KJToo

Mega-Shark Versus Giant Octopus (2009)

Starring Deborah Gibson, Lorenzo Lamas, Sean Lawlor, Vic Chao, Dean Kreyling, Stephen Blackehart, Mark Hengst and Michael Teh

Written and directed by Jack Perez

Rating:  

CAUTION: This review spoils the tentacles off Mega-Shark Versus Giant Octopus, but hopefully saves you the trouble of watching it yourself.

Oceanographer Emma MacNeil (Deborah Gibson)1 “borrows” a research submarine to observe the behavior of humpback whales off the coast of Alaska. All is going well until a military helicopter drops an experimental sonar device into the middle of the whale pod. The sonar drives the humbacks crazy, causing them to swim at high speed into the submerged face of a nearby glacier. Entombed in the glacier are a megalodon (henceforth referred to as mega-shark) and a giant octopus (henceforth referred to as giant octopus), two ancient aquatic beasts that were apparently frozen in the midst of a tooth-on-tentacle2 fight several million years ago. As the suicidal whales collide with the glacier face, tons of ice shear off and fall into the ocean, releasing (and, for reasons unknown, simultaneously reviving) the antediluvian combatants.

Oops.

Mega-shark and giant octopus swim off in different directions, leaving MacNeil to wonder whether she actually saw the big beasties or they were a delusion brought about by the powerful sonar device. The oceanographer returns to California, where she’s called in to investigate the mutilated corpse of a whale that has washed up on the beach. Before she can complete a thorough investigation, MacNeil is fired for stealing (and damaging) the submarine.3

Something about the beached cetacean doesn’t sit well with MacNeil, so she sneaks onto the site after dark and manages to retrieve a fragment of tooth lodged in one of the wounds. The fragment is more than a foot long, and it’s not until she teams up with her former teacher, Lamar Sanders (Sean Lawlor), that she is able to identify it as coming from a tooth that is perhaps eleven or twelve feet in length—a tooth that could only have come from the massive mouth of Carcharodon Megalodon.4 Mega-shark.

Meanwhile, unbeknownst to MacNeil, the mouth in which her tooth fragment once resided is busy chomping on, of all things, a big ol’ jet airliner. That’s right, mega-shark leaps out of the water (presumably thousands of feet out of the water) to take down a passenger jet that has descended below the cloud cover to avoid turbulence. Mega-shark officially dominates both sea and sky (at least sky that’s over sea), which means humanity is totally screwed.

What is giant octopus5 up to while mega-shark feasts upon fresh whale with a side of passenger jet? Why, attacking an oil rig off the coast of Japan of course! Indeed, the colossal cephalopod unleashes eight tentacles of doom upon the oil-drilling platform,6 leaving only one survivor (Michael Teh) to tell the horrific tale. Dr. Seiji Shimada (Vic Chao) contacts Sanders for assistance identifying the attacker based on a police sketch. Shimada flies to California, where he meets with Sanders and MacNeil, who have acquired videotape shot during MacNeil’s submarine joyride. Comparing the sketch made by the survivor of the oil rig attack with a grainy shot of something moving past the submarine’s external camera, the trio come to the only reasonable conclusion: a giant octopus destroyed the oil rig.7

Meanwhile, the military has completely failed to kill mega-shark,8 and that has Allan Baxter (Lorenzo Lamas) in a cranky mood; not only isn’t mega-shark dead, the warship that was supposed to kill it has been destroyed, and warships are expensive.9 Baxter’s mood isn’t at all improved by the fact that he must now rely on Science to succeed where Big Friggin’ Guns have failed. But does Baxter bother to pick up a phone and ask Science to give him a hand? Of course not; he sends an armed commando squadron to Sanders’ house to abduct the scientists and their fancy brains.10

Sanders, MacNeil and Shimada decide that the best way to deal with the big beasts is to lure them into shallow water where they can be trapped and neutralized. Their efforts to create an effective means to attract the monsters are futile until Shimada and MacNeil duck out for a quickie in the broom closet and, basking in their afterglow, hit upon the idea of using pheromones to lure the creatures into the shallows.11

Pop quiz: How do you know when you’ve hit upon the right formula for your pheromone-based prehistoric critter attractant? Why, when it glows, of course! Vive le Science!

