognize him but that’s good because he is appropriately big and scary in this movie.

The effects through out the movie are eye-popping and hyper realistic. Bay is a big fan of using practical on set effects and explosions whenever possible and it gives Transformers a sense of realism that is missing from a lot of purely studio shot CGI effects films.

MONSTERS FEATURED

Optimus Prime - Semi truck

Bumblebee – A ’74 Camaro then a 2009 Camaro.

Jazz- Pontiac Soltice

Rachet-some sort of hummer ambulance (WTF?)

Ironhide-GMC Topkick

Megatron-Cybertronian jet

Starscream-F22 Raptor more or less like his G1 appearance

Barricade-some sort of Mustang derived police car (yeah, that’s low profile.)

Blackout-a big military helicopter

Brawn-a tank (kind of superfluous to the movie.)

Scorponok –a mechanical scorpion with no robot form

Frenzy-transforms into various small electronics

Bonecrusher-a clawed minesweeping military vehicle

There are some other “accidental transformers” as well as a pissed off Nokia phone.

HOME VIDEO AVAILABILITY

Widely available in both DVD and BluRay.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE

I loved Optimus Prime’s highway fight with Bonecrusher. So good and so like every Godzilla movie should be.

SEQUELS

Transformers Revenge of the Fallen 2009, which is about as hot a mess as you are likely to see in a big Hollywood movie.

Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)

SEE ALSO:

Transformers: The Movie 1987

TRIVIA:

The Soundwave problem:

Blackout, Barricade and Frenzy were originally going to be called Soundwave at different times in a nod to the original iconic Decepticon who turned from a giant robot to a tiny cassette player. Barricade and Blackout both “eject” smaller Decepticons much like Soundwave (the Barricade action figure actually features a small Frenzy figure that can be removed from his chest a la the original cassette figures) but fan reaction to such a great departure was so intense that they changed the names (and presumably the heads.) Frenzy changes into a boombox but is only about seven feet tall and very different in character from Soundwave, so the filmmakers decided to name him after one of the robot cassette figures.

Soundwave appears in the sequel Revenge of the Fallen, in which he spends the entire movie in orbit making sweet love to a satellite.

TRAILER

Patrick Garone
www.patrickgarone.com
twitter.com/patrickgarone
facebook.com/cityofthegodsnovel

Monster Movie of the Week: Evolution (2001)

EVOLUTION (2001)

Director: Ivan Reitman

Genre: Science Fiction/Comedy

Country: USA

THE MOVIE

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

Monster Movie of the Week: Pitch Black (2000)

PITCH BLACK (2000)
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action
Director: David Twohy

THE MOVIE

Pitch Black owes a lot to the James Cameron movies and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies of the 1980’s such as Aliens and Predator. Much like the classic Schwarzenegger flicks it is a vehicle for its star, Vin Diesel, and was one of the muscled actor’s first breakout roles. It also has a hard sci-fi edge that characterized many of the action films of the ‘80’s. Creature design is handled here by the very competent Patrick Tsatopolous-who is hated by fanboys for his work on the American Godzilla movie but a decent creature designer in his own right. Pitch Black is also the start of a series of movies and multimedia projects featuring Diesel’s character Riddick and was followed with the spectacularly nerdy and self-important The Chronicles of Riddick as well as an anime movie and a well-received Xbox game, and an upcoming theatrical sequel. Pitch Black is the only entry to actually heavily feature monsters.

Pitch Black is a story of survival in which a cargo/passenger ship en route to the “Tangiers” system is struck by a meteor shower and goes down on an uninhabited desert planet. There's already a lot going on here and you can see that there is an extensive and convoluted back story, which thankfully is left for the sequel to explore. The ship is also carrying prisoner Richard Riddick and his bounty hunter captor. After the crash, Riddick escapes into the desert but the survivors have other problems to worry about in the form of carnivorous hammer-headed creatures called Bio-raptors. The good news is that the creatures are solely nocturnal and cannot survive in the light of the planet’s three suns. The bad news is that the ship crashed prior to the planet’s once-every-twenty-two-years eclipse cycle. The few remaining survivors team up with Riddick-who has a bad attitude and practically has the word “Anti-hero” tattooed across his giant pectoral muscles so you never forget: HE’S NOT A GOOD GUY-and try to escape the creatures.

At the end Riddick learns the true meaning of Christmas.

Pitch Black is a decent creature feature, with good special effects and a stylish presentation. The special lighting and filtering effects to convey the other worldliness of this tri-solar desert planet are particularly cool. Diesel is a good action hero and a worthy successor to the Stallones and Schwarzeneggers of yesteryear but he needs to learn to control his nerdy indulgences. David Twohy is a talented writer director who has a real eye for visionary and vaguely gothic sci-fi and horror. He had previously done the very cool sci-fi film The Arrival and was one of the dozens of writers to have worked on Alien 3 and Waterworld and the well-received thriller A Simple Getaway.

THE CREATURES/EFFECTS

These “Bio-raptors” are distant cousins of Giger’s Alien, but that’s okay; about a third of movie monsters from the last 30 years are as well. Patrick Tatopolous gives a unique twist to what could have been a total Alien clone, with some truly bizarre looking creatures with weird crescent-shaped heads and hammerhead protrusions on either side of their faces. The effects and design are all good if a little too slick for my tastes.

MOST MEMORABLE SEQUENCE:

To be fair, its a pretty flat movie.

SEQUELS

The Chronicles of Riddick 2004

HOME VIDEO

Widely available.

SEE ALSO

Aliens 1986

TRAILER