Planeta bur (1962)

08 Wednesday Apr 2015

Tags

Drama, Georgi Zhzhyonov, John, Literary adaptation, Pavel Klushantsev, Review, Robot, Sci-fi, Sirius, Soviet Union, Spaceships, Vega, Venus, Vladimir Yemelyanov

aka Planeta Burg; Planet of Storms; Planet of Tempests; Storm Planet

D: Pavel Klushantsev / 78m

Cast: Vladimir Yevelyanov, Georgi Zhzhyonov, Gennadi Vernov, Yuriy Sarantsev, Georgiy Teykh, Kyunna Ignatova

Three spaceships from the Soviet Union – Vega, Sirius and Capella – are approaching Venus when one of them, Capella, is struck by a meteorite and destroyed. The mission requires two of the ships to land on Venus while the remaining ship stays in orbit. But Capella’s replacement, Arcturus, will take four months to reach Venus, a situation the cosmonauts on board Sirius – Ilya (Yemelyanov), Aleksey (Zhzhyonov) and Roman (Vernov) – find unacceptable. They hatch a plan to land on Venus using a glider and one of the ships, but it means someone having to stay in orbit and monitor their progress on the planet. This falls to Masha (Ignatova), a Vega crew member. In the end, it’s her fellow crew members, Scherba (Sarantsev) and Dr Kern (Teykh), along with Kern’s robot John, who make the trip in the glider. However, when they land, all communication with them is lost.

The Sirius crew land in their ship to look for them. They encounter a strange, rocky environment that is perpetually shrouded in mist. They identify their colleagues’ location and set out in a hover car to find them, but not before Aleksey is almost killed by a carnivorous plant-like creature. Realising that Venus holds more dangers than they’d expected, they proceed with caution. Meanwhile, Scherba and Kern have encountered another danger, lizard-like creatures that walk upright. Fighting them off they soon find another problem: with their spacesuits torn in places, they’ve become susceptible to the air on Venus and are getting sick. They hole up in a cave and wait for their colleagues to find them.

Locking onto their position, Ilya, Aleksey and Roman find themselves under attack, this time from a creature resembling a pterodactyl (they’ve already encountered what appears to be a brontosaurus). Their hover car is damaged and ends up at the bottom of a lake. With communication lost with everyone on the surface, Masha has to decide whether or not she should mount her own rescue mission or wait for Arcturus to arrive. With time running out, the hover car is rescued from the lake and Ilya and his two colleagues get closer to finding their comrades. But not before Scherba, Kern and John have to deal with the lava flow from a nearby volcano. And all the while an ethereal female voice can be heard both in the distance and incredibly close by…

Viewed now, over fifty years on, Planeta bur is less of a curio than you might expect. While it’s not very prescient in terms of future science, and retains a quaint approach to some of its technology – Masha records her thoughts about making her rescue mission on a reel-to-reel tape recorder – there’s more than enough going on to keep the viewer interested, even if there are some unfortunately comic moments.

The trick is to put aside what we know now about Venus, and just go with the flow. After a stodgy opening period where the characters are introduced and the dilemma of landing on Venus is discussed and then decided on, the meat of the movie is introduced and we get to see the rugged, inhospitable landscape that represents the planet’s surface, as well as some very unpleasant inhabitants. It’s like a science fiction movie crossed with a disaster epic, as the cosmonauts encounter danger after danger, from man-eating plants to mini-Godzilla-like creatures to sudden volcanic eruptions. And though the pace is unhurried, there’s still enough tension built up between the various scenes of peril to keep the viewer interested and engaged.

In between these scenes there’s also time for the characters to wax philosophical about the origins of life on Venus and Earth – maybe we’re all descended from Martians – and the importance of the mission to the people back home in the Soviet Union (there’s even a short sequence where Masha envisions a parade with appropriately cheering masses in attendance). These interludes add a layer of intellectual gravitas to what is essentially an adventure, and is matched by the serious, intense nature of the cast and their performances. Yemelyanov looks like he’s lost the ability to smile, while Zhzhyonov’s eagerness to land on Venus makes him appear reckless. As the sole female on the mission, Ignatova looks concerned, worried and fearful throughout, and Teykh goes the opposite way ands affects a disinterested, unemotional stance that befits his reserved character.

