Category: Review

Lucy

  By

lucy1★★★
“NOW there is a god…”

Besson has been making action heroine movies for almost a quarter-century, going back to Nikita, which remains one of the most iconic and influential genre entries. The Messenger and Angel-A are the most obvious members of his filmography, but even when they’re not strictly in our wheelhouse, they often contain those aspects, e.g. The Fifth Element or Leon. The prospect of him returning to the field was an exciting one, but the end result doesn’t quite live up to what I’d hoped. And that’s discounting the fact, trotted out by a lot of lazy critics, that the entire film is based on a shaky premise – the whole “we only use ten percent of our brains” things is pure myth. I have no real issues with that. There’s no evidence for the galaxy having guardians either, and the same premise was an integral part of Defending Your Life, currently 96% fresh at Rotten Tomatoes.

lucy4No, my main issue is a failure to unleash the potential of the idea (rather than the human brain). The initial set-up is interesting and slick. Lucy (Johansson) is trapped into acting as a drug mule for a Korean mob-boss (Choi), but the package inserted into her stomach is breached, causing the contents to leak into her bloodstream, and triggering the gradual activation of the remaining 90% of her brain. Initially, she becomes self-aware, but her skills then increase exponentially, first to manipulating her environment, then the very fabric of time and space itself, before she vanishes entirely from our world. Freeman plays Professor Exposition Samuel Norman, whom Lucy contacts to… Well, I’m not really sure exactly why. Something about him being the guardian of the knowledge she acquires as her mind expands. Waked plays a French cop, who helps her get the entire global supply of the drug, needed for her to reach 100%. We get a literal score of her progression in this department, tabulated on screen between scenes.

I think this would have benefited from a more measured approach, rather than a headlong rush toward Lucy’s divinity: the journey is more fun than the destination. There’s a certain point here, perhaps half-way through, where she becomes entirely invincible, and that’s where this turns into an intellectual exercise, because no-one – least of all a bunch of Korean gangsters – is a credible threat any more. I would have had Lucy get a little taste of the drug, then spend most of the film exploring what life is like as a super-enhanced bad-ass, using her talents to acquire more of the drug. Perhaps have the film end as she cranks the proceeds into her veins, and only then quickly go all 2001 on the audience, as Besson does at much greater length here. That’s closer to what I was expecting, and may be the result of  publicity that seemed to set this up as an action flick with existentialist aspirations, when it’s really an existentialist flick with action aspirations.

lucy3While I’d have enjoyed the former more, there are no shortage of aspects to admire. Besson’s films are generally a lot of fun, and this delivers the level of visual style and polish we’ve come to expect from all his works, both directed and produced – the car-chase is particularly Bessonesque. Johansson is also good in the role, though Freeman seems faintly embarrassed to be there, as if he should instead be off narrating another Science Channel documentary. Credit is due too, for making an action movie which is not only R-rated, but with a heroine, a combination which has been a difficult sell in the past e.g. Haywire. Lucy has arguably become the first such to pass $100 million at the US box-office, depending on how you view T2, and I’m more than happy to see it succeed, even if any sequel resulting from its profitability is going to be answering some difficult questions!

Watching this, I was left with a frequent urge to yell the line at the top of the review, which is taken from a famous SF short-short story by Frederic Brown, about the perils of unfettered technology and artificially constructed deities. Lucy is the human equivalent, though according to Besson, “A simplified summary, which will conjure up the images in as few words as possible,” was that “The beginning is Leon: The Professional. The middle is Inception. The end is 2001: A Space Odyssey.” This overview probably explains why my entertainment level diminished as things went on, because I love Leon and regard 2001 as one of the most over-rated pieces of tripe in cinema history, containing spectacular visuals, but little or no heart. That’s what Lucy is sadly missing: you can see Johansson deliberately dialing back her humanity, the higher her percentage of brain function becomes. It makes sense, but you’re left with little reason to empathize with her; it’s like nothing so much as watching Superman being super, and there is no kryptonite in sight here to bring her back to the level of the audience.

