Their Hearts Have Gone On

Today, the 15th of April, marks the 98th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic. With the Titanic sank 1500 people and the hopes and dreams of many, but through such tragedy, a single man came forward some eighty five years later to bring the ship’s sweeping grandeur to the silver screen. By coincidence, I happened to have given the epic glory of James Cameron’s vision another go last week, and it was just as exciting and loathsome as I remembered. Little did anyone know as news spread of the ship being swallowed up by the ocean that such a catastrophe would become the divine inspiration for Mr. Cameron to take his critical eye to class struggle and prejudice. If I learned anything from having to listen to Cameron speak at awards shows, it’s that the man says whatever pops in his head. And most of what pops in his head is dumb. James Cameron, the awkward acceptance speech giver, is exactly the same as James Cameron, the ignorant, dense screenwriter. Because he lacks that filter between the mind and the mouth, Titanic is littered with cringe-inducing lines of dialogue (“that Anna-steez-ya chick,” “Something Picasso? He won’t amount to a thing”), lame stereotypes (remember that Jack did a lot of his artwork in Paris because French girls are very willing to take off their clothes), laughably treacherous characters (like that asshole who planted the diamond on Jack as the ship starts to sink) and one of the shallowest head-first analyses of class… ever. The terrible dialogue (not to mention the character of Bill Paxton’s fat, hairy assistant) can never really be overlooked (the same can be said for the piss-poor performances from most of the otherwise fine actors… and I won’t even get into all that’s wrong with Billy Zane), but the earnestness of Cameron’s futile attempts to say anything intelligent about class really places Titanic into prime camp territory.

However, as both Titanic and Avatar’s box office receipts confirm, Mr. Cameron is a director of size (I joked to my friend that the ship made for a humorous, if dead-ended metaphor for Cameron), and that he operates at such a phenomenal, effective scale when dealing with all things “big” makes Titanic an absolutely bewildering film. I almost felt a bit silly getting consumed by the panic of Titanic’s second half, even as Jack and Rose illogically stagger through the bitterly cold North Atlantic waters flooding in the lower levels of the ship, but that’s because Cameron has no middle ground. He may have failed to elicit convincing performances from Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet or to effectively develop their characters or relationships beyond the surface level, but when he gets to the sinking of the ship (also known as his A-game), I’ll be damned if I didn’t start to care for a pair of bland lovers who’d been irritating me for the previous hour and a half. It’s funny how Emanuele Crialese’s Golden Door [Nuovomondo] takes all of Titanic’s weaknesses, of which there are many, and turns them into something lovely and affecting without tarnishing any of what Titanic does well. When Rose joins Jack in the lower quarters to dance with the poor folk, I immediately thought of a comparable, superior sequence in Golden Door, but I suppose the fact that the ship in Golden Door reaches its American destination makes a close side-by-side comparison with Titanic unfair. “Subtle,” as we all know, is not a word James Cameron could ever define for us, and while that might be a condemnation for others, it is just the opposite in this case. I wonder if anyone takes any gratitude in knowing that those 1500 people didn’t perish in vain… for their memory will always be captured in James Cameron’s amazingly confounding art. Cue those flutes. Cue Céline Dion.

Be Seeing You, With Reservations

Comic-Con San Diego happened a few days ago. It's an event I have heard so much about that it has filled my envy-tanks with enough spleen-fuel to send me to Neptune, especially as it featured what was sure to be the final Lost panel (I doubt they would do another next year just to wrap things up, though I can dream). Among all of the hype for high-profile projects like Iron Man 2: The Ironing, and James Cameron's epoch-shattering masterpiece Avatar (Steven Soderbergh wouldn't lie to us, would he?), was the The Most Anticipated Television Event Of 2009. No, not Community, starring Joel McHale. I am of course talking about the latest show from the mind of the man who brought us the bone-searing thrill-machine known to millions of fans as Lark Rise To Candleford. Yes, the world has gone crazy over The New Adventures of The Prisoner!



As a British sci-fi fan of a certain age, I adore the original Prisoner, and have been nervously watching the development of various remakes and adaptations in much the same way that a houseowner keeps checking the size of the crack in the kitchen wall for signs of imminent subsidence. Kevin Costner was going to be in a film version, back when people liked him, and Mel Gibson was going to be producing a version. Maybe even starring in it. That would be right up his alley, seeing as how he is obsessed with being seen as a tortured martyr (the man's psychology is so open to display you don't need to be Freud to see what's going on in his head). Neither happened, but it's funny that Jim Caviezel is in this remake. While Keanu has captured the market for confident post-Resurrection Messiah, Caviezel seems to be slowly accruing some credits as the pre-death tortured Christ-figure. Mel would approve, I'm sure. He might even get down from his cross long enough to mention this at some point.


As a nerd, I am gripped by the usual nerdly personality disorders: obsession with - and attachment to - trivia, condescending behaviour towards non-nerds, preciousness over the treatment of nerd properties¹. This is a terrible and debilitating disorder to suffer from, and I do try to get over it. As this is merely a short trailer for the mini-series (six episodes), and a lot of information is being held back, it could be a great show, but two things strike me immediately, and it's two things that I knew would happen but dreaded nonetheless.

