LUCIDMEDIA

The film opens with a father and son being released from a brief stay in prison (played by the director’s long time friends and real father/son team Robert and Robin Hill). They return to their middle class home with plans to uncover who sent them to jail. A parade of weird local grotesques walk through their doors including a pathetic club owner, an over-the-hill toughie, and a hitman with a toddler, all possible suspects. The son’s girlfriend then shows up pregnant, further complicating things since the family is still run as if he is still an adolescent. Bickering and casual drug use seem to make up their days until suspicions get the better of every body and the bloody last act devolves into a series of double crosses and murders.

If there’s a problem with the movie it’s the violent finale. Though inevitable, it feels like Wheatley and his co-writer/editor Robin Hill simply killed off all of their characters in favor of having to come up with a conclusion for their story. The violence is quite shocking at first, but quickly becomes routine once every character gets a shot at a death scene. Admittedly it does clash with the character comedy created up until that point in an interesting way, but there’s a shame more of the comedy wasn’t worked into the last 20 minutes. Wheatley and Hill have created an incredibly entertaining, relatable, and pathetic collection of characters. These aren’t idealized crime lords, but local thugs trying to raise families and have a semblance of normal life when they aren’t kicking the shit out of each other. Wheatley genuinely makes us care about the characters and watching them bicker over their pathetic lives is hilarious and infinitely more entertaining than anything that happens once the violence comes into play.

The gross-out gag film College begins with a rather ingenious credit sequence where the names of the cast and crew are scrawled on various walls, articles of clothing and other paraphernalia associated with high school. It was neat and I liked, but unfortunately it came to be the only residue of inspiration contained in this 90 minutes of so-called comedy; even the unrated version. And speaking of unrated versions I think there should be some kind of rule instated where you can’t make a big deal and call something unrated because it’s got a bunch of the same, stale jokes re-edited into the theatrical cut. There’s been entirely too much abuse of this system and it needs to stop.

But College has bigger problems frankly, and not just the fact that it’s an uninspired revisit of Animal House for what has to be like the thirtieth time. More egregious is that it seems that the makers of College took it upon themselves to create the unofficial prequel to Superbad. Because what are the three main characters – the sensitive Kevin (Drake Bell), the rancorous Carter (Andrew Caldwell) and the introverted Morris (Kevin Covais) – but carbon copies of Evan, Seth and McLovin. They’re high school geeks just looking for a good time and they think that a weekend touring a nearby college will be filled with booze, women and wildness, which of course it is, but for these guys it also means gross-out pranks, prat-falls and a life enlightening self-inventory.

Think of anything that could possibly be done to a person capable of embarrassment, whether it involves bodily fluids or social alienation, and it probably happened to these guys. Never in history, whether that’s film history or the real one, have three guys gone through so much to get so little. I think even the most sex-starved, sheltered teenage virgin would have to ask themselves if what they were put through by masochistic frat boys was worth the slim chance of being bare naked with girl? But naturally they don’t and they continue to put up with frat crap until they ultimately blame one and other for their social failure before making-up for the revenge montage.

And the pranks are so pedestrian at that. Super glue on the toilet seats? Compromising posters plastered across campus? Where’s the originality? What’s the point on being a socially inept nerd if you haven’t completely visualized the public deconstruction of the people that torment you? But that’s the problem with this movie: things just seem to proceed all too predictably. Even Verne Troyer, who cameos as himself, looks disgusted to be involved in this display; I, at least, hope that he was well paid for his trouble. The three leads do their best but it seems that their best stuff was preserved for the blooper reel. Now sitting here, trying to remember anything from the movie that might have made it even memorable, and all I can think about is how the biggest name in this movie is the guy that played Mini-Me, and how ironic that is.

