 Today I’m watching Don Dohler’s The Galaxy Invader from 1985, which the video box claims to be “Science Fiction Gold,” and is pretty much guaranteed not to be. The fullest synopsis I could find is the following:
“When an alien is forced to crash-land his spaceship on the Earth’s surface, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by a bunch of drunken rednecks.”
It was a tough call to watch this one, honestly, when I had such a large selection of movies promising “beautiful women,” “a clan of beautiful women,” “a stone-age beauty,” “wild women,” and “lost women,” and all this has to offer is drunken rednecks and one alien. Nevertheless, it promises to be brain-stompingly stupid.
00:01: Cue ‘80s synth score during opening credits.
01:00: A car is driving through the desert when a cartoon meteor-like object flies across the sky and strikes the ground.
02:00: We’ve got the alien’s perspective as it walks through the forest after crash landing.
02:30: A redneck that saw the hand-drawn meteor/UFO is calling another redneck who apparently is a redneck expert in these matters and also a horrible actor. It’s hard to tell, but no one appears to be drunken yet.
The expert is heading out to the site.
04:00: Alien-POV in some redneck house. Redneck husband gets a knife to protect his wife, enters basement. 80’s synth chords make it tense.
05:00: We keep getting POV’s but I’m not sure whose. Alien? Redneck? Knife? I don’t know.
7:00: Alien pops out! Synth chords go crazy! He kills both redneck and his wife, meanders out of house.
7:30: Cut to redneck dinner. Rednecks arguing about coffee and the social life of the daughter. Father is definitely drunken, and slaps the daughter when she points it out.
Father chases daughter with a shotgun, wears torn white t-shirt. Now things get all Shining as Dad hunts the girl through the woods for way too long. He stumbles to accentuate his drunkenness, and — op, there’s the alien. Just standing there.
Dad shoots the alien and it runs away, leaves some kind of pulsing egg. The rednecks (Dad and son, JJ) are far too casual about this very close encounter.
10:00: We learn that this is the fourth time the father has chased the girl with a gun; her boyfriend is mildly perturbed by this.
13:00: Redneck UFO expert shows up, talks to kid that saw the crash. These two don’t seem prone to drunkenness.
16:00: My attention wanders for a moment, but a car just pulled up to redneck house and a couple got out. Not sure what their deal is. I think the girl is supposed to be an east-coast city gal, but her accent is horrible. They’re there to check out the egg thing.
They claim it has a button and does something incredible, but you can’t be near it when it’s on. So they poke it with a stick. Turns out it’s a smoke bomb, or something.
18:00: Drunken rednecks begin to hatch a plot to catch the alien in order to make money off of it. City girl, Vicky, is hesitant, but easily swayed by the prospect of money, like all city girls.
20:00: JJ has the egg thing and — there’s the alien again. It attacks him and takes the egg.
21:00: Bar scene. Everyone gawks at Vicky. Rednecks wax hillbilly and practice wearing trucker hats. Guy with Vicky recruits them all to hunt the alien. Drunken father still hasn’t changed out of his torn white t-shirt, and chances are he won’t.
24:00: Cut to drunken father running around hilariously for no apparent reason, looking confused. The children express for the third or fourth time how much they hate their father.
Father yells at JJ for losing the egg, seems to be unsure of whether the camera is rolling or not.
25:00: Remember when I said Santa Claus Conquers the Martians may be the worst movie ever? God, was I wrong.
27:00: The rednecks gather at night, drunken, to hunt the alien.
27:30: I lose interest and wander to the kitchen to talk with my roomate about the tiramisu coffee creamer she just bought. I’m skeptical. French vanilla is about as crazy as I like to get with my coffee creamers.
30:00: I come back and haven’t missed much. Kid and UFO expert are in the bar, and so is Vicky, who doesn’t seem to be wearing pants. She’s flappin’ her mouth about the alien-hunt and UFO expert is interested; I’m not. She tells them about it and they head out. I get some cold pizza.
