So Open To Interpretation: The OA Season 1 Intrigues

The Good: Amazing performances, Engaging plot development, Some interesting characters
The Bad: What the hell?! Seriously, what the hell?! Some thinly-defined characters, Lack of concrete answers
The Basics: Intriguing and compelling, The OA Season 1 creates a mystery surrounding Prairie Johnson who gathers five people to tell the story of her missing years in captivity.


I have, by and large, avoided the whole genre of "missing person suddenly appears" television shows that have popped up within the last few years. I began The 4400 (Season 1 reviewed here!) some years ago, but since then, the prevalence of the shows built around characters who go missing for years and return seem to all be built around similar conceits; there is a mystery and there is usually a betrayal (most commonly in the form of a character in the local to which the character has been returned who knows exactly where the abducted person was). And the variables involved seem less audacious and more formulaic than most showrunners of such series's would like viewers to believe. Returned abductees has become a legitimate sub-genre within science fiction, horror, and mystery television shows.

And yet, Netflix managed to get me up at an obscenely early hour to watch The OA based only on the quality of its trailer. The first season of The OA is an intense mood piece that is just the right balance of unsettling and evocative. Despite having the trailer information in my mind's eye, I went into The OA with remarkably few expectations or ideas about what the show was about. But at its core, The OA (pronounced in the show "The O.A.") is a "returned person mystery." And, despite the spiritual aspect to The OA and references to "angels," the supernatural aspects in The OA seem mostly independent of any specific religion, which makes the season much more accessible than it appeared at a few key moments.

The OA opens with "The Homecoming," which starts with Prairie Johnson (the OA) being caught on a cell phone video running through traffic on a bridge and then jumping off. Prairie awakens a few days later in a hospital with severely bruised feet. The YouTube video of her jumping reaches her parents, Abel and Nancy, who bring her back home. Prairie's parents are astounded that their daughter - who was blind when she went missing - has been returned to them with sight. The police try to get answers as to where Prairie has been for the last seven years, three months and eleven days and Prairie insists she was cognizant the entire time. Prairie begins to become obsessed with getting onto the internet, so she can find a way to get in contact with "Homer," but her parents were advised by trauma services to monitor Prairie's internet usage. In her search for a connection, Prairie ends up at an abandoned house in the nearby housing development where she runs into Steve Winchell, a troubled boy who threatens her with his dog. Prairie shockingly subdues the dog and Steve brings her a router, kicking off an unlikely deal and relationship between the pair. Prairie impersonates Steve's step mother for a parent-teacher conference intended to keep Steve from being shipped off to military school. Prairie attempts to convince teacher Betty Broderick-Allen to devote herself to actually reforming Steve as opposed to giving up on him and shipping him off. In exchange, Prairie asks Steve for help: getting five people to come to the abandoned house, leaving their doors open, so she can begin the process of explaining who and what she has become.

In "New Colossus," Prairie continues her "circle" where she details her early life to the five people she brought together. She tells them how she had powerful dreams as a child and how she came to be adopted by Nancy and Abel. At twenty-one, she believed she had divined the message in her dreams; that her father was alive and wanted to meet her at the Statue Of Liberty, so she ran away. In New York City, she encounters Dr. Hunter Aloysius Percy, who is fascinated by near-death experiences. Entranced by his desire to study what she went through, she accompanies him back to his lab, which is incredibly remote and she discovers she is trapped and not alone.

The third episode is "Champion," which opens with a Chicago Tribune reporter trying to get Nancy to let her interview Prairie and work with her. Knowler encourages Prairie to tell her story for closure, but Prairie insists her story is just beginning and she does not want it to end. Prairie returns to telling her story of the early days of her captivity and the people she was in captivity with her: Homer, Steve, and Rachel. Homer is obsessed with getting a message out to the woman he got pregnant (which is how he was lured into Dr. Hap's trap) and after a botched attempt to kill Hap, Prairie manages to get the tools needed to get a message to the outside world. When their hope is literally washed away, the captives begin to talk and try to figure out how to stop the scientist.

"Away" opens with Prairie being returned to her captivity after her brief escape from Dr. Hap and the testing upon her begins in earnest. Prairie learns her true nature while dead and she returns to the experiment with her sight (though Dr. Hap is not aware she has regained her vision). While in the present, Betty recovers her dead brother's possessions, Prairie glosses over three years of her captivity as Homer made attempt after attempt to understand just what the experiment was by remaining conscious during it. As Dr. Hap tries to find proof of the "other side" after death, Prairie works to understand her nature as the O.A.

The fifth episode, "Paradise," opens with Dr. Hap hunting the fifth person who was foretold to Prairie in her dead state. In captivity, Scott begins to freak out more and Rachel is knocked out for the bulk of Hap's trip. When Homer is used to bring Renatta into the group, Hap turns his attention to Scott. Scott sells the group out and in the aftermath, Dr. Hap and the captives learn some critical information.

"Forking Paths" opens with an explicit purpose: the near death captives all have movements, specific dance-like motions that unlock powers. The group needs five movements and they have only four. The race for the fifth movement puts the captives in direct conflict with Dr. Hap, who has learned the four movements from the captives and is experimenting to try to find the fifth. In the present, Prairie gives her followers a mission; they are going to learn the five movements to open an interdimensional conduit to try to rescue the captives.

"Empire Of Light" finds the group practicing the movements. Steve returns home where he takes responsibility for his violent outburst against the chorus member. The FBI therapist encourages Prairie to actually spend time with her parents doing something. Before he can make proper amends, though, Steve's father has him shipped out to the military school. Betty witnesses him being taken away and attempts to pursue him while the Johnsons go out to dinner. There, a person takes a picture with Prairie, which upsets Nancy. When Betty's attempt to rescue Steve goes south, she makes an incredible sacrifice to save him.

