Die Reviews: Mediocre Saw Rip-off

Reviews for Die, in which captives are forced to roll a die that will determine how their fellow captives will die (get it?), generally regard the film as a low grade Saw derivative. Richard Scheib at Moria describes it as “an oddly unconvincing film,” adding:

One gets the impression that the creative team were given orders to create another Saw and went away and did their best but the elements never came together with the essential spark.

Straight.com’s Steve Newton notes that the film has a lighter touch than Saw, depicting “a kinder, gentler world of torture porn,” and has kinder words for the effort:

The convincing performances, restrained direction, and engrossing score of Die keep you interested, for the most part, but there’s a pretentious vibe about the film that gets increasingly noticeable as you near its lofty conclusion.

Meanwhile, Horrorphilia Jason at Horrorphilia (natch) boils it down to the essentials:

Die is essentially a pg 13 version of Saw. The main differences are that Saw has some cool traps and some kick ass gore while Die is mainly dialogue that uninspired and pretty predictable.

Die, starring John Pyper-Ferguson and Elias Koteas, is out now.

The Hunters Reviews: “Unorthodox but Enjoyable”

The Hunters is the debut feature from director Chris Briant, who also stars as Le Saint, a detective who uncovers a human game reserve near an abandoned fort. The reviews are strong, citing the slow build from crime drama into all out horror at the end, bolstered by solid characterizations.  Michael Allen at 28 Days Later Analysis calls it “very compelling,” noting the “strong visual style” and “great intercutting and use of impressionism.”   Horror Asylum’s Ian Martin says Briant “successfully moulds some very believable characters, without needing to feed us too much information on them.” Alice Nelson of DVD Verdict calls the film “unorthodox but quite enjoyable,” adding, “If this film is any indication, Chris Briant has talent as both a director and an actor.” She warns however, that “the synopsis is wrong everywhere you look, even on [the film's] own packaging,” and that Glee star Dianna Agron’s role in the film is grossly overstated in the advertising, “…if you’re expecting to get your Glee fix while watching The Hunters, you’re going to be sorely disappointed…”

In a stark contrast, IMDb users give the film 4.3/10 stars with 751 votes counted.

The Hunters is available now on DVD and Amazon instant video.

Warning: This is a red-band trailer.

Carjacked: The Straight2DVD Review

Carjacked stars Maria Bello as Lorraine, an unemployed single mother who is going through a rough patch in her life; not only is she divorced but her custody of son Chad (Connor Hill) is being challenged by her ex-husband due to a bout of accidental negligence that almost got Chad killed. While stopping for gas, she is carjacked (natch) by Roy (Stephen Dorff) who has escaped capture after robbing a bank. His request is simple: drive him to where he needs to be to pick up the money and no one will get hurt. Naturally things get tense and hectic as Lorraine struggles to save her son from a man slowly revealing himself to be a psychopath.

Let’s just get this right out of the way: had there been two other actors besides Bello and Dorff in the lead roles, Carjacked would not have worked nearly as well as it did. The two use their enormous talents to elevate both their characters and the movie as a whole. Bello makes Lorraine into a sympathetic and even complex character, whose bad luck has turned her into an almost beaten down shell of a human being. And when it’s time to step it up, Bello even turns into a decent action heroine with proper motivation to gun Roy down.

As good as Bello is in the lead, Dorff is even better and if there’s one reason to watch Carjacked it’s definitely him. I like it when villains in movies are given things to do other than snarl and with Roy, you get to see almost two sides of him. In the beginning he even seems like a nice guy, bonding with Chad and handing out life advice to Lorraine. Hell, for a second it looks like the two are even going to fall in love. The way the character is handled, going from nice to evil in a split second, is nice as well allowing the audience to never forget that yes, he’s a sociopath and yes, he will kill anyone who crosses him. Like many, I remember Dorff mostly from his villainous turn in 1998′s Blade so it’s really no surprise that he fits perfectly as the antagonist here.

As good as Bello and Dorff are, Carjacked has its fair share of problems that derail it from being a success. The most glaring, at least to me, is Chad. I get that children tend to be annoying (coming from a man without kids, naturally), but Chad would make the others seem like saints in comparison. He’s constantly complaining and whining, rolling his eyes, and being an all around ass which makes Lorraine’s desire to save him feel somewhat dumb (again I don’t have children so I don’t truly understand the bond). When he’s finally ushered out of the movie thanks to a far-fetched but passable coincidence, Carjacked instantly improves. I can’t stress enough how god-awfully annoying he is. Same goes for the rest of the cast; there isn’t much in the way of impressive acting once you get past Bello and Dorff.

