'The Way, Way Back', 'Elysium' and 'Planes' (sort of): review round-up

'The Way, Way Back' - Dir. Nat Faxon & Jim Rash (12A)

The words "Twentieth Century Fox Searchlight presents" or (better still) "from the makers of 'Little Miss Sunshine'" rarely herald something good. There's a certain quirksome, brightly coloured, ensemble cast-powered American Indie - usually with a sun-faded blue and yellow poster - that comes out every year bearing these stark promotional slogans (or warnings, as I call them). They usually have boring-straight-man-Steve-Carell in them somewhere ("I'm an actor!", these appearances seem to scream) and Alison Janney is never far away - though she's completely superfluous in the latest of these jangly guitar music laden monstrosities, 'The Way, Way Back', which adds to the feeling that a perfunctory box ticking exercise has informed some of the decision making from writers-turned-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash.

This one can be summed up as being about a kid (Liam "one expression" James) who is entirely miserable and unsympathetic in the face of constant, unearned kindness and compassion from almost everyone he meets. Sam Rockwell runs a water park and wants to be this kid's best friend, for... reasons, I guess. It's never clear why. He just starts following him around and smiling at him in a way that should register as creepy. Likewise, everyone at the water park - customers and employees - loves him. Amanda Peet wants to dance with him. Alison Janney is desperate for her son to be friends with him, while her daughter (the three first-name sporting AnnaSophia Robb) is equally desperate to be his summer girlfriend, hanging around looking longingly at him in spite of his clear lack of social graces and charisma.

The cherry on the cake here is that he hates his mother's (Toni Collette) new boyfriend (Carell), as children his age are liable to do. But whereas most kids in his position form an irrational hate they can't reasonably express about a person who's probably decent enough, this kid actually has sees first hand evidence that this guy is a douchebag and gets to shout about it at a garden party - re-framing the story from "angsty teen who needs to grow" to "crusader teen who knows better than the grown-ups about everything".

He should be a sympathetic character. We've all been awkward, moody teenagers. But this kid is his own worst enemy in a world that's throwing nothing but well-intentioned metaphors and sunshine in his direction for the most part... and he doesn't even really learn anything or change at all by the time the credits roll. He enters the film a moody, entitled little shit and exits the film in the same fashion. At the start Carell tells the kid he's a 3/10 and that he needs to put himself out there more and smile occasionally. Well, this is the story of a kid or goes from three to, charitably, a four and a half over an hour and forty minutes that will have you thinking "shit, even Sam Rockwell is bad in this" and "did these guys really write 'The Descendants'"?

'Elysium' - Dir. Neill Blomkamp (15)

It isn't 'District 9' but Neill Blomkamp's follow-up is as ambitious and imaginative as it is clunky. There's a lot of ham-fisted, panto-quality, over-acting involved - notably from Brazilian actor Wagner Moura as "Spider" and Jodie Foster, who seems to be playing a Disney villain in a film happening in her own imagination - while the childhood flashback sequences are a bit cheesy and obvious and, I'll concede, its movement between irreverent, splatter-gore comedy and cloying, string-music backed scenes of children on crutches in peril speak of a tonal mishmash. But it's also got some decent dystopian world building and spectacular design work, as well as some interesting politics for a mainstream blockbuster - with our hero, Matt Damon, framed as an insurgent against the robot drones, unhinged mercenaries and satellite surveillance footage of the film's privileged bad guys - white, wealthy elites living far above a shanty town and predominantly Hispanic Los Angeles in the shiny, clean space station paradise of the title.

The man who once nearly directed a Halo movie, based on the Microsoft video game, continues to borrow heavily from recent sci-fi hits of that medium - notably with elements of Mass Effect and Halo itself. There're some very video gamey future-weapons too, and the plot sees Damon effectively level-up into an augmented mech warrior for some hi-octane fight scenes against Sharlto Copley's crazed henchman that make me question whether I'd rather be playing 'Elysium' than watching it. But it's a solid and entertaining action movie with ideas and a high-concept, so overall I'm enthusiastic about it despite a great many shortcomings.

'Planes' - Dir. Klay Hall (U)

Now, I can only kind of review this - so take my opinion with a greater than usual pinch of salt - but I took my aviation-obsessed 2 1/2 year-old brother to see 'Planes' and he got bored after about 15 minutes, and we left the screening after 30. So I haven't seen the entire movie and usually wouldn't give too strong an opinion based on that. However, I wanted to note that this movie seemed to fail with its target audience: on a plane-mad toddler who will patiently watch actual YouTube footage of a helicopter take off with wide-eyed glee for a very uneventful ten minutes. Sadly, he just couldn't be bothered with the exploits of Dusty the Cropduster and I can't really blame him.

From my end I can only say it's very clear that the film was produced by Disney's straight-to-video people and not by Pixar. It's flat, not particularly detailed and the animation lacks finesse. And, on top of that, it's basically a re-make of the first 'Cars' with a less flawed, more bland central character. That's right: a re-make of 'Cars' made by less talented people. Shudder.

'Men in Black 3' review:

'Men in Black 3' doesn't make any sense. I don't mean the time travel plot which, even if the rules are seemingly being made up as it goes along, is easy enough to follow. But it don't understand in on a much more basic level: it's existence makes no sense at all. And for two reasons. The first and most obvious is that the (largely forgotten) original films came out over a decade ago, meaning that their audience has long since grown up, whilst the kids of today surely have no idea who these characters are. Perhaps that wouldn't be a problem if this were just a brand new adventure featuring our besuited heroes, slap-happy xenophobes Agents J (Will Smith) and K (Tommy Lee Jones), but the story and its intended emotional beats require some vested interest in the relationship between these two characters. In fact Columbia seems to be marketing this sequel mainly on the strength of Josh Brolin's eerily accurate impersonation of Jones as 1960s era K - something a ten year old in 2012 could care less about.

The second reason this movie makes zero sense is thus: Will Smith is the biggest movie star on the planet. He is the only guy left in modern post-star Hollywood capable of guaranteeing a hit movie by the mere fact of his presence. Since 2002's 'Men in Black 2' every movie Smith has starred in has grossed over $160 million. His is a star so popular that even vehicles as messy and bloated as 'Hancock' and 'I Am Legend' were substantial global mega-hits. And, prior to his return to Barry Sonnenfeld's sci-fi comedy franchise, he had been away from movie screens for four years. In other words: he could have named his next project. He could have made anything he wanted. Every major studio must have been hassling him with offer after offer. Quentin Tarantino supposedly approached him to star in his upcoming western. And he chose to make 'Men in Black 3'. Just think about that. For a man who has several times stated a desire to one day run for president, that betrays an astounding lack of ambition.



Anyway, by now it's clear I'm stalling having to write about the film itself and that's because there isn't an awful lot to say. I'll lead with the few positives. 'A Serious Man' star Michael Stuhlbarg is pretty funny as Griffin, an alien who can see the future with a fairly entertaining twist: he can see all possible futures simultaneously. This paves way for some neat visual moments (as he enjoys a future baseball game in an empty stadium), some entertaining comic bits (as he frets about whether various absurd and unlikely events might come to pass) and a few nice character details (such as his multiple layers of clothing, presumably in preparation for every possible future). He is easily the best thing in the movie.

