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Zygote (2017)
Refreshing Survival Horror
The wonderful thing about short movies is the elision, the things that are left for the imagination to discover that suggest a story wider than what we're allowed to see on the screen; to extrapolate from excerpts of speech, or from signs on the wall, or to gauge from exchanged glances between individuals. There is a tremendous amount of detective work required for short films, and a great deal of guess work too.
Combining imagination with the clues we find on the screen, the viewer can imagine for Barklay and Quinn - the two survivors of a crew of ninety-eight - vastly different experiences. For Barklay (Fanning), the viewer can imagine a youth in servitude to the Cerebus Mining Group, living as a synthetic underclass of mine labourers somewhere in the Arctic. From her interactions with Quinn (Cantillo), the viewer learns that she has 'insufficient status' to open many of the doors and is forbidden from handling a gun. On the other hand, the viewer learns from Quinn that he is a superior class and is probably a guard or an enforcer of the miners judging by his uniform and his access to doors that Barklay does not. He even commands a respect that ensures Barklay refers to him as 'Sir' even when the mine is in peril. Later in the film, Barklay passes through an area with UV light and her class appears in writing on the back of her jacket as well as being revealed in a series of markings on her forehead, whilst Quinn passes through with nothing marking his identity of class.
There is no information provided about what brought the mine into its apocalyptic state and whilst the viewer ponders whether something was discovered in the mine; something alien, prehistoric, or viral, Blomkamp takes the opportunity to develop a rich dialogue between Quinn and Barklay. He tells her that he gouged out his eyes at the sight of a bright light surrounding the 'creature', and that it has the ability to absorb information from the minds of its victims and learn everything that they know. Barklay, due to her class, is willing to sacrifice her life in order to save Quinn, and even bypasses her ingrained protocol about weapons handling to shoot at the creature.
Often when inhuman creatures are revealed in horror films, the effect can be disappointing and reduces the impression of the film to the quality of the costume and special effects departments, which is why so many horror films never reveal what is hunting its protagonists down. However, when the 'creature' in Zygote is revealed, the results are startling. The creature appears to be a literal translation of the film's title, a 'Zygote' - a joining together. The 'Zygote' has taken the bodies of its victims and meshed them together into a flesh-suit and as it chases Quinn and Barklay through the mining station, the viewer can see the ninety-eight legs waving in the Arctic winds and the ninety-eight hands attempting to access the bio-metric door locking systems.
When Barklay and Quinn are together in a room which appears to be the location of their last stand, he reveals to her that she is not a synthetic but a human. He explains that full-synthetics are expensive commodities and that the company has been purchasing human orphans to work as labourers and convincing them that they are synthetic; which is why so many of them become sick in the mines when synthetics would not. Once this information has been passed on, Quinn decides to give Barklay his handgun to arm herself whilst he buys her some time to escape. He cuts off his finger to allow her access to parts of the facility that might enable her survival and waits for the creature to get to him. Confident in her humanity and her new-found desire to survive, Barklay escapes into a tunnel and shoots down the creature, steals one of its hands, and enters a room into relative safety.
As Zygote draws to a close, it becomes apparent how suitable Earth might still be for the survival horror genre. Often narratives like this one might take place in space, in a post-apocalyptic Earth, or on an alien planet, but the reality of setting it in the Arctic reminds us how hostile our planet can be and how little we know about our Earth. There is no time period associated with the film, it could be in the distant past, present, or technologically advanced future. It is this timelessness and the darkness of the Arctic that makes it fully believable that this could be happening right now.
The one failing of this short film is that it doesn't feel as self-contained as I would expect a short film to be, instead, it feels more like an excerpt of a film or even an extended trailer to a feature length film. It might be that this is the film's success; convincing the viewer that there is more to the story than the twenty-three minutes Blomkamp gives us and leaves us wanting to see more - Does Barklay make it off the station? What does she do with her new-found identity as a human? Whilst we might never know the answers to these questions, Zygote is an experience worth talking about. The film demonstrates the potential of a small cast, effective creature design, and a level of horror that blockbuster directors have been aiming at and missing for the past few years.
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The Mummy (2017)
Just Give us Brendan Fraser Back
There is nothing in the discography of the fifty-five year-old actor that could convince the viewer that he is the young, cocksure ex-military intelligence officer that he claims to be. The only thing that the portrayal of looter Nick Morton accurately represents is the psyche of the modern American; cracking jokes about translations of the word 'Haram' – a word important in Islam – claiming that he is not a looter but a 'liberator of precious antiquities', stating that the destruction of historical artefacts in war is tragic whilst taking orders from the Colonel (Vance) that protects them, and suggesting that he and Vail (Johnson) can 'slip in and out' of an Iraqi village before decimating it in gunfire and hell-fire missiles.