Re-reading the above, it seems perhaps unnecessarily harsh. Make no mistake, this was a fun ride, and I was never bored. It may be a case of managing expectations here: if you’re happy with a film which builds to having the heroine sit on a chair for 20 minutes, before going all Neo on us for a finale, then this will be fine. But given Besson’s pedigree, combined with a trailer which made this seem more like the Black Widow film we’ve been promised than anything, I was anticipating something rather different. It’s not often I criticize a film for being too much brains and not enough brawn, yet this might be one such case.

Dir: Luc Besson
Star: Scarlett Johansson, Morgan Freeman, Amr Waked, Choi Min-sik

lucy5

Guns & Lipstick

  By

★½
“V.I. Warshitski.”

gunslipstickI’m not saying this was a film made, The Producers-style, as a tax write-off. But if a movie was made for that purpose, it would probably look as slapdash and amateurish as this. I’ll just give you one example. Near the end, the heroine is seen by a corrupt cop and he gives chase. It starts in broad daylight, up in the mountains. One cut later, it’s the middle of the night and they’re by the docks. WTF? Whether the makers didn’t notice, or didn’t care, neither says much about the quality of the product. Then again, the entire concept of a cougarish, blonde PI with a smart mouth was clearly ripped off wholesale – minus the shoe obsession – from Sara Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski, filmed four years before this came out in 1991.

Kirkland plays private detective Danielle Roberts, a former cop who was kicked off the force for having an affair with her boss. She has a job protecting Rose, a stripper who thinks someone is out to kill her – with good reason, because Rose turns up dead. As, in short order, do a lot of other people who cross Roberts’ path, and due to this she comes under the suspicions of her former colleagues. Turns out there Rose had come into possession of a jewel that an awful lot of people want to get their hands on, for one reason or another. These include crime boss Mr. Song (Hong), cop with a grudge Dimaggio (Forster), Rose’s brother, Andy (Lurie) and an albino, who can’t have been a “real” albino, because he doesn’t have pink eyes [Source: my numerical analysis professor at university was an albino] It’s a complete mess of a storyline, with little or no effort made to provide credible motivation, and the romance between Danielle and Andy is more creepy than anything, since Kirkland is literally double his age.

Things escalate to a ludicrous and entirely incoherent shoot-out at a ranch, where the bad guys prove they are literally incapable of shooting the broad side of a horse, before the time-challenged car-chase mentioned above. A potentially interesting B-movie cast, which also includes Wings Hauser for no readily apparent reason, is entirely wasted on this turgid mess of a script. Kirkland has been decent enough in other things, and gives it her best shot, but is woefully miscast here. Everyone involved with this should be very, very ashamed.

Dir: Jenö Hodi
Star: Sally Kirkland, Robert Forster, Evan Lurie, James Hong

Super Gun Lady

  By

★★
“Heroin with guns. No, that’s not a typo.”

Super_Gun_Lady_Police_Branch_82Based on a popular manga series by Tõru Shinohara, who gave us Sasori, I’m guessing this was also the inspiration for Police Branch 82, not least because the heroines in both work for a department by that number. I mean, what are the odds? Here, it’s described as “A secret department that investigates civil service crime,” and one of its detectives is 24-year-old Maki (Yokoyama), who has a reputation for not caring about the carnage she causes in getting her man. In an apparent effort to rope her in, she is assigned a new partner, Rin Kakura (Kaoru), who is rather less feminine, shall we say. This happens after Tajma, the executive Maki is supposed to be watching, ends up falling from a balcony in what looks like a suicide, but clearly isn’t. That turns out just to be the start, as the executive’s gay lover is trying to blackmail Takebe, an army buddy of Tajima who is now the chairman of their company. Adding even more complexity to a plot that was already groaning under the weight of all these threads, when the lover is stabbed on a city street, his killers are trailed by our heroines, back to a right-wing paramilitary organization. That’s when the trouble really starts, as Maki is kidnapped and pumped full of heroin…

