magenpie

Who let *this* dog out?

"Things are getting strange, I'm starting to worry, this could be a case for Mulder and Scully"... er, well, no, not really. The Man-and-Woman in Black would be falling about at the inanity of it all. Just what is this film about? It's not entertainment, that's for sure. Seems like it's just a simple-minded exercising of the power of modern computer graphics. And cynical money-making. "Men in Black did really well." "Yeah, and I've got this great new software." "Ok then, looks like we got ourselves another train full of gravy!"

The first fifteen minutes give it away, really. There's barely an original thought on show; instead we get images and ideas ripped off from Lexx, Buffy, Mission: Impossible, The X-Files, Doctor Who, Buffy again, ... and those were the just ones I noticed - not being a great sci-fi or action movie buff, who knows what others I missed?

The acting (if I dare call it that) seems to have been inspired by watching too many cardboard cut-outs standing outside small shops advertising this week's special offer. To call it two-dimensional would be an insult to Flatlanders. Will Smith coasts through apparently thinking "Hey, you saw me in Men in Black and you liked what you saw; just try to remember the good times we had back then"; Tommy Lee Jones seems to have decided that simply looking confused most of the time will do; Rosario Dawson pouts beautifully but with her physiognomy that really isn't a struggle. Various hangers-on come on strong like cast-offs from Star Trek - hey guys, just because you're in a stupid costume and we can't see your face (or in one unfortunate case we can see your face twice) doesn't mean you can get away with simply lumbering from A to B and lunging wildly when you get there. Rip Torn obviously said something unpleasant to someone in the make-up department, for why else would he be half-submerged behind that ridiculous face-fungus? Finally (in the humanoid department) Lara Flynn Boyle as the naughty alien chasing its particular Holy Grail and blowing up/slicing in two/eating anyone in its way is neither nasty, cunning or funny enough.

As for the non-humanoids... hey, a talking dog, with att-i-tuuuude, now *that's* a sure-fire winner. Hmmm, how can I put this? *Oh* *no* *it's* *not!* This one's not clever, it's not original, it's not funny. Especially when it serves absolutely no plot purpose whatsoever. The same goes for those stupid wormy things. Whatever happened to respect for the audience's intelligence?

Normally I rate films out of 10 but this one doesn't deserve the extra neuron-firing. Alas, if the viewing I went to is anything to go by, it's going to make more than enough money to lure the producers into making a third installment. May I plead with the aliens already living their undercover lives on our humble planet: please, take over Hollywood before it's too late!

If we could see ourselves coming out from watching films like this, would we ever go to watch them in the first place? And what would happen to the film industry then?

There are interesting philosophical and moral paradoxes arising from using a prediction of the future to change that future, but given the average audience's intelligence and attention span, it was probably wise (if disappointing for some of us) of Spielberg to steer clear of them and instead present yet another rather tedious variation on the theme of "the system's not the problem, the people running it are". (Hollywood loves to do this comfort-food-for-the-soul stuff: if things aren't going your way, it's not tough, it's not because that's the way things are, it's because somebody out there doesn't like you and there *is* something you can do about it. (Well, usually; sometimes it tries its luck with "the system is the problem, try to smash the system, oh dear you can't, that's tough", as for example in "Falling Down" which worked so well you wonder why it doesn't try it more often.))

So once again we are led down the familiar twisty-turny route where the good guy is the bad guy only he's not really because he's trying to find the real bad guy and the bad guy isn't really bad he's just doing what the other bad guy told him to and the guy in the middle is just your average Joe with good and bad bits but then I suppose that's true too of the good guy and the bad guy... in the end your head spins at the casual unpredictability of just about anyone with any independence left in them. (Well, any *man*: the Madonna Syndrome is positively *flourishing* here. (No, not *that* Madonna!))

Fighting to keep on the path of Controlled Narrative Unravelment is that Everyman-wannabe Tom Cruise. Since we're in Philip K. Dick territory, the inevitable comparison with Harrison Ford in "Blade Runner" only serves to show how implausible Cruise is as the flawed cop fighting to solve the mystery of the apparently equally flawed system. He has neither the gravitas to carry the righteousness nor the rough edges to carry the imperfections (even with those slightly crooked teeth, which even as I write he's having straightened - more's the pity), whereas Ford had both in bucketloads. Cruise in ten years' time? That could be a different story.

So, an unoriginal plot (and one with more holes in than a pair of fishnet stockings) and a poorly chosen central cast member. Any redeeming features? The special effects are certainly impressive (and so they should be judging by the credits: screenful after screenful of hard-pressed behind-the-scenes mouse wranglers, with the not inconsiderable list of actors tacked on at the end): if you're fond of spiders, you'll love the sleek cuties here; if not, you may never feel safe in the bath again! As for messy organ transplants... yuk, 'nuff said. Meanwhile the prosthetics people had fun with a face mask that could have been a recycled reject from "The Elephant Man". Did they really mean to make Cruise turn briefly into a cross between Leonard Nimoy and Leonard Rossiter? I don't think so, but it gave me and my companion some light relief.

Neither as thought-provoking as "A.I." nor as much fun as "Mission: Impossible". I have seen the future, and it doesn't involve my watching this film again. 5/10.

Sometimes the hardest things are so simple. A lost child is surely irreplaceable, isn't it? Well, that depends on how unconventional you're prepared to be. And if you've got no money but you're left looking after your sugar mommy's house, how to make ends meet? Depends how good a con artist you are. And if your mother presents you with a horribly unwanted gift which you can't return without getting you or her into deep, deep trouble? Maybe it will grow on you. Point of view is everything.

Three people with three problems. But that's just scratching the surface. Mothers, daughters, lovers, husbands, doctors, policemen, smugglers: all of life is here.

Adapted from Ruth Rendell's book "The Tree Of Hands", this French film presents lives less as part of a tree and more as a spider's web. A little tug here leaves a permanent distortion over there and a gap on the far side. Rarely can cinema have produced such a dramatic, amusing yet tense demonstration of the old saw "No man is an island" (though since most of the central protagonists here are female, the well-meaning but philologically-challenged PC lobby might wish for a slight re-phrasing).

With all these "Other Stories" around, there are two obvious potential pitfalls. Switch from story to story too quickly and you just confuse your audience; do it too slowly and they might fail to see the connections. Fortunately this film strikes the perfect balance; admittedly it does this by sacrificing a certain depth of character in some cases, but this simply leaves us wishing this were merely the first installment of a trilogy, or rather, chronologically speaking, the second. It would be interesting to find out how these characters got to where they are now, and, given the way that their actions have such dramatic effects on each others' lives, equally interesting to see how that spider's web changes shape in the future. Given that Betty Fisher herself ends the film about to start a completely new life, anything could happen. 8/10.