0801 January 2008

I tried to appreciate the movie on its own, not in relation to the novel. That's difficult, as I just read it a few months ago. Anyway, most of the movie is Will Smith alone in an empty New York, and he anchors this movie. The film is great at putting us inside his head, so when things started going wrong, I felt for him. The unfortunate aspect of the film is the monsters, which have all the range of the creations from The Mummy Returns. Okay, now CG people can have sub-surface scattered skin, but that doesn't make them better than men in make-up. Anyway, the infected are just killing machines, which leaves out the interesting aspect of the book -- that hero Robert Neville may not be such a hero from a vampire's point of view.

Everybody's funny. Matthew Perry is playing the socially clumsy Chandler character again, but he's great at it. I love watching Amanda Peet's face light up when talking about contract killing. Willis is alternately sinister and charming, sometimes in the same sentence. Kevin Pollack makes the most of his few scenes as a weirdo mob boss who could snap at any moment. Natasha Henstridge plays the most beautiful moll I can remember. The movie's only flaw is that I feel they could have wrapped up the story quicker. After the shoot-out, the last 35 minutes drag a bit.

Clancy Brown is a force of nature as the evil leader of the evil vikings. There's some inventive action and good phototgraphy here, but it got monotonous after a while. I can't quite figure out why I didn't like it more. Certainly the muddled Native American dreamquest aspect didn't help.

One of Cary Grant's first screwball roles, so I had to see it. Turns out he isn't in it as much as his flirtatious wife, played by Constance Bennett. Wow, she's terrific. I'll have to see some more of her films.

Keeps you on your toes by killing off seemingly important characters when you least expect it. Some of the Blob effects are terrific, especially when it strikes fast. The bodies it devours get mashed, folded, and dissolved with surprising speed.

It's funny that I just watched The Blob (88) yesterday, because this follows the same premise. Big bad alien monsters come from outer space and start messing with people in a small town. In slasher fashion, they get taken out in nasty ways, until they realize what's going on and fight for survival. I'm not saying that's a bad formula -- it worked well for The Blob, Slither, and Critters. Like Critters, we have the additional element of alien assassins, this time in the form of a Predator who is makes it his mission to stop the Alien infestation. I liked that the Predator was covering his tracks by dissolving any evidence of Alien existence. No sense upsetting human forensic teams... and mucking up the continuity of the Aliens franchise! The townie characters are a solid bunch of actors, if not well known. They're a little underwritten, but at least they're not badly written. What made the movie rock is the fantastic creatures, the many attacks and action scenes. We get to see the Predator home world (briefly) and it's good to hear music cues from Predator and Aliens again.

Agonizing.

It's not a good sign when it takes me four sittings to get through a movie. This suffers from the typical Fulci problem. Namely, that the story makes no sense. There's people being killed by an innocent-looking cat and cops investigating the "accidents," but no clues and no way for the audience to puzzle out the mystery. Stylish photography, but dull and not scary. It's a lot easier to make a dog threatening than a fluffy housecat.

Spooky, with enough subtext to warrant a second viewing. I liked the explanation of ghosts as wounds in time and the use of the phrase "believing is seeing." The addition of a Poltergeist-ish paranormal investigation team was different for this type of film, and made for some chilling scenes.

It's difficult to rate a movie that is obviously bad, but remains entertaining. So I'll rate my experience watching ITNOTK as a positive one. It's the Boll Factor (tm) that elevates the movie. I actually loved watching Matthew Lillard give one of his hammiest performances (and that's saying something). But his ridiculous character paled compared to Ray Liotta's evil magician. Every one of Liotta's line readings was unexpectedly hysterical. Most bad movies fail because they're dull and unoriginal. ITNOTK not only has some great martial arts (!) action, it includes the following strangeness:

1) A slapstick gag involving a worn-out bridge and a deep deep chasm.

2) A tribe of Amazonian tree dwellers who travel on magic vines (a la Tarzan) led by the lovely Uwe Boll veteran Kristanna Loken.

3) Ninjas! In Medieval Europe!

4) A new way of hurtling your friends across great distances.

5) A magician's duel involving multiple flying swords that was actually convincing.

6) An attacking magic tornado of books that was the opposite of convincing.

An informative look at the beginning of the Mondo craze. Apparently, the two men who started the trend weren't as interested in exploitation as those who followed.

Great characters, great soundtrack. I would have liked there to be more story. It follows the same formula as American Graffiti, but that movie had more at stake in each of the various stories.

I don't get the love for this movie. Everyone is quirky, but it seems pretty pointless. The main character is so drab. Things seem to happen around him -- he never makes any decisions that affect the plot, just wanders up and down the beach aimlessly.