Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. Imagine, if you will, taking a recurring sketch from a weekly comedy show. For example, Lou and Andy from Little Britain. The sketch (pretty much any of them) is indeed funny in isolation, but it is formulaic. Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. And that's fine, because that's how comedy works. Now imagine taking the Lou and Andy sketch from each of the eighteen series-episodes of Little Britain and playing them in continuous succession. Establishment-setup-reveal-punchline. Rinse and repeat.
That's why I gave up on the novel of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. A quiet scene would be eloquently and painstakingly set up, following which the arrival of a flesh-hungry ghoul would cause a catastrophic breakdown in etiquette and decorum as we're shown that the elegant young heroines of the piece are actually trained and efficient zombie killers! Funny the first time, smirk-inducing the second. Still happening fifty pages in? Forget it.
The only reason I mention this is that I'd feared the cinematic adaptation would fall into the same trap (and logically, why wouldn't it?). After all, a novel which was written in all earnestness but which was received largely as a quirky oddity isn't necessarily going to translate well to the screen. There are already more than enough iffy zombie movies, and the ones which also employ humour in their arsenal are worse than most. So as it turns out, the "hahaa it's funny because they've got swords and they're cutting zombies heads off at a ball!" motif actually only accounts for the first thirty minutes or so of the film. Half an hour in which an actual story is desperately struggling to break through every cliché you're expecting from the film. Now obviously much of this comes from the fact that Pride and Prejudice is the primary source-material for the story, so the stilted, formalities of the original have to play a large part, and they have to be broken by the zombie-element. But it's still like watching the same sketch five times.
Then after a while, the forced juxtaposition of narrative styles relaxes and director Burr Steers is able to bring us something more like the film that the zombie-fans are wanting to see. While the primary undead-outbreak has already long-since occurred at the start of the film and is sketched in fairly loosely in an opening-title sequence, the main plot centres around a resurgence which threatens to over-run the surviving population of ninteenth-century England. Truth be told, even when the film actually gets going, the plot is still relatively loose, relying more on style and setpieces to do its work.
Thankfully, the whole thing is shored up with a very competent cast, headed marvellously by Lily James and Sam Riley as Elizabeth Bennett and Mr Darcy, respectively. Younger players fill most of the main roles, and the film employs Charles Dance and Lena Heady to stand at the back and bring a bit of dramatic gravity to proceedings (although thankfully with a minimum of scenery-chewing). I should also mention how much I enjoyed Matt Smith as Mr Collins the Parson. It seems odd that in a film which relies so much on comedy, he's the only performer who seems to be able to deliver it fully.
Fans of Jane Austen will see this as a parodic curiosity, and fans of George Romero will doubtless feel the same way. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is ultimately its own worst enemy, and can't break free of one genre to adequately serve the other.
The film becomes a lot of fun, but can't take its tongue out of its cheek long enough to convince the audience it has anything worth saying…
Maybe it's the nature of the original source material, but even the addition of the undead doesn't make this particularly cinematic, no.
Probably, but only just.
No, but it was never really meant to be.
Nope.
Not that I heard.
Level 2: P+P+Z stars that Charles Dance and that Lena Heady, both of whom appear in that Game of Thrones alongside that Gwendoline 'Phasma' Christie.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
You would think, wouldn't you, that comedic actors/writers/directors desperately reminding audiences of their cinematic relevance would attempt to resuscitate their former glories first, before making their full-on mid-life crisis movie. Not that it's any easier to watch the other way around. I suppose we should all start bracing ourselves now for There's Still Something About Mary…
Sure, that's a major snark to open with, but I feel this film deserves it. It's never awful*1, but it's never more than faintly amusing either. And for a Comedy™, that's just not enough. Zoolander 2 opens with the chase scene from the first trailer, in which a hooded figure is pursued by motorcycle-riding assassins through the streets of Rome before revealing himself to be none other than Justin Beiber, who is then gunned down and dies immediately after posting A Selfie™ to Instagram. The joke which takes 22 seconds is the trailer is dragged out for six minutes in the final movie, and gains nothing for it. Even though this is actually a first block in the wafer-thin story of the film, the pacing of the scene works far better in its shorter form, and anyone who's seen the trailer (statistically that's most of the audience, remember, otherwise the trailer has been utterly pointless) already knows the punchline. Plus, the scene ends with this glaring anomaly…
Yep, hair - check, hood - check. A completely different photo! Yay! There's a continuity error in the first gag!Yeah, of course that's intentional Ben. It's not even meant to matter, only the joke is stretched to the point where you can't help but notice. And it's this slapdash approach to self-indulgent circle-jerkery which epitomises Zoolander 2 perfectly, with its heavily telegraphed, drawn-out screenplay and a lengthy queue of celeb-cameos (from both the worlds of fashion and show-business) whose eagerness to appear on-camera is far, far ahead of their self-awareness.
