The Darkest Hour (Which I'll Never Get Back)

I was really looking forward to The Darkest Hour. It held the promise of a big scale, alien invasion blockbuster produced by Russian visionary Timur Bekmambetov, set in the rarely filmed Moscow and starring a youthful cast of promising up and comers. Alas, on arrival, this sci-fi horror flick sucks.

The budget turned out to be not that big which dramatically impacts on the scale of the film...no longer a Ruskie Independence Day...now a more 28 Days Later vibe. The characters are underwritten, annoying cardboard cutouts lifted directly from a standard teens-in-trouble horror movie plot and the actors put very little effort in to expand their characters beyond the one dimensional cliches as written in the script. The highly thought of Emile Hirsch comes off the worst, being cocky, gung ho and humour free from the get go...at least Olivia Thrilby and Rachael Taylor can coast by on cuteness and hotness respectively.

No tension, a bare bones of a plot, silly peripheral characters, terrible dialogue and, worst of all, an overwhelming sense of boredom pervade The Darkest Hour. The nicest thing I can say about it is the effects look good. But effects alone do not a good movie make.

Does Your Dog Bite?

Neil Marshalls confident feature film debut achieves a feat that has rarely been achieved in horror films in that it’s both scary and funny. It’s odd that it should be another British set werewolf movie that should manage this as the best film to achieve that delicate yet highly effective balance was An American Werewolf In London.

Dog Soldiers is a simple premise; a bunch of British Army squaddies are laid siege to in a remote Scottish cottage by a family of 9 foot, ravenous werewolves. A great cast led by the resourceful Kevin McKidd battles the lycanthropic foe along with the patriarchal Sean Pertwee, the deceptive Liam Cunningham and Emma Cleasby’s attractive local researcher with a secret.

The very British humour gives the film a unique and appealing flavour, the characters well defined, the dialogue sharp (gotta love Pertwee’s “tattoo” speech), the action endlessly inventive, the B-movie plot has a couple of surprises up its sleeve. Even the werewolves themselves are remarkably impressive, considering this is usually the first thing that even major Hollywood productions get wrong. A devastatingly entertaining blast of fun, Dog Soldiers remains endlessly rewachable.

Six Chicks With Picks

Neil Marshall is one of the most talented and exciting filmmakers to emerge from the UK directors pool over the last decade. Not only did he write and direct a classic in Dog Soldiers with his first full time movie, but he even managed to trump it in 2005 with the sublime horror film The Descent. Mixing the atmosphere of Alien, with the psychological horror of The Shining with the adventure holiday gone amok scenario from Deliverance, The Descent follows a group of female friends (six chicks with picks) as the embark on a caving expedition in the American Appalachian mountains.

There are several elements that combine to make this a near perfect slice of horror cinema. First off is a superb script which ramps up the tension immediately after introducing us to the lovable girlies and their commitment to extreme sports. It perfectly balances the psychological descent of protagonist Sarah with that of her 'friend', antagonist Juno, who is the root of all Sarah's problems. It's a testament to how great the story, characters and direction is that white knuckle tension is generated to extreme levels in the films first half...even without any classic horror elements being introduced. Of course, once the carnivorous Crawlers enter the scene it's a no holds barred exercise in frenzied, bloody violence and terror.

Easily one of the best horror films of the last decade...if not of all time. A word to the wise however...for the story to truly make sense and for the full impact of the psychological horror to take effect, one must seek out the international cut of the film rather than the neutered US edition with the ending removed. Sorry Yanks, but your love of happy endings does you an incredible disservice in this case.

The Pensioners From Brazil

Franklin J Schaffner might have been the director of such acclaimed dramas as Patton, Papillon and Planet Of The Apes but that didn't stop him from giving the world The Boys From Brazil which is an astonishingly dull science fiction mystery.
The impressive cast miss the mark most of the time. James Mason is phoning it in, Gregory Peck struggles with his German accent and character actor extraordinaire Laurence Olivier has somehow convinced his director that an frail, eccentric Jew is the right protagonist for this particular story. The twat. At least an enthusiastic and baby faced Steve Guttenberg has the right idea. The plot moves at a glacial pace with little in the way of suspense or danger to liven up the dull planning of Peck's obsessed scientist or the rambling musings of Olivier's wacky crusader.

