Gattaca

Not to dwell on a theme, but I tend towards sci fi. My current Netflix offering is Gattaca, a movie I missed in the theater. This is more sci fi than Jumper or similar action movies with a cheesy plot twist; true science fiction doesn't need special effects or choreography.

I quickly disliked the narration during the early flashback, but it was quickly over, and the story arc develops well from there. If you love the science fiction story, you'll enjoy this film.

Gattaca
1997, 106 minutes, directed by Andrew Niccol

Jumper

I was going to complain about Jumper - about Hayden Christensen's awful intro narration, the shallow characters and plot development, the pacing that was just off - but then I realized that those aren't the problems with this movie. The problem is that the special effects are too good. This is a great low-grade sci fi action film trapped in a high-grade sci fi budget. With a tenth of the funds they could have made a truly great D-grade sci fi film. Instead, they just made an awful B-grade movie.

I can't wait for the sequel, assuming of course that its funding gets sliced.

Jumper
2008, 88 minutes, directed by Doug Liman

TimeQuest

Reviewing films is definitely helping my memory of them. With the time to work out and set my thoughts, I'm able to recall more and discuss more about the movies I've seen. At the same time, knowing that I have to write a review has made me far more critical of the quality of the film itself. Today's DVD special, TimeQuest, seems like the kind of film I would have loved - or at least tolerated - not that long ago. But today I couldn't stomach it.

Where is the plot? It just starts out as a discordant series of events with no sense at all. Finally after 30 minutes some sense of story appears out of the murky depths of cheese and sap. It's not just that the plot is overly-fascinated by the Kennedy mystique; it's that the plot is barely recognizable, the pacing is atrocious, and the acting downright awful. Only the Traveler, played by Ralph Waite, seemed to be interested in his job.

Of course I did make it to the end, and the plot seems more focused as the awful way the story was told fades away. Maybe there's hope for this one, yet.

TimeQuest
2002, 95 minutes, directed by Robert Dyke

Cloverfield

I didn't take notes during the film; I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. It's survival horror meets sci fi at its best, with a particular story and feel and I've never seen before. The handi-cam work might bother some, but to me it just helped maintain a constant sense of unease. I especially liked the brief clips of old tape to keep a grounded base in Normal, just to show how insane and surreal things had become.

Cloverfield
2008, 84 minutes, directed by Matt Reeves

P.S. No more apocalypse films for a while, ok? At least not set in New York.

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines

When Arnold Schwarzenegger entered politics, with his blustering grandstands and naivety, I chose to stop patronizing his films. I haven't seen one on more than ten years. It seems, though, that as his political ambition can rise no further, and as he's seen what it really takes to get things done - compromise - that he's evolved into something more humble. With that in mind, I took the opportunity to watch something I'd missed.

With the Terminator series created over two decades, it lacks the plot rails of a typical trilogy. Instead, each movie stands on those before it, but builds on its own. I found little to dislike in the third installment. The action picks up immediately, and the story takes little time to reflect on the past. Yet again John Conner fights back against the rise of the machines, and yet again only one unit is sent back to kill him, and conveniently one older model returns to save him. With his mother Sarah dead, John is instead joined with a forceful yet reluctant Kate, who is destined to share a fate similar to John's.

The action sequences are good, if rushed from start to finish. I only saw a few places were the special effects had aged beyond appreciation. I'm satisfied that the trilogy is complete. (Please, Arnold, don't pull a Stallone and make another one next decade.)

Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
2003, 109 minutes, directed by Jonathan Mostow

Transporter 2

I liked Jason Statham a lot in the first movie I saw him in - Snatch. I wish in subsequent films he hadn't been shaped into a cookie-cutter action hero. A least the first Transporter movie had the right mix of action and scenery to make a decent film. In this also-ran installment, the "special" effects are far less impressive.

The DVD commentary claims that all the driving shots are "real" plus added effects, but the end effect is low-grade CGI. At first the martial arts action scenes were the only respite from mediocrity, but even those fell into cliché. "Now let's see Statham take on a line of gooks with a pole. Now let's see it with a fire hose."

Transporter 2
2005, 87 minutes, directed by Louis Leterrier

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl

Captain Jack Sparrow. What a character. I saw this in the theater years ago - and what a refreshing surprise it was. Rather than watch it again on TV last night, we popped in the DVD at my in-laws house to avoid the commercial breaks.

The first movie is the best, before the story is bent, twisted, and complicated to extend the plot into a trilogy. This one is highly recommended.

Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl
2003, 143 minutes, directed by Gore Verbinski