Tag: USA

Alias: season one

  By

★★★★
“Run Sydney Run”

“My name is Sydney Bristow. Seven years ago I was recruited by a secret branch of the CIA called SD-6. I was sworn to secrecy, but I couldn’t keep it from my fiancé. And when the head of SD-6 found out, he had him killed. That’s when I learned the truth: SD-6 is not part of the CIA. I’d been working for the very people I thought I was fighting against. So, I went to the only place that could help me take them down. Now I’m a double agent for the CIA, where my handler is a man named Michael Vaughn. Only one other person knows the truth about what I do: another double agent inside SD-6. Someone I hardly know…my father.”

“It’s everything you want, and more.” That was Chris’s opinion – I was kinda stuck for the right way to start, and as always, she delivered. As, indeed, Alias pretty much delivers, with a crunchy-yet-chewy first series that juggled drama, action and comedy to fine effect, twisting the plot frequently. One problem in TV drama is that you must allow viewers to tune in at any point and rapidly work out what was going on, and former Felicity scribe J.J. Abrams does so in less than 150 words – see above for the heroine’s monologue which opens each show.

The 22 episodes cover a struggle for control of medieval technology, Nostradamus-style prophecy, and other organizations (good and bad), plus Sidney’s missing mother, ongoing relationship with her father, and perpetual struggle to keep her friends from suffering the same fate as her late fiancee. Each episode contains elements of major and minor story arcs, propelling them alone, yet also stands up well on its own.

After a breathless start in which it seemed that Abrams used every conceivable plot device inside three episodes, he wisely moved into new territory. In particular the introduction of Rambaldi, perhaps the show’s most interesting character, who has actually been dead for several centuries. A Da Vinci-esque inventor, he left pieces of his inventions, and clues to their operation, hidden around the globe, and SD-6 are now on a scavenger hunt to find and utilise these, with Sydney their main operative. The CIA are doing exactly the same, also using her to stay one step ahead of SD-6.

alias1Garner is a good choice to play Sydney, a no-nonsense character who is never one to sit back when confronted with problems. She comes across as a well-rounded person with her own fears and doubts, rather than some kind of Bond-esque superspy. But perhaps the show’s greatest strength is the spectrum of supporting actors, who give the show depth when it could easily become a disjointed series of Lara Croft-like escapades. Marshall, SD-6’s “Q”, provides gadgets and geeky humour, while especial kudos are due to Ron Rifkin as SD-6 head Arvin Sloane. The man who orders the death of Sydney’s fiancee could easily have been a two-dimensional bad guy, but by the end of the show, you feel a great deal more sympathetic to his problems.

The influences are plentiful and obvious, most plainly Nikita and the (let’s be honest, rather lame) TV series which subsquently followed. There’s also a helping of Run Lola Run in there; creator Abrams listened to the soundtrack “almost incessantly” while writing the show, and has said, tongue in cheek, that he demands one scene of his heroine running in every episode. He certainly gets it, even if this does become a little predictable. The action quota generally is variable, but usually well-staged, with Garner doing more action than you might expect. And anyone that gets to beat up guest-star Quentin Tarantino wins my approval (at least it took him away from making more dire films!).

Though Sydney occasionally has romantic dalliances, she is somewhat unlucky in love – these men have an unfortunate tendency to die suddenly, and in one case, at Sydney’s own hands. This is probably a good thing, since I’m no fan of Unresolved Sexual Tension, finding it gets in the way of more important elements. Want romance? Go read Mills & Boon! This is an action series, after all, and I’d rather have Sydney kicking ass than going all gooey-eyed over, say, CIA handler Vaughn (Vartan). Their relationship is the subject of much fan fiction, but the ending of the first series would appear to have put the dampers on that department. [If you saw the finale, you’ll appreciate the particular viciousness of this comment]

Season one ended on a dramatic high with four characters potentially biting the big one, though no actual corpses were seen. Given this, and the twisty nature of the show in general, I think it’s safe to say a number of them will find a way to come back in the next series. I’m already looking forward to it.

Star: Jennifer Garner, Victor Garber, Michael Vartan, Ron Rifkin

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider

  By

★★★
“Tomb with a view.”

tomb12.jpgAfter a tortuous journey (about which, see elsewhere), Lady Croft finally made it. The end result is wholly satisfactory in some ways, yet severely deficient in others. First up, the good news: Angelina Jolie is Lara, so much so that you can’t imagine anyone else in the part. [Other suggestions included Elizabeth Hurley, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Peta Wilson and even – ick! – Anna-Nicole Smith. Paragraph break for shuddering, here.]

Helped by Jolie’s reported willingness to do pretty much any stunt, this is crucial, and allows the film to hit the ground running – as well as jumping, climbing, and swinging around, with a gun in each hand. The first half an hour is everything you could hope for, beginning with a sequence where Lara fights a robotic monster, looking more than slightly like ED-209 from Robocop. It turns out to be just a training device, but there’s an edge to it, and even an almost sexual element as the beast drives between Lara’s open legs. PG-13? Hmmm… Her sidekicks are only slightly less satisfying; tech wiz Bryce (surely a nod to the nerd of the same name in Max Headroom), and stuffy butler Hilary are exactly the sort of people you’d expect Lara to have around.

