The Hidden (1987)

How can you not love a film with this much mindless violence and a cool alien?

One of my favorite films from the 80's (I've long since lost count of the number of times I've seen it) The Hidden is a science fiction roller-coaster ride starring Kyle MacLachlan and Michael Nouri (and featuring Claudia Christian as a stripper who actually screws someone to death!).

While the original idea of a criminal alien parasite being hunted by another member of it's species dates back at least to Hal Clement's first novel, Needle, The Hidden ramps it up to overdrive. Where Needle largely involves detective work, The Hidden mostly involves crazy car chases, lots of guns, and much in the way of general mayhem.

But it's not just the mayhem which makes this worth watching. Kyle MacLachlan's portrayal of the FBI agent (yes, again!) is particularly entertaining, the dialogue is clever, and, of course, the basic concept is pretty damn cool.

I can't recommend this one enough. While a little dated, it's worth watching for the first 10 minutes alone.

Logan's Run (1976)

I remember seeing this one at the movies, back when I was obviously too young to know any better...

One thing I do remember is that you got to see Jenny Agutter's tits, which impressed 13 year old me no end. Of course, for a while there, you got to see them in any movie she was in, which was certainly no hardship! She was, and still is, a very attractive woman, as well as being a more-than-capable actor.

Michael York, who plays Logan, was always one of those actors whose appeal eluded me - He reminds me a lot of Charlton Heston; they seemed to get the lead roles in a lot of the films I ended up watching, but neither of 'em ever bother to act, or if they are, they only know one "character". I find them both irritating to watch, but not irritating enough to spoil a film; in fact, I often find myself laughing at them (in all the wrong spots) more than anything else!

The director, Michael Anderson has some good films in his resumé (he directed The Dam Busters, one of my all time faves). This just isn't one of them.

Faults? Where to start... Let's start with the city. I know we're a little spoilt these days; CGI cityscapes can look amazingly realistic (but they don't always - This is one place where cheap CGI work can really show). The city in Logan's Run never, ever, looks like anything other than what it is; a large model. The most obvious detail is the trees; they are so obviously from a model train supply house. The lack of detail on the buildings also doesn't help with the illusion - Everything looks small; given the low quality of the model-making, you'd think they'd minimise your exposure, but they actually seem to go out of their way to show the outsides of the buildings. Oh well, it was 1976...

The "Carousel" sequence has also aged badly - While there was only one point where I could actually see the wires (there may be more), it was still very obvious that the people were on wires, if only due to the limited range of movement available to them. The force-field effect probably helps to hide the wires, just not well enough. Not as bad as the wires in The Black Hole, though, which is something, at least.

There are several points during their encounter with Box (the robot) where you can see the face within the silver mask, which is less excusable than some of the other technical mistakes; this is the sort of thing which could be easily fixed, even with 1970's SFX technology, if only by reshooting those scenes... And don't even get me started on the terrible super-imposition of the ice-cave collapsing around them. AWFUL!

One thing I noticed, more than anything else, was the pace. It really did feel incredibly slow at many points. What makes this most interesting is in comparison to the original book; William F Nolan's novel is probably the quickest read I've ever found - I can finish it in a couple of hours, easily. The film seemed to take MUCH longer! I can only hope that the upcoming remake sticks a little closer to the book, and doesn't just try to copy the movie version.

The one saving grace of the film (apart from the aforementioned Jenny Agutter's lovely anatomy) is Peter Ustinov, who is pretty much the antithesis of York or Heston; any film he's in, I know I'm at least gonna find him enjoyable. Not enough to save a really bad film, but certainly enough to make it a little bit more tolerable... He gets a strange mixture of really, really good lines, and some truly God-awful ones in this film.

So much for my blast-from-the-past. It's funny how often a film you really enjoyed as a child/teenager turns out to be virtually unwatchable 35 years later... Some of it is the effects, but I often find that a good enough film can transcend this. There are many films from more than 70 years ago that still hold up extremely well, even though there effects are quite laughable - The most important part of ANY film is story. And that's were Logan's Run fails; they took some of the great central ideas from the novel, and ignored what made it good, somehow. I honestly don't know how they managed it. I do know, however, that next time I think of watching it, I'm gonna try to remember to read the book instead. Far more entertaining. And quicker.

Outlander (2008)

They spent $50 million on this film, and then, apparently, just hung it out to dry. The distributors certainly didn't seem to do anything much to try and get their money back. With a total, worldwide, gross of just under $7 million, they'd better hope that it sells a lot on DVD/Blu-Ray. Oh, no, hang-on. I've never heard of it. And, neither, apparently, has anyone else...