Marvel latest animated movie is hit and miss; Hulk Vs. Wolverine is a hit, Hulk Vs. Thor is a miss. It’s a good thing that the studio decided to package the two stories together in one feature because that second one, left to its own devices, was kind of lame. Both are solid efforts though, as long as you ignore the one conceit, which is that the Hulk is actually a very marginal part of the film that’s named after him. Despite how interesting everything else may be, it’s pretty bad when the star of the film is little more than a plot device.

In Hulk Vs. Thor, the Green Goliath finds himself a pawn of Loki, the Norse God of Mischief. Taking advantage of King Odin’s annual hibernation, Loki uses Hulk has a puppet to wreck unholy havoc on Asgard generally, and his step-brother Thor particularly. Of course with the Hulk being involved, these things don’t go according to plan, and after Loki’s control is broken, a really, really angry Hulk just says eff it, I’m going to smash everything anyway. The problem with this story is that there’s a constant start-stop motion through everything; as if the writer is constantly trying to find more story to keep things going to a pre-arranged running time.

And I know Hulk’s alter ego Bruce Banner is supposed to be all tortured and everything, but there’s this whole Star Trek: Generations thing where he has an illusion of a quiet life with a wife and a kid that just felt really misplaced. Now whininess is a part of Banner’s personality, but not to the point where he lockjaws about fighting to keep Hulk under control because he feels personably responsible for the actions of his atomic Mr. Hyde. It’s almost like the writers of this film didn’t really understand the underline rational of Banner when it comes to the Hulk, but then again they also seemed to forget that Loki is a God of Mischief, not a God of Darkness, or whatever they tried to sell him as. This Loki wasn’t very mischievous, but I love the voice of Graham McTavish in playing him.

Next, there’s Hulk Vs. Wolverine, and it is by far the better entry. Almost duplicating the origin of Wolverine from The Incredible Hulk #180, the story finds Logan being sent by Canada’s Department H into the woods to bring in the monster, who’s terrorizing unwitting campers. Unfortunately for both Wolverine and Hulk, Weapon X really wants them for their ongoing experiments in creating super-powered soldiers. As a result, the two combatants have to team up against the evil Canadians in order to survive. And in what has to be a preview of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, they have to fight through Sabretooth, Deadpool, Deathstrike and Omega Red to escape.

From a story perspective, this half of Hulk Vs. is much cleaner and much more linear. Although it doesn’t deliver a full-on bloody fight between the two title characters, it undoubtedly nailed the dark tone the story needed and was just violent enough to be satisfying without going R-rated. The real surprise of the film though was Deadpool, never a very favourite of mine, yet somehow really enjoyable here being played against the dark, humourless characters. Voice actor Nolan North is so good in bring the Merc with a Mouth to life, I can say without hyperbole that in the minds of fans who see this, young Ryan Reynolds will have big shoes to fill this summer.

So if you watch the film in its intended order you can get past the terrible He-Man-esque quality of Hulk Vs. Thor and just sit back to enjoy the antics and in-jokes of Hulk Vs. Wolverine. In the collection of Marvel animated films I have to say that this one ranks pretty high, but in the end would have ranked higher had something more compelling been done with the Thor portion.

The manic insanity unleashed by Tokyo Gore Police is mostly just too good to ignore. But mostly, I’d love to see the fake blood budget for this movie; I’d swear that more of the stuff was spilled in the first ten minutes than in the entire Friday the 13th series. Damned if I know what’s going on half the time, but it’s magically gory in a way that the name barely implies. Filled with over-the-top effects and confused, sometimes desperately different story elements, Tokyo Gore Police comes across as a mix of Blade Runner, Dawn of the Dead, and Resident Evil. And it’s all done in that exuberant Japanese-style and go-for-broke attitude.

If you’ll remember this little Kurt Wimmer film from a couple of years ago called Ultraviolet, then you’ll quickly see that TGP is a blood-soaked, Hellraiser-reinforced, purposefully campy little cousin of that floater. In the not too distant future in Tokyo, the police are on the brink of being privatized and self-mutilation is a fad where in “cute cutters” are advertised on television for stylish wrist cutting. There are also monsters called “engineers” running around, genetic anomalies that are transformed by a key-like tumour that allows them to replace missing limbs with some kind of organic weapon. Like a missing hand becomes pray mantis like claw, or a stripper’s sawed off bottom half becomes a crocodile-like maw.