Science accomplished, Shimada heads back to Japan to trap the giant octopus while Sanders and MacNeil use a mini-sub to set the pheromone bait in place for mega-shark. If all goes to plan, the prehistoric predator will be lured into San Francisco Bay, where it can be…well, the plan doesn’t really go into a whole lot of detail after mega-shark is in the bay, really; the scientists insist that the creature should not be killed, but there’s never much talk about how to confine and control a shark large enough to pluck jet airliners out of the sky. It’s okay, though, ’cause there’s just no way things will go according to plan.

Sure enough, Sanders has trouble with the mini-sub’s manipulator arm12 and is unable to release the bait. As mega-shark approaches, MacNeil wrestles with the mini-sub’s controls, trying to knock the bait container free of the manipulator arm. She barely succeeds in time to maneuver the submersible out of the monster’s way.

Perhaps realizing that there’s not a whole lot of plan in their plan, Baxter orders the Navy to open fire, but once again the military’s Big Friggin’ Guns prove entirely useless against the awesome might of mega-shark. This tactic would probably have been more effective with a larger special effects budget. As it was, the underwater shots of mega-shark being buffeted by explosions were so poorly realized that it’s no wonder the monster got miffed and decided to eat the Golden Gate Bridge (but only after destroying another terribly expensive Navy warship).

Shimada uses the Navy sub’s videophone13 to report that his efforts to trap the giant octopus in Japan have yielded results: namely a pissed off cephalopod and massive human casualties. Science, it seems, has failed in a manner most epic.

Crankier than ever, Baxter wants to nuke every giant dorsal fin and oversized tentacle out of the ocean and damn the consequences.14 MacNeil offers an alternative solution: Sharktopus Deathmatch!15 The sassy scientist wants to use the pheromone bait to draw the two ancient enemies together for a long overdue, no-holds-barred grudge match.

Everybody who’s anybody (and there aren’t a lot of those) is already aboard one attack submarine or another, so they agree to used the pheromone bait to lure mega-giant octoshark into the Arctic Circle, where the pair will hopefully resume their Hatfield-Capulet feud and kill each other.16

With mega-shark in hot pursuit, Baxter, MacNeil and Sanders race toward the Alaskan coast to meet Shimada and the giant octopus. Mega-shark must be getting tired, because it’s having trouble catching the submarine despite the fact that it reportedly swam at 500 knots while chasing the pheromone bait into San Francisco Bay.17 Mega-shark eventually overtakes the sub and chomps down for a very special version of Seafood Delight, but not before Baxter, MacNeil and Sanders escape in the mini-sub. When mega-shark turns its baleful gaze18 upon the mini-sub, the trio is saved by Shimada’s timely intervention (and a broadside of torpedoes).

Shimada’s sub is grappled by the giant octopus, and it seems that MacNeil is about to lose her fine-scented lover until the cephalopod’s hatred of all things sharktacular comes into play. The tentacled terror releases Shimada’s sub in favor of getting all up in mega-shark’s gill(s) and Shimada is spared.

In the ensuing tussle, nearly every military submarine is either octopulverized or sharkenated. I give style points to giant octopus for demolishing several subs at once, but then immediately dock it several points for having mega-shark all wrapped up and then sticking a tentacle in the one place you don’t want to stick a tentacle when you’re wrasslin’ a shark. Come on, giant octopus! You’ve had 1.5 million years frozen in a glacier to think about this! I’ve seen your diminutive cousins open a screw-top jar, but you don’t realize that it’s a bad idea to stick your arm in a shark’s mouth? Get with the program!

The prehistoric pugilists sink into the icy depths, presumably to die in one another’s embrace, and our heroes return to dry land. Whatever becomes of Allan Baxter? I have no idea, but I’m sure there’s plenty of glowering involved. As for MacNeil and Shimada, they enjoy a romantic moment on the beach before Sanders barges in with infrared images of whatever beasties they’re all going to have to battle19 in the sequel.

