Movie Review - John Carter (2012)

My first exposure to the world of Edgar Rice Burroughs' world of Barsoom came through the works of the electronica band Dejah Thoris.  I lost the track I downloaded from them years ago, but I wanted to know why a picture of a half-naked red woman covered in nothing but gold jewelry was the next picture on Google image search.  I began to look into more about this scantily-clad woman, and I experienced the book A Princess of Mars--and I have never been the same since.  The book tends to gloss over John Carter's Confederate leanings (this would have irked me in my younger years) and makes him so unbelievably awesome and wraps you up in the story about a lost Virginian, his red-skinned princess, and the planet that needed him more than anything else.  It was only natural of me to imagine what a John Carter: Warlord of Mars movie would look like, so I went looking online.
It turns out the Barsoom series' earliest books had lapsed in copyright years ago, and the movie that inspired so many science fiction writers and filmmakers could come to life!  Sadly, the first attempt I found was from the 1980's, with full-out character sketches and marker compositions.  The art reflected the technology that was to be used in those days, and I was dissapointed then happy because Hollywood could just come with CGI and make everything better.  The Asylum, a low-budget film company, tried to make a Barsoomian movie and we got Princess of Mars, starring Antonio Sabato Jr. as John Carter and Traci Lords as Dejah Thoris.  It had only one shining spot, and that was the airship (note the singular form).  Other than that, everything was a poor reinterpretation.

Then Disney changed all that.

Disney came out and knocked it out of the park with John Carter (they left off "of Mars" until near the end credits), which blew me away.  It was a ride to watch and I was well-impressed with the amount of time spent on everything.  I watched and truly enjoyed myself, remembering as much of A Princess of Mars as I could as I watched to make sure nothing was missed.  Granted, I read the book online for one chapter a day until I was done, so I might have missed a few things in between all that was going on.  All the same, I was truly happy for the first time in a long time while watching the movie.  To this end I thank Disney, the people responsible for the production of the film, and anyone else involved.

Cordoba Chronicles IV: Chapter 8

Jollum looked up at the ceiling of his tent office from the crook of his hammock, the letter in his right hand swinging over the edge and brushing the floor. The sickness still rattled in his chest, making every breath an effort to ignore the taste of blood. He leaned over the edge of the hammock to cough the contents of his lungs into a spittoon. Looking into the foul contents of the spittoon, he wondered if he would ever cough himself into a state like this: all red and gooey with saliva. He wiped the spit from his lip with his sleeve and considered the back of his left hand.

His hand still bore the coarse hair of a Halfling, but the hand it sprouted from belied its age. Cracked from overwork and wrinkled from premature aging--a hard life he'd tell the curious--the palms of Jollum's hands read like the rampant squiggles of an Elven inventory list. The fine jacket sleeve that covered his arm was a mockery of what he aspired to be, the drying spit notwithstanding. Jollum sat up and drew the sleeve closer to his eyes, looking closer at what he really had become. So many years under Blackheart's yoke had taken its toll, and she collected the fee in his lifeblood hand over fist.

He should have never betrayed them. Had he stayed true to his job, Jollum thought, he'd not be a walking wreck of a man. To walk through the valley of the shadow of Death was one thing; to set up a homestead in its belly was another thing entirely.

A clank at the gate of the construction site pulled Jollum away and he stuck his head out. He saw the back of a worker hefting a sack over his shoulder. The sack clanked a bit much for his liking, so he called out to the worker. The worker turned and faced the foreman, unsurprised at the identity of the porter.

"Rashad," Jollum said. "What's with the bag?"

"I'm moving, chief. I found someplace else to stay."

A sad look came over the foreman's face as he stated more than asked, "You're leavin' us, lad."

Rashad smirked and said, "No, no. I'm just moving to a different place in town."

"No, you don't understand. You are leaving us."Jollum held up the letter. "You've been relieved of duty, responsibility and pay from Black Spade Construction Company. I'm sorry to say."

