The Thing-a-Thon: The Thing (2011)

Earlier today, I posted my review of John Carpenter's The Thing (1982), a film that rose phoenix-like from the ashes of box office and critical failure to discover a second life as a horror film masterpiece.

A prequel to Carpenter's  in The Thing, also titled The Thing (2011), is perhaps the greatest evidence that Carpenter's film is beloved and admired by a generation. 

Carpenter's iteration of the material failed rather dramatically at the box office in '82, and thirty years later, we got a continuation of the same material that touts, mainly, its fidelity to Carpenter's vision. That the prequel film exists at all is a validation of Carpenter's efforts thirty years ago, and the timeless qualities his film clearly possesses.

I must admit, I always hoped for a sequel to Carpenter's The Thing.  I would have preferred a continuation that featured Carpenter in the director's chair and Kurt Russell starring. I'm still baffled why that film was never made.  But Universal gave us this Thing instead, a movie that showcases the story of the (doomed) Norwegian camp which frees the Thing from its icy prison, and is promptly decimated by the hostile alien shape-shifter.

For many reasons, I expected to flat-out hate this prequel to The Thing.  For one thing, why tell us a story that we are already familiar with?  After all, we know how the Norwegian story ends, don't we?

Icicles and razor blades...

For another thing, why risk mucking up the The Thing universe with inconsistencies in a pre-established story? In the Carpenter version of The Thing, we met a kind of anti-heroic character, MacReady (Russell), possessed of considerable intelligence and deductive powers, who had to craft a defense against an implacable alien foe. MacReady did so with no preparation, based on speculation and a few inconclusive autopsies.  In difficult circumstances, he and his fellow Outpost 31 team members came up with a blood test to help identify the alien, and arrived at the conclusion that their base had to be quarantined, lest the Thing escape into the general population and assimilate all of mankind.  Alienated from one another, not even liking each other, these humans attempted to mount a defense.

Now, along comes The Thing (2011) from director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr., and the characters here -- arriving before MacReady in terms of movie chronology if not real life chronology -- devise a blood test to help identify the alien, and arrive at the conclusion that their base must be quarantined, lest the Thing escape into the general population and assimilate mankind. 

That this Norwegian team manages the same impressive feat, ahead of MacReady, a priori subtracts from MacReady's intelligence, resourcefulness, and heroism.  Now he's just the second in line figuring all this out, and his accomplishments seem less extraordinary.  He's just coming up with ideas Kate Lloyd, this film's protagonist, came up with first.

In other words, The Thing, by the very nature of the story, take away from the earlier franchise entry. Seeing the same story as The Thing, taking place before the Thing, makes The Thing (1982) seem, well, rather less than special, doesn't it?

The film's second and considerable mistake is to visualize the recruitment of Kate Lloyd at Columbia University, in America. Another reason for the Carpenter film's pervasive sense of isolation and alienation was the setting.  It was impossible to escape. 

Outpost 31 was alone, on an alien continent, as it were. 

No help, no communication, no visits to the comfy cozy American heartland...

But here, Norwegians discover the alien spaceship and corpse, and have time to recruit Kate in America. Then they fly her down to Antarctica, where she fits in almost immediately, and has very little trouble adapting to the intense cold or the desolate, snowbound environment.   

Again, the development of isolation and paranoia in a movie audience is aided by setting in the film in one locale and remaining locked there.  Visiting America in The Thing is a mood-breaker, an unnecessary escape valve that takes audiences away from the mood of terror and alienation.  Also, it raises questions.  If the Norwegians had time to go to America and recruit Kate (and bring her back), they also had time to notify the government of their amazing discovery.  I find it hard to believe Norway wouldn't insist on a military escort, given the mysteries involved in the discovery of an alien spaceship.  Instead, Norway leaves the investigation of an alien life form and vessel to a prissy scientist and some hulking Norwegian redneck-types.

The film's third mistake, I believe, is the first Thing attack.  It is rendered in very fake, very two-dimensional, very photo-unreal CGI. The scene takes place in a helicopter, and looks absolutely awful.

Now, many of the other Thing-outs in the film -- also CGI -- look significantly better than this initial one.

Generally, the effects look pretty good.  At the very least, they are effective.  But by introducing the Thing with a woefully bad effects sequence, the horrific nature of the alien is not conveyed as promptly or as effectively as it should be.  

If I had been making this film, I would have made absolutely certain that the first attack in the helicopter was staged and executed perfectly.  The resources necessary to make that happen should have been devoted to such an important moment.

Why? Movie-goers, and especially fans of the original, were waiting to see if CGI could deliver as effectively what Rob Bottin's practical effects delivered in 1982.  The effects in the new Thing, as they stand in this first scene, fail to reach that benchmark, and so disappointment ensues.  Not all the special effects in the film are this bad, but for the first "thing-out" to be a disaster bodes poorly for the remainder of the film.

