Conan the Barbarian: That barbarian movie

Someone described  to me the first scene of Conan before I even considered buying a ticket. In fact, I had asked a friend of mine to go see it under the suggestion that we would be seeing a  so-bad-it’s-good-then-bad-and-good-again movie, full of bloody over the top combat, one-liners and decapitations. The scene in question goes like this: a woman, in full battle gear, is stabbed while fighting off supposed evildooers. Her husband comes to her side, and she cries out that her last wish in life is to view her unborn son. The husband then cuts open a hole in her stomach, reaches in, and pulls out the baby to show it to his fallen wife. And, of course, that baby happens to be Conan.

The unfortunate side effect to going way over the hill with a concept like Conan is that it has to be done properly (or improperly, whichever you prefer). You either have to go full out terrible, or entertainingly enjoyable with a little side of cheese to make you laugh. Considering we’re talking about an action movie with a budget of 90$ million, there better be some breaktaking action mixed with deadpan unintentionally hilarious dialogue. And lots of gore (can never have enough gore). I could go on about what a fantastic barbarian movie could and should have, but the reality is that Conan has very few of these elements, and what elements it does have don’t quite gel with the others. The acting is atrocious, but the actors don’t have anything to sink their teeth into. The plot is nonsensical, but in an entirely boring kind of way. The action sequences are less than inspired, with monsters taken straight out of The Mummy franchise, suspense ranging on negative values, and an ending that’s too confusing to reach any sort of climax. There’s nothing remotely neat to look at either: the most the director could come up with was a double sword. A double sword, people! As if a double sword and mummy zombies are going to keep anyone’s attention fixed for an entire 30 minutes. For shame.

The other major element hindering the success of Conan is Jason Momoa as the lead character. Everyone knows who Conan is, and how he should be portrayed. He’s brash, dumb but not stupid, built like a brick wall and has long hair. He’s also a barbarian, and probably has an accent in most situations. Momoa is built and somewhat brash, but not really. That is all. It’s probably the least engaging performance by any actor this year, and will be the front-runner for a Razzie all the way through to next year. He pulls off the trifecta of boring you with his acting, his personality and his action sequences. It’s all around pathetic, and yes, he deserves an award for it, but for the sake of the small audience that could potentially go to his next movie, I hope he never acts again.

I’ll never again see a Jason Momoa or Marcus Nispel movie in theatres, and especially not in 3D. I watched Marcus Nispel’s Pathfinder on DVD not too long ago, and should’ve taken the hint before getting my friends on board to buy a 15$ ticket to his latest mess. The guy used stock footage of an avalanche, for crying out loud! And that wasn’t even the worst part of Pathfinder, a movie so bad my girlfriend, her brother and I had to use our own dialogue to fill in whatever the hell was going on on-screen.  It belonged in the 5$ bin at Zellers, next to Transformers 2 and Doom, and that’s exactly where you’ll find Conan in another few months.  

  

True Legend: You always hurt the ones you love

Yuen Woo-Ping’s True Legend was not what I had expected it to be. Going into the film, I only really thought about his last North American distributed movie, Iron Monkey, which was amusing, funny and light-hearted.  And I knew he had choreographed The Matrix, which wasn’t so much funny (save for Keanu, he makes me chuckle), but was popcorn friendly fun action fare. His latest was, well... not. It was, in fact, a dark family-based melodrama centered around alcoholism, abuse and the ability of people to overcome these things and find something meaningful in life. And while it wasn’t perfect, it made me shed  a tear by the end.

The story centers around Su (Man Cheuk Chiu), a top general in the emperor’s army during the Qing dynasty, who is offered a job as governor of Hu Bei following a victorious battle against a rivalling faction. He consults his step-brother, Yuan (Andy On), about the promotion, and kindly offers it to him instead, Su himself wanting a more peaceful quiet life teaching Wushu. Years later, it’s discovered that Su’s father was responsible for Yuan’s father’s death, which lead to Yuan and his sister Ying (Xun Zhou) having been raised in Su’s family. Yuan, looking full-on S&M zombified, comes back to town for revenge, and begins to destroy Su’s entire life, from killing his father to kidnapping his son and sending him and Yuan’s sister, now married to Su, off a cliff and into a waterfall. Both manage to make it out alive, and are aided in their recuperation by Sister Yu (Michelle Yeoh), who invites the couple to live in the mountains with her. The rest of the movie surrounds Su’s path back to health, both physically and mentally, with the ultimate goal of rescuing their son from Yuan and exacting revenge.

