"Best 3D Animated Feature Film" my ass

War of the Worlds: Goliath
My rating:




As soon as I got home from this movie, I Googled the Los Angeles 3D Film Festival straight away. Y'see, these are the guys who named this movie their Best Animated 3D Feature Film, beating out nominees that included major Hollywood releases such as ParaNorman and Madagascar 3. From what I can tell from their website, their raison d'etre is, indeed, the 3D film medium, the promotion of such, and the defense against any intimation that it's just a fad whose time will pass. So I'm guessing here that their idea of "best", when it comes to giving out their awards (and I have not been able to find out who their judges were - if they had any), refers to the purely technical quality of their 3D effects. And since I didn't watch this movie in 3D, I guess I missed out on its international-award-winning qualities.

Because by every other standard of filmmaking, War of the Worlds: Goliath suuuucks.

In 1899, the Martians attacked Earth - but were defeated by infections from the bacteria in our air. Fifteen years later, our technology has improved by leaps and bounds due to reverse-engineering the Martian war machines. As a child, Eric Wells (Peter Wingfield) witnessed the death of his parents during the first invasion; now he is a Captain in the A.R.E.S. (Allied Resistance Earth Squadrons) multinational force formed to combat the extraterrestrial threat, led by Secretary of War Theodore Roosevelt (Jim Byrnes) and General Kushnirov (Rob Middleton). He and his crew - comprising Jennifer Carter (Elizabeth Gracen), Patrick O'Brien (Adrian Paul), Shah (Tony Eusoff) and Abraham Douglas (Beau Billingsley) - receive command of the Goliath, their latest and most advanced battle tripod. But it comes not a moment too soon - because the Martians have returned, this time stronger than ever.

Yes, this is indeed a made-in-Malaysia film, because it's production company Tripod Films is a homegrown outfit. This despite the fact that its director (Joe Pearson), screenwriter (David Abramowitz), executive producer (Kevin Eastman) and majority of the voice cast (a bunch of former cast members of that '90s Highlander TV show) are all, um, "import players". Not that hiring import players is a bad thing, had it actually produced a good movie. But Joe Pearson is an animation director of much experience but little distinction; David Abramowitz is known only for the aforementioned Highlander TV series, several episodes of MacGyver and V from the '80s, and a direct-to-video Highlander anime spinoff movie; and Kevin Eastman is a co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but it appears his name is attached to this solely because he holds the film rights for the Heavy Metal comic magazine, and this movie is based on one of the comic storylines. Not that I want to get nasty on these gentlemen, or imply that they are incapable of producing good work. But the fact is, they did terrible work here.

I had misgivings the moment I laid eyes on that poster. Look at those character designs. Do they look any better than a cheapo '90s Saturday morning cartoon? Oh, I thought, maybe they'll look better in motion, maybe the animation could be good. But it isn't. And it isn't even just the technical quality that's lacking; everything about the animation is lame and uninspired. From the way the characters move, to the palette of about 4 or 5 emotions each character's face is limited to, to the boring and unimaginative - and interminable - action scenes, to the fact that every male character has broader shoulders than a WWE wrestler. This is TV-quality animation; worse, it's TV-quality animation from at least 15 years ago. Charging cinema ticket prices (and 3D cinema ticket prices at that) for this is criminal.

Okay, there are the 3D-animated mechs, airships, WW1-era triplanes and Martian walkers - and the animation on these is jerky and cheap too. Which I could forgive if their designs were more imaginative, or even more true to the steampunk aesthetic that the movie is being advertised on. Considering the time period - and considering the fact that none of these vehicles appear to be running on steam - it's closer to dieselpunk, and this distinction is actually important to the fans you're advertising your movie to. Worst of all, the designs are dull. Every mech is a similar-looking, three-legged, boxy mass of guns that doesn't even look like a credible piece of early-20th-century technology.

And the storyline, the dialogue... good God, is Abramowitz really an experienced and produced Hollywood screenwriter? Was Highlander ever this bad? (I only watched a few episodes; I know the show has its fans, but I was never one.) Or did he just half-ass this screenplay? I think he half-assed this screenplay. The plot is slapdash, the characterisation is nonexistent, and the dialogue sounds like an extremely rushed first draft that Abramowitz never bothered to turn into a second draft. Even the character names are dull; they might as well have names like Girly McFemale and Paddy O'Stereotype. Like the animation quality, it's all lame and uninspired. The voice actors certainly can't do a damn thing with the dialogue - not even geek-cred luminaries like Adam Baldwin (Firefly, Chuck) and Mark Sheppard (Battlestar Galactica, Supernatural), both wasted in extremely minor roles. Adrian Paul sounds positively bored out of his skull reading his lines. 

Oh, there's a Malaysian character in here. Shah is actually Raja Iskandar Shah, a Malay prince exiled from his royal court for joining A.R.E.S., and he's played by our very own Tony Eusoff. And at one point, he kills a Martian with a keris. Yay, Malaysia Boleh! (He also delivers one laughable line of Malay dialogue that I bet my right pinky will get cut out of international releases.) So with this ridiculous attempt at pandering to the homebase, are we supposed to be proud of this movie? No. There is nothing to be proud of - not even your meaningless award from an inconsequential film festival. Sorry guys; your movie sucks. It will satisfy no one other than 7-year-old children of harried parents rummaging through discount DVD bins looking for something to keep the little brats quiet for 82 minutes. 

NEXT REVIEW: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn part 2
Expectations: well, it's finally over 

Get thrown for a loop

Looper
My rating:

I loved Brick, Rian Johnson's 2005 directorial debut and his first collaboration with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Hard-boiled noir in a high school setting is such an incongruous combination, but good gravy Johnson made it work and gave us one of the most clever and original films of that decade. I confess to having missed The Brothers Bloom, his second film; reviews I read gave me the impression that it was a well-done if unoriginal caper flick, and while I like those just fine, they're not something I go out of my way to catch. Science fiction, on the other hand, is just the kind of thing I'm very eager to watch, and I was very pumped for Johnson's foray into time-travel sci-fi. And for another thing, Gordon-Levitt is in it, and it seems like that guy just can't make a bad movie.

And this time - with Johnson - he's made one of the best time-travel movies of all time.

In 2044, there is a new breed of criminal known as "loopers". Their job is to murder people sent back from the future of 2074, when time travel has been invented and is only used by major crime syndicates. Eventually, one of the people they kill will be themself from the future, indicating that they've "closed their loop" and have the next 30 years to enjoy their riches. Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is one such looper, and he sees first hand what his boss Abe (Jeff Daniels) and Abe's hired thug Kid Blue (Noah Segan) will do to a looper who fails to kill his future self - namely, Joe's friend Seth (Paul Dano). Thus, when Joe's own future self (Bruce Willis) appears and escapes, Young Joe desperately tries to hunt Old Joe down and kill him. But Old Joe has his own reasons for coming to the past, which involve an isolated farm inhabited by a woman named Sara (Emily Blunt) and her preternaturally intelligent young son Cid (Pierce Gagnon).

