Film reviews
-
#615 – Flashback (2020)
Flashback (2020)
Film review #615
Director: Christopher MacBride
SYNOPSIS: Fred visits his dying Mother in hospital, and begins to get flashbacks about a girl in high school who mysteriously went missing. As he becomes obsessed with trying to find her and get answers, his past, present and future all start to blend into one, as Fred has to make a choice about his life…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Flashback is a 2020 film. The film revolves around Fred, who lives a fairly normal life with his wife, and typical office job. After visiting his Mother in hospital, Fred starts to have flashbacks about a girl named Cindy, who went missing during his high school days. As his flashbacks become more vivid, and his obsession with finding out what happened to Cindy grows, his sense of reality begins to be called into question, as his past, present, future, and their inherent possibilities begin to overlap and be called into question. Flashback is clearly taking inspiration from films such as Donnie Darko, in which the troubled lead either slowly loses his grasp on reality, or is actually getting closer to the truth, depending on how you interpret it. A complex narrative weaves its way through the story that, honestly, I thought was a complete mess. The film goes overboard with its ideas and pushes the questioning of reality to the point where nothing really matters. Trying to hinge everything around the character of Cindy doesn’t really help things either. Whether Fred’s experiences were all just a bad drug trip, aliens that are forcing humans to experience time linearly when they shouldn’t, or just some sort of breakdown at dealing with the death of his Mother, I honestly felt the film didn’t offer enough for a viewer to draw their own conclusions. Maybe it’s a film that requires multiple viewings to really grasp, but it isn’t compelling enough to make me feel like I would ever want to watch it again.
Fred is a fairly normal, uninteresting character: he has a wife, job and all the normal stuff, and I suppose that’s why him being drawn into this bizarre situation is supposed to be more significant. However, I feel giving him a personality or something interesting about him, a personal connection etc. would have made what happens to him more interesting. Given that his past, present, and future are all blended into one, along with the various possibilities that they can take, you get the sense that nothing matters if everything is possible. You could probably make the film work around that, but again, it just doesn’t. It’s like if you took Everything, Everywhere, All at Once, and sucked all the fun out of it. The supporting characters are again fairly uninteresting, and only really exist as comparisons for how far Fred is or isn’t connected to reality.
There are moments where the film does get it right, the ending has an emotional impact, but these aren’t enough to bring the film together. The ending where Fred decides he “can’t follow” Cindy and falls back to his normal linear life is an odd one that doesn’t really feel justified, and makes the whole experience feels pointless. Maybe it’s a message of accepting what you have in the face of all the other possibilities, but this doesn’t feel earned. Overall, Flashback does it’s best as a mid-sized film, but a sense of overambition and inability to engage or entertain in the face of it’s overwhelming possibilities leaves it mostly dull and without consequence, and overshadowed by the films it is clearly inspired by (Donnie Darko, Matrix etc.). Maybe someone can appreciate it, and they apparently do, given that the film’s scores and reviews are not completely awful, but it’s definitely not for me.
-
#614 – Star Slammer (1986)
Star Slammer (1986)
Film review #614
Director: Fred Olen Ray
SYNOPSIS: Taura, a freelance miner working on the planet Arous, is arrested after helping the locals stand up against Captain Bantor and his crew, who are attempting to stop the uprising. Taura is arrested and sentenced to be imprisoned aboard a space prison ship. there, she must survive the warden and the inmates to try and escape…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Star Slammer (Also known as The Adventures of Taura, Prison Ship, Star Slammer: The Escape, or any combination thereof) is a 1986 sci-fi film. The plot centres around Taura, a freelance miner who gets caught up defending the inhabitants of the planet Arous from Captain Bantor and his minions, who are there to quell an uprising on the planet. After burning Bantor’s hand in a volcanic acid plume, she is arrested and sentenced to prison on board a space ship. Once there, Taura must survive the warden, as well as the other inmates, and find her way home. It should be no surprise to learn that this film is mostly just about showing off scantily-clad women fighting each other; but it is what it is, and it doesn’t really try to be anything else. The plot is threadbare and has little to latch on to, but at least tries to fill in the gap with the aforementioned half-clothed women. There is a clear lack of pretension in the film and its direction: it knows what it is , and it proceeds to run with it as far as its menial budget will allow.