Also, I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that the new Thing never provides audiences a "thing-out" as memorable as Norris's chest-opening, arm-chomping, head-stretching, spider-leg-sprouting moment in Carpenter's film.  That sequence remains absolutely un-topped for pure, unadulterated what-the-fuckism.

 I don't know that such a moment can be topped, frankly, so perhaps this is an unfair criticism.  By the same token, we've all waited almost thirty years to see the inside of the Thing's saucer, and the depiction of it here, while undeniably competent, lacks any kind of inspiration or distinction.  Two days later, I don't remember much unique or interesting about it.  I contrast this with a film like Fire in the Sky (1993), where the interior of an alien ship was weird and unforgettable.

In general, this new Thing is also far less gory, drippy, wet and messy than Carpenter's film. We get one autopsy scene here, but relatively few bloody or gory inserts.  I mention this facet of the film because in my original review of The Thing (1982), I noted that Carpenter utilized such insert shots to broadcast the idea of the frailty or vulnerability of the flesh.  That idea is totally absent in the new version of The Thing.  Between the pristine, digital CGI and the general lack of blood and guts (and autopsy exams...) the new Thing is generally much less upsetting and far more mainstream in approach than the bracing 1982 film.

I find all of this disappointing, because The Thing (2011) is not some quick, cheap, or stupid knock-off.  There are actually quite a few things about the film I actually liked and appreciated. I have returned to it and watched it several times since 2011.

In some senses, this prequel does add to "Thing" lore substantially, and in interesting, thoughtful fashion. 

For instance, the blood test is devised and brought up by characters here, but never vetted.  Instead, in this Thing, humans can be detected...if they have tooth fillings.

In other words,  Kate determines that the Thing cannot reproduce inorganic matter, like tooth fillings or earrings.  A quick scan of each person's mouth can reveal whether they have fillings or not, and this particular scene -- though an obvious homage to Carpenter's classic blood-test scene -- works like gangbusters in developing tension.  In particular, you have to be very, very close to look inside someone's mouth, and the film makes the most out of that potentially dangerous proximity.

I also appreciated another scene in the film, in which Kate takes command of the Norwegian camp, and begins issuing orders about quarantining the premises.  She is met by another character, who appears sympathetic and offers to help her.  This character takes Kate to find some keys for the vehicles...into an isolated room...and is promptly revealed as The Thing. 

This is the kind of scene that must have occurred between characters at Outpost 31 in the original, but for reasons of building suspense and paranoia were not revealed on screen.  The Thing must use its advantage of looking like someone familiar to get another human alone...and then assimilate him or her.  It's rewarding and unique that this version of The Thing actually reveals how the alien attempts to ingratiate itself with another human, in hopes of replacing it.  And, of course, given her leadership role, Kate would logically be the Thing's primary target.

I also got a kick out of the way this prequel accounts for that two-faced, grimacing/smiling corpse discovered in Carpenter's The Thing. You remember...two creepy faces sharing an elongated, smirking mouth. 

Here, we see that creature born, and it's a nice, creepy bit of continuity.  And, finally, the new Thing reaches its apex of success and thrills as it winds around to the first shots of Carpenter's version, even reviving the Ennio Morricone score from the 1982 film. All these moments feature a nice quality of inevitability that feels hard-to-resist, especially for a long-time fan of Carpenter's film.

But for every nice, individual, unique moment (like a spontaneous performance of a Norwegian folk song) in The Thing (2011), there's another moment that feels like a compromise to preview focus groups.

For instance, Kate's final disposition is left ambiguous (perhaps in some kind of tribute to the ending of the Carpenter film), but her continued survival doesn't seem possible given what we saw in the 1982 film.  Therefore, the film's refusal to pin down her fate feels more like an opening for a sequel than an organic narrative moment. 

Similarly, I can't claim that this new film generates the same level of anxiety and paranoia that the original did.  In part this is because of the escape valve, leaving the scene in Antarctica for Columbia University. In part this is because we have a more diverse, "friendly" cast, now including the requisite lovely females. 

In part it may be because we never get a real sense of the cold outside the base.  Here, the characters almost never don the masks or head-gear that characters in the 1982 film did.  In that case, Carpenter wanted us to wonder what might be hidden beneath a snow mask or scarf.  Here, we almost never witness any obscured faces.  Even the language barrier (Norwegian vs. American) doesn't pay off as particularly suspenseful.  An exception: I found a scene with the American pilot cornered in a store room, backed into a corner as the thing approaches, pretty effective.

These days, we're used to horror film remakes or prequels that are uniformly dreadful (Don't Be Afraid of the Dark, j'accuse).  But The Thing (2011) is not a total loss, nor a fiasco. On the contrary. There are moments of interest and invention here, even if the final film falls far short of its much-admired model.

It is intriguing, however, to note that this version of The Thing does refer, at least tangentially to the Hawks/Nyby version. Here, the scientist Halvorsen is as wrong-headed and irritating as Carrington was.  So far, every iteration of the story has featured a scientist who was wrong-headed, or flat out crazy.  