It’s an extremely unsatisfactory script, which seems to rely too much on coincidence and doesn’t bother to explain itself at any point. For instance, Rin just happens to be hanging around outside a car-park when the kidnappers leave, intending to dump Maki’s body; similarly, one of the gang, just happens to find the car in which they are holding a suspect. And the second half of this diverts itself off into mostly being about a staged “false flag” operation, a bank robbery intended to distract the media from the blossoming political scandal. The villains liberate a trio of convicted killers from prison, with the hope of luring Department 82 into action – even though, as Rin herself says, it’s way outside their normal scope of investigation. The purpose and point of this is never adequately covered, and it seems as if the writers maybe had 30 pages of an unfinished script for another movie, and figured they might as well use it here.

For positives, I have to say, I liked Rin as a heroine, because she is not the willowy archetype often seen in this kind of film, whose top falls off at the slightest provocation. Instead, Kaoru genuinely looks like she could kick your arse, and would enjoy doing it; I haven’t been able to find any supporting evidence, but it would not surprise me if she was a pro wrestler – that’s the kind of look she possesses. The final shoot-out, as Rin and (the suddenly much better – I guess nothing kicks a heroin habit quicker than a good ol’ hostage situation) Maki storm the bank, is also fairly well-staged. However, I’ll be honest: it took me two attempts to get that far, the first having ended in an afternoon snooze on the couch instead. Never a good sign.

Dir: Chusei Sone
Star: Emi Yokoyama, Jumbo Kaoru, Kishida Mori, Yamatani Hatsuo

She Mob

  By

★★½
“Lethal weapons.”

She-MobReally, from the poster, I was expecting something utterly unwatchable, so on that basis, this rating should be considered something of a triumph. Oh, make no mistake, there are aspects of this that are truly dreadful. But it’s rare to find a film which so obviously does not give a damn about what the audience might want, and goes so relentlessly on its own way. After a rough week for your humble reviewer – I’ll get to Super Gun Lady and, worse still, Guns & Lipstick, over the next few days – I’m inclined to look upon this with more favour. It does at least alternate elements of some interest with its mediocrity; for instance, there can’t be many thrillers of the era, even soft-core ones like this, which have only a single male speaking role.

The focus is a group of four women, apparently recently escaped from prison, under the leadership of Big Shim (Castle), whose picture can be found in the dictionary beside “diesel dyke.” When two of the group become hungry for male company, Shim dials out to gigolo Tony (Clyde), but when he arrives and tells them he is now the toy-boy of rich businesswoman Brenda McClain (Castle), Shim decides to “kidnap” him for ransom. Because of their ‘delicate’ relationship, McClain won’t go the police, so turns instead to private detective Sweetie East (Duval). She plays the part of her employer when it’s time to drop off the ransom, but hides a transmitter in along with the cash, and follows its signal back to the gang’s lair. This being 1968, the whole transmitter concept has to be explained in detail, I guess in case any of the audience hasn’t seen Goldfinger.

There’s a fair bit here of note, albeit not always in a good way. Firstly, having the same actress play both Shim and McClain is a striking choice, especially since this was apparently Castle’s one and only movie [though I suspect assumed names were heavily used here; there isn’t even a formal director’s credit!]. Admittedly, neither of her performances are exactly subtle, though that’s in line with the incredibly-pointed bra she wears, which would be rejected by mid-90’s Madonna as excessive, and with which she stabs Tony at one stage in proceedings. Then there’s “Sweetie,” an obvious knock-off of Honey West, though the budget here doesn’t stretch to an ocelot. And the rest of Shim’s gang are little less memorable, from Twig, the simple-minded go-go dancer, to Baby, Shim’s lover, whose main purpose is to remind us how far breast implants have come over the past 45 years.

