The Master of Disaster - Roland Emmerich

"I believe in the great 'What If?' What if aliens showed up, what if tomorrow morning, you walked out of your door and these enormous spaceships hovered over every single city in the world? Wouldn't that be the most exciting thing that could happen?"

Better still, what if the director could film it for you wholesale?

This is the unique skill that has helped to turn Independence Day director Roland Emmerich into a major Hollywood figure. The German-born filmmaker has succeeded in creating spectacular American-styled fantasies with a European sense of financial restraint.

Which is to say that Emmerich has come a long way from his early days as an art student in Munich. Though his studies were originally devoted to painting and sculpting, he quickly changed to production design and film making. Since The Towering Inferno was Emmerich's idea of an old masterpiece, the jump was not so surprising.

What remains surprising was the speed with which Emmerich scaled the commercial ladder. His student film, The Noah's Ark Principle(1984), blossomed into a sizable success at the Berlin Film Festival and was released through out 20 countries. This paved the way for his next two movies, Making Contact and Moon 44. It was especially with the production of Moon 44 (1989) that Emmerich demonstrated his remarkable skill at producing impressive special effects at bargain basement prices.

Or as Emmerich would put it, he made "the biggest low-budget film in history."

Seemingly, he was a natural for the commercial driven German cinema of the 1980s. Under the conservative government of Helmut Kohl, Germany was seeking to create a movie industry that could directly challenge the wild fantasies of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. But Wolfgang Petersen's production of Enemy Mine(1985) turned into a Volkswagen built at the cost of a Mercedes. It was an expensive stumble that sent the Germans back to the drawing board.

Though Emmerich was already proving himself to be a better fantasy filmmaker than Petersen, he wasn't that interested in being limited to the European scene. Emmerich had a passion for the disaster epics of Irwin Allen (whose films he can quote without irony) and a detailed familiarity with pop American culture that would be the envy of any Yankee "trash hound."

He also had an emerging work relationship with the actor-turned-writer Dean Devlin, a man who could fill in the narrative gaps to Emmerich's wild fits of cinematic vision. The two quickly formed into a non-sibling version of the Coen brothers, including the odd ability to seemingly finish each other's thoughts.

From the start, the Emmerich-Devlin team brought a distinctive quality to their films. Though Universal Soldier (1992) was only given passing approval as a respectable Jean Claude Van Damme thriller, the movie actually had a surprisingly serious tone to its off beat storyline about dead American commandos who are turned
into zombified heroes.

But it was the surprise hit of StarGate (1994) that fully represented the Emmerich-Devlin universe. The movie was a freewheeling combination of UFO folklore, tabloid newspaper fabrications, paranoid interpretations of ancient history, and good clean fun.

StarGate also managed to put most of its $60 million dollar budget onto the screen, which is more than can be said about a recent
$200 million dollar bathing epic (Waterworld). Better still, StarGate also
managed to have a sense of humor about itself without developing a bad case of self-parody.

Which is one of Emmerich's great strengths as a filmmaker. He has an ability to laugh along with his movies, but he doesn't laugh at them. He can entertain an audience without feeling superior, and he is just as in love with his own giddy concepts as his fans. When he says that "I believe in fantasy," the man is actually sincere.

It is a sensibility that happily filters through his movies.

Long, Long Ago....

"I may never get to ever again direct a big budget movie."

This was George Lucas talking to reporters twenty years ago. He had just finished filming Star Wars and was predicting that the movie most likely would bomb. In early 1977, nobody took science-fiction seriously at the movies. Not even the filmmakers.

Lucas knew better than most the kind of gamble that he was taking. A mere six years earlier, his production of THX-1138 had tanked at the box office through a combination of audience indifference and critical scorn. The film had also become the focus of intense Hollywood hostility as movieland's old guard attempted a final, futile effort to circle the wagons against the young turks with beards who were taking over the industry.

Though Lucas did have one hit movie to his credit (American Graffiti), he was not viewed as a powerhouse director. A quiet and very self-effacing man, he was still primarily hidden in the shadow of his mentor, Francis Ford Coppola. Likewise, Coppola's edgy and naturalistic Godfather films helped set the tone for movies in the 1970s.

Realism was in, fantasy was out, and some executives at 20th Century Fox were privately debating about what they were doing with the world's most expensive space opera. As the summer of '77 grew near, Fox began a campaign among theatre exhibitors to undercut the release of Star Wars.

Advance market research suggested that Star Wars would quickly fade upon release. Besides, many senior Fox executives were convinced that the impending hit of the summer would be The Other Side of Midnight, a Sidney Sheldon kiss-and-tell epic about old Hollywood. During the spring of '77, Fox's distribution people successfully convinced many of the major regional exhibitors in the US to skip Star Wars and to go "for a movie with a proven formula."

By May, Star Wars became a phenomena hit. In June, many booking agents for the major theatre chains were out looking for new jobs. By the fall of '77, Fox was trying to strong arm second-run theaters by offering them Star Wars on the condition that they also had to book The Other Side of Midnight.

What did this all mean? Simple. The young men with beards were now in control of both the camera and, now, the banks.

And Hollywood was never quite the same.

