The Host

The Host - Dir. Andrew Niccol (2013)

Whether you like it or not, author Stephenie Meyer created a worldwide phenomenon with her Twilight series. The books were adapted into a hugely successful film franchise as Twi-hards turned out in droves to watch Kristen Stewart choose between the hunky werewolf Jacob or the pale, sparkly vampire Edward. Meyer looked to catch lightning in a bottle once more with her follow-up novel The Host, which has been turned into a big-budget picture by Open Road Films and Universal.

The Host falls firmly into the realm of science fiction, but continues many of the themes Meyer tackled in Twilight, specifically teen romance and a female protagonist trying to find her place in a topsy-turvy world. The Host is basically Invasion of the Body Snatchers for tweens as the Earth is invaded by alien beings known as 'Souls.' The Souls quickly possess the majority of the human population with only a few scattered pockets of resistance. Among those still free is Melanie Stryder (Saoirse Ronan), whose father chose to kill himself rather than be taken. Melanie has survived on the run alongside her younger brother, Jamie (Chandler Canterbury), and boyfriend Jared Howe (Max Irons, son of Jeremy Irons). Unfortunately, she is captured on a supply run by a Seeker (Diane Kruger) and implanted with a Soul known as Wanderer. Melanie's spirit remains strong and she resists Wanderer's attempts to access her memories to discover the whereabouts of other free humans.

Melanie and Wanderer enter into a reluctant symbiosis as they evade the Seeker and journey to Melanie's home in the Arizona desert. There, her Uncle Jeb (William Hurt) has transformed a vast cave system into a self-sustaining sanctuary. Jeb takes Wanderer in and nicknames her Wanda in spite of everyone's protests and firm belief that Melanie is dead. The plot thickens when Wanda develops feelings for the hunky Ian O'Shea (Jake Abel).

The crux of the story revolves around the odd love triangle in which two girls share one body. It’s a credit to the abilities of Saoirse Ronan (who was cast after producers saw her in Hanna) that she is able to argue with herself less silly. This is certainly a Herculean task given the hoary dialogue Ronan is forced to speak, such as "Kiss me like you want to get slapped." The tangled romance loses more credibility given that Melanie/Wanda's love interests are a couple of cardboard cutouts from an Abercrombie & Fitch display. The movie slowly atrophies once it focuses on the young and the beautiful as they moon for each other.

The Host doesn't get off to a bad start. Director Andrew Niccol, who also helmed Gattaca and In Time (along with the underrated Lord of War), knows how to handle slick sci-fi. Niccol sets the right atmosphere by immersing us into the sleek, utilitarian society of the Souls with their chrome sports cars and minimalist shops simply named "Store." However, once The Host settles into the desert caves, the story slows to a crawl as we are introduced to a number of uninteresting characters and their equally insipid relationships. On the positive side, Melanie is a stronger and more independent heroine than Twilight's passive and mopey Bella. Also, you can always count on actors like William Hurt, Frances Fisher, and Diane Kruger to bring some gravitas to even the most lackluster material.

If you're going to watch a movie titled The Host, skip this Stephenie Meyer adaptation and go for Bong Joon-ho's monster movie instead.

Rating: * (*****)

After.Life

After.Life - Dir. Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo (2010)


Helmed by a first-time director, After.Life managed to attract a talented cast despite its shortcomings. The picture was directed and co-written by Agnieszka Wojtowicz-Vosloo whose only previous experience was an award-winning short made during her time at NYU. It’s an ultimately forgettable film, yet it managed to snag some big-name talent.

Christina Ricci stars as Anna Taylor, a pretty, young schoolteacher in a rocky relationship with successful attorney, Paul Coleman (Justin Long). One dark and stormy night, Anna and Paul get into an argument with Anna stomping away in a huff. She loses control of her car and wakes up on a slab in the basement of a funeral home run by Eliot Deacon (Liam Neeson). Even though Anna can still walk and talk, Eliot says she is dead. You see, Eliot has the power to speak to the recently deceased. Anna’s soul is in a transitional state before crossing over to the other side. Eliot is there to help in said transition. Or is he?

Anna has her doubts while Paul is convinced Eliot is hiding something. Of course, the inept police force doesn’t believe him. There’s also a creepy, little boy named Jack (Chandler Canterbury) who may also possess similar abilities to Eliot.

Wojtowicz-Vosloo wisely chooses atmosphere over cheap scares and gore. She has a good command of production design with effective uses of warm and cold colors, such as red and violet. She has a good eye, but the screenplay, which was co-written with Paul Vosloo and Jakub Korolczuk, leaves much to be desired. The dialogue tends to be heavy-handed with corny lines like, ”You’re a corpse. Your opinion doesn’t count anymore.”