There is an argument to be made, in fact, that The Thing (2011) is much like the titular monster.  The visuals, set-design and overall tone nicely ape John Carpenter's stellar 1982 work.

But underneath it all, we ultimately realize we're witnessing a (clever) imitation...a copy.

Movie Trailer: The Thing (2011)

Movie Trailer: Conan the Barbarian (2011)

Cult Movie Review: We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011)

On first blush, We Need to Talk About Kevin (2011) is a riveting psychological thriller. However, if you happen to be a parent, you will recognize it as something else: a horror movie.  

The film, directed by Lynne Ramsey, expertly plumbs insecurities not so much about children, but about the role that parents play upon their child’s development and mental health. 

What does it say about you if you bring a monster rather than a man into the world?

And if you do create and shelter a monster, what is your responsibility to that monster, and to society at large?

These are just two of the difficult questions We Need to Talk About Kevin raises. 

What remains so remarkable about the film is how it refuses to provide easy answers about what, precisely, ails Kevin, the child in question.  The movie’s summary description on Amazon.com’s streaming queue describes Kevin in terms like “evil” and “malevolent,” but the truth is much cloudier than that. 

This isn’t a movie about simple labels.

From a certain perspective, Kevin appears to be a sociopath, or at least mentally ill.  He seems to lack a functioning conscience most of the time. The movie provides several Kubrickian shots (like those featured in The Shining [1980] and Full Metal Jacket [1987]) of Kevin glaring up, head titled down, over his furrowed brow.  There’s something primitive, focused, and obsessive in that pose.  It’s the visage of a Neanderthal predator, not the evolved human being we would hope and expect to recognize in our own child.

From another perspective, however, We Need to Talk About Kevin is actually about a kid who wants only to be loved by his emotionally unavailable mother, and who keeps violating family and societal boundaries to pinpoint some – any -- evidence of that love, until finally he goes so far that bloody tragedy ensues.

One image repeated twice in the film – that of the mother literally transforming into the child and then back to mother again while washing her face in a sink -- suggests that she is partially the cause for Kevin’s anti-social behavior.

Or perhaps that’s how she views the situation in the aftermath of Kevin’s bloody action. Her deep shame has led her to question herself and her actions in a deep and relentless way.  She can’t escape the trap of her own memories, and the opportunities she missed.

We Need to Talk About Kevin is unfailingly gorgeous from a visual standpoint, and commendably ambiguous from a thematic standpoint.  It’s a film that eschews easy answers and thus resonates in the memory.   The film’s powerful symbolism -- largely involving the color red -- is brilliantly and consistently applied, and makes us understand the specific shading of Kevin and Eva’s American tragedy.

“Just because you're used to something doesn't mean you like it. You're used to me.”

Based on a 2003 book of the same title by Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin operates on two time-tracks.  In the present, Eva Khatchadourian (Tilda Swinton) lives alone, tries to hold down a low-paying job at a strip-mall travel agency, and faces her status as pariah or outcast in the community.

In flashbacks, however, we see what events brought Eva to this unpleasant juncture in her life.

We see her fall in love with a man named Franklin (John C. Reilly) at an international tomato festival in Spain.  They make love, and marry, and soon welcome their first child, Kevin. 

Almost from moment one, Eva is remote and distant with her child.  Kevin cries incessantly, and she can’t stand the sound so she walks his baby carriage to construction sites to muffle the noise.   As Kevin grows, Eva is frustrated that he doesn’t speak or respond to her, though he seems to respond in a mostly healthy fashion to Franklin, his father.

One day when Kevin is six (but still not yet potty trained...), Eva breaks the boy’s arm when he intentionally goes to the bathroom in his diapers.  Eva is racked with guilt over her violence, but still, the distance from Kevin remains.  During one conversation about the impending arrival of a baby sister, Kevin suggests that though Eva is used to him, she doesn’t actually like him. 

Eva doesn’t dispute the child’s assessment.

As the years go by, Eva and Franklin grow further estranged, and matters with Kevin grow more troubling.  Although he shows an avid interest in archery, Kevin is still cool (and cruel) to his mother.  When Franklin decides he wants a divorce from Eva, Kevin overhears the discussion, apparently blames himself, and soon cryptically orders metal locks off the Internet in bulk. 

Then, he takes his bow and arrow – as well as the metal locks -- to a high school pep rally…

“Why would I not understand the context? I am the context.” 

We Need to Talk About Kevin’s director, Lynne Ramsey, frequently deploys the color red to express the nature of Eva’s life in the film. 

Red is the color of love and vitality and passion, but also the color, importantly, of blood.  The implication seems to be, through the crimson-hued imagery, that the “red” in Eva’s life turns from passion, excitement and freedom to the color of blood and death.  Finally, red becomes the scarlet letter or color of shame and community rage. 

And the thing that changed the color of Eva’s life from joy and freedom to pain and entrapment was the arrival of a son she didn’t really want, and doesn’t really love.