What impressed me most about Brick was how self-assured it was. For a film by a first-time writer-director and featuring a premise that sounds ridiculous on paper, it displayed a remarkable confidence in itself and that its central conceit would work. (And work it did.) That confidence and self-assurance is on display in Looper as well; take, for instance, the part when Old Joe first appears in 2044 and escapes his younger self's grasp. The very next scene is Young Joe killing his future self in an apparent repeat of what we've just seen, only with a different outcome. This initial "Huh?" moment is followed by a montage of how Joe spends the next 30 years of his "retirement" in Shanghai, and how he eventually meets his wife (Qing Xu). And in the middle of this montage, Gordon-Levitt becomes Bruce Willis, simultaneously establishing that Old Joe and Young Joe are the same person as well as marking the distinction between them. The entire sequence is a flashback from Old Joe's point of view - and the way we switch between both Joes' POVs is yet another narrative trick that Johnson employs with aplomb.

Because this is essentially an action thriller in which the hero and villain are the same person - and a none-too-heroic person at that. For much of the movie, it isn't clear whether it's Old Joe or Young Joe whom we should root for; both of them are at times pretty unlikable, and at one point one of them crosses a major moral horizon in a shocking manner. Imagine how a lesser writer or filmmaker would've handled such a premise; in fact, don't imagine, it's been done. It's arguably as much a character study as it is a sci-fi action thriller, delving deep into the psychology of Old and Young Joe - again, the same person. Such a focus on character is rare for this genre, and the time travel premise gives it an innovative new spin; Old Joe dealing with the fallout of his younger self's actions, Young Joe trying to avoid his older self's fate. Themes of destiny, free will and morality intertwine, and ultimately resolve in a marvelously satisfying climax. Seriously, I was open-mouthed in shock at the ending - shock that quickly turned into awe at how great an ending it was.

Oh, did I mention there's telekinesis in this movie? Why no, I didn't in the synopsis above, so I shall discuss it here. Yes, this is a future in which 10% of the population are born with telekinetic abilities, albeit limited to simple parlour tricks - hence it is treated as another mundane part of life in dystopian 2044. (And yes, it is dystopian, as Johnson wisely shows but never outright tells; there are roving gangs of murderous vagrants in almost every street, while criminals like Joe and his fellow loopers flaunt their wealth above it all. Which adds economic inequality to its themes.) Some have criticised it as an unnecessary and tacked-on element, but they're wrong; throwing telekinesis into a time-travel action thriller is yet another daring decision by Johnson that he pulls off with that same self-assurance. It turns out Cid is a telekinetic, which adds an even greater sense of unpredictable danger to the tense climactic confrontation set entirely on Sara's and Cid's farm. Without telekinesis in the mix, that entire sequence would be much less thrilling and suspenseful.

It's almost a cliché by now to praise Joseph Gordon-Levitt's acting. He wears prosthetic makeup meant to make him look like a young Bruce Willis, and it's a credit to both his talent and the makeup artist that the prosthetics do not drown his performance. It's also been reported that he deliberately mimicked Willis' mannerisms, which I did not notice, but which I certainly will when I get this film on DVD - particularly in the diner scene between Young Joe and his older self. Willis' current career alternates between paycheck roles and parts in which he gets to display his real acting chops, and this is one of the latter. But frankly, I thought they were both overshadowed by two of their co-stars. Emily Blunt is fantastic here, playing the tough yet vulnerable, frightened yet warm single mother Sara, one of the most sympathetic heroines of the year. (She's also one of very few sexually aggressive heroines - yet another example of Johnson breaking convention because he knows he can do it well.) And Pierce Gagnon is revelatory. I couldn't believe he's 10 years old; his delivery of his precociously eloquent dialogue makes Cid sound half his age, and his incredibly controlled performance gives the character layers beyond the Creepy Child trope and bespeaks a talent beyond his years.

And there's also Jeff Daniels' laidback mob boss Abe, and his pathetically ineffectual lackey Kid Blue - both of whom tease possibilities that, this being about time travel and all, they might turn out to be more important than they seem. (Abe is in fact from the future, and he gets the movie's funniest line when he tells Joe which country to spend his retirement in.) And there's the virtuouso scene that shows us, in stunningly gruesome-yet-bloodless detail, what happens to a looper who fails to close his loop. Yes, this one gets a  4-½-star rating all right, only the third one I'm giving out this year. It damn well is one of the best time-travel movies ever. It's clever, inventive, humanistic and thought-provoking, yet never forgets that it's also an action thriller. And all pulled off with equal amounts skill and surety by Johnson. Rian Johnson, man. Look out for this guy. If Looper's success - modest, but nothing to be ashamed of - vaults him out of the indie realm and into big-budget studio projects, the future looks like something worth looking forward to.

NEXT REVIEW: Skyfall
Expectations: sky high!

This one is the law

Dredd
My rating:

Confession time: I actually enjoyed the 1995 Sylvester Stallone-starring Judge Dredd at the time. Stallone was a pretty good choice to play Dredd, Diane Lane was at the peak of her hawtness, and even Rob Schneider was still somewhat fresh and funny. Only the direction and the action scenes were somewhat lacklustre, but overall it was a fun time at the movies (for an excitable teenage TMBF who wasn't too discerning about what he paid to watch). And not being a huge fan of the comics, it didn't bother me that Dredd took off his helmet. But 17 years later, it's a franchise ripe for a reboot, one that's more faithful to the source material. And with Alex Garland - frequent collaborator with Danny Boyle - on writing and producing duties and a British production company and crew (the 2000 AD comic where Judge Dredd was introduced is based in the U.K.), it looked like the franchise is in good hands.

It's certainly entirely different from the first film, and it comes with strengths as well as weaknesses.

In the future, America is an irradiated wasteland, and the survivors live in Mega-City One - a vast dystopian metropolis that houses 800 million inhabitants. Law and order is upheld by the Judges of the Hall of Justice, who are authorised to act as judge, jury and executioner, and the most feared among them is Judge Dredd (Karl Urban). Dredd is partnered with and tasked with evaluating rookie Judge Anderson (Olivia Thirlby), who is inexperienced but possesses unique psychic powers; their first assignment is to investigate a murder case at the Peach Trees tower block. The 200-story slum tower is controlled by the psychotic gang leader Ma-Ma (Lena Headey), who also controls the production and distribution of a new drug called Slo-Mo. When Dredd and Anderson arrest Kay (Wood Harris), one of Ma-Ma's lieutenants, she orders the entire block sealed in order to trap the two Judges inside - and for her men to hunt them down and kill them.

