ComplainerMan

Kill Bill is Quentin Tarantino’s unreasonably corny and ultra-violent revenge action thriller. I’m not sure whether to warn the squeamish or the non-squeamish, considering the violence is both excessively morbid and pretty damned stupid. I suppose I could get into the nitty-gritty of that first, but it would really do the movie justice if I started with plot.

“The Bride,” as the character Uma Thurman plays is called, was assaulted on her wedding day by the Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. Though she’s now retired, she used to belong to this squad, working under the guidance of an enigmatic man named Bill.  From initial speculation, The Bride and Bill must have had a thing going, because he crashed her wedding with the rest of his squad, murdered everybody, and shot her (during the later stages of her pregnancy) in the head. However, she didn’t die. She wakes up, finding a metal plate in her head and her baby nowhere to be found, and revenge on her mind.

One by one, The Bride hunts down those responsible for her “murder” and delivers to them the fullest extend of her vengeance. In the much loved Tarantino style, the Deadly Viper Assassins go down in a blaze of bloody fury. Vernita Green’s the first, dying from a knife to her chest in her own home. Not very exciting, but if you look closely enough during the fight, you can see Vernita’s rubber knife flopping around. Heh.

Then The Bride goes to Japan to get a sword from Hattori Hanzo. That’s really the only part of the movie that doesn’t involve blood splurting out of ragged katana wounds like a crimson fire hose, or people firing guns through cereal boxes only to have a four inch dagger buried into their chests.

O-Ren Ishii is the half-Chinese half-Japanesese American born mob boss of the Crazy 88. She kills people a lot, which is why she’s still the boss. Unfortunately for her, she took part in the kicking of The Bride’s ass, which  earned her a one way trip to being irrevocably dead. The Bride slaughters every last one of her gangsters with Hanzo’s katana, making blood shoot out everywhere like some morbid new age artist’s masterpiece. Then, afterwards she chops the top of O-Ren Ishii’s skull off so her brain is sticking out. I forgot to mention, Lucy Liu plays O-Ren Ishii, and the skull-chopping scene would have been epic if not for the fact that it was so gosh darned silly.

Flashback (because this is a Tarantino review of a Tarantino movie) to the origin of O-Ren Ishii. Her dark and brooding past: A gangster kills her family, she kills the gangster, then becomes a world-renowned assassin. That catches Bill’s attention, and she becomes a part of his super-secret boy band. The Japanese anime style in which this is presented makes the violence almost more extreme than that of the live action movie itself. It’s awesome if you can get over how overdone it is.

So, uh… That’s about all there is to the movie. Violence, violence, and more silly, willy-nilly violence. I guess if you’re into that sort of thing it makes for a good watch, but I’d guess that most people just watch it for a good laugh if they’re in the mood for one of the crappier Tarantino flicks. I’m not saying this one is horrible, I’m just saying it could afford to be a lot better.

There’s a sequel, you know. The final chapter. If you make it through the first, you’re going to HAVE to see the second, just out of morbid curiosity. Very morbid curiosity. My personal recommendation, don’t see Kill Bill Volume One if you’re going to try to take it seriously. You’ll regret it. You should see it anyway, though, just to lower your standards a tad.

The best part about the title is that it’s just vague enough that when you see the related micro-event in the movie, you’ll recognize it, but you’ll have no idea what the hell is going to happen. On the bright side, this is a movie based off of a lame and dorky sci-fi TV series. Kinda like the Brady Bunch, but in space and with robots. Oh, no, wait, that’s the bad news. The good news is, this movie has Gary Oldman in it, and he plays Doctor Smith. He does a wonderful job, I should mention. It’s time for plot!

The Robinson family has volunteered for the prestigious Jupiter Mission! They must fly via spaceship to the distant planet Alpha Prime in order to complete the second hypergate that will allow them to teleport from the dying Earth. Yeah, that’s right. The ozone is down to 40%, the recycling technologies came too late, and the world will be uninhabitable in less than twenty years. Game over, man.