Unfortunately, the further you go from Croft, the lamer things get, with her chief opponent for much of the movie being mid-level henchmen Manfred Powell (Glen), rather than the Illuminati who are apparently running things. To draw a parallel, it’s as if Austin Powers was taking on Mini Me, rather than Dr. Evil, and Powell falls well short of being an adequate villain. Describing the overall plot as weak would be charitable. It’s the quest for various pieces which, when put together, will create a device allowing the holder to control time, rule the world, and presumably, get pizza delivered before they actually order it. There’s also a deadline, due to an imminent planetary alignment which only happens once every 5,000 years.

 This is more an excuse than anything coherent, almost as if the many writers operated on alternate pages, without being able to communicate with each other. It also suffers from an overdose of meaningless exotic locations, leaping from Venice to SE Asia to Siberia, without any real purpose or sense of location ever being present. The theme, according to director West, is time, but you need this pointed out to you, as it never goes beyond the painfully obvious, for example, time lost between Lara and her father. Ah, yes: Lara’s father. The stunt casting of Jolie’s real father, Jon Voight, deserves points for gall, but doesn’t come off as it should. You’re too busy trying to work out whether anyone in the film is actually using their real accent, what that hairy thing on Voight’s lip is, and whether you have enough time to hit the bathroom before the next action sequence.

tomb1.jpgOnly in motion do you sense what might have been. It’s highlighted by the ‘bungee ballet’, when Croft’s mansion is attacked by minions seeking an artefact in Lara’s hands. She starts, swinging from the ceiling on elastic ropes – contrived, yes, but such fun to watch that we easily forgive it – before moving to the garage and back to the main hall. Croft uses everything to hand, and it’s the closest the movie comes to the game’s inventiveness. Jolie even did the bungee-work herself, allowing West (and action director Simon Crane, who deserves his own movie some day) largely to avoid obvious stunt-doubles. [Red Dwarf fans will also appreciate Rimmer stalking around with a shotgun!]

The previously mentioned opening, and the sequence involving a massive rotating orrery replicating the solar system, also work very nicely. But if the final battle with Powell feels like a tacked-on late addition, that’ll be because it was a tacked-on late addition, according to West’s commentary on the DVD. One wonders if much else was changed on the fly, as this would go some way towards explaining the inadequacies in the film’s storyline and villains. Overall, it still ranks well-above average as a video-game adaptation – albeit largely because there have been so many inept ones. Standing alone, it succeeds to a smaller extent, with some truly great sequences, and an excellent lead performance. But there’s way too much padding in a very weak script, and it’s this which prevents it achieving Indiana Jones-like greatness.

Dir: Simon West
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Ian Glen, Noah Taylor, Daniel Craig

"Wholly satisfactory in some ways, yet severely deficient in others."

Honey West

  By

★★★★
“A taste of Honey.”

Honey West’s significance in television history can’t be exaggerated. She was the first ever woman detective to be the central character in an American network series, and was arguably the medium’s first action-heroine. Even though it ran for just one season, it helped open the doors for those who followed, such as The Girl from U.N.C.L.E., Get Christie Love and Police Woman. The show was based on a series of books by husband-and-wife team Gloria and Forrest Fickling, writing as “G.G.Fickling”. Beginning in 1957 with This Girl For Hire, eleven novels were produced over the next half-decade, and noted producer Aaron Spelling bought the rights and turned it into a TV series, originally spinning off from Burke’s Law [Gloria Fickling states they were largely screwed over by Spelling, getting little beyond a credit].

Naturally, this being the mid-sixties, the racier elements of the pulp novels had to be toned down, but the presence of Forbidden Planet star Anne Francis added its own share of potential, especially to boys of the appropriate age, which according to Francis, included Oliver Stone. But she was just as fascinating to young girls. It’s hard to appreciate in a world of Rizzoli and Isles, Prime Suspect, etc, that this presented a character which had never been seen on television. Fans included Chris, who even used to have the Honey West doll – given it now is offered on Ebay for up to $250, she wishes she had kept it, in the original box and with all its accessories.

How does the show stand up, almost fifty years later? Firstly, you have to appreciate that…well, it’s fifty years later. Most obviously, this shows in that the action is basically woeful, by modern standards. Honey’s karate skills extend little beyond flipping people on to their back, with the odd chop – and, it appears, in the sixties, everyone had a spot on their neck which would trigger immediate unconsciousness when touched. The doubling, is often painfully obviously a man in a blonde wig, though frequent stand-in (and early MMA practitioner) Gene LeBell does have decent legs. Credit in this area for the later episodes to Sharon Lucas, another stunt-double, and we should be fair and point out that no show from the time could stand against modern era in terms of action.


The unofficial lyrics
“Honey West, she’s a P.I. – for real…
Karate and judo, amazing contraptions,
gadgets, a sports car, and the latest fashions.
Plus… She… Has… Got… An… Oh… Ce… Lot!
But she’s smart, and she’s sexy,
Though her partner’s a little bit bitchy.
So that’s why we love Honey West!
(For real).

