Crawl (SPOILERS)
Cert: 15 / 87 mins / Dir. Alexandre Aja / Trailer
Okay, let's keep this brief. Crawl isn't very good. There. I said it. And it's not 'just fun' because movies aren't fun when you're wishing all the characters could just die sooner so that it would be over. And technically it could be over at any point you choose, of course, but we'll come to that widely-taken option later. In the meanwhile…
We open in Florida USA with Haley (Kaya Scodelario), a university student and competition-swimmer. After a phone conversation with her sister, Haley decides to attempt to contact her semi-estranged father and swimming coach Dave (Barry Pepper - he's not a real pepper) as a hurricane is moving in and neither have heard from him in some time. Arriving at Dave's house (after evading two Highway Patrol Officers, for whom she is solely and directly responsible for the later deaths of) she finds his dog, Sugar, but no other signs of life. Eventually Haley traces her errant father to their old family home, now borderline derelict after a family split years earlier.
Dave is in the cellar, trapped and injured, as floodwaters have attracted the residents of a nearby alligator-farm, and they're suddenly quite protective of their new gaff. But the rain pours heavily outside and time is running out for Haley and Dave to escape. Will award-winning swimmer Haley be up to the challenge of out-manoeuvring a predator that's had millions of years to evolve its talent? And also the dog is up in the living room! Oh no, the dog! Hashtag danger!
DOG First things first, you know for a fact that this movie won't kill the dog. Because if it was the kind of movie that would kill the dog, then it would have killed the dog in the first fifteen minutes just to establish that no-one was safe. And I don't want the dog to die, but it's an indicator of exactly what the movie is. And of course Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper (he's not a real pepper, remember) aren't going to die early on since they're the only cast members contracted to have more than three lines of dialogue before getting eaten by a CGI alligator - there's basically no movie without them. So what we're left with is a desaturated colour palette, jump-scares and shrieking in a manky old cellar. This is basically a Conjuring movie with 'gators instead of ghouls. Which perhaps explains why I lost patience with it so quickly.
The first act is so packed to the rafters with hackneyed backstory and exposition (all sports-coach parents are inherently terrible and should be left for whatever's crawling around in the basement) that it's no surprise the only way to go was down once the rains kicked in. There's a vague suggestion later that the whole thing could be a clumsy metaphor for generational angst and self-reflection on failure, as if Crawl has the cojones to think it could be placed on the same shelf as The Shallows. If only it had that much to say. You'd think that after Pirates Of The Caribbean 5, Scodelario would have approached a film where she spends a considerable percentage submerged in water with a little more caution. Kaya is a capable and promising performer, but even she can't save this dull scream-fest.
SMALL As the flood-level rises, so does the detail-free murkiness*1, and every 'oh no I'm back in the water!!' is more tedious than the last. There's something quite retrograde about watching half-arsed characters splashing around an enclosed area, fleeing from animated creatures like there's supposed to be some layer of irony which got forgotten in post-production. The film was never going to be a layered masterpiece, but it certainly shouldn't have been this boring - that most unforgivable of cinematic sins. Although this was made worse by the fact that I also started becoming angry at how bored I was getting*2.
There's a scattering of quite nasty effects shots if that's your thing, but with a cast this small they have to be used sparingly if the film is going to last its gruelling 87 minutes. Why does Crawl exist? What purpose does it serve in 2019? This cost actual money to make, right? What does this bring to the schedules right now and what will it leave for its genre in the years to come, other than an also-ran shelf warmer? Who is supposed to enjoy a film that's been punched out of a template so well-worn that all of its edges are smoothed away? Who is this for that doesn't already buy their new movies from the £3 shelf in Asda? How is Crawl advancing anything? And if it's not, isn't that a slap in the face to all the filmmakers with imaginative, intelligent projects they can't get made because this shite is clogging up the screens?