The sense of momentum going into "Inner Self" is high and it opens with Dr. Hap being held at gunpoint by the local sheriff. To save himself and continue his experiments upon the captives, Hap promises the sheriff that Homer and Prairie can cure his wife's ALS. The ensuing conflict leads almost directly to Prairie leaving Hap's laboratory. But when Alfonso comes to believe something horrible about Prairie's story, everything appears to fall apart and put all five of Prairie's "disciples" in jeopardy.

Almost immediately, there is a mystic quality to show. While the initial camerawork in "The Homecoming" is choppy and troubling, The OA soon transitions into a series of beautiful shots and smooth transitions. The tone in the first season of The OA is consistently ominous and it keeps the viewer engaged the entire first season. In fact, what The OA does so effectively in its first season is make the viewer forget what they know must be true within the narrative in order to sell the big reversals near the end of the season. But, very early on, The OA establishes some independent facts separate from Prairie telling her story, most notably that Prairie was blind, but has returned to Crestwood with sight. That and the video she finds online force the viewer to accept some of what Prairie says as true, even when the narrative takes an abrupt right turn in the final episode.

While it is frustrating that The OA Season 1 does not immediately offer any clear answers to what is actually going on in the story, the narrative is engaging enough to want to go back to rewatch the season again. Not since watching the first season of Sense8 (reviewed here!) have I wanted to go right back and rewatch a season (and, as I write this I have it on again and am catching a number of clues as to what Prairie actually went through in her absent years). The OA Season 1 is well-directed and surprisingly well-conceived. There is something incredible about a show where the act of making a sandwich is gripping television.

The OA is led by the stories of Prairie and Steve. Prairie's narrative voice changes dramatically as the season progresses, but at the root of The OA are the characters. While the season is fairly well-populated, some of the characters - notably Jesse, Buck, Rachel and Scott - are incredibly poorly-defined. While characters like Betty, Nancy and Abel develop slowly, the eight-episode season of The OA neglects a number of the supporting characters who are only paid lip-service in the first season.

The essential characters in the first season of The OA are:

Prairie Johnson - The OA. She was born in Russia, as Nina, to an oligarch who taught her to overcome her fears. After a series of prophetic nightmares, she survives an assassination attempt . . . at the cost of her sight. She is adopted by the Johnsons and over seven years ago went missing rather abruptly. She influences Steve's dog, much to his surprise, which opens the door for them to begin a friendship and when she meets with Steve's teacher, she quickly divines how she has been hurt to get her to recommit to helping Steve as opposed to expelling him. She has premonitions in her dreams and, as a child, she believed her father was communicating with her through her dreams. She gathers five people to whom she tells the story of her captive years and in detailing her near-death experiences and what she went through in the study of those experiences, she begins to take control of her life and formulate a plan to save those she left behind,

Steve Winchell - A troubled seventeen year old, he is the practice lay for a girl for whom he has genuine feelings. He is a bully at school, but quickly begins to respect "crazy" Prairie. He has violent outbursts, including one where he bruises a chorus member's trachea just because he is jealous of his potential relationship with the girl he is screwing. To protect other members of the group, he has to stop dealing drugs out of the empty house. His attempts to reform might come too late, as his father is committed to shipping him off to a military boarding school. He completely invests in Prairie's story,

Betty Broderick-Allen - Duped by Prairie initially into actually caring about Steve and his fate, she joins Prairie's story circle after finding her video online. She recently lost her brother, but gets a windfall from his estate. She is passionate about learning Prairie's story and changing her life and she sees Prairie as a chance to do that,

Nancy Johnson - Prairie's adopted mother, she found Nina at Nina's aunt's whorehouse where they came to adopt (buy) a baby. She remained married to Abel through the entire time Prairie was missing. She is protective of Prairie, though she was also integral in having her medicated as a child. She has a secret related to Prairie's disappearance that has been eating at her,

Abel Johnson - Prairie's adopted father, he films Nina as she has powerful dreams at night and moves around her room, talking loudly. When Prairie comes home, he tries to give her the space to grow and be safe. He allows Prairie to go on the walks that enable her to meet with her group. He remains the most protective of Prairie, but also genuinely curious about what happened to her,

Homer Roberts - The survivor of a near-death experience, he is obsessed with being reunited with the son he never met (but learned of right before his abduction). He and Prairie develop a bond in captivity. Saving him is what Prairie is obsessed with,

and Dr. H.A.P. - The scientist who studies those who have near-death experiences, he has a secret facility where he brings those he abducts. He is shocked when Prairie does not stab him and instead makes him a sandwich. He has an almost supernatural hearing ability and he becomes committed to learning what those who have been dead experience while dead and what information they bring back with them. He video tapes his captives and he is determined to profit from the movements his captives are developing once he sees them resurrect Scott using them.

For the bulk of the first season of The OA, Prairie does not seem to connect with her adopted parents. The narrative joy of the season is that after an absence for the middle portion of the season, the parents pop back up in a powerful and relevant way. Which brings us to the acting. The transition back to the characters allows some of the more recognizable performers to finally illustrate their talents. For example, Alice Krige's performance in "Empire Of Light" finally allows her to break out. Krige is underused and neglected as Nancy for most of the season until her character reaches a breaking point and her reactions to Prairie allow Krige to plumb some real emotional depths.

