Tag: USA

Ready or Not

  By

★★★
“Samara saves the day.”

When I settled in to view this, I didn’t realize it starred Weaving, who was the best thing about the very entertaining Guns Akimbo. She’s also the best thing about this, and it largely solidifies my opinion that she’s one to watch in the future. By the end of this, her character has gone through an absolute meat-grinder of punishment, and she is literally drenched in gore. It’s all a very slight work, a comedy-horror that skews heavily towards the first of its genres, and is little more than a disposable bit of fluff. But I’m a sucker for a spot of wedding-dress mayhem – see also Queen’s High and Bloody Mallory.

Weaving plays Grace, about to be married to Alex (Brody), a son from the rich Le Domas family, who made their money in cards, board games and sports teams. The wedding is taking place at their immense country mansion, with his family largely looking down their noses at Grace, believing her to be a gold-digger. Family tradition has new members pulling a card with a game on it, which they must then play. Except, Grace draws “Hide and Seek”. Which means she gets to hide, and quickly discovers that if found, she’ll be killed. This is the result of a pact with the devil made generations ago, the source of the Le Domas fortunes, which on occasion requires a sacrifice. Tonight being that occasion, and Grace being that sacrifice.

The main problem here is, the family are so inept as to pose no credible threat whatsoever. They may have the benefit of numbers, and operate on home-turf as well. Yet they are, in fact, more of a danger to each other or their (rapidly diminishing number of) servants than to Grace. In their defense, it’s not often that their sponsor demands blood, so it’s not as if they’re experienced at ritual murder. Still, is a basic degree of competence too much to ask? Instead, they spend much of the night bumbling around and/or bickering with each other, and it’s not as funny as it thinks. I will exempt Aunt Helene (Nicky Guadagni) from this, who has both an appropriately brutal approach and a nice line in deadpan familial snark. e.g. on being greeted by a disliked relative, she responds with, “Brown-haired niece. You continue to exist.”

I get the feeling there is some class criticism going on here, albeit at a lower level than, say, Knives Out, so that can safely be ignored. For it’s the Samara show, and whenever we are watching Grace’s beautiful wedding-dress disintegrate into a blood-drenched mess, it’s an unexpected delight, especially since Alex is next to useless. I’m not sure I’ve seen such a character arc, going from victim to bad-ass so completely, since Evil Dead II. I also did enjoy the ending, which looked like it was going to zig, before zagging in no uncertain terms. While it would have been nice to see Grace administering the startlingly messy coup de grace, I’m okay with settling for what we get.

Dir: Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett
Star: Samara Weaving, Adam Brody, Mark O’Brien, Henry Czerny

The Kitchen

  By

★★½
“Rather over-baked”

Regardless of its flaws, this does at least show that comic-book adaptations needn’t involve superheroes and Thanos snaps. This is instead a crime story, beginning towards the end of the seventies in Hell’s Kitchen, a working-class area of New York. Following a failed armed robbery, the husbands of Kathy (McCarthy), Ruby (Haddish) and Claire (Moss) are sent to jail, leaving the wives to fend for themselves. To make ends meet, the trio begin to move in on the territory of local boss Little Jackie, who has been taking money from local businesses, without delivering the promised protection. When Jackie goes after them, he is killed by the women’s ally, Gabriel (Gleeson), who begins a relationship with Claire. But the husbands’ return to Hell’s Kitchen looms on the horizon, as the women’s growing power also brings them unwelcome attention – both from the authorities and the Mafia who dominate the city.

More than slightly reminiscent of Widows, this is considerably less plausible. The area at the time was controlled by the Westies, a powerful Irish-American group, and the film gives you little or no reason to believe why they’d roll over and let a bunch of amateurs – and women at that – muscle in and take over. In reality, I strongly suspect they’d be squashed like bugs at the first collection of protection money. One woman leading a crew might be possible (see Dangerous Lady for a good example); tripling down, as the movie does, stretches credibility to breaking point. It doesn’t help that there is only one decent character arc between them. That belongs to Claire, who goes from abused wife and perpetual victim, to the group’s enforcer under the tutelage of Gabriel. One of the film’s best scenes has him giving a lesson on dismembering a body to dispose of it. Kathy can’t watch at all, and Ruby is similarly appalled; Claire is entirely fascinated. It’s clear something has been awakened inside. And her incarcerated husband isn’t going to like it much.

