Drip... Drip... Drip... Drip... RAWR!!

Woah...

...

Sometimes, I just do not understand then human race. Take, for example, the current enigma running through my head. Why, in the future, are we so fascinated with building derelict space crafts? You know, massive ships with long, dark hallways, water dripping from the ceiling, and power that's as reliable a wind up clock? I mean, nothing good ever happens on these types ships, so why will we ever build them? Take Pandorum. If it's version of reality is anything to go on, then such a spacecraft will be the home to vicious, cannibalistic, mutants, paranoid and delusional humans, and lots and lots of death! Do we really want to become that society? I didn't think so!
Pandorum starts off on a very unsettling note. Two men wake up from cryo-sleep on a massive ship, with no recollection of their mission, and no idea why they woke up. One of them, Bower, ventures out of their secure room into the rest of the ship, while the other, Payton, stays behind to relay info from a computer console. It immediately becomes apparent that something went very wrong with the mission. For one, Bower is constantly stalked by dozens of crazed, homicidal, monsters, who may or may not be of human descent. He also runs into a group of people who have been awake for far longer then he has, and who have spent the time fighting off the mutants. But, as is explained in a very clever way, the biggest enemy to Bower and Payton may, in fact, be themselves, as they soon start to experience symptoms of a brain disorder called Pandorum, which leads the victim to become paranoid, start to hallucinate, and eventually become homicidal. All throughout the movie, you are constantly asking yourself, "Are the things that are attacking Bower real, or is he just slowly losing his sanity." Wait until a third character named Gallo shows up in the third act and the movie really starts to fuck with your head! In terms of storytelling, Pandorum has it in spades, especially when compared to other movies in this genre.
Ben Foster plays the confused and frightened Bower, and Dennis Quaid plays his guide, Payton. Both these guys do fine jobs. As an actor, Foster hasn't really found a, big, star making performance. He popped onto the scene with 2006's Alpha Dog, and started to really get noticed with his sociopathic and deranged gunslinger in 2007's 3:10 to Yuma. But, he still hasn't appeared in more mainstream stuff. Pandorum probably won't be the movie that starts getting him revered by the general public, but he still does an admirable job. The script he has to work with isn't the best, but he throws himself into it, and reveals a much deeper character then I think the writers had even thought possible. Quaid doesn't really have much to do, but the sequences of him coping with Cam Gigandet's Gallo are more intense and scary then any of the sequences with the mutants. Speaking of Gigandet, he is really good here. He's not in the movie for very long, but when he is, the screen crackles with a paranoid energy so fierce, you feel the skin on your back start to crawl. The last main performance falls to Antje Traue as a botanist turned warrior, who is easily the person most capable of handling the mutant problem. Performances here aren't great, but they are leagues better then others in the genre.
Director Christian Alvart must love movies like Alien, and Event Horizon. The infulences of these two is certainly prevalent in Pandorum. Though it may look like a standard horror movie, which the predictable scares and such, Pandorum is so much more. First off, the movie is legitimately scary. Not only are the standard, jump out of your seat, scares there and used to good effect, but the amount of psychological terror in this movie really starts to get to you. There's a twist, which I won't spoil, that, while a little easy to predict, is extremely unsettling and disturbing, and really ratchets up the horror for the rest of the movie. Pandorum is suspenseful, startling, and terrifying in ways that other horror movies these days can only hope to be.
There are a few problems. First off, there's the mutants. They look cool, can run up walls, and are great with a blade. But, when you mix in the expertly crafted psychological horror segments, the multiple chase and mutilation sequences seem a little out of place. Also, Pandorum is yet another movie to suffer from coked up camera men. During the action sequences, the camera jumps around so damn much, it's almost impossible to see anything. It's worse then Quantum of Solace, I shit you not! You actually never get to see a detailed image of the monsters until the end, because the damn camera is moving around so fast. But, it stays rock steady in the segments leading up to action, which, in accompaniment with an effective score, really ratchets up the suspense.
Pandorum is a pleasant surprise. Usually, movies of this sort are nothing more then B-movie, escapist, crap, but Pandorum is significantly better then these. Bolstered by strong performances, slick direction, and a real sense of terror, Pandorum is everything a horror fan wants. Be warned: I'm not kidding around here. This is probably the scariest movie I've seen in a good while. Be prepared to leave the theatre a little shaken. B

Pandorum at IGN.com

Like Eating A Really Unhealthy, But Really Tasty Burger

Well, I'm back from New York. I had a good time. I won't discuss it here. That's for another time. So, anyway, I'm back, so, it's back to business. I got lot's of movies to see. First off the assembly line is G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra. This one is a bit of a conundrum for me. G.I. Joe is awfully written, poorly acted, badly produced, with atrocious direction and worse special effects. But, I don't really care. Here is a movie that is so ridiculous, so stupid, so balls to the wall, eye rolling childish, yet, at the same time, so friggin' awesome, that I can't really give it the Michael Bay treatment. So, fine. G.I. Joe, you are not awful, but don't let it go to your heads. 