It is even more complicated that the hell-fire missile that Morton brings down on the town unveils a cavern and, therein, the treasure that he and Vail were in Iraq appropriating the dress of Bedouin tribesmen to find, because it begins an overwhelming sensation of gratitude for the missile and the sense that the deaths of the militants were worth it because of the priceless antiquity it enabled them to find – so much so that Halsey (Wallis), the woman whom Morton stole a map from, forgives the theft and enters the cavern with them.
It seems that these moments of awkward self-reflection comes as part of setting the film in Iraq; attempting to access the ancient history of Mesopotamia but knowing that the present cannot be rewritten or excluded from the cinematic gaze. It makes sense that a reboot should distance itself from its predecessors, but producing a film about mummies and Egyptian treasure but not filming or even setting the narrative in Egypt even once could be seen as a step too far from the core idea of the franchise behind The Mummy (2017).
From here, the gasps and moments of awe by Jenny Halsey are in all the places that you might expect them to be, and all of the screams of horror at camel spiders by Vail are at the pitches that you anticipated. The team uncover a sarcophagus weighed down in a vat of mercury to prevent evil spirits from taking root. When they airlift the artefacts from the tomb, whilst being chased by an eerily large sandstorm, Morton catches a glimpse of Halsey's stomach and instead of joining her conversation about the significance of the find or develops a curiosity for the supernatural events that are beginning to unfurl, asks only why she didn't tell everyone that they had sex for longer than fifteen seconds.
From the introduction to the film it is established that, during the crusades,English knights stole a gem from the dagger Ahmanet was given by Set and took it back to London where it was buried with them beneath the Thames. Even though this is an aspect of the film that makes little sense, the viewer understands the ride that they're being taken on and decides to take the entire film with a gigantic pinch of salt and collectively bet on how many countries the film will visit before Egypt.
Ahmanet's revival is a curious one; choosing mainly male victims and kissing them, sucking the life out of their bodies is a statement of female power and sexuality that clashes violently with the sexist character of Nick Morton and the degrading of Halsey's character throughout the film. Perhaps choosing Morton as the 'chosen one' is the jewel in her revival. She requires a sacrifice of a lover, a chosen one, using the ceremonial dagger in order to complete her pact with Seth. It might seem to the viewer that Morton was chosen because he happens to be the most 'beautiful' person around, but it could be that his behaviour contributes towards the feminine victory that Ahmanet seeks by sacrificing him. However, this isn't something that comes across on screen as she is never permitted to complete the ritual.
Setting aside the confusing geography, the gendered power play, and unoriginal interpretations of mythology, the real condemnation of this film lies in the decision to cast Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll. The part is one that makes even less sense than an Egyptian mummy rummaging around a crypt in Surrey and adds nothing of substance to the film. It is understood that Jekyll is a form of collector of antiquities and a purveyor of curses and ancient magic which has been inspired by his own condition. Independently, his character makes sense and his motivations are sound, but in the narrative, this is something that could only work as a film about Dr. Jekyll or some spin-off of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen (2003). Included in the story of The Mummy (2017), the centrality Dr. Jekyll only reduces the film's already weak presentation into complete farce – especially when paired with the use of CGI to enhance an actor's appearance when it wasn't required.
The Mummy (2017) is a costly misstep for Dark Universe, becoming increasingly worse as the minutes go by. Nick's sacrifice for Halsey, stabbing himself with Set's dagger comes out of nowhere. The time spent showing us how bad things can be when Dr. Jekyll becomes Mr. Hyde neglects an already valid villain in Ahmanet and prevents any character growth and relationship dynamism. It is hard to pinpoint the moment that Nick stops objectifying Halsey and begins to develop feelings for her, but this is something lost amongst the cheese that Kurtzman begins to throw at us thick and fast; delivering monologues about good and evil and claiming that 'sometimes it takes a monster to fight a monster' without even giving a nod to Dr. Jekyll after Crowe fought so hard to make the character work.
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The Circle (2017)
Biting More than You Can Chew
The Circle is, essentially, a marriage between the tone of the television series Black Mirror (2011) and the theme of the video game Watch_Dogs (2014). Mae Holland (Watson) secures a customer experience position at tech-giant The Circle, run by Eamon Bailey (Hanks). There are numerous allusions to Apple throughout the film; a headquarters similar to the newly designed Apple Park; a self-sustaining and all-inclusive experience which includes colleague groups, employee support, and recreational areas; devices - tablets, watches, computers, and wristbands - are all linked up to each employee ensuring that they are permanently connected with each other and the cloud. Combining the thematic approach to 'Fifteen Million Merits' and 'Nosedive' from the Black Mirror anthology, The Circle uses feedback systems to monitor the progress they make at work, their customers' satisfaction, and their 'popularity', gained through engaging in almost-compulsory extra-curricular events. Yet, this is something that is introduced but left under-developed. Once it has been established, the narrative never revisits Holland's score, never demonstrates growth or decline, or really shows the consequences of those that don't meet the ideal score.
