BRIGHT (2017)

Although Netflix has been a destination point for quality television for a number of years now, their feature film production arm has not exactly been top notch. There are number of Netflix produced feature films that you can see on the service but I'll just mention the two action movies that I'm aware of as 'Netflix films' and focus specifically on their big holiday release of BRIGHT.

Many months ago I watched their production SPECTRAL (2016) and observed at the time that it was a rolling disaster filled with obvious post production work to attempt to bring the film into some kind of serviceable form. That ultimately failed and created a movie that starts out interesting and then bumbles and trips its way straight into abject pointless stupidity and disaster. Proving that there seems to be some glitch with spotting script problems and/or just well-produced and thought out ideas for stories, we come now to BRIGHT (2017).

Netflix has certainly spent the money to make this a good movie. They signed on a star in Will Smith, an excellent group of character actors to fill out the cast, a director who has made at least one very good film and a production team that surely knows how to put together a good-looking product. The weak link in this entire affair is definitely Max Landis' weak-ass script. When my girlfriend read the description of BRIGHT she quickly gleaned something that I should have thought of myself when she compared it immediately to the 1988 film ALIEN NATION. Indeed, as soon as she said that, it was clear to me that BRIGHT is little more than a slightly more convoluted, slightly more expensive and definitely more poorly scripted version of ALIEN NATION. In the 1988 film refugee aliens land on Earth and years later are still trying to assimilate into human society. One of these aliens has now become the first cop on the LAPD and is partnered with an older police officer who doesn't want the assignment. On a call they discover a crime that is much bigger than they can handle alone but also learn that they may not be able to trust their superiors on the force. BRIGHT uses that template but makes a huge world-building mistake.

In this film orcs, elves, fairies, trolls and all sorts of other fantasy creatures are real and have co-existed with humanity for centuries if not forever. But, the modern day Earth of the film is just our world with a couple of thin layers of fantasy details laid over the top. We are shown anti-orc graffiti to delineate that group as the most discriminated against in this society with obvious criminal gangs and heavily segregated neighborhoods making their lower status clear. And then we see that the highest level of this world is occupied by elves who seem to run everything they wish to, along with their well paid human sycophants. Herein lies the fail - if this world has existed with all these races co-mingling for centuries why does it so closely resemble our Earth of 2017? If magic is real why has technology advanced to the level it has in this reality? We're given a few casual lines about the past of this world but never anything to indicate how and why things are as they are. Even the occasional line referencing real historical events such as the Alamo create more questions than they settle. We're not even given a real motivation for the villains' actions beyond just reacquiring a lost magic wand. The story needed at LOT more background information to establish a place that felt like something more than a tossed off idea. This script needed more eyes on it to fix it's inherent thinness.

It doesn't help that the script's dialog is pretty weak as well, substituting profanity for emotion and bad jokes for character devolvement. Will Smith does his best with the material as does the always interesting Joel Edgerton as his orc cop partner but they can't save the poorly constructed narrative. Also, I think Smith may have pulled the chain on his MEN IN BLACK character one too many times now and it might be time to retire it completely. The director handles the action scenes well and actually generates some tension and suspense once things get moving but that and the excellent cinematography are the only consistently well done elements in this thing.

If you're curious, check it out but go in with lowered expectations and hope that NetFlix starts finding better scripts for their big action epics - and soon! 

DARKMAN II: THE RETURN OF DURANT (1995) and DARKMAN III: DIE, DARKMAN, DIE (1996)

Because the great podcast Cinema Psyops recently covered all three DARKMAN films I decided to revisit the direct to video sequels. I certainly hadn't seen them in over twenty years and was looking forward to peeking back to this little superhero cul-de-sac to see if the films held up as anything more than wastes of time. Knowing that that have been no attempts to do more with the franchise in over two decades I expected to find both films to be disappointing. And, of course, knowing that they were cheaply made and only released to video dialed down my expectations as well. Luckily, I found the films to be very entertaining. Neither of them are classics of the genre and they certainly don't measure up to the nasty but fun original but, for what the are, they are solid little films.

The first of these sequels is the better of the two even if it requires the viewer to believe the impossibility that somehow Robert Durant survived the helicopter explosion of the first film. I'm willing to go along with this bit of silliness because it allows the excellent Larry Drake to return in the role and chew scenery like a mad dog. If the movie had been nothing but Drake disciplining his henchmen and making evil plans for 90 minutes I would have had just as much fun. It really is a joy to watch him sling his large vocabulary and perfect diction around as if words were weapons capable of severing fingers and crushing obstacles. Happily the film also offers up a lot of well done action and enough explosions to make Michael Bay smile. Even the switching of lead performer from Liam Neeson to Arnold Vosloo is handled well and Vosloo does a good job of owning the role of crime fighting mad scientist. 