Sometimes the camera doesn’t even have the characters fully in frame. It’s like this movie was actually made by drunken rednecks. Or aliens. Let’s see what else Don Dohler has made, because that’s sure to be more interesting than this movie:
The Alien Factor
Fiend
Nightbeast
Blood Massacre
Alien Factor 2: The Alien Rampage
Dead Hunt
40:00: Now there’s a shoot-out with the alien and the rednecks, who are hootin’ and hollerin’; also drunken.
But ya know what would be more fun? Trying to make porn titles out of Don Dohler’s movies:
The Alien Factor is Sex
Sex Fiend
Nightbeast
Blood Massacre (After several traumatizing attempts, I refuse to do this one.)
Alien Factor 2: The Alien Factor is Still Sex
Dead…oh, come on now
It seems I’m horrible at writing porn titles.
45:00: The rednecks have captured the alien and have the egg thing again, as well as the alien’s gun. They plan to sell it to the Russians?
50:00: Kid and UFO expert are trying to save the alien, I think. They break into redneck’s garage, where the alien is tied up. As they study the restrained alien, it strikes me that this character is really lacking depth. Why did it come to earth? Where did it come from? What are it’s motives? Why does it wear suspenders without pants? All questions that demand answers.
Now they’re friends with the alien, and they run, again hilariously, out of the garage. This may have just turned into the best buddy movie ever. Redneck father still refuses to change out of his torn white t-shirt.
55:00: Oh my. A drunken redneck just shot UFO expert. Oh! And he tries to shoot the kid, but the alien pops out and shoots the redneck. Then another redneck shoots the alien, steals all his shit, and scampers into the woods, as rednecks are wont to do. That was intense. But not to the kid, however, whose level of dismay and trauma is at about “dropped my ice cream on the ground,” as opposed to the more appropriate “my friend was shot by a redneck as we were escaping with an alien, who was then shot protecting me.”
65:00: I think the movie should end now. I just don’t see it getting any better than this.
I’ve now tried the tiramisu creamer, and it’s a bit much for me, as expected. I heard some screaming from the television while I was in the kitchen, but couldn’t care less what happened. Redneck father is still wearing his torn shirt, still drunken. He’s wandering around for no good reason, much like the plot of this movie.
75:00: Do these people even know they’re in a movie? Is this just home video spliced with footage of a guy in an alien suit? Are rednecks really that drunken?
78:00: Vicky is such a hoochie in her hot pants and shiny shirts. Drunken father starts making moves, and by making moves I mean near-raping. She runs away and—oh god. He just shot her. He shot Vicky. What the hell. And now he’s drinking more.
You know, with the alien dead, I’m really not sure why this movie is still going. Now it’s just rednecks drinking, fighting, and shooting each other to the sweet atmospheric chords of a synthesizer.
Don Dohler porn titles, round two:
The Alien XXX Factor
Fiend Who Has Sex a Lot
Nightbeast, Naked
Blood Massacre (Still not doing it.)
Alien XXX Factor 2: The Alien Sexcapade
Hed Hunt
85:00: Daughter, boyfriend, and kid have stolen the egg thing and are being chased through the woods by drunken redneck father. They’re on the edge of a cliff, and he forces them to drop the egg. They back off whi— the alien is back. It shoots redneck father and redneck father shoots it, fights with JJ.
87:00: They fight while redneck family watches. Father has JJ on the edge of the cliff, strangling him, when—oh sweet moses—redneck grandmother, in slow motion, picks up a rifle and, in slow motion still, swings it, in very very slow motion, with double, triple, quadruple takes, and knocks redneck father off the cliff.
A dummy, apparently made of sticks and clothing, falls off the cliff and the father is dead at the bottom. He goes out of this world as he came into it: in his torn white t-shirt.
And it’s over.
There was just no reason for that movie to be made. I feel a little sick. Here are Don Dohler’s movie’s as Christmas specials:
The Alien Toy Factory
Tinsel Fiend
Santa Claus, the Nightbeast
Blood Massacre (There’s nothing I can do with this that isn’t horribly disturbing.)
Alien Toy Factory 2: The Alien Egg Nogg Rampage
Elf Hunt
-Kyle Adams
Today I’m reviewing Santa Claus Conquers the Martians from 1964, which I got from my contact at the Ministry of Absurdly-Titled Movies (along with Teenagers From Outer Space, The Wild Women of Wongo, and my personal favorite, Eegah!). It’s directed by—you know what, it’s Santa Claus Conquers the Motherf@#$in’ Martians, what more do you want?
