Reviews

For me, the experience of watching this film was like paying to watch paint dry in a room full of people who have never before seen paint dry and are hence absolutely thrilled by it.

You will probably love it, mind you. That's your privilege.

It just about functions as a crass action movie, provided you can sit through the tedious first hour, and the terrifyingly non-existent justification for something that (as several other reviewers have observed) could actually have been sensibly reasoned if anyone with reasonable intelligence or knowledge had been on the writing team.

As it is, this mediocre script using an old, old, old idea has nothing to offer fans of sci fi who can read and were awake in the eighties, and considerably less to offer action fans than John Woo's Hong Kong films. The framing plot, when revealed, requires more than just a willing suspension of disbelief, it requires that you dismantle all your critical faculties and just content yourself with wallowing in the faintly entertaining special effects.

It tries to be cool - and evidently succeeds in the eyes of many of the people who see it - but it seems to me little more than another soulless product of committee thinking and appeals to the lowest common denominator - and it doesn't get much lower than this.

If you wish to see the same ground covered with more intelligence and visual flare, try the better-than-average film 'Dark City' (also mentioned by another reviewer) or the less accessible, but more stylish 'eXistenZ'. Not that I feel 'The Matrix' stole it's one flimsy idea from these films. This old chestnut has been around as long as cyberpunk has, and probably longer for all I know.

Still, bread and circuses, I suppose. Keep the masses happy and then they don't have to think for themselves.

Ah well, it's only a blockbuster, I suppose. It's not supposed to be well made.

$100 million spent on weak science fiction novel. Do you want to know more?

Well, I admit, I was intrigued, and the blanket poster campaign in London was certainly effective at building my anticipation. Verhoeven had brought us sly irony in 'Robocop' and I assumed that his intent here was satire. I hope that was his intent, because the film bursts into technicolour splatter like 'Showgirls' but with gore instead of breasts.

Not long after the film had started I was wondering: 15? How did this, the most violent film I have ever seen, get passed by the censors as a 15 when 'Showgirls' (which was a harmless piece of adult comic book entertainment) was an 18? Answer: the censors aren't bothered by violence anymore. Oh, they don't want people seeing sex and they certainly don't want people to hear the kind of swearwords that any person on the planet hears on an almost daily basis, but they are happy to pass the most disembowling movie of all time as a 15.

My complaint here is not with the film makers - on the contrary, I applaud them for showing a battlefield for what it is, a place where people die and get mutilated in horrible ways - but with the idiocy of the censors who are so far removed from the real world that they might actually have mistaken 'Starship Troopers' as a documentary.

Now I have to be careful to seperate my complaints with the film out carefully lest the casual reader thinks that I have missed the irony of the film. So let's look at three elements of the film seperataly: Story, Characters and Special Effects.

Firstly, the story. Now I've been told that the original book was a piece of juvenile fiction, and on the basis of the film I can believe it. This is infantile crap from beginning to end, predictable, trite and devoid of any value what-so-ever. The tedium of the set pieces is matched only by the lack of any attempt to rationalise the background.

So bored was I that I came close to leaving, but I kept hoping for more of the satire that Neumeier managed to put into his first script ('Robocop') so successfully. The irony is there, but sadly there isn't enough. Verhoevenisms get the film off to a great start, but after the shot of the mangled veteren saying 'The mobile infantry made me the man I am today' we are just asked to remember that this isn't serious. And to be fair, it does satirise World War II movies as well as any film is going to. But this says very little.

As if the plot wasn't a large enough Achilles' heel, we have the characters. Now I often suffer from an inablility to identify or empathise with characters on screen, but this is the first film in years to make me wish for the death of the principal characters so quickly. Vapid male lead Johnny Rico (played by Casper Van Dien with all the charm and finesse of a daytime soap actor) was highly tedious, and who doesn't pray for snipers the moment TV's Doogie Howser (Neil Patrick Harris) graces the screen?

But the award for 'Please, Goddess, Kill Her Now' must go to the female lead , Carmen Ibanez (Denise Richards) whose infernally white teeth and irritating smile were so infuriating that when the bugs finally wounded her I let loose a whoop of joy that may unfortunately have ruined the enjoyment of the film for anyone who actually cared.

And while it's nice to see Clancy Brown and Michael Ironside getting work, it would have been even nicer to see them in something good. The one character I liked, the hopeless romantic Dizzy Flores (Dina Meyer) only appealed to me because of the high quality of her breasts, which were deliciously and prominently displayed on screen twice, presumably as an attempt to provide the viewer some rapport with her.

