Director Christopher Nolan first made his mark on cinema with the black and white
nah, don’t worry, I’m not gonna go over all that shit. Also I figure all of you have already seen INCEPTION three more times than I have so I’m not gonna worry about spoilers. To be honest it would take alot of effort to spoil this one because it’s so complicated to explain what’s going on in order to give it away. But still. Don’t read this until after you’ve seen it. Goofus would read this before seeing the movie, but Gallant would wait until after he saw it and then come back and read this.

INCEPTION is a thought provoking movie, a story full of ambiguity, of possible interpretations, of ideas and questions. The main question it makes you ponder, judging from most of the reviews and comments I’ve seen, is “is this a full-fledged masterpiece, or is it just a really fucking good movie that’s only partially-fledged and therefore not technically a masterpiece although very close in my opinion but it depends on the definition of masterpiece you’re going by which of course varies wildly but if you ask me it’s like obscenity, I know it when I see it?”

It’s funny when that’s the biggest disagreement. Yes, it’s a super fucking excellent film, the best I’ve seen in ages, one that made me shiver and break into a cold sweat and thank the Lord for giving me eyeballs… but a masterpiece? Come on. Let’s not go very slightly overboard here. Again, I want to reiterate it’s a great, great movie that I love and cherish.

It seems most everybody really digs this one. That doesn’t really fit established patterns. Nerds eat their young, they gotta destroy what they love. I thought DARK KNIGHT was so popular there had to be a huge backlash against Nolan on his next one, but I don’t see it yet.

I guess part of the masterpiece debate is whether or not a masterpiece needs to say something profound or emotionally relatable (can it just be a masterfully crafted piece of entertainment?) and then if applicable whether or not it does say something profound or emotionally relatable. I’m leaning toward “yes” on the parentheses part and “probly not” on part B.

I love that it’s based around an idea being a weapon like a bomb or a poison. You sneak in and plant it in the right spot and boom. Consciousnesses maimed. This concept of the idea changing the world, or changing lives, just by being thought is more cool than deep, I think. But I also don’t think that matters. Deep is better, but cool is acceptable. (Deep and cool is the best, see THEY LIVE or ROBOCOP or THE MATRIX.)

If the movie’s a masterpiece it’s because the script is a work of genius. It’s constructed more meticulously than the “dream levels” in the movie. The first hour throws you in, sets you up and lets you flounder a little trying to understand what’s going on. Then as you feel you’ve caught on it turns into a heist and it’s the best of both worlds: the beloved familiar of the classic caper movie structure meets the fresh and new of this weird “sneaking into people’s dreams to give them ideas” concept. I always love a good Assembling an Elite Team and of course what kind of an asshole doesn’t get a kick out of a good Going Over the Plan? You always see this in a MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE or an OCEAN’S movie, you got the mastermind giving a big speech about what all the obstacles are to get past and how they’re gonna do it and you’re excited about how clever their idea is and suspensed about knowing it’s not all gonna work as planned and they’re gonna have to come up with some new shit on the fly.

The Assembling an Elite Team and the Going Over the Plan are like Parliament-Funkadelic vamping for 10 minutes before setting off The Bomb. They’re establishing a rhythm and a groove and you’re nodding your head along with it and you’re into it and part of the reason is because it makes you anticipate what’s coming next. You smile bigger and bigger the longer the groove goes on because you know eventually it’s gonna explode. And in INCEPTION it explodes into what must be pretty much a straight hour of action and suspense scenes.

You know what, let me switch analogies on you. I know it’s kind of sudden but if you’re smart enough to follow along with INCEPTION then you can follow my rambling. INCEPTION is like that board game “Mouse Trap.” Nolan takes his time setting up that complicated Bill Goldberg device and it’s worth the time it takes because when it’s all finished he lets that metal ball roll and you just sit back and watch all the contraptions do their thing.

I gotta admire that this movie can cut between three sets of characters existing simultaneously in three dream worlds where we understand that time passes at different speeds… but we can pretty much follow what’s going on. Also, I’ve given Nolan some shit about his action direction before, because especially in BATMAN BEGINS I think some of those fights should be better choreographed and shot. But once again the guy proves that he does know his shit when it comes to the vehicle chases.

Also there’s some spectacular effects in here that are so well done I honestly don’t know how they did it. I think I heard they built a giant rotating hallway (like the bedroom in A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET) for the incredible fight scene where they fight on all the surfaces, but I’ll be damned if it doesn’t look like Joseph Gordon Levitt really did that shit. (He doesn’t rewind it and tell us he really did that shit like THE HUMAN TORNADO does when he jumps naked off that ledge, but it sure looks real). I was even more impressed by the weightlessness, that whole DePalma style suspense scene where he had to tie up a bunch of people and float them into an elevator to provide the feeling of falling without gravity (!). I haven’t been an astronaut for a long time but that looked authentic to me so until proven otherwise I’m gonna assume they actually went into space to film all that stuff.

And there are plenty of smaller things that are impressive. The whole cast is great. One character that was more interesting than expected was Ellen Page as Ariadne (was that really her name? That’s what IMDb says). I like how she starts out as the newcomer, the one used as an excuse to explain to the audience how things work. But she’s so smart she quickly gets ahead of the explanations and figures out things that the other characters haven’t picked up on yet.

(Ellen Page’s character fills in a job vacated by Lukas Haas, and then you got Levitt and DiCaprio… it’s some kind of War of the Babyfaces.)

Tom Hardy steals alot of the movie as the, I don’t know… dandy badass master of disguise I guess we’ll call him. I’m happy Hardy did it ’cause I feel much better about him playing Mad Max now. I mean of course he was good in BRONSON but it’s impossible for me to think of that movie, character and performance without being tainted by my feeling that it’s a poor man’s CHOPPER. So when he got the Mad Max gig I couldn’t help but think wait a minute, Bana’s the rich man’s Bronson, he’s actually Australian and in real life he drives the same car from MAD MAX in dangerous high speed races. And you’re going with Tom Hardy? But now that I’ve seen this I get it, I believe he can pull it off.

Also great to see Ken Watanabe in a bigger role than I expected. And at first you think he’s some corporate asshole, but he’s part of the team so they respect him and you like him. Glad to see Tom Berenger on the big screen again too, though I gotta admit I was kinda surprised how he looks now. I guess he was already an older gentleman when he was playing all those badass roles in the early ’90s. Time had to catch up to him eventually. Anyway hats off to Nolan for continuing his DARK KNIGHT crusade to put our DTV heroes back on the ol’ silver screen.

As for DiCaprio, he’s great as always but I do think he should try to mix it up soon. He’s so good at being the intense star of big expensive movies by great directors, but those roles are starting to blend together. You can’t help but notice this guy’s not totally different from his character in SHUTTER ISLAND who’s also dealing with some reality bending and is haunted by memories of his wife’s death. It’s not a problem for this movie at all and I’m sure he’s worried he’s gonna dilute his power if he tries to loosen up and do an Adam Sandler movie or something. But I do think he’s a good enough actor it would be interesting to see him in a goofy comedy or playing a show-offy supporting nutball character or of course a despicable villain. He did try to play AMERICAN PSYCHO right after TITANIC but somehow he’s never ended up getting a role like that. I can’t help but think of a different world where it was him playing the Joker in DARK KNIGHT.

Nolan really won my respect with DARK KNIGHT, to the point where I almost forgot he was the guy who did MEMENTO. That’s a movie I only saw once a long time ago. Back then I thought it was plenty good but a little overrated. I thought it was a clever idea executed well, nothing more, nothing less. Some day when I watch it again maybe I’ll feel the same, maybe I’ll discover new depths that everybody else was seeing in it that I was missing. Either way, it makes sense that INCEPTION is the movie that guy would make ten years later. He gets more skills, more money, more ambition, he comes up with this crazy, complicated shit and gets a studio to bankroll it. Everybody’s making phony stories now about the Riddler being in the next Batman movie. Maybe it’s true though, because this guy is the Riddler. These are some crazy fuckin puzzles he’s making through the medium of the movies. And making it the movie of the summer.

I mean, let’s not lose track of the fact that this is a big summer blockbuster about a world where CEOs are specially trained to secure their subconscious so that corporate spies can’t break into their dreams to steal their ideas and a team of dream thieves uses this fact against one CEO so they can pretend to be part of a security force he’s dreaming so that they can trick him into having an idea that another CEO wants him to have in order to prevent a monopoly on alternative energy so they have to bring him into a dream within a dream within a dream to make him think he thought of the idea himself. (SPOILER.) I mean, some summer movies are about trying to survive an earthquake or finding a treasure map on the back of the Declaration of Independence. This one requires some paying attention. Even if you compare it to the greats like ALIENS, JAWS and RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and what not… I wouldn’t say it was better or even quite as good. But I think it’s kind of more challenging. It asks more of you, requires you to be attentive.