In contrast, the show was ahead of its time in terms of gadgetry, with Honey using on an everyday basis tools that have become part of everyday life now, e.g. mobile phones, GPS, etc. Ok, the phone in question was still the size of a normal phone and attached to the car (a really neat Cobra sports model), but this was 1965. One could even argue that the sunglasses used as a two-way communication device, was the first appearance of a Bluetooth headset. Though the illusion of secrecy for these is somewhat damaged, shall we say, by the fact that, in order to communicate, you have to take the glasses off, raise the antenna, and speak directly in to the corner of the frame…

Fortunately, what works really well, and still seems as fresh and entertaining as the day the show first aired, are the characters. Honey is a delightfully feisty character, who wouldn’t seem out of place at all in the 21st century, refusing to be the “little woman” that was expected of her sex at the time. The show feels like it was an ancestor of Burn Notice, with the trio of West, partner Sam Bolt and Aunt Meg more than a little reminscent of Michael Weston, Fiona and his mother. Here, Sam has a bit of a temper, and is always trying to control Honey – despite being very clearly the junior partner [it appears the private detective agency was started by her father] But she blithely ignores him, and does exactly what she thinks best.

There is hardly ever any fat on the storylines, a necessity when you have only 25 minutes or so for the entire episode. The results are plots that are crisp, to the point and miniature models of well-done storytelling. As with the characters, they could largely be transplanted forward 45 years and used, almost without significant adjustment. Admittedly, this seemed to change towards the end of the series, with the last five or six episodes apparently written by eleven-year olds. These include such elements as Mexican gypsies with a pet gorilla in the basement, a killer robot and a bizarre, extended dream sequence where Honey imagines herself to be a movie star in a range of films. It’s a dubious contrast with the well-grounded approach to Honey’s character.

We also appreciated the parade of supporting actors, which include a significant number of familiar names, especially if you watch other shows from the era. Other names should be recognized regardless, including Kevin McCarthy, Michael J. Pollard, Richard Kiel, Joe Don Baker and Dick Clark. The music, by Joseph Mullendore, is an appropriate blast from the past, resulting in much snapping of fingers and shaking of shoulders from the GWG couch by myself and Chris. Indeed, Chris even came up with her own set of lyrics for the theme-tune, which you can find in the sidebar; we were singing lustily along with the opening credits, to the utter bemusement of our son. [The middle section is a bit tricky, and should probably only be attempted by trained professionals. We ended up going, “Raindrops on roses, and whiskers on kittens…” much of the time!]

 We have to mention Bruce, Honey’s pet ocelot. If you’re not sure what one of those is, think 30 pounds of wild feline. And, by most accounts, “wild” was the word. As Francis put it, “If a cat is happy, it bites and scratches; and if it is unhappy, it bites and scratches.” She was left bruised and in need of a tetanus shot by the end of some scenes, though Anne bore it with grace, as in the publicity pic (top left). It’s undeniably impressive to see a heroine deliver lines with impeccable aplomb, while a sizable carnivorous animal attempts to gnaw off her face. This, however, has not stopped Chris from wanting an ocelot for Christmas, I think our two geriatric dogs would object; something plush might be better for all concerned.

It’s the kind of show that, on a casual glance, is more laughable than anything – the first couple of episodes watched, we were mostly sniggering at the anachronisms and sixties stylings. But as the series wore on, that aspect ceased to be notable, and we found ourselves enjoying the relationships, snappy repartee and characters present in the show, without any ‘ironic’ overtones. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves looking forward to watching an episode with our morning coffee, and were genuinely sorry to come to the end of the final installment.

The show initially did well enough in the ratings, making the top twenty programs, while Francis won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Emmy, losing out to Barbara Stanwyck in The Big Valley. However, neither that nor the merchandising returns could save the show. its viewing figures were clobbered toward the end of its run by Gomer Pyle, though the decision not to renew the show for a second season was largely the result of network stinginess. As Francis remembers it, “ABC said, We can buy The Avengers cheaper than we can make Honey West. And that’s exactly what happened.” It was an ironic replacement, West being effectively “killed off” by her Transaatlantic cousin, Emma Peel.

There has been subsequent talk of a movie version, with Reese Witherspoon attached in 2001 and again in 2007, but nothing came of either project. Most recently, 7th Voyage Productions apparently bought the rights, but that was more than two years ago now, with little or no progress since. There have been a series of comics, but in a world where ABC will hand out a lot of money to botch a Charlie’s Angels remake, it’s a shame no-one has made a serious effort to reboot Honey, which in many ways is a property intrinsically better suited to the modern era.

Star: Anne Francis, John Ericson, Irene Hervey

Point of No Return

  By

★★★

ponrThis was called The Assassin in Britain, though a more fitting title would be Remake of No Point. I hadn’t seen this since it originally came out, and it was a quite deliberate choice to watch it first for this article, hoping to escape the sense of deja-vu. Unfortunately, I couldn’t: its strengths are exactly those of Besson’s original, while the weaknesses are largely its own.

I can see the purpose of remakes, be they of old movies or foreign ones, when you bring something new to the table. However, it’s entirely understandable that Luc Besson passed on directing the American version, pointing out that he’d already made the movie he wanted. For Venice, read New Orleans. For Nikita, read Nina. For Jeanne Moreau, read Anne Bancroft. About the most significant difference in the storyline is that Fonda listens to Nina Simone.