The main thing this adaptation gets right is the tone. This is grim, moody, stylish and ultraviolent action, just as the comic was. Ma-Ma's drug is called Slo-Mo because it makes the brain feel as if time is moving at a crawl, which is an excuse for director Pete Travis to employ extreme slow-motion in shots that look pretty awesome - especially when it is also used during hard-R-rated action scenes. I'm not one for cinematic gore, but Dredd actually makes a bullet ripping through a guy's jaw - in Slo-Mo - look beautiful, and that is some feat. There's some gorgeous visuals here, married to a unique approach to action scenes that's reminiscent of John Carpenter's Escape from New York and Assault on Precinct 13; a slow and deliberate doling out of violence rather than the usual frenzied, rapid-fire pyrotechnics. It's almost not even an action movie, closer to a thriller.

Which had the unfortunate effect of leaving me somewhat cold. I can respect the creative decision to be different, but I rarely found this movie to be thrilling or suspenseful. Maybe because I'd just watched The Raid: Redemption (a severely marred version that is totally not worth watching, that is), which has a near-identical premise of cops trapped in an apartment building full of murderous criminals, but the film never really gripped me the way a good action thriller should. I feel like in its commitment to avoid all the usual action film clichés, it also left out a lot of the genre's tropes that make it fun; intricate and creative action sequences, cheesy witty one-liners, even opportunities for the titular character to display some awesome badassery. And Judge Dredd is a character who absolutely needs to be awesomely badass. It relies too much on Karl Urban's performance to deliver the awesome and the badass.

But Urban delivers. He is clearly aware that he is playing an iconic character and does a deliberately mannered performance, in his body language and the lower half of his face not obscured by Dredd's trademark helmet. As befits the comicbook character, Dredd seems like he's always in complete control of the situation, yet it does not undercut the sense of danger inherent in the plot. And Ma-Ma makes for a pretty dangerous situation; a none-too-physically-imposing woman like her is a unique villain, and Lena Headey gives her an unhinged viciousness that makes her effectively threatening. But personally, I thought Olivia Thirlby's Judge Anderson stole the show. Her psychic powers were cool, and though Thirlby looks tiny and vulnerable next to Ma-Ma's psychotic goons, she keeps her nerves under control and her wits about her enough to kick plenty of ass.

So a great cast, some terrific visuals, a unique (albeit a little too low-key) tone and a much greater respect for the source material; all these are enough to make Dredd a better movie than 1995's Judge Dredd. Unfortunately, it falls short in one respect, and that's in the realization of the dystopian future of Mega-City One. This is a low-budget British/South African co-production, and it shows - in the cars on the highways during the opening car chase scene (especially the van that Dredd chases, that looks like a 1979 Mitsubishi Delica), in the design of the Judges' Lawmaster motorbike, and in how Mega-City One looks just like the modern-day slums of Johannesburg where it was filmed. Judge Dredd had flying cars and stuff, and even the comics played up the bizarre futurism of its setting. Its lack of a big budget is probably why they chose the premise of being trapped in a single building, but during the scenes outside of it, it shows.

But I can respect Travis wanting to give it a more real, gritty look. I can respect them doing away with the giant eagle epaulettes on the Judges' uniforms in favour of a more utilitarian body-armour look. I can respect them designing a Lawmaster that is actually road-worthy, instead of Judge Dredd's bike that can't actually steer. And I can totally respect a faithful adaptation of 2000 AD that gets the cynicism, the fatalism, the stylishness and the graphic violence right. I'd be down for a sequel that would get a bigger budget to play with and give us more Dredd and Anderson - but it looks like that's not going to happen, seeing as the movie was a major flop and didn't make much money even in the U.K. That's sad. I could've liked it better, but it deserved better than what it's getting.

(By the way, I just got done watching a few clips of Judge Dredd on YouTube. Man, TMBF circa 1995 had terrible taste.)

NEXT REVIEW: Untuk Tiga Hari
Expectations: hanya kerana anda, Afdlin Shauki 

We remember it just fine on our own

Total Recall (2012)
My rating:




TMBF has of course seen the original 1990 Total Recall, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. It stands out from Schwarzenegger's '80s-and-early-'90s run of action movies for two things: Verhoeven's unique - and at times, uniquely grotesque - visions of a science-fictional future, and its mind- and reality-bending plot based on Philip K. Dick's short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." It was a popular enough, and recent enough, film that one could not but wonder just why anyone would want to remake it - but then again, remember what TMBF said about criticising a movie for being unnecessary. And indeed, there were early reports of how Len Wiseman's remake would not repeat the Mars storyline, and that it would take more inspiration from Dick's story than the 1990 film. The trailer also looked good, showcasing a fresh an eye-catching look that's certainly different from Verhoeven's.

But the surface is all that's different. In the fundamental ways, this is as much a rehash as it is a remake.

In a future where most of the world has been rendered inhabitable due to global chemical wars, the Earth's population is confined to the United Federation of Britain and the Colony (what was once Australia) - and the haves clearly live in the former while the have-nots are confined to the latter. Travel between the two areas is only possible via the Fall, a massive elevator shaft that runs through the Earth's core. Douglas Quaid (Colin Farrell) is an ordinary factory worker who has been having disturbing recurring dreams, and - despite the admonishments of his wife Lori (Kate Beckinsale) and his friend Harry (Bokeem Woodbine) - visits Rekall, a shady establishment that implants artificial memories, to satisfy what seems like his fantasy of being a secret agent. Suddenly he is hunted by the police, his own wife tries to kill him, and the mystery woman from his dreams (Jessica Biel) shows up to help him. Quaid realises that he may indeed be a double agent, working for the Colony's resistance and its leader Matthias (Bill Nighy) against the UFB's dictator Chancellor Cohaagen (Bryan Cranston), and that his very identity may be false.

There's no doubt that Wiseman, along with his screenwriters Mark Bomback, James Vanderbilt and Kurt Wimmer, are fans of the original film. And it's quite clear that they enjoyed putting in as many little references and callbacks to that film as they could. There's a triple-breasted prostitute; there's a bug that Quaid painfully extracts out of his body; there's a security checkpoint that Quaid tries to get past with the aid of futuristic disguising technology; there's an attempt by the bad guys to convince Quaid none of it is real, that's given away by a timely secretion of a bodily fluid. (It's, um, not as dirty as it sounds.) All this plus the basic plot that is essentially identical, substituting only the deprivation of air to the colourfully mutated citizens of Mars with the Fall as symbol of oppression of the Colony's downtrodden slum-dwellers. There's even a bit where an arm gets ripped off by an elevator, only - this being PG-13 - it's a robot's and not Michael Ironside's.

But in effect, none of these are as fun as Wiseman seem to think they are. All they do is remind us that it's all been done before. Again and again, the movie keeps telling us "hey, remember this thing from the original movie? Betcha do! And hey, remember this thing? And this?" Yes, we remember, but if we wanted to watch 'em again we could just pick up the first film on DVD. We would much rather see something new, which is what I believe - correct me if I'm wrong - most people want when they purchase a current cinema ticket.

