Salem's Lot: Not enough bite

Salem's Lot (2024) • View trailer

3.5 stars (out of five). Rated R, for bloody violence 

Available via: MAX

By Derrick Bang

Film adaptations of Stephen King’s novels have run the gamut, from the excellent — Misery, Stand By Me, The Shawshank Redemption and Carrie — to the deplorable: Thinner, Cell, Lawnmower Man and many, many others.

 

With sundown rapidly approaching, the wary vampire hunters — from left, Susan
(Makenzie Leigh), Ben (Lewis Pullman), Dr. Cody (Alfre Woodard), Mark (Jordan
Preston Carter) and Father Callahan (John Benjamin Hickey) — contemplate how
best to invade the dread Marsden House.

Most often, the fault lies with inept directors and scripters. Sometimes, though, the fans who inhabit what King calls Constant Reader Land are upset because a given adaptation changed so much that it “ruined the book.” To those folks, King always cites what James M. Cain said to a student reporter who bemoaned how Hollywood had altered books such as Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice.

“The movies didn’t change them a bit, son,” Cain replied, pointing to a shelf of books behind his desk. “They’re all right up there. Every word is the same as when I wrote them.”

 

Director/scripter Gary Dauberman’s respectful handling of King’s famed 1975 novel does pretty well, when it comes to fidelity. He includes almost all the central characters, hits most of the story’s key plot points, and deftly maintains the unnerving atmosphere King established so well, with the juxtaposition of quaintly bucolic, small-town Americana invaded by macabre, old-world Evil.

 

And when Dauberman does slide the story into different territory — notably during the third act — he does so cleverly; the climax is both ingenious, and suspensefully mounted with an assist from editor Luke Ciarrocchi.

 

That said, this film fails in another, equally important manner: overall pacing. 

 

After taking time, during a leisurely first act, to introduce the key players and set up the looming threat, a fleeting second act rushes far too quickly into the aforementioned finale. King’s luxurious attention to detail — the nuances of sidebar characters, and their back-stories — are completely absent.

 

This is particularly egregious with respect to school teacher Matt Burke and local priest Father Callahan (although that’s getting ahead of things a bit).

 

The result is a jarring case of whiplash, as if great chunks of this film had been left on the cutting-room floor. Dauberman has admitted that his first cut ran three hours, which I suspect would have been preferable; director Tobe Hooper’s 1979 two-part TV miniseries, running 183 minutes, was — and remains — vastly superior.

 

Samaritan: Not worth saving

Samaritan (2022) • View trailer

Two stars (out of five). Rated PG-13, for strong violence and profanity

Available via: Amazon Prime

By Derrick Bang

Well … at least this Sylvester Stallone project is age-appropriate.

 

Director Julius Avery’s fitfully entertaining urban drama is an inner-city spin on the superhero genre, although Bragi F. Schut’s script is far better suited to the graphic novel format that preceded this film by almost a decade. 

 

To the exasperated frustration of Joe (Sylvester Stallone, right), young Sam
(Javon "Wanna" Walton, left) is convinced that his grizzled neighbor actually is a
former superhero, now living incognito.

Either way, Schut’s premise is mildly novel, although the execution leaves much to be desired; viewers will depart this film vexed by a glaring hanging chad.

At its core, this story echoes the famous line from John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.”

 

As explained in a comic book-style flashback that introduces this film, Granite City once hosted a pair of supers: the virtuous Samaritan and his equally powered villainous rival, Nemesis. Their ongoing skirmishes climaxed in an epic battle 25 years ago, which claimed both their lives.

 

Since then, much of Granite City has become a crime-infested slum burdened by the disenfranchised and helpless homeless, overrun with greed and corruption, and ruled by roving gangs of criminal thugs.

 

Cinematographer David Ungaro and production designers Greg Berry and Christopher Glass certainly make everything look gritty and grimy.

 

Thirteen-year-old Sam Cleary (Javon “Wanna” Walton), thoroughly absorbed by the legend of Samaritan, has clung to the notion that — somehow — his hero actually survived that clash. This obsession has prompted him to mistakenly assume “superhuman qualities” in a long list of ordinary citizens, much to the annoyance of bookstore owner/journalist Albert Casler (Martin Starr), who has long investigated what actually is known about their city’s former supers.