Scott Wilson is wonderful as Abel when The OA bothers to use him. Phyllis Smith is consistent as Betty and it is impressive how quickly she becomes gripping to watch in portraying Betty's emotional journey through encountering the OA. Jason Isaacs is incredible as Dr. Hap. Hap might well be a character who needs the most fleshing out in season two (should Netflix produce it!), but Isaacs makes one of the smartest, most subtle and complicated villains on television in his portrayal of Hap. The moment of revelation when Scott confesses to Hap leads Isaacs to one of the season's greatest worldess performances.

There is, quite simply, not enough good things that can be said about the performance from Ellewillow Campagna. Campagna is the child actor who plays the young version of Nina and her portrayal of the Russian girl - especially after she returns to life blind - is astonishingly good. Campagna is amazing in The OA and her impact is so profound it is shocking she is only in two episodes of the season!

The OA Season 1 is led by writer/co-creator Brit Marling, who manages to make the act of a woman telling a story into gripping television. Marling will, no doubt, be nominated for a slew of acting awards (should relevant academies actually remember The OA come nominating time next year!) for her portrayal of Prairie Johnson. Prairie is a complicated role and allows Marling to play blind and sighted and she is quite good in all of the character's transitions.

The OA Season 1 is a short, smart season that ends at a logical and intriguing (albeit frustrating) point, but it develops astonishingly well. There are few first seasons that create so many questions and find the right balance between answering questions, frustrating the hell out of viewers and forcing viewers to restart the season to look for evidence to whatever viewpoint they have for their interpretation of what the hell is actually going on in the season. Regardless of what comes in the future of The OA, the first season is incredibly solid and intriguing and well worth watching!

For other works from the 2016 – 2017 television season, please check out my reviews of:
Gilmore Girls: A Year In The Life
"Invasion!" - Arrow
"The Laws Of Inferno Dynamics" - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.
"Flashpoint" - The Flash
"The Chicago Way" - Legends Of Tomorrow
"The Adventures Of Supergirl" - Supergirl
Luke Cage - Season 1
Stranger Things - Season 1

8/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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“Endings Are Such Sweet Mediocrity” Why “Endgame” Is Not A Great Finale For Star Trek: Voyager!

The Good: Special effects, Moments of plot and character, Most of the performances are fine
The Bad: Conceptually preposterous plot, Inorganic character motivations, Derivative nature
The Basics: “Endgame” brings Star Trek: Voyager to a close in an action-packed episode that falls apart the moment one begins to closely look at it!


Back when I was on the convention circuit, dealing most weekends at various Star Trek conventions around the United States, I took particular delight in posing the question, “Who is the most important character on Voyager?” Almost no one ever got it right. While Janeway is the instrument, the motivation for Star Trek: Voyager is, of all characters, Tuvok. Tuvok is the reason Voyager gets lost in the Delta Quadrant in “Caretaker” (reviewed here!) as Janeway goes searching for the ship he was lost on while undercover and in the series finale, “Endgame,” it is the plight of Tuvok that finally sells Captain Janeway on using a shortcut home.

“Endgame” is a season finale that makes a wink and a nudge to the series finale of Star Trek: The Next Generation in more than just the costumes (the later 24th Century costumes are seen in that finale and the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “The Visitor,” reviewed here!). Some of the temporal mechanics issues in “Endgame” are disturbingly similar to those in the final episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, as are some of the character motivations. Unfortunately, while “Endgame” similarly ties up loose ends for Voyager, some of the relationship issues that motivate characters in “Endgame” (most notably the Seven Of Nine/Chakotay relationship) seem somewhat contrived or rushed to.

Starting on the tenth anniversary of Voyager’s return to Earth after a twenty-three year journey home, Admiral Janeway is working to tie up loose ends in her life. She has Torres and Paris’s daughter assigned to a secret mission, though StarFleet Command denies she is a part of any classified missions and she seems to be working for Temporal Mechanics and StarFleet Academy. Working with Commander Reginald Barclay and having procured an experimental compound from the holographic doctor (Joe), Admiral Janeway says goodbye to the mentally-fractured Tuvok and disappears in a shuttle to meet with a corrupt Klingon, Korath. Shortly after getting ablative armor technology from Korath, Janeway is picked up by Captain Kim and his ship, the U.S.S. Rhode Island. Admiral Janeway talks Kim into letting her go, on a mission into the past to save Voyager sixteen years of its journey and more than twenty lives in the process.

Interspersed with the future narrative, in the standard timeframe, Voyager passes a red giant where it detects an inordinate amount of Borg activity. While Chakotay and Seven Of Nine have their third date and Torres has her umpteenth false labor, Captain Janeway feels relief that the ship managed to avoid contact with the Borg and counts her blessings. But that changes when a spatial anomaly appears in Voyager’s path and Tuvok detects Klingon weapons fire from the other side of the anomaly. Admiral Janeway’s shuttle emerges from the phenomenon and Admiral Janeway orders her younger self to close the rift. When that is done and Admiral Janeway’s identity is authenticated, Admiral Janeway slowly reveals to her younger self the truth of her mission: she wants Janeway to take Voyager back to the Borg transwarp hub they passed days prior, outfit Voyager with ablative armor technology, and use the transwarp hub to get home. Captain Janeway, however, only wants to use the technology to destroy the Borg’s massive tactical advantage. Working together, the present and future Janeway work out a tactic that may allow them to accomplish both goals.

First, what I liked most about “Endgame:” there is a remarkably clever and subtle element to the episode that I take peculiar delight in. In order to sell Captain Janeway on the importance of going along with her plan, Admiral Janeway reveals elements of the future to her younger self. The fact that gets Captain Janeway to stop with her wholesale objections to her older self’s plan is learning that three years in the future, Seven Of Nine will die. In authenticating Admiral Janeway’s identity, the Doctor discovers a microchip in Admiral Janeway’s brain that the Admiral informs him he developed some twelve years ago. What delights me here is the implication: that after Seven Of Nine died, the EMH began to study her discarded Borg implants and developed Federation-based microtechnology that replicated some of the Borg’s cybernetic technologies!

