MGM MOD DVD of the Week: Zone Troopers

As the commercial and critical failure of Cowboys & Aliens (2010) demonstrated, it is difficult to successfully blend two disparate genres. You need to have just the right mix – something that the mega-budget studio film didn’t get right. Maybe they should have watched Zone Troopers (1985), a film that got it right and with a lot less money. God bless, B-movie mogul Charles Band for taking a chance on this oddball cinematic mash-up.


Somewhere in Italy circa 1944, a squad of American soldiers is waiting for other squads to show when they’re ambushed by Nazi soldiers. Despite being outnumbered, Sergeant Stone (Tim Thomerson) and his men manage to kill them all leaving only the no-nonsense Stone, eager beaver Joey Verona (Timothy Van Patten), the burly Mittens (Art La Fleur), and war correspondent Charlie Dolan (Biff Manard). They escape into the woods behind enemy lines only to find out that both their radio and compass don’t work. While out hunting for food, Dolan and Mittens stumble across a Nazi camp. Stone and Verona go looking for them and discover a crashed alien spacecraft. From this point on, Zone Troopers is an engaging mash-up of war movie and science fiction tale.

The casting of genre veterans Tim Thomerson (Trancers) and Art La Fleur (Air America) is spot on as they both look like they literally stepped out of a vintage World War II film. Thomerson, in particular, is excellent as the two-fisted sergeant with a reputation for being unkillable. The way he acts and carries himself would’ve made ideal casting for an adaptation of Nick Fury and the Howling Commandoes back in the 1980’s when this film was made. It’s great to see character actor La Fleur get a meaty role playing the amusing nicknamed Mittens and it’s a shame that they didn’t get to reprise their roles in a sequel.

The screenplay by Danny Bilson and Paul De Meo does a good job of replicating the classic World War II movie, right down to the authentic-sounding period dialogue while seamlessly mixing in elements of the 1950’s space alien film. It makes sense that they would go on to adapt The Rocketeer, Dave Stevens’ comic book homage to 1930’s serial adventures, into a film.

The opening gun battle sets the right tone of a vintage World War II B-movie by way of Sam Fuller complete with pulpy period dialogue and a gruff squad leader that almost makes one forget about the cheap production values that, rather than detract from the enjoyment of the film, give it plenty of scrappy charm. As the film progresses, the production values improve in spots, like when Stone and Verona search inside the giant spacecraft.

For a low-budget B-movie, Zone Troopers is refreshingly ambitious with its intentions to blend science fiction with the war movie. What makes it work so well is that the filmmakers are obviously taking it seriously as opposed to poking fun at both genres. They make sure that the actors play it straight as well. That’s not to say the film isn’t without its humorous moments but they are used sparingly. Zone Troopers is an entertaining film that celebrates its pulpy roots.

Special Features:

Theatrical trailer.

Titan A.E.

Anticipation was high for Titan A.E. on the eve of its release in June 2000. Scripted by Ben Edlund, Joss Whedon (the creative braintrust that would go on to make the Firefly television show) and John August, and directed by maverick former Disney animator Don Bluth (The Secret of NIMH) and Gary Goldman (An American Tail), it was a space opera in the tradition of the Star Wars films. Titan A.E. ambitiously combined hand-drawn animation with computer-generated imagery and was touted as the first major motion picture to be projected digitally. Unfortunately, the film was badly marketed with the general public unsure if it was intended for children or for an older science fiction audience. It didn’t help that at the time Bluth stated in an HBO First Look special that his film wasn’t a cutesy kiddie musical but rather a non-stop action film. Titan A.E. received mixed critical reviews and flopped badly at the box office, resulting in the closing Fox Animation Studios. It was also the last feature film Bluth and Goldman would helm. It’s a shame really, as the film features gorgeously rendered animation, engaging characters and an engrossing story.


It is 3028 and humanity is working on the Titan project, a groundbreaking experiment that promises to unlock our full potential. However, an energy-based alien race known as the Drej feel threatened by this project and proceed to destroy Earth in order to stop it. Professor Sam Tucker (Ron Perlman) is an important scientist with the project and as the aliens attack, he puts his five-year-old son Cale on a spacecraft that barely manages to escape. Unfortunately, Sam isn’t so lucky. It’s a pretty ballsy move to begin the film with the destruction of the Earth and the death of the protagonist’s father. It sends a strong message that this isn’t going to be some wishy-washy children’s animated film. It’s a spectacular sequence that basically says all bets are off in this film. Titan A.E. flashes forward 15 years later and Cale (Matt Damon) has grown up and is working as a mechanic on a salvage station in outer space. He’s bit of a reckless screw-up lacking direction in his life.

During one of his lunch breaks, Cale is saved from being beaten up by two aliens by a fellow human named Korso (Bill Pullman), who offers him a chance to join a very dangerous mission. Korso worked with Cale’s father on the Titan project and wants to find the spacecraft in order to unlock its secrets. The Drej arrive and Cale and Korso narrowly escape in an exciting action sequence that ends with them being shot into outer space. Cale joins Korso and his crew – his pilot Akima (Drew Barrymore), the alien first mate Preed (Nathan Lane), the gruff weapons expert Stith (Janeane Garofalo), and Gune (John Leguizamo), the ship’s eccentric scientist. There are brief lulls between exciting action sequences as the Drej relentlessly pursue our heroes.

The first Star Wars film is an obvious influence on Titan A.E. with Cale as the young, brash Luke Skywalker-esque pilot, Korso as the sarcastic Han Solo-type rogue, and Akima, a tough, Princess Leia-esque heroine with Stith as the Chewbacca surrogate. In some respects, Titan A.E. also feels like a warm-up for Firefly as writers Joss Whedon and Ben Edlund were beginning to work out the archetypes of the crew of the Serenity with the motley crew in this film. Korso anticipates Jayne, Akima contains elements of Kaylee, and Cale exhibits a few characteristics of Malcolm Reynolds. Not to mention, the enigmatic and ruthless Drej predict the equally mysterious and vicious Reavers in Firefly.

The voice casting is excellent with Matt Damon’s youthful sounding voice perfect for the energetic Cale, Bill Pullman’s weathered voice is ideally suited for the grizzled, veteran warrior Korso, and Drew Barrymore’s expressive voice helps bring the feisty Akima to life. The mix of hand-drawn animation and CGI is impressively rendered as they combine to create some eye-popping visuals, helping realize the film’s epic scope. It is fluid and rich in detail – there is so much to look at in each and every frame. Titan A.E. features a galaxy populated with exotic planets, like Sesharrim with its brown hydrogen trees and red sky where our heroes encounter a bat-like race known as Gaoul. This is contrasted with the cool, metallic blue of the Drej homeworld that resembles a funky hybrid of the computer world from Tron (1982) and the Borg mothership from Star Trek: The Next Generation.

Producer David Kirschner first brought what would become known as Titan A.E. to 20th Century Fox as a live-action film, “a sort of Treasure Island in outer space.” It was in development for more than five years and originally known as Planet Ice. It was initially conceived as a live-action feature but Fox decided it would be more interesting and less expensive to produce as an animated film. Known for creating successful animated films like An American Tail (1986), The Land Before Time (1988), and Anastasia (1997), Don Bluth and Gary Goldman saw this project as quite a departure in terms of look, subject matter and target audience. Once they came on board in 1998, it was re-titled Titan A.E.

At the time, Fox was determined to compete with Disney in the feature animation field by spending millions of dollars on groundbreaking CGI technology and told Bluth and Goldman to make a film that featured innovative visuals and effects. The first thing the two men did was redesign the entire film. According to Goldman, the film was originally going to be 40% CG but ended up closer to 90%. He wanted to get a 3-D look while still maintaining a cartoon feel. He and Bluth were aware that their target audience – adolescent boys – were generally not into animated films and decided to adopt a darker, moodier color palette.

In another effort to appeal to teenage boys, the studio enlisted Grammy award winning producer/songwriter Glen Ballard who populated the soundtrack with contemporary bands like Lit, Jamiroquai and Luscious Jackson to complement composer Graeme Revell’s electronic music score. The $55 million film was a risky venture for the animation department of Fox whose fate rested on its success or failure. However, a year before the film was finished, Fox laid off 300 out of 380 of its animation staff members leaving very few people to make the film. An early test screening in Orange County went well with several teenagers comparing Titan A.E. favorably with Star Wars. However, Bill Mechanic, head of Fox, left the studio and Fox Feature Animation was shut down. Bluth and Goldman left and Titan A.E. died a quick death at the box office.

