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Reviews
Code 8: Part II (2024)
Not bad, but still a bit of a let-down
While the original 'Code 8' movie (as well as the original short film) certainly wasn't perfect, its biggest strength was in its storytelling and being able to accomplish a lot with very little. This is best exemplified by the montage that plays over the opening credits of that film of fake documentary clips and news reports detailing the history of the fictional Lincoln City and how those with powers went from being exploited by the "normal" population to build the city to being feared by them when they were no longer considered useful, and thus being largely forced into degrading menial work that pays pitifully or else turn to various avenues of criminality in order to make ends meet. This set up not only the world of the movie but the central conflict for the main character perfectly in the span of about 5 minutes. By contrast, the sequel tries doing the exact same thing (producing a condensed version of the previous opening with added exposition about the "guardian" robots of the last film being replaced with supposedly safer "K9s" in this one) bur it ultimately falls flat since very little in the film actually follows up on the issues presented in this opening montage.
It's almost as though the film couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be a direct continuation of the first one, dealing with the fallout of everything that happened between Garrett and Connor, or a completely new story set in the same universe; in the end, it winds up being an extremely awkward combination of the two. The Garrett/Connor conflict is, at least to me, the far more interesting storyline that we're presented with, largely due to the Amell cousins inevitably having great chemistry as actors and it actually justifying the movie being a sequel rather than a spinoff, but even that has its share of issues as the film has Connor deciding to put his trust in Garrett far too times and far too easily despite the very first scene demonstrating that he had already learned his lesson on that front.
As for the main storyline of the girl, her brother and the cop...I'll be honest, it's very difficult to care about any of them. The girl especially is clearly supposed to function as the emotional core of the movie but she's ultimately little more than a living McGuffin (i.e. A filmmaking term to describe a thing that everyone wants but is never fully explored beyond that). We learn next to nothing about either her or her brother except that...they're poor, he's Garrett's latest betrayal-minded protégé (you'd think after Connor and the first movie he'd have learned to be at least a bit more careful on that front) and she's apparently supposed to be clever. And she's special because she has a one-in-a-million power that does very little but serve as a plot device and only becomes somewhat useful in the last few minutes of the film. The cop is a little more interesting, though he falls a bit too quickly into all-out comic-book villain territory for my taste. The other new characters that are introduced either don't make much of an impact either way and/or are copies of characters from the first movie (Garrett's even got himself an all-new and almost completely identical gang, right down to their powers).
Overall, it's a film with good acting, decent effects (though to my mind, they're not as seamless as the first one), good cinematography for the most part, but is let down tremendously by the writing and general plotting of the story. Ideally, you want events in a story to move seamlessly from one thing to another based on the decisions of the characters...which in turn are derived from their personalities; here, it's more like events jumping from one to another with very little connecting them (for example, Connor finds the girl at the community centre where he works and she clearly doesn't trust him...then in the space of a jump cut, he's somehow got her inside and she's happy to go with him based on a mostly-offscreen conversation with a character she's never met before - at least onscreen - and the audience barely knows). And talking of events not naturally appearing to follow on from each other, the ending is just...bad.
If you liked the first one, I'd say it's worth watching this one if only for the majority of the Connor/Garrett storyline but it's not necessarily a film to go out of your way to see.
Tales of the Unexpected: The Flypaper (1980)
Sometimes the realistic makes for the most terrifying...
If one wants to watch a particularly creepy or disturbing episode of Tales of the Unexpected, there are certainly plenty to choose from ('Georgy Porgy', 'Skin', 'The Landlady', 'Royal Jelly', etc). But there's a reason why most people who have watched the series will agree that this is one of the scariest, if not THE scariest, episode of the lot. And it's largely because everything that happens in it is horrifyingly realistic.
Eleven-year-old Sylvia Wilkinson is a lonely orphan living with her grandmother (who is more interested in her gardening than she is in raising a child). Isolated, friendless, and uninterested in the world around her, Sylvia becomes the unwitting target of a much-too-friendly old man who follows her home one day after a piano lesson, and then the next day gets on the bus with her after school and attempts to strike up a conversation. And although Sylvia follows all the traditional "stranger danger" rules - not talking to or even looking at him, lying when he demands to know her name, and getting off before her proper stop to try and throw him off so that she can phone the police - nothing is enough to deter the man. Nothing except an old lady who takes Sylvia under her wing...
This episode is a masterclass in building suspense and dread in regards to the realistic. I often think it's fairly easy to make supernatural or "freakish" events seem suspenseful but not so much when you deal with the mundane. But this episode does it wonderfully. The performances are all kept low-key enough that you can imagine all of this happening; Alfred Burke as the creepy old man comes close on occasion to going over the top with the performance, but rather than detract from the story, it serves to highlight his character's inherent creepiness; with his exaggerated movements and bouncy vocal inflections, the character becomes like the worst kind of circus clown trying much too hard to seem fun and appealing to a young child and instead bouncing right into the uncanny. The more low-key performances from Pat Keen as the kindly old woman and especially Lorna Yabsley as Sylvia help to keep the story grounded and highlight just how unnatural the old man's behaviour truly is.