Still it does have a least two things going for it. Jerry Goldsmith delivers a bombastic score which adds a little energy to the lifeless visuals and the film at least has a stunning premise; what if someone could clone Hitler? At least on a conceptual level, Boys does have the capacity to chill. Unfortunately, it's all undermined in the final confrontation as Olivier and peck battle it out in a suburban living room. There's nothing like two pensioners fighting to the death in a major motion picture. It's just a shame it evokes a recent episode of Family Guy where Herbert The Pervert battles a Nazi...shown below in it's original Spanish!

Above Average, Below The Waves

David Twohy is one of Hollywood's most enduring writers, that like his fellow peer David Koepp, occasionally ventures into directing, always with interesting results (see Pitch Black, The Arrival and A Perfect Getaway for more Twohy). With Below he teams up on the screenplay with Darren Aronofsky to produce a supernatural tinged World War II submarine thriller that is every bit as tightly scripted and professionally directed as you'd expect from the big cheese.

Below has a strong ensemble led by Olivia Williams who assumes the audiences perspective as a survivor of a U-boat attack on her medical frigate who takes refuge on a US attack sub which holds its own secrets. The great Bruce Greenwood predictably but dependably plays the skipper with the likes of Jason Flemyng, Dexter Fletcher, Nick Chinlund, Zack Galifinakis, Christopher Fairbank and Holt McCallany.
Suspense is laid on thick and fast with the script delivering ever increasing perils for the dwindling crew to endure, the supernatural elements are downplayed allowing the tension to be generated by the deteriorating inter-personal relationships and there's some strong effects work to support the parallel story of the sub being hunted by a predatory German surface vessel.

It's a shame the big revelation at the end is signposted a half an hour before the climax but this is still strong work from Twohy an company and a welcome diversion from clones of The Sixth Sense which were doing the rounds at the time of its release.

It's A Kind Of Magic (Mushroom)

It turns out that there are rather a few different versions of Highlander II doing the rounds. There's the US theatrical cut, which runs to about 85 minutes, there's the UK cut which is about 25 minutes longer...as well as a variety of other edits which attempt to mold the problematic narrative into something comprehensible. The last edit, 2004's DVD release called the 'Ultimate Edition', is the nearest the producers have got to presenting a version of the story that makes the most sense and it's the version that I've seen this time around.

Controversially, Highlander II The Quickening takes place around 40 years after the original with the now mortal Connor MacLeod an old man living in a environmentally ravaged future. Surprisingly there's a lot that works, while there's still a great deal that monumentally sucks.

On the plus side:-

1/ The future setting is a ballsy move, being a considerable change from the contemporary and historic scenes of 1986's Highlander. Filmed in the decaying suburbs of Buenos Aires, the exteriors are a funky blend of Blade Runner and cyberpunk sensibility all bathed in early nineties design ideology of strong blue light and smoke machines. The film (for the most part looks great.)

2/ The plot of MacLeod having received The Prize at the conclusion of the first film and uses that gift of knowledge to create an energy shield to protect the earth in the absence of a nearly destroyed ozone layer is a great concept, as are his subsequent attempts to prove the shield is no longer necessary. It also has a nice subtext about the greed of corporations over the common environmental good of the population...a subject which is exponentially growing in importance 20 years after the film was released.

3/ The cast are uniformly excellent. Christopher Lambert and Seam Connery reprise their roles with gusto proving to be a formidable and extremely entertaining double act in the brief scenes they have onscreen together. Michael Ironside's villain General Katana might be a pale imitation of Clancy Brown's sublime Kurgan, but this is still Ironside we're talking about here so he still musters more than enough maniacal menace to eclipse most of his bad guy peers. John C McGinley delivers a masterclass in slime douchbag corporate bosses while Virginia Madsen is both strong and insanely beautiful as the love interest.

4/ The action sequences aren't forced down you throat like so many future epics are these days and the action is admirably diverse, often violent, and not just sword fighting either. An earlt sequence with MacLeod being attacked by two winged assassins is perhaps the best of the bunch with hoverboards, trains and exploding cars all mixed up into a bonkers concoction of mayhem.

5/ Returning director Russell Mulcahy still had a flair for imaginative cross fades (so memorable in the first film) as well as an art house approach to editing meaning this never feels as predictable as his later work like Ricochet and The Real McCoy.

6/ The effects in this version have been given an overhaul so the shoddy red shield effect has been replaced with a less shoddy blue shield effect and there's a few nice matt paintings to expand the city scapes a little further.

