DEVIL.

Everything happens...

"Don't say for a reason."

"I wasn't. Just... everything happens."

"Not to me."

(I just had to include that, because it's all I could think of every time I saw the trailer.)

Devil tells the story of five elevator passengers who get stuck together, and one of them just so happens to be the devil in disguise. We have Mechanic (Logan Marshall-Green), Old Woman (Jenny O'Hara), Young Woman (Bojana Novakovic), Guard (Bokeem Woodbine), and Salesman (Geoffrey Arend). On the outside, however, we have a somewhat depressed Detective Bowden (Chris Messina), as well as two head security guys, Lustig (Matt Craven) and Ramirez (Jacob Vargas). And together, those three must find a way to get the people out of the elevator... and the urgency hits as soon as the passengers start dying.

First and foremost, we're given that this movie is "from the mind of M. Night Shyamalan," which at this point, probably isn't smart publicizing. After the terrible adaptation of The Last Airbender, not to mention the critically panned movies to come before it, M. Night hasn't been having a good streak lately. But then this movie started to get some decent reviews. I'd even heard this might be a step back in the right direction. And you know what? I might have to agree with them.

This movie is by no means great. But it is enjoyable and slightly better than average. Yes, the entire movie relies on a twist, and that twist is awfully easy to figure out. However, like with A Perfect Getaway, I found that despite the easiness of the twist, they still made you question whether or not your guess was actually right or not. I continually found myself wondering if, just maybe, it was one of the other characters. Also, M. Night was smart to come up with a second twist to catch you off guard, as you're so busy trying to figure out who the devil is. Now, I've always thought M. Night has had good concepts, just poor execution. He kinda proves that in this. He didn't write or direct it--just came up with the story and produced it--and it turned out better than any of his movies in quite a few years.

Now, like I said, it's not perfect. I found the dialogue to be hammy and forced at times, trying to shove the whole religious aspect in your face (and I like religious/supernatural thrillers like this). Also, there's an occasional voice-over narration that the movie could have done without past the beginning. It was fine setting it up near the beginning, and even closing it out at the end. But there were times in the middle where it's just like "yeah, OK, the devil is bad... we get it." But the worst thing is that these voice-over moments were essentially spoilers, telling you what is probably going to happen in the not-too-distant future.

The acting bounces between good and annoying. The security guard in the elevator reminded me way too much of a serious Tracy Morgan for his own good. The young woman is just kinda weird in her acting. You know that part of the trailer where she screams "turn on the lights!," but in a really strange-sounding way? It's like that, even during the times she's not screaming. However, it's probably because she has a foreign accent and is trying to do American, and it just comes off odd. Everybody else is fine. The detective is probably the best of the bunch, which is good considering he's basically the main character. In the elevator, the "mechanic" character is probably the best of the bunch--which, again, is probably good considering he has the most mystery and focus placed on him.

I've read in some reviews that there was too much blood. Those people are crazy. There was hardly any blood in the movie. I mean, it was there, but it was nothing. Even a character who gets stabbed in the neck has less blood than most other movies where a character gets stabbed in the neck (and no gushing or anything, and no close-up, either). So whoever said that is insane.

Overall, it's s good little claustrophobic thriller with a religious/supernatural twist (oh yeah, and there's a funny bit of dialogue, purposeful or not, where one character calls another character--literally--a 'twist'. I almost felt that as an in-joke from Shyamalan). Some of the religious stuff is a bit too forced, mostly thanks to the Ramirez character and the voice-over narration (which I believe is done by the Ramirez character). But there's some good suspense and it keeps you guessing, despite it being obvious. Add in a decent ending with, sure, kind of a cheesy moral, and you get a pretty good little flick. So yeah, M. Night, you are taking baby steps back to some good things.


I Am McLovin!

THE LAST AIRBENDER.

Perhaps I'm grasping at straws here, or perhaps I'm in serious denial, but... it wasn't a complete rape of one of my favorite shows. The Last Airbender follows Book 1 (season 1) of the show. In this world, there are people who can control the four elements--air, water, earth, and fire--known as benders. There is only one who can control all four elements, and this person is the link between the human world and the spirit world. This person is known as the Avatar. 100 years ago, the Avatar disappeared and the Fire Nation began a war on the rest of the world, slowly taking it over. But a young Waterbender named Katara (Nicola Peltz) and her warrior brother Sokka (Jackson Rathbone) discover the Avatar, an Airbender named Aang (Noah Ringer), frozen in the outskirts of their Water Tribe village. Eventually, they discover that they must travel to the Northern Water Tribe so that Aang may master Waterbending before moving on to Earth and then Fire, as he must defeat the Fire Nation and restore balance. However, along the way, he is pursued by the banished Prince Zuko (Dev Patel) and his Uncle Iroh (Shaun Toub), as well as Commander Zhao (Aasif Mandvi). Zuko must capture the Avatar if he is to regain his honor, but Zhao will not have any of this, and vows to find the Avatar first.

