Life of Andrew

A man made plague has swept the Earth. The small minority not killed outright are driven insane and rendered allergic to sunlight, forcing them to band together into a quasi-religious gang called The Family who hate the old civilisation that made them what they are. Only one man remains unchanged, a doctor who is immune to the contagion.

For the two years since the fall of civilisation the man has been under siege from the others, foraging in the city for supplies during the day while fending off The Family’s attacks by night. Things change when he meets some other unchanged survivors. Might it be possible to rebuild humanity?

A thick slice of early seventies ultra-cheese, The Omega Man is a good example of a film that is more than the sum of its parts. Charlton Heston is exceedingly well cast as a half insane loner who arms himself with automatic rifles against a world he doesn’t fit into, but he shows his limits when the script asks him to laugh a carefree lover’s laugh once he finally meets some other people. The Family are all suitably creepy, particularly Matthias, their leader, although they seem a little inconsistent in their belief system.

The film is well put together and has some very effective scenes of Heston wandering through an empty city. The incidental music is all elevator-lite pseudofunk which only adds to the sense of a world gone terribly wrong. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Charlton Heston movie without a little over-the-top religious symbolism laid on with a trowel, but this is kept to a minimum until the last ten minutes (at which point it really kicks into high gear with a groan-inducing lack of subtlety).

Recommended if you like this sort of thing. IMDB

In the far future of 1998, the Manhattan Island has been sealed off with walls and mines to create the largest maximum security prison in the world. Entirely unpoliced inside, the island is run by the inmates themselves, organised into vicious gangs lead by The Duke of New York. A plane carrying the president of the United States crashes right into the heart of this nightmare, and the authorities find that they are unable to mount an effective assault to get him back.

Enter Snake Plissken, a former war hero and current convicted bank robber. Due to be dumped in Manhattan due to his crimes anyway, Snake is made an offer he cannot refuse: rescue the president within 24 hours, or the explosive pellets that have just been injected into his neck will detonate!

What could have been a terrible film is more than redeemed by the talent involved in making it. John Carpenter was at the very top of his game in the early eighties, and the cast he somehow assembled fit their rolls perfectly, with Kurt Russel being especially good as Snake. The script is full of excellent twists and is never boring. The film’s one flaw is that the actual escape happens pretty abruptly due to a coincidence rather than good planning by the characters, but that is easily overlooked due to the amount of other craziness in the film.

Recommended if you like this sort of thing. IMDB

Serenity

A space opera with western sensibilities, Serenity is a continuation/swansong of the short-lived TV series Firefly, both from the brains behind Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One of the long-term passengers aboard the ship descends further into psychosis and endangers the whole crew, especially once an operative from the central government gets on the trail.

Serenity is a film I wanted to like more than I did, the premise is clever and features the same witty dialog and odd characters as the show, but the film suffers from having too much stuffed into it. The TV series worked well with the large cast because each crew member’s story could play out over a number of episodes. The film tries to include everyone from the series, and the whole thing just seems crowded. The first few minutes of the movie are a rather clever introduction to the characters, but I suspect someone without a passing knowledge of the show would be slightly lost.

On the plus side, the bad guy is earnest and actually has good reasons for doing what he does, unlike most movie villains. The story moves along at a blinding pace, so at least the movie is not boring.

The preceding paragraphs sound rather more negative than Serenity really deserves, the film contains many fine scenes and some truly funny dialog. Recommended if you like this sort of thing

The Incredibles

Excellent animation and an entertaining story make for a fun movie about a family of superheros who are forced to live as a normal family. The plot succeeds in working at many different levels, as a homily for kids about being different as well as slightly right-wing morality tale for adults (and there are all sorts of clever references to other superhero-themed works in the script).

Highly recommended

The Quiet Earth
A thoughtful sci-fi made in New Zealand in the eighties, staring ubiquitous 80′s NZ actor Bruno Lawrence and directed by ubiquitous 80′s NZ film marker Geoff Murphy. A scientist wakes up to find that everybody else in the world has mysteriously disappeared (along with the animals), possibly as a result of a secret world-wide experiment that the man was a small part of. After failing to find any other people still in existence, the man goes mad for a while before pulling himself together to try to work out exactly what happened. His solitude is eventually ended when he is found, first by a young woman and then later by another man, both with no connection to the experiment or to each other. The scientists tests reveal that the effect that removed everybody else is still occurring and convinces his companions to try to stop it.
Those who like their films to have a definite conclusion will be disappointed, The Quiet Earth deliberately keeps the central mystery obscure. Although strongly hinted, it is not entirely certain that the experiment is actually the cause of the effect, and the film’s ending is very ambiguous and can be interpreted in different ways. The production values are very high, especially for New Zealand film of it’s vintage, and there are many fine scenes of the bemused protagonist wandering around a deserted Auckland.
Recommended if you like this sort of thing.

Miami Vice
Two cops go deep undercover to penetrate an international drug ring. This movie basically recreates the plot and tone of the 80′s TV series, a show I never really liked. The movie looks pretty good, with the trademark slick editing and wall-to-wall incidental music of the original, but the plot ranks pretty low in the plausibility stakes and very high in predictability. The dialog is terrible, in some scenes the characters’ conversations just peter out as the actors take to staring into the middle distance trying to look cool with varying degrees of success. The actors are well cast and look the part but I am pretty sure Sonny’s hideous hair style contravenes any number of UN human rights conventions.
Not really recommended

I, Robot : nothing like the original stories, but enjoyable in its own right as a bit of mindless action. Its main problem with the film was the it spends a lot of time establishing that the new robots are incredibly strong and fast, only to have Will Smith take on about three hundred of them singlehandedly at the climax. At least they didn’t let him rap the theme song.

The Third Man : fantastic thriller/dark comedy written by Graham Greene about a naive American out of his depth investigating the death of his friend in post-war Vienna. The acting and direction racket up the tension. One problem is that the DVD box and credits clearly list Orson Wells as playing the man who is supposed to have died just before the start of the movie, so it is not much of a surprise when he turns up later.

Cannibal, the Musical : a movie by Trey Parker (of South Park fame), made when he was still a student. The music is not as polished as some of his later efforts, but the movie is well-paced and entertaining. Released by the infamous Troma film company, but much better than 95% of their other movies.

Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events : a children’s film, based on a series of books about 3 very unlucky orphans. Jim Cary is excellent (for once) as the villainous Count Olaf and the child actors are not too annoying, but the real star of the show is the art department – the film looks amazing. A perfect antidote to Harry Potter and all he stands for.