The only thing missing from this turgid, self-indulgent mess is a good ol'fashioned Stars'n'Stripes waving defiantly from the roof of the house as the rescue helicopter finally wobbles into view. Because obviously they all fucking survive. It's that sort of movie*3.
Sample dialogue: "We are going to beat those pea-brained lizard shits." Well, quite…
You may as well watch it in a cinema if at all, because a film this dark and murky will be impossible to see in your living room unless you've got blackout-curtains...
Absolutely not.
Nope.
Yep.
Nope.
Level 2: Kaya Scodelario and Barry Pepper are in this (and he's not a real pepper, remember), and they were in those Maze Runner movies with Thomas 'Petty Officer Thanisson' Brodie-Sangster.
I do not award this score lightly, I assure you.
*1 She is literally scrabbling around in excrement at one point. I ask you. [ BACK ]
*2 Now not for nothing, Crawl was a secret-screening. By which I mean that none of the audience knew what the movie would be until the BBFC card came up after the trailers. And it was a busy screen tonight (in fact, where the fuck were these cowards when Beats was playing?). So. As the title was revealed to the audience, a handful of people stood up and left. No doubt they'd seen the trailer and knew this wouldn't be for them. The ticket price was covered by their Unlimited cards, so no harm done other than a wasted journey out of the house. Over the course of the next twenty minutes or so, more people left when it became apparent what the film was going to be, and they then knew this wouldn't be for them. Then over the course of the next twenty-five minutes or so, more people left when it became apparent that the movie wasn't suddenly 'going to get good'. Although because of a shameful mass-reaction to another recent mystery screening, I now make a point of counting how many walk-outs there are. Forty people walked out of Crawl. Forty. Four-Zero. And that was just in my screen, I know my local had put on an extra showing, too. And the longer the gap between the BBFC card and that dissatisfied trudge to the front, the more damning an indictment each one was. Fuck it, I only stayed out of morbid curiosity and because I wouldn't be able to write about the movie if I didn't pay it the courtesy of watching the whole thing. [ BACK ]
*3 So as Haley drives to her dad's place, there's a conspicuously signposted Alligator Farm™ (Because Florida) on the opposite side of the road. Fair enough, plot-point, foreshadowing, I get that. But later on (after realising there's more than one creature down there with her), Haley goes to the far end of the basement and discovers a clutch of alligator eggs, some of which have hatched. By this point, it's been raining less than six hours. So are we to believe that in that time, the 'gators have a) escaped the farm, b) set up shop in Barry Pepper's cosy cellar-bar (and he's not a real pepper, remember), c) laid some eggs and d) hatched some eggs? Because some people reckon those take around 65 days to incubate rather than… say… six hours. I get that there could just be alligators in the basement anyway Because Florida, in which case why leave the implication that the flooding will cause them to get out of the Alligator Farm™? If they're everywhere you look, then what was the point of that? Anyway, this movie was directed by the helmsman of Piranha 3D and written by Michael and Shawn Rasmussen, whose IMDB credits feel entirely in-keeping with all of this. [ 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.
And so, after the production team played on through injury-time*1 to accommodate its star's recovery after a filming accident, the third Maze Runner movie finally lands on our shores in an attempt to cheer me up before the end of the month. And for the very most-part, it's succeeded.
Following on from The Scorch Trials, The Death Cure sees Thomas (Dylan O'Brien), Newt (Thomas Brodie-Sangster) and the gang trying to break into WKD headquarters, to rescue their captured friend Minho (Ki Hong Lee). Naturally the corporation's enigmatic head, Ava (Patricia Clarkson) and her heel-snapping henchman Janson (Aidan Gillen) have other ideas. Things will get messy.