The Circle includes Holland's parents onto their health plan to help with his struggle with multiple sclerosis, but everything is not perfect at the company. Holland is approached by Ty (Boyega) - a major designer responsible for the 'Tru You' software which sustains their in-house social media - and voices concern with the forced and superficial excitement of his fellow employees. It is understood that, after designing the revolutionary software, he went 'underground'. It isn't made clear how this was achieved whilst still working at The Circle and being surrounded by people that should, reasonably, recognise him.
Holland is taken below ground into a disused subway tunnel where she learns that The Circle is installing servers to store all of the information gathered by the company's software. However, this is another string that is tugged and left to fall loose over the plot. Once Holland visits the server room, she never returns, the viewer is never allowed to see the scale of the servers or the ramifications of storing the masses of personal data. However, the suggestion is enough to plant a see of doubt in the viewer's mind about the dangers of surveillance.
When the company reveals the 'See Change', a small adhesive camera that can be deployed all over the world, there is further cause for concern. First praised for being a tool for witnessing civil rights infractions, the 'See Change' soon becomes a tool to find fugitives. However, when a demonstration turns to find a civilian, Holland's friend Mercer (Coltrane), it results in his death and inspires disillusionment with the concept. During the grief process, Mae goes kayaking in the river at night, capsizes, and is rescued by the camera operators watchful gaze.
The Circle unveils the true horror of a surveillance-state when Mae decides to go 'fully transparent' and wears a 'See Change' camera all the time. Over the course of her broadcasting she builds up to two and a half million streamers which support her through Mercer's death and an awkward episode of catching her parents making love. An unexpected change of heart causes Holland to turn on her employers, Bailey and Stenton (Oswalt), by inviting them to go 'fully transparent' and leaks their emails, private emails, and company documents. This turn cannot really be described as a twist as much as an appearance from Beck can be described as a twist. Similar to a twist, it comes out of nowhere, with no indication of its arrival, the only difference is that the viewer finds it difficult to empathise with the significance of the event.
The impression is that, rather than taking down the tech company, Holland has simply performed a hostile takeover, demonstrating her belief that 'Sharing is Caring - Secrets are Lies - Privacy is Theft'. The Circle is a film that demonstrates real potential; exploring events that are relevant and engaging in an increasingly technologically dependent society. However, the real disappointment is that the film attempts to adopt a little more than it can raise. Between secret servers, surveillance, underground agitators, conspiracy, and technological development there isn't much room left for character dynamism, plot continuity, and developed tropes. That being said, The Circle is not a bad film and definitely provokes thought for those open to questioning the progression of technology. If all else fails, watching Tom Hanks stroll around a building for two hours is entertaining enough.
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Alien: Covenant (2017)
Fassbender Teaches Fassbender the Flute
It is nearly impossible to be involved with the sphere of cinema without being familiar with the Alien franchise. Sigourney Weaver's 'Ripley' has become something of a touchstone for the empowered female lead; H.R. Giger's alien concept artwork revolutionised the standard for extra-terrestrial life, and the terror of the Facehugger and the Chestburster taught its audience to slowly disregard the suggestion of an alien life-form coming to Earth in peace.
For me, and the many others who were born too late to experience the crisis aboard the Nostromo in 1979, Alien: Covenant presented an opportunity to become part of the community that boasts its own detailed science and extensive fan-base. It had been rumoured that Scott aimed to title the film Alien: Paradise Lost to reinstate the relevance with the Alien franchise after a confused audience mistook Prometheus (2012) for a standalone film. Yet, naming the film Covenant and, therein, creating a link with the hugely popular Halo video game franchise, Scott demonstrates the battle with maintaining the series' relevance in contemporary cinema. It seems that this muddled origin for Alien: Covenant is a suitable episode to represent the film's narrative progression; a disappointing pastiche of its own discography that has, along the way, adopted many clichés associated with the genre.
The attention that is given to Weyland's (Pearce) creation of artificial intelligence and the custodian of the Covenant, Walter (Fassbender), in the opening scenes, the film soon begins to present as an investigation into the perils of creating the perfect sentient machine rather than a portfolio of alien encounters. Watching Walter communicate with the ship's operating system, Mother, the narrative began to overlap with that of Tyldum's Passengers (2016) - The spacecraft, carrying thousands of colonists and embryos, is on a course for a new planet to call home. However, due to a solar flare, the Covenant takes serious damage and results in several of the incubation pods to wake their occupants early whilst the Captain (Franco) is burned to death leaving the crew leaderless.