Balancing the cast off, most are fractionally less effective than their French counterparts, although not so much that you’d notice. There are two exceptions: Dermot Mulroney fails miserably as Maggie’s boyfriend, J.P, to the point where I would have run screaming out the door, and that was after less than two hours in his company. Their relationship fails to convince, and since Badham places it close to the centre of the film, it’s a major flaw.

On the other hand, Harvey Keitel comes perilously close to stealing the whole show as Victor the Cleaner. Jean Reno was good in the original, yet Keitel brings a whole new dimension of menace, and clearly inspired Tarantino for Pulp Fiction. They missed the chance for a spin-off of genuine inventiveness there.

 But what little originality actually is brought to the film, largely doesn’t work, in particular a sappy romantic montage between Maggie and J.P. As a director, Badham does a good job with the action sequences – you’d expect nothing less given his track record in the likes of War Games – even when all he’s really doing, is recreating scenes such as the kitchen shoot-out (watch those desserts fly!). There does seem to be rather more Fonda underwear footage too… :-)

Relocating everything to the States is not such a bad thing. While I don’t know about the French government, a school for psychotic murderers is by no means beyond the bounds of possibility – the infamous School of the Americas does much the same for Latin American death squads. And, taken on its own, this is not a bad film. But if you have ever seen the French original, then the American remake becomes entirely superfluous and, as mentioned above, it feels more like you’re watching an English dub, albeit a credibly well-voiced one.

A remake was supposed to be necessary because American audiences wouldn’t watch a subtitled film, but when the box-office spoke, Point took only $30m. The original was a French take on a mostly-American genre, but something is definitely missing when it comes home. Perhaps Badham should have slept with Fonda during production, as Besson did with Parillaud.

Dir: John Badham
Stars: Bridget Fonda, Gabriel Byrne, Dermot Mulroney, Anne Bancroft

Nemesis 4

  By

★★★
“Bizarre, ultra-cheap, post-apocalypse fetish film for body-building fans.”

Though the lead actress, body-builder Sue Price, looks nothing like the cover pic (right), credit is due for choosing someone who defies conventional standards of female beauty. However, take all the points away, and then some, for pretending she does; having her spend half the film naked is something both Chris and I could very easily have lived without. She is, frankly, scary. That’s a shame, as while the budget here was obviously tiny, it’s put (mostly) to good use, with an interesting script.

The year is 2080, and Alex (Price) is a cyborg assassin on the verge of burn-out. When she kills the son of a mob boss on her final mission, she becomes the target – knowing escape is futile, she waits, tormented by visions of the Angel of Death. It’s all very talky, but is brisk enough to keep you occupied, and the location (my guess is somewhere in Slovakia) is great, a bombed-out, deserted city that’s very eerie. Also impressive is the freaky cyborg-sex, all orifices and mechanical devices, as if David Cronenberg was assistant director.

However, there’s no justification for Alex taking her clothes off every five minutes, except perhaps the nasty spikes that come out of her chest, which is slim excuse indeed. There’s also the lamest helicopter explosion I’ve seen, and huge amounts of irrelevant footage from (presumably) Nemesis 3, to get the running time up to 80 minutes. Still, this could have been a small gem, if only Price had stayed dressed – the cheapness often works for it. Just expect no action extravaganza, more a philosophical rumination on life and death. Albeit with lumpy breasts.

Dir: Albert Pyun
Star:

Sue Price, Blanka Copikova, Andrew Divoff, Michal Gucík

Kill Bill, Volume 2

  By

★★★★
“And she’s not Kiddo-ing…”

Let’s be blunt: Kill Bill would probably have been a better movie, if the Weinsteins had told Tarantino, “No: you can not cut this into two – you’re going to have to edit it down like every other director.” The second section of the film is notably less strong than the first, its 135 minutes containing too much stuff which a better, less self-indulgent moviemaker would realise was superfluous and chop out.

Precisely what, I’ll get to in a minute. But I also have to say that when this film works, it does so extremely well, with moments – and a good number of more lengthy sequences – that are just about perfect. We learn why Elle Driver (Hannah) has only one eye; the relationship between Budd (Madsen) and Bill (Carradine); the reason the Bride quit her life as an international jet-setting killer; and how the Crazy 88’s didn’t actually have 88 members. All these elements are dealt with swiftly and efficiently, plugged in like jigsaw pieces in their correct place, so it’s not as if Tarantino can’t do the right thing.

The film is at its best in the middle, from when Beatrix Kiddo (Thurmann – her character’s name is revealed, making the bleeping-out in the first part seem like nothing more than a childish prank at the audience’s expense) takes a shotgun blast to the chest from Budd, on through a flashback to a training sequence with a kung-fu master (the wonderful Gordon Liu), Beatrix’s ‘resurrection’ and up to and including a brawl with Elle that is probably the most brutal woman-woman combat ever filmed by Hollywood.

But this is not the action-fest of part one; and more’s the pity, I would say. In fact, the Bride only actually kills one person in this film [since we go in expecting her to dispose of Budd, Elle and Bill, this should whet your appetite more than it counts as a spoiler] Save her fight with Elle, there is nothing that comes within a mile of the House of Blue Leaves battle which ended the first movie. This renders the two together as possessing an uneven tone, since that massacre is the climax of the combined stories told in Kill Bill 1+2, on just about every level of cinema. Tarantino would have been better off getting his spaghetti Western influences out there before the kung-fu ones.