And if you think missing a limb and having it turn into some kind of deadly, organic weapon of a perverse and grotesque nature, that’s to say nothing of the people that lose a piece of anatomy that’s a little more precious, let’s say. I hope I’m painting the right picture here, but even then this thing will surpass anything resembling you’re expectations when I use the term “gore-gasm.” You know, what is laughingly referred to as arterial spray in the whole Crazy 88’s fight in Kill Bill happens with alarming frequency in this film. Anytime something gets cut off, the (fake) blood gushes like a geyser that’s been five years behind in its discharges.

But if the idea of watching more blood and guts that a day at a slaughter house could provide is less than appealing to you, I guess you can enjoy the… uh, what else is in this movie? Well, there are the trials and tribulations of master engineer hunter Raku (Eihi Shiina), who saw her father gunned down in all its head-exploding glory and manages to track both the murder of her dad and the origin of the engineers to the same place. Okay, so it’s not exactly The Maltese Falcon here, and anytime blood isn’t pouring out of some poor victim’s gaping wound, things seem to slow to a crawl. But, oh well, no big deal because there’s always more blood-letting just around the corner.

Other than that, there’s really not much more to say about Tokyo Gore Police. It’s the type of movie where the dissolves are blood spraying all over the camera and covering the screen in a syrupy red mess. If that sounds like your particular brand of vodka, than march on over to the video store and put down your money on this well-made piece of exploitation cinema. However, it must be reinforced, if not implied already, that this is not for the squimish. Shoot, it isn’t even for the one with the average-strengthened stomach. Chainsaw hands, laser-blasting phalluses, S&M chicks with no limbs wearing a gas mask, there’s something truly perverse about the mind of filmmaker Yoshihiro Nishimura. And the world definitely deserves to share in it.

I like The Women the first time I saw it when it was called The First Wives Club. But seriously, I really have to congratulate writer/director Diane English for making a remake of one movie feel like a remake of an entirely different movie. As for this film, I vaguely remember it passing me by last fall in the midst of several other films that had my attention. I also remember that this film is one of the more famous former residents of Development Hell, with remakes previously proposed as early as the 70s with Jane Fonda, Barbra Streisand, and Faye Dunaway starring.

This Women stars Meg Ryan, Annette Bening, Debra Messing and Jada Pinkett-Smith as four friends balancing their busy careers and busier lives in modern New York. The focus though is on Ryan’s character Mary Haines; a fashion designer with a philandering husband engaged in an affair with the perfume girl at Saks Fifth Avenue (played by Eva Mendes). Bening’s character, Sylvia Fowler, is Mary’s best friend, and initially tries to hide this juicy gossip from her BFF until her source, a manicurist at Saks (Debi Mazar, good to see her get some work) lets it slip to Mary. (Which begs the question, does this woman just tell everyone the same bit of gossip?)

Much of the film is about how Mary copes with the news that her husband, the never-seen Steven, has been unfaithful to her, and how she copes after she kicks him out of her life and serves him with notice of divorce. It seems oddly incongruent that a smart, independent and accomplished modern woman would mope in her PJs after firing her cheating husband, but that’s what the script does in order to launch an apparent journey of self-re-discovery for Mary. In fact, there are a lot of mixed messages in this film is supposed to summarily come to the conclusion that the question shouldn’t be “can you have it all,” but rather “do you really want it all to begin with?”

The main point of interest in the screenplay though is the fact that it’s devoid of male characters, and instead either talks around them, or doesn’t show them at all. It’s an interesting idea, but interesting ideas should become part of the story and not stick out like a sore thumb. And the way English gets around it, with one-sided telephone conversations and characters talking about overhearing things, the lack of males really draws attention to itself. Sometimes you can get into to it, but other times it feels like a scene’s been re-cut or taken out, leaving a hole in the dramatics. It feels kind of theatrical, as if the idea would work on stage, but in the film gimmickry’s hard to feel natural.