For all the rushed nature of it, I did like the character relationships in “Endgame” as well. The future ones play off a longer sense of the journey and having Harry Kim advocate in favor of a longer journey, but destroying the Borg Transwarp Hub is pretty cool. Also cute was that Paris takes a moment to note that he will win the betting pool on the birth of his child. The acting is also fine throughout the episode, though the only one given a real performance challenge is Kate Mulgrew, who has to play off herself for several long scenes.

Unfortunately, the novelty aspects and the decent acting do not negate the severe issues with “Endgame.” The first problem is conceptual: “Endgame” acts as if Star Trek: Voyager was a heavily serialized show when it most explicitly was not. In fact, the producers wanted to avoid a second serialized Star Trek as, when Star Trek: Voyager began, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was already doing long arcs. “Endgame” is all about consequences and Star Trek: Voyager has largely lacked that. For sure, there was the occasional episode where the ship was running low on deuterium, but by the beginning of almost every episode, Voyager was back to being perfectly intact, despite years without maintenance at a StarBase. To sell Captain Janeway on the importance of her mission, she has to convince her younger self that the consequences outweigh the temporal prime directive issues. Unfortunately, this is a sophisticated argument in a show that has pointedly avoided developing that very level of detail and continuity.

This leads to the primary, severe, plot and character issue in “Endgame.” “Endgame” is a temporal tampering episode that ultimately makes no rational sense. Admiral Janeway arrives in Captain Janeway’s time to explicitly alter the flow of history. Fine, I can buy the premise. I accept the premise entirely. What does not make sense is the timing. Admiral Janeway is prepared to equip Voyager with the technology and information needed to make it reasonable to erase sixteen years of its voyage and restructure the ten years that followed that. She does this by playing on Captain Janeway’s feelings of loyalty to her crew and in the knowledge that in the sixteen years that will be erased, Captain Janeway will save the lives of twenty of her crew and get Tuvok the medical attention he needs in the Alpha Quadrant before his degenerative disease makes him into a turnip. [Sidebar: We’re asked to believe that in seven years, Janeway can effectively travel 40 years worth of distance, but in the subsequent sixteen years she finds no anomalies that take the other 30 years off the trip significantly faster?!] What about all of the crew that was killed when the Caretaker abducted Voyager and all of the casualties that mounted over the seven years of Star Trek: Voyager?! Armed with the knowledge of Admiral Janeway, Captain Janeway trades millions of lives for . . . twenty and the mental health of another. “What?!” I hear you cry. Walk with me. If Admiral Janeway had simply gone back to the beginning, preventing the Maquis from being abducted by the Caretaker and preventing Voyager from similarly being taken, millions of people survive. First, there are all the people on Voyager who stay alive and could actually be, potentially, an asset to StarFleet during the Dominion War. So, initial Maquis and StarFleet deaths are reduced to zero. But then, there are all the ancillary deaths that occurred as a result of Voyager’s journey through the Delta Quadrant, most notably the millions of Borg killed by the Borg Queen in “Unimatrix Zero, Part 2” (reviewed here!). So, rather selfishly and stupidly, Janeway trades the lives of dozens of StarFleet officers, several Maquis, and millions of Borg for . . . Seven Of Nine. The only character who faces a real life or death change by Voyager returning to Earth after seven years in the Delta Quadrant is Seven Of Nine. Otherwise, she would have remained a Borg. There are a shitton of other temporal problems with “Endgame,” but the ethical argument that is made in the episode ultimately comes down to Janeway trading the last twenty casualties for sixteen years. This makes no sense because if one is going to go ahead and alter decades of time anyway, why not save the greatest number of lives?!

This leads to the biggest character problem in “Endgame,” which (admittedly) is biased for me by actress Kate Mulgrew. I did a convention with Kate Mulgrew the week after “Endgame” aired and I recall Mulgrew very proudly telling a little girl (could not have been more than ten) that she killed the Borg Queen. Admiral Janeway does, in fact, go up against the Borg Queen and here the writers fall down. Admiral Janeway has worked for Temporal Mechanics and, presumably, has access to all of the classified data they have, at least as it pertains to the Borg. So, Janeway should know that the Borg Queen has been killed at least twice by that point. Why does she think that when she kills the Borg Queen it will be any more permanent than when Riker or Data killed the Borg Queen before?!

And so, Star Trek: Voyager ends with the same issues that dominated it for the entire series: it goes out with a big bang of spectacle and style that is pretty immediately recognized as lacking in substance the moment one scratches surface.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek: Voyager - The Complete Seventh Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the final season here!
Thanks!]

For other Star Trek finales, please visit my reviews of:
“Turnabout Intruder” - Star Trek
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
“All Good Things . . .” - Star Trek: The Next Generation
“What You Leave Behind” - Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Star Trek: Nemesis

4/10

For other Star Trek episode and movie reviews, please visit my Star Trek Review Index Page!

© 2013 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Spoon Fed A Lack Of Horror At Silent Hill

The Good: Moments of decent special effects, Possible psychological metaphor
The Bad: Lack of character development, Simplistic plot, Flat acting
The Basics: In this waste of even a rainy afternoon, two women explore the ruins of a haunted town looking for a little girl while the viewer gets bored.