Right from the opening of the episode with a van of policemen scouring a moor with a news report informing us of the disappearance of a young girl, there's a sense of impending doom that only ramps up as the episode never lets us forget this looming threat of a child-killer somewhere on the loose. Sylvia's rival in piano arrives at her lesson bearing news of a strange man who apparently approached her, shrugging off the notion that she should tell the police because the man "looked pathetic" (for added horror, we never do learn if this man is the same one who targets Sylvia); Sylvia hears the news that the missing girl's body has been found; the core lesson of "don't talk to strange men" is brought up multiple times throughout the episode and eventually paid off to devastating effect in the end as Sylvia (and the audience) realises that that particular piece of 'stranger-danger' advice is only half-complete.
This episode, much like, say, The Twilight Zone's 'To Serve Man', is one you'll hear people often claim to have "outsmarted" by working out the twist in advance. The truth is that the episode isn't effective simply because it contains a twist and knowing the twist in advance of the ending does nothing to dispel the sense of dread building through the episode (really, I think the episode itself expects you as the viewer to have worked it out by the time the third teacup is placed on the table, even if Sylvia herself hasn't; just listening to the music used throughout the scene where Sylvia is setting the table is guiding you to the conclusion that all is not nearly as hopeful as it appears). No, the episode (and the short story penned by Elizabeth 'no not the actress' Taylor that it's taken from) is effective because this is a well-depicted story about a situation that we all recognise and all instinctively fear, even if we've had the good fortune to never have experienced it for ourselves. The neglect, abuse, abduction and murder of children (both by adults who seem clearly untrustworthy from the start and by those who lure children in with seeming kindness) is, sadly, nothing unheard of and watching the situation of one such crime play out is a chilling experience even if you know what the ending will be. It taps into a fairly primal fear that's probably inherent in all of us - even if we aren't parents, even if we think Sylvia's a bit of a brat, it's terrifying to think of ANY child being caught in that situation. It's not an episode to be watched again and again, but it is one that should probably be seen by everyone at least once.
Tales of the Unexpected: Where's Your Sense of Humour? (1983)
Decent set-up let down by a lacklustre payoff
The story centres around two couples - George and Julie Forester, and Frank and Laura Parker. The couples are good friends with each other but the friendship is repeatedly strained by George's penchant for increasingly malicious practical jokes. While both Julie and Frank are more than happy to either laugh off George's antics (or at least not rise to them), Laura is openly frustrated and unamused, leading to a good deal of tension between the pair, especially when Julie asks Laura to keep an eye on George when she leaves for a weekend in Edinburgh.
The performances are probably the strongest thing in this episode, especially Philip Jackson as George as he manages to balance the initial impression of the man to be a fairly harmless trickster who just doesn't always know when to stop with the darker turn the character takes roughly halfway through the episode. Sheila Gish also does a good job of selling Laura's exasperation of George's antics - the scene where George effectively comes on to Laura is probably the best scene in the entire episode and is distinctly uncomfortable to watch. Even if you found George's "jokes" prior to this scene to be funny, it's hard to deny that there's a definite dark undertone to his behaviour that comes out in full force during that scene, though not to the point of having him descend into "moustache-twirling villain" territory.
To be honest, I'm convinced this episode might be counted among some of the best in this series if not for the distinctly unsatisfying nature of the resolution. Tales Of The Unexpected was no stranger to characters meeting unpleasant (and occasionally somewhat karmic) endings, but the circumstances that surround George's are frankly far too unceremonious and downright irrelevant to the story that was being told that it loses any sense of impact that it's going for. Contrary to most episode descriptions and what Frank and Laura themselves try to claim, the episode ends up being, not a case of "practical joker takes a joke too far and gets his comeuppance because of it", but more "unhealthy man happens to lock himself in a cellar". After all, he could have been down in that cellar doing quite literally anything and the result of him becoming locked inside would still have been exactly the same; that he was apparently trying to put the finishing touches on yet another cruel joke is entirely incidental. If, for example, Laura herself had deliberately fixed the doorknob to break, or if George had tried another prank on her and/or Frank and met his end as a direct result of that (say for once Laura didn't end up missing with her knife as she whirled around in shock at George sneaking up on her), the ending would have been a lot more satisfying because it would be actively paying off what the episode had been setting up - both Frank and Laura increasingly losing their patience with George, George's pranks increasing in their maliciousness, etc.
It's ultimately a shame because the episode does have a lot going for it; it's just unfortunate that it ends up, much like a failed practical joke, more frustrating than anything else in its lack of a decent payoff.