I will admit, I got a pretty good brain but not the fastest processor. So maybe it’s easy for most of you but I did have to work the ol’ brain muscles to keep up, I felt like I was running along behind it. Not as out of breath as Clint following the president’s limo in IN THE LINE OF FIRE, but not that much better. But I felt like I kept up pretty good and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the script for helping me out with that. I felt like they had the Goldilocks-approved just right amount of exposition. Every once in a while a character says one sentence or so of explanation of what’s going on, but no more. It’s kind of like a talk radio guy resetting when he comes back from the commercial. He reminds you what the topic was but he doesn’t get into all that “22 after the hour, showers expected tonight” and all that bullshit. Just enough to keep you up to speed.

But I like to think I’m a pretty adventurous moviegoer. I like Brian Bosworth but I also like to be challenged. I like weird shit and alot of times I like movies that everybody else hates, including but not limited to various Matrixes, Star Warses, Hulks, Crystal Skulls, Brown Bunnies, etc. We, the ladies and gentlemen of the internet, seem to fall in love with movies like CHILDREN OF MEN that aren’t necessarily gonna catch on with the type of people I was watching INCEPTION with. Alot of teens, alot of text messaging going on as the movie started. I thought I was gonna have to break some bones and phones. During the movie there was alot of shifting around in the seats. I remember this sound from the remake of SOLARIS. I was being one of those elitists I guess, I was thinking man, it’s great Chris Nolan got to cash in his DARK KNIGHT check to make this one on a big budget, because this is asking too much for normal people to follow along with.

But then in that last scene, the moment when it cut away (even though come on, you knew that had to be where it was going, right?) I heard about 150 simultaneous gasps across the theater, and some laughing and clapping. I guessed everybody was bored and waiting for it to be over, but in fact they were riveted. The only time I ever remember an audience reaction like that was when I saw BATMAN BEGINS at a preview screening. I really liked it but I convinced myself everybody else was bored with the exploration of Bruce Wayne like they were with all that psychodrama I loved in HULK. But then when Gordon pulled that Joker card out it was like a bomb went off the response was so loud.

By the way, good one Nolan, putting the title right at the end again. I don’t know if it’s his touchdown dance or his “that’ll do, pig.” But he get everybody riveted and then drops it on ‘em. Bang. Fade to black. INCEPTION. Yeah, that’s right, that’s the title of the movie that just knocked your socks off. Now you know who to complain to if there’s any damage to your socks.

The other complaint I’ve heard besides “by my definition of ‘masterpiece’ it doesn’t quite qualify” is about the dreams being so normal. It definitely occurred to me too – for a movie all about dream worlds it’s sure not very surreal at all. It could use some of the ol’ Cronenberg lumps of technology. Or it wouldn’t even have to be that weird. If it were my dream I’d use my flying powers, there’d be creepy weird animals who know how to talk and alot more fuckin goin on.  But as Mr. Majestyk pointed out it’s important to the plot that the constructed dream worlds pass for reality. And also the dreamy shit been done many times before. All kinds of filmatists have had their hand at weird dream shit – which themselves don’t usually remind me of actual dreams. I kind of like that his dream worlds are normal until they become unstable. It’s avoiding the obvious approach.

In conclusion, masterpiece I guess. I don’t know, I’d have to see it again I think.

The movie begins with THE PIANIST himself, Adrien Brody, dropping from the sky. He just wakes up mid-air, hurtling toward an unknown jungle, no idea how he got here, and luckily finds that he has some kind of small parachute contraption attached to him. We’ve all been there, so it’s a real relatable way to start a movie.

He quickly finds out that he’s not the only one being dumped here. He’s some kind of elite mercenary and most of these other people are soldiers of some kind, military, guerilla or criminal. It’s a CUBE type setup: they try to figure out what the fuck is happening, then give up and try to figure out how to get the fuck out of here. And after a while some of those Predators come after them.

As you probly heard this is produced by Robert Rodriguez, sort of based on the PREDATOR 3 he wrote back in the DESPERADO promising young filmatist days. The direction is by Nimrod Antal (KONTROL, VACANCY, ARMORED), the script is by Alex Litvak (special thanks on an extra on the MASKED & ANONYMOUS dvd) and Michael Finch (no previous credits), and it’s produced at Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios.  All this seemed iffy. I thought ARMORED was only okay, I didn’t think the extras on MASKED & ANONYMOUS were that great, and as much as I like several of Rodriguez’s movies I associate his studio with fake looking green screen backgrounds and cheesy digital effects. But it turns out there was nothing to worry about. The script is simple and tasteful, the direction is tense and consistent in tone, and it’s all shot on location in jungles with only appropriate use of the computers. Real jungle, real rubber Predator suits, real fake blood.

The key though in my opinion has nothing to do with effects and monsters, it’s that this team gets PREDATOR in a way alot of other individuals don’t. PREDATOR is a monster movie, but people forget that the monster is invisible for most of the movie. He has “good kills” (some of them off screen) but you spend most of the time with the humans, and you want to. PREDATOR has one of the all time great elite teams of badasses between Schwarzenegger, Carl Weathers, Jesse “The Body ” Ventura, Sonny Landham and Bill Duke (special guest star Shane Black). PREDATORS takes a good shot at capturing that spirit, putting together Danny Trejo, UFC’s Oleg Taktarov, Larry “Morpheus” Fishburne, respectable relative newcomers Louis Ozawa Cahngchien and Mahershalalhashbaz Ali, wirey Walton Goggins from ‘Justified’, female Alice Braga (CITY OF GOD, REDBELT, I AM LEGEND), and more female Topher Grace. (I guess Topher is the Shane Black of the movie. Would’ve been cool if they went with another screenwriter. My vote would be for Charlie Kaufman, or Nicolas Cage as Charlie Kaufman.)

All these people arrive fully dressed and armed (ammo doesn’t seem to be a problem). Most of them were snatched up while in combat, except the Yakuza (who decides to take off his dress shoes and McClane it, but still looks good in his suit).

The master stroke was casting Brody. You can’t compete with Schwarzenegger for cartoony musclemen, so instead they went with the youngest ever winner of the Academy Award for best actor, a man who’s worked with Steven Soderbergh, Spike Lee, Terence Malick, Roman Polanski, Peter Jackson, even Wes Anderson and Dario Argento, but who was 15 when PREDATOR came out and probly realizes it’s awesome. He’s bigger and grimmer than you’ve seen him before, but he’s the leader because he’s smart and observant, he figures out what’s going on, what the Predators are trying to do, how to handle them, he even tests them much like they’re testing him. I guess in A-Team terms he’s Hannibal.

Brody takes the role seriously, trying to earn his place in a PREDATOR movie instead of treating it like he’s doing it a favor. He’s a great lead heading a great team. I knew most of them had to die but kept hoping they would last longer. You couldn’t say that about any character in the last AvP movie, even if you could remember who any of the characters were or vaguely what they looked like or did in the movie.

I can’t say these are three-dimensional, strongly developed characters, but Antal and friends paint good sketches without much dialogue, or even telling us some of their names. Group-of-strangers-fighting-together movies can easily get bogged down in backstories, but luckily here they’re mostly limited to either one corny “where I come from, we do it like such-and-such” line or just Brody pointing at them and guessing their combat affiliation. Brody does great with dialogue, but most of the others practice the forgotten art of stoicism.

See, that's a guy you put in a PREDATOR movie.

I loved seeing Taktarov in there. He’s one of the MM-artists and has had small parts in a bunch of movies, but I first noticed him as a standout in an obscure DTV called ROCKAWAY. If you read that review you’ll see where I complain about Russians always having one of a handful of names in American movies. His character in that was “Ivan,” which I thought was ridiculous when his real name is so distinctive. In this one I don’t think they ever say his name, but the credits say it’s Nicolai. That should’ve been on my list with Yuri and Boris.