Up until the point Su and Ying reach the mountains, the movie really did look like the typical “hero gets beaten down, hero recuperates, learns a few lessons, and comes back to win” plot. It had all the trimmings of it. And you can be sure the hero does beat the villain, quite brutally actually (I’m not putting spoiler alert here, so if you watch this movie and can’t figure out that Yuan is getting it in the end, you’re not smart enough to operate electronic devices and read this review). What makes this movie veer off course from that typical plotline is the way the hero comes back, and what ensues after Su beats Yuan. The whole movie revolves around alcoholism. At each turn, whenever Su needs to deal with a new harrowing challenge, he turns to the stuff, only to have to pick himself up, recover from the abuse he’s done to his mind, and hop back on the path to getting his life back. Even Yuan, in one of the most symbolically anti-alcohol scenes I’ve ever seen in a kung fu movie, fights Su through shelves and shelves of alcohol in the basement of Yuan’s lair (perhaps explaining why Yuan was such a screwed up abusive degenerate  to his family). It becomes almost disconcerting as we’re so used to seeing strong unflappable characters as the ultimate warriors who just need a little extra above their normal self to defeat the villain. Here, both hero and villain are entirely flawed and problematic. Su is generous and friendly one day, childlike and bratty the next, courageous the next, then back to being a total mess. If it weren’t for a few flaws in the movie, it might’ve been one of the most heartfelt portrayals of alcoholism and the toll it takes on a family I’ve ever seen.

Unfortunately, a couple of major flaws take away from the emotional impact felt by the end of the film. The script could’ve used a bit of reworking, especially to flow from one plot point to the next without seeming forced or contrived (the ending as well was a bit of a disappointment). It moves at an uneven pace for the most part, some parts moving way too quickly and others way too slowly, with a few totally unecessary scenes thrown in.  And the acting, especially at the beginning, is a little off. Nitpicking aside though, you had to be pleasantly surprised by the effort put forth by Woo-Ping.  The martial arts choreography was tense and entertaining, and the  story was heartfelt. By the end, the audience is completely engaged by what’s going on on-screen, concerned for the welfare of the protagonist, and cheering as the final battle unfolds. You can’t ask for too much more in a kung-fu drama.

Bangkok Knockout: Everything but the kitchen sink

This was easily the most fun I’ve had watching an action movie in the past few years. I’m not sure if it was the crowd -Fantasia crowds are unusually raucaus and react to mostly anything spectacular – but this was... man, this was spectacular. I’ve never seen so much human carnage happen all at once, except in a few video games. And really, this is what the movie would feel like if it weren’t for some clever writing, and terrible, mind-blowing awful, hilariously over the top bad acting. In essence, it’s got everything you could ever want in a martial arts movie.

                The story lends itself to martial arts shenanigans right from the start. A group of stunt workers nicknamed Fight Club win a chance to work making movies in Hollywood. While celebrating, they get drugged and kidnapped in an abandoned building, forced to confront an endless array of baddies as part of a live action show that random strangers with money can gamble on. Each time a member (or members) of Fight Club goes up against a baddy, there’s a certain amount the viewers are allowed to bet with odds made haphazardly by the ringleader, Mr. Snead (Speedy Arnold) (What the hell is a Speedy Arnold?). Funny that the name suits the tone of that one little room of gamblers, as each one is hilarious in their own right. There’s a Russian who speaks english, horribly, without added subtitles, so the audience kind of laughs because everyone else is looking at one another asking, “did you understand what the hell he just said?”  Same for the oriental woman (I assume she’s Thai, but it’s not very clear), who’s english is even worse. You’ve got a black American who doesn’t speak much, a the Thai man who you’re supposed to hate (he’s betraying his own people), but can’t muster the energy to do anything but chuckle at his terrible terrible awful atrocious putrid acting. In other words, high comedy.

                Because this is a movie that’s based on martial arts, the entire thing hinges on the stunts and choreography. So while you’re laughing at the winks to the audience and the so bad it’s-good-then-bad-then-good -again acting, you’re also marveling at the sheer size, volume and intensity of the thai boxing and kung fu. Each scene begins as a versus match from a video game, but then escalates to include other fighters, knives, swords, wood planks, metal beams, axes, an armored car, flamethrower, motorbike, guns, and well... pretty much everything. By the end of the movie, it’s a free for all of insane kung-fu-ery, with the camera just filming all the actors and stuntmen literally just going at it, nonstop, for a good half hour.You almost think they’re really trying to beat the crap out of each other.  And when you think it’s all over, and the good guys win, it goes on, and gets better and more ridiculous.

