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#637 – Dead and Deader (2006)
Dead and Deader (2006)
Film review #637
Director: Patrick Dinhut
SYNOPSIS: A special forces squad is sent to investigate the loss of communications with a medical outpost in Cambodia are all killed after they are attacked by zombies. Lieutenant Bobby Quinn is one of the soldiers, but wakes up on an autopsy table after his body was taken to a U.S. army base. Now possessing superhuman strength and presumably whatever infection created the zombies, Quinn must find the other bodies of the soldiers killed alongside him before they awaken and infect anyone else…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Dead and Deader is a 2006 TV film. Bobby Quinn (Dean Cain) wakes up on an autopsy table, having been declared dead on arrival after a mission to a medical outpost in Cambodia killed him and his team when they were attacked by zombies. It turns out that Quinn has the same infection that the zombies have, and must eat red meat to avoid becoming one himself. Learning that the bodies of the rest of the squad have been shipped home, he must put a stop to them before they become zombies themselves and infect the population. Joined by the base chef and a local bartender, the film throws plot out the window, and just fills itself with explosions, cheap humour, and gore; lots and lots of gore. In fact, it is quite surprising just how much violence and blood there is in this made-for TV production. From Quinn cutting his arm open to release a live scorpion form it, to the dismemberment of zombies in every which way, it gets away with a lot of bloody violence. While this is probably the only thing the film has going for it thanks to a middling story and characters that are just cheap imitations of other more successful ones, the film is actually better than you might expect: it is at least creative with it’s gore, and it never gets hung up on boring details. I suppose this is important in made-for TV films so viewers don’t just swap channels. It knows it needs to hit certain low bars, and it does so without much fanfare. The fact that it does so keeps it from falling into being boring or too hokey.
Despite the potential for a mass zombie outbreak, the film is strung together with cartoony characters and typical one-liners that will have you groaning in begrudging acceptance that they have to be in there. There’s also quite a few references to other science-fiction franchises dotted about that are clearly for its audience, and the inclusion of Armin Shimmerman, who played Quark on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. Dead and Deader never evolves beyond silly, gory fun, but on this point it seems to do surprisingly well, not falling into a rut at any point, and keeping itself entertaining and surprising with how far it’s willing to push the gore. The plot never evolves beyond pure stupidity, but it knows what it is, and I suppose can be excused. Not a good film, but watchable and reasonably entertaining.
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#636 – Zoe (2018)
Zoe (2018)
Film review #636
Director: Drake Doremus
SYNOPSIS: In the near-future, a company is developing robots that serve as companions to humans, and also a surefire compatibility test to see whether people are made for each other or not. Zoe, who works at the company, takes the test to see whether she is compatible with her co-worker Cole, with whom she scores 0%. It turns out that Zoe is actually an android herself, but can love still bloom between her and Cole?
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Zoe is a 2018 sci-fi romance film. A company in the near future is developing new frontiers in romance: human-like androids that can serve as companions, a drug that makes people feel like they’re in love temporarily for the first time, and a compatibility test that determines people’s romantic suitability for one another. Zoe, an employee of the company, runs a compatibility test on herself and another employee Cole, and it turns out to be 0%. She then learns from Cole that she is, in fact, an android, so will always score 0% with anyone. regardless, she starts a romantic relationship with Cole, and tries to make it work. The film takes on the typical and well-worn ideas of whether androids can love and such without much fanfare or a unique take on it. Combined with the aforementioned elements of the love drug and relationship compatibility test, you’ve got a blender of concepts that overlap with each other, and also fail to establish any depth to them as the backbone of the film. Zoe’s learning that she is an android provides a quite underwhelming response from her, and is not the interesting twist it could have been: it feels like the film just needed to get it out of the way so it could move on to the romance element, which actually does serve as the film’s spine. her insistence that robots can’t love because it’s all “zeroes and ones” is certainly challenged when she makes the discovery about herself, but again, it is lost beneath a heap of thing things.
The romance, again, is a bit muddled and doesn’t really offer anything significant or unique. One of the biggest problems I had was that Cole just isn’t a likable character, and is pretty awful really. The film does try to frame this as love being difficult and messy, but it reflects more on the messiness of the film rather than the characters, as there’s just not an intensity on screen between the actors, as every scene is mostly just hushed dialogue that fails to convey what it wants. There’s definitely some good ideas in here that could have been developed more roundly, but as they are, they fall flat. The ending offers an interesting twist, with it being left open whether the Zoe that Cole reunites with is the “real” Zoe or another android simply programmed to be her, but it’s delivered in such a slight manner that it doesn’t give space to interpret the significance of it. Overall, I can’t have too much good to say about Zoe: there’s too many different angles with too depth in the ideas department, the romance lacks the emotional impact, and it just never really hooked me at any point.