Rise of Cobra is an origin story, kind of. It sees soldiers Duke and Ripcord as they are initiated into G.I. Joe, which is a team of super badass commandos from all over the world. Soon, they are sent globe trotting as they attempt to foil a sinister plot from a weapons manufacturer, Destro, and his crew of genetically enhanced super soldiers (are there any other kind of super soldier) from destroying multiple cities around the world. Along the way, an old love is rekindled, redemption is found, and the real mastermind behind all the mayhem is revealed.

...

Does any of this sound familiar? It's the same basic plot behind, well, a lot of action movies these days. The plot in this movie is fairly stupid, but it serves it purpose, which is to get the characters from one location to the other so that they can blow that location up. It's alright, I guess. 

In terms of acting, Rise of Cobra is one hell of a stinker. Channing Tatum plays main character Duke. He's... not bad. I find it really funny that he stars in an anti-war film (Stop-Loss) and then does this. I don't know. Seems ironic. Marlon Wayans, of all people, plays Ripcord. The really sad thing about his performance is that he almost reminds me of the Marlon Wayans who can act, the Marlon Wayans from Requiem for a Dream, or The Ladykillers. He is pretty bad, but given the caliber of his more recent performances, this one's not as scummy. Other Joe members include Rachel Nichols, who is awful, as Scarlett, Adewalde Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who is awful, as Heavy Duty, Said Taghmaoui, who is awful, as Breaker, and Ray Park, who is awesome, as Snake Eyes. I'm not even gonna talk about Dennis Quaid as General Hawk. He's barely in the movie. On the bad guys side, we have Sienna Miller as the sexy Baroness. She's pretty bad. Sure, she's practically melting the film, she's so hot, but that's all that she has going for her. Her complete change of character in the end is so laughable. Christopher Eccleston plays arms dealer McCullen, soon to be known as Destro. He is chews up so much scenery that I was afraid the walls would start falling apart. He's not bad. I mean, Christopher Eccleston is usually pretty good, but this is far from his work on Doctor Who, or in 28 Days Later. The last guys worth talking about is the saddest addition to this cast. That's right, my favorite actor working today, Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays a doctor who will come to be know as Cobra Commander. It's not that he sucks; he's actually good. It's just that I've come to expect higher standards from him. He's currently in (500) Days of Summer right now, which I still have to see. I never expected him to sell out like this. Oh well. 

Stephen Sommers, the guy behind The Mummy, and Van Helsing, is the real problem here. If any movie is going to break his already fading career, it will be this one. The direction is this movie is some of the worst I've seen this year. Sommers has no idea what to do with his actors. All of them, except Park, look completely lost in the action scenes, and all of them, except Park (who doesn't speak) and Levitt, look completely lost in the speaking sections as well. It would be fine, if the special effects looked decent, then maybe we could ignore the awful acting, but this is not the case. Everything in this movie, from the ridiculous accelerator suits, to the obligatory underwater lair of the villain, look so cheap and fake! You would think, with a profitable franchise and a big studio backing it, that the production would have spent some time making the special effects look, you know, decent, but they, for some reason, thought that they would spend it on... something else. Just look at the first shot of the trailer, where you see a fleet of submarines gliding towards an underwater base, and just try and tell me that it looks real. JUST TRY!

Now, I've been bitching about this movie for a while, and all the negative things I said were well deserved. But here's the crazy thing. I walked out of G.I. Joe with huge grin on my face. This is one fun movie! Unlike Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, where you actually noticed the terrible acting and direction, something about Rise of Cobra makes you forget about all those bad things when the action picks up. Picture this. A team of super soldiers invades a base by riding massive drills into it. They then proceed to blow it to hell with guns that basically replicate a the throw move from Mass Effect. (If you didn't get that reference, then you don't play good video games.) Pretty soon, people are shooting at each other. A guy gets a grenade shoved down his throat. Two ninjas have an epic sword fight. Two hot babes bitch slap each other. And then, the bad guys exit the premises in friggin' jet packs. Come on! That's friggin' awesome! All the action scenes are like that. Literally, every single one, and there are a lot. There is enough explosions in here to rival Terminator: Salvation and Transformers. Plus, Ray Park as Snake Eyes does some of the coolest shit on screen this year, and doesn't utter a single word while doing it. So badass!

So, yeah. From a technical standpoint, G.I. Joe is the worst movie of the year. From a pure entertainment standpoint, well, it's not even close to the best, but it sure isn't the worst. There are a lot of better movies playing right now that you should spend you money on, but, if you just want some goofy fun before school starts again, look no further. Yo... yeah, I'm not doing that. B-