Carjacked, weirdly enough, also creates a situation that doesn’t exactly feel that dire. Yes they have been carjacked, but it’s not like Roy is beating them up or murdering people left and right along the way or anything. Frankly, it seems that as long as Lorraine just brings him to where he needs to go, everything is going to be fine. But then there wouldn’t be a movie, I guess. The trip itself also lacks any true tension until Lorraine rebels; they get through a police roadblock relatively easily thanks to the stupidest policeman alive and, once again, it’s not like Roy is actively harming them. And then there’s the fact that what seems to be a major plot point and foreshadowing goes absolutely nowhere. Seriously. It’s never mentioned again. You’ll know what I mean once you see the movie.

The problems of Carjacked keep it from being a complete success, but it’s still a decent rental. Bello and Dorff are good in their roles and their chemistry with one another as well as their own understanding of their characters keep this movie afloat amidst a thin plot with forced tension and one of the more annoying child characters to be in a movie in the past few years. The third act is all action too, and competently done, so it does build up to a satisfying climax. Carjacked doesn’t break the bank creatively, but it won’t result in watcher’s remorse.

Super Hybrid Reivews: “Stupid, but Effective”

While no one seems to really like killer-car flick Super Hybrid, some reviewers at least find a couple of pleasing aspects to the chiller.  FEARnet’s Scott Weinberg finds the premise behind the car—that it is, in fact, a shapeshifting monster capable of turning into any car it wants—original enough, and appreciates the look of the film—”for a silly Canadian low-budget car-monster movie, Super Hybrid is surprisingly nice to look at”—and ultimately finds it “mindless but adequately colorful.”  Mike Long at DVD Sleuth has a similar reaction: “The story is pretty stupid, but the movie is one of the better ‘it came out of nowhere’ low-budget horror movies which I’ve seen lately.” Porfle at HK and Cult Film makes an equally conditional recommendation:

“If you’re in the mood for a low-budget version of ALIEN with a car instead of an alien and a parking garage instead of a spaceship, and you aren’t expecting something on the level of CHRISTINE, you can probably have some fun watching SUPER HYBRID.”

IMDb users aren’t nearly as forgiving.  They give it 3.8/10 stars with 322 votes counted.

Super Hybrid, starring Oded Fehr, is out now.

Tekken: The Straight2DVD Review

When first asked to review Tekken (2010), I thought this is going to suck because:

1. I have never played any of the actual Tekken video games, either in the arcade or on the console;

2. I have only played a few hours of Soul Calibur and Dead or Alive on my Xbox, and never really enjoyed them because I am a button-masher with no patience to memorize combos;

3. I don’t care for mixed martial arts as from what I’ve seen, it is mostly two dudes rolling around on the floor, kidney-punching one another; and

4. Given that this was a straight-to-DVD release here in America, it was going to be low budget, poorly written, and poorly produced.

After all, the other movies based on fighting video games which I had seen that made it to actual movie theaters were pretty bad: 1995′s Mortal Kombat starring Christopher Lambert as Raiden the Wacky God of Thunder, and poor Raul Julia’s last film before his untimely demise, 1994′s Street Fighter, did not foretell an enjoyable experience in viewing Tekken.

Imagine my surprise then, after the opening credits (which unfortunately are marred by a horrible song with trite lyrics), when my genuine interest in the film’s story began to mount.

Am I actually enjoying this?

The first thing noticeable is the production value. Internet sources claim that the film had a budget of $35M, and that may be the most money spent on a S2DVD film reviewed on this website! Quickly, the writing quality becomes apparent too. This is no slap-dash job in terms of the characters and plot meant to serve up action scene after action scene. Now, they may be a little formulaic, but there are no real groaners in the dialogue, and combined with the strong acting performances, it’s all believable. You can feel that everyone is taking this seriously, and it benefits the film as a whole. If at any point, someone had phoned it in, the illusion would have shattered.

So why did this film fare so poorly, review-wise? Personally, I think it’s because the few reviewers who took the time to watch it either didn’t want to give it an honest attempt at entertaining them, or just aren’t used to seeing the dreck that comes across my desk here at S2DVD. Maybe it’s me though, strongly embracing something that’s made well and reasonably produced and written like a welcome breath of fresh air.