The main downside here are the lengthy, frequent interludes where nothing much is happening. Mostly, these are what could best be called “scenes of a sexual nature,” though they are so completely unerotic they begin to feel like Dadaist sketch comedy. For instance, the film opens with Brenda taking a bath, yelling shrilly and repeatedly for Tony to join her. When he eventually does, they slosh around in the tub for a few minutes while the single camera watches with a complete lack of passion. Still, it’s a film that you will certainly remember, and is a pleasure to write about, offering no shortage of aspects worthy of comment. Though that may partly be my subconscious trying to put off having to write a review of Super Gun Lady.

Dir: Harry Wuest
Star: Marni Castle, Adam Clyde, Monique Duval, Twig

The Dalton Girls

  By

★★★½
“How the West was wo(ma)n.”

dalton-girls-os1“Oh, you can’t trust a man, ‘cos a man will lie,
But a gun stays beside you till the day you die.
A man is a cheater, with his triflin’ ways,
But a gun’s always faithful, ‘cos a gun never strays.”
   — Holly Dalton (Merry Anders)

The above comes from a rather strange musical number, injected into the middle of this B-Western for no particular purpose. It’s sung by Holly, the leader of the titular gang, consisting of four sisters: the older pair Holly and Columbine (Edwards), are forced on the lam after a sleazy funeral director tries to force himself on Holly, resulting in his encounter with the business end of a spade. Six years later, they have been joined by younger siblings Rose (Davis) and Marigold (Sue George). and are raiding stage coaches around the West.

Things are derailed when one of their targets is carrying W.T. “Illinois” Grey (Russell), a gambler on his way to the Colorado boom town of Dry Creek. Columbine falls for him, and casually suggests Dry Creek as the location for the gang’s next raid. They raid the bank, and get away with $6,000 – which was supposed to go to Grey, and he is shot in the process. He trails them to Tombstone where, rather than tell the sheriff, he blackmails the gang to get the money back, and Holly decides to get revenge by raiding the high-stakes poker game where he is wagering the cash.

It’s a wonderfully grey film, morally speaking: unlike many Westerns of the era (1957), it isn’t black-hatted villains metaphorically twirling their wax moustaches, as they go up against square-jawed good guys in their white hats. Here, there isn’t anyone whom you could truly place at either end of the moral spectrum. The Daltons, Holly in particular, are victims of their family reputation – the film opens with their brothers being hunted by a posse, and gunned down in the desert. [The funeral director who assaults her is displaying the corpses for a 25-cent admission fee, which appears based on the fate of the real Dalton Gang].

On the other hand, Grey is certainly no hero either, a pragmatist whose main focus is looking out for #1. Naturally, crime can’t be allowed to pay, and the ending reflects that. However, the journey is a surprisingly forward-thinking one, with only the doomed Grey-Columbine romance counting as an expected element. There is probably one sister too many, since they do blur together, and absolutely nothing like the tagline on the poster happens [“snared them in their love traps at night”? Really?], though that may not be a bad thing. Apart from the fact that the outlaws are women, the story doesn’t have much new to offer. However, considering the era, that alone is still borderline radical, and plays a good two decades ahead of its time, if not more.

Dir: Reginald Le Borg
Star: Merry Anders, John Russell, Penny Edwards, Lisa Davis

Legend of the Poisonous Seductress: Female Demon Ohyaku

  By

★★★
“I’ll no longer be a man’s toy, even if it kills me. I’d like to kill all men who abuse women with power and money.”

female-demon-ohyakuWell, you can’t argue with a title like that, can you? This proto-pinky violence film has many of the elements later developed more fully: a wronged woman is sent to prison, only to escape and seek retribution on those responsible for putting her there. In this case, it’s a period setting with part-time circus performer, part-time prostitute Ohyaku Dayu (Miyazono) finally getting the courage to break away from her sordid lifestyle, with the help of honourable thief Shinkuro (Murai). He’s planning a raid on the local mint, to steal the raw gold they use, and punish corrupt local officials.