To be fair, the best parts are those that are new and different from its 1990 predecessor. For one, the Blade Runner-inspired visual design of the Colony, looking very much like a Hong Kong or Tokyo tenement city of the future with its hodge-podge of apartments stacked chaotically atop each other. It looks cool enough that it doesn't even seem like such a bad place to live. We see less of how the other half lives in the UFB, but they use magnetically-levitated cars on a kilometres-high multi-level highway system there, and it looks pretty cool too - especially when we get a good ol' car chase sequence in them. The entire first half of the movie is one long chase sequence, and if Wiseman's good at one thing it's crafting action scenes. Especially when they employ the best of circa 2012 special effects; design-wise and technical-wise, it all looks great.

And then the second half slows way the hell down, getting interminably mired in its not-particularly-interesting plot details. I've previously decried the cliché of the dystopian sci-fi action film in which the hero fights the tyrannical villain but first meets the rag-tag resistance and ends up getting them all killed. Well, it turns out the original Total Recall was one of the first to employ that trope. And it turns out the new Total Recall simply regurgitates it. Bryan Cranston as aforementioned tyrannical villain gets just one scene to do some villainous scenery-chewing, and it isn't nearly enough. Bill Nighy as the aforementioned resistance's leader gets just one scene period and doesn't even hide the fact that he's just phoning it in. (And Kuato was so much more cool.) Wasting the talents of two such charismatic character actors is just one more example of how lacking in real imagination and creativity this movie is.

But the kids'll probably enjoy it. If you've never seen the original movie and don't know a thing about it, if your age falls below the 22-year interval between the two films, you'll most likely like this just fine. It's a competent and largely unobjectionable big-budget Hollywood timewaster, and I can't imagine anyone being sorely disappointed by it. Except that aside from time, it also wastes a fascinating science fiction premise that had already been turned into a big loud action movie once before. Is it too much to expect that a remake - especially one that claims to have went back to the original Dick source material - take it somewhere different? Is it too much to expect, say, a deeply mind-f**king psychological thriller instead, which is what instantly came to mind when I thought "hmm, how should a Total Recall remake justify its existence?" I guess it is.

NEXT REVIEW: Hantu Gangster
Expectations: gee, Namewee sure ain't an easy guy to defend

Stealing black goo from the gods

Prometheus
My rating:




This should've been a major cinematic event. Ridley Scott, director of two bona fide sci-fi film classics - Alien and Blade Runner - not only returning to the genre after 30 years, but returning to the Alien universe with a story that is part prequel, part expansion of the franchise into new and highly ambitious territory. A film that dares to ask the Big Questions, in the tradition of pure, thought-provoking science fiction - the genre of ideas, not just empty SFX-fuelled spectacle. A film that might possibly redeem the Alien franchise, built on two classic films (and don't nobody dare argue with me that Aliens isn't a classic) but tarnished by a succession of increasingly-sucky sequels. A film that was as highly anticipated as any other "event" film of 2012, perhaps even more so than The Avengers or The Dark Knight Rises. As good as those were, or might be, they haven't been 30 years in the making.

It should've.

A scientific expedition on board the starship Prometheus, funded by billionaire Peter Weyland (Guy Pearce), is on its way to a distant star system. The expedition is led by archaeologists Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) and Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green), who found an ancient symbol in several different archaeological sites that point towards this system; what they expect to find is no less than the origin of life on Earth itself. The crew also includes David (Michael Fassbender), an android with mysterious motives; Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron), the icy corporate overseer; and Janek (Idris Elba), the pragmatic ship's captain. On the planet designated LV-223, they find an installation built by the enigmatic aliens, dubbed the Engineers, who may have created the human race - but they will also find horrors beyond their imagination.

I think it's important, when reviewing a movie, to consider it as a whole and not just focus on the most glaring parts. A film can be flawed in some very fundamental ways, yet also contain many excellent elements. Such is the case with Prometheus, which has some stunning visuals, terrific performances, gorgeous production design and some standout thriller/horror scenes. And as a sci-fi film of ideas, it certainly succeeds at raising some fascinating questions about where we came from and why we exist at all in the universe. Where it abjectly fails is at tackling those questions in an intelligent manner - much less answer them. Be forewarned that a great many questions will remain unanswered by the time the credits roll, which need not necessarily be a flaw. The fact that so much of the plot doesn't make any sense - that's a flaw.

There are rants, complaints and tirades about the film's many problems all over the internet now, so I won't repeat most of them. What I will ask is a question that I haven't seen asked too often, which goes thusly: when the expedition enter the alien structure on LV-223 for the first time, they find a massive complex of tunnels and a central chamber that houses rows upon rows of cylindrical canisters that ooze a mysterious thick black liquid - not to mention a giant human head, plus wall carvings that shift and change, plus heaps more stuff to explore and analyse and learn about. And they're disappointed. Seriously, Holloway is so crushed by all this that he (very briefly) turns to drink. What is wrong with you?? You're archaeologists. You're scientists. You've made the greatest discovery of your age, a treasure trove that you could spend the rest of your life studying. Yet we're supposed to believe that within a day or two of their arrival, they've reached such a complete dead end in their findings that they're now taking pants-on-head stupid risks out of desperation.

I'm sorry, did I say the characters are acting out of desperation? I meant the screenwriters - namely, Jon Spaihts and Damon Lindelof, and since the latter rewrote the former's draft it would appear Lindelof is to blame. The plot moves forward by way of an Idiot Ball being vigorously tossed from one character to another. Again, most of the stupidities have been extensively catalogued already, so I won't go into them - but one other clear sign of writerly desperation is when the story hinges on characters coming to conclusions that don't appear supported by anything they've seen. Like when Janek surmises that the alien outpost they're investigating is a biological weapons testing facility. Never mind the question of why ancient aliens would invite our ancestors to come visit that; where did he even get this idea? I'm not sure we've learned enough about the Engineers to support that conclusion. Or even why Shaw and Holloway think they're going to find alien beings who created mankind just from a common pattern of dots on ancient cave paintings. Or why David thinks making someone swallow that black goo would do anything...

Sigh. It is, clearly and indefensibly, a movie whose plot makes no sense. And yet, 3-½ stars. It is visually and artistically gorgeous, as befits a Ridley Scott film. The amount of detail that went into designing the Prometheus spacecraft, the futuristic technology, the alien architecture and even the icky creepy-crawlies that eventually pop up, is simply jaw-dropping. The scene in the automated med pod is a bravura sequence of body horror, and the giant spaceship crash during the climax is magnificently realised; the entire movie is never not a completely engaging experience. The acting is near-flawless; it's fun to see Noomi Rapace play a character who smiles for once, Charlize Theron once again proves she's a brilliant character actor with the looks of a leading lady, but Michael Fassbender's incredibly subtle, nuanced and otherworldly turn as the android David is the highlight. As with Scott's last film, Prometheus has been polished to a mirror sheen of quality that few other movies can match up to.

