Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 April 2002

Aside from the script, Panic Room is a beautifully crafted picture.  Meg (Foster) is a recently divorced woman who just purchased a luxurious house in New York to make a new home with her young daughter, Sarah (Stewart).  The master bedroom has a rather unusual secret compartment known as a “panic room”.  It’s a room to hide in should the house ever be penetrated by intruders.  The room contains every resource one would need to survive as well as video cameras to monitor every room in the house and a separate telephone line to call for help.

On their very first night in the house, three burglars arrive - Burnham (Whitaker), Junior (Leto) and Raoul (Yoakam).  Believing the house to be unoccupied, they soon realise there are two residents sound asleep.  Locked in a safe within the panic room is $3m left by the house’s previous (and now deceased) owner.  Meg awakes and realising they are not alone in the house, she locks herself and Sarah in the panic room.  We now have a stalemate situation.  Meg and Sarah want out of the panic room, the burglars want to get into the panic room but neither can figure out a way to do it.  

The film is directed by David Fincher, the same creative individual who brought us Seven, The Game and the under appreciated Fight Club.  It has all Fincher’s stylings and is directed with thrilling precision.  The dual cinematography work from Conrad Hall (American Beauty) and Darius Khondji (Evita) is incredible.  Cameras go where cameras are not supposed to go and the assistance of visual effects make it all so seamless.  Cameras slide between levels of the house in a single shot and sneak down tiny holes and through narrow gaps.  How do they do it?  The open credits are really cool too - proof that computers can do almost anything.

Jodie Foster is a great actress who doesn’t usually bow to studio pressure.  This is only her third film in the last five years (Contact, Anna And The King) and you’d think a two-time Oscar winning actress would appear a lot more.  I’m sure she gets plenty of offers but being a true professional, she doesn’t work for the sake of working - she’s prepared to wait until the right script comes along.  So is this the right script?

No.  It is conventional, unoriginal and uninspiring.  The holes are so deep that you can’t even see where they end.  What am I talking about?  Here’s some frustrating plot developments that are just too difficult to believe.  Meg knows how to hot-wire a telephone.  Sarah knows Morse code.  The burglars can hear Meg cough and yet they can’t hear anything else they talk about.  The burglars come up with ridiculously inventive plans to flush Meg and Sarah out and yet are dumb enough not to deactivate the cameras.  Every character seems to be able to accurately preempt what the other will do.  I won’t go on (because I want to keep the review under 10,000 words) but the far-fetched ending is laughable and predictable.  An insult to a good thriller.  Anyone who buys it, is a sucker.

I’m disappointed by the film but even more disappointed by having it associated with David Fincher.  Fight Club was such a ground breaking effort.  Why would one of the world’s leading directors choose a screenplay that should have been used as toilet paper?  So if you’re in a hurry to believe the hype and see this film ASAP, don’t “panic” because there’s no reason to justify your attendance.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 28 March 2002

Buck (Boyle), Hank (Thornton) and Sonny (Ledger) are three generations in the Grotowski Family.  Hank and Sonny currently work as prison guards in the Correctional Facility.  Ready to be executed is Lawrence Musgrove (Combs) who after 11 years of failed appeals awaits his meeting with the electric chair.  His wife, Leticia (Berry) and their son, Tyrell, pay a final emotional visit.

At the execution, Sonny loses his composure (and guts) on escorting Lawrence from his cell.  This is just another reason for Hank to be disappointed in his son and he’s not afraid to tell him this to his face.  In the following days, Leticia loses her job and the bank has served a 30-day eviction notice.  Both Hank and Leticia are subconsciously seeking someone to emotionally confide it and in an unfortunate and shocking coincidence, they find themselves together.

Revealing more will spoil the experience so I’ll keep tight-lipped regarding the intriguingly depressing plot developments.  Marc Foster is a wonderful choice as director.  The screenplay requires the story be told slowly and to compensate, he shows the actions of more than one character during particular scenes.  The grim colouring and camerawork is spot on.  A sex scene between Berry and Thornton is refreshingly honest and not glossed up.

Unnecessarily rated R for its strong sexual content, I hope Monster’s Ball finds an audience.  People who whinge (including me) about continually unimpressive American movies can get off our bandwagon for a week and start telling others about this wonderful independent production funded by Lions Gate.  An emotional rollercoaster that doesn’t stop until long after the cinema.

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 11 April 2002

Driven by Emma’s death, Alex becoming a recluse and resumes his research in the basement of his house.  After four years, he comes upon the ultimate find - the ability to travel through time.  He uses his time machine to travel back in time to stop the mugger from killing his fiancé and whilst successful, she is killed in another freak accident.  From this, Alex learns that the past cannot indeed be changed.  He now knows his only hope in finding a way to change the past, is to travel into the future where knowledge is at a higher level.

Only planning to travel a few hundred years ahead, Alex inadvertently slips 800,000 years into the future.  The world still exists but is somewhat different and less advanced than the world he left behind.  So just what has happened?  He comes across a new race of humans which help provide the answers but they are being pursued by a subspecies of humans who now live below the surface...

For those unaware, The Time Machine is a famous book written by science fiction specialist H.G. Wells in 1895.  His other renowned works include The Island Of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man and The War Of The Worlds.  This effort is not the first time his novel has been adapted - it was made into a feature motion picture back in 1960.

