Directed By: Brad Bird
Produced By: Pete Townshend, Des McAnuff, et al.
Written By: Ted Hughes (Novel), Brad Bird (Story), Tim McCanlies (Screenplay)
Starring: Ed Harris, Eli Marienthal, Jennifer Aniston, Harry Connick, Jr., Vin Diesel
Original Release: 1999

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: In 1957, shortly after the launch of Sputnik, a large object crashes from outer space to the Earth which turns out to be a giant, metal-eating robot. A young boy, Hogarth (voiced by Eli Marienthal), who lives in the nearby small town discovers his presence and saves the robot from destruction when it starts to consume a power plant and is nearly electrocuted before he switches off the power. This leads to him befriending the metal being and he begins to teach the robot, which was damaged in the crash, how to speak (Vin Diesel provides the voice) and the ways of the people of Earth which includes showing it his comic books and telling it that it is like Superman. However, the landing of the robot did not go unnoticed, and a paranoid government agent, suspecting a Communist threat, arrives at the small town to investigate. The agent suspects that the boy knows something about what landed in the area and keeps a close eye on him. This leads Hogarth to seeking the help of a beatnik artist, Dean (voiced by Harry Connick Jr.), who runs the local junkyard and who builds sculptures from scrap metal. The Iron Giant successfully hides there, in the guise of a giant sculpture, and befriends Dean as well. While playing around, the Hogarth aims his toy gun at the Iron Giant which triggers a self defense system and leads it to retaliate, nearly killing the boy. Hogarth and Dean manage to revert the robot back to its previous state, but, as its self-awareness continues to grow, it fears it is closer to the villain from the comics than the hero. Hogarth, though, tells the robot that it can chose whether or not it wants to be a weapon. The government agent eventually discovers the truth about the robot and he calls in the military to confront it which places this potentially lethal living weapon between the military forces and the people of the town.

Review/Commentary: Based on the 1968 Ted Hughes novel The Iron Man, the movie adaptation follows a similar formula to E.T. though with less of the smarmy feel of that film and with a bit of a subversive bent. In many ways, this film has the feel of some of the classic Disney animated movies, though with more layers to peel than the standard Mouse-House fare. This one takes the formulaic child and his pal (dog, alien, giant robot, what have you), and infuses it with some Cold War tension and paranoia while also injecting an anti-war message that never throttles the viewer with self-importance nor descends into simple panacea. It definitely has a familiar feel to it, like the proverbial comfortable shoe, but it manages to separate itself from the pack with its spark of inspiration and its sincerity, the crucial elements that elevates most stand-out films above the more routine Hollywood output .

The Iron Giant also delivers another thing that has become rare outside of Japanese animation these days. It mostly steers clear of the CGI animation which has dominated the genre for the past decade or more in favor of hand-drawn animation (they did summon up the computers to aid with animating the Iron Giant himself, but he is done in the style of line drawn characters). Not that I have anything against CGI animation, but the style of movies like The Iron Giant, along with the Disney classics, emphasize the artistic expression in animation as opposed to CGI’s efforts to make more realistic characters and/or to simple wow the audiences with computerized pyrotechnics. The simplistic, retro look of the artwork invokes the comic books of old that provide a pivotal plot point in the film and also echoes the simple attitudes of the era it depicts.

Most importantly, The Iron Giant engages the viewers and involves them in the film. Early on, we feel for this strange alien robot and sense his loneliness and confusion. As he develops a friendship with Hogarth, we hope that the robot will find his true purpose, and even when he turns on the young boy we know that it is against his own will. And anybody who still has dry eyes toward the end of the film when the Iron Giant declares that “he is not a weapon” and chooses to sacrifice himself to protect his friends needs to check that they still have a pulse. Many family-oriented animated films tend to play it safe and only mildly engage the emotions of the viewers, but The Iron Giant takes it to a deeper level and really speaks to our inner selves and challenges us at the same time that it reassures us. Exactly what you would expect from a great movie.

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Directed By: Don Siegel
Produced By: Walter Wanger
Written By: Jack Finney (Novel), Daniel Mainwaring (Screenplay)
Starring: Kevin McCarthy, Dana Wynter, King Donovan, Carolyn Jones
Original Release: 1956

Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Town doctor Miles Bennell (Kevin McCarthy) returns to the California suburban town of Santa Mira after a short trip to find many of his patients eager to see him because they believe one or more of their friends or family are acting very strange, not like themselves. Several plead with him to help them, but when he observes the “afflicted” people he sees nothing out of the ordinary. He talks with his psychologist friend who dismisses the claims as an “epidemic mass hysteria”. But while on a date with a former flame of his (Becky Driscoll played by Dana Wynter), another friend of Miles tracks him down and urges the doctor to come to his house. There, they see what looks like a dead body, but it has almost no discerning features including no fingerprints. Miles notes that it resembles Jack, the friend who called him, in height and weight and they decide not to call the police and instead wait to see what happens with the body. Later that night, it opens its eyes and now appears to be a near duplicate of Jack. With his wife, Jack flees from his house to find Miles, who had taken Becky home and they discover large seed pods apparently of alien origin that appear to be growing duplicates of the townspeople that will replace them with emotionless replicas of their former selves. The four must find a way to warn the outside world while also not falling asleep, which is the point when the seed pods take over their minds.

