FilmFlicking

Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6162

If it's a sunny day and you go to a carboot with about 100 stalls......there's a fair chance you'll end up with some good vids and dvds Luc

Yeah she sounded a feminist but I loved the sarcastic lines she came out with lol!

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

I want a carboot market

All messing aside great bargains your getting babe

I'm looking forward to the film

The Man Chump · Popcorn Seller Joined: 13 Aug 2007 Posts: 91

Yes she is quite a good character Cat good spot, especially as she has a very small part, I thought the whole film had some femenist undertones, becasue in the end of the day, it is the female lead and not the male who does the business!
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Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6162

Yeah I got blindsided by the female lead too!

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Okay when I first seen that this was picked I won't lie and say I hadn't already an impression in my head, rightly or wrongly, of what this movie was going to be like as I had seen parts of it before and had read lots of reviews on it at the time of release (not many were good) however I said I would push those initial perceptions aside and judge it on its own merit ....as much as I possibly could anyway.
The movie has a real bizarre premise....some creature and hormonal fungus on leaves gets transported from S Sfrica to a Museum in the States... the thing starts decapitating people living off the Hypothalamus in the brain and traveling between the sewers underneath and the museum itself while further mutating. I think thats the essence of it..
We get first introduced to the Tom Sizemore superstitious cop character who I have to say I liked in it....and I enjoyed the opening scenes where they find the heads decapitated on the ship.. it then moves on to show some poor security guard entering a cubicle in the toilets of the museum and discover the real perils of having a sneaky smoke by getting his head swiped off...of course this all leads to another scene not mentioned before which I thought a bit silly.....A scene of a murder and some woman just walks into the room and sees everything she screams as they bungle her out....like that would really happen? Speaking of Penelope Ann Miller I really like her as an actress, she's good in Kindergarden Cop, Carlito's Way, but the film I love her in is an early nineties film called 'Other People's Money' with Danny DeVito ...its great ...anyway moving on ...in this she plays it by the numbers....she looks scared when she has to, intelligent when spouting the biological jargon and equally superior with the odd feminist joke... particulalrly when the cop asks her "Oh are we all evolving now too" and she turns snidely and responds "Well some of us are"

.
I do agree with you Chump too there was a real undertone of feminism throughout with many of the top jobs and positions being occupied by women including the head of the museum played by Linda Hunt... I really like her too...she's very good at playing the tough authority figure with a heart and I do think her character in Kindergarden Cop is not that far away from the role she plays here. It was also good to see James Whitmore as the head researcher in the wheelchair... I'll always think of him as Brooks in Shawshank though

. He does provide some interesting dialogue however and I really liked his little ditty on the tribal difficulties with headaches

....he also mentions the traditional tribal stories of a creature that was created by feeding someone or an animal the hormone fungus which caused a change. In turn the newly created monster would find no more leaves and go off to kill the tribe's enemies while they hid. When it's food supply ran out, it just simply died. I bring this up because we never truly find out why the guy at the beginning freely takes the fungus? Was he fooled?, threatened?, was he just curious? I guess we'll never know....
Of course it all builds up to the final scenes when the museum is locked down and I have to mention the sequence where they all rampage to the glass doors I thought was very well done even if I did think the crowd were kind of acting alot more panicked than they should have been. The creature at this point must have thought his Christmas's all came at once because he was just finishing each one off one at a time....well that is until he comes up against Miller's character.....Was it just me too that was completely reminded of Alien through the last parts and definitely the bit were there is like a stand off between her and the creature.....it licks her ...it is very reminiscent of Alien 3
I also thought the cycle of events when the creature was on fire, chasing her still and explosions catching up fast behind them just never seemed to end... she just seemed to run and run and the creature who was so fast earlier seemed no nearer to catching her

.

I didn't know what to make of this film....there I said it....

... I pressed the stop button when it was over and asked myself Did I like it?...and found myself unable to answer..you see there was parts of it I liked,... other parts I just thought stretched my imagination beyond capacity where I felt it was bordering on the ludicrous however there was good performances...in saying that I do think a more established leading actor other than Sizemore would have been better... Apparently Harrison Ford
was first choice and I can tell you now if he was in the film Penelope would not have ended up the creature slayer at the end.
I think my best deduction is ....All in all it was okay but at no stage did it really thrill me or even make me want to continnue watching it all that much... yet I'm glad I did and I'm able to properly judge instead of using other people's reviews as a guide...which really is not the thing to do......

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Actually I forgot to mention another scene too in my review......Miller who is after seeing a guy with his head decapitated in the toilets a day or so earlier....starts to notice something behind her in a darkened museum....she begins to get scared and runs .....where does she run straight into???....yes you guessed it ... the toilets and also locks herself in a cubicle too..... I was just saying to myself of all the places for her to have gone it would have been the last place I would have thought......

Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6162

Good honest review Luc

Wonder how it would have turned out with Harrison Ford in it instead?! I can't see that the woman would have saved the day instead of him somehow!

Yeah I chuckled at the rushing into the toilet cubicle bit too.......as if hiding there with your feet pulled up would stop you from being attacked

Another thing I just thought of......when the creature came up to her, sniffed and licked her face was it because he recognised her? I liked the fire bit at the end but I kept thinking surely she couldn't outrun it?!

Lucifer_666 · Site Joined: 27 Jul 2007 Posts: 9571

Yep I think thats what they were hinting at...when he licked her face...that he recognised her or the human part or what was left of it recognised her

I think Harrison would have had alot more say in the script and his character development and Penelope would have been very quickly sidelined to a supporting actress role or love interest

Catnapper · Site Joined: 30 Jul 2007 Posts: 6162

I thought the film was like a cross between Alien and A Night at the Museum

but I'd watch it again

The Man Chump · Popcorn Seller Joined: 13 Aug 2007 Posts: 91

Good review Luc, you have raised the bar again.
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