Invaders From Mars 1953 & 1986 -- a review

William Cameron Menzies was an art director on seventy films going back from 1917 to 1956, but he’s probably best known for just one of the twenty four films that he directed, Invaders From Mars. Released sixty five years ago in 1953, Invaders From Mars remains a classic thanks to Menzies’ tight direction and imaginative use of settings and costumes.

A young boy named David (well-played by Jimmy Hunt) sees what looks like an alien spacecraft land in the sandy field behind his house at night during a violent thunderstorm. Of course his parents don’t believe him—yet when his father (Leif Erickson) goes out to investigate, he comes back the following morning acting very weird. In addition to being cold and distant, this normally loving and gentle man now resorts to hitting David when the boy doesn’t immediately obey his orders.

David notices that his father has a strange wound on the back of his neck, and this becomes a telltale mark of those who have been “taken” by the aliens that David is convinced reside within the ground behind his house. Of course, nobody believes him, least of all the police chief whom David runs to for help. The chief—who also bears the telltale mark of alien possession on the back of his neck—proves to be a hindrance when he orders David to be locked up.

Menzies presents the police station as this coldly black and white setting with tall blank walls and too-long corridors that feel very oppressive. The art direction makes it clear even before David shows up that the police station will not be a welcome place for him. However, when Dr. Pat Blake (Helena Carter) arrives, it’s also made clear from her pure white dress with a peacock-shaped handkerchief over her heart that she will be David’s first true ally. The handkerchief over Blake’s heart is a warm reddish hue, suggesting her innate warmth and goodness. Menzies uses colors very effectively to tell his story, showing people who have been possessed by the aliens—like David’s parents—dressed in all black.

Once David gathers more allies in his fight against the aliens, the movie gathers steam, leading up to a full-on confrontation between the Invaders From Mars and the American military (which is seen mostly in stock footage of troops loading equipment aboard trains). The alien spacecraft, embedded beneath the earth, has wonderfully honeycombed corridors that lead to their impervious leader, a scary looking humanoid head with octopus-like tendrils that resides within a glass ball. The Martian warriors themselves are a bit of a letdown, looking like nothing more than masked men in green pajamas.

Another letdown is the fact that, for the better part of the confrontation at the end of the film, we get countless shots of people—both army soldiers and aliens—running back and forth through the corridors, over and over again. These shots are repeated so much as to be a major distraction, making me wonder if the film had originally came in too short, and this was what they did to lengthen it.

But these are quibbles, because the 1953 version of Invaders From Mars remains a classic thanks to its dream-like quality (the whole story turns out to be a nightmare that David has) and the fact that it’s told from the innocent point of view of a little boy. The paranoia that the film revels in (who can you trust when those closest to you can turn against you at any moment?) reflects the wild-eyed suspicions and mistrust of its era. The early 1950s saw a communist in every dark corner, which climaxed in the McCarthy hearings that persecuted countless people. Exchange the communists for Martians and you have the same sort of rabid paranoia present in Invaders From Mars.

I saw the remake of Invaders From Mars on opening day in the movie theater when it first came out back in 1986. I was eager to see the remake because I was a big fan of the original film, and since the remake was directed by Tobe Hooper, who had directed one of my all-time favorite films the previous year, Lifeforce, I thought the new Invaders From Mars would be a new modern masterpiece like I thought Lifeforce was back then (although my belief that Lifeforce was one of the greatest films ever made has been greatly tempered over the years, it still remains one of my favorite films—although now for completely different reasons than back when I first saw it).

Starring Karen Black in the Pat Blake-type role of the adult ally to David, this time played by Hunter Carson (Black’s real-life son), the remake is somewhat of a disappointment. Despite the presence of some formidable acting talent in the form of Black, Louise Fletcher, and Carson (the young Carson gained fame appearing opposite Harry Dean Stanton in 1984’s Paris, Texas) all of the performances are way over the top, with some line deliveries and reactions from the cast looking like they were straight out of a comedy.

Indeed, the tone of the remake often veers sharply from straight out horror to goofy comedy, leaving the viewer wondering how much—if any—of this they should be taking seriously. The art design on the remake is fantastic, however, with the look of the Martian foot soldiers being much better than those in the original film. Eschewing the dopey pajama look of the original Martian soldiers, the remake has instead this wonderfully nightmarish ‘giant mouth with legs’ design that truly looks alien (and creepy).