Much like its predecessors, this is bloody good fun. Far above what the Young-Adult-Adventure™ format usually throws our way, thanks to a fantastic cast and a screenplay which doesn't patronise either them, their characters or the audience. It's very much a dystopian Hollywood action/thriller, of course, but there's still the feeling that (in the appropriate places) The Death Cure is a better zombie movie than most zombie movies (although it doesn't have that raw edge of The Scorch Trials). The plot shifts a back toward the 'chosen one' model for the story's conclusion, but doesn't neglect the supporting characters in doing so, and this particular installment gets very smashy-crashy in its third act (which, true to Hollywood tradition is far too long), putting slightly more emphasis on All Of The Death™ than All Of The Cure™. Additionally, the final couple of scenes are very on the nose and the film could have ended quite well without them.
But minor quibbles don't detract from a satisfying close to a pleasantly surprising trilogy; one which will have slipped under the radar of many casual film watchers by means of its YA marketing-push. The Maze Runner series may not have changed the world, but it's punching well above its weight in a crowded ring*2….
Rather than run through a list of lesser-faring teen dramas, I'll just restrict it to the first two Maze Runner movies. Because if you haven't watched those then The Death Cure will make absolutely no sense.
If you've seen the previous chapters and enjoyed them, absolutely.
Unless you're completing the trilogy for your shelf, you should get away with a rental.
Well I'm knocking a point off for every scene featuring Aidan Gillen where he can't remember what accent his character's supposed to have. It's as if he doesn't have significant previous with this, and allowing it here (again) indicates sloppy direction.
I shouldn't imagine so.
There is, and it's textbook.
Level 1: Petty Officer Thanisson is in this, finally getting to run around polished corridors with an assault rifle.
*1 …is this how sport analogies work? I have no idea. As you've probably gathered. [ BACK ]
*2 See? I use a simple, well-worn boxing metaphor, then extend it to the second half of a sentence and it just sounds wrong.
[ 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.
Now the main thing to bear in mind for the duration of this review is, Salazar's Revenge*1 wasn't going to be 'for' me. And I'm fine with that. I've never really found Disney's PotC series any more than quite good at best, and my recent live-tweeting of installments one-to-four was knocked on the head after the first two, as I was becoming bogged down by the rapid succession of the things I didn't like about them.
So, we're now approximately nineteen years down the line from the end of At World's End, and young Henry Turner (Brendon Thwaites) thinks he's figured out a way to free his father Will (Orlando Bloom) from his 'Being The Captain Of The Flying Dutchman' curse. This will involve tracking down Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp). Meanwhile elsewhere, young scientist and scholar Carina Smyth (Kaya Scodelario) is on the verge of being executed by her townsfolk for witchcraft, and is determined to discover the identity of her long-lost father. This will involve a chance meeting with Jack Sparrow (Spoiler: he's not her dad). Old faces from movies past return for the outing (although there are more than a few notable by their absence), and despite having a superb villain in the form of Javier Bardem's Salazar (think: a livid, Spanish Darth Vader), the inevitable violence is kept within 12A-certificate levels. For a family thrill-ride, you could do a lot worse.
I just didn't find the finished product particularly interesting. And it's not as if there's an absence of plot mechanics or pacing issues slow that plot down at all; action set-pieces are delivered, swashes are buckled and timbers are shivered with watch-setting regularity. I just couldn't shake the feeling that I'd seen all of this before, and barely even in a different order.
Outside of the aforementioned scene-stealing by Sr. Bardem, Kaya Scodelario, Brendan Thwaites and Geoffrey Rush are all aching for a better screenplay, their obvious talent largely wasted. But I may as well join the choir in saying that the real problem here is Johnny Depp, not even mustering his usual lacklustre levels of performance. By this point, Jack Sparrow*2 feels like he should be an incidental character in 'Allo 'Allo, wheeled out once a week with his worn-out schtick in the hope that audience-familiarity will be enough to pad over the gaps in the script. It won't. If anything, the one-note seafarer is just getting in the way now, the very agent holding the series back rather than pushing it boldly forward. Ironically, the character has become more of an anchor than Disney ever intended.