                Topping everything off are winks to the audience about how ridiculous the entire thing is, from the seemingly purposely terrible acting, to a few good fighting gags, and great one liners.  It’s self-conscious, but in the best way, and it’s really just the cherry on the cake that makes you leave with a shit-eating grin once the film’s over. I’m almost shocked that I still can’t find any information about this movie online, let alone an actual cast (I completely forgot who was who in the melee of fighting, I think one guy was named Pod, and Mop, and maybe there was a Joy in there too). It’s too bad, because while it might be low budget, and by no means would I call it GOOD, but calisse de merde, it’s pretty fucking awesome.

               

Burke and Hare: It’s time to grow up, John.

To be honest, I’m not sure I’m really the right person to review this movie. I don’t think I’ve seen more than one movie directed by John Landis (I watched Beverly Hills Cop III twice about 10 years ago, and all I can’t even remember what that was about), though by all accounts, he hasn’t been relevant since the 80’s and he hasn’t even directed a full feature film since Susan’s Plan in 1998 (thank you, IMDB). With Burke and Hare, I assumed this was his attempt to move back into the mainstream and to delve into a darker form of comedy than what he had been developing in his early career. After all, Animal House, Coming to America and Blues Brothers are not thematically in the same vain as a story about the sale of dead bodies. While he might, to some effect in the long run, accomplish one of these goals, I’m sorry to say that, for the most part, he fails to materialize the latter.

                The movie centers around two friends, William Burke (Simon Pegg) and William Hare (Andy Serkis), fast talking salesmen trying to make a quick buck selling junk to the townspeople of Edinburgh, Scotland. Hare’s wife Lucky (Jessica Hynes) is depressed at the financial situation that she and her husband face (flat broke), until the day they find one of the lodgers renting a room from their town inn dead. A recent political battle between two high-standing physicians, Dr. Robert Knox (Tom Wilkinson) and Dr. Alexander Munro (Tim Curry), has lead to qualms about the division of recently deceased bodies to be donated to medical research, with Dr. Munro having imposed a proclamation stating that all dead bodies be delivered to his institute, the College of Physicians. Burke and Hare, quick to latch onto new business opportunities, decide to bring the body over to Dr. Knox, who starts to pay the two for any bodies they happen to bring to his lab, regardless of how they obtain them. The two, along with Lucky, set off on a spree of what amounts to murdering numerous innocent people, selling the bodies to the doctor, and quickly getting rich in the process.  Meanwhile, Burke begins financing a production of Hamlet for his new crush, Helen McDougal (Isla Fisher), to star in, without ever explaining where the money being used to finance the play is coming from. 

That’s pretty much the gist of it, save for a couple of other side stories, such as the competition between Dr. Knox and Dr. Munro to make groundbreaking discoveries, and the involvement of 19^th century gangsters in Burke and Hare’s new business, though neither really amounts to having any real profound effect on the main story. In fact, I’d be hard pressed to tell you what the point of the film as a whole was, except to move from plot point to plot point while interjecting with as many sight gags, tongue-in-cheek jokes, and slapstick humor as possible. It’s a little off-putting, mainly because of the subject matter mixed with the tone of the movie. We’re talking about two desperate men who kill people for money for seemingly good intentions, but they ARE murdering people. It starts off small with the elderly and homeless, but eventually people are lured to the inn, only to be slaughtered and sold. This is some seriously dark shit. Yet the tone of the movie never wavers from off-beat quirky comedy. The cheap jokes are piled onto every single scene, no matter the gravitas of it. I suppose this would be appropriate for a bad romantic comedy, and I’m assuming this is the kind of thing he did with Blues Brothers 2000, and maybe a few other movies, but it just doesn’t click here, mostly because though it’s advertized as a black comedy, it’s really white as day mixed with lots of death and inhumanity.

This is an unfortunate turn for a movie peppered with an amazing cast. Mostly everyone does a fine job with the material they’re given, especially Andy Serkis, who I hadn’t seen in a live-action role until this film, and nails a lot of the subtler jokes quite well. None of them have very well fleshed out characters though, so they’re not exactly deemed with giving a huge amount of depth to the performances. And the misuse of Tim Curry alone deserves a good ripping. It’s not often Curry plays a role in a feature film (he really does a crapload of television and voice work mostly)(again, props to IMDB), but when you hear the name, you instantly think you’re going to get something compelling and hilarious. I can’t remember any movie specifically with Tim Curry in it, besides Rocky Horror, and yet I can’t help but feel that  attaching his name to a movie brings credibility to it, and gives you a way to define what genre you’re about to see. You just know the guy can ham it up with the best of them, and you’re not going to get to see him do this many more times in the future, so it better damn well turn out good. And damn you, Landis, for wasting his entire character and debasing him with bad severed foot jokes. Jerk.

