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Watchmen (2019)
A Powerful and Important Extension of the Watchmen Legacy.
When it was first announced that Damon Lindelof would be helming a TV adaptation of Watchmen, I dove headfirst back into the original book I had loved as a teen. I may be a little biased as a Watchgeek, but I find that this version gets so much right on so many levels, and manages to cover territory the comic never did.
The graphic novel's ending will send every reader into a frenzy, guessing what could possibly come next. Thankfully, Damon has clearly been thinking about this for 30 years. To boot, Lindelof has assembled a crack team to do justice to the book, while making it accessible to a wider audience.
When adapting any Alan Moore property, you're expanding on the work of a very meticulous, devoted, and wonderfully weird artist. This show propels the already prophetic comic further into the 21st century, and gives the audience plenty to chew on about America's ugly past.
The new characters are a blast to follow, and the show is a flat-out triumph for representation. From Regina King as the kicking Sister Night, to Hong Chau as the affable, mysterious Lady Trieu, there are no lightweights here. This show feels so much like its own thing, yet it fits snugly into the Watchmen canon, and augments it in mind-melting ways.
The returning characters are portrayed with deeply satisfying depth, and Jeremy Irons' performance/subplot is one for the books. Just as the OG comic was a response to the complacency of superhero comics in the '80s, this show is a refreshing HBO answer to the Super-Cinema that dominated the 2010s.
My only gripe with Watchmen is that I wish there was more. One essential comic character is absent, and I feel they could have easily worked him in if there were a couple more episodes. The original comic had 12 issues/episodes, while the show has 9. Additionally, one character's arc is ended rather anti-climactically, but it works to serve the greater story.
All in all, I would recommend this show to anyone who liked the book, or even the 2009 film. The world building takes a while to sink in, but it's oh-so worth it. The atmosphere is engrossing, the acting is stellar, and the message is unforgettable. Who watches the Watchmen? You should. Now.
Fahrenheit 451 (2018)
Burnt Cheese
In the age of prestige television, book adaptations are becoming increasingly common. Books once thought to be too sprawling to adapt to film have become fertile ground for TV, with shows like Game of Thrones, American Gods, and Altered Carbon being fine examples. Meanwhile, Charlie Broker's sci-fi anthology Black Mirror perfectly reflects humanity's current anxieties about technology and society in the information age, just as Rod Serling's Twilight Zone did in the shadow of the Cold War.
Fahrenheit 451, however, doesn't really succeed in either regard. With concerns of desensitization and fake news taking precedence amidst a TV renaissance, there has seemingly never been a better time to adapt Bradbury's prophetic novel, the story of a future in which reading is outlawed and books are burned on sight. Unfortunately, Bahrani's version feels more like a corporate product, which wants to trick you into believing that you're thinking critically.
To start on the positive, Fahrenheit does an admirable job of giving Bradbury's novel an aesthetic update. Its vision of the future was built with our present in mind, which is the key to all convincing sci-fi. Social media dominates the film's bleak urban futurescape, with holograms galore, and live feeds garishly projected onto building blocks. It features some impressive camera work, and an oft-used, distinct panoramic shot which is presumably meant to convey the omniscience of the social media. Well, either that, or they just decided it looked cool.
Fahrenheit 451 boasts two very talented Michaels and the HBO pedigree, but it feels more like the pilot for a corny network show based on an old movie. Michael B. Jordan and Michael Shannon are obviously determined to do service to the book, but are basically playing themselves. Sofia Boutella delivers a passionate performance, but her character is unfortunately just a vague manifestation of "free thinking" ideals.
Since this version exists in the age of the internet, all forms of information technology have been merged into something called "The Nine", which exists in every home, and comes equipped with an AI called "Yuxie", which listens in on its owners, clearly standing in for Amazon's Alexa. That's about as deep as the film's 21st century insight goes.
The movie changes so much from the book that it practically becomes an in-name-only adaptation. The mechanical hound is gone, Montag does not kill Beatty, and a plot device about some absurd free-thinking gene has been shoehorned in. In the novel, Montag is a married man, whose wife Mildred is upsettingly despondent. Montag later forms a friendship with a young free-thinker named Clarisse, who stokes his curiosity for books and the past. In this film, Montag has been aged-down into an unmarried maverick, and Clarisse has been turned into a full-fledged revolutionary (played by Sofia Boutella), also somewhere in her 20s. Montag and Clarisse develop a romance, because as you know, young viewers will only respond to the possibilities of new romance, and not the confinements of marriage. That was surely the studio's logic, anyway. Every decision feels like it was made to appeal to the widest audience possible.
