Came across this today on of all things one of the Google banner ads at the bottom of the page.
Monsters wrote:Six years ago previously, a NASA probe returning to earth with samples of an alien life form, crashed over Central America. Soon after, new life forms began to appear, and half of Mexico was quarantined as an INFECTED ZONE. Today, the American and Mexican military still struggle to contain "the creatures"... The story begins when a US journalist agrees to escort a shaken American tourist through the infected zone in Mexico to the safety of the US border.
It looks pretty neat. Supposedly you can get it early via iTunes or On Demand. Which is nice being I hate going to the theaters anymore.
Mr. Harley: Your impatience is quite understandable.
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I'm very sorry... I wish it were otherwise.
"I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." – Frankenstein's Creature on the glacier[/size]
Temujin wrote:Supposedly you can get it early via iTunes or On Demand. Which is nice being I hate going to the theaters anymore.
You can only rent it on iTunes, and it's $10.99 in HD and $9.99 in standard. The movie does look cool, but I'll wait for the DVD release so I can rent it for a reasonable price.
Crap. I'm not signed up for iTunes, so it wouldn't give me any more info except "download iTunes".
Thanks, I'll probably go that route as well than.
Mr. Harley: Your impatience is quite understandable.
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I'm very sorry... I wish it were otherwise.
"I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." – Frankenstein's Creature on the glacier[/size]
I saw it, at least the first half hour, after which I gave up. It was boring as shit. From what I did see, the whole thing was like a tourist brochure for Mexico or wherever. You only get to see glimpses of the monsters on TV screens, whilst the movie focuses on the really annoying main character, a photographer who wants to catch some decent shots of the monsters and instead has to escort his bosses daughter to the coast before a military quarantine locks the country down. Sounds exciting? It really, *really* isn't. If you like watching two boring people partying on the street, drinking beer and slumming about motel rooms, then yeah, you'll love this.
Okay, so maybe later on the film gets exciting and interesting stuff happens. But after a good half hour to forty five minutes, nothing interesting happened at all, and I gave up. Maybe someone else will watch the whole film and tell me about the good stuff I missed. Assuming there actually is any, which I doubt.
Okay, so maybe later on the film gets exciting and interesting stuff happens. But after a good half hour to forty five minutes, nothing interesting happened at all, and I gave up. Maybe someone else will watch the whole film and tell me about the good stuff I missed. Assuming there actually is any, which I doubt.
Having seen the entire film I can relay my thoughts on the matter.
What happens when you take portions of Cloverfield (the rampaging creature and idiotic characters), Evolution (the rampant spread of alien lifeforms) and District 9 (extraterrestrials in an enclosed area) and then toss them into a blender? Something that is, unfortunately, less than the sum of its parts. What really weighs the movie down is the pacing, flat characterisation and one thing that I will get to later.
The two main characters (Alan Kaulder and Samantha Wynden) are not particularly interesting and the acting is unspectacular. District 9 had the multifaceted Wikus Van Der Merwe. Evolution had slapstick comedy courtesy of David Duchovny, Orlando Jones and Seann William Scott. Even the vacuous yuppies from Cloverfield were a more engaging bunch than these two. Throughout the film we get pathetic attempts at banter and interaction between the two leads. Naturally the two are sucking face by the very end (despite Wynden being engaged) .
Despite the concept being interesting on paper, it takes far too long for the film to get going. It's like the first twenty minutes of Cloverfield on steroids.
Lastly there is that one niggling factor that I mentioned earlier. The plot is fuelled by Alan Kaulder's stupidity.
Spoiler
He leaves his passport (that Wynden needed in order to get home via ferry) unattended with a local chick that he banged the previous night (leading to the theft of said passport), forcing both himself and Wynden to take an extremely risky trek through the Infected Zone (the enclosure infested by the monsters that covers approximately half of the U.S and Mexico).
There will be huge, galloping spoilers as I summarise what points of interest there were. Spoiler
- The opening of the movie is actually the ending. Wynden seems to be dead. Kaulder's fate is left ambigious.
- The monsters of the title are amphibious octopi with bio-luminescence. They seem to be completely impervious to bullets, but not airstrikes as one flaming corpse seen close to the end attests. I was hoping to see some other species, but alas it was not to be.
- The U.S. military has been deploying chemical weapons into the Infected Zone with no success.
- The aliens tend to plant their eggs on tree bark or other vegetation.
- Towards the end our intrepid "heroes" discover that the alien life forms have penetrated the North American side of the Infected Zone and are making their way further in-land.
There are scenes that actually feature the creatures in greater detail than grainy night-vision footage later on.
- Once when a submerged beast plays around with the wreckage of a fighter jet
- Another point when one of them attacks and kills the armed escort protecting Kaulder and Wynden
- At the climax when a alien octopus probes a gas station with its tentacles. It then proceeds to apparently mate with another creature that arrives. Rather than getting the hell out of there as this is happening, Kaulder and Wynden stare at this sight in slack-jawed awe as though this is somehow majestic. This is some-time after they've witnessed a massacre perpetrated by one of the entities.
There are some positive aspects, like the scenes of quiet devastation and background details (such as altered maps of the North American continent showing the size of the Infected Zone and murals depicting the military battling the creatures). There's also the fact that it was produced on a very low budget ($15,000) and every scene was filmed on location (with or without permission). Aside from that I'd say that this was a missed opportunity. I think the movie would have benefited from a faux-documentary approach. A similar approach to District 9, but with a pure focus on events from the past and the present (showing the gradual spread of the monsters and the opinions of various talking heads).
Thanks for the reviews. I think based on that I'll wait and watch it for cheap or free.
Mr. Harley: Your impatience is quite understandable.
Klaatu: I'm impatient with stupidity. My people have learned to live without it.
Mr. Harley: I'm afraid my people haven't. I'm very sorry... I wish it were otherwise.
"I do know that for the sympathy of one living being, I would make peace with all. I have love in me the likes of which you can scarcely imagine and rage the likes of which you would not believe.
If I cannot satisfy the one, I will indulge the other." – Frankenstein's Creature on the glacier[/size]
.