You know when you hear a premise, and what you think of is almost exactly the film you get? It's a strange kind of satisfaction but at the same time the lack of surprise drags you down a little. So when they say this is a movie where Guy Pearce is forced by Peter Stormare to go on a rescue mission in a space jail, it's no shocker when the result is a low grade adventure where the characters talk in sound bites at each other. Evil thugs, back stabbing corporate suits, a chain smoking anti-hero, it's all stock material. That's not to say the results aren't rather pleasing in some way or another. Some of the quips are pretty fun and our hero Snow (just Snow) does the whole mean trash talking and frowning act pretty well.
It offers a reasonable B-movie ride, and for your time you get a few silly sci-fi moments, some serviceable action, a pair of Scottish convicts and couple of really cheap CGI sequences. The comic style characters work for their purpose, the future technology is given a couple of neat moments, and the art direction is fairly nice considering the low budget. Just don't expect any kind of moral discussion about the actual prison itself and how the inmates are being stored in deep freeze away from society. They quickly give up on that idea after a brief mention early on, despite the promise of conspiracy where they are being used as data for new space travel methods. That's just not the film you're getting.
Still, I have time for schlock when it ticks all the right boxes and doesn't go too far on sleaze or stupidity. Most of the time this does all that stuff well enough to keep the momentum going, so it's a shame when the finale falls short on anticipated action beats. It also throws in a few moments that try to be elevate it beyond simplistic as the story unravels but the result is just a few unnecessary tangents. The one dimensional aspects are what kept it easy to follow and best of all stop you thinking about what a big anti-climax it all came to in the last few scenes (and how much had been taken from Escape From New York).
To be frank those muddled story issues right at the finale left me wishing they'd just have gone with a more clichéd ending. Which is just madness considering the rest of the film is already so trite, but an easy show down without the extraneous sub plot would have suited me fine. Break some heads, save the girl, easy stuff right? But no... instead it actually feels like something was lost on the cutting room floor in a few places. Which is odd when they just stole so much from Escape from New York. That being said the ride is mostly what you'd expect, so if you feel throwaway entertainment it could be worth a shot. Fire and forget.
3/5
BONUS REVIEW
THE HOBBIT: AN UNEXPECTED JOURNEY (2012)
Speaking of getting what you expect, remember when they announced they'd be doing a trilogy based on well loved children's book The Hobbit instead of a two part adventure? This was very strange considering the source material, how were they going to squeeze into another 2 hours or more? There's already a beautifully illustrated comic that did it very well and some great audio books after all. But when the movie came along nobody said... 'maybe we shouldn't'. That sinking feeling followed me into the movie itself where the easy going treasure hunt plot has been expanded a great deal to include epic battle prologues, plus a lot of extra characters, melodrama and fantasy violence. Maybe it's to be expected from the makers of Brain Dead, but other things I can't rationalise.
The tone of The Lord of The Rings series was something I could credit the makers for - there were a few silly comic relief bits here and there and some strange inclusions to cover that lowest common denominator mindset (looking at you Lighthouse of Doom) but the desaturated, earthy texture and overall mood was well realised. Trimming the material to fit a cinematic pace worked well, and they stand up after all these years as high points in fantasy film. As if there's a lot of competition.But here it's as I'd imagined after hearing they'd be releasing together a third chapter for some reason.
A lot of extra things have been added to fill the run time (which is still pretty lengthy) and where previously the action beats and character moments had kept the Fellowship moving along, the characters seem to get bogged down and side tracked once to often. Many of these things are details and sub-plots relevant to the overall world... but whoever thought bringing them up here makes for a compelling story needs their head examined, and it makes no sense to add so many grim and sombre moments to what is a colourful, straightforward tale after all - it's supposed to be all songs and talking beasts.
It could be down to perceived as audience expectation for a prequel, but is the overblown scale really demanded now? Maybe this is just the kind of extravagance that comes with success. Either way I can't see why extra wizards, extra race relation stress and extra dismembered heads needed to be added to such a light story. I appreciate they need to have arcs where rifts between characters are created and resolved, but the Elves and Dwarves tension idea doesn't need repeating, and the idea Bilbo is a risk or a burden to the journey comes up once too often. It just becomes distracting and feels slightly artificial. The resulting film fluctuates between light moments and darker material and it simply have very good pacing. Instead it drags during one scene and explodes with goblins in another.
Admittedly I did enjoy most of the overblown action despite the lack of practical creature effects, and many of the characters are fun and performed well by staples of theatre and television, both new and old. The highlights of Gollum's cave and Bilbo's dinner party made for some great moments of both drama and fun. As expected there are some rousing quest themes and a lot of nice fantasy design work to be seen, if that's your kind of thing. It's just strange to think when some viewers had a problem with ending the last three with so many subsequent epilogues, here things take forever to get moving - more than once.
On top of this several characters don't even get speaking parts in this chapter, despite the run time being this excessive. Why did so many actors talk about their roles extensively behind the scenes? I wonder what was cut or lost during the change in directors. Things don't add up, and it's a shame that in the end this is the overall feeling I was left with despite finding much of it entertaining. I wonder how confusing and padded things will start to feel when they get to the next two films. In the mean time think I will revisit that comic adaptation with the David Wenzel artwork. And so should you.
3/5