It’s a shame she is largely relegated to the sidelines, being the most interesting of the trio – as well as the one most suited to this site, as the poster suggests. Instead, it’s mostly the blandly uninteresting Kathy who takes centre-stage. Even Ruby would have been an improvement, her black heritage adding an element of racial tension, with her husband’s family reluctant to accept her into their bosom. We’re also asked to accept them as heroines without explanation, ignoring the inherently scummy nature of the protection racket which they operate. But they’re nice about it, so that’s okay! Then again, I’ve never bought into the “They’re just taking care of their family” excuse, especially when, as here, efforts to get gainful, legal employment are all but absent. Berloff seems to be aiming for a Scorsese-like approach, down to the use of contemporary pop songs as a commentary on proceedings. While there are worse auteurs to ape, you’ll likely be left with little more than a desire to go watch Goodfellas.

Dir: Andrea Berloff
Star: Melissa McCarthy, Tiffany Haddish, Elisabeth Moss, Domhnall Gleeson

Dispatch

  By

★★½
“Please continue to hold. Your call is very important to us.”

Christine McCullers (Gubelmann) is a new cop, out on patrol with her father, a long-time veteran of the force. A poor decision involving a robbery suspect leaves Dad dead and Christine crippled. Re-assigned to dispatch, things go from bad to worse, when she gets a call from a kid, which she takes to be some kind of prank. It’s very real, and the caller’s friend ends up murdered as a result. Crucified by social media – not least due to her popping of painkillers to deal with her injury – she’s suspended from duty. Believing the killers are not the victim’s parents as her colleagues think, Christine begins her own investigation to try and achieve redemption through finding the real murderer.

I liked the central character, precisely because she’s not the cookie-cutter, saintly heroine you’d probably expect. She’s severely flawed, easily angered and prone to jump to conclusions which may or may not be justified. Likeable? No. But certainly a bit more interesting than the usual Lifetime angel. Indeed, she has so many flaws, she feels closer to the heroine of a Nordic noir series. The plot, however, is nowhere near as structured or well-considered. Right from the start, the case against the parents is so weak as to be laughable, being based entirely off previous domestic abuse. It’s highly doubtful the cops would pounce in the manner necessary for the plot. Meanwhile, Christine is using her dead father’s badge and gun to continue her own investigation, something which would surely bring down the wrath of internal affairs, regardless of the evidence collected (and I’ve doubts about its resulting admissibility, too).

It all progresses, exactly in the way you’d expect. There is pleasure to be had in watching McCullers charging on through suspects like a (suspended) bull in a china shop. Director Moss was responsible for creating the Bad Ass franchise, starring Danny Trejo as a senior citizen vigilante, and there’s something of the same energy here. It’s certainly more entertaining than the tedious romance with a fellow cop (Fuller). And don’t get me started on the way Christine’s injury, which we learn at the beginning will take two further years to heal, is barely a factor. She tosses her walking aid away in a fit of pique, after being mimicked, mockingly, by a colleague, and is then all but miraculously healed.

There’s no surprises as to who the killer ends up being. Not least because they make the kind of clumsy mistake which only seem to be made by killers in TV movies. What would have been interesting, might have been if the parents had ended up guilty as charged, and McCullers was completely wrong all along, going off on a prescription drug-powered paranoid trip. That’d have been very Nordic noir. Just not very Lifetime, however, and this is instead as safe, basically competent and largely forgettable as most of its ilk.

Dir: Craig Moss
Star: Fiona Gubelmann, Drew Fuller, Scott Bailey, John Lee Ames
a.k.a. 911 Nightmare

High-Rise Rescue

  By

★★½
“All fired up.”

Architect Beth Davis (Bell) is just about to leave Chicago for a business meeting in Miami, when she hears there has been an explosion at the high-rise apartment building downtown, where she lives with husband Jack (Davis) and son Charlie (Arnold). Rushing back home, she finds the situation increasingly perilous, and the fire department unwilling to enter the unstable structure. Having been the person who designed the building, Beth is able to sneak in, with the aid of a sympathetic fireman, Ray Steele (Holmes, looking like a low-rent Tony Todd) on the outside, and begin the perilous climb to the 55th floor where Jack and Charlie are trapped in the bathroom.

