Tag Archives: sci-fi

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

What better time, I figure, to see a lot of movies than when you’re supposed to be doing something else entirely? This weekend, for example, I was supposed to be putting all the non-essential bits of my life into boxes, so as to then move the boxes to storage spots, and therefore have less to take care of over the next few weeks. All of which I did, you see, but I also saw movies.

First, I got to the head of a line that only ended up forming a few minutes before start time, because of how I cleverly picked a movie that started before most people got off work, and thereby avoided the opening day mega-crowds. Which there may well not have been, though I hear it did the best of the weekend, a victory for sci-fi movies everywhere, says I. In particular, because it has a horror movie to contend with next week and so cannot possibly maintain first place two in a row.

The upshot of all this meaningless preface is that I saw The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy unreasonably early in the release cycle to only now be reviewing it. Except, see, for the packing and loading and moving and unloading that I had to accomplish. Plus, there was tiredness. In any case, my bad.

I’m going to say, Good Movie. It didn’t quite nail the bureaucratic morass hilarity of the opening scenes, but it proceeded to lampoon it thoroughly throughout the rest of the movie, so that was pretty cool. It certainly welcomed the unfamiliar viewer with open arms, but had enough new jokes to provide more than just comfortableness for the initiated. The romantic subplot was expanded, which I didn’t mind on the face of it, but I also didn’t find that either lead could really pull it off.

Additional thing: Adams wrote in a new villain character. This did not bother me as much as it was supposed to as a loyal reader/viewer/listener/player/whatever, I think. Really, I liked it a lot, because it added another facet to the whole ‘each “book” should end with tremendous ease-of-use toward having a sequel’ thing that Adams has always had going for him. Which sequel I’d like to see, because when you get down to it, watching everyman Arthur Dent react to the galaxy in all its myriad insanity is fun. I do have a concern over the whole Douglas Adams died and will not have writing credits on future sequels aspect, though.

The problems: It was merely good. Probably this is true of the books as well, and I just don’t know by having avoided them lately. Certainly it’s not a problem for going to see it, because, well, things that are good are worth seeing. But it’s not good for longevity, either in the individual sense or as the basis for a series of movies. That said, lots of not-at-all-good movies have spawned sequels, so. And also, the opening and closing dolphin song was kinda terrible, in the made me want to claw out my eardrums if only that would end the pain sense. But I can avoid it on any future viewings. I will avoid it on any future viewings, unless I’ve been strapped down like a prisoner being forced to listen to Vogon poetry.

On a completely irrelevant note, I was not shown the expected Serenity trailer before the movie. How dare they?

Alone in the Dark

The first good thing I can say about Alone in the Dark is that, not ever having played the games it’s rumored to be based on, I can only see the faint outlines of the travesty that has been visited on the series, rather than being forced to embrace it in all its horror.

The next good thing I can say about it is that it doesn’t have a whole lot of needless plot getting in the way of the story. In fact, whenever plot does crop up, it is handled by Exposition Lad, a spirit that roams freely throughout the movie, initially possessing a museum security guard but willing and able to leap into any warm body as needed. This leaves Christian Slater free to brood, Tara Reid free to pout and take off her sweater, and Stephen Dorff free to shoot at things which are, as you might expect, in the dark.

The final good thing I can say about the movie is that it was absolutely snarktastic. Exactly bad enough to make mocking easy for the whole family, while at the same time just engaging enough that it’s more fun to wait for the next snark than turn it off and go on about eating your popcorn in the dark.

Problems: The two lead males did fine, but the rest of the acting was terrible. Terrible. Laylah speculates that Slater only took the role for a free grope at Tara Reid, and… well, it would explain a lot. The directing was also bad. Uwe Boll, who brought you the absolute worst sequence I’ve seen on celluloid in his first video game adaptation, House of the Dead, … I need to pause and paint this picture.

The House of the Dead is the first of a series of arcade and now console games where you have a gun instead of a joystick and shoot at zombies on the screen. You know the type, with the “reload” warning sound and you shoot off the screen to get more of an endless supply of bullets? So, there they are, the characters that haven’t had sex yet, shooting at all the zombies on the cursed island. This Boll guy, he thinks that, maybe in order to emphasize the game roots to his movie, he thinks that a good idea would be to edit in multiple animated screen shots from the game to intersperse with his actors woodenly marching forward and shooting at the camera. Seriously.

So, yeah. Mr. Boll has bettered his skills only by comparison here. The fact that he’s made a trademark out of blaring techno music while characters with guns shoot at hordes of evil things in incomprehensibly edited montages would be really funny, if he wasn’t listed for three more videogame movies over the next two years.

Really, though, without that two minute sequence, the rest of the movie was about as good as any other generic horror, not good enough to convince people to see who wouldn’t have gone anyway, bad enough to be fun without being depressing. My remaining complaint may be a spoiler, but it’s the kind of spoiler that people need to know when making up their minds, so here it is.

At no point in the film (and believe me, I was watching for it) was Christian Slater alone in the dark. It was a middle finger raised to the genre. Like setting Deep Blue Sea in the pool at the YMCA or Halloween in mid-April. Uwe Boll is fired.

P.S. If anyone actually sees it after reading this, a couple of things to watch for: The broken generator scene that was clearly put in as an example to film students of when a sequence serves absolutely no purpose, and the big scary payoff scene where the much-scarier-than-what-we’ve-been-fighting-all-along monster is revealed to be… well, I shouldn’t ruin it completely.

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow

This is pretty much your average 1930s serial action movie, where the hero Joe Skycaptain and the plucky heroine, Polly Prissypants, join forces in order to stop the invading Germans^W Martians^W Killer Robots^W^W, well, the invading whatevers from generally making earth (by which we mean America, or maybe England) an unpleasant place, and globetrotting everywhere from New York City to Rivendell to do it.

What Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow has going for it to set it apart is that it wasn’t made in the 1930s. Sure, it has a stylistic Metropolis look to it, and the watercolor look of a black and white movie that has been colorized. But it avoids the traps of hammy acting and a special effects extravaganza that would embarrass an avid Doctor Who fan.

Mind you, the special effects don’t make the movie. CGI has gotten just good enough that you can pretend it’s not there as long as the actors aren’t interacting with it. Since pretty much the whole movie outside of the actors is CGI this time, there’s a constant low-grade awareness of it. It’s very pretty, but it’s also very CGI.

No, what makes the movie work is a delightfully convoluted plot, well written (if a little salty for 1939) dialogue, and acceptable acting from the leads. Who, despite the credits, don’t include Angelina Jolie. Don’t get me wrong, that woman can still fill out an eyepatch like nobody’s business, but expect her turn as Major “Hot Lips” Houlihan to feel more like a cameo than worthy of the shared top credit she got. So, if you’re only seeing it for her, it’s not worth the price of admission.

If, on the other hand, you’re seeing it because you have a fondness for the unintentionally campy Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon of yesteryear, or if you want that last bit of popcorn before the Oscar-bait season swings into full gear, or just because you appreciate a gratuitous cow, then this is definitely the movie for you.