As We Need to Talk About Kevin opens, we see imagery showcasing Eva at the tomato festival in Spain.  She is covered in red tomato sauce, and lifted above a sea of undulating, half-naked bodies as if some kind of primitive fertility goddess.  The impression is of a woman who is totally and completely free.  The tomatoes here could almost be mistaken for flower petals as Eva revels in her glorious, picturesque independence.  Most of those around her are well-built men, stripped-down to the waist.  For at least a moment, she is the focus of their group attention and when raised up, she enjoys it.

Later, after Kevin is born, Eva no longer feels free.  She isn’t getting enough sleep, Kevin never stops crying, and she feels alone and isolated.  She tries to build a sense of “play” or adventure with Kevin, by playing ball with him.   But he doesn’t return or throw back to her the red ball.  There is no connection there; no give and take.  It’s already too late.  Eva’s entreaty for adventure and partnership is rejected by her son because she has demonstrated in her actions a rejection of him.

After Kevin goes on a murderous spree, an act covered in the blood of his classmates, Eva is shunned by her community.

By night, red paint -- symbolic of blood and shame -- is splattered on her house.  The red which once embodied her sense of freedom, now reminds Eva of her mistakes, and of the troubled child she brought into the world.    Now, Eva is put in the position of having to scrub the red -- both the happiness and the pain -- from her life.

At one point in the story, Eva hides in a grocery store from the mother of a deceased teenager -- one killed by Kevin -- and she cowers in front of rows and rows of tomato soup.  It’s a cruel joke and a cruel image.  The woman who reveled in the spilled tomatoes in Spain now cowers in a world of canned tomatoes. 

Like Eva, the (red) tomatoes have gone from representing freedom to symbolizing containment.

The color red shows up elsewhere in the film as well.  There are red chairs lining the wall of the strip-mall real estate agency where Eva works, a subtle reminder of the joy she once felt that is now reduced to mere furniture in a place that promises dreams. 

There’s also a shot of a half-eaten red apple and a red candle in Eva’s house, a visual representation of the fact that she can’t have freedom anymore because she has eaten the apple; the fruit from the tree of knowledge.  In other words, Eva knows what Kevin is.  And she knows what role she played in inflicting Kevin upon society.

Red is freedom at the tomato festival.

Red is freedom rejected.

Red is the scarlet letter of community shame.

You can't wash the stain of red away.

The (red) fruit of knowledge can't be un-learned.

Cruel irony: Eva now hides behind canned tomatoes...

There are other powerful images in We Need to Talk About Kevin, even beyond the use of the color red.  For instance, Eva constantly attempts to create a space for herself where she can relive the freedom she enjoyed before getting married and giving birth to Kevin.  She decorates a “special place” for herself in the family’s fancy McMansion: a room filled in every corner with detailed maps.  These are memories of places she has traveled, and a promise that she will travel there again, one day.

Even Eva’s job -- at a travel agency -- speaks of her desire to travel, and to be untethered from the responsibilities of family and Kevin.  She gazes longingly at destinations far, far away.

Also, Eva is depicted on a book-signing poster with the term “Legendary Adventurer.”  That particular composition is especially interesting because it is, again, surrounded by instances of red.  And when Kevin stands in front of it, his red sweatshirt supersedes it, replacing vitality and passion with horror and shame.

Kevin knows his Mom wants to escape, a fact symbolized by her room of maps.

Kevin (wearing red) countenances his mother's desire to escape again.

The desire to escape is reduced to making the dreams of others come true. (Notice the red chairs).

What are we to make of all this? 

We Need to Talk About Kevin provides many clues, but no direct answers.  There is a scene mid-way through the film wherein a very young Kevin spikes a fever and is suddenly rendered normal for an agonizingly short span. 

During his fever, he shows kindness, and reveals real love for his mother.  It is the first sign of a connection between them.  This scene suggests that Kevin’s damaged mental status is the real culprit here.

This development in the film reflects what has been termed a “eureka” moment in studies of Autism.  As was reported in 2009 by Jeffrey Kluger (Time: “Why Fever Helps Autism: A New Theory”): “Generations of parents of autistic kids have reported that when their child runs a fever, the symptoms of autism seem to abate.  When the fever goes down, the symptoms return.”

So this short, bittersweet scene suggests that Kevin is not wired correctly, and therefore a physiological condition is responsible for his demeanor and behavior, not Eva.

A fever returns Kevin to normal, although only briefly...

Contrarily, Eva clearly doesn’t want Kevin in her life, and doesn’t want to make accommodations for him.  She doesn’t affirm that she loves him on at least three important occasions, and can’t seem to escape the doldrums of “why me-ism” enough to attempt to reach out, or get Kevin the help he needs.   

The film makes a big point of providing Eva and Kevin nearly identical haircuts, and reveals that both are extremely judgmental about others (as witnessed at an afternoon miniature golf outing).  The point is not only that Eva doesn’t love Kevin, but that he has inherited from her some terrible qualities. In some ways, Eva seems as cold and emotional as Kevin does.