When this sticks to the basic, Towering Inferno-like concept of Davis vs. fire, and the heroine making her way up through the burning building, this isn’t bad. There is some decent practical effects work, and although CGI is also used, it’s clear that someone is getting quite close to the flames – even if it’s unlikely to be Bell. The film switches focus frequently between her and her family, as the latter find themselves in increasing peril, despite the helpful advice offered over the phone by Ray. This is quite educational, and if ever I find myself trapped, six hundred feet above the ground and awaiting rescue, I feel I will be reasonably well-informed as to the best tactics for survival.

The problems are much more when the film attempts to build character through the backstory and dialogue, such as the subplot involving Beth and Jack’s shaky marriage, or their differences of opinion as to whether or not to have a second child (though in an admirable shift from what you’d expect, it’s Beth who is less than enthusiastic about the prospect). Watching them swapping dialogue which is so soapy, you could wash the floor with it, is painful – though likely still less cringeworthy than the scene where Ray reveals the personal life experience which resulted in him becoming a fireman. It’s ironic, since an early scene deliberately establishes that, “Fire doesn’t care who or what you are.” The same can probably be said for this viewer.

It’s all rather too implausible, from the moment live TV has a report on the explosion, within literally ten seconds of it taking place. I’m not sure the actions of the fire-brigade quite stand up to scrutiny either: the chief seems far too unconcerned about the civilians that are still present in the conflagration. I’d like to have seen them make more use of Beth’s position as the building’s architect, putting her specialist knowledge to good use, instead of all but forgetting about it, as soon as she enters the basement. The results just about skate by as a way to pass 90 minutes, mostly thanks to a decent performance from Bell. But it’s a long way short of being even disaster soft-porn, and will barely leave even a scorch mark on most surfaces.

Dir: Robert Vaughn
Star: Catherine Bell, Adrian Holmes, Greg Bryk, Sam Ashe Arnold

Charlie’s Angels (2019)

  By

★★
“Go woke, go broke”

Back in 2000, Charlie’s Angels came out of more or less nowhere to become an unexpected popular hit. Sure, the TV series was well-known, but by that point it had been off the air for close to two decades. Its stars, Drew Barrymore, Cameron Diaz and Lucy Liu, were to that point known, if at all, for playing the love interest in romantic comedies like The Wedding Singer or There’s Something About Mary. But driven by a heady mix of self-awareness and top-quality kung-fu (choreographed by Yuen Wo-Ping, who has had a hand in many of the best genre films, from The Matrix to Crouching Tiger), it became the year’s 12th biggest hit at the US box-office.

But even then, it gave the sense of having caught lightning in a bottle: I wrote “It works beautifully, despite its flaws, but it wouldn’t bear frequent repetition.” And so it proved in 2003. The lacklustre sequel, Full Throttle, came out, and we concluded, “There’s little point bothering with the new movie.” Few did. It lost 63% of its box-office in its second weekend, compared to 39% for its predecessor, and grossed less than Daddy Day Care, barely squeaking into the top thirty for the year. An attempt to return the franchise to its roots fared worse still in 2011. A televisual reboot was canceled after only four episodes had aired. 

But still, the lure of recapturing the popular and critical success of the 2000 movie remained. Sony began working on a new version as long ago as September 2015, with Elizabeth Banks coming on board as writer-director. To her credit, she didn’t seem to be attempting to recapture the vibe of its successful predecessor, opting to go in a different direction. Unfortunately, the main difference is that the original film is one of the few action heroine films which I, my wife, plus our (then-teenage) son and daughter all unironically like. The path Banks instead chose managed to appeal to very few. Turns out, almost nobody wanted to sit through an action film which she proudly announced, was “loaded with sneaky feminist ideas.” This is my unsurprised face.

