Prime Time: Assimilate (2019)

Zach Henderson and Randy Foster are two young men who decide to film life in and around their small town, trying to get a piece of that YouTube fame (or whatever generic video uploading site is standing in for it). Nothing happens in their town, or so they think. Some new bugs have arrived, bugs that bite people. And once someone is bitten, it’s only a matter of time until they change. With everyone radically changing around them, Zach and Randy end up teaming up with Kayla, desperately trying to avoid assimilation while they figure out the best way to fight back against what looks very much like an invasion of creatures that snatch/swap bodies. Because, yes, this is a teen-friendly reworking of Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers.

Director John Murlowski is an odd figure. His filmography covers a wide range of movies, from one of the many Amityville series entries to the infamous Santa With Muscles, and he has helmed a couple of movies that have pleasantly surprised me (including that Amityville movie). This premise seems like an easy one to get right, and Murlowski does a good job with the material, working from a script that he co-wrote with Steven Palmer Peterson. It’s far from perfect, and may be the least of the films based on this material, but it’s tense and entertaining throughout.

The life cycle of the invader is pieced together well, with characters figuring things out as they face increasingly immediate threats, and the way the town is overtaken is impressively quick and plausible. People are changed, that’s obvious, but the aim is to get the new creations outnumbering the original humans as quickly as possible, and a lot of the changes happening so brazenly make things seem more ridiculous when our leads try to convince others of odd happenings.

Joel Courtney and Calum Worth do well in their roles, playing Zach and Randy, and they come across as likeable enough throughout, even when doing the whole “let’s film everything around us and comment on it” spiel that could have easily been built up to turn this into a painful found footage take on the material, and I am very glad that route wasn’t taken. Andi Matichak is equally good in the role of Kayla, a character also given a little brother to try and protect, just to up the stakes, and all three leads are served well by the script. Some of the supporting players have to overdo the change from normal to blank slate, but Cam Gigandet stands out as a local Sheriff who may or may not end up being a dangerous enemy.

Although I didn’t love this, I liked it well enough. And I like it more when I think of the choices made for what NOT to do. No doing the whole found footage thing is a big plus. Not cramming the film with songs to help sell any accompanying soundtrack album. Having the special effects used pretty sparingly, and therefore making them more effective. There are other films in which these things - format, FX work, banging tunes - can, and have, been used to great effect, but this feels like everything was done to make the film teen-friendly without moving too far away from the simplistic brilliance of the central concept. It features youths at the heart of it all, but never dumbs things down or tries to be “too cool for school”. And the third act adds one or two pleasant surprises.

6/10

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Bodied (2017)

Rap battles, eh. They're a lot of fun. But they're also often full of racism, homophobia, misogyny, and general advice along the lines of violence being the possible answer to everything. You can say the same of rap itself, of course, but rap battles have an extra edge. They ARE battles, with the words and rhyming lines being built into an impressive combo until the knockout blow is delivered.

Bodied, directed by Joseph Kahn (who also co-wrote the movie with Alex Larsen),  starts with our main character, Adam, observing an evening of rap battles for his university thesis. He's interested in the use of language, particularly "the n word", and the idea of what is and isn't offensive when it's in the form of lines delivered by people who have created necessary personas for themselves while performing. After being asked to rap battle an interloper who tries to ruin the evening, Adam finds himself getting further and further into the world of rap battles, gaining more insight than he could have ever dreamed of, and even becoming friends with a very talented rapper named Behn Grymm.

Sometimes tense, sometimes hilarious, often offensive in ways that force viewers to think harder about what offends them, and why, Bodied is a two hour movie that flies by, thanks to the script and performances helping it to be consistently entertaining and interesting. It also helps that the central idea, although based in the field of rap, equates to an idea I very much ascribe to: you can joke about anything as long as that joke is actually funny or clever enough to warrant it.