From here, Tennessee (McBride), one of the Covenant's crew intercepts a rogue transmission containing John Denver's 'Take Me Home, Country Roads' and decide - under the new leadership of Oram (Crudup) - to set a course for the planet of origin. The brief moment of relief that I had felt that Alien: Covenant was departing from the tired trope of 'waking up too soon' was short-lived. When the crew arrived on the source planet, they emerged from the Covenant dressed as Rebels from the Star Wars franchise and began wandering aimlessly across marshland, stepping on alien nests, releasing spores into the air, and abandoning the years of training they would have undertaken to prepare them for a new environment. The crew spend far too long 'exploring' the hostile terrain and, considering that it presents nothing aesthetically different from Earth, becomes a drag for the audience. Daniels (Waterson), Lope (Bichir), and co. meet David - The previous model and identical A.I. to David - hiding out in an ancient city trying hard not to seem like a token Yoda after being stranded following the events of Prometheus.
Ridley Scott, knowing that the majority of his audience has turned up to see the infamous aliens, keeps them from the screen for as long as possible and forces his viewer to sit through long, confusing scenes featuring Michael Fassbender (Walter) teaching Michael Fassbender (David) how to play the flute whilst discussing 'Ozymandias' and how sad it is that they can't create life. It wouldn't be so insufferable if this was an isolated incident, but Walter and David share several exchanges throughout the film and, at one point, share a kiss for little more reason than a brief nod to the discography.
When the audience is finally permitted to gaze upon the genre-defining, yet disturbing phallic, Xenomorphs, it seems that the pressure of expectation and previous achievement proves too much for the director. There are countless episodes of token face-hugging and chest-bursting that attempt to relive the glory of the original moment, but are repeated so often that the event is cheapened and reduced to little more than male sexual aggression.
It was disappointing to watch Alien: Covenant, knowing the reputation that Ridley Scott has nurtured with the Alien franchise over the past forty years, crumble into a stagnant cliché. I would like to say that this film is still deserving of viewing; for the experience, for the history, or even because it might present something of value to the long-term fans of the Xenomorphs and the Neomorphs. However, it seems that if Covenant is the representative of where the long-line of films has ended-up, then it might be best to give this one a hard-pass, even if only to protect the memory of the glory that once was.
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King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017)
Snatch versus A Knight's Tale
If you were to number every man that has attempted to draw Excalibur from the stone throughout the lore that surrounds King Arthur, you would find that there have been an equivalent number of imaginings of Merlin and the Knights of the Round Table, in both film and literature; from the Historia Brittonum (828 A.D.), to the Annales Cambriae (12th Century), to Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017).
Considering the importance of Arthurian legend in establishing a coherent British national identity, there are many of us that are familiar, even if only in part, with the tales of the Pendragon bloodline. However, for those of us that aren't, Ritchie's introduction to King Arthur: Legend of the Sword is one that fails to offer a foundation of substance to the viewer ill at ease with this segment of British mythology. The audience is exposed to an opening ten minutes which are full of the same intensity that it took the Lord of the Rings franchise three films to build up to: There are battles on bridges, parkour assassinations, and more extras than you could shake a stick at. It appears that the director is caught between the knowledge that; whilst there are many comfortable with these ancient stories, a film of this calibre requires an introduction. The product of this mixed and, clearly reluctant, position is that Elsa, and other minor characters, are assassinated before their properly introduced, protagonists are neglected and hidden amongst the melee of the revolt, and villains are introduced with vigour, only to be inexplicably absent from the rest of the film.
It seems that whilst Ritchie was editing his first cut, at a length of over three hours, it would have been to the benefit of the film had the introduction been cut from the final reel – Which might have saved some of the more unsettling questions: Why does Vortigern (Law), usurper of his brother, dictatorial King of England, and ultimate villain of the film, cry of have a nosebleed every time he appears on screen in the introduction? Why is Mordred (Knighton), famed nemesis of the Pendragons and magical scourge of Camelot, dispatched within the first five minutes by Uther (Bana) climbing atop his behemoth war elephant? Or why is this introduction completely incongruous to the rest of the film? However, once the cinematic mess of the opening segment is complete, we begin to see some of Ritchie's directorial flair. The film was pitched to him as a cross between Snatch (2000) and The Lord of the Rings (2001), whereas the reality of the film is that it appears as a cross between Aladdin (1992), and Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998) but set against the backdrop of A Knight's Tale (2001). The viewer is shown in a frenetic montage that, as a result of Vortigern's usurpation of the throne, Arthur (Hunnam) has been smuggled out of Camelot and raised as an orphan on the streets of Londinium, taking the workers of a bordello as his new family and earning money through pick-pocketing tourists and traders whilst learning to fight under the training of George, played by Chinese-British actor Tom Wu.
Following a 'heist', involving stealing from the Vikings and the cutting of Greybeard's (Persbrandt)
grey beard, Arthur finds himself on the run from the Blacklegs – a military outfit enforcing the King's rule and protecting those under Vortigern's blessing. The early part of this film is dialogue based, but never stagnant or heavy on the stomach as Ritchie's banterous charm introduces the cockney to the East End a few centuries earlier whilst offering a new take on Arthur's story. David Beckham as Trigger Even David Beckham gets a cameo role, portraying one of the Blacklegs, Trigger, in the quarry where Arthur is made to attempt to extract Excalibur before being branded to ease the anxieties of the king. Unaware of his heritage, Arthur pulls the sword out from the stone and loses consciousness from the overwhelming power contained within. The lighthearted tone and comic influence that complements the serious narrative of Ritchie's films soon slips away as Vortigern initiates a smear campaign to discredit Arthur's claim to the throne. The King kills his 'family' from the brothel and publicly demands that he appears before the people of Londinium as a weak and false King. Through fear of losing those he loves, Arthur surrenders to Vortigern's plot and is tied to the block in preparation to be beheaded.
