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MrGoodB
Reviews
Doomsday (2008)
28 Years Later: Escape from LV-246
Now this one is what you see when you look up "letdown" in a dictionary. It started out decent, even promising, with a suitably gloomy introduction that, while not exactly what I would call innovative, set the mood very nicely: in the near future, the fatal Reaper virus decimated Scotland and now threatens to makes all human life in the UK a thing of the past. Extreme conditions demand extreme responses, and so the government revives the time-honored British tradition of building humongous barriers across the country. Hadrian's Wall 2.0 is finally finished, the gates are welded shut, the automated sentry guns come online (much to the dismay of the local fauna), what's left of Scotland is sealed off from the rest of the world and everyone is happy. Problem solved, or is it?
Of course, it's not, and three decades later, the virus rears its ugly head again, only this time in London. Understandably troubled, the government assembles an elite team of assorted badasses with security clearances, among them captivating police officer Eden (!) Sinclair and sends them over the wall to meet up with Dr. Kane (!!), who, according to recent satellite reconnaissance, might be alive after all and might even have the cure for the Reaper virus.
This, unfortunately, is the turning point for the movie, which, in an eerie mirroring of the events unfolding on screen, veneers from hey-this-ain't-so-bad highway straight into dark, uncharted I-can't-believe-that-somebody-greenlighted-this territory. Let me explain: the group enters Scotland by means of two wheeled, heavily armored APC's, which, as we are explicitly told, were built to protect its passengers from each and every harm that might lurk on the Other Side (capitalized for dramatic effect).
After running over a cow (those things can be tricky at night), the group exits the vehicles and searches an abandoned hospital for clues, while the operator stays put and watches their progress via helmet-mounted cameras on the APC's impressive array of screens. If that description vaguely reminded you of some other movie, you are absolutely right: the entire scene is lifted straight from "Aliens". The fear that "Doomsday" would merely turn into a bad copy of said movie was unfounded, however, because it quickly becomes apparent that "Doomsday" also aspires to become a bad copy of several other movies, including but not limited to the 28... Later and Mad Max series, Waterworld, Gladiator and Lord of the Rings.
After getting attacked by a gang of mohawked punks straight from the "Escape from New York" set, the slightly shaken group flees into the soothing steel embrace of their nigh-indestructible tank things. Little good it does them, as these marvels of military technology are quickly destroyed by a combination of molotov cocktails, arrows and bricks (I couldn't make this up if I tried) in a chase scene again lifted directly from Aliens. The survivors are taken prisoner and we encounter a ragtag society of garishly dressed maniacs who burn alive and devour one of the captives while playing a Fine Young Cannibals tune (my, that's clever) in a scene that tries to be both scary and funny and fails to be either.
Of course, the survivors MIRACULOUSLY manage to escape - on a steam train, waiting for them in a nearby station, no less. Don't ask. Wandering around the Highlands for a bit while not resembling the Fellowship of the Ring at all, they finally traverse a mountain range by means of a gigantic, underground storage bunker filled with mysterious and obviously completely untouched containers, crates and boxes.
After getting kidnapped by some knights on horses, encountering the elusive Dr. Kane who now rules a pseudo-medieval community based in a castle - and defeating his best fighter in a breathtaking and totally unexpected turn of events, the group escapes once again, re-enters the Warehouse of Moria, opens one of the millions of containers nobody ever bothered to look at twice in 30 years of passing through and finds huzzah! - a shiny new Bentley Continental. The tiresome punks from Act I make their reappearance and give chase, only to be killed off in various unexciting ways by the strangely slow but completely indestructible Bentley. Well, whatever. I won't give away the ending, lest I spoil the surprise (ho, ho).
2/10 (one star for the first five minutes).
Death Proof (2007)
Dead Women Talking
I love movies in general. I love obscure B-, C-, and Z-movies in particular - the dumber the plots and the less coherent, the better.
When I first heard of Death Proof, I was therefore understandably excited. Tarantino is undeniably a pro director, and though I personally think his trademark elements - bizarre dialogue about pop culture, foot fetishism - are somewhat annoying, I was willing to give him a try. He couldn't possibly screw up a movie that is SUPPOSED to be bad, I thought.
Suffice to say, he could. Oh, how he could.
We begin our long and arduous journey through the demented mind of Quentin "I made two cult classics in the early 90s and am therefore beyond criticism" Tarantino by joining a motley crew of four young women on their way to a local bar, tended by none other than Tarantino himself in an utterly pointless cameo role. Then, nothing happens. Twice.
I'm serious, the first hour of this movie (it might have been less but it certainly didn't feel like less) consists of absolutely nothing else but four women, whose admittedly good looks cannot mask the fact that they are about as intriguing to watch as display dummies and slightly less entertaining, drinking in a bar and talking.
What they are talking about, I have no idea. I really cannot remember a single sentence of note said in this torturous first hour (for the protocol, I cannot remember anything said in the second half either), but I am fairly sure that it involved some kind of prank about a lap dance one of them (don't ask me for the names) pulled on one of the others.
After meeting Stuntman Mike, whose introduction moves at about the same snail-paced crawl as everything does in this movie, and another twenty minutes of talking and an embarrassing lap dance, we finally get to the "action" part of the movie. The use of quotation marks is deliberate, since the much anticipated murder scene (didn't I tell you? Stuntman Mike is a serial killer using his car as a weapon. Don't ask why, though - there is no explanation given) consists of two cars crashing headfirst and what amounts to about three seconds of gore.
Cut: Stuntman Mike is hospitalized, but alive and kicking. The four broads are not. Throw in an absolutely pointless scene with two absolutely pointless policemen, which I'm sure is another one of Tarantino's look-how-subtle-I-am references/homages/ripoffs to/from himself.
Cut again: Four shallow and irritating women sit in a car and talk boring nonsense, interlaced with four letter words to boost the as yet slightly neglected "controversial and provocative" aspect of this movie. After another hour of talking - mind you, this time, it's an entirely different deli! Nobody can accuse Tarantino of repeating himself! - Stuntman Mike appears and starts bumping into their car for no discernible reason.
A car chase ensues, mostly consisting of the two cars driving alongside each other at high speed, with the women yelling at Stuntman Mike to cease the hostilities - during the chase, one of the girls lies on the hood and has some difficulties maintaining this condition - and for some reason refusing to, uh, stop their own car and thus prevent their friend from falling off.
After finally gaining the upper hand on Mike and wrecking his car (not so death proof now, is it?), they drag him out and beat him to death. That's it. The end.
I hate this movie. It's an insufferably boring and egomaniacal mess and there is absolutely no reason to see it. It's not funny, not even unintentionally so. It's not scary. It's not interesting, not over-the top surreal, nothing. There is no gore, no monsters, mutants, freaks, demons or at least a cool villain to hold your interest (Kurt Russell wasn't bad as an actor, but to call his character two-dimensional would be an exaggeration), there isn't ANYTHING in here that makes a good B-movie entertaining . Avoid it at all costs.