Titan A.E. was the first Hollywood film to be digitally transmitted across the United States over the Internet and then digitally projected into cinemas. The film was pummeled by critics that, with a few exceptions, slammed it as being a Star Wars rip-off. The New York Times’ Stephen Holden wrote, “Titan A.E. tries to pack so much into 90 minutes that the characters don't have enough screen time to engage our emotions. Cale and Akima in particular have all the depth of television spinoffs of Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia. This is not to say that Titan A.E. isn't entertaining in its breezy, mild-mannered way, only that its mythology and characters barely resonate.” In his review for the Globe and Mail, Liam Lacey wrote, “Think of it as Noah's Ark, with a few plot changes inspired by the Space Invaders video game.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “The traditional cartoon elements of Titan A.E., both the story and visuals, are unutterably bland. Cale has been conceived as the sort of blond Matt Damon action figure you'd expect to get with a Happy Meal.” In his review for the Washington Post, Desson Howe wrote, “This story's relatively lofty ideas about saving the human race, and its endless twists and turns, are going to soar over the heads of many young audiences—and probably bore them, too. The scenario and special effects are too lackluster for slightly older, sensation-hungry kids, presumably the target audience. And the humor is far too lame for the parents in the audience. Which makes Titan a must-see for . . . almost no one.” USA Today gave the film two and a half out of four stars and Mike Clark called it, “visually impressive but woefully dumbed-down.”

However, Roger Ebert gave the film three and half out of four stars and wrote, “One test for any movie is when you forget it's a movie and simply surf along on the narrative. That can happen as easily with animation as live action, and it happens here. The movie works as adventure, as the Star Wars pictures do.” In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Kenneth Turan wrote, “Titan A.E.'s rudimentary narration does work up a certain amount of propulsion. But it's not the story that's the story here, it's the film's bravura visual look.”

Titan A.E. is about the survival of the human race and what it means to be human with Cale learning to appreciate his heritage. Along the way he grows and falls in love. The film is also a rousing action/adventure tale with a vivid color scheme, larger than life characters that must face a seemingly undefeatable foe. Admittedly, Titan A.E. isn’t reinventing the wheel in terms of originality but it also isn’t trying to, instead delivering an entertaining ride on that level it certainly succeeds.

DVD of the Week: Godzilla: Criterion Collection

Godzilla is more than just some guy in a cheesy rubber suit terrorizing badly dubbed Japanese actors and stomping miniature cities. The original film, made in 1954, is actually a tragedy of epic proportions, a potent warning of an escalating nuclear arms race and messing with atomic power. Of course, Godzilla mainly works as an entertaining monster movie, too.


When a 7,500 ton freighter is mysteriously lost in the South Seas off Japan, the authorities are baffled. Soon afterwards, a fishing boat is destroyed in the same manner: from an underwater explosion. It is a mine? An underwater volcano? There are only a few survivors and one of them claims to have seen a creature in the water. Some elderly citizens immediately claim that it was Godzilla, a creature that lives in the sea and occasionally surfaces to feed on mankind when food in the ocean is scarce.

Sure enough, late one stormy night, something destroys several houses in a village in such a way that it could not have been the result of natural causes, like a hurricane. Director Ishiro Honda wisely prolongs the first actual appearance of Godzilla for 21 minutes, cleverly employing traditional horror film techniques to create tension and build anticipation. We never actually see the monster in the initial attacks – just a hint of him but nevertheless his presence looms large, much like with King Kong (1933). When we finally do catch a good glimpse of the creature, it is little more than a head but it is a fantastic shot that effectively establishes his massive scale and is more than enough to send the locals running for their lives.

The country’s leading scientist Professor Yamane (Takashi Shimura) theorizes that Godzilla is the result of atomic testing, a mutation that exists to punish his country for dabbling in the dangerous waters of atomic energy and radiation. Naturally, the Japanese government wants to destroy Godzilla but Yamane respects the beast and wants to study it. Yamane represents a sobering humanistic voice that mirrored Honda’s own beliefs and acts as a sharp contrast to the government’s foolhardy shoot first, ask questions later attitude.

Look past the guy in the rubber suit and the obvious miniatures and you’ve got atmospheric black and white cinematography by Masao Tamai that is haunting, especially the night scenes with an almost silhouetted Godzilla destroying Tokyo that is a devastating site to behold.

Godzilla was born from the ashes of A-bomb attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – the fallout of which Honda witnessed first hand. In fact, the film’s opening scene, where a freighter is destroyed by an explosion from under the water, was a reference to an incident in which a tuna trawler got too close to an H-bomb test courtesy of the United States and its crew became sick with radiation poisoning. With this knowledge, it’s hard not to see Godzilla’s swath of destruction through urban Japan as a metaphor for the A-bomb and a powerful critique of the dangers of atomic radiation. This is what elevates Godzilla above countless other monster movies from the 1950’s and has inspired countless sequels that have transformed the giant monster into a pop culture icon. The Japanese version is the way this film was meant to be seen with all of the stark footage of the dead, maimed and shell-shocked and numerous the A-bomb references – something that is missing from subsequent sequels that have turned into admittedly entertaining battle royales.

Special Features:

A few years ago, Classic Media released an excellent special edition of Godzilla with an unimpressive transfer and a decent collection of supplemental material, none of which has been carried over to the Criterion Collection’s new and improved edition so completists may want to hold onto that previous incarnation. As you would expect, Criterion’s transfer is near flawless and a significant improvement on the Classic Media version, making it more than worth the upgrade.

The first disc features an audio commentary by film historian David Kalat who provides a nice mix of analysis and production information. He goes into great detail examining the relationships between the characters and their purpose in the film. Kalat also touches upon the difference between the Japanese and American names for Godzilla. He also good-naturedly addresses the absurdity of the oxygen destroyer and other scientific inaccuracies. At times, he comes across as a little too enthusiastic but this is tempered by his encyclopedia knowledge of all things Godzilla.

“Photographic Effects” features effects director Kawakita and effects photographer Motoyoshi Tomioka revealing how some of the special effects for Godzilla were done with examples from unused footage. They point out the extensive use of matte paintings and composite shots.

Japanese film critic Tadao Sato examines Godzilla’s role in Japanese culture. He remembers seeing the film when it first came out and recalls his first impressions. He also points out how aspects of the film evoked memories of the atomic bomb attacks on Japan.

“The Unluckiest Dragon” is a 2011 audio essay about the Daigo Fukuryu Maru fishing boat tragedy that inspired parts of Godzilla. The crew witnessed a powerful U.S. atomic bomb test and became sick with radiation poisoning. This essay examines the socio-political implications of the incident.

Also included is a theatrical trailer.

For completists, both versions – the original 98 minute Japanese version and the 80 minute Hollywood version, entitled Godzilla, King of the Monsters – are included, each on their own disc, but after seeing the original it is really hard to go back to the other. American movie producers acquired the North American rights and promptly Americanized the movie, inserting a reporter played by Raymond Burr with only 60 minutes of the original film intact, the rest was cut and new footage shot. Criterion has also included a trailer and David Kalat returns for a commentary where he starts off by providing the brief backstory to the nuclear arms race between Russia and the U.S. He discusses the Americanization of Godzilla including its unusual structure of flashbacks, which he explains may actually be reminiscent of film noir.

There is an interview with actor Akira Takarada who talks about his experience working on Godzilla. He talks about his initial impressions of the screenplay and tells several filming anecdotes, including working with the legendary Takashi Shimura (The Seven Samurai).

Godzilla performer Haruo Nakajima (who played the creature in 12 films) talks about the challenges he faced playing the iconic monster. He recalls being told to study King Kong for how to move like a mythical creature. He talks about what it was like moving inside the suit and how he had to adjust his performance.

Features effects technicians Yoshio Irie and Eizo Kaimai talk about their work on the film. They start at the project’s origins and go all the way through production providing invaluable recollections on how the various effects were achieved.

Composer Akira Ifukube talks about his long, illustrious career and, of course, his groundbreaking work on Godzilla. He talks about his humble beginnings in forestry to how he eventually got involved in scoring films.