I’m watching this one with a drink I’ve named the White Dominican. It’s one part rum to one part vodka to two parts milk or cream. I don’t know if it’s a real drink or not, but it’s all I’ve got in my liquor cabinet.
From the movie’s blurb: “[The Martians] return to Mars with Santa and the children in tow, but are thwarted when he converts the Martian children with unstoppable Yuletide joy.”
I’m so excited I just peed a little. Let’s get to it:
00:01: We open with the most obnoxious Christmas song ever, sung by a chorus of obnoxious children. No song has ever sounded good by a chorus of children. Just annoying.
Bad start.
1:00: We’ve got a news real of special correspondent Andy Anderson reporting live from the North Pole. It’s being watched by Martians. So we’ve already established the existence of Santa Claus and Martians. I’m glad we didn’t diddle around with that.
3:00: Andy Anderson is creepy. Santa is even creepier.
3:10: “Dancer and Prancer and Donner and Nixon—” Did Santa just make a Nixon joke?
4:00: Enter Mrs. Claus who, upon realizing she’s on camera, fumbles with her hair and squeels off screen in a fit of womanly embarrasment. Santa and Andy have a hearty laugh. Silly women.
5:00: We get a look at the toyshop and Andy finds a toy that looks remarkably like a Martian. “Oh, Winky made that one,” says Santa. Winky is apparenly both clichéd and clairvoyant.
7:00: Cut to Mars. Martians are purple, wear grey jumpsuits, and wear helmets with antennae.
A Martian is calling for Droppo, who he finds sleeping and wakes up with a wand. We’re informed that Droppo is the laziest man on Mars—also the silliest.
Enter food pills. What else would Martians eat?
8:00: Our Martian protagonist is named Keymar. His wife is Momar. They speak English with a Martian accent. Apparenly Keymar is the leader of the Martians. And Momar is kind of hot.
We learn through some dialogue that the children of Mars have been losing their appetites and having trouble sleeping, and this seems to have something to do with their watching television programs from Earth.
They decide to consult an ancient prophet that lives in the wilderness.
12:00: The other Martian council chiefs are gathered in the forest and we can see from the start that Boldar is an asshole—he heads not the advice of the prophet.
14:00: The prophet is Tim from Monty Python’s The Holy Grail. He knows about Christmas, and this knowledge explains everything.
16:00: Martian children never learn to play, have fun, etc. “The children must be allowed to be children again…” Clearly, the Martians need to kidnap Santa Claus.
Boldar wants none of this. “Bah!” he says. The children will just get annoying if we bring Santa to Mars. I’m with Boldar if it means they’re going to sing that song.
20:00: Approaching Earth in the Martian rocket. They scan the surface for Santa Claus, optically. With telescopes. Great dialogue by Boldar:
(Sneering) “So that’s what the Earth people call a city, eh. How primitive. Look at all those buildings above ground! Why we could destroy that city with one blast of our Q-ray!”
Yes.
They decide to land.
23:00: Cut to news bulletin about an unidentified object in orbit. Cut to stock footage of a military response.
Another news bulletin about the object disappearing from radar: “They believe the object has either disintegrated in space, or it may be a spaceship from some other planet which has the ability to nullify our radar beams.” Those two, and only those two, possibilities.
25:00: More stock footage of a military response.
27:00: Still stock footage.
30:00: Cut to two boys in the woods talking about Martians. “What would you do if a Martian walked right up behind you?” I bet I can guess what happens next.
Martians walk right up behind them.
They react just like little kids would—make pithy remarks about their antennae, totally narc on Santa.
31:00: Oh! One of the little boys is actually a little girl. Well I’ll be.
32:00: News bulletin about kids going missing. It’s nice how every plot point of this movie makes the breaking news.
35:00: They arrive at the North Pole and put Droppo in charge of watching the children. I can’t imagine this leading to the children’s escape in any way.