But at least, I hear you cry, the computer graphics were impressive. Well, let's look at this carefully. Firstly, all the really impressive shots were in the trailer (or at least, in the US trailer - the UK trailers seemed to be much more thoughtfully produced for the most part) which kind of burst the spectacle bubble for me. And yes, the bugs were beautifully rendered, but they were not at all scary - certainly not as terrifying as co-star Jake Busey's teeth.

All of which begs the same question as 'Independence Day': if you're going to invest all this money in a sci-fi film's special effects, why don't you also invest some time in getting a good script? I mean, even if you're dead set on converting a sci-fi novel from the 1950's, we could have had 'The Stars My Destination' and had a story that might have held the attention of those people who aren't hypnotised by the sight of so many ludicrously underpowered guns being fired at so many pixels.

You could be forgiven for believing that I went in thinking that I was going to hate 'Starship Troopers' - on the contrary, I was optimistic that Verhoeven could actually do a decent job with it. But he chose spectacle over substance (as has become the Hollywood way) and the one good thing to come from it was the feeling of happiness that filled me when the film was finally over. Verhoeven so obviously wants this to be satirical (putting Neil Patrick Harris' character, Carl Jenkins, in jackboots and an SS uniform was a nice touch) but it's difficult not to worry about the many viewers of this for whom the irony is going to be totally lost.

Very, very disappointing.

[Note: the following comments were written after a preview screening for the film 'Onegin', Tuesday 8th October 1998 in Wimbledon, London. The film was still a 'work in progress', with some cleaning up to be done on the sound track and most of the scene transitions somewhat shoddy. The film's title was not 'Eugene Onegin', but simply 'Onegin'.]

The idea of an adaptation of a 19th century Russian novel about unrequited love will clearly not appeal to everyone, especially given the considerable number of period dramas that have come before it. However, 'Onegin' distinguishes itself both by its sparkling script, its stunning locations and by the outstanding efforts of both director and cast.

As an extremely critical film viewer, no-one was more surprised than I that when facing an audience response sheet for the film I could not think of a single scene I did not enjoy whilst running out of space to list all the scenes that I loved!

The cast, headed by Ralph Fiennes (Onegin) and Liv Tyler (Tatiana), acquit themselves admirably and I will be very disappointed if one or both do not receive Oscar nominations for their performances. Toby Stephens (Lensky), in one of the key supporting roles, is equally superb, especially when being played off as the emotional loose cannon to Fiennes' laconic and cynical Onegin.

The locations - especially the millpond at which some of the film's key scenes take place - are stunningly shot, and the camerawork in general is a cut above most films. The directors decision to let sound and vision take upon some of the personality of the central characters at key moments only serves to underline the emotional content of the film.

As an example, when Tatiana writes her letter to Onegin, the camera views what she writes only in close up - single words, giving the viewer a sense of the obsession and passion that is working in her. As she writes, her hands become more and more stained with ink and eventually we see her trying to wipe the ink from her hands as if she is stained with guilt.

As I intimated before, this is not a film for all people. There is little action, and most of the story rests upon the simple interaction between Onegin, Tatiana and Lensky. But it builds with grim inevitability to an emotional climax which left me strangely delighted that there are still film makers out there who can produce truly great movies.

The film it most reminded me of was 'Remains of the Day', but whilst I found that to be labored and frustrating (I almost wished that the central characters were in the room so I could slap them for being so foolish), the characters and situations in 'Onegin' are tragically believable. I found myself sympathizing with all three of the central characters, for entirely different reasons.

I cannot recommend this film highly enough to anyone who has ever enjoyed a period drama, a nineteenth century novel or suffered through unrequited love. Martha Fiennes is a director worth keeping an eye on.

There is something about Wim Wenders films that limits their appeal. Certainly, many people who came away from 'The End of Violence' were filled with a sense that what they had just seen was confused and poorly constructed.

But Wenders' strength (both in this, and in his earlier work) is his ability to paint themes with his characters indirectly. It requires some patience by the viewer, and perhaps is not a good starting point for those new to Wenders talents ('Wings of Desire' or 'Paris, Texas' are both slightly more accessible).

It is impossible to criticize anyone in the cast - nor to single out any one cast member for praise. They all deliver their roles with simple understated perfection. It works as an ensemble piece better than any film I can think of.

If you require a clearly demarked plot or a tangible set of lead characters, 'The End of Violence' will not suit you. But if you are the kind of person who could sit in any bar anywhere in the world, and be intrigued by what is going on around you - or if you have ever enjoyed any of Wender's previous films - you should definately see this film.