Leland Orser – Tripping Through Gateways

In spite of a lukewarm reception to the third film, the studio wanted to take another try at the Alien Franchise. Although they managed to pump this one out in just three years, it is a bigger mess than the last one.

This film is set around two hundred years after the last one. It establishes a new wrinkle in the xenomorph mythology. Not only do they borrow from their host, they seem to share DNA. Scientists clone Ripley and the clone has an alien queen in her chest.

A ship of space pirates arrives at the military base that has cloned Ripley with top secret cargo. The scientists are trying to control the aliens as possible weapons. You know how that will work out. The aliens break free and take over the installation, leaving Ripley (along with the Space Pirates) to try and escape.

The film tries to explore the ethics and horrors of genetic experimentation. There is a nicely played moment where they discover a lab full of less successful Ripley clones. One is still alive, causing Ripley true horror. The film has Ripley’s humanity in question (her blood has acidic qualities like the xenomorph) which is punctuated by a late reveal of a synthetic person. The film also tries to add a new breed of alien, but it looks absolutely hideous. Giving the alien beady eyes, white skin and a pot belly is not frightening, just an awful design.

The practical effects are, as they have been throughout the franchise, strong and effective. However, the digital aliens do not stand up well twenty years later.

In spite of a strong cast (not to mention script doctor work by Joss Whedon) the story feels rather pedestrian. Nothing quite gels into a cohesive narrative, and seems like it was built on a series of “wouldn’t it be cool if…” meetings.

Probably the most interesting fact of the Piranha remake is that a twelve year old Mila Kunis plays the daughter of the Greatest American Hero.

In 1995, Roger Corman and Showtime started remaking Corman “Classics” like Not of This Earth and Humanoids From the Deep.

Piranha was part of this series and the worst thing about it? It is not bad or good. It is just there. It exists. It is a pretty straight remake, just with a different cast.

William Katt (The Greatest American Hero & House) and Alexandra Paul (Baywatch & Christine) head up the cast. The film follows the original beat for beat.

There is not much to say, the effects are updated (yet there are many effects shots from the original film used in place of shooting new footage). But the film brings nothing new to the story and ends up being so close to the original, it feels pointless.

The Showtime films somehow managed to tame the source material, which ends up making them…well…toothless. It lacks Dante’s flair and has no chance of unseating the original. This explains why the film is largely forgotten.

Just one random observation of both the original and the remake. Somehow, when people start getting attacked while on docks or in boats, they are unable to remove legs or arms from the water…people are even pulled from boats by the piranha. Because they are super strong…I guess?

John Carpenter’s first sequel. Escape From L.A. brings back Snake Plissken. The setup here is that in the late 20th century, a Presidential predicts a major earthquake will hit California and Las Vegas because of their sinful ways. Unlike Pat Robertson, his prediction comes true. American makes the now island of Los Angeles a one way prison. The president was elected to a lifetime appointment. They instituted a theocracy. If you were to sinful you were sent to L.A. (but you get the option to repent of your sin and be immediately electrocuted).

In the future of 2013, the President’s daughter (oddly named Utopia, because a hyper-religious parent would name their kid Utopia? Or is the implication that he used to be a hippie?) has stolen an important prototype and run off to L.A. Like before, the government calls in Snake Plissken and forces hm to make a deal to go into L.A. and get the prototype back so a potential invasion of America can be averted.

Plissken runs into all sorts of Oddballs, such as evil plastic surgeons and a surfer gang. He gets help from the morally ambiguous Map to the Stars Eddie and the sexy Taslima. He takes on Cuervo Jones in an attempt to get the prototype.

Like most sequels, Escape From L.A. mimics Escape from New York a lot. There is even a scene where he walks into a club and finds a dead Rescue Team member he was tracking. On the other hand, the film really amps up the action.

The film has stuff that does not really make sense. The Evangelical President outlawed eating of red meat? I mean, it might make more sense if the laws were based in Old Testament. The effects are not..well…effective. Many scenes are clearly green screened. The basketball sequence just does not compare to the gladiatorial combat of the first film.

This is not to say the film is terrible. The cast, including Steve Buscemi, Valeria Golina, Pam Grier, Stacy Keach and Cliff Robertson are all good. And Russell slips right back into the skin of Snake Plissken with ease. One of the most entertaining moments is when Snake is captured by the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills (Played by Bruce Campbell). He leads a group of surgically enhanced misfits…they need to keep replenishing their body parts and look like the surgical disasters of nightmare on E! Television.

Escape From L.A. is fun, but comes no where near the classic status of Escape from New York.

Oh… Daredevil…

On the heels the success of the X-Men, Marvel pushed forward to get other properties going. Spider-Man was in the works and so was the Hulk. This was before Marvel Studios existed and the company was working with other studios. There was no cinematic universe, because different studios had the rights. Then the Marvel brass worked out a Daredevil deal. Daredevil was getting a resurgence due to the Marvel Knights line (being one of Kevin Smith’s first gigs for the big two). Daredevil had a classic background among Marvel books and certainly, would be less costly than Spider-Man or the X-Men.

Add to that the interest from some high profile actors and everything seemed good on paper. And so the film got greenlit. Unlike the X-Men, Spider-Man and Hulk, they opted to go with a director who was relatively unknown. Daredevil was Mark Steven Johnson’s second film, having recently directed Simon Birch.