Tarantino’s lust for rubbing chunks of pop culture in our face rears its ugly head early on, with Bill playing a flute, just as Carradine did in his Kung Fu days. It’s a pointless anachronism, which doesn’t fit the character, and is topped only at the end when Bill rambles on, pontificating about the symbolism of Superman and how it relates to Beatrix. I can see the lines spewing forth from Quentin’s smug mouth, or even Kevin Smith’s; coming out of Bill’s, they seem absurdly forced and artificial.

But when Tarantino just nods to other movies, rather than waving them in the air and shouting “Look at me! Amn’t I clever?”, it works – sometimes sublimely. Beatrix professes her love to Bill, saying she’d ride a motorcycle onto a speeding train for him, likely a reference to Michelle Yeoh’s amazing stunt in Supercop. It succeeds, because it’s such an effective image, you don’t need to know the details; if you do, it merely lends them extra resonance. Similarly, at the end, when Beatrix and her daughter are re-united, the latter wants to watch Shogun Assassin; her father demurs…because it’s “too long”. [If you don’t get that joke, Shogun was one of the most arterial movies ever released…up until KB 1, anyway]

Unfortunately, Tarantino then subjects us to lengthy footage of mom and little girl watching the film, another pointless indulgence. But generally, it’s when characters open their mouths that the film hits trouble; there’s hardly two lines of dialogue which could not be, and probably should have been, compacted into one. Whole scenes cry for removal, such as Budd’s day job, which tells us nothing about him that his habit of drinking from jars doesn’t say, more efficiently and cinematically. And if I wanted to learn the precise volume of Black Mamba venom injected per bite, I’d tune to the Discovery Channel.

The deluxe box set, with both movies and a host of extra footage is, undoubtedly inevitable, which is why I haven’t bothered with the initial release of Volume 1, and nor will I bother with Volume 2. When it arrives, I will be sorely tempted to take everything and produce a proper edit, running two hours or less, which will have everything we need and none of the dreck. Instead, for the moment, you have one extremely good film and one pretty good film. Under normal circumstances, I’d take that from Hollywood in a heartbeat. But when, with a little care, this could have been the finest action heroine movie of all time, I must admit to a little disappointment.

Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Michael Madsen

"When this film works, it does so extremely well, with moments – and a good number of more lengthy sequences – that are just about perfect."

Kill Bill, Volume 1

  By

★★★★½
“Here Comes ‘The Bride’…”

I don’t like Quentin Tarantino. In fact, every time I see his smug little face, I have to resist the urge to hit something. I do admire his talents as a scriptwriter, but think he needs someone else to rein in the pop-culture references and other self-indulgent excesses which pepper his work. That’s why I prefer From Dusk Till Dawn, Natural Born Killers and True Romance, and find Reservoir Dogs, and especially Pulp Fiction, very over-rated. I have no interest in hearing about the meaning of Madonna songs, or knowing what they call quarter-pounders in France. And don’t even get me started on his lack of ability as an actor…

There is also the nasty question of how much of what is praiseworthy, is actually Quentin’s own work. If you’ve seen the infamous Who Do You Think You’re Fooling?, which intercuts clips from Reservoir Dogs with very similar scenes from a Hong Kong movie made several years previously, City on Fire, you’ll know what I mean. I’d rather praise film-makers such as David Cronenberg, who do more than cobble together pieces “borrowed” from other people, no matter how amusingly post-modern the results may be.

 I say this, so you know I am no drooling fanboy, and am probably inclined to be more critical than most. But I have to say, the first part of Kill Bill is almost entirely satisfactory, recovering after a shaky start. When it opened with a quote from Star Trek (of questionable relevance), I feared this was a Kevin Smith movie, rather than the brutal action pic I wanted. But such tendencies were largely kept under control, perhaps because there wasn’t much dialogue in which to work smug references.

Instead, it’s the soundtrack which slides into self-indulgence. You can tell Tarantino grew up in the 70’s: he has rifled his CD collection yet again, mixing everything from the theme to The Green Hornet to spaghetti western music, with the overall effect leaden-footed and rarely more than painfully obvious. Yet there are more than enough wonderful moments to compensate for the odd bit of weakness.

Uma Thurman is The Bride – her character is never named (it’s given a couple of times, but beeped out) – a member of the Deadly Vipers Assassination squad operating under the eye of Bill (David Carradine, not yet seen). When she tries to quit, her marriage is interrupted by the rest of the team, who kill the groom, the priest and even the guy playing the organ. They think they’ve killed the pregnant bride. They’re wrong.

 Four years later, she wakes up in a hospital bed, with her child not to be seen. And, boy, is The Bride pissed. She vows to kill her four former colleagues, plus Bill. Volume One covers her awakening, plus the first two-fifths of her mission: Vernita Green (Vivica A. Fox), now a housewife and mother, plus O-Ren Ishii (Lucy Liu), now head of the Tokyo underworld.