The characters aren’t all too interesting: Taura is a fairly standard lead, and the rest of the inmates have a bit of personality, but nothing special. The most notable performance for me was the Warden, played by Marya Grant, who delivers such an exaggerated and over-the-top performance that you cannot help but take notice. The film also ropes in veteran movie star Aldo Ray for a a small part, which was apparently mostly used to show funders to back the project.
Filmed over the course of three days, the film is restricted to the opening being shot outdoors, presumable somewhere in the California hills, and the rest on the prison ship on set. However, the film can mostly get away with this, given that a prison ship is a fairly compact and small setting. Despite the production constraints, the film still manages to accomplish a lot more than other films would have with the same budget (and probably more): the sets themselves have a decent amount of detail and authenticity, and the practical effects aren’t terrible. It’s difficult to be too harsh on the film for this reason: it has a self-awareness, and it feels like some effort has gone into it, and at least some of the actors are trying. The story could definitely have used refining, as its mostly forgettable, but it never loses a self-awareness of its own limitations. One of the big drawbacks is that the film doesn’t seem to want to veer to much into the ‘women prison’ softcore scenario, so there’s only two topless shots and implied sexual scenes, which is fine, but without going too far in the genre, it has an empty space where the more lewd stuff should be. Overall, Star Slammer is trashy sci-fi that could definitely be a lot worse than it is, and has some funny moments, but some weaker elements definitely drag it down; ultimately though, you should never lose sight of the films self-awareness regarding its own limits and what it is trying to be.
-
#613 – Galaxina (1980)
Galaxina (1980)
Film review #613
Director: William Sachs
SYNOPSIS: In the year 3008, the police space cruiser Infinity is given a mission to acquire a mysterious energy source known only as the “Blue Star.” The crew, including female robot Galaxina, set a course for Altair One, a trip which will take them twenty seven years in cryosleep…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Galaxina is a 1980 sci-fi parody film. Set in the year 3008, the space police cruiser Infinity is patrolling the edges of known space when its inept crew are contacted with a mission: to retrieve a rock known only as the “blue star,” which is a source of great energy. Sensing a chance at riches and glory, the crew embark on the trip, aided by their female android Galaxina. Being a parody film, the story isn’t the most important aspect of the experience, and is mostly an amalgamation of familiar tropes. usually this eases viewers in so they don’t get bogged down in details, and gives the comedy plenty to lampoon, but here, the problems with the plot structure and pacing severely hamper that effort. The first half of the film is essentially just empty space, where we are introduced to a crew of unlikeable characters that do little other than bicker and moan, while throwing out the occasional crass joke. For forty minutes this continues until we finally get a plot: the crew are asked to go and fetch the mysterious “blue star” rock, and have to spend twenty seven years in cryosleep to reach the planet of Altair One. While the crew is in stasis, Galaxina learns to speak and modify herself to be more human, and so is actually able to be a character of some substance. The second half of the film decides to add some parody of Western films into the mix, diluting the already weak sense of direction and purpose has even further. That said, the film does find it’s footing a bit more in the second half, with more direct parodies such as the pointy eared bartender “Mr. Spot,” and a motorcycle cult/gang who worship their mythical God “Harley David-Son.” By this point though, there’s not enough time for the film to really accomplish anything of note, and still most of the jokes just fail to land.
The film takes on the big sci-fi hitters, such as Star Trek, Star Wars, Alien and 2001, parodying them all at various points. I feel like the film is aimed at a sci-fi audience rather than a general one, but the jokes just don’t go deep enough for that purpose. The choir sound effect whenever someone mentions the “blue star” is the only time the film breaks the fourth wall, and again it just feels like a joke thrown in there because the more types of humour the film can cram in, the better (spoiler: it’s not better). You can overlook the barebones production and effect because that’s part of the old sci-fi experience, but that said, the practical models of the ships are fairly nice. As mentioned, the characters are all fairly unlikeable, even Thor, who provides Galaxina’s love interest, and perhaps is meant to be the most “normal” of the crew, is devoid of any real personality other than being horny. Galaxina has some idea of what it wants to be, but the poor pacing makes it too easy for viewers to get lost. The humour and jokes constantly miss their landing, and an overreliance on crude humour ages the film poorly too. The film finds some footing eventually, but at that point, it’s too late to redeem it, and it just doesn’t achieve anything remarkable. There’s much better sci-fi parodies out there, and this one should probably be left on the fringes of known space.