The remake is also filled with some great casting, such as Jimmy Hunt, who played David in the original, appearing here as a cop (he even has a funny line when he mentions, as he goes up the hill leading to the alien landing site, that he hadn’t been here since he was a kid). Laraine Newman, one of the original cast of Saturday Night Live (as well as a Conehead), appears here as David’s mother. James Karen (the Pathmark guy for those of us on the East Coast) stars as the leader of the Marines, with Eric Pierpoint appearing as his sidekick. Pierpoint would later be well-known for his role as George in the short-lived but sorely missed Alien Nation series. Bud Cort has a silly moment as a scientist who tries to reason with the Martians.

While the remake is fun to watch in a “so bad it’s good” way, it can’t hold a candle to the original Invaders From Mars, which has a weird and wonderful dream-like quality that stands the test of time. --SF

2036: Unknown Origin -- a review

Katee Sackhoff is a goddess.

There, I’ve said it. I freely admit to being a huge fan of this actress, whom I first came across in the Battlestar Galactica reboot that aired on the Sy-Fy Channel (back when it was more appropriately known as the Sci-Fi Channel). Her performance as a gender-changed Starbuck was superb; she brought such humanity and depth to a character that could very easily have been very one-note. After Battlestar Galactica ended, I followed Sackhoff’s career, watching her go on to play deputy sheriff Victoria ‘Vic’ Moretti on the enjoyable Longmire, and as the rascally Amunet Black on the most recent season of The Flash.

And that was why I happily settled down to watch Katee in the recently released 2036: Origin Unknown. A science fiction opus, 2036: Origin Unknown deals with a manned mission to Mars that goes horribly wrong. But this isn’t the mission that Katee’s character is on; instead, her father was aboard the doomed ship that crashed without warning, with the cause of its destruction remaining a mystery. Sackhoff’s character, Mackenzie “Mack” Wilson, is in charge of the follow up mission to Mars, and this one also develops problems right out of the gate.

Sackhoff gives it her all, doing a good job at playing a woman who’s under a great deal of pressure to find out what happened to her father, as well as the rest of the doomed Mars expedition, while wild and weird stuff starts happening around her, including a mouthy robot that must be a charter member of the HAL 9000 fan club. But the real problem here is the production values, or the lack thereof. 2036: Origin Unknown looks very cheap, with the entire movie taking place in one setting: the mission control room on Earth.

If you’ve seen footage of the real mission control from actual space missions, you know it’s a pretty crowded, busy place. But thanks to the extremely low budget of 2036: OU, Sackhoff holds court all by herself in a small room with an obnoxious robot making trouble for her. Events taking place outside the control room are handled with really cheap-looking CGI effects. And while the script tries to be big-minded, ultimately tackling grand science fiction themes that might make Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke proud, it all falls short because 2036 just mishandles these story elements very badly.

But despite the fact that her latest film is a let down, I still admire Katee Sackhoff as an actress. She’s already moved onto her next project, an SF TV series for Netflix called Another Life that definitely sounds more promising (at least with Netflix involved they’ll have a decent budget). I’m looking forward to it—but then, I’m looking forward to anything that Katee does, anyway. --SF

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom -- a review

It was inevitable that there would be a sequel to Jurassic World, the smash hit film that was the top movie of 2015, until it was dethroned later that year by Star Wars: The Force Awakens. I enjoyed Jurassic World immensely (and still do) because it was a sequel that continued the story by finally doing what was never done in the first three Jurassic Park films: it opened the dinosaur park to vacationing visitors. Of course, these very same vacationing visitors promptly became happy meals for rampaging dinosaurs, but, let’s face it: nobody goes to see a dinosaur movie to watch humans and dinos peacefully co-existing together.

Another thing about Jurassic World that I really liked was Bryce Dallas Howard, who played the chief executive of the park, a control freak who tried in vain to manage the raging chaos that crazily blew up all around her. Howard came off as being very endearing to me, especially how she played against Chris Pratt’s rugged dino expert. But what was really cool was how Howard’s character slowly rose to being a heroic figure. This dainty executive eventually discovered her inner strength and toughness in a nice little character arc.