My favorite character might be the Yakuza, though. He barely talks, and the others rarely pay attention to him. When he first joins the group they don’t even notice him standing there, and I don’t think they notice his bare feet or comment on him wearing a suit in the jungle. In fact I’m pretty sure nobody finds out that he (GENERAL SPOILER ABOUT CONTENT OF MY FAVORITE SCENE) has a samurai duel with a Predator. That’s such a great idea, just the right mix of absurdity, poetry, and setup from PREDATOR 2. He kind of has his own little wordless storyline.

Antal’s building of tension and construction of thrills seems much stronger than in ARMORED. Maybe part of it is the excellent score by John Debney. He completely captures the feel of Alan Silvestri’s original score, that presumed dead style of blood-pumping themes (also a nice reworking of the original theme in the end credits).

I enjoyed this movie a whole hell of alot, but I don’t want to overhype it. It’s more of a solid entry than a new classic. No huge surprirses, and after this many years I think we could hope for a little more sophisticated and envelope-pushing monster battles at the end, more upping of the ante and more curveballs thrown our way. There’s lots of good monster stuff, but believe it or not I think that’s the weakest part of the movie. That’s almost refreshing, actually, but of course if I liked the monsters as much as the humans it could be even better.

You could be picky about the scene with digital monsters, which have that unfortunate CGI weightlessness and constant pouncing, but they look cool anyway if you ask me. It also might be fun to have more of a (SORT OF IMPLIED SPOILER I GUESS) throw-you-for-a-loop ending to imply strange new directions for any future episodes. But I’m glad they don’t point us toward what nerds call “The Predator Homeworld” but in my opinion is actually called Predatoria or Predatron. I know people want to see it, but I don’t think they’re thinking it through at all or they’d realize how hard it would be to not make that totally asinine. I don’t want to see a whole planet of these violent fuckers shooting laser spears at each other but somehow managing to have an effective spaceship manufacturing industry. And it would be even worse to see the wimpy civilian Predators who piss off these hunter Predators by forcing them into space with all their endangered species protections, laser control and self-destruct registration laws. Do you want to see a Predator wearing the Predatropolis equivalent of a suit and tie? I’m thinking not all Predators look like warriors. Even the ones that are probly aren’t allowed to wear their masks in public because of bank robberies and stuff.

I mean, ask yourself honestly: do you really want to find out what a girl Predator looks like? Before you answer, let me remind you what a girl Yoda looks like:

You know what, just in case that doesn’t do it, maybe I better remind you what a girl gremlin looks like:

Just keep that in mind, you Predator Homeworld people. Keep the phrases “Predator lipstick” and “Predator eyelashes” in mind. As I believe Wes Craven’s Wishmaster said at the end of his end credits, “Be careful.. what you WEESH for!! ha ha ha ha!”

* * *

Somebody asked me if PREDATORS was better than PREDATOR 2. I actually like PREDATOR 2, so my answer was that PREDATOR is more of a consistent and solid construction, but doesn’t have as much crazy imagination. I hope it leads to some more good Predator movies, building off of this tone and approach and maybe going in some weirder directions.

(my pitch for a PREDATOR sequel they probly wouldn’t do now that they’ve moved it to space: a Predator comes down and gets in a battle with soldiers like in part 1, but they’re actually able to call in the full force of the military, and this one Predator has to take on armies, tanks, bombers and drones until his backup arrives. Or of course there’s the old standby where Predator hunts Godzilla and flies home with a giant monster skull strapped to the top of his ship.)

all my Predator related reviews here

The robots aren’t alive, they are controlled by jox. Robot jox, if you want to be specific about which type of jox they are. These robot jox train in the martial arts and what not to prime their bodies to do moves that will be duplicated by the robot body around them. They have teams of course to build their robots and work on new weapons and help train them. So it’s like a futuristic cross between UFC, NASCAR, and war.

They had to change ROBOTJOX to two words because of ROBOCOP. But they were pissed about it.

The American fighter is called Achilles, he’s played by Gary Graham (the main earthling cop from the ALIEN NATION tv series). He has a fat old redneck in his corner named Tex Conway (Michael Alldredge), a guy that used to be the champ and wears a cowboy hat with his futuristic jumpsuit. One more fight and Achilles gets out of his contract, and that’s a good thing. Robot jocking is dangerous and he’s getting old and obsolete. They got these new kids that are test tube bred for robot fighting. He doesn’t understand them because they don’t think like humans.

Let me give you an example. In his fight with the Russian (Paul Koslo from MR. MAJESTYK and OMEGA MAN) the other robot fires its arm as a projectile. Achilles sees that it’s heading right for the spectators, so he walks into it, tries to block it. But it knocks his robot into the stands, many people are killed and it’s a huge tragedy. He’s traumatized and refuses to re-do the fight, causing a scandal and branding him a coward across the world.

Afterwards, in a bar, the test tube robot jox tell him they don’t understand why he tried to protect the fans. The people who sit in the stands sign liability waivers, so why would he care? It just doesn’t compute for them, this trying to save human lives business.

So it becomes a reluctant fighter story. He eventually decides to help train this new test tube girl Athena (Anne-Marie Johnson). There is some intrigue about who’s leaking intel about their new weapons, and some question about who will actually fight. It’s a nice lean story, short and simple and classically entertaining, using a cool concept to good effect on a super low budget.

The futuristic sets are cheesy but the robot fights hold up better than I expected. They’re done with stop motion and I think miniatures that are actually pretty huge. (They’re miniature in the sense that they’re not really giant robots, just regular sized robots.) They move really slow, they don’t zip around like the Transformers, so they really seem to have some weight to them.

The tone of the movie is like a non-sarcastic STARSHIP TROOPERS – kind of naive and rah-rah ready for adventure. Gordon actually wrote the script with the esteemed science fictional novelist Joe Haldeman, whose book “The Forever War” I am very familiar with, not in the sense that I’ve read it or know what it’s about but in the sense that the Ain’t It Cool boys have name-dropped it about a thousand times over the years to show that they used to read books. I think Ridley Scott is making a movie out of it. Anyway, Haldeman didn’t see eye to eye with Gordon on the movie, and compared his script being rewritten by Gordon to his child getting brain damage. Gordon later realized that Haldeman thought they were making a movie for adults and Gordon thought it was for kids. Whoops.

I read in the book Filmmaking on the Fringe: The Good, the Bad and the Deviant Directors [shameless capitalistic link] that the movie was kind of a disaster for Gordon. The production company went under after filming but before doing the robot stuff. He had to wait around for the new overlords to decide if they even wanted to finish it. Then when they did it took way longer than expected. By the time it was out it was 2 years later and they’d missed the transforming robot toy fad they wanted to cash in on. But it did good on video.

Gordon says it was made for 10 year old boys, and sure enough it has a PG rating. But I gotta admit – I enjoyed it. Still, this is the rare movie that I’d actually like to see a remake of. I think with today’s technology and a mid-sized budget and (here’s the hard part) a tasteful, competent director this could be incredible. Get into way more detail on the fights – the same lumbering, hulking style but with the robots strategically taking each other apart piece by piece, still functioning with broken pieces hanging off. Kind of like an MMA fight. If they want to they can work in some out-of-robot fighting, since the jox are martial artists anyway, it’s already set up in the premise. If they need the story to be bigger that can be arranged too. There’s a whole post-apocalyptic landscape to explore. Maybe he’s transporting his robot somewhere and gets into some scrapes along the way. Or he could start as a scrappy small time fighter with a home made rig before he fights his way to the big time and the glorious job of securing ownership of the Alaskan territories.

If people are actually excited for a new TRON movie then I say there’s room for something like this too. I don’t know. All I know is that the world is ready to start saying the phrase “Robot Jox” again.

Maybe you can help me out: the “gamepod” controllers are little lumps of flesh, like mutated breasts. They plug a tentacle into a “bioport” on your spine, but if yours is installed wrong (which it turns out can happen if you let Willem Dafoe install yours at the gas station) it can overload your game pod and it will have to be repaired, which is a surgical procedure. The pods are actually genetically modified amphibians. There are alot of those little guys around, two-headed mutant lizards that look like praying mantises, or little blobs that crawl into the hole on your back and disappear inside you. It’s hard to figure out if you’re playing or if shit is just weird, and they try to trick you with video games within video games and fake “waking up from the game” sequences. The game responds to your thoughts but also gives you the urges of a game character in order to advance the plot, so you better distinguish which is which because you end up fucking or killing and sometimes you’re wrong and you weren’t supposed to do that. And you want to be sure you’re in the game because outside of the game those things have more consequences, in my opinion. And Jude Law as Ted Pikul notices that reality and game feel so close to each other that it’s kind of fucked up to want to kill somebody even if it is just a game.

