Skyline (2010)

My goodness, where to start? I think when the Strause brothers had the idea to blend War of the Worlds and Independence Day, they probably thought that they couldn’t go wrong. This surely is the only reason that they forgot to add a plot and interesting characters. But I’m getting ahead of myself, I should give a brief synopsis first shouldn’t I?

Big alien spaceships descend on Earth, and shine blue lights at people. The blue light seems to mesmerise whoever sees it, but at the same time sucks the life out of them or something (think becoming a Sith when playing Knights of the Old Republic). Soon however, the alien ships start hoovering people up. Our “heroes” try and escape; they don’t. Erm, that’s about it.

The good
It really is quite hard to find anything good in this film, but here goes. I think I liked the steely blue light that the aliens emit, it gives the film a specific feel and identity. Barrel? Bottom? Scraping? The other thing I thought was interesting (perhaps not good), was that early in the film during scenes involving characters sitting and talking, the camera would often be moving. This gave these scenes more of a documentary feel; perhaps trying to emulate the Cloverfield approach. I guess the design of some of the aliens was quite cool as well, though there were far too many that just looked like the sentinels from The Matrix.

The Bad
Everything else really. The first thing noticeable is how wooden the cast is; they really are just planks. Eric Balfour (Milo from 24) has absolutely no personality (he wasn’t that bad in 24 was he?), who knows what his girlfriend (Scottie Thompson) sees in him; though she is equally vacuous. The fact that she is pregnant is the only recognisable bit of character she has; this speaks volumes for our “heroes” story arc; erm, there isn’t one. Even Turk (Donald Faison) from Scrubs couldn’t save this film, though I did laugh (*Spoiler*) when he got squished; it was a very Samuel L Jackson in Deep Blue Sea moment: “recognisable actor, perhaps he isn’t actually dead? Oh, right, now he’s definitely dead!” There are a couple of other characters, including the hotel lobby concierge, all of whom we equally don’t care about.

Then there’s the sequence of random scenes plot. Aliens appear out of the sky; two of the characters go outside to have a look. Shit! Aliens! They go back inside. They try to drive to the marina because the aliens aren’t over the water, so they’ll be safe. ? Yes, the big huge massive inter-galactic aliens that are flying around cannot fly over the water? Turk gets squished, they all go back inside, until at the end there are only two of them left so they go up on the roof and are captured. That it. I’m all for a short snappy plot that makes sense, but Skyline really doesn’t seem to be going in any direction. I realise that having an over-complicated story opens up the possibilities for gaping plot holes (Skyline still manages a couple though), and you could end up with something as over bloated as the Transformers sequels, but for a film where aliens attack the earth everything feels very sedentary! Tellingly there is a deleted scene on the DVD of “hotel concierge’s backstory”; this deleted scene contains NO backstory whatsoever! I therefore conclude that the Strause brothers have no idea what a story is, never mind a backstory.

You just need to look at a recent film in a very similar vein to see how this genre should be done well. Attack the Block actually has a shorter run time than Skyline (just), yet there are characters that we feel invested in, and despite the siege situation, the characters aren’t baggage to the film, they are driving the film forwards; and the main couple of characters even get some development! Where the script in Attack the Block is razor sharp, in Skyline it is about as sharp as a balloon.

The Ugly
You would expect the film to end when our “heroes” are beamed up to one of the alien ships. No. We see inside the ship, and it seems that the blue light that the aliens have been shining around has been filling the humans’ brains with light, which the aliens then assimilate for energy.... or something...(?) Eric Balfour’s head is pulled off and his brain put into some creature... which then has power/energy whatever to do... whatever. Scottie Thompson however, predictably has her pregnancy detected and is spared for something else; but not before the alien boyfriend brain thing recognises her, beats up some other aliens and then caresses her. And she recognises him! *Headdesk!* The film should have ended 5 minutes ago!

The Strause brothers are visual effects guys, so why they suddenly decided they should direct feature films is a mystery. I did actually find AVP Requiem very entertaining, but I think this is because there is a Predator fighting Aliens rather than anything else. Actually there is very much a siege scenario in AVP Requiem as well; is this the only kind of story these guys know?

Bad acting, no real story, a re-hash of previous ideas, there is really nothing to recommend this film at all. Except some blue light...

Martha Marcy May Marlene (2011)

Cults should give excellent material for films given that they’re sinister, oppressive and could be capable of anything. This describes Martha Marcy May Marlene (MMMM) very well, except that Martha doesn’t really become part of a cult, it is more like a small commune. OK so the commune is still sinister, oppressive and capable of anything but they don’t outwardly appear to have any definite tenets.

Elizabeth Olsen’s Martha has spent two years with the “family” headed by the very creepy Patrick (John Hawkes), and having escaped is very confused and traumatised; she is then rescued by her sister and she tries to reconnect with normal life. The film narrative flips between time on the commune (including gardening, casual rape and murder), and Martha trying to deal with her emotional confusion and forgetting how to behave in normal society.