The Global Sedition is the bad guy gang, and they want to sabotage the Jupiter Mission and finish their own hypergate. Why their hypergate matters more is left untold, but, you know, there has to be bad guys. Right? Right. Doctor Smith was hired by Global Sedition to sabotage the Jupter Mission. He reprograms the ship’s robot to destroy all navigational systems and terminate the crew. This cues the character descriptions.

John Robinson is the daddy figure here, the man who volunteered for the mission on the condition that he could bring his family along with him. Subsequently, he neglects his family because of his intense focus on the mission. He’s a bossy scientist egghead, and nobody loves him for it. Then there’s his wife, who’s empathic and smart. No idea what role she plays.

Will Robinson is the kid, a robotics expert with a lot of talent but little interest in school. His sister, Penny, is an angst-ridden teen with nothing to contribute, really. She makes little videos on her watch camera, but that’s about it. Well, she also whines and complains and cries a bit, but, you know… Nevermind. Oh, and there’s Major West, the studly man who pilots the ship and shoots really big guns.

Point being, the sabotage goes wrong and Smith winds up stuck on the ship. The nearly crash into the sun, and use the hypderdrive engines to escape. Unfortunately, this puts them at a random point in time and space. Hence, Lost in Space. In this particular case, they are rocketed into a future in which they’ve been lost for many years. Pretty cool, huh?

No? Well that’s because it’s a movie based around an old sci-fi TV show. And you don’t respect retro-television, so that means your opinion isn’t worth anything! Watchers of the series can appreciate the fact that nearly everyone from the cast returns in a big group cameo, all aside from Jonathan Harris, who originally played Smith.

The characters maintain their rather over-dramatic personalities, which is why the movie tends to feel so corny at points. At the same time, that sort of acts as homage to the original series by emulating the dramatic nature of old-fashioned TV characters. The plot fiddles with time without bringing up any paradoxical tidbits like Terminator does, it keeps you interested, and it doesn’t let you down. You’ll enjoy it, I guarantee, whether or not you like the old-fashioned telly goodness.

Best part? I never explained the spider pun. You’ll have to watch to find out. Heh. Zing!

Don’t even start with me. I have the biggest man-crush on Bruce Willis, and no amount of Chuck Norris, Jackie Chan, or Bruce Lee comments will ever change that. If you’re like me and agree with this statement to the extreme, then you’ve already watched The Fifth Element around forty times. For those of you who haven’t, I shall disclose to you the dazzling and astounding details of this fabulous sci-fi space thriller.

Adjectives ahoy! This guy must really like The Fifth Element. I wonder why? Easy enough to explain. Bruce Willis- er, I mean, Korben Dallas, an ex special operative, takes on a mission from the Earth government to save the world from an apocalyptic evil that strikes every five thousand years, taking the form of a black planet. If he fails, then entire galaxy will become a place of death and desolation. In order to combat this ultimate evil, he must acquire four stones representing fire, wind, water, and air. The fifth element, life, is contained within the perfect being known as Leeloo (played by the beautiful Milla Jovovich), and Korbruce Willas must find a way to unite her and the stones at the sacred temple before it’s too late. Pretty epic, am I right? You bet it is.

There are several different factions all working towards different goals in this movie, making for a pleasantly complex sequence of events that spirals into a high quality plot. The Mondoshawans are the first faction the movie reveals, and they’re also the first to be blown up violently. Their purpose is to protect and expand life throughout the universe, and to teach humans to value life through faith. They also appear to be the ones who originally used the four stones and the fifth element to preserve the galaxy in the first place.

The Mangelores are nasty, smelly, hated mercenary aliens that only want money and resources. They have a death before dishonor sort of subtle faith system, which explains one of the more dramatic suicide bombing scenes. Because of their easily corruptible nature, the ladder of evil factions uses them as tools.

