Goodbye World

Denis Henry Hennelly, 2014

IMDB

1/5

We are living in an age of numerous apocalyptic movies. Nuclear wars, zombie plagues, global pandemics, terrorist attacks. The list goes on. Seems like every year we are served a dozen or so of them and we are forced to weed through them to find one of quality. Goodbye World, is one of the ones of little quality. The film starts off interesting. An ambiguous text starts to circulate saying "Goodbye World", puzzling the recipients. As a group of old friends plan their arrival to friend James' (Adrian Grenier) remote mountain house, order is beginning to break down. The group of friends are reuniting after years of not seeing each other for various reasons. Their reunion just happens to coincide with the collapse of civilization. And coincidentally, James happens to be a doomsday-prepper type who happens to have everything they will need when shit hits the fan. How convenient! The fact that he has all of the supplies, solar power, medicine neutralizes the panic and for most of the film all we really have to indicate that things have really collapsed is some smoke way off in the distance. Oh, and the occasional invader such as a pair of soldiers aggressively trying to claim their place on the compound. 

It's a movie that would have certainly benefited from being much simpler. It could have been an effective limited storytelling piece in an enclosed setting. But the stakes would have needed to be higher. Instead of pure panic and main conflict points were marital troubles, which would seem so trivial in a time like this. There were also just way too many story threads in general. Business conflict between the men. An old couple that still has feelings for each other. A woman still dealing with political fallout from a sex scandal. An ex con lecturer who does college tours.

The movie would have been a great opportunity for Adrian Grenier to do something that he was never able to do during his many years on HBO's Entourage: prove that he is a viable actor. Unfortunately, he fails to do that here. There actually isn't really a memorable performance in the film. Goodbye World is an frustratingly confused film. Probably a movie that was didn't end up materializing the way it was intended to. Instead of keeping things simple, it fell into a web of unnecessary complications. It's a movie that also has some glaring flaws, like kids just standing there when someone is shot to their death or when there is a stranger screaming at a mother. One of the most irritating points in the film is when one of the main characters reveal themselves to be a an absolute computer aficionado. How convenient!

Honeymoon

Leigh Janiak, 2014

IMDB

1/5

The Sci-Fi/horror genre has become so offensively saturated with mostly copycat knockoffs of past classics, reusing old tropes and beating them to death. Regurgitated themes. Re-purposed cliches. Sometimes when you watch something that feels like a huge waste of your time, making you think that maybe its all been done before. That maybe there aren't any new ideas in this genre. But then every now and then, something will float to the surface. Something will stand out. Films like The Conjuring, The Cabin in the Woods or Insidious will appear and it gives us all hope. It gives us hope that maybe there can be new things done with the seemingly forlorn genre.

Unfortunately, Honeymoon doesn't fall into this category of refreshing and unique horror films that are trying new things. Instead it falls into that category of pretty good acting spoiled by an awful script and amateur direction. Janiak tries to make too much with too little here. This one can be filed under the category of predictably stagnant alien films. It's a bit irritating too, because you are likely delighted to see Rose Leslie on screen after seeing her in Game of Thrones or Downton Abbey. She has already proven herself a good actress while working with good material. But she doesn't have a whole lot to work with here. In fact, her Bea character and husband Paul (Harry Treadaway) characters are actually quite annoying. You spend the first 20 minutes of the film watching them groping each other like a couple of spider monkeys. To be expected on ones honeymoon. But we aren't going into this movie hoping to spectate a weekend of lovemaking. That's another kind of movie that we can watch some other time. That one will probably be better directed as well. Because you will have two minutes of foreplay and casual dialogue and they will get down to business. Honeymoon takes a lot of time getting to where it wants to, when most of the audience will probably know where it's going the entire time. The decision making on the parts of Paul's character are frustrating. The most obvious of them all is his inability to get Bea in the car and away from the cabin. Her condition continues to decline, his solution is to fondle her more and tell her how much he misses her. His character seems to be desperately horny, like he should have been in Deadgirl and not Honeymoon. Honeymoon feels like a weak ripoff of a Stephen King story with too much build-up and an insufficient reveal.

The Purge: Anarchy

James DeMonaco, 2014

Can I Stream it?

1/5

This sequel to the 2013 film, which was also directed by DeMonaco, focuses on a group of people caught outside in Los Angeles at night in the middle of the annual Purge. The man attempting to lead the group to safety (Frank Grillo) is eager to break away from the group to seek revenge on a man who walked free from a prosecution error.