A Scanner Darkly

“What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can’t any longer see into myself.” – Bob Arctor

Over the years, many films have been made based on the science fiction novels by Philip K. Dick – some good (Blade Runner and Minority Report), but mostly bad (Paycheck and Next). However, they all share a common trait: they only remotely resemble their source material. David Cronenberg recounted a story about how he began adapting the short story, “We Can Remember It For You Wholesale” for a Hollywood studio and when he handed in his screenplay, an executive complained that it was too faithful to the source material. They wanted something like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) for Arnold Schwarzenegger. Cronenberg wasn’t interested in doing that and left the project, which became Total Recall (1990). This explains why none of Dick’s material has been accurately translated into film until A Scanner Darkly (2006).

It was adapted by filmmaker Richard Linklater, not the first person you’d think of when it comes to science fiction but he had two things going for him: he was a fan of the book and he was willing to make it independently, keeping the budget low enough that he could have creative control over the material. He was also able to assemble a very impressive cast that consisted of Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, and Winona Ryder. However, his choice to utilize rotoscoping animation (where animators basically draw over live action footage) was not embraced by everyone and ended up causing Linklater all kinds of headaches in post-production. That being said, the style of animation he employed was well suited for the film’s various drug hallucinations and in realizing the scramble suit technology.

Dick’s semi-autobiographical book was first published in 1977. It was a fictionalized account of his experiences with the 1970’s drug culture. Between 1970 and 1972, after his fourth wife had left him, he had a rotating group of predominantly teenage drug users living semi-communally at his home in Marin County. At this time, he had stopped writing completely and became hooked on amphetamines. A turning point in Dick’s life came in early ‘72 when he delivered a speech at a Vancouver science fiction convention entitled, “The Android and the Human.” The speech was the genesis of recurring themes and motifs that would appear in A Scanner Darkly. Around this time, his home was allegedly broken into and his papers were stolen, which fueled the paranoid vibe prevalent in the novel.

The book is about a man named Bob Arctor, who lives in a house with several other drug addicts. He is also Agent Fred, an undercover police officer assigned to spy on Arctor’s house. He protects his true identity from his fellow junkies and from the police as well – a requirement of narcotic agents is that they remain anonymous to avoid corruption. While under the guise of a drug user, Arctor has become addicted to Substance D, a strong psychoactive drug that originates from a blue flowering plant. He is also romantically involved with Donna, a drug dealer whom he plans to expose as a high-level dealer of Substance D. Arctor’s chronic use of the drug results in the two hemispheres of his brain to function independently and the book depicts his gradual disconnect from reality. Is it real or is it Substance D?

The film is set seven years in the future in Anaheim, California where 20% of the population is considered addicts. When we first meet Arctor/Fred (Keanu Reeves) he’s already struggling with his addiction to Substance D. He is addressing a local chapter of law enforcement officers and speaking about the dangers of and the war on D. Partway through his prepared speech, he veers off script and the tone of his talk shifts to a melancholic, defeated vibe, which ends things on an awkward note. He is also wearing what is called a scramble suit, which allows him to avoid being discovered by the latest voice and facial detection technology by constantly changing his appearance so that he looks like a “constantly shifting vague blur.” The film’s rotoscoping animation is perfect for realizing the suit’s technology as we see Arctor’s image constantly changing in dazzling kaleidoscope fashion.

After shedding the scramble suit, Arctor adopts his Fred persona and contacts Donna Hawthorne (Winona Ryder), his drug connection and girlfriend, to score some narcotics. We soon meet his friends and fellow drug users: James Barris (Robert Downey Jr.), a motor-mouthed conspiracy theorist; Charles Freck (Rory Cochrane), a twitchy paranoid-type who has clearly done too much Substance D; and Ernie Luckman (Woody Harrelson), an aggressive junkie. Arctor hopes to get close enough to Donna and discover her supplier. Can I just say what a delight it is to see the likes of Keanu Reeves, Robert Downey Jr., Woody Harrelson, Winona Ryder bounce off each other in the same scene? For example, one day Barris comes home with an 18-speed bicycle for only $50 and Luckman points out that it is in fact an 8-speed bike, which sends Barris into a tizzy as he tries to figure out what happened to the “missing” gears. It’s an amusing scene as Ryder plays straight man to the excitable Harrelson and the indignant Downey. The comic timing of the latter two actors is excellent.

Downey’s Barris, with his endless supply of elaborate conspiracy theories and paranoid ramblings about “covert terrorist drug” organizations, evokes some of the more eccentric character in Linklater’s Slacker (1991) and he would not look out of place in that film. Only Downey could impart the large chunks of dialogue Barris spouts so fast and intelligibly while also making it entertaining. It’s how he emphasizes certain words or drags one out for effect that is so fun to watch. In certain scenes Linklater wisely winds Downey up and lets him cut loose. This is particular evident in the banter between Barris and Luckman, which provides A Scanner Darkly with much-needed moments of levity so that we are not overwhelmed by the bleak lives of these characters.

Against such colorful actors like Downey and Harrelson, Reeves wisely acts low-key, only taking center stage in the scenes with minor supporting characters where Arctor is the focus. Reeves’ increasing dazed and confused expressions convey the effects Substance D is having on him. Arctor is losing his grip on reality, which is exacerbated by having to juggle two different identities. As he says at one point, “Now, in the dark world where I dwell, ugly things and surprising things, sometimes wondrous things spill out at me constantly and I can count on nothing.” Reeves has always been an easy target, his acting criticized or rejected outright but I always felt that his strength was reacting off of other actors. At times, he is the perfect blank slate for others to imprint on and this is why he is perfect for this film. His character is supposed to be observing drug users and reporting back to his superiors with his findings.

No longer the A-list darling she was in the 1990’s, Winona Ryder has wisely appeared in a number of independent films that she feels passionately about. She fits in seamlessly with this eclectic cast as the rather enigmatic Donna. She has good chemistry with Reeves while also conveying a vulnerability as Donna’s true nature is revealed towards the end of the film. As Ryder has gotten older and more experienced as an actress, her performances have improved. She seems more comfortable in her own skin. The easy-going nature of Linklater’s style of filmmaking clearly rubbed off on her as she delivers a loose performance devoid of most of her usual acting affectations.

At a certain point in the film, Arctor thinks to himself, “What does a scanner see? Into the head? Down into the heart? Does it see into me? Into us? Clearly or darkly? I hope it sees clearly because I can’t any longer see into myself.” These thoughts are conveyed via voiceover narration and echo his fear of losing identity. He is experiencing a split personality and is told that the two hemispheres of his brain are competing against one another largely due to the effects of Substance D. The theme of examining and trying to recover one’s own identity is a prevalent theme in Philip K. Dick’s fiction and this is no more apparent than in A Scanner Darkly. The horrific part of the story is that Arctor loses a sense of who he is. Drugs have destroyed his life and those around him. In a nice touch, Linklater includes an abridged version of the afterword of Dick’s novel where he lists those nearest and dearest to him who died or were permanently damaged through drug use. It ends things on a sobering yet poignant note as Linklater drives the point home on just how personal the book was to Dick. His novel and the film show the dehumanizing and punishing effects of drugs. As he puts it, “This has been a story about people who were punished entirely too much for what they did.”

Richard Linklater began thinking about adapting A Scanner Darkly while talking to producer Tommy Pallotta before they made Waking Life (2001) together. Initially, he had toyed with adapting another Dick novel, Ubik, but stopped early on because of a rights issue and he “couldn’t quite crack it.” He moved onto Scanner Darkly soon after because he loved the book more and felt he could make a film out of it. According to Linklater, the challenge in adapting Dick’s novel was capturing “the humor and exuberance of the book but not let go of the sad and tragic.” He was not interested in turning the novel into a big budget action thriller as had been done in the past with some of Dick’s other works because he felt that Scanner Darkly was “about these guys and what they’re all doing in their alternate world and what’s going through their minds is really what keeps the story moving.” He related to the dysfunctional makeshift family of characters that was similar to his twenties spent in Austin. He wanted to animate the film much as he did with Waking Life because he felt that there was very little animation targeted for adults.