The Mage (Bergès-Frisbey) rushes to disrupt his execution in the form of an Eagle familiar, allowing Arthur to escape with Excalibur through the crowd in a scene that would not have appeared out of place in the Assassin's Creed video game franchise. There is some controversy as to why Merlin did not appear in the film, especially as there was a significant to include Mordred, despite of his minor role. It seems likely that 'The Mage' is designed to be the equivalent of Merlin, or perhaps a character to be introduced later in the series of six planned films in this franchise. Considering the steps towards inclusion that Ritchie has taken; portraying Sir George as a Chinese rebel, Sir Bedivere as as West African, and the rest of the Knights of the Round Table as low-born thieves and hustlers, it would not have been a step too far to depict Merlin as a woman.
It seems, at times, that Ritchie struggles with the identity of the film between the speed of the films in his discography versus managing a film that is poised to develop into a serial franchise.
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Life (2017)
Martian Pareidolia
For many, Lucian's True History (2 C.E.) serves as the first notable narrative to mention extra-planetary travel, inter-planetary warfare, and alien life-forms. Some 2000 years on from this 'birth' of Science-Fiction, the concept of alien life is considered a real, though hypothetical, possibility. Understanding this potential, it seems that Science-Fiction directors have redoubled their efforts in rendering a 'realistic' and plausible aesthetic of alien life and have deployed cinema as a simulation for extra-terrestrial contact, most of which exploring violent outcomes.
However, despite the seemingly limitless capacity for imagination of extra-terrestrial life, in attempting to imagine the appearance and behavioural patterns of alien life, humanity demonstrates its own limiting egocentricity. For example, providing this with some explanation requires us to recall some of the most beloved instances of aliens in film history; E.T., the 'classic' alien from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), or even the spoof representation of aliens in Mars Attacks! (1996). Each of these aliens share a common anthropomorphism; all humanoid, possessing shared features with humans; bipedalism, facial structure, and posable appendages. What each of these aliens demonstrates is that, whilst the potential for creative imagination is limitless, it might well be beyond human capacity to 'create' sentient life without the template of humanity; how, after all, does one imagine something outside of the known parameters of Earth? Or engage the effect of different atmospheric composition on forming organisms? Even in the instances where directors and creative producers have designed aliens that appear not to resemble humans outwardly, such as the aliens in the recent Arrival (2016) or Life (2017), they possess something recognisably human. Villeneuve's Abbott and Costello are communicative, aware of their human nomenclature, and develop attachments to the scientists that encounter them, sharing language and their relationships. The Martian 'Calvin' in Life (2017), despite its aesthetic inhumanity, possess a quasi-humanoid face structure, undermining the efforts in creating a realistic alien.
From the moment that the alien is discovered, it is clear that Espinosa is attempting to do something differently. Scientist Hugh Derry (Ariyon Bakare) detects a micro-organism within a sample of Martian earth and experiments with varying temperatures and chemical compositions to recreate the conditions of the organism to re-animate it. This move is one that, initially, seems to understand the problems of Science-Fiction films prior; that life in other spheres would live differently, behave differently, and most likely not resemble humanity. However, it is when Hugh realises that the 'Martian' prefers an atmosphere closer to Protozoic Earth than contemporary Mars and we find ourselves engaging with a prehistoric alien, suspending our disbelief two-fold, that humanity's hubris surfaces. The Martian, or 'Calvin', develops rapidly from a single-cell organism into something of a hive-mind of all-eyes, all-muscle, all-brain, dispatching the crew of the station until only two remain (Gyllenhaal and Ferguson). Naturally, with each crew member that Calvin kills, it grows stronger through feeding on them until it grows into a formidable mass of ectoparasitoid that threatens the course of humanity by engineering an escape to Earth in a life-pod.
It is difficult to say what might be considered realistic and what is not when you're dealing with the current theoretical concept of extra-terrestrial life. However, all the scientific progress that Espinosa made with constructing Calvin as a scientific probability is reduced, firstly by its apparent invincibility - withstanding flamethrowers, the vacuum of space, and a decompressing docking tunnel - and secondly, by bestowing Calvin with a humanoid facial structure.