If you were paying attention, there were multiple other examples of the screwed-up priorities to be found in this production. “One of the statements this movie makes is that you should probably believe women,” said Banks in a pre-release interview. “We’re taking on the patriarchy”, proclaimed star Kristen Stewart at the premiere. And she demanded her character be gay, because “It was important for Kristen to present herself as queer in the movie and I was all for it,” according to Banks. It apparently comes as a shock to the makers, that most people don’t go to the movies for this kind of thing. I know I certainly don’t. This is especially true in today’s fractured society, where social media has become a battleground between extremes, leaving the rest of us tired and seeking to escape from all-pervasive dogmatic yelling. If a film has a message, that’s one thing. If a film is a message, it’s quite another. 

And the very first line here is “I think women can do anything,” making it painfully obvious into which camp this version falls (and hardly counts as “sneaky”). Can you imagine Ellen Ripley, Imperator Furiosa or Alice coming out with that kind of fortune cookie/teen Disney nonsense? No. Because they are too busy being freakin’ awesome. They are action heroines after all, leading by example, not banal sloganeering. This is how effective messaging works in movies. Brave characters don’t win over the audience by just going around saying, “Anyone can be courageous.” Instead, they put their words into deeds, by doing brave things.

This concept is something which Banks’s Angels fail to understand. Instead, they set out their ‘woke’ stall inside five minutes with lines like, “Did you know that it takes men an additional seven seconds to perceive a woman as a threat compared to a man?” No, I did not. And nor do I care about this highly-dubious statement. Demonstrate you are a threat, then I’ll start paying attention. Otherwise, please make use of those seven seconds to go back in the kitchen and make me a damn sammich, babe. Not that Stewart, who delivers these lines, qualifies for the B-word, bearing a closer resemblance here to Justin Bieber after a three-day bender. The original film proved it was entirely possible for women to kick serious ass, while looking good doing it. Stewart manages to do neither, at one point apparently needing wire-work assistance to hop over a low fence. Very popular in the lesbian community though, I believe.

After an opening sequence featuring girls doing random stuff while grinning like they were on meth, because… [checks notes] Ah, yes: “sneaky feminist ideas,” it seemed there was no way back for this mess. Yet, I will say, that was likely the low-point. The rest recovered somewhat, albeit only to reach the low bar of mediocre Hollywood pap, applying a sheen of competent gloss to its poorly-conceived ideas. I guess that counts as a win, of sorts. If Stewart was thoroughly unimpressive, I did quite like Ella Balinska as co-Angel Jane Kano. She fares considerably better in the action area, particularly in her final fight against enemy assassin, Hodak. But that’s probably the only sequence which sticks at all in my mind, and even there, I’m writing this just 12 hours after finishing the film. I’m not sure I’ll be able to tell you much about it by this time next week. There’s nothing to match, say, the four-way brawl between the Angels and Crispin Glover, while Smack My Bitch Up blasted on the soundtrack. Heck, even the music here firmly puts the rap in crap.

As the pic above shows, Jane does at least get to wield guns here, something Drew Barrymore almost entirely excised from her version (though I’d be hard pushed to say I missed them). It’s another small victory, in a film of generally staggering blandness. The plot, for instance, concerns some technological Macguffin, which can be used as a biological EMP weapon, and must be stopped – I’m dozing off as I type this – from falling into the hands of the bad guys. Emphasis on “guys” since, almost without exception, you can identify the villains by whether they stand up when they pee. I guess “men = treacherous perverts” is another one of those ‘sneaky feminist ideas’ on which the director was so woefully keen.

There’s no sense of escalation either, with pacing that’s poor. The film effectively ends a good thirty minutes before the credits roll, with a battle between the Angels and the villains in a rock quarry. It then limps on into a plot about a mole inside the organization, which feels entirely tacked on, because it doesn’t seem to have been any kind of real issue for the first hour and a half of the movie. It finishes with a lengthy training montage of Elena Houghlin (Scott), the computer wiz responsible for the Macguffin. We know she’s a wiz, because she says things like “All I need is root access.” She ends up getting recruited as an Angel, a good ninety minutes too late to provide any meaningful point for the character. The training sequence clearly just lets Banks get some of her pals into the film, to make cameo appearances.