Independence Day

When he first spots a gigantic alien ship hovering over Los Angeles, Will Smith's character firmly insists that "I don't think they flew over 90 billion light years just to pick a fight." Obviously, his character is in need of a major attitude readjustment. In Independence Day, everybody is looking for a fight.

Everybody finds one, too. The aliens in Independence Day are firm believers in the Pax Roma concept of peaceful co-existence. which means that they will only negotiate after every human is dead. Which also means that Independence Day promises a hi-speed joyride through Armageddon and the movie does largely succeed in delivering a deliciously intense visit to the apocalyptic fun house. Though it occasionally falters during its final stretch, Independence Day is undeniably the most action-packed science-fiction movie since Star Wars. It even has a better cast.

It also has a wildly jingoistic sensibility that is already setting the tone for virtually every other major fantasy film this year. Even the mellow crew of the USS Enterprise is making sure that the Borg's First Contact will be their last. All aliens beware: 1996 is the year when Earth kicks ass.

Not that Independence Day is lacking in nice guys. In fact, the President of the United States (Bill Pullman) is in political trouble for being too much of a nice guy. Though he has an heroic war record as a fighter pilot, the President has spent most of his term unsuccessfully trying to appease every cause with the result being that he is viewed as weak and indecisive.

Likewise, David (Jeff Goldblum) is such a nice guy that he routinely allows himself to be used as a door mat. Though he is suppose to be an electronic wizard with eight years spent studying at M.I.T., David has inexplicably settled into a position as a computer technician with a cable television company in New York. But mostly, he quietly pines for his ex-wife (Margaret Colin) who left him for her career as a presidential press secretary.

Captain Steven Hiller (Will Smith) is divided between his ambition to be an astronaut and his romantic involvement with Jasmine(Vivica Fox), a Los Angeles stripper with an out-of-wedlock son. He loves his girlfriend, but he also knows that NASA will not accept someone whose personal life is anything except squeaky clean.

Meanwhile, Russell (Randy Quaid) is busy drinking his life away. Russell is a Vietnam Vet turned crop duster pilot who claims to have been abducted by a race of terrifyingly hostile aliens who performed nasty experiments on him. Since nobody believes his story, Russell spends most of his time getting drunk at the local trailer park.

The sudden appearance of an armada of massive spaceships over the major cities of the world becomes the crucial focal point for all of these characters. Where all of their good intentions have failed, seemingly raw fear will finally give meaning to their lives. Especially after David inadvertently discovers the aliens' count-down signal and realizes that the visitors are about to cancel more than just the cable service.

Obviously, Independence Day operates like an Irwin Allen production of The War of the Worlds, mercifully minus either Charlton Heston or Shelley Winters. As in such Allen epics as The Towering Inferno (1974) and The Poseidon Adventure (1972), Independence Day offers brute catastrophe as a therapeutic form of personal redemption. Likewise, the movie strictly adheres to St. Irwin's view of calamity as an essential form of social leveling. By the finale of Independence Day, the President is whizzing off to the big interplanetary dogfight with a rag tag team of drunks and yahoos as the movie becomes an equal opportunity provider of do or die heroics.

But the film making team of Roland Emmerich (director/writer) and Dean Devlin (producer/writer) are better at priming these rusty old pumps than Allen ever was. They have no shame at using every cliche in the book, including a dog in peril bit. But they also have a refreshing sense of sincerity about the proceedings. It is almost as if they thought that they had just invented every standard twist for the first time and in so doing, the movie snaps and crackles with a surprisingly zesty sense of genuine thrills. Independence Day may indeed be the biggest B-movie ever made, but it is also one of the most entertaining films of the year.

Much attention has already been given in press stories to the special effects in Independence Day. The film is a visual extravaganza that is capable of provoking an "Oh wow" effect about every ten minutes. But one of the movie's most impressive feats is actually to be found in its editing, most notably the extended montage sequence used for the simultaneous destruction of three different cities. At the very least, the scene should earn editor David Brenner an Oscar nomination in the Sergei Eisenstein look alike category.

But the real energy that pounds through out Independence Day is provided by its actors. On paper, the characters are all two-dimensional constructs with barely a breath of life to hold them up. On the screen, they actually resemble real human beings chock-full of quirks and frailties. Especially notable are the performances by Bill Pullman and Jeff Goldblum, as well as the minor turns provided by Harvey Fierstein and Brent Spiner.

All of which means that Independence Day is a gripping good yarn that will hold the audience enthralled. More than anything, it is a pure crowd pleaser that unloads its rip-snorting, old-fashioned goodies without a single note of back-handed condescension. Independence Day may indeed be nothing more than candy, but it is candy of the richest and most crunchy type.

Besides, the only truly implausible thing in Independence Day is the idea that the American President doesn't know about the existence of Area 51. In reality, everybody knows about Area 51. You just drive along the Extraterrestrial Highway (this is its real name) and turn at the dirt road marked only by a black mailbox in the middle of nowhere. Then after a bunch of heavily armed policemen force you to turn back, you can go on down the road to a local bar that serves a drink called the Beam Me Up, Scotty (one thirds Jim Beam, scotch, and 7-Up).

Sometimes, truth is just as strange as fiction.

