5ive Days to Midnight (2004)

I'll start with the impresion I've been left after seeing the movie in the today's entry. Or better said the impression the impression I've had and the movie made stronger. It's about the fact that if you try to do an average of the value of the mini-series and TV series in the last 10 years you'll get definitely something better than the same for the big screen movies (talking about production of a certain level of box office, not every unknown indie out there). Unfortunately I don't have time for series lately so I limit myself to mini-series, where "5ive Days to Midnight" also belongs.

With the risk of a double introduction, I'll extend a bit what's above with the idea that what applies to mini-series/series unfortunately doesn't also for TV movies. And a perfect example for that, especially since it relates to my current blog entry, are the productions signed SciFi channel, or Syfy after rebranding. I can't give the title of a certain movie right now, but there are a lot of them produced that can be considered probably C, D ... or up to Z-movies (probably if you search enough you'll hardly find a B one among them :) ). Low budget, cheap effect, thin story ... I think I've seen a couple of those during the years and I never couldn't explain myself why somebody could even put that small amount of money into such productions. With the mini-series there's a completely different story. I don't remember seeing something bad from SciFi (maybe "Earthsea" but that was close to average still). Pretty much all of them varied from ok to exceptional. Unfortunately these don't come out very often, from what I've seen during the years what would deserve your time being probably "Dune", "Children of Dune", "Taken" and the masterpiece which is "The Lost Room". Oh .. and of course :) the latest watched (although quite old now) "5ive Days to Midnight".

Now, since I've finished the double introduction :) and bored 90% of the people who managed to get to this line, I can finally get to the subject. So, what we have is a miniseries in 5 parts of 40 minutes each, describing 5 days from the life of J.T. Neumeyer - physics professor somewhere in a faculty from U.S. The story begins on a day of Monday, the anniversary of his daughter and also of his late wife's death. Due to the last part the professor makes a visit to the cemetery where ... surprise, close to the tomb stone he finds something that seems to be a briefcase from the future protected with a ciphered electronic lock. After getting home, our main character manages quite easily to guess the correct combination and opens the case being presented with the 2nd surprise ... The content is a file, apparently 50 years old considering the paper state but ... 5 days newer than the current day. More exactly it contains an investigation documentation about the death of the guy who's looking at it = the same J.T. Neumeyer, death that is supposed to take place on 3:55 AM on Friday, the same week. And that's only the start :) ...

Further, the miniseries carries us through the five days, along which ... :) I'm gonna stop with the details here. The only thing I'm saying more is that from the initial phase when Neumeyer is convinced that all of it is a bad prank of one of his not so right in the head students (probably having also some hidden Photoshop talents), he gradually starts to believe more and more that the found file is accurate due to the things that are happening. Why and what's going on from that ... see the movie :) Anyway, what's above (the start) it's probably less than 5% of the subject, so you have enough to see. I wouldn't say that you'll find out something extremely spectacular to give serious thinking, like how it was for "Sucker Punch" last time, but what you'll get in the ~200 minutes of movie you have, it'll probably keep you stuck to the screen. Every day comes with something new, making the story unravel itself in very "catchy" way let's say.

The movie has a bit of the 90's air, starting from the cinematography and going on to the sound, acting, etc .. Well, it might just an impression (but fast scenes shot in slow motion by lowering the frame rate, that's for sure not very popular after 2000). Anyway, I won't be very long with this part and I'll add more just the fact that I liked the soundtrack, especially the intro, which seems it was composed by a pretty unknown guy - John Nordstrom.

If it was for me to make a comparative evaluation among all the titles I've mentioned in the beginning, I could place "5ive Days to Midnight" along the rest, but probably a bit behind them. I can't say that it reaches to the "Dune" level due to the story which is incomparably complex and also because of the budget. About "The Lost Room" it doesn't even feel fit to compare. I really doubt that Syfi channel will ever manage to top what they achieved with that production. Besides, "5ive Days to Midnight" has also some flaws in the script, but as a recommendation don't even try to bother thinking too much with trying to explain yourself what doesn't fit where it should, or having questions like "why so .. and not so ..". It's really not the case :) so don't do it. You'll ruin the whole movie feeling. Just enjoy it as it is ;)

Rating: 4 out of 5

Sucker Punch (2011)

Because my vacation it's soon to be over (damn, that was fast ...) I'm starting again to lack the time for writing. And today I should really take my time and focus on this. Not to say that I'm also struck by a lack of inspiration these days. So ... I'm saying that I should take all the time needed because I'm writing about something that really deserves the minutes spent on it, about something that was completely different than what I was expecting and about something that was probably misunderstood both by public and critics looking at the ratings it has - that something = "Sucker Punch".