Review/Comments: The original movie version of The Invasion of the Body Snatchers is widely recognized as a classic of Science Fiction cinema as well as a seminal film in the alien invasion sub-genre. But despite its reputation, modern day viewers should go into it understanding that this is a B-Movie through and through, with all cheesy acting and production short-cuts that entails. Of course the producers had little choice but to go this route because the film’s subject matter demanded that format at the time it was made. However, it does not resort to the exploitation tricks typical of that class of films as it tries to present a tale with some depth and substance, though not necessarily striving for a grand social statement even if it does end up stumbling into that territory. It flirts with horror movie standards (something unknown and sinister is pursuing the heroes) while also adding in the aliens from space twist, though without the expected rubber-masked, bug-eyed creatures more common of the matinee fare of the time. And it takes both of these elements right into the heart of suburban America, in the backyards of the audience watching the film, thus bringing a distant and nebulous thing of terror close enough to make the audience uncomfortable. They see the sleepy little town of Santa Mira, a mirror of the American ideal of the 1950’s, and they watch in horror as its people transform into soulless facsimiles of humanity.

Though not the first choice for the role, Kevin McCarthy is perfect as Dr. Miles Bennell with his expressive, wide-eyed visage and his inner frenzy boiling up just beneath the surface. As the film starts, he appears the picture perfect calm, cool, and rational doctor, but his inner angst quickly reveals itself and by the end he is a man at the edge of sanity. And while he and his former flame Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) know the pains of love from their tumultuous prior relationship, they ultimately decide they would prefer consequences this entails rather than sacrifice their emotions and humanity to meld with the soulless hordes.

People have looked back on this movie as an allegory commenting on the world of its time. Some see in the alien pods the specter of the alleged Communist threat that pervaded much of this country’s psyche at that time. Others see it as an indictment of the era of McCarthyism. For me, neither of these allusions quite fit the film which appears more to key off the vapidity of the conformity that suburban life represented in that era (and still today for that matter). The creative team, however, insist that the movie carried no allegory at all and that they just wanted to make a good scary movie. They succeeded at that, but they did so by tapping into the undercurrent of paranoia and tension seething beneath the surface of 1950’s America. The contrast of the idyllic small town, suburban life, that was more myth than reality, with the terror of an invasion from outside worked perfectly within that context giving us both an excellent horror/sci fi film along with a distillation of the underlying tensions of that seemingly simple though ultimately more complex age.

Thus, Invasion of the Body Snatchers can be enjoyed as the first-rate B Move it is or as a cultural testament of sorts with multiple layers to peel away and reveal the sub-consciousness torment in its sub-text. Finney’s book has received several more big screen adaptations since the 1956 version, though none have quite melded the themes of terror with the consciousness of a nation as well as this one. Better than providing a straight history lesson, this one explores the Id of its era.

As a bit of trivia, a young Sam Peckinpah, who would later go on to become a legendary filmmaker, had a brief appearance in the movie as Charlie the meter reader.  He had worked as an assistant to director Don Siegel on this and several other films and claims to have done an extensive rewrite of the screenplay, though this has never been confirmed.

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By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

As blockbusters like Star Trek, Transformers, and Harry Potter were preparing to assault the theaters at the beginning the Summer season last year, a rather unassuming little animated movie appeared and disappeared within about two weeks time. This movie, Battle for Terra, had been made back in 2007 at a very economical price for a CGI film (around $4 million originally though increased to $8 million with 3-D effects added), and had received some acclaim as it toured the film festival circuit and won the Grand Prize for Best Animated Feature at the 2008 Ottawa International Animation Festival. I actually had this one on my Must-Watch list for the Summer, but it came and went so quickly that I never got the chance to see it in the theaters. But now the movie has made it to DVD and will hopefully earn some of the attention that the big studio releases of the Summer robbed from it.

The movie opens on a distant planet where a race of peaceful beings who have the ability to fly live an idyllic existence mostly at harmony with their world. However, an enormous space ship arrives carrying the last inhabitants of a destroyed Earth who plan to settle on this planet. The humans must terraform the planet to make the atmosphere breathable which in turn will make it poisonous to the natives. An initial confrontation with the humans and natives leads to one of the humans crashing on the planet and coming face to face with the people he would destroy. This plants the seeds which eventually lead to the beginning of a mutual understanding between the two races.