The Fifth Element

Someday in the future, theoretical physicists will discover an alternative universe composed solely of extreme hipness. Until then, The Fifth Element will suffice as a close approximation. The movie is cool, way cool. In fact, it is too way cool for its own good at times. It takes nearly forty minutes of viewing before it becomes apparent that The Fifth Element is actually a very sly and campy parody of itself. But once established, the movies snaps together as a strangely brilliant tour-de-farce.

This tongue-firmly-in-cheek attitude allows The Fifth Element to skip through a plot that unloads like a consumer's guide to the past twenty years of science-fiction. Even visually, the movie is a bizarre composite of designs freely lifted from everywhere else. Then it adds in a thick veneer of Parisian chic and Arabian Night gloss. The Fifth Element is less a movie and more of an exotic photo spread for Vogue magazine. Even the odd casting of Milla Jovovich is merely a logical extension of the movie's obsessive concern with its haute couture appearance.

So don't worry about the fact that The Fifth Element doesn't make much sense. Narrative coherency is not the movie's primary focus. Even the hair stylists were obviously ranked above the scriptwriters, with one of the funnier gags being a subtle but devastating take on the Princess Leia look. Of course, this is not counting the odd sight of Willis with a blond shag. The French are a little bit caustic, non?

But the latest fads in post-punk fashion wear is not the biggest worry faced by Korben Dallas (Bruce Willis). He's more worried about keeping his cabby license, especially since taxi driving is virtually the only job he has been able to get since leaving his post as a space commando. Though he was trained to be the 23rd century equivalent of Rambo, Dallas finds the high flying traffic of New York to be just a tad dangerous.

Dallas knows better than to get involved with a half-naked woman with bright orange hair who literally falls into his cab's back seat. Even worse, she only speaks the ancient language of a divine race whose mission is to save humanity from ultimate evil. Though Le-Eluu (Jovovich) promises to be a lousy tipper, Dallas impulsively decides to help her evade the police.

Good thing, because ultimate evil in the form of a fire-belching comet is currently heading straight for the earth. Only Father Cornelius (Ian Holm) and a ruthless millionaire named Zorg(Gary Oldman) are knowledgeable about the object's intentions. But while Cornelius is bumbling his way toward discovering the primal power of good, Zorg is hell bent on scoring a profit from the complete destruction of mankind. Since Le-Eluu is the chief component to an ancient weapon designed to defeat evil, Cornelius needs her. He also needs Dallas, because somebody has to blow up all of those nasty alien mercenaries that Zorg employs with a giddy abandon.

Between its metaphysical mumblings and two-dimensional characters, The Fifth Element rambles even more than Oldman's eccentric version of a Southern accent. The movie is essentially a warped comic book, minus the dialogue bubbles. Sort of a Judge Dredd II, only this time it's fun. Though the ending is a disappointment (visions of the Apocalypse never fare well in the cinema), most of The Fifth Element is a fantastic flight of smart (and smart aleck) wizardry.

The movie's extensive use of CGI results in a fantastic stream of outlandishly effective, otherworldly scenes. The cluttered texture of the 23rd century is played for both laughs and shocks, with an amazing degree of success on both counts. The visual effect plays as a wild union between American crassness and Euro trash decadence, with an unpredictable dash of classical art thrown in on the side.

Director Luc Besson has always been a great believer in style over substance. In such films as Subway, La Femme Nikita, and The Professional, the image conveyed more merit than any traditional dramatic point. With The Fifth Element, Besson scores his best exercise yet in the realm of pure visualization. The film is often bold, breathtaking, and audacious. If it made any sense, it would even be a masterpiece.

But then, whoever said that everything had to make sense? Sometimes, you just kick off your shoes, relax, and breath it all in. Besides, The Fifth Element finally explains to us what the most powerful force is in the universe. As the Beatles once said, all you need is love. Too bad that this final sentiment in The Fifth Element is the one thing that the filmmakers couldn't digitally enhance.

Body Snatchers

They don't make paranoia like they used to. After all, the two previous versions of the sci-fi classic The Invasion of the Body Snatchers left viewers with the sneaky suspicion that they should double-check the identity of all their friends and relatives.

But the new production, bearing the trimmed-down title of Body Snatchers, isn't even scary enough to make you want to spy on your neighbors. It just doesn't have the juicy fear factor of the earlier movies.

What Body Snatchers does have is a preponderance of foreboding that finally gives way to surprisingly lackluster fits of hysteria. It also offers a vaguely competent performance by Gabrielle Anwar, as a teenager who's trapped on a pod-infested army base with her father (Terry Kinney) and step-brother (Meg Tilly). That's the new twist in this version – the brain-stealing veggies from outer space have taken over the military. But since military intelligence is an oxymoron, who can tell the difference?

Certainly not Anwar's father, who's an inspector for the EPA, and has been sent to the army base to test for toxins in the local water. Despite his presumed expertise on aquatic ecosystems, he never notices that alien seed pods are beginning to hatch in the river by the thousands. He's so out of touch with his own environment that he's hardly aware that most of the troops are acting like zombies. He's even slow on the uptake when his own wife starts behaving oddly.

Not that Anwar is any smarter. She's so busy seething at her step-mother that she doesn't realize that the local MP's are dragging people out of their houses in the middle of the night. She doesn't figure it out until the truth literally comes crashing through her roof.