1) The new Number Six is not defiant enough. Patrick McGoohan personified rebellion, playing a man with the ability to withstand coercion to an extent no human being ever could. As The Prisoner was about resisting the command of (directly) the bureaucrats of the Village and (metaphorically) society itself, he was inspirational. Yes, he was practically a metaphor for a mental state instead of a fully-rounded character, but it was beautiful to see someone triumph over and over again, even though, technically, he spent the entire series failing. Maybe that was the key to his appeal: transforming failure into a kind of victory, because all he needed to win was keep rebelling, even if he never left the Village. It was the kind of story that made you feel better about life, all while making you feel worse about the state of the world. Every episode was a rollercoaster of emotion.


Through it all, McGoohan's Six was cocky, obnoxious, tempestuous, hardcore, and utterly defiant. In short, one of the great characters in modern fiction. From what we can see in this short video, Caviezel's Six spends most of it looking shit-scared. This is not appealing. You can see him becoming more defiant as the trailer progresses, but the plot seems to show an arc for his Six. The original didn't have a namby-pamby arc. He just punched people, had tantrums, and smirked when he won a small victory. You just can't top that kind of swagger.

2) The new Number Six seems to want to help his fellow Villagers. Yes, McGoohan's Six sometimes felt the urge to help others, but of course they are working for Number Two, and betray him. Always. Who knows, maybe this will be the case in the remake, and I keep my fingers crossed that this is the case². A traditional hero will help others, but that implies he is in a position to seek help from them as well. If the story you are telling is one that hints that society is an enemy that wants to strip you of the ability to be whoever you want to be, or do whatever you want to do, and that every person in that society will consider you their enemy, then your character has to be alone. With other people around to save or be saved, it becomes a more formulaic tale of man vs. institution. The reason the original Prisoner still chimes with audiences is that McGoohan's Six is one man against everything, against even the concept of society. Turning it into "Everyman rebels against baddies" removes that metaphorical richness. If this is the way it turns out, it becomes an adaptation of just a précis of the original show.


Of course, this is a first impression, filled with entitlement and whininess. The show could be terrific, and I'll definitely be watching it with as open a mind as possible. My love for Sir Ian McKellan is so total that I will enjoy his presence enough to mitigate a lot of flaws. It's also fun seeing Brit actresses Hayley Atwell and Ruth Wilson appearing in something so expensive and American³ instead of the usual costume-drama nonsense, not to mention the presence of the excellent Lennie James. The Rovers look suitably dramatic while being the same as the originals, though the big bouncy balls of old were effective because of other elements, such as the eerie sound effects and peculiar behaviour of the Villagers whenever the Rovers appeared. Whatever. It's a terrific visual, and it's nice that they kept it.

If I knew nothing about the original series, I'd probably love the trailer. However, I know too much, and even though I'll give the new series a fair shake, I can't imagine that the story they tell using this framework will be anywhere near as interesting as the original. I'll respect the showrunners' choices, but already I can see they're promoting the show as something - a traditional Man Against His Superiors fable - that the original transcended. I enjoy those stories well enough, and they have their own metaphorical power, but let's hope they have found a way to make this more daring, otherwise it will have a tough time replacing the memory of the original, a show that genuinely made you think about the world you are living in, without giving easy answers.

One more thing. They got the "Be Seeing You" thing wrong.


That's more like it.

¹ Oh how I whined when Peter David made She-Hulk boring after Dan Slott had done such good work with the character. I deleted the post about that, you'll be glad to know.

² I'm quite happy to see a Christ figure in this tale: less so a Moses metaphor.

³ That said, apparently it is actually produced by Granada and ITV, and only distributed by AMC, hence the predominantly British cast.

...Where I Try To Defend Michael Bay, And Can't Even Convince Myself

Canyon once asked me if I defend Michael Bay just to be difficult and controversial, and I admitted that the most all-caps-boldiest exclamations that I trot out are just nonsense. If I were to rank directors in a huge list from good to bad (don't tempt me to do that. I probably would if prompted), he'd be nowhere near the top, but more importantly he'd be nowhere near the bottom either. He's lazily blamed for everything that is stupid and awful about spectacular Hollywood product, and for tainting the cultural well so much that the whole world suffers. The hatred aimed at him is startling. I halfheartedly defended him on the AV Club once, and was told by another commenter that I obviously knew nothing about cinema, and should keep my opinion about everything else to myself. I'll admit I'm no Bordwell or Thompson, but my opinion on Bay is a little more nuanced than, "Me like when hot broads dance and the house blow up".


