Mission: Impossible II

The story line of M:I 2 is of absolutely no importance. It is convoluted and style wins out over substance and in the end Tom Cruise takes out the bad people.

I believe that the only reason the film was made is to have Tom Cruise's majestic hair blowing in the wind. In slow motion, no less. I also believe that that is the only reason Tom Cruise let his hair grow out was so that those slow motion shots could be made. They make up what feel like half of the film, so it was well worth it for him.

Other things blowing in slow motion: women's hair (one woman in particlar), sand, a scarf.

Other majestic things about Tom Cruise in M:I 2: tight outfits, free climbing in Africa (because, of course he does that).

Other comments to be made in favor of the film: ... I got nothing.

3/10

Gangster No. 1

Normally, I would love this film. If it weren't for that one tiny detail that I simply don't understand. Malcolm McDowell is 1,74 m. Paul Bettany is 1,92 m. The two look nothing alike. They play the same person at different times in their lives.

Why?

Everybody else in this film play themselves in a younger and older version.

The rest is all wonderfully messed up, like gangster films are supposed to be. Paul Bettany plays this ruthless, jealous gangster that takes his chance to run the operation when it comes about. The boss gets shot and blamed for his big opponent's death, or rather slaughter, which was committed by the Bettany character (in the hands down best scene of the film).

Not many play mad as well as Paul Bettany does.

Despite the one big irritation, this is well worth watching. The Brits do make great gangster films.

Bonus: Andrew Lincoln with the dumbest hairdo imaginable.

7/10

Battlefield Earth

Wow.

This really is unbelievably bad.

Apparently, L. Ron Hubbard and later John Travolta tried for a long time to have Hubbard's novel (or part of it or whatever) Battlefield Earth made into a film. Why anyone - even a single minded scientologist like Travolta - would want to put this piece of crap onto the big screen (or small screen, or any screen at all) is beyond my comprehension. I have not read the source material but judging from this it must be among the worst of its kind.

But let's get to the 'story'.

It is the year 3000 A.D.

Earth, once mankind's home, has been ruled for the past 1000 years by a cruel alien race from the planet Psychlo.

As they have done on countless other planets across the galaxies, the Psychlos mine Earth's metals and teleport them back to their home planet.

Gold is the rarest and most valuable metal of all.

The dwindling human population is fighting to stay alive. Hiding in pockets, in radiated areas, they are on the verge of extinction.

Initially, we meet a group of cave dwellers - mankind has moved back to living as Neanderthals - and like any larger group of humans there is that one young man who cannot play by the rules. His name is Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, referred to as 'a greener' (as in: the grass is always greener...). We first meet him when he comes home from a quest for medicine to save his ailing father. He didn't make it in time and the gods took is father in the night.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (in slo-mo)

He picks a fight with the group elder/leader who warns him of the gods that pose a constant danger to them. The greener insists that there must be a better life elsewhere, where they do not have to suffer from hunger and anyway, nobody has ever seen one of these gods. He takes off to find such a place. Almost immediately he runs into a couple of hunters who tell him that they can show him the gods. They take him into the ruins of a city and tell him that when the people defied the god's order to not lay eyes on this or that, they were frozen. Evidence (a): statues. The move onto a former mall to show Evidence (b): mannequins (who apparently have been especially badly behaved).

The trio is attacked by an over-sized alien, who uses a stun gun on them. It also shots the greener's horse with this device.

"Nooooooooooooooooo!"

Then they are put on the slowest aircraft in history and brought to a human processing center in....Denver.

The alien language sounds like a grunt, but for the benefit of the viewers, they communicate in English when talking among themselves, only when addressing the human animals, the grunting is used. Terl, chief of alien security, learns that he is to stay on this filthy planet that he hates so much for an additional 50 cycles and he is pissed off. So much so that when his second in command, Ker, suggests to rip off home security by secretly having the humans mine for gold.

Anyway, the greener immediately and constantly wants to run away, making a reputation for himself. The aliens consider him somewhat smarter than the inferior human race and let him flee with a small group to watch them in their natural habitat and - most importantly - finding out what their favorite food is to use that as leverage. The group goes without for food for three days and Terl tells Ker that they will only feed when they think themselves secure and when they do, they will have a celebratory meal of their favorite food. The humans, starving, finally find rats and eat them, raw. Then they notice that one of their buttons each is a camera and destroy them. This leaves Terl somewhat dumbfounded because he thought them to be much to stupid to know what cameras even are. Their little trip to freedom is cut short and they are returned to the mines.

There, the greener is put in front of a knowledge machine and he absorbs, well, everything there is to know. Why? Your guess is as good as mine. The greener can now communicate with Terl and Ker and gives his cell mates a mathematics lesson. Again, why? Nobody knows.

Anyway, with his new understanding of how everything works, the greener kicks off a rebellion and after his girlfriend from back home is captured, presented and then shot....

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" (now without sound, but again in slo-mo)

...the rebels set their plan into action. The plan entails mining for gold and letting the aliens think they will do as they are requested, making secret recordings of the plan to rip of home security, and, well, taking down planet Psychlo. Of course.

They get gold bars from Fort Knox (like you do) and present them as first pieces of evidence of their cooperation. Then they find an underground US military base (very handy, that), air-crafts, weapons (nuclear, no less), and a flight simulator (!) with which they train. They start a mass uprising during which the dome over Denver is destroyed, exposing the aliens to the earth's atmosphere in which they suffocate.

