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Retro Review: Wrong Turn

What’s worse than a leather-faced madman chasing you through the bush with a chainsaw? How about three!!

“Wrong Turn” stars Desmond Harrington as Chris Finn, a man who is late for a very important interview.

Finn takes a back country road to avoid a traffic jam and ends up involved in a car accident with three debutantes (Eliza Dushku, Lindy Booth and Emmanuelle Chriqui) and their boyfriends (Jeremy Sisto and Kevin Zegers).

The group splits up as they try to find some help. Unbeknownst to them, they are being stalked by an unspeakable horror.

Living in the woods around the crash is a family of cannibalistic mountain men who are overtly grotesque from generations of incest. Before the group knows it, they are in a fight for their very lives.

“Wrong Turn” was in one word an utter shock to the system. There hasn’t been a film this gory, grotesque and chilling in a very long time. Not since the 1970’s “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” has a horror film such as this been made. The best way to describe the experience is that if you took 2001’s “Joy Ride” and “Jeepers Creepers” added 1972’s “Deliverance” then threw them all in a blender. You may come up with “Wrong Turn”.

The tension in this film is harrowing and relentless as it bats you back and forth.

You are exhausted and maybe even queasy when you come out of the theatre. But if you love horror films then you probably have an ear to ear grin as well.

I really liked some of the early editing of this film by director Rob Schmidt, who allows the scares and shocks to come with brilliant accuracy. I also liked how Schmidt barely shows the mountain men throughout the film.

The parts we do see are horrific but the filmmaker relies heavily on the chase and shock than on the gore. Schmidt could have easily dived down the gore shoot to hell but he made a wise choice that works in spades.

It’s the film’s harrowing tension and atmospheric pursuit that overshadows the young stars that make upthe cast. Dushku is strong and emulates some of her “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” character, Faith in her portrayal here. Dushku loves to play debutantes with edge and her character here has a lot of it. I wasn’t extremely familiar with Desmond Harrington before this film but he plays a good leading man.

The rest of the cast play typical generic 20-somethings from the horror film franchises of old. I have always liked Lindy Booth but she has nothing to play with here and the same is goes for Jeremy Sisto. But come on, this isn’t exactly an intelligently written and detailed drama.

I liked “Wrong Turn” purely because of its shock value and its no holds barred return to classic horror. It is always in your face and it doesn’t let go till the credits. This film isn’t for the faint of heart. What a rush!

3.5 out of 5

So Says the Soothsayer.

Written: June 2, 2003

Retro Review: Lake Placid

Well first there was King Kong, then Godzilla and Jaws after that. Well it looks like Hollywood went fishing in that well one more time as they dream up a 30-foot Crocodile.

“Lake Placid” stars Bridget Fonda, Bill Pullman, and Oliver Platt are investigators trying to find out how this “Croc” landed in Maine of all places.

Scripted by Ally McBeal creator David E. Kelley we start to see a film that has a wonderful start but wears out its welcome after about 30 minutes.

The film’s opening is tense and “Jaws-esque” but as the movie introduces paleontologist Fonda, we begin to wonder what this Ally McBeal clone has to do with a 30-foot Crocodile.

What does the Fish and Game department need with a paleontologist?

So Kelley’s throws us an unfaithful boyfriend and the excuse to runaway from her problems. Isn’t Kelley that pro-woman writer?

Don’t get me wrong some of these cliches are humorous but do we really need this in a monster movie? And with a running time of only 83 minutes we never really get to know anyone.

The real good moments have to be in the unpredictable and often-ludicrous acting of Oliver Platt and the scene stealing Betty White. Plus the wizardry of Stan Winston’s Giant Crocodile on land is as awesome as usual. All I can say is skip this one and wait for “Deep Blue Sea” coming in two weeks.

(2 out of 5)

So Says the Soothesayer.

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Retro Review: Enemy at the Gates

Toted as “High Noon” meets “Saving Private Ryan”, Enemy had a lot to live up to.

One of the most catastrophic and desperate battles of World War 2 was the fall of Stalingrad. The Nazi fascist regime had marched across Russia and was trying to bring Stalin to his knees.

The Battle for Stalingrad was one of the bloodiest and most crucial battles of that campaign.

Amongst the Russian troops was a reluctant hero named Vassily Zaitsev (Jude Law). Vassily was a farm boy from the Urals and was taught how to shoot by his grandfather.

Vassily’s first encounter with the Nazis was in a desperate infantry attack in the center of Stalingrad.

Thrown into the war, Vassily learns that two men have to share one rifle as they run into the spraying fascist bullets.

One man would carry the rifle while the other would carry the ammo when one died the other would assume the position of rifleman. Vassily is shocked when he becomes ammo-guy. It looks like he may not see very much of this war.

The battle ends and the audience only sees mangled Russian bodies lining the streets. A car crashes in the center of the square and a man struggles to get out. Germans laugh as they try to pelt the survivor with bullets. The survivor’s name is Danilov (Joseph Fiennes) and he is desperately trying to get out the Russian Army Newsletter which is only the real contact within and outside the militia.

Danilov plays dead as a sentry misses him with flying bullets. It’s in that pile of dead bodies that he meets Vassily and learns the boy’s secret. Their friendship would run deep through the course of the war. Danilov and Vassily will fall in love with the same woman (Rachel Weisz), face-off against a Nazi assassin (Ed Harris), and learn about the spoils of war all before the struggle is over.

Director Jean Jacques Annaund is most famous for the writing the indie hit “The Lover” and for directing other indie classics like “Quest for Fire”, “Name of the Rose” and of course “The Lover”. Annaud has always left an impression on me as a brilliant scenery and scope man. He really knows how to bring to life the world around him in his films. He also knows how to really electrify a screen even if there is very little dialogue.