Any filmmaker who becomes successful enough to achieve name recognition status is bound to attract critical dismissal, and that will intensify if the filmmaker has annoying quirks that are overused. For example, Paul Haggis' inability to keep subtext subtextual, instead making his characters voice motivation or revelation out loud, drives me up the wall. Even his rewrite work on Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace makes that mistake. Tarantino's magpie tendencies irk a lot of critics, especially when he steals from disreputable pop culture artifacts that they already dislike. Spielberg has had his knocks many times in the past. I can imagine he's never going to invite Henry Jaglom around for dinner, as the guy has been bitching about him being a poor filmmaker for decades now.


Bay is a different beast altogether. He's directing movies by a set of rules he has made up for himself, and that style bears only a passing resemblance to the work of others. As if brought up watching nothing but early Tony Scott movies, he seemingly has no idea of how the big picture will flow, choosing instead to focus on each individual shot, making them pop as much as he can. As a result, it's not just the whole movie that doesn't flow. Even relatively short scenes are haphazardly paced. This car chase from The Rock has great individual moments, but stops and starts with no understanding of how jarring that must be for the viewer.



I would never think to defend Bay as a man who makes great films in entirety. Even my favourite Bay movie, Armageddon, is full of embarrassing, and indefensible, flaws. Even so, he's no Robert Luketic, or Shawn Levy, or Jon Avnet, three directors right off the top of my head who have never been responsible for even a single memorable shot, let alone scene or film. Of course, he's also not James Cameron (I make this point because True Lies is on ITV2 right now, and, as shaky as that film is, the action scenes are almost perfection). I think Bay's movies are fascinating, and with regards to the criticism he draws, Drew McWeeny brilliantly (and, obviously, accidentally) summed up how I feel about him in a Tweet I just spotted.

[To another Twitterer] How can you rail against the excess? Bay is what we have PAID Hollywood to evolve into. We reward the escalation of the absurd, then cry about it when it reaches its logical conclusion.

In the interest of not misrepresenting McWeeny, I'll point out that he later adds that he doesn't think he's the best action director in Hollywood. Neither do I, but he is the most spectacular director in the whole world, a Cecil B. DeMille with subscriptions to Guns & Ammo and FHM. When Bay gets to do his thing right, you are getting to see something that no other filmmaker on Earth would or can do. He shoots fast and loose and spends his money on the outrageous stuff, and can conjure up images that sear themselves into your brain.


As McWeeny says, this is not the same as saying he's a good filmmaker. He's just a unique one, and I feel an obligation to articulate my conflicted feelings, especially considering almost all critics are dismissing his movies with such kneejerk vehemence that they're not even bothering to fact-check, which is often a sign that the reviewer considers the movie beneath contempt. I've reviewed films in an almost professional capacity before, and I've had press packs, so I know most of these errors can be avoided*. (Though being annoyed by overly complex plots that make little sense are another thing: see below for my own problems with T:ROTF.)


So I was desperate to see Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, mostly because I was hoping he would get right the things he got wrong in the first one. As those flaws were the usual things (pacing mistakes, clunky humour, Jazz being a terrible racial stereotype, etc.), I was basically hoping that this would be Bay's best movie, removing some of the clutter but keeping the crazy. That's the key: keeping the stuff that he does better than anyone. Even though I want other filmmakers to create coherent movies with a steady, escalating pace, I want Bay to do what Bay does best. The worst thing he could do would be to play into the hands of those critics who say his movies are all BOOM and no plot, racing from one scene to another without a pause, doing nothing more than amping up every moment with no concern for character development. Sadly, that's exactly what he has done with T:ROTF, and the result is a deeply frustrating experience.


For the first ninety minutes, I was absolutely amazed at what I was seeing. Even more so than the shocking and ramshackle Bad Boys II, Bay is throwing the kitchen sink at the audience (and then shooting it with a sabot round). The first scene in the movie features a tribe of Cro-Magnon fighting early Cybertronians, for crying out loud. Okay, so they look more like they should be hanging out with Zoolander than hunting bison, but still, kudos to the man. For the next section of the movie, the film throws so many peculiar and outrageous visuals and concepts, that I drove Canyon crazy with my various quiet exclamations of joy. By the time Megatron and Starscream hang out on one of the moons of Saturn (seriously), I was convinced that this was going to be my favourite movie of the summer.


And then it all goes horribly wrong. The moment that the action abruptly shifts to Egypt, the movie slams into neutral, with scene after scene falling flat. The novelty of the early scenes disappears, replaced by a tedious crawl across numerous deserts, seemingly to showcase the cars that have been mostly missing by this point. Several scenes could be excised completely, and should have. It was nice to see Deep Roy as the ha ha ha so tiny border guard, but the movie would have been so much better without it. This is not the first time he's made this mistake, but usually he doesn't put so many of these extraneous and excruciating scenes in the final hour.


In fact, the endless trek from Egypt to Jordan and back again (I think that was the route) seems to only be there because, for some baffling reason, Bay and the writers thought that having the characters just appear at the Pyramids for the big finish would somehow be unbelievable, so we have to see their full trip. Why is he getting squeamish about this now? I don't care how they get there, especially if the trip seems to have been filmed in real time. If I want a travelogue, I'll watch a Michael Palin show. This is a Bay movie. If you're going to use a "Space Bridge" to teleport the main characters to Egypt, then teleport them to the exact spot needed to maximise the action. And yet no. Because audiences have been clamouring to see National Lampoon's Egyptian Vacation.


