Sunday, April 02, 2006

A Sound of Thunder – 2005

     I rented this movie because I heard that it was a real turkey. Another big budget mess. And certainly the reviews on IMDB are not kind to it. But, it’s not nearly as bad as all that. There are a couple of plot holes (no more than any other time travel movie. I think the concept of time travel is too fraught with logical problems to safely make a simplistic movie. Butterfly Effect is closer than anything else I’ve seen of handling all the pitfalls). But the effects, while not on the level of King Kong, are not the cartoony type I was led to expect. (You wanna see bad effects, watch Pendragon’s War of the Worlds. Three hours of not-even Amiga quality graphics. Pitiful)

Sire Ben Kingsley is really slumming making this movie. He must be starving or something. Surely he read the script before saying yes.

So, aside from the less than stellar graphics, and a plot hole (like how they can go back time after time to the same time/place, and do the same thing, and never run into themselves, but the hero can travel back and encounter himself and the group), its not a bad little action flick. Just don’t expect too much, and you’ll be fine.

Two beers out of five (could have been a three with a little nudity)

Cat People – 1982

     Since I’ve seen the original now, I thought I’d revisit the remake. I haven’t seen this since I saw it at the theater, so my memory of it was pretty poor. It has an amazing cast.
Malcolm McDowell (85 movies per IMDB) – stars in such genre flicks as A Clockwork Orange and as H.G. Wells in Time After Time.
Nastassja Kinski (54) – genre fans will remember her from To The Devil A Daughter (and she has several great nude scenes!)
John Heard (68) – best loved from his role in C.H.U.D.
Annette O’Toole (16) – seems to be making a living playing in Superman franchises. She’s Martha Kent in TV’s Smallville, and played Lana Lang in Superman III. (we get to see her naked too!)
John Larroquette (23) – will forever be our favorite assistant DA Dan Fielding of Night Court fame

With all this star power, you’d think this has to be a killer movie. And it has one of my absolute FAVORITE soundtracks. I once owned an album (yes, that’s right. Virgin vinyl, kiddies) of this soundtrack. It is awesome. But anyway, you’d think that this movie would just rock. It’s not bad, but it’s not great, and I’ll tell you why. The director changed his mind while making the movie as to what kind of movie this is. He admits it in what is one of the most boring commentaries I’ve ever tried to listen to. What started out as a simple horror movie evolves into some sort of psychological sexual thriller thing. And it falls short of greatness because of this identity crises.

There are a couple of scenes that are hommosh (sp?) of the original. There’s the scene where the stranger senses the cat in her and calls her “Little Sister” in a foreign language. And the pool scene is lifted almost in its entirety. And a “bus” scene, which anyone who’s watched the Val Lewton collection and listened to its commentaries will appreciate. I suspect, however, that the director never saw the original, only the writer. Because he doesn’t comment that these scenes are from the original in the commentary. I’m fairly sure he didn’t even know. He admits that this is the first movie he’s done where he didn’t write

The special effects kinda remind me of American Werewolf In London. I also liked the kinky ending where he ties her up before making love. Don’t see that every day, and the ending is even darker than the original. But it’s too long (two hours).

Three beers out of five (one for all the nudity, and one for a great soundtrack, and one for a little gore)