Then there's the fact that the villain, Boris the Animal, is played by 'Flight of the Conchords' funnyman Jermaine Clement. Though Clement is underutilised he does at least read lines in an entertaining way. Another plus is that several of the most irritatingly wacky supporting characters from the two previous movies have been written out, with the talking pug dog and the vaguely Hispanic cockroach guys the most welcome absentees. Unfortunately they've been joined on the casualty list by Rip Torn (whose Agent Z has been killed off between sequels), though the actor's recent legal troubles probably account for that. The problem is that his replacement is Emma Thompson who, though an infinitely superior dramatic actor, doesn't exactly bring the funny. Her character, Agent O, is also embroiled in 1960s shenanigans (played by Alice Eve) and is supposed to have been a long-term friend and love interest of Agent K - something which is undermined by the fact she's never been mentioned at all previously.

It's also to the film's detriment that, as good as Brolin's impersonation is, there is nowhere near enough Tommy Lee Jones. His sly, taciturn delivery is an essential part of what originally made the J and K partnership watchable - whereas Brolin is cast as a younger, less grumpy version of the character who doesn't really have the same appeal alongside Smith's hyper-chatty hero. Barry Sonnenfeld's handling of action and spectacle also leaves much to be desired. For instance, several scenes include shots which establish nothing more than that our hero is "very high up" - quite a mundane form of threat in a film featuring lazer-gun totting aliens and quite a boring one for an audience that's presumably just seen 'The Avengers'. Then there's the stuff we've seen before in the series - as little silver guns make aliens explode - and stuff we've seen done much better dozens of times elsewhere - such as a car chase through the streets of New York (the characters might be riding impractical futuristic motorbikes, but they're still basically just motorbikes).

The very worst thing about 'Men in Black 3' I've saved until last, and that's its basic premise and single joke: that difference is inherently hilarious and that usually the "different" are not human. The film continues the series' proud tradition of revealing how everybody with a funny face or voice or a different ethnicity to the protagonists is in fact in an alien. See that Chinese guy? He's a hideous alien! Hahaha. See that supermodel? Models are all aliens! Hahahaha. Lady Gaga? Tim Burton? Those weirdos are aliens! Hahahaha. Repeat for almost two hours. And these freaky people can be exploded and punched without consequence or guilt because, well, they're not from around here. It's basically a light family comedy about ultra-violent immigration officers.

'Men in Black 3' is out now in the UK, rated 'PG' by the BBFC.

'Prometheus' review:

A running theme among the half-dozen trailers that have teased Ridley Scott's 'Prometheus' is that they've tended to be more alluring and spectacular when focused on the numerous eye-catching shots of spaceships and strange alien worlds, whilst offering only fleeting glimpses at the story and characters. It turns out that's because 'Prometheus' has no story or characters. It has a basic sort of "plot", I suppose: astronauts head to a distant planet in order to find answers about the creation of mankind. And it has characters in the sense that there's a reasonably impressive international ensemble cast thanklessly filling the various spacesuits - including Noomi Rapace, Michael Fassbender, Guy Pearce, Idris Elba and Charlize Theron.

Yet there can be little doubt that 'Prometheus' is a triumph of design and special effects rather than human drama. The film looks stunning, with the CGI spaceships and beautifully crafted interior sets having a sort of painted concept art look. But for all its self-important posturing around issues of faith, god and the nature of creation, the film's pretense at being this summer's "thinking person's blockbuster" comes to nothing. During its few cod philosophical exchanges - some of which should make your toes curl - the film's grasp of the deeper issues never seems to want to venture beyond truisms. It's a shame because the set up suggests something much smarter, or at least more interesting.

Rapace, as scientist Elizabeth Shaw, is the ship's blindly faithful Christian, whilst her lover and fellow scientist (played by Logan Marshall-Green) is supposedly the on-board skeptic as they search for humanity's alien creator. Meanwhile, Fassbender is David, a humanoid robot whose behaviour is modeled on his creators, something he seeks to perfect by watching old films in his downtime. A wrinkly old Guy Pearce is his creator and surrogate father, as well as the head of the huge corporation financing the mission. Charlize Theron has her own nascent "creator" issues as the stern and possibly treacherous leader of the expedition. Given that this is nominally a prequel to Scott's seminal 'Alien', it's entirely appropriate that it should explore that franchise's theme of motherhood and the destructive, violent act of creation itself: it's a melting pot of strong character archetypes with competing ideologies, which seems primed to react - only there is no heat.

Potentially interesting characters die left and right with scarcely a decent scene to their name. Supposedly sensible people react in increasingly irrational and oddly inhuman ways as the film goes on, for instance when a group of characters voluntarily give up their lives without any clear indication of why (in fact they don't really even ask for one, but as a united group blindly accept death at the merest asking). The film lurches messily between fussily directed action scenes which lack either the body horror of 'Alien' or the excitement of a crowd-pleasing summer movie, almost as if the filmmakers lacked the courage to devote any screentime to the potentially divisive "let's all talk about religion" thing the movie seemed to kind of want to be about originally. There are nods to various big ideas and questions here and there, but they are extremely tentative.

Then there's the handling of the film's various alien creatures and their multiple messy incarnations which lack credibility even if you suspend a whole universe's supply of disbelief. (Those sensitive to SPOILERS might want to avert their gaze now.) How does this reproductive cycle work?:

1) There are rows of eggs full of black goo.
2) A human man eats the black goo and becomes a sort of crusty monster.
3) The crusty monster man has sex with a human woman and she quickly gives birth to a tentacle monster.
4) Left alone for (presumably) a few hours, said tentacle monster becomes enormous. It then latches onto a huge white alien and eats his face.
5) Once partly-devoured by the tentacle monster, the big white alien's body yields a chest-bursting, quadrupedal alien not dissimilar to the original "xenomorph".

Please explain how that makes any kind of sense. I genuinely want to know why I'm supposed to think anything other than "this sure is a random sequence of events" at this point. Even if you accept that this primordial gloop is simply enabling the rapid evolution of an organism (and that's a leap you have to make yourself), doesn't it sort of imply that the "xenomorph" would then also become something else entirely different the next step along the chain? So then why do all the Aliens in the sequels look the same? Are they supposed to represent the pinnacle of evolution? I'm honestly not trying to be pedantic in the least - I just want to know how this could possibly make sense, even in the limited way a film about sexy future-spacemen warrants.

A friend of mine said that (one of) his problem(s) with 'Prometheus' is that it raised far more questions than it answered, at least pertaining to the way it links into 'Alien' continuity. I disagree. It's not a problem that the film raises more questions than it answers - after all, so does '2001'. The problem is that the questions it raises are invariably very silly, all relating to the who-could-care-less world of the 'Alien' mythos. Whilst it labours to provide trite and convoluted answers to the grander, more universal questions that are perhaps best left enigmatic. It should have been the other way around.

'Prometheus' is out now in the UK, rated '15' by the BBFC.