I enjoy a schlocky creature feature as much as—and probably more than—the next guy, and have admittedly low standards when it comes to “The Most Dangerous Night on Television”, but Mega-Shark Versus Giant Octopus was a complete bait-and-switch. It’s a bad film made worse by a cheesy-yet-awesome trailer. Mega-shark attacks passenger jet! Giant octopus destroys fighter plane! Mega-shark eats the Golden Gate Bridge! Everything in the trailer (even Deborah Gibson’s “Thrilla in Manila” line) hints at the sort of ridiculous escapism that makes movies like Snakes on a Plane so much fun. The Asylum20 appears to have thrown most of the budget into the few shots that made the trailer so awesome, leaving next to nothing for the eighty-eight minutes that weren’t in the trailer. Shots of mega-shark—all of which are very clearly computer-generated21—are recycled several times and the submarine interior sets are so sparsely decorated that they bear more resemblance to Shimada and MacNeil’s coital broom closet than anything one might see on an actual submarine. The final product wants to be “so bad it’s good”, but is just so bad.

1. If you’re expecting “Lost in Your Eyes” and “Electric Youth” jokes, you’re going to be disappointed; I’m more of a Tiffany fan. [back]
2. Though octopodes indeed have tentacles, they are typically referred to as “arms”. If you ask me, tentacles are far cooler than arms, so I will continue to take some artistic liberty with the terminology. [back]
3. Okay, let me get this straight: MacNeil works in California and somehow manages, on a lark, to not only make off with a research submarine but take it all the way to Alaska and back without her company sending the Coast Guard after her. Did she also “borrow” a boat to transport the submarine, or does this magnificent submersible actually have the range to make the round trip without a surface support vessel? [back]
4. In fact, C. Megalodon’s teeth were probably around seven inches long, so this shark is probably a Carcharodon Ultra-Mega-Megalodon. [back]
5. Hmm. Mega-pus? [back]
6. Ganbatte, Tako-Ooki! [back]
7. It’s a fact: oil rigs are considered a delicacy among octopi. [back]
8. It’s not even a little bit dead. [back]
9. Well, real warships are expensive. Stock footage of warships with muzzle-flashes superimposed over the ever-bow-facing guns is probably significantly less expensive. Real warships also have keels; when the camera switches to mega-shark’s-eye-view for the deadly attack, the computer-generated hull of the warship is as flat and featureless as a toy boat in a bathtub. [back]
10. If you must turn to Science, at least hold the scientists at gunpoint while they work. It reminds them that Guns > Science. [back]
11. “You sure smell pretty.” “Eureka!” [back]
12. I’d hate to be the maintenance technician who cleared the mini-sub for operation; his best hope of working around subs again is getting a job as a Sandwich Artist. [back]
13. Surprise! Subs have videophones! Videophones that can be used while submerged! [back]
14. Radioactive seas, massive loss of marine life, blah, blah, blah…Go hug a coral reef, hippie. [back]
15. Technically, she compares it to the “Thrilla in Manila”, but I’d rather watch a Sharktopus Deathmatch any day of the week. [back]
16. It never seems to occur to anyone that either beastie will survive. [back]
17. By comparison, an SSN 21 Seawolf-class fast attack submarine has a top speed of 25-35 knots while submerged. [back]
18. “Like a doll’s eyes…“ [back]
19. With Science! [back]
20. The same production company that brought you Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. [back]
21. The CGI mega-shark is very poorly done, apart from one or two shots that made it into the trailer and perhaps a few seconds of the Sharktopus Deathmatch. I’m okay with a shark that looks fake; I expect the shark to look fake, but not that fake. [back]

Brainstorm (1983)

Starring Christopher Walken, Natalie Wood, Louise Fletcher,  Jordan Christopher, Donald Hotton, Alan Fudge and Uncle Ben Parker.

Directed by Douglass Trumbull.

My mother-in-law is convinced that Christopher Walken and Robert Wagner killed Natalie Wood.

I mention this because it’s a bit of a running joke at the International House of Johnson; whenever Walken’s name comes up (and it does), one of us is likely to say “He killed Natalie Wood, you know.”

Robert Wagner’s name almost never comes up,1 and when it does there’s no mention of his involvement in the alleged homicide.

Laura and I don’t honestly believe that Natalie Wood’s death was anything but a tragic accident,2  but the fact that my mother-in-law is so convinced and is, consequently, so creeped out by Christopher Walken amuses us.

I guess we’re just morbid people.

Brainstorm was Natalie Wood’s final film. When my wife asked if we had anything interesting to watch Saturday night, I said, “We could watch Brainstorm. It stars both Christopher Walken and that woman he killed.”

Yeah. Morbid.