Battle for Terra is a beautifully illustrated CGI-animated movie that mixes science fiction with fantasy (though still sufficiently rooted in science) and even throws in a bit of steam-punk tech. And while the substance does not always match up to the style, Battle for Terra still delivers a more satisfying tale than the similarly themed Avatar from James Cameron which would follow this one at the Box Office with much more fanfare (and BoT had a much lower price tag than Avatar’s $240 million budget) . But while Terra’s story verges into the derivative at times with a hodgepodge of genre elements and some copy-and-paste dialogue, it presents a more genuine take on its subject matter than the much more calculated Avatar. And while it may not fully develop its characters and ideas, in part because of its rather brief 85 minute length, in the end the movie it manages to overcome most of its deficiencies and stand out as a notable genre entry.

And sparse though the plot may be, the writers resist the temptation to give us a simple tale of idealistic, pacifist aliens vs. imperialist, invading humans. Sure, it ventures in that direction with the central villain General Hemmer, but we see that the humans are primarily driven more by their desperation than anything else and we also see that the natives of Terra have the ability to defend themselves if necessary. This is where the movie diverges from the Disney-style kids-fare as it chooses not to present a conflict followed by a tidy wrap-up and happy ending. And this is probably what doomed the movie in the theaters.

Battle for Terra has the look of a fantasy movie aimed at the younger crowd, much like the Star Wars: The Clone Wars film and subsequent TV series. In fact, it seems quite merchandise friendly, with its cute aliens, adorable robots, sleek space ships and steam-punk alien airships. But the movie does not give us the simple tale of good vs. evil that you would expect from a film of this type. In fact, the apparent youthful target audience may have difficulty figuring out who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. The movie delivers more mature themes wrapped up in moral dilemmas, and in the final battle children may struggle with who exactly to route for and the film ends with the heart-rending sacrifice of one of the lead characters. For me, that makes for great story-telling. But since they decided to market the movie mostly toward children, that may have severely hampered its Box Office viability. Ultimately, it’s hard to really pin down this movie as it presents an exercise in contrast with its cute aliens and invading humans facing some very difficult moral decisions. But Science Fiction and Fantasy fans should appreciate it as a well done movie that rises above the expected family-friendly animated flick and delivers a superior genre tale.  If you missed this one in the theaters last year, do yourself a favor and skip the Avatar re-release coming this August and plunk down that money instead on the Battle for Terra DVD.  You should be pleasantly surprised by what you find there.

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Directed by: Terence Fisher
Produced by: Anthony Hinds, Anthony Nelson-Keys, Michael Carreras
Written by: Jimmy Sangster, screenplay based on the Mary W. Shelley novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Starring: Peter Cushing, Hazel Court, Robert Urquhart, Christopher Lee
Original release: 1957

Reviewed by: Sam Christopher

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: A priest arrives at the jail cell of condemned man Victor Frankenstein and is told a fantastic story. Frankenstein is a scientist who, working with his friend Paul Krempe, has actually found a way to create life. First, the two men reanimated a dog but Paul backed away when Victor suggested they attempt to create a completely new life using human parts. Victor eventually put together his “Creature” using parts bought and stolen. Victor then staged an “accident” for a distinguished professor he had invited to his home so that Victor’s creation can have a superior brain. This brain was damaged in a struggle between Paul and Victor, rendering the Creature mute and insane. Paul shoots and buries the Creature in the woods but Victor retrieves it and revives it. Victor then uses the Creature to murder a house servant he has impregnated because she threatens to tell his fiancée Elizabeth about everything going on at the castle. He keeps the Creature locked away but it eventually escapes and threatens Elizabeth, leading to its being shot and falling into a vat of acid. The Creature melts away, no trace of it surviving. The action then returns to the present as Paul arrives for one last visit with his friend Victor Frankenstein, who implores Paul to tell the priest about the Creature. Victor is condemned to be beheaded for the murder of the servant girl and wants Paul to tell the authorities that it was the Creature who killed her. Paul, who in the story was the only other person besides Victor to ever see the Creature, shakes his head sadly and takes leave of his friend one last time. The film ends with Victor being led out of his cell, the shadow of a guillotine being the last image shown to the viewer.

Comments/Review: This is the film that brought back horror as an ongoing cinematic concern following the science fiction boom of the ‘50s. With the advent of the Atomic Bomb and then the more powerful Hydrogen Bomb, along with the Free World’s struggle with the Communist powers, science generally, and radiation in particular, became the catalyst for most speculative fiction to hit the movie screens in the early to mid ‘50s. Even the most famous monster from the period, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, eschewed the gothic for the rational (as it were). Most of the sf pictures of the day dealt with giant creatures mutated by radiation or an invasion of some sort, usually from outer space.

Enter Hammer Film Productions. Hammer had previously made The Quatermass Experiment, now recognized as a genre landmark. After this success, and its subsequent sequels, Hammer turned its attention to the US. They were handed a script that was basically a remake of Universal Pictures’ landmark Frankenstein. Jimmy Sangster was asked to rewrite it and Hammer Horror was taken from its infancy and a new generation of moviegoers thrilled to the classics… with a difference. Hammer shot in color, with a liberal amount of gore for the time, causing critics to label it “subversive” and “degrading” (usually high praise for any horror film), and the film focused more on Victor Frankenstein than the Monster. Also, Universal had copyrighted Jack Pierce’s makeups on Boris Karloff for their version, leaving Hammer to create a new look for the Creature. To smashing success. Another interesting thing about this film that is rarely if ever mentioned by reviewers is the fact that the entire story may not have happened. It is told to the priest by Victor, and the only corroborating “witness”, Paul, says nothing of it when beseeched by Victor at the end. The viewer is left with the distinct possibility that Frankenstein is simply an insane murderer who can’t face his own crimes.

