One Star Classics

Sitting through the In the Name of the King trilogy is kind of like participating in a charity fun run, minus the fun and the health benefit, yet with plenty of charity. I mean, really–I watched this so you didn’t have to. That’s charity. You’re welcome!

So, let’s start this thing right at the beginning: A Dungeon Siege Tale. Dr Boll–not entirely sure why the director thinks he’s a doctor, but that’s a discussion for another day–continues his journey through destroying video game properties. This time, though, the game studio must have had an (understandable) last minute change of heart, and desperately tried to get their game out of the title. They at least kind of succeeded.

What really baffles me, is that somebody decided that it’d be a good idea to give Dr Boll $60 million to make a film, any film. Yes: Sixty. Million. US. Dollars. I mean, what the hell? But I digress…

Jason Statham leads an all-star cast, which I hope got handsomely paid, seeing this movie ended of most of their careers. Statham, though? What a pro! While the rest of the poor saps try their damnedest to get into character, Statham just keeps being Statham. Brow furrowed, head cocked over the shoulder–if they took this performance and interposed it into a modern-day action movie set in London, you probably would not even notice. Statham does it the Statham way, and bless him for that.

At the other end of the spectrum you have Burt Reynolds playing the eponymous king. I can only assume Burt had high hopes for this movie, expecting it to be his Hamlet. The man wrote the dialogue for his own death scene, one that is just heartbreaking for all the wrong reasons. (I’m still not convinced it actually was intended to be a death scene, and that Burt just fell asleep during filming. An auteur like Dr Boll would take that as an opportunity to throw in some extra drama.)

Yet, much of a train-wreck this is as far as acting is concerned–seriously, Matthew Lillard?–nothing can compare to the technical incompetence put on display in A Dungeon siiiiigh. I’m just going to throw this out there: I am fairly certain Dr Boll is in need of glasses. I mean, right? Is there any other reason why every shot is out of focus? It only makes sense.

Of course, keeping everything blurry is a good way to mask the special effects shots, each which were made by different CGI studios. That’s right. No studio was up to Dr Boll’s high standards, so he kept firing them, consistency be damned.

Yeah, no… It’s all just so awful. The whatever-they-are coming flying down from trees at random times, the color grading, Ron Pearlman… There is bad, there is Uwe Boll-bad, and there is this… Uwe Boll Bad .

And it doesn’t get better, the trilogy. At least A Dungeon Blarg can live safe in its infamy, knowing Jason Statham was there, doing his Statham thing.

The Trailer

Who is Jeff Chamberlain?

It seems like a fair question, seeing the writer/director of Abandoned Mine has, at the age of 60, exactly one behind the camera credit to his name. True, he can slam fourteen jobs as an actor on the table, but seeing that the last (and biggest) one was in 1990’s Pump Up the Volume (thirteenth billed!) one can wonder what he is doing here and now, making movies. Or a movie as it is.

That’s about the biggest mystery Abandoned Mine dishes out, although it tries hard to scare us in many more ways. What did happen in the abandoned mine hundred years and three days ago (apparently they couldn’t make it a round hundred)? Can the murdered mine owner’s soul only rest if his murdered daughters’s soul attach themselves to two female spelunkers and get out that way? Is it a mere coincidence that two females are in the group that gets trapped in the mine? Could any of this get more contrived?

Don’t get me wrong, though, there are plenty of things to like about Abandoned Mine. For one, there is 1980s style dress-up montage. Really! The girls pick out their halloween costumes to a pumping soundtrack, and the only thing missing is a sassy friend judging their choices.

And if that wasn’t enough, there is plenty of good old fashioned quasi-racism humor here. The Indian kid–“my first job was at a call center!” (in Apu’s voice, of course)–is the butt of so many bad jokes that the mere sadness of it all gets funny. Who on earth thought this was a good idea? Credit where credit is due, though: Pay attention and now and again you’ll hear some pretty funny one-liners from the kid in the background. I can only assume these were improvised. Oh! His costume is, I kid you not, Mr Jones! (Sadly not the same mr Jones, but still… Mr Jones!)

I don’t know… The whole high school kids being trapped in a mine, chased by whatever… It’s a bit played out, and it doesn’t help when the actors look to be pushing 40.

I will admit being vaguely curious who was sitting around, splicing together the footage from the mine–oh yes, this is, originally enough, a found footage movie–and, possibly not surprisingly, I was let down, as I so often am.