But it worked. She took the bait and we watched the movie. “Ohhhh,” she said when Louise Fletcher’s named popped up in the opening credits, “she plays a good bad guy.”

I think that’s part of why I didn’t like Brainstorm. See, Louise Fletcher—Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest; she does indeed play a good bad guy—doesn’t play a bad guy. Sure, she’s cranky and she chain smokes, but there’s nothing at all malevolent about her character. Hell, she’s Walken’s love interest, for cryin’ out loud! Talk about failing to meet expectations.

*Psst! Spoilers ahead!*

I can’t blame Fletcher for playing against type, but if ever there was a movie that needed a bit more malevolence, Brainstorm is it. You’ve got a bunch of scientists working on a device that can record and play back everything a person experiences, complete with all five senses (and the promise of adding emotion and thought to the mix). Of course the military wants it! Of course there are shady back room deals and underhanded tricks and Michael Brace (Walken) is locked out of his own lab, denied access to his work…but none of it amounts to anything.

Lillian Reynolds (Fletcher), Brace’s partner, insists that she doesn’t want the military to use her work to kill people—which, of course, is exactly what they plan to do with it; they create Project Brainstorm based on Reynolds and Brace’s work. Brainstorm contains tapes that, among other things, can cause the viewer to experience psychotic episodes. When Reynolds suffers a fatal heart attack while working alone in the lab, she chooses to record the totality of her own death with the device…and leave it for Brace to view. When Brace begins to view the tape, he starts to experience a cardiac event and intends to modify the device to allow him to view Reynolds’ death safely.

Brace’s boss, Alex Terson (Cliff Robertson), forbids the scientist to view the death tape. Brace is locked out of the lab and must use every bit of early-1980s computer technology to get back in, hacking the system so he can view the tape remotely and destroy the lab—along with Project Brainstorm—in the process.

Ultimately, Brace is his own worst enemy. He puts himself in far more peril by insisting on viewing Reynolds’ death tape than anything threatened by the government goons (who plan to arrest him). And why does Reynolds, who was so adamant about ensuring that her technology wouldn’t be used to harm people, record her own death, an experience that she must know could be fatal to anyone who relives it with the device? Why, so Brace can get a glimpse into the afterlife, of course. Well, a 1981 version of the afterlife, that is. Lots of pretty lights and stars and nebulae and more lights that might be angels flying around a brighter light that’s probably heaven.3

Brace, of course, appears to die as a result of this experience, but his formerly-estranged-almost-ex-wife, Karen (hey, there’s Natalie Wood!) brings him back with—what else?—her newly-rediscovered love for him.

See what I mean about the need for malevolence? How about having Reynolds somehow imprint herself on Brace with her death experience, then editing that experience and using it to kill all the military-types who are after her technology? Better yet, have Reynolds imprint herself on Brace’s almost-ex-wife and do the same, leaving it to Brace to figure out what’s happened and stop her? Or just do something sinister with the military application, rather than hinting at it and destroying it so Brace can see a fancy LiteBrite.

So it was the expectation of something more sinister that led to my being so disappointed with Brainstorm. Terson’s motives for locking Brace out of the lab aren’t anything more than a desire to protect his friend. Sure, the government has nasty plans for Project Brainstorm, but it’s rendered almost entirely peripheral to the story by Brace’s insistence upon viewing Reynolds’ death experience. The journey wasn’t nearly as suspenseful as I wanted it to be and the ending was (to me, at least) a major anti-climax.

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Portions of this review originally appeared on the Whateveresque forum.

1. Because Robert Wagner is simply not Christopher Walken. [back]
2. For those who may not be aware of the circumstances surrounding Wood’s death in late 1981, she drowned after falling overboard from the yacht Splendour, on which she had been cruising with Wagner (her husband) and Walken. The coroner concluded that she was intoxicated at the time of her death. Wood’s death was ruled an accident, but some people are convinced otherwise. [back]
3. This is to be expected. Director Douglas Trumbull also helmed Silent Running (1972), which features similarly bedazzling special effects. Between directing Silent Running and Brainstorm, Trumbull supervised visual effects for movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) and Blade Runner (1981). The visual effects in these films have not all aged well—Blade Runner being a notable exception—but as Chris Miller points out in Episode 0020 of The Secret Lair (wherein we discuss Silent Running) Trumbull and his cohorts were revolutionizing modern visual effects.  [back]

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)

Starring Shia LeBeouf, Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, John Turturro, Kevin Dunn, Julie White, Ramon Rodriguez, Isabel Lucas, Hugo Weaving, Frank Welker and Eeyore

Directed by Michael Bay

SPOILER ALERT: These innocent-looking words may transform into evil, plot-revealing spoilers without further warning.