"Y-you?e getting rid of me? Why?"

"It's not me that's relieved you, although your constant talking during the workday gave me pause as to whether I should keep you against the order. You're a good worker when you're silent, Rashad," Jollum said. "I'd keep you if there were no problems, but this comes from Blackheart the Benefactor herself. Take a look."

Snatching the letter from hairy hands, Rashad looked at the words and the signature. It was all in Common, yet signed with a seal of a trisected heart in black ink. This woman is playing with my livelihood, Rashad thought. Seeing the look on his worker's face, Jollum said, "This is your last day so I'll try to give you some kind of parting bonus, alright?"

"Fine." Rashad stomped off to the back and placed his stuff by the slate deposits and he began to pace. That blasted necromancer's got this town locked down tighter than a dungeon, he mulled. Rashad came to the conclusion that this whole situation wasn't worth his time. He needed time to think on things and he couldn't do that when the undead threaten his very existence. A solution came into his mind as he looked up at Barcrab working on the western wall. Just like the brick that fell from his ruddy claw, Rashad would run away.

That's it: run away. No more dealing with that misandrist shrew, the undead, or this screwed up barter system that's made this crappy town even crappier than it is. If the great Benefactor wants me gone, so be it; I can go back to Miniga--hell, even Sannohe--anytime I want to. I won't even have to work a job I'm not properly qualified for; I can go back to adventuring…

Dammit. Adventuring. The very same thing that got me here in the first place, the same thing that got Sa-ren killed; all of it just a screwed up whirlpool of--of--

Rashad leaned against a nearby wall and beat on it with his fist as he looked up at the sky. He had enough of the world, its madness. All that he had known about his abilities he called into question. Was he really an adventurer worthy of the Rock Sword he was given? To think: the world before me, a magic sword in my sack and all I can come up with is running away.

 

A low growl formed in his throat as he clenched his fists. I'm not running from this. I've faced killer robots from the stars, Insectoids and lived through a war; one woman will not stand in the way of my path. Rashad walked away from the wall, his head and hands filled with new purpose. His mind was so focused on what he was gonna do as a party to last night's agreements, that he didn't even hear Wyle approach.

"Hey man. Something's going down on the street," the carpenter reported. "Looks like the hoods are taking people from wherever they are. They ain't  being nice about it, either."

"The Hells is going on out there?" Rashad shot back.

"I don't know. Cyan's at the gate with Jollum and Barcrab and they can see it all going on from there. Let's go see, man; get your stuff!" Picking up his sack, Rashad caught up to Wyle by the time he reached the gate. Sidling up to the wooden fence next to Barcrab, he held the sack close to him to minimize the rattling as he leaned over and looked out the gate.

The black-hooded ghouls were out in force, grabbing people from their homes and businesses. The shopkeeper Kehlin was pulled from the general store, screaming about how he didn't do anything. The ghouls gave no quarter and tossed him into a waiting wagon. More ghouls came into the middle of town and began to ramp up their search for people. Doors were kicked in and windows bashed to get at the people hiding inside. Men, women and children were rounded up and placed into the wagon. A team of ghouls pulled the wagon away from the center of town to the south--towards Blackheart Estates.

In the midst of all the chaos, Rashad spied a single figure undisturbed by the commotion. She meandered to and fro to dodge the busied ghouls, struggling to stay on her own feet. With weary eyes and a pale complexion, she looked up from the ground with eyes of the lightest green.

"Inia," Rashad said, "By Toren, she's out there!"

He made a move to head out in the center of town, but Cyan held him back and brought him behind the fence. "What the hell do you think you're doing, Rashad? You don't just run out there to fight the undead like a rabble of bandits!"

"I don't care, Inia's gonna end up on that cart when it comes back!"

"That's the Benefactor's daughter!" Jollum rasped. "Whatever's going on, she'll be immune. There's no point in risking your life for something that's already safe!"

"She's not safe with ME, and that's MY concern" Rashad spat back.