I do not know who Jeff Chamberlain is, but try as he might, he doesn’t quite reach the dizzying lows of Herr Lommel, close as he might come. When all is said and done, Abandoned Mine is what it is, and it’s at least very good at that, and that’s about what it’s good at.

PS: Valerie C. Walker is the one bright spot in the movie, which is apparently the only one she has starred in. Let’s hope her spirits weren’t crushed too badly by the experience.

The Trailer

Silent Hill certainly deserved its sequel, just as the sequel deserves every piece of recognition it received. Incredibly dark topics like incest and spousal abuse are narrated through surreal and beautiful dream-like sequences. Artistically, Silent Hill 2 is a triumph.

Then there’s Silent Hill 2. Yes, the movie, not the game. It is also known as Revelation 3D, though often simply referred to as The Train Wreck. So, what do we got here? The first movie was… an acquired taste. Roger Ebert called it (and I paraphrase) “the most beautiful awful movie I’ve ever seen”, which, for the bourgeois might have been true. But come on! It was also kinda really, really almost awesome-ish-ish!

Either way, a box office hit Silent Hill was not, and the budget for the sequel was cut in half to a paltry $20 million. Taken into consideration that somebody decided it should be filmed in 3D, one can’t help but wonder what the producers were thinking. I mean, good grief, I was dumb enough to actually watch this in theaters, and the 3D was the scariest part of the movie.

The fact that the premise here is somewhat of a joke doesn’t help either. Really, the creepiest part of the first movie was a pitch black ending that Revelation spends about 45 minutes to explain away. Yes, this is not as much of a movie, as it’s an excuse for existing.

Fans of the site–hi mom!–might remember I suggested Jodelle Ferland should have retired after The Tall Man. In the first Silent Hill movie she actually played a starring role–and poorly so–while here… Well, I'll skip the spoilers; the main actress is Adelaide Clemens, who does an… adequate job. It’s not like she has much to work with, I suppose. Anyway, the whole Ferland thing was just an apropos.

Yes, there are many things not to like about Revelation, but now and again something goes right. They are still using the incredible music Akira Yamaoka created for the games, though it seems like they ran out of it sometime during production. Parts of the soundtrack consists of “originals”, although I highly suspect they might just be stock music.

With all of that said, I can’t help but finding this movie charming. It is beautifully filmed–great use of colors, or lack thereof–and the monster design is great. You won’t be scared for a second, but you’ll be oddly fascinated seeing Malcolm McDowell is some odd bondage role, and you’ll weep for Carrie-Anne Moss’s post-Matrix career. (Or rather, her post-Memento career.)

Michael Bassett, the writer/director who has done little after this, later made his idea for a third movie public, and thank heavens that didn’t happen. Yet, I find Revelation entertaining. Sure, the 3D, that looked awful in the first place, makes for some grotesque shots on the small screen, but other than that, it is a quite nice-looking movie. Good? No. But entertaining-ish-ish, if nothing else.

The Trailer

It kinda makes sense, doesn't it? The Tall Man was, of course, the name of the antagonist in the cult favorite, Phantasm, and Slender Man has recently become a creepy meme. Milking this cash cow is what America is all about.

And a bad movie The Tall Man is too. Oh, there's that second act where it all looks like it could make a turn for the brilliant, but writer/director Pascal Laugier soon beats you down to reality again. He smacks you in the face, and screams at you: this is what you deserve.

Tall Man is not the movie you want, nor do you deserve to sit through to the disappointing ending. When the last ten minutes start sinking it, it's almost unbelievable where monsieur Laugier wants to take it, yet he does. He takes it right there, dragging the creepiness into a quasi-political social-commentary maelstrom taking inanity to a new level.

Jessica Biel leads a b-squad cast, which also includes Jodelle Ferland who, at the age of 20, probably should consider retirement. All of the actors look like they’re as shocked how this movie develops throughout, too, and I can only assume they looked at their paychecks, tears streaming, knowing this was the end of their careers.

Tall Man could have been great, but it is not. It is offensively bad. Masking the movie as a horror, thriller… Comedy? I guess that part is unintentional… I’m sure it was all done with good intentions, but in the end, this is one of the biggest letdowns on the journey through the ghettos of Netflix.

The Trailer