Keymar mentions activating “Tork,” and Boldar responds in disbelief that “Tog” would be necessary to capture Santa. Keymar responds that they won’t take any chances and that “nothing can stop Tork.” Boldar says “Tog” again just to reinforce that no one in this movie is really sure what that name actually is. Anway, I hope it’s a robot.
Kids overhear this, and the girl asks: “What a Tau?” Was there even a script for this movie?
40:00: The North Pole looks remarkably like Mars, but blue instead of red. The kids are outside and should, by all rights, be frozen to death by now.
41:00: Boldar is such an asshole.
42:00: They summon Torg to chase the children. Eeee.
43:00: The girl is whining about the cold, which would be more realistic if instead of whining she was freezing to death.
45:00: Sweet crisscrossin’ Christ. This is the kind of D-Movie cheesery you can only dream of: a man dressed in a polar-bear costume chasing the kids. We’re supposed to accept that it’s actually a polar bear.
48:00: Girl whines more about the cold, wishes the snow would stop. I wish she would freeze to death.
49:00: Yes! Torg! It’s a big robot! It is the worst movie robot I’ve ever seen! We’re talking cardboard box painted silver with dryer vents for arms and a bucket for a head. Torg apprehends the kids.
Billy to Keymar: “You won’t get away with this you—you—you Martians!” Was that a racial slur? That felt like a racial slur.
50:00: They plan to send Torg after Santa.
51:00: This is it. This is the moment I’ve been waiting for since I first saw a robot and thought, Man, how cool would it be if that robot fought Santa?
Torg busts in the workshop to some sharp strings and jittery camera work. As he topples workbenches, Winky throws himself in his path. This can only be awesome.
It’s not actually that awesome. Torg just lifts Winky up and carries him around until he confronts Santa, who mistakes him for a toy.
Keymar, watching through the window: “By the great dog star, Santa’s treating him like a toy!”
Boldar: “He’s become a toy…”
Keymar: “We’ll have to go in and get Santa ourselves.”
Wait, what? That was it? Torg was defeated by being treated like a toy? So apparently Keymar’s statement of “Nothing can stop Torg” came with an implicit addendum of “except being treated like a toy…but what are the odds that will happen in this particular confrontation? This confrontation with Santa Claus, the world’s greatest toymaker?”
Torg stands motionless in the workshop as Keymar and Boldar burst in and freeze some elves with a hairdryer. Torg is the worst robot ever (as illustrated by fig. 1). 55:00: Santa thinks the Martians are toys, too, but Winky informs him that they’re Martians. Winky’s mysterious knowledge of all things Martian is never explored.
56:00: The Martians take Santa back to Mars, but not before freezing Mrs. Claus with their hairdryers.
More stock footage of the world’s response.
58:30: Still stock footage. A good third of this movie has to be stock footage.
60:00: On the Martian ship, Santa begins to spread aforementioned “unstoppable Yuletide cheer.” Boldar calls them all “Martianmellows.”
61:00: Santa tells bad jokes, continues to be creepy.
63:00 Enter Droppo. Santa: “Haha! Here’s Droppo!” Really.
Billy is the best actor in this movie.
65:00: Boldar storms off with the stated intention of killing the children. No one reacts.
70:00: Boldar locks Santa and the children in the airlock. Santa: “He probably just stepped out for a moment.” Santa, you naïve schmuck!
Fortunately, there’s a small air duct in the room. An air duct about the size of a chimney. Turns out Santa’s very specific super-power actually comes in handy, as they all escape and have a hardy chuckle about it. Santa’s chuckle continues to be more unsettling than jolly.
75:00: Other stupid things happen and I make myself another drink, put my slippers on.
76:00: Back on Mars now, and Momar continues to look hotter and hotter.
78:00: The Martian children of indeterminate sex are introduced to the Earth children. Then Keymar introduces Santa, who by this point I’m sure should not be around children. Really sure.
80:00: Doors on Mars open by being pointed at. Droppo does a stupid dance to some Benny Hill send-off music.
81:00: This may be the worst movie ever.
82:00: Boldar and his goonies are scheming in a cave. A Martian approaches the cave: “It’s me, Jim!” Jim? Not Gomar or Lexar or Zod? Sure, whatever. They plan to sabotage Santa.