"But what about the plan?"Wyle asked.

Rashad turned to the carpenter and said, "Damned Benefactor isn't following the plan, so why should I? I'm going out there to get her and I'll need back up. You with me?"

Cyan weighed the chances of survival in his head briefly and said, "Fine, I'll follow you and back you up. We're gonna need weapons."

"Mark the number down by one on the weapons count," Rashad said as he drew the Rock Sword from the sack, "I've got my own."

"What?" Jollum sputtered. "You brought a weapon onto my work site?"

Wyle stopped the foreman with "Now's not the time, sir."

The entire time the exchange went on, Barcrab had extended his eyestalks over the fence and saw the group of ghouls headed for the construction site. He spoke in his bass voice, "GUYS, THE GHOULS…"

"Good! It looks like it's of Draconian make. You any good with it?" Cyan cut in as he hefted his own shovel.

"Watch me" Rashad said and turned to face the ghouls, as they stared in murderous ignorance with dead eyes. He matched their stare with one of burning defiance and brought his sword to bear.

.......................................................

Strapping on fresh gloves for what seemed to be the umpteenth time this afternoon, Blackheart went to meet the remainder of the cargo brought up from Karmor's Bend. The necromancer whistled a macabre tune in the chilled subterranean air as she approached the charnel chamber, where the "leftovers" were housed for the moment. She smiled when she reached the door and overheard the scared locals speaking amongst themselves in hushed tones.

"…was supposed to be at Egress today, can you believe…"

"…Oh Toren, why me…"

"…done nothing to deserve this…"

"…baby, it'll be over soon. The Benefactor's got us over for a surprise, you'll see…"

"…bitch'll never know what hit her…"

What.

Beckoning for two ghouls to aid her in her act, she opened the door and said, "Whom are you calling a bitch?"

The townsfolk froze. They all had looks of shock on their faces, from the adults to the small child sitting inside the chamber. One of the captured townsfolk had the nerve to rush Blackheart, screaming, "Let us go!"

A ghoul caught the would-be attacker and threw him against the wall. The ghouls moved to attack, but Blackheart waved them off. "No. If this elf wants to be free, he's got to get past me." She drew a shining silver dagger with a skull pommel from her waistband and said, "Whenever you're ready, elf."

The shirtless and well-muscled elven male charged again and said, "I'll kill you, you monster!" He caught Blackheart in her midsection and tackled her to the ground. His hand wrapped around her neck and her blade hand as he said, "You let us go or I swear by Syfalhalla, I'll kill you…"

Blackheart couldn't hear him because she was in the middle of trying to struggle loose. As his hand closed about her neck, she looked at the elf strangling her and he wasn't the same. He was--

NO. NOT AGAIN. NEVER AGAIN.

She saw the jeering grins and the lustful eyes all over again, hands holding her down and apart, the helpless struggling made all the more so from drink. She heard the mocking laughter, the endless string of names--CUTIE HONEY BABY BITCH SLUT WHORE--and those last words said to her as the pain ebbed away only to come back in a new form of shame: "Damned worthless gutter trash didn't even do the job right, man."

Man. Men. Males. All of them. Worthless. Gutter trash. Nothing.

A rage born of intolerance and vengeance washed over Blackheart as she began to overpower the elf, pushing against his weight with her own inner strength. When she was able to sit up, she spat in his face and wrenched her blade hand free of his grip. She slashed him across his arm and took initiative when he rolled onto his back. Blackheart straddled him and brought the dagger into his chest over and over again. The flash of the blade was soon marred by the crimson staining from the elf's blood. Even after the elf was dead, she continued to bury the dagger deeper and deeper into his chest. The necromancer didn't stop stabbing until the blood began to seep into the gloves, and when she stopped the townsfolk watched in horror as they got a good look at their Benefactor.