-
#612 – 24 Hours to Live (2017)
24 Hours to Live (2017)
Film review #612
Director: Brian Smrz
SYNOPSIS: Travis, an Assassin working for a powerful agency is killed while on the job, but is brought back to life with an experimental drug to get information that died with him. Attempting to kill him when this is done, Travis escapes and teams up with Lin, the Interpol agent who killed him, to get revenge on his former employers…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: 24 hours to Live is a 2017 science-fiction action film. Travis is an assassin who is roped into a job to take out an informant before he delivers evidence that will bring down the agency he works for. When he is killed by the Interpol agent protecting the informant, the agency resurrects him with an experimental procedure to get the information for him, but try to kill him again when he gives it them. On the run from the agency that hired him, he engages on a mission of revenge, by teaming up with the Interpol agent that killed him. Made by the producers of John Wick, the film clearly makes use of their previous experience on that film, as it is primarily an action-fest, full of shooting, running, fighting, and the sort. It does differ from John Wick though, as there is actually space in between action scenes, and there’s more of a static camera in place of the close-up, shaky shots that immerse you in the action and never let you go. As such, the film falls into very standard action film territory, with not much to distinguish it. The film does have a story, but as always with action films, it is not the most important aspect of the film. It serves its purpose for the most part, but there’s some elements that don’t really need to be there. There’s sometimes a bit too much padding between the action scenes with bits of story, but on the whole it’s not too distracting.
Ethan Hawke in the lead brings enough grit and energy to the role to keep the film entertaining, backed by a familiar backstory of having his family killed, you’ll recognise all the twists and turns the film throws at you. The setting of South Africa provides something a little bit different, but not too much. Overall, 24 Hours to Live is a one-time watch that has enough action and entertainment to see you through to the end. Relying on typical story points that won’t leave much of an impact, there’s still plenty of energy in the action that will distract you throughout the runtime.
-
#611 – Them (2021)
Them (2021)
Film review #611
Director: Ignacio Maiso
SYNOPSIS: Humans live the same moments in their lives over and over again. A few manage to break free of the loop and become “them” who watch over the humans. Daniel becomes one of them, and wants to wake up his wife too, but problems arise when he tries to do so…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Them is a 2021 film. Every so often you come across a film that is so devoid of any redeemable qualities you struggle to even call it a film. This is one of them. The story seems to be about how humans live in a state of repeating the same events in their lives. Sometimes, humans “wake up” and become “them,” who watch over the humans. There’s…not really much else to the film. The fundamental problem with this film is that absolutely explained or explored. Obviously, it’s okay if film’s leave things open for interpretation, but there has to be some worldbuilding, rationale, rules…anything by which events unfold. here we get absolutely nothing. If the writers had any kind of vision or reason behind what is going on, it in no way translates to the screen. I felt like maybe there was an attempt at being a mix of Wings of Desire and The Matrix, but there’s so little to go on that it no way reaches that kind of level where you can leave things open to interpretation, because there’s nothing built up to interpret.
The main core of the story I suppose is centred around Daniel, who “wakes up” from his human existence. He wants to also wake up his wife, but this is considered dangerous, also the fact that it’s maybe not his wife at all, just a repeated dream that different people live through, including him. Again, it’s very complicated, and the shift between it being personal and impersonal doesn’t really create conflict, it just muddies an already incoherent story. Given that this is a human story at its core, the acting is anything but: nearly every scene is just dialogue of people standing around talking, but the performances are so inhuman. I don’t think this is just because of bad acting, but it seems to be directed this way? Every single character; human, them, or otherwise, engages in dialogue by leaving a three-second pause between responding, and I simply cannot fathom what for. Maybe you could argue that ‘them’ would speak this way since they are not human, but the human character’s themselves do it too, and makes them seem just a bit weird. There’s a character who wants to bring down the whole ‘them’ organisation and tries to recruit Daniel, but again, we never see anything they do, what their aims are, or how they want to go about it: it’s all just dialogue that is eventually just talked away. The supervisor of ‘them’ also gives nothing away, and just asks for reports from his assistant, which are likewise devoid of significance.