Why is it that some films, for whatever reason, just disappear into the crowd? I've heard that it costs about as much to distribute and advertise as it does to make a movie; while not strictly true, the real blockbusters certainly have millions spent on their advertising budget. Long before Avatar came out, there wasn't a single person in the western world who didn't know it was coming. So, if you have confidence in your product (or, maybe, if you just think you can bluff your way to at least some initial returns on your investment), you have to spend some money and effort getting it into the public consciousness. If you have no confidence, you can always let it sit on a shelf for a year or two while you try to work out what to do. What you shouldn't do, however, is just release it to a couple of theatres, and then forget all about it.

The most surprising thing, when confronted with a film that you've never even heard of, is when it turns out to be, not just good, but bloody great fun. We're not talking Gone With The Wind, here people; it'll never make anyone's top 10 list. But it sure as hell at least deserved a chance to make its money back. When Amazon suggested I buy Outlander, I figured "Well, the DVD's got a spaceship on the cover - I might just check it out and see if it's any good".

The basic plot is pretty simple - An "alien" (played by James Caviezel, from the excellent remake of The Prisoner) crashes into a lake in Norway, around about 700 AD, and ends up being taken prisoner by some of the locals. When it turns out that one of his enemies stowed away on his spaceship, and is now killing the locals, they all join together to fight back.

I use the term alien loosely, as humans are, supposedly, descended from an earlier, abandoned, alien colony. Seems improbable, but, what the hell, it's as good an excuse as any for allowing the main character to be both a technologically advanced alien and a human at the same time. In reality, this is probably the only completely implausible element in the story, harkening back to an earlier age of science fiction, when we had less of an understanding of evolution and genetics.

At any rate, the cast is good (including John Hurt and Ron Perlman), the script is reasonable, and the action sequences are well put together. The effects are above average, and the depiction of the Norse way of life had the feeling of authenticity to it. All-in-all, I just can't understand why the studio didn't realise that they had a winner on their hands. People that stupid deserve to lose money!

Still, the other people involved don't, so, do them a favour and, if you like a bit of science fiction with your viking action, at least rent the film. Personally, I'm going to take Amazon's advice and buy it. I liked it that much. In fact, I'd have to say that it's the best viking science fiction film I've ever seen, and their should be more of 'em (more than one, at least!).

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

A masterpiece.

No matter how dedicated one is to a genre, or even to film in general, there are always some classics that you just never get around to seeing. You know they're gonna be good (or at least they should be, with all the fuss that's made about them), but, for one reason or another, you just keep missing 'em on TV, or there's always something newer and shinier at the local video shop to attract your attention. Or, more and more often these days, you've seen the remake and it was pretty good, so why bother watching the old black & white version of the same story...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers lived up to its reputation. Taut, tense, and action-packed,  modern-day thrillers owe a lot to this film. It's only 80 minutes long, but it's got more action and suspense in it than most films manage to pack into 3 hours. I was literally on the edge of my seat for almost the entire time!

Directed by Don Siegel (who's other films include Escape from Alcatraz and Dirty Harry), and starring Kevin McCarthy as an ordinary GP who, upon returning from a medical conference, finds that an awful lot of people in his home town seem to have developed an identical paranoid delusion... Their relatives are not their relatives. They look like them, sound like them, and even remember things that only they could possibly know, but they are not who they appear to be. He investigates, and, slowly but surely, the evidence starts to accumulate, until even the "rational" Dr Bennell can't help but admit that something terrible is going on.

This has to be McCarthy's best role. His character is the absolutely archetypal small-town doctor. He's friendly, debonair, sophisticated, and caring. He's divorced, because his patients always came first. He's witty, charming, and handsome. Of course, by the end of the film, he looks like he's just escaped from a psych ward, but that's the beauty of it.

Of course, by this time he also hasn't slept for about 48 hours, not to mention the horrors he's just been through!

Dr Bennell's love interest in the film, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) also goes from total glam (the dress she wears in her first scene is just gorgeous) to dishevelled wreck during the course of the film. This, of course, is something that we don't see very often, especially in films from this period - Normally, no matter what the heroine's suffered through, the worst that will happen is that she might have a little mud on her dress, and, perhaps, a misplaced hair or two!

As impressed as I was by Kevin McCarthy's performance and character, the cast highlight for me was the always exquisite Carolyn Jones. Her big eyes and delicate features (not as accentuated as they were in The Addam's Family, of course) always portray an extreme level of vulnerability, especially when she plays the role of "the woman who screams at the scary thing".

While described as metaphor for either the imagined communist threat of the 50's, or, equally, as a metaphor for the all-too-real threat of McCarthyism, none of that matters while you're watching it. As you're propelled from one chase scene to the next, and introduced to the exact nature of the threat one step at a time, you are simply buffeted along by the whirlwind. The last thing you care about is the politics; all you care about is whether the hero and his girl are gonna escape...