The cast was mostly underwhelming, which is something you don’t want to say with the acting talent at English’s disposal here. I would have like to have seen more of Pinkett-Smith’s writer character Alex Fisher, who always seemed to have an interesting impartial observation just before the hysterics reared up again. Cloris Leachman as Mary’s maid (I guess she’s supposed to be) is a hoot and a half no matter what she is, and was easily the funniest thing in this movie. Bening gets points for getting in a few laughs of her own, but alternatively she’s saddled with the two, really insulting plotlines so she gets hammered by both the best and the worst that this movie has to offer.

But what’s most problematic with the film is that while they might have updated the time and place, they didn’t seem to take the time to update the material. As a result The Women feels like it’s about 10 years out of date, and otherwise sitcom-like in its set-ups and delivery without any real hint at the sophistication it implies. Many of the actresses are either miscast or wasted, and far too often the script that their supposed to be delivering with vigour seems to really drag out. An A for effort, and an A for finally getting this remake off paper, but this is a D film even at its best.

In the chewy centre of Hamlet 2, there’s something brilliant waiting to happen. But like a great thought that finds its way to the tip of your tongue before disappearing forever, what exactly that kernel of brilliance is completely escapes me. Maybe it’s the notion about someone of marginal talent even taking it upon himself to script the follow-up chapter of the greatest tragedy ever written. Better still is the remarkably simple plot device used to salvage the last ten minutes of that play: a time machine where in everybody’s saved and brought to “the present.” They also, somehow, inexplicably pick up Jesus along the way. Now that’s chutzpah. 

The point of Hamlet 2, directed by Andrew Fleming from a script by Fleming and South Park writer Pam Brady, seems to be to make the thing main event as offensive as possible. Maybe it’s my liberal bent, but what’s all the fuss about? I’m more insulted by the fact that “Hamlet 2” seems to be just about the most prosaic of unpredictable high school musicals ever created. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happened, as that bald philosopher from Springfield might observe. Sure the central musical number provocatively entitled “Rock Me Sexy Jesus” will get you some scowls and a few old ladies reflexively crossing themselves, but I’ve seen more offensive stuff on Vision TV.

If there’s a salvation to Hamlet 2, it’s the go for broke, comedic performance by Steve Coogan. After small but thankless roles in Night at the Museum and Tropic Thunder, not to mention a well-received but not so well-seen starring role in A Cock and Bull Story, Coogan really gets a chance to shine as actor-turned-drama teacher Dana Marschz (the mispronunciation of his last name, of course, is a running gag). Coogan really throws himself into the part with tremendous enthusiasm and reckless abandon from how he comes off. By themselves, the words, “I feel like I’ve be raped in the face,” sounds like nothing, but with Coogan’s exasperated delivery, as if a high school reporter’s opinion is akin to a thumbs down vote from Caesar, takes it to entirely new levels of resonance.

I wish the same could be said for Catherine Keener though, because she looks really bored played Dana’s put upon wife. Ditto for Elisabeth Shue, whom you’d think might appreciate a meaty, deconstructionist role in a deft post-modern comedy, but then again, that’s not what Hamlet 2 is and that’s not the part she got. Since Shue’s heyday was 80s numbers like Adventures in Babysitting and Cocktail, she just serves as a gatling gag about how the kids don’t know their pop culture heritage. Basically, it all seems kind of silly, yet somehow not as silly as Amy Poehler’s brief turn as an ACLU lawyer, which had so much comedic potential, yet Poehler seems to get short-shrift in the end.