'Battleship' review:

Some crazy, wayward geniuses have finally done it. They've adapted a board game into a summer tentpole movie. I'm not suggesting this is a contribution to culture the universe was crying out for, but you've got to admire the sheer gumption of writers Jon and Erich Hoeber for somehow, just about, crowbarring enough of the narrative-light children's game into what otherwise amounts to a generic sci-fi invasion movie. The film carries the most hideous strapline I've ever seen, with posters proudly proclaiming the film is from "Hasbro, the company that brought you Transformers", and the very concept of adapting a board game into a movie is worthy of derision (as things stand we're probably just a few months from the announcement of a rom-com called Connect Four), yet somehow these inspired scribes get away with it careers intact.

'Battleship', directed by Peter Berg, stars Taylor "he's so hot right now" Kitsch as a taller, blonder version of Maverick from 'Top Gun' - a "the most talented soldier I've ever seen" type who wastes his potential sleeping in with the admiral's daughter (Brooklyn "all models are actresses now" Decker) and stealing chicken burritos from closed convenience stores - in what amounts to the most bizarre screen depiction of self-destructive, directionless youth yet committed to film. His long-suffering brother (the appealing Alexander Skarsgård), a dedicated Navy careerist, makes him enlist as a seaman to turn his life around, yet he can't quite curb his brother's impulsive nature and as a result Kitsch is one screw-up away from being kicked out of the military by Admiral Liam "paycheck" Neeson.

Whilst on a huge naval exercise off the coast of Hawaii, and after costing his volleyball soccer team victory in the final of an inter-naval world cup soccer tournament (yes, seriously), Kitsch's problems quickly escalate as an alien invasion sees the fleet decimated and the young buck placed in acting command of the remaining vessel. It's then that our bronzed hero has to thwart the alien invasion combining, you guessed it, his lone-wolf unpredictability with a new found respect for the uniform. The alien ships are some of the best CGI I've ever seen, the action sequences and city destruction stuff is suitably loud, and pint-sized pop sensation Rihanna is improbably present as a trash-talking heavy weapons specialist. It's that kind of movie.

Where 'Battleship' wins out over Bay's 'Transformers' movies is in Berg's less frantic, more competent direction, and also in the fact that it's sometimes genuinely funny on account of how absolutely knowingly stark raving mad it is. There are so many strange happenings and oddball character moments that I couldn't possibly remember them all, but indie heartthrob Hamish "The Future" Linklater stands out in his role as the token infuriating science nerd. However 'Battleship' is even more militaristic than 'Transformers', with the whole thing playing like a glossy Navy recruitment commercial. Our hero has to learn to respect the hallowed institution of which he is a reluctant servant, with his troublemaker side exposed by such subversive traits as asking "why?" when given an order. Don't question the rules: follow them, says the film.

If the military is entirely awesome and humanity's best friend in 'Battleship' - which basically bends over backwards to satisfy retired seaman (if you're into that kind of thing) - then science is very, very bad indeed. The aliens only invade because of bloody science, with its blasted curiosity about the universe. Whilst, fittingly for a film shot on 35mm, digital technology - both alien and our own - is found to be no substitute for the romanticised tech of the past (such as the titular obsolete warship). There's also a slightly insidious "yellow peril" undercurrent to this Pearl Harbor-set movie, as every new alien development is first assumed to be either Chinese or North Korean in origin. I suppose this is why Kitsch quickly finds himself with a half-Japanese crew, as the filmmakers attempt to say "some of our best friends are Asian".

So that's 'Battleship'. A big-screen celebration of American military might, loosely inspired by a Hasbro board game, which just about gets away with how awful that is based on solid direction and a self-deprecating sense of humour. People say silly things whilst even sillier things happen all around them, but it's all very big and exciting and the reason we went to the movies when we were 12.


'Battleship' is rated '12A' and is out now in the UK which, if this film is anything to go by, does not rule the waves.

'The Hunger Games' review:

The screams of young girls in the audience leave no doubt as to who the film's target audience is, yet 'The Hunger Games' - and its impossibly hunky onscreen love triangle - exist in a far more compelling world than that of the similarly pitched 'Twilight': trading in high school vampires for post-apocalyptic hardship and child-on-child warfare. Both films are based on pieces of teen fiction which mix action with angsty romance, yet this one's sulky heroine, Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence), at least has cause to be sulky.

As the story begins, Katniss is established as a capable and fiercely pragmatic young woman who provides for her poverty-stricken family, hunting game in the forbidden woods alongside her handsome chum Gale (Liam Hemsworth). With her father dead and mother drifting in and out of a manic depressive coma, Katniss is the only thing standing between her sweet young sister, Prim, and certain death by starvation. You see, the Everdeens live in District 12: the poorest of the outlying communities of Panem - a futuristic nation built on the ruins of North America - and they spend their days toiling thanklessly in service of the central ruling Capitol: a city of superficial, fashion-obsessed gluttons.

Shit really hits the fan when Prim is chosen at random to be her district's tribute in the year's annual Hunger Games, prompting Katniss to volunteer in her place. As fate would have it, the male tribute is Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson) - an equally dreamy and faultlessly good-natured baker's son who's harboured a life-long crush on Katniss and to whom, for a past kindness, Katniss owes her life. Thus complicating the titular game which only one of them can hope to survive. Happily the question of whether Katniss prefers drippy Peeta or outdoorsy Gale is not the film's main preoccupation, however much it might be the chief selling point for a large chunk of the audience.

With a set-up that's instantly familiar to those who've seen the hyper-violent Japanese thriller 'Battle Royale', the Hunger Games themselves see 24 children (a boy and a girl between the ages of 12 and 18 from each district) fighting to the death with the survivor crowned the winner - henceforth entitled to a life of luxury. The twist here is that the tournament takes the form of a gaudy reality TV show, complete with much pageantry and all the contrivances of that genre. Director Gary Ross' adaptation deviates slightly from the book by using the Truman Show-esque device of depicting those in control of the games, manipulating the arena to generate the most exciting spectacle for public consumption, which works well. But otherwise it's a highly faithful, if abridged, version of the tale - only really omitting the book's minor characters and interminable scenes of hunting, eating, and dress making.

As in the books, the games themselves fall short of the more fascinating build-up, a fact not helped by the UK 12A certificate version cutting some of the more violent footage. Making child v child death matches more palatable for increased consumption is morally questionable to say the least, though I understand that the film's box office hopes are pinned chiefly on the world's tweens. Even still, the film does seem overall more squeamish than the book, eschewing the frank nudity, Katniss' frequent (remorseless and detailed) animal slaying, and being coy with the arena violence. Katniss spends much of the book bruised and bloody, but not here where the entire games feels as though they take place over a couple of days.

Lawrence is a perfect choice as Katniss, convincing as strong, and being the embodiment of the character's winsome beautiful-whilst-non-girlish shtick - even if the film's version is rather more prone to bouts of weeping - though its doubtful whether the book's heroine, who so totally internalises every emotion that isn't contemptuous fury, would work on screen. I suppose, robbed of access to her thought process we need to see that she is upset, lest we think she is uncaring or wooden. Likewise, Hutcherson - who seemed so mopey as a sulky teen in 'The Kids Are All Right' - does live up to the book's vision of Peeta as vulnerable, noble, and charismatic.

