The Last Days on Mars
Next up on this year's list of films about us flesh and bone types kicking about the void is The Last Days on Mars which comes to us with the promise of a quite starry cast (pun intended) that includes Liev Schreiber, Elias Koteas and Olivia Williams.
What is surprising and worth mentioning about that is the fact this got made at all, let alone with those people involved. At the front of the film, as is usually the case with low budget films with ambitious amounts of effects, there is a never ending list of production companies. The amazing thing about this is how they all read the script and gave it the thumbs up. One production company full of short-attention span morons I can buy but all 10 (or however many there were) at the head of this film stumping up filthy moola to put it into production, I just don't understand. Then you factor in the writer, director and cast and you are left, when the film ends, scratching your head thinking "wait, have NONE of you seen another horror sci-fi film ever? Did you all have your brains wiped after a bus accident and think this was a valuable use of your time and resources?"
Now, let me explain. My confusion comes because the film, The Last Days on Mars, is, hands down, the most generic, obvious and mundane film I have ever seen. Earlier in the year my friend James and I took in Stranded, a Christian Slater starring, moon set, film that had clearly been made in a shed in Skegness for the cost of some Ginsters pasties and a packet of cheese and onion crisps and even that had more going on in it than this. True, you couldn't always tell what the hell was going on and the plot seemed to revolve a lot around doors opening and closing but still it was less generic than The Last Days on Mars.
In a nutshell this is the plot: A rag tag band of bored and annoyed astronauts are finishing up their scientific fact finding mission on Mars. There's a tetchy, by the bookish, type, a pure-as-the-driven-moon-rock type who hangs around keeping a level head when all about are shitting bricks, the out-of-depth captain who makes all the wrong decisions and a roguish, mumbling engineer who happens to be claustrophobic. Rounding out the group are a bunch of nondescript nobodies who look like they've just wandered in off the set of Coronation Street (a soap opera) filming in the studio next door. There's also a European chappy we never get to know who discovers living bacteria, breaks the rules to go out and examine further, the ground gives way, he falls in and becomes an alien infected Mars zombie. He then quickly infects someone else and the two undead space monsters shuffle back to the camp to pick off the panicky, inept and idiotic crew one by one in a quick and not interesting way.
That's it.
Seriously.
That's it.
Now normally I'd be all for that because a film that is, in essence, "Infected rage zombies from Mars" with Liev Schreiber should be awesome. Should be tremendous. Should be right up my street. The trouble is, imagine that film but made by really boring people with no sense of fun. Imagine that film made by a bunch of people that think they're are being innovative and different while being wholly derivative. Who read the short story this was apparently based on and thought "hmmm I haven't heard of this before, this will be a perfect movie?" It's Contamination, Leviathan, The Thing, Alien and a hundred others like them but with none of the style, wit, charm, creativity or talent.
Don't get me wrong, it's acted fine, looks good, the effects are impressive and there's even a little bit of decent blood letting but the script is inept, the idea redundant, the score non existent and the finished film, dull.
The title sequence, long slow vista shots and weird claustrophobic flashbacks all fool you into believing this could be another Moon type scenario. An art-house space picture with good acting, some psychological and emotional depth and maybe even a decent twist. Sadly that is not the case, you have no hint, really, of who any of these people are, beyond their generic cliches and even when the alien rage beasties attack nobody really does anything. Things are tried quickly and abandoned, mistakes are made left and right like these people were college co-eds in a mid 90s Roger Corman produced slasher film and the ending is as pointless as it is dull.
I really wanted to write some praise for this but, unfortunately, all I was left with was a sense of "this got made? how did THIS get made?" Also how do you have a film like this and NEVER use the line 'Is there life on Mars?' or ANY Bowie reference for that matter! Disappointed!
Gravity
"How is this a movie?" I thought. "What happens? How can they just sustain that for 90 minutes?" Then I factored in the heavyweight star power in the film and really couldn't guess what was going to happen.
All I knew, was that I was going to see that film as soon as possible.
It was a refreshing inner monologue to have because after most film trailers, even for films I am interested in still seeing, I know, pretty much what is going to happen in the film by the end and what kind of film it is. Gravity was different though. I didn't have a clue.
