Stephen King adaptations can go either way. Sometimes, you get movie-magic though, as when Frank Darabont adapted the screenplay for The Shawshank Redemption.
He directs his third feature with The Mist, which is based on a King novella considered by some to be one of his scariest.
In the small town of Bridgton, Maine, Dave Drayton (Thomas Jane) sees a peculiar mist rolling down from the nearby lake after a lightning storm. He shrugs it off and heads off to the supermarket with son Billy, and Brent, a less-than-neighbourly neighbour. They arrive at the same time as military vehicles from the local base, as stories of Project Arrowhead and paranormal experiments are voiced.
Soon the mist descends over the town centre and a man runs bleeding into the supermarket, "There is something out there in the mist and it's killing people." With the doors shut, 80 people are holed-up, with marauding beasties at large outside.
There are two strands to this horror hokum. The first one is the creatures, who range from giant insects, to razor-teeth lined tentacles to some even bigger monsters. Some of these effects are well realised, some are below par CGI. Look out though for some very nasty behaviour by mutated spiders that will please body-horror fans.
The other terrifying agent is actually human, in the form of a character called Miss Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) who dominates proceedings as an aggressive Evangelist, who thinks God's wrath is bringing these plagues upon the townsfolk for their sins. She actually succeeds in splitting the survivors, turning man against man, in a strand of the film which is heavy-handed and not as profound as they think it is.
Overall, this is not much more than a solid chiller. Had they concentrated on the survival-horror, over the social commentary, it would have been more of a must-see.
Salacious crumbs from the cineworld by film journalist Johnny Messias
Showing posts with label CGI. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CGI. Show all posts
Sunday, 6 July 2008
Saturday, 28 June 2008
The Incredible Hulk (Thanet Extra, June 20th)
Expectations play a huge part in the summer movie game. Take Indiana Jones. Some people expected a classic, looking to be transported back their childhood, while others just hoped for a throwaway two hours. Either view coloured their verdicts, although to my eyes Kingdom of the Crystal Skull was neither classic nor failure.
For The Incredible Hulk, it was seeking to reboot a character who last had an outing as recently as 2003, in Ang Lee’s underrated Hulk. This time around, the script, co-written by its star Edward Norton, stays more closely to the 1978 TV series. He plays Dr Bruce Banner, who after being self-irradiated with gamma-rays in a military experiment, develops his special super-ego. You know: the green guy, he’s massive, you won’t like him when he’s angry etc. On the run from the military, he escapes to the Brazilian favalas, leaving behind him girlfriend Betty (Liv Tyler), and her ruthless father, General “Thunderbolt” Ross who wants the Hulk formula to make an army of super soldiers.
The General uses an assortment of American troops to hunt down Banner, including a mercenary English snarler called Blonsky; a phoned-in performance from Tim Roth. One of the characters I’ve mentioned also becomes an oversized monster whose trousers are two small for him like Simon Cowell. Unlike the pop guru, both Hulk and his adversary, The Abomination (great name) do not reflect light the way human beings do in front of movie camera-because they are generated on computer. The elephant in the room: despite today’s CGI wizardry, it’s still a tough ask making a humanoid with green skin look real. And they don’t manage it.
Of the plentiful action scenes, most of them feel like episodes in a playstation game, maybe only very young or undiscerning viewers will be able to get over this.
To the film's credit, it moves along at a clip, unlike's Ang Lee's art-house version. Having said that, watching CGI inflatibles scraping is more than a bit dull. Hulk's Marvel friend, Iron Man fared a lot better with his sleek metallic outfit, he was funnier too.
For The Incredible Hulk, it was seeking to reboot a character who last had an outing as recently as 2003, in Ang Lee’s underrated Hulk. This time around, the script, co-written by its star Edward Norton, stays more closely to the 1978 TV series. He plays Dr Bruce Banner, who after being self-irradiated with gamma-rays in a military experiment, develops his special super-ego. You know: the green guy, he’s massive, you won’t like him when he’s angry etc. On the run from the military, he escapes to the Brazilian favalas, leaving behind him girlfriend Betty (Liv Tyler), and her ruthless father, General “Thunderbolt” Ross who wants the Hulk formula to make an army of super soldiers.