The special effects employed range from the casually simple, such as the space suits, to the impressively clever, such as the hover car (which really looks like it’s floating a good foot off the ground). The locations, though feeling restricted, are used to very good effect, and there’s an otherworldly feel to them that adds a level of eeriness to proceedings. Klushantsev orchestrates the various alien encounters without overdoing it in terms of increasing the pace or making it look as if the cosmonauts are in any real danger, but their encounters are effective enough and shot with a good deal of style (if a little restrained at the same time). While some of the creatures remind the viewer of the budgetary constraints, again there’s a quaintness to it all that makes up for any shortcomings.

Concluding with a couple of revolutionary sounding songs extolling the virtues of both Earth and Venus, the movie has a satisfactory ending that hints at a possible sequel (but which sadly never happened). What did sadly happen is that American International Pictures got hold of the movie and re-edited it twice to make two vastly inferior “new” versions: Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), with Basil Rathbone added to the mix, and Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women (1968), directed by Peter Bogdanovich and with Mamie Van Doren added instead. Neither movie has much to recommend it, and should be avoided at all costs.

Rating: 7/10 – a little clunky in places, but thankfully free of too much ideology or Soviet propaganda, Planeta bur is a serious sci-fi movie that has much to say about the idea of space exploration; entertaining throughout, and as an entry movie into the career of the under-appreciated Klushantsev, definitely a good place to start.

Trailer: Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a trailer for Planeta bur available.

Big Hero 6 (2014)

09 Friday Jan 2015

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Animation, Baymax, Chris Williams, Disney, Don Hall, Hiro, Hiro Hamada, Kabuki mask, Marvel, Microbots, Professor Callaghan, Robot, Ryan Potter, San Fransokyo, Scott Adsit, Superheroes

D: Don Hall, Chris Williams / 102m

Cast: Scott Adsit, Ryan Potter, Daniel Henney, T.J. Miller, Jamie Chung, Damon Wayans Jr, Genesis Rodriguez, James Cromwell, Alan Tudyk, Maya Rudolph

Hiro Hamada (Potter) is a fourteen year old orphan living with his brother Tadashi (Henney) and aunt Cass (Rudolph) in San Fransokyo. He’s a precocious teenager, a genius with robotics who takes part in underground robot fights (and gets himself into trouble). Tadashi believes Hiro is wasting his time and talents, and takes him to the robotics lab at the university he attends. Hiro meets his brother’s friends, Go Go (Chung), Wasabi (Wayans Jr), Honey Lemon (Rodriguez) and Fred (Miller). Tadashi also introduces him to his own special project, a robot called Baymax who provides personal healthcare. Seeing the inventive projects they are all working on, Hiro becomes committed to enrolling at the university.

Hiro works on a project that he can use to apply, and comes up with microbots, tiny robots that can be connected in any way possible via the use of a neural sensor (basically a headband that reads a person’s thoughts and communicates them to the microbots). The head of the robotics department, Professor Callaghan (Cromwell) is sufficiently impressed to offer Hiro a place at the university. Also interested in the microbots is businessman Alistair Krei (Tudyk), but at the urging of Professor Callaghan – who dislikes Krei intensely – Hiro declines his offer to buy the microbots and make a fortune. Later, a fire breaks out at the university; Callaghan is trapped inside and Tadashi rushes in to rescue him. Hiro can only stand by and watch as the building explodes, killing both his brother and Callaghan.

Hiro retreats from daily life. One day he accidentally injures himself. This causes Baymax to activate and try to help Hiro. At the same time, one of Hiro’s microbots comes to life; they soon realise it’s trying to unite with the other microbots, but they should all have been destroyed in the university fire. They follow the microbot to an abandoned warehouse where they discover that someone is mass producing the microbots. Confronted by a man in a kabuki mask who uses the microbots to attack them, Hiro and Baymax manage to escape but not before Hiro realises his project is going to be used for evil purposes.

