The trailer for Monsters promised one thing, but another was delivered. While the trailer promised a tight, interesting and somewhat action-filled movie, what you actually get is a very interesting romantic drama. Yeah, you read that right. This movie is at it’s core a romantic drama, but it’s set to a backdrop of conflict in something called the “infected zone” in southwestern USA and northern Mexico.

It starts with a brief introduction. Six years ago in the movies timeline a space-probe brought home alien life, but crashed in northern Mexico. During these six years the area was infested with strange life-forms colloquially called ‘the creatures’. Since then the area has been quarantined as an infected zone, and both US military and Mexican army are hard at work (and it’s implied, failing) at keeping the creatures inside the quarantined zone.

After that we get introduced to Andrew, a photographer for a mostly unspecified media-conglomerate, and Sam, the daughter of a high-up executive in that same media-conglomerate. Andrew has been tasked with getting Sam back from mexico into the USA, and the movie follows the trip of these two people through the infected zone.

Yeah, that sounds pretty straight-forward and we’re assuming it’s going to be an intense adventure. And it is, but in a real sense. The movie is set years after an incident, so it portrays a reality where things are accepted. It’s not the high-intense drama where people run around screaming, it’s an every-day type of movie set to an imaginative backdrop.

What really impressed me about this film is that it’s a completely independent production, and it was made for a very small amount of money. The whole film is more or less improvised, and the only actors involved portray the two main characters. Everyone else just happened to be there, and the film was built around this. It is most impressive, and unless you’re aware that this movie was produced on a minuscule budget you might not ever notice it.

Sure, it has flaws. Oftentimes the acting is a bit wooden, and the plot has a tendency to plod on without getting much of anywhere. But that’s okay, in this case it works. This movie is about the two main characters, not the adventure itself. Additionally the movie contains a stunningly beautiful end-scene. I was completely blown away by the simple beauty in that scene, and the immersion I felt.

Strongly recommended.

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“Predators”

Action/scifi from 2010 starring among other Adrien Brody, Alice Braga and Laurence Fishburne.

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A mercenary named Royce (Brody) awakens and finds himself rapidly falling towards the ground. Panicked by this, he tries to find his bearings and disovers he has a parachute. At the last moment the parachute deploys and saves him from being smashed into the ground. Later he encounters several other humans who have two things in common – they all fell to the ground in the same fashion, and they’re all violent people. A mercenary, an enforcer for a mexican drug cartel, a Russian special forces commando, an Israeli sniper, a convict from death-row and a Rwandan paramilitary just to name a few.

The third thing they all have in common is that they’re being hunted for sport by a vicious alien race of beings known only as “predators”…

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“Predators” is a type of sequel/reboot to the original “Predator” starring everyones favorite mountain of muscle back in 1987. It completely ignores the rather dysmal attempts at a crossover with the Alien franchise, which I felt was very thankful.

I was looking forward to this, knowing that it would be produced by Robert Rodriguez and that to me felt like a good sign that the amount of compromising would be minimal. I hoped that all the good things would be kept intact, and that this would be a worthy Predator-film.

In hindsight, I feel glad to say that these hopes were fulfilled.

Yeah, I will honestly say that this movie is nothing subtle or very thought-provoking. It’s not meant to be either, it’s meant to be a violent action-fest featuring everyones favorite hunter. It succeeds quite well in this respect.

The mood is flawless. Everything that should be there is there, right down to a score very reminiscent of the original ’87 movie. At first I thought it was actually scored by the same composer, but it wasn’t. John Debney had made a beautiful tribute to the original haunting score by Alan Silvestri, keeping the tribal and jungle themes while updating it and making this score his own.

The cast works great. I had some reservations about Adrien Brody, but I like the idea of a lean and wiry mercenary rather than the mounds of muscle usually associated with these types of roles. Overall the casting is excellent, and each actor fits well into the part assigned to them. Absolutely no complaints there.

The plot is acceptable. It loses a bit of steam halfway in, before the grand finale, but that’s fine. The character played by Laurence Fishburne is a bit odd, as is the casting of him in that role, but at the same time it seems a bit fitting. The plot flails around a bit at times, but again – this is not a serious drama, this is an action-fest.

But overall, I feel confident that if you’re a fan of the 1987 original, you’re also going to enjoy this one. I know I did, and this is the best Predator-film in the last 20 years. It’s far superior to the AvP-films and I’ll happily watch this film at least 2-3 times more.

Totally recommended.

I still say that this looks like a fun movie. It’s directed by Jon Favreau and stars a lot of pretty big names, among others the aforementioned mr Craig as well as Harrison Ford, Sam Rockwell and Clancy Brown. I think it could be a good, somewhat whacky movie. Fingers crossed!

Plus, it’s an independent production from outside the Hollywood-circus, and it needs to be mentioned. Plus, it also shows how incredibly stale Hollywood has become in much of it’s productions, only going into safe and cute territory.

Cargo follows a young woman in her 20s named Laura Portmann. In an unspecified future where Earth has been deemed incapable of sustaining life and where humanity subsides on enormous space-stations in orbit around the supposedly lifeless earth, she enrolls as medical officer aboard a freighter. She needs money in order to visit her sister on Rhea, an earth-like planet in another solar system. Rhea is heavily restricted and you need to pay your way to it. Lauras sister was lucky and won her passage in a lottery, and in video-messages sent between the two Laura long to join her sister.

