From Slasher to Swashbuckler: A Review of "Predator: Badlands"

 directed by Dan Trachtenberg

written by Patrick Aison and Trachtenberg

I find it mildly amusing that some people look back on the 1987 action/horror film Predator as if it were some kind of high watermark of action cinema.  Personally, I considered it a poor man's Alien,  and the studio's attempts to cash in on the popularity of two things that were huge at the time: a) killer aliens and b) Arnold Schwarzenegger. John McTiernan's testosterone-fueled action-slasher film hybrid was pretty decently-paced but it ultimately was kind of silly.  I do still get a kick out of reciting some of Ah-nuld's lines from the movie, though, like "Come aahh, kill meeh" or the immortal "GET TO DA CHOPPAH!" Beyond that, though I really don't care much for the original movie.

This is why it was no big deal to me that, having failed to recapture that 80s magic with the disastrous 2018 film The Predator, and having experienced some success with director Dan Trachtenberg's TV-only release Prey, which pitted a predator against Native Americans from the 18th-century, the makers of Predator decided to take the franchise in a decidedly different direction, one in which the Predator was actually the hero.

Dek (Dimitrius Schuster-Koloamatangi) is a Yautja (the Predators' race) with ambitions of proving himself a hunter worthy of his clan, and as the film starts he is sparring with his brother Kwei (Mike Homik). Dek declares that he intends to hunt the biggest, fiercest creature known to the Yautja as part of his rite of passage to be declared one of them, and picks the nastiest one known: the Kalisk.  However, Dek's father (Reuben de Jong) is convinced that, as a runt, Dek is better off dead and orders his brother to kill him. However, fraternal love prevails over filial piety and soon Dek is off to the planet of the Kalisk, where he crash lands with a singular mission: to hunt down the Kalisk and bring its head home as a trophy, so he can take his place among the Yautja. It's a daunting task ahead, but Dek discovers that he may have  some help in the form of half a Weyland-Yutani android named Thia  (Elle Fanning), who knows quite a lot of about the fauna of the planet, especially the Kalisk, and offers to help Dek in his hunt. What she doesn't tell him, though, is the reason she was on the planet in the first place, which was how she got her legs severed from the rest of her.  Will Dek be able to fulfill his  quest to secure a trophy and take his place among the Yautja, or will the Weyland-Yutani corporation, with their army of synths, including the calculating Tessa (also Fanning) get in his way?  

 I was very pleasantly surprised by how much fun this movie was, and I enjoyed the action, the gorgeous (probably CGI enhanced) New Zealand setting, and even the humorous dynamic between Thia and Dek, who are joined in their mission by a curious creature whom Thia dubs "Bud."  It's not what I'd call the most memorable action movie of the year, but it does give the Predator franchise some new life, though I do admit I still preferred the 2010 sequel Predators starring Adrien Brody and Topher Grace. 

 Anyone looking for a serviceable, reasonably entertaining action movie should be pretty satisfied with this, though I think it's safe to say the hardcore Predator fans aren't likely to be won over by the franchise's new direction, which, if the grosses allow, will no doubt continue into the next film. 

8/10 

Faithfully Troubling: A Review of Guillermo del Toro's "Frankenstein"

 written and directed by Guillermo del Toro

based  on the novel by Mary Shelley

I read Mary Shelley's Frankenstein in college, many years ago, and I was instantly struck by how different the book was from what the movies and television shows from which I knew the story had presented. For one thing, Frankenstein's creation, more popularly known as the "monster," was a surprisingly articulate fellow, in stark contrast to the lumbering, monosyllabic creature featured in those movies.  Also, he is far  more of a tortured soul. Since then, I have seen two movies which hewed quite closely to Mary Shelley's original vision: Kenneth Branagh's 1994 adaptation, in which he starred as the scientist obsessed with conquering death and Robert De Niro starred as the creature, and now, Guillermo del Toro's adaptation available on Netflix, starring Oscar Isaac as the title character and Jacob Elordi as his hulking, tortured creation. 

The basic story beats are still very much the same: a ship bound for the North Pole encounters a mysterious threat and then finds a man nearly frozen to death, who then proceeds to tell his tale. 