I was expecting something full of effects, of action, with a very thin story, without much substance, and I only had some small hopes of not being very boring taking in account that what was previously directed by Zack Snyder wasn't. However, from his entire filmography this was the lowest rated flick so even these hopes weren't very big. Therefore, initially, I've ignored the movie and when I had the opportunity to see it on big screen, I preferred "The Adjustment Bureau" as an alternative (damn big mistake, that movie was a mess). So, finally, after quite some time since it was released I'm finally writing about "Sucker Punch" after last week when I said something like - "ok, it's vacation, I have a couple of hours to lose with some mindless action". What can I say after ... it does have indeed enough action, and it's full of effects. And talking about this, what I was saying last time about "I Am Number Four" being on my top of the list on VFX for the current year, "Sucker Punch" pretty much took its place ( although "the telekinetic stuff" still seems a bit more original :) ). Anyway, this doesn't have much importance. What's more important is that my low expectations were completely demolished by what I've seen. Let's start with the story ...

Apparently it's not a very complex one, and because of that I'm sorry due to the fact the next part might be considered a pretty big spoiler regarding the effective action taking place in the movie. What we have are two sisters terrorized by their stepfather after the suspect death of their mother. The little sister dies during a quarrel between the three of them (I'll be back to that) and the older sister is imprisoned in a mental asylum being charged with the murder. The stepfather pays one of the institution assistants, who seems to rule the place, to arrange a lobotomy of the girl, which is supposed to take place in five days. In this time "the patient" prepares an escape plan ... or ... And this "or" that might be also placed in other places above transforms the story from something relatively simple in something quite complex. First, let me get back to the above parenthesis about the little sister's death. It seems there exists also an extended version of the movie. In the original one you're not told very clear by whom is killed the younger sister the impression you get being that the stepfather is the killer. In the extended version this part seems to be clarified, but not the way you would expect it, the death being accidental, caused by a missed bullet, the guilty one being indeed the older sister. Well ... if you take some thought on it, all this changes the way you perceive the movie in the shorter version. And actually because of this I consider the short version more interesting, in this lying the main value of the movie = ... the "or"s mentioned above. You have the possibility to give a larger number of interpretations to what you see. The extended version probably will offer only some satisfaction by showing you some of these you wouldn't have thought about.

Getting back to the last "or" from the end of the story described above, this one relates mainly to the way you can see that escape plan from the asylum. The idea is presented as an allegory taking place in the mind of the incarcerated girl. Although even this is questionable ( from the moment in time when this is imagined, to the context, etc ) ... but I won't detail it in here. An allegory in which the patients from the female wing of the asylum are actually dancers in a club that seems to have also a secondary brothel function. The escape involves the girls who want to get out of there by fooling the pimp who is the same with the tyrannic assistant from the real life. Well ... you can take all this story with its elements and associate them various interpretations. You can even get to the extreme of looking at the allegory as the real life and as the real life as what's imagined, trying to explain yourself
what appears in one version and is missing in the other one ... and it might work ( at least up to a certain point .. I didn't have the time to try :) ). That's the beauty of the movie ... It gives you the possibility to think. Probably the critic that bashed it so hard wasn't able to see any of this behind all the action, effects and the more or less naked actresses. Because if you're not able to see behind these ... what you'll get is probably just a pretty chaotic movie which won't offer much besides plain headaches trying to figure out where it begins and where it ends.

Visually I really enjoyed the movie. For some people it might look kitsch, but for me the VFX part was, as I said already above, very appealing for the eye. This, altogether with the chromatic filter excess (for which I have a weakness since very long ago) and with the alternation of warm and cold on these. The soundtrack sounds nice and fits perfectly with the action, even if its not very original = mostly (if not entirely) is composed from covers on other tracks (more or less known). For directing, due to all what I said above I consider it as being the best Zack Snyder movie up to this day ( so quite the opposite to most of the critics on the planet think of :) ). About the actors .. what can I say ... we have again ( and it's probably the third case consecutively :) ) "a guys movie" = action + girls . Leaving that apart, I wasn't ever impressed by the one who has the leading role - Emily Browning, and it doesn't happen here neither .. but I can say that's probably her best role from what I've seen up till now (though I won't tag it as "exceptional", just ok).