Hiro upgrades Baymax to be able to fight and equips him with body armour. They track the microbots to the docks where they encounter the masked man. Before Hiro can instruct Baymax to attack him, Tadashi’s friends all turn up; a chase ensues in which the masked man attempts to kill all of them. They manage to avoid being killed and head for Fred’s palatial home where Fred tells them he believes Krei is the man behind the mask and the theft of the microbots (and the deaths of Tadashi and Professor Callaghan). They use Baymax’s sensors to locate Krei and, kitted out in costumes that allow them to act as superheroes, head for an island off the coast where they discover an abandoned facility that contains the remains of a machine that they further learn was used as a teleportation device. And then the masked man appears, and attacks them all…

Watching Big Hero 6 – especially if you’re a Disney executive – is a reassuring experience. In the same year that Marvel took a chance on one of their lesser known titles (something called Guardians of the Galaxy), the House of Mouse also took a chance on releasing another Marvel adaptation, a comic book property that had an even lower profile than Star Lord and his pals. The result is a funny, exciting, refreshing, beautifully rendered, heartwarming tale that introduces audiences to one of the most lovable animated characters in recent memory: a rotund primary care robot called Baymax.

It’s a recognisably Disney movie. There’s the standard emphasis on family bonds and the importance of friendships, as well as doing the right thing, but it’s a Disney movie that’s been meshed with the standard tropes of a Marvel origin story, its action heroics and in-house maxim “with great power comes great responsibility” adding an extra layer to the emotional content that makes it more affecting than expected. Given free rein by Marvel to adapt Big Hero 6 in whatever way they saw fit, directors Hall and Williams and screenwriters Jordan Roberts, Dan Gerson and Robert L. Baird have created a movie that is a model of consistent, gratifying entertainment.

Of course, Big Hero 6 would be nothing without Baymax, an irresistibly charming, sweet-natured character who melts the heart and warms it at the same time. He’s a brilliant creation, a soft, cuddly vinyl-formed teddy bear whose personality chip is completely in the right place (where his heart would be – coincidence?). Voiced to perfection by Adsit, Baymax is the kind of friend we’d all love to have: solicitous, kindly, generous, selfless, supportive, and always there for us (it would be a hard heart indeed that didn’t fall in love with him at first sight).

With Baymax proving to be such a wonderful character it wouldn’t have been a surprise to find Hiro lacking in appeal by comparison, but thanks to the very cleverly assembled script, Hiro is as immediately likeable as Baymax is, his scamming at the opening robot fight proving to be a great introduction to a character the viewer can both identify and sympathise with throughout, even when his thirst for revenge for the death of Tadashi threatens to overwhelm his sense of right and wrong. And he’s not as self-centred as most fourteen year olds, having a refreshingly sincere relationship with both his brother and his aunt. And even more refreshingly, the script avoids any notion that Baymax is a replacement for Tadashi; the lovable lug, ultimately, is more than that, fulfilling the roles of brother, friend, and father.

What’s also refreshing is the fact that the villain actually has a good reason for stealing Hiro’s microbots and replicating them. When this reason is revealed it adds yet another emotional layer to the storyline, as well as an unexpected sadness that is amplified by highlighting how much the villain and Hiro have in common. It’s a neat twist on the usual hero-villain relationship, and allows Big Hero 6 to be comprised of more than just the customary bad-guy-out-to-take-over-the-world-and-stopped-by-errant-genius scenario we’re so used to seeing.

The supporting characters are all endearing in their own ways, with Miller’s Fred proving especially likeable (stay til after the end credits for a great “reveal” relating to his dad), and Wayans Jr’s Wasabi often very funny as the constantly risk assessing member of the group. The voice cast are all excellent, with special mention going to Potter and Henney who make their scenes together genuinely touching, and Adsit once more for making Baymax so appealing and irresistible.

As for the animation, the use of new technology means that Big Hero 6 is possibly one of the most beautifully animated movies so far. There’s also a level of detail that is absolutely breathtaking, notably in the scenes that take place on the streets of San Fransokyo. The mix of Eastern and Western cultures is a joy to behold, and very cleverly assimilated, providing a rich visual palette that can be enjoyed time and time again. The character designs are also impressive, with a welcome reduction on the size of the eyes that has hampered the design of so many previous animated characters. And the use of a kabuki mask makes the villain truly intimidating and menacing, augmenting the threat he presents and making him look creepy as well.