There is a very good performance from Olsen, she very believably shifts between confusion, vulnerability and anger. It is a very accomplished performance that would make you believe that she has a series of great movie performances under her belt, she hasn’t, this is only her second feature film. John Hawkes has a very malevolent presence as Patrick, I don’t think that his character had that many scenes, but he felt ever-present; and when he was on screen you just had the feeling that he was capable of anything (including playing a hauntingly beautiful song on the guitar!).

Though it is a very well made film, there are a lot of unanswered questions; and as to the ending? Well I don’t think I’ve seen a film before where a few members of the audience audibly said “Huh?” There is certainly no closure to the story, if indeed there was really a story arc! It is a good film, it just doesn’t follow the usual beginning middle and end format; OK so a lot of films don’t necessarily follow this format, but MMMM only really seems to have a middle!

The Sunday Scene #12: Aliens

Now of course there are many fantastic moments in Aliens, but for me one of the best is where Ripley explains about the Xenomorph to the crew of the Sulaco, so that they might know what they are facing. It demonstrates how Ripley is still feeling, her unease and reservations about coming along on this mission, whether or not she is escorted by a group of battle-hardened marines armed with sharp sticks etc. We can all relate to this; we have all been in situations where we have agreed to do something, and despite knowing it could be the right thing to do, that feeling of apprehension is ever-present: It really shows Ripley’s natural human side before her strong maternal instincts kick in and she becomes a real bad ass by the end of the film.

The other great part of this scene is the banter between all the marines. As I’ve mentioned before, one of the films real strengths is this rag-tag group of marines, they are written and acted so well that we can’t help but become invested in their fate. It is during this scene that the over-the-top fake bravado once again comes to the fore:

Vasquez: Look, man. I only need to know one thing: where they are.
Drake: Go, Vasquez. Kick ass.
Vasquez: Anytime, anywhere, man!
Hudson: Right, right. Somebody said "alien" she thought they said "illegal alien" and signed up!
Vasquez: Fuck you, man!
Hudson: Anytime, anywhere. 

Not only is it a razor sharp script, but it instantly shows us the dynamic of the group, and as a result makes them all the more human. This is before it all hits the fan of course.

Following this exchange and Gorman’s orders, one of the best characters has my favourite line in the whole film:

Apone: All right, sweethearts, you heard the man and you know the drill! Assholes and elbows!

Great scene, great film.

Trading Places (1983)

Trading Places is definitely a film of its time; when it was OK to laugh at people being called nigger, the world couldn't get enough of Eddie Murphy swearing or laughing, and Jamie Lee Curtis still looked good naked. I remember this film being really funny when I was a lot younger, but I didn't find it that funny now at all; there was one laugh out loud moment, but I can't remember what it was. Nice idea to swap a guy living on the streets for a successful stock trader, but I think these days the film just looks tired, and is full of too many clichés, though they probably weren't so clichéd in 1983. It even stars Marcus Brody Denholm Elliott as Dan Akroyd's butler!

The Grey (2012)

Not so much Dances with Wolves as Punches with Wolves!

The film starts by showing us the conditions and behaviour of oil workers in an Alaskan oil field. When a plane carrying a group of the oil workers back to Anchorage then crashes; one of the few survivors on board is Ottway (Liam Neeson) whose job it was to protect the workers from wolves back at the oil field. Surviving the plane crash was the easy part though, as the survivors have to endure freezing conditions and vicious wolves who seem to stop at nothing to tear the men to pieces.

Of course Ottway’s rifle is broken in the plane crash, otherwise The Grey would not be as tense, or gripping as it is. I’ve not seen any of Joe Carnahan’s other films, but with titles such as “Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane”, “Smokin’ Aces”, and “The A-Team”, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that The Grey is a totally different beast. There is much to like; most of all a driving, commanding performance from Liam Neeson. His performance puts me in mind of a big bear, albeit one who knows a lot about wolves and with great leadership qualities! Most of all he is grizzly, but we still see his wistful human side as we often flash back to time spent with his wife or father; this gives him enough background so that Ottway isn’t just a one-dimensional wolf-hater.

The rest of the cast are fine, nothing special, and it is only towards the end of the film that a few of them (the ones that are left) give us a bit of their back-story; but this doesn’t really detract from the main thrust of the film. The other major feature of the film is the scenery which is very dramatic and, perhaps unsurprisingly, very grey; all of the wide shots are very washed out and, more often than not, very cloudy. This of course all adds to the atmosphere of the film which is overwhelmingly bleak, just like the characters' chances of survival.

I can’t think of anything particularly bad to say about the film, which is a odd thing to say as it is not a perfect film; though there were a few moments when I wanted to shout at the screen "why the hell did you do that?" However it is very tense, and has some great action sequences, all driven forward by Neeson’s great performance. The wolves are very well done, extremely vicious and seriously menacing; we never see that much of them, a real case of less is more. The story is fairly straightforward, but there is enough to make the film much better than a simple resumé of the plot would indicate.