To end with, I'll refer a bit to the title of the movie with the risk (again ..) of some spoilers. The whole idea of a movie that can be seen and interpreted in different ways is supported by this title. And this is due to the fact that even the title it's not something clear, not being explained directly during the movie. In other words, it's just like it says "yo, look at least for what that means if you didn't get it yet that you should see a bit more behind what you actually see on screen". Well, one of the possible meanings for a "Sucker Punch" might be given by the fact that the entire movie you'll probably have the impression that the story should end in a certain way. And the final will tell you that it's not like this. What I want to say to be clear is that I'm not talking about a classic unexpected finale idea, but more that the movie from my perspective tries somewhere in the end to abruptly change a certain feeling it actually formed and worked on making you believe it as the right way to end the story up to that point by showing you that's not the right way, ergo "the sucker punch". At least this is how I see it. I have no clue if this was also the motivation for the title given by Zack Snyder, because I remember that I read some time ago about an interview where he was asked more about what he meant to show in the movie, but at that time I wasn't very interested. Anyway, for me is one of the few movies that show up during a year where it doesn't really count what the heck the director wanted to transmit but more that he managed to make it open to interpretation and analysis. Further than that, to quote the movie "you have all the weapons you need" ;)

Rating: 5 out of 5

I Am Number Four (2011)

I think I'm getting old ... Either this, or my "head wheels" are not running very well again (to put it elegantly) ... Or both. The result is that from all the movies I've watched lately (quite a lot compared to my normal weekly rate), I've chosen for today probably the most lame title considering its value/rating. And this due to a total subjective criteria of a semi-nostalgic feeling for a period when the free time wasn't such a big problem. "I Am Number Four" is a SF having the main target somewhere in the 15-19 years old interval (if not even lower than that). And as I already suggested is a real catastrophe, mainly talking about the script (because the rest has some good parts though). Anyway, the script doesn't mean also the story, this one having some potential, and it's probably better to say a few words about that before going forward to the rest.

It is told that sometime in the Universe there was a planet whose inhabitants (having apparently a similar look to humans) were completely eliminated by another race called the mogadorians. With one exception. Nine of the children were sent in a safety exile accompanied by a guardian and something else (you'll find out in the movie) for protection. At least until they would have learned to use their inherited superpowers. Were was the exile ? Obviously on Earth. Anyway, it seems that the mogadorian "tradition" states something like a job is not done until it's done, so the nine were followed by a group from the overtaking race having the specific mission of "vaporizing" the escaped ones. Considering that (as a speculation, because the movie is not clear at all) the interplanetary traffic is probably not that simple, the mogadorian group wasn't large enough, or didn't have the means to carry the necessary tech to completely cleanse of life also this little blue primitive planet. So the tactic is to hunt the 9 one by one. What we have in the movie is pretty much this targeting the fourth victim, after the first three were finally and hardly killed after more then 10 years of hunting (probably either due to low mogadorian efficiency or too long vacations ...).

Like said before, the movie is terrible considering the script. There are lots of unexplained stuff that do not make any sense. Or even worse. If for the unexplained stuff you can invent an explanation by yourself in the end, you have the other category where the script becomes effectively stupid. This covers minor situations as impact in the story like - why in the world would you go in the middle of a party exactly through the local sheriff's son nose when you know you're on top on the "wanted" list to get on the upper floor of a house when you know you could superjump and sneak without being seen by anyone. But you have also much more important parts, like the one coming from the title (which seemed pretty stupid starting with the trailer). You don't get any clear explanation in the movie for the numbering thingy. Why number four ? And it's not related to the order in which it seems that the rest are killed... because at some point we get to meet number six. Let's just say it's a code, something like agent 007 applied for outer space aliens. Apparently this would hold as an explanation ... but ... in that case what's the idea of hunting and executing them in the order given by their number ? (and again ... when you get to number six the movie contradicts itself also on this part). Well ... it's a mess, and it's not the only example. You also have age differences that are unrealistic and other stuff. So, why am I spending time writing about this movie, then ...

Because, eventually I liked it. Despite everything above, it manages after all to bring you a coherent enough story to watch. And due to the general feeling of teen movie it reminds me of other times :) Besides that, we have though some good parts. One would be the effects. It's rare when it happens that I'm impressed of something in this area. And this because usually the stuff you get are variations of the same idea, explosions of different kinds, robots of different kinds, monsters of different kinds, etc. We have these also here. But I haven't seen telekinetic powers for quite a while ( pretty much since "use the force" from "Star Wars" - another nostalgic point hit :) ). So at least in what I'm concerned I was satisfied with the VFX more than with any other movie I've seen this year (and I've seen some serious contenders on this part). Something else to talk a bit about would be the soundtrack by Trevor Rabin. Search for main theme pe YouTube and you'll get just a short sample from what it offers. It's nice and relatively original both on the slow and on the alert tracks.