This movie is called We Need to Talk About Kevin, and yet, throughout the film, his parents never talk substantively about Kevin at all. 

His parents don’t discipline him effectively (if at all), and they never discuss with one another if their son should see a therapist, or be counseled for his anti-social tendencies.  This is where real parental responsibility comes in, and in the movie’s title we detect the narrative’s most important takeaway.

If you suspect your child is dangerous, you have a responsibility to both help that child with his or her condition, and make certain that society at large and other children are safe.  

This is where Eva really fails any reasonable test of parenthood.  She believes that Kevin intentionally injures his sister and kills her pet guinea pig, yet she can’t be roused from her doldrums of victimhood and entrapment to do anything about it.  You can’t blame Eva for being sad about her life, any more than you can blame Kevin for possessing a mental illness, but you can blame Eva (and her husband, Franklin) for not doing more to assure that their child is not a danger to the community.

Eva knows what Kevin is but does nothing to stop him or get him help.  All she sees is her own, ongoing entrapment and persistent victimhood.

The portions of the film that take place after Kevin’s murder spree reveal Eva’s deep shame and guilt about her failures.  She must live with her mistakes, as Kevin must certainly live with his.  Ironically, when film ends, Eva and Kevin are finally joined, but not necessarily through love.

Rather, they are joined through guilt.  

The emotional bond that they never shared begins in earnest only after society has rendered (a mutual) judgment.  They find one another only when everyone else has rejected them both.

What’s the point of We Need to Talk About Kevin’s even-handedness in considering what factors “made” Kevin? 

Well, as Kevin himself says, the point is that there isn’t one.  The point is not to blame, but to make sure that everyone is safe.

Lives are shattered and destroyed, and there is no one person at which to point the finger of blame, or ultimate responsibility.    In our culture, we believe parents are important.  And yet we also believe that, at some point, people must take responsibility for their own actions.  So when we ask “what went wrong?” there’s a split decision.

This is an equation we, as Americans, have seen again and again.  Read a book like Dave Cullen’s excellent Columbine (2010) and one gains a sense of sympathy for the parents of the school shooters.  You know they have gone through absolute, unending Hell.  And yet, by the same token, you wonder why they didn’t do anything about their children beforehand, when the warning signs -- as is the case in this movie -- were abundantly clear. 

If there is a point here, it’s that parents must not, in the day-to-day hustle of job, family and other responsibilities, forget that they live in a larger world.  They have obligations not just to their children, but to the children of others.  

Someone really did need to talk about Kevin, before it was too late.

Movie Trailer: The Wicker Tree (2011)

Movie Trailer: Absentia (2011)

Movie Trailer: Paranormal Activity 3 (2011)

Cult Movie Review: The Darkest Hour (2011)

The Darkest Hour (2011) is an “empty city” alien invasion movie.  And the element that most distinguishes the film is the nature of the particular empty city, namely Moscow.  The Darkest Hour takes its heroes to Red Square, Lenin Square and other incredible locations in the former Soviet Union, and that’s certainly a notable distinction for a genre film.  So often alien invasion productions center the action in America, usually New York (Independence Day [1996]]) or Los Angeles (Skyline [2010], Battle: LA [2010].)  Accordingly, The Darkest Hour deserves some hosannas for setting its familiar story in this unfamiliar and interesting environment.

But it’s the film’s all-too familiar story that creates the problem.  Frankly, there’s very little in The Darkest Hour you haven’t seen before.

Directed by Chris Gorak and produced by Timuk Bekmambetov, The Darkest Hour concerns two young American software designers – Sean (Emile Hirsch) and Ben (Max Minghella) – as they unexpectedly contend with an alien invasion while on a business trip to Moscow.  The aliens in this case are glowing balls of golden energy that rain down from the night sky and are first mistaken for the Northern Lights.  The alien touch is instantly lethal, and human victims spontaneously combust in horrifying and gruesome detail. 

The aliens suck you in and then churn you out in a million pieces.

Sean and Ben manage to survive the devastating and global first strike along with a morally-suspect associate, Skyler (Joel Kinnaman) and two gorgeous female tourists, Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) and Anne (Rachael Taylor).  They do so by hiding in a night-club basement/store room for several days.  You might think that other residents of Moscow, and of other cities, would also think to hide in a basement for a time, but apparently not.

When the group finally emerges from the sanctuary, it finds an empty, devastated city, and the end of human supremacy on Earth. The tourists soon run across another fellow survivor, Sergei (Dato Bakhtadze), a crazy electrician “or plumber” who has created a microwave gun to destroy the aliens.  This weapon proves quite helpful as the group attempts to reach a nuclear submarine that is docked in a nearby river.

The idea of American citizens trapped on foreign soil during a world-changing event is a pretty good one, but The Darkest Hour does little with the notion.  Basically, Sean and Ben get their hands on a map and explore the city competently according to that helpful guide, with little fuss or muss.  And the Russians they meet, for the most part, obligingly speak English.  