One person with whom I discussed Silent Hill said that if they had not known it was based on a video game, they would not have guessed it by watching the movie. I, on the other hand, felt that there were parts that were too obviously like a video game, especially in the pacing and nonsensical way some things happened. Silent Hill was my attempt to follow my therapist's advice and break out of my routines and try something new. I never let trailers sell me on watching a movie. I research, I go with what I like, etc. I've never been much of a horror film fan, so when the trailers to Silent Hill intrigued me, I thought this was the opportunity for personal growth I was looking for. I let the trailer sell me. Perhaps the lesson here is that we make our routines because they are what feels good and works for us. Regardless, Silent Hill was largely a waste of time.

Opening with Rose, mother to a strange little girl Sharon, chasing her sleepwalking daughter to a strange cliff where Sharon is hallucinating and crying out Silent Hill, the Da Silva family is falling apart. Rose takes Sharon, without her husband Christopher, to Silent Hill, a creepy, otherworldly mining town in West Virginia. Rose and Sharon are in a car accident on the outskirts of Silent Hill and when Rose awakens, Sharon is gone and she finds herself in the ash-snow wasteland of Silent Hill.

Silent Hill, she soon discovers, is a haunted town where the fires of an old mining fire were never extinguished and the night is populated by tortured, malformed creatures whose bodies are made of the buildings they possess. Rose is accompanied by Officer Cybil Bennet, who once rescued a child from Silent Hill, but now finds herself in the hellish landscape that Rose and Sharon have fallen into. Together, Rose and Cybil hunt for Sharon as the environment morphs and evil rises and vengeance is expressed in various forms.

Sigh. Silent Hill is most like a video game of any movie I've yet seen in that it has very little plot to go on, so details are added, spoon-fed to the audience, when they are needed. Rose and Cybil are pursued at various points by creatures that they must either shoot, flee or cower from in a way that feels very much like a video game. So, for example, when the tortured janitor resurrects at night to chase the pair down a hallway, it feels like a point in a video game where a player must choose to evade rather than confront the monster. And, in the movie, this makes sense as the resources of the protagonists are severely limited.

So as to not be totally critical and negative right off the bat, there was some good in Silent Hill. The coolest moment of the movie is one of the most simple and that made it pleasant. At one point, Rose takes a knife, makes a point of putting it in her boot and progressing with it. She is finally armed. However, before she is able to use the knife, she loses it when she jumps between two buildings. That defiance of expectations is pretty cool.

The only other expectation of mine that was defied came from my impressions of the trailer. In the trailer, various creatures are seen without mouths, shrouded mutated characters that I supposed would lend the "silent" to the name Silent Hill. These creatures are present in Rose's very first encounter with the nightmarish landscape of Silent Hill. I thought it would be intensely creepy if there was no soundtrack marring their appearance. After all, there's something truly horrible about a beast that cannot make a sound as it tries to devour one without a mouth. When I saw the previews, I supposed this element of horror would be ruined by the addition of a soundtrack (simple music) playing through such a scene. My expectations were defied when the sound cut out during Rose's first encounter with the beasties.

Unfortunately, my expectations were also defied when the movie was not about these strange malformed creatures who one presumes are the remnants of those destroyed in the coal fire. Sadly, after Rose's first encounter with them, only one more shows up and then the player progresses to the next level, er, Rose and Cybil encounter more terrifying and powerful beasts until they make it to the final portion of the game and have to defeat the big evil. I mean, they make it to the portion of the movie where the viewer is told the plot.

At this point, it's hard to talk about the movie without it sounding stupid and the truth is, the reason it sounds stupid is because it is stupid. Rose and Cybil meet survivors in Silent Hill who tell them more of the backstory of the place, while Christopher searches for his wife with no luck. When Rose goes on her mission to find Sharon, she discovers a room where the force behind all of the evil in Silent Hill resides. And that force simply spells out everything Rose needs to know. We get the backstory, we find out the history and why what is happening is happening. And then it all gets resolved in a big, gory way.

One of the problems with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (reviewed here!) is that it is a dream where nothing is explained and the viewer must interpret it as they see fit, but in the end, nothing is explained. In Silent Hill, the problem is that everything is explained or made so obvious as to be dull. As most of the exposition comes all at once, largely after the viewer has stopped caring anyway, this is remarkably unsatisfying and somewhat insulting to the viewer.

Maybe Silent Hill would have worked better as a silent movie, where the viewer had to piece things together. That might have been clever.

Regardless of that, it wouldn't have stopped the actors from all being mostly terrible. Radha Mitchell leads the cast as Rose and the truth is she doesn't have the charisma to make us care enough about her fate. Whether the acting, which consists frequently of her cowering or screaming in the beginning and at the end, well, cowering and pretending to be strong, Mitchell never makes us care about Rose. And while the "mother is a god in the eyes of a child" is made explicit, we never see Rose that way and her motivation doesn't seem as compelling as it ought to.

The standout performance comes from Laurie Holden. At first. Holden is recognizable to fans of genre from her work on The X-Files. She enters the film as the tough-as-nails Officer Cybil Bennet and she does a decent job until she is forced to remove her helmet and jacket and appear more feminine. From that point forth, her character begins to take a severe downturn and Holden works hard to balance it, but it's a losing proposition.

Sadly, the moment Alice Krige appears on screen, one suspects that she is playing a character that is the true force of evil and as this is a movie where all the dots are connected, it does not take much for one to realize that they are correct.

Silent Hill is largely a waste of time, especially as a horror film goes. It's not entertaining and it's not particularly consistent in special effects, acting, pacing or at the basic level of maintaining viewer interest.