Thanks to a Psychlo teleporting device on location (of course) an atomic bomb is teleported to Psychlo where it detonates and destroys the atmosphere, wiping out the entire population. The only alien survivors are Terl and Ker. Terl ends up imprisoned in Fort Knox while Ker makes nice with the humans.

The end or, the beginning for the victorious humans.

0/10

The Cell

At long last, I got around to watching The Cell. This film has been on my radar solely for Vincent D'Onofrio, who in my opinion is one of the greatest actors active today. And man, does he deliver here.

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

Social worker Catherine Deane (played by Jennifer Lopez, who I always thought a much better actress than singer) is involved in an experimental treatment involving a billionaire's son in a coma. To get to the boy and possible reverse his condition, Catherine is taped into the boy's mind as a means of contacting him. The idea is to get him out of this world in his mind that he is believed to be trapped in. Obviously, this sort of treatment is experimental and financed by the boy's father. But as no visible progress is being made, he is ready to pack it in.

It is at this point in time that serial killer Carl Stargher (the aforementioned, flawless Mr. D'Onofrio) fall into a coma of his own, due to some rare form of schizophrenia. His latest victim is believed to be still alive at this point and there is a 40 hour window to save. Stargher keeps his victims in a glass box, fully automated, that is periodically filled with water until - at last - the victim drowns and is subsequently turned into a sort of doll.

The FBI then contacts the treatment facility and gets Catherine to tap into Stargher's mind to help them locate the missing young woman currently inside the box before she drowns. Catherine agrees and after initially contacting Stargher as a child and understanding the abuse he himself has suffered under the strict hand of his father, more than actually finding the girl, she wants to help the little boy. When one session goes wrong in a way that Catherine and Stargher overlap, FBI agent Peter Novak (the insufferable Vince Vaughn, showing why he should only be doing comedy) volunteers to participate in the experiment to 'find' Catherine again and save her.

It is he, in the end, that finds the deciding clue that helps them locate the victim and as he runs off to save the day, Catherine locks herself in with Stargher and reverses the experiment so that rather than her entering his mind, she invites the boy into her mind. But adult Stargher finds his younger self and Catherine becomes a huntress and kills Stargher - not through the arrows and sword she sticks into him, but through drowning the boy, who has suffered the same wounds as his older self.

Stargher is dead, the victim is savend and Catherine gets another shot at saving the billionaire's son by getting him into her inner world.

As strange as this sounds, the film is exciting and visually stunning in ways that I personally have only ever seen in those Hong Kong sword fighting epics.

But hey, don't take my word for it....

from Roger Ebert's review: On one level The Cell is science fiction about virtual reality, complete with the ominous observation that if your mind thinks it's real, then it is real, and if could kill you. On another level, the movie is a wildly visionary fantasy in which the mind-spaces of Stargher and Deane are landscapes by Jung out of Dalí, with a touch of the Tarot deck, plus light-and-sound trips reminiscent of 2001. On the third level, the movie is a race against time, in which a victim struggles for her life while the FBI desperately pieces together clues; these scenes reminded me of The Silence of the Lambs. The intercutting is so well done that at the end there is tension from all three directions, and what's at stake is not simply the life of the next victim, but also the soul of Carl Stargher, who lets Catherine get glimpses of his unhappy childhood.

8/10

The Irrefutable Truth about Demons

Anthropologist Harry receives a video tape showing a rant by the leader of the Black Lodge cult, including a specific threat addressed to Harry. He shrugs it off, even after another warning received from a weird woman who he runs into outside of his place of work.

Soon after, he is kidnapped by a group of weird looking cult members, that refer to him as 'slave' and chain him to the floor in a room. Lucky for Harry, the floorboards are not too solid and he can break free and run off, thus saving himself for whatever was in store for him. He stumbles into a restaurant, where his girlfriend Celia is waiting and before passing out he sees Le Valliant, the cult leader, sitting at a table nearby.

Later, as his girlfriend's place, as he is taking a bath he has a vision of her throat being cut and the body thrown on top of him, while his head is held under water. When he comes to and stumbles out of the bath, he discovers Celia suspended in a crucifixion like setting just as the police start hammering at the door.

He flees, dressed only in a towel, to a rundown motel. From there he calls his colleague Johnny for help, but the unfortunate young man does not live long after leaving Harry. After he discovers Johnny's body in an alley, covered in cockroaches,he again sees Le Valliant. To the rescue comes the weird woman, who introduces herself as Bennie. Together they get away on a bus.

But there seems to be no escaping the cult. Apparently, they had something to do with Richard's death. He even sees Celia, alive, and realizes she is a member, as well. The members always seem to find him and, finally, he is overwhelmed by the group and Le Valliant digs out his heart with his bare hands.

Through some ritual, however, Benny keeps him alive and together they go and face the cult again. And prevail after actual demons come to take out Le Valliant, whose powers may have been transferred to Harry.

Next we see them in an insane asylum, where Harry coughs up a bug and Celia returns to tell him that she killed Richard. Later, in the yard Harry reunites with Benny and they find a dead bug that comes back to life in Harry's palm. In the last scene, Celia gets in her car outside the asylum, where Richard (as a zombie? a demon?) is waiting for her in the backseat with a knife.

Weird, weird, weird.

3/10