With her skin flush and her hair and eyes wild from the fight, Blackheart looked the part of the idea that she instilled in the townsfolk: a woman possessed by devils and mad with hatred for all that lived. Tugging her right glove off, she smoothed her hair back into a coif with the elven blood on her sticky hands. The necromancer rose, straightened her black dress and wiped the blood off her blade with two fingers. She took that blood and put it in a vial, mumbling, "Every drop, every last drop will be used for my master."

"Madam, dear madam," a woman cried. She was a human woman with blonde hair, older looking than her thirty years. She held in her arms a frightened boy, no older than four. The necromancer turned to hear the woman plea, "By Toren, what have we done to deserve this?" Blackheart looked at the woman and the child in her arms. Suddenly, she struck the woman full in the face with an open-handed slap. The weary mother looked back with bewildered eyes as her Benefactor gave her the only answer she felt obliged to give her "subjects":

"The worst thing you could have done. Nothing."

Turning away, she spoke to the ghouls. "Save as much blood as you can."

As she closed the door behind her, the ravenous ghouls made a singsong growl as they attacked the screaming townspeople. Focusing on her next task, she headed to the near end of the basement hall beneath Blackheart Estates. A door stood there, made of local blackwood and covered in huge locks. Blackheart ignored that door and reached down for a pull ring that led to a sub-basement. She descended the dark stairs without tracing her hand on the stair well; so familiar she was with this path. The necromancer took stock of the sight that greeted her when she entered the room and was pleased with the results of her work. 

Sloping downward towards an underground edifice at the far end of the room, the hewn earth walls of the sub-basement contained glowing green  transparent cocoons that held the bodies of ghoul-ravaged townsfolk. The majority of their blood had been taken from them soon after their murder; now their bodies would be drained of the lingering blood and fed into the ribbed tubes that led to the building that the necromancer walked towards in a relaxed fashion.

Pushing open a set of doors, Blackheart entered her special sanctuary. The high wall carvings, recessed halls and benches resembled a temple to the great god Hamar and his Assistant Toren, but the symbol of the god was perverted to match that of the Benefactor's dark lord. The evil symbol resembled a slit eye with three tentacles reaching for the sky, prominently displayed on the altar. Carved into the tableau of the altar was a stone basin with a hole in the bottom. Blackheart tested the plumbing of the altar by casting a spell. Blood rose from the hole in the basin and brimmed at the opening. She cancelled the spell, knowing that the pipes and pressures were working, as they should.

Looking at the sanctuary, from the tapestries to the carvings close to the high celing, Blackheart felt a profound sense of accomplishment. It had taken so long to amass all this material to facilitate her master's arrival. She knew it would be worth it, for it was her master--her Benefactor--who had given her new purpose in life when she teetered on the edge of oblivion. The time would come so soon: she could hardly wait to release her master from the ethereal prison.

And then the world would know what she knew intimately.

Movie Review: The Lost Future (2010)

I was working on a Dungeons & Dragons campaign that involved an entire orc nation with human slaves, and looking for visual ideas to work from.  I read the manga JAPAN drawn by Berzerk's Kentaro Miura for some ideas.  I had watched the old 70's movie At The Earth's Core with Doug McClure, Peter Cushing and Caroline Munro for even more ideas.  Upon a trip to Blockbuster Video (yes, they still have those), I picked up a copy to watch, since they didn't have a copy of the sequel to Uwe Boll's In The Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale.  When I reached a certain point, I realized I had seen bits of this movie before on SyFy Channel, and hadn't watched the whole thing.  Now I had paid or it, and I would watch this joint South African-German production and review it.