Young Victor Frankenstein (Christian Convery) grew up with a loving mother (Mia Goth) whom he lost when she gave birth to his baby brother, William, and a stern father (Charles Dance) whom he lost to old age. His experience with his mother's death has formed an obsession within Victor to conquer it once and for all, and when as an adult (Isaac) he is expelled from medical school for demonstrating his ideas on conquering death, he then catches the attention of Heinrich Harlander (Christoph Waltz) a wealthy arms merchant who offers to finance his experiment. Harlander is the uncle of Elizabeth (also Mia Goth) who is engaged to the now-successful finance whiz William (Felix Kammerer).  Harlander's deep pockets ensure that Victor has the equipment and the place he needs for his experiments, and his knowledge of when battles will take place provides Victor with a fresh supply of dead bodies from which to stitch together his creation (Elordi). Victor succeeds in his grim quest to reanimate the creature using a combination of lightning and the lymphatic system, but in fairly short order, things go horribly wrong as he learns the real reason for Harlander's interest in his experiment. Victor then finds himself confronted with the reality of what he has created, and with his own petty jealously as his brother's fiancee, with whom he has developed an unhealthy obsession, seems more enamored with the creature than she ever would be with him, and he attempts to destroy the creature by burning his entire laboratory down with the creature still inside.  The creature lives, however, wanders the countryside and settles in a cottage beside a family, where he learns to read, and to appreciate people, until things again go horribly wrong, and he finds himself hunting down his creator once more to exact a final reckoning.

As faithful as this movie was to the book, I noted several liberties taken, such as number of prominent characters removed from the book that even featured in Kenneth Branagh's 1994 film, but more prominently, I noted that Victor Frankenstein was no longer an even remotely sympathetic character and his creature was depicted as almost completely blameless, which somehow felt right.  The book and the Branagh adaptation had Frankenstein's creature doing fairly monstrous things, like outright murdering people which made Frankenstein's own rage feel righteous somehow, even though he was very much to blame for what happened.  The Frankenstein of the books and Branagh's film was misguided but one could feel he had good intentions at heart. Del Toro's and Isaac's Frankenstein oozes of narcissism and vanity, and basically every truly horrible thing that happens in the film is as a result of Victor's own reckless disregard for others.  Unfortunately, this little tweak makes the narrative denouement a little harder to accept, though I won't spoil it for anyone who hasn't seen the film.

In terms of production value, this film is a lush, extravagant throwback to the days of huge, imposing physical sets, and it was gratifying to see Netflix give Del Toro the money he needed to make this movie in all its gothic glory.  Due praise should also be given to the heart-wrenching performances, from Isaac's magnificent mad scientist to Elordi's soulful, forlorn and misshapen creature. 

It's a movie I could have liked a whole lot more if the ending had been written but a little differently, but it's still something I can recommend. 

7/10  

 

Pleasant Surprise: A Review of "Kontrabida Academy"

 directed by Chris Martinez

written by Alpha Habon, Randolph Longjas and Martinez

I tend to expect very little from original Netflix movies by way of production value or storytelling. While Netflix has managed to produce its fair share of decent movies, they seem, in equal measure, capable of producing some complete and utter shlock, and that is often the case with its Filipino-produced content, which tends to be derivative and sometimes nonsensical.   It was such tempered expectations, a few weeks ago, that I watched "Kontrabida Academy" an original Netflix film starring several known Filipino actors including comediennes Eugene Domingo and Barbie Forteza. The premise was fun and outlandish enough; Gigi (Forteza) a downtrodden assistant restaurant manager with problems at home, at work and in her relationship, is at wit's end when a mysterious television set is delivered to her home. As she watches the drama always broadcast on the TV, one of the characters on screen, the villainous Mauricia (Eugene Domingo) invites her to step into her world, and one day, in a fit of despair with her life, Gigi does exactly that, and discovers an incredible new world beyond the screen, but one which she can only navigate with the skills that Mauricia and her cohort of fellow villains kontrabidas can teach her...at the Kontrabida Academy! Gigi's life, suffice it to say, will never be the same.

Let's get this out of the way; this film is not high art, but at no point does it aspire to be so.  It is, however a whole lot of campy fun. Writer-director Chris Martinez and his co-writers Alpha Habon and Randolph Longjas lean heavily into the tropes of Filipino soap opera writing and have a whole lot of "meta" fun in the process. It helps, of course, that they have an entirely game cast led by Barbie Forteza and Eugene Domingo, and including actors both old (Michael De Mesa, Baron Geisler, Carmina Villaroel and Jaime Fabregas) and new (Jameson Blake, Xyriel Manabat).  Impressively, though, the film also has something to say about the quality of writing in Philippine soap operas, critiquing the one-dimensional manner in which "good" and "bad" characters are portrayed, basically explaining that in real life, people have to be a little bit of both. 

It's a film that, like most of Netflix's catalogue, is pretty easily forgotten, but it was worth the time it took to sit down and watch it. One could say that's the beauty of Netflix; it gives us the opportunity to watch, free of charge, movies that we otherwise would not have the time and money to check out.

