Netflix And Chill: Deep Impact (1998)

Despite becoming known at the time as "the comet film that isn't Armageddon", I have long been curious about whether or not my opinion of Deep Impact would be the same as it was when I first saw it. I thought it was a bit dull, suffered from some mis-casting in a couple of main roles, and basically proved to be a much harder sell due to it being, in technical terms, "a bit of a bummer" in comparison to the woohah jingoism and blockbuster silliness of Armageddon.

It turns out that my opinion remains almost exactly the same as it was. 

A huge comet is heading to Earth. Young Leo Biederman (Elijah Wood) is happy to have spotted it in the sky and had his name attached to it. Unfortunately, it's on a collision course with our planet. This becomes known to the President Of The United States (Morgan Freeman) before most of the population are informed, but a hungry reporter (Jenny Lerner, played by Téa Leoni) also stumbles across the story. She uses her knowledge to advance her career, which gives her a front row seat as plans are established to either destroy the comet or, failing that, ensure the survival of humanity.

Having now made a comfortable living in the world of television shows for the past few decades, there was a time when director Mimi Leder was arguably primed to be one of the few female directors entrusted with delivering big-budget blockbuster entertainment. She helmed the first film to be distributed by DreamWorks Pictures (The Peacemaker, which I don't recall being lauded as a great success), and was then in charge of this, a film simply overshadowed by something with a similar premise and less concern for filling the runtime with too much personal drama and weighty considerations about the endurance of the human race. Leder handles everything well enough, but she's hampered by the screenplay (from Bruce Joel Rubin and Michael Tolkin) and lack of proper star power.

Rubin and Tolkin really want to balance the big stakes with smaller personal moments here, and the film starts to drag every time we have to return to watching Leoni's character deal with her divorced mother (Vanessa Redgrave) and father (Maximillian Schell). None of it feels that important, considering the looming threat, but it has to be viewed that way because that's what we're told, right up until a horribly dissatisfying final scene for two of those characters.

As much as I like Leoni, she's not a good fit for a main role in this kind of fare. Especially when her character has to be emotionally and physically buffeted by converging events happening around her. Freeman is a much better fit for his role, a trustworthy and good-hearted POTUS, and young Wood brings a good bit of energy to his scenes, often sharing them with a young Leelee Sobieski, but often interacting with Richard Schiff, Betsy Brantley, Gary Werntz, and Denise Crosby. There's some excitement when we're spending time with the space shuttle crew (headed up by Robert Duvall) hoping to destroy the comet, but even that is weakened by the presence of Ron Eldard being one of the worst cast members inevitably given more focus than some of the others (Blair Underwood, Mary McCormack, and Jon Favreau among them). Others to look out for are Kurtwood Smith (working down on the ground for NASA), Laura Innes (a White House correspondent displeased when her colleague usurps her), Dougray Scott (a cameraman), Charles Martin Smith, Mike O'Malley, and James Cromwell.

What's here is generally well done, even if it cannot overcome the weaknesses in the material and some of the casting, but it never feels like a fun time to spend two hours. There's some spectacle, and it may make you think about how you would want to spend your last moments if you knew the world was going to end, but most people, myself included, would much rather stick on a film that has some Aerosmith on the soundtrack and Steve Buscemi going a bit stir crazy in space.

6/10

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Ready Or Not 2: Here I Come (2026)

Anybody keen to be served up a sequel to Ready Or Not is going to be kept happy enough with this, a film helped by the fact that everyone returns to their main roles, both in front of and behind the camera, and by the fact that it seems to be even more gleefully sadistic.

Things pick up immediately from the end point of the first movie. Grace (Samara Weaving) is taken to hospital, soon to be visited by an unhappy estranged sister (Faith, played by Kathryn Newton), who only ends up there because Grace forgot to change her main emergency contact. Nobody believes Grace about the shocking events of the past day, but the worst part of it all is that her ordeal isn't over. Grace AND Faith are snatched, terms are explained by a lawyer (Elijah Wood), and it's time for a whole new bunch of rich and entitled psychopaths to hunt some human prey. They're headed up by Ursula (Sarah Michelle Gellar) and Titus Danforth (Shawn Hatosy), and they are happy to use Faith as leverage to keep Grace in line.