However, a treacherous colleague betrays them, for a bureaucratic promotion, and Ohyaku is sent to prison – and, not even a women’s prison. It’s a men’s prison, that doubles as a gold mine. Fortunately, she falls under the protection of Bunzo the Iron Barbarian, which keeps her safe until she can work her wiles on the warden and his bisexual wife (Mishima), the latter of whom is obsessed with getting to tattoo Ohyaku, Our heroine chooses the Hannya demon as the subject – for good reason, as she eventually escapes jail to set about her revenge, and also complete Shinkuro’s raid.

The first and last third of this are truly effective, doing an excellent job of setting up the characters and resolving all the plot threads respectively. You can’t help but empathize with Ohyaku, her predicament and the steely resolve, maintained through some extreme tribulations, to take revenge for her lover – who is nicely drawn as well, Murai coming over as both charismatic and moral, despite his chosen profession. However, it sags badly in the middle third, from her arrival at the prison until her escape; it’s a section which either should have been shortened considerably, or needed more to happen.

Despite being made as late as 1968, it’s shot in black-and-white, which gives it a retro feel. It’s certainly a lot tamer, particularly in terms of nudity, than the technicolor tidal-wave that would be unleashed a couple of years later. Still, that’s not necessarily a bad thing, enhancing the impact of things like a trickle of blood down Ohyaka’s forehead. Some of the torture on view is certainly imaginative, such as being hung by the neck, with your feet just touching a metal plate enough to stop you from strangling. Then a fire is lit under the plate… Damn. Also of interest, the presence of the legendary Tomisaburô Wakayama, best known as the hero of the Lone Wolf and Cub series (a.k.a. Shogun Assassin), as a sympathetic gang boss.

The first in an apparent trilogy, this manages to overcome the weak middle section and leave me interested in following Ohyaku’s subsequent adventures. Miyazono may not have the impact possessed by some of other other pinky violence stars, yet the better-than-average script helps balance that out, and this has stood the test of time better than many of its era.

Dir: Yoshihiro Ishikawa
Star: Junko Miyazono, Kunio Murai, Koji Nanbara, Yuriko Mishima

Loves Her Gun

  By

★
“A cautionary tale. And you’re cautioned not to watch this movie.”

lovehergunPerhaps surprisingly, given the nature of this page, I’m not inherently averse to the idea of gun control. I lived in Britain until I was in my thirties, which seems to work fairly well without the whole “right to bear arms” thing. It probably made sense in 1776, but certainly wouldn’t be high on my to-do list if I was writing the constitution now. However, I now live in a country with 300 million guns or so, and I’m pragmatic enough to accept that the genie is out of the bottle here: any attempt to impose it at this point, would only impact law-abiding citizen and weaken their ability to defend themselves against criminals who would still have their weapons. Gun control works – but only if you already have it. Anyway, I mention all this to establish that I’m not averse to a movie which makes a well-reasoned argument against guns. Unfortunately, this is about as far from well-reasoned as imaginable. The facile scaremongering here leaves this mild-mannered Brit, who has touched a gun once in his life, with a strong wish for the makers of this, some day, to find themselves in need of some well-armed help.

Walking back to her Brooklyn apartment, Allie (Dunn) is the victim of a swift but brutal mugging. It’s the last straw for her, and she bails out of the city the next day, hitching a ride to Texas with a touring rock band and its “charismatic” leader, Clark (Barrero). She stays in his house, and gets a job working alongside local landscaper Sarah (Bisagni), but it unable to shake the PTSD caused by the attack. Sarah introduces Allie to the joy of firearms, eventually leading to her purchasing her own weapon for personal defense. However, the presence of the gun turns Allie into a raging Charles Bronson, as we see when she charges into a local domestic dispute, all a-firearmy. From here, it’s painfully if illogically obvious where this is going to end up. Oh, look: Allie getting her hands on a gun turns out to be A Bad Idea, in an incident a third-grade English teacher would mark down as poorly considered. This is my unsurprised face.