All that said, I don't feel able to lay out the beating that many critics are currently getting off their chests, if only because I don't feel the film's put in enough effort to really warrant one. There are good things in PotC5, but nowhere near enough of them and for nowhere near as long as they need to be.
However, it's also important to note that I actually fell asleep during the multi-million dollar, climactic battle of Salazar's Revenge. I mean only to the point where I jolted myself awake, but still. What can I tell you? By that point I was all out of fucks to give, and the murky*3, fast-cut action/mayhem shaky-cam, coupled with what can only be described as overwhelming symphony of grey-noise from the orchestra, audio-effects department and indeed the cast, basically just said to my brain 'you can't actually concentrate on any of what's meant to be happening here. Just sleep and pick it all up from the ending you know is in the post anyway'.
And with the exception of Bardem, the after-credits sequence made me happier than anything in the preceding one hundred and twenty eight minutes.
*1 No you're right, Ian Disney, giving a different episode-title just for the UK release makes absolute sense. I'm assuming this is so you can tell how many cam-jobs are originating from our shores, given that it's not like "Dead Men Tell No Tales" is a phrase us Brits would look at and think 'hey hang on, how is that pirate-related?'. [ BACK ]
*2 Sorry, 'Captain' Jack Sparrow. Hahaha, yeah, that never gets old… [ BACK ]
*3 And given that the final half hour is way too dark (visually) in 2D, my heart goes out to the poor saps who watched this in 3D and had to put up with the associated light-loss… [ 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.
As I've already seen this movie recently, and as I thoroughly enjoyed it once again but find myself with little add to my previous words, I'm going to use this review to ask flippant-sounding but genuine plot-based questions (the answers to which could well be in the film, but that I've therefore missed twice), and to talk about the film's 4DX enhancement. Spoilers follow, obviously…
• Right, how come if the base the which escaped Gladers are taken to also holds the inhabitants of other mazes, none of these mazes are visible from the WCKD headquarters at the end of the first film when they view their own from the helicopter? Surely it would be more practical to have them all arranged in a circle with the controlling HQ in the centre?
• If, out of all the young inhabitants, Aris is said to have been there the longest (which is about a week), why would all the experiments end at the same time? The events of The Maze Runner couldn't have occurred in the other mazes by virtue of the fact that Thomas wasn't a regular participant in The Glade. If Aris has indeed only been there a week, how come when he later meets his former maze-mates, they've been able to not only escape the base, but find and join resistance group The Right Arm, and become fully trustworthy, gun-carrying members? And since his former associates are female, was Aris's maze mixed-sex, or was he a rogue-male dropped in at the end of the program?
(Although again, 'rogue-female' Teresa wasn't a regular subject for The Glade, so we shouldn't assume that's a standard part of the experiment. Leaving a bunch of mixed-sex teenagers to their own devices in an otherwise secluded woodland area doesn't sound like the most productive way to cure a virus, but hey - I'm not a scientist)
• How come when The Gladers finally escape, no-one in Janson's group thinks of checking the spacious, abandoned shopping-mall which is literally within-sight of the base? Sure, it's full of zombies, but that's when Janson and his chums could just wait for the kids to be flushed out, surely?
• And most importantly, how come Janson selects each day's lucky volunteers by reading just their first-names from a list? On the first day he calls "Peter" and one kid stands up. The next day he calls "David" and one stands up. There are two Daves in my office alone, and only nine people work in there...
Never mind, I'm sure all those questions (and more) will be answered with the next movie, right? Oh. Anyway, the real talking point of the day was the enhancement of the film's presentation, in the only 4DX screen in the UK (the only one in Western Europe, in fact). 4DX is an in-theatre entertainment system incorporating individual seats (in banks of four) which sway, vibrate and have individually selectable 'pressure' pads, all of which features are activated by the film's corresponding action-track in the control booth to simulate the sensation of fight-scenes, car rides, helicopter rotors etc. Additionally, air-jets by the viewer's head and legs simulate gunfire and close motion movements, a fine water-spray can be used during rain/storms, odour emitters can be activated to accompany scenes where smells would be prevalent (eg coffee, rain, gardens etc), smoke-machines at the front of the cinema enhance scenes of dust or fog, and single-flash strobe-lights in the ceiling are activated during the moments of lightning or explosions.