In many respects this version improves upon the original. For instance, Suzanne Collins' books are so light on physical description of people and places that the look of the film feels like it's breathing life into her world rather than struggling to live up to the reader's imagination. Though the books don't specify the race of any of the characters, it's great so see some of the most crucial and beloved characters cast with black actors (chiefly Lenny Kravitz as Cinna and Amandla Stenberg as Rue), even if the lead parts have all been read as Caucasian.

It's also true that here the villainous kids are more problematic enemies than those of the book, with the ultimate baddie portrayed as far more human. They are still cast as bullying jocks for the most part, though in a way that reads as a Lord of the Flies style look at child behaviour (albeit a shallow one), rather than simply a way to render their deaths more palatable. The film also does well to weave in some of the second book's themes, of wider civil disobedience and the repercussions of Katniss' actions, showing the impact of the games on the people of Panem, giving events a sense of weight.

By breaking from the consistent first person narrative of the text it's also able to show us the games as televised. To this end, Toby Jones and the ever-watchable Stanley Tucci form an entertaining commentary team, who guide us through stranger elements of the world's lore and provide some neat (if gentle) satire of reality TV, reflecting back some of our culture's fondness for exploitative voyeurism and love of glossy, gossipy pap. In fact everything outside of the arena is handled better in the film than the book, with a note-perfect Woody Harrelson particularly funny as Katniss and Peeta's mentor Haymitch.

The teen girl mob, who during the show I attended literally screamed the house down whenever Gale or Peeta (or a cat or a child) appeared on screen, seem to have found a new set of idols and, with Lawrence's robust central showing, a feminine hero for the ages. Perhaps there's little surprise in their showing of affection for this material, in many ways so cynically tailored to meet their interests, but what's striking is that 'The Hunger Games' is actually to some extent worthy of their adulation.

'The Hunger Games' is released today in the UK, rated '12A' by the BBFC.

Mass Effect 3 endings: Questions better than answers?

As I explained in my last post, I've not really done anything film related over the past week due to the release of Mass Effect 3 - a sci-fi video game which concludes an epic trilogy which started in 2007 and has taken me (something like) a combined 100+ hours to complete. I've finished it now and, in lieu of anything filmy to talk about, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts on it here. Well, not so much on the game itself: mostly I wanted to talk about the furore surrounding the game's controversial ending.

I won't explain in any depth why the ending(s) is so controversial. After all, two smart chaps at Game Front have already done that over two incredibly comprehensive pieces in the last few days (see HERE and HERE), and whilst I don't agree with all of their points, they certainly make a very good case for the idea that the story's climax is - at the very best - flawed. (Though, for what it's worth, I think they overstate the amount of genuine "choice" and "freedom" present over the rest of the trilogy, with player choices always simplistic, binary and of little meaningful consequence even before this supremely botched conclusion. For instance the decision of whether to sacrifice Kaiden or Ashley in the closing hours of the first game was completely superficial, seeing as how both characters go on to perform the exact same role, speak the same dialogue, and make the same decisions.)

Anyway, the reason I bring this up on my film blog is that their main gripe ties into something I've wondered about for a long time, concerning whether it is better for a narrative to conclude with questions or answers. Director Terry Gilliam's passionate avocation of the innate superiority of the former has long been an influence on me. Here he explains (correctly) why Spielberg is less good/interesting than Kubrick, but much more popular:



In what can only be perceived as a slap in the face of Gilliam, a complaint the writers of these Mass Effect articles make - and one which is echoed in the substantial comments threads below both pieces - is that the story needed a solid resolution. The ending, the logic runs, is too open to interpretation and raises more questions than answers and this is a very bad thing indeed. In fact it's worse than that: it's an insult to gamers (etc etc etc). One of the writers, Phil Hornshaw, has even responded to several passionate comments below his piece, in each case (tellingly) choosing to reiterate that the success of the ending as it stands is "contingent on BioWare providing more ending content through [downloadable content]". In other words: the unresolved ending is only worth a damn if we're eventually going to get answers, and soon dammit.

This feeling of indignation is so vehement that a fan-led campaign called Retake Mass Effect has quickly raised over $50,000 for charity as it attempts to coerce developers BioWare into releasing an alternate ending. Their stated aims, as listed on their site, are very telling (underlining my own):

We believe:
* That it is the right of the writers and developers of the Mass Effect series to end that series however they see fit
However, we also believe that the currently available endings to the series:
* Do not provide the wide range of possible outcomes that we have come to expect from a Mass Effect game
* Do not provide a sense of succeeding against impossible odds
* Do not provide a sense of closure with regard to the universe and characters we have become attached to
* Do not provide an explanation of events up to the ending which maintains consistency with the overall story
We therefore respectfully request additional endings be added to the game which provide:
* A more complete explanation of the story events
* An explaination of the outcome of the decisions made, especially with regard to the planets, races, and companions detailed throughout the series
* A heroic ending which provides a better sense of accomplishment

Perhaps never has there been greater proof of what Gilliam is saying in the sense of what is popular: people clearly desire answers and a feeling of "success". There have been a lot of fans scrambling to make sense of the ending and vent their frustration at what BioWare have done, but the only voices (I have encountered) who seem to be defending the openness Gilliam-style are the developers themselves, who have come out admitting that they removed explanation from the final scenes believing it made the ending weaker and less memorable. They have admitted knowingly devising a "polarising" end to their story so as to generate (as Gilliam so relishes) a dialogue.

"Are video games art?" is that nebulous, maddening discussion that won't ever die. I come down, roughly, on the side that they probably are - but even I admit that the debate surrounding this issue is profoundly pointless. However, if the game's audience can not appreciate what might be termed a "Kubrickian" ending, then what does that say about the way games are consumed as a medium? Perhaps nothing at all. After all, Mass Effect is a blockbuster and a similar response might have been expected had, say, 'Transformers 3' ended as obliquely.

In any case, I guess what I'm getting at is this: I too was underwhelmed by the game's ending. I can understand first hand the desire to have closure on the story and to know the subsequent fates of characters who had (in a sad and strange way familiar to all RPG gamers) become my friends. Yet this massive fan outcry in favour of "answers" misses the point. It isn't bad that Mass Effect ends on questions - I'm still with Gilliam on that score - rather, it's that the questions is raises ("is Shepard alive?", "did he defeat the Reapers?", "what did his crew do next?") are so uninteresting and narrowly focused.: too embedded in the game's internal mythology, rather than any grander existential concerns. '2001: A Space Odyssey' Mass Effect is not. But I'm inclined to say nice try for not taking the easiest path, so far at least.

It remains to be seen whether BioWare chicken out and give the people what they want, as Spielberg infamously did in his cinematic re-release of 'Close Encounters', which took viewers inside the otherwise mysterious alien spaceship. Money talks, so I have a hunch they will. And I'll probably buy it too. I don't know what to think.

'Another Earth' review:

Midway through ‘Another Earth’, feature debut of director Mike Cahill, the camera pulls back to reveal a huge piece of graffiti daubed on the road of a perpetually overcast middle-American city. It reads “spare us” – with the people of this strained, determinedly “indie” drama fearing revelations of the unknown as an exact double of our planet comes into close orbit. I know the feeling: watching this dimly lit affair I was tempted to scribble the same thing on the cinema walls.