There is something indisputably alien about Calvin's face, yet, the exoskeletal structure representing a recognisable face, complete with brow and nasal bones, reveals the 'true face' of our fear about alien encounters - ourselves. Despite the varying degrees of fantasy involved with the Science-Fiction genre, whether we're faced with the 'dinosaur alien' in Life (2017), the quasi-crustacean face-hugger from Alien (1979) or the incongruously similar Paul, from the eponymous film (2011), there is something undeniably familiar in each of these ideas of 'little green men'. Even though Calvin appears to be a new breed of alien, when analysing Calvin's behaviour and attempting to ascertain what it is that can be considered 'alien', thoughts begin to turn to violence: Hugh's hand is pulverized, Rory is forced to swallow the alien and is destroyed from the inside out. Calvin appears also to be desperate for survival, grappling up David's legs during the docking breach, and feeding on the body of a dying man and embracing light sticks for warmth. However, there are none amongst these 'alien' characteristics which are not shared, however exaggerated, with the human race. When Calvin's 'human' facial structure opens up to reveal a biological monstrosity beneath, the ferocity of alien survival is united with the aesthetic of humanity to frame the human condition. The fear is that our scientific development will project us across the stars to galaxies where we will only discover an Other, brutal reflection of our own savagery in an episode of Martian pareidolia - seeing faces where they should not be.
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Buster's Mal Heart (2016)
Buster's Catholic Heart
There's been one point or another, during our lives, that we've found ourselves in conversation with someone who has both intrigued and concerned us with their eccentricity. For me, these moments are often experienced around public transport; the stranger that sits next to you despite the available seats on the bus, the slightly intoxicated person at the stop whilst you're waiting for the last bus, or the person hanging around the train station waiting room that doesn't appear to be waiting for any particular connection. For Jonah (Rami Malek), this interaction was with The Last Free Man (DJ Qualls), whom he meets at the hotel in which he is the concierge. Despite the company policy, and the sight of his drug addiction, Jonah agrees to provide a room for The Last Free Man where he preaches of a conspiracy known as the Inversion. From here begins the descent of Jonah's mind; he becomes slowly-and-then-suddenly fixated around the concept of wormhole's – Not dissimilar from those depicted in Donnie Darko (2001) – and becomes increasingly dissatisfied with his work as the night manager.
Structuring the chronology of Buster's Mal Heart simplistically, however, reduces the complex portrayal of the disparate temporal episodes. During these sorts of crises in film, the viewer can often safely turn to visual symbolism and verbal leitmotif to engage with the deeper echelon of meaning in the narrative. For example, in The Godfather (1972) we can take the oranges as portent for impending death, and in Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) we can take the spiral imagery to represent confusion and disorientation. The issue presented in Buster's Mal Heart is that the haven of symbolism does not seem to complement the narrative directly and opens up a new avenue of interpretation. Through the fog of suburban discontent and the forests of Montana is a cache of religious symbolism present to conflict and supplement the film. Early in the film, during Jonah's internal struggle with his ideals, it is learned that his wife is an ex-addict who was reformed through the church. She tells him that he is pleased that he has 'found faith in his heart' for them to be together. This appears to be of little consequence as many rehabilitated addicts utilise the structure and comfort of organised religion to conquer their issues. However, much later in the film during a newscast featuring 'Buster', his mother watching expresses the importance of the role of God in restoring him. These two episodes bookend the film, demonstrating the imposition of religion on Jonah, a man who spends a great portion of the film buying into the concept of the Inversion – something dismissed and ridiculed by the public as mere conspiracy.
It is not so much the agency of clarification that these references to Christianity provide for unlocking the demanding rhetoric of the film, but the frequency of symbols is something that cannot be dismissed as coincidence. It seems likely that the aesthetic of Buster on the rowboat in the middle of the ocean, where he spends a figurative forty-days and forty-nights in a form of desert, is designed to draw comparisons with the Western imagination of Christ. It seems more than coincidental that this image is contrasted with one of Buster wearing a Santa costume whilst he squats in the holiday home, taking hostage the elderly couple that have returned.
Perhaps the most curious of all the religious symbolism throughout the film are the allusions to the Ten Plagues of Egypt. Whilst not all of the plagues feature explicitly throughout the film, the subtlety and consistency of the religious imagery indicates that the plagues, or trials, present to test Jonah demand investigation. During Jonah's 'staycation' in the hotel, he experiences the first and tenth plagues. Buster returns to his room, to find the bath tub full of water. Moving into the bedroom, he discovers his wife and child are dead and are covered in blood. It could be argued that this represents the first plague: water into blood. It seems that The Last Free Man; the man with a cocaine addiction, a disbelief in forms of personal identification, and a penchant for drifting, was the murderer. However, his identity is proved to be questionable as the police and security review the CCTV footage and find no man present at all. This appears to suggest that The Last Free Man never truly existed and that the perpetrator of the infanticide was Jonah himself, thus bringing on the remaining plagues. Later in the film, the frame is filled with the sight of Buster, alone, drifting afloat a rowboat in the ocean begging for death. Whilst it is unclear whether this expression originates in existential ennui, honest grief, or remorseful guilt, it could simply be interpreted as an emotional darkness, a metaphor for the ninth plague: darkness. When Buster awakes the following morning, he finds the boat full of frogs: the second plague. Whilst any self-respecting survivalist would interpret this infestation as a source of sustenance for the future, it is not hard to suspect that these victuals would provide little restoration. The manifestation of the remaining plagues is implied rather than represented directly; whilst Buster is living in the cave amongst the Montana forest the plagues of lice, boils, thunderstorms of hail, locusts, and vicious animals are easily imaginable as aspects of wild living.
