You know, if you're the guy you're supposed to be, you wouldn't stick around. That's why they sent you here.

Outland

(1981)

Sean Connery does High Noon in space (on Io, anyway) by way of post-Alien design and visuals. Peter Hyams isn't quite a journeyman director (until the last couple of decades he regularly directed his own screenplays, and he usually doubles as cinematographer) but he's too derivative and safe a pair of hands to approach any kind of auteur status.

His peak run is probably the Capricorn One/Outland/2010 sci-fi trilogy. Hyams mimics the look of Alien very effectively (he’s open about this on the Blu-ray commentary), such that the film feels like a halfway house on the way to Blade Runner (you'd swear the bar, complete with podiums of semi-nude dancers, is an outtake). Jerry Goldsmith's score frequently makes use of eerie Alien-esque cues and the tagline "Even in space, the ultimate enemy is man" is a pretty shameless attempt to sell it to that audience (there's even a final log sign-off, except that it's altogether cheesy in this case). The expansion of the used future, bored-with-space blue-collar crew into this film's mining colony works rather well; Connery's kid has never even seen Earth, and the staff live in drudgery only alleviated by hookers and drugs.

Where Hyams fails is in character and detail, so he's lucky to have Sean to take up the slack. We never really get to know the opposition to Connery's resolute Marshall. Peter Boyle's character is loyal to what he can graft at the expense of the workers and also represents the profit-first face of the company (the same one that featured in Capricorn One), but there isn't enough of him to effectively counterpoint Connery. The drug that is sending crew crazy is given almost perfunctory attention (having Steven Berkoff go crazy on it is astute casting, though). And even in terms of the High Noon - waiting for the assassins to arrive - aspect, the only character Connery really interacts with is Frances Sternhagen's feisty doctor (she's excellent, even if her dialogues is occasionally a bit ripe). Jame Sikking makes a good showing as one of Connery's men and there's a significant role for a very young Clark Peters (Lester in The Wire).

So what you're left with is a serviceable imitation of better movies (it even has exploding heads a la Scanners) that comes into its own in one area; the Scotsman. He's on great form, taking no shit and proving that Shatner isn't the only actor whose toupee doesn’t detach in space.

***1/2

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There are times when I miss the darkness. It is hard to live always in the light.

Blake's 7 4.12: Warlord

The penultimate episode, and Chris Boucher seems to have suddenly remembered that the original premise for the series was a crew of rebels fighting against a totalitarian regime. The detour from this, or at least the haphazard servicing of it, during seasons Three and Four has brought many of my favourite moments in the series. So it comes as a bit of a jolt to suddenly find Avon making Blake-like advances towards the leaders of planets to unite in opposition against the Federation.

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Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

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Shakespeare in Love (1998)
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The Statue of Liberty is kaput.

Saving Private Ryan (1998)
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Move away from the jams.

Aladdin (2019)
(SPOILERS) I was never overly enamoured by the early ‘90s renaissance of Disney animation, so the raves over Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin left me fairly unphased. On the plus side, that means I came to this live action version fairly fresh (prince); not quite a whole new world but sufficiently unversed in the legend to appreciate it as its own thing. And for the most part, Aladdin can be considered a moderate success. There may not be a whole lot of competition for that crown (I’d give the prize to Pete’s Dragon, except that it was always part-live action), but this one sits fairly comfortably in the lead.

I’m the spoiled toff who lives in the manor.

Robin Hood (2018)
(SPOILERS) Good grief. I took the disdain that greeted Otto Bathurst’s big screen debut with a pinch of salt, on the basis that Guy Ritchie’s similarly-inclined lads-in-duds retelling of King Arthur was also lambasted, and that one turned out to be pretty good fun for the most part. But a passing resemblance is as close as these two would-be franchises get (that, and both singularly failed to start their respective franchises). Robin Hood could, but it definitely didn’t.

Why would I turn into a filing cabinet?

Captain Marvel (2019)
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I should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)
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Have you always lived here, Mother?

I Am Mother (2019)
(SPOILERS) This Netflix science-fiction offering arrived with very solid reviews, always a surprise for a Netflix movie, even one they picked up at Sundance. For about two-thirds of the running time, I Am Mother seems to justify the (modest) raves. It boasts assured direction from Grant Sputore (making his feature debut), polished production values and strong performances from a very small cast (basically Hilary Swank and Clare Rugaard, with Luke Hawker in a Weta robot body suit and Rose Byrne providing the voice). It operates intriguing turns of plot and switches in sympathies. Ultimately, however, I Am Mother heads towards a faintly underwhelming and unremarkable, standard-issue conclusion.

Down ‘ere they say the lighthouse is haunted. And what’s more, blokes go mad and kill themselves.

The Phantom Light (1935)
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Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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