I wish the same could be said for the sequel, Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. Directed by J.A. Bayona, Fallen Kingdom takes place shortly after the events in the original JW, where we see a crew in a submersible, collecting samples from the carcass of the Indominus rex, the super-powerful, why-the-hell-would-they-make-this dinosaur that served as the big threat in JW. The opening scene, which takes place mostly underwater, shows a lot of promise—which is quickly squandered once Fallen Kingdom (FK) decides to become a bad remake of The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

In The Lost World, Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum) returns to dinosaur island to retrieve his girlfriend (Julianne Moore) and her team, who’re busy cataloging the wild dinos roaming the island. In FK, Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt return to the island to save the dinos from becoming toast by a volcano that’s been threatening to blow its top. While Goldblum and Moore were racing a competing team that were sent to capture the dinos, Howard and Pratt are betrayed by their own team (lead by a chief of security—played by the usually great Ted Levine—who’s so aggressive and menacing even before the big betrayal that I was surprised he wasn’t twirling his mustache) who are out to, you guessed it, capture the dinos.

The rest of FK shows the dinos being taken to a mansion that looks more like Castle Dracula, where they are to be auctioned off to the highest bidder, until they get loose (of course) and wreak havoc. In addition to ripping off The Lost World, FK even managed to rip off Jurassic World by having its own version of the Indominus rex, by creating a super raptor for the sequel that doesn’t look very super, nor does it look really intimidating.

Say what you want about the silliness of JW, the Indominus rex was still an imposing monster because it was presented very well—but the super raptor that’s created for FK never really felt threatening to me. While the filmmakers deserve kudos for trying to change up the setting in the latter half of the movie, the horror vibe they were seemingly going for in this Old Dark House just doesn’t work. What doesn’t help are the shots, lifted from the original Jurassic Park—like the T-Rex roaring, or the girl trying to pull the sliding door down before a dino gets her—that only serve to make this film all the more uninspired.

But the worst thing about FK for me was how they reduced Bryce Dallas Howard’s character to being nothing more than a generic action hero. She and Chris Pratt do a lot of running and jumping and fighting, but I didn’t really care about them this time because they had been dehumanized into action film cardboard cutouts. Character development doesn’t have to be on the same level as Shakespeare; the arc that Howard’s park supervisor had in Jurassic World was just enough to get me on her side and to care for her. But lack of character development was just one of many problems that hampered Fallen Kingdom, a film that began with promise, but ends with a muddled story and characters that seem just as lifeless as dinosaur fossils. --SF

Tomb Raider -- a review

While I thought Angelina Jolie was near perfect as Lara Croft, Tomb Raider extraordinaire, in the two Lara Croft films that she made in the early 2000s, those movies were far from perfect overall. Based on the popular series of videogames where a gun-toting female archeologist battles everything from mercenaries to death traps in the ancient tombs that she raids, the Jolie-led Lara Croft films were fun, but they often slipped into extreme silliness, as if the filmmakers couldn’t quite bring themselves to take their subject matter seriously. And after all, why should they, since the games had a woman running around tombs in just a tank top and shorts?

But the Tomb Raider videogames were completely rebooted in 2013, with a photo-realistic Lara (who actually wore practical clothing) in a far more gritty adventure. The movies followed suit, giving us Tomb Raider, this time starring Alicia Vikander (Ex Machina, The Man From Uncle remake) as a younger Lara who’s new to the tomb raiding game. As expected, the new Tomb Raider movie takes a more down to earth tone with Lara, who refuses to declare her wealthy father legally dead because she believes he’s still alive, somewhere. When she finds a secret lair that belonged to her dad, loaded with research about the location of the tomb of an ancient Japanese queen, Lara sets off to find him.

Vikander is very good here, she makes for an endearing Lara (and she’s the second Oscar winning actress to play this video game character), who already has some background in martial arts--which comes in handy once the real adventure begins. The problem is that this movie follows the 2013 videogame storyline somewhat slavishly, which doesn’t offer anything new for those who played the game. While I never played Lara Croft games, Tomb Raider still felt very familiar to me because it reminds me of the CW TV series Arrow, starring Stephen Amell.

