The Covenant
To be honest, I really don’t have a clue what this film
is all about. It appears to be concerned with the sons and
heirs of four New England families, who are coming into their
spectacular supernatural powers on the advent of their eighteenth
birthdays. At the same time, the scion of an additional ostracized
family is seeking to claim their powers as his own. Perhaps.
Maybe. Who cares! What this film really appears to be all
about is five extremely hunky young men, who strip-off their
shirts at any given opportunity, to reveal perfectly formed
torsos and ‘six-packs’, and spend all their time
hurling shimmering balls of ‘energy’ at each other,
in elaborately choreographed aerial kung-fu-like fights. Director
Renny Harlin is an old hand at creating this sort of cinematic
‘escapist’ nonsense. ‘A Nightmare on Elm
Street’, ‘The Dream Master’, ‘Cliffhanger’
and ‘Driven’ are just four examples of his entertaining
mix of sex, suspense and action. ‘The Covenant’
is no exception. Harlin fills his movie with plenty of eerie
Gothic atmosphere, spectacular special effects and breathtaking
action sequences. All of this comes in a stylish glossy package,
along with Harlin’s trademark snappy editing to add
pace and tension. All-the-same, I got the distinct impression
that I was watching some sort of soft-core ‘gay’
pornography, but, what the hell? It was an awful lot of fun
anyway! The film is a ‘date-movie’ for guys!
Snakes On A Plane
Samuel L. Jackson’s latest effort, ‘Snakes On
A Plane’, is another movie that is a hell of a lot of
fun, but for entirely different reasons. Samuel L. Jackson
plays an FBI agent, who is escorting a murder witness on a
stormy night flight from Honolulu to Los Angeles, when a bunch
of poisonous frenzied snakes, placed in the cargo hold by
an assassin, escape from their flimsy cage and go on a rampage
throughout the plane. Samuel L. Jackson, along with what remains
of the flight crew, and a motley collection of passengers,
then have to fend off the snakes and try to get the plane
safely down. Samuel L. Jackson doesn’t present the tiniest
iota of expression in his performance. He seems content to
offer a cardboard cut-out of an idealized action-hero. By
the end of the movie his character is laughable. So, too,
is much of the rest of the movie. To be fair, most of the
scenes involving the lethal snakes are played for laughs,
but, throughout the majority of the movie the actors treat
the show as deadly serious melodrama, and appear to be totally
oblivious to the ludicrous situation in which they find themselves.
I am firmly convinced that Samuel L. Jackson, the rest of
the cast, the crew, the writers, the producers, and the director,
David R. Ellis, had no idea that they were making such an
unintentional, wildly outrageous, hilarious movie.
Superman Returns
I didn’t know he had been away, for it has been sometime
since the last episode of this movie serial did the cinema
rounds, and, in the ensuing years, I have forgotten how the
story was left. But, in any case, it appears that Superman
is back, and this time around he is played by handsome newcomer
Brandon Routh. I am always amazed that Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen
and Perry White can never pick the similarities between bespectacled
Clark Kent and kiss-curled Superman. But, they never do. It
is just one of those mysteries we have to accept. Not to labor
the point, but the kiss-curl on Superman’s forehead
stays immaculately in place all through some spectacular special
effects in which he is required to participate, in this somewhat
‘over-the-top’ movie extravaganza. However, there
is an unusual religious undertone to this movie, which makes
you wonder what it is really trying to get at. Some inter-planetary
scenes are strikingly similar to certain scenes from Stanley
Kubrick’s ‘2001’, and the astonishing image
of Superman floating in space in the form of crucifix, doesn’t
leave too much to the imagination. Also, the implications
of the recurring vocal refrain, “The son becomes the
father, and the father becomes the son”, isn’t
too hard to figure out. Superman as a ‘Christ-like’
icon is a bit much to accept! Anyway, Bryan Singer’s
movie ‘Superman Returns’ is finally here, but
I wouldn’t get too excited about it!
M:i:III (Mission: Impossible III)
I only hope to God that this is the last installment of this
particular cinema franchise, for the whole ‘Mission:
Impossible’ saga is becoming too silly for words. Director
J. J. Abrams’ ‘Mission: Impossible III’
must take the cake as the most ridiculous one so far. Do secret
agents really go around blowing up historical public property
with no-one even caring? Do they really create extraordinary
havoc on super-express freeways without anybody actually noticing?
And, do they actually carry around a bag full of zappy little
gadgets with which they can manufacture their general mayhem?
I think not. I think a real secret agent would be a hell of
a lot more discreet. But, it is only a movie after all, and
what an incredibly stupid movie it is. I hope that Tom Cruise
is getting a phenomenal paycheck for this rubbish, because
he can kiss his acting career away with this movie. For someone
who started his career with so much promise and potential,
it is amazing that he would settle for this idiotic trash.
How could you believe him as a serious actor ever again? What’s
more, I hope that Oscar winner Philip Seymour Hoffman is getting
a big fat check as well, for his inane role as the ‘evil-genius-master-mind-criminal’,
because this movie will not to do his career any good either.
The Wicker Man
Talking about stupid, as we were, what is Oscar winner Nicolas
Cage doing in this remake, of a remake, of a creaky old movie?
Neil Labute’s revamp of ‘The Wicker Man’
is concerned with strange Wicca sexual rituals, harvest festivals
and human sacrifice. This story has been around the block
so many times it is due for re-treads. Even better, just take
it straight to the wreckers.