8/10

The Better Movie About Manuel Quezon: A (VERY LATE) Review of "Quezon's Game"

 directed by Matthew Rosen

written by Janice Y. Perez and Dean Rosen

I could have sworn that I reviewed this film back when I watched it in 2019. Back then I watched it with just one of my children, and we both enjoyed it quite thoroughly, whatever its flaws may have been.  I was ready to refresh my imaginary review by posting a link of it on my Facebook feed in view of the incessant chatter surrounding Jerrold Tarog's new film Quezon, a film I distinctly disliked, but to my shock I found that this review only ever existed in my mind.  

Well, it's time to remedy that.

Quezon's Game tells the apparently little-known story about how Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippine Commonwealth, saved the lives of 1,200 Jews who were fleeing persecution from Nazi Germany back in the 1930s, just before the Second World War broke out.  In the film, President Quezon (Raymond Bagatsing) faces the most challenging time of his presidency; the world is on the brink of war, into which the Philippine Commonwealth will undoubtedly be swept up, when he is approached by a Manila-based, Jewish American businessman Alex Frieder (Billy Ray Gallion) with a desperate plea:  asylum for Jews seeking to escape persecution in Europe by Germany's Nazi party.  It is far from a straightforward task, and Quezon finds himself having to walk a diplomatic tightrope with America, still the ruling colonial power, and even Nazi Germany, which has opened a consulate in Manila.  Though Quezon is on good terms with General Dwight D. Eisenhower (David Bianco) and Philippine High Commissioner Paul McNutt (James Paoleli), the challenge of bringing these refugees over from Europe will put their relationship to the test. Standing firmly by Quezon's side are his devoted wife, Aurora (Rachel Alejandro) and his Vice President Sergio Osmena (Audi Gemora).

There's so much to love about this film, helmed by British filmmaker Matthew Rosen. First of all, it is gorgeous. Shot in sepia against the sumptuous backdrop of a beach resort in the province of Bataan containing actual Spanish-era houses and buildings and faithful reproductions thereof, it evokes the atmosphere of 1930s Manila quite vividly. The Filipino actors like Bagatsing, Gemora and Alejandro are pretty much in top form here, inhabiting the real life historical figures they play not as larger-than-life archetypes but as humans, with frailties and doubts, capable of making good and bad decisions but often choosing the latter, especially in the face of such a tense situation. 

This brings me to another remarkable point here; with the exception of a very brief scene early in the film depicting a chase between a fugitive and Nazi soldiers, the film is entirely a "talking heads" affair, relying on acting, cinematography and music to generate and maintain the tension that the story demands.  The atmosphere evoked by the location and set decoration can only do so much without strong performances driving the narrative, and fortunately, as far as the leads are concerned, the acting is as strong as it can get. 

 

Bagatsing, in particular, truly stands out as the first President of the Philippine Commonwealth and the man who helped usher in the independent Philippine Republic, even though he would never live to see it come to pass. I first saw Bagatsing in a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire way back in 1996, and I feel he was a good choice to play Quezon, with just the right mix of debonair swagger and cautious statesman. I liked how he navigated between the three languages Quezon reportedly spoke the most: English, Spanish and Tagalog. Most of all, I really appreciated the humanity he brought to the character. His Quezon was neither a hero nor was he a villain, but a man with a conscience who was ready to do questionable things to achieve his goals. It helped that the script by Janice Perez and Dean Rosen gave him a lot to work with, but Bagatsing truly made the character his own. It may not have been a 100% true-to-life depiction (no portrayal ever is) and it wasn't punctuated by the histrionics of Jericho Rosales' performance in Jerrold Tarog's film, but it was a deeply affecting turn just the same.  Gemora and Alejandro were also outstanding in their respective turns as Vice President Osmena and First Lady Aurora Quezon.  The American actors were...competent, which is better than I can usually say about foreign actors in Filipino productions (even though this was directed by an Englishman), though the actor who played the Nazi was simply awful.  

If I had any nitpicks, it was with the largely electronic music score, which, unfortunately was a result of the film having a miniscule budget, and, well the score not being particularly good. 

Still, the movie was both uplifting and educational, a marked contrast to the highly cynical take on Quezon now playing in cinemas. There are no self-inserts of the filmmakers getting up on soapboxes in the middle of the narrative, and whatever liberties that may have been taken do not feel gratuitous.  

The best part of all is that this movie is available to watch, completely legitimately and free of charge on YouTube. I highly urge everyone to check it out.

9/10