Basically, this is the movie they were trying to make with SUPER MARIO BROTHERS but they didn’t have the technology to pull it off then.

Jennifer Jason Leigh plays Allegra Geller, mother of Sarah Michelle Geller and a famous visionary game designer who survives an assassination attempt from a “realist” who sneaks into a focus group with a gun made of lizard bones and gristle that fires human teeth. (This is based on something that happened to the creator of Dig-Dug, if I remember right.)

Then she runs off with Pikul, an assistant PR guy who she mistakes for a bodyguard, introduces this “newbie” or “newber” I believe they’re called to her video game and they have various thrilling reality-bending encounters and what not. You know, crazy Cronbergian shit. NAKED LUNCH for people who are more into first person shooters than shooting up.

As a thriller it’s not real strong. It’s hard not to assume from the beginning that everything is a trick, so the various twists and turns are fun but never actually a shock. The weird Cronenberg New Flesh shit is some of the best ever, though. Everybody is so accepting and matter-of-fact about little living skin lumps used as gadgets. It’s like some fucked up William S. Burroughs version of THE FLINSTONES, except the gamepods never turn to the camera and squawk, “It’s a living.” I love this kind of movie that authentically captures the weirdness of the subconscious. There aren’t too many of them.

There’s a part where Jude Law’s driving and he says, “Oh, it’s my egg phone” and pulls out a little glowing, pulsating rectangularish slab of living tissue. As I’ve said before I’m of Luddite-American heritage, I do not carry a phone or covet an iPhone or any of that shit. But I would consider an eggPhone. I guess it depends what kind of plan you gotta get on. You sign a contract and you literally get a pound of flesh. Anyway this type of weirdo business is constant throughout the movie – bleeding gadgets, tooth guns, mutant meals, all with top of the line effects work. Just very real-looking, detailed animatronics plus one of the more bizarre digital characters in a movie so far.

I think people forget that Cronenberg’s movies were a big part of advancing the art and science of makeup effects. There was that couple of years there where Rick Baker and Rob Bottin did AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON, THE HOWLING, THE THING and VIDEODROME. So it’s great to see Cronenberg almost 20 years later working with the new state of the art. The effects on this were overseen by Jim Isaac, who later directed Cronenberg as an actor in JASON X.

(By the way, I wanted to mention that I think it’s funny when people insist on imitating the typography of a movie logo in their reviews, the biggest example of course being when people type the movie “SEVEN” as “SE7EN”. But in the case of this one the characters actually say in the movie that it’s lower case e, capital X, lower case i – s – t – e – n – capital Z. If Morgan Freeman said, “He’s following the seven deadly sins. S – E – the number 7 – E – N” then I would extend the same courtesy.)

(And as long as I’m throwing in random parenthetical comments I got a bonus random parenthetical comment for you. You ever notice how many challenging, maybe flawed or controversial but smart or ambitious sci-fi movies Jude Law is in? ‘Cause there’s this one, GATTACA and A.I. – THE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. I don’t think I’d count SKY CAPTAIN and I haven’t seen REPO MEN. But at least he’s got a trilogy here.)

I think this was a good place for Cronenberg to stop with this type of shit and become the David Cronenberg who did A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE and EASTERN PROMISES. The New Flesh was starting to smell like Old Flesh and he’d taken it about as far as he could. I mean, what is he really saying with all this in eXistenZ? That our devices become extensions of ourselves. That video games (or movies or TV shows) show us what we ask for, that they open up the darkest dungeons of our minds, and even though we know it’s not real, isn’t it kind of real? Because it’s our real desire, our real fantasy, it’s what we want. We’re some weird fuckin mugwump perverts, whether we admit it or not, and our technology does our filthy bidding. This is all pretty interesting themes, but not at all profound, especially since he had most of that in VIDEODROME. I’m not sure if he knew that, because he said he hadn’t watched VIDEODROME in 15 years when he wrote this. But in many ways it feels like an update and I think he did a good job of making the technology timeless here by making it all organic. He won’t need to do a new one to deal with the eggPad or flesh messaging.

So thank you for your brave service Freaky Chest Vagina Cronenberg, but for now let’s keep you retired unless you get a chance to do something that could do real damage, like a HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL sequel or a remake of FOOTLOOSE or something.

I still liked it though. I’ve heard there are alot of people who hate it, but I’m sure they’re just video game nuts who don’t want us to know the truth.

“Why me Lord? What have I ever done / That was worth even one / Of the pleasures I’ve known / Tell me Lord, what did I ever do / That was worth loving you / or [Universal Soldier 3].”

–Kris Kristofferson, “Why Me”

Holy shit fellas, I didn’t see this one coming. I was excited about the idea of Van Damme and Lundgren doing a movie together again, but honestly I assumed they (and everybody else) would be phoning it in. Man, was I wrong. There are no phones used at all. This is a masterpiece of DTV.

I mean seriously, how did this happen?

It comes out February 2nd and I can’t wait to discuss it with everybody here after you’ve seen it. For now the review is up at The Ain’t It Cool News.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER III: UNFINISHED BUSINESS continues from part 2, clearly shot back-to-back and even including a “previously on Universal Soldier” type montage. Burt Reynolds is the sleazy CIA director trying to stop Luc Deveraux (Matt Battaglia, not Van Damme) and the reporter from revealing the UniSol program. I’m sure he wouldn’t get in trouble, but Congressional hearings are probly a pain the ass, you gotta go to bed early the night before, get your suit cleaned, send your lawyer a thank you note, all that shit. Easier to just stay out of the headlines.

Reporter Lady is still a fugitive, blamed for crimes she didn’t commit. They go to Canada to find her ex-boyfriend, a reporter on the financial beat she thinks could help. He’s covering “The Cyber Wealth Summit” where “the Cyber Community” of millionaires are all congregated, so she sneaks in disguised as a waiter while Luc waits outside. But some terrorists take everybody hostage – holy shit, it’s a DIE HARD ripoff within a UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequel! You don’t see that every day. Luc saves the day and kills the bad guys, then it’s back to regular UNIVERSAL SOLDIER except the scientists turn the dead hostage takers into their next batch of UniSols.

More interestingly, the evil scientist is working on a new super soldier clone that starts out as a fetus and rapidly grows into a kid. He teaches the clone to call him father. I was hoping Luc would get to fight a little kid UniSol, but unfortunately it grows into his brother (still Jeff Wincott). The clone is brainwashed to not remember him, and to really fuck with his mind it has a bomb in its chest. Surprisingly, when the bomb goes off it seems to be an M-80. Interesting choice.

The ex-boyfriend’s in-movie lifespan is reminiscent of the car-bombed love interest in DEATH WISH III, and Reynolds’s so-bad-at-first-you-don’t-realize-it’s-supposed-to-be-an-accent accent is the weirdest since Dennis Hopper’s in TICKER.

I know there were a couple funny lines and weird touches, but I can’t find where I wrote them down and don’t remember very well. I think the clone kid killed a cat or something, and the scientist said he was proud of him. Something like that. At the end we learn that there are sleeper UniSols all over the country and they’re activated. The last one we learn about is then-President Bill Clinton. Stupid Republicans going after the blowjobs and the real estate deals, they had no idea this was right under their noses the whole time.

Director Jeff Woolnough went on to direct a whole bunch of TV episodes and a TV movie about Celine Dion. Writer Peter Lenkov got a story credit on DEMOLITION MAN and co-producer on BALLISTIC: ECKS VS. SEVER.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN, which returned Emmerich and Devlin’s thrilling saga to the big screen, is about the time that the Universal Soldier returned, I guess. Jean-Claude Van Damme returns to the role of Luc Deveraux, the Vietnam K.I.A. who was revived into a zombie super soldier and then went rogue and learned a few human emotions (a story that started in part 1 and continued with Matt Battaglia as Deveraux in parts 2 and 3). But this time he’s not a terminator, he’s an ordinary single father like any other Van Damme character. He’s in charge of training the UniSols for non-sinister computer genius Xander Berkeley (seriously, he’s a good guy in this, I’m not lying) while a super computer called SETH (voice of Michael Jai White!) tutors his daughter. But when government cutbacks force the cancellation of the UniSol program, SETH protects his interests by doing brain surgery on the soldiers and controlling them to do his bidding. And only Deveraux can stop them, because… because he’s the main character. And for some reason there’s a new pretty lady reporter there when the shit hits, so she becomes the female lead instead of Van Damme’s asskicking colleague, who has to go take car of his daughter.