The end credits proudly proclaim that the dialogue was largely improvised, which might be okay, if it didn’t seem they also made the story up as they went along too. There are a number of interesting ways this could have gone. Unfortunately, the film chooses none of them, preferring to drive a path through Austin’s hipster scene, populated by “wacky” people, apparently expelled from Portland for being too smug and self-centred. Marslett seems more interested in them than his lead and her story – Dunn is actually not bad in the role, her character at least not leaving me with violent urges. So, we get lengthy, pointless scenes of a tubing trip down the river, or a party where people write their hopes and dreams on pieces of paper, stuff them into a Yoda piñata and sets fire to it. Very deep. Perhaps worst of all, Clark’s band, The Karate Kids, perform behind mannequins posed into the crane-kick move from the film. Was that idea improvised as well? Because I can’t think of any other explanation for it being such complete shit. Hang on: turns out it’s the director’s band. Explains a lot…

So much of the running-time here is completely wasted on these self-indulgent excuses for film-making, of interest only to Marslett and his cronies in Austin’s scene. The net result, is that Allie’s transformation from scaredy-cat into vengeful vigilante is so fast as to be utterly implausible. They needed to establish the more problematic side of her personality earlier, rather than making it seem as if purchasing a gun immediately causes psychosis since that’s what guns do. There’s a brief spell, where Allie is taken shooting by Sarah, that does catch fire, capturing something of the awe-inspiring power firing a gun can create, but it’s soon forgotten – because we have to go to the Yoda party! Even to a neutral in the debate like myself, this is a facile and simplistic approach to a subject which deserves a far more complex exploration, from people who aren’t fascinated by an aimless, slacker lifestyle that’s entirely uninteresting or noteworthy.

Dir: Geoff Marslett
Star: Trieste Kelly Dunn, Francisco Barreiro, Melissa Hideko Bisagni, Ashley Rae Spillers

Queen of Swords

  By

qos1★★★
“Leather, whips and lace – gotta love the type.”

In 1817, a young Spanish aristocrat, Tessa Alvarado (Santiago), returns to Spanish California after the death of her father and finds her home in ruins, her father’s manservant reduced to stealing. The town where she was born is run by militaristic governor Colonel Luis Ramirez Montoya (Pelka), who abuses his power, resulting in the miscarriage of justice and the poor living conditions of his subjects. Upset about the state of her birthplace and the murder of her father, Tessa’s path is revealed to her in a mysterious dream where her father comes to her and talks of his murder, his hidden gold, and of his “Avenging Angel”. She will take up arms to protect the people from the town’s governor and to avenge her father’s death. Tessa will do this in disguise behind a mask, becoming that “Avenging Angel”, The Queen of Swords.

Synopsis shamelessly cribbed from Wikipedia, but why re-invent the wheel? That seems to have been the approach taken by the makers here anyway, for their show which ran a single season from October 2000 through June 2001. The obvious, if unacknowledged, inspiration here is Zorro, in which another member of Spanish nobility, adopts a secret identity in order to defend the downtrodden populace from corrupt officials, etc. etc. Indeed, so close were the similarities that Sony sued Fireworks Entertainment, the producers of Queen of Swords, asserting that there was a breach of their rights. The resulting decision was murky: the court initially ruled the character was in the public domain, but later vacated that decision, and the suit was settled out of court, but it’s certainly possible the legal wrangling contributed to the decision to pull the plug on the show, after only eight episodes had aired.

qos2Certainly, in terms of quality, it’s by no means a disaster, and I enjoyed this more than other, recent shows which were yanked as fast, e.g. Killer Women or the Charlie’s Angels reboot. Of course, the central premise requires quite some suspension of disbelief: the concept that putting a little lacy mask on somehow transforms Alvarado and renders her completely unrecognizable by anyone, is nonsense. It’s not as if the town is full of similar-looking women, and she doesn’t even bother to change her voice. Still, if Superman can put on a pair of glasses to the same end, I guess we shouldn’t pick on Queen of Swords. What does work, is the interesting range of characters. Montoya is a bastard, always out for himself, but he’s quite a clever bastard with it, aided by captain of the guard Marcus Grisham (Lemke). On Santiago’s side, she assisted by her gypsy maid – who, like all gypsies, has psychic powers (I think it’s genetic) – and also by the local doctor, Robert Helm (Wingfield), who also has secrets of his own. These are all well-rounded characters whose interaction is fun to watch.