The desert setting also steps on the toes of the earlier film. Transformers had a perfectly fine and short action scene set in a desert, as the survivors of the opening base attack fight against Scorponok. It was about five minutes long, had Tyrese bellowing "BRING THE RAIN!" into a walkie-talkie, and featured a bunch of exploding buildings. Those wide open spaces worked well for a mid-movie action scene, and made the final city scenes even more exciting, as we got to see a bunch of robots fighting in contrasted dark and cramped streets with no respite. That scene remains one of my all-time favourites.


The finale of Transformers 2 just looks like a bigger version of that desert scene, with little of the original's intensity, though it does have some fun stuff involving the Pyramids¹. Sam and Mikaela make their way very slowly through a village, with intercutting of Josh Duhamel looking frustrated. No one says BRING THE RAIN!, though it does crop up on a napkin or something earlier on. Everything seems to move at normal film speed, which is like half Bay-speed. At this point in the movie my ass was really hurting from sitting in the crappy Waterloo IMAX seats, and instead of being riveted I just kept fidgeting. Yes, I use my ass as a guide to how exciting a movie is.


More exasperating than the inappropriate locale, even though Bay's movies have not been known for their well sketched character arcs, the finale is littered with momentum-robbing scenes such as the whole "I love you" thing between Sam and Mikaela (really? This is a big deal?), Kevin Dunn telling his son to go and do the right thing (an emotional beat that makes no sense as Dunn, at the start of the film, couldn't care less about his son leaving), and Sam's "death", which reflects the big "death" midway through the movie (I won't spoil it). Why does Bay suddenly care about these things? I can barely remember The Island, and maybe there was an arc in that, but I don't even think there was one in Pearl Harbor, the most conventional movie he has made. I expect tonal errors from Bay, but this was worse than usual.


Only after leaving the cinema with a deflated heart (it sounds like a deadly condition, but the only symptom is whining on the internet) did I realise that there was a lot more wrong with the movie than just the broken finale. McWeeny recently hinted that the first sentence in his forthcoming HitFix Motion/Captured review would be, "I have never felt more like a third nipple than I did, as a screenwriter, while watching Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen." I can't wait to find out what he means by that, though I think it might have something to do with how the excessive plot -- and I do mean excessive -- is crammed into about three five minute-long scenes filled beyond breaking point with insane amounts of exposition, while huge stretches of the movie would probably, on paper, look like a list of fight scenes. It's that rare kind of movie that is simultaneously overcomplicated and embarrassingly simplistic.


Instead of just trying to come up with a simple way to orchestrate some robot fighting, we get tons of backstory. Cybertronians have visited Earth before, and one of them was going to destroy us in order to harvest energy, but a civil war broke out and then there were a bunch of Primes, and they are magic or something, and the All-Spark is in Sam's head, or it's something else, and there is a key, and a cipher, and a Matrix of Awesomeness, and an afterlife, and probably a bunch of elves, and... It's absurdly complicated stuff, with one very silly plot-thread (Megatron demanding the world hand over Sam so he can extract his brain, or something) that takes over the latter half of the movie. For every quirky moment and fun concept, there's ten stupid complications that mean nothing. By the time Jetfire turned up for his shot at the Exposition Of The Year award, I had completely lost the plot, not helped by my efforts to guess the identity of the British actor playing the elderly robot².


To me, these are big problems, even when taking Bay's singular style into account. However, it's becoming clear that the biggest problem people are going to have with the movie are Mudflap and Skids, the comedy relief duo who shuck and jive through much of the finale. Why am I using this outdated African-American phrase? It seems apt considering that these two robots are the most startling racial stereotypes I've seen on the big screen since Crash, only this time they're meant to be funny and not "educational".


While sitting in the cinema I had huge difficulty reconciling what I was seeing with what I thought Bay was trying to do (have a couple of affable idiots break up the tedium of the cross-country trek with their wacky exploits), and for a while after I wondered if they were meant to be a spoof of Will Smith and Martin Lawrence from Bad Boys (a Bad Boys II poster is on display in one character's room, and their banter is as forced as that between Smith and Lawrence). Now, with hindsight, that I realise that's even worse than just two racist caricatures. Is he personally attacking two people he has worked with before? And the guy doing the voices for them is white? We're talking about Jar-Jar Binks-esque wrongness on an epic scale.

The disconnect I suffered during the movie was similar to the shock I felt during Star Wars: The Clone Wars when Ziro the Hutt appeared, but my overall opinion of that character is astonishment that Lucas could have thought that was all right. With Mudflap and Skids, I was uncomfortable during the movie, and now I'm outright pissed off. It's made the dreadful caricaturing of Jazz in the first movie (a black Transformer that breakdances and then gets ignominiously killed in the final act) seem even more glaring. Bay deserves the shitstorm that's heading his way.