Outside of Coogan’s theatrics, there’s not much here to tantalize. Even simple things like Dana’s creation of plays based on mainstream Hollywood films seems staid, especially since Rushmore’s Max Fischer got there first and, oh yeah, Broadway’s being doing this for real since The Producers opened in 2001. That’s not to say a competently put together stage production of Erin Brockovich wouldn’t be interesting to see but… actually, I take that back. No it wouldn’t. I have about as much interest seeing that as I do in seeing someone actually put on a production of Hamlet 2, or at least if they do, I hope it’s actually funny, and not kind of sad with an element of that’s crazy.

I always said it wouldn’t take much to improve upon the live-action Resident Evil movies (or LARE), and here’s the proof. This is not the first CG-animated movie to be based on the video game franchise, but it’s the first be based directly upon the Capcom series of popular games themselves, including the crossover of certain key characters. Big whoop, I know, for anyone that hasn’t been obsessive over the games, but like I said, what we’ve got here is a world of improvement if still not completely satisfying. At least it captures the conspiratorial bent of the franchise better than the movies, without feeling like a constant Living Dead rip-off.

The film takes place exactly one year after the events of Resident Evil 4, if that means anything to you. A businessman on a passenger plan suddenly succumbs to the T-virus and zombifies on a plane full of people. When the plane crashes into an airport terminal, the walking dead are unleashed and the airport is shutdown as the military tries to contain the situation. Amongst those trapped inside is Claire Redfield (Alyson Court), a Racoon City survivor and current activist out to stop the growing clout of WilPharma Corporation, Umbrella’s successor in the bio-tech sector. Meanwhile, Leon S. Kennedy (Paul Mercier) is activated to take charge of containment.

I’d be lying if I said that I completely understood what was going on in this movie, but it doesn’t matter all the time whether you get it or not if it means that you’re watching soldiers shoot the crap out of zombies. The initial airport setting offers something new to feed on it terms of action set pieces, and I will say that the plane crash into the terminal is one of the best-looking CG animation sequences I’ve seen in a movie of this type. I wish that the realism had extended on down to the human characters though. Having soulless looking automatons leading you through the story may be fine in a video game where you exercise some control, but it’s entirely different when you’re engaging them as characters.

But I found the story and the creature designs strong enough to hold my interest, and that goes double for this one creature that looks like something thought up by Henry Selick with a big, huge blinking eye on its shoulder. It’s one of those monsters that’s just so weird looking you can’t help but become a little enthralled by it. But it’s not just all about the creatures because somehow there’s even a little room for subtext in this Resident Evil. Stuff about the greed of corporations, the corruption of politicians and reckless pursuit of science out of fear the other guy will get there ahead of you.

Of course, I’m not saying that this is an intellectual exercise, but it always seemed to me that there was never any room for anything in intelligent in the LAREmovies. All I remember about them is how they always seemed to be ripping off other movies and cannon fodder came before character development for the people featured in them. Not that Degeneration is a film of Kaufman-esque brilliance, but I didn’t find reason to brood over the lack of imagination in scene upon scene. Zombie movies should enthral you with survivalist nightmares, not have you checking your watch or counting in how many ways a scene reminded you of other different movies.

I think that gamers will love it, and fans of the genre might enjoy it to. But the dialogue is stilted, which probably comes from the Japanese translation, and the narrative relies a little too much on details that casual viewers will in no way be familiar with. That’s probably my biggest disappointment, that this could have been the first in a whole new franchise that could have grabbed new fans proper without all the retread crap from LARE. Regardless, Degeneration manages to work just enough on its own and is perfect for killing a couple of hours on a cold winter’s night.

Traitor was one of those blink and you’ll miss it movies that came out at the end of last summer and didn’t open very wide past the major markets. That’s really too bad because it’s a competently thought out and executed geo-political thriller. It’s certainly not “This year’s Bourne Ultimatum” as the blurb on the DVD cover suggests, but nothing really could be and that’s quite a boast regardless. Now Traitor has some high-minded ideals about what it’s all about, and to a certain degree it meets those expectations. But a ridiculous climax though and a twist stupidly blown in the trailer, ruins any good momentum that the film possesses.