Yes, it's a bit dated. Some of the romantic scenes are a little flowery and over-the-top by today's standards, and the patriarchy of the 50's is, well, conspicuous (Becky is just a little bit too hopeless when she starts to get tired!). Nevertheless, this is a genuine masterpiece, and one that anyone who wants to make a taut, suspenseful action thriller could learn a lot from.

4D Man (1959)

You know how you remember seeing a film in your childhood which you really enjoyed, and then when you see it again, many years later, it really sucks? Happens to me a lot, I'm afraid. Of course, every now and again, there's an exception, and 4D Man was one of those. Now, I know it's not a great film, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still entertaining; well acted, good special effects (for the time), and a reasonable (though derivative) story.

It's probably close to 35 years since I last saw this, and while I remembered the basic concept, of a man who could pass through solid objects, I really couldn't remember much more about it. I did remember thinking it was not bad, though. The most interesting thing, to me, was that I firmly believed that Ray Milland had played the main character. In reality, it was Robert Lansing, in his first film role. Oh well, memory is a fickle thing... Especially mine!

Tony Nelson (James Congdon) is obsessed with the idea of being able to merge solid objects, after seeing a lump of lead and gold which had merged over a long period of time in a museum as a kid. He manages to burn down his employer's factory while experimenting (through sheer carelessness, mind you), and finds himself unemployed. Off he goes to see his brother, Scott Nelson (Robert Lansing), where he meets Linda Davis (Lee Meriwether, in her debut), Scott's assistant and love interest. When Linda falls for Tony, Tony decides to do the honourable thing and leave, but she's insistent.

Anyway, all this is just background. The fun part starts after Scott catches the two of them together and decides to break open Tony's locker and play with the apparatus. Of course, Scott (who, all-in-all is a pretty decent guy, and really doesn't deserve to be cuckolded) succeeds where Tony had failed, and this is where things start going really badly for everyone involved.

Scott soon discovers that he doesn't actually need the gizmo in order to move through objects. After a playful scene where he's walking down the street reaching through shop windows, we see him studying the bank... I guess the temptation was just too strong. Of course, it doesn't take long for Scott to discover that he ages rapidly by using his power, and the next logical step is for him to find a way to reverse the damage. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the easiest way for him to rejuvenate is by sucking the life out of others.

When HG Wells wrote The Invisible Man, he created a precedent which has been used by just about every other writer ever since; power corrupts, and, therefor, if a scientist discovers a new power, they become monsters. Where 4D Man is different is that it isn't the obsessed scientist who becomes the monster/abuses the power, but his brother, who started out with far fewer personality defects. All a bit tedious, but presumably necessary (or, at least, assumed to be necessary) to create conflict.

My only real complaint is the soundtrack. Presumably in an attempt to appeal to a youthful audience, the music is very beatnik and "modern" (for the time). Listening to it now, it just sounds awful! Still, that aside, I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane, and the film still stands up quite well, which is probably why they keep using Wells' Invisible Man paradigm over and over again...

Thoughts on Star Trek

After reviewing JJ Abrams Star Trek reboot, I found myself thinking about what it was about Star Trek (as a franchise) that had such lasting appeal. More than anything else, what stands out in Gene Roddenberry's creation is his optimism; and it is here where, I believe, Star Trek overwhelmingly failed in the years after its creator's death.

While it is obvious that you can't have drama without conflict, it was Gene's belief that this conflict could also teach us a moral lesson and the last thing he could be accused of was subtlety in this regard. While this kind of hammer-over-the-head approach to morality plays (and I'm thinking, particularly, of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield from Season 3 while I type this!) seems terribly dated now, you can't deny that his message got through!

The message itself was pretty simple; if people can just get along with each other, and work for the common good, then the world (or galaxy, or universe...) will be a better place. In fact, his utopian ideals were amazingly close to the ideals of socialism, especially surprising given the US paranoia regarding anything even remotely connected to communism.

So, we have the original series (TOS), where Gene did his best to entertain 1960's audiences with a microscopic budget and a big heart. Many of the scripts were outstanding (i.e. The Naked Time, City on the Edge of Forever, The Trouble With Tribbles), while some were, quite frankly, execrable (Spock's Brain), but all of them were informed by Gene's values. The Next Generation (TNG) carried on in this tradition (including it's own updated version of The Naked Now), while the original cast appeared in movies of variable quality.

