Review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe

*¹



The Autopsy of Jane Doe (spoilers in the footnotes)
Cert: 15 / 85 mins / Dir. André Øvredal / Trailer



A quick heads-up before we get started here, I've said this before on several occasions but it feels like I'm now past Horror™ as a genre. Not so much that I've 'grown out of it', but certainly that most of the mainstream fare I see nowadays just reminds me in some way of the utter trash I used to enjoy as a teenager. Almost like I've inadvertently spoiled it for myself. Logically unfeasible antagonists and telegraphed jump-scares no longer hold my interest, because if a film has to 'tell' you to feel scared, that's the horror equivalent of casting Kevin Hart in a comedy. But I'm always willing (time permitting) to give a movie a whirl on recommendation from friends whose opinion I trust. Anyway, I think you know why I've brought all this up first...

The Autopsy of Jane Doe follows the father-and-son pathologist team of Tommy and Austen Tilden, working in a small U.S. county mortuary and crematorium. When the body of a young woman is unearthed from a murder scene and brought in by the police one evening, the Tildens work late to try and identify a cause of death, even though there are no external signs of trauma or decomposition. As the post-mortem progresses it becomes increasingly irregular, as do the occurrences in the mortuary itself...

I've said this before as well: it all comes down to the writing. What begins seeming like an unassuming also-ran horror flick slowly turns into... an unassuming also-ran horror flick. That a pair of 'meat-detectives' would stumble across evidence of supernatural secrets as part of their work is a fair idea for a movie, but most of Autopsy… plays out like a greatest-hits reel of the genre's most over-used tropes. From the flickering lights and power-cuts, to the gathering storm outside and eerily juxtaposed songs playing unbidden on the radio*², this is a well-trodden path to be walking down. The scalpel-happy pair even helpfully write their clues on a blackboard throughout the film, just to assist with the callbacks.

Things are just about saved by solid performances*³ from Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch as the central duo, not to mention Olwen Kelly as the eponymous Jane (albeit without saying a single word). But they're struggling with a script which is as unwieldy as their business's clients, so maybe Olwen's got the better end of the bargain, here.

Writers Ian Goldberg and Richard Naing don't appear to have any significant genre-work in their CVs, so maybe this is just an early stumble until they find their feet. I hope so, because there's definitely potential here for a smarter film. At only 86 minutes it's by no means lengthy, so fair play to them for waiting until the 45-mark before the shit really hits the fan*⁴. Unfortunately, that's also when things become completely mechanical (the 'smoke' scene in particular feels like it was filmed in post-production after the budget had ran out).

None of The Autopsy Of Jane Doe is badly done per se, I just feel like I've seen it all before. Probably during the late 1980s when I'd be hanging around Ritz Video's horror-section.

This cast, this cinematographer, this director. But with a better screenplay, please…

You can tell it wants to be a modern-day The VVitch, but it's Oculus at best (and even that's far better).



Best to use your streaming service of choice; there's not much in here for repeat viewings unless you're a makeup-effects artist.



For me, no.



No.



No.



No.



Level 2: This film's got that Brian Cox in it, and he was in 1971's Nicholas and Alexandra along with Julian 'Veers' Glover.





*¹ Because I can't really complain about my local cinema not showing enough new movies and complain that I never have time to watch stuff at home, now can I? ^{[ BACK ]}

*² Why would a witch from the 17th century be fixated on a song from 1954? Really, mate... ^{[ BACK ]}

*³ Although the sight of Emile Hirsch kneeling over a body and sobbing "No-o-o-o!" brought back the one scene in Star Wars that even I can't stand… ^{[ BACK ]}

*⁴ Hang on a minute, Tommy Tilden needs to put on his glasses to read a reference book but not to dissect a body? He's meant to be looking for minute clues in the cause-of-death, here. Small-stuff. And what the fuck's he doing waving a scalpel around? I know it's not like he's going to unnecessarily injure his subjects, but I'm surprised Tommy's still got all his fingers… ^{[ BACK ]}


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.