I suppose if you want to defend the decisions of this film, it was made during the Covid-19 pandemic, so you can imagine there’s no crowds or big gatherings, but surely there could have been more than just every scene being just two people talking with awkward pauses between every line of dialogue. The film on the whole is simply a bewildering void of any kind of cinematic content, that is unable to establish any kind of characters or worldbuilding. Again, it feels like someone watched Wings of Desire, blended it with The Matrix, and barely understanding what either of them were about, threw together some rough ideas that go nowhere, and with the depth of a piece of paper. Redundant viewing that is simply a waste of time.
-
#610 – Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Battle: Los Angeles (2011)
Film review #610
Director: Jonathan Liebesman
SYNOPSIS: Strange meteors begin falling from space and landing in the ocean around major coastal cities. It turns out that are not meteors at all, but aliens intent on the invasion of Earth. A marine unit is assigned to the evacuation of civilians, and finds itself heading onto the frontlines in an attempt to bring some civilians home before the area is bombed…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Battle: Los Angeles is a 2011 sci-fi military alien invasion film. Starring Aaron Eckhart as Staff Sargent Michael Nantz, he is forced into a unit before his retirement to help evacuate civilians in Los Angeles, as it turns out a meteor shower that has dropped meteors off the shore of coastal cities around the world is actually the start of an alien invasion. Focusing on Nantz and the military platoon he is assigned to, the film feels like Black Hawk Down with an alien invasion plot, with the aim of creating that sense of the viewer being on the ground amidst the thick of the action. It does this with the low camera angles and close ups that put you on the same level and right beside the characters, to generate that kind of adrenaline and urgency that the situation demands. At first, it definitely feels disorienting as the camera shakes about and you can’t get an establishing shot to position yourself, but you do get somewhat used to it. Also, the film does seem to pull back from this technique in the bigger action scenes to use more typical shots and compositions, whether that’s because of the bigger scale of the aliens, or the lack of expertise to pull off the more advanced scenes is difficult to say. Regardless, the overall story is very much a typical alien invasion story in the typical Los Angeles setting, which hampers the film’s ability to offer too many surprises.
At the beginning of the film, we are briefly introduced to the marines that make up the squad, their families etc., but it’s all done very quickly, and we don’t get much of a sense of distinguishing many of the characters. However, it’s not too important to know their backstories when they’re in the heat of combat, it’s just that it would be nice to be able to distinguish them a little to stop those scenes becoming very cluttered. Aaron Eckhart is a commanding and likable lead, with the typical baggage his character as a combat veteran has. The rest of the characters, as mentioned, are briefly introduced at the start, or throughout, so we have a basic idea of who they are, but their backgrounds don’t matter too much once you get into the combat. The film also keeps you guessing which characters are going to make it, although the death’s of some of them are fairly obvious. The aliens themselves we don’t see too much of, but they are weird and ‘alien’ enough to offer something a little different. Their background and motivations aren’t explored too much, but again, that’s part of the film being from the soldier’s perspectives, where you don’t need to worry about anything other than killing your enemy.
We get the usual big scenes of destruction that you would expect, but there’s nothing much to distinguish it from all the over alien invasion films that are set in an American city. The film was actually shot in Louisiana with sets of Los Angeles reconstructed on location, so we obviously don’t see too much of the city or it’s landmarks. Overall, Battle: Los Angeles is a fairly entertaining one-time watch, but doesn’t really distinguish itself from other alien invasion films set in a major U.S. city. The perspective from the military unit is jarring at first, but soon finds its rhythm. It’s got enough to make it a complete experience, but there’s not really much that will stay with you.