On the cargo-ship most of the skeleton crew takes turns doing 8-month completely solitary watches while the others spend their time in cryosleep on the four-year journey to Station 42. Supposedly the ship carries equipment for Station 42, but when strange occurences start happening on the ship it’s revealed that things might not be as clear-cut as Laura first thought when she signed on…

Yeah, I know. My writeup here sounds like the setting for a bad space-horror type film that heavily rips off Alien. The movie in fact is nothing like it. It’s a slow-moving and thoughtful piece which borrows heavily from classics such as “2001: A Space Odyssey” as well as adding a few turns of it’s own.

Overall it was a bit strange watching a scifi-flick where everyone speaks german, but after a while you tend to forget it. Visually the film is very impressive, and even though it borrows many concepts quite openly from “2001″ it does it without ripping it off. It would seem that the movie-makers tried to ground their movie in reality rather than Star Wars-type fantasy, and mostly this seems to hold. Of course, there’s some incongruous behavior (such as the constantly firing engines of the ship) but overall this is a subdued and sober affair.

So, production-wise there’s not a lot to complain about. It’s a polished and visually pretty movie as well as having good sound.

The problems come in the heavy borrowing of themes from other movies. Too much of the movie is essentially a bunch of scifi-staples thrown together to form a movie, and while these themes are always interesting this movie doesn’t really add anything new to them. It’s also a bit hindered by the slow tempo which means there isn’t enough time to explore these themes without making the movie too long. As it stands it introduces the themes and then has to rush ahead to finish the film. A good number of plot-devices are also rather hastily ended and could’ve used a lot more exposition to make them seem more fully realized, but I understand that there’s a lot of compromise being done. A minor subplot is also quite annoyingly left completely ignored, even though the outcome of that subplot isn’t essential to the whole ending.

The acting is a bit wooden, but I suppose that goes well with a movie where one of the primary themes is the dehumanization and isolation in a cold and unforgiving future. Thus I don’t really know if the wooden acting is intentional or simply something that couldn’t be avoided. In the end it somehow works in the movies favor.

Overall I guess you could do worse, and it’s decent enough entertainment provided you don’t expect the typical Hollywood-fare. This movie is a lot more subdued and slow-moving, which might not be something the twitchy teens might like.

“In Silver City, Arizona, Apache Indians and Western settlers must lay their differences aside when an alien spaceship crash lands in their city.”

I hope Hollywood doesn’t fudge this up. Sounds wacky and fun.

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The Black Hole

Drama/Scifi from 1979 starring among others Robert Forster, Ernest Borgnine and Maximilian Schell.

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In some unspecified but spacefaring future the research vessel Palomino happens upon a black hole. When closer examined the crew discovers that there’s a ship floating right in the eye of the hole. Upon closer inspection this turns out to be the USS Cygnus, a ship that went missing twenty years earlier. At first the ship is presumed to be a derelict, but when they approach it turns out to be quite alive. The crew lands upon the ship, discovering it to be inhabited by strange robots as well as it’s captain, the eccentric Hans Reinhardt, who has a plan to take the ship into the black hole…

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Well, I was prepared that this would be a cheese-fest and boy was it true. Some scifi-films just boggle my mind at how short-sighted they are. This movie manages somehow to squeeze together virtually every ’70s space-cliché and somehow also manages to add quite a lot of Disney-style clichés to the mix. Admittedly though, it does get some things right though. But these drown in the overall mix of overwhelming cheesiness.

This movie has not aged well. The special-effects which must’ve been quite impressive for it’s time now look extremely dated. There’s a lot of shots where things just look off, and Disney opted heavily for various matte paintings which is quite clear in many shots. I thought most of the model-shots however were quite neat, even though they’re quite clearly model-shots none the less.

I also appreciated some of the craft-design. The spaceship Palomino is a horrible design which looks more at home in a mid-50s b-movie, but I though the Cygnus was quite cool, looking like a gothic cathedral in space. Completely impractical, of course, but cool none the less.

The movie is full of other goofs which generally sour the experience. Cables are visible, actors in suits, and the robots… oh god. The robots. I absolutely hated the robots Vincent and Bob. Those two robots must be the most horribly designed scifi-robots ever.

When I was finished with the movie I felt that the general plot of a madman lost in space was quite interesting. There’s a good movie hiding inside a horrible cheesy ’70s scifi film. The very odd ending didn’t really bowl me over in any positive way, in fact I felt it to be overly pretentious and mystical, but at least it was more unconventional than the rest of the film which is completely standard in every aspect.

So… to summarize. The Black Hole is parts taken from a good movie that’s hiding inside a horrible gaudy cheese-fest of a monstrosity. Maybe a remake some day would be nice, where someone straightens up the plot and focuses on the themes presented.

One thing that struck me after viewing this film was when I compared it to another scifi-flick released in the same year: Alien. Comparing these two movies is like comparing apples and oranges. They have very little in common. While Black Hole is a throwback escapist science fantasy with strong influences from 20.000 Leagues Under The Sea and a godawful Disney-production that only (thankfully) lacks a dog, Alien is a dark and fully believable science fiction movie.

Recommended just for the experience. If you like kitsch then this is a movie for you.