Ben Stiller has made a fan-film of his own work and he'd like to charge you money to watch it.
Caution advised.
2001.
Only if you're a fan of mainstream studio-comedy who fell into a coma in 2002, has recently awoken and needs a gentle buffering into how the world has changed (or not).
…
They wish.
Actually, I probably won't.
There isn't.
Level 2: Zoolander 2 has the muddy paw-prints of Ben Stiller all over it, who appeared in last year's While We're Young alongside Adam 'Kylo Ren' Driver.
*1 Seriously, for all my moaning it's not awful. But it's boring.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
Well, what a glorious and fleeting time that was! The brief window when I could watch a Star Wars movie the way normal people do. After those first screenings which bombarded me with too much sensory and emotional stimuli to process clearly, and before the ones where I picked it apart to forge connections as best I could with the larger galaxy far, far away. So basically the third-to-fifth viewings, roughly. But this ninth-pass comes just over three weeks after the previous one, and while it's undeniably true that The Force Awakens is fast becoming my cinematic comfort-food, that break has been long enough to get genuinely buzzed again at the prospect of seeing a Star Wars film in the cinema. That shit will never get old.
+ + + + + + + + + +
Anyhow, Rebel spies have surreptitiously passed certain documents to WorldOfBlackout informing us of an alternate/extended scene which will be making its way to The Force Awakens as an optional branched-chapter in the upcoming DVD/BRD release.
While we were unable to secure a clip of the video itself, here is a transcript of the extended interrogation scene between Kylo Ren and Rey…
INT. STARKILLER BASE, DAY.
KYLO REN interrogates REY for information about the missing star-chart.
…at night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean.
I see it… I see the island-
You see the what, mate?
The island. The island that you-
What island? What are you talking about?
The island that you imagine-
Eh? Are you taking the piss? I've been living in the desert since I was four! I can barely remember what the sea looks like, never mind dreaming up islands to go in there!
But in your mind, you-
No! Seriously Ren, you don't mind if I call you Ren, do you? Seriously, earlier today was the first time I've seen a body of water in YEARS. I've usually got enough to make my magic-muffins and have a quick wash if I'm lucky. And don't even ask about toilet facilities. If you're pulling out images of an island from my brain, it's probably got more to do with Takodana, this morning.
REN sighs audibly.
…At night, desperate to sleep, you imagine-
STOP THAT! The only reason I'm imagining an ocean is because you're telling me to imagine an ocean! It's not exactly 'Derren Brown', is it? What's your next trick? "At night, you imagine a circus full of elephants. I see her… I see Nelly!". I've got no bloody idea what an elephant even IS, but now I'm imagining one, can you see THAT, Ren? CAN YOU?
…I'm trying to do my job, here?
Well we're all screwed then, aren't we? You're the one who couldn't locate an orange and white droid in a green woodland using a team of thirty Stormtroopers, so decided to adduct the girl instead! You can't even pull accurate picture-postcards from my mind without sketching in half of them yourself, and you're hoping to learn the intricate details of a holo-map of an area I've never seen before, which was only switched on for less than a minute and which I wasn't even looking at properly? Well, good luck with that. And besides, if you've been able to piece together 'the rest of the map', surely you should know where to start looking for Luke, shouldn't you?
Well, I suppose we-
I mean yeah, obviously there's still a big area to cover, but if you know he's hiding somewhere on page 50 of a road-atlas, then someone of your standing should be able to stand at the edge of page 49 and have a good sniff, right?
Well, yes, I'm-
You're clearly the most Force-sensitive person around these parts (for now, and just you remember that), yet here you are banging on about an island neither of us have ever seen??
I'm beginning to wish I hadn't brought that up, yes…
Look, why don't you go back to Señor Smoke or whatever his name is, and tell him-
One, it's Snoke, and two, yes I think I'll go and have my break now. I'll be honest, I was hoping a suitable punchline would have presented itself by this point, but that doesn't seem to be happening. So instead, I'm just going to leave you restrained in this cell under the supervision of a single, slightly inept guard. A bit like in a James Bond film.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• Yen's blog contains harsh language and even harsher notions of propriety. Reader discretion is advised.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organisations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
…at night, desperate to sleep, you imagine an ocean.
You see the what, mate?