Linklater wrote the screenplay for A Scanner Darkly after Waking Life came out. After completing School of Rock (2003), he told Pallotta he wanted to make Scanner Darkly. It was important to Linklater that Dick’s estate approved of his film. Pallotta wrote a personal appeal to Russ Galen, the Dick estate’s literary agent who in turn shared it with the late author’s two daughters, Laura Leslie and Isa Hackett. However, they weren’t too keen on “a cartoon version” of their father’s novel. After the high profile adaptations of Minority Report (2002) and Paycheck (2003), they had taken a more proactive role in evaluating every film proposal, including unusual projects like Linklater’s. Pallotta told them that Linklater’s take would be a faithful adaptation of their father’s novel. They read the screenplay and liked it. They then met with him to discuss their respective visions of Scanner Darkly. Laura and Isa felt that the novel was one of their father’s most personal stories and liked that Linklater wasn’t going to treat the drug addiction/abuse aspects lightly. It was important to the filmmaker that he keep the budget under $10 million – that way he would have more creative control, remain faithful to the book and also make it as an animated film.

For the dual roles of Bob Arctor/Fred, Linklater thought of Keanu Reeves but figured that the actor would be burnt out from science fiction after making The Matrix trilogy. Robert Downey Jr. was attracted to the project when he heard that Reeves was going to star and Linklater to direct. He thought that the script was the strangest one he had ever read. Linklater wrote the role of Charles Freck with Rory Cochrane in mind. The actor was interested but didn’t want to recreate his Dazed and Confused (1993) role. Woody Harrelson and Winona Ryder both agreed to do the film based on the script. Although, for the actress, she had a personal connection to the material – her godfather, counterculture guru Timothy Leary, had been friends with Dick, as was her father. Her and Reeves felt so passionately about the project that they agreed to work for the Screen Actors Guild scale rate plus any backend profits.

Linklater assembled the cast for two weeks of rehearsals in Austin, Texas before principal photography began in order to fine tune the script and get input from the actors. The shooting script became a fusion of Linklater’s take on the material, the novel and the actors’ input. Principal photography began on May 17, 2004 on a budget of $6.7 million and lasted six weeks. To prepare for their roles, Cochrane came up with his character five minutes before he got on the elevator to work while Downey memorized his dialogue by writing it all out in run-on sentences, then converting them to acronyms. Meanwhile, Reeves relied on the novel, marking down each scene to its corresponding page.

Finding Arctor’s house for the film proved to be a challenge with the filmmakers looking at 60 houses before they found the right one, located in southeast Austin. The previous tenants had left a month prior to filming and left the place in such a state that production designer Bruce Curtis had to make improvements so that it looked like Arctor’s run-down home. Linklater actually shot a lot of exteriors in Anaheim, California (where the story is set) and then composited them into the Austin footage during post-production. Dick’s daughters visited the set during filming and spoke with the principal cast and crew members. They made Laura and Isa feel like they were a part of the production. Since everything would be animated over later, makeup, lighting and visible equipment like boom microphones were less of a concern. However, cinematographer Shane Kelly carefully composed shots and used a color palette with the animators in mind. Sometimes they would show up to the set and tell Kelly what they needed.

After principal photography was finished, A Scanner Darkly was transferred to Quicktime for a 15-month animation process known as interpolated rotoscoping. It allowed the animators to paint over the live-action footage so that they didn’t have to hand-draw each line in every frame. The computer connected fluid lines and brush strokes across a wide range of frames. The technique differed from Waking Life in that the “one scene could be wildly different than the one that followed but on this film, we were always thinking in terms of a graphic novel that would have a similar design throughout,” said Linklater in an interview. It took up to 500 hours to animate one minute of film with 30 people working full-time every day.

To say that it was a trying process for Linklater is an understatement: “I know how to make a movie, but I don’t really know how to handle the animation.” The filmmakers used the same animation software that was utilized on Waking Life, created by MIT graduate Bob Sabiston. He updated it for A Scanner Darkly. Most of the animators were hired locally with only a few of the 30 people having moviemaking experience. Six weeks into the process and only a few animated sequences were completed while Linklater was off filming Bad News Bears (2005). Sabiston had divided the animators into five teams and split the work amongst them.

However, there was poor communication between the teams and the uniform animation style that Linklater wanted was not being implemented. After almost two months, some animators were still learning the software and he became frustrated with the lack of progress. In late November 2004, the head of Warner Independent Pictures Mark Gill asked for a status report. It was not good. There were no finished sequences as the entire film was being animated at once as opposed to from beginning to end. Under pressure, some animators worked 18-hour days for two weeks to produce a trailer and this seemed to appease Gill and Linklater.

Sabiston and his team were falling behind schedule and reportedly asked for more time, money and staff. This created tension and one Friday in February 2005, while Sabiston and his four-person core team were strategizing at a local café, Pallotta changed the locks and seized their workstations, replacing him with two local artists, Jason Archer and Paul Beck. The studio increased the film’s budget to $8.7 million and gave Linklater six more months to finish. Pallotta took charge of the animation process and instituted a more traditional Disney-esque production ethic: creating a style manual, having strict deadlines and breaking the film up into even smaller segments. The animation process lasted 15 months. On the post-production problems, Linklater said, “There’s a lot of misinformation out there … changes took place during the early stages of us really getting going on this that had everything to do with management and not art. It was a budgetary concern, essentially.” I think it’s safe to say that after everything he went through on Scanner Darkly we aren’t going to see Linklater make another animated film any time soon.

Originally, A Scanner Darkly was supposed to be released in September 2005. However, due to the lengthy post-production delays, a test screening was scheduled for December and that went reasonably well with a temporary soundtrack that was entirely comprised of Radiohead songs. A revised release date was set for March 31, 2006, but Gill felt that there wasn’t enough time to mount a proper promotional campaign and the date was pushed back to July 7th, putting it up against Pixar’s Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest.

A Scanner Darkly received mixed to positive reviews. In his review for the New York Observer, Andrew Sarris wrote, “In the final analysis, A Scanner Darkly provides a stylish peek at the future, which will probably be even more discouraging than the present—or have you stopped looking at the news too? Mr. Linklater emerges once again as the Austin auteur par excellence, even if A Scanner Darkly is set in a ratty precinct of Orange County.” Empire magazine’s Kim Newman gave the film four out of five stars and praised Linklater’s take on the material: “For a start, he is the first director since Ridley Scott to take one of Dick’s major novels as a source; moreover, he might well be the first director ever to feel Dick is worth a faithful adaptation rather than the source for a handful of cool ideas that could be stripped while the rest of the matter got thrown away.” The Washington Post’s Desson Thomson concurred: “He infuses Scanner with the goofy spirit that enlivened his early films, Slacker and Dazed and Confused. His comic scenes are funny on the surface, certainly, but they're symptomatic of a civilization that's disintegrating.” In his review for the Village Voice, J. Hoberman wrote, “What's extraordinary about Linklater's animation, computer-rotoscoped in the fashion of his 2001 Waking Life, is just how tangible the Dickian labyrinth becomes.”

The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis wasn’t totally sold on Linklater’s decision to utilize rotoscoping animation: “Rotoscoping makes certain sense for a film about cognitive dissonance and alternative realities, though both the vocal and gestural performances by Mr. Reeves, Mr. Harrelson and, in particular, the wonderful Mr. Downey make me wish that we were watching them in live action.” Entertainment Weekly gave the film a “C-” rating and Owen Gleiberman wrote, “In A Scanner Darkly, we're watching other people freak out, but the film is maddening to sit through because their freak-outs never become ours.” In his review for The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw wrote, “The movie itself is often startling and engrossing, but the question of what the heck is going on, and why, is never entirely absent from your mind.”

The rotoscope animation adds to the druggy atmosphere of A Scanner Darkly and is particularly effective during the moments when the characters have drug-induced hallucinations. The animation isn’t photo-realistic by any means but rather more impressionistic in nature, creating the notion that none of what we are seeing may be real, that it may exist only in Arctor’s fevered, drug-addled imagination. However, the style of animation limited the film’s mainstream appeal – that, and the stigma of animation being for kids only made it one of the more expensive cult films in recent memory. Linklater’s refusal to water down the material and make it more palatable for a mainstream audience also accounts for its marginalized status while also making it one of the most faithful and best Philip K. Dick adaptations ever put on film.

Top of the Food Chain

After a 15-year hiatus from making feature films, Canadian auteur John Paizs returned with a wickedly funny, little-seen 1950’s alien invasion parody, Top of the Food Chain (1999). He was no stranger to deconstructing genres as he had satirized the B-crime/noir previously with Crime Wave (1985). However, this film actually featured two recognizable name actors with Campbell Scott and Tom Everett Scott. Sadly, they could not save this gem from obscurity where it has been languishing on home video. However, it was the beginning of a cycle of films that parodied ‘50s B-movies, along with Psycho Beach Party (2000), The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra (2001), and more recently Alien Trespass (2009). For my money, Paizs’ film is the funniest of the bunch as it pokes fun at the repressed attitude towards sex that was indicative of that era and brings the kinkiness right up front with hilarious results.


