Whatever it is, it appears to be a genetic aberration.

Leviathan

(1989)

(SPOILERS) Two films called Leviathan revolving around the ill-effects of vodka, and which do you think is superior: the Russian social commentary/ political critique or the waterlogged George Pan Cosmatos rip-off of Alien/ The Thing? The latter is so unmemorable, I wasn’t even certain that I’d seen it before. Compounding this is how very familiar it feels. A pungent déjà vu lingers throughout, as the post-Alien tropes are lined up and ticked off but never in an interesting or remotely stylish manner.

David Webb Peoples’ (Blade Runner, Unforgiven, Twelve Monkeys) name is on the screenplay, asked for Alien underwater by the studio, but failing to delivering a screenplay that was quite Alien enough, which is why Jeb Stuart rewrote it. Possibly the presence of Cosmatos (Cobra, and the nominal director of Tombstone, though Kurt Russell was really calling the shots) incapacitates any positives in the script. Certainly, while the creature work isn’t Stan “Aliens” Winston’s best, the director has absolutely no idea of how to make the most of it, and Jerry “Alien” Goldsmith is unable to ring any atmosphere from the dripping sets. Additionally, in stark contrast to the bruising realism of James Cameron’s sub-aqua yarn of the same year The Abyss – Deepstar Six being the low budget third in a 1989 trio of underwater science fiction movies – Cosmatos could barely be bothered to take the plunge; it’s all-too obvious that he’s mostly opted for simulated underwater look (to be fair, Alex Thomson’s cinematography is solid in the main, but it’s a lost cause).

If one is so inclined, one can pass the time ticking off the genre clichés, which include Machiavellian corporate manoeuvring (“This company’s commitment is to the almighty dollar”) under the aegis of alien-eyed Meg Foster, keeping the crew of the Tri Oceanic Mining Corporation, with only a few days left in their 90-day shift, down below with the monster (it’s implied the company knew about it in advance, just like Alien). Which, we learn, is a genetic aberration. “No shit!” exclaims Ernie Hudson’s Justin Jones on learning this detail. Hudson also gets a line almost worthy of LL Cool J in Deep Blue Sea when, having surfaced, they hit more problems; “Sharks! Talk about having a bad day”. It’s a line only topped by “Gone? Bitch we’re still here!” in response to Foster’s “I realise you must have gone through hell”. None of which gives Ernie a free pass to the end credits, though.

The crew of Russian vessel Leviathan were subject to an unbeknownst experiment with a mutagen laced in their vodka, and there’s even a Thing-esque scene where Richard Crenna’s doctor views a computer simulation of the virus’ progress, the crew having already investigated a Thing-esque wreck with no survivors. Before long it’s necessary to break out the Thing and Alien-esque flamethrowers, always to hand in case of an aberrant freak, even deep down on the seabed.

Like Alien, the creature changes in form. Like The Thing it retains semblances of its victims (some of whom we assume are dead, but of course aren’t) and absorbs their intelligence (about the only aspect that isn’t derivative is victims remaining conscious as part of the creature, Michael Carmine’s DeJesus pleading for help). Occasionally Winston hits the mark in a Rob Bottin, kind of gross, way, but too often the creature amounts to a sub-Alien thing slithering through vents, or an unconvincing giant rubber fish thing. There’s even a chest-burster scene and a body part with teeth that isn’t a mouth. Most mirthfully, crewmember Sixpack’s leg escapes at one point and swims off.

And in the realm of brazen copying, Amanda Pays strips down to her skimpies, just like Sigourney. During the opening stages, there’s the occasional moment suggesting a better Peoples script that was thrown out; Peter Weller’s Beck rehearses extracts from The One-Minute Manager in an attempt to keep control of his disrespectful crew. But, mainly, this is a B-movie cast (Hector Elizondo, Daniel Stern is Sixpack, Richard Crenna, who worked with Cosmatos on Rambo: First Blood Part II, is the doctor; they go dutifully through their paces, but they’re all fully aware this isn’t going to be anything special) with B-movie dialogue (“Say ‘Ahhhh’, motherfucker!”, offers Beck, nursing the strange belief that blowing the creature up might put an end to its reign of terror; he then punches out Foster) and B-movie motivation (all are devoid of common-sense, in common with such movies but accentuated here, be it attempting to conceal the death of Sixpack or repeatedly straying near infected cremates).