There’s really no one else to put the blame on for the failing of this movie. John Landis chose to get back into the business, and, as such, he shoulders any blame for whatever criticism comes his way. No, the movie is not terrible. It’s got redeeming qualities. It’s funny in some places, and casually entertaining. You can’t call it a success by any measure, though. By the end of it, I didn’t remember any of the better parts, and I didn’t care to repeat any of it in my mind. It was a cheap joke placed in a nice looking wrapper, and, as such, entirely forgettable. It’s time to grow up, Landis, and give the audience something better to sink their teeth into.

   

A Horrible Way to Die: High concept, low value

The director of A Horrible Way to Die, Adam Wingard, and writer, Simon Barrett, made appearances before the screening of the film. Wingard has two other movies showing at Fantasia (Pop Skull and What Fun We Were Having: 4 Stories About Date Rape), and he described this one as his first attempt at directing non-supernatural  horror. He went as far as to say that the original idea for making A Horrible Way to Die was to create a Gus Vant Sant serial killer movie. He finished up his short speech by handing the mic to his writer, who didn’t say very much and proceeded to sign off by informing the audience of a Q&A session that would be held after the film, and then saying, “enjoy the movie, we hope you don’t hate it.” The good news, Mr. Barrett, is that I didn’t hate it. The bad news is that I didn’t quite like it much either.

                The movie centers around a simple enough plot. A woman, Sarah (Amy Seimetz), is getting back on track with her life after leaving her deranged boyfriend Garrick Turrell (AJ Bowen), a famous serial killer locked away in prison at the beginning of the film. She attends AA meetings every week, trying to recover from her stint of alcoholism during the time she was seeing Garrick, and she befriends another member, Kevin (Joe Swanberg), who takes a liking to her and eventually asks her out. Things seem to be getting better for Sarah, albeit slowly, until Garrick breaks out of prison, and comes heading right back to his ex-girlfriend, leaving a trail of torture and death in his wake. 

                Straightforward enough story, right? Imagine you’re a producer and someone pitches this idea to you, and says “we’d like to make a tense relationship-driven thriller.” Sounds like a good idea, with lots of potential, no? One can visualize the ideas that the director wanted to explore: the pain of recovering from alcoholism, the issues inherent in trusting people once that trust has been broken, the relationship between a killer and his victims. In this sense, and this sense alone, is this movie successful. The ideas are there, they just weren’t implemented properly, and the execution is entirely amateurish and sloppy.

                So where to begin? For starters, the cinematography is the aspect that suffers the most under Wingard’s direction. The story, without much humour or lightheartedness, calls for something subtle and intimate. I’d qualify it as such, were it not for the excessive movement of the camera and focusing in and out of random objects at random times. Instead of allowing the lens to focus on the personalities at play, which would’ve worked to force the audience into absorbing whatever painful emotions were being strewn about by the characters, the camera is constantly shifting and moving erratically, as if this was some sort of effect to tell us, “look how the camera shifts, how deep and excruciating!” No, Mr. Wingard, quite the opposite, in fact. I could go on and on about the misuse of camera angles but there’s much more review to write and... aw screw it.  Let’s make a list:

1. Kevin approaches Sarah next to her car, conversation ensues while the camera, AS KEVIN IS SPEAKING, moves to the ceiling of the car, across to the side, down to her legs, unfocuses, then moves back to his head in time for him to finish whatever he was saying (I forgot because I was so drawn to wherever the hell the camera was going).
2. Sarah and Kevin are out on a date at a fancy Italian restaurant, and again, midsentence, the camera starts to swerve towards an assortment of random wine bottles for a good two minutes (exaggerating, but it felt like it). Again, I have absolutely no idea what the conversation was about during that time.
3.  In one of the worst sex scenes ever conceived, the camera focuses on Kevin’s ass, only to twirl around in circles, eventually landing on... nothing. It just kept twirling.
4. Sarah finds out her ex-boyfriend is back in town, leading to an extended shot of... I’m not sure. I couldn’t really make anything out. Maybe her apartment? I could’ve swore I saw a hamster in there somewhere.