So while the visuals of a foreign city are awesome (especially a shot of a ruined bridge, and a crashed plane in a mall interior), and I enjoyed seeing the feisty Russian freedom fighters strike back against the aliens (who are here on Earth to suck up our planet’s mineral wealth…), none of this material adds a whole lot to the movie, especially when it boasts some notable weak points.

The characters represent one primary weak point.  They are not especially well-distinguished or interesting.  Sean, Ben, Natalie and Anne (and later Vika) are all young, gorgeous and obviously indulged, but they don’t add much to the action.  It doesn’t help that the weak script, by John Spaihts doesn’t permit the characters to be particularly smart, particularly funny, particularly scared or even boast long memories. 

For instance, in one early scene, Ben and Sean learn that they can escape detection from the roaming aliens -- who are invisible in daylight -- by hiding underneath cars.   In a later scene -- when they are off to rescue the rogue Skyler -- all the characters apparently forget that they can hide under any of the dozen parked cars surrounding them as the aliens move in for the kill with force. 

I’m also baffled that survivors, namely Skylar, continue to feel safe when bearing conventional firearms.  Bullets are absolutely ineffectual against these amorphous, whirl-a-gig light-beings, as the movie shows us several times.  Even more to the point, the aliens seemingly consist of swirling, moving air and wind as well as light.  How would an average guy boast any confidence that he could even hit the thing, given that he can see through it, and that it is constantly shifting form?

Certainly, I appreciated what The Darkest Hour has to say about how mankind achieves his greatest ingenuity in the darkest hour (or “team work makes the dream work.”)  I also liked that the movie points out that other people, besides Americans, also love their countries and are willing to fight for it.  We talk about American Exceptionalism all the time, but this movie shows us that determination and true grit are universal human characteristics, not one confined to a single country.

Still, I wish the script had showcased a bit more ingenuity.  I don’t object to the fact that the aliens are largely invisible in the film, as some critics did.  After all, the alien was largely invisible in the first Predator (1987), and that film worked in spades.  Rather, it’s that the film doesn’t really tread believably into the rampant hopelessness of the central situation.  Nine-tenths of the human race is gone, alien monsters patrol the world and are systematically raping our planet, and yet by movie’s end – and in a ridiculous, unnecessary double coda – the human survivors (after one successful campaign…) seem positive that they’ll turn the tide, win the war and reclaim Earth. 

From what I’ve seen, this level of optimism isn’t exactly justified.  For one thing, making enough microwave guns to destroy the numerically-superior aliens isn’t going to be very easy. 

The false, Hollywood-styled happy-ending of The Darkest Hour reminded me of a film I liked better, A Vanishing on 7^th Street (2010).  Sure, it had its own set of problems, but that empty city movie ended in a thematically-consistent bleak fashion.  Once the end came, there wasn’t any cheery Pollyanna talk.  There was no last minute miracle to save the human race.

I was also reminded of Attack the Block (2011), another alien invasion film of recent vintage.  It offered a happy ending, yes, but so distinguished its colorful characters in speech and action that you could accept their victory as both legitimate and possible, at least on a surface level.

While watching The Darkest Hour, I kept thinking there had to be more to the story than the film depicts.  That it was going to offer a cool twist at the end.  For example, I felt certain that the spontaneous-combustion alien monsters were but a mechanism of the real invaders, an alien tool deployed to “clean” Earth’s surface and make it habitable for another race.  In keeping with this theory, I was convinced the film’s ending would depict the arrival of the real Big Bad, and that then the real fight would commence. 

Nothing that clever or thoughtful happens in the film, though.  

The aliens – who look like angry, levitating octopodes once they stop glowing – don’t offer anything by way of surprise after we’ve witnessed the monsters violently pulping human bodies.   What you see is what you get.

There are probably at least ten alien invasion movies that are better and more believable than The Darkest Hour, and yet I can’t find it in my heart to truly work up any hate for this movie.   It isn’t that the film is egregiously bad, in other words, it’s just that it tracks along such thoroughly predictable paths that it can’t rouse much by way of terror, suspense or involvement. 

The Darkest Hour is more like the blandest one. 

Movie Trailer: The Resident (2011)

CULT MOVIE REVIEW: In Time (2011)

"Why do you think there are time zones? Why do you think taxes and prices go up the same day in the ghetto? The cost of living keeps rising to make sure people keep dying. How else could there be men with a million years while most live day-to-day? But the truth is... there's more than enough. No one has to die before their time."

- Henry Hamilton (Matthew Bomer) reveals the truth In Time (2011).

Writer/director Andrew Niccol gave the modern science fiction cinema one of its finest and most heartfelt dystopian films in 1997's Gattaca.  By envisioning a world wherein genetics determined destiny and wealth, Niccol offered a unique social critique, one primarily concerning racism and class society.  

