Critical Film Condition

When the first trailer for “Pandorum” came out, I couldn’t help but think it was one of the many “Event Horizon” wanna-bes that tried to blend horror with Sci-Fi with little budget. It was both its geatest flaw and its greatest triumph from a marketing point of view, because while it sold the movie as horror Sci-Fi with cheap production values and ideas and visual styles stolen from many other movies (aside from “Horizon”, “Dark City”, “Dead Space”), it ended up being much much more than that, with the horror elements just adding to the fun factor of what is otherwise a smart and very complex plot centered movie.

The main reason why I liked “Pandorum” so much is because it surprised me in a sense that it marketed itself as something that had been done a thousand times before and ended up being something else entirely.

The overall development of the plot, the reason for the monsters to be in the ship, the conclusion and more importantly the CLIMAX are astonishingly satisfactory. Screenwriter Travis Milloy has come close to what I consider a holy grail among futuristic horror movies, which is finding a conclusion that doesn’t rely on being overly dramatic by thinking it is cool to kill everyone, but doesn’t go the opposite way trying to please all the kids in the audience. What’s even cooler is that by saying this I am not spoiling anything from the movie.

Christian Alvart directs the movie with enough skill to make bigger flaws unnoticeable, and the cast drives it convincingly. Ben Foster gives a powerful performance, which is duly deserved by the fact that his character Bower (Bauer is Builder in German) is the one that goes through the biggest development journey, from being lost and confused to having the fate of all in his hands. The other characters are interesting as well, but Bower is a winner because, while others play unique roles throughout the movie (with Dennis Quaid’s Payton being really stable, noticeable if you pay attention or watch the movie a second time), Bower transitions through many roles throughout the story until finding his definitive one shortly before the ending. It’s a really well-written character from a screenwriting point of view.

The verdict? “Pandorum” is anything but new in the visual department, but the smartly developed plot and strong acting from the entire cast make it an absolute winner for those intrigued by just what the hell is going on in the ship Elysium. Amazingly, the screenwriter managed to tie up all loose ends and if you doubt the consistency of the plot, it is definitely worth a second viewing.

Dont miss this one.

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Well, he did it again.

I am not an Emmerich hater, but you gotta give it to the guy. It looks like he goes to great lengths to ruin the expectations of anyone with a brain in the audience.

My problem with “2012″ is that it sends out a clear message that Emmerich and co. lack the cojones to go that extra mile to make his movies an enjoyable experience. Sure, “Independence Day” was cool and needed a hope filled ending, while “The Day After Tomorrow” got close to what I thought could extend his craft of destroying shit a little further.

And when I saw the full-length trailer for “2012″ I thought he was finally ready to take that next step. If you are still not understanding what I am getting at, here it goes in plain ENGLISH: I wanted him to just destroy everything, us humans included.

The movie is about the end of the world… the END of the WORLD!!! Get it? The world is supposed to END!!! It doesn’t get any simpler than that. And we get that in the movie… We get it a lot. But then he spirals down in an attempt at a dramatic third act where everybody knows each other, Russians are selfish, the US Government goes boo-hoo and half a million people get saved because through some miracle the government was able to build ships that protects everyone from the flood resulted in the whatthefuck is wrong with these people solar flairs and tectonic displacement horseshit.

It’s a flood… It’s not the end of the world, IT’S A FUCKING FLOOD! To make it even worse, the evil waters don’t do all that much damage and start to go back as the new highest point in the planet in AFRICA will be the start of the new human civilization. I am trying, but even my years of training can’t come up with words to describe how stupid everything is, and all these insanely retarded excuses to make a happy ending could have been solved by simply saying: OOPS, IT’S OVER! It would have been much more satisfying because the movie is (I love repeating this) THE END OF THE WORLD!

If you understand the molecule of a fart that comes close to story development, you would understand just how bad this is when it comes to being cohesive with the mood that had been set in the first, oh crap, 120 minutes of film, when you destroy everything, send out messages of dozens of different messages from dozens of different cultures that humanity’s days are being counted and you solve everything by making sure John Cusack gets back with Amanda Peet. WHAT?!!!

Then there’s casting choices. Black president: good idea, but not Danny Glover. Can somebody tell me what the hell Murtaugh is doing in the Oval Office? And then you get the worst joke ever when “John Kennedy” comes back to Washington in a tidal wave (I wish I could make shit like that up) to kill the While House with the Black President inside. It’s just BAD.

Then you get the president’s daughter and his scientific advisor. Both black, because hey, “maybe vee can make it ze new trend”, but both played by British actors in the worst roles of their lives. Cusack is Cusack, Peet is Peet (neutral here) and the only breath of fresh air is Woody Harrelson, but he dies so fast you forget he was ever there. And please, PLEASE, don’t ever cast Oliver Platt as a bad guy ever again… He is just too nice for that.

And if you expect me to talk about the effects, forget about it. It’s the very fucking least you can expect from a U$260 MILLION Dollar production.

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Well, it seems the website has been slow lately… OK, OK!!! It’s been in a prolonged coma for months now, but there’s a close to good reason for that: it seems that Critical Film Condition suffered from a problem of becoming something that I couldn’t handle, and more importantly, being something that I do on the side, for fun, didn’t want to do. I just wanted to share what I thought of movies in a way that everybody could understand and have fun reading it in the morning while drinking coffee, or taking a dump and reading it on their iPhones.

So, here’s what happens next: fuck aesthetic, fuck stars that should sum up my reviews (movies shouldn’t be graded like term papers anyway)… I am gonna write, if I want to, I’m gonna insert some pictures or videos (and that’s a big if) and being a screenwriter/conceptionist/author/keyboard bitch that should suffice from my part.

I also got tired of having to omit spoilers from what I write, so I’m gonna have a big ass warning before a review, because some people might wanna read my take on a movie AFTER seeing it.

I am gonna be doing on demand reviews as well, so if you want me to review a movie, feel free to either send a comment or suggest it in the comment box.

With out further ado, enjoy the new CFC.

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