In “Enemy”, Annaud does a brilliant job of making the world of falling Stalingrad as believable and as powerful as one could imagine. I loved the attention to detail and how he was able to lure us into the world.

With this brilliant atmosphere one would believe that the movie would be beautifully scored and have heart pounding music. For this film. Composer James Horner misses the boat completely as he tries to pass off an old movie music score in a newer film. This film really needed a better score and not an old re-hash.

In 1998, James Horner teamed with George Lucas and Ron Howard to score the fantasy film, “Willow” which starred Val Kilmer and Jean Marsh.

During the course of that film, Horner used a tension score that was a series of three to five notes and were echoed throughout the film. It was original but could get annoying at times.

The annoying aspect is why it stuck with me for so long even though I still really enjoyed Willow. It’s this score that Horner uses for the showdown between Vassily and the Nazi assassin. These pivotal scenes are destroyed with that nail-scratching-chalkboard poor excuse for music. What torture!! And what a bloody waste!!

I really liked the leading performance in this film and here is a brief breakdown. Jude Law is very charismatic and very good as the young Vassily and I am sure will go along way in Hollywood as a leading man.

Fiennes once again plays second fiddle to a larger star and shines as the compassionate but sometimes shrewd Danilov.

Harris is unemotional, robotic and lethal which makes for a very good adversary for young Vassily. Finally, I didn’t care very much for the rest of the cast who for me really didn’t do much but play their roles.

I never have been much of a fan of Rachel Weisz. Weisz as a weak link is very evident in the sex scene between her character and Vassily. There was no real passion there and the scene was completely forced. I know the film was trying to draw on their desperation and struggle but instead what we got was Hollywood force feeding a new hot Hollywood couple intimacy scene.

I think some of the more interesting scenes are between the Nazi assassin and the little boy. I really loved the tension and suspense in those. Was the boy really turning on Vassily? I loved how Harris’s cold methodical style oozed all over the innocence of the boy and really made the audience panic in some aspects. These were crucial scenes.

I also thought that the Ron Perlman character should have been more interesting. Vassily needed some sort of “Ben Kenobi”-type character but that character never really flushed out that aspect.

Overall the most gripping is the very beginning of the film where we are unleashed to the torments of war. I loved the naval aspects of the opening and the panic we feel as we follow Vassily into Stalingrad. Placing aside my squabbles above, I still enjoyed “Enemy at the Gates” much the same way as I enjoyed Willow so many years ago.

(3.5 out of 5)

So Says the Soothsayer.

Retro Review: Heartbreakers

What do you get when you take the hilarious comedy classic, “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” and place women in the lead roles instead of men. You get Heartbreakers!!

Sigourney Weaver, Jennifer Love Hewitt, Ray Liotta, Jason Lee and Gene Hackman star in Heartbreakers.

Hewitt and Weaver are a mother-daughter team of con-artists who love to pick reluctant men clean after they get them to do a quickie marriage.

Their con is working brilliantly but the daughter has a desire to break out on her own.

So when the IRS comes calling they vow to have one last gigantic con so that mom can retire and the daughter can go on her own.

Their last con is a disgusting millionaire (Hackman) who loves to smoke but they are sure he will drop dead right after the nuptials.

Will they pull off the con? Will a previous husband come after them? What about an unscheduled love affair? See Heartbreakers and find out.

This film, originally entitled “Breakers”, has been bouncing around at MGM since 1996, and was going to star Angelica Huston and Alicia Silverstone.

Now in its third incarnation, we are beautifully blessed. “Heartbreakers” is indeed the funniest movie this year, so far. Its quick wit and charming cast will tickle your funny bones really allowing you to enjoy yourself.

Retro Review: Ghosts of the Abyss

Oscar winning director James Cameron takes another journey into the ocean’s depths as he revisits the final resting-place of the ill-fated ship, Titanic.

It’s been a long time since we have seen James Cameron step behind a motion picture camera.

The last thing to take his directing credit was the series finale of his produced TV series, “Dark Angel” in 2002.

Before that we hardly heard his name after he won his Oscar for “Titanic” in 1998.

In Cameron’s return, he re-teams with “Aliens” and “Terminator” co-star Bill Paxton. The long-time friends share their real-life adventure to the wreck of Titanic.

Along with the celebrities are a brood of scientists, historians and crew.

The team uses entirely new technology to show new angles and rooms within the sunken wreck.

Shown in state of the art IMAX 3-D, Cameron uses the medium to his advantages as you witness bubbles cascade off the screen and bounce off the heads of fellow audience members. There is an amazing use of multi-layering screens and windows. This effect is really a showcase of Cameron’s presentation.

The film’s most successful and memorable effect will probably be how Cameron uses ghost effects to enhance rooms.

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Retro Review: Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story

There have been a lot of sports comedies over the years. Some have been memorable like 1989’s Major League and some have been horrendous like 1998’s Baseketball.

But there never has been a sports comedy based on a game we all used to play in high school gym.

“Dodgeball” begins when White Goodman (Ben Stiller), owner of gym-juggernaut Globo-Gym hires bank employee Kate Veatch (Christine Taylor) to takeover Average Joe’s, a neighborhood gym owned by Peter La Fleur (Vince Vaughn).

It turns out that Peter and his socially-challenged members have 30 days to come up with $50,000 or watch their past time be demolished to give way for a Globo-Gym parkade.

It is an insurmountable task but their saving grace may come in the form of a professional “dodgeball” tournament in Las Vegas. Ok, they don’t have a chance. Or do they?

When you make a film like “Dodgeball” you really have to have a great villain and Ben Stiller’s White Goodman is the perfect comedy villain.

He seems to be an amalgamation of several other Stiller characters mixed with an insane health freak. But the combination turns into pure comic genius.