With Hall and Williams showing an obvious command of the material, and choosing not to set this in another corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, the viewer is free to enjoy the movie for what it is and not where it might fit in to any future Marvel outings. With this potential aspect removed, Big Hero 6 is free to be delightful and entertaining on every level it aims for.

Rating: 9/10 – a winner, pure and simple, continually inventive and captivating in equal measure; Big Hero 6 is yet another triumph from Disney, and is – probably – one of the most visually ravishing, heartwarming animated movies you’re likely to see in this or any year.

Poster of the Week – Westworld (1973)

28 Monday Jul 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Design, Futureworld, Gunslinger, Movie poster, Poster of the week, Robot, Sci-fi, Tag line

Westworld (1973)

When I first saw Westworld it was on a double bill with its sequel Futureworld when that movie was released in 1976. At the cinema where I saw them both, there was only the poster for Futureworld on display, so I didn’t see this particular gem until quite some time after. Given the disparity between the two movies – and an audience that consisted of myself and three others – maybe my hometown’s long-defunct ABC cinema should have gone with this poster instead.

There’s a lot going on here, from the faceless man at the control panel with all its futuristic dials and buttons, to the monitor screens that show images of Richard Benjamin and James Brolin, a saloon, and what looks like the Gunslinger (Brynner), this glimpse of what happens behind the scenes at Westworld is intriguing for its combination of humans and technology, and gives rise to the question, which one is in control? For standing over the control panel is the Gunslinger, a figure that bears ominous signs of damage and proves itself to be a robot, Brynner’s face slid aside to reveal the circuitry beneath the façade. It’s an arresting visual conceit, and one that is reinforced by the bullet wound in the robot’s torso, the combination of blood and wiring adding to what is already amiss about the character.

The extended tag line is well constructed too, with its underlining of the word anything, the implication all too clear, and the clever misspelling and debasement of the last word, an expressive augury of what will happen in the movie, and how anything can and will become too terrible to imagine. It supports the central image of the implacable Gunslinger, and adds a further layer of threat – not that’s it really needed. And then there’s the title, bold and expressive in red, cutting across the image with authority, actually drawing attention away from the imagery and the text, the strongest component of a poster that draws the eye to it with calculated ease.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to let me know.

RoboCop (2014)

20 Thursday Mar 2014

Posted by dullwood68 in Movies

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Abbie Cornish, Detroit, ED-209, Gary Oldman, Joel Kinnaman, Michael Keaton, Omnicorp, Remake, Review, Robot, Robotics, Samuel L. Jackson

D: José Padilha / 117m

Cast: Joel Kinnaman, Gary Oldman, Michael Keaton, Abbie Cornish, Jackie Earle Harley, Michael K. Williams, Jennifer Ehle, Jay Baruchel, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Samuel L. Jackson, Aimee Garcia, Douglas Urbanski, John Paul Ruttan, Patrick Garrow, Zach Grenier

With the Eighties being increasingly plundered for material that can be remade, rebooted or re-imagined, the likelihood of a new RoboCop movie was always a strong possibility. Now that it’s here, it’s inevitable that the comparisons between this version and Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original are appearing thick and fast, with equally inevitable results: it’s not the same (shock! horror!).

From the black suit to the addition of a wife and child, RoboCop is – and was always going to be – a different beast from its predecessor(s) (let’s not even mention the animated and live action TV series’). Some things remain the same though. Alex Murphy (Kinnaman) is still a Detroit cop, working with his partner, Jack Lewis (Williams) to bring down crime boss Antoine Vallon (Garrow). When the pair get too close, Lewis is wounded in a shootout and Murphy is subsequently blown up outside his home. With his life hanging in the balance, OmniCorp boss Raymond Sellars (Keaton) offers his wife Clara (Cornish) a way to keep Alex alive: sign up to their research programme, headed by Dr Norton (Oldman).