I am a big fan of Alfonso Cuarón's dystopian action drama Children of Men and he's the only man to make a satisfactory Harry Potter film so I knew, with the director, I was in safe and interesting hands. I am also an unabashed George Clooney disciple, believing the man to have pretty impeccable taste in scripts and projects to work on (seriously, listen to my 'When Clooney met the Coens podcast' he's my man crush). Sandra Bullock is a great comedienne and can pretty much raise the standard of any generic rom-com or action-com she takes part in. I haven't seen a lot of her "serious, worthy" films and I don't want to but "an interesting choice" I thought and a good fit with Clooney.
So what was going to happen in this mysterious space film?
Well, I am not going to tell you here. If you're looking for spoilers or plot points then you've come to the wrong place because it's best to go into Gravity fresh and ready for anything. What I can tell you is that it is one of the most breath taking, nerve shredding, tension sustaining, technically advanced and most complex directed film, I think, I have ever seen. I would need to watch it again, not because of any twisty turny story developments but to try and wrap my brain around just the level of organisation and unfathomable skill that went into creating this heart pounding 90 minutes.
It is a sublime magic trick of a film because, unlike the cartoonish nonsense of, say, Avatar or Abrams' Star Trek you just, quite reasonably, assume that Clooney, Bullock and Cuarón filmed the whole thing in ACTUAL SPACE. Cuarón realises that to wow and amaze with CGI and modern special effects, you don't need to go hog wild and create insane worlds and multi-headed monsters, just make a seemingly realistic and simple film, set in space. He did the same thing to similar wonderful effect in Children of Men. It's not what you see, it's what you don't realise you've seen. You take everything for granted in a Cuarón film and buy the world completely, it's only later that you stop and think "Wait?! how on EARTH did they do that?!"
In an age where everyone knows "oh yeah, they just draw that stuff on a computer, right?" (you know, like ANYONE could do it effortlessly) it takes real skill to hush those tongues and drag the audience, spellbound and quiet as amazed church mice, into your film.
There is a similar trick that the story pulls and that is that, with so few cast members, you know somebody, logically and presumably, is making it to the end of this film alive but that never holds you back from being on the edge of your seat, biting your knuckles or gripping the hand of your loved one next to you, every time peril rears it's ugly head.
Peril's ugly head
The acting, too, is fantastic, with Sandra Bullock, especially, giving, to quote EVERY critic on the planet, the performance of her career. Hell! the performance of anyone's career! For the physical strain, it must have been to make this film, alone she deserves all the Oscars Billy Crystal can quickly polish and shove into the back of a Lexus. That's not to say Clooney's a slouch but it becomes pretty apparent why they cast him after just a few lines of dialogue, in a pleasing, welcome way.
Again, like Children of Men, the film is a mix of genres. It gave me more of a jolt and locked me rigid with tension more than any horror film of recent times, it has enough action in it to please any of John McClane's ardent admirers and it's also an achingly beautiful science fiction film, with critics throwing around 2001: A Space Odyssey comparisons like happy, pretentious puppies with a Kubrick designed squeeze toy. It may just be Clooney, the minimalist cast and an emotional theme of the film but referencing Solaris, in an attempt to seem smart and educated, might be slightly more apt actually.
It is in the emotional, character based thread of the film's narrative, though, that the first tiny, critical comment must be made because the slightly over-egged and obvious motivations of Bullock's character and the emotional journey she undertakes, is not as deep, fleshed out, or as relevant as the film thinks it is. I would argue it's the physical journey, and the mental struggle and dilemma that produces, that is a more satisfying and watchable than her emotional one. However, like all good sci-fi, there's lots of layers to the thing and you can enjoy what you want about it. I just didn't think the script or dialogue was particularly strong when dealing with a certain topic, that will remain unnamed here.
It's a film all about connections though, in more ways than one, and the ultimate connection we must make with our own lives. That being said, it's also, pleasingly, about hair raising stunts and explosions in space. Unusually, if I urge you to go see this film at all, it's for that, latter reason, the sheer, jaw dropping, spectacle of it all.