Much has been made of the competing worldviews in Hammer’s versions of Dracula and Frankenstein, the difference between a Victorian romantic vision and one purely set in the Age of Reason. The main characters in these films set these precedents. While Dracula ’58 (see Must-Watch List: Dracula 1958) would present the Count as a feudal lord attempting to hang onto a way of life that had gripped Europe for centuries, Victor Frankenstein represents the new order at its worst. He is the Quest for Knowledge run so single-mindedly as to omit all human consideration and emotion. When people today speak of genetic researchers and other scientists as “Frankensteins”, they fear Peter Cushing’s unquenchable thirst and belief that expanding the frontiers of human knowledge justifies anything, up to and including murder.

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By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Writer/director/producer Christopher Nolan is no stranger to well-crafted blockbusters as he helped revive the Batman franchise with Batman Begins in 2005 then launched the Caped Crusader into the stratosphere in 2008 with The Dark Knight. With his latest release, Inception, he once again delivers a blockbuster-style film, but this time with some techno-sci fi flavorings and with an intricate, through-the-maze plot which will keep movie goers’ heads spinning and the gears of their minds cranking hours after the last spool has run.

The movie centers on Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Dom Cobb who, with the help of his illicit team, can enter people’s minds to steel their deepest secrets. Cobb is “auditioned” by a man named Saito (Ken Watanabe) who has a very special job for him. He wants Cobb not to steal a secret but to employ “inception” to plant an idea in someone’s mind. A rival energy company’s owner is on his death bed and will pass his company on to his son. Saito wants his son to divest the company before it can gain a virtual monopoly on the energy industry and he wants Cobb to place the idea within his mind. In order to do this, they must delve deep into the man’s psyche by placing a dream within a dream within a dream. This is a difficult task made worse by the fact that Cobb himself might pose a threat to the endeavor because of repressed memories of his dead wife that keep interfering with his dream infiltrations.

That short summary barely does justice to the tightly scripted, labyrinthine plot that Nolan penned for this movie, but then I could fill up several pages and still not cover all the details. And the fact is that the less you know going in with the movie, the better. The film starts off with a breathless pace as it throws you right in the middle of the action and barely eases up on the accelerator throughout the full two and a half hours of its running time. You don’t understand the opening sequence and it almost becomes an afterthought as the film pulls you through the tunnels of the maze, but ultimately everything comes together by mind-bending the end. And while films like this often use their breakneck pace to hurry the viewers along so they don’t ask too many questions and fail to notice any plot-holes along the way, Inception does not fall prey to this cop-out. I kept score as best I could throughout the film, and I noticed very little in the way of loose ends. The film delivers a smart, tight thriller that keeps the viewer on the edge of their seat from start to finish and never becomes tedious or muddled or gets lost in its own intricacies.

Which is not to say that it may not leave some people scratching their heads by the time the credits roll. This is the type of film that demands multiple viewings to appreciate all the details and that will likely not suffer the law of diminishing returns with increased exposure as it has some depth to raise it above the level of a simple action flick. Inception explores the implications of delving into the dreamworld and how that can become a more attractive, addictive reality than the world we live in. Cobb experienced this and now suffers its consequences which impedes his ability to do his job even though carrying that out is the only way he can eventually return to the very real family he is separated from. The film explores some pretty heady territory, and without the right person at the helm it could quickly derail and turn into a pretentious, byzantine mess. But Nolan adroitly carries the plot and underlying themes forward to keep the movie interesting to the viewers as a thriller while also infusing it with depth and relevance.

Nolan also assembles a near flawless cast with DiCaprio stepping up as the tortured Cobb struggling to put his past behind him and rediscover how to find his place in the real world he has become disconnected from. Watanabe holds his own next to the star playing an ambiguous role as the person who may be an ally or an enemy or both rolled into one. Each of the other actors make a stand as well and manage to carve out their place in a movie which could easily swallow up lesser or unengaged talent. Michael Kane (previously teaming with Nolan as Alfred in his two Batman films) even makes a couple of brief walk-ons as Cobb’s father.

Inception stands out from other Summer blockbusters as it delivers a much headier film than we are used to seeing this time of year. Far from popcorn-friendly opuses like Iron Man 2 and Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, it will demand a bit more of the audience’s brain matter and may ultimately fall short of the Box Office grosses those films will enjoy (though it should still claim a decent tally). But this one will likely still register with viewers long after the other two films and others their ilk have since faded from their memories.