 

Sam’s fixation also is a burden on his mother, Tiffany (Dascha Polanco), a single parent just barely making ends meet. Indeed, she often doesn’t make them meet, which prompts Sam — against his better judgment — to accept some easy money from local gang lord Cyrus (the hissably evil Pilou Asbæk, well remembered as the similarly vile Euron Greyjoy, in Game of Thrones).

 

Asbæk is totally terrifying, particularly when — with eyes widened and bulging to an almost impossible degree — he leans into somebody else’s face, either with quiet menace or enraged explosions of temper.

 

Sam also has been paying attention to Joe (Stallone), a reclusive garbage collector who repairs broken appliances in an apartment across the street from the boy’s bedroom window. Sam’s curiosity is further piqued when Joe rescues the boy from a beating by a trio of teenage thugs led by Reza (Moises Arias, memorably nasty); the older man handles the punks with eyebrow-lifting ease.

 

Joe rebuffs the boy’s excited curiosity for a time, but a subsequent incident removes all doubt; the older man definitely is an enhanced being.

 

Outside the Wire: And let's leave it there

Outside the Wire (2021) • View trailer

Two stars. Rated R, for relentless profanity and violence

By Derrick Bang • Published in The Davis Enterprise, 2.12.21  

Lazy science-fiction is truly annoying.

 

Actually, Netflix’s Outside the Wire barely qualifies; it’s really just a testosterone-fueled, shoot-’em-up war flick with superficial sci-fi trimmings. Scripters Rowan Athale and Rob Yescombe rely on attitude rather than the slightest hint of character depth, or the philosophical issues of their clichéd scenario.

 

Given that they're pinned down by enemy fire, Harp (Damson Idris, right) has good
reason to be concerned. He needn't be, because Leo (Anthony Mackie) is about to
demonstrate his enhanced fighting skills.

Their grunt-level sensibilities become obvious immediately — two minutes in! — when everybody onscreen relentlessly employs F-bombs as adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, verbs and interjections. That’s just tiresome.

 

Mikael Håfström helms this mess with the subtlety of a charging rhinoceros. No surprise, given a résumé of similarly undistinguished thrillers and horror flicks (Drowning Ghost, Derailed, Escape Plan, etc.). Ergo, we shouldn’t expect anything better here.

 

So.

 

The year is 2036, and Eastern Europe has become a relentless war zone; the Russians once again are the villains of choice. Good-guy Americans fight alongside lumbering robot soldiers pejoratively dubbed “Gumps” (presumably after Forrest Gump, which is pretty damn insulting). This isn’t any sort of advantage, because the bad-guy soldiers have their own Gumps.

 

We pause, for a moment, to explore this a bit. No mention ever is made, regarding how Gumps receive and execute their orders; no indication of who programs and controls them; no contemplation of whether they could be hacked by the opposition; and so forth. They’re just part of the noisy wallpaper. (Like I said, lazy writing.)

 

The ground troops are supported by drones controlled from afar by pilot teams such as Harp (Damson Idris) and Bale (Kristina Tonteri-Young). When a nasty firefight threatens to become catastrophic, Harp makes a needs-of-the-many choice that saves dozens of soldiers, at the expense of two who perish. Trouble is, that decision disobeys a direct order.

 

Rather than being court-martialed and sent home in disgrace, Harp is assigned to accompany Capt. Leo (Anthony Mackie) on a covert ground mission beyond the fenced American compound (ergo, “outside the wire”). Intel reports that a lunatic named Victor Koval (Pilou Asbaek) intends to obtain the launch codes for a handful of nukes, with which to terrorize the world (we assume); Leo wants Harp along because he “thinks outside the box.”

 

Ah, but — as Harp soon learns — Leo isn’t just any black-ops specialist; he’s “fourth-generation biotech.” (Again, questions: Where did he come from? Does this mean first-, second- and third-generation biotechs are wandering around? Answers come there none.)

 

Ghost in the Shell: Lacks the proper spirit

Ghost in the Shell (2017) • View trailer 
Three stars. Rated PG-13, for sci-fi action violence, dramatic intensity and chaste nudity
By Derrick Bang

The tantalizing nature of identity — of soul —  has again become a hot sci-fi topic, particularly in the wake of HBO’s recent expansion of Michael Crichton’s Westworld concept.

After her cyborg body is slightly damaged during a skirmish with nasty assassins,
Major (Scarlett Johansson, right) patiently waits while new artificial skin is grafted onto
her left arm, listening as Dr. Ouelet (Juliette Binoche) reminds her that, cyber-
enhancements notwithstanding, she's not invulnerable.