I mean, it's becoming fairly obvious that he has a real problem with women, so much so that you could almost forget it's happening until the camera shoots so far up plastic "hottie" Alice's skirt that it qualifies as a proctological exam. Megan Fox does little more than pout and get dragged around the desert by LaBeouf and Duhamel, not even getting a hero moment like she did in the first film³. Other than Fox and Isabel Lucas, the only other female characters with any dialogue are the holographic women on the transforming motorbikes (ZOMG is Bay saying women are bikes?), and Sam's mother, played by Julie White.


Being the only non-simpering non-hottie in the film, she has to do several unglamorous things, usually involving pratfalls. One scene with her getting high on hash brownies is particularly uncalled-for. Nevertheless, she deserves all the credit in the world for managing to make these stupid moments work. She might give the best performance in the film. Maybe, in future, Bay should consider giving more roles to women who have talents beyond looking orange and pouty.


So, it was a washout, right? Except that for a while, as I said earlier, the film flies. Even with the inclusion of the awful Alice subplot, and lots of shenanigans involving kitchenbots, there is a lot to enjoy. The new set-up for the Autobots, working in conjunction with the humans to fight rogue Decepticons, is hugely promising, and the opening in Shanghai is astonishing and ambitious. Even better, the forest fight between Optimus and three Decepticons is one of the film highlights of the year, especially as it is filmed in full IMAX.


Seeing Optimus to actual scale is something I won't forget any time soon. Much is made of Bay's direction of action, and how the rapidly moving camera and quick cuts serve to render all of his scenes incomprehensible, but there are many worse action directors out there. Considering how overwhelmed I was by the terrible action in Eagle Eye, or by the much better but still swooshy Star Trek (both of which I saw on IMAX), this didn't upset me at all. That was something I was not expecting.


There is even some evidence of playfulness from the notoriously grouchy man. Considering his parodic sense of patriotism, it amuses me greatly that he manages to destroy Paris again (the first time was at the end of Armageddon, a scene that got a cheer here in England each time I saw it on the big screen), and I can imagine all sorts of noses being put out of joint by his destruction of a library about an hour in. If you're responsible for some of the most successful movies of the past fifteen years, you can afford to poke fun at your image like that.


As I've said, I did like a lot of it. I saw one person lazily Tweeting this morning that they thought this was as bad as Batman and Robin. Don't believe it for a second: this has much much more to recommend it, even if just as an occasionally exhilarating aural and visual assault. Also great: Glenn Morshower returning, this time as General Morshower (seriously); Tony Todd doing some great voicework as The Fallen, a robot with a fantastic gangly design; trying to catch sight of the cast on poor Shia's hand in early scenes; terrific sound editing, far better than critics are saying; a greater sense of the robots as actual characters, especially Starscream and Megatron. Plus, even if the finale is not perfect, it does feature some mind-boggling moments. I'm really hoping that the previous Academy snub of the Transformers effects team is not repeated. They've topped themselves this time out, especially as they're operating in IMAX for some of the most complicated moments.


Even so, it's a movie that wouldn't let me like it as much as I wanted to. If I'm going to defend Bay in future, the guy has got to meet me halfway. The awful Ebonicbots and the Auton women have got to go. Right now, I'd rather he tried to make another movie in the more sober style of The Island than keep this lower-than-lowest common denominator stuff going. It's becoming hard work waiting for him to grow up, but then, if we lose the racism and misogyny (which I'm sure he doesn't see as such), will we lose the rest? And is "the rest" worth keeping if the man is going out of his way to perpetuate bullshit jock philosophy like this? All of a sudden those Bay films in my collection look a little less appealing. Let's hope his next movie is either an adaptation of The Beauty Myth or a remake of Amistad.

* In fact, one of the first movies I ever saw at a press screening was Bad Boys. Maybe that's why I'm forgiving of Bay's films.

¹ Full disclosure. As soon as I saw the first trailer with shots of the Pyramids, my heart sank. A project I have been working on for some time had a big finale in the shadow of the Pyramids, and so I guess I have to scrap all of that. A shame, as it would have been so awesome that brains would have melted while watching it, even though the project involved a C-list comic character that no one likes. Nevertheless, my disappointment with the finale was not rooted in this, as I got over that frustration a long time ago.

² Amazingly, it's Jon Turturro.


This means he spends a lot of his screentime arguing with himself.

³ Though, to be honest, LaBeouf gets little more to do other than run into danger and get blown up. Another flaw of the film: adding human characters and not really knowing what to do with them, which particularly irks when you like LaBeouf, as I do.

ETA: Here is McWeeny's review of T:ROTF. Of all the reviews I have read in the past few days, this might be the only one that actually addressed specifics of what the film is like. Trust someone as perceptive and fair as McWeeny to watch the movie and review what he is seeing instead of just scribbling "Michael Bay is a douchebag" in his Moleskine a thousand times.