It’s not often I want a film to flop, sight unseen. Even more rarely for an action heroine film. Still, I must confess, I was thoroughly gratified to hear the box-office speak, with a vengeance. In its entire nine week domestic run, Angels took just $17.8 million. That’s almost $10 million less than Full Throttle did… on its opening Friday and Saturday… at a time when the average ticket cost a third less than now. Ouch. So much for Banks’ statement: “If this movie doesn’t make money it reinforces a stereotype in Hollywood that men don’t go see women do action movies.” No, Lizzie. Men don’t go see women do bad action movies. And nor do women. For simply to shriek “Male chauvinism!” as a defense of the film doesn’t work, when it was named “Sequel or Remake That Shouldn’t Have Been Made” by the Alliance of Women Film Journalists, in their awards for 2019.

Coming on the heels of similarly “woke” flops like Terminator: Dark Fate, you wonder whether Hollywood might learn from their mistakes, and realize that they are employed by us for entertainment purposes, and not moral guidance. Unfortunately, I suspect that might require rather more self-awareness and humility than is usually to be found in Tinseltown.

Dir: Elizabeth Banks
Star: Kristen Stewart, Ella Balinska, Naomi Scott, Kristen Banks

Body at Brighton Rock

  By

★★
“Incompetence necessary to the plot.”

Proving not quite able to sustain its running time, this ends up collapsing under its own weight. The lead actress tries her best, and her character is likeable enough, but in her debut leading a feature, isn’t able to carry a film in which she is in virtually every scene. Fontes plays park ranger Wendy, whose duties are typically limited to handing out leaflets and lecturing small children about the dangers of forest fires. To help out a colleague, she takes on a more strenuous task, only to find herself lost in the great outdoors, as darkness approaches. She then stumbles across a body at the foot of a cliff: was it death by misadventure, or something more malicious?

It’s a nice performance from Fontes, who makes Wendy someone you want to see pull through. I enjoyed seeing the heroine have to dig into untapped reserves of self-reliance and bravery, and was rooting for her to make it through the long, dark night. However… sheesh, there are times where it seems the biggest threat to Wendy, is Wendy. She loses her map. She loses her way. She loses her radio. She almost falls off a cliff, taking a selfie. She actually does fall off a cliff. She even manages to pepper spray herself, after mis-judging what way the wind is blowing. I know she’s a novice in the park ranger world, but really… I’m impressed she even managed to get to work without sustaining a life-threatening injury, such is the low level of her everyday competence. There are plenty of natural threats in this environment too; fabricating them as this does, seems needlessly excessive.

After night falls, Wendy more or less loses her way, and unfortunately, so does the film too. I think it’s supposed to be depicting Wendy’s imagination being as much a threat to her, as anything tangible. All we get, is a lot of largely uninteresting thrashing around in the dark, in lieu of meaningful plot development. It’s only when dawn breaks that things move forward once more, though there just isn’t enough meat on the storyline to provide a satisfying meal. In an effort to generate tension which has been largely lacking, the makers drop in an arktos ex machina at the end, though the bear attack which follows would trigger nothing more than derisive snorts from Leonardo Di Caprio.

It’s not the lead actress’s fault, but she is left to bear [pun not intended] the burden of almost the entire film by herself. Relatable she may be – that’s not enough. Though many more experienced thespians would likely struggle with the amount of screen-time here – especially given no-one to act against save some trees, in the vast majority of their scenes. By the time the final twist shows up, it’s not going to trigger more than a shrug, and perhaps a roll of the eyes. Fontes deserves better, and hopefully will find it further into her career.

Dir: Roxanne Benjamin
Star: Karina Fontes, Casey Adams, Emily Althaus, Miranda Bailey

Lovely But Deadly

  By

★★★
“No, no! Not the chopped liver!”

After her brother drowns while high on drugs, Mary Ann “Lovely” Lovitt (Dooling) goes undercover at his school, Pacific Coast High, in order to root out the dealers responsible for his death. She discovers that the problem is far larger than is admitted, with those involved, and includes not just some of the most revered pupils e.g. star players on the football team (and, on more than one occasion, their jealous girlfriends!). A number of adults are also culpable, including leading school boosters, all the way up to leading local businessman ‘Honest Charley’ Gilmarten (Herd). Fortunately, Mary Ann is an expert in martial-arts, so proves more than capable of defending herself when attempts are made to dissuade her from investigating further.