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Rating: 4 out of 5 Stars

The names John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon ring familiar to most genre fans because of their involvement writing/directing/producing numerous Science Fiction and Horror classics such as Halloween, Alien, Escape from New York, Total Recall, The Thing, Blue Thunder, and many more. But these two genre outrés got their start together with a fun little film called Dark Star which came out in 1974. This movie, originally conceived as a film-school project, offers a spoof of sorts on science fiction standards like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Trek. It follows the crew of the space ship Dark Star whose mission it is to seek out and destroy unstable planets that may threaten human colonization, a counterpoint of sorts to the Trek mission to “seek out and find new life and civilizations”. They carry out their objective by launching “intelligent” bombs whose only purpose in life is explode once they reach their target. However, the ship passes through an asteroid storm which damages some of the internal systems and one of the bombs, after several false starts, insists on detonating even though it fails to launch and will destroy the ship. This forces the acting captain, the actual captain is mostly dead though kept in a state of limbo in suspended animation, into an existential conversation with the bomb to convince it not to detonate and destroy the ship and its crew.

Made in the early 70’s on a very slight budget (of around $60 thousand), this one obviously looks quite cheesy compared to the more polished product that comes out of Hollywood today, but the creative team makes the most of what they have and deliver an enjoyable romp that will generate more than a few well deserved laughs. Some may take issues with the acting, which includes Dan O’Bannon playing Sgt. Pinback (or liquid fuel specialist Bill Frug, depending on which story you believe) and which seems more than a bit unpolished at times. But then this also lends an air of authenticity to the film in its almost documentary style that tracks the tedium the ship’s crew must endure during their twenty year mission. Unlike Trek where the crew encounters a myriad of alien civilizations from week to week, the men aboard the Dark Star must deal with mundane problems like the storage locker self-destructing and destroying all of the ship’s toilet paper. Carpenter and O’Bannon key in on the fact that long distance space travel would be monotonous and dull and they derive much of the humor of the film from that. Nor does Dark Star try to deliver a broad send-up of the genre like Spaceballs, instead it taps into more subtle sources for its satire and delivers its humor mostly through dry wit. It does veer into slapstick a bit with the alien beach ball sequence (and if that seems like a comedy twist on Alien, remember who wrote both), but it succeeds best when focusing on the monotony of the day to day life on the ship and how the crew deals with it and also on how poorly prepared they are to deal with the crisis at the end of the film.

The film was originally shot as a 45 minute student production and made the rounds of several festivals before a financer decided to pick it up for release, though he wanted it extended to feature length. This resulted in the inclusion of the alien beach ball scene which has a tacked on feel to it and does not gel as well with the rest of the film. Of course neither does it sink the film and it adds a few laughs in the process. The movie also has a toned down Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy feel to it at times, especially during Doolittle’s conversation with the bomb, though it’s a bit less frenetic than that classic sci fi spoof. It’s definitely rough around the edges, considering its inauspicious beginnings, but still a must-see for Science Fiction fans.

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Reviewed By: John J. Joex

Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars (Highest Rating)

Synopsis: The movie opens with an American submarine encountering a strange object moving very quickly through the depths of the Atlantic. The object causes the submarine, which is carrying multiple nuclear warheads, to crash. The military then commandeers an underwater drilling platform headed up by Virgil ‘Bud’ Brigman (Ed Harris) to assist in the recovery of the downed submarine which rests at the edge of a deep undersea trench. Military personnel are sent down to work with the crew of the platform and tensions run high. To make matters worse, the designer of the drilling platform, who is Bud’s estranged wife (Lindsey Brigman played by Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), is along for the ride. In their attempts to survey the submarine, they encounter an apparently benign alien presence and attempt to communicate with it, though the paranoid Lt. Coffey (Michael Biehn) frightens it away. Meanwhile, above the ocean a hurricane is moving into the area and tensions are running high between the American and Soviet governments. Through a series of mishaps between the crew of the drilling platform and the military personnel, an armed nuclear warhead plunges several miles down into the depths of the trench. Bud (Ed Harris) must then go on what appears to be a one-way mission to disarm the warhead, but once at the bottom he again comes face to face with the aliens.

Review/Comments: You may think that you have seen The Abyss, but if you saw the version originally released in theaters what you actually saw was one of the greatest injustices in the history of cinema (apparently self-inflicted by Cameron himself, though). That was an edited version that cut about twenty minutes out of the masterpiece that James Cameron originally created. As it turns out, those twenty minutes are as crucial to the film as the smile is to the Mona Lisa. The original edit of the movie deserves only two and a half, maybe three stars. The additional twenty minutes moves the rating up to a full five stars (highest rating).