As a conclusion, something that it's easy noticeable (and also confirmed by the IMDb boards) would be the similarity as air/target/etc up to the "lame movie" qualifying with "Twilight". But it's not totally true. What I can say is that yes ... for the first part = air/target it's quite close probably. I've seen "Twilight" recently, only the first one, and by chance, because I was pretty convinced by the bad reviews to skip the series. It was indeed quite bad in almost all aspects, except for the story potential. With this in common, further, the difference is quite big in case of "I Am Number Four", and I've already explained it in what was mentioned above (well, "Twilight" has also a theme stolen from Yiruma - "River Flows in You" but I won't count this). And on top of that "I Am Number Four" has also another plus - the actior. Compared to "Twilight", here we might say that we have Oscar performances. And subjectively speaking :-p for guys, wait until you get to see number six in action ;).

Rating: 3 out of 5

Scream 4 (2011)

I told myself to write a bit earlier this week because I don't see any reason for delaying the entry. No matter what other movie I'm gonna see the topic will be the same :) I was waiting for this one since .. I don't remember when ... and when it was released I managed to "synchronize" so "well" that I missed it in the two towns I were at that time. Well, finally I solved "the problem", and fortunately the result was as better as expected.

First, I won't recommend seeing "Screen 4" unless you didn't see the first three in the series. This doesn't necessarily mean that you should remember much from them ( I, for instance, am not able to describe the action from neither of them ), but at least you should be a bit familiar with the characters and the whole feeling of the '90s teen movie/slasher horror combination. Otherwise there doesn't make much sense to lose any time with "Scream 4". It would prove to be only a light horror, different from the current trend = "Saw", "The Descent" , due to the low amount of spilled blood .. it doesn't create a scary atmosphere as "Paranormal Activity", "Insidious", etc .. and it has enough references to the previous "episodes" whose meaning you won't get unless you don't have the slightest idea about who the characters are. Talking about that, we have the main cast back "in action" with Neve Campbell as Sidney, returned in the home town after quite a few years from the initial events, having the purpose to promote an autobiographical book. Well, from here starts the classic slasher horror theme = a new killer begins a .. new killing spree having Sidney again as apparent final target name on the list. The reason ... wait until the end of the movie :)

The way I'll rate/evaluate this movie today is probably the most subjective since I've started this blog. For the beginning, leaving apart that I really really like Neve Campbell, I could say without explaining much else ( it becomes obvious quite fast due to other presences you have on screen :) ) that the movie is pretty much a "guys movie". However, what's more important in the end is the whole feeling that kept itself as I remember it since the first in the series and also from others released in the same time period (like "I Know what You did Last Summer"). It's a horror that doesn't prevent you to get a nice sleep after, it's not gross due to the tons of red paint spent for gore, has a decent amount of self irony and also serious chances to remind you about the '90s. And it's normal considering we have the same team = Wes Craven directing, Kevin Williamson script, and the three actors on the poster who managed to "survive". The team that was present throughout the whole "Scream" series, and although this is shorter than other slasher classics = "Friday the 13th", "Nightmare on Elm Street" or even "Halloween", especially because of this consistency, in my opinion, as average value per movie is on top (yes, I know .. "Scream" is a light slasher not a hardcore one as the rest, but considering that some "episoded" from the ones named above are a complete mess, I indulged myself the comparison).

The movie has its problems = cliche parts, a bit unrealistic twists, etc - but today I'm in the mood to forgive everything :). That's because after all, it represents something that you're not any more able to find very often - commercial movie making that doesn't look obsolete but manages to keep itself to the level of the '80s - '90s when there were much more cases on this niche were the script was smart enough to keep you interested without relying on effects as much as today's productions do for pumping up a 3 lines story. Besides that, even if it was released this spring, I think it's pretty much a "summer movie" as it was "Super 8" from last week or "Disturbia" to give a second example, although the genre differs ( a bit of horror is in each of them anyway ). So, if you've seen the first 3 "Screams", you probably "like scary movies" :), and you definitely should try this one too.

Rating: 5 out of 5