I don’t really understand why they brought back Van Damme only to be unrecognizable as the same character. It seems like somebody told them it was the reporter lady that people liked about the first one, not the undead super soldier hero. So they team him up with a reporter again, but make him not an undead super soldier. Just an ordinary revived dead guy good at kickboxing (he just explains that they “reversed the process” so he’s alive and regular now).

The character SETH is pretty funny. I got a kick out of a super computer talking in a gruff Michael Jai White voice instead of the usual eerily calm HAL 9000 types. I bet if you wanted to you could go into the preferences and switch it to a Kris Kristofferson voice too. Later SETH puts himself into a bionic MJW body so he can fight Van Damme. In case you haven’t figured it out yet I really like MJW’s screen fighting style. Impressive kicks, heavy on poses, and he even does that move I’m a sucker for where you kick a chair so it slides across the floor. And he does it more than once. So obviously this isn’t a worthless movie.

SETH is supposed to be more enhanced than the other UniSol’s, so if Deveraux was dead it would still be an underdog story. But since he has no super powers it’s really unclear why he’s so evenly matched with SETH’s super strength. I guess just because he loves his daughter so much. My favorite part is a completely nonsensical move where he runs across the type of a bunch of lawn chairs and then up a wall. As far as I can tell it accomplishes nothing at all in the fight other than to look cool. I love it.

The producers I guess didn’t think Van Damme and White were big enough names, so they threw in WWE wrestler Goldberg as the lead henchman UniSol named Romeo. Not Whoopi Goldberg, I’m talking about the big bald meathead who starred in HALF PAST DEAD 2. He growls alot and gets alot of the funniest stupid lines, like when he’s on fire and says “I’m just getting warmed up!” You get it, because of he’s on fire, that’s why he says that. Warmed up, see.

The opening action scene (water ski chase through swamp) is pretty cool, but like many of the other action scenes it hobbles itself by using rock songs with crunchy guitars and troll voices. They keep using that as shorthand for “this part is awesome,” but I never buy it. I don’t know if maybe young headbanger kids who like that kind of music get pumped up for an action scene when they hear that, but to me it completely deflates it and seems desperate. “Hey kids, I know you are confused by this old Belgian man, but what about the rocknrollers? You like this stuff? They wear scary masks I bet! Let’s go download some MP3s together!”

There are a couple of clever action moments: whatsername riding Goldberg down a stairway like a sled, Van Damme watching the x-ray of his UniSol opponent so he can punch the face at the right angle to dislodge a faulty chip. But after that most of the fights are guys at some generic warehouse firing machine guns and huge explosions going off. Not much to it. It does have a few funny lines though, like when a strip club bouncer that Van Damme headbutted earlier comes after him with a bunch of friends and Van Damme pleads, “Please, no violence.”

This is a dumb movie, but adequate enough to hold your attention, and it has a few bright spots, like having JCVD fight MJW (but why does that come before fighting Goldberg?) Still, you only got so many days to live on this earth, and there are alot of other Van Damme movies.

So it was pretty brilliant to cast him as a lone samurai walking through a post-apocalyptic wasteland on a mission of faith. The Denzel persona is much more endearing when he doesn’t just give verbal beatdowns, but full-on swordsman massacres. Actually he’s a little different in this one too – quiet and kind of crazy from being alone.

The movie is by the Hughes Brothers, who I really like even though they haven’t made a movie in 9 years, and that was FROM HELL. Good for them getting Mr. Drama to do something like this. I guess he does those Tony Scott thrillers and stuff, but that’s about as loose as you’d expect these days. It’s been a long time since RICOCHET, that’s for sure.

I read somewhere that Denzel was one of the first choices to play Blade. I’m glad his MO’ BETTER BLUES bandmate took it instead, but it’s funny – I always thought the idea of Denzel as the Daywalker was ridiculous. Now here he is 12, 13 years later doing what he referred to in Entertainment Weekly as “Blade stuff,” and convincingly. His fighting is mostly of the “you come up to me and threaten me, but then I do a couple quick moves that leave you whimpering on the ground” variety – so old, but so enjoyable. But there are a couple full-on multiple attackers fight scenes, and those are fun too.

The fights are by Jeff Imada (BOURNE movies, BLADE, John Carpenter movies), and Denzel was trained by Dan Inosanto (Bruce Lee’s #1 student, “the Professor” in REDBELT, “Sticks” in OUT FOR JUSTICE). There’s been alot of hype that the Hughes’s had them do the fights in long takes, no disorienting cuts or closeups like you and I hate. Despite what you may have read it’s only the first fight that’s in one take, and I’m not sure it’s true that Denzel did all the fighting, because that one’s all in silhouette. But the action is all good, from barfights to bandit encounters to a ridiculously escalating gunfight. This is one of the only movies this year with a battle involving Academy Award winner Denzel Washington, sitcom star Mila Kunis, Punisher Ray Stevenson, Gary Oldman, a gatling gun, and HARRY POTTER’s Michael Gambon as a friendly grenade-tossing cannibal. I mean, that’s not an ensemble, that’s a motley crew.

Denzel’s mission is to carry his Bible west, because a voice told him to. Manifest destiny. But he goes through a small town (like one in a western, except with the headquarters in an old movie theater) where Gary Oldman happens to be a leader desperately seeking a Bible so he can use its words to rope in “the weak and the vulnerable.” He’s a pretty one-dimensional bad guy, more of a symbol than a character, but Oldman plays him kind of real instead of playing him PROFESSIONALly.

They try to get this Eli to hand over his Bible, but he refuses and walks out of town, so Oldman’s goons go after him. Most interesting is Stevenson, who I didn’t recognize without his skull t-shirt. He continues his streak of strangely sympathetic and eloquent murderers. Man, give that guy some more roles. He’s great.

The details of the world are there – how they get water, how they barter, who to be afraid of, how to hunt a cat. I think the best scenes are little moments of happiness for Eli – when he finds some good shoes and struts around in them; when he listens to Al Green on his iPod and cleans himself off with KFC moist towelettes. There’s talk of how in the old days people threw away what people would kill for now, and you see the value of little things. FOr example Oldman shampoos Jennifer Beals’s hair – it’s like a luxury vacation in a travel-size bottle. Even the most powerful guy around can’t get shampoo very often. I mean, it’s a little bottle like you get free in a hotel, and to them it’s like they found a diamond or something.

So it’s a good character, good performance, good setting, but to tell you the truth the story is not quite there. I think it gets bogged down in Bible talk in the second half. It’s not too preachy (just a simple guys-who-believe are better than guys-who-exploit theme) but it gets distracted from the asskicking, and then doesn’t have a climax big enough to recover. It does have an interesting surprise that makes you want to watch the movie again to see if it makes sense, but I’m not sure the significance of that twist, if any. It’s cool, but is it empty? I think it might be. I’m not sure.

The obvious comparison is THE ROAD, and I thought this might end up being the post-apocalyptic action movie that the Weinsteins wanted you to believe THE ROAD was when they made all those horrible trailers. In THE ROAD they’re travelling east and in ELI he’s traveling west, but they’re not complete opposites. ELI is more fun and mainstream, but I think it’s also trying to be more thoughtful than it can handle. It can’t really compete with THE ROAD for raw emotion and hope in the face of devastation, so honestly it could stand a little more popcorn. And maybe a little more color – I’m kind of sick of every movie being washed out to almost look black and white. But they probly didn’t know what THE ROAD was gonna look like when they made this.

A better comparison might be TERMINATOR: SALVATION. Both have action scenes and settings better constructed than their stories. And, sorry to say this ELI, but SALVATION looks better and the action is more exciting. It has more money to spend, so the desecrated landscapes look like a real place as opposed to the fakey Photoshopped landscapes of ELI. But ELI doesn’t get as dumb as SALVATION, it doesn’t have the same legacy to live up to, and the story is at least more focused. So it wins overall.

All of the recent post-apocalypse movies have been enjoyable in different ways. But all of them make me want to call the hospital and ask for Dr. George Miller.

Despite all this, it’s pretty fuckin great to see Denzel playing a post-nuclear samurai. So I definitely recommend this. And I hope the Hughes Brothers don’t take another 9 years for their next one.