Forest Whitaker, as an army psychiatrist who goes nuts from his efforts to stay sane, provides the movie's only engaging character.

The first half of Body Snatchers spends too much time warning us that something other-worldly is going on. The second half explains everything too quickly and sets the stage for a final firefight that's neither very exciting nor frightening. The movie is stuck between a pod and a hard place – it's too serious to have any fun with its crazy plot line, but it's incapable of presenting an intelligent, coherent story. Even the central question of who is – and who isn't – human is treated with virtual indifference.

Star Trek: First Contact

In case you haven't heard, the Borg are back and they are itching for a fight. This simple idea is the overwhelming focus of Star Trek: First Contact, the eighth big screen entry in the series and the first full blown excursion by The Next Generation crew (minus those old guys). The result is the wildest and most action-packed adventure since Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Occasionally,the movie is almost too exciting as it attempts a tricky balance between humanitarian ideals and raw terror. Both ethics and good judgement can take a pounding when the Borg are on the loose.

The horror of it all is already bothering Capt. Picard(Patrick Stewart) when he jolts awake from a nightmare rooted in his own experience with Borg-style assimilation. Picard is equally bothered by the fact that Star Fleet still doesn't
trust him where the Borg are concerned. Despite rumors of a Borg ship heading toward Federation space, the Enterprise E has been sent to chill out along the Neutral Zone. No wonder Picard is in such a foul and snappish mood.

But the Federation's effort to destroy the Borg vessel through a massive attack turns into a disastrous failure(again) that is barely salvaged by the traditional wiliness of the Enterprise crew to conveniently disobey orders whenever they feel like it. But Picard's uncanny (and unexplained) ability to blow up the enemy's big cube doesn't help him to comprehend what is happening when a small sphere escapes from the exploding Borg ship. The sphere rushes for Earth, does the time warp bit, and presto - the 24th century is now thoroughly assimilated.

Thanks to an irrational combination of pseudo-science and techno-babble, the Enterprise E follows the Borg sphere back to the 21st century. Suddenly it becomes clear that the real target of the Borg attack is the legendary inventor of warp drive, Zefram Cochrane (James Cromwell). It is the eve of Cochrane's first test flight (and mankind's first encounter with an alien race) and the Borg intend to end humankind involvement with interstellar history at its origin.

Too bad the Borg didn't go for the easy way. Another round of drinks should be enough to put Cochrane out for a couple of years. In the history books, Cochrane is a great man. In the flesh, he's a bit of a drunken lout who seems quicker with the leer than the equations. If history is to be fulfilled, Picard has to successfully fend off the Borg(who have seized the Enterprise's engineering room and begun assimilating the crew) as well as sober up the world's shakiest rocket scientist.

The double narrative of Star Trek: First Contact is both its strength and weakness. Many of the scenes with Cochrane provides the movie with a zesty sense of fun, especially when Troi (Marina Sirtis) makes the mistake of trying to keep up with the tequila habits of this seasoned, soused pro. Likewise, the dim awakening of Cochrane to his historic role provides Star Trek: First Contact with a nice dose of Gene Roddenberry's old-school concerns about humanity.

But the real action takes place on the Enterprise as Picard turns the battle against the Borg into a very personal(and increasingly demented) campaign. The cybernetic bad boys of deep space have just assimilated over half of the ship's crew, are converting portions of the Enterprise into a Borg environment, and have kidnapped Data so he can be a boy toy for their queen (Alice Krige). So what. Picard is solely interested in avenging himself. It's Capt. Ahab time on the USS Enterprise as Picard picks up a phaser, drops some quotes from Moby Dick, and starts blasting at anyone who even has a lousy paper clip dangling from their face. In other words, he goes slightly nutso.

Which may explain why Star Trek: First Contact has an odd, distant feel to it. The movie is strongly dependent upon the viewer being familiar with the TV series and runs the risk of being difficult for the non-Trekker to follow. In turn, it deviates enough from the show's standard characterizations (as well as from its continuity) to be slightly confounding to the fans.

But a combination of strong acting, and surprisingly solid direction from Frakes, pulls Star Trek: First Contact through most of its weaker moments. Stewart is able to keep the increasingly obsessive Picard sympathetic, even while ripping a circuit out of the entrails of a Borgized shipmate. Likewise, Spiner is allowed to return to his more low key portrayal of Data ( the recently acquired emotion chip is mercifully down played). When the Borg Queen goes to seduce Data, Spiner is able to maintain the android's childlike sense of naivete without a single false moment of bad histrionic (unlike Star Trek: Generations).

The new movie is also more generous with the rest of the cast than was its half-baked predecessor. Marina Sirtis has a great drunk scene while Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Picardo unloads one of the funniest moments in the movie. As Cochrane, Cromwell manages to breath life into a weakly written role as he successfully transforms the deadhead professor into a figure of destiny. Only Alfre Woodard comes across as substandard, and her poor showing is clearly the result of playing a character who has no real function in the story. Even Woodard's one big moment in the film was obviously "borrowed" from another character (hey, only Dr. Crusher is allowed to talk to Jean-Luc in that manner).