The town of Exceptional Vista looks like the aftermath of a George Romero zombie invasion: deserted, abandoned cars littering the streets with run-down-looking buildings everywhere. It seems that the Fine Nuts factory (“The finest nuts in the western central northeast.”) closed down and moved to Left Hemisphere some time ago with almost all of the other businesses following suit. What a perfect spot for the beginning of an alien invasion! A hapless fisherman is the first victim when he encounters a beautiful woman who asks him, “Would you like to perform the copulatory act with me?” The fact that her come-on is right out of a science textbook should send up a red flag but it’s too late for this backwoods angler.

A few of the remaining townsfolk hang out at the general store where they complain about the lack of television reception. Among them is Mayor Claire (Bernard Behrens), a character who seems to be channeling Star Trek’s Dr. McCoy with incredulous exclamations like, “By the beheaded John the Baptist…” or “By the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb!” The beautiful Miss Sandy Fawkes (Fiona Loewi) shows up with news that Dr. Karel Lamonte (Campbell Scott), the most brilliant atomic scientist at the atomic academy, will be staying at her motel. She encounters him lurking at the back of the store, perusing a pig fetishist magazine (called Pig Parliament no less?!) He is the typical brainy scientist albeit with some kinky twists that become apparent later on.

Dr. Lamonte soon encounters other significant townsfolk. There’s Officer Gayle (Hardee T. Lineham) who takes an instant dislike to the professor. Guy Fawkes (Tom Everett Scott) is Sandy’s dimwitted brother with whom she seems to have an incestuous relationship. Also staying at the motel is Michel O’Shea (Nigel Bennett), a little too-friendly traveling salesman who specializes in vacuums. In most alien invasion films it is the people who act strangely that we suspect are from another world but in Top of the Food Chain everyone is odd.

While hiking through the lumpy bumpy part of town outside of town, Dr. Lamonte discovers the decomposing remains of someone and dutifully informs Gayle and the mayor. Meanwhile, the townsfolk are being picked off by the aliens. Just who are they? Is it, as Mr. O’Shea speculates, some sort of man-eating Sasquatch-type thing roaming the countryside, or quite possibly a gang of genetically engineered serial killers, possibly devil worshippers?

Campbell Scott doesn’t do many comedies but displays fantastic comic timing in this film as a straight-laced (sort of) scientist. The actor nails the stuffy, uptight archetypal ‘50s egghead with uncanny fidelity, right down to the authoritative voice all these characters seem to have, which makes his kooky dialogue that much funnier. The 1990’s were a great decade for Scott as he appeared in such diverse fare as Singles (1992), Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle (1994), and The Spanish Prisoner (1997). Top of the Food Chain demonstrated his knack for broad, farcical comedy.

Canadian television screenwriters and co-producers Phil Bedard and Larry Lalonde (Kung Fu: The Legend Continues) were looking for a director with the right sensibilities for their unusual screenplay and happened to catch John Paizs’ first feature film Crime Wave one night on pay T.V. and were taken with its deadpan humor and faux-Technicolor look. They wanted Top of the Food Chain to have the same look. Afterwards, they knew he was the right person for the job. He was sent a copy of the script in 1994. Paizs developed his comedic sensibilities directing episodes of the T.V. show The Kids in the Hall whose oddball, often surreal humor was perfect for this film. He described it as “an amalgam of a certain kind of rural comedy and the 50’s sci-fi picture. Or as a sort of cinematic platypus.”

The filmmakers called Campbell Scott’s agent and asked if he was interested in being in the film. He was drawn to the project for the chance to work with Paizs after seeing and enjoying Crime Wave, and to also dispel the notion that he was not funny. He also had a fondness for old ‘50s monster movies and used to watch them on T.V. as a child. “It was perhaps the only era where science was considered sexy.” Lalonde and Bedard had previously cast Fiona Loewi in the T.V. series John Woo’s Once a Thief and were impressed with her work and cast her in the film. She had done a lot of dramatic work and was drawn to this film for the chance to do something different, funnier.

Top of the Food Chain took years to finance because it was such unusual project but producer Suzanne Berger found a wealthy investment banker in New York City who wanted to invest in a film. Scott signed on a week before production began and this helped secure the last bit of financing the filmmakers needed. The film was shot over five weeks in the summer of 1998 in a former G.E. factory in west-end Toronto. Paizs encouraged Loewi to improvise and she “sexed up the character to a degree not seen on the page,” the director remembered. She said, “we were allowed to experiment – Campbell and I would make up our own little bits.”

The production mostly eschewed CGI in favor of old school prosthetic and animatronic effects mostly because of the small budget they had to work with but also to give the film a campy, retro feel. F/X and makeup artist Paul Jones tried to keep the opticals to a minimum, “so all the transformation in the movie is in the camera.”

In his review for Variety, Ken Eisner wrote, “Not everything in the script works, but there's so much irreverent, movie-loving stuff flying at you, it hardly matters. Real belly laughs come only occasionally, but the chortle-out-loud factor is almost 90%.” The Montreal Gazette’s John Griffin wrote, “With any justice in this darned old world it will become the cult movie about cult movies by which all cult movies about cult movies are judged.” The Toronto Star’s Peter Howell wrote, “Paizs and his cast obviously had a ball making this film; at times they can barely keep straight faces. But they make this cheeseball roll, if a little too slowly at times. Most impressive are the retro-riffic special effects, which are better than you'd expect for a movie with a budget of about $1.98.” However, the Calgary Herald’s Katrina Onstad wrote, “Despite some smiley moments and good intentions, Top of the Food Chain never generates the big laugh payoff. In comedy, that's an issue.” In his review for the Village Voice, Dennis Lim wrote, “the movie seems curiously off-target, like a spoof of a spoof, and for every moment of throwaway lunacy, there are too many that turn Mystery Science Theater-style lampoon into heavy lifting.”

No matter how ridiculous things get (and they get pretty wacky), the cast plays it straight, never winking knowingly at the camera, which makes the crazy dialogue they say even funnier. Bedard and Lalonde’s script is very clever with many laugh-out loud moments. These guys are obviously big fans of ‘50s B-movies as they serve up many of their clichés and then poke fun while also celebrating them. This is an affectionate satire. They have a deliciously warped sense of humor that comes out in their dialogue, which apes the often stilted speak of those old films. Much like Psycho Beach Party would do a year later, Top of the Food Chain takes all the sexual subtext of those old B-movies and brings it right to the surface with hilarious results. It is one of the funniest, little known alien invasion spoofs with a perverse sense of humor that gives it an added zing. When it was released on home video in the United States it was unfortunately renamed Invasion! and deserves to be the kind of cult film that people quote from fondly.

 

Cowboys & Aliens

Jon Favreau has certainly come a long way since his independent film roots with Swingers (1996), the film he wrote and starred in. Over the years, he’s increasing spent more time behind the camera than in front, directing Made in 2001. The modest success of that film saw him transition to studio films with larger budgets like Elf (2003) and Zathura (2005). Then came Iron Man (2008), his most ambitious effort up to that point, and he rolled the dice with the casting of Robert Downey Jr. as his leading man. The gamble paid off and the film was a massive success, paving the way for the inevitable sequel. Rushed into production, the end result was a commercial triumph but a critical failure, which upped the stakes for his next film, Cowboys & Aliens (2011), an adaptation of the graphic novel of the same name by Scott Mitchell Rosenberg.


The premise is an intriguing hybrid of the science fiction and western genres with an alien invasion set in 1873 New Mexico. To hedge his bets, Favreau corralled Daniel Craig and Harrison Ford to headline his film, which caused epic seismic ripples through the fanboy community at the prospects of seeing the actors who played James Bond and Indiana Jones in the same film together. As a result, expectations were understandably high. Could Favreau and company deliver the goods or would this be another Wild Wild West (1999)?

A man wakes up in the middle of nowhere wounded and with a strange, futuristic device strapped to his wrist. He has no idea who he is or how he got there. Three men on horseback show up assuming he’s an escape convict and try to take him in. He quickly and brutally dispatches them, taking their gear and heading towards the nearest town – the former mining colony of Absolution. He eventually learns that his name is Jake Lonergan (Daniel Craig), a notorious outlaw wanted by the law for a variety of offences. One of which was robbing local cattle baron Colonel Woodrow Dolarhyde (Harrison Ford) of his gold. When he learns that Lonergan is in Absolution, Dolarhyde and him men intend to lynch the outlaw in retribution.