More to the point, let’s say you are also a wiseass camera operator who enjoys running through explosions in a firesuit or rollerblading around holding a camcorder, but have not yet developed an interest in some of the other elements of photography such as framing or holding still. Fine! Great! That is your calling, you should rollerblade all you want. It is probly good aerobic exercise. But I have one caveat: if your plan is to incorporate that footage into an actual movie and not just an episode of JACKASS then you have a responsibility to look at the footage first and ask yourself if somebody could watch it and understand what in God’s holy name is being shown. And if the directational fraternity duo Nevildine/Taylor were being honest with themselves the answer to that question would usually be “No. No, not at all. Oh jesus, no, are you kidding me? Uh uh.” I’m thinking maybe these guys should forget about the cameras and just be stunt men. They seem more interested in carrying the camera through risky situations than actually pointing the lens of it at specific things.

The CRANK movies gave me that impression too, but they took place in a 14 year old boy’s cartoon dream world and the hero had to keep his adrenaline up or he’d die, so it seemed like a conscious artistic choice, at least. But now here they are trying a more serious RUNNING MAN/DEATH RACE type sci-fi action story and they’re using the same god damn Robin-Williams-riffing-on-a-talk-show visual approach. In other words, no, CRANK was not a conscious choice, they just don’t have a clue how to film an actual movie. They got one bag of tricks, and it doesn’t close.

Like with CRANK it has a cool enough premise that I want to like it: death row inmates are controlled by videogame nerds in deadly battles, and if Gerard Butler survives one more they’ll let him go. Unfortunately they don’t do much with the premise. They barely seem to sense the fucked-upness of a kid controlling a murderer for fun. They don’t really explore at all what the kid’s life is like or even get any mileage out of the idea of some dumb kid having this power over an adult. There’s definitely no Verhoeven meat on these bones. These jokers are much more interested in a subplot about a disgustingly obese shut-in controlling Butler’s hot wife in another game. They keep coming back to it like they’re real proud of this observation that a hot chick on the internet is probly a gross fat dude, but they do nothing with it at all, no insight into why he’s doing it or anything. They come up with a concept and that’s it, that’s the end of their work. No time to take ideas anywhere, gotta rollerblade.

One example is the title. Why is it called GAMER? That’s a word that only sounds cool to a gamer, if anyone. In the movie I guess it refers to the kid who controls Gerard Butler as a video game. But why is he significant? Admittedly none of the characters are developed much at all, but clearly the avatar is the focus of this one, not the gamer. There’s no significance to the title. They just wanted to call a movie gamer because they’re gamers. Lots of movies have dumb titles, but this one is fitting because it represents the low level of thought they give to every aspect of the movie.

Okay, so it’s not a smart movie. It’s really, really, really not a smart movie. It makes DEATH RACE look like DR. STRANGELOVE. But it would get away with that if it had great action scenes. Or maybe if it had good ones. If not, I would accept acceptable ones. Instead they have inexcusably shitty ones, just a bunch of shaky camcorder looking footage (with added blips) of dudes running around shooting guns behind a warehouse somewhere. There are some sparks. I think a car flips in one part. Possibly explosions. I initially turned the movie off after about 15 or 20 minutes because I couldn’t wait for the action scene to be over and then it got into the parts between action scenes and I couldn’t decide which one I hated more. It picked up a little when I continued watching the next day, but not enough to recover.

There’s a scene in the movie where Butler gets a missile shot at him or something and then the camera feed for the pay-per-view coverage shuts down. And it shows some fan watching the fight and she yells, “What the FUCK just happened?!” And you find yourself saying, “Exactly! Exactly!” Even the characters in the movie agree that the battles are poorly filmed and edited.

Okay, I got a good example here. The end credits listed Zoe Bell. I said what? Zoe Bell was in this? Where? So I found a picture of her from the movie online, and clearly she was one of the other fighters in the game. So I went back and fast forwarded through the movie and I figured out what scene she’s in. She’s sitting right next to Butler and she introduces herself to him, but it’s in a dark room with a strobing light, so she’s hard to make out. I swear on Christ’s pacifistic nuts that when I watched it the first time I thought it was a voice speaking to him from behind the wall or through a hidden speaker or something. I really didn’t know somebody was sitting there talking to him, let alone that it was Zoe Bell. After that she’s running next to him in a battle but it’s all the handheld shit and you don’t see her face clearly. Yes, she’s a stuntwoman, but in this one she’s supposed to be an actor, you don’t try to obscure her face. You’re thinking backwards, guys.

N + T Movie Factory also make the rookie mistake – or ROBOCOP 3 mistake – of having a righteous resistance for the hero to team up with. Screen Actor’s Guild Award winner* Chris “Ludacris” Bridges has the Ice-T-in-JOHNNY-MNEMONIC role of the prophet who pirates the airwaves to make useless speeches about rebelling. I compare it to ROBOCOP 3 because that was a movie where they took a perfectly good nightmarish dystopia that speaks for itself and then ruined everything by having rebels point out just how bad it is. These ones have the usual futuristic hippie look – in the role of white girl with dreadlocks is Alison Lohman, who was so good in DRAG ME TO HELL. Here here line readings are so stiff I honestly thought she was some non-actor friend of theirs they wanted to give a bit part to.

To be fair, these rebels don’t preach as much as the ones in some other crappy sci-fi movies. More than militants or subversives they seem to be a radical exposition cell. They’re there to read long sentences of techno-gibberish to explain the sci-fi concepts of the movie. I guess if they weren’t in the movie there wouldn’t be a villainous master plan, because they’re the ones that explain what it is and then it never happens.

The best reviewed role is Michael C. Hall as the annoying billionaire creator of the game, frequent talk show guest and aspiring conqueror of humanity. I guess Hall is supposed to be good because he does a different accent than on his TV show DEXTER. Okay, fine, but his drawl and random dance scene can’t really make him into a good villain. He’s evil for no reason, doesn’t have anything else going on in his life and doesn’t even have any funny lines.

Kyra Sedgwick is also in the movie as a talk show host who gets sort of involved and doesn’t turn out to be important. I assume the casting agent pointed out to her that Joan Allen was in DEATH RACE.

Like the action scenes, the story has no build and an underwhelming climax. They don’t do anything with the concept of him being controlled by a kid. Instead the kid somehow lets him loose, so he becomes an even better fighter. The villain still can control him though so he holds a knife up to him and can’t stab. Oh wait, he tried real hard and then it worked! The end. This is an action movie where the climax is the hero and villain standing there and the hero stabs the villain.

If none of that can un-sell you on this movie, I feel it’s important to tell you that the opening scene is a montage set to Marilyn Manson’s cover of “Sweet Dreams.” Then, a little later in the movie, there is an action scene set to the same song! I guess they got the bulk rate on music rights.

So, sorry guys, but I gotta give up on Nevildine slash Taylor. As moviemakers I realize I really hate these motherfuckers. They got a couple ideas but no talent for communicating them and no brains to put anything behind or in front of the ideas. If anything, they should write loose outlines that other writers and directors then flesh out into actual movies. Or they should be an executive producer that comes in and suggests possible gags, like the guy putting out the cigarette inside Jason Statham while he’s getting heart surgery in CRANK PART 2. It’s nothing personal, I’m sure these guys are cool to hang out with if you like playing video games and giggling about balls for hours on end, but in my opinion they are not ready to tell stories through a series of photographic images.

*2004 Best Ensemble for CRASH

Then a couple days later I had written this behemoth. Hopefully there are one or two things here that haven’t been said before.

Obvious question first: yes I liked it, was pretty blown away on a technical level but just average in the heart and/or balls. It’s a genuine event movie like there hasn’t been in a little while, something I think everybody should go out and see just for the unprecedented spectacle of it. It’s amazing in the way a fancy bridge is, not in the way your favorite novel is. It’s something in between what would be made by the visionary director of ALIENS and the cornball crowdpleaser of TITANIC. Which averages out to not too shabby.

If I could get political for a second here, it is a shame that Congress so monumentally fucked over our country in trying to stop us from ever getting health insurance. Clearly there are many nerds on the internet who need new glasses judging by this bullshit they were saying about AVATAR looking the same as their video games. I thought they were ridiculous when they were talking about the trailer, but when you see the movie those complaints become hilariously asinine. AVATAR effects naysayers, please report to the conference room for a pep talk by the people who signed the petition against Daniel Craig playing James Bond.

The Onion AV Club review said, “As the film’s technical marvels grow commonplace, it will look like a clunky old theme-park attraction, a Captain EO for our time.” To which I say: you got a fucking problem with CAPTAIN EO? Because I don’t.