After.Life strives for ambiguity, but the results are steeped with obviousness. There’s no real mystery behind the movie even without all the easy to spot clues. In fact, the longer the film plays with the audience, the more frustrating it becomes. Vosloo tries to throw us for a loop with a few creepy dream sequences. However, once the character wakes up, it feels like the rug is pulled out from under us. The filmmakers seem to be showing off rather than advancing the plot.

As he always does, Liam Neeson lends some credibility to the role even if his performance won’t stick in your memory. Ricci has incredibly expressive eyes and excels well as the troubled girl in distress. Justin Long is the only weak link in the main cast. He gives an overwrought performance in a role very similar to his turn in Sam Raimi’s Drag Me to Hell. Long’s strong suit is comedy and he lays it on too thick when attempting more dramatic roles.

The central concept of a mortician communicating with the corpse he’s preparing would be an interesting premise for a short film. Here, the concept feels padded out with flat characters and little in the way of suspense to hold your attention.

Rating: *

Repo Men

Repo Men - Dir. Miguel Sapochnik (2010)


"Can we have your liver?"

Repo Men takes us to a dystopian future where the economy and health care still sucks. The film was directed by Miguel Sapochnik, making his feature-length debut, working from a script by Eric Garcia and Garrett Lerner. The screenplay was based on a novel by Garcia called Repossession Mambo. Repo Men bares several striking similarities to the Gothic rock opera, Repo! The Genetic Opera, which began life as a stage show.

Jude Law and Forest Whitaker star as Remy and Jake, a pair of repo men working for the Union. The monolithic corporation has created state-of-the-art artificial organs (artiforgs) which it provides to the public on a seemingly easy installment plan. What their lead salesman, Frank (Liev Schreiber), fails to tell his clients is that the repo men will cut the organs out of you should you fail to miss a payment. Remy is the Union’s top repo man, but he has a change of heart (literally) when a malfunctioning defibrillator lands him in the hospital in need of a new ticker. Now possessing an artiforg of his own, Remy can no longer continue his line of work in good conscience. He descends into the lower rungs of society as a fugitive along with Beth (Alice Braga), a sultry nightclub singer with an assortment of artiforgs and cybernetic upgrades. A jilted Jake, who seems to have an obsessive bromantic attachment to his partner,

There’s also a perfunctory subplot involving Remy’s son and estranged wife, played by Carice van Houten in a thoroughly thankless role.

Repo Men had the makings of a decent action flick with two very dependable actors in the lead roles. Instead, the filmmakers seem more than happy to tread water with an utterly unoriginal production. Repo Men references (or rips off, depending on your POV) numerous movies which only serves to remind you just how inferior it really is in comparison. Their look of the future cribs Alfonso Cuaron’s Children of Men, the offices of the Union are right out of THX-1138 and Brazil, and there’s even a bizarre nod to David Cronenberg’s Crash. Worst of all, Repo Men also features the umpteenth knockoff of the famed hallway fight from Oldboy. In an advanced era of technology, it doesn’t make much sense for people to fight each other with meat cleavers and steak knives. On the other hand, there is a sly nod to the organ donor skit from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life, a likely inspiration. That may have more to do with Monty Python’s sheer awesomeness than Repo Men.

Jude Law has starred in several underrated sci-fi films like Gattaca, eXistenZ (another of Cronenberg’s), and Spielberg’s oft-maligned A.I. Repo Men cannot be considered one of them. It isn’t underrated, just undeserving. Undeserving of its great cast and undeserving of anyone’s time.

Rating: *½

Knowing

Knowing - Dir. Alex Proyas (2009)


Nicolas Cage continues the downward slide into direct-to-video limbo land with another lackluster effort. It’s not as bad a stinker as Bangkok Dangerous, but isn’t nearly as good (relatively speaking) as either of the National Treasure films. To his credit, Cage tones down the odd mannerisms and dons a believable hair piece for his role of John Koestler, an astrophysics professor at MIT. The son of a pastor, Koestler has turned away from his religious upbringing following the death of his wife in a hotel fire. He is left alone to raise his son, Caleb (Chandler Canterbury). He hardly speaks to his younger sister, Grace (Nadia Townsend), and never speaks with his father.

Koestler boils the film’s themes down to a classroom lecture when he poses the question, is life a series of calculated & planned events or does shit just happen? Determinism vs. Randomness. Koestler believes shit happens and a lot of shit happens in Knowing.