What else is good?

1. Luke Goss (in his second S2DVD review appearance!) gets to relax and speak in his native British accent. He’s good when he’s not playing a prequelized character!

2. Awesome actor Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa brings a much-needed gravitas to the movie. Another great performance!

3. Ian Anthony Dale = smoldering badass.

4. And of course, the lead, Jon Foo as Jin, brings to his role a fresh youthfulness for single-minded vengeance.

5. There’s a fight scene between two women, and at no point before, during, or after the fight does either woman call the other a bitch, which I find one of the most annoying and trite conventions in the writing of fight scenes between two females. Bravo, Mr. McElroy.

6.  The obvious attempt by the fictional Tekken Corporation to have the decor of the fighting ring change occasionally as it does in the actual games. Props to the set designer for that coolness.

7.  If you like good-looking girls, Kelly Overton is given every chance to look hot as fighter Christie Monteiro. She can act, too, though her part here is basically one-dimensional.

Screenwriter Alan McElroy’s established skills mean that this script is much more logical and thought-out than other S2DVD films, so I didn’t have many issues with the writing, except: 1) Jin’s girlfriend, Kara (Mircea Monroe), gets short shrift until she pops up at the very end to do nothing but cheer him on from the crowd, and 2) Where are the ring-side medics for this competition? The poor fighters get the snot kicked out of them, and then hardly get a band-aid for their troubles.

Should you watch it?

If you like the Tekken game series, you’ll probably appreciate a lot more of the inside baseball references to the games’ overall story that I did not catch (or you’ll get angry about changes to it and grouse about it on the Internet). If you like fighting movies, I think that it has enough to keep you interested. I can’t speak to the realism of the fighting techniques, but it looked like the actors did their own fight and stunt work. So if it sounds like your kind of thing, it would be a fun 90 minutes for you. It was for me.

Ghost from the Machine Reviews: “An Impressive Debut”

Reviews are generally positive for indie chiller Ghost from the Machine (née Phasma Ex Machina), the debut effort of writer/director Matt Osterman.  The film, which centers on a grieving son’s (Sasha Andreev) efforts to use science to conjure the spirits of his recently departed parents, is being hailed as an “impressive debut” from both Variety’s Dennis Harvey and Twitch’s Andrew Mack.  Mack says that what the film “may lack in budget it more than makes up for with good looks, good story and good chills.”  Harvey adds, “Reminiscent of The Sixth Sense in its subtle creepiness, and indie Primer in its tech-geek angle, pic isn’t a knockout but demonstrates professional skill and psychological acuity.” eFilmCritic’s Jay Seaver finds the plot a bit contrived, but commends the performances, “Andreev is particularly good at portraying this particular form of survivor’s guilt. There’s something a little deadened in his Cody, though not to the point of exaggeration.”

IMDb users are not nearly as enthusiastic.  It currently rates at 2.7/10, with 24 votes counted.

Ghost from the Machine arrives July 26th.  You can pre-order it here.

Ghost From The Machine (2011) Trailer from Phasma Ex Machina on Vimeo.

Ballistica: The Straight2DVD Review

I may be losing my edge, but I don’t feel right laying into Ballistica today. I could also be tired, or just burnt out on bad movies. Yes, Ballistica is not really well written, produced, or performed (all with some exceptions here and there), but these people are making a living, and in these times, maybe that’s enough. For artists in any industry, film or otherwise, it is not easy when the economy is in the toilet, and maybe bad art is better than no art at all. So rather than running through the poor elements of the film and the sarcastic jokes that I could make about them, I’ll just focus on the most basic element of the movie, its title, and whether or not it delivers on its promise.

Ballistica, as explained by the film’s primary practitioner, CIA operative Damian Sloan (Paul Logan), is… well, actually I don’t remember if he ever really explains what it is, other than that it was invented by a Soviet defector in the 1980s and there are only a few people in the world who know how to do it. It is basically gun fu, the visually entertaining but realistically dangerous (to the practitioner) practice of gunplay where exaggerated and sweeping body movements and trick-shots (behind the back, etc.) are blended together to form a shooting style reminiscent of the more traditional martial arts. If you’ve never seen it, imagine the lightsaber battles from the horrible Star Wars prequels fought instead with guns (and minus the telekinesis and lightning). All fast spinning and jumping around, but with guns. Done well, it’s very cool looking (more on that in a bit).