The cat-eyed blue giants who are the main characters in AVATAR look absolutely real – you just know they’re digital because how the fuck else would it be done? What’s kind of more astounding to me is that this planet they’re on is digital too. There’s nobody who will watch this movie thinking of it as a cartoon or a SKY CAPTAIN type fakey green screen experiment, and yet long sections of it are 100% digital. And it’s all integrated well – I never noticed any of the usual problems like animated characters not looking like they’re really in the same place as the live action, or those BEOWULF crowd scenes where you can tell it was some cut and pasting going on, not a real crowd of people reacting to the same thing at the same time. For the first time it’s all that but it doesn’t look like a collage, it looks like a world.

But do me a favor, don’t call it “world building.” I’m ready to retire that one and “game-changer.” I don’t know if James Cameron said “game-changer” in one interview a long time ago or if it’s seriously something he’s repeated, but either way I’m skipping the internet-wide debate about AVATAR’s level of game changeability. In fact I don’t even know what the game is or what’s supposed to change about it or why I would be disappointed if the changing of the game did not in fact take place.

Whoever this person is who thought the movie was gonna be projected through angel feathers and feature the resurrection of Jesus in HD as a post-credits bonus… I never fucking met the guy and don’t really care if he really exists on the internet somewhere. Supposedly there were people obsessed with AVATAR before it came out, unfortunately I only experienced the people who were obsessed with the idea that there were allegedly the other people obsessed with AVATAR. And I would’ve preferred to deal with the other group, I think.

Wait a minute, maybe it did change the game, because for me there was some adjusting, some getting used to that had to be done. For a minute the 3-D looked exactly like old school HOUSE OF WAX/Viewmaster 3-D and seemed to shrink the Imax screen to a little diorama floating in front of me, but as my eyes adjusted it became a huge, dimensional world pulling me in and surrounding me. And the blue people looked a little goofy at first. You got Sigourney Weaver with her eyes farther apart – how does this change her facial expressions? When she has sad eyes but the eyes are in a different part of her head does it still look sad? I’m not sure how it works. Also, it’s weird to see an alien wearing a Stanford t-shirt. And I’m surprised that they make them in her size.

Is that what game changing is? Was I in the original game when it seemed weird at first and then when I got into it that means I had moved on to the second, changed game? I’m not sure.

Anyway you get into it and it feels hugely epic without being long and tiring. I never got bored, and I was excited for the inevitable conflicts that must take place when the human military wants the magic mineral that’s beneath the natives’ giant tree. After years of trilogies, back-to-back sequels, comic book sequels and HARRY POTTERs I realized I was bracing myself for a cliffhanger, like it was gonna stop before it really got to the big battle. And then I remembered no, this is gonna be resolved in this movie. A nice feeling.

The story is compelling enough. Sam Worthington controlling a blue person body is sent into the Pandoran jungle as an envoy and spy. He becomes their chosen one, falls in love, switches to their side, leads them in battle. I like that they know he’s human (they call him a “dreamwalker”) so it doesn’t have to be an undercover type of movie. I like that he actually falls in love and gets himself some tail-having tail. But admittedly the love story is pretty routine, it hits the usual notes, it’s not all that convincing. I mean even if it was two humans it would be pretty rushed, but it really could’ve been more interesting if it spent time dealing with how the fuck a human gets past the mental barriers of falling in love with a 9 foot tall glowing blue cat lady. To be fair this does take place in a world where people grew up hearing stories about Pandora, so maybe it’s some exotic thing that’s considered sexy, I don’t know. But it still seems like there’d be challenges.

I guess it deals briefly with the interracial aspect. There’s a really sweet moment where they come face to face with their real bodies. Come to think of it, wouldn’t it be more romantic if they stayed different? At the end of BEAUTY AND THE BEAST they’re both human, end of the new frog cartoon they’re both human, end of the farting ogre movie it’s supposed to be a twist because they’re both ogres. King Kong – well, that one doesn’t end well. I asked around and the only thing anybody could think of that goes the other route is Kermit and Miss Piggy, but personally I think that’s an abusive relationship so I wish we could have other examples. I’m saying maybe becoming a Pandoran isn’t the most romantic way, maybe it should be this Pandoran carrying her little pink human guy around on her back saying yeah, I love him, you pricks got a problem with that? Maybe that would be sweeter.

Although come to think of it there’s probly a fetish for that and Cameron didn’t want to be associated with those freakos for the rest of his life. Fair enough.

The Pandoran religion is a little obvious too. I know it’s in the tradition of old sci-fi stories to make them basically Native Americans, but I do think it would be more interesting if they were more, you know, alien. Their reverance for life and nature reminded me of ol’ Miyazaki over there in Japan, but without the same knack for strangeness. The earthiness is a little to earthlike, I think.

There are some cool ideas though, like the way they organically plug themselves into the animals they ride and share a consciousness. Here he is plugged into a machine controlling a body that’s itself plugged into a giant bird monster. It’s a daisy chain.

The villain is this scar-faced general who’s as one-dimensional as Billy Zane in TITANIC, but I guess it makes more sense for a guy in charge of invading a planet for minerals to be a huge asshole. At least he doesn’t say “This Space-Picasso will never amount to anything – you mark my words!” He’s actually a good macho villain with some badass moves you’d cheer for under different circumstance, like when he runs out into the atmosphere, holding his breath because he doesn’t have his oxygen mask, firing off shots at our fleeing heroes.

I like Sam Worthington, but I think they could’ve given him a little more personality. He gets a couple funny reactions and it’s cool to see how much he enjoys walking again, but he’s not gonna be a character you remember like Ripley or Sarah Connor. Speaking of Ripley, I really liked Sigourney Weaver as Grace, a botanist who seems like a bitch in the lab but when she gets out in her avatar she’s like a really nice, well-meaning missionary lady. Trying to teach them English and walking around in her Earth clothes and everything she seems naive about what she’s doing to their culture, but you know she’s genuinely trying to help them and is learning from them. So I think she has a little more dimension than the other characters.

Also I love that there’s a scene where their human bodies are all running and Grace runs like a sissy. It’s funny because of course Sigourney is Ripley, we know she knows how to run. But she’s an actress, she runs in character, and this is her scientist run.

I didn’t get too much out of the Pandoran love interest, in one viewing at least. Just the standard plot devices – she doesn’t like him at first, she starts to like him, she feels betrayed by him, she forgives him for some reason, etc. To be honest I don’t even remember the character’s name. I’ll call her Princess Avatar.

Thankfully it’s light on TITANIC type groaners. The only one that threw me was the rock they’re trying to get being called “unobtanium.” It didn’t seem like it was a slang term, either. Last week somebody told me he read that was what it was called, and I didn’t believe him. I said no, I think that’s some sci-fi writers shop talk lingo, a storytelling term like “mcmuffin.” But he was right. That was a little silly. Otherwise it’s all fine, nothing embarrassing, it’s just that I enjoy excellence so I would’ve liked some more excelling in the story area.

I feel like some defenders of this movie (and also critics of Cameron) are selling his earlier movies short. Yes, he’s always been a science and technology nerd, always trying to show off with effects and push them to the next level, and yes he’s very good at form so if you want to you can ignore the content and still enjoy it. (Note: there are zero occurrences of disorienting shakycam, quick edits or any of the other stylistical problems you normally have to put up with to watch a modern action movie.)

But that’s not all there is to those movies. We love the characters, we feel the emotions. Ripley’s disgust at The Company and the Colonial Marines for not listening to her and risking so many lives. Or her motherly feelings toward Newt. Sarah Connor’s anger at the world for not understanding what she’s sacrificed in its name. John Connor’s pain of knowing his responsibility to the future but just wanting to be a kid with a stable mom. Bud’s horror at seeing his ex-wife laying there dead and his refusal to let that be the end of it. Even corny Jack Dawson and his instinct to pretend he’s going to survive so that Rose will get off the boat and save herself. Or Rose’s spontaneous decision to get back on the boat because she knows she’ll regret abandoning him. Or in TRUE LIES when he, you know, the part where he’s… isn’t there a part where…? I don’t know man, I got nothing for TRUE LIES. But the rest of those, those are all things that stimulate my humanity glands, it’s not all whiz bang and zap and pow and morph, like people keep claiming. I don’t think AVATAR is completely empty, but for me it didn’t punch me in the emotions like those other ones did.