Michael Bay is often the object of much scorn and derision for directing films that favor style over substance, assaulting the audience with flashy special effects and booming soundtracks while seeming to eschew such things as character development and  coherent storytelling. In spite of this, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen made thirty-seven bazillion dollars1 over the course of its opening weekend.

Did I say “in spite of this”? I meant “because of this”.

The reason Michael Bay’s second Transformers movie made a metric ton of money despite reviews that are almost universally negative is simple: Michael Bay understands that the modern movie theater is tailor-made for big, explodey, in-your-face films featuring frenetic action and jaw-dropping special effects that push the audience right to the edge of sensory overload and keep it there for nearly two solid hours. Bay’s brand of filmmaking has all the elements that compel me (and millions of people like me) to step up to the ticket counter and plunk down eight or nine (or ten) of their hard-earned American dollars in exchange for a hundred and twenty or so minutes of larger-than-life, mind-numbing eye candy.

Mock me if you will. Call me a philistine. I’ll gladly cop to that charge. Why? Because when the theater shakes to the rafters each time Optimus Prime’s massive metal fist smashes into a Decepticon’s face it completely drowns out the sound of cell phones ringing. When a flaming meteor pummels a giant aircraft carrier, I can’t hear the people behind me—you know the ones; the couple who insist on maintaining a running narrative throughout the entire film—yeah, I can’t hear a word they’re saying, nor can I hear the baby crying off to my right. As an added bonus, those giant transforming robots beating the bolts out of each other in a fight sequence so fast-paced my eyes and brain can barely keep up renders me all but unable to even notice the jackass in the next row updating his Facebook status from his iPhone. It’s sheer bliss.

Compelling characters? Subtle, nuanced performances? Thought-provoking narrative? Please! That stuff has no place on a forty-foot-wide screen rendered in so much digital brilliance that I can count the sympathetic protagonist’s eyelashes as the camera zooms in for a close-up during his heart-wrenching, Oscar-worthy monologue. When I want to watch a film from a visionary director that provides some insight into the human condition—the sort of intellectually-stimulating high-brow cinema-as-art drivel I’ll be talking to my well-read friends about over chardonnay and canapés—I’ll buy the DVD and watch it at home. Where it’s quiet. Where no one is kicking the back of my chair. Where the only jackass with a cell phone is me.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a triumph of cinema-as-spectacle. That said, it is also an awful, awful movie. All that stuff about sacrificing2 a decent story in the drive to push action to the forefront; it’s all true. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is a film that, like most everything Michael Bay has ever touched, makes me want to give him a high-five and then drive my knee into his tender, private bits.

The part of me that can switch off my critical brain and just enjoy the awesome sight of 40-foot-tall robots transforming into vehicles and then back into robots, all the while beating the ever-lovin’ hell out of each other doesn’t begrudge Bay one nickel of the admission price. The other part of me—the part that still geeks out over those transforming robots but cringes when one of those robots displays very obvious testicles or when the formerly-badass leader of the Decepticons is reduced to a groveling lickspittle at the feet of The Fallen or when the movie turns into Decoys 3: Alien Robot Seduction—that part howls for Michael Bay’s head on a pike.

Revenge of the Fallen obeys some bizarre, twisted balance that I will call Bay’s First Law, which can be simply stated as follows: For every moment of awesome, there must exist an equal and opposite moment of awful.3