Sounds distracting? It is. Sorry, guys. The jury's still out on the long-term potential verdict, but the friends I was with each had their own gripes and grumbles (many of which overlapped) and while I'm open to it in principle, I don't actually think it's quite right for the Maze Runner sequel. Similar to the D-Box system (which is seat-movements only), the extra-sensory enhancements are programmed by the 4DX company in Korea rather than the film studios themselves, and while they're meticulously matched to the action on-screen, the system is only ever going to be a bolt-on extra to the film you're watching.
At no point will a film director give the instruction "Okay, when the scene begins, I want you to come into shot slowly from behind those barrels, crouching and with your gun held out at full-stretch. But remember, the audience won't be able to see you for a couple of seconds because of the smoke pouring out of from underneath the screen", or "Don't worry about balancing the lighting during the storm scene Terry; every time there's a strike, the lights will flash up in the cinema making anything that's on-screen far too pale for about half a second while the audience's eyes adjust…".
In ascending order of annoyance:
• Water-Spray: Not used in this film (additionally, this is the one feature you can turn off at your seat).
• Smell-o-vision: Barely noticed it (although others I was with said they did, infrequently).
• Shaking/swaying/'punching' seats: I quite liked this (as I did for Ant-Man), but it takes some adjusting to, particularly when the film opens in full-throttle as it does with The Scorch Trials.
• Wind-machine/jets The soft-breeze effect was nice in the windy-scenes, the leg-jets were faintly distracting, but the head-height jets which accompanied the shootouts make a "pffff!" sound each time which, in such proximity to your ears, is pretty much as loud as the gunfire on-screen, and gives you the impression that the characters are firing Nerf-guns at each other.
• Smoke-machine: Irritating and distracting. Not only does the audience hear the "hssss!" of the vents, the smoke in the air then catches the light from the projector, creating a lightly glowing cloud around the bottom of the screen. I hate to think how this looks from the front couple of rows.
• Lightning-flashes: As implied in the previous paragraph, this is inexcusable. Not only does the light make the screen so pale as to be momentarily un-viewable, but there's an object on the left-hand side between the bulb and the screen so that it casts a massive shadow every time if flashes. I don't want to see the inside of the auditorium while the film is playing. At all. That's why you lower the lights in the first place.
In short: Anything which distracts the audience from the film they've paid money to watch is a bad thing; much like 3D in general, 4DX will never improve a bad movie, but it could well spoil a good one (luckily it didn't this time, but that's largely because I've already seen it). If I want all those bells and whistles in the future, I'll go on one of those simulators you get in theme-parks, thanks.
The film's bloody good, though...
If you've seen the first movie (and recently), yes.
A rental if you're not already eager, a buy-er if you're a fan anticipating a full-on marathon.
Young Dylan's great but I think his best is yet to come, and not necessarily within this franchise.
Expands the story of The Maze Runner without retreading a single step? Yes.
Nope.
Nope.
The Scorch Trials stars Thomas Brodie-Sangster, who also featured in 2005's Nanny McPhee, as did Celia 'Bravo-Five' Imrie.
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.
On a crisp September's afternoon, Mrs Blackout and myself were lucky enough to be shown the first Maze Runner film as part of a private-screening event*1. I had seen the film before and rather enjoyed it, Mrs Blackout hadn't. This would be interesting.
As it turns out, my better-half enjoyed it (luckily, since it was in preparation for a 4DX screening of The Scorch Trials immediately afterwards), and since I'd recently seen the film's sequel, this gave me a unique opportunity to watch the film retrospectively on a big screen, but with a particular emphasis on how it relates to its successor.