Zorg is the head of a colossal and wealthy company that fronts for organized crime. He works directly under the self-titled Mr. Shadow, who is actually the ultimate galactic evil. Zorg is ordered to capture the four stones and gather them at the temple, then to allow Mr. Shadow to take Leeloo’s place. This would spread death across the galaxy instead of protecting life, and Bruce Dallas won’t let that happen.

There’s some good news, though, in case you’re starting to think that The Fifth Element takes itself too seriously. Chris Tucker is in it, and he plays a flamboyant radio host called Ruby Rod that stalks Korben Willis until the exiting conclusion. The movie has its fair share of comedic blips and bloops, if the presence of Chris Tucker isn’t enough to clue you in to that. I think it’d be safe to say that The Fifth Element has a little bit of everything in regards to movie positives; romance, action, humor, badassery. You really can’t go wrong!

The acting is the good kind of corny, the villains are likeable yet obviously evil, and the little elephant creature that Zorg owns is absolutely adorable. I call him Shnorgle. Shnorgle holds no relevance to the plot, but it’s a lovely little thing to look at and enjoy.

This description actually goes for the movie itself as well. Just long enough that it doesn’t crunch the plot, just short enough that it doesn’t drag, plenty of events and characters to reflect on… It’s really just a wonderful production. You should definitely consider getting this on DVD and giving it a good, popcorn filled viewing.

This isn’t going to be a critical review of this movie so much as it’s going to be me pinpointing all the things that bother me and blowing them up so it influences your perspective. Also, doing that will render you incapable of ignoring all the things that I mention. Because of this, you’ll either see the movie to find out just how spot-on I am, or you’ll avoid seeing the movie because I’ve already ruined it for you. Let’s begin, shall we?

Here’s the plot shorty: Four kids save a fifth with Down syndrome who gives them telekinetic powers. They grow up and keep their powers a secret, easing themselves into crappy jobs. Then, they go to a cabin called Hole-in-the-Wall and find that the area has been quarantined by the government. Apparently, aliens have landed and they’re infecting people with what even the movie dubs “shit-weasels.” They gestate in people’s stomachs and come out of their asses when they’re done growing. The main bad guy Mr. Grey comes along and takes over one of the guys, and his plan is inevitably foiled. Another one of the four, along with the Down syndrome guy and a military softie, save the day by preventing Mr. Grey from dumping a shit-weasel into their town’s water supply.

Is that enough to make you hate this movie? Not enough? Alright, here’s a quick one. Morgan Freeman plays a psychotic military guy who wants to murder everyone who’s even come close to the so-called “Ripley” alien soup stuff. Besides the fact that his character has an annoying personality (like every other character in this movie), it doesn’t seem to me like Morgan Freeman would come within a mile of any of Stephen King’s work. Just saying.

Next up, we have the maturity level of the four main characters. Allow me to illustrate by some of their colloquialisms: Bite my bag, fuck me Freddy, kiss my bender, Jesus Christ bananas, fuckarow/fuckaree, same shit different day, no bounce no play. Apparently, they’ve used these tidbits of stupid slang since they were kids, and it still hasn’t gotten old to them. Is that enough to annoy you? No? … I don’t believe you. But fine, I’ll keep going.

Alright, here’s another. The main baddie, Mr. Grey, has a bright, chipper, and lively cockney accent. I don’t even know where to begin, but I’m thinking that Stephen King personally approved of this. I wouldn’t mind if it made sense, but more likely than not it’s just something they threw in for shits and giggles, which seems terribly befitting of this terrible little film.

I don’t really have much more to say about Dreamcatcher, really. Overall, it just feels like a bad movie. While those specifics are certainly detrimental to the movie’s quality, the real problems stem from the overwhelming feeling of insincerity that you pick up on when watching. The roles and personalities of the characters seem half-baked yet forced, the plot justifies itself in a very “because I say so” way. The first few times you watch it, you’ll be able to tolerate it; it’s one of those “so bad it’s good” movies. That said, after you finally let how bad it is sink in, it becomes nigh unwatchable.