84:00: A look at Santa’s new workshop on Mars. It’s all automated. Santa: “Look at me—Santa Claus, the great toy maker, pressing buttons. That’s automation for ya. Technology. Hmph.” Did this just turn into a neo-Luddite film?
85:00: For an uncomfortable second, it looks like Keymar is asking if the children have been sexually abused by Droppo. It seems plausible, but fortunately we move on. As the Martians get merrier, the Earth children get less and less merry.
86:00: Through some dopplegangery, Droppo is kidnapped in lieu of Santa. No one notices that, unlike the real Santa, Droppo Santa is purple and has antennae. Boldar and his gang turn into the Three Stooges for some reason.
87:00: I am so Googling Momar.
93:00: Droppo escapes from the “nuclear curtain” holding him in the cave by…turning off the curtain. By pressing the button. The button that was located inside the nuclear curtain. It’s oversights like these that make me wonder how Boldar ever made it to the Martian council.
95:00: By this time it seems that all the purple makeup has run off and they couldn’t afford more.
100:00: Martian-ey things happen. Billy overhears Boldar planning to attack the real Santa, so they prepare for him.
101:00: Santa meets Boldar’s assault with THE MOST INSANE DEFENSE SEQUENCE EVER. Boldar dances in place as the children fire fake guns and bubbles at him and small toys scurry about his feet. He’s incapacitated by craziness. Or something. I don’t know. Everyone’s laughing now. Droppo is the Martian Santa.
The movie’s over. I’m so confused.
How the movie lived up to its title:
Occurrences of Santa Claus: High.
Occurrences of Martians: Very high.
Occurrences of Conquering: None at all.
A more appropriate title: Santa Claus Entertains the Martians
-Kyle Adams
Oh, Lily Allen. You came on the scene with your curvy figure, raunchy mouth, dresses, and sneakers, and I, along with a lot of the UK, fell in love with you. You wandered over to the US, put out "Smile" and "Alfie" and developed an equally rabid fan base here. So with all these loyal fans desperately waiting for your next album, what do you do?
Fall into your sophomore slump.
Lily’s first album “Alright, Still” became so popular because of its sing along qualities, coupled with her ability to comedically tackle everyday situations. Allen recently said that "It's Not Me, It's You" was going in a new direction; that she had matured and the music would show it. To be blunt, the only direction this album took was downhill. In the process of showing off this newfound philosophical prowess, the actual production seems to have gotten lost. Most of the tracks are your typical electro-pop radio ditties, as repetitive as they are unoriginal. Allen has repeatedly dissed other artists, most recently Katy Perry, for using auto-tune. Yet almost all of her songs on “It’s Not You” use (something incredibly close to) autotune, making it impossible to distinguish her vocally from other pop princesses on the market.
That being said, some of the lyrics on “It’s Not Me, It’s You” are fantastic. Allen touches on the issues she had growing up without her father, (“He Wasn’t There”) age-obsessed culture (“22”) and everyone’s favorite person to hate, George Bush. (“F*** You”) There are a couple songs that still have that Lily Allen Spark previously seen on “Alright, Still.” The stand out “Never Gonna Happen” showcases Allen returning to her sassy ways, telling a guy he’s nothing more than a booty call. (“Now I know you feel betrayed/But it’s been weeks since I got laid/ This doesn’t mean that I don’t think you’re a fool.”) With a strange mix of beat poetry, accordion, and xylophone, this song is one of the few you can dance and sing along with. On the opposite end, you’ve got “Him”, a stale and unneeded revisiting of the themes in Joan Osbourne’s 1995 classic “One of Us.” (“What if God one was of us? Just a slob like one of us?” Yeah, you know you know it.) Allen attempts to update the song by mentioning 9/11, however she sings about the same ideas Osbourne did 14 years ago, personifying God and wondering if he’s just like you and me.
Overall, “It’s Not Me, It’s You” lacks direction at its best and disappoints completely at its worst. The majority of the songs are so cliché-filled or overwrought that the few good tracks on the record sound uncomfortably out of place. For her next album, I can only hope Allen will decide to further carve out a niche as an intelligent, worldly, and sympathetic figure, rather than becoming another mindless robot on the airwaves.