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#635 – Battleship (2012)
Battleship (2012)
Film review #635
Director: Aldo Iuliano
SYNOPSIS: During a military training exercise between U.S. and Japanese naval forces, an alien object crashes to Earth which is the precursor to an invasion. Setting up an energy field that cuts off all contact, the remaining ships must work together to prevent the aliens from calling for reinforcements…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Battleship is a 2012 sci-fi film, and yes, it is based on the classic Hasbro game. Alex Hopper, a down and out loser is forced into the navy by his brother. Some years later, the joint military training exercise between the Japanese and U.S. Navy is interrupted by an alien object falling to Earth. Damaged in the fall, it aims to take control of a nearby satellite array to call it’s home planet for reinforcements, unless they are stopped. After colossal losses, Alex is left in command as all communications are cut, and the survivors are left to work together to stop the alien threat. The premise sounds simple enough, although adding in an alien threat to the traditional Battleship game is an odd twist. It should be simple though: battleship is one of the most simple games to pick up and play. Here’s where the film makes its big miss: it is unnecessarily complicated in all aspects. The runtime is far too long (just over two hours), there’s too many things happening at once, the character’s (some of them anyway) attempt to have a story arc, but are often buried beneath everything that is going on. The part of the film which I suppose is meant to resemble the actual game is set up in such a complicated manner so that each side can’t see the other, that I couldn’t for the life of me explain how it was all working, and just accepted they were playing real-life battleships. Once this scene is over, it just moves on to the next set piece, and repeat ad nauseum until the film is over. There’s no real sense of flow to everything that is happening, and just feels like a bunch of ideas thrown together.
There’s some attempt to try and make a hero of the main character Hopper, who must quickly grow up when he becomes the most senior commanding officer on the ship. However, this never really materialises in any substantial way. The romance element is also rather shallow, as Alex and his love interest Sam barely interact with each other during the movie, only to set up a problem at the beginning, and resolve it at the end. Rihanna takes a small role where she does very little other than shout a few words to verbalise what is going on, so her appearance isn’t too distracting (at least it’s not as forced as in Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets). There’s not much point in delving into the intricacies of the film though, as everything is quickly swept away when the big alien ships and battleships start shooting and blowing each other up. Honestly, this is where the film starts to redeem itself, as you’ll quickly forget about all the pointless diversions and attempts at a story as things start to kick off. The effects are fairly decent, and the alien ship designs are pretty cool too. When you switch off from all the extraneous nonsense, the film is entertaining enough for a summer film, but the question remains just how should should you need to detach yourself from logic and rational thought to enjoy something? Battleship certainly pushes the boat out in attempting to see just how much it can get away with without revealing the shaky foundations lurking below the surface.
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#634 – Space Monkeys (2022)
Space Monkeys (2022)
Film review #634
Director: Aldo Iuliano
SYNOPSIS: Five affluent teens are throwing an end-of-summer party. Moving on to one of the teen’s houses while his parents are away. They use the house’s A.I. to participate in increasingly extreme drinking games, but a tragic turn of events forces the youths to reflect on events and themselves…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Space Monkeys (Also known as Code Terror) is a 2022 Italian film. Centred around five affluent teens who are throwing an end-of-summer party, they visit the home of Stefan, one of the teens, who shows them around this bizarre home full of weird aesthetics and a home A.I. named Able, who controls the functions of the abode. Stefan gets Able to concoct a series of increasingly extreme drinking games, pushing the teens to their limits. The setup for this film is a bit of a horror and sci-fi one: A group of young, unlikable teens get trapped in a house with an A.I. that tries to kill them….that’s what I thought the film was about based on the trailer anyway. The only thing to say about the first half of the film is that it serves simply to make the five teens seem as unlikable as possible: they’re either obsessed with their social media, arguing with each other, or pushing each other to do stupid things. Stefan, in particular, is such an odious and annoying personality it’s difficult to tolerate his presence: seriously, he says some very nasty things. Marta is the only one who seems to have any sense of reason, but that just begs the question why she is friends with the rest of them anyway. I was waiting for the film to actually begin, but as mentioned, the first half is just constant drinking, arguing, and stupid pranks that never seems to end, and you’re left wondering what you’re doing watching this, or when something of purpose is going to happen.