The film stars co-writer Brit Marling as a young woman who gets admitted to MIT only to spend four years in jail instead, having killed several members of a family after careening into their car whilst driving under the influence. Just prior to this life changing event, Marling spies a brand new star in the sky. It's, of course, our planet's aforementioned doppelgänger, and it's soon discovered that it's home to exact doubles of every person on our planet. After leaving prison she comes to see the planet as offering potential redemption, entering a competition to win a seat on the first voyage to "Earth 2". She hopes to find a new life in the unknown dominated by one thought: are the people she killed still alive up there?



This is a good idea in theory - potentially a cerebral blending of science fiction and lo-fi American indie drama. Yet, beyond some budget defying special effects, the film lacks ambition and is content to wallow in a rather more conventional, Earth-bound story about guilt and remorse. Even so, these are interesting themes. Yet here they are explored almost without feeling and in an oppressively banal setting. It's a cold, sterile experience set in a gloomy world and filled with people who don't read as convincingly human. Instead they are merely players in what feels like a trumped-up student film, high on its own imagined profundity.

Indeed the single worst thing about 'Another Earth' is a narration from an unseen character who asks all the most searching questions about the ramifications of this new planet - just in case we're too simple to ask them ourselves. It's a clumsy device which plays like a bad Werner Herzog impression rather than an exploration of grand meta-physical themes. Much like the film itself.

'Another Earth' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is on UK release now.

'Real Steel' review:

It doesn't matter who is promoting 'Real Steel', whether it's charismatic leading man Hugh Jackman, over-enthusiastic director Shawn Levy or an anonymous automaton of the PR machine, the message about the family robot boxing movie is consistent: "it's not about the robots" they say, "it's a father and son story." This is the standard line for almost any special effects led movie, so I didn't take it all that seriously going in. After all, 'Real Steel' is set in an improbable future in which the world's most popular spot is effectively 'Robot Wars', as machines battle it out in the boxing ring in place of flesh and blood humans. But it turns out, for better or worse, they were all telling the truth. Even if the film begins with a giant robot punching an animal in the face for entertainment in front of a family crowd (an act never scrutinised), it is a father and son bonding movie first and an underdog boxing movie (with fighting robots) second.

Jackman plays a former boxer who never got to fulfil his potential because of all the worldwide robo-love. As a result he's now a jaded robot boxing trainer: down on his luck, owing a lot of money to a lot of people and sort of into Evangeline Lilly's gym owner (though this is never explored). Additionally, he's brash, cocky and arrogant. We meet him on the run from his latest humiliating defeat, as he's told that an ex-girlfriend from more than a decade ago has just died, leaving him in custody of his son (Dakota Goyo) - who he has never met and has less than no interest in. So, being an upstanding citizen, he sells the boy to his wealthy aunt for $50, 000 in order to buy a new fighting robot (this actually happens). But there is a snag as said aunt wants to go on holiday abroad (she seemingly isn't too upset about the death of her sister and - to be honest - neither is the boy, who gets stuck into building robots within minutes), leaving Jackman looking after the kid on a temporary basis.



It's nice to see an entry into the Spielbergian "absent father" sub-genre in which the dad is actually allowed to be a total prick, as opposed to committing the sin of having to go to work rather than play pirates all day (as in 'Hook'). Jackman sells this dickishness with commitment, bravely jettisoning a sizable amount of his inherent likeability for the first half of the movie. As the boy, Goyo is also pretty good (though his haircut and propensity to fix robots makes him distractingly similar to a young Anakin Skywalker), whilst Lilly (of 'Lost' fame) makes a good fit as the best friend/love interest/potential surrogate mother figure. It helps that the robots themselves are well designed too: the upshot being that you can always tell them apart during the fights and they seem to suggest an amount of personality - both attributes lacking in the 'Transformers' movies.

It's also colourful and - with the exception of an unnecessary "payback" moment late on - mostly good-natured, which I guess is the least that could be expected from a director whose filmography is comprised of bland comedies (remakes of 'The Pink Pather' and 'Cheaper by the Dozen', as well as 'Big Fat Liar' and the 'Night at the Museum' movies). But as restless young legs knocked the back of my seat it was clear something wasn't working. You see, there isn't much robo-boxing and some of the kids in the showing I attended clearly didn't care about any of the bits in between. One child loudly summed up the general mood at regular intervals, and in doing so became the afternoon's highlight, shouting "dad, this is rubbish", followed later by "I want to go home!" and "yay! it's finished". The atmosphere generated by these discontented youngsters was curiously counter-productive to the movie's family message, as the dads kept their thankless offspring prisoner in the cinema. Ignoring for a moment the fact that the action scenes (two robots hitting each other) are inherently boring anyway, the slowness of the dominant father and son story is truly crushing.



Some of it's laughable too, but not just with the trademark Levy humour (funny accents, lots of falling over) but with some calculated sub-Bieber dance routines, as the kid engages in bouts of "street" body popping with his best buddy robot, and one cheese-loaded sequence in which the boy goes for a run with the machine and makes it give him a big hug (awww!). The tone is uneven, shifting uneasily between gentle, understated moments of the father and son on the road (in the beautiful rural south of the US) and a sort of '8 Mile' attitude at the "underground" robot fights (why on earth would robot boxing have an underground? What is the difference?). It also doesn't help that the film's message is confused: Jackman personally controls his robot by shadow boxing whereas their major league rival is controlled by a less romantic array of men at computers, with the implication being that battle robots/computers/action scenes are souless and no substitute for human characters - a point undermined, not only by the premise of the film, but by a vague suggestion that the scrappy good guy robot (our plucky, low-tech underdog) has something like a soul.

'Real Steel' isn't a good movie and, to be brutally honest, I've been kinder here than was my first impulse on leaving the screen. But in genuinely trying to give the human story some heft, rather than viewing it as an inconvenience between robot fights, the film deserves some small credit. It might not do angsty drama particularly well, but it's a move in the right direction: in 2011 a family movie with punching robots that isn't full of masturbation jokes, women in hot pants bending over motorcycles and regressive ethnic stereotypes doesn't deserve to be torn to shreds and actually seems strangely quaint.

'Real Steel' has been on general release in the UK and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' review:

Coming as something of a big, pleasant surprise from left-field, 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' is one of the stand-out films of the year so far and looks set to become a sizable box office hit. In fact, if Fox run a smart enough campaign, it could even stand a chance at winning some Oscars next year - perhaps even managing that acting nomination for a motion captured performance that Andy Serkis (the film's real star) so craves. But what knocked me for six wasn't the phenomenal quality of the CGI apes rendered by WETA Digital, the ingenious use of San Francisco locations, or the emotional journey told almost entirely from the point of view of an animal (Serkis as chimp Caesar). It was rather the fact that the whole ridiculous "monkeys take over the world" concept had been handled in such a plausible, intelligent and entertaining way.