Niccol's latest sci-fi vision, In Time (2011) shares some of Gattaca's ambitious qualities, but it stresses action and high-concept sci-fi rather than moving character development.  Where Gattaca was endlessly inspiring, In Time (2011) is fast-moving. Where Gattaca was a deep character piece, exquisitely performed by Ethan Hawke and Jude Law, In Time plays more like a sci-fi variation on Bonnie & Clyde (1967). 

Specifically, the famous line "we rob banks" from that Arthur Penn classic appears to be the impetus for In Time's second half, in which two rebels "steal time" from the rich and give it to the poor.

In Time's saving grace, however, is the central premise, a sci-fi "high concept," which is so blazingly of the moment, and so incredibly relevant to the national discourse, that it imbues the film with zeal, energy and purpose. 

Specifically, In Time is set in a hypothetical future wherein people only live to be twenty-five, and then must constantly "buy" more time to stay alive.  If they don't get the needed time, they "time out" (die).  If they do, they could, with a little luck, live to old age.  Or at least until tomorrow...

In short, the film literalizes the adage "time is money," as the quest to procure more time (centuries, years, months, days, hour, minutes, seconds...) becomes the driving economic force in this future America.  The film focuses on one rebel, Will Salas (Justin Timberlake), as he begins to recognize, after a personal tragedy involving his mother, how flawed the system is, and how terrible life has become.

Unfortunately, the economic system of In Time is actually a stacked deck, Will soon learns.  

The corporate-controlled future envisioned by In Time thrives explicitly on "Darwinian capitalism," which sounds a lot like Mitt Romney's business ethos of "creative destruction."  

In the world of In Time, the rich, who own most of the  economy's  wealth  live by the motto:

"For a few to be immortal, many must die."   

To become richer and live longer, the wealthy must constantly squeeze the poor in a vise.  No middle class survives, or is depicted in the film.  It's long gone, I assume.

Every day in In Time's world, the rich manipulate the cost of living in the cordoned off "zones," ensuring that average people must work harder and faster to earn the same amount of time.  Every day, the price of food, gas, and other necessities rises so that the poor can't pause to  think about the inherent unfairness of the system or even travel to a better place, if there is one.  Instead, they must worry about the time clocks on their arms as simple survival becomes the most critical task each day.

Preserving this system are Time Keepers, law enforcement officials who report to the rich, and who make certain that even if a poor person hits the jackpot in terms of extra time, he or she doesn't get to keep that wealth.  Rather, riches in this world are safely and perpetually ensconced in the hands of the few and powerful.  One corporate executive who runs a time bank, Weis (Vincent Kartheiser), has a million years of life stashed in his vault for a rainy day.  He doesn't use it.  He doesn't touch it.  He just keeps it.  It trickles not down, but nowhere.

Meanwhile, average folk die young every day, unable to make more time for themselves.

It's pretty clear how In Time plays into the Zeitgeist of right now.  Americans are becoming aware that our own economic system -- which once encouraged hard work -- has gone wrong.  A cabal of "vulture capitalists" (a term coined by conservative Rick Perry) control the resources while the masses suffer foreclosure, economic hardship, and lose the social safety net that was erected over a century of hard work to protect them from just such robber-baronism.   There's no doubt that the Occupy Wall Street movement is part of this film's sub-text, and increasingly becoming the sub-text of many high-profile entertainments, finally replacing the tired if ubiquitous "post-9/11" Hollywood paradigm. 

It's also rather amazing how much In Time parallels the narrative and context of Bonnie & Clyde.  That landmark film also involved robbers who were bucking an unfair economic system.  There, banks after the Great Depression were foreclosing on family farms left and right, and leaving Americans with absolutely nothing.  Bonnie & Clyde didn't rob from the people, though.  Instead, they took from  the banks on the theory that you can't steal what's already, in effect, been stolen.  In Time adopts that very formulation, terrorizing an establishment that has used its power to unfairly take from others.

But In Time goes further than Bonnie &  Clyde ever did in one sense.  It actively suggests widespread revolt.  Very soon in In Time, a revolutionary thought dawns on the wrongfully exploited folks.  The truth is, one character admits, that there is more than enough time (wealth) to go around for everybody.  Nobody needs to die before their time.

Therefore, it's time (wealth) re-distribution time.  And that's the (communist? socialist? just?) task the film's outlaws, Will  and Sylvia Weis (Amanda Seyfried) undertake...with guns a-blazing.  They aren't making time for themselves...they're giving it away (and again, like Bonnie and Clyde), becoming folk heroes in the process.

In real life, the 1% should probably be concerned about this eventuality at least a little because many people, in both political parties, are waking up to the inherent unfairness of the game too, and In Time certainly brings these submerged thoughts to the surface. 

How Super-Pacs buy our candidates. 

How corporate crimes go unpunished.

How wealth doesn't trickle down, but gets sucked upward (like cocaine in the nostrils...) in terms of outrageous executive bonuses and salaries, sometimes hundreds of times higher than those of employees who actually, you know, do the work of a business and produce the goods. 