Awesome	Awful
Transforming robots. Come on, that’s right up there on the list of The Coolest Things Ever.	Non-transforming robots. I’m looking at you, Ravage and The Fallen. Seriously, a robot that looks like a giant chrome kitty? Who the hell is that going to fool?
Robots in disguise. This might be a little redundant, but it bears repeating: robots that can transform into cars and planes and tanks and motorcycles are made of awesome!4	Robots in disguise…as humans. No! No, no, no! A thousand times: no! Once you give Transformers the ability to assume non-mechanical disguises you ruin them forever! You need look only as far as the Dinobots to see ample evidence of this.
Devastator. What’s cooler than a car transforming into a giant robot? How about six or seven contruction vehicles combining to transform into a robot so big it can’t even stand upright?	Devastator. What’s not cool about a robot made of seven construction vehicles? How about a pair of testicles made of wrecking balls, dangling between said robot’s legs despite the fact that none of the vehicles comprising the robot had a wrecking ball?
Jetfire. The SR-71 Blackbird may be the coolest plane in the history of aviation; the only way to make it cooler: transform it into a giant robot…	…but not if that robot is my grandpa! He has a beard and a cane, for cryin’ out loud! Oh, and here’s something you probably didn’t see coming: he can teleport. Dude, if you can teleport, why do you need wheels or wings?
More Transformers. Revenge of the Fallen has a bunch of new Transformers, both Autobots and Decepticons. More giant transforming robots = more giant transforming robot fights. And that is cool.	Yeah, but…two of those new ‘bots (Skids and Mudflap) are best described as racist caricatures, while Arcee, the only female Transfomer,5 is killed after only one line of dialog. Definitely not cool.

Then there are the humans, who exist solely to allow the budget some breathing room and to remind the audience that the Autobots have to watch where they step. Bay still drools over Mikaela (Megan Fox) with his camera,6 while Sam (Shia LeBeouf) remains the hapless, confused hero and his parents (Kevin Dunn and Julie White) provide much-unneeded comic relief.

Whether they be searching for the elusive Matrix or stumbling (literally) through a painfully-long drug joke on an unnamed college campus, anytime the humans occupy the screen without the titular transforming robots present they drain a little more of the awesome out of the movie. Thankfully, there’s enough left that I’m waiting for my next opportunity to sit in a multiplex auditorium and have my senses overloaded by all of Michael Bay’s transforming sound and fury; even if, at the end, it signifies nothing more than meets the eye.

1. Net. [back]
2. Or just plain ignoring. [back]
3. Bay’s Second Law: An object, particularly a vehicle, at rest will disgorge its passengers in motion—slow-motion. [back]
4. But I’m still annoyed that Optimus Prime has a mouth. [back]
5. Don’t try to think about why a Transformer ought to be female; your head may explode. [back]
6. Megan Fox’s lipstick remains unsmudged whether she’s dry-humping a motorcycle or after two days of hauling her shapely backside across the deserts of Egypt, pursued by murderous Decepticons. Cover the Autobots in that same lip gloss and they’d be pretty much invincible. [back]

I had a Chinatown moment recently while watching one of the Star Wars movies with Kyle, my three-year-old son, and I realized that George Lucas is the Jake Gittes to my Evelyn Mulwray.1 It’s not that much of a stretch, is it? George delivered three prequels like so many slaps to the face of die-hard Star Wars fanboys like myself, and they hurt.

Before Kyle was born, I banished the prequels from my home. Even after I began his training—introducing him to the space opera by way of the LEGO Star Wars II: The Original Trilogy video game on my old Xbox—I was determined that the prequels would not sully my DVD player. We played the entire game together, and he experienced Tattooine, Yavin IV, Hoth, Dagobah, Cloud City and the forest moon of Endor in a multitude of interlocking bricks. When I upgraded to an Xbox 360, I decided that there was little harm in upgrading to LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga as well. I’d played through the prequel trilogy LEGO game before my son was old enough to pick up a controller and found that (surprise!) it’s much more entertaining when there’s no intelligible dialog.

A few months ago, we graduated from the video game to the movies. Despite a few bumps (he’s not terribly fond of the Wampa ice creature in The Empire Strikes Back; ditto for Luke’s encounter with Vader in the tree-cave on Dagobah and Jabba the Hutt’s menagerie in Return of the Jedi) the movies are a big hit at the International House of Johnson, and I get requests to watch them on a daily basis.

Then a couple of weeks ago I decided to lift my ban on the prequels. I realized that as much as I reviled them, the prequel films would be right up my son’s alley. He’d already been inoculated: he loves Yoda in all of his puppety glory, pretends to be Han Solo and Luke Skywalker,2 refers to a Belle (Beauty & The Beast) PEZ dispenser as “yellow Princess Leia”, runs around the house yelling “Open the blast doors!” and “Oota goota, Solo?”; he even knows who is “in Darth Vader”. But there was an entire trilogy’s worth of characters that he’d only ever seen in LEGO minifig form.