However, a strange light appears in the sky just as Dolarhyde arrives into town. The device on Lonergan’s wrist activates and the light turns out to be several alien spacecraft that proceed to blast the town to smithereens and kidnap several of its townsfolk. Lonergan discovers that his wrist device is a weapon, which he uses to take down one of the alien craft. The film sets up Dolarhyde as a mean son of a bitch while Lonergan is a no-nonsense criminal. They represent two unstoppable forces of nature and one of the pleasures of this film is when they have to put aside their differences, repel the alien invaders and rescue the kidnapped townsfolk.

For years, Harrison Ford has made bad choices in the films he’s decided to be in and phoned in one-note performances, playing the same gruff character, but with Cowboys & Aliens acting against someone like Daniel Craig has inspired him to bring his A-game this time around. Ford actually looks interested and engaged in the material and the role. It’s great to see him go up against Craig and their scenes together crackle with intensity and tension. Best of all, Ford has two scenes that expose his character’s gruff exterior and reveal a more vulnerable side. They are poignant and heartfelt because we’ve become invested in these characters by this point. This is the best Ford has been in years and reminds one of when he used to play characters we cared about.

Craig adds another man of action to his roster. He excels at playing edgy tough guys and is well cast as the enigmatic outlaw. The only drawback is that Lonergan is underwritten and there isn’t much for Craig to work with except for some standard motivation for his character revenging a lost one. As a result, the character comes across as a one-note Man with No Name, at times. Favreau does a good job of surrounding Craig and Ford with a solid ensemble cast of character actors. You’ve got Clancy Brown as the upstanding town preacher Meachum, Sam Rockwell as Doc, the mild-mannered saloon owner, Keith Carradine as Sheriff John Taggart, the always watchable Adam Beach as Nat Colorado, Dolarhyde’s right-hand man, and Olivia Wilde as a mysterious woman named Ella whose exotic beauty gives her an almost otherworldly aura. Hell, Favreau even throws Walt Goggins in for good measure as a member of Lonergan’s gang.

Favreau has all the traditional western iconography down cold and the fun of Cowboys & Aliens is seeing these motifs clash with the science fiction elements. So, we see cowboys on horseback being chased by fast-moving alien spacecraft. This film doesn’t stray from the conventions of either genre or try to reinvent them but instead merges and fulfills them in a crowd-pleasing way. Cowboys & Aliens has impressive special effects, nasty-looking aliens, several exciting action sequences, and two cool heroes to root for. This may not be the classic that people were hoping for but it is a very entertaining film in its own right and sometimes that’s enough.

 

Watchmen: Ultimate Cut

To say the Watchmen film (2009) had a long and checkered production history is a massive understatement. Originally a 12-issue mini-series written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons that was released in 1986, it was a revisionist superhero story about a mysterious assassin killing off costumed superheroes but this is merely a springboard for a brilliant dissection of the genre and comics in general by manipulating symbols and icons. It also addressed the fear of nuclear annihilation that was so prevalent in the 1980’s. The series was a critical and commercial success despite Moore and Gibbons’ intentions for it to act as an epitaph to the superhero genre and ended up revitalizing superhero comics and spawned numerous rip-offs. It wouldn’t take long for Hollywood to come calling.


In 1989, just after he finished making The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Terry Gilliam was approached to direct a film version of Watchmen by producer Joel Silver. Sam Hamm (Batman) wrote the screenplay, which by all accounts was awful. So, Gilliam discarded this draft and wrote his own with Charles McKeown (his screenwriting partner on Munchausen). Gilliam felt that the mini-series was unfilmable as a traditional two-hour film. The biggest problem lay in the financing. According to Gilliam, Silver said that he had secured a $40 million budget but in actuality he only had about $24-25 million. In 1996, after the success of 12 Monkeys, Gilliam was asked again and turned it down.

Nothing happened with the project for many years until it was announced that screenwriter David Hayter (X-Men) had signed a seven figure deal to adapt Watchmen for the big screen and possibly even direct it for Universal. Larry Gordon, who had long held the rights to Watchmen was going to produce the film. Originally, Hayter pitched Watchmen as a mini-series for HBO but the cost would have been an estimated $100 million. His way to condense the mini-series into a two-hour film was to break down the story points into their main components.

Filming was to being in Prague sometime in 2004; however, the option was picked up in April 2004 with Darren Aronofsky (Black Swan) being named as the director for Revolution Studios. By July, the project had moved over to Paramount when the deal fell through with Revolution. However, by early November 2004, Aronofsky was off the project due to scheduling conflicts with pre-production on The Fountain (2006). Paramount’s insistence on getting Watchmen out in theaters by summer of 2006 forced them to find another director fast. In late November of 2004, they picked Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Supremacy) to direct using Hayter’s script. It did not take long for problems to arise when in April 2005 Paramount was looking to cut the film’s budget by 20% while Greengrass was immersed in pre-production at Pinewood Studios in London, England. One of the reasons cited was the exchange rate of the U.S. dollar to the British pound. However, the studio put the project in the dreaded turnaround (i.e. development hell) in June of the same year because of change of studio heads and the new one felt that the budget for such a risky project was too high.

Finally, in 2005, the film’s producers took the project to Warner Bros. and approached Zack Snyder to direct as they were impressed with his work on 300 (2007), a stylish adaptation of Frank Miller’s graphic novel of the same name. Screenwriter Alex Tse was hired and he took elements from Hayter’s drafts while maintaining the Cold War setting of the comic book. The resulting film polarized critics and was a modest commercial success. Taking his cue from Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Sin City (2005), Snyder set out to make a visually faithful adaptation, often recreating certain panels exactly as they were presented in the comic book but ran into trouble when he deviated with his own preoccupations and stylistic flourishes. The end result is a film that is at times brilliantly faithful and also deeply flawed – a mixed bag but also an admirable attempt at an impossible task. The Ultimate Edition version, which fused the director’s cut with the animated short film, Tales of the Black Freighter (a comic book that runs throughout Watchmen, often commenting on the action), is the most complete version of Snyder’s take on the material.

Set during the mid-‘80s amid the nuclear arms race between Russia and the United States, Watchmen begins with two police detectives investigating the mysterious murder of Edward Blake (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) whose alter ego is the costumed superhero known as the Comedian, an amoral mixture of Nick Fury and G. Gordon Liddy. Another costumed vigilante by the name of Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) – imagine Travis Bickle mixed with Sam Spade – decides to conduct his own investigation and realizes that the Comedian's death is only a small fragment of a much larger puzzle. He proceeds to notify the surviving members of the superhero team he belonged to: Dan Dreiberg (Patrick Wlison) a.k.a. Nite Owl, a Batman-esque crusader now retired; Laurie Jupiter (Malin Akerman) a.k.a. Silk Spectre, a beautiful woman pushed into the business by her famous mother, Sally (Carla Gugino), the original Silk Spectre; Adrian Veidt (Matthew Goode) a.k.a. Ozymandias, a billionaire businessman and considered by many to be the smartest man on the planet; and Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), an omnipotent being capable of manipulating matter on a cellular level. As Rorschach’s investigation progresses it appears that someone is trying to eliminate all of his former team members but to what end?

The first indication that director Zach Snyder imposes his trademark style occurs in the prologue when the Comedian is killed by a mysterious assailant. Not only does he drag out the fight, but he also unnecessarily employs his slow motion/speed up technique. However, Snyder makes up for it with a superbly executed opening credits sequence that introduces this world and its alternate history timeline (i.e. the Comedian assassinates President Kennedy on the grassy knoll) while also including all kinds of visual Easter eggs for fans of the comic book (like showing how minor character Dollar Bill died). As a result, there is something for newbies and fans alike.

For everything Snyder gets right – the look and feel of the film, which features some truly astounding production design that completely immerses you in this world – he maddeningly gets other things wrong when he adds bits to scenes that have no purpose except to add a little more action for our ADD culture, like in the scene where Rorschach is discovered by two police officers as he’s searching the Comedian’s apartment. The masked vigilante subdues one of them and disappears before the other can collar him. Why? To show what a badass he is? This is unnecessary as actor Jackie Earle Haley’s excellent performance does that for him.