The tragedy of this adaptation is that Frank Darabont (director of The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile), had planned to make his own version of Fahrenheit sometime in the 2000s. By his own account, executives loved the script, but were at a loss with how to make it appeal to a younger demographic, and thus never produced it. I think Bahrani's version is a perfect example of what happens when executives are given full control of an intellectual property. Emphasis on "intellectual".
Zygote (2017)
Blomkamp showcases range in strong horror sci-fi
Director Neill Blomkamp's experimental venture Oats Studios has produced shorts from a wide range of genres, including comedy, fantasy, and war, but primarily sci-fi, which often crosses over into the former three. "Zygote" is the first horror outing from the Oats team, and it is a strong case for a full-length horror feature from Blomkamp.
Zygote has definitely been my favorite narrative Oats short so far. With the previous shorts "Rakka" and "Firebase", a lot of the story was told through expository narration and flashbacks, which still worked because of how it built the world, but made them seem less like a traditional short. With Zygote however, the story felt much more natural, with much of the backstory and worldbuilding coming through dialogue and mise en scene.
In Zygote, Jose Pablo Cantillo and Dakota Fanning play the two remaining survivors of a mineral mining facility somewhere in the north. Genetic experimentation by one of the occupants has created an abomination made from parts of other living things. Cantillo and Fanning must make a last stand against the monstrosity to ensure the crew's sacrifice was not in vain.
The terror of this short is palpable, and showcases Neill's range as a director. Scenes of the wailing, undulating Zygote stalking down dark corridors are sure to stick with you. Jose Pablo Cantillo and Dakota Fanning were brilliant in their roles, clearly conveying the fear of being trapped inside with the monster, as well as the simultaneous courage to stand off with it.
If I had any criticisms, I would say that some of Jose's dialogue sounded a little fast or whispered, making it hard to hear, but it didn't detract from his overall performance. As for the Zygote itself, while the creature was terrifying, (maybe giving the Thing a run for its money!) I think it could have benefited from a wider range of vocal sounds, and was more scary when obscured by dark lighting, thus giving it a sense of mystery.
All in all, wonderful work from the Oats team! I'll be looking forward to Volume 2!
AVPR: Aliens vs Predator - Requiem (2007)
Intentions vs. Execution
The 2000's were a rough decade for any Alien or Predator fan. While there were two huge Hollywood releases uniting the two creatures, the combination seemed to devalue the two franchises instead of amplifying their prestige. For a time, it seemed as though the two franchises had become deadlocked, dependent on one another for survival, and robbed of their individual charm. Thankfully, Prometheus and Predators have since set the franchises on the right track. Aliens vs Predator: Requiem is the moment when all hope seemed lost.
The first AVP film was admirable in its novel premise, good cinematography, visual effects, fight scenes, and not much else. The human element of AVP left much to desired, and afterwards, while you were glad the crossover existed, you probably weren't raring to see another one, but considering how much money it made, a sequel was inevitable. AVPR is clearly made by fans of both franchises. Fans will notice the nods and shout-outs scattered throughout the film, (including MUTHUR sound effects from Alien, and Alan Silvestri's foreboding drum cue from Predator), but as big of fans the directors seem to be, they certainly didn't feel like bringing the franchise to any new heights.
Requiem is, if anything, the lowest point of either franchise. With dark and muddled cinematography, one-dimensional characters with just enough tired backstory to make them feel developed, and dialogue on par with The Happening ("The government doesn't lie to people!"). The cast includes such memorable characters as the wimpy troubled highschooler who looks 28, his bad boy ex-con brother named Dallas (franchise nod!), the token police officer, Cricket from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia", and a mother back from service in the military (who was one of the few characters I somewhat liked).
The film is essentially a bad slasher sequel, with just-die-already characters, and increasingly gruesome kills (including an utterly tasteless maternity ward massacre). As for the "Predalien", the abominable hybrid teased at the end of AVP 1, it's nothing too spectacular, It's there just to kill and be killed. Alien Resurrection put more thought and care into its nasty Ripley clone. Fans of Alien, fans of Predator, unless you're a die-hard completionist, don't bother with this one. However, I don't want the reception of these films to sour people on the idea of an Alien/Predator crossover. The Dark Horse comics that inspired the movie are considerably better.