Long story short, you see a movie by the name of Dreamcatcher, you stay away from it on general principle. It’ll leave one hell of a bad taste in your mouth.

So what makes a movie? Excellent question. Let me list the superfluous things first, just to get them out of the way: Nudity, extreme gore and violence (providing it isn’t thematic), flash 3D, overdone special effects. You’re following me, right? Because my point is, Silence of the Lambs didn’t need any of that. It’s a 1991 murder mystery thriller and all it had was complex, memorable characters, a successfully suspenseful and easy-to-follow plot, and no slow transitions. Point being, this movie is a classic. Quite lovely.

Let’s talk plot. Clarice Starling is a student with a major interest in the FBI. Her father was a police officer, and out of respect and love for him she followed his footsteps into law enforcement. Her superior, Jack Crawford, wants her to interview the serial killer Dr. Hannibal “The Cannibal” Lecter in order to gather information on the infamous murderer, Buffalo Bill, who is currently at large. This so called “interview” with Hannibal Lecter results in a strange sort of friendship/partnership between him and Clarice due to the fact that she treats him notably more kindly than his captors and the rest of the FBI do.

As time progresses, we discover that Buffalo Bill has kidnapped the daughter of a senator, which draws much more attention to the case and more prestige to those who are working to solve it. Hannibal Lecter, at one point, begins trading information about Buffalo Bill for recollections of Clarice’s past. He discovers that she grew up on a ranch after her single father was killed by criminals who surprised him coming out the back of a convenience store. One night on the ranch, she woke up to the sound of lambs screaming as they were being slaughtered. She tried to save one as she ran away, but was picked up by the police and brought home. This memory still haunts her, and Lecter suggests that saving the senator’s daughter might make the “lambs stop screaming,” as Lecter puts it.

Buffalo Bill himself is a very interesting character. From Lecter, Clarice learns that he believes himself to be a transsexual because he hates his own identity. His first two murders consisted of a homeless woman, who Buffalo Bill skinned, and Bill’s old boyfriend, who he beheaded. Throughout the course of the movie, little snip-its of Billy’s home life are revealed to explain his character, though they mostly serve to weird the audience out a bit. As it turns out, and as Clarice Starling discovers much later into the movie, he is murdering various “plus size” girls in order to make himself a suit of human skin. While this seems mostly irrelevant to the case itself, a minor detail in the autopsy of one of the murdered girls correlates to another bit of discovered information in Bill’s hometown, drawing closer the suspenseful conclusion. That’s a secret, though, for obvious reasons.

Personally, I commend Silence of the Lambs for having some of the most realistic, down-to-Earth main characters I’ve seen in a police-ish movie. From my perspective, a lot of these types of characters tend to be overly dramatic or self-righteous to the point of blind conviction. Either that or they’re crooked, right? Clarice Starling is a legitimately admirable character for her motivations and decisions. Kudos to Jodie Foster for such a wonderful performance, wouldn’t you say? And while we’re naming actors, Anthony Hopkins, who plays Hannibal Lecter, may be a little more dramatic with his portrayal, but that only serves to better draw in his audience. If anything, I would highly recommend seeing this movie simply because of the relationship between these two characters. Or you could watch it for the plot. Whichever you prefer.

I don’t hate Mirrors. I really don’t. I just hate every single actor and actress they put in there. I hate them, and I’m very sad that some of them survive. I’m very happy that bad things happen to them. They come off as very annoying, because they follow the horror movie clichés to the letter. I really don’t hate Mirrors, but thanks to the cast, I do. I feel bad for judging a bad-bad horror movie, but sometimes it feels good to just hate on a deserving one. On with the review, then.