She actually goes after O-Ren first; in typically maddening Tarantino style, he screws around with the timeline, and makes that the dramatic climax. Having seen her face Green, we know she survives O-Ren and returns to the States – so much for tension in the climactic battle. Okay, we know there’s another whole movie, and this is probably a moot point. But why bother? Why not just make Green her first target? That, and his tendency to go for a snigger at the most inopportune moments, is why I couldn’t let go completely, and love this as I wanted to.

Plotwise, there are certainly questions (spoiler alert!), though a second viewing might answer these:

  • How does Vernita Green, supposedly a top-rate assassin, manage to miss shooting The Bride from five feet?
  • After years in bed, The Bride’s legs are understandably weak: yet her arms are strong enough to drag her about?
  • What are the police up to for thirteen hours, while The Bride wiggles her toes in the parking lot of the hospital, after killing two people and leaving the corpses in her room?

The Ladies of Kill Bill, Volume One
[Click pics to enlarge]

Uma Thurman
 Lucy Liu
 Chiaki Kuriyama
 Daryl Hannah

However, there’s a beautiful, horrible animated sequence early on, depicting the early life of O-Ren, which proved so completely seductive, I gave up contemplating such trivial things as whether the plot made sense. I suddenly “got” the comic-book style the film was trying to achieve, and things like, oh, The Bride’s ability to bring a Samurai sword onto an airliner no longer bothered me. From then on, the movie became a delicious thrill-ride, albeit one of highly questionable morality – in many ways, that flashback also made O-Ren a more sympathetic figure than The Bride, who has (so far) no motivation for her career choice whatsoever. Liu also gets the best speech, after one of her underlings chooses to mention her mixed heritage. Fabulous stuff.

In contrast, The Bride is largely a machine for extracting revenge, particularly once she hits Japan, picks up a weapon from a master sword-maker (70’s icon Sonny Chiba, as namechecked in True Romance), then heads to O-Ren’s headquarters, where all hell breaks loose. Dressed in a Game of Death yellow jumpsuit, she takes out her enemy’s minions in ones, two, then tens and twenties, with so much arterial spray I suspect the switches to black-and-white and silhouette were as much to avoid censorship as a stylistic choice.

The trailers make this look as if it’s non-stop action, but it isn’t really – there are only a couple of proper set-pieces. The first (cinematically, if not chronologically for the characters) is between The Bride and Green, a brawl around the latter’s house. Despite imaginative use of kitchen utensils, the photography is all wrong, with way too many closeups, leaving it impossible to tell whether there’s any skill – or, indeed, what the hell is going on. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was one of the first things Tarantino shot, since it’s the kind of mistake you’d expect from someone like him, unfamiliar with shooting martial arts.

 However, this is more than made up for with the lengthy sequence in Tokyo. In particular, the battle between The Bride and GoGo Yubari (Chiaki Kuriyama), the Japanese schoolgirl who is mistress of a weapon that can kill you in a dozen different ways. It’s a pity that the excruciating Japanese band, The 5678’s, who are playing in the venue, don’t get taken out as collateral damage. [Ten seconds of them is at least nine too many – they make Shonen Knife sound like the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra] Regardless, much credit is due to Thurman, Kuriyama and fight co-ordinator Yuen Wo Ping for creating a fight which is simultaneously hard-hitting and original, as well as being aesthetically beautiful.

It’s difficult to give a comprehensive review to a film without an ending – indeed, we’re only half way through the story so far. But what we’ve seen so far beats up 2003’s other Hollywood action heroines, the lame Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels sequels, without even breaking a sweat. Roll on Volume 2 early next year, and I’ve a sneaking suspicion we’ll be heading back to see this one a few more times between now and then.

[Thanks to The Reel Truth for tickets to the advance screening of this movie.]

Dir: Quentin Tarantino
Stars: Uma Thurman, Lucy Liu, Sonny Chiba, Vivica A. Fox

"Beats up 2003′s other Hollywood action heroines, the lame Tomb Raider and Charlie’s Angels sequels, without even breaking a sweat."

Aeon Flux (animation)

  By

★★★★
“State of flux”

Difficult though it may be to credit, especially for younger readers, there was a time when watching MTV could actually be interesting occasionally, back in the days when the station had its own animation division. The best-known product to seep out was Beavis and Butthead, but more interesting was Aeon Flux, perhaps the most dense and impenetrable animated series to reach a wide audience – even if the general reaction was “Eh?”

It debuted as part of Liquid Television, and right from the start, makes an impression with its lack of dialogue, weird design and astonishingly high body-count. The first series of mini-eps depicted the mission of an apparent secret agent, Aeon Flux, who comes within moments of solving the case of a mysterious epidemic, only to meet an untimely death. Undaunted, the second series had a variety of cases, whose only real linking theme was the repeated untimely death of Aeon.

aeonanThen MTV commissioned some 25-minute episodes, and things inevitably started to mutate. The characters started to speak (gasp!), but anyone who thought this meant it would become easy to understand was in for a shock – if anything, it added an extra new dimension of complexity. More of the setting was exposed: two countries, Monica and Bregna, of opposite character and once united, but now in perpetual tension. Extra characters were added, most notably Trevor Goodchild, the Breen leader, whose relationship with Aeon (a Monican “agent”?) is perhaps the central focus of the series.

