Film Thursday

Due to unforeseen technical hiccups (i.e. Cineworld’s web site lying to me) there are only three films reviewed today. I was also hoping to see Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs but the performance I scheduled into my little planner didn’t exist. Grr.

Zombieland

A film with titles being displayed to the backing music of Metallica’s For Whom The Bell Tolls obviously has something going for it. When those titles are put together with imagination and a touch of humour, as well as some nice little technical bits’n’bobs you do feel your in the hands of a good film-maker.

And such is Zombieland.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Man eats burger with mutant strain of mad cow in it and starts zombie plague. Lone teenager hooks up with mad psycho to travel cross country. Bonding and blood-letting occur.

This is a rare film these days. One that’s actually even better than the trailer suggests. There’s an added depth to it, particularly towards the end, that isn’t even hinted at in the previews. My one disappointment is that some of the gags are *BAM* slapstick and if you’ve seen those trailers then it does spoil a little of the humour.

There’s an awesome cameo about two thirds in and some lovely grisly moments. The CGI does look a little CGI-ish – the blood spurts and so forth are very recognisable as effects – but it works on a cartoony level, which is ideal for this film. I also loved the use of computer graphics over the film at points, detailing the rules of surviving the apocalypse.

If you can handle gore, then this is definitely worth the entry money.

Pandorum

I wasn’t really sure what to expect with this one, though I originally thought the trailer was for a film version of the video game Dead Space. It has that feel to it. However, it turned out to be a mix of horror, sci-fi and thriller.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: Two crew members wake up on a seemingly uninhabited space ship. Where are the rest of the crew? What are they supposed to be doing? Why is the place falling apart?

Pandorum falls into a few stereotypical pit-traps of this genre. The most annoying is using loud screeching noises to induce trouser-browning jumps. OK, that’s just me because I’m a wuss. Towards the end as the plot starts to come together and characters are revealed, the director has also gone a little ape with the effects and causes a few strained eye muscles. Sometimes less is more!

The plot isn’t that bad, either. I didn’t think it would stretch beyond a poor man’s Alien, but an extra depth is found and it works quite well. A small cast (barring monsters – yes, there are monsters… no spoiler) and some nicely claustrophobic moments keep the movie plot-focussed. Any action sequences are generally tense rather than overblown.

Although hardly mind-taxing, it’s a good enough film and – like Zombieland – better than I was expecting. I gather some reviews are slating it which is a shame. It’s in a genre that has had a handful of classics and a lot of crap. To its credit, Pandorum does look down on the crap from a fair height.

Creation

Not so much banned in the US as finding it hard to get a distributor due to the fact it’s about a man who said that God didn’t exist, this is a classy piece part-made by the BBC.

Plot-in-a-nutshell: This is the story of one Charles Darwin, author of On The Origin of Species. Go read some books and learn something, kids. And not that one the men in church try to force on you.

The thing is, the film doesn’t exactly rock any boats. Nor does it say that Darwin was right or wrong. It’s focusses on Darwin as a person and the effects that his writing and the death of his daughter had on him and his family. It speaks volumes that distributors in America are scared of the reaction of religious nutjobs to such a harmless piece of film-making.

It is lovingly made, however, and the acting is simply superb. Costume drama with out the overacting that sometimes engenders this genre. Paul Bettany is simply superb in the lead role and even the children are amongst the best you’ll see in cinema.

Rather than being a 108-minute crusade against the church, it is a carefully structured piece about a family. At the core of it, it’s a superb example of how a family can go through some incredibly trying times and yet still hold together. Were it about anyone who hadn’t upset them, churches would likely be citing it as perfect non-offensive entertainment.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Pandorum review (telegraph.co.uk)
• Zombieland (popsyndicate.com)
• Charles Darwin film too controversial for religious America. (telegraph.co.uk)