In the version originally released, Bud disarms the warhead yet appears to be trapped at the bottom of the abyss. Then the aliens, who we have learned almost nothing about, show up to save the day. They take him and the others from the platform back up to the surface and all is fine and dandy as a bright new day shines. I remember seeing this in the theater when it first came out and when the movie ended, I thought it was just at the intermission because there was no way that they could end the movie like that. But they did, and I did not realize until years later when the director’s cut made it to DVD just what a phenomenal movie Cameron had crafted. The twenty plus minutes cut from the original release focused more on the mounting tensions between the Russians and Americans and explained more about the aliens. This footage also contained the gut wrenching scene where the aliens launch enormous tidal waves as a threat to destroy all of the world’s major cities. Without these crucial scenes, the movie is just not complete.

There are many reasons to recommend the fully restored version of The Abyss. Technically, it has few peers. It gives us a rare hard science fiction movie that is scientifically accurate in what it depicts, and brought to life with virtually flawless special effects (in the pre-CGI-Overload era). The story is very engaging as it unfolds slowly and smartly and takes many twists and turns, and the aliens and their importance are kept a mystery until the end. And the movie also has something often missing in Science Fiction, drama. Both movies and television in the genre often tend to be overly intellectual or overly melodramatic. The Abyss, in contrast, delivers a dramatic story through and through. The scenes between Bud and his wife (particularly when he tries to revive her after she drowns and when she talks to him as he descends into the depths) are among the most engaging I have ever seen in any movie. The film also has a serious social message behind its action, and Cameron managed to deliver it with much more finesse than he did more recently with the overly derivative and self-righteous statements in Avatar.

Not surprisingly , the movie did poorly at the box office upon its original release. But since its revival on DVD, fans and critics have realized what an important piece of Science Fiction cinema Cameron actually created with this one. If you have not seen the full version of this movie, then it’s time that you give this one a spin and enjoy one of the all-time great films.

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Directed by: John Milius
Produced by: Dino de Laurentis
Written by: Robert E. Howard (creator), John Milius (screenplay)
Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger, James Earl Jones, Sandahl Bergman, Mako
Original Release: 1982

Reviewed by: James Marshall

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: Conan sits rapt as his father tells him the riddle of steel, that although no one’s word can be trusted, steel you can trust. Life and death is Conan’s boyhood world, and this proves true when raiders come and wipe out his entire village. His father is killed and Conan is left to watch his mother beheaded by Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), the raiders’ charismatic warlord. Conan is lead away as a boy slave and chained to the Wheel of Pain. Years pass and he grows strong behind the giant milling machine, then he is taken to fight as a slave gladiator. His victories grow numerous until, for untold reasons, his master sets him free. Beset by wolves he discovers a sword and encounters an evil witch who tells him where he may find the cult of Set, snake worshippers linked to the raiders who killed his parents. He meets Subotai (Gerry Lopez), an archer and thief, and together, after meeting Valeria (Sandahl Bergman), another thief, they infiltrate a tower of Set and steal what they can. Their audacious caper gives them wealth and the attention of King Osric (Max von Sydow), the city’s ruler, whose daughter has gone with Thulsa Doom to his far off mountain fortress. Though romantically engaged with Valeria the vengeful Conan sets off alone to the fortress and is captured while attempting its infiltration. He is beaten by Thulsa’s two bodyguard generals, then admonished by Thulsa himself and crucified on a lone tree out in the desert. Subotai finds him and with the help of a wizard Valeria heals him. Soon the three thieves return for the King’s daughter. Inside the mountain fortress they take the princess and fight a fearsome battle, devastating the sanctity of Thulsa’s inner temple. While the thieves flee with the princess on horseback Thulsa lets fly a snake-arrow which pierces Valeria who soon dies in Conan’s arms. Another great battle takes place in the open with Conan triumphant, and he again returns to the mountain, ends Thulsa’s life, and destroys the fortress with fire, thus ending the snake cult.

Review/Comments: “That which does not kill us makes us stronger,” Friedrich Nietzsche’s own words open the film, accented by the pouring of molten metal, the casting and hammering of a steel blade, the forging of a sword. Schwarzenegger linked these together when he said that’s how Milius develops his characters – he casts them and then pounds them into shape. The analogy fits, Conan is a remarkable movie of character development and equally accomplished with its storytelling and directing.

Far from pushing phantasmagorical wizardry, Conan is not only subtle, it’s deep. The riddle of steel is a fable a man in Conan’s world could truly live by. Yes, there is the extreme; we witness magic in numerous forms, from the demonic spirit of the witch whistling through the air as a fireball, to Thulsa Doom’s morphing into a giant anaconda. But much of Conan is grounded in reality, and the leap of faith one must take to believe the magic is just close enough to reality to remain utterly captivating.

The cinematography is tried and true, far from outlandish or even unusually creative. Through mostly standard shots, Milius’s tells a bold, heroic tale that touches our sensitivities while displaying a stark brutality. There’s a historical foundation to Conan’s imaginary world, and Milius worked hard on proving it to the audience. The symbology of snakes, the talk of elemental gods, even the realistic attire lend to a well-developed, believable world. Every item fits the time and the place, despite all of it being make-believe. Steel, as discovered in the archeological record, has only been around for some 4,000 years, yet Milius would have us believe Conan’s world was alive 10,000 years before recorded history. It doesn’t really matter, since watching Conan is far more fun than history.