“What I was trying to go for was a kind of ambivalence.” So said creator Peter Chung, and as ambivalence goes, there’s little doubt he succeeded – rarely has a show hidden its light quite as effectively. Very little is laid out for easy consumption, and each episode repays, and indeed demands, repeat viewings. Every action and line of dialogue sometimes seems to have multiple meanings.

If it has a weakness, it is perhaps too obscurist, and you wonder whether the show is quite as deep as it wants you to think. In addition, there are parts which, however stylish, just don’t seem to make sense. But Aeon is a fabulous character, who in the words of Chung, “is not someone who reacts to things. She makes things happen…she’s a force for change as opposed to the status quo”, and the combination of intelligence and malevolent brute force is immensely appealing. Chung again: “I think it’s undeniable that there’s a certain glamour or a certain seductive power of violence on film. Her whole design and the way she looks, the way she moves is engineered purely to evoke that attraction.”

A feature version of Aeon Flux has occasionally been hinted at (Liz Hurley would seem a leading candidate for any live-action version!), but at the moment seems somewhat unlikely, especially with MTV having now folded their Animation Division. Chung has moved on too, first to work on Phantom 2040, whose characters are clearly cut from the same cloth, in their spidery style, and then off to the Far East, for an animated series based on the life of, I kid you not, Alexander the Great. Whether anything created in his future will be as memorable, intense and downright impenetrable as Aeon Flux is surely in doubt.

Creator: Peter Chung
Star: (voice) Denise Poirier, John Rafter Lee

Barb Wire

  By

barb1★★★★
“Play it again, Pam…”

When I picked up this DVD, I could hear Chris rolling her eyes at me. And during the first five minutes of the movie – which consists of virtually nothing but Pam on a swing, getting sprayed with a fire-hose, silicone on display – this eye-rolling escalated to the point where I swear I could hear them whirring like the reels on a slot-machine. But by the end, even she had to admit that being a titty-fest – and there’s hardly a scene here without cleavage – doesn’t necessarily make this a bad movie…

For this is nowhere near as bad as its Gigli-like reputation would have you believe. Okay, for $18m, you might expect a bit more than a post-Mad Max setting, and you would certainly expect more from your screenwriter than a blatant steal from Casablanca – Ilene Chaiken should be drummed out of the WGA for claiming a story credit here. But this is an adaptation of a comic-book, starring Pamela Anderson (Lee, as she was then known): what do you expect? I venture to suggest that, if I was 15, this would probably be the greatest story ever told.

Barb Wire runs a club called the Hammerhead in Steel Harbour, one of the last bastions of freedom in 2017 America, where a civil war is ongoing. She funds the club by catching bail-jumpers and rescuing kidnap victims (inevitably, posing as a stripper or hooker), and has to deal with all sides to keep the venue open. But when her former lover Axel (Morrison) turns up, with his new wife, who desperately needs out, her position on the fence suddenly becomes untenable, and she has to choose which side she’s really on.

For those who know Casablanca, almost every element appears in that Bogart classic:

Element Casablanca Barb Wire
Setting Casablanca Steel Harbor
Era World War Two Second American Civil War
Enemy Nazis Congressional Directorate
Hero Rick Blaine Barb Wire
[A cynical expatriate who owns a bar and plays both sides]
Former lover Ilsa Axel
Now wedded to Victor Laszlo Cora D
Who needs… Exit visas Contact lenses
[Which let the bearer escape to safety]
Location Rick’s Bar The Hammerhead
Head Waiter Carl Curly
Chief Villain Major Strasser Colonel Pryzer
Top Cop Louis Renault Alexander Willis
Slimy dealer Guillermo Ugarte Schmitz
Mr. Big Signor Ferrari Big Fatso

About the only new facet is Barb’s blind brother (Noseworthy) – it’s a shame he doesn’t play the piano, though he does act as Barb’s conscience. This concept, turning one of the most beloved Hollywood films of all time into a post-apocalyptic cheesecake-fest, is worth the price of admission alone, simply for its surrealness and sheer audacity. What next? Britney Spears as the lead in a remake of It’s a Wonderful Life?

While one might question Pam’s acting talents, she is backed by a sterling cast of character actors: Steve Railsback, Xander Berkeley, Clint Howard, Udo Kier and Temuera Morrison. Each one hits the mark in their role, delivering lines with the correct level of enthusiasm. Kier, as usual, steals the show (his presence definitely helped soothe Chris’s eye-rolling), though Berkeley’s sleazy cop is perhaps the biggest surprise, especially if you’re only familiar with him as Jack Bauer’s boss in the first two seasons of 24.

Credit should also go to Debbie Evans, Anderson’s stunt double, since it’s fairly obvious that Anderson, while having an undeniable presence (albeit a presence severely diluted whenever she opens her mouth for more than a one-liner – not that this ever stopped Van Damme, Stallone, or even Governor Arnie), is not doing her own stunts. Despite this, the action in the movie is well above-average, with some really cool explosions and fights, notably Axel’s battle a long way off the ground.

