The Counselor (2013)

The Counselor (R)

"What would the BAR Association say?"

The first script from the pen of author Cormack McCarthy (author of the novel No Country For Old Men) is a head scratching affair.  Directed by the venerable yet wildly uneven Ridley Scott (Bladerunner), there is the expected energy and pop to the filmed scenes.  A-list actors lead by Michael Fasbender, Brad Pitt, Javier Bardem, Penelope Cruz and Cameron Diaz (miscast as a Jamaican femme fatale) culminate in one the years best casts, and yet the words fall flat.  The snappy Noir prose style is leaden, the situations preposterous, the outcome dreary.  The story?  Fasbender plays a successful Texas lawyer, whose shady client base draw him into the south of the border drug smuggling business to maximize his profits.  The house of cards is shaken by the backstabbing, golddigging Diaz, a character so over-sexualized, so misplaced, so supposedly evils-of-woman-incarnate/female-of-the-species-is-more-deadly that she could only come from the pen of a mid-life-crisis fever dream.  Some scenes work, some shock to righteous effect, most collapse under the heavy weight of pretension.  A freak show of many unique sights and sounds, but you may regret the two-bits to get in.

4.5 New Definition of Car Sex out of 10 (MEDIOCRE)

Prometheus (2012)

Prometheus (R)

"Just leave it alone"

The problem with our modern age of epic films and the media hype that surround them is that it is misinformation. Especially if you try to remain spoiler free, then you miss all the hints and bad juju that the new much-hyped blockbuster won't be exactly what you came to expect. Director Ridley Scott is back with a new entry into the genre he pretty much invented, the Serious SciFi Adventure movie, but what it really is another stale "Chariot of the Gods" retread. What it really is? Older filmmakers philosophizing about God and Death and Evolution while pretending to set it within the framework of the Aliens Alternate Universe (they've since gone on record as saying its not a prequel, thanks Fox marketing). It is also Michael Fassbender getting the creepy androids back on track (sorry Winona). It is likeable Noomi Rapace in the role of "female who survives" and Charlise Theron as the "cold corporate bitch". It is the Captain and his rag tag loveable crew making some points with some charming moments and easy repartee. It is beautiful pictures and design and use of light (though mostly uneeded 3D and inappropriate use of music). Then it is thrown away, again and again. The best example I can give is the greatest scene in the film, the pro-choice answer to the old Alien impregnation problem. Gory, ballsy and flinch inducing, this scene really works (even if it's just a twist on the same shock scene in the original Alien). Followed shortly thereafter by the same character getting into more philosophical discussions with Weyland (Guy Pearce in terrible old man makeup) and putting herself directly back in danger 5 minutes later. Some survivor, sigh. Thrown away, all the suspense buildup and terror and shock, just to gab about some space religion garbage that no one is really that interested about. Thrown away, all the love and tradition of the core Alien films, Prometheus touches that beloved universe just enough to try and poison what came before (hey Ridley, Leave my Space Jockey alone!). Luckily it is not Ridley's Episode I (it is too good to be labeled that, we can all thank him for that). But it is like the pandora's box that was Episode III, where you couldn't see that silly man in the black helmet without hearing that terrible "Nooooo" echoing through around the walls of your childhood. If Ridley just wanted to make a movie about our alien forebears and "hey guys, who really built the pyramids", then he should have left all ALIEN (1977) references out of it damnit. The scripts rewrites and rethinks can be plainly seen (there are several franchise references, lines from previous films, prequelism on mediocre par with the new The Thing, plot points that just stick out like mutated thumbs, scenes that just stink of a hollywood reboot), and yet completely disregards so much that it is NOT a prequel. It's a huge mess. So, now then, what is this movie really about if it's not just another entry into a beloved series? If its not about xenomorphs eating and popping out of us? Fear of death? Fear of change? Religion? Fear of technology evolving our lives beyond recognition and leading to our demise? Maybe, that last one is the only thing that I've really been able to settle on. I have this horrible feeling that a 40 year old Ridley Scott, being handed this exact script in 1978, without the option for CGI excess, with model makers and amazing set design and tripods and gallons of premade fake blood, without all the baggage of personal aging and previous Alien experiences, without twitter and facebook and viral marketing, that without all that this could have made another masterpiece. Instead it just feels like a beautiful mistake, a literal miscarriage of artistry. Apt, since Alien and its kin have always preyed upon our primal fears of the circle of life, sex and death.

 4 Space Truckers out of 10 (BAD)