The action work is a bit of a mixed bag. Santiago was found at an open casting call, and underwent two months of training under swordmaster Anthony De Longis, who also plays Tessa’s fencing tutor in the opening episode. However, portraying the character required cobbling together a patchwork of Santiago with stunt doubles and other replacements, including Natalia Guijarro Brasseur, Roberta Brown, Gaëlle Cohen, Mary Gallien, Mary Jose, and even the occasional male for particularly difficult stunts. Again to quote Wikipedia, this “is exemplified in the Queen’s run up the hill away from the soldiers in Death to the Queen. Mary Gallien started the run, Roberta Brown performed the medium shot duel with swords on the hill, Tessie Santiago performed the spoken parts and was in the close-up, and Natalia Brasseur fell off the cliff.” The results are hardly seamless, and fall more into the category of competent than anything else, with the occasional moment that either impresses, or is painfully obvious in the doubling.

The shows did have some decent guest stars. Among the most memorable was perhaps Bo Derek, who played retired pirate captain (!)  Mary Rose, who is intent on seeing her son escapes a murder charge. She could, at least, do her own horsework, being quite an accomplished ride. David Carradine also appears, getting to wield a sword some years before doing so in Kill Bill, and Sung-Hi Lee plays another action heroine in a later episode, The Dragon, where she plays a member from a temple of Japanese warrior-priests, whose master (Burt Kwouk – not Japanese either!) is killed, and seeks vengeance on the Queen after being told by Montoya she was behind the attack. Elsa Pataky also has a regular role, playing the wife of a local landowner, who is having an affair with Grisham. Other guests in the series include Simon MacCorkindale and Ralf Moeller. Oddly, given the setting, there’s a high percentage of British actors in both the regular and guest cast, led by Pelka who, despite his accent, was actually born in Yorkshire – his exotic name is Polish, rather than Hispanic…

A few random other thoughts: I grew to despise the theme song, which sounds like a low-rent version of something by the Gypsy Kings. But the lack of over-riding romantic entanglement works in the film’s favour. While there’s a sense Tessa and Dr. Helm have an attraction, unlike certain shows I could mention, the storylines never gets bogged down in this ‘shipper drivel. I reached the end with a feeling of sadness that the show never quite did well enough to merit further season. If far from original, and not even the first female version of Zorro [which would be Zorro’s Black Whip], it was generally entertaining, with performances that were better than I expected. Even now, the legal status of Zorro remains undecided, and until that is resolved, I doubt anyone will head down the distaff version path again. Episode 1 is on YouTube.

Star: Tessie Santiago, Valentine Pelka, Anthony Lemke, Peter Wingfield

Savaged

  By

★★★
“The Crow-ette”

savagedZoe (Adrienne) is driving across country to meet her long-distance boyfriend, Dane (Samuel), when she has the misfortune to stumble into a pack of four rednecks, engaged in their favourite pastime of hunting the local Indians. When they stab one to death right in front of her, it’s clear things are going to end badly for her: and they do, as she is raped, brutalized and left near-dead in a shallow grave. But a conveniently-passing shaman finds her; though his efforts to save her are unsuccessful, the spirit of a dead chief enters Zoe. For, it turns out, he was killed by the ancestors of these same rednecks, and he sees in Zoe the chance to extract his long-awaited and brutal revenge. However, there’s a time-limit involved: since she’s still technically dead, decomposition is setting in…

There are a couple of interesting wrinkles here, first that Zoe is deaf. This disability doesn’t play much part in proceedings, which is actually kinda cool: it’s just another aspect of her character. What is rather more relevant, is that Dane is black, so when he heads out in search of her, and crossed the path of the rednecks, it soon becomes very apparent that it isn’t just native Americans they dislike. All of which simply adds impetus to your enthusiasm for them to get their comeuppance, and that certainly happens. The “revenge” part of this rape-revenge flick starts with the possessed Zoe in a bar, yanking someone’s intestines out like they were tickets from an arcade game, and impressively, somehow manages to escalate from there. She gets to wield a variety of traditional weapons, such as a bow & arrow or spear, on the way to the slightly-less traditional tomahawk vs. chainsaw finale.

