Birdemic: Shock and Terror.

Merryn Smith has felt many emotions watching films over the years. But tonights stirred feelings within him that he's never felt before. Alien sensations, something primal and unpleasant. In terms of simple english, I feel violated by it. Never before have I been reduced to tears at the outright badness of what is on the screen in front of me. I feel hollow and weak. And I am not exaggerating.


Those are the words that sum up my feelings towards this film, but I must expand.

I’d like to say this film is awful beyond words, however the depths that this piece of digital trash plumbs, leaves it wide open to being ripped apart. But first a small disclaimer. One form of countering criticism could be levelled at me by saying “well YOU couldn’t do any better”. True. Very, very true. And that is why I work for a helicopter company. 

Bad acting has long been a hallmark of z grade movies but this film takes it to an extreme. Clunky dialogue and shocking scripts are poorly delivered with such straight faces , you can hardly believe that the actors on screen are taking it seriously

The director firmly believes that long lingering shots of car parks, seaside towns, cars driving and people walking down streets are tension  building whereas we, the average-Joe-public-in-the-street, would simply describe it as boring. And the editing is abysmal. Shocking to the point that in any individual scene, the sound levels are cross cut badly and background noise leaps from one level to another. There are breaks between scenes and continuity errors that have to be seen to be believed.

The poor graphics are forgivable in a megalowbudget film like this, but you just know that eagles and vultures cannot hover,  let alone at just a few feet off the ground with a wing beat of around 20 a minute. It looks like a computer game from the early eighties, just not as good and with birds parading across screen........and then back again, you can't help but think of Space Invaders

There are times in this when it honest to goodness makes no sense. Things happen. and that's it. People are dead, then they're not then they are. And I am fast running out of rhetoric. 

Suffice to say that there are no redeeming qualities to this film AT ALL. The truth is (and it is the truth) there were times in this film I wanted to cry, it was so bad.  I am just glad they didn’t spend more than $10,000 in making it.....................

..............................................

Bugger it, they made a sequel.

No, no, no,no, NO. I will not end this review with a joke, a pithy remark, a sly wink to the reader. This film quite simply doesn’t deserve that. It’s an affront to the art of film making, it’s a mess, unpleasant and physically painful to watch. Shocking and boring in equal measure, you truly cannot believe that  the events and actions you see, are actually unfolding on the screen in front of you.  It’s too easy to say that the film has no redeeming qualities, the reverse is true if that were possible. It is a black hole of a fim, a dementor of a film, sucking the life and all that is good from those that see it, leaving them despairing and pitiful. 

Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes.

One day I will once again write a review of a film that I ddin’t enjoy, one that was rubbish, pointless and completely unmoving, but or now, I’ll just carry on with the ones that moved me and remoinded me what “Cinema” is all about.

 Off to a sedate and almost (oh so almost) slow start, ROTPOTA soon developed into a character drama, one in which you could see the heart rending denouement loomig large like an elephant in the corner and there is. Nothing. You. Can. Do. About it. Revealing whether your inner fears are realised or not is not a responsibility that I am going to shoulder, suffice to say the quality of the film as a whole compensates for any heart string tugging that goes on.

And the film itself is superb, though at times the pace varies dramatically the central premise though unbelievable, is acceptable and the sheer quality of the acting, drives everything forward, Franco is good, Cox is good, Felton is so subtle he is excellent and Andy Sirkis is simply outstanding, a class of his own, not necessarily above the rest, but simply staggering in his own right. Subtle nuances and inflections mean everything when you potray a character with limited communication (just ask John Hurt a la “Elephant Man”), but Sirkis seems to have that particular market sewn up.

 There is an element of sweeping flare with the direction on this film. It adds to the drama and the tension, but in no way takes your eye off the ball. Some recent releases have suffered with the amount of directorial panache they have injected, but here the balance is just right. With regard to the set pieces, you could tick them off as with any prequel/reboot/action flick, but here there is an edge, a frisson of originality throughout. The showdown on the Golden Gate bridge has been done a dozen times before but never like this, the escape from the compound is nothing new, but the build up is tremendous, and the heartbreak of letting go of the thing you love the most is possibly the oldest story of them all, but it’s never been told this way.

The final third of the film was nigh on perfect. There was a sense of humanity, with the apes displaying compassion, self sacrifice, bitterness and hate. An understanding of all things, an understanding, full stop. And prefacing it all, at the heart of the film is one of those moments for me which define cinema. Every now and then there is a scene which is breathtaking. You watch, you are engrossed, you are utterly absorbed, and then you realise you have stopped breathing. The scene sparks, and it illicits from you, a primal reaction, something you couldn’t stop if you wanted to, if your life depended on it, you react from your very core. And here we have one such screen. My immediate reaction was that I had just witnessed a turning point in cinema history, then I relaised that it was not that serious, just a turning point in actual history, in evolution. Then I realised that I was actually just watching a film but that in it a corner had been turned and a path followed that could never be retrodden. But for those few seconds, I was carried away I was in another  world and I was a witness. That is what cinema is all about.

Not without its faults, ROTPOTA is none the less great entertainment and one of the better Summer blockbusters of recent years. Original yet with a responsibility to what has gone before, the ending was such that it was a cracking stand alone movie,  an excellent precursor to those that had gone before it  or it had set the scene for future incarnations.