There is one aspect to the movie, though that I felt compelled to explore. It's quite possible that Silent Hill works as a psychological metaphor. There is certainly ample material. For example when you have two women cowering in a confined space with a heavy metal door that is being slashed apart by a giant with the most enormous blade ever seen on screen, it's not hard to view it as a potential psychological metaphor for women having a fear of the penis or the terror that some have with the breaking of the hymen. And there's the whole psychological interpretation to Sharon and Alessa's relationship as fractured good and evil, potentially a commentary on the human psyche. All of this is underdeveloped and it's a stretch to look at this cheap horror flick as an insightful commentary on human development. But, I think there's the potential to view the movie that way. I just don't have the patience or desire to sit through it again to make the developed case for it.

For other works featuring Alice Krige, please be sure to visit my reviews of:
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Star Trek: First Contact
Chariots Of Fire

3.5/10

For other film reviews, please be sure to visit my index page on the subject by clicking here!

© 2012, 2006 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Chariots Of Fire Reinforces That It's Better To Be In The Race Than Watching It!

The Good: A decent overall story, Moments of character, DVD bonus features
The Bad: No great acting, Moments of soundtrack, Pacing
The Basics: A strikingly average film, Chariots Of Fire is light on plot, character and acting, so much so it's astonishing such a detailed special edition DVD could be created for it!


There are very few films I have watched that have to do with sports, much less racing. In fact, the only one that comes instantly to mind is Seabiscuit. But as I make my way through the various winners of the Best Picture Oscar, I have been compelled to watch more sports films, a genre I am inherently biased against. Tonight's outing into sports films was Chariots Of Fire. And while I might not be into sports films, I went into the film with as much of an open mind as I could and I was not impressed by this one.

Before the uprising against this humble reviewer begins, it is worth noting that I used to be a runner. I know the anguish of defeat and how nerve-racking it can be to feel chased for minutes on end. I've often said of such sports as track and field that it is far more satisfying and enjoyable to participate in the events than it is to watch them. Watching this film only reinforced that. Chariots Of Fire is based upon both a book and historical events and it is worthwhile to note that this review is solely of the film, not on any of the related works (or the truth).

Opening in London 1978, a man speaking at a funeral begins to recall a bygone era. A Scottish Evangelical named Eric Liddell raises awareness about god while running sprints. Working with his girlfriend, he tries to arrange missionary work in China (where he was born) and he divides his time between god and running. At the same time, Harold Abrahams makes his debut running sat Cambridge and in 1919, the Jewish runner competes to be considered the fastest man in Britain. When Abrahams and Liddell have their first race, Liddell wins and Harold sinks into a funk. He is rescued from his depression by the professional trainer, Sam Mussabini.

After training with Sam, Harold proves himself and both young men end up on Britain's Olympic team in 1924. Concerned about the American runners, Liddell and Abrahams prepare to square off once again. While Harold's running brings him closer to his girlfriend, Eric finds himself in an emotional and moral quandary about what his running is doing to him. As the games progress, both men figure out why they are running.

Chariots Of Fire is a short concept film fleshed out with subplots that never truly develop or never become as compelling as they could be. Harold deals with anti-Semitism at Cambridge, but it is often veiled in the old guard establishment at the college. The entire subplot of Harold wrestling with the dislike of Jews illustrated by the elders is dealt with in one scene after an aside at the beginning of the film. Far more of the film deals with Eric wrestling with his faith. That plot includes seeds, like Liddell lecturing a child who is playing rugby on the sabbath, which ultimately bear plot fruits, Liddell taking on the olympic committee over having to run a heat on the sabbath.

But more of the plots are fractured vignettes that do not develop nearly as well as the overall story. So, while the mirroring romantic plots - the dissolution of Liddell's relationship contrasting with Harold's love getting stronger through the running - are there, they are absent for most of the film. As well, a hurdler for Britain's team is shown training and his arc is mostly missing from the rest of the film. This makes one wonder what the point of his early scene was.

Largely, Chariots Of Fire is a plot-based film and this is why the movie holds up poorly. Without an emotional resonance to either of the film's protagonists, it becomes quite difficult to care what happens in the plot. Because the plots like the anti-Semitism against Abrahams is less-developed, one does not get the feeling he is truly running to prove anything, nor is he running to win the love of his life's affections. Similarly, once Liddell abandons his principle race, his character becomes vastly less important. When Eric is a runner, he fits the story being told well, when he becomes more of a preacher, this is not his film.

In addition to being light on character, none of the actors truly stand out. Outside Sir Ian Holm, who plays Sam, the actors are very white bread in their performances. While their characters might be droll, it is the death knell of the film for the performers to seem similarly bored or boring with playing their parts. By the time Chariots Of Fire was finished, I felt no care, no catharsis and for a film that is supposed to be a timeless story, this was a huge disappointment.

Those who love the conceits of films from the 1980s will appreciate the soundtrack by Vangelis Papathanassiou. The synth-based soundtrack is a wonderful one and it is easy to see how this influenced Ridley Scott with the Tangerine Dream soundtrack for Legend. But on this movie, the soundtrack is far too obtrusive. While the main theme is recognizable and grand, much of the rest of the movie's music - when it does come up - is distractingly out of setting. In other words, for a film about stiff British characters, the music ought to have been more orchestral than modern.

On DVD, Chariots Of Fire is presented with a lavish two-disc version. The second disc includes featurettes on the making of the movie as well as adapting the book to a film. While most of the featurettes are typical for a drama - deleted scenes, casting, conversations with the director - the bonus disc for Chariots Of Fire includes some cool programs from the early 1980s when the film was originally released. This makes it the ultimate edition for fans of this movie. On the principle disc, there is also a commentary track, which offers an additional value to fans.