Our story concerns a caveman tribe called Grey Rock, containing the very manly Savan (Corey Sevier) and the not-so-manly Kaleb (Sam Claflin).  Both live in a wild untamed wilderness with their tribesmen, hunting giant mega-sloths of the Ice Age and bring back the spoils to their mates: Savan to his yellow-haired mate Dorel (Annabelle Wallis) and Kaleb...not so much.  Kaleb pines for Dorel, and his sister Miru (Eleanor Tomlinson) makes a point to make fun of him for it.  While they live in relative safety, they are still in danger from the Mutants: a subhuman race that roams the forests and mountains.  They are savage and if they bite you, you're infected and you'll turn into one of them.
The lives of these cavemen is turned upside down by an invasion of Mutants.  Most of the tribe locks themselves away in a cave, but Kaleb, Savan and Dorel are left outside to make their way to go for help.  They are almost killed by a Mutant when they are saved by a mysterious stranger named Amal (British actor Sean Bean).  He is a member of an elite group of protectors of various other tribes and bears strange artifacts with him.  He says that no matter if they were bitten or not, if a Mutant breathed on you then infection would set in.  With that, Amal leads these cavemen into the real world -- the world AFTER the fall or mankind -- to find a cure for the disease.

Playing with the idea of cavemen in the future is not a new idea.  It has been explored in films like America 3000, Battlefield Earth, the remake of The Time Machine, and even Planet of the Apes (both original and the remake).  The thing that makes it such a fertile playground is how exciting it is to get the reveal.  When people see that the world is changed so much, save the visual landmarks that have stood the weathering of time for familiarity's sake, it can awe a person or shake them to the core.  It's one of those moments that make a passable movie great.  The same could not be said of this movie.
When the reveal comes, it's in the friggin' title: THE LOST FUTURE -- as in "the future in the past."  If you missed that on the cover of the DVD, it comes up again as the title card.  Understandably the movie was set in the future, but if they had tried to let us know that in the movie without a whole lot of exposition at the 2/3 mark, the movie would have done a lot better. 

Cordoba Chronicles IV: Chapter 7

The broken-down wooden façade of the Stonesthrow Inn never looked so inviting to Rashad, given the evening’s content. It was so beautiful, yet it ended too soon.

“Freakin’ auntie…” Rashad mumbled as he walked into the lobby of the inn. There were two people in the lobby that night, not counting the innkeeper. One of the two was a large man dressed in a blue cape and hood. Rashad walked past the main counter and said nothing to the innkeeper, hauled himself to his room and plunked down into the bed. He lay there thinking of the night, and lulled himself to sleep thinking of his night at the Egress Bar.

Rashad slipped into a dream of a sweeping palace in a field of mist and clouds. There was a doorman holding back a bunch of kings and lords. Rashad pushed his way in and past the doorman who gave him a pat on the back as he passed into the palace gates. The columns of the palace held up a vaulting roof with paintings of birds and winds. Each of the birds looked down on the large open space below it, swathed in earthy tones and animal furs. There were many beautiful women there of all races; slight elves, strong Enigman females, sexy humans and sultry Halflings all occupied the open room and had their eyes on the dark-skinned human’s every move. They beckoned him closer and bade him sit on cushions made of bearskin and soft hide. Rashad, bewildered at the number of beautiful women about him, relaxed and let the women point him in the direction of a nearby stage.

Music played as if from nowhere and the curtains moved aside, showing a beautiful elven body dancing enthralled in the melody. The brown leather fringes of the dancer’s outfit snapped to and fro as she tossed about her pink hair and flashed blue-green eyes above a distinct scar on her left cheek. She crawled as a great cat would from the stage, though the throng of beautiful maidens to where Rashad sat. The dancer ran her fingers through his hair and breathed sweet breath onto his face. She arched her back, pointing skyward twice without hands and fell back onto the pillows in wait. As the pink-haired elf lay there, coated in a light sheen of lust and surrounded by all manner of carnal beauty, Rashad could no longer hold back and took initiative.

When he reached for the lacings on her outfit, the high ceiling of the palace darkened to a dull gray stone and the pillows disappeared into the floor as stone tiles. The beautiful women had turned into large chunks of broken stone and Rashad was across the room from the pink-haired dancer. He was armed with his Rock Sword and she held the Grand Trident--but most truthfully, the Trident held her. She screamed for help, but the shaking of the temple walls about them was so loud that Rashad could not hear her. He understood that his wife was in danger of dying again and ran to her rescue to prevent history from repeating itself. He tried to run to her, but his entire body moved slowly as if he were in mud. The Trident grew brighter with each second he wasn’t saving her and ultimately the Trident burst open in a flash of magical energy so powerful, that it melted the flesh from the elven mage’s bones.