Dystopian Sci Fi Movie Face/Off! (Doomsday)

Released earlier this year (and on DVD this week), Neil Marshall's Doomsday was heavily anticipated by those of us who adored his previous movie The Descent. In contrast to the majority of British movies released in recent years, The Descent was ambitious, uncompromising, serious, and unabashedly a genre film. It was cold, brutal, terrifying, and unforgettable. Not only was it ballsy, with its bleak finale and shocking take on female relationships, it was made with consummate skill. Once the protagonists are trapped within a series of caves, all of which are pitch-black, Marshall and cinematographer Sam McCurdy have to come up with ever more inventive ways to light the film. Most British films are not in a position to paint themselves into a corner like that, so we rarely get to see anything but the most perfunctory displays of filmic technique (how do we make this stately home/Hoxton bar look pretty?), which made The Descent doubly impressive. It didn't back down from a challenge, and the result was cinematic genius. I do not exaggerate when I say it is my favourite British film of the decade so far.


Doomsday could only disappoint. The Descent raised the bar so high, managing to be that rarest of things, a genre movie that didn't feel like a third-rate cousin of movies made in countries that make more confident product. Too often British genre films are hamstrung by budget constraints or reflexive ironic detachment, as well as the inability of British actors to look like anything other than a posing fool when handling guns (see: Torchwood). Marshall's confident handling of The Descent, and his seriousness of purpose, were a refreshing change, but even so, that was a psychological thriller that also featured subterranean monstermen. He handled it all brilliantly, but Doomsday was a different kettle of fish.


The action movie is a genre that Britain has never been able to master. Many great British directors have travelled to the US and shown they are capable, but within this country there has been little success. It's a genre that seems antithetical to the British mindset, depending as it does on a lack of irony which comes naturally to the US but not to us. I'd happily attribute that to an innate snobbery towards US culture, meaning many UK filmmakers have a tendency to add reflexive japery to the movie as an apology for daring to make something that seems so definitively American.


Notably only Hot Fuzz has worked as a homage to US action cinema, and even then it operated as a spoof/homage hybrid that took the tropes of the genre and transposed them to a British locale, complete with incongruous English actors, phrases, and in-jokes. Any other tough guy movie made in Britain has seemed kind of embarrassing, with poorly constructed action scenes and UK actors spouting unconvincing macho dialogue. Don't forget, it's because of the British film industry that Paul W.S. Anderson is polluting cinemas even now. Sorry, everyone in the whole world who has ever seen one of his movies.


Doomsday looked to be another attempt to make a straight, unironic actioner mimicking American (and Australian) films, with British actors pretending to be hardcore, low-budget action scenes poorly shot and edited, and no awareness of how embarrassing it is to see our culture trying to jump onto a genre bandwagon that belongs so completely to another culture. Not only that, but Doomsday was also co-opting entire plot threads from other movies. The concept, that a virus breakout in Scotland leads to an enormous quarantine operation that separates the entire country from the rest of the world, leading to the survivors becoming feral punks, is already shamelessly lifted from other movies, before we get to the other similarities. Was Marshall, by trying not only to make a proper US-style action film but also one that evoked some of the most beloved examples of the genre, biting off more than he could chew?


Well, yes, but not only do I bow to him for trying so damn hard to pull off the impossible, but also for figuring out how to make a US-style action movie on UK terms. While Hot Fuzz managed to credibly reference action movie tropes and cliches by taking them out of their usual context and then playing them fairly straight (which of course made the whole thing funnier), Doomsday steals from tongue-in-cheek actioners and then treats them with the same amalgam of irreverence and seriousness as they originally were. By stealing from John Carpenter and George Miller, he can use their sense of humour to stand in for UK irony, while not sacrificing the integrity of the movie. That the film is only funny when it is being grisly or over the top is both a regrettable flaw and one of the best things about it (while the dialogue falls flat, the visual gags, either gruesome or silly, are top-notch).



For the first hour of the movie the "homages" to other movies are shockingly blatant: the central concept from Escape From New York, the denizens of Glasgow from Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior, the plague visuals from 28 Days Later, a setpiece involving armoured vehicles that Nathan Rabin notes is very similar in rhythm to a scene from Aliens, a battle in a hospital is straight out of the original Assault on Precinct 13, Tyler Bates' impressive score featuring some hilariously brazen John Carpenter riffs, and on and on.


It's disconcerting to see how openly Marshall has stolen whole scenes from other movies, with only a few concessions to alteration (Mitra's character, Eden Sinclair, is a Ripley/Plissken hybrid who was born in Scotland and escaped just as the wall was finished, and the feral Glaswegian survivors are militant cannibals, which manages to top George Miller's post-apocalyptic crazies). Though I was pleased to see Marshall had actually pulled off some impressively constructed setpieces, it was not enough to salvage it. I was ready to consign it to the dustbin, especially when the "homages" were as in-your-face as this graphic.