Quite why Search and Rescue is still about when Foster has issued a press release announcing the death of the crew is beyond me, but then so little here follows rhyme or reason, including the survivors’ miraculous ability to decompress superfast thanks to a red light announcing “Decompression” (earlier, a skull and crossbones signals oxygen depletion, which is a bit indelicate). Cosmatos has zero grasp of suspense or terror, meaning everything happens in a noisy, careless and/or gory manner, which is fairly of-a-piece with his career. Leviathan arrived at the opposite end of a decade that began with numerous cheap and shoddy Alien imitators, but managed to learn nothing in the meantime.

Comments

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

It’s like an angry white man’s basement in here.

Bad Boys for Life (2020)
(SPOILERS) The reviews for Bad Boys for Life have, perhaps surprisingly, skewed positive, given that it seemed exactly the kind of beleaguered sequel to get slaughtered by critics. Particularly so since, while it’s a pleasure to see Will Smith and Martin Lawrence back together as Mike and Marcus, the attempts to validate this third outing as a more mature, reflective take on their buddy cops is somewhat overstated. Indeed, those moments of reflection or taking stock arguably tend to make the movie as a whole that much glibber, swiftly succeeded as they are by lashings of gleeful ultra-violence or humorous shtick. Under Michael Bay, who didn’t know the definition of a lull, these pictures scorned any opportunity to pause long enough to assess the damage, and were healthier, so to speak, for that. Without him, Bad Boys for Life’s beats often skew closer to standard 90s action fare.

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

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…

So the moral of the story is, better Red Riding Hood than dead Riding Hood. You read me?

The Fortune Cookie (1966)
(SPOILERS) Despite its pedigree – director and writer Billy Wilder reteaming with Jack Lemmon, the first teaming of Lemmon and Walter Matthau, a clutch of Oscar nominations – The Fortune Cookie isn’t up there with the best of Wilder’s Lemmon collaborations. Which were, at this point, in the past.

Welcome to the future. Life is good. But it can be better.

20 to See in 2020
Not all of these movies may find a release date in 2020, given Hollywood’s propensity for shunting around in the schedules along with the vagaries of post-production. Of my 21 to See in 2019, there’s still Fonzo, Benedetta, You Should Have Left, Boss Level and the scared-from-its-alloted-date The Hunt yet to see the light of day. I’ve re-included The French Dispatch here, however. I've yet to see Serenity and The Dead Don’t Die. Of the rest, none were wholly rewarding. Netflix gave us some disappointments, both low profile (Velvet Buzzsaw, In the Shadow of the Moon) and high (The Irishman), and a number of blockbusters underwhelmed to a greater or lesser extent (Captain Marvel, Spider-Man: Far From Home, Terminator: Dark Fate, Gemini Man, Star Wars: The Rise of the Skywalker). Others (Knives Out, Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood, John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum) were interesting but flawed. Even the more potentially out there (Joker, Us, Glass, Rocketman) couldn…

Our lives are not our own. From womb to tomb, we are bound to others. Past and present. And by each crime and every kindness, we birth our future.

I think World War II was my favourite war.

Small Soldiers (1998)
An off-peak Joe Dante movie is still one chock-a-block full of satirical nuggets and comic inspiration, far beyond the facility of most filmmakers. Small Soldiers finds him back after a six-year big screen absence, taking delirious swipes at the veneration of the military, war movies, the toy industry, conglomerates and privatised defence forces. Dante’s take is so gleefully skewed, he even has big business win! The only problem with the picture (aside from an indistinct lead, surprising from a director with a strong track record for casting juveniles) is that this is all very familiar.

Dante acknowledged Small Soldiers was basically a riff on Gremlins, and it is. Something innocuous and playful turns mad, bad and dangerous. On one level it has something in common with Gremlins 2: The New Batch, in that the asides carry the picture. But Gremlins 2 was all about the asides, happy to wander off in any direction that suited it oblivious to whether the audience was on …

You’re a slut with a snake in your mouth. Die!

Mickey One (1965)
(SPOILERS) Apparently this early – as in, two years before the one that made them both highly sought-after trailblazers of “New Hollywood” – teaming between Warren Beatty and Arthur Penn has undergone a re-evaluation since its initial commercial and critical drubbing. I’m not sure about all that. Mickey One still seems fatally half-cocked to me, with Penn making a meal of imitating the stylistic qualities that came relatively naturally – or at least, Gallically – to the New Wave.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog