|
|
Phantoms
Eating brains doesn't necessarily make you a smarter monster
 |
Phantoms
|
|
Rated R
|
|
Starring Joanna Going, Ben Affleck, Peter O'Toole
|
|
91 Minutes
|
|
|
Review by Kathie Huddleston
 r. Jenny Pailey (Going) and her sister Lisa (Rose McGowan) arrive at Pailey's quaint Colorado hometown to find everyone dead. Four hundred people have either been murdered or have vanished. The few bodies the sisters find have been drained of blood and have had their brains sucked out. The phones won't work, their car won't start and something or someone seems to be stalking them. The sisters know this is probably not a good thing.
The local sheriff (Affleck) and two of his men turn up, and together the five survivors try to figure out what's happening. But before they can say "boo," the sheriff's car is disabled, leaving them stuck in the town with something that seems to know every move they make. They are led to a hotel, where they discover a name that seems to have some importance, Timothy Flyte, written in lipstick on a mirror. The sheriff is able to get a brief message off by radio, but then the signal is cut, leaving the group isolated as they wait for morning, when help may come.
When the cavalry finally comes with guns, space suits and a reluctant Dr. Flyte (O'Toole), those in the group who made it through the night think they might just survive. Flyte writes for a tabloid newspaper and he may know something about what's happening. However, the space suits don't help much once the monster gets cooking, and soon it's left to the group and Flyte to save the world.
Suspense can't survive silliness
Phantoms is a paint-by-number screenplay written by Dean Koontz and based on his novel by the same name. Koontz has always been fairly good at suspense, and Phantoms has plenty to spare. Unfortunately, suspense can only go so far with paper-thin characters, a poor script and a goofy monster.
While SF fans will probably love just about any brain-sucking monster that's smart (the monster absorbs the knowledge of its victims as it devours their brains), in this case the explanation behind the monster is ludicrous. And if that's not enough to kill a horror movie, the monster begins to do very stupid things (for a monster with that much brain power), and when it finally shows itself, there's nothing scary about it. A good horror movie should at least have decent special effects, but many TV shows do a better job than Phantoms.
The poor characters are pulled through the script, reacting to the monster without ever doing much thinking, until, of course, they instantly come up with a solution that in real life they'd take years to reach. Lucky for them it only takes an hour. The actors don't fare very well because they have nothing to sink their teeth into, except a mention or two of past troubles that could have provided the actors with some real meat in a better script. O'Toole is completely wasted, and only Liev Schreiber, as one of the deputies, comes off well and has some fun with his part.
Anyone can make suspenseful moments out of creepy noises, disappearing corpses and two girls walking through a house with fresh body parts lying around. However, a movie that can't even manage to make a brain-sucking monster fun just isn't worth my time.
-- Kat
Back to the top.
Star Kid
Every 12-year-old's fantasy comes true
|
Star Kid
|
|
Rated PG
|
|
Starring Joseph Mazzello, Joey Simmrin
|
|
101 Minutes
|
|
|
Review by Kathie Huddleston
 welve-year-old Spencer Griffith (Mazzello) is having a bad day. The local bully (Simmrin) tries to beat him up, he forgets how to speak when the pretty girl he has a crush on tries to talk to him, and his nasty big sister resents having to baby-sit "the little scab juice." His preoccupied dad is so late picking him up from school that Spencer has to hide in a garbage can to keep from getting beaten up. All Spencer really wants to do is be like his comic book hero, Midnight Warrior.
Later that day, while sitting in his room, Spencer sees something land in a nearby junkyard. He sneaks out to investigate and discovers a spaceship with a cyborg inside. The cyborg, or Cy, as Spencer calls him, explains that he's actually a "cyborsuit." He can't move on his own unless someone is inside him to control the movements. When Cy asks Spencer if he'd like a lift, the young boy crawls inside. After some awkward moments, Spencer learns how to control the suit and discovers the suit makes him strong and powerful. Maybe powerful enough to take care of the local bully and rescue the girl he likes from danger.
Cy also tells Spencer about the race that built him, the Trelkans, and their battle with the evil Broodwarriors. When the Broodwarriors came to take over the Trelkans' planet, they built Cy as a prototype, with hopes that cyborsuits like him could help save their planet from the invasion. Cy was launched from the planet to keep him from falling into the Broodwarriors' evil grasp.