Don Cheadle plays Samir, a Sudanese-American and devout Muslim that works as an arms merchant operating in Yemen. Samir’s caught in a raid while selling explosives to a terrorist named Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), and the two, though initially distrustful of each other, bond inside a Yemeni prison. Theymanage to escape and soon Samir and Omar join up with other terrorists in Paris as they make their way to America to launch what they believe will be a devastating attack. But Samir’s got pursuers in the form of FBI Agents Clayton (Guy Pierce) and Archer (Neal McDonough), and they both know that he’s up to something. And that’s to say nothing about Samir’s own conflicted feelings about his actions.

The film is interesting because it doesn’t take a cut and dry approach to the story. Although the terrorists in the cell, whose plan involves planting suicide bombers on 50 different passenger buses on Thanksgiving, are unquestionably bad guys, the methods and the investigation techniques of “the good guys” is the part that finds itself questioned. Of the FBI Agents, we see Clayton, the much more considered of the pair who took Arab studies in university and doubts Samir’s level of commitment to the cause, while Archer is the quick tempered one that hits first and asks questions later while talking about his home country in the big letters U.S. and A. It’s an interesting dynamic, and the film introduces it well, but it never quite seems that there’s any follow-up; Clayton and Archer are just always good cop, bad cop with nothing to capitalize on.

We learn that Samir is a double agent working for an “intelligence contractor” and trying to stop Omar’s cell rather than work with him. I got the impression that this was supposed to be one of those in-film reveals rather than a detail left hanging out in the trailer for all to see before hand. I think knowing this in advanced takes a little oomph out of the story, and not just Samir’s arc, although that would have made the character much more grey-shaded, but for the FBI Agents too because you know Samir isn’t as terrible as they think. Which is too bad because Cheadle is as cool as ice; his performance separated from the plot developments you know are coming, makes you think things could play out either way. He really nails a compelling mix of doubt, faith and control.

But aside from Cheadle’s grace and even-handed portrayal, much of the rest of the film unfolds rather typically, although it’s still very compelling and very well-paced. The climax seemed a little too pat though with everything being wrapped up in a neat, little package, to borrow a phrase. It ill-suits the more rounded approach to the subject matter the rest of the film plays with, and grates in a way even worse than Guy Pierce’s so-called southern accent. And worse still, you sat through this film for nearly two hours to have the rug pulled out; it has the smell of studio tampering written all over it. But despite that, I have to say this isn’t a bad piece of work in the slightest. I wish more action movies were this thoughtful and considered about its subject matter.

Sometimes it interesting to look at something you have strong feelings about with the greater perspective granted only through time. Amidst the positive hype of a given situation, sometimes even the most objective observer can get swept away with the tide, especially when the thing is an unmitigated success practically unheard of 9 times out of 10. Think: if you asked all those pre-teen girls that doubled, and even tripled down on Titanic tickets 11 years ago, would they still be in a shrieking lather about Leonardo Di Caprio’s self-sacrificing, sensitively artistic street urchin? Probably not, and chances are that they’ll be embarrassed by the memory.

But what of the second highest grossing film of all time? Will a decade of repeat viewing leave all those that hailed the genius of The Dark Knight out in the cold? Well, I’m not a fortune teller, so how am I supposed to know. But six months after the release of the film utterly shattered any and all box office record sacrificed to it, The Dark Knight still stands on its own as a near-miraculous piece of pop art. Standing so close now to year’s end, I can easily say that it’s one of 2008’s best films and the recent posthumous Golden Globe nomination for Heath Ledger for his portrayal of the Joker is really, enormously deserved. After all, three million discs sold on the first day of the DVD release can’t be wrong, right?