It's clear that Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett returned to this premise because they figured they could have more fun with it. That's exactly what they do, adapting a story about two sisters into something that writers Guy Busick and R. Christopher Murphy could easily fit into the Ready Or Not world. It's a classic case of "here's what you enjoyed, but a little bit more of it", for the most part, and the direction keeps the focus on fun in a way that makes the slightly longer runtime (this is 108 minutes compared to the 95 minutes of the first film) feel just right.

Weaving slips back into her (iconic?) character with ease, and believably becomes more badass and dangerous as she becomes more desperate to stay alive, and keep her sister in the same condition. Newton is a great addition, entertainingly unhappy with her sister, but also soon showing how much they are cut from the same cloth when things start getting bloody and deadly. Gellar and Hatosy have a lot of fun in their roles, and the former always seems very aware of, and respectful of, the genre baggage she will forever carry into any project. Wood is fun, a calm presence in the middle of a lot of madness, and there are good moments for Dan Beirne, Olivia Cheng, Nestor Carbonell, Kevin Durand, Varun Saranga, Nadeem Umar-Khitab, Antony Hall, and even a cameoing David Cronenberg.

Much like the first film, there are no scares here, and there's very little actual tension, but you get some inventive kills and a whole lot of bloodshed. One or two sequences are drawn out into a showcase of violence and pain, many others are all about the hilarity of how quickly some people can be killed when they're not hidden away in a protective bubble. Everything is very enjoyable for those who were eager to rejoin Weaving in another bit of deadly gameplay.

And special recognition has to go to costume designer Avery Plewes on the outstanding dress that makes an important appearance in the very last scenes. You'll know what I'm on about when you see it. It's a stunning look, but also nicely in line with the journey that the main character has been on.

7/10

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The Toxic Avenger (2023)

While it's hard to deny that we live in some truly dire times (I mean . . . *gestures at everything around us*), it's also pleasing to note that we now live in a world that has given us a new Toxic Avenger movie. And not just any Toxic Avenger movie. This is written and directed by Macon Blair, and has a cast that includes Peter Dinklage in the main role, Jacob Tremblay, Taylour Paige, Kevin Bacon, Elijah Wood,  Julia Davis, and Sarah Niles.

Dinklage plays Winston, a man who will eventually be transformed into the titular (anti/super)hero, although his character is brilliantly portrayed by Luisa Guerreiro. Anyway, Winston is trying to bond with his step-son, Wade (Jacob Tremblay), both still grieving the loss of the main woman they loved, but has his standard routine of drudgery and self-doubt interrupted by a chain of events that lead to his body being dumped into a load of toxic sludge. And that's when The Toxic Avenger is born, just in time to help a plucky investigative reporter (J. J. Doherty, played by Paige) reveal the truth about a corrupt pharmaceutical company headed by Bob Garbinger (Bacon).

The first thing I want to say about The Toxic Avenger is that it's a bit too long, the runtime is just over 100 minutes, and it could have moved things into place in the first act much quicker than it does, but there's a very satisfying pay-off for most of the plot points set up here. While I enjoyed a lot of it, I feel that the pacing really works against it, and others may well feel the same.

Everything else I have to say about the film is pretty positive though, despite me not being as completely won over by it as others were. The cast is uniformly great, with Paige being an essential strong heartbeat for a film so populated with over the top villainy and silly grotesqueries. Dinklage has a lot of fun as the loser who watches his life go from bad to worse to toxic, Tremblay is able to be both a bit sullen and very vulnerable, as required, and Bacon, Wood, and Davis are a dangerous trio that wouldn't look out of place in a big-budget Batman movie. It's Toxie front and centre, but Paige plays her part so well that she helps to ground the ridiculous gore and gags, reminding you that there are people onscreen who are desperate for help . . . even if it comes in the shape of a very unlikely "hero".

It may keep itself slightly distanced from the worst elements of Troma Entertainment, where the main character originated, but fans will be happy to find that it has a spirit, and a commmitment to excessive amounts of gore and bodily harm, that aligns it nicely with body of work we've had throughout the decades from "Uncle Lloyd" and co.