In Arrow, Amell plays Oliver Queen, who had been shipwrecked on a desolate island for five years, where he has a series of adventures prior to becoming the superhero Green Arrow. It’s these adventures on the island--told in flashback in the episodes of Arrow along with the present day story--that honed Queen’s skills as a fighter. And the same basic thing occurs in Tomb Raider, with Lara Croft being shipwrecked on a deserted island, where she learns to fend for herself and also gains the skills she needs later on in life.

But Tomb Raider’s superb production design and imaginative direction manages to raise it above the flashback segments of Arrow. And there are some enthralling scenes, like that of Lara trying to get free of a wrecked Japanese bomber before it nose-dives off of a waterfall. Lara’s father is played by the always good Dominic West (300, The Wire), who gives a heartfelt performance here. And Walton Goggins is another standout as the villain, a smooth-talking backstabber who just wants to get his job done and go home--at any cost.

Although Tomb Raider is supposed to be an origin story, it still never really feels like it truly takes off. Vikander does a superb job with what she’s given, but she lacks the devil may care attitude that Jolie brought to the part. And I’m getting a little tired of movies that try so hard to set up the next film in the ongoing (they wish) series that they wind up shortchanging the movie they’re presently making. While I enjoyed this new version of Tomb Raider, its faults made me miss Angelina.

For a truly amazing, action-filled take on Lara Croft, be sure to check out the fan-made film Croft

Operation Gold -- a review

Harold Sakata is best known as Odd Job, the intimidating henchman to the titular character in the classic James Bond film Goldfinger. With his steel-rimmed bowler hat and impressive strength and martial art skills, Odd Job was more than a match even for Sean Connery’s Bond in his mid-60s prime. The character was so popular that Odd Job had his own toys and a figure model kit. Sakata, who was born in Hawaii, got his first acting job with Goldfinger, but it certainly wasn’t his last.

I was watching an oddity on Amazon Prime recently called Operation Gold, which Amazon Prime has listed as being made in 1980. But while viewing the film, a broad comedy about the hunt for a valuable scepter, I thought the movie had looked like it was much older than 1980. I also thought the actor who played the museum curator looked a lot like Odd Job. It turned out I was right on both counts. Despite the “1980” date that Amazon has listed, Operation Gold was actually released in 1966 under its original name of Balearic Caper, and Sakata had indeed played the museum curator in the film.

But Sakata wasn’t the only Bond alumni to appear in Operation Gold. Daniela Bianchi, who plays the wealthy jewelry collector Mercedes, was also in the James Bond film From Russia With Love as Tatiana Romanova. In Operation Gold, Bianchi is more of a Bond villain, who’s willing to do whatever it takes (even illegal means) to get what she wants. Spending most of the film’s running time aboard her personal yacht, Bianchi is usually clad in alluringly scant outfits as befitting such an outlandish villain.

But while some may regard Operation Gold as a Bond spoof, it’s more of a spoof of caper flicks in the Pink Panther mode with a little Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang thrown in for good measure (a more recent version of a fun caper flick is The Brothers Bloom, by director Rian Johnson). The Macguffin of Op Gold, a golden scepter, is found by divers in a crashed airplane at the bottom of the ocean. One of the divers kills the other underwater, and the murderous diver is himself killed by another fellow on the beach--who is then killed by a weird assassin who hides in a cargo box. Just when you think the film is going to be ‘one killer is killed by the next killer’, and so on, the caper part of it finally gets going.

Once word gets out that the famously lost scepter is found and will be displayed in a museum on the small island of Ibiza, every thief in the world heads to the Spanish coastal island for the chance to steal the priceless piece. The humor in this film is very broad and over the top, with a special agent (Jose Luis Lopez Vazquez) being assigned to the case, but he’s such a bungling idiot (completely lacking any of the charm that Peter Sellers had in the Pink Panther films) one wonders why they should bother sending him at all.

The real heroes of the film are Pierre (Jacques Sernas) and Polly (Mireille Darc), who team up to find the scepter on their own. Pierre is an inventor with a gaggle of kids in his household and a curious old yellow car--it looks like a Ford Model-T--that responds to his voice commands. This is where the Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang vibe comes in, as the car (named Eusebia, after the Roman Empress) pretty much has a mind of its own as it drives around by itself, causing a ruckus (this sentient car also gives the movie a heavy Herbie The Love Bug vibe, as well). If this magical car seems a little over the top, bear in mind that Op Gold also has the aforementioned killer cargo box, which stalks its victims from afar and kills them by shooting them with arrows and darts through holes in its sides.