So Ballistica must have a lot of gun fu in it, right? I mean they named the movie after the concept, so there must be plenty of discussion about its origin, the traditions of its practitioners, what is important for proper ballistica technique, and the philosophy behind it all. Plus, the producers even took the chance that people might confuse this film with 2002′s Ballistic, considered the worst movie ever by Rottentomatoes.com.

But no. Other than Damian’s terse history and a later character’s off-hand remark that there are “1,000 lessons” of ballistica, that’s it for any deeper sense of what this fighting style is about. So fine, no rich history. Then they must make it up with tons of actual gunfights, right? Our hero mowing down dozens of nameless goons to get to the main villain?

Nope, not really. Other than the practice demonstration by Damian 19 minutes in, there are only four other (what I consider “true”) uses of gun fu through the film: at the 11 minute mark, the 63 minute mark, a few minutes after that, and a few minutes from the end of the film. And it seems that out of all the terrorist organizations in the world, Damian is pitted against the one with two fellow ballistica practitioners. And these gunfights don’t last very long, so for 90 minutes of a film, you get maybe three minutes tops of actual ballistica fighting. And compared to the gun fu films that have come before, these fights are not the greatest examples of gun fu.

Seriously, read the Wikipedia gun fu entry and watch those movies instead, particularly John Woo’s A Better Tomorrow from 1986, 1999‘s The Matrix, and 2002‘s Equilibrium to get a better understanding of how cool gun fu can be, because you can’t find it here.

I mean, there are only two situations where gun fu shines: 1) when one person is pitted against a roomful of guys, and 2) when two trained gun fu-ers go at it. Otherwise, what’s the point? So a very basic screenwriting strategy would be to have your hero continually run into groups of baddie goons as he tracks down the villain who is trained like the hero. That way, you get a balance between mowing down guys in creative ways and one-on-one set pieces. But sadly, Ballistica doesn’t do much of that, instead focusing on more generic action subplots to take up time between the first and third acts. Like love, people quitting jobs, and dead relatives.

Tired of hearing about gun fu? Okay, I’ll talk about a few other things.

1. Screen veteran Robert Davi mumbles his way through his scenes, which would have been fine (that’s kinda his thing) if the audio was a little louder, and Martin Kove is tasked with little to do except deliver basic dialogue about getting satellites in position and taking out tangos as Damian’s controller back at HQ (though why the goofy Southwestern-inspired vest, Wardrobe Department?). It’s the 1980s kid in me that wanted inside references to either The Goonies or The Karate Kid whenever one of them was onscreen, but alas, I missed them if they were there.

2. Production designers, you don’t need to coat every flat surface with the CIA seal to let the viewer know that a scene takes place in a CIA building or office, or that the computer user is using a CIA computer. Sheesh.

And finally…

At the beginning of this review, I said that I wouldn’t be too rough on the film because of the hardworking people involved (Lord knows some people take what I say personally), but in the end, this film is ready for the guys at Rifftrax to take a swing at it. I don’t blame 99 percent of the cast and crew for this (well, maybe 97 percent).

See, as a writer trained in screenwriting (among other forms) and having shot, edited, and acted in student films and other small efforts (and no, you haven’t seen me (2:08) in anything), I know how hard writing a story can be. But that early time, before producers find funding, before carpenters build sets, before craft services lays out all the food, when it’s just a writer and the page, is when almost all of the problems with a film’s story can be fixed. Yes, film is collaborative, and shit happens over time, but it is up to the writer, as the architect drawing up the plans for the entire plot, to make sure everything is logical (to the best of their ability) before any scenes are shot. Everything that comes after is dependent on that story making sense in its very basic form.

That is why I focus so much on the writing in these movies, because revising a script is much cheaper than reshooting half of a film because it doesn’t work (or just shrugging one’s shoulders and putting out a bad film). And I know that sometimes even a great script can turn into a turd of a film because of what happens after the writer hands it over. I’m not saying every script has to be The Usual Suspects, but if S2DVD filmmakers want return customers, I feel that the screenwriters need to be the first to step it up.