On paper, they pretty much got the basic plot of the first season down. There are only a couple changes here and there (strangely almost entirely dealing with the Fire Nation, such as how they control fire, Sozin's Comet, and even Avatar Roku). But what they missed in this adaptation was the show's heart. The characters aren't very endearing, nor do you care a whole lot about them. For instance, Uncle Iroh stays pretty true to his cartoon counterpart... except for his whimsicality. In fact, the entire movie was missing the whimsy of the show. And I think that was one of its biggest flaws. There was hardly any comedy. Everything was taken seriously to an absurd amount. Aang wasn't particularly carefree, nor did he hardly smile. Sokka was used to comedic effect maybe twice in the whole movie, and only mostly thanks to Katara--who herself was turned into a bit of a worrisome girl. They could have even given some good stuff to Appa or Momo, but Momo is mostly in the background with nothing to do except offer fan service (you only hear his name once in the whole movie, and it's like a 'blink and you miss it' kinda thing... except for ears). Appa has one attempt at comedy with Sokka near the very beginning, but even then it was so painfully contrived that it wasn't funny whatsoever.

I think part of this has to do with a mixture of things. First, there's the dark and brooding music that plays throughout the movie. Like the aforementioned Appa/Sokka moment, the serious music takes away from the moment, leaving you unsure whether or not you should be laughing. The other issue is that, besides Zuko and Iroh, there are no simple character moments. Everything is BAM plot point BAM plot point BAM plot point. Granted, I'm aware they had to shorten an entire season into one movie, but they put in some pretty unnecessary things. The rescuing of the Earth Kingdom villages? While fun, I suppose, it wasn't necessary, and took up a decent chunk of time that could have been used for character-building. At the very least, they could have tossed in Suki, who was supposed to be in the movie, but was apparently cut. M. Night really chose some strange episodes to keep in that really took away from what could have otherwise been useful time for other things.

I also wanted to briefly bring up the controversy that has been dubbed "RaceBending." This is based on the issue that M. Night nearly white-washed the entire cast. After a while, I just didn't care anymore. I figure that if the actors could pull off the roles, it'd be OK. Whatever. I was just tired of hearing about it. But here's the problem... they didn't pull off the roles. Granted, I'm not exactly sure how much of that is the actors' faults and how much of it is the script and M. Night's faults. There was some pretty rough dialogue, mostly consisting of moments of pure exposition, which happened incredibly often. There were times when I could actually see M. Night going "OK, what's a creative way I could toss in some exposition without it seeming like exposition? Oh, I've got it! I'll just have Zuko ask this random boy about the Prince... that way I can get out Zuko's backstory in a creative way." Except it was already done in a creative way... on the show... in an amazing episode called "The Storm"... which gave all the necessary backstory to both Aang and Zuko without having to spread it out strangely throughout the rest of the movie.

But the movie wasn't all bad. As I said at the beginning, it didn't completely rape one of my favorite shows. There were some stunning visual effects (like, totally Oscar-worthy here... which isn't surprising considering that the main guy involved has won many times before, if I'm not mistaken). And the action scenes are really good. They actually captured the bending stuff really well. But even some of the non-bending action is good, too, like the Blue Spirit scene, which was probably one of the better moments of the movie. Between the visuals of the bending and the action scenes, there were some pretty stunning shots. And there were even a few more gorgeous shots during non-bending/action scenes. Some of the set pieces (like the Northern Water Tribe) are amazing. Also, Dev Patel and Shaun Toub were pretty good as Zuko and Iroh, respectively... at least for what they were given. And it was no shock to hear that they were M. Night's favorite characters, considering they were given the best treatment in this movie.

Overall, I tried to be as fair as possible in this review, looking at aspects of it as an adaptation and as a movie for people who are not familiar with the source material. As an adaptation, it failed pretty bad. It kept moderately faithful plot-wise, but missed the heart and soul of the source, becoming too serious and lackluster... almost feeling as if it lost its purpose... like it was just going through the motions. As a film for those unfamiliar with the source, it's... well... lackluster, like it has no purpose and was just going through the motions. Sure the visuals and the action are pretty good, but you still need compelling characters for an epic adventure like this... and Zuko is only gonna take you so far. So in other words, as a non-adaptation, it was moderately entertaining, though horribly forgettable. In other words, the very definition of "painfully average." So if I were to mix my "average" score with the adaptation's, well, not-so-good score... you'll get my final score:


Feed Me, Seymour!