The scream she let out was so terrible that it launched the sleeping Rashad up from the bed in a cold sweat. Panting and in shock, he looked around and saw nothing. The moon R'zandol was on its way down past the western Tolym Mountains. Its light broke through the night clouds and into his window, playing shadows on the foot of his bed. Rashad regarded the shadows once more and carefully went to sleep.

As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw Sa-ren’s face melting off of her skull, jarring him from sleep. He propped himself up on the heels of his hands and tried to get these thoughts out of his head. He had to remind himself that it wasn’t his fault that Sa-ren was dead. No matter how he tried, the doubt lingered in the back of his head. Rashad thought that he had gotten over dwelling on who was at fault in her dying, yet he kept thinking: What if it was different? What if he was dead in there? Would Sa-ren mourn for me all her days? Would she dream of me all her nights?

Worst of all, would she try to forget as I have done with her?

Rashad let the subject fly through his mind over and over in an endless loop, pushing him closer towards the idea that he was responsible. The loop was eventually broken by a scratching noise below his window. He reached for the Rock Sword in defense, thinking the noise a burglar. Then he caught himself before he did something silly. He thought no burglar go through all the trouble to scale up to a second-floor room to rob him. All I’ve got, he thought, is my Rock Sword and the clothes on my back. He put the sword down and went over to the window to investigate what the noise was. Looking down through the windowpane, he had to make sure that what he was seeing wasn’t a nightmare.

A black-hooded man was slowly clawing his way to Rashad’s window. It looked like one of the black-hooded men that he had seen from his first day in Karmor’s Bend, Rashad thought. The hood had fallen back and the man’s face was revealed to show what was left of it. The flesh on its face was sagging and gray, with bits of mold and fungus coming from the hole where its nose used to be. The nails of this thing were jagged and yellow, much like the mockeries of teeth that sat in a black pit located smack center in its head. The least strange thing about this creature was that it was climbing the wall using its claws. All this Rashad could see in R'zandol’s light, and he was too horrified to look away.

The creature broke into the room as Rashad watched, crawling through the window on its belly. The broken glass cut into its abdomen as it crawled and it dragged entrails across the floor in complete ignorance of the fact. It stood aright and raised its arms as if to embrace Rashad, but the stench that pealed from this creature surely smelled of rot and death. As Rashad backed away, the creature moved towards him in a shuffling gait and began to move its arms in a swiping motion. The young man realized he was backing away to his sword and warned the creature, “By Toren, you better stay back!”

Undaunted, the creature shuffled forward and exhaled. The funk of month-old fish left in the sun sprung to mind as Rashad gagged, then grabbed the Rock Sword in fear. He swung the sword and hacked off the creature’s limb. A blow like that would repel any living thing; the amount of blood that would gush from a major wound would scare anything. The problem in this situation was that the wound was merely a black hole in the side of the monster: no blood shot forth and no running away for the monster, let alone slowing down. Rashad hefted the Rock Sword again and used the flat of it to bash the monster’s head in. The monster crumpled to the floor in a heap, with its head split open and empty.

Well, Rashad thought, that stopped it…but what was it?Rashad wanted to get away from the creature as far as he could and walked onto the bed to get to the door to the hall. He backed out of the room until he hit the banister and bolted downstairs. Getting the innkeeper’s attention, he said, “Innkeeper! Something broke into my room while I slept! I woke up and a-a-a thing tried to kill me.”

“Yeah,” the innkeeper said. “You kick its ass?”

“Uh, yeah,” Rashad replied. “I think I killed it…”

“Boy, you ain’t killed a darn thing,” the innkeeper said with a laugh. “That thing you just beat up in your room has been dead for some time now. You’re lucky you got away with your life.”

