An Adult Fairy Tale In A Strange Land, The City Of Lost Children

The Good: Visually impressive, Excellent acting, Good characters
The Bad: Fairy tale plot
The Basics: A visual treat, The City Of Lost Children puts a young girl and a strongman together to thwart a mad scientist in an adult fairy tale.


The City Of Lost Children was one of my risk films, the type I saw - actually bought the DVD - without knowing anything real about it. I saw the movie poster when I was in college and, being a fan of Terry Gilliam's work, I was amused by his quote on the poster and saw the images and thought it was very much like Brazil. Brazil (reviewed here!) is my favorite film, so I thought The City Of Lost Children might be enjoyable.

I enjoy being right.

The City Of Lost Children is a distinct place and it's amazing to see. In it, there is a man named One, caring for his "little brother" Denree. When Denree is abducted by a group of people who pluck out their eyes and put in cybernetic implants, he goes on a quest to find him. To that end, he allies himself with a little girl named Miette, an orphan thief for the Siamese twin Octopus. Meanwhile, there is a floating laboratory where Krank lives. Krank is a brilliant scientist who lacks the ability to dream. In fact, he's somewhat sadistic and to that end, he kidnaps children and attempts to try to live in their dreams. Aided by a group of dimwitted clones, a brain in a fish tank and his petite wife, Krank swaps technology for the kidnaped children. So, One and Miette must confront Krank and free the children.

While it's no Brazil, The City Of Lost Children has so much going for it. It is a wonderful chance to see a visually stunning work. The City is an amazing and distinct place, with its waterways in the town and the strange trucks that drive the streets, this is a weird place. The design of the place is enough alone to bring the viewer in.

Refreshingly, the characters support that. One and Miette are interesting. Miette wants something more and she finds that in One, who has a predilection toward protecting children. They are made for each other. And Krank. Krank is the villain. Not much more, but he makes for an adequate villain.

What makes the film worth watching, even more than the simplicity of the spectacle of the production design is the acting. Ron Perlman, who plays One gives an inspired performance. He is kind and gentle with his portrayal of a man who is basically a stranger in the most strange land. Perlman gives a great showing, he is strong and fatherly, which is exactly what the role calls for. And Daniel Emilfork is a great villain. His acting makes Krank a viable villain, even more than the script does. He has a cold stare that is menacing and yet when he softens his face, he can pull off real humanity, which makes him more than the monolithic villain.

But two people steal the show. The first is Dominique Pinon. He plays six roles in The City of Lost Children. He's the clone, working so hard that he slaps other versions of himself in scenes and he does it with utter convincing talent. Add to that that he plays the Messiah, the source material of the clones and he makes a completely different character with him. It's more than just the beard. He makes the man unique. It works wonderfully.

But Judith Vittet is the most impressive talent. At nine years old, she breathes live into Miette. She plays the girl like a woman, lending wisdom to the role that just screams of being someone far older than who she actually is. Judith is incredible and had it not been for her, the film would have almost certainly been far worse than it was.

What is the problem with The City of Lost Children? It's just that it is predictable. It's a fairy tale and it seems like one to watch it.

But, it's an adult fairy tale and it works very well as such. Not for children, The City Of Lost Children is a visual masterpiece that is intrigued with systems, events that affect other events and they work very well. It's interesting and fun to watch. Children won't understand it. If you like Brazil, this will be something you enjoy, though you ought not to expect as much from it. If you did not enjoy Brazil, this is for you; it has the visual weirdness of the superior film with a much more coherent plot.

For other works featuring Ron Perlman, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Tangled
The Clone Wars - Season 1
Hellboy 2: The Golden Army
Hellboy
Star Trek: Nemesis
Alien: Resurrection

8/10

For other film reviews, check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007, 2002 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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They Should Have Left It Dead: Alien Resurrection

The Good: Acting
The Bad: Latex, Special effects, Inconsistent plot, Characters
The Basics: They should have left the series dead. NOT for a fan of the Alien series or anyone else, for that matter!


Ellen Ripley, the protagonist of the Alien Trilogy has an excellent character arc. Yes, I will stand up and say that if you take a night and watch Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 in a row, you'll come out saying there's an impressive character and a great story. I'm one of maybe ten people in the U.S. who likes Alien 3; it's underrated.

Alien Resurrection is not.

Hundreds of years after the events in Alien 3, which resulted in the death of Ellen Ripley, the military forces that work for Earth have set about to clone the lost woman in hopes of cloning the alien queen she carried. The military R&D believes the aliens can be trained for use in their wars elsewhere in the galaxy and they succeed in cloning Ripley and the queen inside her. Unfortunately, the clone is more of a hybrid than a pure clone and she has a connection to the new aliens the military makes.