Since art so often mirrors life, it’s tempting to relate the current revival to the rampant insecurity, paranoia and uncertainty sweeping our nation: the rising doubt over what it truly means to be “American.”

Be that as it may, this new Western adaptation of the Japanese Ghost in the Shell franchise is quite timely, although I can’t help wondering what took so long. Masamune Shirow’s original manga graphic novel debuted in 1989, followed quickly by several sequels, a wildly popular 1995 animé adaptation (and several big-screen follow-ups), and a 2002 animé TV show (again with several continuation series).

All of them explored and expanded upon Shirow’s thoughtful observations about social evolution and its philosophical consequences, and particularly the manner in which rapidly advancing technology affects our concepts of consciousness and humanity.

Director Rupert Sanders’ new live-action film covers the same high-falutin’ philosophical territory, but this ho-hum Jamie Moss/William Wheeler script mostly resurrects a question that nagged at me, back when Ghost first materialized: I’ve always wondered to what degree Shirow might have been influenced by Robert Ludlum.

Because there’s no question that the core storyline is a cyberpunk spin on Ludlum’s The Bourne Identity, and the many books and films subsequently spawned by that 1980 novel.

Which explains why — despite this new film’s dazzling depiction of our mid-21st century future — the action-packed plot seems so familiar. To paraphrase a famous song from an equally famous musical, Looks: 10, originality: 3.

The story takes place in a Pan-Asian metropolis that feels like a cross between the cityscapes of Blade Runner and Minority Report: opulent high rises and corporate towers jostling for space alongside blocky apartment complexes whose futuristic lines cannot conceal the dilapidation that speaks of their overcrowded, working-class residents.

The most striking visuals are the massive holographic advertisements that fill every millimeter of available space: a shrewdly prophetic — and frankly terrifying — depiction of what we could expect, if the corporate thugs behind our already distracting LED billboards continue to bully (or bribe) city council members into compliance.

Lucy: An evolutionary leap in cinematic swill

Lucy (2014) • View trailer 
One star. Rated R, for strong violence, dramatic intensity and mild sensuality
By Derrick Bang

Goodness, what an abomination.

This ghastly excuse for a movie blends the worst elements of spring’s Transcendence and the loopy “Star Gate” sequence from 2001: A Space Odyssey, with the “creation of the universe” nonsense from Tree of Life tossed in, for no particular reason.

Her senses heightened by a powerful designer drug, Lucy (Scarlett Johansson) finds that
she can "see" lines that represent cell phone conversations; she therefore sorts through
them until finding a key chat between the thugs waiting to ambush her.

And you thought this was a standard-issue revenge thriller? Think again.

French filmmaker Luc Besson is a one-man movie machine, with more than 100 titles to his credit during the past three decades: most as producer, but also quite a few as writer and/or director. He’s best known for helming high-octane action epics such as La Femme Nikita and The Professional, and he also created Jason Statham’s enormously popular Transporter series.

Besson’s hits have made pots of money, which have allowed him the luxury of self-indulgent vanity projects such as Angel-A and the children’s series that began with Arthur and the Invisibles. To put it kindly, such efforts have done little to burnish his reputation.

Lucy may tarnish it for several years. Not even the promise of three more Transporter entries is likely to compensate for this jaw-dropping example of pointless, wretched excess.

Besson directed and takes sole writing credit on this mess, so he deserves all the blame. And although Universal’s marketing strategy suggests a Nikita-esque thriller with Scarlett Johansson as the wronged, hard-charging protagonist, that’s a serious mishandling of this film’s actual nature.

Veteran filmgoers will feel nervous from the moments the lights dim, as we watch a CGI representation of ... cells dividing.

Say what?

Next up: a short prehistoric visit with AL 288-1, the female Australopithecus afarensis dubbed “Lucy” by anthropologists wise enough to recognize the value of shorter headlines.

Say what what?

After which, finally, we launch into what feels like familiar thriller territory, with an on-the-move introduction to Lucy (Johansson), a carefree American student livin’ la vida loca in Taiwan. At the moment, though, she’s wisely resisting a request by recent hook-up Richard (Pilou Asbaek) to deliver a briefcase to unknown parties at a posh hotel. Alas, Lucy’s self-preservational instincts aren’t fast enough to prevent Richard from handcuffing the case to her wrist.