So I borrowed Star Wars: The Clone Wars from the local library. He’d seen the endless advertisements for the series on Cartoon Network and would often strike a Power Rangers-esque stance while yelling “Star Wars the Cone Wars!”—he’s not so good with the letter L just yet—so I thought we could ease into the prequels with the animated adventures of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker. The reaction upon seeing the Star Wars logo was pretty much what I expected—an explosion of ecstatic joy—but the movie didn’t really hold his interest beyond a few oohs and aahs during one of the lightsaber battles.

I suspected that my son would be more interested in the familiar characters and situations in The Phantom Menace, so I picked up the DVD from The Exchange, my local used music/movie/video game store. We watched the movie together and I saw everything that made me hate it: Jake Lloyd’s horrible acting, Natalie Portman’s inspired impersonation of a woodcarving, the utterly ridiculous Trade Federation droids.3 All of it.

And my son loved every last minute.

I’ve watched bits and pieces of The Phantom Menace three or four times since then, and it still makes me cringe to hear Anakin Skywalker ask Padmé Amidala if she’s an angel. Something screams inside me anytime midi-chlorians are mentioned.4 And when Yoda appears, his face swollen and his features distorted as though he’s in the midst of a horrible allergic reaction—possibly to a gundark bite—I just shake my head.

But it’s still Star Wars, and my son loves it. And while we were watching it together one night before bedtime, I suddenly felt like Evelyn Mulwray.

I love it!

*slap*

I hate it!

*slap*

I love it!

*slap*

I hate it and I love it!

Lucas has always maintained—despite the froth and fury of fanboys like myself—that the prequels were geared toward children. Watching my young apprentice’s reaction, it’s clear that Lucas wasn’t just blowing smoke; I am a generation removed from what passes for Star Wars these days, but experiencing them with my son has brought an unexpected appreciation for something I was convinced I loathed.

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This was originally written for Whateveresque, a web forum maintained by author John Scalzi. It is reprinted here—in a slightly altered form—at my wife’s request.

1. If you haven’t seen Chinatown, starring Jack Nicholson as J.J. “Jake” Gittes and Faye Dunaway as Evelyn Mulwray, you should; this analogy makes more sense if you have. Go ahead: put in in your Netflix queue or run down to the corner video store. This blog will be here when you get back. [back]
2. I have yet to convince him to pretend to be Lobot. [back]
3. “Roger, roger!”? What kind of nonsense is that? If the droids are all controlled by a giant ship in orbit and every last one of them shuts down when that ship is destroyed, why do they need to communicate verbally with each other at all, much less in an idiotic homage to Gomer Pyle? [back]
4. Riddle me this, George: If the Jedi believe the Sith have all been wiped out, do they not understand that one who will “bring balance to the Force” is going to have to kill a cubic buttload of Jedi? Why would any Jedi in his right mind want to find such a person? [back]

Rogue (2007)

Starring Radha Mitchell, Michael Vartan, Sam Worthington, John Jarratt, Caroline Brazier, Robert Taylor, Stephen Curry, Celia Ireland, Heather Mitchell, Geoff Morrell and Alice.

Directed by Greg Mclean.

Music by François Tataz.

Rogue is one of those rare beasties: a movie that exceeded my expectations on every level. Rarer still, it’s a giant crocodile tale that manages to escape from the realm of the B-Movie, by my accounting a feat that’s happened only twice before.1 The killer crocodilian is one of my favorite movie genres, but to love these films it’s necessary to embrace bad acting, fountains of fake blood, dodgy special effects and scripts that are—to be kind—less than polished; in other words, you gotta love schlock.

Writer/director Greg Mclean’s tale of a tour boat running afoul of a 7-meter rogue saltwater crocodile in Australia’s Northern Territories is decidedly not schlock.

The acting is fairly solid, with fine performances from Radha Mitchell (Pitch Black, Silent Hill) as Kate Ryan, the guide who leads a boatload of tourists to their unfortunate encounter with the titular rogue crocodile, Michael Vartan (Alias) as Pete McKell, a travel writer who is anything but thrilled with his current assignment, and Sam Worthington (Terminator Salvation) as Neil Kelly, the rowdy local who pesters the tour boat only to find himself stalked by the same killer croc. The rest of the cast is a decent mix of personalities, complete with the quiet guy, the weirdo, the jackass you really want to see get eaten, the lady who’s probably going to freak out at any moment, the kid, the heroic guy who you weren’t expecting to die so soon, and the dog. Of course there’s a dog.