The first thirty minutes of this are startlingly entertaining, which was a real shock. Sure, Dooling’s fighting skills leave a little to be desired… okay, a lot to be desired, yet her opponents sell the moves with surprising effectiveness. It feels almost like a parody of high-school films, made in the Philippines as a sly comment on President Duterte’s war on drugs, though the soundtrack appears to have strayed in from a Bond film. That applies especially to the title song, I believe sung by Marcia Woods, with its classic lyrics, such as “So low, so low, so low/How low, how low can they go?” And how could you go wrong with a film where, ten minutes in, the heroine force-feeds a dealer his own supply, while telling him a story about an old possum? Or where Mary Ann and her friend (O’Leary) are chased through the school by a pack of people in fencing uniforms?

Unfortunately, it can’t sustain this loopy energy, and loses its way badly in the middle. At least the scene where Honest Charley hits on our heroine is less creepy than you might imagine: Dooling was 27 at the time this came out, so was not exactly a convincing high-school student. She’s not the only one: school football star ‘Mantis’ Manigian is played by Rick Moser who, far from school, was actually a member of the Pittsburgh Steelers at the time. There are still sporadic moments of interest in the rest of the film. The costume party that turns into a cat-fight, leading to the immortal line at the top of this review. Or the extended climax at the docks, where Lovely is helped out by the rest of her kung-fu class, all fetching clad in their matching, zebra-striped karategi.

However, for every one of these, there are two or more scenes of tedium, such as the subplot involving Mary Ann’s boyfriend and his ambitions to be a singer (the actor involved ended up producing David Hasselhoff albums, which should be penance enough for anyone). In the end, while likely remaining more entertaining than most of its ilk, this (probably inevitably) falls short of its alternative tag-line, “James Bond couldn’t… Bruce Lee wouldn’t… They can’t do what Lovely can!!”

Dir: David Sheldon
Star: Lucinda Dooling, Michael O’Leary, John Randolph, Richard Herd

Mind and Machine

  By

★½
“Circuit bored.”

Intelligence without morality to govern it, is psychopathy. So what happens when you create an intelligent machine, but deliberately avoid installing any kind of moral compass? It’s an interesting idea for a film. Not that you’d know it from this unconvincing effort, which sucks the potential out of it. In this near-future – it’s set in 2024, close enough to now, no actual work is required on the part of the makers – androids have become part of everyday society in many roles. Crime boss Isaac Lynch (Restegar) orders technician Leo Cameron (West) to make one without a conscience, so that it can be used as an assassin, saving those pesky hitman fees. Only Leo crafts the robot, Maya (Guerra), in the image of his late wife. On the plus side: he gets to see his wife again. On the other hand: she’s an amoral killer. Didn’t think that through too well, did he?

And that’s the problem here: not much of this makes sense. Not Leo’s actions. Not the way nobody else came up with the idea first; most obviously, the military would be all over this in reality. Not how Isaac’s entire criminal organization consists of about three people, yet is still capable of pushing technological innovation into uncharted territory (and he also kills a customer, rather than letting him pay their debt). Not even the way Maya – and this is so obvious, it’s not a spoiler – eventually rebels against Isaac’s orders. It seems like writer/director Humphrey decided where he wanted the film to end up, but couldn’t be bothered to figure out how it could logically reach that point.

I’ll give Guerra credit for her portrayal of Maya, which is credibly lacking in emotion. Though again. there’s no consistency there, nor any explanation for her decision to revolt, after being made to torture an undercover agent. Why is killing unproblematic for this machine, yet torture represents a breaking point? And the lead actress’s reluctance to disrobe does lead to one of the most embarrassingly unconvincing body doubles I’ve ever seen: Guerra’s hair is black and straight, while that of the woman standing in for her, is brown and wavy. If you can’t do it well, Humphrey should have written it out of his script, since it’s not as if it was necessary to the plot.