(P.S. And we're talking probably the lower-end of that score... though is it sad that I still want the other 2 made? Maybe if M. Night just produces or something and another writer/director come on? They just have so much potential... and that last 30 seconds or so with Azula was fantastic!)

(P.P.S. I think one of the biggest slaps in the face, though, is the fact that almost nobody's name is pronounced correctly. Avatar, Aang, Sokka, Iroh... it's ridiculous. For somebody who claims to be a major fan of the show, M. Night should have known better...)

(P.P.P.S. For more of an in-depth analysis of the show and this movie, stay tuned for the next episode of The Demented Encyclopedia, due this weekend!)

The Last Airbender Teaser Trailer!

I know I just posted for a review, but then I saw this, and it's worth reposting for...

Just the other day, I mentioned movies I can't f**king wait for. Near the top of the list was The Last Airbender, and I mentioned how there hadn't even been a trailer for it yet. I spoke too soon. The first teaser trailer has just been released... and I still so can't wait. Though I wish it would have shown clips of other characters besides Aang...

THE HAPPENING.

I really have no idea what to say. I was hyped for this movie for the longest time, then I started reading horrible reviews about it… and now that I’ve seen it… I feel somewhere in the middle. The Happening is about this event that happens only in the north-eastern United States that causes people to become disoriented before killing themselves. Everybody thinks there’s been another terrorist attack of some kind, but then the likelihood of that slowly starts to dwindle away. So when science teacher Elliot (Mark Wahlberg) hears what’s going on, he, his math teacher friend Julian (John Leguizamo), Julian’s 8-year-old daughter Jess (Ashlyn Sanchez), and his wife Alma (Zooey Deschanel)—with whom he’s having troubles with relationship-wise—hop a train out to go out into the middle of nowhere where Julian’s mother lives. Unfortunately, the train stops in an even more middle-of-nowhere place because they lost contact with ‘everybody’. So now the gang has to try and find a way to get away from the north-east region of the US to where it’s safe.

So, yeah, not sure what to think about it. There were some tense moments, sure, and there was quite a bit of comedy (I think it was funnier than it was scary). In fact, if the movie hadn’t taken itself so seriously, it might have made a decent horror-comedy. The gore is there, yet it isn’t there. They typically cut away right before showing much of anything (though some stuff was showed). And some of it was more ridiculous than others (such as the lion cage one).

The actual cause, which is revealed pretty early on, is borderline cool and just plain silly. At first I thought it was a bit weird and absurd, but I eventually got used to it, and the movie did garner some good suspense. Either way you look at it, though, it’s rather unique and original. Did it work, though? Semi-sorta.

The movie’s biggest downfall isn’t really in the script or the directing, though (so it really isn’t M. Night’s fault). The biggest downfall is the acting. Mark Wahlberg can be a pretty good actor when he wants to be. I’m not sure he really wanted to be this time. And I usually love Zooey Deschanel (in a lot of ways), but even she was ‘blah’ in this movie. John Leguizamo wasn’t too terrible, though. And Jess, the daughter, was really good… though that’s probably because she has all of two lines or so in the entire movie. Even worse than the main actors was the supporting cast. They could be just downright awful. So really, I blame the acting more than anything in this movie, because acting can make a bad script good or a good script awful.

That’s about all I can say about it. The music was good, and the visual style is good, as it usually is with M. Night. There’s no water-love this time around, though, and don’t go in expecting a twist ending, because there isn’t one. But that’s not really a bad thing, especially considering that most people’s main dislikes for M. Night after The Sixth Sense was that he was too predictable. But whatever. The movie isn’t a masterpiece, but I personally don’t believe it’s as God-awful as everybody has been making it out to be. I think people are just out to hate on M. Night, really. It has its moments, but some of the moments can really be negated by the acting. In other words, it’s not a total failure, but it isn’t M. Night’s ticket back into good standing with Hollywood, either.

Stop Saying Okay! Okay.

P.E.S.T.

I know I just posted (and please check it out below, or here, because it's important info), but I totally forgot about Pre-Emptive Strike Thursdays! Darn those new thingies! So here we go for this week.

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Title: The Happening.