Three months later, Alex is restored to waking consciousness to find himself encased in a metal suit and horrified by what is happening to him. After an escape attempt fails he begins to accept the reality of his situation and works with Norton to make the best of things and, more importantly, find his way back to Clara and his son David (Ruttan). With a projected annual return of $600 billion if their robot police programme is a success – and if a bill banning robot police officers is repealed by the Senate – OmniCorp is determined not to let Alex’s individuality ruin their investment. They take steps to control his emotional and judgmental responses, but reckon without his love for his family – and his need for revenge on Vallon – overriding their protocols. Soon, Alex begins to understand the depth of Sellars’ duplicity, and with his partner’s help, sets out to – yes, you’ve guessed it – bring Sellars to justice.

Although Ed Neumeier and Michael Miner – the screenwriters of the 1987 version – are credited alongside newbie Josh Zetumer, little remains from their script except various names, the Detroit location, and the movie’s basic structure. It’s not a bad (exo-) skeleton to hang things on and ensures the movie doesn’t stray too far from the (in-built) audience’s expectations. The major difference here is that Alex isn’t killed but is critically injured, making his memories and emotions a much more potent angle to explore… except the movie doesn’t. With the exception of a brief (read: cut short in the editing process) scene where Alex goes home for the first time as RoboCop, there’s no real exploration of what Alex might be feeling beyond having Kinnaman look aggrieved for a few moments in-between the action elements.

There’s also a lot of talking. RoboCop may be the first action movie in a long time to spend so much of its screen time having its secondary characters talk so often, and to so little effect. Jackson ramps it up as a thinly disguised version of Fox News’ Bill O’Reilly, spouting diatribes as only he can, and providing the movie with its thinly disguised attack on corporate America and the media as devious bedfellows (Jackson also gets to say m*thaf*cka, so some things are all right with the world). And then there’s the continual back-and-forth between Sellars and Norton where Norton voices a concern or a negative opinion, and Sellars just waffles a few sentences and Norton goes away appeased. (I swear I have no idea what Michael Keaton is saying in those scenes.)

With all this dialogue and by-the-numbers plotting, how then do the action scenes fare? Well, one first-person shooter sequence aside (which sticks out like a sore thumb), RoboCop delivers fairly effective if unexceptional action beats until it wimps out altogether and gives us one of the most ineffectual showdowns in action cinema history (look for the well-armed guard who doesn’t fire a shot – no, look for him: once RoboCop appears he all but vanishes). And if I have to make one comparison only between this version and the 1987 movie, it’s that Vallon is a poor, practically disposable villain when set against Clarence Boddicker.

The cast perform efficiently enough and Kinnaman makes for a strong-jawed hero, while Oldman does his best with a character whose motivations change from scene to scene (and sometimes within them). Keaton underplays Sellars and only occasionally shows off the nervous energy that made him so exciting to watch earlier on in his career, and Baruchel gets to play the annoying marketing character you hope gets killed by an ED-209. As Clara, Cornish has little to do but look angry or upset from the sidelines, and Jean-Baptiste (so brilliant in Mike Leigh’s Secrets and Lies) is here reduced to treading water until her character is no longer required by the narrative.

Padilha directs with an efficiency and a drive that never quite translates into sustained tension, and there are too many filler shots of RoboCop zooming through the streets of Detroit on his customised motorbike. That said, there are things to like: Lula Carvalho’s steel-burnished photography; Murphy’s treatment of hired mercenary Mattox (Haley) after a training exercise; a short scene where a man with robotic hands plays the guitar; Mattox’s choice of music during Murphy’s first training session (plus Norton’s bemused response); the seamless special effects, a predictably vast improvement on 1987; and the movie’s best scene by far: the moment when Murphy discovers just how much of himself fills the suit.

Ultimately, what’s missing from RoboCop is a clear attempt at relating the emotional trauma of being a man in a “tin suit”. Without it, RoboCop doesn’t engage in the way it should do, and many scenes pass by without having any meaningful effect on the audience. It makes for frustrating viewing, and robs the movie of any real drama; sadly, it all ends up being just too impersonal.

Rating: 6/10 – a tidier script would have helped but this is by no means a disaster; a shaky start to a new series of movies(?) but enjoyable enough despite its flaws.