Ten Statements About....SAFE HOUSE (2012)

"Do you LOOK like Miss Daisy, jack ass?"

"Do I make you nervous?"

"Always."

1) I am sad to say it looks like I have to give up on my war against Shaky-Cam. When an entire theatrical feature, with a fictionally linear narrative, is shot almost entirely with hand-held cameras in such a way that even the quietest moments are jittery and wavering....there is no hope of victory.

2) But let's give some credit to Daniel Espinosa for one thing--even if he doesn't bother to shoot his film in a way that we can focus on what is happening for any length of time, he does try to create a specific feel with certain choices, primarily the way he has the dialogue at the end of scenes slightly out of synch with the picture, so that the conversation transitions us into the next change of scenery. It's one of the nicer touches in a film that is bereft of anything original.

3) And make no bones about it--this is a film that has nothing new to bring to its table. The plot rumbles along exactly has you suspect it will (to the disappointment of people like me, who hoped Washington was going to do another cool villain turn), the villain is exactly who you suspect it will be, and the plot complicates and resolves exactly as it is meant to.

4) Let's also give credit to Ryan Reynolds, who manages to suppress his natural cockiness for this film throughout. It's actually one of the better performances I've seen from him, and it allows him to create a little suspense when he interacts with Denzel Washington's Tobin Frost...because he's playing someone unsure and nervous, it allows us to wonder if Frost is, in fact, getting into his head.

5) The chemistry between Reynolds and Washington does manage to carry the bulk of this film, even as you realize that the twists and turns of their relationship are already pre-ordained.

Denzel Washington and Ryan Reynolds argues who initiated
the 'two guys pull their gun at the same time aimed at each
other' trope...

6) Another small credit must go to the use of Cape Town as the backdrop for this story. It's a seldom used city, but is very cinematic in its way, looking at times both European and Alien. Plus, it's not far from these long stretches of bush which at least looks very striking during the de riguer overhead shots of cars rocketing down lonely roads and kicking up dust.

7) What was the purpose of that waterboarding sequence? To prove how bad ass Washington was by surviving two dunks? To take up a little extra time before the next 'surprising' plot complication trundles along? There seems to be no real point for Espinosa to dwell on it like he does.

8) You know, there are a number of decent actors who are wasted on tiny crap roles that are thoroughly without nuance--when Robert Patrick shows up to interrogate Washington, you know he'll be killed at the end of act one; when Sam Shepherd shows up as the CIA supervisor, you know he'll try to cover up the 'shocking' nature of what Washington stole, etc. And Rueben Blades' appearance in the middle of one of Cape Town's slums seems....odd, given that they could have cast him with a native Afrikaan actor (especially given the apparently native Afrikaaners who play his family).

"Why yes, I am stronger...thanks for asking, Scarlett."
(I wonder if anyone will get this joke...)

9) The third act takes on an unintentionally hilarious cast, as the same set pieces are repeated over and over again, beginning with that weird chain where Reynolds fights someone, then wanders to the next point in time to fight another someone. And if the final confrontation, where it seems like somebody shows up to shoot somebody else after the last somebody was put down become surreal in its silliness.

10) That being said...if you're going to just connect the dots with your dull, unimaginative little story, at least have the courage to connect that last dot and unite Reynolds with his blonde, curvy Hot French Girl. By choosing to cut to credit rather than give us the clinch you positively know is going to happen a second after the film ends is disingenuous at best.

Overall...a film that tries to hide its lack of ideas behind handheld razzle dazzle, it's a waste of talent, time and, well, anything else you can think of. It doesn't even have the courage to be as bad-ass as it keeps telling you it is.

Back to the Atlas again, managing to time it so that I arrived in the auditorium right after the hated Firstlook ended. The only really striking trailer is the one for Ridley Scott's Prometheus, although I find it fascinating that the makers of Project X seem insistent that found footage is good for Every Damn Genre Under The Sun, including teen comedies.

Ten Statements About....THE THING (2011)

The quest for something hotter than Mary Elizabeth
Winstead contines....

"Not all of us are human."

1) I am beginning to suspect that it is impossible to make Mary Elizabeth Winstead look less than glowing...but then, I suspect no one on this film wanted to make Mary Elizabeth Winstead look less than glowing.

2) I give the production a great deal of credit for utilizing cues from the original Enrico Morricone score at key points in the film.

3) Unlike the Carpenter version, this film is filled to bursting with characters--in addition to Winstead's Kate, there's about a dozen Norwegian research scientists, the scientist who hires Kate to come with him and oversee the extraction of the creature, a group of heliocopter pilots, and some people I honestly didn't know why they were around. Because we have so many characters, we don't get a handle on many of them, so there's no sense of them as humans so we can't get all paranoid about them becoming Thing Clothes.

Yep...entertainment is hard to come by in the Antartic...

4) I will admit that the test Kate comes up with to determine who is human and who is Thing Clothes is pretty clever--or at least it would be if they didn't drag out the dubious wire-in-the-blood test Russell's character comes up with in the Carpenter version only to have it wrecked by The Thing. While there are a couple of clever shout backs to the Carpenter version, a couple of them only draws you out of the picture and go, 'hey, let's go watch the good version.'

5) Let's get this out of the way--the Thing is done primarily through CGI and this version of the creature is just too busy. Not content in doing one or two illogical things in depicting its monster, this version does a wild mishmosh of disparate elements that makes it hard for the eye to follow what's happening. With all the tentacles and teeth and claws, it's just gross instead of scary. There's nothing near the head-with-crab-legs gag of the Carpenter version (although there's an arm-with-anemonae-like-tendrils that comes close) in terms of sheer fear-making.