-
#609 – Darkest Hour (2009)
The Darkest Hour (2011)
Film review #609
Director: Chris Gorak
SYNOPSIS: Two American entrepreneurs travel to Moscow for a business deal. When they find that their business partner has sold them out, they go to a bar to drown their sorrows, meeting two other American tourists there as well. While there, an alien invasion gets underway and everyone flees as the aliens hunt them down. Managing to hide underground for a few days, the survivors emerge and try to make their way through Moscow, all the while avoiding the aliens that are roaming the city…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: The Darkest Hour is a 2011 sci-fi alien invasion film. In the opening, we see two American entrepreneurs, Sean and Ben, travelling to Moscow for a business deal. When they arrive, they find their business partner, Skyler, has already sold them out and cut them out of the deal. Going to a bar, they meet two American women who are visiting Moscow on holiday. Their party is cut short though, when an alien invasion gets underway, and they begin disintegrating humans. The four Americans, along with Skyler (who just happens to be at the bar too), manage to hide underground, and after a few days, emerge to try and get to the American embassy. To do so, they must navigate the deserted streets of Moscow…well, deserted apart from the invisible aliens prowling the streets anyway…
The film is very much a typical alien invasion/survival film, with a group of ‘ordinary’ people just trying to survive the post-invasion world. The only real unique thing about the film is that it’s set in Moscow, rather than a more typical U.S. setting, but this doesn’t really offer anything interesting for the plot. We get plenty of shots of an abandoned Moscow, but none of the film’s action scenes take place there, which is a missed opportunity. As the group moves through the city, they meet other people and learn a bit more about the invasion, doing all the typical beats and plot points you would expect. The film does keep you on your toes with who is going to live or die as well, always leaving itself open to a sharp turn.
The characters are perhaps the big thing that really drag this film down. From the start, the characters come across as unlikable. Sean and Ben are laddish techbros whose banter is insufferable. Natalie and Anna, the two female leads, aren’t much better. Their turn-around into survivors is a bit of a leap and they almost feel like completely different people. Ben particularly is someone who does not seem like the heroic leader he becomes at the start. The supporting cast fulfil their roles, but that’s about it. There’s no real attempt to develop the character’s personalities, back stories etc. and it is unbelievably dull watching them wander around aimlessly. On top of all this, the acting is so flat and bland that means it is impossible to feel anything but disdain towards these characters.
The aliens themselves are invisible, which conveniently means we never get to see them, or other characters interact with them. The brief glimpses we do get of them show some very average looking CG lacking spectacle or detail. The motives of the aliens is also left very much unexplored, other than they are on Earth seemingly to strip it of minerals. This isn’t so much of a problem, because you don’t expect survivors to try and work out motivations when they’re trying to survive, but the film needed something for the viewer to get into. As it stands though, The Darkest Hour is a drab and bland venture that, despite the more unique setting, fails to grab viewers attention thanks to it’s one-dimensional characters, flat acting, and a general lack of anything interesting happening on screen.
-
#608 – Evolution (2001)
Evolution (2001)
Film review #608
Director: Ivan Reitman
SYNOPSIS: When a meteor falls from outer space into the Arizona desert, two local college professors make an amazing discovery: the meteor contains microscopic alien life. While the two think they’ll be rich and famous for their discovery, the microbes begin to evolve at an accelerated rate, and soon become full-sized creatures who threaten all like on Earth…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Evolution is a 2001 sci-fi film. The film opens with a meteor crashing into Earth somewhere in the Arizona desert, with signs of microscopic alien life. Two college professors make the discovery and keep it to themselves, thinking it will net them the Nobel prize and other such fame and riches. They learn upon examination that the microscopic life forms are evolving at an exponentially accelerated rate, and will quickly develop to be a threat to mankind. Teaming up with a trainee firefighter and a government scientist, they go about trying to stop the evolution before it is too late. One of the most notable things about this film is it obviously wants to be the new millennium’s Ghostbusters: from the director of Ghostbusters, who rewrote the originally more horror/thriller based script to turn it into a comedy, the main characters working at a college/university, and even Dan Akroyd having a minor role. I don’t think it’s up for debate that this ambition went largely unmet. The film isn’t totally terrible, but fails to achieve it’s objectives in a number of ways. The story is very predictable, and offers very little surprises, with the usual thing of the military taking over and cutting the main characters out of the loop, forcing them to save the world on their own. There’s also not enough battling with the creatures too, which somewhat makes sense given they are microscopic for a chunk of the film, but when they are combating the monsters, there’s nothing special or exciting about it, whereas in Ghostbusters had the super cool proton packs and gadgets. It might be unfair to keep comparing a film to another one, but in Evolution‘s case, I think it is completely fair to do so, considering that it clearly wants to be a new Ghostbusters.