At the halfway point of the film – almost down to the very second – we get the film flipped on its head and finally a sense of direction, as Stefan dies from a choking prank gone wrong. Finally, the free-loving have to confront reality, as they have to deal with what to do with Stefan’s body. The film continues to be as sporadic as the first half, with no real direction and the characters just aimlessly wandering about; which is somewhat to be expected given the circumstances and the fact that they have never dealt with anything like this before in their sheltered lives. There’s a hint of the film wanting to do a The Breakfast Club style intervention for Gen Z, but that just doesn’t work because we don’t know any of the characters, and they don’t really confront themselves or their relationship with any of the others: one of the characters just wanders off and doesn’t come back until near the end. With The Breakfast Club, the characters were forced to confront themselves through each other, interacting with people they wouldn’t normally, and learning about themselves and others. In Space Monkeys, there’s a distinct absence of any of that. The only character that seems to deal with the situation is Marta, but we still don’t get much of an insight into her character to really get involved with the dilemma she or any of the others are facing. The film’s setup with the whole A.I. trying to kill them and whatnot just…evaporates into nowhere as well, and we’re left wondering just what the point of it was. I don’t know if I was supposed to feel bad that Stefan was dead by the end, but I really wasn’t: he was absolutely insufferable.
There’s obviously some intention behind the way the film is structured: the way the film flips at exactly the halfway point is meant to shock these carefree youths with reality, and there’s a number of scenes where the camera is purposefully placed at a specific angle to frame things, but again, there’s no real substance to anything, nothing to interpret, and no maturity in any of the characters. The film ends abruptly with the four abandoning their plan to say that Stefan died on his own without them being there, and just calling the police to tell them the truth, which I suppose is meant to show them taking responsibility; something which wasn’t earned in their aimless wandering through the film, and it just makes the whole thing just seem like a waste of time. Any attempt at redemption of these characters fails because the film goes so far and hard in the first half to make them unlikeable. By the time the film tries to turn it around, it’s too late to dig itself out of the hole it has made for itself. A glint of intention behind a directionless mess, Space Monkeys fails to get to grips with it’s characters, and any attempts at redemption and confronting reality through the events that transpire are far too inadequate due to the sizeable hole the film digs itself into by making the characters as obnoxious and unremarkable as possible.
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#633 – I Am Ren (2019)
I Am Ren (2019)
Film review #633
Director: Piotr Ryczo
SYNOPSIS: Renata is living with her Husband Jan and their son Kamil. Jan returns home one day to find their house a mess and Renata collapsed on the floor. They go to a counselling retreat for Ren to recover, and she tells the psychologist that she is Ren, an android that is suffering from a malfunction, and is fearful that she is going to be replaced…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: I Am Ren (Also known as The Glitch) is a Polish sci-fi film. Renata is found collapsed one day at home by her husband Jan. They and their teenage son Kamil go to stay at a counselling retreat to try and cure Renata, but she believes that she is an Android that is malfunctioning, and she will be shut down and replaced because she is defective. The central theme of the film is seemingly whether Ren is telling the truth: that she is an android, or she simply believes she is, and is part of a big delusion. That’s the point anyway, but the major problem with the film is that I just didn’t see that conflict. The film clearly shows that she is meant to be an android; from the opening where something moves under her skin voluntarily, to the barcode on the bottom of her foot, and her overhearing conversations about how she might have to be shut down, there’s not really much room left for ambiguity on this central point. you could make the argument that all of these things are simply delusions based on whatever mental illness she is experiencing, but again there’s no space to really question her experiences.
A lack of any emotional depth really compounds the issues described above, and it’s difficult to tell just what anyone is thinking and feeling in response to the situation. For example, there’s a lingering question over whether her son’s injuries were caused by her, or inflicted on him by her husband, and the film tries to avoid giving away whether he is concerned for her, or being emotionally manipulative and abusive. The lack of emotional depth in the performances lends itself to this ambiguity, but also flattens any tension and drama, and just ends with me not really caring about what’s happening. The film is composed mostly of scenes of dialogued whispered between characters, and it’s easy to get bored with nobody just speaking properly, or giving any of said dialogue emotional weight.
The ending again, undoes the ambiguity that the film is trying to convey, and while you might expect it to provide an answer, it just tells you what you already know: Ren is an android, and there was never really any reason to doubt her, particularly when everyone else was acting suspiciously throughout the entire film. With a runtime of seventy minutes, at least the film doesn’t drag on too long, but it still feels like it runs out of ideas long before the credits. There’s really not much to recommend in I Am Ren: it’s a simple idea that should be easy to implement, but fails to build the necessary framework to explore it’s ambiguities. Dull performances, stretched out dialogue, and a sameness in all of the scenes provides very little that stands out.