But thrills are the main focus of Star Trek: First Contact as the movie takes the Enterprise on one of its most harrowing rides. Not only do the Borg get to be as bad as they want to be, but their Queen (Alice Krige) manages to throw in a bizarre set of sexual come-ons and snotty put-downs. Besides, Krige is also given one of the most impressive entrances in recent movie memory.

Best of all, Star Trek: First Contact is a sure sign that The Next Generation crew is bound to live long and prosper on the movie screen. That prospect alone turns the new film into an absolute must-see for fans.

The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The original Jurassic Park took in more money than many countries make in their yearly GNP. This blunt fact is the main plot focus behind the sequel. Of course, director Steven Spielberg already has more money than most nations, so why he needs the extra loot is any one's guess.

If this review sounds as if it belongs in The Wall Street Journal, then it has accurately summed up the basic impact of the movie. The Lost World: Jurassic Park has its fair share of thrills and chills. It also has its stumbles. But mostly, the film has no particular reason for existing. The original Jurassic Park had at least some childlike awe and wonder to offer along with the merchandising. The Lost World primarily suggests that Spielberg simply felt the need to increase his already ample bank account. At least this theory would explain why the movie is singularly lacking in spirit and fun.

Dino action is the only thing that The Lost World has to offer. Fortunately, the sequel delivers more gut chomping moments than the original as a T-Rex family puts a Jurassic spin on the old nature-or-nurture debate. Lost World has more dinosaurs than were seen the first time, which also means that the sequel has a larger cast for the inevitable feast.

At the top of the dino menu is Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum), the skirt-chasing mathematician who previously came close to being snack food. Malcolm is still upset about the mini-massacre that took place at the original Jurassic Park, but his efforts to go public about the incident resulted in getting him branded as a complete wacko. When Malcolm discovers that there is a second island that was used for breeding (and is still booming with the critters), he is torn between feelings of outrage and a need for redemption.

The realization that his current girlfriend, Sarah Harding (Julianne Moore), is already on the island convinces Malcolm to again confront his primordial fears. Besides, this guy just seems to have a thing about cute paleontologists. Along for the ride is Malcolm's teenage daughter (Vanessa Lee Chester), whose only function is to get herself routinely in peril.

Malcolm and the other members of the team (Vince Vaughn and Richard Schiff) are sent to document how the dinosaurs have adapted to their environment. Apparently the earlier disaster has turned John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) into a Green Peace activist and he wants the surviving dinosaurs to romp in isolated splendor. But Hammond's company is now operated by Peter Ludlow (Arliss Howard), his greedy nephew who thinks that San Diego would be a swell spot for a new Jurassic Park. So while
Hammond's team is busy photographing raw nature, Ludlow's boys come swooping in to bag some specimens for display.

Oddly enough, neither team is particularly prepared to achieve their contrary objectives. Malcolm is ready to leave upon arrival while Sarah carelessly meanders among house-sized beasties. Meanwhile, Ludlow's hunters are led by a borderline psycho (Pete Postlethwaite) who is solely fixated on the idea of going one-on-one with a T-Rex. You can almost hear the dinner bell clanging away in the jungle.

The Lost World is packed with superb special effects and non-stop action. In fact, the movie suffers from too much action. Lost World never has time to adequately develop any sense of tension even while the entire cast is running for their lives. None of the characters are ever developed beyond the level of a few stock statements and the plot rarely evolves from A to B. Only the many dinosaurs hold any interest, and after awhile, their eating habits become more boorish than gruesome.

But the real surprise about The Lost World is Spielberg's willingness to create a second-rate copy of his own work. Jurassic Park was by no means a masterpiece (just a standard critter picture with a monster-size budget). Yet the original film did have moments of genuine feelings (e.g. the field of peacefully glazing brontosaurs) and nail-baiting suspense (e.g. the vibrating pools of water indicting the movements of the T-Rex). By comparison, the sequel is the kind of dim and diminished work that one might expect from a lessor filmmaker.

So what is Spielberg's problem? Does he really need the money or is he just spinning some artistic wheels while waiting for inspiration? The most likely answer is that he couldn't say no to a dumb, if oblivious, idea.

Which is a shame. If a lesser director had made Lost World, then we could spend our time dissing the guy for being no Spielberg. As it is, we have to remind ourselves that Spielberg is actually better than this film.

Screamers

There must be something about the science-fiction stories of Philip K. Dick that inspires filmmakers to unusual levels of stunning incoherency. Both Blade Runner and Total Recall, the two previous adaptations from the Dick canon, had plot lines that shifted faster than grains of sand in a windstorm. Likewise, so did the characters.

At his best, Dick could give his readers the tail spinning conviction that everything real was illusionary and that nobody could ever be certain of anything, not even their own existence. For Dick, there was no easy division between human consciousness and a good job of deceptive programming. "I think, therefore I am" was a philosophic assumption that Dick could never accept.

Which is part of the problem encountered by Commander Becker (Peter Weller) in Screamers. Like Blade Runner, the movie ultimately tries to wrestle with the question of what is human. Unlike Blade Runner, Screamers gets pinned to the mat more often than not.

On the planet Sirius 6B, a brutal war is dragging into its tenth year. The world has become a ravaged battleground between the Earth Alliance and the New Economic Block (N.E.B.). The surface has been thoroughly nuked and the combatants now primarily stay hidden in underground fortresses.