The General uses an assortment of American troops to hunt down Banner, including a mercenary English snarler called Blonsky; a phoned-in performance from Tim Roth. One of the characters I’ve mentioned also becomes an oversized monster whose trousers are two small for him like Simon Cowell. Unlike the pop guru, both Hulk and his adversary, The Abomination (great name) do not reflect light the way human beings do in front of movie camera-because they are generated on computer. The elephant in the room: despite today’s CGI wizardry, it’s still a tough ask making a humanoid with green skin look real. And they don’t manage it.
Of the plentiful action scenes, most of them feel like episodes in a playstation game, maybe only very young or undiscerning viewers will be able to get over this.
To the film's credit, it moves along at a clip, unlike's Ang Lee's art-house version. Having said that, watching CGI inflatibles scraping is more than a bit dull. Hulk's Marvel friend, Iron Man fared a lot better with his sleek metallic outfit, he was funnier too.
Sunday, 16 March 2008
10,000 B.C. (Thanet Extra, March 14th 2008)
Everybody loves a Woolly Mammoth. Well don’t they? Hollywood director, Roland Emmerich (The Day After Tomorrow) is such a fan of Mammuthus primigenius that he’s funded an entire movie based on the premise: wouldn’t it be cool to see humans running around with the four-legged beasts in 10,000 B.C.
We open in prehistory, somewhere in Eurasia, where a tribe of hunters (The Yagahl) are waiting for the next stampede whilst tormenting the Elders with the question: what is the collective noun for a Woolly Mammoth? Momentous changes are foretold by Omar Sharif’s voice-over, as a mysterious outsider in the form of a girl with freaky blue eyes, Evolet arrives. She quickly pledges herself to young buck D’Ley, and before you can say “love interest” the dwelling is attacked by evil outsiders on horseback.
Poor Evolet is abducted in front of D’Ley and taken into slavery with many of his kin. D’Ley and a rag-tag assortment of his tribesmen have to leave their home and venture to far-away lands, er without shelter or any obviously food supply but hey!
You may have guessed; this is absolute tosh. For starters most of the characters speak modern English, which is incredibly jarring when they say things like “Why does TikTik not ride with us?” The Yagahl (a tribe with remarkably good teeth for their epoch) look like either ageing Rastafarians or extras from a Lynx advert.
Really, the film-makers have thrown together every racial, tribal stereotype in the hope that something will stick. I just don’t understand why, when we eventually see the pseudo Egyptian pyramid site, the leader is protected by Albino midgets?
It seems to go on for about 10,000 minutes too; every time the story sags, they wheel out yet another wise-man, who has a new and improved prophecy to fit the next sequence. For the record (and the kids), you will see sabre-toothed tigers, giant emu-beasts as well as mano-a-mammoth fighting. But the special effects sequences are only fresh if you haven’t seen an adventure film for 5 years. This is Apocalypto with 1% fat, lashings of 300 and very little to recommend.
We open in prehistory, somewhere in Eurasia, where a tribe of hunters (The Yagahl) are waiting for the next stampede whilst tormenting the Elders with the question: what is the collective noun for a Woolly Mammoth? Momentous changes are foretold by Omar Sharif’s voice-over, as a mysterious outsider in the form of a girl with freaky blue eyes, Evolet arrives. She quickly pledges herself to young buck D’Ley, and before you can say “love interest” the dwelling is attacked by evil outsiders on horseback.
Poor Evolet is abducted in front of D’Ley and taken into slavery with many of his kin. D’Ley and a rag-tag assortment of his tribesmen have to leave their home and venture to far-away lands, er without shelter or any obviously food supply but hey!
You may have guessed; this is absolute tosh. For starters most of the characters speak modern English, which is incredibly jarring when they say things like “Why does TikTik not ride with us?” The Yagahl (a tribe with remarkably good teeth for their epoch) look like either ageing Rastafarians or extras from a Lynx advert.
Really, the film-makers have thrown together every racial, tribal stereotype in the hope that something will stick. I just don’t understand why, when we eventually see the pseudo Egyptian pyramid site, the leader is protected by Albino midgets?
It seems to go on for about 10,000 minutes too; every time the story sags, they wheel out yet another wise-man, who has a new and improved prophecy to fit the next sequence. For the record (and the kids), you will see sabre-toothed tigers, giant emu-beasts as well as mano-a-mammoth fighting. But the special effects sequences are only fresh if you haven’t seen an adventure film for 5 years. This is Apocalypto with 1% fat, lashings of 300 and very little to recommend.
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