The original Charlton Heston 'Planet of the Apes' of 1968 saves the reveal - that the planet ruled by the chimps is our own futuristic Earth - until just before the end credits. It doesn't have to trouble itself with the irksome minutiae of how this simian revolution was possible. The implied cause was nuclear war, which killed off human civilization and gave birth to an ape-led society, but how this actually transpired is left up to individuals in the audience to imagine. The problem inherent in a "here's how it happened" prequel is that you have to make this event believable. You have to show it. This is an even bigger problem when the old "threat of nuclear war" angle is no longer considered relevant and the idea of "atomic mutation" as a cause for anything other than cancer is simply laughable. The solution for the 21st century? Animal experimentation accidentally gives apes increased intelligence and these smart animals wage revolution. But how can you pull that off on camera?



After seeing the trailer I had a basic cynical problem with the premise of 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes'. I don't care how smart apes get - as long as we've got the guns and tanks they aren't going to take over the world. Yet British director Rupert Wyatt has made this idea work. Before the film is done we are invited to see a pitched battle between the San Francisco Police Department and a gang of organised chimps, gorillas and orangutans, and by the end you'll believe these animals could take the city apart brick by brick if they wanted to. The animals seem powerful, fast and agile - capable of feats usually saved for superhero characters - but none of it feels impossible so long as you accept the idea that the apes are now capable of reason and able to work together as a group.

It also helps that we aren't being sold 'Rise' as the big moment where apes take over the world, but as just the first big step on that journey, which means Wyatt doesn't yet have to show them besting the US Army or firing guns. This is basically a prison break out movie: escaped convicts versus the law. It isn't an epic tale of global conflict just yet (though the introduction of an airborne virus fills in the gaps about what happens next to some extent). An even bigger factor in why all this madness seems to make sense is that the first two thirds of the film are all about building up the character of Caesar and showing us his troubled relationship with humanity and his own crisis of identity. By the time the action really starts, we are already invested in the chimpanzee as a fully-formed character and no longer even see his actions as those of an animal.



More so than any other blockbuster of the year, 'Rise' is a dramatic story first and an action film second and this all comes courtesy of Serkis and WETA. It is a combination of a skilled character actor and tremendous animators that creates such a compelling and credible character in Caesar. A chimp adopted by James Franco's scientist after his mother is killed in the lab, he is the focus of the entire film and we follow him from newborn to energetic teenager, before he is brutalised and locked away. Caesar then (perhaps reluctantly) takes up the mantle of revolutionary leader to free apes from their human oppressors, grappling with moral and existential concerns along the way. What nuance the film has is in this journey, as key moments include subtle looks in the ape's eyes as we see his worldview change wordlessly.

By contrast the human characters could certainly be dismissed as shallow ciphers, with Tom Felton and Brian Cox playing snarling animal handlers, John Lithgow hamming it up as a confused, yet kindly, old man with Alzheimer's, and the ever-wooden Freida Pinto appearing as a smiling vet with few lines of dialogue and almost no narrative purpose beyond that of perfunctory love interest. As the live action star, James Franco is watchable but also lacking in depth, playing the committed scientist who goes to far trying to cure his father's brain illness before ultimately and inadvertently unleashing chimpgeddon on humanity. He is possibly supposed to be a conflicted, morally dubious genius in the mould of Jeff Goldblum's character in 'The Fly' or the original Dr. Frankenstein, but Franco always comes across as basically quite nice, the upshot being you never really question his motives or methods.



It's also true that compared to the theme rich original (which used its science fiction setting to explore then taboo subjects such as racism, the Vietnam War, potential nuclear holocaust and religious dogma) this prequel is pretty simple, with the basic moral being that we should treat animals better. Which is fair enough, but also not an idea that really challenges the audience (it'd be an odd person that objects to a "don't electrocute monkeys for fun" message). I suppose the revolutionary theme could be read more broadly as something about how an underclass will rise against an oppressive state, but oddly - for a film selling itself on the iconography of revolution - there is nothing revolutionary about its vaguely anti-science social agenda.

That said, 'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' is as good a time as it's possible to have at the movies this time of year and (my great enjoyment of 'Captain America' and the final 'Harry Potter' notwithstanding) has to be viewed as the pick of the multiplex for summer 2011. From its emotional opening moments to the mesmeric doomsday scenario offered over the closing credits, Wyatt's prequel/remake is far better than it has any right to be.

'Rise of the Planet of the Apes' is out in the UK today and is rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Super 8' review:

Directed by 'Lost' creator and 'Cloverfield' producer JJ Abrams, 'Super 8' is an affectionate homage to the films of Steven Spielberg. Though in this case "homage" seems like too generous a description of a film which is closer in spirit to a greatest hits mixtape and, with Spielberg acting as a producer to oversee his own canonisation, it must surely rank as one of the cinema's greatest acts of narcissism. Not only is every shot, every sound effect and every character archetype stolen wholesale from the Spielberg oeuvre, but Abrams also borrows all his themes and even major plot details - the result being a film that feels wholly derivative and more than a little redundant.

In stitching together 'Super 8', Abrams combines the town meeting scene from 'Jaws', the nocturnal tree-rustling eeriness of 'Jurassic Park' and the absent father business from 'Hook' and 'The Lost World', alongside huge chunks of 'E.T.' and 'Close Encounters'. Whilst the young cast seem modelled, almost like-for-like, on the kids from Richard Donner's Spielberg-produced 'The Goonies'. Aside from his overuse of distracting lens flares, the director's own dubious stamp is only really felt in the familiar brand of mystery, as he withholds information and establishes lots of (eventually meaningless) threads, with the requisite unsatisfying pay-off. In fact, without spoiling the film, all I can say is that the climax of Abrams' story is not only underwhelming, but also wholly baffling as we are asked not to care about all the death and destruction that has come before during a cloying, metaphor-heavy finale that tries desperately to be heart warming and truly fails.



Set in the 1980s for some reason (allowing for tired references to the Cold War and walkmans), the story itself revolves around the meek and kindly Joe (Joel Courtney), a young boy who spends his summer holidays making super 8mm films with his friends: the fat one, the explosives expert one, the nervous one etc. Joe's mother has recently died and his well-meaning, hard-working father (Kyle Chandler), the town's Deputy Sheriff, spends little time with him. This leads him to strike up a forbidden friendship with Alice (Elle Fanning), a rebellious, young teen who agrees to star in the boys' movie. However, things take a turn for the strange when the gang's filmmaking places them at the scene of a spectacular train crash - with the film's big action set-piece out of the way after the first half hour.

Soon the army are on the scene to wage stock military conspiracy against the town and the boys are warned by a kindly old teacher not to tell anyone about what they have seen for their own safety. However, unexplained things start happening in town and, after the Sheriff goes missing, Joe's dad mounts his own investigation into the oddness (which proves ultimately irrelevant). Like the Amblin Entertainment produced family movies of the 1980s, such as 'Gremlins' and the aforementioned 'The Goonies', 'Super 8' pushes hard at the boundaries of its age-rating, with some bloody kills and a bit of swearing as Abrams refuses to patronise the potential young audience members who've been upgraded from 'Mr. Popper's Penguins'.