In 1959, a class of elementary school students draws pictures to place inside a time capsule which won’t be opened until present day. One strange girl, Lucinda (Lara Robinson), hears whispering voices that compel her to jot down a page full of numbers. Flash forward to 2009 and Caleb receives Lucinda’s letter. Koestler discovers the numbers contain the dates of tragedies and disasters for the last fifty years along with the death tolls. 9/11, the Oklahoma City bombings, Hurricane Katrina, they’re all there. Soon, Koestler learns that the final numbers point to imminent catastrophes. Plus, there are a group of pale strangers with sinister intentions for his son.

If G.I. Joe has taught us anything, it is that knowing is half the battle. Knowing is half a film or, at least, two-thirds of one. The film is a hodgepodge of The Twilight Zone, Close Encounters, X-Files, and Left Behind. It ramps up suspense and creeps while building and building towards a big finish that can’t possibly live up to the expectations it sets. The predictable finale is heavy on the special effects, but light on any sense.

I’m a fan of Alex Proyas’s work. I loved The Crow and Dark City, both inspiring in their stylized Gothic/noir look. Yes, I even liked I, Robot. Not so much for the flimsy story, but more for the stunning eye candy. I’m not Proyas’s only fan. One of his biggest supporters is Roger Ebert who championed the cause to raise awareness for Dark City. Ebert gave Knowing four stars in his review and called it one of the best sci-fi films he’d ever seen. I must not have been watching the same picture. Visually, Knowing is a strong production. The film features two amazing set pieces. The first (shot uninterrupted) is a plane crash in which we follow Koestler through the rubble as he futilely attempting to help survivors, some on fire. Another major sequence is a subway crash in which two trains derail and cause massive damage. Both scenes are extremely visceral, but the film goes off its tracks just as badly, fizzling out to an anticlimactic finish.

Rating: * 1/2

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - Dir. David Fincher (2008)


Benjamin Button will stand for years to come as a monumental achievement in technical wizardry. However, the film isn’t there to service the special effects; the effects are there to service the film. Director David Fincher, known for darker fare (Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac), has created a vivid storybook tale of love and mortality.

Brad Pitt plays the title character for much of the film, usually hidden behind a layer of make-up and CGI effects. He is born at the end of World War I in New Orleans, except he is born with all the ailments of an 80 year-old man. His skin is wrinkled, his limbs are arthritic, and his eyes are stricken with cataracts. The baby’s mother dies giving birth and the father, Thomas Button (Jason Flemyng), leaves the baby at the doorstep of a nursing home. There, he’s taken in by Queenie (Taraji P. Hanson), the caretaker who names the baby, Benjamin. He begins life as a lame-legged old man, fitting right in with other inhabitants. Soon, he meets the red-haired Daisy (Elle Fanning as a child, Cate Blanchett as an adult), the granddaughter of another tenant. For Benjamin, it’s love at first sight while Daisy senses a kindred soul underneath his elderly exterior.

Benjamin devours life with a youthful exuberance. He explores New Orleans with a newly-arrived pygmy and gets a job on a tugboat with Captain Mike (Jared Harris). At sea, Benjamin sees more of the world and visits his first brothel. He travels to Russia where he has an affair with Elizabeth Abbot (Tilda Swinton), the wife of a British diplomat. Returning to the States, his relationship with Daisy goes through its ups and downs. It isn’t until the two reunite in their middle age that their love affair can finally begin. But, love is fleeting when Benjamin realizes he’ll grow younger and younger.

The script was co-written by Robin Swicord and Eric Roth who took inspiration from a 24 page short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald to create a near three hour masterpiece. Roth previously won an Oscar for his adaptation of Forrest Gump and you can clearly see echoes of that in Benjamin Button. Both films star a passive protagonist moving through the 20th century and a love that is doomed by circumstances worldly and physical. However, Button manages to avoid distilling almost an entire century of history into a series of contrivances and empty Hallmark platitudes. While this works great, there are two glaring omissions. Though Benjamin is raised by an adoptive black mother, the issue of segregation in the south is never mentioned. Sprinkled throughout the film are scenes with an aged Daisy on her deathbed as her daughter (Julia Ormond) reads from Benjamin’s diary just before Hurricane Katrina strikes. It feels like a superfluous addition when the tragedy isn’t truly addressed.

Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett give fine performances though not as strong as some of their other films. The romance between Benjamin and Daisy is at its strongest when they’re at their most miserable. It’s not nearly as interesting when they’re happy, frolicking in their sparsely furnished apartment as the Beatles play on The Ed Sullivan Show. The best performance belongs to Taraji P. Henson for her portrayal of Benjamin’s Butterfly McQueen-esque adoptive mother.

Rating: *** ½