But I do think there are some interesting things going on here, some things to be interpreted. Why are they putting themselves in someone else’s body, I mean besides that it’s cool? I think it could symbolize a couple different things. First is the way we extend ourselves with technology, for example right here in this national treasure of a websight (SOURCE: Guillermo Del Toro). We all kind of know each other here, and we kind of don’t. We have a persona that’s maybe kind of bullshit, trying to look cool or trying to be funny or mysterious or something. But also we’re writing about things we’re passionate about so it’s our real personalities. In some sense it’s the true version of ourselves. We judge each other on ideas and on how we treat each other. We only imagine each other’s faces. It’s kind of intimate – we talk about our lives, we get mad at each other – but it’s kind of distant, because we could always unplug and do something else. But we usually don’t.

And while this technology is not really natural – it keeps us indoors staring at screens, or outdoors staring at handheld toys – it really has brought together cultures, promoted understanding. I’m not a world traveler, but over the past 10 years I’ve talked with people all over the fucking place. Checking Google Analytics right now I see that people from 118 countries have visited my websight in the past month. That includes 21 visits from Botswana, 2 from Kazakhstan, 3 from Iran, 6 from Iraq, 1 from Mongolia. I mean I can’t be sure how many of these are mistakes, but if somebody in the Congo is checking out my review of NO RETREAT, NO SURRENDER then this is a pretty worthwhile technology, in my opinion.

I mean in my day kids had penpals, but this increased communication is a good thing. Studies show that people are more likely to support gay rights if they actually know somebody who’s gay (surprising, I know). Using that same theory I figure that if kids grow up talking to kids in other countries about the stupid bands they like, or they change the time on their Twitter to Tehran time to help the protesters in Iran, then maybe world relations will be a little less fucked up as time goes on.

The Avatars also symbolize that concept: walking in somebody else’s shoes. It could almost be literal, if Pandorans weren’t such hippies they’re always running around the forest barefoot. By physically becoming a Pandoran, literally seeing their world through their eyes, Sully begins to sympathize with them more. And he’s a soldier living in his scientist brother’s body. His warrior body is broken, he can’t fight in it anymore. In the scientist’s body he starts over and forms a whole new persona, combining the warrior’s skills with a new perspective he gets from 9 feet up.

And that’s another theme to look into here… adopting cultures like Steven Seagal. Everybody compares it to DANCES WITH WOLVES, but in that movie did Kevin Costner actually become a Native American? AVATAR goes further than THE LAST SAMURAI or the white ninja movies, because he doesn’t just learn their culture and wear their clothes – he wears their skin. And as the story progresses he’s talking about us, about they want what belongs to us. And he calls the people he came with “the aliens.” Seems a little presumptuous, but kind of sweet also. To him maybe “they” means any greedy assholes who plunder the planets and “us” means anyone who doesn’t want to see that happen. That’s why he can say “us,” because what meaning does race have anyway in a world where you can grow yourself a new body?

I was thinking recently about Michael Jackson, and how some of my liberal friends would be completely accepting of a man having his sex changed because he feels he’s a woman inside, but for some reason they wouldn’t extend that same understanding to what Michael did to himself. I wonder what they would think of Jake becoming a catman? Michael would’ve had it easier with this technology, people would respect his choice. Jake chooses to be a Pandoran, because he must feel more in common with them than with “the aliens.” He’s Pandoran on the inside, and the outside can be fixed.

(Man, I really hope he thought this through though. It could get ugly if he changes his mind later.)

The real Pandorans, the ones born on Pandora, would have every right to resent Jake for his alien privilege, but then he did get chosen by magic seeds to save the planet from humans. He betrayed his people to join the underdogs and lead them to victory, like if the Rebels never showed up on Endor but one of the stormtroopers put on Ewok fur and helped them defeat the Empire. So I’d say he’s earned his tree-cred. You can see why they’d accept him. He’s like Eminem.

What I’m saying is the story of AVATAR is as old as the hills’s grandparents, but maybe under the surface it’s a story of today: a depiction of a time when corporations plunder our precious natural resources, and military powers go into places and kill people they make little effort to understand. But also a time when technology brings people together and bridges cultural gaps for those willing to make the effort. A time when you can be who you want, no matter what body you were born in. That’s what this movie is about.

Or maybe it’s just a corny movie with amazing scenes of big blue creatures flying around on pterodactyls shooting arrows at helicopters and robosuits. Either way I think I’m gonna hafta see this one again.

I’m talking of course about UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 3, the new one which is gonna reunite Dolph Lundgren with Jean-Claude Van Damme. I will be seeing it shortly and let you know what I think, but first I had to straighten out a few things about this series. You see, there are four UNIVERSAL SOLDIER movies that have come out previously to part 3. Do you see where I’m going with this? I’m not a mathematical genius – or a mathematical average, for that matter – but by my calculations part 5 cannot be part 3. Or at least the odds are against it.

So I decided to investigate, renting the sequels to the 1992 original that still to this day remains Roland Emmerich’s, uh, best movie. Hahem. Not to get too hyperbolic on you, I don’t want to raise your expecations too high.

Parts 2 and 3 are on VHS only, and don’t have Van Damme in them. And the very first credit answers the numbering conundrum: “The Movie Channel Presents…” See, these were made for cable, and in the grand scheme of things “made for cable” ranks lower than “made for video,” therefore these sequels can be disregarded and erased in the event that the original star returns. Which makes me see THE SUBSTITUTE series in a different light, come to think of it. I’m not sure what this means for SNIPER 3 though since it was made for cable but still starred Tom Berenger.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER II almost seems like a TV series – it even has the subtitle, “Brothers In Arms,” written in quotes at the beginning like an episode title. Gary Busey and Jeff Wincott are listed as guest stars or special appearances or something.

It starts with a fight between two similar looking musclemen which ends with one muscleman having his hand impaled and being crunched up in a threshing machine, and that’s when you realize Van Damme and Lundgren’s characters have been recast. Matt Battaglia plays Van Damme’s character Luc Devreaux, still with the fugitive TV reporter Veronica Roberts (now played by Chandra West [PUPPET MASTER 4-5]), hiding out as his parents’ house, learning things that robotic zombie soldiers don’t know about, like kissing and knock knock jokes.

But a corrupt mercenary (Gary Busey) is taking over the Unisol program, and they come after Luc and take him back. There’s a boring section of the movie where Veronica is driving around looking for him, but it pickes up once she sneaks into a military compound and unfreezes Luc’s older brother Eric, who was blown up in Vietnam. He’s played by Jeff Wincott (MISSION OF JUSTICE‚ and he’s just resurrected, not super soldiered, so he acts like regular Jeff Wincott, except a little confused because he’s from the ’60s and doesn’t know about twist off caps.

I can’t really recommend this exactly, but it winds up being more watchable than most DTV. It seems like they’re actually trying, putting in some energetic cuts and camera moves and using alot of different typs of music, from pop to classical. There’s one great moment of crazy and it’s set to the overused but never gets old “Spirit In the Sky.” Busey arrives to meet with a group of soldiers, who are surprised to see him alive. He tells them they’ve been chosen because they’re the best , and they should be very proud. Then he pulls out a machine gun and mows them all down. Then it shows a tear coming out of his eye. Beautiful.

Despite his guest star credit, Busey gets plenty of screen time and he’s in the much preferred post-accident Crazy Busey mode. He has some funny tought guy lingo and metaphors, like when he’s demonstrating the Unisols to a terrorist, the guy pulls out an empty briefcase and pours a pouch of diamonds into it, and BUsey says, I take it we’re engaged.”

The guest star billing should actually go to Burt Reynolds as the shadowy puppetmaster seen mostly just at the end, like David Carradine at the end of KILL BILL VOLUME 1.

The action isn’t anything memorable, and there’s not any significant gore or anything. There’s a funny part where she finds a drawer full of eyeballs. Also it shows the dude’s ass at the beginning, maybe as a tribute to Van Damme. That’s the different between network TV and The Movie Channel: ass. Well, unless you count NYPD BLUE, that’s network TV that shows ass. But most shows don’t.

Battaglia I guess was a football player, and he makes Howie Long look like Jeremy Irons. I really can’t tell how much of his monotonous performance is playing a zombie soldier and how much is limited range. Either way it works – uncharismatic, but funny. And having Jeff Wincott to bounce off of makes it more bearable.

“Highly anticipated! UNIVERSAL SOLDIER II [is] bearable!” says Vern of outlawvern.com

I’ll have more reviews coming your way including UNIVERSAL SOLDIER III: UNFINISHED BUSINESS, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN, AVATAR, UNIVERSAL SOLDIER 3: A NEW BEGINNING, etc.