The film does, however, engage with the tenets of Christianity and highlight tensions between organised belief and conspiracy theories to a degree that refusing to recognise them would be an incomplete approach to the film. The function of this imagery is elusive, it might serve to engineer Jonah's cognitive dissonance and existential collapse, or rather, it might be something of a muse for director Sarah Adina Smith, designed to represent the trials of one's mind when balancing personal belief and social expectation.
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Power Rangers (2017)
Rangers Reborn!
It has been a long time coming in contemporary film, but we've finally arrived at a point where directors no longer feel the need to cast baby-faced thirty-somethings as high-schoolers. Despite concerns from producers over the decades that younger actors are less experienced and might not act as well as their older counterparts, it seems that someone in Hollywood has realised that they aren't convincing us that any of them are under thirty-five. Power Rangers, however, boasts an average age of twenty four and, even then, it is only Black Ranger, Ludi Lin, throwing off the statistics at age thirty-three. If there is nothing else about this film that you could take away and tell your friends, at least you've got young-adult acting done by those that know it best.
Often when films are remade and franchises are revived it can turn out badly for the original, as Clash of the Titans (2010) and Carrie (2003) can attest. Yet, in other occasions it can turn out brilliantly and revive latent passions and childhood excitement, such as with Rise of... and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2011 and 2014 respectively - ignoring, of course, Tim Burton's hash in 2001. Going into Power Rangers, knowing the thin line between failure and success and looking forward to reliving the experience of Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie (1997) and Might Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie (1995), I found the reboot to be the perfect blend of cheese and modernisation. After all, it is a great strength of a remake to honour the legacy that precedes it whilst taking the franchise forward into a relevant direction.
The rangers; Jason, Kimberly, Billy, Zack, and Trini meet one another during detention where each of them are revealed to be troubled and, partly, misunderstood teens. Red Ranger, Jason, has ruined his chances of a football scholarship when a prank involving the school's mascot goes wrong. Blue Ranger, Billy, is struggling with Autism after the death of his father, and the Yellow Ranger, Trini, struggles with sexuality and identity under the pressures of her normative family. The majority of the film is spent nurturing their character arcs and developing, what appears to be, an origin story for the rangers. Whilst dynamic characters are always cherished in films, it is slightly to the film's discredit that this process takes so long as action scenes are rushed into the ending almost as if Israelite were trying to fill Saban's quota of heroism. That being said, the interpersonal relationships that dominate the early parts of the film are what make it unrecognisable from a Power Rangers movie and this isn't entirely a detriment. There are no cringe-worthy martial arts, power stances, or badly sewn costumes, instead - meeting with the new requirements for superheroes - five regular kids that stumble across their powers. Whilst Billy is messing around in the gold quarry, a detonation goes wrong and the explosion reveals an alien rock from which Zack extracts the power 'coins' whilst attempting to find something valuable.
After meeting Alpha-5 (Hader), a robot much like B.E.N. from Treasure Planet (2002) in both mannerism and appearance, and a digitised Zordon (Cranston) beneath the quarry in an episode of upside-down water reminiscent of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007), the pace of the film quickly increases. The transition from rangers who were struggling to morph and couldn't defeat the simulated soldiers in training were suddenly fully-suited and riding Zords into Angel Grove to defeat Goldar. All of the success in creating a modern and respectable Power Rangers, impervious to instant dating is slightly reduced at the appearance of Rita Repulsa (Banks), who's make-up is an insult to make-up artists everywhere. You might argue that her static character, simplistic villainy, and antiquated costume is an aspect of the original that demands a place in the remake, her character is something of an eye-sore compared to the refreshing rangers. Considering the lengths gone to humanise the rangers and, to some extent, Zordon, it is disappointing that Repulsa has been neglected in this respect. The reality is that her only saving grace is her unawareness of Krispy Kreme - a brand that appears so centrally you might wonder about their contribution to the production - which offers a cheap comic thrill throughout.
The crowning moment of the film, and the final nod to the original, is during the action sequence where the rangers are racing in their Zords back to Angel Grove and the original theme tune occupies the channels. For some, this is an act of unforgivable cringe but, for me, I was privately filled with child-like wonder and an overwhelming wish that I could be a power ranger - Any of the colours would have done in that moment. Even the 'boss fight' between the Rita/Goldar hybrid and the Megazord did not compare. The process of the Zords becoming the Megazord a little too similar to Transformers, which Israelite must of realised considering the Easter egg which features Bumblebee parked in the street during the battle.