The film is directed by Simon Wells, the great grandson of author H.G. Wells but as hard as he tries, the book cannot be given true justice on the big screen.  The concepts explored in the book are fascinating and that same interest translates through the script but there just isn’t enough time in a 90 minute movie to go anywhere.  It’s an unusual comment to make but yes, this film was too short and could have benefited from an additional hour.  Also not helping the film is the truth that director Wells suffered a stress-related breakdown during the final three weeks of shooting and a replacement director, Gore Verbinksi, was called in.

I enjoy the fact that Guy Pearce chooses risky and unconventional material.  He deserves better than this but his persona lifts the film above its substandard screenplay.  His Hollywood resume now includes a healthy listing of critically acclaimed cult films such as Memento, Ravenous and L.A. Confidential.

With any movies involving time travel, I usually make a quip about how I’d love to go back in time and change the fact that this film was ever made.  But since I know now that the past cannot be changed, I’m happy just to go into the future to discover those films that must be seen and those that must be avoided.  Plus, I could make a little gambling profit on the side...

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 28 March 2002

Showtime is all wrong.  The film “tries” to poke fun at reality based TV shows but doesn’t realise that it’s following all the Hollywood movie stereotypes in the process.  DeNiro and Murphy are

Mitch Preston and Trey Sellars.  Mitch is a straight shooting detective with a well regarded reputation.  Television cameras happened to catch his latest drug bust and Mitch is now a media sensation.  He’s not very forthcoming however and he shoots a camera during the incident when it gets in his way.

Chase Renzi (Russo) works for a television network and sees Mitch as her window to pitch a new reality based TV program.  Cameras will follow him 24 hours a day and the highlights will be shown Friday nights at 8pm.  Mitch is naturally unforthcoming but when the police station is threatened with a $10,000,000 lawsuit over the “shooting the camera” incident, his boss gives him no choice but to participate.

Looking for a wacky sidekick, Chase finds Trey - a police officer / actor.  He’s dying to be on television and gives a dazzling audition.  Further encouragement is the fact he’ll get to work with Mitch Preston and he sees his experience as a way of learning how to pass the detective exam (which he’s failed twice before).  Naturally, the two don’t hit it off but they soon come together when hot on the trail of a head drug lord.

I chuckled once during the entire ordeal.  Murphy is usually funny in every film he makes but this is a rare exception.  DeNiro has no talent as a comedic actor and despite what anyone else says about Analyse This and Meet The Parents, he just doesn’t have it.  Rene Russo is the supporting actress in this mess and does absolutely nothing.  I think the highlight of the film was seeing William Shatner slide across a car hood and land on his ass.

Nothing really make sense either.  Stuff happens and I don’t know why it happens.  The drug villain, Vargas, manages to destroy a suburban house with some sort of super gun.  How?  Mitch and Trey approach Vargas in his nightclub for no apparent reason but to act tough.  Why?  How do the studio cameras always immaculately capture the action despite being hidden in stupid locations (such as shirt buttons)?  How does Mitch hide a gun in a video camera and still manage to fire it?  And let’s not forget the age old question - how can a villain shoot a gun 100 times and still miss hitting the good guy?

Stunningly horrendous, this could well be the worst commercial release of the year.  During the credits, they show out takes from the film and even they weren’t funny.  There isn’t a single compliment that can be uttered which is lucky because I’ve been left speechless by its dreadfulness.  Forget Showtime, it’s boretime!

Details

Written by Matthew Toomey

Created: 04 April 2002

Secondly, the film will receive criticism from die-hard Rice fans who have seen the book murdered to fit into a 100 minute running time.  Unlike Lord Of The Rings, people aren’t prepared to sit though a three hour vampire epic, and so events are changed, characters are cut and the essence that made the novel so appealing has been lost.

Both “disappointments” were unavoidable.  The novel had to be cut and the studio could not lure back the creators of the original.  Queen Of The Damned begins slowly - the vampire Lestat (Townsend) rises from the dead and becomes a massive rock star.  He is not afraid to tell his legion fans he is a vampire but other vampires are upset that he as failed to uphold their morals and keep his “blood sucking” trait a secret.  Lestat is deliberately upsetting the vampire world to lure some old “friends” out of hiding.

The film has received more publicity than it deserves thanks to the death of one of its stars, Aaliyah, who died in a plane crash in August last year.  Aaliyah’s role is quite small in the film and without insulting her memory, a rather disappointing end to a limited film career.  Following her death, her brother was called upon to help overdub her voice is several scenes.

Here’s a curious note for film buffs - Queen Of The Damned was made in Australia.  You’ll guess this straight away with the unusual casting choice of Tiriel Mora as Lestat’s music agent.  Mora is most famous for his role as Dennis Denuto in The Castle and here he uses a pathetic fake accent to disguise his nationality.  The huge concert scene that forms part of the film’s finale was filmed in Werribee and over 2,000 “goths” turned up to appear as extras.

On a plus side, the film has some good visual effects and some great sound bytes.  The story isn’t difficult to follow but it is rather simple and lacking the intricate depth offered by Interview With A Vampire.  Author Anne Rice offered to pen the screenplay for free but was turned down.  I guess you could say with an idiotic decision like that, this film was “damned” from the very start.