Certainly, Barb’s psychotic opposition to being called “babe” seems somewhat hypocritical given how she dresses. And really, despite the, ahem, “inspiration”, the plotting is a lot less fluid than you’d hope, with scenes that come out of and/or go nowhere. Just keep an eye on the contact lenses – alternatively, a familiarity with Casablanca will help you keep things straight and ignore the irrelevant threads.

I admit, you could argue the entire story is irrelevant, and this is nothing more than an indefensible cocktail of eroticized violence. But those who live in such a moral vacuum as to require Hollywood to fill in the gaps, have got much bigger problems than Pamela Anderson’s breasts. If you can get past the first five minutes (which even I will say seem a lot longer), there’s no denying the effort expended here – albeit mostly on sex and violence, aimed at the lizard section of the viewer’s brain.

Yet curiously, actual sex doesn’t seem to take place in this universe at all, having apparently been replaced by tight-fitting costumes: claiming it’s a comment on life in a post-AIDS world is likely more credit than it deserves. Still, probably not a date movie (except in our house!), for this is trash, with hardly a thought in its vapid little head or 17-inch waist, and no agenda worth mentioning. Film doesn’t always need to be great art, any more than music; reprising the Britney motif, Barb Wire is equivalent to something like Hit Me Baby One More Time.

Perhaps the best comment comes from the Screen It website of parental reviews: “Topics to talk about – none”. There are times when this is a glowing recommendation for a movie, and at those times (probably a late weekend night, with a well-stocked fridge), Barb Wire fits the bill admirably.

Dir: David Hogan
Star: Pamela Anderson, Steve Railsback, Temuera Morrison, Jack Noseworthy

Birds of Prey (TV series)

  By

★★★½
“Wing and a prey-er.”

2002 should have been a great time to start a TV series based on a popular comic book – the biggest box-office hit that year was Spiderman, and with a host of other high-profile movies in the pipeline, comics had their highest profile in a long time. So what happened? Why was the show cancelled before Christmas, limping lamely along to the conclusion of its 13-episode run, the finale sacrificed against American Idol and The Bachelorette?

Weak writing, would seem to be the main reason – Jordan Levin, entertainment president of The WB, producers of the show, said, “We really could not find someone who could write that show”, describing its cancellation as the biggest disappointment in eight years. Certainly, the central concept was sound, and appealing, going by the decent ratings for the premiere: 7 1/2 million viewers, twice what the channel had for the same slot in 2001. But by the fourth episode, more than a third of those had been lost, and they kept falling – at the time of its demise, it was ranked 107th out of 118 prime-time shows.

The show did perhaps have an excess of back story to cope with. There’s Barbara Gordon (Meyer), who used to be Batgirl until she was paralysed by the Joker, and now calls herself Oracle. Then there’s Huntress (Scott), a.k.a. Helena Kyle, who was the daughter of Batman and Catwoman. There’s Dinah – no secret identity – the daughter of Black Canary, another character from the comics. Oh, and Huntress’s psychiatrist, played by Mia Sara, is really the chief villainess who runs crime in the town, though this thread was underwritten and never explored as it could have been. She all but vanished from the second half of the series, before an impressive return in the finale.

It seems almost the law that any series with action heroines must have three; see Charlie’s Angels and She Spies for further examples. Why this is, I don’t know, but it can cause problems with dynamics. I’d have been happy with just Huntress and Oracle since, personally, I felt the main problem with the series was Dinah. Never felt her role was really necessary as a recurring character (any similarity to Dawn in Buffy is, I’m sure purely coincidental) – in most episodes, she was little more than a spare wheel, with bratty tendencies which were more irritating than endearing.

It’s a shame, as both the other two were interesting and well-rounded characters, portrayed with skill and charm. Meyer, perhaps best known for her role in Starship Troopers does particularly well, given she is confined to a wheelchair for most of the show. Credit must also be given to Scott, who has to handle the majority of the action, and does so fluidly – the fight sequences are certainly well above average for network television, and hopefully those responsible will find work elsewhere.

The show was at its best playing with the conventions of superhero TV; I particularly remember a discussion over secret identities and whether you could have one without a mask. But the same episode also featured – like the WWE, just without the chocolate pudding – a fight club where evil men watched as women fought. Given part of the appeal of the series itself was exactly this, it was shooting the audience in the foot, and illustrates the apparent schizophrenia of the show.

It fell uncomfortably between stools, neither camp like the original Batman, nor dark and gothic like the comics, save for the last episode when death revealed its sting. Even if it had gone either way, it was hardly likely to appeal to fans of Dawson’s Creek, the show preceding it. This, and some vicious competition in the time slot, likely doomed it. In the end, though, Birds of Prey never became compelling TV. We’d watch one episode, then forget all about it for a week; there wasn’t the same sense of anticipation that better series create in viewers.

We also hated the shameless plugs for the music, though was thoroughly amused to see infamous Russian teen pseudo-lesbians t.A.T.u. provide the song for the final battle. Still, it deserved a happier fate than effectively being replaced by another one of those cheapjack reality show, High School Reunion. Anybody up for a movie in which a disgruntled actor storms a television station and kills the producers responsible for all this low-quality dreck? Pretty sure Dina Meyer would be interested…

Star: Dina Meyer, Ashley Scott, Rachel Skarsten, Shemar Moore