And then a funny thing happened. First, cannibal leader Sol whips his followers into a frenzy by dancing to Good Thing by Fine Young Cannibals. Then he joins in a ska-beat can-can with a group of kilt-wearing male dancers, which is all a lead-up to the act of cooking Sean Pertwee (his appearance, seemingly a prerequisite in all British films, is mercifully short), and feeds the masses who are all waving paper plates in the air (coloured red, white and blue; surely a satirical dig at the Union Jack). It was exactly what you would expect from a post-apocalyptic action film, being both morbid and absurd, but it was also quirky. Movies of this type are often sledge-hammer subtle, but this was sneaking in odd visual details that made the experience even sillier.


Not long after that, while being chased by a tooled-out coach called the Beelzebus, Shakespearean actor Adrian Lester exhorts his co-escapee to "leg it!", and Sol berates his hapless minions by calling them "fucking numpties". You don't get that in US actioners. Best of all, neither phrase felt out of place. Usually when UK movies try to pull off action, they end up snarling American phrases with inept sincerity despite the cultural inappropriateness of the lines (worst example ever; Alien 3), rendering their machismo unintentionally comedic. Here Marshall just uses British phrases, and they're the right kind of funny while being perfectly appropriate. Why has no one else done this before?


It was as if Doomsday suddenly clicked into place. Thinking back to the start of the movie I realised that what had seemed so derivative was a clever play on the natural antagonism between Scots and Englanders, and "the thorny issue of devolution", with Hadrian's Wall rebuilt as a 35ft high deathtrap. It's as if the only way devolution could ever happen with the backing of the English government would be as an act of hostile self-preservation, consigning Scotland to the dustbin of history, the sting in the tail being that England becomes a global pariah into the bargain. Certainly it could be read as a critique of the north/south divide, with both Scotland and London suffering at the hands of a Geordie film director.


It struck me as a funny choice when I saw it, but only because I was under the mistaken impression Marshall was Scottish. Now I know he was born in Newcastle Upon Tyne, I'm amazed at the size of his balls. Apparently some Scottish commentators are offended by the suggestion that Scots would become anarchic cannibal thugs in that situation, but seriously, if being isolated from the world as approximately 90% of the population dies of an agonising and grisly viral outbreak, all while being denied medical help, power, and sanitation by an uncaring and selfish English bureaucracy, doesn't make the surviving populace become a crazed band of anarchic cannibal thugs, then nothing will.


Not only that, but Marshall is quite happy to take the tropes of the post-apocalyptic action genre and either reclaim it for Britain or introduce previously unused British iconography. The feral Glaswegians may look like the post-apocalyptic marauders of George Miller's Mad Max movies, but those marauders were inspired by the punk fashions of early 80s Britain. The assault on the armoured vehicles might be heavily influenced by Aliens, but that movie was filmed in England, had a crew that was almost entirely English, and was the sequel to a film directed by a Brit.


Later on, our protagonists hook up with a Will-Scarlet style scavenger, prior to travelling through an underground military base in an echo of the trek through the Mines of Moria (Lord of the Rings was, of course, written by an Englishman, though one born in South Africa, which is, coincidentally, where a lot of Doomsday was filmed).


Upon leaving that "mine", they are ambushed by knights on horseback, which was apparently the image that inspired Marshall to make the film.


They are taken to a castle ruled by Malcolm McDowell in full-on Sheriff of Nottingham mode, and policed by a Guy of Gisborne clone. Eden Sinclair is made to do gladiatorial combat with an enormous warrior, with sackcloth-wearing peasants baying for her blood. It was at this point that I realised resistance was futile. It was not just a proper schlock-action movie, but was also the first British-to-the-bone schlock-action movie I have seen.


The movie ends with a Mad Max homage that sidesteps any technical limitations or budgetary restrictions by being as silly and exaggerated as possible. That the cars are obviously travelling at 5mph matters not a jot; heads fly, cars explode, and blood gushes. It's a hugely entertaining scene. Following that we get more homages to Escape From New York, though the very final scene owes as much to the end of Chronicles of Riddick and The Descent. Despite the overlong wrap-up (potentially setting up a sequel), it was rather pleasing, and especially after the trauma inflicted by reading Cormac McCarthy's The Road, it was great to kick back with a post-apocalyptic film that showed how much anarchic fun you could have driving a Bentley (another British icon) while being chased by cannibals. Kudos to McCarthy for illuminating the human condition and whatever, but eating humans and dismembering bodies can be fun too.


Though I was impressed by Marshall's handling of the action, and his ambition to fill a movie with as much referential iconography as possible, what pleased me most was his handling of tone. Doomsday strikes a perfect balance between earnest machismo, hysterical action, and pitch-black humour, just like the movies it pays homage to. The actors all treat the subject matter with deadly seriousness, never winking at the camera that it is all nonsense, with humour coming from gore or little touches of absurdity (I especially liked the throwaway shot of a medieval archer lazily chewing gum). I'm glad to say that that unironic acting approach is becoming commonplace, as filmmakers realise that, as I said regarding Hot Fuzz earlier, if you play something straight, it's far more effective than winking at the audience.