Benjamin Carson is a night watchman at a mall, the Mayflower, that just burned down. He ditched the the police force because of his drinking and the subsequent violence that wrought, and he’s on powerful medication to keep his urges suppressed. Amy Carson, his wife, asks that he stay away from the family until she feels he’s ready to come back. For now, he lives with his sister Angie in her apartment.

So, the clichés start to kick in when he begins to witness unusual imagery in the unusually clean mirrors. From the beginning, we know that the original caretaker was murdered by the mirrors killing his reflection. Or… something. So then, the mirrors begin to haunt Ben with terrifying images. He finds the original caretaker’s wallet, and discovers that the mirrors want someone by the name of Esseker.

I’d like to point out that all throughout the course of the movie, all of these scary incidents are relayed from Ben to Amy and Angie, and neither of them believes him. Amy thinks he’s hallucinating because of his medication, and Angie just thinks he’s under stress. Ben even manages to drop the “I’m not crazy” line, which pissed me off to the extreme. I don’t like the crazy gambit in horror movies, not at all. It’s choppy, irritating, persistent, and adds nothing to the movie’s plot aside from a sense of solitude, and that’s not really worth it.

ANYWAYS. The mirrors kill Angie, which really pisses Ben off. They even start to threaten his wife and kids. He starts to investigate Esseker, finds an asylum connected to the Mayflower’s lower area, and finds that Anna Esseker was a patient in there, being treated for schizophrenia. Some mirror shenanigans go down in the Carson home, and Ben winds up finding Anna and forcing her back to the hospital at gunpoint.

At that point, something interesting happens. Something that pissed me off. This movie tends to do that. So yeah, Esseker is placed in a room of mirrors, and the demon escapes the mirrors and into her body. Because she was actually possessed, and they used the mirrors to take it out of her. Ben winds up impaling the dumb, stupid demon on a gas pipe and exploding her. It works, but he winds up stuck in the mirror world. Forever alone.

I dedicate this paragraph to bashing on a child actor. He plays Sam. HE SUCKS. Apparently, he can see things in the mirrors. He’s the least convincing in regards to his voice and facial expressions, and he makes me want to punch him in the face. He even manages to get possessed by the mirror demon somehow, which doesn’t make sense considering the mirror demon can’t actually get into people’s minds. That said, he slashes his mom across the face with a knife. What an asshole. I hate him. Argh.

That concludes my in-depth analysis of the movie Mirrors. I can sum up the entire thing by saying I don’t like it. Because I don’t. And the unrated version doesn’t contain any bonus content. It’s actually exactly the same. Literally no difference. What the hell, man? Not worth it. Don’t buy this movie. If anything, steal it and play it when you have something else you need to do that requires background noise. Only time you’ll actually be able to enjoy it. That’s all I have to say about that.

For this particular religious horror movie, I am not going to be going in-depth with the plot. Because the plot is entirely irrelevant. How can that be, you may ask? The Devil wins. Now that I’ve spoiled it for you, the plot is irrelevant. Let’s talk about the flawed characters and obnoxious aspects of this movie instead, because that’s much more fun.

First off, the scheme. A cult of Satanists murders the newborn child of Robert and Katherine Thorn, replacing him with the son of the Devil. For whatever reason, they decide to name the kid Damien. Like Demon. He has black hair and blue eyes, and he likes to stare at dead bodies. Animals are afraid of him. Who wouldn’t realize that this kid is evil at heart? Seriously. Anyways, the endgame of the plot is that Damien murders his entire family and inherits his father’s political throne, then destroys the world with war by controlling the brain of the President of the United States. First off, that wouldn’t work because the president is just a figurehead role, and lacks the political power to actually destroy the world. But I guess Damien’s Satan, so he can just use his demon magic to fiddle with the other politicians until they turn evil as well. I don’t care.