Similarly, the music provides a similar function as the cinematography: to distract and manipulate instead of letting the viewer observe the action unbiasly. Each time the body count piles up, a screeching chord echoes over the already dead body as if to signify that, yes, this is a CRUCIAL moment, and look how he killed that person! How shocking! Unfortunately, it’s Fantasia, and everyone who buys a ticket has already seen horrible killings many a time, in the act, in a much more gruesome fashion than what’s shown in this film. It’s neither impressive nor does it rem

otely shock anyone. And telling the audience that it’s supposed to be shocking sure doesn’t get you any favors.

So the cinematography and score sucked. It drew attention to itself, and took your attention away completely from the characters and dialogue, basically sabotaging the rest of the film. Which is a shame, because the rest of the movie never had a fighting chance. The acting was pretty passable for a low budget movie, with AJ Bowen giving a creepy turn at a serial killer, and Seimetz as the former alcoholic in distress. The script, though it has a couple major flaws, is relatively serviceable, albeit a little on the dreary side. Even the twist ending, which really ought to not work at all, is mildly creepy. But trying to ignore its faults is nearly impossible when what you’re interested in looking at is being constantly swirled around and toyed with. Maybe that was the point, that our relationships are always being twisted around, so we can never see them clearly. Unfortunately, people like to see things as clear as possible, no matter how badly we might be duped into seeing something false.  And it sure doesn’t change when we’re watching movies.

Chop: Like a drive from Quebec City to Toronto

My apologies to all the Ontarians out there, but you’re province is boring. Eastern Quebec is freshingly green, vibrant and interesting . It’s as if nature decided it wanted more space, and tried to ruin our highway roads in order to expand (alright, so our roads are shit, and it’s the  government’s fault, sue me). Once you make your way to the Ontario border, the trees begin to look depressed, the concrete roads are bigger, and you try not to fall asleep. Finally, once you’ve reached Toronto, you’re relieved but too tired and sleepy to enjoy it. This is exactly how I felt watching Chop, from first time director Trent Haaga, who’s appeared in more terrible B-movie horror films than I care to mention (although Dr. Horror’s Erotic House of Idiots seems like something I’d pick up on a slow Friday night) but largely fails at making his own.

The movie centers on Lance Reed (Will Keenan, eerily resembling Chris Kattan), who falls victim to car problems, and is picked up hastily by an unnamed stranger (Timothy Muskatell). Conversation ensues, with the stranger asking Lance whom he would save, his brother or his wife, followed by a few uneasy looks, leading to the stranger shooting Lance with a tranquilizer dart. The scene is unusually clostrophobic, terribly acted, but not over the top enough to dissolve the actual tension that’s built between the two men who seemingly know nothing about each other. The moment works to bring out a laugh from the audience, but an uneasy one, unsure of what could possibly happen next. The first half of the movie works to this same effect, as the relationship between Lance and stranger becomes more involved, with Lance becoming amusingly paranoid that the stranger could appear from anywhere at any time and begin terrorizing him. Eventually the stranger seizes hold of the situation, putting him, his limbs and his wife in peril. These are by far the most captivating and entertaining parts of the movie.

As the title would dictate, the stranger then kidnaps Lance and further terrorizes him, with predictable results.  Unfortunately, for a movie called Chop, there’s very little in the way of actual gore or chopping, and for what little chopping there is, there’s an inordinate amount of terribly written and executed jokes that take away from any sort of joy one would have in watching limbs and body parts get severed. I mean tabarnak de calisse mon ostie, an angry hooker does NOT a joke make. You would think a homosexual biker giving head to an axe would be slightly entertaining, and I can’t believe it, but they butchered it far worse than any limb in the film. By the time the cleverly written final punchline arrives, it’s already 1:30am, the audience barely has any patience to chuckle, and the credits roll. You just wish the drive to get there was a little more fun.

All this to say that you could do much worse than Chop at an indie film festival, especially when it’s showing things like Invasion of Alien Bikini. For people with short attention spans, the movie runs at a relatively brisk 98 minutes, making a decent add-on to any two-film weekend outings (assuming this thing ever sees the light of day on netflix or rental stores).  It won’t fill up anyone’s cravings for outright gore, but  you can see the beginnings of something witty as far as B-movies go, and if Haaga could spruce up his next movie with a solid 2 hour effort, you might end up seeing something worthy of more than just a brief appearance at Fantasia.  Like the Ontario 401, all it needs is a little life.