The movie just seems to be a lackadaisical affair; it’s a breezy lazy flick that moves from one slender plot point to the next while throwing in every action/spy film trope it can think of--it was almost as if the filmmakers were just making this stuff up as they went along. And you know what? I enjoyed it. Yes, it was extremely silly. But once you accept that Operation Gold is just a big, live action cartoon, it winds up being an enjoyable romp. The fact that it’s playing on Amazon Prime is nothing short of a miracle, since this movie hasn’t even been released on VHS or DVD, making its debut on Amazon its first public wide release in over fifty years. It would be nice if Balearic Caper would also find its way to DVD/Blu-Ray eventually in a restored version. Sometimes you just need to watch a little silliness every now and then. --SF

Avengers Infinity War -- a review

Note, this review has spoilers.
The Russo Brothers are probably the best things to happen to the Marvel Cinematic Universe. These sibling directors did an outstanding job turning Captain America: The Winter Soldier into a gripping action film that was genuinely exciting. They worked their same magic on the sequel, CA: Civil War, turning what could have been a mish-mash of superhero cameos into another enthralling thriller. When I heard that they were directing the final two Avengers films, I felt confident that the future of the Avengers saga was in good hands.

And when I saw Avengers: Infinity War, I was not let down. After teasing us with a glimpse of Thanos at the end of the first Avengers film (as well as at the end of the second Avengers movie) we get a full blast of the legendary Marvel Comics villain, who was created by writer/artist Jim Starlin, here in Infinity War. No longer content with letting others do his bidding, Thanos goes on a personal crusade to collect the Infinity Stones, which are magical Macguffins that will give him the ultimate power he needs to wipe out half of the universe of all sentient life.

What I love about Infinity War is how the Russos depict Thanos. How many times have we’ve been told about how terrible a super-villain is in past movies and TV shows, only to be let down when he finally shows up? The problem is that they never measure up to their hype. That’s not the case with Thanos, who’s ably brought to life via motion capture by Josh Brolin, and who still manages to not only make him very intimidating and threatening, but he also imbues Thanos with a human side. Thanos and his Black Order henchmen are easily the best villains in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (my favorite of the Black Order is Ebony Maw, who gleefully informs Thanos’ victims how honored they should be that they will die by his hand).

But the Russo Brothers also give the superheroes plenty of moments to shine, by wisely teaming them up in smaller groups and cutting back and forth between their separate storylines. This works fantastically, giving the film the epic scope that it requires, because the arrival of Thanos on Earth is truly a monumental event. My favorite team up in the film is Iron Man and Doctor Strange. These two seem very different--one gains his powers through high tech, the other through high magic--but they work very well together, and maybe that’s because they’re more alike in ways that even Stark and Strange are unaware of. Also, Doctor Strange is my favorite hero in the MCU, and I like how strongly he comes on in this film.

And although The Guardians of the Galaxy are my least favorite of the MCU heroes, I like how the Russo Brothers handle them, particularly by exposing a fatal flaw in the thickheaded Starlord that leads to disaster, as well as the tender and shocking ways that Thanos deals with his “daughters” Gamora and Nebula. But one of the more moving sections of the film for me was the star-crossed romance between Scarlet Witch (Elisabeth Olsen) and Vision (Paul Bettany), the Romeo and Juliet of this film who simply wanted a life together, only for it to be shattered by the tyrant with the gauntlet of doom. The fact that the Russos not only deftly handle so many characters within their storyline, but also make you feel for them at the same time, is a remarkable achievement.

While the film is very well done, there are a few quibbles that I have with it. The first is how the Hulk has been reduced to a comic relief--this started with Thor Ragnarok, which I disliked immensely, and unfortunately it continues here. Another thing I didn’t like about Infinity War is Spider-Man, or I should say that I didn’t care for Spider-Man’s new outfit, which looked ridiculous. The Iron-Man-like armored Spider-Suit was bad enough, but the damned tentacles that sprout out from his back was just too much for me. It’s strange how some of the previous Sony-produced Spider-Man films were more truer and respectful of the Wall-Crawler than Marvel has been so far.