Aside from Bonnie & Clyde, I was also reminded very much of Fritz Lang's landmark sci-fi epic Metropolis (1927) while screening In Time. 

That silent film also showcased a revolution among the have-nots against the haves.  There, however, the film advocated a peaceable "mediator" between the hands of society (the workers) and the so-called brains of society (the bosses).  That mediator, importantly, was the human heart. 

And heart is what is absolutely is missing from the creative destructors of today's out-of-whack Darwinian capitalism.  They don't want us to have access to health care. They don't want us to keep pensions.  They don't want us to organize, so we can effectively defend ourselves against corporate greed.  They don't want any regulations to prevent them from making obscene amounts of money, at the expense of the environment and our health.  Why, they don't even want us to have contraception so we can manage the size and shape of our own households (and therefore our economic future).  In short, they want us to be nothing but life-long debt slaves, so we can continue to make them money that they will then keep locked in their vaults, out of circulation, except for their needs.  This is the dynamic In Time contends with: a world where there is no compassion -- no heart -- and where obscene wealth is the highest aspiration in life.

Given America today, In Time plays brilliantly and brashly into the populist spirit of 2012, and the film's central metaphor -- time is money -- works so well because it exposes something trenchant about our human existence.  In the film, when you don't get currency (again, time), you die right on the spot.  This fact is clouded in real life, because we don't literally have a constant balance on our arm ticking down to zero. 

Instead, we get niggled with a hundred different debits a day, and don't see the forest for the trees. 

If we can't afford health care, we will die. 

If we can't get a job and provide for our family, we will die. 

If we can't buy food, we will die. 

In Time cuts out the middle man, as it were, and bluntly proposes the notion that by absorbing resources from all of us, the super rich are actually killing us, a little bit at a time.  Certainly, they're killing the middle class.   If this is class warfare, so be it.  We aren't the ones who started it. 

However, as much as I find the central metaphor of In Time meaningful and brilliantly executed, I must confess, I don't think the film works as well as Gattaca did. 

Both films depict an unfair system, and ways to get it around it, but Gattaca really made us feel for Hawke's character and his plight.  Justin Timberlake is fine in In Time.  He's not a bad actor, judging by his work here and in The Social Network.  But he is not yet able to convey the depth of his grief, sadness, anger and fear very well. At least not so well as Hawke did.  There's something more superficial about Timberlake's character here -- something more conventional -- and so In Time works more fully as a great concept than as an affecting human drama.  

Bonnie & Clyde featured action and yet it was also a character piece.  The characters here just don't compare in terms of complexity and humanity.  At times, they feel like props instead of real personalities.

Also, by focusing so strongly on action, In Time tries to ramp up suspense with cliffhanger-type scenarios wherein people are running out of time...to the last second, and need more time NOW, or will die instantaneously.  These moments are played right to the edge of sanity, and ultimately feel kind of absurd and cheap.   When you've devised such a great and timely science fiction metaphor, it seems a waste of time, if you will, to focus on car chases, shoot-outs and on-foot pursuits.

The film also doesn't really effectively get at another interesting point.  And that is that everyone in the film stops aging at twenty-five.  In short, this means your grand mom is hot.  This means your son looks like your brother.  It's a complete, absolute unwriting of all the social cues that arise from the aging process.  You could go to bed with a hot 95 year old, or a 105 year old, and not know it.   In Time doesn't really explore the issue of what this all means: the breaking down of traditional human social organization. 

If the world of Niccol's vision has a time problem, it also has another.  What is lost when people don't visibly reach middle age, or old age?  I would have liked it if In Time dealt with this idea more convincingly, or even satirically (perhaps equating the youth-centric culture to the wealthy's consuming obsession with plastic surgery.) 

The film's ending also feels wrong to me on a gut level, because the corrupt system is overturned with relative ease, with only the hard push of two armed (if admittedly well-placed) rebels.  I'm happy the corrupt system is overturned, but I don't believe it could be so easily destroyed.  Change isn't about a person, it's about a long, difficult process, right? 

Dystopian films made in the 1960s and 1970s didn't feel compelled to universally provide happy endings (THX-1138, Z.P.G., etc.), yet today, it seems the happy crappy Hollywood ending is pro forma.  Gattaca ended on an upbeat note, but at least the system was not overturned.  Recent dystopic movies such as Gamer, Surrogate and now In Time reveal "heroes" beating authoritarian regimes with just a few rebellious moves.   Frankly, I don't believe it would be so easy. 

In Time is brimming with great, timely ideas and loads of intelligence, but I feel that overall the film should have been bleaker and perhaps even angrier.  The Bonnie & Clyde model was there to follow, and it should have been pursued more aggressively, perhaps, in the final act. Weis should have put the fix in for his wayward daughter, Sylvia, and for Will, and gunned down the heroes in a blaze of glory.  That feels "truer" to me.

In Time certainly doesn't waste your "time," but I'm not certain it actually makes the most of its time, either.