Review: Morgan

Morgan (thematic spoilers)
Cert: 15 / 92 mins / Dir. Luke Scott / Trailer



Before the film has even begun properly, there's the feeling that Ridley Scott's company-name could be on the production credits for Morgan largely because his son, Luke, has directed it*¹. And there's the additional feeling that names such as Paul Giamatti, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Toby Jones, Michelle Yeoh and Brian Cox are in the cast credits largely because of Ridley's aforementioned attachment. These feelings do not desist throughout Morgan's 92 minute run-time...

When a top-secret tech-project to genetically engineer a new breed of enhanced human (Morgan, Anya Taylor-Joy) begins to go violently awry, the funding-body despatch a risk-analyst (Lee Weathers, Kate Mara) to survey the situation and report on its continued viability. When Lee finds her ice-cool reputation has preceded her and the core team have become emotionally attached to their test-subject, matters begin to escalate, irreversibly...

And as you may have gathered, the film is one-part Silence Of The Lambs, two-parts Blade Runner and about ten-parts Species*². Visually, the shadow of Prometheus hangs over the whole film's lush green landscapes and desaturated performers. In fact, with characters as archetypal as the ones in this film, I spent more time picking out thematic references to other movies than I did wondering what was going to happen next. I'd like to say that there's a better movie to be made here, but the main thing holding it back is its own story, so I'm not sure that's the case.

In front of the cameras, Anya Taylor-Joy is great (although she always is), but Kate Mara never quite seems to gel with her role, and while that could be deliberate in this film*³, I don't think she's found her ideal role yet (because Fantastic Four certainly wasn't it, although that also wasn't anyone else's, either). Rose Leslie puts in a good supporting turn as the behavioural researcher who shares the strongest emotional bond with Morgan, but there's not really anywhere for her to go with it. The secondary cast are reliable enough, but you get the impression that those bigger names have been called in for a morning-or-two's filming (Cox especially), as the story tends to narratively compartmentalise anyone who's not Morgan or Lee.

Despite being a not-unpleasant distraction from bonafide remakes and sequels, Morgan is never going to be more than a straight-to-video sci-fi/psych-thriller with nice cinematography and an interesting cast-list (cf Solace). The film's not going to win any awards or further the career of any front-of-house stars, because it has only one card to play, namely "Silly scientists meddle with things they don't understand; poetically-licenced carnage ensues", which is a trope as old as cinema itself.

Just ask Ridley Scott…

Any of those sci-fi films where someone makes a thing and instantly loses control of the thing having never had control over the thing to begin with.



Not particularly.



Not particularly.



Cast; no.
Director; I hope not.



Probably not.



There isn't.



Level 1: This film stars Jonathan 'Jebel' Aris.
That link will have more relevance after Rogue One comes out...




*¹ And sure, nepotism's a cheap call, I know. But at the same time, when the producer of your science-fiction thriller is not only the director of Aliens and Blade Runner but also your dad, it's a call you've got to be ready for.
'Scott Free' did not pick up this film because it's a ground-breaking piece of cinema.

*² While it might seem lazy to just compare Morgan to a bunch of other movies, rest assured that it feels worse when you realise that's what screenwriter Seth Owen has done, too.

*³ It's also worth mentioning that the film's Trump Card™, when it's finally played, has been so solidly telegraphed for the last hour and a quarter that it's surprising no-one. And it hasn't been telegraphed by the screenplay, but by Kate Mara's interpretation of it. Brian Cox (the actor, not the physicist) sits filming a revelatory coda in a separate set thinking he's b!owing the audience's minds, when they're actually just nodding along in agreement...



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.

Review: Pixels

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Pixels (2015 film)

Pixels is a 2015 American comedy film ^{[citation needed]} produced by Columbia Picures and Happy Madison Productions, based on a 1982 video game in which the players control Adam Sandler and Kevin James, urinating over the smouldering ashes of a generation's charred memories of adolescent fun.