-V Ripson
Real-Time DVD Review: Wanted
Welcome to our Real-Time review section here at The Student Voice online. If you don’t know what a real-time review is: I sit down and watch a movie and tell you about it as I go. It’s like sportscasting, or “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” or a combination of the two. Occasionally, the movie will require a drink or two before watching (i.e. romantic comedies, horror movies), and those will be carefully documented as well. The time stamps are estimated, probably badly. And in case it needs to be stated: SPOILERS AHEAD
Today I’m watching Wanted, directed by Timur Bekmambetov (a Russian-Kazakh director in his first major American film), and starring Angelina Jolie, James McAvoy (whom I assume everyone knows as Leto Atreides, assuming everyone is a fan of SciFi originals and/or Dune), and Morgan Freeman, whom most people know as Morgan Freeman. It’s based on the comic of the same name by Mark Millar.
Here goes:
0:01: Intro cards: “A thousand years ago…A clan of weavers formed a secret society of assassins. They silently carried out executions to restore order to a wor—” Wait. Weavers? Like the people that make baskets and mats? Is that what we’re talking about here?
That is what we’re talking about here. They’re called “The Fraternity,” because apparently “The Basketmakers” didn’t sound deadly enough.
1:00: Voice-over by McAvoy as we follow him through an office scene and a few flashbacks, telling us the basics of his character: lousy job, best friend banging his girlfriend, father issues, ennui, yadda yadda. Normally I would call this technique lazy and blunt—and it is those things—but McAvoy’s reading comes off as genuine.
3:00: People’s heads are exploding. A guy in a suit (McAvoy’s father?) just killed five men while flying through the air from one building to another. This is more awesome than I could’ve imagined. He takes a phone call and we get some vague conversation about “You can’t leave The Fraternity” and whatnot.
Wait, turns out this was a trap. Guy in Suit is standing on an X, and OMFG! A bullet just tore through his forehead in super-slow motion. Jesus. Now the bullet goes in reverse and we follow it back to its shooter, some guy that looks a little like Clive Owen.
6:00: Is that Stiffler? No, no that can’t be Stiffler.
7:00: We learn that McAvoy is on anxiety meds. We learn because he tells us. Okay. Still blunt, but okay. McAvoy’s facial expression is pretty telling, though. I’d like to have seen this without the voice-over. Chances are the message is still mostly there.
Bekmambetov takes a page from Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz) in shooting the mundane office scenes like high-drama action sequences. It’s effective, funny, and works with the voice-overs.
9:00: Angelina enters. She’s playing a tough-ass, straight-talkin’, no-nonsense bad girl. This is so refreshing from her.
She gives him that speech from the preview: “You’re father was killed this morning, etc., etc.” Then bullets are gettin’ shot around all kind of corners as they try to escape this assassin guy.
Holy shit, cars are flying. They’re just flying.
20:00: McAvoy’s in the secret lair. Morgan Freeman is there, being Morgan Freeman, but like a Morgan Freeman you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley. He tells McAvoy to shoot the wings off some flies.
And he so does.
24:00: Wow, that anxiety medicine info actually came back. Apparently what he thought were panic attacks were actually the result of his super-accelerated heart rate, which makes him pretty much a superhero. Or Leto Atreides.
Freeman gives speech about McAvoy’s powers, destiny, father, etc. McAvoy runs away, realizes he already played this part but in a much better movie (Dune, for those of you not paying attention.)
Jolie does a surprisingly adorable little fake scared reaction when McAvoy points a gun at her to get out of the secret lair. Aw.
30:00: The scenes between McAvoy and his office supervisor are classic — kind of Office Space meets Hot Fuzz with some Aronofsky thrown in.
33:00: They’re at a textile mill. Oh, Weavers! Right! McAvoys mentions the whole assassin thing, and all the weavers suddenly get very quiet, just like normal, non-assassin weavers would.
Note: Jolie’s lips are so overrated. Just too much lip there for me.
36:00: Now McAvoy is being initiated, I guess. It involves a very large latino man stabbing a knife through his hand.
36:30: And now he’s encased in carbonite?
45:00: Angelina Jolie’s butt: eh.