Ultimately, its downfall is its ambition. The Big Questions that it asks - what if we weren't created by God but by aliens? To what purpose did they create us, and what would it mean if we discovered the answer? How does that parallel our own creation of artificial life, or for that matter, the children we bear? - simply aren't dealt with satisfyingly, but the fact that a big-budget Hollywood film even dared to ask them is pretty damn impressive already. At least Scott, Lindelof and Spaihts knew enough to leave some of those questions unanswered, perhaps for the planned sequel - because this film ends on a wide open note for a sequel. Yes, this film infuriated me with its insanely stupid characters and lazily-plotted storyline and ill-thought-out themes, and through the course of writing this review I frequently thought of knocking my rating down to 3 stars. But to Prometheus' loudest and most vehement detractors, I ask you this: if the sequel got made, would you watch it? I don't think there's one of you who wouldn't.

NEXT REVIEW: Jalan Kembali: Bohsia 2
Expectations: mungkinkah Syamsul Yusof kini menunjukkan sedikit perikemanusiaan?

Ini jentera yang rosak

Mantera
My rating:




Filem ini sudahpun menerima kecaman hebat kerana digelar "filem sci-fi pertama di Malaysia." Gelaran ini memang kelentong sepenuh-penuhnya, sebab filem XX Ray arahan Aziz M. Osman pernah keluar tahun 1993. Tetapi sebenarnya gelaran yang dikeluarkan oleh syarikat penerbitan filem Mantera ini ialah "filem sci-fi antarabangsa pertama di Malaysia," so okeylah, betul jugaklah. Orang lain yang sebar berita salah. Tetapi titik jualan yang utamanya ialah aksi robot gergasi ibarat Transformers versi tempatan, yang mengundang pandangan skeptikal dari orang ramai. Boleh ke Malaysia buat filem Transformers sebaik bikinan Michael Bay? Sukar hendak dipercayai. Namun cubalah kita membuka minda, tonton dahulu baru dinilai, berilah peluang kepada pembikin filem tempatan yang bercita-cita tinggi ini. Lagipun filem-filem Transformers tu bukannya hebat sangat.

Dan setelah ditonton, saya nilaikan filem ini sebagai jauh lagi tak hebat.

Ada dua puak yang sering bertelaga, iaitu Alliance of Light dengan Dark Legions, dan sila cuba teka siapa baik siapa jahat. Syarikat Weston Tech di Moscow, Rusia yang berpihak dengan Dark Legions sedang mengerjakan sebuah senjata berteknologi tinggi yang digelar MANTERA. Tetapi penciptanya, Dr. Natasya Pushkin (Kamaliya) telah melarikan diri dari syarikat itu, dan kini sedang giat diburu oleh kuncu-kuncu Sam Weston (Mikhail Dorojkin). Entah bagaimana, MANTERA telah jatuh ke tangan Azman (Tomok Shah Indrawan), seorang pelajar universiti di Kuala Lumpur yang berkawan karib dengan Kevin (Jayson Lee) dan telah jatuh hati dengan Deena (Syiqin Kamal). Sementara mereka cuba menyingkap senjata MANTERA ini - yang merupakan sebuah motosikal Cagiva yang boleh tukar menjadi perisai robot - Azman juga menerima ajaran hidup dan silat daripada lelaki yang tidak bernama yang Azman menggelar sebagai abang (Taj Addin). Namun kedua-dua pihak Alliance of Light dan Dark Legions juga ingin mencari Azman dan mendapatkan MANTERA. Entah mengapa.

Semasa saya menonton filem ini, ada sebuah keluarga bersama dua orang kanak-kanak yang duduk sebaris dengan saya. Saya ada terfikir, memang sesuailah filem ini ditonton oleh kanak-kanak, sebab ada aksi berobot-robot ini. Bolehlah saya perhatikan bagaimana reaksi mereka terhadap filem ini, samada ia mampu menjadi hiburan untuk kanak-kanak. Keputusannya? Masa tengah-tengah filem, mereka berlari-lari dan bermain-main didalam panggung. Sebab filem ini boring gilababi. Wahai Flare Studios dan Spacetoon Media, kamu ingat kami datang tengok filem kamu yang ada robot CGI ni sebab nak tengok Tomok dengan Syiqin Kamal main bowling?? Kamu ingat adegan Tomok dengan Syiqin bercinta di tepi pantailah yang dapat memuaskan citarasa kami?? Ini filem aksi sci-fi ke atau filem Lagenda Budak Setan 2: Tetiba Ada Robot??

Suntingan yang lembam juga menyumbang kepada kebosanan; tak hairanlah jangka masanya 1 jam 55 minit, yang memang terlalu panjang buat filem sebegini (paling sesuai ialah 90 minit). Sebenarnya jika kadar jalan ceritanya lebih cerdas, banyak kelemahan boleh diperbaiki, termasuk kekejuan ceritanya i.e. cheesiness. Mari saya terangkan apa itu cheesy: bermaksud sesuatu benda yang seolah-olah serius, tetapi penonton melihatnya sebagai mengarut. (TMBF tak tau mengapa ia diistilahkan sempena sebuah produk tenusu.) Cheesy yang berkesan ialah yang disengajakan, i.e. kita tidak mengambilnya dengan serius kerana keseriusannya hanya acah-acah je; niatnya memang untuk tidak dianggap serius. Filem ini yang diskripkan oleh Miza Mohamad, Khairul Anuar Md Arif dan Azmer Shazly Norazhar tersangat-sangat ingin diambil dengan serius. Ini mustahil sama sekali dari minit pertama, bila kita dengar je "Alliance of Light" dan "Dark Legions".

Hadooiii. Wahai En. Miza, Khairul dan Azmer - termasuk juga pengarah Mohd Aliyar Alikutthy - kamu bikin filem live-action ke filem kartun? Kalau kartun pun, ini tahap kartun dari dekad '80-an; siri animasi zaman sekarang pun dah jauh lebih sofistikated, dek penonton sudah arif dan pandai menilai. Jadi cerita yang ketinggalan zaman ini akan dilihat sebagai bangang dan menghina kebijaksanaan penonton. Bagaimana MANTERA boleh mengembara dari Moscow hingga ke Kuala Lumpur? Macam mana ia boleh dihantar kepada Azman? Si poyo tu tak pernah soal ke pakej tu datang dari mana dan siapa? Kenapa ada tiga mamat yang buli dia tak tentu pasal? Apa pula yang istimewa sangat tentang robot MANTERA ni? Kenapa orang jahat nakkan ia sesangat, sedangkan mereka juga ada robot perang lain yang nampaknya lagi kuat? Dan apa jenis hero si Azman ni, sedangkan dalam satu babak aksi di lebuhraya, dia rempuh kereta orang yang tidak bersalah sampai penyet?