Maybe he needed it for running-time purposes. Because this barely qualifies as a feature, lasting a mere 70 minutes, and that includes a slow, slow end credit crawl. It certainly feels considerably longer, and my interest steadily waned, as it failed to provide any interesting answers, or ask any interesting questions. A slowly-developing self awareness and independence, and more focus on Maya, rather than (the thoroughly uninteresting) Leo and Isaac, might have been the way to go. But then, that was Ex Machina, wasn’t it? This is a poor imitation thereof, and one which sporadic bursts of low-rent violence can do nothing to rescue.

Dir: Brock Humphrey
Star: Ariana Guerra, Oryan West, Sal Rastegar, Bobby Hernandez

Prospect

  By

★★½
“Get the little things right, but…”

Coming in on a wave of hype, e.g. “The Best Indie Science Fiction Movie Since Moon“, I guess I should have listened – because I didn’t think Moon was all that great either. Here, there’s a great job done of creating a universe, and even the two lead characters are interesting enough. It’s just an abject failure to fill the world with a decent story. Still: that world… It’s a grubbily lived-in and analog future version of space, controlled with retro-styled switches, and where the beauty of the cosmos is largely glimpsed through undersized, dirty spaceship windows.

Resident in it are teenage girl Cee (Thatcher) and her father (Duplass), barely scratching a living by mining resources out of alien creatures on the surface of a planet with a toxic atmosphere. Fortune beckons, however, because he has got word of a mother-lode which will set them up for life. Unhappily, their attempt to reach it is derailed by an encounter with Ezra (Pascal) and his partner, two other prospectors of dubious morality. One thing leads to another, and Cee suddenly finds that her survival is dependent on forging an extremely uneasy alliance with Ezra.

There’s definitely the feeling that this is intended to be a space Western, with a lot of the characters seeming like they come off the range, wearing space-helmets instead of Stetsons. The weapons wielded, though hi-tech rail-guns, operate more like a Winchester Model 1873, and there’s additionally a sense of lawlessness, with the planet being a wild frontier. If you want justice – as Cee certainly does – she will have to administer it herself, because no-one else is going to do so. True Grit feels like an influence there. On occasion, the scope suddenly broadens out too, with a wide, magnificent landscape – only one with an F-sized planet hanging low in the sky.

This is all quite lovely. The problem is a incredibly underwhelming script, not helped by dialogue which often seems to border on gibberish. For example, “We have three cycles for the job before we have to catch the slingback.” What happens if you don’t catch the slingback? Is that a very bad thing? And is three cycles a lot? Hours? Days? Weeks? We never know, because Cee’s watch tells the time in some bizarre foreign language. The same obtuseness goes for much of the plot: too often, we’re never clear who’s doing what and to whom, or for what purpose. Perhaps the original short film fared better on this front?

Certainly, it feels as if Cee gives up her quest for revenge here rather too easily. Though she still has a somewhat interesting character arc. Forced to come out from under the protection of her father, and fending for herself, especially given the hostile environment, is no piece of cake. Focusing on that aspect, rather than the vaguely-defined efforts to reach the buried treasure and/or get safely off the planet’s surface, might have proved more effective.

Dir: Zeek Earl and Chris Caldwell
Star: Sophie Thatcher, Pedro Pascal, Jay Duplass

Underwater

  By

★★★
“Beneath the sea, no one can hear you scream…”

You know the story: A team of experts in a closed contained space, having to deal with ugly monsters and struggling to survive. The blue-print of this variation on Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None (better known as: Ten Little Indians) was obviously the classic Alien (1979) that introduced us to one of the defining girls with guns, Ellen Ripley. This format was then repeated endlessly by Hollywood, as well as anyone else.

A special sort of subgenre of this story formed in the late 80s, when studios came to the idea of exchanging outer space for the inner space of the (deep) sea. That resulted in usually trashy but mostly entertaining movies such as Deep Star Six, Leviathan, Virus, Sphere or Deep Rising. Heck, even AlienS director James Cameron created a more positive version of the usual underwater interaction, with friendly aliens, in “The Abyss” (1989). But as far as I can see this genre faded with the 90’s. Recent watery efforts were more shark- or crocodile-focused!

