Twitch-O-Meter: Summer Floppin’

Reader Comments

1. andrewz 04/30/2008 @ 8:01am

   I believe you forgot Last Action Hero, which IMHO was the beginning of the end of the Governator’s film career.

2. Ardvark 04/30/2008 @ 8:21am

   Wow, great topic and a great list!
   
   I love “The Abyss” and always have, it seemed so tailor-made to my own fantasies that I suspected James Cameron to have some sort of telepathic link with me.
   
   “Hudson Hawk” had me in giggles because of its zaniness and audacity. Definitely overblown and flawed but a lot of it actually works!
   
   “The Hulk” would have been brilliant if they had either:
   a/. ...dropped the last ten minutes.
   b/. ...made the last ten minutes some sort of sensible.
   Hell, I know my hulk but even I got confused! And the jumpy visuals didn’t help.
   
   “Alien3” was a staggering disappointment, even more so because the “wajang puppet” method they used to animate the alien was an awesome effect and has never been seen since.
   Shame it was only visible for, like, TEN SECONDS!!!
   
   I desperately wanted to love Rocketeer. I certainly liked the setting and general ruthlessness but in the end the “hero” didn’t DO anything! It’s a guy who finds a rocket and flies dumbly into any trap people set up for him. His biggest achievement? Secretly pulling a piece of gum out of a hole. Wow…
   
   
   As for my own floppin’ loves:

   “Dune”. Fanboy and layman alike, stop griping and enjoy the scenery!
   “Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within”. Which has the same problems as Hulk.
   
   And my personal fave: “The Fifth Element”.
   Outside of the US this was not a flop in the slightest, but stateside it never took off. While I recognize the huge quality dip the movie takes after a virtually flawless first hour, the sheer quantity of things to enjoy here keeps it being a favorite in my list. It matches the tone and atmosphere of seventies Belgian and French sci-fi comics 100%, so if you like those you’re in for a treat.

3. Kurt Halfyard 04/30/2008 @ 8:25am

   Lots of Love for Lee’s Hulk.  The killer in that case was the expectation of the kiddies with their foam green fists and Lee’s desire to make a greek tragedy art-film.  For those who like that sort of Fusion.  HULK is one of the crown jewels of comic-book films.

   The new Incredible Hulk looks like a travesty in the making though.  Embarrassing for everyone.

   (Kudos on the Rocketeer mention, that one is a real guilty little pleasure.  Not the least of which is for Ms. Connelly; who didn’t get her career on track until the one-two punch of Dark City and Requiem for a Dream.) Hey, if you popped in Dark city on the list, it could be titled Blockbusters with Jennifer Connelly which failed at the box-office.

   It is interesting that your list (with the exception of The Abyss) seems to contain retro-future tinged films.  Ard’s mention of DUNE certainly fits in well.  Futhermore, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow could easily fit on the list although its not a great film, the attention to detail and the pulpy aesthetic are pretty sweet.  Likewise The Iron Giant was not a very big success, and is also big on the retro-future.  Brazil is another.

   Somehow The Incredibles , 12 Monkeys and Stargate managed to be financially successful retro-future block-busters.

4. Kurt Halfyard 04/30/2008 @ 8:27am

   Not to be a comment hog, but here is my defense of ALIEN3:

   (http://kurtscomment.blogspot.com/2007/01/kbt-presents-case-for-alien3.html)

   The Alien films have always been showcase films for directors of emerging talent. Ridley Scott became an A-list director based on the first films success. James Cameron may have made some big waves with The Terminator, but he cemented his name with Aliens. His film (which has aged a bit poorer than the original) decisively proved that a sequel, written and directed by a different team than the original does not have to be a step down (just a step different). David Fincher went from directing music videos to film director with his much-maligned third entry in the series. His film suffered both from the studio taking the film away from him, and the fans of the action-packed second film crying foul (very, very loudly). He probably redeemed himself with those very same fans with by making 1999’s Fight Club. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, who was sort of the French Terry Gilliam at the time, and had already made the dark whimsical tales of Delicatessen and City of Lost Children. He was given a script from Joss Whedon of all folks, who was somewhere in between Buffy and Toy Story. Even though the casting of the film is quite good, and Jeunet would go on to make Amelie and A Very Long Engagement, both cross-over successes from France to North America, I’m not a fan of the forth entry. And the less said about Alien Vs. Predator the better. That disaster is more fan wishmongernig (and bad pandering) than an actual film. Even though most fans of the series would rather that the powers that be had stopped after James Cameron’s Aliens, I’m here to argue that Alien3 should be re-evaluated.

   If you like your genres mashed together, you really cannot do worse than the Alien films. The first one perfectly blends the horror film with science fiction. The second one is a whopper of a action film with sprinkles of science fiction and lots of soldier of fortune posturing. This brings us to the third film, a film which really, well...alienated fans of the second film.

   Gone is the machismo of the marines or the corporate slime of Paul Reiser’s company man, or the maternal angled drama intercut between explosive action set-pieces. Instead, in the opening credits, Newt, the little girl Lt. Ripley worked so hard to save, along with very likable Corporeal Hicks, are both killed in a crash landing of the escape pod on Fury 191. Ripley is alone once more until her unconscious form is picked up by the local residents.