Calum Worthy is excellent in the lead role, easily believable as a young men who feels out of place in the world he is observing before he finds that he has a talent for rapping, a talent that may get him just as many enemies as friends. Jackie Long is also very good in the role of Grymm, a man who best illustrates the clear divide that can exist between an individual and their stage persona. Rory Uphold is Adam's girlfriend, Maya, looking on in horror as she witnesses a barrage of what she views as incredibly offensive, Jonathan Park, Walter Perez, and Shoniqua Shandai all do well, and Dizaster is an intimidating "big boss", named Megaton, that you just know is going to feature in the finale. Elsewhere, you get solid supporting turns from Anthony Michael Hall, Simon Rex, and Debra Wilson.

What works so well here is the way in which viewers can be provided with a viewpoint that isn't necessarily a right one, or maybe it is. The choice is ultimately up to each individual, whether to go along with it or not, and the case is made in a way that would be welcomed by any top debate team. It just so happens that the debate here is taking place in the form of rap.

I've liked a lot of work I've seen from Kahn (who has a filmography that includes many music videos, the ridiculous Torque, and Detention), but this is easily his best work so far. It works equally as simple entertainment and a thought-provoking conversation-starter, and I recommend it to everyone. Well, I recommend it to everyone who can watch something about offensive material without getting offended by it.

9/10

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Rapture-Palooza (2013)

I initially dismissed Rapture-Palooza as nothing more than a retread of material that I'd already enjoyed in This Is The End (a movie that has crept up and up in my estimation after each repeat viewing). Thankfully, I heard from others that it was worth my time so I gave it a watch. And, whaddya know, it was worth my time.

Anna Kendrick stars as Lindsey Lewis, a young woman who ends up living through the rapture. Yes, lots of people have been taken up to heaven, but Lindsey isn't one of them. She spends her days with her boyfriend, Ben (John Francis Daley), avoiding fiery rocks that fall from the sky, trying to ignore foul-mouthed crows, despairing of her parents (Ana Gasteyer and John Michael Higgins), and generally having a pretty bad time of it. Then things get worse when she catches the eye of the antichrist (Craig Robinson).

Thanks, mainly, to a great cast, Rapture-Palooza provides a decent number of chuckles for those who are willing to go along with the bonkers premise. Kendrick is always a likable presence, Robinson is often very funny (and gets to play the antichrist as an amusing asshole), Rob Corddry is a lot of fun as Ben's father, a man who wants to keep his loved ones safe by going along with whatever the antichrist wants, and Thomas Lennon is someone else I always like to see onscreen, so I thoroughly enjoyed his turn as a passive, sweet zombie. Daley may not be on a par with those mentioned, but he does a perfectly fine job with his role. As well as Gasteyer and Higgin, there are chuckles raised by the likes of Calum Worthy, Ken Jeong, Paul Scheer and Tyler Labine in small roles.

Writer Chris Matheson has a lot of fun interpreting the rapture in a way that mixes traditional aspects with twists that provide a lot of little laughs. The movie may never feel bleak, but it does enough to let you know that the characters left alive on Earth are having a pretty miserable time of things.

Paul Middleditch does well in the director's chair, setting up the lunacy without leaving any gaps for viewers to start thinking about the whole thing, and ridiculing it, before settling down to the main core of the plot - a woman with a loving boyfriend who finds herself receiving unwanted attention from an evil, powerful man. The pacing is perfect, the special effects are fun and good enough for the material, and the whole thing deserves to be viewed as more than just a trip back to the well used by This Is The End. So give it a go soon, especially if you've been (like me) avoiding it for that very reason.

It helps, of course, if you like everyone involved. If you do, I pretty much guarantee that this will entertain you for 90 minutes. If you don't, well, you may want to keep this as a very low priority.

7/10

http://www.amazon.com/Rapture-Palooza-Blu-ray/dp/B00DEKKDPA/ref=sr_1_2_bnp_1_blu?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1406007165&sr=1-2&keywords=rapture-palooza