Apocalypto
March 28, 2008 | 1 Comment
Mel Gibson’s APOCALYPO came out in 2006, but after seeing the 2008 movie 10,000 B.C. it’s impossible not to compare the two.
Both involve members of a primitive tribe being kidnapped and enslaved by a more advanced, pyramid-building culture, escapes, long pursuits across savage landscapes.
But APOCALYPTO is the real deal.
Set in the 16th century but before Europeans arrived, it’s an odyssey across the Mayan civilization.
Jaguar Paw lives with his tribe in the remote jungle. He has a wife and child. He and other members of his tribe are kidnapped by one of the Mayan pyramid-building cities, destined to be sacrificed, to have his heart cut out atop a pyramid while he’s still alive.
But he gets a lucky break, and then he’d Better Run Through The Jungle, pursued by his captors.
This movie makes some overtures to our society; the pyramid-builders are destroying their environment, they’re controlled by a religious fanaticism that their cynical leaders don’t really believe in, and their society is very definitely divided into rich, middle class, and poor. Guess who gets sacrificed?
I think there’s also a subversive element here; Mel Gibson probably saw one too many DANCES WITH WOLVES-type movies that postulate a Garden of Eden in the New World before it was ruined by the White Man. And he said Give Me A Break, somebody’s always pounding on somebody else, long before Europeans got here.
This is a a fascinating, brutal society built around human sacrifice.
But people are people, and the family dynamic, and the humor and camaraderie of the tribe are also depicted.
This is an epic unlike anything you’ve seen, huge city-sets constructed, hundreds of extras (looking like thousands of extras), like a Cecil B. DeMille Bible epic (maybe not surprising since Gibson’s previous movie was THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST, and like that, the movie is in original dialect with subtitles).
But it’s also just a good action flick, and the final half of this movie is one amazing foot chase through dangerous territory.
DVD Extras: A commentary with Mel Gibson and writer-producer Farhad Safina, deleted scenes, and a Making Of featurette.
Popularity: 30% [?]
Run, Fatboy, Run
March 28, 2008 | 1 Comment
This is the first movie directed by David Schwimmer from FRIENDS. Simon Pegg (SHAWN OF THE DEAD, HOT FUZZ, and Scotty in the upcoming STAR TREK movie) plays Dennis, a runaway groom in London who left his pregnant bride at the altar (The truly scrumptious Thandie Newton).
Five years later, he has visitation rights to his young son, but is trying to win back the mother of his child. She’s being romanced by a handsome, arrogant American (Hank Azaria, who does most of the voices on THE SIMPSONS).
Somehow Dennis convinces himself that if he can run a marathon he’ll have shown that he can stick with something for once in his life and he’ll win the girl back.
He’s actually not all that fat, but he is out of shape, so this becomes a sort of Labor of Hercules, if Hercules was a slob.
He’s egged on by his eccentric friend (Dylan Moran, also in SHAWN OF THE DEAD) , and coached by his Indian landlord (and his landlord’s incredibly hot daughter).
The writing in this isn’t anything spectacular (it’s pretty much what it appears, Slob-ROCKY romantic-comedy), but it is funny, due to the talents of Simon Pegg, Hank Azaria, and Dylan Moran.
Popularity: 26% [?]
Doomsday
March 18, 2008 | 3 Comments
DOOMSDAY is exactly what you’d expect from the previews. It starts out 28 DAYS LATER/28 WEEKS LATER, and ends up ROAD WARRIOR. Director Neil Marshall (THE DESCENT, DOG SOLDIERS) apparently likes a lot of the same movies from the 1980s that I do, and he throws in everything but the kitchen sink, making a strange mashup of all three MAD MAX movies, ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK, and even some bits from ALIENS and EXCALIBUR thrown in. In 2008 a killer virus hits Scotland, and England makes a modern-day Hadrian’s Wall. By 2033 things have been awfully quiet behind that wall.
There’s a new outbreak of the plague in London, and the Powers That Be have reason to believe there’s a cure in Scotland. So they send in Major Eden Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), who’s part Mad Maxine, part Snake Plissken’s hot sister, and all woman.
And she’s got the best prosthetic since Rose McGowan’s machinegun-leg in PLANET TERROR.
It turns out there are survivors, and they’ve gone part Thunderdome punk-cannibals, part Renaissance Festival.
It’s no great movie, but it’s got some pretty good action sequences, culminating in a big road chase/battle ala ROAD WARRIOR.
And the movie works a bit in GRINDHOUSE country, but less self-conscious.
Popularity: 33% [?]
10,000 B.C.
March 6, 2008 | 1 Comment
Caveboy meets cavegirl. Caveboy loses cavegirl. Caveboy journeys across prehistoric landscape filled with hungry monsters to get cavegirl back.
They don’t live in caves, but you get the idea.
Roland Emmerich (INDEPENDENCE DAY) directed this epic. If you’ve seen THE DAY AFTER TOMORROW, you know scientific accuracy isn’t his strong point. The depiction of prehistory is pretty fanciful, and yes, those are the Egyptian pyramids you see in the trailer. Some people believe that the pyramids are far older….about 7500 years older, in this case… than they really are. Roland Emmerich must be fascinated with the pyramids, with this and STARGATE. Well, why not. In effect, this movie is a mashup of real Stone Age history crossed with civilizations out of CONAN THE BARBARIAN.
This feels a bit like APOCALYPTO. Primitive guy has to journey across lands unfamiliar to him filled with dangers.
The special effects are pretty spectacular. Mammoths, saber-tooth tigers, and several other prehistoric monsters I won’t mention by name so as not to ruin the surprise. As far as a travelogue for what it might have been like to encounter these creatures, this is fun stuff. The mammoth hunt is like the buffalo hunt in DANCES WITH WOLVES gone wild.
The actors are largely hidden behind grime, although Camilla Belle still manages to look pretty. She’s wrapped up in skins though; there are no fur bikinis like Raquel Welch sports in ONE MILLION B.C.
The story is pretty basic. A bunch of members of a guy’s tribe, including his best girl, are kidnapped by a powerful and technologically anachronistic tribe. So he sets out to get them back. Various big things would like to eat him or stomp him flat along the way.
You’ll see some criticisms of this movie that are silly: People complaining that the characters speak English, for example. Well, we don’t know what languages they spoke 12,000 years ago, so either they speak English, or it’s going to be “Ook ook ock ock” for an hour and 45 minutes. I for one vote for English.
More problematic is the New Age (or New Stone Age) mystical mumbo-jumbo. You’d think living in a world with prehistoric monsters would be enough to drive a story, but this brings in a lot of psychic visions and prophecies that seem to get fulfilled randomly for no particular purpose.
Also, pointing out inaccuracies in a movie like this is like shooting fish in a barrel, but I wanted to make one observation: When these guys are in the mountainous north, they encounter mammoths, but when they get to what one day will be Egypt, there are also mammoths. Why aren’t there elephants? Because the people who wrote this movie don’t realize that elephants were also around 12,000 years ago.
Still, it’s a fairly entertaining romp across a prehistoric land that never existed as shown.
Popularity: 29% [?]
U2 3D
March 5, 2008 | 1 Comment
This is U2’s first concert film since the 1988 RATTLE AND HUM. It was filmed in 2006 during their Vertigo Tour, in Mexico and South America. The film has 14 songs. It requires 3-D glasses. There’s also an IMAX version.
I’m giving this 5 stars, and I’m not even that much of a U2 fan. It’s as good as a concert film of a rock concert can be. You get the experience of being in the audience, and you get the feel for what it would be like on-stage. That it’s in 3-D is just an added bonus.
There’s no backstage drama, no tour bus angst, no hotel room introspection, no rockumentary moments ready-made for the SPINAL TAP treatment. It’s all concert, the whole film, with a lot of energy.
Popularity: 25% [?]
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Gun Play
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