This only comes close to working if you don’t think about it too much: ideally, at all. Otherwise, you’ll be left wondering about questions like why the shaman didn’t do the sensible thing and call 911; too often, the supernatural aspects are used as an alternative for plot logic. Have to say, though, Adrienne is very good as Zoe, though in some ways, it’s a shame she has to be possessed by a male ghost to get her revenge. I’d have been perfectly happy for her to be intestine-yanking on her own terms, and Dane could also be excised from the plot entirely. Still, the further this heads into excess e.g. point-blank target practice, the more entertaining it is, and the practical effects are more than good enough to counter some distinctly ropey CGI work. As the title of this piece suggests, more than one review has compared this to The Crow – and that’s a reasonable parallel, considering its similar mix of soft-core spirituality and hard-core violence.

Dir: Michael S. Ojeda
Star: Amanda Adrienne, Tom Ardavany, Ronnie Gene Blevins, Marc Anthony Samuel

How I Live Now

  By

★★★
“My Sweet Sixteen Teenage Armageddon.”

howilivenowThe extraordinarily surly teenager Elizabeth (Ronan), who loudly insists on being known by everyone as “Daisy,” is sent from American to spend the summer in rural Britain with relatives. Unsurprisingly, she hates it – at least, until she meets Eddie (MacKay), a local brooding hunk for whom she falls. Fate throws a spanner in the works, however, as escalating tensions eventually lead to a nuclear attack on London and the outbreak of World War 3, against an un-named foe. The kids try to fend for themselves, but the boys and girls are forcibly separated, with Daisy having to take care of young cousin Piper (Bird). Turning her willpower to topic other than, as she says, not eating chocolate, she and Piper escape the camp where they are being used as forced labour, and begin the hazardous trek back to where Daisy is sure Eddie is waiting.

The best thing here by far is the heroine’s character arc. In the first two minutes, it’s established what a totally unlikeable bitch Daisy is: she has clearly made up her mind to hate the trip and everything about it, and the audience hates her for the obvious narcissism. But by the end, she has been forged in the fire of adversity and completely transformed in just about all aspects of personality, to someone who has learned that it’s much better to live your life for others than for yourself. As Chris noted, it’d be funny if the whole thing had just been a set-up by her (unseen) father, just to teach his whiny daughter a good lesson. That isn’t the case: what it is, is another powerhouse performance by Ronan, backed by solid work from the rest of the young cast, particularly Piper, who could gives the likes of Abigail Breslin and Dakota Fanning a run for their money in the Adorability Stakes.

Probably the main weakness is the abruptness of the relationship between Daisy and Eddie. It probably needed more time taken to develop it, because as things stand, it seems Daisy falls head over heels for him at about the second glance. On the other hand, I’m quite glad it didn’t because it’s the kind of standard, young adult cliché which we’ve seen far too often before [this was based on a book from the genre by Meg Rosoff]. Much more satisfying is the second half, when Daisy is forced entirely into relying on her own skills, and becomes a much more interesting character as a result. Director Macdonald got his start in documentary film-making and brings much of the same urgency to proceedings here, not soft-pedalling the brutality and violence of armed conflict. Like a more contemporary version of The Hunger Games, it shows how inner strength can be found in the most surprising of places, and Ronan cements her position as one of the leading young action heroines in Hollywood.

Dir: Kevin Macdonald
Star: Saoirse Ronan, George MacKay, Harley Bird, Tom Holland