Another complaint. Robert is made deputy of the Ambassador of Britain. This is relevant because the ambassador is being driven down the street in Italy, and the whole Satanic sequence of events starts up, the guy sees 6:06 and six seconds on his watch, and a gasoline tanker truck slides down a hill and crashes into his limo. Oh, also, a hobo flicks a cigarette onto the ground nearby. You know where this is going. Here’s the part that bothers me: As the stupid ambassador’s car is being flooded by gasoline coming in through his window, he tries to open the door that’s blocked by the truck. You know, instead of trying to move AWAY from the gallons of flammable liquid pouring onto his face. So what the hell, man? Don’t ask.

More people die, like Damien’s nanny, who hangs herself at the kid’s birthday party. Then, Father Brennan comes along and starts warning Robert about Damien being the son of the Devil. True to the course of most vanilla horror movies, Robert doesn’t believe a word he says. Father Brennan comes off as a little crazed, but he’s one of the Satanists that wound up regretting his actions, so I suppose he has the right to be a little insane. Point being, Brennan’s right, Robert’s stubborn. Game over, man.

Mia Farrow winds up as Damien’s new nanny, by the by. You remember Mia Farrow, don’t you? She was in Rosemary’s Baby, played the pious girlfriend who wound up giving birth to the Devil’s child? Similar roles, eh? Funny little world.

Anyways, plotwise… Everyone Robert loves dies, and he finally listens to the now-dead Brennan’s advice to meet the priest Bugenhagen in order to kill the Devil within Damien. Even the cameraman who helped Robert for a while, pointing out weird stuff in pictures that led to the photographed person’s death. Finally, with nothing else left to lose, Robert sets out to kill Damien by stabbing him to death in a church. His security team winds up tailing him and gunning him down before he can manage to get the first knife in. As I said, the Devil wins. Cue Damien standing next to the president and smirking victoriously back to the audience. Fade to black.

The Omen is an okay movie, the main problem being that it takes itself too seriously to the point of being insistent and preachy. But alas, it’s a super-religious movie in which the righteous try to fight the forces of malevolence. You can watch it for the scares and thrills, or for the action, or even for the religious morality, but no matter what you watch it for, it’ll shortchange you. As I said, it’s okay. Not good, not bad, just okay. You can watch it if you want. It’s nothing special. Good for background noise during a slumber party, I guess.

This is a Spanish shockumentary that’s a step above “so bad it’s good,” which means it’s just good. But since it’s a horror movie, and so many horror movies are bad, a good horror movie is like finding that elusive needle in the mountain of a haystack. So it’s great because it’s good because others are good because they’re bad. Get it? Good.

Angela Vidal is a reporter doing a TV series called While You Sleep, with her cameraman, Pablo. This night’s episode is about the lives of firemen and the duties they perform for their communities. Angela goes around, interviewing people, talking about outfits, recreation, so on so forth, until finally an alarm goes off. Showtime. The call is about an old woman who locked herself in her apartment, after having screaming fits. Whoa. The firemen arrive on the scene, along with the police, and they go in to investigate. For the record, nobody likes the fact that Angela and Pablo are filming the entire time. Not yet, at least.

When they finally get into the lady’s room, they find her bloody and crazed. Whoa nelly, what could that mean? When she tackles one of the policemen and takes a chunk out of his neck with her teeth, that question is sort of answered. Hence the title of this review. As soon as they get the wounded policeman out of the room and into the lobby of the apartment complex, they discover that the government has cordoned off the building and declared a BCN emergency state. Biological, Chemical, Nuclear, by the way. People start freaking out. Someone falls down the stairwell and goes splat. The health serviceman comes in and tries to take blood samples, but winds up being bitten. Aside from that, it’s a lot of mindless chatter, zombie punching, and several failed escape attempts.

Since the spoilers don’t really make much of a difference in a movie like this, I’ll go ahead and ruin everything for you. You won’t mind. Once upon a time, there was a girl called the “Demon of Medeiros,” who was supposedly possessed by a demon and was very violent and angry. This girl infected a dog named Max, who bit a girl named Jennifer. Jennifer’s mother took Max to the vet, and went home to her apartment with Jennifer. You already know where this is going. The Angry Spanish Zombie virus spread like… well, spread like a plague. Of zombies. That makes people angry. And… Spanish?