Blood? Sure, there’s blood—being eaten by a crocodile is bloody business, and this isn’t an Australian retelling of Alive; those tourists aren’t gonna eat themselves (or each other)—but it’s not the typical Festival of the Spurting Artery you (if you’re the type who watches these films) may have come to expect. There are really only four bits of gore that I can recall in Rogue—one done strictly for the shock, the second and third to emphasize just how badly the characters are injured and the last to emphasize just how dead the giant crocodile is2—and they all occur in the last 10 minutes of the movie. I appreciate a horror flick that doesn’t feel the need to spray blood and other stuff that really should stay inside the body all over the scenery. Rogue relies on the looming threat of a monstrous, lurking predator to provide the chills and leaves the fountains of gore to lesser films, like the ill-advised splatterfest, The Care Bears vs. The Killer Unicorn.3

Another hallmark of creature features is special effects that look like they were ripped off from a bad episode of Land of the Lost,4 complete with a critter that most likely started its life in the discount bin at Pat Catan’s. The crocodile in Rogue is a blend of computer-generated imagery and animatronics, and both methods are put to good use. The DVD extras include a breakdown of one particular croc-chomping, and the mixture of elements (wire-work, stunt actor, real actor, computer-generated imagery, etc.) is impressive; there’s a lot going on for a scene that lasts all of ten seconds. The digital legerdemain used to make it appear that the last half of the movie takes place in the same environment as the first half is impressive, too. The effects don’t look at all like effects, and until the curtain is drawn back you may not even be aware that the curtain was even there in the first place.

But it takes more than whiz-bang special effects to make a good movie,5 and even a competent ensemble cast isn’t going to be able to do much if your script is crap.6 The story in Rogue isn’t likely to win any awards for writing, but it does the job, which mostly entails getting the characters where they need to be in order to set up the buffet without stretching the bounds of feasibility and then letting the crocodile do the rest.

Rogue has a couple of other things going for it that didn’t even make the schlock vs. non-schlock list: stunning scenery and an excellent score.

The scenery rivals—hell, surpasses—the New Zealand vistas into which Peter Jackson dropped hobbits, elves, dwarves and orcs for his Lord of the Rings trilogy. Mclean shot Rogue in some areas of Australia that, if you believe his audio commentary and some of the DVD special features, have rarely been captured on film. The landscape—high, rocky plateaus surrounding heavily-forested lowlands with a wide, calm river running through it—is breathtaking, and certainly like nothing I’ve seen before; especially not in a horror film.

Likewise, the musical score by François “Frank” Tataz and featuring aboriginal vocals by Jida Gulpilil is miles away from anything I’ve heard in a horror film. Sure, there are a lot of the familiar tropes—pizzicato strings during some of the more tense, prickly moments and a low, ominous cello-based motif for the crocodile—but the tropes are done really well, and there’s also a beautiful suite that accompanies the first third of the film, a haunting piece that provides a perfect accompaniment to the vast, lush landscape. It’s the first horror score in memory that I’ve wanted to own on CD.

In case it’s not readily apparent by now, I thoroughly enjoyed Rogue. I’ve seen enough killer crocodile movies to recognize a true diamond in a genre that falls, by and large, almost entirely in the rough. It’s not a perfect film—I thought the close-ups of the rising tide looked particularly manufactured, there’s a line of dialog shortly after the tour boat is disabled that seems to allude to a croc-chomping that never happened, and the crocodile would have to have one hell of a big appetite to eat no less than three and a half full-grown adult humans over the course of just twelve hours—but when compared with the rest of its ilk it comes pretty close.

1. Lake Placid and Primeval, though I wouldn’t argue if the former—intentionally campy as it is—were classified as a B-Movie homage. [back]
2. Oh, hey, SPOILER ALERT: the croc dies. [back]
3. This film is not yet rated. [back]
4. I know, I know, that implies that there were good episodes of Land of the Lost. I’m blinded by nostalgia. [back]
5. I’m looking at you, Wachowski Brothers. And you, too, Frank Miller. [back]
6. Your turn to receive my glare, X-Men 3. [back]