Another nice addition is the integration of an animated rendition of The Tales of the Black Freighter, a comic book within the graphic novel about the sole survivor (voiced by Gerard Butler) of a shipwreck who desperately tries to make it back home to his family before the pirate ship of book’s title does. Snyder nails the nightmarish Tales from the Crypt vibe of the comic while also restoring the newsstand scenes between the vendor and the kid reading the book, which fleshes out this alternate world.

Snyder makes some blunders with a few of the musical cues, like using “Ride of the Valkyries” in the sequence where Dr. Manhattan slaughters Viet Cong soldiers during the Vietnam War. The director is obviously paying homage to the famous use of the song in Apocalypse Now (1979) but it is unnecessary and too on the nose. However, the most glaring miscue is using “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen instead of “You’re My Thrill” as it was in the graphic novel. Do we really need this song played yet again in a film? This song and all versions of it need to be retired from cinema indefinitely.

For the most part the casting is spot on. Patrick Wilson put on weight to portray the slightly out of shape Dan Dreiberg and with his retro haircut and defeated posture certainly looks the part. Wilson gives Dreiberg a slightly sad, pathetic vibe, which suits the character. Billy Crudup nails the eerie detachment of Dr. Manhattan, a god-like being bored with humanity. The actor adopts a neutral tone akin to that of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Perhaps the best realized and most faithfully recreated portion of the graphic novel is Dr. Manhattan’s tragic backstory, which also attempts to present his worldview: he perceives the past, present and future simultaneously. Crudup does a nice job of showing the transition of Manhattan from a mild-mannered scientist to omnipotent super being with some eerily uncanny recreations of panels from the graphic novel. We see how Manhattan’s ability to manipulate matter on a cellular level radically changes the course of world history (for example, the U.S. wins the Vietnam War with his help). According to Moore, his aim with Manhattan was to show that he “does not perceive time the same way we do. We have a character who’s post-Einsteinian, who seems to accept that all time is happening at once. Past, present and future. And to him, the past is still there, and the future is there, right now.”

Thankfully, the flashbacks depicting the Comedian’s backstory don’t shy away from his amoral behavior: trying to rape the original Silk Spectre and killing a Vietnamese woman pregnant with his child. Jeffrey Dean Morgan does a fantastic job conveying his character’s skewed worldview: how everything is part of a big, dark joke that only the Comedian gets. In his own way, he realizes that what costumed superheroes do – fighting crime – is ultimately meaningless in the face of nuclear annihilation. The darker and more chaotic things get the more he likes it. Morgan is also able to dig deeper during his tearful late night visitation with an old foe, giving us tantalizing hints at a much, darker and larger scheme at work – the knowledge of which got him killed in the first place.

Easily the strongest performance comes courtesy of Jackie Earle Haley as the sociopathic Rorschach. The most important thing he does is get the voice right. Everyone has their own idea of what he should sound like and Haley got it. Not only does he look great in the costume but also out of it during the portion of the film where he’s unmasked and in prison. The actor is even more chilling as he recounts to a psychiatrist how he became Rorschach and the incident that transformed him permanently into his costumed alter ego. This section of Watchmen offers a glimpse into his disturbing worldview in what is easily the darkest, most bleak part of the film, much like the graphic novel. But again, Snyder imposes his style unnecessarily, adding his own gory flourishes to Rorschach’s showdown with a kidnapper. It is excessive and clumsily executed like something out of a cheap B-horror film whereas the graphic novel was much more horrifying because it left the criminal’s fate to your imagination. Snyder is too busy making Rorschach look cool and failing to realize that in the graphic novel Moore and Gibbons were deconstructing the romantic costumed superhero myth and exploring what motivates someone to dress up and fight crime and how this might warp them. Rorschach wasn’t meant to be a cool character but a depressing, frightening one. His backstory was where, according to Moore, “we actually go for the heart of darkness, we go to the very center of this black, depressing sort of pre-nuclear worldview.”

The most significant miscasting of the film is actress Malin Akerman as Laurie Jupiter. While the attractive actress looks the part, she lacks the acting chops required for the role. Known mostly for romantic comedies, Akerman looks lost in the role, which is unfortunate as it’s the most pivotal part and arguably the most complicated character in the book. Laurie’s relationship with Dan is the emotional center of the story and this is diluted in the film by the casting of Akerman. Carla Gugino, who ironically plays her mother in the film, would’ve actually been better in the role – or, maybe Jennifer Garner who demonstrated a capacity for action and drama in the J.J. Abrams television show Alias.

Another glaring miscast role is that of Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt. The actor doesn’t look like the character or really act like him either. He’s a little too smug and too over-confident in his portrayal whereas in the graphic novel Veidt was subtly condescending to those around him, coming across as almost distracted, the reasons for which become apparent later on. Snyder has said that he didn’t want to cast recognizable movie stars in the major roles but for Veidt, a celebrity in his own right and by his own making, this would’ve been a wise move. I always thought that Jude Law would’ve been a good choice as he looks the part and showed the capacity to play unlikable characters in films like The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999). Plus, while doing press for Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (2004), Law admitted to being a huge fan of the graphic novel and probably would’ve been willing to take a pay cut.

Watchmen perfectly summarizes Snyder’s limitations as a filmmaker. He slavishly recreates panels and sequences from the graphic novel without demonstrating any understanding of what they mean. For example, the climactic scene where Laurie convinces Dr. Manhattan to come back to Earth, that there is more to the universe than random molecules colliding with one another is handled all wrong. In the graphic novel, we find out that Sally loved the Comedian, even after he tried to rape her. The fact that she could feel for a person who committed such a horrible act goes against all logic and that Laurie was the product of their act of love is what convinces the Manhattan to renew his interest in humanity. The film waters this down completely and Sally says that she made a mistake being with the Comedian that one time but that she loves Laurie anyway. Whereas, the graphic novel is a thought-provoking look at human nature and our fascination with costumed superheroes, the film dilutes and tries to make it palatable for a mainstream audience while still trying to appeal to fans of the source material. This schizophrenic attitude is arguably one of the biggest flaws of the film.

Watchmen is a flawed mess of a film – one that gets many things right but also gets a lot of things wrong – but a fascinating one nonetheless. If I’m being overly critical on Snyder it’s only because I love the source material so much that seeing it brought to life in a film was at once exhilarating and depressing. One has to give Snyder credit for making it at all, for using his clout to make sure it was R rated and keeping it set during the ‘80s – two things he went to the mat for with the studio. He made the best possible film one could with the limitations of a feature film format. Ideally, the graphic novel could only truly be done justice in a mini-series format aired on a cable channel like HBO, which would free the filmmakers of the constraints of network television. Watchmen asks many questions but perhaps as Dave Gibbons points out, it really asks the big question: "Who makes the world? Who is responsible for the way the world is? And a lot of it is planned, but a lot of it is just sheer chance. There are patterns, the pattern that we perceive, but there are patterns going on underneath it. And that’s what we tried to show. With these sub, almost subliminal patterns that go through things, echoes, repeating shapes, motifs turning up in unexpected places." Is the world made of patterns or is it sheer coincidence? The graphic novel expertly examines these questions and offers an entertaining story as well. The film? Not so much.

 

Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn

The jury is still out on whether the current trend of 3-D films is merely a fad or here to stay. The debate continues to rage on but people should remember that we went through this in the early to mid-1980’s with the likes of Friday the 13th Part III (1982), Jaws 3-D (1983), and The Man Who Wasn’t There (1983) among several others. Included in this crop of films was Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn (1983), a Road Warrior (1981) rip-off directed by Charles Band, the B-movie mogul behind Empire Pictures and later Full Moon Features. He had first tested the 3-D waters with the science fiction horror film Parasite (1982) but Metalstorm was a much more ambitious undertaking with a significantly larger budget, utilizing state-of-the-art 3-D technology, and a major Hollywood studio willing to distribute it in more theaters than any of his previous efforts had enjoyed. Bolstered by this, Band got a little too ambitious for his own good, planning merchandise tie-ins and even envisioning a trilogy of films. Metalstorm was released and almost immediately savaged by critics and ignored by audiences thereby relegating it to cult film status. To be fair, it’s not a great film by any stretch of the imagination but it does have its moments.


We meet Dogen (Jeffrey Byron), a space ranger traveling through the desolate wastelands of the planet Lemuria. In fact, Band wastes the first four minutes just showing the protagonist driving around before we finally get some action as a flying craft of some sort attacks our hero. The purpose of this sequence is to show what a badass Dogen is and one can’t help but notice the startling similarities in what Jeffrey Byron is wearing with Mel Gibson’s black leather outfit in Mad Max (1979), right down to sporting the same cool, unshaven look.