Anyways, a man from the Vatican sealed the Medeiros girl in the penthouse apartment, and during their final escape attempt, Angela and Pablo accidentally free her. Whoops. The good news is, that’s about the end of the movie, and both of them look to be dead, so goody-goody gumdrops. Set up for a sequel? You bet! Don’t watch it.

So, let’s get one of them “overall, this movie” paragraphs in here to mash this whole review together. Rec was a good movie, but its only vice was that it didn’t explain anything until the very end, which hardly seems an appropriate point to explain the anger virus. And the fact that it adds religious connotations to the existence of the virus sort of takes away from the thrill of it all, if you know what I mean. It’s like saying, “I’ll tell you how this virus works, son. It spreads through saliva, has a long incubation period for children and a long one for adults, it causes extreme aggression and violence, an- What’s this? Where did it come from? Demon magic.”

… Yeah. Best to rent this movie before you consider spending money on it. I said it was good, but that was because I’m in the 50% that really doesn’t try to hate certain kinds of movies on general principle. When I say certain movies, I specifically mean bad-good horror movies. Yes, it’s a shockumentary, but it’s worth your time. Watch it, enjoy it. Turn off the subtitles and pretend everyone’s arguing about where the pudding cups are hidden.

You know, Akira reminds me a lot of Chronicle, only with a much higher level of organization and chaos. It sounds contradictory, but it makes sense. I love this movie, so reviewing this will be a treat for both you and me. Unless, of course… one of us is squeamish. I certainly hope not. This movie isn’t for the faint of heart. Blood, partial nudity, harsh language, all very fitting of a post WWIII Japan dystopian setting: Neo-Tokyo.

Akira revolves around the lives of a gang of bikers, the Capsules. The two main bikers are Kaneda, the energetic enthusiastic outgoing leader, and Tetsuo, the never-does-it-right cowardly follower. Due to the military oppression in the city, there is a rebellion brewing that fights for less restrictive law. Due to the incredibly high organized crime rate in the city, the military absolutely refuses to let up. As such, things are pretty shitty for Kaneda’s gang.

Things get even shittier for Tetsuo, who crashes his in a freak incident to avoid hitting a strange little blue boy. To make matters worse and explain a few things, this blue boy is an esper, endowed with the ability to extend his willpower outside his own head. The science organization notices a similar trait in the dying Tetsuo, and decisively abducts him to begin experimentation. While Tetsuo exhibits the abilities of the other espers, he himself is much more hateful and saturated by vengeance. His days of cowardice and failure are over, and Kaneda is the first to notice Tetsuo’s radically altered personality. And, er, telekinetic abilities.

From that point on the primary concern of the military, the science organization, and even the rebellion, is the destruction or containment of the astronomically powerful esper Tetsuo. By interacting with the other espers, Tetsuo has learned of the existence of Akira, the first. Akira’s powers were said to be beyond anything anyone had ever predicted, which was seen by Tetsuo as a challenge. He does find Akira, but not as he was expecting to find him.

It’s around this part that I start to get a little sketchy. Supposedly, Akira’s powers are linked to universal genesis and symbolic and literal birth of matter. As Tetsuo’s madness escalates, so do his telekinetic powers, until a wavelength from him and the other espers brings back the avatar of Akira. At this point, not even satellite lasers can take down Tetsuo, who has begun a fatal physical transformation. He, uh… turns into a giant fetus, hen gets sucked into a psychic singularity. I really don’t know. Kaneda winds up being sucked inside and experiencing Tetsuo’s memories, until finally Akira and the espers collectively close the rift. The resulting carnage tears a hole over half the size of the entire dystopian city.