The Alien franchise seemd to be stuck in the hands of Ridley Scott, who wasn’t willing to give anyone else a shot at the series, He said, before Alien: Covenant and about Prometheus, “I thought we should move on. I thought the aliens were done.” Well, if what you deliver is worse than what we got before, why bother? And if you think like that, maybe you shouldn’t cling on to ownership of the franchise. Audiences usually wont the same experience they had last time and if you don’t deliver, will be disappointed. Here’s another pearl of wisdom: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! So 20th Century Fox came up with the idea of resurrecting this subgenre under water. And it has to be said, while Underwater is hardly original, and definitely derivative if you know the Alien movies, it is better and certainly more entertaining than the last two Alien entries from Scott. It never drags, and the “idiocy level” that too often comes with this genre and its tropes, is credibly low.

The story in brief: Deep sea engineers are faced with a sudden accident, after water has flooded their facilities, destroying a large amount of the installation and probably killing off many of the workers who didn’t manage to get to the escape pods. A couple of survivors who find each other must go on an obstacle course deep, well… under water to reach these pods. Okay, that plot probably wouldn’t trouble a match-box, but that does not necessarily have to be a negative. I’ve found in the past, that very often those movies with a simpler, more straighforward premise are the ones which are the most efficient in delivering the goods.

So it proves with this. Yes, we all have seen it before – but not necessarily better. When I look at the list above of “underwater horror movies”, most of them were not good at all. And what the Alien franchise itself delivered, starting probably with David Fincher’s life-less Alien 3 (1992) and ending with Scott’s efforts “to move in a new direction,” was also not very satisfying. Considering that, Underwater is actually quite decent. There is no long build-up with character presentations that have tended to fall flat in recent films of this ilk. The movie goes into action almost immediately, hardly giving Kristen Stewart (with her short-cut blonde hair bearing a strange similarity to 90’s Lori Petty) the chance to finish brushing her teeth.

And it continues at quite a brisk pace, within an economic and more restrained than usual running-time of 95 minutes. We get action, tension, deep sea monsters attacking and reducing the crew, some decent character interaction, a tiny droplet of blood and rather too much of T. J. Miller joking and Jessica Henwick screaming while running around. I’ve seen worse. Much worse, and recently. Indeed, if you are just looking for some good horror survival action and a distraction from your daily routine, this film may do it for you.

Stewart herself seems to have some bad luck. After years making indie-movies in a post-Twilight wilderness, the hope was obviously to return to big Hollywood movies. But this seems to be even more of a financial failure at the box-office than her recent “woke” Charlie’s Angels remake. Though this is actually good entertainment, and free of the usual agenda that has sadly become commonplace nowadays in Hollywood movies. That may have to do with the fact that the movie was already finished – like the upcoming The New Mutants from Fox – in 2017! For reasons I don’t know it was kept back. Did Scott exercise some power to distance it from Alien: Covenant, which also came out in 2017? Did they want to wait until Covenant had squeezed out all possible financial revenues?

Whatever the reason, it became part of Disney when the mega-conglomerate bought 20th Century Fox. And obviously, Disney didn’t really care for the welfare of this movie, so they just threw it out there, with what felt like hardly any marketing. Which is a pity, because it’s a nice bigger-budget horror movie that could have attracted more people in cinemas. I personally guess it might get a second life on Netflix or the new Disney online streaming service later.

The film also stars Vincent Cassel who was the only other actor I knew of the underwater crew, apart from Stewart. Mind you, you are not spending much screen time with most of them. Nevertheless there are some interactions that, if not really going deep, give enough of an emotional connection at least to wish they will get out of this unfortunate situation alive. But mainly it’s a showcase for Kristen Stewart who – and I really have to stress I don’t typically care for her much at all – gives a good and credible performance here.Though you’ll have to deal with the fact that she is playing a deep sea rig engineer here, a role I would probably have associated with a muscle-bound man!

I personally wish the last two Alien films by Scott would have been something like this. It could have been a lot more satisfying than the time we had to spend with David, the Fassbender-android. That said the Alien formula – like the Terminator one – seems to have had its day, thanks to having been exploited what feels like a few hundred times. It’s really time for Hollywood to come out with some new ideas. Therefore only 3 stars from me, albeit well-earned ones!

Dir: William Eubank
Star: Kristen Stewart, Vincent Cassel, Jessica Henwick, John Gallagher Jr.