A prospector and his young daughter Dhyana (Kelly Preston) are working in an abandoned mine in Nomad territory and find a big crystal that appears to be very valuable. However, they run afoul of Baal (R. David Smith) and his minions. He is the half-cyborg son of Jared-Syn (Michael Preston), an intergalactic criminal with supernatural abilities. Baal has this cool mechanical arm that extends (in 3-D this looked rather impressive) and shoots out funky green liquid that causes the victim to hallucinate a bizarre dream-state where they encounter Jared-Syn. He possesses a powerful red crystal that kills them upon contact. Fortunately, Dhyana manages to hide but her father isn’t so lucky.

Dogen encounters Dhyana and informs her that a treaty has been broken and Jared-Syn is inciting the Nomads to do his bidding. Band even attempts to orchestrate a poignant moment when she mourns the loss of her father. It is Dogen’s mission to hunt down and stop both Syn and Baal. With her father dead, Dhyana joins Dogen on his mission. However, when she is kidnapped by Syn (and conveniently teleported away), Dogen seeks out Rhodes (Tim Thomerson), an ex-ranger now a grizzled, washed-up alcoholic, as a guide to the Lost City – the bad guy’s lair.

The cast does their best with the clichéd dialogue and manage to sell all the mythology exposition stuff with a straight face. Jeffrey Byron plays the Mad Max-esque Dogen like the lone gunslinger archetype he’s obviously based on. The actor has the look and intensity of a young William Petersen just not with the same acting chops – a bland carbon copy but to be fair he’s not given much to work with. A young, pre-John Travolta Kelly Preston is the beautiful and independently-minded love interest who is kidnapped early on by Jared-Syn and then disappears for most of the film only to pop up towards the end as a damsel in distress. Baal is definitely the coolest character in the film with his mechanical arm and cyborg appearance. He even sports a distorted, metallic-sounding voice which made quite an impression on me at the young age I first saw the film. The always watchable Tim Thomerson has fun playing the burnt-out ex-soldier who claims not to give a damn about anything but when it comes down to it, steps up to help out our hero. At times, Rhodes also provides a much-needed comic relief. Also of note is a pre-Night Court Richard Moll who shows up as the leader of the Cyclops and who challenges Dogen to gladiatorial combat at one point during the film.

For a low-budget film such as Metalstorm, the production values are surprisingly decent with attention paid to the costumes and cool prosthetic makeup effects of the Cyclop nomads. The hallucination sequences are definitely the strongest parts of the film and have a nightmarish quality to them enhanced by Richard Band’s otherworldly music. The special effects actually hold up pretty well because they were done practically with optics and models, giving them a realness even if sometimes they look a little cheesy but given the small budget it is not surprisingly while also becoming part of the film’s charm.

Producer/director Charles Band originally conceived of Metalstorm as a low-budget follow-up to his previous 3-D film Parasite. However, he got excited about the story and decided to expand its scope and budget to $2.5 million, which seems like peanuts but was a big chunk of change for someone like Band. This necessitated more crew members to be brought on board forcing Band and the film’s screenwriter and co-producer Alan J. Adler to give up their salaries in lieu of deferments. This also allowed them more creative control: “If the majors financed this thing, a car full of guys in suits could drive up with some crazy idea, and we would have to do it,” Adler said in an interview with Cinefantastique magazine.

Adler originally saw the film as a western with “a lot of American Indian mythology.” He read everything he could find in the library and wrote a treatment, basing the setting and time on many of his ideas of the legend of Atlantis.” He set out to write as little dialogue as possible because “3-D is a dynamic visual medium, and dialogue seems to stop the action,” which may explain the end result.

Principal photography took place in the Simi Valley and the Vasquez Rock formations outside of Los Angeles over seven weeks. Adler was on the set every day, standing next to Band, making suggestions while the director re-wrote scenes. Cinematographer Mac Ahlberg remembers that initially the production had a 3-D consultant, “but we got rid of him because he was such a pain in the neck.” Apparently, the consultant wanted Band and Ahlberg to follow the “standard” 3-D rules: long cuts, static cameras and an avoidance of high-contrast scenes. The two men ignored them all and were still able to achieve the results they wanted. However, shooting in 3-D required extreme precision. For example, some shots required multiple cameras and extra care was required for the composition and calibration of convergence in each camera. Ahlberg also had to be aware of how a sequence might be edited while he was filming it. He had to compose the picture so that the audience looked at what they were supposed to, “because if they look at the wrong things they definitely get eye pain.” He tried to have a continuity of convergence so as to avoid this unfortunate side effect. Although, he ultimately found 3-D “so boring, so uninteresting.”

Makeup Effects Labs did the film’s makeup effects, including the creation of Baal. All of the character’s appliances and props took five hours each day to apply. There were seven appliances for the face and skull, which resembled surgically-implanted metal but was actually latex foam painted in silver pigments. Baal was played by accomplished mime R. David Smith who was born without a left arm, perfect for the pneumatically-operated mechanical arm that shoots a green hallucinatory liquid. Three versions of the arm were built: one that extended, one that was rigged to be torn off, and one that shot the green liquid.

Metalstorm’s visual effects included rotoscope animation and complex blue-screen composites that combined up to five elements in a single shot. For example, there was a model of a vehicle flying through the air, going through a background of a shot of a canyon while at the same time there might be a live-action shot of an actor in a vehicle shooting rotoscoped lasers. The challenge came with the 3-D and the precise positioning required of different elements within the frame at any one moment. A lot of the effects work required rotoscope animation for lasers, glowing energy crystals and the climactic hyperspace tunnel. It took a lot of time to achieve them and as a result three different animation crews were brought in during post-production.

After principal photography ended, editor Brad Arensman assembled a 3-D demo reel for film buyers at the Cannes Film Festival with Charles Band and actor Jeffrey Byron accompanying the footage. Band returned to L.A. and screened the reel for several domestic distributors. Universal Pictures took an interest as their executives were worried about the financial prospects of Jaws 3-D. They saw Metalstorm as an inexpensive follow-up that could be screened in theaters that had already altered their projection equipment for Jaws 3-D. However, they wanted Metalstorm to come out three weeks after Jaws opened which left Band and his crew less than two months to shoot some much-needed pick-up shots, finish the optical and to cut, loop, score and mix the film. Weeks before the release, Band had high hopes that his film would be a big hit. Adler began working on a script for a sequel and even envisioned a trilogy. Despite almost recouping their budget over the opening weekend, grosses dropped off quickly. Band was candid about his shortcomings as a director. He spent too much time shooting the dream sequences and a few others and then found he only had half a day to shoot other scenes and raced through them due to the short shooting schedule. The result was a wildly uneven film.

When it was released in theaters, Metalstorm was barely reviewed and those critics that did, hated it. In his review for The New York Times, Lawrence Van Gelder wrote, “No contradiction is forthcoming here. Metalstorm is a slow-moving, thoroughly derivative movie that makes little use of the possibilities of 3-D.” The Washington Post’s Gary Arnold concurred: “Metalstorm recalls movies such as Robot Monster. While more elaborate, it also exudes the aroma of something desperately hustled onto celluloid one afternoon on location with limited stock and non-pros in the leads.” Finally, in his review for the Globe and Mail, Matthew Fraser wrote, “But the amateurish direction, hilariously silly dialogue, and inadvertently fatuous character delineation in Metalstorm make a comparison to the old Flash Gordon series just as appropriate.”

Metalstorm is basically a futuristic western with motorized vehicles standing in for horses and with gunslinger-type characters and shoot-outs in frontier-type towns. Band’s film was one of many at the time that tried to capitalize on the success of The Road Warrior right down to the casting of Michael Preston as Jared-Syn (he was also in The Road Warrior) but he gets little to do except for the hallucination sequences and the final showdown. Like most films that came after, Metalstorm was a pale imitation so it tried to also fuse elements of sorcery and dystopia science fiction onto the story in an attempt to make it somewhat different. It is never a dull film – Band’s B-action movie instincts are good – but it’s not an extraordinary one either. The action sequences are certainly lively and nicely orchestrated with the requisite slow motion shots of vehicular carnage. It’s just that one can’t help but feel we’ve seen this all before and done better.