A slow, fairly dull sports film bogged down with subplots and flashbacks that do not truly develop, Chariots Of Fire is an unremarkable movie. While this is an exceptional DVD presentation of the movie, the movie itself is dominated by characters it is hard to empathize with or care about the fate of. Those who like great drama will find this to be anything but; it is a sports film with limited melodrama centering around nationalism and religion.

[As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this is part of my Best Picture Project which is available here! Please check it out!]

For other films with competitions, please check out my takes on:
The Imaginarium Of Doctor Parnassus
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire 
The Blind Side

5/10

For other movie reviews, please be sure to check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2011, 2009 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.

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One Disney Remake Too Many: The Sorcerer's Apprentice Is An Overblown Special Effects Film!

The Good: The movie looks good, Good casting
The Bad: Terrible character development, Predictable plot, Some very lame humor
The Basics: Another disappointing live-action Disney endeavor, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is, unfortunately, nothing terribly new.


When I saw the first preview trailer for Disney's The Sorcerer's Apprentice, I was exceptionally excited. No, I'm not a fan of weak-concept movies or remakes of animated works as live action films or even a particular fan of many of the works of Disney Films in recent years. Instead, the first shots I saw made me think that DC Comics had pulled off a real coup and managed to make a Green Lantern film without me ever finding out about it. Having returned from an early screening of it, I find myself wishing that it had been a Green Lantern movie. (Not going to happen through Disney; they own Marvel Comics now.)

But on to The Sorcerer's Apprentice. This is the latest in a series of movies based upon shorter works or works in other media that Disney owns or has bought the movie rights to. This is a fleshing out, live action, of the idea in Fantasia of a wizard taking on an apprentice. The idea it taken to a more extreme level and the result is one that would not feel quite so tired had it not been for recent films like The Vampire's Assistant (which, ironically, The Sorcerer's Apprentice has a lot in common with, including the comedic aspects), Percy Jackson And The Olympians: The Lightning Thief and even Kick-Ass (reviewed here!). The result is a family-friendly special-effects driven film that feels like it was a board meeting's response to seeing the market niche being filled elsewhere. The Sorcerer's Apprentice comes late to the market and is likely to be one of the bigger box office flops as the young people to whom the film is geared will have much, much better options for movies they can watch (or sneak into).

Maxim Horvath is gathering power, enlisting powerful evil wizards and magicians in his bid to take over the world. When the popular illusionist Drake Stonea joins his side, the forces of good, in the form of Balthazar Blake begin to feel truly beleaguered. Blake finds a college student with an aptitude for chemistry and physics studying locally and he impresses him into service as his assistant. At first, Dave Stutler is freaked out and unconvinced of the realities of the magical world, but soon his training is under way and he has multiple example of magic and of Maxim Horvath's desire to stop Balthazar and now him. Dave also realizes that magic may well be the way to the heart of Becky, a fellow student he has a crush on.

But soon Horvath and his forces are unleashing magical monsters on Manhattan and only Balthazar and Dave stand in his way. As they battle through dragons, animated statues and magical forces, Dave learns to use his new powers and he becomes the best chance the forces of good have to stop (or distract) Horvath from taking over.

Instead of my usual rant about how Dave's love interest is a twiggy blonde chick (in this case played by Teresa Palmer, who I have not seen in any other works), I'll compliment director Jon Turteltaub on his casting. Jay Baruchel plays Dave with a perfectly convincing quality. Dave is nervous, uncertain and often clumsy and Baruchel has played that masterfully in other films. He has not lost his touch for The Sorcerer's Apprentice. Similarly, Alfred Molina has played monolithic villains before and his portrayal of Maxim Horvath is easily within his range and ability. He does not disappoint as the movie's antagonist.

Unfortunately, like many Disney films, Horvath is never made into a truly real character. Horvath is stereotypically evil with no real distinguishing characteristics that make him vital or interesting. Instead, he is the villain with the typically villainous desire to take over, with no real clear agenda or reason why he wants to be an overlord. The result is a feeling that we are watching yet another tired movie where the heroes are not so exceptional because the villain is not terribly distinct.

This, sadly, plays out poorly for The Sorcerer's Apprentice because while Nicholas Cage does heroic just fine when he wants to, the disheveled hero has been done to death by him. Cage as Balthazar becomes an excuse for much exposition and while he is given the special effects power to do magic, the viewer never truly feels like he is a credible sorcerer. In other words, Balthazar never quite seems smart or able enough to control the powers he is trying to make Dave disciplined enough to handle. The result is that while Cage does fine in the role, the role never seems terribly credible.

Add to that, writers Doug Miro, Carlo Bernard, and Matt Lopez never seem to miss a joke that falls flat. From Dave critiquing Blake's fashion sense to the obvious hormone-driven references that are likely to go over the heads of younger audiences, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is largely not funny. The lines tend to resonate more as catch-phrases than as flowing dialogue within the context of the movie. This is NOT the next Harry Potter franchise and those who are looking for a good coming-of-age story will find that is sublimated to ridiculous humor from the slapstick to the witless verbal jokes.

What keeps The Sorcerer's Apprentice from the absolute bottom of the barrel are the effects. In The Sorcerer's Apprentice, the effects are special enough to be engaging and for those who have not seen the trailers yet, they look better on the big screen and Turteltaub smartly has the transitions move in realistic time, instead of the super-accelerated way so many special effects films try to dazzle their audiences with.

That said, at the end of the day, The Sorcerer's Apprentice truly is just a live-action special-effects flick with a weak, predictable, overdone story that is mucked up by poor writing. Film fans can do much, much better than this, even during Summer Blockbuster Season.