Pre-Thoughts: I personally think it's gonna bring M. Night back into good standing with critics and such after his last few movies. I've heard it's supposed to be his best since The Sixth Sense. And it's rated R! I think it'll be pretty awesome. It'll probably have a lot of jump-scares, and while some parts of it might be slow (I feel it might be a slow-burn movie) that could turn people off, I really think it'll be worth it.

Pre-Score:

A Keanu 'Whoa'


Title: The Incredible Hulk.

Pre-Thoughts: The CGI looks as fake as it did the last go-round, but I love Edward Norton, and I think he could really pull through on this movie. I think it won't be nearly as boring as the last one, and it'll have more action, so that'll be cool. Overall, I think it'll be a regular summer popcorn flick. I don't think it'll be incredibly super awesome, but it'll be enjoyable. And Robert Downey Jr. will have a cameo as Tony Stark! That's gonna add some cool points to the movie.

Pre-Score:

I Am McLovin!

Thoughts On Thrillers, Horror, and Torture Porn.

I’m going to do something here I don’t do very often: just have a discussion. That’s right, no movie reviews or anything like that. I felt like giving my opinion on certain semi-related (especially these days) movie genres: thrillers, horror films, and torture porn. These labels get thrown around a lot, and half the time incorrectly.

For instance, earlier this year, a Spanish film entitled El Orfanato (The Orphanage) was released. They called it horror. The movie is not so much horror as much as it is a supernatural thriller or mystery. Words got thrown in like “terrifying” that could turn people away from such an amazing film if they’re not fans of horror. The label gets thrown around so much that it can, in fact, ruin a movie’s turn out.

The biggest disaster to be caused by the act of mislabeling was M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village back in 2004. It was labeled (and advertised) as this super scary horror movie, so when people went to see it thinking they were going to be scared, the only thing we were left with were countless reviews being thrown around saying it was horrible and completely unscary. It’s all in how you go in to a movie. If it had been marketed as a thriller/drama/romance (which is what it was), it might have gotten slightly better reviews, because people's expectations wouldn’t have been elsewhere, meaning they wouldn’t have been nearly as hateful. Likewise, M. Night’s Lady in the Water was treated the same way, when it was more of a children’s fantasy/fairy tale. I remembered having to continually convince my mother that the movie was not meant to be a horror movie every time a trailer came on TV, and she never believed me.

A more recent example of this was Bug in 2006. With the director of The Exorcist at the helm, it was immediately given descriptions such as “one of the most terrifying and truly scary movies I have ever seen.” And (gasp) it wasn’t. And it was never meant to be. It’s a psychological thriller and drama. There was a moment when I was waiting in line somewhere, and some lady started going off about Bug, and how it wasn’t scary at all and that she had demanded her money back. That’s faulty advertising for you. It's even on the poster (click to enlarge it).

Similarly, movies like the first Saw are labeled as horror or torture porn, and they’re usually neither. Bet let me digress for a moment and explain for those who are unaware of what I’m talking about.

The term torture porn came onto the scene because of Eli Roth’s Hostel, in which the first half of the movie is like Cinemax porno, and the second half is, well, people torturing other people to death (I also briefly go into the term in my discussion of the Japanese movie Audition, which has wrongfully been lumped in this subgenre, as well). Since then, people have been twisting the meaning of the term to fit a whole bunch of other films into this random and new subgenre of horror. The most recent to get slapped with the title has been Untraceable, which really only has the torture side down. What people are saying about the subgenre label is that it implies people get off to the gore and torture like they would to porn.

So back to Saw; not only is there no sex or nudity (we’re talking about the first installment only here), but the gory stuff is actually rather minimal. In fact, I wouldn’t even label it as horror as much as a crime and/or psychological thriller. Yet people continually thrust it in with (the God-awful) Hostel and the like. Why is that?

If Silence of the Lambs were to be made today, it would probably be considered torture porn because of Buffalo Bill, when it is, in fact, a crime thriller. In fact, any movie these days that has some kind of psychotic killer that likes to toy with his victims in any fashion will be considered torture porn, and I don’t think that’s right.

Honestly, the only movies I consider acceptable to fall under that label are Hostel and Hostel: Part II (and maybe Uwe Boll’s House of the Dead, because there’s a lot of sex, nudity, and blood, and it’s torturous to watch). And they’re all really, really horrible movies (and I don’t mean because of the subject matter… I just mean they’re boring, horribly made films). So when you link good movies like the first Saw or any other kind of remotely decent movie to that subgenre, it’s irking.

So I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Advertise the movie how it is, and it might just get a better response. Hopefully M. Night’s coming film, The Happening, really is as awesome as it appears. Also, Eli Roth and Uwe Boll need to stop making movies, because they both really suck at it.

That is all.