“Wh-WHAT? Already dead?”

“Yep,” the innkeep said nonchalantly. “The whole lot o’ them types ain’t men no more.”

Still in a state of shock from almost dying and trying to take in this new information, Rashad cautiously asked, “Then what are they?”

“The undead,” a voice spoke from the shadowed tables.

He looked over and saw no one but the blue-robed man. The frightened Rashad walked over and asked in a hushed tone, “What do you know about these…things?”

“I know plenty,” the voice came from the hood. “When I tell you what I know, you will also have to accept everything. You must suspend your disbelief, for failure to do so is to risk your life and my own.”

“Then tell me,” Rashad whispered in fear, “what you know. Please.”

“Very well,” the blue-hooded man said. “First things first: we must go to your room and destroy the creature. It shall rise again within the hour if not properly dealt with.”

The two men walked back upstairs and into Rashad’s room. The room was as he left it, but the black ichor from the creature’s head wound had spread so far, it began to creep from beneath the bed. They both waked over to where the creature lay. The creature was a mass of filthy cloth and bloated flesh, unrecognizable as what was once a person, but the voice issuing from the blue hood was quite sure of what it was.

“A ghoul; one of the Black Hoods,” the voice said. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a vial. As he did that, he turned the mangled creature over with his boot. The flesh of the ghoul may have been corrupted by the dark magic that spawned the beast, but the hooded man was able to make out the name and face of the former: “Gods, it’s Orcheon.”

“Orcheon?” I’ve heard that name, Rashad thought.

The hooded man poured a quantity of the stuff out of the vial onto the ghoul’s corpse. In an instant, the beast was awash in bright blue flame. The flame licked at everything on the floor, but only the ghoul was turned to ashes. As he finished, the hooded man said, “Orcheon no longer, may the gods of Light have you.”

The night had just gotten too crazy for Rashad: crazy dreams, dead men coming to kill him and now this guy has blue fire that doesn’t burn–except when the dead walk. Gripping the Rock Sword in his hand, he asked in a trembling voice, “Who are you, why’d this thing try to kill me…and what in the Hells is going on in this town?”

Movie Review: Journey to Promethea (2010)

I am a big fan of fantasy films, it this site is any indication, and I am also a fan of productions featuring Billy Zane.  From the TNT TV movie Invincible to the Academy Award-winning movie Titanic, he has proven himself to be a very capable actor and also one that takes a good whack at the characters he plays if he finds them unworthy.  Such is the case in the TV movie, Journey to Promethea.

I was drawn to renting this show by the DVD's title font -- the same kind used on the Clash of the Titans remake poster -- but I was less satisfied with the plot: A chosen people were persecuted by the evil King Laypach (Zane) because of a prophecy delivered by his enemy, the rebel swordsman Drayden (Gabe Begnaud).  The prophecy involved him and one of these persecuted people; the king did not know which.  He sent soldiers out to kill the first-born, but one soldier named Ari (Louis Herthum) resisted the order.  He was made to watch his wife drowned and was sent Ari to the front lines three times in a row to see if he would die.  Ari escaped and roamed the wilderness as a mercenary and woodsman, thinking he would never have to see any more about the prophecy that caused him so much pain...until he met Magnus (Sam Murphy).
Magnus was a young man on a quest to avenge his father's death and to rescue his imprisoned brother Binon (Caleb Michaelson).  What Magnus did not know was that he was the heir to the power of Draden and part of the key to the prophecy; this was soon rectified by the interference of the goblin Gydro (Drew Rin Vardick), a magician on the side of good who is coincidentally a tutor to Princess Aria (Jessica Heap).
Previously thought to be a myth, Princess Aria is accompanied by three warrior women and her royal  guardian Derja (Natasha Itzel).  When Magnus and Aria meet, Gydro is happy that now the quest is halfway complete: now they must get to some magic boulder in the forest and place Drayden's sword (which Gydro possesses) into the boulder to destroy Laypach from afar. 
Naturally, Laypach won't allow this, so he sends his dark warrior to find and kill him.  This warrior Kronin (Scott Schwartz) is massive and wields a similar weapon to Drayden's sword, albeit powered by dark magic. 
Many people and supporting characters die before the day is won, yet the movie drops the ending on you like a dead body.  It's really embarrassing to see how badly this movie was made.  It had some potential to be good yet they squandered it all on God-knows-what: it sure wasn't the script.  It is in this respect that Billy Zane saves the movie.