How does a filmmaker expect you to get behind a group of characters that provide virtually no likability? It's surely the biggest pitfall of the film. Because you don't care about them. The annoying couple. The barely developed pair of women with the ambiguously ailing father. Instead of any maturation, the film becomes an elaborate torture-porn piece displaying a highlight reel of violence. It attempts to build upon the premise of the original Purge film by providing more bullets, a bigger backdrop, but it provides less structure. Maybe DeMonaco needs those four walls. It's like a crippled version of Escape from New York, without Snake Plissken or the surprisingly awesome Carpenter score. The annoyances don't cease with the characters themselves. There's that annoying situation where no bullets seem to hit their target, even though it's high capacity assault rifles firing in a specific direction. The film attempts to explore some class warface issues, but from the second you see the traffic cams in the tractor trailer you get a clear sense of what's going on. The original Purge film was running on a plot that was contained and interesting enough to keep you engaged. And oddly enough it felt like it could have been bigger. Anarchy attempts to go bigger but it's clear that DeMonaco is not the man for the job.

State of Emergency

Turner Clay, 2013


1/5

An explosion at a chemical plant causes a toxic chemical to leak. Local residents become infected and turn into flesh hungry monsters. Jim (Jay Hayden) finds a few other uninfected people in a nearby warehouse and teams up with them to pool resources.

The opening of the film shows a bit of promise, but that soon turns sour. The noticeable use of sound early on in the film begins to feel augmented, and soon becomes distracting. The dialogue begins and it soon feels like an 8th grader wrote the script. Completely elementary. Bad CGI with the helicopters flying over at night. And then, the poor editing. Oh no. There is a moment where one of the characters gets attacked and you only see him fall with the attacker missing from the shot. Jim goes to scream and the audio is not even aligned. Devoid of any flare, completely forgettable characters. Amateur hour.

The film lacks any moral dilemmas or any social commentary. No satire. Just a group of people, in a warehouse, lots of noises outside. Even the newscaster on the choppy news broadcast was uninspired. These horribly made zombie films really just reinforce how well made 28 Days Later was. Or even borrow a chapter from The Walking Dead. With that series, you become so invested in the characters that it's like losing a family member when you see one go. George Romero could have done a better job with this film if he were drunk.

This film completely lacks character development. When there are jumps in timeline, you only go back to see Jim in the not so far past where he's just as muted and flat as his present day character is. Jay Hayden looks like Richard Gere mixed with Peter Facinelli (Can't Hardly Wait) without any of the acting chops. Jim meets the girl that doesn't talk, because shes been through some traumatic event. Little does Jim know, that all he has to do is be mildly persistent and she'll open right up. She opens up and you hope for some much needed acting. It doesn't come, and you wish she would have stayed muted. It's hard to get behind characters that you really are not invested in. Not only that, but the survivors locked up in the warehouse appear to outnumber whatever is outside! Can you really call it a zombie infestation when 50 minutes into the film you have only seen one of them? Not sure where the $1.5M budget went on this film. The makeup artist and the sound editor should leave this film off of their resume, because they should be entitled to some future work. Turner Clay, however, I don't know. I hope this wasn't the film he set out to make. Maybe this just isn't his genre.

The Fourth Kind

Olatunde Osunsanmi, 2009

1/5

          Alaskan psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler (Milla Jovavich) is alarmed when several of her patients are experiencing similar memories that seem like alien abductions. She uses her skills hypnosis to try and tap into the root of these memories in an attempt to provide treatment.

          A poor script, bad acting and forced fake archival footage ruin this film. The premise of alien abduction victims seeking therapy is actually not a horrible one. You get your hopes up when you see that Jovavich is in it, who has really provided some great performances (The Fifth Element) in the Sci-Fi genre in the past. Unfortunately this wasn't one of her best roles. If Aliens HAD landed in Nome, Alaska I wish they would have taken this footage with them as well. The constant overlay of fake archival footage is distracting and takes you out of the moment. You will have neck pain from constantly having to shift your focus left and right at the "archival footage" and the Actor recreating the moment from the opposite side of the split-screen. They should have just relied on good acting because the film was very obviously fictional from the beginning. The disclaimer at the beginning by Milla Jovavich, warning you of the disturbing images you are about to see, will make your eyes roll. Such weak writing when the sheriff tells her she is under arrest after a traumatic event during one of the therapy sessions. What exactly, officer, was she being charged with? There is a long build-up during the length of the film but it falls flat at the end and is dull throughout the whole process. There is nobody to get behind. 

          The only positive of this film was the periodic images of the Alaskan landscape, which provided a marginal aesthetic. But this film could have very well been filmed in Colorado. Apparently Universal tried to hype the film up by releasing fake newspapers prior the release. You really shouldn't have to try that hard.