Ini hasil kerja pembikin yang tidak ikhlas dan tidak bersungguh-sungguh. Ingat ada robot CGI sudah cukup awesome, tapi babak dimana ia beraksi tidak mengujakan dan tidak berkesan. Nak buat babak aksi bukan hanya tunjuk syot yang cool saja! Perlu difilemkan supaya nampak jelas siapa buat apa! Adegan aksinya berselerak dan mengelirukan, dan disini bolehlah ia bangga kerana setaraf dengan Michael Bay. Tapi sebab utama saya katakan ia tidak ikhlas ialah kerana ianya filem antarabangsa, i.e. produksi bersama dengan syarikat penerbit Rusia serta Emiriah Arab Bersatu. Sebab tulah ada voiceover permulaan dalam bahasa Inggeris, pelakon Rusia serta Arab, juga ada adegan yang difilemkan di Dubai yang nampak macam iklan pelancongan. (Ada babak di sebuah pasar yang macam pernah nampak dari filem Nur Kasih: The Movie.) Lihat juga versi poster untuk pasaran Rusia yang terpampang dalam blog rasmi filem ini. Muka siapa yang paling besar dan letak tetengah tu?

Itu Kamaliya, selebriti Rusia yang memegang watak Dr. Natasya Pushkin. (Saya panggil dia "selebriti" bukan "pelakon", kerana beliau sebagai bekas ratu cantik memang jelas tak reti berlakon.) Watak ini menerajui subplot yang langsung tiada kena mengena dengan plot tunjang Azman. Saya rasa filem ini juga ada versi untuk pasaran Rusia yang dipotong supaya Dr. Pushkinlah yang menjadi watak utama, manakala Azman hanya watak kecil. Nyata filem ini bukan kerja seni yang direka oleh seniman yang berintegriti; filem ini hanya produk yang dibuat semata-mata untuk mengaut untung dengan apa cara sekalipun. Tapi semua ini boleh dimaafkan jika hasilnya baik - namun hakikatnya, ia amat teruk. Jadi saya rasa tak perlulah ia diberi pujian atas cita-citanya hendak membikin filem ala Transformers buatan Malaysia. Cita-cita setinggi langit tak guna kalau kebolehan masih di tahap longkang.

NEXT REVIEW: Hoore! Hoore!
Expectations: macam Hairspray versi tempatan je

Assembled at last

Marvel's The Avengers
My rating:




Sigh... yes, it is indeed released as Marvel's The Avengers, as if we would not know by now that the superheroes in this movie are from Marvel. (And it's not a foreign-markets-only thing either, that's what it's called in the States.) It would appear that they are taking no chances with how familiar the general (read: non-comicbook-reading) audience are with their intellectual property; even after successful movies starring Iron Man, Hulk, Thor and Captain America, they still think the Avengers brand name needs a little extra push to achieve equal recognition. That's indicative of how carefully Marvel has been developing their shared universe - something that's never been tried before in cinema, after all. And given that every film they've made so far has been box-office successes - and more importantly, good movies - their efforts have certainly been paying off.

But this, this is the payoff. And it is every bit as good.

Loki (Tom Hiddleston), the Asgardian god of mischief, has returned - and his mischief has become far deadlier. He steals the Tesseract, a source of massive unlimited power and a portal to other worlds, from a SHIELD facility, and brainwashes Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgård) and Clint Barton a.k.a. Hawkeye (Jeremy Renner) into his loyal servants. A desperate Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) calls for help from Steve Rogers a.k.a. Captain America (Chris Evans), Tony Stark a.k.a. Iron Man (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Dr. Bruce Banner a.k.a. the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo), summoned by Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson) from his hiding place in India. They are later joined by Thor (Chris Hemsworth), the Asgardian god of thunder, who has come to stop his brother Loki and bring him home. All the heroes are brought to SHIELD's massive helicarrier, where Fury and agents Coulson (Clark Gregg) and Maria Hill (Cobie Smulders) are waiting to brief them on their mission. But this is the first time that such disparate personalities are forced to work together - and while they bicker and fight, Loki's army of alien Chitauri are on their way to invade the earth.

It's already being hailed as the greatest comicbook superhero movie ever, but it's not; not really. The need to juggle so many larger-than-life characters renders it unwieldy at times, particularly in the first half. It's a little slow - not in the sense of "too much talking, not enough fighting", a comment that never fails to annoy me - but in the sense that it spends too much time on our heroes not dealing with the world-shaking threat that has been introduced. It's become a comicbook cliché that when two or more superheroes meet in a crossover, they will invariably fight each other before teaming up against the real villain, a cliché that this movie adheres to. But the clashing personalities is a little contrived, especially since the only two who really can't stop bickering are Steve Rogers and Tony Stark; Cap and Iron Man seem to have gotten a maturity downgrade since their respective movies. And the plot involving Loki's invasion plan is rather simple - perhaps by necessity.

Aaand that's about it as far as flaws go, 'cos the rest is aaall good. Turns out Joss Whedon's flair for character-based drama and humour-laced action fits perfectly within the Marvel cinematic universe; every movie in it has aimed for the exact same blend of thrills and fun anchored by strong lead characters. And in maintaining continuity with the three previously-established superhero franchises (well, one franchise and two franchise-to-bes), it also serves as a semi-sequel to all three - possibly even a fourth, although the connection to the two previous Hulk movies is clearly weaker. Cap, Tony and Thor are recognisably where we left them at the end of their respective last movies; Cap alienated from a time no longer his own, Tony starting a new relationship with Pepper Potts, and Thor still pining for Jane Foster. (Although that only gets dealt with in a quick throwaway scene.)

And then it allows every member of its huge ensemble plenty of moments to shine. This is a remarkable trick to pull off in a movie, and Marvel's The Avengers does it with flair to spare. I was initially worried that Tony, who leads the most successful of the Marvel movies to date, would overshadow the others; the trailers certainly made it seem like everyone else is going to be the butt of his non-stop quips. But no, he didn't at all. Everyone else gets plenty of chances to endear themselves to the audience - from Thor conflicted over his enmity with his brother, to Cap emerging as the true leader of the team, to Tony momentarily losing his snark when a tragic event leaves him unexpectedly shaken. Even Black Widow, pruriently played by Scarlett Johansson in Iron Man 2 but making no greater impression than eye candy, gets some much-needed characterisation here - and Johansson finally proves herself worthy of playing an action heroine and comicbook character.

Because another great strength of the Marvel movies is pitch-perfect casting. It's not just the heroes who need it, it's also the villains, as Tom Hiddleston's Loki proves. He runs the gamut from tyrannically arrogant to gleefully devious to ragingly sadistic - he has a positively Hannibal Lecter-ian scene with Black Widow in which he delivers an awesome speech (I really wanna know who came up with "you mewling quim!") - yet still manages to show his hurt and angry side with Thor. Hiddleston is as much an essential part of the ensemble as any of the heroes - but the breakout member is definitely Mark Ruffalo, the third actor to play Bruce Banner/Hulk and the best. Ruffalo plays him as someone not only always trying to control his anger, but also saddened by that fact; as if he knows his greatest curse is not any gamma-ray mutation but his own character weakness. That combination of underlying uncontrollable rage and sadness is something neither Eric Bana nor Edward Norton figured out during their turns at the bat, and it's amazing that the character finally came alive in a movie that's not even his own. It helps that when the Hulk emerges, he provides some of the most awesome action moments.

