I know I’m a little late writing up reviews of the following three movies, despite the fact that I went to all three on opening weekend. That should give you a pretty solid sense of how underwhelmed I was by all of them. *frowny face* Am I being obtuse, or has Hollywood simply forgone strong plots and characterization for off-the-reservation special effects? Or maybe it’s the writer in me; I spend so much time focusing on the story arc and development that I have lost touch with the point of sitting in a really dark room, surrounded by ten foot high speakers, staring at a screen that is large enough to serve as a helicopter landing pad. In other words, experiencing complete auditory and visual overload (which is a completely separate experience from the cognitive and cerebral experience of absorbing a good story). Do the other writers out there have this same issue?
And also, after the lobe-blowing let down of Prometheus, I do believe I have become hopelessly jaded.Abraham Lincoln: Vampire HunterI’ll start out with this one because it was by far the best--for what it was. I had no expectations for ALVH other than being entertained by some unbelievable special effects and general storyline silliness. In these things, it did not disappoint. ALVH had three exceptional things going for it: fun characters; interesting plot, especially in terms of reinventing history; and outstanding fight scenes. The one complaint I have is that the story covered far too long of a timespan to really allow viewers to settle into the characters and vicariously experience their inner struggles. There was a lot of glossing over of interpersonal conflicts and psychological development. That being said, there was enough of a hint at the grander details the story must contain in the novel that I definitely left the movie wanting to read it. And, surprisingly, it passes the Bechdel Test.The Amazing SpidermanI have to admit, I was confused about this one. What happen to Mary Jane? What happened to Norman and Harry Osborn and the Green Goblin who I thought were integral to the original Spiderman origin story? Granted, I haven’t read a comic book since I was maybe ten, but I found a re-telling of this story without the original cast of characters to be very off-putting. All of the actors in TAS did a good job and were believable in their roles, and the special effects were generally fun, but the story just really dragged along. Essentially, it’s the story of a fringe-dwelling teenage genius who solves incredible genetics-based problems (that the world’s top scientists can’t??), struggles to impress a high school beauty (who somehow has the time and lab experience to also work in a genetics lab??), copes with the loss of both his parents and his beloved uncle, and is transformed into one tough hombre through a spider bite. There are holes, and lots of them, throughout the plot (like, how does he manage to synthesize the benefits of the genetically-modified spider’s bite, while his nemesis can’t? And how did no one in this high-powered lab notice that the spider’s venom could lead to such amazing benefits in the first place?), and the story itself took quite a long time to actually head in any definitive direction, like saving the world from an evil scientist. Not to mention a scene lifted directly out of Gleaming the Cube. This one was a solid “meh” and a full failure in regards to the Bechdel Test. I’m sure fifteen year old boys loved/will love it, however.Total RecallThis iteration of Total Recall had a couple of marked improvements over the first: the settings and special effects (which kind of go without saying since it’s been gasp twenty-two years since the original came out). The fight scenes were fantastic, especially those involving Kate Beckinsale, who pulled off quality bad-assery nearly as fine as Sharon Stone in the original, and the overall look and feel of the two cities (plus a bonus ruined landscape) where all the events take place were quite elegant and well designed. But that’s where the magic ends.One complaint I have with Total Recall redux is that all of the characters are completely cardboard. All of them. Kate’s character, Lori Quaid, runs around pissed off and intent on killing Quaid. Quaid, played by Colin Eyebrows, er, Farrell, runs around confused and ready to fight, and Jessica Biel’s character, Melina, runs around bummed that Quaid can’t remember her but intent on making sure his brain gets dissected by a new character, leader of the resistance, Mattias (played by Bill Nighy, who really looked like he just wanted to take a nap instead of be in this film). Besides Nighy, everyone, as described, does a lot of running around and fighting or shooting things, and not much else.There are two other major flaws in the film, which are inter-related. For an unknown reason, the writers dramatically changed the plot from Schwarzenegger’s TR. Instead of the story taking place on Mars with a focus on its alien artifacts and the element turbidium, the mining and distribution of which is being controlled by a corporation run by the evil Cohaagen, everything occurs on earth and Cohaagen is transformed into a despotic political leader played by Bryan Cranston. The new story is that Earth was devastated by chemical warfare and there are only two livable regions left, basically the UK and Australia. The people living in Australia are low-paid servants to the metropolitan dwellers of the UK and commute every day through the Earth’s core to work in UK-based factories (why the factories, which would seem to be giant waste-producing facilities that would muck up the pristine metro environment of the UK aren’t based in Oz isn’t explained). SPOILER: The gist is, the UK is running out of living space (because they didn’t realize how much room the factories would take up, presumably) and Quaid knows that Cohaagen is planning to wipe out the population of Oz to make room for the excess UK population (which would leave no one to work in the factories???). The only obstacle is the Resistance, which Quaid, in his original role as a member of Cohaagen’s goon squad, is supposed to infiltrate, much along the lines of the original movie.So, the flaws. Besides the traveling through the Earth’s core idea being rather boring when compared to the elaborate infrastructural implications and physiological variations resulting from the Mars motif in TR One, not to mention the ever-present threat of the livable Martian infrastructure being breached and the inhabitants dying an eye-popping, tongue-extruding death, Cohaagen’s character is completely inconsistent with the world he apparently leads. The idea put forth in the thin storyline is that he rose through the ranks in the chemical wars as a ruthless warlord, yet somehow becomes an esteemed and respected leader in a fairly mellow, egalitarian, and orderly modern society in the UK. Yet, in all of his screen time, his character does nothing but revel in the idea that he gets to wipe out a couple million people and can’t wait to share the fun with his good buddy Quaid (once Quaid is reverted back into his original persona as a bloodthirsty assassin). None of it really makes sense. How does a bad guy thrive as the leader of the free world when all he wants to do is wipe out half of said free world?Long story short, TRr had a gaggle of sparsely drawn characters running around inside a very thinly fleshed out plot. Worst of all, really, is that there were none of the classic one-liners Schwarzzenegger is so adept at. Plus, it fails the Bechdel Test.See you at the party, Richter!
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