But the protracted stalemate is suddenly shaken by an offer of peace from the N.E.B. Just as abruptly, peace is shattered by the crash landing of an Alliance troop transporter. Evidence from the ship convinces Becker that the war has simply been relocated to a new planet. In a face-saving move, both sides have decided to abandon the troops on Sirius 6B while routinely feeding Becker and his men with phony messages on a virtual reality system.

Feeling just a tad bitter, Becker sets out to make his own peace with the equally hapless N.E.B. forces. The only problem is that no one knows how many, if any, of the enemy troops are even still alive. Making matters worse is the increasingly unpredictable behavior of the screamers.

The original model of the screamers were insect-like killer robots armed with a wide variety of blades. The Alliance unleashed them as an ultimate weapon against the N.E.B. But the screamers have their own elaborate system of automated programming design and manufacturing and are rumored to be pursuing their own evolutionary leaps. They have even created androids who prey upon their potential victims by appealing to the human sense of empathy.

About now, Rutger Hauer should make an appearance. Unfortunately, he doesn't. Likewise, Weller is no Harrison Ford. He's not even a Charlton Heston, though Weller makes a game try at projecting some of old Chuckie's sense of jaded machismo.

Much of the acting in Screamers has a flat, stilted quality that undercuts the central paradox of the movie. Only Jennifer Rubin, as a female N.E.B. officer, delivers any convincing pathos. Of course, this immediately makes her a prime suspect on the human/nonhuman detection scale.

But the real problem with Screamers is the script. None of the characters are ever fleshed out or clearly defined in any distinctive way. Their humanity is only hinted at through bouts of chain-smoking (special cigarettes that prevents radiation poisoning) and a taste for Mozart (Don Giovanni is Becker's pet fave).

The androids do not fare any better. Unlike the alluring "skin jobs" of Blade Runner, the replicants in Screamers are almost as marginal as their human targets. One of the deadlier models come in the form of an orphan boy clutching a death-dealing teddy bear. The first appearance of this killer waif is mildly shocking. When an entire army of dangerous Oliver Twist types goes gunning for Becker, the film takes a plunge into bad camp.

The multiple twists and turns of the plot also never quite matches up. Contradictions abound, and not just because they are suppose to in a Dick-derived movie. The pre-production history of Screamers is almost as long as the war on Sirius 6B, with Dan O'Bannon first drafting a version under the title of Claw at Disney Studios back in the early 1980s. Screamers plays as if a few too many versions had been stitched together during various rewrites.

Though the film maintains a reasonably suspenseful tempo, Screamers never manages to engage at either the intellectual or emotional level. In turn, the film is too preoccupied with being cerebral to ever fully unload to the action audience.

Ironically, the hi-tech shredding machines shown dicing a man at the movie's beginning are actually the most interesting element in Screamers. Unlike the filmmakers, at least these nasty little drones know what they are doing.

Mars Attacks!

Hundreds of tacky looking space ships attack the earth. Thousands of rampaging, bug‑eyed Martians ruthlessly zap humanity in a mindless extermination campaign. The U.S. Congress, a herd of cows, and Tom Jones' band are all fried to a crisp. Gee. It's a shame about those cows.

This just about sums up Mars Attacks!, the latest tribute by director Tim Burton to his childhood fondness for bad movies. Unfortunately, Mars Attacks! also invokes the current (and extremely advance) state of Burton's own sense of arrested adolescence. The film plays like a simple‑minded gag thought up by an obnoxious five‑year‑old. Even during its funnier moments, Mars Attacks! barely rises to the level of a cheap giggle cooked up in the back row of a school room.

Of course, a lack of subtly is not surprising since the focus of the movie's extended homage are the zanier B science‑fiction films of the 1950s. Though the plot is loosely lifted from Earth Vs. the Flying Saucers, the trashy feel of Mars Attacks! is closer to the cruder sensibilities of such non‑classics as Invasion of the Saucer Men (a movie so poorly budgeted that a pre‑Batman Frank Gorshin was the major star). But Mars Attacks! lacks the rude zestiness of a good drive‑in movie. Heck. Mars Attacks! even lacks the genuine, raw badness of an Ed Wood movie.

Though some advance word had suggested that Mars Attacks! would play as a kind of Dr. Strangelove antidote to Independence Day's jingoistic seriousness, the comparison is thin. In many respects, Independence Day is actually a funnier film. It was also a more affectionate homage to the genre. Mars Attacks! has a weird, distracted feel to it and often suggests that Burton never really liked these lousy movies in the first place. Maybe he only watched them because he liked seeing people blow up.

Which is basically the sole focus of the movie. For reasons that are never explained, the entire population of the Red Planet charges toward earth. A blathering dolt of a US President (Jack Nicholson) stumbles around, hoping to make peaceful contact with the Martians. Then they start blasting everyone who comes within firing range. An utter dope of a scientific advisor (Pierce Brosnan) successfully argues that the Martians deadly behavior is simply a cultural misunderstanding. Then they wipe out Congress and beat the stuffing out of the scientific advisor.