Billy Zane knows about crap.  He's starred in enough crap to have that ability (Bloodrayne, Critters, Tales From The Crypt: Demon Night, Invincible, etc.) and he's starred in some really good stuff to (Back to the Future, Titanic, Zoolander, etc.) to know what's what.  When he gets a shitty and incoherent script, he trolls HARD by ad-libbing (at least I think so; the script-writers couldn't be that clever).  For this, Mr. Zane, I salute you.

Movie Review: The Darkest Hour (2011)

After visiting the brother and his family, a friend called me and wanted to know if I wanted to hit the movies.  I said yeah, and we went.  Not a lot of movies to interest me this holiday season, the least of which was the new sci-fi movie The Darkest Hour.  It looked interesting in its own way, what with the INVISIBLE ALIENS and people being disintegrated with electricity, but it had some negative outlooks by way of this medium -- the Internet.  We went to see it anyway, and I was nonplussed.

So, we're supposed to believe that four Americans -- Sean (Emile Hirsch), his buddy Ben (Max Minghella), Anne (Rachael Taylor), and her personal assistant Natalie (Olivia Thirlby) -- and a Swedish guy named "Skyler" (Joel Kinnaman) are going to coincidentally be in the same bar in Moscow at the same time when aliens land and attack for mineral resources?  My ass.  Moscow is HUGE -- I've never been and it's common knowledge that it is not a one-saloon town.  These people hold up in the bar's basement and come out after spending almost five days with each other.  When they come out they make their way to nowhere in particular, wandering about and getting into close scrapes with the alien menace.
In their wanderings, they learn that the aliens can see creatures due to natural bio-electricity, and cannot see through glass (because it's an insulator.)  The INVISIBLE ALIENS can also be detected by laying down electrical devices -- they killed all the electricity in the city, they are the only source of it and give it off like dead skin.  When the streetlights come on, you better be on the way home.  While still out, they meet up with other survivors like Vika (Veronika Ozerova) and her mad scientist friend Sergei (Dato Bakhtadze).  On another jaunt, they meet up with the heavily-armored Alien Fighters led by Yuri (Artur Smolyaninov), who are able to weaken an alien to the point where they can kill it with a rocket launcher from my favorite character BORIS.

HALLO MY NAME
BORIS
I SHOOT ROCKET

BORIS (played by Vladimir Jaglich) has no lines.  He just shoots rockets. And that's all that matters.

Along the way, supporting actors die and a way is found to escape the carnage of Moscow for equally ruined parts of Earth.  The movie ends on an obviously dead note, promising a retaliatory response in the form of "This is how it begins".  I would have enjoyed the movie a bit better if this was in the same vein as Night Watch and Day Watch -- sci-fi movies with an all-Russian cast to better make sense of the movie as a whole. 
Why attack Earth for mineral resources when there are probably plenty of mineral-rich asteroids floating in space that don't have people who can develop microwave cannons to disrupt your shielding and kill you with rockets?  Then again, why would aliens who are allergic to water come to conquer a planet that's 75% water (Signs) or fail to do the research about microorganisms (War of the Worlds - almost all versions)?  It comes down to a simple fact: we want to win when we would most certainly lose (see Battle: Los Angeles).  In that way, The Darkest Hour is the "feel-good movie of the year."

Movie Review - Cherry 2000 (1987)

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