There's room for improvement here, and room for even more detached limbs and geysers of blood, but Blair has done a hell of a job to walk a perilous tightrope. This should please both fans of the original movies and relative newcomers who go into their viewing with some idea of what it's aiming for. I'll be rewatching it, probably more than I would ever rewatch any of the other movies in the series, and I encourage others to at least throw some rental money towards it. How else am I going to get my long-gestating Class Of Nuke 'Em High remake made?

8/10

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Prime Time: The Trust (2016)

Part dark comedy, part crime thriller, The Trust is a very odd film that deserves to be seen by more people. The fact that it gives another starring role to Nicolas Cage may have put some people off, this was released before his latest renaissance (although *cough* some people have always enjoyed Cage onscreen, no matter the majority opinion), and maybe the fact that it's a hard film to pin down, tonally.

Cage plays Stone, a cop who comes up with what he thinks is a great plan to deliver a huge payday for himself and Waters, a friend and colleague (played by Elijah Wood). Stone has figured out the location of what could very well be an overflowing safe, one that has been filled up with profits from criminal activity. If Stone and Waters can break into it then it's a win-win, because they end up rich and the only immediate victims are the crooks. But it doesn't take long for things to start going . . . a bit wrong.

Directed by Alex and Benjamin Brewer, the latter also having co-written the script with Adam Hirsch, The Trust is an enjoyably slippery film, moving from something close to a buddy cop film to a riff on the “heist gone wrong” movie. The central characters are easy to like, even as circumstances start to push them to act more unpleasantly, and the third act is an enjoyable storm of bad luck and confusion.

Cage and Wood are both very enjoyable in the lead roles. Cage plays his character in a very controlled, and slowly deliberate, manner. Wood, on the other hand, is a bit more antsy, and his character is really only willing to go along with everything if he can keep convincing himself that it is risk-free. There are a few other supporting cast members, including Sky Ferreira, Ethan Suplee, Steven Williams, and Jerry Lewis (given a cameo that pops up at just the right time to remind viewers to keep paying attention).

Although everything is well put together, the easy rapport between Cage and Wood is the main reason to watch this, and your opinion of the film will depend on how you feel about the two stars. They are bad cops, but good bad cops, if you know what I mean, and it is fun to see them put more energy and effort into their plans for robbery than they put into their standard workdays. There’s also a very enjoyable score from Reza Safinia, which I have to mention here because of the feeling I had that I’d heard it elsewhere (it turns out that parts of it were reminding me of the remix of “Radioactivity” by Fatboy Slim).

Maybe a difficult one to recommend, the comedy is very dark and the crime/thriller side of things is played lightly in between sudden bursts of violence, but I will recommend it anyway. It’s good to watch something occasionally that is quite hard to place neatly in any pigeonhole.

7/10

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Come To Daddy (2019)

Any film that features Elijah Wood shuffling around with the haircut of that guy that used to live at the back of our local shops and carry his whole life around in a dozen plastic bags is going to be a) weird, and b) worth your time. Come To Daddy is certainly weird. It's also very much worth your time.

Directed by Ant Timpson, who also came up with the idea for the story which was turned into screenplay form by Toby Harvard, it's almost not worth going into detail here. Suffice to say, Come To Daddy is best enjoyed without knowing any of the twists and turns it contains, and it's also a film in which many of the characters are pretending to be someone they're not. That goes for Norval Greenwood (Wood), his father, and anyone else who wanders into the proceedings.

I guess I should still try to summarise. Here's the most vague summary I can come up with. Norval Greenwood embarks on a trip to reconnect with his estranged father. Hijinks ensue. And when I say hijinks I am actually referring to conflict, tension, and a disturbing scene involving a pen smeared with feces. That covers the main points.

Wood is a lot of fun here. He's clearly uncomfortable at all times, trying to impress someone he shouldn't be that bothered by, and clearly trying to keep up a facade. Stephen McHattie is as good as ever, antagonising Wood and being thoroughly unlikeable, while also being inherently likeable due to his innate McHattie-ness, you get a small role for Martin Donovan, and there's a scene-stealing turn from Michael Smiley, who comes into things at about the halfway mark and really shakes everything up with the nature of his character.

Timpson puts everything together well, following the twisty script from Harvard while allowing the strong performances to carry viewers through the building atmosphere of head-messing strangeness and general what-the-fuckery. While it's no surprise to discover that this is written by someone who helped to write The Greasy Strangler, it's very easy to assume that Timpson has a number of other features to his credit already. He doesn't. This is his feature directorial debut, but there's nothing to signify that in the slick professionalism of the final product.