Where it went wrong was with Deep Space Nine (DS9). I remember reading about DS9 when it was in the planning stages on FidoNet, and all I could think of was "Which part of the word TREK didn't you understand, people?". Trekking involves, like, moving about, doesn't it? So, how do you move about if you're living on a space station? So, problem one, no trek. Problem two turned out to be the Bajorans. I mean, a story or two about a particular race is one thing, but an entire TV series devoted to a bunch of belligerent religious loonies is not my idea of interesting! Problem three were the Ferengi. I mean, those guys are just irritating. I never met a Ferengi I even came close to liking, and having them as major characters is bound to annoy anyone with any taste.

Anyway, even the producers of DS9 realised, after a while, that Trek without trekking was a bit stupid and gave them a space ship to wander about in, but by then I'd already lost interest.

Meanwhile, the internal tensions within the Federation were becoming major factors in the story; instead of a utopia where problems were almost always resolved within 40-45 minutes, we now had a deeply troubled political system which was cracking up through a combination of internal tensions, external forces, and human frailty. This is NOT the world of Star Trek; this is a thinly veiled attempt to portray some of our own political systems' problems within the Star Trek universe. This is a problem because the Federation in Star Trek was always intended to be a benevolent parent, not a troubled bully. The individual members of the Federation may not be perfect, but the Federation as a whole could be counted on to, ultimately, do the right thing. By the time we got to the 9th movie (Insurrection), the Federation is so corrupt that it's siding with the bad guys against an indigenous population. What the...? Gene would be spinning in his grave!

The 10th film (Nemesis) ended up so far removed from Roddenberry's values that it is almost unwatchable. And they had Riker married to Troi (when every Trekker in the world knows that Troi married Worf). When the people writing this stuff can't even remember what they did 10 years ago, how are we supposed to take them seriously?

Anyway, what this is really about is that I'm very glad to see the new reboot of Star Trek returning to the core values of the franchise, and I earnestly hope and pray that they can maintain this without falling into the trap of using the Federation as a proxy for our current, flawed, political systems. Please, Star Trek producers/writers/directors, whenever you're in doubt, just ask yourselves "What would Gene do?".

Star Trek (2009)

Who woulda thunk it? After the spectacular awfulness that was Nemesis, it seemed impossible for Star Trek to even recover, let alone rock our socks off, and yet JJ Abrams somehow managed it. Not only that, but he did it with that most risky of propositions; the reboot...

How to make everyone happy? You've got your die-hard Trekkies, your battle-hardened Trekkers, and the rest of the proles who either don't care, or (although the gods alone know how) don't even know what Star Trek is. The chances of pleasing even a small proportion of any one of these groups (especially the first two!) with a reboot of what is probably the most famous TV/film franchise of all time seemed pretty remote, but Abrams not only pulls it off, he literally blows the audience away.

In reality, credit should be spread around here - The writers made sure that the action never let up, the actors (all of 'em) nailed their characters, and the director managed the circus. Having a healthy (i.e. LARGE) budget helped, but there have been plenty of high-budget movies that have been absolute duds in the wrong hands.

The film never really lets up once its started; we are thrown from one situation to the next with just enough of a breather, and there is just the right balance of pathos and humour to keep us involved with the characters and their development. Oh, and the bad guy is awesome; Eric Bana as Nero is my favourite Star Trek baddie since Khan... Completely insane, and thoroughly entertaining. You can tell he was having great fun just being wicked!

More than anything else, though, it's the actors that pull this together and make it the pleasure that it is. It was an impossible task; they not only had to play their characters, they had to somehow remind us of the actors who previously played the same characters, without leaving us preferring the originals. How does anyone manage this? It's like Chris Pine is channelling William Shatner, while still managing to bring his own feel to Kirk, and Zachary Quinto IS Spock. It was even more impressive in Zachary's case, because he had to play up against the "real" Spock; his older alter-ego, Leonard Nimoy. Zoe Saldana (as Uhura) was beautiful, Simon Pegg (Scotty) was hysterical, Karl Urban (Bones) was spot on, and Anton Yelchin (Chekov) can actually act!

Perhaps the smartest move was in creating an alternate time-line. That way, when events occur (particularly in the inevitable - and eagerly anticipated - sequels) that didn't previously occur in Star Trek "cannon", they can be excused as being allowable. If they had simply gone back in time and shown Kirk and Spock growing up and becoming Star Fleet officers, they would have had to have stuck to the original timeline. Very restrictive. As it is, they can do just about anything and, so long as they keep the overall "feel" of the Star Trek universe (which was where, I feel, the last two Next-Gen Star Trek movies failed), everyone will be happy.

If you haven't watched this reboot yet, for whatever reason, pull your finger out - It really is awesome fun - A roller-coaster ride with great effects, humour, character, and non-stop action.