Author Archives: Dennis

Man on Fire [2004]

Director: Tony Scott
Actor: Denzel Washington, Dakota Fanning, Christopher Walken, Mickey Rourke

Wow, this film, a remake of a 1987 film of the same name, starring nobody, oh and Joe Pesci, is pretty damned violent for an American blockbuster. Not Michael Bay or Sylvester Stallone violent, but nasty, gritty violent.

Denzel Washington plays Creasy, an ex-military man whose record is as impressive as it is scary. Intelligence, counter-terrorism, covert ops; the works.

If alarmbells aren’t ringing with you yet, it means you weren’t conscious throughout the 80s and early-90s, when films about these types were wide spread and saturated the screen. Usually tough as nails, strong and silent types, who kill for revenge without feeling or remorse, those films were about body-count. Commando, is a good example, where Schwartzenegger murders an entire island of people to get his daughter back.

Denzel, in stark contrast to Schwartzenegger, can really act, which makes this relatively straight forward film worth while. Oh, and Tony Scott, too, but I’ll get to that in a bit. Creasy is indeed an ex-military man with incredible skill. He’s also a complete fucking drunk, unable to get through the night without a bottle of Johnny Walker at his side. He’s a burn out, washed up and not worth much. He goes to visit his friend Rayburn, who moved to Mexico years back. The reason, he claims, was a whim, but the impression is built that he’s fighting some terrible, terrible deamons. He searches out the one man with whom he can talk about the things he’s done and seen. In contrast to Creasy, Rayburn is a jovial fellow, dealing with the same deamons, but in a far less destructive manner.

Rayburn arranges for Creasy to work as a bodyguard for the daughter of an Mexican industrialist, Ramos, who’s facing financial trouble. Creasy’s cheap, compared to others, because he drinks. Ramos can’t afford the expensive bodyguards but he still wants to make his wife, a demanding Americana, happy, and keep his daughter in the best safety he can afford. In Mexico City, there’s one kidnapping per 60 minutes, the intro of the film tells us, not politically motivated, like in Colombia, but strictly for money.

Pita, Ramos’ daughter, slowly becomes good friends with Creasy, and teaches him that it’s okay to live again, to love again and to take a little joy in life. Of course the girl gets kidnapped ten minutes after he feels confident enough to live a little and he spends the rest of the film getting revenge on the ones who kidnapped her out from under his care, leaving him to die, and killing her when the money-drop goes sour.

Denzel Washington is amazing. He’s a brilliant actor, but the other half of what makes this film is Tony Scott’s brilliant cinematography. The film is quickly cut, panic-ee and…well, it’s like Traffic, but it uses a lot of sub-titling. Americans – and most English speaking people – don’t like subtitling, so he’s done it in a very clever way, reminding me of the title sequence to Seven.

If you like action films, and you don’t mind a little depth, then I highly recommend this film.

AvP: Alien vs Predator [2004]

Director: Paul W.S. Anderson
Actor: Sanaa Lathan

It’s been a while since I’ve offered a movie review – in fact, it’s been a while since I posted here, period – and that’s partly because I’ve been busy, but also because I just haven’t seen that many noteworthy movies. If a movie doesn’t appeal to me, I usually won’t write a derecommendation, unless it’s really really bad. With AvP I’m not entirely sure what it’ll be yet. Having sat next to two archaeologists, I had a really good time with this film, but mostly because it’s so incredibly riddled with ridiculous shit that it becomes funny. In fact, the movie is a pretty terrible, run-of-the-mill, get-a-bunch-of-pretty-people-in-a-difficult-situation-and-watch-them-squirm, film, much like Anacondas: The Hunt for the Blood Orchid is guaranteed to be terrible for the same reason.

However,…

…it is Aliens vs Predators; two of the coolest alien adversaries created on the silver screen since…forever. As everyone knows by now, the AvP is a film based on computer game. When that computer game came out around the turn of the century I was incredibly sceptical. These two, seemingly disconnected alien entities in the same game/film? Like Sigourney Weaver said; that sounds awful. But then I spoke to Veed, and he told me about the comic book. Comic book? Yeah, comic book. There’s a comic book. And the background of this comic book isn’t even half that bad. Predators use aliens for the hunt, and them as prey for their rights of passage. Kill one of these things and you’re no longer a youth; you’re an adult. Okay, interesting.

The film tells a story of a polar expedition going to excavate and research a pyramid found on the antarctic, one that’s shown up on sattelites as having a strange, unnatural heatsource. In go the researches who stumble upon what is essentially an Egyptian pyramid on steroids. Complete with sliding walls, pit-traps and rolling boulders the likes of which will make Indiana Jones salivate in glee. Essentially, the pyramid is made for the hunt; a complex labyrinth that changes every ten minutes. All meant for an exciting and challenging hunt. In the bowels of the place there’s a hostage; an Alien queen, whose soul purpose is to squeeze out pods from which facehuggers come. Facehuggers create chestbursters in almost anything they can find, and hey presto the boys can become men provided they kick the shit out of these aliens.

The film is kind of campy, but it has awoken an apetite in me to learn more about the background of this war between Aliens and Predators, so I guess it’s not all bad.

The Chronicles of Riddick [2004]

Director: David Twohy
Actor: Vin Diesel, Judi Dench, Karl Urban, Thandie Newton

Pitch Black was a surprise success, attributed to, among other things, the edginess of the good/bad guy Riddick. It didn’t take long for the results from the focus groups to come in which basically all said; We Want More Riddick! Now!

In Pitch Black, Riddick seemed capable of doing almost everything. He was superhuman, superfast, supersmart and super-badass. But it wasn’t annoying because he was surrounded by people who were obviously his inferiors. In Pitch Black Riddick was an exceptional guy.

Enter Chronicles of Riddick, set five years after Pitch Black. Riddick, Jack, and the Imam got off the planet and made their way towards Helion Prime, where New Mecca was. The Imam would take care of young Jack and Riddick left them once they were at Helion Prime because as much as Riddick cared for the young girl Jack, he would always have bountyhunters after him. Five years later, Riddick is living on a frozen planet, alone, just the way he likes it, until a group of mercs come looking for the bounty on his head.

He, familiar with the lay of the land and anticipating a day like this, easily defeats the mercs and finds out who’s put the bounty on his head. It appears to be a certain Imam from Helion Prime. Devasted Riddick heads for Helion Prime to get some answers. He finds out that the Imam, together with a mysterious Elemental*, played by Judi Dench, a mysterious race of super-intelligent, psuedo-corporeal beings, are trying to figure out a way to stop the Necromongers, a war-like race, made up from different people from different worlds they conquered and destroyed, while searching for their promised land, a dimension called Underverse**. They pillage and scorch world after world, assimilating the survivors in their army, brainwashing them and having them swear allegiance to their dark God.

The Elemental is looking for the last of the Furians, a race of natural warriors, stubborn, war-like and according to the prophecy the only one to stop the Necromongers from killing off the entire universe in search of their Underverse. It is said, a young warrior once asked a visionary about his future. The visionary told him that a Furian would be his downfall, so the young warrior created an army to rival all armies and destroyed the entire Furian system, all planets, and all Furians, those who would not be assimilated were killed. Except for one, who had a nack of escaping; Riddick. This young warrior is the Lord Marshall, the supreme commander of the Necromongers.

At first, of course, Riddick is all like “This is not my fight,” and “Stay the hell away from me,” but it seems the Lord Marshall, as soon as he finds out he missed a Furian in his genocidal spree, wants Riddick dead. Riddick meanwhile is concerned only with one thing; Jack, now known as Kyra, who, eager to immitate her childhood hero Riddick, is a known, convicted killer, living on Crematoria, a prison planet where the the day time sees temperatures of over 700 degrees Celcius, and nighttime temperatures of minus 350.

Meanwhile there’s the story of Lord Vaako and his Dame, played by Karl Urban and Thandie Newton, who are plotting to have the Lord take over the Lord Marshall’s place. Lord Vaako has also been ordered by the Lord Marshall to find the Furian. Good stuff.

This film is not good. It’s not bad, but it’s not good, neither. You get the feeling of a tremendously rich, and well-thought out universe, but it never really shows, never really making this film shine. It’s a beautiful film, with a lot of really cool concepts and elements in it. It’s sort of like a cross between Warhammer 40,000, Stargate and the Fifth Element in the way it looks and feels and it even has a bit of Dune thrown in for good measure. I think I’m going to try and find the animation Chronicles of Riddick, The Dark Fury, which is piece to cover the gap between Pitch Black and the Chronicles of Riddick, and gives more insight into Riddick’s character. If only because I want to see more of that universe.

* Apparently, Vin Diesel being a D&D buff, he, Judi Dench and David Twohy played D&D while on the set, in order for Vin Diesel to explain Elementals to them. Judi Dench’s character is basically a play on the Air Elementals from the Monster’s Manual.

** The Underverse, I think, is like the land of the dead. The name “necromongers” sort of implies that they have a tight link to the dead, which is supported by the notion that while, being assimilated, it hurts until the process of assimilation is over, and then it hurts no more. Perhaps they are killed when assimilated, their pain being taken away in death.

The Butterfly Effect [2004]

Director: Eric Bress, J. Mackye Gruber
Actor: Ashton Kutcher

I’m not going to spend my time writing a long review for this film, but I would like to mention that I saw it on the recommendation of my colleague Mark. I saw the trailer and looked like ass, and I fought him tooth and nail. I simply refused to believe that this could be a good film. In the end I let him convince me to go and see it, and I did, and I have to admit that it was a rather nice movie. It wasn’t particularly good, but it definitely had it’s moments, and a rather solid story-concept. I would’ve changed the ending, but overall it was a very entertaining movie.

Good Will Hunting [1997]

Director: Gus Van Sant
Actor: Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Robin Williams, Stellan Skarsgård, Minnie Driver, Casey Affleck

No matter how often I see this film, I can’t help but feel absolutely devastated afterwards. A beautiful film about a young guy who has to deal with two problems; 1) being an almost unequaled genius, and 2) being an orphan who was severely abused by his foster-father when he was younger which developed into a serious fear of abandonment and attachment disorder. Both Damon, Affleck, Driver and Robins play the stars from the heaven (Dutchism), and I recommend this film to one and all.