While the leads David Duchovny and Orlando Jones turn in good performances (Duchovny wanting to take this role to move away from his role in the X-files by taking a film about aliens is a bit humourous), they don’t really have the chemistry to carry a lot of the scenes. Duchovny is obviously playing the Bill Murray/Peter Venkman role of the dry humoured personality, while comedian Orlando Jones does the more expressive stuff. This overlaps with Seann William Scott’s role as the trainee firefighter Wayne Grey a little, but he has a more youthful edge to appeal to a different demographic. Julianne Moore as Dr. Allison Reed is introduced as an attempted serious, but clumsy character, but that clumsiness never shows up again, which is odd. There’s some deleted scenes which show it again, but it’s odd that’s left in there at all. The biggest drag in the film is probably the crude humour. While it starts out building up different kinds of humour, it quickly devolves into crude and cheap jokes that offer nothing new. Again, while Ghostbusters blended in the adult humour perfectly with it’s supernatural theme, Evolution tries the same, but comes across a bit of a child’s attempt at adult humour. The film very rarely recovers it’s footing in this regard, and feels like it’s run out of humour fairly quickly.
The well known actors, as mentioned, do turn in good performances, but there’s often not much to work with in terms of story or unique things for them to do. The creatures are sometimes creative in their designs, but there’s not nearly enough variety in them, and neither do they look “alien” enough to stimulate the imagination. The climax is a bit boring too, with the cast attempting to stop a giant blob by spraying some anti-dandruff shampoo up one of it’s orifices. Overall, Evolution has some entertainment value to it, but it is always going to draw comparisons to Ghostbusters, which it can never meet, thanks to it’s humour constantly misfiring, and a plot that fails to evolve itself beyond it’s very typical cornerstones.
-
#607 – Sharktopus (2023)
Sharktopus (2023)
Film review #607
Directors: Hu Dong-Sheng, Shixing Xu
SYNOPSIS: When a huge octopus washes up dead on the shore, Scientist Dr. Jingya Fan, who was working on the project to create it, abandons the project. The financial backer, Mr. Chen, is not impressed with this, and kidnaps her son to force her to continue her research in secret aboard his ship. When the shark-octopus (sharktopus) hybrid research subject escapes from captivity, the lives of the crew and passengers are put in danger, and must stop the sharktopus before it’s too late…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Sharktopus is a 2023 sci-fi film. technically a remake of the 2010 TV movie Sharktopus, it bears no resemblance to it other than the title, and a titular shark-octopus hybrid. At the start, a giant octopus washes up on shore (while crushing some passers by), which it turns out is a research project led by Dr. Jingya Fan and financed by the mysterious Mr. Chen. Fan leaves the project, but Mr. Chen blackmails her to return by kidnapping her son in order to get her to develop a cure for multiple sclerosis, which is what her son has as well as the new test subject: A shark-octopus hybrid, or “sharktopus” if you will. Dr. Fan is taken to a cruise ship that secretly houses a research laboratory where she can do her work, but Interpol raid the ship to arrest Mr. Chen at the same time as the Sharktopus escapes from confinement, and so everyone is searching for a way to survive and stop the monster. The film certainly has a lot more going on than the original Sharktopus film, but that’s not hard, as it barely had a story at all; just scenes of women in bikinis at the beach stitched together. This remake is essentially just a typical horror movie though, with the cast trying to avoid getting hunted down by the monster. There’s not really any gore or jump scares, so the film just focuses on the cast and their trying to survive.
The film does get quite complicated, and there’s a lot going on with the characters: you have Dr. Fan trying to save her son, then you have a team of Interpol agents raiding the ship, and one of them just so happens to be Dr. Fan’s ex-partner and the Father to her son. The whole story and all the different characters do make things quite convoluted towards the end, so we don’t get much focus on the monster as we perhaps should. Also, none of the kills are really creative or exciting either: the action is very ill-paced, and we don’t see enough of the Sharktopus to make it an interesting centrepiece for the film.