Takedown Reviews: Plot Twist Doesn’t Save It

Lou Diamond Phillips’ human trafficking actioner Takedown (nee Transparency) is getting middling reviews, with The Hollywood Reporter’s Karsten Kastelan saying that it “does not necessarily advance the vigilante genre but manages to undermine it at times with surprising effectiveness.” Kastelan refers to a plot twist that intrigues some reviewers but infuriates others, such as Christopher Armstead at Film Critics United, who actually includes the spoiler—blacked out so you have to highlight it to read it—but ultimately concludes that the film is “an interesting if not a bit of a depressing action crime movie, with the final result falling somewhere above slightly mediocre.”

IMDb users are far less impressed, giving the film 4.1/10 stars with 177 votes counted.

Takedown, co-starring Estella Warren and Deborah Kara Unger, arrives tomorrow.

My Own Love Song Reviews: No Rose

Director Olivier Dahan’s follow-up to the fantastic La Vie en Rose isn’t getting nearly the critical reception of its predecessor.  My Own Love Song, his American debut starring Renée Zellweger as a down-and-out singer who joins her schizophrenic friend (Forest Whitaker) for a road trip is—in the words of the AP’s Jon Frosch (as posted by The Hollywood Reporter)—”a sappy, weakly plotted road movie with a wildly self-conscious style probably meant to disguise its cliches.”  IFC’s Stephen Saito agrees, calling it “utterly adrift when it comes to a coherent narrative,” while conceding that it “couldn’t be anywhere near as bad as it is without being as ambitious as it is.”  Jason Bailey at DVD Talk is less appreciative of Dahan’s flourishes, decreeing “The damage his script leaves undone, his look-ma-no-hands direction takes care of.”

These critics applaud Zellweger’s performance, with Saito calling it her “first genuine performance in years.”  They are less enamored of Whitaker, whom Baiely accuses of “the worst kind of overheated acting.”  They are split on Zellweger’s singing, with Bailey calling her two songs in the film “well-performed” while Frosch claims those scenes “make one grateful she’s no longer attached to the Janis Joplin biopic.”

The film also stars Nick Nolte, Madeline Zima, and Elias Koteas.  It also includes original music by Bob Dylan.

Glorious 39: The Straight2DVD Review

Remember that Friends episode where Rachel tried to bake something, but the two pages of the cookbook stuck together so she made something that was half a meat dish and half a dessert? And while Joey liked it (“I mean, what’s not to like? Custard, good. Jam, good. Meat, good!”), Ross summed it up best with, “It tastes like feet!”

Glorious 39 tastes like feet. The ingredients are wonderful. Actors, locations, costumes, makeup. All good. But the two recipes, one for a murder thriller and the other for a period drama, got merged together and made a big mess.

I can’t find any issue with the film’s raw materials. The BAFTA-winning writer/director Stephen Poliakoff is not well-known here in the States, but has a long career of writing and directing stage plays, television dramas and films, and feature films in Great Britain. There is amazing power both in the acting and production talent. For actors, you’ve got Romola Garai, Bill Nighy, Julie Christie, Eddie Redmayne, David Tennant, Charlie Cox, Jeremy Northam, Christopher Lee, and Jenny Agutter. The locations in Norfolk and London draw you in with their beauty, and the cinematography, makeup, and costumes are superb thanks to DP Danny Cohen, Jenny Shircore, and Annie Symons, respectively.

But it’s those stuck pages, first in the screenwriting process, and then in the editing, that lead to a marred final product. Subplots meant either to 1) illustrate what had to be done in Britain before the war by the populace to survive or 2) show Garai’s lead character of Anne to be an outsider in her own family both only slow down the overall pace of the murder mystery. Tension, which should increase as a thriller plays out, is deflated by these subplots. Now, don’t get me wrong. I appreciate a good, slow burn in a film, if it’s interesting. But here, the end is not all that interesting enough to be shocking.

In the end, you’re asking why Anne was put through it all. Her tormentors don’t have a really good reason, other than they’re evil, I guess, which most of the time can be enough, but given the level of planning and thought involved in what they do to her, it is hard to see them simply as evil people playing with her like a toy, especially when they have something larger at stake that they’re trying to accomplish. Why not just kill her at the start? They don’t even try to recruit her to their cause, so why screw with her? And in the final 10-15 minutes of the film, logic continues to break down, and it all ends in an overly-dramatic way for no real reason.

If you’re a big fan of Garai or Nighy, then you’ll want to see the film for their performances. If you love British period pieces of the 30s, then you’ll want to see the film for the locations and the costumes. Just don’t expect a tight, well-paced thriller.

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