Saturday, October 27, 2007

Next. 0 Money Trains

I've been doing a lot of flying lately and seeing a lot of films I wouldn't normally bother with. Including Next with Nicolas Cage.

So his character, let's call him Tooley, because he's a tool and I've forgotten his name, can see up to two minutes into the future. This means he can change his decisions based on this prior knowledge, and so he can win at blackjack, avoid apprehension by the fuzz, survive landslides and dodge bullets. But not, it seems, embezzle, steal, nail a job interview, get a root, or act.

Well, strictly, that second last one isn't true: he falls for a chick and manages to seduce her rather effectively inside about 18 hours, but then he has to use his skills to track down some terrorists with a nuclear bomb. Apparently all the other superheros were at their annual picnic that day.

This film would've been okay, I reckon, with an actor in the lead role. Perhaps the potted ficcus who narrowly missed the lead role in The Interpreter could have been given the part. Basically anyone or anything other than Mr Cage, Keanu Reeves or Kevin Kostner would have been less wooden and more interesting. But we are stuck with Mr Cage, a dress sense for Tooley that is so bad I'm actually commenting on wardrobe, and an ending that is seriously on a par with "and then I woke up." (On a par, not the same.)

All up, 0 Money Trains

Three

It's been a while, and in that time I've seen some absolute shite. Particularly sequels to sequels. Let's begin:

Spiderman 3
Wow. What a ratshit film this one is. Not content with showing the travails of Peter Parker as a nerdy student and then nerdy reporter, the filmmakers show us Peter as a nerdy lover, too. Unlike any other superhero known to man, Spiderman cries like it's going out fashion, which for superheroes, it has.

The trouble starts with Peter Parker being a wet fish. It then goes on when he gets mysteriously covered with some ego-enhancing black goo from space which turns him into Evil Spiderman. Which is the funniest part of the whole film, particularly when he lets the audience know he's in Evil-mode by pushing his cow-lick down over his eye. Watching him strut down the street shooting pretty girls with double barrelled fingers to looks of bemusement is particularly entertaining.

Anyway, Spiderman then faces two more evil foes. The first is a bank robber with a heart of gold who finds himself turned to sand when he accidentally falls into an outdoor physics experiment whose only discernible purpose is to turn things into sand. ("Great Scott, Carruthers, I've found a process that turns things into sand without destroying their life force." "Well done, old bean, we'd better continue the tests in an open air pit to avoid any possible contamination.") The second foe is another photographer who becomes the unwitting recipient of the black space gunk. (You get this gunk off you by subjecting yourself to industrial-deafness levels of noise, and yet Spiderman's hearing isn't affected.) And then there's Harry, Green Goblin Junior who does, of course, turn good in the end, just in time to sacrifice his life for Spidey. Cue more tears.

Kirsten Dunst plays a MJ once again, and as always manages to pull off the trailer park trash look with aplomb. And once again, I found myself hoping the story would be true to the comics and her character would be killed off to make way for someone with interest.

All up, this is on a par with the original Spiderman film. Not Spiderman with Tobey Macguire, but the one from 1981. Still, better than Money Train. 1.5MT

Shrek 3
Oh. My. God. What a pile of steaming cow poo. This film is lame, that's all there is too it. Never mind the whole transgenic issues of donkeys rooting dragons to produce offspring, but this flick has none of the edge or the wit that the first had in abundance, and the second one had in one scene (where Fiona kills a bird in a singing contest and eats the eggs). Also better than Money Train. 1.5MT

Fabulous Four: The Something About The Silver Surfer.
OK, so it's #2, not #3. This is actually an alright film. In it, the Fabulous Four have come into cash, and lots of it, thanks to the sponsorship deals teed up by the Human Torch. Of course, the world is about to end again, other, possibly more capable superheroes are off on other business, so Mr Stretchy Pants, The Thing, Human Torch and the Disappearing Chick step up to save the day, right in the middle of the wedding of Stretch Armstrong and Invisible Blonde.

Stan Lee makes his trademark appearance when he tries to get into the wedding. "I should be on the invitation list," he says, "I'm Stan Lee." "I don't think so," says the bouncer and sends him packing. Classic stuff for the comic book nerds out there.

Oh, did I mention there's this dude with a flying surfboard who has the two great powers of being able to resurrect the dead and show the footy on his stomach-TV? He turns out to be good, but forced to be bad. But before we find that out, there's one of those chases that winds up in space. It turns out, if this film is to be believed, that space doesn't have enough oxygen to maintain the Human Torch's fire, but does have enough to enable him to breath and there's enough pressure to stop his blood from boiling. Who'd've guessed?

3.0 Money Trains

X-Men 3
Or X-Men Apocalyse. Yep, there's plenty of death and gore in this film, and not much science.

Lesson 1: Conservation of matter.
OK, so you can regrow your limbs when they're cut off, like a lizard, only faster. Obviously, the new flesh has to come from your body, which means you'll need to eat. So when Wolverine cuts off your arms so many times there's a pile of arms equal to your original body weight lying on the floor, how much of you do you reckon will be left?

(This law of Thermodynamics is addressed in The Flash comics, apparently, but not in other superhero films. Spiderman, for example: he shoots his sticky web-load some 3,000 times and covers half of NY in his gunk, but never gets thinner!)

Lesson 2: Evolution.
No, evolution is not about random, fully formed mutation. How many mutations of your DNA would you need to grow wings, generate feathers, decrease your bone density to than of a bird and shit constantly to keep your weight down? I'm not a geneticist, but I'm guessing it's a lot.

Now you might say, it's a film, let it go. And for some things, like self-healing, life-force-sucking, power-over-metal, I'm willing to, especially when weird radioactive substances are to blame. But when you say at the start of the first film that it's about mutation and evolution, and one of the characters can turn into metal, I start to think the Intelligent Design people are financing the whole thing to discredit Darwin.

Anyway, in this one, Jean Grey is back from an unnecessary death (she had the mental power to control the flood that killed her from the plane, why did she get into the water?) and is evil in a oops-I-killed-my-boyfriend-with-a-brain-fart kind of way. She's teamed up with Mephisto, or Metallico, or Magneto, or whatever he's called. Together, they kill as many people as they can until, in an all-destructing maelstrom, Wolverine is forced to bring the film to climax. Which is ironic considering that's all he ever wanted to do with Jean.

Now, I would have scored this 3.0MT, but it has Vinnie Jones in it, plus everyone gets around in ridiculous head gear. Therefore: 2.5 Money Trains