It isn't long before a Broodwarrior lands nearby, looking for the suit. As Cy explains, if the Broodwarrior captures the suit and reports back to his people, the earth may suffer an invasion as well. But can a 12-year-old boy in a cyborsuit save the Earth? Spencer isn't so sure.
A movie kids will enjoy
What 12-year-old boy wouldn't like to be a superhero? Star Kid, written and directed by Manny Coto, explores that very premise with wit, heart and a nifty special effect or two. While no slam-bang movie, Star Kid takes on the tough day-to-day problems of the average 12-year-old boy and lets him become a superhero.
What works in Coto's script is that the characters actually become people, rather than just stereotypes. The bully becomes more than just a bully and, in the end, Spencer solves his problems without the suit. The suit just gives him the confidence he needs. The relationship between Spencer and Cy is especially well done, considering most of the dialog between them takes place inside the suit, with Spencer talking to a computer-generated face.
Of course, there are logic problems that are relatively easy to forget while watching the movie. Why would the Trelkans launch Cy into space when they could have just hidden him? How does Cy know so much about Earth? Why is Cy bigger on the inside than he is on the outside? Still, those are petty complaints against a movie that doesn't have a stock government conspiracy.
On the technical end, Star Kid does fine with an obviously small budget. Cy and the Broodwarrior are just men in suits. However, the costumes look good enough and there are plenty of little moments that are pretty cool (like when Cy's arm turns into a weapon or when the Broodwarrior pulls off a piece of himself to create a spaceship).
Coto has done a terrific job with his young cast in portraying what it feels like to be a kid. Mazzello is especially good as a kid who realizes that saving the Earth is as important as being able to talk to a girl he likes a lot.
This is a great movie to take a kid to at a time when there aren't a lot of appropriate kid movies. However, adults and teenagers may find Star Kid a bit thin for their tastes, as they may be too grown up to remember what it's like to be 12 years old.
-- Kat
Back to the top.
The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy
A futuristic space adventure with no swash and no buckle
|
The Warlord: Battle for the Galaxy
|
|
Starring John Corbett, John Pyper Ferguson
|
|
UPN
|
|
Tuesday, Jan. 27, 8-10 p.m. ET
|
|
|
Review by Tamara Hladik
he golden age of Earth's interstellar republic is past. Destroyed by apathy and conflict from within, it has been balkanized, each region under the auspices of a local warlord. Justin Thorpe (Corbett) and his adolescent sister Nova peck their meager existence out of the carcass of the Republic, at the ruins of their family estate. Thorpe is a skilled scrounger, and what he can't scavenge, he barters for.
But his sister's best friend, Maggie (Elisabeth Hamois), has some connections. Maggie's grandfather was a highly placed general in the old Republic, and has his own reasons for wanting to help. Orbiting the planet is the flagship of the defunct government. The general can access it, but it needs power and a tune up. Thorpe's nefarious connections (plus a little late-night thievery at the warlord's palace) deliver the engineers and the money to pay for them. The general's real plan is to reunite the shards of the Republic, but he recognizes he may have to run a risky rescue mission before his dream can be realized.
Unbalanced and unfinished
Warlord begins amiably enough, sort of like a cross between an episode of Battlestar Galactica and diluted anime. Its aspirations don't seem out of pace with its budget, its acting and casting on the level of its script. Everything about the production seems low-key, low-budget and nicely adequate. And the special effects aren't too shabby at all.
Unfortunately, this trend does not continue, and when this light drama wrestles with the demands of plot and dialog, it starts to wobble, sort of like a teenager in her first set of high heels, balancing a tray of marbles. The film disintegrates into a compost of unfinished story line and trite verbiage.
Despite this, some of the cast put in nice performances, which are efficiently wasted by director Joe Dante and writer Caleb Carr. Carolyn McCormick (Maggie's mother, Rula), Elisabeth Hamois and John Pyper Ferguson (the warlord, Xian) battle valiantly with the production's handicaps, but in the end, they too succumb. John Corbett is decent enough, but a good hero needs a believable, and sympathetic, struggle. What Dante and Carr give him is, to put it delicately, boring, and is, to put it honestly, bad.
Just about any first-year film student could have composed something more viable. Heck, they couldn't even be bothered with an ending. This entire production is doubly incomprehensible, as it appears to be a debutante pilot hoping to be picked for a season-long dance with the network.
If citations could be dispensed for careless directing and writing, I would write a few for these two. Yeeesh.
-- Tamara
Back to the top.
|