Meanwhile, a crooked and extremely drunk real estate developer in Las Vegas (Nicholson again) has some vague scheme of getting the Martians to check‑in at his new casino. The developer's wife (Annette Bening) has abandoned booze in favor of New Age mysticism and Sixties style retro fashions. At the same time, the always horny presidential press secretary (Martin Short) finds himself incredibly attracted to a Martian female. The rest of the movie's long list of well‑known performers stand around with little to do until they get blasted.

OK. So once again Burton demonstrates that he doesn't give a hoot about narrative. Besides, what do you expect from a film that is based on a set of bubble gum cards briefly distributed in 1963(and pulled from circulation because of their excessive violence). Besides, both Burton and his screenwriter (Jonathan Gems) freely admit that they didn't realize that the cards even had a story. They thought that the text on the back of the cards were just advertisements (which suggests that neither of these guys can read).

Burton's best films (i.e. Batman and Beetlejuice) have usually gotten around the narrative problem by creating surprisingly strong characters and monstrously effective villains. But the human characters in Mars Attacks! are all weakly written and severely underdeveloped. Brosnan has a few daffy moments as a kind of inverted Hugh Marlowe as his smug scientist deftly misinterprets every known fact about the invaders. Likewise, Jim Brown imparts a few precious moments of dignity in his role as a ex‑boxing champion turned Vegas lounge greeter. On the other hand, Nicholson manages the unique feat of giving two of his worst performances ever in the same film.

Ironically, only the Martians have any limited appeal. Maybe its their goofy, wide‑eyed looks. Or perhaps it is the sight of their enormous, silly brains. More likely, they become sympathetic by default. After all, the Martians have no pretense of being anything other than a pack of ill‑bred fraternity boys running wild on an especially nasty set of pranks. As they make yapping noises while stitching human heads onto the bodies of Chihuahuas, the little green mirth makers are almost capable of stealing your heart. While they are at it, they will also help themselves to your kidneys, spleen, and liver.

Thanks to the superb CGI work provided by Industrial Lights & Magic, the Martians are also the most brilliantly satiric reference made in Mars Attacks! to the B movies of yesteryear. Designed to move in a slightly jerky manner like old fashion stop‑motion animated models, these pesky marauders glide about with spooky mechanical precision as they smirk their way through every slaughter.

Too bad they don't have a better film to star in. But good film making is seemingly something that Tim Burton is now determined not to do. Instead, he has become an aging prankster looking to indulge himself in minor gags that might vaguely amuse the pre‑teen set("heh heh, that was cool"). Likewise, he seems insistent on making movies that are completely lacking in any real sense of fun.

Which is one of the reasons why Mars Attacks! is a long and charmless bore.

The Island of Dr. Moreau

About every two or three decades, somebody in Hollywood decides to do a film version of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau. It is a peculiar phenomena, much like reports of spontaneous combustion. Nobody can explain why it happens. Instead, movie viewers just find themselves staring dumbly at the devastating results.

How bad can it be? Based upon the most recent outbreak of this pest, the results can be more deadly than the Ebola virus. The new production of The Island of Dr. Moreau manages to combine all of the hackneyed, pseudo-philosophic posturing of the previous versions and then slide into a totally incoherent babble within the first thirty minutes of its run. Then the situation really gets ugly, because the movie still has an hour of screen time to fill and the script has already run out of ideas.

Not that everything in The Island of Dr. Moreau is ghastly. The opening credits are nicely done (a la James Bond) and the makeup work by Stan Winston is extremely well executed. Besides, the movie does provoke a few cheap giggles, especially when one realizes just how many talented people are throwing their careers away in this production.

Take for example David Thewlis, an extremely good actor who desperately needs a better agent. He plays Douglas, a United Nations diplomat who finds himself stranded in the Java Sea after a plane crash. He is suppose to have an idealistic sense of hopefulness for the future of mankind, but he stumbles through most of the film in a numb state of easy despair. Obviously, Thewlis has just read the screenplay.

Then there is Val Kilmer, a gifted but erratic actor with an attitude problem. As Montgomery, he inexplicably rescues Douglas from a watery grave. Also inexplicably, he takes Douglas with him to the mysterious island where he works for an infamous and reclusive scientist involved in some highly questionably research. Even more inexplicable is the fact that Kilmer then hangs around for the rest of the movie. Maybe Kilmer couldn't resist waiting until he got to demonstrate that he can do a better impersonation of Brando than even Brando can do. Or perhaps he was strangely drawn to his character's final line about going to doggy heaven.

Finally, there is the big guy himself. Weighing in at 400 plus pounds is Marlon Brando, an ex-actor turned ex-movie star turned resident crackpot of the silver screen. His Dr. Moreau is part noble idealist and part mad scientist who wants to reshape the human race by genetically altering other animals into semi-human monstrosities under his control. But mostly Brando waddles through the film in a variety of goofy get-ups while behaving as if he were auditioning for a drag version of the Gertrude Stein story. By the time he sticks an ice bucket on his head and calls it his caloric inverter, you know that he is mad (the actor, not the character).

This is as good as it gets on The Island of Dr. Moreau. Which means that the average viewer will spend most of the movie pondering such major questions as: If Moreau is such a pacifist, then why are there so many 9mm handguns and AK-47s available on the island? Did Charles Laughton (who played Moreau in the 1933 version) have more guts? After all, he stuck it out for the whole movie while Brando bails out mid-way through this sucker. Was Kilmer widely reported hostilities during the movie's production caused by his realization that he just signed up for first-mate duty on the Titanic.