That said, he might have made a mistake with the lead character, who is so stoic as to barely register. Rhona Mitra is no one's idea of a screen icon, despite her striking looks, and the blankness of her performance might have seemed like a good idea at first, but ends up leaving a hole in the middle of the movie where a character should be. Marshall may have been inspired by the action icons of his youth, but though they are often impassive, there's more going on there.


Snake Plissken, the most obvious inspiration, might be an amoral hardass with a wicked cool eyepatch, but Kurt Russell is incapable of removing his natural charm, and so Snake is lovable despite (or because of) his cynical and cruel nature. Max Rockatansky is even more stone-faced, but he is haunted and tragic, the first in a long line of tortured, messianic characters to be played by Gibson. Ellen Ripley also has her tough guy moments, but she also has vulnerability as well as its emotionally conjoined twin, terrifying ruthlessness.


Eden Sinclair has none of those things. She's grumpy, and she'll kill you if you get in her way. Marshall has tried to make the character more compelling (she has flashes of temper when things don't go her way, for example), and wisely keeps the wisecracking to a minimum, but there's little going on. Her casting isn't a disaster, though. If her fight training looks like it wasn't completed (she's not the most convincing brawler), she has a physical presence that works perfectly. The definition on her arms puts my sludgy "guns" to shame. Compare her to the sylph-like Milla Jovovich, the go-to gal for lead action femme in shoddy genre shit like the piss-poor Resident Evil movies. Mitra is far more effective as a bruiser than her. Shame Doomsday's poor box office will almost certainly put a stop to any franchise dreams Marshall had. Though Eden disappointed, there is room for improvement, especially considering where she ends up.


Luckily, if Mitra is not the ideal action heroine, she is backed up by many other entertaining performances. Bob Hoskins, as her only real ally, is Britain's Ol' Dependable. He has a shtick, but it's a great one, and I've been guilty of taking him for granted in the past. Just a couple of weeks ago Canyon finally acquiesced after much annoying prodding and watched Louis Leterrier's Unleashed (aka Danny The Dog) with me, and it struck me just how much fun Hoskins can be when he sinks his teeth into a role. He was despicably evil yet human in that, and lovable and sad in this. Smart casting from Marshall.


Also spot on is Adrian Lester as Sgt. Norton. Seeing the respectable Lester running around with body armour and roundhouse-kicking bad guys in the head was huge fun. It's an underwritten role, and most actors would have had trouble making anything of it, but with Lester adding humanity and heft to the part, he supplies the audience empathy that Mitra cannot. As a result, the movie suffers when he's not on screen. It's not a killing blow, but it's noteworthy.


While the heroic side of the cast is a bit unbalanced, the villains are terrific. Alexander Siddig is amusingly bland and oily as a beardy Blairite PM, with a granite-faced second in command played with frightening intensity by David O'Hara. His quiet amoral persona is the tonal opposite of Craig Conway's Sol, who shrieks and rages and chews all the scenery like a Scottish Vernon Wells, but much closer to the imperious (and obviously insane) Kane, the Colonel Kurtz-like faux-king played by McDowell in sneer-mode.


It's probably fair to say that all of these characters are exactly as you would expect them to be, but getting serious actors to play them mitigates any charges of unoriginality that can be levelled at Marshall. Even as cliches, there is life in them. Perhaps Babylon A.D. would have benefited from more colourful villains. Instead we get Charlotte Rampling being all confusing and Mark Strong hiding his evilness behind his wig. I'm sure Kassovitz would say that Manichean good/bad dichotomies are not his style, but my God how much a film is enlivened by some shouty villains.


Technically the movie is impressive as well, even on a small budget. Sam McCurdy's photography is clear, colourful and varied, capturing the carnage with enough clarity to aid in comprehension. This sounds like faint praise, but it's a rarity to see action photography so dedicated to communicating what the hell is going on. McCurdy's work is a breath of fresh air, and is worthy of emulation by other directors. He films the battering of many many talented stuntmen with great skill.


Simon Bowles' production design (and that of the entire crew) is wonderful, turning Glasgow into a desolate, overgrown wilderness that echoes New York in I Am Legend. Praise also to the effects teams Double Negative, Framestore-CFC and The Senate VFX, who create some lovely matte shots that give the movie an epic feel.


I'm getting all emotional here. You can argue that Doomsday should be considered nothing more than an exploitative rehash of better movies, or you could be generous and say Marshall is trying to reclaim these films from the 80s and remake them for a new generation, paying full tribute to their gleefully shlocky nature. It's a matter of taste, I guess. I expected to be underwhelmed, but even if the dialogue is tin-eared, and even if the lead performance is forgettable, and even if the editing needed to be toned down a lot, the exuberant embrace of the material by everyone involved completely won me over, as did the gratuitous violence. I got all nostalgic by the end, which was surely Marshall's intention. I'd be lying and crazy if I said it was a total success, but for the most part it is just the ticket, especially after being soul-maimed by McCarthy. Recommended, then, as long as you are likely to laugh at decapitations, well-timed explosions, and crazy clashes of genres instead of actual jokes.