At the same time, a group of smugglers come aboard the military vessel with bodies needed to generate the new alien army. As they relax and have a shore leave on the military ship, the aliens are hatched and soon all hell is breaking loose. The smugglers and the Ripley clone must flee the ship before it unleashes an alien plague on nearby Earth.

Alien 3 had wonderful merits in that it continued a whole set of circumstances and themes that the first two films establish. In fact, Alien 3 becomes necessary as a thematical conclusion to the broader social commentaries of the first two films. Alien Resurrection contains none of the depth of interest of the first three films.

In simple terms, it's just plain bad.

First of all, the film makes the mistake most science fiction films make which is to spend a lot of attention to effects. One of the beautiful things about the first three films was the starkness both visually and technologically of the future presented.

Moreover, Alien Resurrection completely insults the fans of the rest of the series by imitating the plot of the first film. It's like a 90's blood and guts, shoot 'em up, the more violence the better, group attempt to make Alien and it fails. At least Aliens anticipated an intelligent audience coming in after Alien and reveals the android quickly. The "surprise" of Alien Resurrection isn't and if you can't peg the android when it first appears, you ought to be disappointed in yourself.

The characters are inconsistent and the learning curve of the clone Ripley's memory is just way too unbelievably high. The sad thing is, the plot wasn't a terribly bad idea; a clone of Ripley is created and the DNA is corrupted by the Alien DNA. Then again, it doesn't take a biologist to figure out that if you're smart enough to be able to clone something as well as they do in the film, you're smart enough to have a complete map of DNA and know what strings are essentially not human.

Alien Resurrection's superlative moment, the reason I'm even bothering to write this review, is in containing the most vile, disgusting and unnecessary scene in any film ever. Ripley is a clone, the first success and during the opening credits, the attuned viewer will catch that we're getting glimpses of the failures. In the course of Alien Resurrection, Ripley finds the cloning room and what should be a psychologically disturbing scene is drawn out to obscene lengths. In fact, Ripley's humanitarian act that results is hardly cathartic as it is disgusting and the entire scene was over done, over long and incredibly unnecessary.

The only positive side is that Sigourney Weaver's acting range is displayed and she comes across as more talented than she might have before, certainly than she did in the first film of the series.

Between disgusting scenes that were unnecessary, the bizarre Alien orgy scene and the completely repetitive ending, Alien Resurrection only serves to detract from the series that deserved a better ending.

For other works featuring Winona Ryder, please check out my reviews of:
Black Swan
Star Trek
Edward Scissorhands

2/10

For other film reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2011, 2007, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Life And Death Of Ellen Ripley In A (Mostly) Amazing DVD Set! The Alien Quadrilogy

The Good: Three great films, Amazing DVD bonuses, Character, Acting, Mood
The Bad: Plots get repetitive, Final film is absolutely terrible
The Basics: Even exceptional DVD extras cannot save this boxed set from the stink of one of the films, though it is arguably an incredible example of what DVD can be!


For the past few years, I've been arguing that the best older television shows ought to create boxed sets featuring the entire series of a show for true fans and collectors, then break the series up into season boxed sets. This rewards the big fans who shell out the big money first by giving them everything and a little bit more and making those who are more inclined to pick and choose wait. Seriously, who cares what happened in the final season of Family Ties? Who was still watching? The producers of those DVDs where the series ran forever can successfully beat the low-sales virtually guaranteed to come with the later seasons by selling the entire series first. For shows with six season (for example) where the last season may not have lived up to the expectations of the fans, this is more likely to get the material out there and sold as opposed to breaking it down. Given the choice between buying a weak season for completion and getting something else (which given the variety and choices out there is virtually guaranteed each week!), I think most people will opt for getting something new that thrills them rather than completing a collection.

Nothing proves this idea better than the Alien Quadrilogy. This lush, beautiful, big boxed set features three tremendous films and one truly abysmal one. Sales of the Alien Quadrilogy, which preceded the DVD release of the individual films Alien, Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection, were phenomenal and the nine disc set features a disc not available to those who picked and choosed. And because it came out before the individual releases, this was not a clear attempt to milk fans for more money by providing something extra in the unified boxed set after one had already purchased the component parts. That is classy. It ought to be the model for DVD producers everywhere.

