3 stars

Babylon A.D.

dir: Mathieu Kassovitz
[img_assist|nid=59|title=Let me just shoot my agent|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=300|height=300]
What the fuck? Sorry, but there’s only one reaction I can have to having watched this alleged movie. But first, allow me to digress for about a thousand words…

I recently spent nearly three months of my life plowing through a book called Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace, who committed suicide last year. Since he killed himself, which all the cool artists do, and since many people, book critics and regular humans alike, wanked on rhapsodically about what an amazing writer he was, I started reading it to see for my self.

Imagine my disgust when after suffering through a thousand pages penned more with bongwater than ink and fully more satisfied with itself than it ever deserved to be, I came to the end of the novel only to find that the novel had no ending. No resolution to any of the story it was telling. Nothing to justify the three months of my life where I could have been reading multiple better books during my lunch breaks and train trips to and from work.

Suffice to say, I was pretty fucking angry.

Rating: 

Mutant Chronicles, The

dir: Simon Hunter
[img_assist|nid=77|title=Pretty Goddamn Stupid|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=175|height=250]
You really have to wonder how some movies get made. I don’t mean microbudget indie films about depressed people having soulless sex and squeezing their pimples in the mirror for two hours: all you need is a camera and a PC for editing to do that.

But some films sound so bad even as you’re watching them that you can’t help but wonder how drunk the people were who gave the go ahead, and how desperate for attention some of these actors were to agree to appear in something like this.

Ron Perlman, I’m sure, doesn’t turn down any film roles. He’s that prolific, and probably wants to pay off the mortgage or get a country house or whatever. At the very least he’s like an American Michael Caine, who appears in the majority of movies made in the last thirty years. Perlman’s appearance here isn’t that surprising, I guess. He plays what I thought was the main character, Brother Samuel.

Brother Samuel is but one of the many characters in this strange flick, but not the most inexplicable. What is John Malkovich doing here? Surely Malkovich has made enough money over the years to be able to turn down a role every now and then.

But no…

Rating: 

Drillbit Taylor

dir: Stephen Brill
[img_assist|nid=103|title=There is death in my eyes|desc=|link=none|align=right|width=300|height=375]
Soon after making this here particularly worthless flick, Owen Wilson tried to commit suicide. Coincidence?

Director Stephen Brill is responsible for two of the dumbest Adam Sandler comedies (if that isn't a tautology), being Little Nicky and Mr Deeds. Is it possible for a movie directed by such a lowlife to be anywhere near worth watching, especially considering the fact that one of its main stars tried to kill himself soon after the production wrapped up?

The premise revolves around nerds so nerdy the nerds from Revenge of the Nerds would beat them up, being terrorised by an evil bully. So desperate and afraid are they, and so blind is the school to the campaign of terror waged against them, that they decide to hire a bodyguard, who turns out to be a homeless bum. Are the people involved in this production likely to receive Nobel nominations some time next year for their services in highlighting the plight of the homeless?

It’s unlikely. Perhaps I’m making too much of Wilson’s attempted suicide, but the fact is, you know, for a few moments, I was contemplating embracing the emptiness of eternal oblivion just minutes into this misbegotten 80s throwback idiocy.

Rating: 

Resident Evil: Extinction

dir: Russell Mulcahy
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The first flick in this franchise, based on the popular survival horror game, achieved the remarkable by not being an absolute piece of shit. The basic premise involved a poster child for genetic engineering, Alice (Milla Jovovich), squaring off against legions of zombies and the machinations of the evil Umbrella Corporation that created her.

Had a few stunts, few gory parts, the requisite rip-offs from better flicks like Aliens, plenty of references and in-jokes for the alleged gamer fans, and all in all didn’t represent a completely excruciating experience, despite being directed by Paul W.S. Anderson.

The second flick, RE: Apocalypse, achieved the unremarkable by being a complete piece of shit that made no fucking sense and defied all laws of knowledge, gravity and common decency by being an aggressively, relentlessly stupid experience for all concerned. I’m sure it made audiences dumber just with partial viewings.

This third one, Extinction, is directed by Australia’s own Russell Mulcahy. Russell Mulcahy is a hack of the first order and top rank, so imagine my non-existent surprise when this managed to find an happy medium between the mediocrity of the first film and the utter shiteness of the second.

Rating: 

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