Battle Royale II

I used to hate watching foreign subtitled movies. Generally the translations appear to be handled by a 5 year old just learning English, which really puts me off, but recently I've been put onto some good films by resident jap-buff Chase.

For those who are unfamiliar with the Battle Royale films, let me summarise for you (very briefly). A bunch of high school kids are dumped on a deserted island and told that they have 3 days to kill each other. Last man or woman standing wins. They are each numbered and tagged with an electronic collar, that is set to explode if they either a) attempt to remove it, b) are inside a 'danger area' at a specific time (announced previously) or c) Refuse to comply. They are then given a bag, contaning the basic essentials for survival; food, water, a map and compass, and a random weapon of choice. The weapons range from anything to a pair of binoculars and a steel dustbin lid, to a fully automatic weapon or grenades.

Battle Royale 2, however, changes the rules somewhat. Instead of it being a free for all, they have to work in numbered pairs. If your partner dies, your collar will detonate. Danger areas also apply, but your main goal is to kill Nahanara (the survivor of the previous game) who has now setup shop on the Island and is attempting to kill all adults. Simple, eh? Well, it should be.

Instead what we're now left with is an absolute piss poor sequel attempt that really seems to remind me of Starship Troopers meets Saving Private Ryan; complete with a rubbish 'beach storming' sequence and tacky uniforms. One of the main characters is this seriously ugly, annoying little guy with blonde hair who looks like Thom E Yorke from Radiohead, but Japanese - which is very strange to look at. Obviously didn't go to acting school, but learnt how to act by posing nude in a mirror at home.

This movie is absolutely terrible, many many inconsistencies and 'errors', such as:
- The rules state that if your paired partner dies, you die. Yet when reeling out the list of casualities they aren't paired at all, why didn't the partner die?
- 0:00pm is NOT a real time - it should be 0:00am.

But isn't this the reason we watch certain foreign films, to laugh and joke at the mistakes they make with either our language or basic concepts such as time and reality?

Here are some amusing lines from the movie:

"Shit, I'm hit!" (I loved this one 'cos it ryhmes)

"Something's coming out."
- "What is it?!"

"I peed my pants. I peed it all." (A woman who couldn't take the pressure of battle. Strangely enough I didn't notice any dark patches on her trousers. I was most unimpressed).

I felt like I'd wasted 2 hours and 8 minutes of my life, that i could've easily spent making origami instead. Avoid this movie, trust me. 2/10.

Die Hard With A Vengeance

Last week I caught up with Die Hard With A Vengeance, the third installment in the action packed Die Hard trilogy. This time John McLane is being toyed with by a guy called Simon who seems to take delight in bombing buildings. McLane has to carry out Simon's instructions or else a building is going up. Along the way, McLane picks up an ally in a shop owner named Zeus who saves him from being killed by a furious mob.
I'll start with what's good about this film. The action scenes are excellent. Explosions and chases are all skillfully filmed (which shouldn't be a suprise as it's directed by John McTiernan). The use of real New York locales also help give these sequences a real breathtaking zip. Samuel L. Jackson is also puts in an above par performance as Zeus.
Unfortunatley, when Simon appears on screen and his motives are revealed the film takes an almost cartoonish turn. The impetus of the film begins to ebb and flow with pointless character exposition and it begins to drag a bit.
The other problem I had is with the character of John McClane. He seems a long way from the hard working ordinary cop of the first two films. He's a borderline alcoholic on suspension from the NYPD. It really needn't be John McClane...it could be a copper from any film (except maybe Inspecter Clouseau).
It's ultimately a poor send off for the trilogy, considering the quality of the first two films. Great opening 45 minutes though.

Ghostbusters

"Who Ya Gonna Call?"

I recently decided to revisit Ghostbusters and see if the film that charmed me as a child had stood the test of time.
The plot, should you need reminding, has three parapsychologists kicked out of their University and starting up a business catching ghosts. This career shift ties nicely into an evil Sumerian God called Gozer fashioning a portal into our world via an apartment block in New York City. Chaos ensues.
So, is it still as good as it was in 1984? Well, Bill Murray's acerbic Peter Venkman is far more irritatating that I remember, but that did not detract from my enjoyment of the film. The special effects still stand up quite well and support the story rather than upstaging it and the humour continues to raise a chuckle. The acting is competent (including the support, Rick Moranis is a definate highlight) and the cheesy theme song has you singing along. The grand finale which has The Stay-Puft Marshmallow man stomping down Central Park West a la Godzilla is still a great cinematic moment. Ghostbusters gives more contemporary comedies a run for their money even after 20 years.

Verdict: Still a classic

R-Point

Asian cinema is enjoying something of a renaissance at the moment with the majority of the output from Hong Kong, Japan and Korea that makes it to these shores being very high quality. That's particularly true if you start comparing it to Hollywood's conveyor belt of dross.
So I was a bit disappointed to find that R-Point doesn't quite make the grade.

The intruiging premise is that a group of South Korean soldiers in Vietnam investigate a platoon that went missing six months earlier. The soldiers make their way to the last known location of the missing platoon; R-Point.
R-Point itself is an abandoned building shrouded in mist. The Vietcong regard it as holy ground and do not hang around to pick off unwary platoons of South Koreans, so there must be something else afoot. Well, the strange blue tinted view of the soldiers from something's perspective and the increasing sense of unease that's generated by the films atmosphere suggest that whatever got the first platoon, is going to get this one too.

I won't divulge much more of the plot as the ambiguity of the situation that the soldiers find themselves in is essential to how the viewer may read the film.

The film oozes atmosphere, is competently acted and has some gorgeous cinematography. It's just a shame it degenerates into a bit of a by-the-numbers horror flick. A missed opportunity.

The Outer Limits: The Galaxy Being

"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. If we wish to make it louder, we will bring up the volume. If we wish to make it softer, we will tune it to a whisper. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can roll the image, make it flutter. We can change the focus to a soft blur, or sharpen it to crystal clarity. For the next hour, sit quietly and we will control all that you see and hear. We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to the outer limits."

I picked up the Outer Limits box set for a bargain £11.99 from Play.com. I used to watch the various repeats that were scattered ad-hoc throughout my childhood (I was certainly not around for it's first run in 1963) but I've never had the opportunity to watch the series in full. Twelve quid and the internet have changed all that.
Now for some reason The Outer Limits seems to have a reputation for being nothing more than a second-rate rendition of The Twilight Zone. That generalisation really isn't right, because whilst both shows were landmarks in their own right they were quite different in both their context and content. The Twilight Zone was based more in the realm of science fiction and usually relied on a twist in the tale wheras The Outer Limits was more like horror and was perhaps a little more downbeat. Not that I dislike The Twilight Zone, I love it, it's just that The Outer Limits should be regarded in it's own right.

In the first episode "The Galaxy Being"; Cliff Robertson (Ben Parker in Spiderman) is a radio station owner who also loves to dabble in science. He steals power and equipment from his own station and builds a transceiver that makes contact with the galaxy being of the title. The being (who is fairly benign) accidentally gets loose and creates havoc and kills before giving mankind a warning and disappearing. This episode is very much a product of it's time with various references to the cold war, but that doesn't detract from the spellbinding way this tale plays out. The special effects may also seem hokey in this CGI filled age but there's something inherently spooky about the film negative effect used to portray the galaxy being and his energy. This is a great opening episode and sets a high benchmark for the rest of the series.

These days this wouldn't frighten a two year old, but that's not the point of watching them. Programmes like The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits are the standard for the genre. This one episode is considerably better than anything I've seen in the past two weeks masquerading as science fiction.