For other films featuring Alfred Molina, please check out my reviews of:
Prince Of Persia: The Sands Of Time
Wonder Woman
Magnolia
Raiders Of The Lost Ark

4/10

For other film reviews, please visit my index page for a complete listing of all I have reviewed by clicking here!

© 2011, 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Degradation Of The Philosopher Kings: Star Trek: First Contact

The Good: Space battle effects, Acting.
The Bad: Plot, CHARACTER, Bigger Picture
The Basics: Star Trek: First Contact is better for non-Trek fans than anyone who actually appreciated the first two Trek series'! If you're into Trek and haven't seen it, don't!


I'll open by saying if you're in the mood for an action adventure flick, Star Trek: First Contact is fine and I suppose I could recommend it for that. That said, I'm about to pan this film. This puts me in the serious minority of both fans of the Star Trek franchise and of films in general. As a standalone movie, Star Trek: First Contact is satisfying and tense. For serious fans of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek: First Contact is a disappointment.

The strengths of First Contact are in the special effects and in the acting. Alfre Woodard is excellent and believable as Lily Sloane, James Cromwell is excellent as Zephram Cochrane and Patrick Stewart is his usual amazing self as Captain Jean-Luc Picard.

The problematic aspects of First Contact all have to do with the Star Trek and Star Trek The Next Generation series'. One of Gene Roddenberry's lieutenants will go on and on at length about how Gene's vision in Star Trek was a non-military group of explorers zipping around the galaxy and discovering what's out there. Personally, I think he's wrong with Star Trek, but that Gene Roddenberry's vision was realized in Star Trek The Next Generation. The reason almost no one recommends episodes from Star Trek The Next Generation's first season or two because it's basically Philosopher Kings in Space. Picard comes across as the ultimate Philosopher in space and that's wonderful. In fact, the way the series ended in "All Good Things" was with the explicit statement that the discoveries yet to be done are on the limits of the human condition.

So, what does this have to do with First Contact? First Contact is a degradation of almost every character in Star Trek The Next Generation. I'm not even talking about such petty things as how the writers neglected to actually watch the Star Trek episode where Zephram Cochrane is found and constantly referred to as ". . . of Alpha Centauri." I'm talking most about Captain Picard.

Patrick Stewart expertly plays Picard as a bitter, angry man who is so petty as to be in an obsessive quest to destroy the Borg, even if it means killing off his entire crew. Oh, I didn't even cover the plot yet. Well, bare with me. Picard's reaction ought to be an affront to anyone who truly loved Star Trek The Next Generation. It's a pretty petty twist of Picard's character and if you watched the show, it must seem incongruent that he had far less reaction to being held hostage by a bunch of Borg in the lame "Descent II" than he does at having them contained on the lower decks of his ship in this film. "Ahh," the astute Trekker will say, "That's because he was healed by the events in 'I, Borg.'" To which I say, "You're absolutely right!" The problem here is that - in their attempt to make an action film - the writers neglected to actually look at the character arc of Picard. He's an enlightened man who once told an alien who wiped a whole race out of existence that there was no punishment suitable for the crime and let him go ("The Survivors"). And yet here he is essentially reacting as a rape victim out to kill his rapist after a pretty healthy chunk of being healed. If Picard was going to go after anyone who tormented him in the series, it would have made more sense that it be the Cardassians, who actually did torture him (the Borg just did what was in their nature to do) and he never had a cathartic reaction from.

Okay, so we have the protagonist acting completely out of character and having to be told by a less enlightened person (or someone who is supposed to be less enlightened) how he should act. It's just plain sad.

If character were the only problem, I'd probably actually recommend the film. Alas, it's not. The plot. It's pretty simple, actually. A race of half man, half robots (the Borg) attack Earth. In perhaps their stupidest move ever, they make their usual straight attack on Earth and then, only when their big ship is exploding, they launch a smaller ship which goes back in time. If you have a brain at all, you should be asking, "Why didn't they just go back in time first?" - i.e. go back in time to a point before Earth has space ships defending it and assimilate Earth without having to lose one of their big ships. Well, they're followed back in time rather fortunately by the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise under Captain Picard's command. We're lucky they did, because the Borg somehow altered time to assimilate Earth.

The plot is pretty simple then; in the past, the Borg take over the Enterprise by assimilating (making normal people into Borg) the crew with the purpose being to stop humans from making contact with extraterrestrial life for the first time. It basically becomes one big gunfight broken up by scenes on Earth of convincing the man who is supposed to make the contact to actually go into space and to Data being tempted by the Borg Queen?

The Borg Queen? Yup, the writers made another huge mistake that is beyond asinine; they invented a character called the Borg Queen who is counterproductive to the idea of the Borg. And when the end comes, what Picard does to her isn't just cathartic, it's inhuman and disappointing to anyone who believed in an enlightened future.

Outside of basically decimating the menace of the Borg, ruining the fundamental tenants of Star Trek The Next Generation's most integral character and becoming the best thing to happen to Star Trek Voyager this film is a wonderful use of your time. And because the obvious fault is "If the Borg went back in time once, why don't they just go back in time again and try to succeed again?" odds are this lame-brained plot could be redone over and over again. In fact, First Contact - other than the atrocious abuse of character - would work splendidly as a prologue to another Trek movie that becomes a war through time against the Borg. Of course, such an endeavor would have to end with the outright, complete destruction of the Borg . . . then again, at this point, I could live with that!

For the other Star Trek cinematic adventures, check out my review of the boxed set that has them all by clicking here!

For other action-adventure science fiction films, please check out my reviews of:
Inception
Dark City
Star Wars: Revenge Of The Sith

7/10 (as a general movie)
5/10 (as a Star Trek film)

For other Star Trek reviews, please be sure to check out my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2001 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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