Which brings us to the action scenes - which are the biggest and most spectacular by far amongst the current crop of superhero movies. I've said before that superpowered action scenes are exactly what people want from comicbook movies, and Whedon gives it to us in spades through an almost hour-long climactic battle against the invading Chitauri in the streets of Manhattan. If there's one quibble, it's that it sometimes seems to take pains to allow each of the Avengers a chance to contribute; Thor, Iron Man and Hulk have all the superpowers, but it just so happens that both Hawkeye's arrows and Black Widow's pea-shooter handguns can take Chitauri down handily. But it's a small nit to pick when you're getting an awesomely massive battle that perfectly translates comicbook action onto the big screen.

And if there's one thing that Marvel's The Avengers proves, it's that everything that's been done in comics translates pretty damn well onto screen. Everything from the over-the-top superheroic action to the goofy world with the colourful costumes and cheesy monikers and fantastical powers borne of hoary sci-fi/fantasy/supernatural clichés. It all works in a movie, as long as it's done with the same amount of care and respect for its source material as Marvel has been doing. Which is practically revolutionary, considering it wasn't too long ago that Hollywood studios still thought of iconic comicbook properties as needing "reinventing" - e.g. a Superman who doesn't fly, and a Batman who lives in a junkyard with a black version of Alfred named Big Al. In particular, what this film proves is that the comicbook concept of a shared universe, where stories and characters criss-cross between franchises, works just fine on film - more than fine, in fact. The fact that Iron Man resides in the same world as Thor or Hulk or Captain America, and that they can appear in each other's movies and maintain continuity with each other's ongoing stories, enriches them all and makes their world an even more appealing one. Why did it take Hollywood so long to figure this out?

And so, four stars - on par with Thor and Captain America: The First Avenger and what I would've given the first Iron Man had I reviewed it here. It fulfilled the promise of all those earlier movies, but did not exceed or transcend them. For as much as I've been raving about it - and as much as I've banged the drum on the need for superhero movies to be faithful - this article (about the Thor movie) makes a damn good point about how superhero movies also need to be innovative, as opposed to being too faithful. Zack Snyder's Watchmen comes to mind, and while Marvel's The Avengers is by no means as slavishly dull as that one, it doesn't do anything that 30-plus years of Marvel comics haven't already done either. Which is still great for anyone who's never opened the pages of a Marvel comic in their lives - which I can possibly count myself amongst their number. So, a very good movie, but by no means the greatest comicbook superhero movie ever. That honour still goes to The Dark Knight.

NEXT REVIEW: Chow Kit
Expectations: another Songlap?

Locked out of space

Lockout
My rating:




Is there anything that cannot be made better by adding the words "IN SPACE"? No, no there isn't. Alien is a monster movie IN SPACE; its sequel Aliens is a Vietnam War movie IN SPACE. Star Trek has been described as "Wagon Train IN SPACE to the stars", but several of the TOS-era movies (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in particular) have successfully interpreted them as Horatio Hornblower IN SPACE. And perhaps the granddaddy of them all, the Star Wars trilogy has in turns been a Western IN SPACE, World War 2 IN SPACE, Samurais and Shaolin monks IN SPACE, and Campbellian Hero's Journey IN SPACE. Clearly, adding IN SPACE makes any movie better (and also makes a paragraph hard to read) - and now we have a one that looks like Escape from New York IN SPACE (okay I'll stop now) and is well aware of how much mindless, cheesy, shut-up-and-eat-your-awesome fun that premise is.

Which it is. It's just that there's also this pesky thing called execution.

Snow (Guy Pearce) is a secret agent who has been framed for murder and espionage in a mission gone bad. Secret Service director Scott Langral (Peter Stormare) intends to lock him away in M.S. One - a maximum security prison in low Earth orbit - but as it so happens, the U.S President's daughter Emilie Warnock (Maggie Grace) is on a humanitarian mission to the very same M.S. One when a viciously insane inmate named Hydell (Joseph Gilgun) sparks a massive breakout. Langral and fellow agent Harry Shaw (Lennie James) devise a plan for Snow to infiltrate the prison and rescue Emilie under the nose of hundreds of violent criminals, who are now led by Alex (Vincent Regan), Hydell's brother. But Snow has his own reasons for accepting the mission: one of the inmates is his partner Mace (Tim Plester), who has information that could clear his name.

Okay, first of all, it's as much Die Hard in space as it is Escape from New York in space. The premise may be about one man - the only man who can! - sent into a prison to rescue the president's daughter (which, um, was Escape from L.A. rather than New York, but same diff), but both Snow and Emilie spend most of their time crawling through ducts and sneaking through corridors past bad guys. And instead of the indubitably badass Snake Plissken, Snow is more of a smart-assed, wise-cracking, making-it-up-as-he-goes-along kind of hero in the vein of Han Solo and Indiana Jones. All of which are prime ingredients for awesome - and indeed, the mere presence of such ingredients make it worthy of interest already. If you're the kind of person for whom "IN SPACE" inspires delight and not derision - like me - then you're pretty much guaranteed to enjoy this... somewhat.

Because since I didn't quite enjoy it as much as I'd hoped, that pretty much guarantees that everyone else ought to stay away. This is another in a long line of Luc Besson-produced Eurotrash action movies, and "trash" is an appropriate appellation. For one thing, the movie is shot through a sickly green filter that makes everything look grimy and scummy. For another, its on-screen violence - despite being PG-13 - is positively reckless in its disregard for subtlety or humanity, as best exemplified by the insanely over-the-top Hydell and the amount of faceless extras he kills. And for last, there's a distinct cheapness to the production, as exemplified during the first big chase sequence between Snow and some cops (all of whom fire live ammunition at civilians like it ain't no thing). This is set in The Future, so there's a futuristic bike and helicopter gunship and cars, but the CGI is incredibly blurry and fake-looking. Even video games look better than this.

And this is disappointing to a fan of IN SPACE movies like myself. The climax is a big space battle, and there are very few things I enjoy watching more than big space battles. Space battles, man! Spaceships going Pew Pew and Kaboom! But do you know how to ruin a space battle? With the same blurry CGI graphics and spastic editing that make it impossible to see what's going on. I have never heard of James Mather and Stephen St. Leger, but even two directors can't film a decent CGI action sequence. They're on slightly steadier ground with the screenplay (on which Besson is also credited, and for all I know wrote most of), but even that is not very well-paced. The best parts of this movie is with our snarky anti-hero Snow and his quippy banter with Emilie, but we don't get enough of them; the scenes with Langral and Harry in the, um, Low Orbit Police Department, with the prison revolt leaders, even with the subplot about Snow clearing his name, aren't as much fun and take up too much time.