Now, obviously this is true for all movies, but you can only see The Maze Runner for the first time once. The story is told almost exclusively from Thomas' point-of-view, and the viewer learns of his surroundings and amnesiac back-story at the same time as Thomas does. With this in mind, a lot of the tension in the film's first-act is lost, as you already know the answers to Thomas' (and the Gladers') questions, although luckily TMR is a well-enough-made film that it isn't lessened by this. Indeed, the dreams and flash-memory sequences act more solidly as call-forwards when you know what they specifically relate to.
That said, a re-watch of the first film reinforces the feeling that too many details are left unexplored, perhaps having not been fully realised in the first place*2. The most prominent example of this is the bio-mechanical Griever spider-creatures. Since no-one (prior to Thomas' arrival) makes it back from the maze to tell what they look like, why make them so intricate and physically imposing? As the maze is fully monitored (as is the entire system), couldn't unsuccessful Runners just be terminated by remotely-manned gun/dart emplacements, with sound-effects broadcast over a speaker system to give the impression of monsters within the stone labyrinth? The Grievers seem like a monumental drain on WCKD's development and production time, given that they don't really need to exist and the company is supposed to be working on finding a cure for the Flare.
Moreover, it becomes more apparent (having seen the sequel already) that any details which aren't bestowed upon the viewer in this first film aren't going to be handed out in future installments, either. When we leave The Glade in this movie, we aren't going back; it's not so much a base-camp, as the first step on a one-way journey*3. So with that in mind, perhaps the questions arising from 'the ridiculous amounts of engineering and construction effort which would go into making a 200ft high, moving stone maze full of artificially created lifeforms and a verdant acre of farmable land in the middle of a global desert, in order to monitor the brain activity of 30 kids, which could be performed equally well by putting pads on their temples as they played on a PS4 in a lab' aren't worth answering after all. Because as much fun as The Maze Runner is (and it is), the notion that it's all a science experiment seems more unfeasible than the experiment itself…
INT. WCKD HEAD OFFICE. DAY.
IAN WCKD sits at the head of a large oval-table with AVA PAIGE and the other BOARD MEMBERS.
AVA: Following your request for our full, backdated reports, you can see that the subjects continue to thrive in The Glade, having mastered team-work and self-sufficiency to create a miniature version of society among themselves with a minimum of outside supervision. The addition of a new inhabitant once a month has given a-
IAN: Yeah yeah, I read that. And it's odd, because I thought we were trying to analyse the physical differences between immune and prone subjects with a view to eradicating a global plague which has all but destroyed human civilisation. Only in the document I received, it seems like your twelve trillion dollars of funding has given us a three year program to determine which of the subjects can run the fastest and who's best left in charge of growing the asparagus? I knew I should never have left The Umbrella Corporation…
Not that you'll have to now, but yes.
Worth buying to stick on the shelf in preparation for a marathon when the final movie is released.
Young cast = on great form.
I think it tells the story incredibly well, but sketches in many of the details.
Nope.
No. Why not?
The Maze Runner stars Dylan O'Brien, who appeared in 2013's The Internship alongside Tiya Sircar, the voice of Sabine in Star Wars Rebels.
*1 An actual, proper private screening (yeah, get me. No, you shut up), not just one of those films where I'm the only audience member. Actually it's worth pointing out that even though the event was invite-only and very select, there were still more people in attendance than Friday's opening-day Everest showing…
*2 Although they might well be, in the expanded narrative of the books. I haven't read the books. I'm not going to read the books. I don't have the time to read the books. I've been to the cinema 111 times this year, when do you think I have the time to read books?
*3 Yeah, unless of course the third/fourth/fifth books take place in The Glade because Thomas decides it's just easier to say 'fuck the apocalypse' and run a garden centre instead. I wouldn't know, would I? I haven't read the books. Didn't you even read *2?
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.