In watching the film again, what remains striking is the ensemble aspect of it. In thinking about the comic book, one can make the argument that modern Batman stories are, for the most part, ensemble episodes. Batman has numerous sidekicks – Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, Batgirl – not to mention allies in the Justice League and the members of the infamous Rogue’s Gallery who appear so often, they’re practically cast members. Truly, despite all the talk about the realism in The Dark Knight and how everything is grounded without typical funny book flights of fancy, the movie strikes me as very much in keeping with the best aspects of the Batman comics.

But back to the ensemble character drama, which is inspired if only because everyone here serves a purpose. So often in the Batman films of the 90s there were characters that were, well, supposed to be there, but they didn’t actually do very much. In Nolan’s Bat-films, Alfred (Michael Caine) isn’t just bringing Batman’s breakfast; he’s an integral part of the Caped Crusader’s behind the scenes logistics; planning operations and doing research, and naturally, his traditional role as Batman’s medic. We also see Commissioner Gordon (Gary Oldman) actually marshalling his force in the field and leading investigations and consulting with Batman or city officials. You see Pat Hingle in the Burton/Schumacher films and you start to figure that Gordon’s just there as an arm to flip on the Bat-signal.

And who here thought that Gordon was toast after the Joker’s attack on Commissioner Loeb’s funeral? I know I did. Never did it cross my mind that he hadn’t even been promoted to Commissioner yet, or that the scene in trailer where he talks to Gotham’s mayor (Nestor Carbonell) after capturing the Joker hadn’t been used yet. That, to me, encapsulates the wonder of Nolan’s work, is that he made it so that you think that in his universe, even Commissioner Gordon can die. Never mind the fact that he’s been in Batman comics as long as Batman, they both first appeared in Detective Comics #27. Relationships are always key in these stories and Batman and Gordon’s has always been very strong in the comics. Although occasionally strained, they are true friends and partners, and it was finally nice to see that aspect preserved on the big screen.

Of course Ledger is, and remains, the focal point of The Dark Knight. Now I’ve been in a lot of conversations as to what exactly his death has on the weight of the film’s success generally, or the praise for his portrayal of the Joker specifically. From my point of view, Ledger’s passing just puts his work into sharper focus. The mob roundtable scene where he says he wants half their money for killing the Batman and one of the bosses off screen remarks, “You're crazy.” Then there’s a sudden turn where the Joker goes from kind of playful to deadly serious. He looks across the table, and almost whisperingly says, “I'm not. No, I'm not.” Before going back and addressing the main group. There’s just something about that little exchange that I love. And though it’s overplayed, the notion of dualism and opposition with Batman is worked into the story really well and is an integral part of the characterization.

There’s no rumoured three-hour cut of the film as some people postulated, and Christopher Nolan says no such cut exists because his intention was to make every scene in the film should have two or three meanings. Mission: Accomplished, Mr. Nolan. There are really only a few scenes in this movie where you can feel the drag, one on the big ones being the sequence on the two ferries the Joker tries to convince to blow each other up. As your watching the film the second or third time it almost feels too much because as dark as the movie is at times, you know that not even Nolan is dark enough to go “there” and instead you just want to get to the final fight between Batman and the Joker.

Ultimately though, The Dark Knight continues to stand as a quality film, that despite having too much pressure put upon it (beating Titanic’s all time box office), it remains an integral and important piece of pop art. It also holds up surprisingly well on the small screen considering that often times, films like these loose a bit of their grandness when condensed for our living rooms. Perhaps it’s just me, but The Dark Knight remains as enthralling as ever. I don’t envy the person, be it Nolan or someone else, that has to labour on the next adventure of Batman.

When I first saw the trailer for the Keanu Reeves remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still, I was somewhat less than impressed. The glorious simplicity of Robert Wise’s seminal 1951 science fiction filmed seemed to be overshadowed by magic death balls of doom, or whatever those are. Either way it seemed like someone on the Fox lot said, “Hey, Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow were kick ass, that’s exactly what the movie about the Earth not moving was missing. Let’s remake it!” Oh, and somebody forgot to tell Keanu that Klaatu wasn’t the robot in the film.