So far so good. But the bad news is still bad.

a/ An attempt has been made in this 'Ultimate Cut' to erase the idea that Immortals are indeed from the distant Planet Zeist by suggesting that they are in fact from the distant past instead (all with the help of a new matt painting and some dodgy overdubbed voice inserts.) The problem is this makes even less sense than the Zeist backstory. At least with that scenario you could explain the futuristic clothing, interior structures and superior technology available to Ironside and his crones and not just 'magic' as the spin insists.

b/ Sean Connery's presence in the story makes no sense at all. Although exiled to Earth/the future and slain in the first film Connery is resurrected when MacLeod calls his name. 'Magic' or 'a special connection' is the reason we're asked to believe for this remarkable reappearance, but it feels like bullshit to me. Why he reappears in Scotland of all places we're never told (maybe because that was where he was killed?) and what he contributes to the story is questionable. At least as comic relief he's a force to be reckoned with.

c/ The whole energy shield plot works fine but the return of the Immortals narrative is devoid of logic. The only reason MacLeod regains his immortality is the energy he inherits from the two fallen assassins sent to kill him. But since MacLeod is an old man at deaths door, it makes no sense that General Katana would risk MacLeod becoming an undying threat again (a fact that's pointed out to him at least twice within the movie!!!)

d/ If there was a major criticism of the first Highlander it was the speed in which the love interest falls for MacLeod. Doubling down on weak character plotting, the film makers do it again by having Madsen fall head over feels for Lambert having only exchanged a handful of lines of dialogue...and then only for 30 seconds as a rejuvenated young man. Sweet Zeus, is seduction part of the immortals magic arsenal as well?

e/ Too many things happen without explanation. Why does Katana and company call Lambert and Connery "MacLeod" and "Ramirez" when these are the names they adopted after their exile to earth / the future? Surely they had names before their exile?
If Ramirez can summon up all his life's energy into one small moment to save his friends, why doesn't MacLeod fade into non-existence when he apparently performs the same magical feat at the film's climax? Whatever happened to MacLeod's ability to sense another immortal when they're near him? Although he occasionally posses this ability, it's inconsistent throughout the film. And following on from the first film, why do the immortals observe the rule about not fighting on holy ground? It's not part of their pre-exile instructions and it's not like Christianity is practiced on Zeist (or over 2000 years ago for that matter.)

f/ Ironside might make a cool villain but his one-liners sure are tiresome. The subway train sequence where he arrives from Zeist/the past is ludicrous, perhaps being a metaphor for the out of control nature of the filming.

If you have the capacity to switch your brain's logic centres into neutral then Highlander II is not the total write off that the legend speaks of. It's an unusually brave sequel (so brave that initially both Blade 3 and RoboCop 2 once considered a far-future set sequel before ditching the idea for something safer and more familiar). Just try not to think too much.

Return Of The Time Travelling Body Snatchers

Much like Freejack, the 1989 science fiction film Millennium was also about time traveler who snatch people from the past who are destined to die. In Freejack's case it was a racing driver from a car crash but with Millennium it's plane crash victims who are saved to repopulate an environmentally ravaged future. But the different in approach to their stories couldn't be more different.

Where Freejack wants to swim in the same waters as Total Recall, Millennium is stuck in it's own time warp. It's directed by Michael Anderson with all the drab visual flair of a late 1970's TV movie, the visual effects of an mid-1980's TV movie while the cyber punk landscape of the future Earth is at least up to date for when the film was made. The past its sell by date feeling isn't helped with the casting of 70's icon Kris Kristofferson and Charlies Angels babe Cheryl Ladd, both fine actors to be sure, but actors who carry onscreen baggage tieing them to a particular era.

Fortunately this is intelligent stuff exploring fate verses freewill, the complexities of temporal time travel and mans inability to control the nature order of things. It's unfortunate that it's obvious that Millennium is derived from a short story as the script feels particularly padded in places (especially in the romantic middle act) plus much of the dialogue is leaden and corny. But it does maintain the interest thanks to a structure that recalls Back To The Future Part II with time travel observed from the time travellers point of view, allowing us to see the same event from diffent perspectives.

Millennium would probably have worked better with a shorter running time as part of a science fiction anthology such as The Outer Limits but, despite its problems, it's still great to see proper, hard core science fiction movies.