The effects in the film are a mixed bag. They are fairly detailed, including the Sharktopus itself, but the CG doesn’t blend in too well, and it looks a bit odd in motion. It definitely could have been worse, but it’s not great either. The film does offer a bit of a twist at the end, but again, since the film doesn’t really create much tension, and is all over the place, it doesn’t really feel like it has too much consequence. Overall, Sharktopus has the honour of being better than the film it is based on, but that’s a very small accomplishment given the state of the 2010 film. While the film does try and build characters and give them motivation, it’s very limited, and it doesn’t offer anything exciting in terms of being a monster film, with lacklustre horror, action and/or gore. I suppose the 2010 film at least had a self-awareness that it was silly, but this 2023 version really takes itself seriously, without the stronger plot and production to back that up.
-
#606 – Summer Wars
Summer Wars (2009)
Film review #606
Director: Mamoru Hosoda
SYNOPSIS: Kenji is persuaded by classmate Natsuki to visit her family with her; posing as her boyfriend for the approval of her grandmother, who is celebrating her ninetieth birthday. As if that wasn’t enough trouble for Kenji, he inadvertently sets off a virus in the OZ network, a digital network that governs most of daily life, causing a rampant AI to seize control of people’s accounts, and control of many systems in the world, causing him to be a suspected criminal…
THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Summer Wars is a 2009 anime film. Kenji, a high school student and part-time moderator for the OZ, a digital network that spans the entire globe and almost all aspects of daily life. He is persuaded by fellow student Natsuki to visit her Grandmother, and pose as Natuski’s boyfriend at a family gathering for her Grandmother’s ninetieth birthday. As all of these shenanigans are unfolding, a rogue AI has infiltrated OZ, and is slowly taking control of systems all over the world, with Kenji being a suspect in the attack as he inadvertently solved a decryption key without knowing what it was for. The film is a combination of this slice-of-life melodrama, with the more dramatic and wide-reaching effect that this rogue AI is having. The film places them both on equal footings, and balances them fairly well; interweaving the two into a considered tapestry that ties the fate of the characters to what’s happening in the film as a whole. The threats are threatening thanks to some neat designs, and the family has a messy feel to it, but feels full of life, again just like how you would expect a large family to interact when they’re all placed together.
While the film has a positive reception from a lot of people, there are definitely some blind spots which hamper enjoyment of the film for me. Firstly, the main characters, Kenji and Natsuki, are very bland, and don’t bring much unique much to the film in terms of their own personalities and quirks, and as such, they are a bit cliché. They also don’t have that much time on screen together, so it’s a bit awkward when the film tries to push them together for more emotional scenes. Another issue I had is that the characters don’t really contribute that much to the action scenes in OZ: the Ai just does it’s own thing most of the time without much interference and a few fight scenes, and I felt like this connection between the two realms could have been developed in a stronger manner. The film is, as you might expect, heavily embedded in Japanese customs and traditions, but I don’t think you need too much knowledge of them to enjoy the film, but knowing what the card game Koi-Koi is, for example, would certainly be beneficial for understanding what’s actually happening in the film’s climax, but you can get the gist of what’s happening without it.
The animation and visuals are pretty good, with the world of OZ being colourful and fluid. The “real world” contrasts this with a more simple and faded colour palette and style which works well to contrast, but perhaps that extra bit of detail would have been nice to get across the character’s feelings and actions, which as mentioned is one of the film’s weaker points. The film bears a lot of similarities to one of director Mamoru Hosoda’s previous films based in the Digimon franchise: Digimon Adventure: Our War Game very similarly had the main characters have to defeat a rogue digimon that was taking over systems through the internet, and Summer Wars does feel very similar to that. The studio which made this film also made The Girl Who Leapt Through Time previously, which was a huge hit, and similarly combined a slice-of-life drama with more fantastical elements. However, Summer Wars doesn’t have the emotional weight that TGWLTT placed on it’s characters, and fails to reproduce that magic: maybe a rogue AI on the internet (or OZ) just doesn’t seem that fantastical of a concept compared to time travel, and so the different elements of Summer Wars just don’t produce a more exciting reaction when they’re mixed. Summer Wars is not a bad film: it’s well crafted and considered, and balances it’s different elements well, but the blind spots I have mentioned with regards to the characters and such are a bit too prevalent for me, and overshadow a lot of the film’s positive points to dampen them just enough to leave a lasting impression of something flawed amidst the good that the film does.