Akira is a very unusual movie, definitely not one that can be explained with ease. I mean, I think I did a pretty good overview of the plot, but the backstory presented all throughout is a little too intense to take in with one or two views. I’m serious. That said, it is also a landmark in the production of animated Japanese movies, its prestige matched only by its content quality. While it may be a little offensive at more than a few parts, it’s a very earnest movie with a consistent plot and quirky characters. Quirky meaning anything from damningly cheerful to blatantly homicidal. You’ll love it. I did.

Get your copy via whatever means you feel is the most convenient, watch it a few times while pondering just what the hell is going on, suddenly understand it, then go “OOOOOH!” That’s the plan. Enjoy.

Point of shame, it’s a movie based off a video game, and I have not played the video game.  On the bright side, that means I have a neutral perspective on the movie, and can provide to you all the unbiased truths that a fan or dissident of the games could not. So, with that out of the way, let’s dissect the ashy corpse of Silent Hill! Yeah!

This particular movie has what I like to call a view threshold. Depending on how many times you’ve seen the movie, it can have one or many of several impacts. Silent Hill specifically has three thresholds. Creepy (I don’t care how jaded you are, those babies are scary shit, man), badass (Pyramid goddamned Head), and preachy. On average… I’d say the first two views are creepy, the next three are badass, and from then on out it becomes annoyingly preachy. I’ll give a little plot rundown so you can better understand me.

Rose is the blondie of the movie. She’s not a dimbulb, thank god, and she even manages to pull off a moment of utter badass. Her adopted daughter, Sharon, has strange dreams about a place called Silent Hill. This is a ghost town with a history stained by death from a disastrous fire. A car accident on the way there knocks the both of them out, and when consciousness returns, Rose finds herself alone. A police officer who had been tailing her wound up in the ashy realm with her, so they both of them are stuck finding the way out. The bad news is, every once so often, an alarm goes off that seems to plunge Silent Hill into a nightmare.

I know this is all very abridged, but for the sake of my view threshold explanation and my issue with the movie’s preaching, here we go. Alessa is the darker side of Sharon, and a long time ago, Alessa was burned as a witch by a fanatical religious group based in Silent Hill. She survived, and her hatred allowed her to thrive, consuming her, the fanatics, and the whole of Silent Hill, burying it deeply within a place disconnected from the real world. Through faith, the fanatics kept the church a safe place from Alessa’s anger. But, as the viewer will see, things don’t go so well.

So, with that under your belt, I’ll explain the three thresholds. Threshold number one: creepy. First time in nightmare mode, things get really freaky. I actually quite like the visual effects implemented in this movie. Very good at evoking certain eerie emotions with very dark and complex visual aspects. However, as the nature of repetition goes, the scares lose their thrill twice in.

Second threshold, badassery. This is all on Pyramid Head and Rose’s exposition to the fanatics about the deluded depth of their devotion. Say that last part ten times fast? If and when you stop being creeped out by the ghostly pale nurse mannequins, the fist-sized beetles, and of course the wretched burnt up tweaked out babies, it all starts to look pretty awesome.

Finally, what you’ve been waiting for since the beginning: The preachy part. Silent Hill’s got some serious anti-religious sentiment in there, I can tell you that much. Of course, to remain speculatively allegorical, the religious fanatics are made out to be excessive in all ways. Brainwashed, bloodthirsty, and without reason nor mercy. Rose plays the iconoclast that would save them from their delusion, and she does this by killing them all horribly. Alessa rode into the church through Rose’s body and exacted revenge on all the cultists by murdering them with barbed wire. Yeah, that’s all fine, but what bothers me the most is all the goddamned talking. They talk, talk, talk and talk. Preaching, shouting, so on, so forth. You can’t un-notice it. Good news is, it takes a few views to start noticing. Or, you’ll start seeing it right off the bat because of this review.

That’s that! As I said, the movie’s really shock and show. Not a lot to it. Doesn’t mean it’s a bad movie, by any means. So go out, get it, watch it, and remember the number one rule: lights off. Enjoy.