This won't work for everyone, and if you dislike it then I can safely assume that you will probably REALLY dislike it, but if you hop on for this dark and twisted ride, willing to go along with it all, then I think you will be able to appreciate it as a bold and warped thriller that also has a rich vein of pitch-black comedy running all the way through it. You just need to know what you're getting into, which is a film that doesn't want you to ever be sure or what you're getting into. Does that all make complete sense? No? Good, you're ready to check out the film now.

8/10

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Netflix And Chill: Maniac (2012)

It was surely a fool's errand to even try to remake the notorious Maniac (1980), the film directed by William Lustig that remains a disturbing and grimy modern horror classic to this day. And Elijah Wood being involved? I am one of many who generally guffawed at the idea. Guffaw, I say, and guffaw again.

And here we are, eight years later. This remake has been acclaimed as a great film by many horror fans, and Wood has made a lot of interesting choices over the course of his career that highlight what a big horror movie fan he is. I figured it was time to finally see if this would work for me.

It definitely did.

Wood plays Frank, the maniac of the title. He spends most of his evenings killing women, scalping them, and placing the scalps on mannequins that he views as being able to act like live women. He tries to keep his worst impulses under control when he meets a young actress, Anna (Nora Arnezeder). But a man like Frank cannot keep everything under control for long.

Written by Alexandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur, who have both worked previously with director Franck Khalfoun, this is a very smart updating of the original Joe Spinell screenplay, and also manages to side-step the big hurdle of trying to replace the irreplaceable Spinell in the lead role. They do this by showing most of the movie from the POV of Frank, which makes it fresh and also makes it easier to avoid direct comparisons. And yet the spirit of the thing remains the same. This is a nasty piece of work, the central character is a nasty piece of work, and the death depicted onscreen is disturbing and visceral.

Wood, although not shown all that often, is actually quite a revelation in this role. He makes the most of his usual reserved style, but layers it under something disturbing and almost pulsating with murderous instinct. Arnezeder does well in her role, the one female who gets time to show herself as more than just what Frank is projecting. And there are others who do well, even as they just appear long enough to set themselves up as victims a lot of the time. America Olivo is Frank's mother, while Genevieve Alexandra, Liane Balaban, Megan Duffy, and Jan Broberg have a number of memorable moments.

In much the same way as the original, it would be easy to dismiss this as a misogynistic film. There ARE male victims, but they're killed off in a way that feels more flippant than the treatment given to the women. But that is what the main character does. His mind views women a certain way, he wants to kill women, that is his main aim. It's misogyny because he is the misogynist, and the film shows him descending further and further into a quicksand hell of his own making. It's not comfort viewing for anyone, but it's very well done, and horror fans will want to check it out.

I delayed and delayed this viewing, and I really shouldn't have. Don't make the same mistake.

8/10

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Sin City (2005)

Cool, stylish, almost perfectly cast, and with many frames that look ripped straight from the pages of Frank Miller's original work, it's hard not to consider Sin City as one of the best comic-book movies of all time.

Director Robert Rodriguez, helped by Quentin Tarantino, also wrote the screenplay, and sets out from the very beginning to immerse viewers in a stark, black and white world of anti-heroes and villains. There are splashes of colour here and there, depicting bloodshed, strong feelings, or even just a nice pair of eyes. One other bonus, this was one of the last few films made to star Bruce Willis before he decided to sleepwalk into every paycheck.

There are little extra bits interspersed throughout, but the move iss mainly made up of three tales. In one, Bruce Willis plays an old cop who wants to get his man (Nick Stahl) at any cost. His perp is a sicko, but he's a sicko with a rich, influential father (Powers Boothe). In the second tale we get to meet Marv (Mickey Rourke), a big, brute of a man moves to action when he's set up for a murder he didn't commit. The murder of a woman that he felt great affection for. Clive Owen clashes with Benicio Del Toro in the third tale, leading to a situation that could cause a lot of trouble for the deadly working girls of Sin City. And then it's back to that dogged cop, many years later but no less determined.