When it was released the critics who panned Conan as a run-of-the-mill sword & sandal flick completely misjudged the film. Conan has nothing to do with the ancient Greeks or Romans, and its theme and intensity is more closely akin to Apocalypse Now, about a rogue officer turned cult king, than say Harryhausen’s stop motion foray into Greek mythology  The Clash of the Titans. It stands on top in the sword & sorcery genre too, compared to its contemporaries like The Beastmaster, an entertaining though far less involved film, or The Sword and the Sorcerer, which goes very well with popcorn and soda pop.

Conan stands above the rest not only in its visuals and storytelling but also in its music. Basil Poledouris crafted the movie score, and its classically orchestrated melodies fit Conan’s world as if the scenes were written for the music and not the other way around. Heart pounding timpani resonates with Conan’s heroism, brash brass expresses his strength, lilting violins and small cymbals speak of his tenderness, and the epic expanses are brought out in sweeping symphony. In all Poledouris has conjured an exceptional score.

So what is so deep about this movie? It starts with the riddle of steel and the underlying truth in its maxim, for what is more trustworthy in a cruel and ruthless world other than cold, unforgiving steel? We find the answer to this perplexing question in a most unexpected source. “Steel isn’t strong, boy, flesh is stronger,” are the words of Thulsa Doom. It is the power of one man’s will over others’, Thulsa’s power over the flesh, his utmost charisma that is siphoning malleable minds to his snake cult.

The words of Thulsa Doom speak to human nature, our desire for something greater than ourselves, and the willingness of those not strong in their own minds to blindly follow a brilliant charismatic. Is Thulsa brilliant? Absolutely – but nonetheless evil. The last encounter between Conan and Thulsa Doom is pure genius in how Thulsa nearly succeeds in manipulating Conan with his words – listen once more to what Doom says to Conan.

There is another unspoken side to this as well. It is the bond of loyalty and friendship that is the power of the flesh, for we see that proven time and again in Conan’s world. Steel is used as a tool between these greater forces where the bonds of friendship are pitted against the snake cult of charisma.

Is Conan deep? Think about it.

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By John J. Joex

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Moon, which hit theaters last summer, is a rarity in modern-day cinema. It is a Science Fiction movie, yet it has little action, no explosions, no space battles, no guns, no nail-biting down-to-the-wire endings, and a cast that you can count on one hand. What it does have, though, is a strong story bolstered by magnificent performances from its sparse set of performers. In that respect, it harkens back to classic examples of hard science fiction in the cinema like 2001: A Space Odyssey, The Andromeda Strain, and Silent Running. And that is exactly what director and co-writer Duncan Jones wanted.

The entire movie takes place on the Moon as we follow Sam Bell (Sam Rockwell) who is the sole human in charge of running a mining operation that extracts helium-3 from the lunar surface and sends it back to Earth where it provides the primary fuel source for the planet. His only companion is the robotic GERTY 3000 (Kevin Spacey) which has a voice similar to HAL 9000 and displays emoticons on its monitor to reflect its expressions. Sam is coming to the end of his three year contract on the Moon and eagerly awaits his return home. However, he starts to hallucinate and see people and transmissions that he knows cannot be real and this eventually causes him to have a live-threatening accident on the surface of the Moon.

Early on, you may start to question several aspects of the movie’s basic set-up. Why would the company send only one person at a time to spend a rather daunting three years in isolation? Why would they not fix the malfunctioning satellite that provides Sam’s only chance to have real time transmissions from home? After the accident, how did Sam get back to the base? But everything falls into place as the tight, focused script unfolds before us.

I’ll give no more information about the movie than that, because “that would be telling”, and it’s best to go into this one without any pre-conceived notions. What I will do is complement the cast and crew on pulling off what could have turned into a very dreary, plodding film in the wrong hands. Mind you, Moon does have a very slow pace, but it never drags or meanders because of its excellent script, spot-on performances by Rockwell and Spacey, and steady direction from Jones (who, by the way, is the son of David Bowie).

Visually, Moon succeeds as well, as it gives us a respite from the CGI-overload that Hollywood so often injects into genre films. Jones relies on model-work to depict the moonbase and the vehicles that interact with it. And despite the limited budget of the film (around $5 million) his special effects team delivers a realistic, almost flawless, depiction of Moon colonization that makes viewers like myself long for the lost art of model-derived special effects. This practice of course would not work as well in a more action-oriented film, but in this setting it provides the perfect visual realization to complement the story.

Moon compares quiet well to some of the classics of Science Fiction cinema that it invokes and deserves to stand right next to them when listing accomplished movies from the genre. While it lacks the grander statements of movies like 2001: A Space Odyssey and Silent Running, it does give us a more modest, personal statement about what it means to be human and to be in control of your own destiny. Also, it avoids some of the inconsistencies and leaps of logic of the two previously mentioned movies (i.e, you have to read the book to understand exactly why HAL goes berserk, and just why exactly did they put the forest domes in orbit around Saturn instead of the Sun?). Most importantly, the movie places story above spectacle and also manages to maneuver past the conceits that often afflict films of this ilk.