The Alien Quadrilogy (a term coined for this boxed set, meaning "series of four" the way "trilogy" means "series of three") is a beautiful set of nine DVDs that is obsessed with providing the viewers with everything possible that there is to know about the series that began with Alien. Discs 1,3,5, and 7 feature the films of the Alien Quadrilogy, each with a branching option to allow the viewer to watch the original theatrical cut or a new Special Edition or Director's cut remastered for the set (or before). This means that viewers may choose at the opening menu between watching the 1979 theatrical version of Alien and the 2003 director's cut (with essentially one added scene and bits cut out, resulting in a film that is a minute shorter), the 1986 theatrical version of Aliens or the 1991 Special Edition which restores almost twenty minutes to the film, the 1992 theatrical cut of Alien 3 or the thirty minute longer special edition remade for the DVD release based on notes and an assembly print (the director had nothing to do with this special edition), and the theatrical version of the 1997 release Alien Resurrection and its 2003 special edition made for the DVD which offers an alternate beginning more familiar to fans of The City Of Lost Children with about seven more minutes of footage. The beauty here is that the originals are preserved while the alternate cuts are made available, both with full commentary from production and cast members.

For those unfamiliar with the Alien story, over the course of four films, Ellen Ripley is plagued by a nightmarish alien life form that terrorizes her and those she is with. In Alien, her mining ship is diverted to a remote planet where one of the crew becomes infected with a parasite. The parasite lays an egg which soon erupts from the crewmember and the resulting life form grows fast into a creature that systematically kills the crew. Ripley manages to escape, but awakens years later to find that a colony has been established on that same remote planet and now there are scores of the creatures, which a crew of Marines are brought in to thwart. Barely surviving that encounter, Ripley is thrown into dire straits again with one on a prison planet. Finally, Ripley awakens to find that she is a part of an experiment orchestrated by a corrupt government to use the alien life forms as a weapon.

The common element throughout the films, of course, is the character of Ellen Ripley. Ripley is an iconic heroic character whose journey takes her from worker to mother to leader to . . . well, that's why Alien Resurrection sucks; the character arc is pretty much complete when the fourth film begins and viewers are asked to buy the premises. The truth is, were it not for the overwhelming quality of the bonus features in this boxed set - had it been only the four films included - the rating would have been much closer to average as the final film sucks the series down that far.

Ripley is played by Sigourney Weaver and this is a role that defines Weaver as a badass actress capable of playing the action heroine. Throughout the films, she plays Ripley as terrified and terrorized, strong and in control, and self-reliant and animalistic. She is tough when she has to be, emotive and realistic when it is appropriate. She is a truly great actress and this is one of the highlights of her career.

Weaver is joined in various installments of the series by other notables such as Tom Skerrit, John Hurt, Bill Paxton, Michael Beihn, Lance Henriksen, Charles S. Dutton, Charles Dance, Winona Ryder, and Ron Perlman. This is a series that has attracted some true greats and here they live up to their reputations and deliver performances that involve maintaining a mood, progressing movement and/or delivering some of the most memorable one-liners in cinematic history.

What the Alien Quadrilogy excels at is establishing a mood. Alien pioneered the science fiction-horror, Aliens arguably created the summer blockbuster action-adventure, Alien 3 is a taut character-driven chase film, and Alien Resurrection, for all its problems, is a pretty tight action film with characters fleeing from the new wave of creatures. Even in Alien Resurrection, there's a pretty wonderful sense of movement, even if that's all it has going for it.

The Alien Quadrilogy comes with a ninth disc which looks at the franchise as a whole and has material not otherwise available. Following on the heels of extensive documentary and featurette supplements on discs 2,4,6, and 8, the ninth disc adds to the treasure trove by providing an even larger sense of the Alien universe. This includes a gallery of Dark Horse comic book covers, a look at the props from the films, trailers and more. It's impressive.

All in all, the Alien Quadrilogy is a great value, but its packaging does not inform the buyer of all they ought to know. In short, the universe of the Alien films is a dark, stark, adult universe. These are films intended for adults (all four are rated "R") and the bonus content is honest and frank about the production elements and complications that arose on the sets (especially with Alien 3). This is a wonderful set for the adult science fiction fan.

And yes, the sheer amount of bonus features on these discs blew fans away when it was originally released and it does truly set a standard for DVD quality. Indeed, the only boxed set to give this set a run for its money would have to be Freaks And Geeks, a short-lived television show whose DVD presentation is packed with deleted scenes, outtakes, and featurettes and two commentary tracks per episode! It might be a completely different niche, but when we're comparing DVDs, these two sets stack up as two of the best for the simple volume of materials (the bonus discs in the Alien Quadrilogy are PACKED!).

This set is a must for anyone who loves science fiction, horror or wants to see the true potential of the DVD medium!

For more information on the individual films in the Alien Quadrilogy, please check out my reviews of the films at:
Alien
Aliens
Alien 3
Alien Resurrection

8/10

For other film reviews, please visit my indexs page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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