As well as those mentioned, Sin City also features Josh Hartnett, Jaime King, Michael Clarke Duncan, Rutger Hauer, Elijah Wood, Rosario Dawson, Brittany Murphy, Jessica Alba, Carla Gugino, Alexis Bledel, Michael Madsen, Devon Aoki, and many more. It's certainly a star-studded cast but, more than that, everyone feels perfect for the role given to them.

Featuring his usual cool soundtrack accompanying the visuals, this manages to feel both like a great Frank Miller film and also a great Rodriguez joint. It's almost a perfect marriage of material and director.

Unfortunately, it doesn't hold up quite as well on repeat viewings. It's still very enjoyable, and consistently gorgeous to look at (seriously, freeze frame it at almost any moment and you get a gorgeous comic panel), but the pacing could have been tightened up slightly to bring the movie in under two hours, with the Owen/Del Toro section of the movie dragging things down badly.

For those who like their movies steeped in traditional aspects of cinema, this is a love or hate film. Shot almost entirely on green screen, with only a few real sets utilised, it's a unique experience, but one that absolutely works, in my opinion, due to the nature of the material.

If you want nuance and realism then feel free to reach for a thousand other movies before this one. But if you want something cool, visually stunning, and with moments of painful ultra-violence, then this might just be the ticket.

8/10

http://www.amazon.com/Sin-City-Blu-ray-Powers-Boothe/dp/B00FAHYNYC/ref=sr_1_1?s=movies-tv&ie=UTF8&qid=1408780621&sr=1-1&keywords=sin+city

And UK folks, don't forget to check out a double-bill at the cinema this weekend, while a lot of venues are showing this and Sin City: A Dame To Kill For. Such tickets can be found at sites like this one - http://www.picturehouses.co.uk/cinema/Cameo_Picturehouse/News/item/Sin_City_Sin_City_A_Dame_To_Kill_For/

The Faculty (1998)

Robert Rodriguez hasn't made many bad movies. I won't be silly enough to say that he hasn't made ANY bad movies, despite the fact that I have somehow avoided the ones that people consider real stinkers (*cough* The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl *cough*), but he's got a pretty good hit rate, in my opinion. Thankfully, The Faculty is one of his many good movies.

It's a teen sci-fi horror written by Kevin Williamson AKA Kevin "Scream" Williamson that also happens to feature one of the best casts assembled for such material. And Usher.

Herrington High is a typical American school, but things are changing. When Casey Connor (Elijah Wood ) isn't being picked up by bullies, and having his legs splayed to allow them to smash his crotch into the flagpole, he's observing life around him. Some things are strange, like star football player Stan (Shawn Hatosy) deciding that he wants to concentrate on academic pursuits as opposed to sports, some things are just nice to observe, like Delilah Profitt (Jordana Brewster), and some things are strange lifeforms found on the school grounds that could indicate a potential takeover by alien life forms. Yeah, that last thing leads to Casey teaming up with Stan, Delilah and some other students as they realise that their school may be ground zero for an alien invasion. High school may not seem to be a standard battlefield for an alien invasion, but as Casey says: "If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White House 'Independence Day' style, or sneak in through the back door?"

What I like to do sometimes, as people may have noticed, is reel off a cast list when I think that it speaks for itself. Read the following list and try to argue that it's not one of the best blends of old hands and new talent thrown together for a sci-fi horror movie. I've already mentioned Wood, Hatosy and Brewster, but there's also Clea DuVall, Laura Harris, Josh Hartnett, Piper Laurie, Bebe Neuwirth, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick, Christopher McDonald, Jon Stewart and Daniel von Bargen. And Usher. Everyone does a great job. And Usher.

The script by Williamson and the direction by Rodriguez are both as cine-literate as you'd expect, with ever scene throwing up a wealth of references, in-jokes and foreshadowing. It's a very nicely constructed movie, one that works in terms of a teen movie and also a sci-fi horror without neglecting either. The fact that it's so subversive just adds to the appeal. I don't want to spoil any details for people who have yet to see it, but bad behaviour ends up paying dividends while fighting back against invading aliens. The soundtrack has some good tunes in the mix and the special effects are generally pretty great, mixing plenty of practical work with some solid CGI.

All in all, The Faculty is eminently rewatchable and just a fun time for fans of the subgenre.

8/10

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