Moon did not do big Box Office business when released last Summer, in part because of its limited distribution and in part because of its lack of promotion. But it did gain immediate attention from critics and fans of the genre and quickly got pegged as an “instant classic”. Those who missed it in its truncated theatrical run should definitely check it out now that it has made it to DVD, and those that did catch it should watch it again because like most classics it stands up to multiple viewings.

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Directed by: George A. Romero
Produced by: Dario Argento, Alfredo Cuomo, Richard P. Rubenstein, Donna Siegel
Written by: George A. Romero
Starring: Gaylen Ross, David Emge, Scott H. Reiniger, Ken Foree
Original Release: 1978

Reviewed by: Sam Christopher

Rating: 4 ½ out of 5 Stars

Synopsis: The zombie apocalypse, which began in Night of the Living Dead, is in full swing, with civil authority breaking down all around and most people being left to their own devices in order to survive. Four people—Stephen, Francine, Roger, and Peter—steal a helicopter (Stephen and Fran work for a tv station where Stephen is the morning helicopter traffic guy) and fly off in search of a “safe place”. The safe place they find is a shopping mall with upstairs offices separate from the stores, which are overrun by the walking dead. At first they think to hole up for a little bit but then decide they can close off the mall, clear it out and live there indefinitely. They take some tractor-trailers from a nearby drop yard and use them to block the doors to the mall. During this operation, Roger goes a little mad, losing focus and being bitten on the leg and the arm. He lasts long enough to help close off the doors and clear out the mall before dying. As the weeks and months pass, we see disenchantment settle in with the three leads until a roving band of bikers comes in to loot the mall. In their wake, the zombie Stephen leads the walking dead up to the apartments the survivors had made, leaving Peter and Francine to fly away in the helicopter, low on fuel and into an uncertain future.

Review/Comments: Where to begin…

This film is often seen as the ne plus ultra of zombie films. It is a splatter-filled, suspenseful romp. This story began for George Romero when he toured the Monroeville Mall near Pittsburgh, Pa. and saw the Civil Defense boxes of emergency food. Remember, this was the mid-‘70s, when indoor shopping malls weren’t just everywhere the way they are now. He began thinking about the story and got a call from Dario Argento, a horror director extraordinaire in his own right, who told Romero to fly to Italy and stay with Argento and his family while writing the script. That done, Romero called makeup effects fiend Tom Savini and said, according to Savini, “We got another movie; think of ways to kill people.” Then there was the casting, which mainly consisted of finding family and friends who wanted to be in the film. Well, that and hiring an actual motorcycle gang to ride through and tear up the shopping mall at night.

Which is another point. Romero’s now ex-wife, Chris, and Savini both say that this film could never be made this same way again now. Every day, Savini, has said, was like Halloween. Every day he would come up with some new effect, some new wildly gory demise for someone, and run up to Romero with it. Romero would virtually always give the okay and Savini and crew (which consisted virtually entirely of his best friend Taso Stavrakis) would put the effect together in a couple hours and it would be shot. The logo zombie—the bald zombie on the movie poster—was a member of a band that was playing somewhere nearby. He was just wandering around the set so they slapped makeup on him and put him in the picture. Romero himself says in a commentary track for Night of the Living Dead, and I’m sure it applies for this film as well, that there were all kinds of things he could get away with doing when it was “just us guys” that he hasn’t been able to do for years and probably never could on a SAG film.

The stars of the picture had all kinds of ideas about the filming, too. Gaylen Ross (Francine) wanted her character to be tougher, a strong woman in counterpoint to Barbra from NOTLD, and she was—a little. David Emge was cast as the “everyman” character but was a real standout after he became a zombie at the end of the picture, giving a near-Howard Sherman performance (see my review of Day of the Dead). Scott Reiniger (Roger) had a problem with a scene in the tenement at the beginning of the picture. He and Ken Foree (Peter) went into a room in the basement where the people of the project had thrown in their dead without destroying them. The zombies sit in the room, gnawing on bones and flesh. Reniger says he looked at Romero and said, “This is really sick, George,” and Romero smiled back and said, “I know”. Foree says his toughest thing was a scene where he had to shoot down some zombie children (played by Savini’s niece and nephew).

As with the other films in this series, there is so much about them to say, so much life in these stories about the walking dead. With NOTLD there’s the horror of what’s happening in the world just outside the window to keep the audience on a razor’s edge, here the character’s defeat the situation to a point before being brought down by other human more so than the zombies. This is a theme that continues into Day of the Dead, and even into the much-later Land of the Dead. These stories aren’t just catalogues of slaughter and gore. They are more about us than we sometimes want to realize.

See also Sam Christopher’s Reviews of Night of the Living Dead and Day of the Dead

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