Yet whist the film definitely counts as something of an upgrade for the oft-abused family crowd, the film's only other audience is the nascent 1980s nostalgia demographic who are being played as cynically as they are ever likely to be. The "spot the Spielberg" nature of the movie will be a lot of fun for this portion of the crowd, but you have to wonder if it wouldn't be a better use of time to re-watch the superior Spielberg originals themselves and give this hollow imitation a miss. Compelling performances from the young cast aside (Fanning and Courtney are brilliant), 'Super 8' is a strange contradiction: seen by some as a beacon of hope amidst the comic book adaptations, sequels and remakes, the summer's only original property lacks a single original idea.

'Super 8' is out now in the UK and is rated '12A' the the BBFC.

'Source Code' review:

It's increasingly commonplace for mainstream blockbuster films to (often superficially) involve themselves with ideas traditionally thought to be above the station of mere entertainment. The films of Christopher Nolan, including last summer's 'Inception', are a prominent example, as they seek to engage the audience in discussion of the subconscious - from dreams and memories to Freudian concepts like the id and the super-ego - without distracting from the motorcycle chases and cityscape-bending action that audiences crave.

'Source Code', the second feature from 'Moon' director Duncan Jones, is just such a film: a high-concept science-fiction thriller at the centre of which lie a number of metaphysical concerns. On its most basic level though, the title refers to a computer simulation that enables an American soldier, played by Jake Gyllenhaal, to relive the last eight minutes of a man's life over and over again in order to identify his murderer - a terrorist whose bombing of a Chicago-bound passenger train claimed hundreds of lives. In crass marketing speak, it's 'Groundhog Day' meets 'Under Siege 2' with a dash of 'Being John Malkovich' thrown in for good measure.



Yet if the premise promises to raise philosophical questions, Gyllenhaal's repeated trips into what is described by exposition as the "afterglow" of a deceased man's mind take a dispiritingly familiar route. He starts off disoriented in alien surroundings, before he learns the routines of the various characters around him on the train. This enables him to act incredibly cool in that one scene that is practically pre-written into every time travel concept, as he predicts a string of incidental details as if by precognition in order to impress the girl who has taken his fancy (Michelle Monaghan): a coffee spill prevented, a ringing phone anticipated, and so on. The self-satisfied smugness inherent in this feat feels out of place here when you consider it's taking place on a train full of those recently slain, though Gyllenhaal pulls it off with considerable charm and is generally likable even if he remains unconvincing as an action hero.

Eventually, a couple of plot twists later, he begins to set about the task at hand with more purpose, less internal conflict and less knowing humour, with his mission galvanised by the revelation that failure to track down the bomber will result in the deaths of millions in a second terrorist attack on Chicago. This is the action third of the film as Gyllenhaal jumps out of moving vehicles and runs around with a handgun. In the backdrop to all this, there is a romance, along with a number of revelations about his own "real-world" back-story - including a father-son reconciliation sub-plot.

The Academy Award nominated Vera Farmiga co-stars as an officer at a secretive US military installation, who briefs our hero on his mission and has soul-searching of her own to do as the film reaches its climax and those metaphysical concerns come to the fore. Meanwhile, Jeffrey Wright makes for an unsettling (and slightly hammy) presence as the cynical, career-driven scientist behind it all.



In contrast to the tight, restrained simplicity of 'Moon', Jones sets about juggling multiple balls at once with 'Source Code' and he mostly succeeds at keeping up our interest in each of them without compromising the film's forward momentum (a pre-requisite of any film set on a train). As a thriller it's energetic, intriguing and reliably entertaining, though it lacks originality in both the way it utilises its uber-silly pseudoscientific premise and in terms of its direction. Jones keeps things very safe and functional, and it lacks a certain stylistic joie de vivre - a disappointment considering how complete 'Moon' felt as it riffed on its various seventies sci-fi influences. Moments of action also lack a visceral quality, with the exploding train never having the shocking impact it perhaps ought to.

As with 'Inception', it's hard to shake the feeling that the film is overly enamoured with its cleverness, which becomes a problem as the concept is undermined by a laboured last fifteen minutes and a twist you'll have seen coming - and which Jones would have done better to avoid. There is a point where you are practically screaming for Jones to cut to the credits. Yet the film limps on and what would have been eery hanging questions quickly become unsatisfactory answers, with an ending that betrays the preceding hour in terms of tone. As with the final shots of 'Moon', Jones is apparently reluctant to have anyone leave the cinema feeling too bummed out, and in the end the film screams compromise.



'Source Code' is a lot of fun and the concept is an interesting one. It is never dull, yet it lacks boldness in its execution and ends up as something fairly generic. With it Jones has shown that he is a competent director of a high-profile Hollywood studio film on a medium budget, and confirms that he knows what he's doing on a fundamental level with a well-paced and exciting film. The only disappointment is that 'Moon' suggested something more. 'Source Code', with its play on the increasingly trite question "what is real?" and its half-hearted ruminations on the existence of the soul, might suggest ideas above its station, but like many recent psychological blockbusters of this kind - it is ultimately content to paddle in the shallow end rather than risk alienating a mass audience.

'Source Code' is out now in the UK and has been rated '12A' by the BBFC.

'Monsters' review:

Let me get one thing out of the way at the beginning of this review. Yes, it is indeed impressive that young British director Gareth Edwards has made his debut film, the sci-fi, road movie 'Monsters', for reportedly less than half a million dollars. More impressive still is that he not only wrote and directed the film, but acted as his own cinematographer and even did all the films digital effects at home on his computer, apparently using relatively affordable software. This is indeed laudable, and points towards a future where big, special effects blockbusters may be made by indie filmmakers just as well as by big studios. And what a future that could be. Imaginative filmmakers with epic visions who constantly find themselves restricted by the commercial interests of the studios (such as Alex Cox and Terry Gilliam) might be able to make the kind of ambitious films they always wanted to make.

Gareth Edwards is not alone in thinking big with limited resources. Uruguayan amateur Fede Alvarez made headlines last year by earning himself a big Hollywood contract after achieving success on YouTube with his four minute short film called 'Ataque de Panico'. That film also had a big sci-fi concept which would usually cost more than that short's stated $300 budget, as it depicted giant robots attacking Uruguay's capital city of Montevideo. Earlier in 2009, Canadian brothers Ian and David Purchase achieved a huge internet following with their short film adaptation of the Half-Life 2 video game, 'Half-Life: Escape from City 17', which also boasted impressive effects and a sense of scale on a meagre budget. Video games have inspired countless others too - including polished fan film versions of Pokemon and Street Fighter - but the highest profile one saw 'Fame' remake helmer Kevin Tancharoen shooting his own D.I.Y Mortal Kombat short in an effort to pitch a full movie to studios. No doubt the the box office success of 'Monsters' will inspire a few more on a feature length scale and this can only be a good thing.



However, forget for a second the film's low-budget and other indie credentials (it stars Scoot McNairy of 'In Search of a Midnight Kiss' fame alongside a supporting cast of non-actors) and what you have in 'Monsters' is a fairly unfulfilling film which didn't satisfy me as a creature feature nor as a relationship drama.