Casting news was where the strength was. You had Ben Affleck as the Daredevil/Matt Murdock, Colin Farrel as Bullseye, Jennifer Garner as Electra, John Favreau as Foggy Nelson, Joe Pantoliano as reporter Ben Urich and the most controversial choice…Michael Clark Duncan as the Kingpin. The fans were unhappy, because the Kingpin was a large and rotund white man. The problem is, there did not seem to be a way to translate that without it looking pretty comical. Duncan actually is a large man, and had both the muscle and height to be an imposing threat, as the Kingpin should be. Granted, this was years before Vincent D’Nofrio made the role his.

Oddest casting complaint: They totally whitewashed Electra!!! (for those unsure why this is so strange…Electra is Greek but more than one person seemed to think she was Asian)

The film introduces us to Matt Murdock. He idolizes his boxer father (a nicely cast David Keith) until the day he discovers that his father is also working for the local mob as an enforcer. Matt gets into an accident as he runs away and gets a chemical splashed in his eyes. Matt is blinded, but soon discovers his other senses have taken on enhanced sensitivity. It creates an echo effect that allows Matt to “see”. What is really neat in the film is that they do let us see from Matt’s perspective. The way the film shows his powers is pretty wild, a world that is turned into sensory braille.

Grown up Matt is a lawyer, specializing in helping the poor in Hell’s Kitchen by day and dressed up at night as the Vigilante Daredevil. The police deny he exists, but he does leave telltale signs. Ben Urich is trying to prove the Daredevil is real.

Daredevil himself is working to track down the Kingpin. He scours seedy locations for lowlifes working his way towards the Kingpin, as the law has been unable to take the crime boss on.

The Kingpin hires expert assassin Bullseye to take out Nikolas Natchios (Erick Avari). He and his daughter Electra are in town for a gala event. Daredevil interferes and had a battle with Bullseye. Bullseye succeeds in killing Nikolas using one of Daredevil’s fighting sticks.

Electra goes on a revenge kick and falls in love with Matt/Daredevil. Meanwhile, Bullseye is now trying to take out the Daredevil and Electra is trying to kill Bullseye, because it turns out she is a ninja because…of course she is.

In a fight with Bullseye, tragedy strikes and Matt finds himself on his own. He is getting more and more desperate, and eventually takes down Bullseye. He manages to get to the Kingpin, in a big fight, the Kingpin is taken down. Happy ending, people!

The film got a very lukewarm reception when it opened on Valentines Day. This is not a totally unexpected. It is not a terrible movie, but it is far from perfect. The story seems to attempt to force a lot of stuff from the comics. It is clear that the primary source of inspiration comes from Frank Miller years. No big surprise, as those were part of the innovative years of Daredevil (before his more recent run by folks like Ed Brubaker).

But there seems to be some problems with a single movie that takes a massive character arc and compresses it. The film tries to take the character from a positive place and drag him through hell, all while also bringing Electra into it and having him take down the Kingpin. It seems a bit counter intuitive, considering they were attempting to get a franchise started. The darker edge seems like it might have been better saved for a sequel, as it all feels very rushed and not fleshed out here.

There seems to be confusion in the script as how to present Daredevil as well. Noble hero or grim vigilante. You have a sequence where he could save a rapist he failed to put away or let him get killed. Yeah, he may be a rapist and therefore scum…but it really is not the best portrayal to show Daredevil so callous about death. Then there is the moment where Daredevil dives in through a window and takes to pummeling one of Kingpin’s enforcers. Daredevil realizes that he is being watched…by the enforcer’s terrified kid. This would have been a great bit in a stronger film. In a sequel, you could have really sold a tale about Matt Murdock wallowing in darkness and being pulled back to reality. And that is what they are trying to do here…but it never has enough time to make it work.

It is nice the way they try and weave Murdock’s Catholicism into the story (with some great shots of Daredevil standing atop a cathedral to boot). It is fairly nicely handled with some interaction between Matt/Daredevil and his Priest.

Affleck does pretty well, though he and Garner (ironically for the time) don’t have a lot of chemistry. I am not sure I feel Ben fully carries the movie as a solo hero, he has little support from other heroes like the X-Men. Colin Farrel is pretty entertaining and he clearly just decided to really ham it up.

The odd thing with Bullseye is he has no costume. On the one hand, I get the concerns about his outfit from the comics. On the other, they gave Daredevil a pretty close approximation to his comic book costume. Bullseye simply has a bullseye carved into his forehead.

Jennifer Garner is kind of lifeless. I never really buy Electra’s hearbreak and thirst for vengeance-even though they give us a training montage set to a Evanescence song. The direction of the film feels pretty pedestrian, resulting in a film lacking real identity. And nothing really saves it. There is not a real unique sense of style to the film.

The film does a nice job in addressing Matt’s powers though-including how distracting they can be. In the film, he sleeps in a sensory deprivation chamber. And as I said, the times when we see things through Daredevil’s sonar are nicely handled.

But ultimately, while I appreciate the effort, in the end it is a film that is simply “okay”. The director’s cut is actually a slightly improved version, though the flaws remain.

Tag: Leland Orser

The Hunter or the Hunted? Pt 4 (Alien Resurrection, 1997)

Fishies Pt 3 (Piranha, 1995)

I Love L.A. (Escape From L.A., 1996)

Blind Faith (Daredevil, 2003)