But these are just quibbles on my part. I thought Avengers: Infinity War was a superb film that was light years better than the previous one, Age of Ultron, which seemed to reflect the weariness of its director, Joss Whedon. Infinity War is not only more vibrant and engaging, it’s just getting started. Like The Empire Strikes Back, Infinity War is just the first half of this grand, operatic saga--and one I look forward to seeing the ending of--but it still stands head and shoulders above many of the current crop of superhero films as a fantastic entry in the MCU. Don’t miss it. --SF

Lost In Space (2018) -- a review

I first caught Lost In Space while it ran in syndication back when I was a little spud. I loved the otherworldly adventures featuring a loving family who always had each other’s back regardless of what crazed situation they faced. As I got older, I realized that LIS wasn’t exactly Shakespeare (“The Great Vegetable Rebellion,” anyone?). Episodes that seemed like an engrossing adventure to an eight year old looked very silly when viewed by my older self. But despite the fact that LIS didn’t age well, it still held a warm place within my heart for all of these years.

The Lost In Space movie that was released twenty years ago was a misbegotten mess that tried to keep the camp while updating the overall concept with disastrous results. As if that wasn't bad enough, the same writer of that debacle became one of the executive producers on Star Trek: Discovery, promptly screwing up yet another one of my childhood favorites with terrible, clueless scripts. It made me extremely reluctant to watch the new Lost In Space series on Netflix. I just didn’t want to be disappointed yet again by a behind the scenes team that once more just didn’t get it.

But when I started watching the new LIS series, it quickly became clear that the new folks behind the scenes “got it”. A perfect example of this is the episode Infestation, when the Jupiter 2 finally breaks free of an ice trap and literally soars across the valley of an alien world. It’s a stunning, enthralling scene in and of itself--but then something even more amazing happened. While the J2 soared triumphantly through the skies, the original John Williams theme began to play. And in that moment, while chills ran through my body, I realized that this was no mere regurgitated, dead-on-arrival reboot like ST: Discovery. This was Lost In Space, gloriously reborn.

The new LIS wisely ditches the campy humor of the original series (and to be fair, the first season of the original LIS, in black and white, wasn’t as silly as its latter two seasons were) and strives to create a sincere space drama about a family--one of many--who are headed to a new world after earth is struck by a meteor. But after an attack by a mysterious force, their journey gets sidetracked, leaving them stranded on an unknown alien world. The Jupiter 2 is one of many smaller vessels that serves as a home away from home aboard the larger interstellar ship. The design of the new ship nicely mimics the saucer look of the original, with some creative upgrades.

The beloved Robot of the original also gets redone as a mysterious alien-made robot that meets up with young Will (very well played by Maxwell Jenkins) and becomes his friend/bodyguard--to the consternation of his family. This new re-imagining of the Robot is very well done; it manages to keep the Will/Robot dynamic of the original series while jettisoning the campier aspects of it. Another exceptional member of the cast is Molly Parker (Deadwood), whose presence in this gave me the glimmer of hope that I needed to start watching it, and she is marvelous as Maureen, the matriarch of the Robinson family. Toby Stevens is very good as John Robinson, a gruff warrior who is a sharp contrast to his scientist wife. And the Robinson girls are wonderfully fleshed out by Taylor Russell and Mina Sundwall as Judy and Penny, respectively. Russell is superb by making her Judy a traditionally brave doctor who doubts herself after a brush with death, and Sundwall shines as a wisecracking Penny, whose constant jokes hides her insecurity.

At first I had trouble warming up to Ignacio Serricchio as Don West. It wasn’t the actor’s fault; I just wasn’t initially keen on seeing Don as a hustler/smuggler who’s always looking for his next score. But Serricchio’s charm won me over. And Parker Posey, who takes over the traditionally male role of Dr. Smith, is very good. Before I started watching, I wasn’t sure if switching the gender of Smith would work, but Posey easily won me over. The effects and production design are flawless, giving the series a wondrous cinematic look that the 1998 movie didn’t even have. It was ironic that I was originally avoiding this new incarnation of Lost In Space, because now that I have seen it, I can’t wait for the second season. --SF