The plot is as follows: a photojournalist (Andrew played by McNairy) is asked by his boss to escort his daughter (Samantha played by Whitney Able) from Mexico back to her home in the United States. After missing the last boat back, the pair decide to embark on the journey by land. This would sound like a simple enough trip. Except this story is set in the near future, where the land between the newly drawn borders of Mexico and the USA is the "infected zone" - home to extraterrestrial creatures accidentally brought down to Earth by a malfunctioning NASA probe. Worse still, the infected zone is under constant bombardment by the US Air Force, who carpet bomb the whole area to keep the aliens at bay. As you'd expect with such a modest budget, the aliens are very rarely seen and instead the film is more focused on the dynamic between Samantha and Andrew.



This would be fine if either of them were interesting or if they ever had anything interesting to say. 'Monsters' is suffocated by constant exposition with people saying things like "so let me get this straight: we have 48 hours to get to the coast" and when we aren't having things we have just seen and heard simplified for us we are forced to spend our time in the company of a couple of morons. Andrew has, he tells us, seen the corpses of the aliens before on several occasions. The creatures are also on the television news or caricatured by informative children's cartoons whenever we see a television. The duo are aware they are heading through the infected zone, as a great many sign posts tell them so. They see the destruction of areas affected by the so-called monsters. Yet when confronted by them they are forever shouting (and I mean shouting) "what the hell is that thing", over and over and over again.

The shouting doesn't stop even when their armed guards - who by the way are asked several times "why have you guys got guns?" (gee, I wonder why) - tell them to be quiet during one attack sequence. The pair just can't shut up, forever yelping "why are you putting your gas masks on?" (even though that very question was the subject of a public service broadcast aimed at children in a previous scene). When they pass through a destroyed town they ask aloud "all these people's homes. But where are all the people?" They are infuriating human beings who are just begging to be made victims of intergalactic assault. What's more, Andrew is totally inept at his job. When he isn't taking cliché, sub-Banksy photos of children wearing gas masks or playing with barbed wire, he is going on a cathartic journey to grow a conscience which ultimately sees him cover up a dead child's body rather than take a picture for his employers. It is supposed to be a sign that he has, in leaving supposed civilization, rediscovered what it means to be human. By contrast the human world - which, full of greed and evil, pays for pictures of dead children - has become alien. To me it just shows that the film doesn't understand the role such photojournalism has played in turning public opinion against violent wars since Vietnam. Certainly, there is a moral ambiguity to it, but it isn't a simple case of "right and wrong". But 'Monsters' isn't a nuanced film and Edwards it seems would rather resort to trite, sentimental corn than face the more complex realities of the human condition.



This heavy-handed moralising about the modern world continues into the films 'Avatar'-like eco message and in its meaningless symbolism as the American troops at the beginning are shown attacking an alien at a petrol station. To what end? I couldn't tell you. Accept that it's making some loose connection between the American's attack on the creatures and the war in Iraq. Edgy stuff that should take the heat off Julian Assange once Washington finds out. The film also suggests that Mexican officials are corrupt, leading me to wonder whether a deleted scene would have revealed the toiletry habits of bears.

I can't help but feel that the film's shallow "humans are bad" rhetoric would be dismissed if this were larger film, perhaps directed by James Cameron. It's a message that makes no sense either. Whilst in the infected wilderness they encounter the aforementioned dead child. They also see the eviscerated bodies of people they were travelling with. What is so wonderful about the aliens is anyone's guess. Just that they're not human. Because we humans are so terribly, terribly bad, you see. It is a po-faced film which is smugly satisfied by its seriousness. Edwards knows that everyone will line up to gush "it's a monster film that isn't about the monsters!" - as if that was what we'd all been waiting for.



'Monsters' didn't thrill me and it certainly didn't move me either. Yet I must return to the first point of this review and put the thing back in its context as a film that cost a first-time director less than $500,000 to make. With that in mind it is an excellently well designed film. If you didn't know it was made on the cheap, you probably wouldn't be able to tell from what is an extremely handsomely made film. Much like that of last year's 'District 9', the world Edwards creates is an interesting one and you are drawn to wonder at the story around the story. You scan the world for details which will give you more information about this time and place, with these strange circumstances told to you in a matter of fact way and made to seem highly plausible. It is also a credit to Edwards that he stages his scenes of tension well, even if they are all ripped straight out of the Spielberg playbook (the car attack scene is lifted from 'Jurassic Park', whilst the encounter with a curious alien in the gas station is reminiscent of a similar sequence in 'War of the Worlds') - perhaps appropriate given that Spielberg's first short movies required similar ingenuity in terms of homemade special effects.

As a film, I wasn't sold on 'Monsters'. But as part of a growing and exciting trend it thrills me absolutely. I can only imagine what we'll see in the future if anyone with an idea and the talent can feasibly make whatever film they want to. Indie filmmakers have long between able to make gritty, social realism films and small scale dramas. But maybe now science fiction and fantasy are not out of reach. I don't want to oversell it: Gareth Edwards may have only spent $500,000 making this film, but he still had half a million dollars at his disposal (not to mention the backing of Vertigo Films). But who knows? Maybe the next 'Star Wars' or 'Lawrence of Arabia' will be made in a bedroom rather than a movie studio.

'Monsters' is rated '12A' by the BBFC and is out now in the UK. It is playing this week at Brighton's Duke of York's Picturehouse cinema.

Is 'Star Wars' Sci-fi?

I assure you I'm not just arguing semantics when I ask: "is 'Star Wars' a science fiction film?" For years I have argued that it isn't (and I know I'm not alone here, just check on google) and that it is instead primarily a fantasy film.

Science fiction is usually allegorical and always involves some sort of genuine theory on where science may take us. 'Star Wars' does neither thing at all (unless you see it as a bland allegory for "good versus evil"). It doesn't try to make any points, instead it is about some heroic knights rescuing a princess from an evil (dare I say Hidden) fortress. Yes, there are laser guns and spaceships and robots, but I would argue this setting is not necessarily sci-fi. On the other hand, 'Star Trek' is sci-fi. Gene Roddenberry used his 60's TV series to make points about issues of the day, such as racism, as well as taking a look at where humanity may go ('Star Wars' with it's "Galaxy far, far away" disclaimer isn't even proposing that). In 'Star Trek' gadgets are always explained using pseudo-scientific terms, often at great length. 'Star Wars' doesn't care about this kind of thing at all. Sure, since 1977 books have been written that tell you how the Millennium Falcon works etc etc. But the films themselves never concerned themselves with science. In 'Star Wars' it is all about escapism and suspension of disbelief (and for my money this makes 'Star Wars' far better than 'Star Trek' too).



But the reason I get into this discussion is because the genre term of "sci-fi" has become more readily associated with a spacey, futuristic setting than with genuine science fiction. So a film like 'Jurassic Park' (featuring "Mr. DNA", above), which is both about the future of science and a morality tale about the potential perils of man playing god, gets labelled up as something else instead. Maybe that's fine. Maybe this just an acceptable evolution of language and something for etymologists to discuss rather than film critics. But I can't help but feel that the genre is being diluted with the meaning it has appropriated, as sci-fi used to be more complicated then that. Most 1950's science fiction used tales of aliens and spacecraft to talk about the cold war and the spectre of communism, for example.

Anyway, that's my two cents on the matter.