The film can be considered a success for the hardcore fan-base of the Power Rangers series as it does a commendable job of modernising the franchise and making it relevant to a new audience. However, for new viewers, there are going to be moments of confusion as to whether you're watching The Avengers, or Transformers and poses the threat of being a flash-in-the-pan, definitely entertaining during the two hours you're watching it, but not something that you're going to remember the details of two weeks later.
Despite institutions like Forbes reporting that a sequel is unlikely, the plot has been engineered with a follow-up in mind.
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The Love Witch (2016)
Message Undermined By Delivery
Even though our society has moved beyond a collective compulsion to burn at the stake, or drown in the nearest body of water, the women who intimidate or confound us, it is still commonplace in our language to discuss femininity in terms of magic and sorcery. One needs only think of the amount of times that we have been described a romance as synonymous with falling 'under a spell', or, the amount of times that dalliances have soured and relationships described as 'curses'. Considering the ease with which these bromides occur in our discourse, it comes as no surprise that Feminist director Anna Biller should want to investigate the seriousness of taking this terminology at its linguistic value.
For example, in Elaine (Robinson) - the eponymous 'love witch' - the viewer finds a young woman that wants only to love and be loved in return. However, a bad experience with her ex-husband Jerry (Wozniak) leaves her with a broken heart and in doubt of men's capacity to love. Elaine turns to magic, using the comfort of Tarot and the structure of other practitioners to re-establish a sense of order in her world turned upside down. Believing, as Biller does, that men can only go so deeply into love and struggle to substantiate lust with emotion, Elaine begins to use 'sex magic' to create 'love magic'. She quickly realises, however, that her magic is too strong and that the combined agency of her eros and her philia is too much for the, newly-dubbed, weaker sex and causes their deaths. Through these interactions Elaine becomes something of a serial killer, dispatching each man that she encounters with the intensity of her love. It is often unclear throughout the film how responsible she is for the deaths. Whilst it is true that she gives Wayne (Parise) a homemade alcoholic concoction including hallucinogenic herbs which contribute to his expiration, it is presented on the screen that his death was the fault of his inability to contain the complex emotions he was developing for Elaine. It is not until her final victim, the police officer investigating the trail of deceased men, Griff (Keys), that her murderous inclinations are exposed, as she drives a knife into his heart in ritualistic homage to the painting that she has on her bedroom wall.
The message that Biller has for us through The Love Witch is a potent one, and Elaine is a figurehead for the conflicted woman of the twenty-first century, both an empowered female, yet one in possession of ingrained misogynistic discourse. Biller demonstrates that men criminalise and fear women for their sexuality and their self-empowerment in much the same way as witches were centuries ago, and shows that women can use their oppressed position to gain leverage; yes, provide men with what they want but in a way that allows you to engineer what you want from the situation.
Whilst the director's criticism on gender relations is something to be taken seriously, it is difficult at times to view The Love Witch as more than satiric farce that undermines the seriousness of the film's subtext. For example, the film is full of all of the over-acting of a B-Movie compensating for a small cast and low production budget, extreme close-ups that create suspense in spite of the dialogue, pretending to drive cars against backdrops, gaudy sets and garish costumes, and sneaking phrases of Für Elise into the soundtrack. If it wasn't for the fact that Biller claims all aesthetic similarities to 1970s films were accidental, except for instances of lighting, then The Love Witch could be considered a masterclass in vintage framing. However, if these style choices were unintentional, it serves to suggest an instantly outdated quality to the film, or an unusual creative direction, that fails to appeal to a mainstream audience.
There are many of us that have a secret passion for B-Movies, and could learn to appreciate the aesthetic that The Love Witch offers in the same way that we accept The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), only without the music, and everything according to the colour scheme of a Tarot deck. It seems likely that even fewer could appreciate the static characters, and the incongruous scene changes. Moving from a hard-boiled detective segment, to ridiculing the police investigating a 'witch bottle' and revealing that they have never seen a used tampon, to a medieval renaissance fair and mock-weddings, the film invites you on a roller-coaster ride of satire, whimsy, and independent scenes that would have worked better as sketches or as short films.
One could argue that all of these characteristics were intentional and contribute to the symbolic meaning of The Love Witch; the shallowness of the plot to reflect the perceptions of women as superficial creatures, the episodic manslaughter to demonstrate the criminalisation of femininity during acts of self-empowerment, and the incongruous scene changes to create a sense of confusion and nonsense to comment on the representation of women in contemporary society. Whilst all these things may be true, and certainly should be factored when absorbing and meditating upon the film's message about gender relations, it does not constitute good cinema. It is difficult to be dismissive of a film that is clearly offering something important to society beyond the entertainment of Hollywood Blockbusters, and yet, what is the value of the message if the film is presented in a style that is unappealing to its audience?
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