   This is where Alien3 is actually very juicy. The script was story was conceived by New Zealand director Vincent Ward who likes to deal with apocalypse and spirituality in his films (See his haunting 1988 time travel film The Navigator or his the sugar-laced maudlin failure What Dreams May Come to see what I mean). Here Ward creates a prison planet where the residents worship some kind of Christian apocalyptic fundamentalism to keep level. It’s a precarious balance maintained by a pragmatic doctor (Charles Dance) and bad-ass holy leader (Charles S. Dutton). The movie excels when placing pressure on this ticking time bomb, first with Ripley being the first woman seen in the colony in 20 years. Being that Ripley is pretty stubborn and pretty tough, she has no problem wandering freely through the prison to figure out what is going on. Ripley first gets her head shaved (lice problems in the prison) making her feminine form look like a lanky young boy. She then asks the doctor to perform an autopsy on the little girl to confirm that she didn’t get impregnated by any left-over alien face-huggers. This autopsy is grim, and the colony hearkens back to sooty, damp interiors of the Nostromo in the first film. It is like Ward wanted to continually spit in the face of the audience friendly emotions generated in Aliens and I can only guess both he and David Fincher knew they were not going to achieve the perfect balance (not to mention surprise factor) of Alien. So the aim for the grim inevitability your time alive will come to an end. Grim material for a horror film, here the horror is loneliness, regret and inevitable hopelessness. That is actually the strength of Alien3. It deliciously drags out the first act, not unlike the first film, but it does so with the knowledge that the audience this time around knows whats coming. Visual treats abound, such as a cross cut a sombre funeral of an innocent, with the aggressively destructive birth of the alien, this time from a carcass of an Ox.

   Hmmm. At this point if you have already visited Alien3, even if it was 15 years ago, you are probably thinking: An Ox? I thought it was from one of the prisoners dogs. You would be right. In the theatrical release, the film was edited all to hell by the studio who booted David Fincher from the film when execs were getting frustrated with how the film was going. Don’t get me wrong, there was brilliance in the film that shone through the ‘hacked’ version which played on the big screens in 1992, even if the Aliens fan-boys cried otherwise. But in 2003, the original editor of the film, Terry Rawlings, reassembled what he believed was the work-print of the film that got David Fincher fired. This is what the film should have been. (Fincher has long since given up on the film, but didn’t stand in the way of this ‘assembly cut’ of the film). Here, the many prisoners of Fury 191 are much more fleshed out. This time around the shaved-headed bunch are not a collection of faceless alien-fodder, but actual characters. The plot plays out quite differently in this version, particularly with the brain addled Golic (Paul McGann) who for no apparent reason just disappears in the theatrical cut. This version is nearly 30 minutes longer, and the atmosphere is more developed. Things flow so much smoother. The turn of the screw is much more tight.

   Alien3 has always been terribly underrated as a film, and this 2003 version shows just how damn good the film actually is. Sure it lacks the surprise of the original or the steroids of the second one, but it has a look and feel all its own, with a very different take on the xenomorph creature and how Ripley (and the others) have to deal with it. I mean as much psychologically as the fact that there are no conventional weapons lying around. The religion aspects of the film round things out nicely, as religion was completely absent from its predecessors. Alien3 is an immersive experience (with directorial vision) that should be ranked along those that came before it, rather than be pushed off to the side and ignored.

5. Collin Armstrong 04/30/2008 @ 9:36am

   Oh man, THE FIFTH ELEMENT and DARK CITY are good calls.  LAST ACTION HERO wouldn’t qualify, in my book, because it truly was a stinker.  Little redeeming value there.

6. Kurt Halfyard 04/30/2008 @ 10:15am

   And Last Action Hero was recently remade as “ENCHANTED” to about the same degree of success.  There are moments of hilarity in there, and some pretty good riffs on the genre in general, but ultimately the concept isn’t used to the fullest capacity and the writers lose the story in the end.  As The Simpsons put it best, “MAGIC TICKET MY ASS, McBAIN.”

7. andrewz 04/30/2008 @ 1:53pm

   I guess I wasn’t focused so much on the critic’s reception so much as the “lavish productions” aspect. Ebert gave it 2.5 stars which is 1 star more than I would give. It certainly wasn’t Terminator 2 or True Lies which it lies between in Schwarnegger’s oeuvre. Perhaps Arnold should only do movies with Mr Cameron.

   I remember Last Action Hero’s marketing everywhere and commented then that it was one of the first time I saw fast food marketing tie-ins for a product that hadn’t even been released yet.

   I have to agree with Mr. Halfyard’s comment above.

   As for Alien 3, I really didn’t like it upon release, but I thought it was a fairly good movie upon repeated viewing years later.

8. Simon Abrams 04/30/2008 @ 2:07pm

   Once again, I find myself appalled that no one mentioned the Super Mario Bros. movie. Where your heads at? This ain’t no game!

9. Andrew Cunningham 04/30/2008 @ 2:23pm

   I can’t think of a single good thing to say about Hulk. Wooden performances (except for Nolte, who went to the opposite extreme), ludicrous script, incomprehensible action climax, and more than anything, interminably dull.
   New one looks much better. Director who has proven he can do solid B-movie action films (thinking more of Danny the Dog than the Transporter films) and a writer/star who actually has talent? New preview out today, still looking solid. Won’t be the second coming, might get lost in a busy summer, but ultimately looks like what the first one should have been.

10. ChevalierAguila 05/01/2008 @ 12:44am

    Agreed with Hudson Hawk and rocketeer, the rest got the hate they rightfully deserved.

11. sarkoffagus 05/01/2008 @ 7:42am

    Sure, THE ROCKETEER wasn’t great, but the porn spin-off, THE COCKETEER, was actually pretty good. Too bad Jennifer Connelly was only in the first one.

12. Collin Armstrong 05/01/2008 @ 7:45am

    <rim shot>

13. mahkiavelli 05/02/2008 @ 9:18am

    Good looking out on showing some love for “Hulk” - the editing in that film is brilliant.  As for “Last Action Hero”, I thought it was pretty damn funny, but it falls apart in the 3rd act.

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