The film is directed ^{[citation needed]} by Chris Columbus, rated 12A in the UK, runs for 106 excruciating minutes and holds an overall score of 18% on review-aggregator site Rotten Tomatoes.
It is a longer, much more painful version of its trailer.

. Contents
. 1 Plot
. 2 Cast
. 3 Scripting
. 4 Effects
. 5 Critical Response
. 6 Summary

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Plot
A sort of shoddily re-hashed Ghostbusters, filtered through Wreck-It Ralph, but with the wit, warmth or inventiveness of neither. After NASA send a video-cassette of gameplay footage into the solar system in 1982, a race of aliens misunderstands the… y'know, what? Fuck it. That's already more effort than the film makes to explain itself.

Evil pixel-y things fall from sky!
Adam Sandler must save world whilst hitting on MILF!
That's about it.
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Cast
• Adam Sandler as a charmless, underachieving man-child in a dead-end 'cable guy' job who's chosen to save the world because he's special, see? (and is friends with the US President) Like all the best ^{[citation needed]} Adam Sandler characters, he doesn't have to change one single iota throughout the entire screenplay, as acceptance by his superiors, the admiration of his peers and the awe of humanity's enemies is all handed directly to him in return for no effort. Most importantly, for a champion video-game player, Sandler himself is never seen actually playing any video games. Not once.

• Kevin James as Adam Sandler's best friend who has inexplicably (ie, it's not explained) been elected US President. At first I thought this could be a subtle play on Bill Gates' 'be nice to geeks' quip, but since his character is demonstrably thick as pigshit and every bit as charming, it hardly underlines the point.

• Josh Gad, who's mostly there because Adam and Kevin are. He plays a geek and conspiracy theorist who is a closeted gay when it suits the script for cheap laughs, but is mostly enamoured by a fictional female game character (Ashley Benson) whose incarnation as an actress is markedly less lifelike than her 8-bit pixelated form.

• Michelle Monaghan as Lieutenant Colonel Van Patten of the US Military who is also a single-mother, but who is still reduced to being The Girl One™ on account of this being an Adam Sandler film.

• Peter Dinklage struts around the film as a cocky, self-absorbed video-game champion with no redeemable qualities until the third-act reveal that he cheated in the Finals, after which he struts around as a cocky, slightly contrite video-game ex-chamption with no redeemable qualities. Dinklage can do comedy, he just doesn't do it here.

• Brian Cox as another X-Men alumnus mistakenly believing that Pixels would be a good way to show that old guys can have fun, too! Plays a constantly angry Army-major stereotype who's so crudely pencilled into the script he's more of a monotype.

• Sean Bean as a Professional Yorkshireman, again, whose role as a British Army major is to unconvincingly yet unquestioningly spout a script full of Americanisms.
The entertainment industry's search for Bean's self-awareness continues.
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Scripting
Sandler clumsily ad-libs his way around a script which took longer to read back than it did to write, whilst the other performers recite their lines with a a combination of disbelief and world-weary acceptance.
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Effects
All things considered, the CGI interpretations of 1980s video-game classics are relatively good. Still not outstanding, but certainly more accomplished than anything else in the film. The 3D presentation is thoroughly under-used, given the film's penchant for having digital creatures flying around the screen at frequent intervals.
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Critical Response
Movie-blog World Of Blackout scored the film 1 out of 7, the site's lowest rating, stating "Pixels is a towering monument to lazy and inept screenwriting and performance; the living embodiment of everything that's wrong with focus-grouped, Hot Topic nostalgia. It's the Hollywood studio-system's equivalent of Peter Kay asking you if you remember Pac-Man for two hours, by the end of which you'll wish you didn't."
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Summary

The film Pixels comprises of an attack on Earth by extra-terrestrials who learned about human civilisation from a VHS cassette launched into space in 1982. The film doesn't go so far as explaining why the alien forces then go on to make references to both Paperboy and Max Headroom, both of which were developed in 1984.

If a film about popular culture can't even get its own references right, why should an audience bother?

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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.