The third film is less fun but still well done. The villain is played well by Jeff Fahey and, although he is good, the character has much less panache than Durant and therefore is less interesting. With this film it was clear that they were setting up a structure for the series if it were to continue. Darkman would continue to hunt for a way to permanently repair his damaged face and hands, be thwarted by criminal scum and then be forced to destroy said scum by either his incredible rage or in order to save innocent people. Much more has been made from much less. Our hero now has a cool underground lair accessible by converted rail-car in which he conducts his experiments to create artificial skin. To fund his work he ventures out at night, slaps criminals around and steals their money which strikes me as the perfect modus operandi for a vigilante superhero.

Although the first film remains easily the best of this trilogy I was glad to see that the entire series is pretty good stuff. I suppose the rentals on these two DTV films weren't good enough to make Universal finance more and that's a shame. I could have happily watched another six of these movies over the next five years but it seems that Darkman is fated to be one of those forgotten franchises. 

Maybe I should look into the comic books that were produced with the character? 

RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (2007)

File this under 'Sequels Nobody Wanted'.

I recently watched for the first time RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (2007) which begs several questions. One - what is that? Two - why? Three- huh?

RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (2007) is the direct-to-video sequel to the Dark Castle remake of the William Castle/Vincent Price funhouse classic HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL (1959). Why did a remake garner a sequel when the superior original never did? That’s a question I can’t answer but I can explain why I watched this sucker. First- I actually enjoyed the 1999 remake and have watched it several times since its theatrical run. It has been about ten years since I last saw it so maybe it’s time for a rewatch but my memories are of a fun romp with a game cast, plenty of scares and some nice creepy atmosphere. It also has some dodgy CGI effects but no film is perfect and they never bothered me. They might on a rewatch, though. Hum'

Anyway- I have wanted to see this sequel since it debuted because of my general curiosity about most horror movies but this one also had a neat gimmick. The Blu-Ray was supposed to give you the option of playing a kind of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ style way of viewing the film. This was touted at the time of its release but I had no desire to pay money for what would probably be a crappy film just to experience this possibly crappy game-like extra. I was able to get the Blu for nothing (seriously- nothing at all) and I have now watched the film once as a normal film to see how it is supposed to play out. I plan to soon sit down and try to do the experimental Choose My Own Adventure thing soon but I had to let readers know about this one thing that surprised me.

One of my favorite actors from one of my favorite cult British science fiction TV shows stars in RETURN TO HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL! The fellow in question is Steven Pacey who played Tarrant on the last two season/series of Blake’s 7.  I couldn’t recognize him in the professor role here but I knew I had seen him someplace before and it was driving me crazy until I resorted to an IMDb search. How cool! He’s a pretty good actor and in this film he covers his accent very well so I doubt I would have ever figured it out with the inter-tubes help. I now think I should look up the other cool actors from that classic show to see if I have missed them in movies I have already seen. Strange.

Oh- the film is not good. It’s not bad either, managing to fall in that sad mid-range that means it is not going to be very memorable. It was an OK movie that at least knew to keep the pace fast to hide the lack of logical reasons for the people to be crawling around the haunted old madhouse. It also doesn’t overstay its welcome with a short running time. Hell- the credits start at about the seventy-five minute mark so that is a plus.

Now I just need to mess with that strange viewing option….

Brief Thoughts- SUBSPECIES (1991)

I decided to rewatch SUBSPECIES the other night out of curiosity. I first saw it over 15 years ago and my memories were that it was nothing special which would account for me having never watched any of the sequels. 

My return visit ended up reaffirming my initial impression of the film being OK - nothing too terrible and nothing too great. It's a middle of the road relic of the great direct-to-video period of the late 1980's and early 1990's. The film has some good location shooting, a pretty good idea, a C grade script and some C- level acting from most of the cast. The worst element of the movie is easily the D grade stop-motion animated little demons that the villain Radu creates in a nonsensical fashion at the beginning of the film. The animation is terrible, the creatures are poorly added to the live action shots and the fact that no one ever speaks about them EVER makes me think the filmmakers were hedging their bets and leaving open the possibility that they would be dropped from the movie entirely. If they had been eliminated I might like the film a bit more than I do but I doubt it would rate higher than a 5 out of 10 no matter what. 

I've been informed that the sequel is considered slightly better so I might have to see that sooner rather than later.