Still, at least Guy Pearce knows what he's doing. If there's one thing Besson's trashy action flicks are good at, it's casting name actors in action hero roles in which they can have loads of fun looking incredibly cool - cases in point, Taken and From Paris with Love, to name just two I've watched previously. Pearce gets the cynical obnoxiousness of Snow down pat, and he spits out his one-liners with plenty of enjoyably devil-may-care attitude. Maggie Grace, who appears to have found steady employment from Besson as Designated Damsel in Distress, isn't as much fun, but she does get to bounce off Pearce in entertaining ways. The only other performance worth mentioning is Joseph Gilgun, whose psychopathic Hydell has a thick Scottish accent because Scotsmen make the best psychopaths. Everyone else is just kinda dull.

So what this movie boils down to is the variance between premise and execution. Everything about this premise screams an awesomely cheesy good time at the movies - so what does it say about it that I went in expecting just that and didn't quite get it? What it says is that even something like Escape from New York/Die Hard IN SPACE still needs a fair amount of talent and skill to pull off effectively, and that Mather and St. Leger don't quite possess it. Besson will probably go on to produce more cheap and junky action movies through his EuropaCorp production company, but I can't see myself eagerly awaiting the next one - action movie fan though I am. They're just not very good. Even the ones IN SPACE.

NEXT REVIEW: A Separation
Expectations: hope I can get in the right frame of mind to enjoy it

A Peter Bay-I mean, Michael Berg-I mean, Peter Berg film

Battleship
My rating:




Yes, they finally did it: they finally made a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster movie based on a boardgame. Which is a thing we have been threatened with for a few years now, and if this one succeeds at the U.S. box-office, that long-dormant Ridley Scott-directed Monopoly movie might finally get off the ground. Apparently there are enough seemingly-sane people who see nothing silly about this anymore, so we might as well grin and bear it (and in my case, watch it and review it). Hasbro, the toy company that makes the boardgame, actually has a logo animation that played after Universal Pictures' in this movie, like they're an actual studio and everything now. This is a thing that has happened, and all that is left to us is to see what kind of movies they actually make.

What they've made here is a Michael Bay-wannabe that's actually somewhat better than most actual Michael Bay movies.

Alex Hopper (Taylor Kitsch) is a ne'er-do-well who somehow lucked into dating the extremely hot Sam (Brooklyn Decker) - who happens to be the daughter of U.S. Navy Admiral Shane (Liam Neeson), commander of the Pacific Fleet. After joining the Navy for a few years at the behest of his brother Stone (Alexander Skarsgård), Hopper has made Lieutenant, but his continually poor impulse control lead to him brawling with visiting Japanese Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano) on the eve of RIMPAC, the world's biggest multi-national naval exercise. When the fleet sets out, he is serving on board the destroyer John Paul Jones while his brother commands the Sampson - both of which, along with Nagata's ship Myoko, is sent to investigate a UFO falling into the Pacific Ocean near the coast of Hawaii. The UFO is in fact an invading alien force that sets up a massive force field over the Hawaiian islands and proceeds to attack the city. Meanwhile, Sam and a disabled Army vet named Mick (Gregory D. Gadson) are hiking in the mountains when they discover the aliens have taken over a communications array in order to send a signal to their home planet. Along with Zapata (Hamish Linklater), a scientist at the array, they have to stop them, while Hopper battles the main alien fleet.

Remember when I asked how dumb this movie might be? Well guys, it is pretty dumb. It starts with an animated sequence demonstrating the term "Goldilocks planet", i.e. a planet that can support life due to its position within the habitable zone, by quick-panning to first a planet that's too hot, then too cold - because we wouldn't have understood the concept if we were just told about it. Then it trots out that old saw about how an encounter with aliens would be like the Spaniards meeting the Indians, only we are the Indians. (In those exact words, too.) It's weirdly xenophobic; there's really no reason why a species advanced enough to develop interstellar travel wouldn't also understand the value of peaceful, mutually beneficial relations with another sentient race, Hollywood. But what takes the cake is when it depicts ordinary radio transmissions as - I shit you not - a friggin' laser beam shooting into the sky.

Which is the kind of thing you expect to see in a Michael Bay movie. Which is exactly what Battleship wants to be - only it's directed by Peter Berg. Now, Berg is not a dumb filmmaker; he is actually capable of making an intelligent film, case in point, 2007's The Kingdom. Aping another director seems beneath him, yet this movie is definitely, definitely, Michael Bay lite. When it's not blowing things up in an orgy of pyrotechnics, it's being a shamelessly cheesy celebration of American military heroism. Never more so than when a group of WW2 naval veterans just happen to be picturesquely perched all over the deck of the titular battleship, just before they are asked - and agree, of course - to fight for their country one last time. But first another group of them walk towards the camera in slow motion, because of course. Even the soundtrack has Michael Bay all over it - or specifically, Steve Jablonsky, he who also did the Transformers movies and peppered this one with a bunch of classic rock songs (of course).

But it's fun. Seriously, it is. It doesn't reach the heights of dumb fun that Fast Five does, and there's a lot that'll make you roll your eyes, but there's also a lot of stuff asploding to enjoy. I don't recall seeing an action movie involving naval warships before, and their huge-ass (and very loud) guns provide something fresh in terms of good ol' fashioned action thrills. Turns out Michael Bay lite is actually more palatable than, um, concentrated Michael Bay - there are no annoying racist stereotypes, no tonal whiplash between serious drama and silly comedy, no self-indulgently long and tedious action sequences, and no palpable disdain for the audience. The expositional scenes tend to drag, but the action bits are coherently and effectively put together (and did I mention loud?). It holds together as a movie far better than anything in Bay's filmography since The Rock (his last good one).

Still, it's dumb. If you're wondering if it features any allusions to its boardgame; first of all, no, no one utters the line "You sunk my battleship!" There is however a sequence in which Hopper and crew track the enemy ships on a grid and fire on them by calling out grid coordinates. The movie plays this scene completely seriously, which'll only work on someone who's never played the boardgame. And of all the recent alien invasion movies, this one takes the cake for Dumbest Aliens. They don't seem to have a plan at all, other than that their communications ship crashed and burned and that's why they need to take over one of our radio arrays. And also, they'll wreak some cinematically spectacular destruction on an army base and an elevated freeway just for the hell of it.

You don't expect compelling characters from this, and you won't get it; Hopper's excuse for a character arc is pure cliché. Taylor Kitsch and Tadanobu Asano also don't seem to get the kind of broadly melodramatic performance that this movie needs (Asano in particular comes off as wooden, which he is most assuredly not if you've seen any of his Japanese films). Oh, and Rihanna is in this too, making her film debut as one of three sidekick sailors under Hopper's command - a role that tests her thespian talents not at all. To be honest, Bay is better at getting his actors to go as apeshit as his movies always are - but overall, Battleship is a case where the imitation beats the original. It's frankly quite blatant how closely this movie rides Bay's coattails, so much so that I wonder if Berg had his hands tied by some overzealous Hasbro execs. But there ain't a thing wrong with the Michael Bay brand of cheese 'n 'splosions, as long as it's not the Michael Bay brand of stupid.

NEXT REVIEW: The Cabin in the Woods
Expectations: horror yikes, but Joss Whedon yay