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RED EYE / Wes Craven (2005)

February 2nd, 2008 by Scott Marks

red-eye.jpg

RED EYE (2005)
Directed by Wes Craven
Written by Carl Ellsworth
Starring: Rachel McAdams, Cillian Murphy, Brian Cox and Jayma Mays.
Running Time: A merciful 85 mins.
Aspect Ratio: cinemascope3.jpg

Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Urbandictionary.com lists three distinct definitions for “red eye”:

1. A late night airline flight.
2. A type of whiskey consumed in the old west.
3. Your a**hole

All three definitions apply in varying degree to Wes Craven’s Airport ‘05.

Rachel McAdams, looking barely old enough to get a room let alone manage a hotel, plays Lisa, an unduly efficient innkeeper returning to Miami on the red eye from her grandmother’s funeral. An unexpected layover gives her time to meet and greet Jackson “Don’t Call Me Jack D.” Rippner. (Do you smell that? It’s a first-time screenwriter inventing funny names!) Cillian Murphy’s Jackson is arrestingly charming, especially if you’re turned on by a guy who looks slightly less menacing than Peter Lorre (circa “M”) shooting morphine outside an elementary school.

The two have a drink in the airport lounge, a plot point that will come in handy by reel two. Just about everything that happens in reel one perfunctorily comes back into play. So much for the element of surprise. One can award only so much blame to duffer Carl Ellsworth’s script. Craven has signed over twenty features, most in the teen horror genre, and should have learned something about structure by now. But, with all his commercial success why stop to contemplate nuance?

Once the captain turns off the seat-belt sign Jackson gets down to business: Lisa’s dad will die unless she can instruct her assistant (comic relief Jayma Mays) to downgrade the lodgings of a high-profile politician (Jack Scalia) and his family from their customary rooms to the Certain Death Suite.

Craven consistently frames his stars in one choking anamorphic close-up after another. The production notes crow that the ersatz aircraft was built on hydraulics that shook it from side to side in order to simulate turbulence. Filmed at such close range you can barely notice the seatbacks let alone the set. Why not just save a few bucks and jiggle the camera?

After enduring five of Craven’s pre-Freddie Krueger epics I took an oath to swear off his patented brand of schlock. Together, The Last House on the Left, The Hills Have Eyes, Summer of Fear, Deadly Blessing and Swamp Thing comprise a blank calling card. With Nightmare on Elm St. 3 I broke the vow. I’m a sucker for 3-D, but even that failed to impress. My fondness for Drew Barrymore eventually brought me back, but forty-five minutes of Scream found me racing for the door.

In the seventies, horror was defined by David Cronenberg, George Romero, Larry Cohen, Dario Argento, Joe Dante and John Carpenter. Wes Craven’s witless, TV-paced track record became an assurance of pressurized dung. Twenty-five years later finds pale Asian girls with dirty black hair covering their faces and Rob Zombie leading the chills in horror movies. At least give him credit for one thing: Craven is still in there swinging. Now if only someone would point him in the general direction of the mound.

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Filed Under DVD, Reviews

SUNSHINE / Danny Boyle (2007)

August 15th, 2007 by Scott Marks

Cillian Murphy

SUNSHINE

Directed by Danny Boyle

Written by Alex Garland

Starring: Cillian Murphy, Michelle Yeoh, Rose Byrne & Chipo Chung

Running Time: 108 min.

Aspect Ratio: cinemascope5.jpg

Rating: ★☆☆☆☆

It’s an intriguing premise: Jump 50 years into the future when the sun is beginning to die out. A space team is sent on a mission 55 million miles from earth to reignite it.

Originality ceases just after the sun sets behind the Fox Searchlight logo.

Take a pinch of 2001, add a dash of Solaris, a heaping cup of Alien (minus the uncomfortable metaphors for stomach cancer) and you pretty much have a sense of what you’re in for.

There’s a talking IBM that overrides human commands, lots of close-ups of reflecting retinas, and so many computer graphics it was like staring at a monitor for 108 minutes. I kept waiting for the Dell logo to appear at the bottom center of the screen.

Plot devices are equally as clunky. The crew decides to take a side trip from their original mission which predictably results in damage to the ship. For a while I found myself envying the two crew members sent out to repair the problem. At least they got to leave the ship, like the rest of the international cast that gradually succumbs to death by billing.

Most contemporary soundtracks consist of electronic background noise or preexisting songs bundled together to sell a CD. Any score that combines the THX logo with the last cord from The Beatles’ A Day in the Life deserves a mention.

In the past, director Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, The Beach, Trainspotting) has shown considerable taste in his selection of genre films. (Admittedly, he was responsible for the ordinary and lifeless A Life Less Ordinary.) The exciting subject matter dulled quickly. Next time, move away from the computer screen, focus on the characters and show us something truly spectacular.

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Filed Under Reviews, Theatrical

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