6) And while we're on the subject...there's not a lot of logic to which character ends up as Thing Clothes. One particular gag involving the only other female member of the cast simply makes no sense because there's no moment when she has contact with the alien cells. On the other hand, the one person who seems to be primed for Thing Clothes Status, Ulrich Thomsen's Sander--who insists on taking a tissue sample of the Thing and mucks around in its entrails--isn't revealed as such until the climax.

I call this piece...All Messed Up....

7) And speaking of the climax...there's no reason for it to happen at the place it did. The only reason I can think for director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. to place the final chase there was because it was one of the few things the Carpenter version apparently had no interest in visiting. But since all we get are digital lightshows...what's the point?

8) That being said, I have to admire the very dark ending. Admittedly, it doesn't match the absolutely perfect Carpenter ending, but the implication of what Kate has done due to her own paranoia is more disquieting that any of the waving tentacles and rows of teeth are.

9) I really wish that the script hadn't made Sander so much of an asshat. It lessens the whole paranoia aspect of the movie--and let's face it, the whole point of this version of the Thing is paranoia--if there's already tension and a lack of trust between people. And because there are good guys and bad guys in this film, the paranoia comes off as forced most of the time.

10) You know, the film makes such a big deal at first about being a period piece--a title tells us this takes place in 1982, we first meet Kate as she's grooving to Men At Work on her headphones--and yet once we get up to Thule Base, the script and the filmmaking is extremely mired in contemporary time. Hell, you should have seen how I rolled my eyes when I was treated to shakey-cam during a mass-conference scene debating strategies for dealing with The Thing.

Overall...this is not an awful film...but it's yet another one that just sits there, a piece of product designed to keep us from falling asleep for ninety minutes and change. If only the script had seized on some of the things that made it look like it could be promising and not get mired in all the Husker-Du-ing and contemporary troping...

Back at The Atlas--and they're still having projection problems; look, if you're going to give us just the audio track of the Regal Firstlook, why not forgo playing it as a whole and let me sit in my seat and listen to my podcasts. Not a lot of newer trailers--perhaps the only one that made me take notice was another viewing of the Liam-Neeson-Punches-Wolves-In-The-Head Survival Epic The Grey.

Ten Statements About....KILLER ELITE (2011)

The truth?  The guy in the chair would kick the ass of
the guy with the gun any day...

1) The pre-title sequence is extremely well-crafted. In just a few minutes, we get a real sense of the relationship between Statham's Bryce and DeNiro's Hunter, learn a little bit about both them and their partner, see them in action and find out why Bryce walked away. It's the sort of quick storytelling that the film really needs...and that we don't see again.

2) The film is frequently in danger of being stolen by Dominic Purcell's Davies and Aden Young's Meier. These two work off each other extremely well--and off Statham--that I sort of wish we could see the three of them put together for an real caper flick. As it is, they light up the screen, and their presence is missed in the film's second half.

3) While I understand that the film is based on a non-fiction book recounting events set in 1981, there's no reason why the film needed to be set in 1981. We never get a sense of the film taking place in the past, and the themes and elements contained within are just as pertinent to a modern day story. On top of that, I'm sure the film is so fictionalized that saying it was 'based on a true story' is questionable (thus the 'suggested by the book' credit at the end). Hell, except for the crawl at the beginning and end of the film, I wouldn't have noticed it was a period piece.

First Stallone, now deNiro...Statham is specializing in
starring with Ass-Kicking Grampas!

4) Look, I know Yvonne Strahovski is uncommonly tall--you only have to look at the shot of her and Statham kissing to realize this--but she still looks weirdly like a much taller woman squished into the form she's in now. That being said, she does her thankless task as Bryce's Girl admirably and with grace, and it's refreshing to see her act with her natural accent.

5) Once again, the shakey cam is a detriment. Hey, I understand that using shakey cam allows the director to hide the use of stunt doubles, but you don't hire Jason Statham and Clive Owen, two of the most physically capable actors around today, and then blunt our attempts to appreciate their physicality by giving the cameraman a triple cappuccino with added sugar.

6) It's real nice to see that director Gary McKendry allows deNiro a small but effective fight sequence to remind us that at one time he was as physically capable as the other two leads.

7) And speaking of deNiro, I do like that the script from McKendry and Matt Sherring presents his Hunter as someone who is proud of Bryce for walking away. All too often, we get the mentors who try to pull their proteges back in, but McKendry realizes the story is about things other than that.

8) I gotta wonder if the sudden appearance of a third player in this film's intrigue just complicates things needlessly, since that aspect of film disappears just as quickly as it is introduced.

Jason Statham is about to kick a guy's ass tied to a chair. 
This is why he is Cooler Than You.

9) I also have to wonder if the secret society of S.A.S. agents, The Feathermen, is truly necessary to the plot. We only see them two or three times giving orders to Owen's Spike, boasting about how they control things...and yet, we never see any proof they do. Isn't the concept of 'Mercenaries Vs. S.A.S. Bad Asses' enough to sell your story?

10) And speaking of The Feathermen...this movie is supposedly 'suggested by' a book named The Feathermen, and yet somebody--McKendry, the producers, whoever--decide to pass on that mysterious sounding name for something as relatively generic as Killer Elite? I suspect someone had Peckinpah on their mind after all.

Overall...meh. Nothing to write home about that could've been better.

Back to the Atlas this time, and another show where someone forgot to turn on the projector lamp until it was time for the trailers. Hearing the audio-only soundtrack to the Firstlook and imagining your own visuals does not make it better. Trailers included The Grey (Daniel Craig versus wolves...shrug), Paranormal Activity 3 (double shrug), J. Edgar (which is really intriguing) and The Rum Diary (which I want to see...the prospect of Johnny Depp returning to Hunter S. Thompson at a point in his career prior to the events of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas without the influence of an outre director like Terry Gilliam is...fascinating).