Watching the Wise version again makes you appreciate delicacy in storytelling, and unlike the remake, which seems kind of fatalistic, the original film is actually more hopeful, albeit pragmatic. There’s no CGI spaceship or robots or apparent doomsday devices, Wise had a UFO made of plywood, wire and plaster of paris, a robot played by a really tall former doorman at Grauman's Chinese Theatre, and the subtle art of intimidation. The odd part is that thematically-speaking, watching The Day the Earth Stood Still shares a tone that I think is similar to the current cataclysmic predicament and a chance and hope that one man can make things better.

It begins with a spaceship that lands on the Mall in Washington D.C., and the passenger that emerges from inside. Naturally, the military shoots him on sight when he makes an aggressive move towards reaching for his present to the President. In the hospital more is learned about Klaatu (Michael Rennie), who says he’s an emissary representing the many worlds amongst the stars that’s come to deliver a message to the leaders of the Earth: clean up your act and stop war or suffer the consequences. Unable to get his message out through the obtuse military, Klaatu escapes and finds allies in a war widow (Patricia Neal), her precocious son (Billy Gray) and a brilliant physicist (Sam Jaffe).

The film still works on many, many levels. First there’s the fact that it takes off from UFO lore, both the real life craze and the Hollywood visioning. From the design of the saucer-shaped spaceship to Bernard Herrmann’s whistle-filled scored, it looks conventional enough to the point where you think giant insects might crawl out of the ship to infest mankind. Now true, Gort the Robot in the blinding light of hindsight looks a little dated with the silver body suit and huge head, but the strong, silent, limbering type routine still works for some degree of foreboding. But this isn’t really a film about effects though, and the fact of the matter is you can count the number of outright effects showcase pieces on one hand.

The real effect in this film is the cast, with Rennie putting on a tremendous combination of distance and compassion to play Klaatu. In fact there’s nothing really robotic about him except perhaps for a single-minded determination to get his important message across to the right people. The kid’s kind of bothersome, but then again, what kid isn’t. The relationship between Klaatu and the boy isn’t played for “ah, shucks” moments though, but rather the boy becomes the means through which Klaatu understands the Earth better. I hope the stilted, wooden Reeves I’ve seen in trailers and ads for the remake is just one of those things where something appears one way in the marketing but it doesn’t really hint at how the whole is played. Sorry, but Klaatu is not Neo.

But the main potency of the film remains the wisdom and warning about humanity being the instrument of its own destruction. Be it through nuclear arms or ecological degradation, we as people are extraordinarily capable in bringing about out own doom. According to legend, Klaatu’s character was heavily influenced by atom bomb developer Robert Oppenheimer, who was dramatically and permanently affected for his hand in developing nuclear weapons. The prospect was frightening, and I don’t think a lot of people really understood what “nuclear war” meant at the time. How else do you explain the whole “duck and cover” thing?

But despite the dwindling threat of an all-out war, the potential nightmare remains very much a possibility. Fortunately, The Day the Earth Stood Still holds up by quietly making its argument with words and small actions rather than an all-out apocalypse suite complete with crazy spherical monster storms. Of course, I’ll reserve final judgment when going in to see the remake, but I’ve got to tell you right now, it’s going to have to do some fancy footwork to make me a believer.

Regardless, the Robert Wise original has just been released for the first time on Blu-Ray in another one of 20th Century Fox’s patented acts of syncopation. The history and impact of the film is explored in new featurettes like, “The Mysterious, Melodious Theremin: Main Title Live Performance by Peter Pringle,” “The Making of The Day the Earth Stood Still,” “Decoding ‘Klaatu Barada Nikto,’” “Science Fiction as Metaphor,” “A Brief History of Flying Saucers,” “The Astounding Harry Bates,” and “Edmund North: The Man Who Mad the Earth Stood Still.” Also, a commentary by Wise is imported from the previous DVD release.