Maybe the movie should have added a few rock music numbers, some intentional gags, and cast Tim Curry in the lead. Then it could be retitled The Rocky Horror Picture Show II and eventually score a never ending run on the midnight movie circuit. Film history is chock full of so many missed opportunities.

So why not miss out on this one? You might just feel better for it.

John Carpenter's Escape From L.A.

There are two major warning signs of a director in steep decline. The first is when they remake their own movies. The second is when they remake them badly. John Carpenter's Escape From L.A. is vivid proof of both points. The fact that Carpenter stuck his name into the title even invokes the third warning sign. No wonder this movie has become the current favorite target for the critical equivalent of a drive-by shooting.

Unfortunately, the bad press is amply earned. In its efforts to redo and surpass the original, Escape From L.A. merely succeeds in making Escape From New York look like a masterpiece. Despite the critical beating that it received upon its release in 1981, Escape From New York has managed to achieve a well deserved cult reputation. But the lean and mean B-movie attitude that made the original so exciting has given way in its sequel to a pricey sense of flabbiness.

In Escape From L.A., everything is bigger and flashier than it was before. Everything is also slower and dumber. Snake Plissken (Kurt Russell) is especially inclined to fits of denseness. Once again, the surly futuristic commando-turned-criminal is snatched by the U.S. Police Force and is about to be deported to the Island of Los Angeles (big quake, you know). Likewise, the President (Cliff Robertson) is once again in trouble (it's an occupational hazard). Seems that his bad seed daughter (A.J. Langer) has fled to L.A. to be with her Maoist homeboy lover (George Corraface). Even worse, she has taken with her a black box containing the satellite command codes to one of daddy's favorite secret weapons.

As usual, Plissken is indifferent to the national crisis which in the States should make him a prime presidential candidate). So the head of the U.S. Police Force (Stacy Keach) injects him with a deadly, time-delayed virus as a personal inducement. You would think that old Snake might groan under the weight of so much deja vu in one movie.

As was also the case in the original, Plissken has to deal with a treacherous ally (Steve Buscemi), an ex-partner (Pam Grier in an offbeat tribute to The Crying Game), and a helpful fan (Peter Fonda in a role that should have gone to Dennis Hopper). Completely wasted in minor parts are both Michelle Forbes and Bruce Campbell, though Campbell's freaky turn as the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills provokes a few chilly laughs.

But embarassed giggles will be the audience's main response to Escape From L.A. In between bouts of surprisingly mediocre special effects and lackluster stunt scenes, the movie limps from one dull gag to another. Post-apocalyptic Los Angeles festers with heavily armed gang members and fast talking con artists, which means that LaLaLand is still the same despite the geologic shift. But the movie never goes beyond the obvious and the result plays like a boorishly pushy afternoon in Burbank.

Equally uninspired is the political focus of the film, and Escape From L.A. is intended by Carpenter to be his political statement piece. The President is a right-wing religious zealot who lucked into office when he prophesied the coming of the great quake. His daughter has mistaken puppy love for a liberal cause. In turn, her boyfriend is a Shining Path guerrilla leader planning a Third World invasion against the United States. Plissken is a gun-toting civil libertarian who wants his red meat and cigarette right now, no matter what anybody else thinks.

Maybe this could have been good satire (as was the case in Carpenter's under appreciated production of They Live). But Carpenter would have needed a good screenwriter to pull it off. Since the script to Escape From L.A. was co-authored by the director, the producer, and the star, it's a safe bet that the story was hastily concocted during a power brunch with assorted agents.

Which also means that everybody was too busy making deals instead of a movie. Escape From L.A. appears to have been a quick afterthought jotted down on a few cocktail napkins during a heated discussion about percentage points.

No Escape

Many years ago, the movie Escape From New York became the target of cheap ridicule. Too bad. It's actually a fairly good film. Compared to a clone production like No Escape, the John Carpenter original looks like a master­piece.

No Escape borrows from everyone, but it has no idea what to do with all of the material that it's shamelessly stolen. Along with pieces of Escape From New York, you get a dash of Lord of the Flies, huge heapings of stuff from all of the Mad Max movies and a bit of Robinson Crusoe on the side. This flick didn't have a screenplay, it had a collage.

Ray Liotta (Good Fellas) plays a Special Forces officer in the year 2022, who has a slight problem with accepting authority. Presumably, that's why he kills his commanding officer, He's sentenced for life to the island penal colony of Absalom (whoa, some symbolism here). The island is divided between the primitive and vio­lent Outsiders and the civilized and peaceful Insiders, the latter of whom are led by a benevolent figure called Father (get Freud on the phone right now).

No Escape has enough violence for 10 movies, but it's surprisingly dull, nonetheless. Casting choices don't improve the situation any: B-movie bad guy Lance Hendriksen is an odd choice for Father, while Stuart Wilson (Lethal Weapon III)plays the evil chief of the Outsiders as if he shops for clothes at a Klingon boutique. Incidentally, even the wardrobe in this movie is derived from somewhere else.