47:00: Breakthrough: McAvoy admits his identity crisis whilst Jolie beats the crap out of him with brass knuckles. Time for a heart-to-heart with Morgan Freeman.
48:00 Training montage! Complete with meat-punching!
Jolie and McAvoy do some flirtatious train-top racing.
Culmination: McAvoy has to curve a bullet around Jolie. I think this was in the preview, too. The twist is he kills her. No, kidding. It works perfectly.
50:00: Whoa, whoa, whoa. The weavers actually weave binary codes into their fabrics. It’s all coming together!
They get the names of their targets from the cloth.
Freeman: “The loom provides. I interpret. You deliver.”
McAvoy: “You want me to kill Robert Deane Darden?”
Freeman: “Not me. Fate.”
So…Fate is ordering hits? All right.
52:00: McAvoy balks on his first assignment. He’s questioning motives. Jolie looks like she might get naked. Instead, she tells a lame story. So far, the rating’s promise of “some sexuality” is severly overstated.
55:00: Sweet Fancy Moses, that was the coolest action sequence I’ve seen in a long time. McAvoy’s target is in a bullet-proof limousine, so McAvoy, with the help of Jolie in a different car, launches his Mustang rolling through the air over the limo to shoot the guy through his moonroof. The soundtrack and slow-mo “I’m sorry” by McAvoy take it from awesome to just solid cool.
57:00: Jolie makes out with McAvoy to stick it in the faces of his girlfriend and Barry. It sticks pretty good.
60:00: McAvoy is shot when he and Jolie are ambushed. It was the dude who killed his father, the one who I now realize looks nothing like Clive Owen.
Jolie is given a new target. Good money says it’s McAvoy.
65:00ish: Some things happen. McAvoy is pursuing the guy that shot him, using the bullet that he was shot with. A train is involved. Bullets are bouncing off bullets. Jolie crashes a car into said train. And now the train is falling off a giant bridge. A bunch of useless civilians die.
Wait, whoa. Clive Owen Guy is saving McAvoy’s life. McAvoy shoots him.
80:00: Clive Owen Guy to McAvoy: “You are my son.” I also liked this scene when it was in The Empire Strikes Back.
Jolie to McAvoy: You’re the only one that could kill him, etc. “His name came up… So did yours.” Oh shit! So called it. She shoots him.
85:00: McAvoy is still alive. He’s in a room with some old guy. Old Guy tells him everything: his father wasn’t trying to kill him all along, he was trying to save him from the life of a Fraternity assassin. Okay, not bad.
90:00: McAvoy finds his father’s awesome old guns, presumably to kill Morgan Freeman with. The only way this showdown could be cooler is if McAvoy was Steven Segal. Then he buys a lot of peanut butter; delivers cliché lines about killing and fate.
92:00: He drives a dumptruck into the Fraternity compound.
My attention wanders and I miss how the peanut butter comes into play. Something about rats, and then the rats explode. I don’t know.
93:00: Things are exploding, McAvoy is running, jumping.
100:00: At this point, I’m entirely inventing these time stamps. I have no idea what time in the movie this actually is. Regardless, McAvoy has exploded just about all the heads, and he’s in a room with Jolie, Freeman and the other top Fraternity assassins. It’s a circular room, and they stand around the perimeter.
Pointing a gun at Freeman, McAvoy tells them all that Freeman has been inventing targets for his own purposes ever since the loom produced…get this, his name. That’s right, the loom gods wanted Freeman dead. McAvoy’s father knew this, and that’s why he was killed.
After McAvoy explains this, Freeman admits it and explains his case, showing that they were all named for assassination—that the loom had basically ordained the Fraternity to kill itself. It’s decision time. Obey the loom, or join Freeman and continue to be super assassins/weavers.
Best line of Freeman’s career: “Shoot this motherfucker!”
Jolie fires a curving shot that takes out everyone standing around the room, then stands stoically to take the bullet as it comes full circle. It’s touching, kind of. Freeman escapes, to be killed during a McAvoy voice-over sequence in which he finds himself trapped like McAvoy’s father was. Freeman utters the second best line of his career: “Oh, fuck.” Then a bullet bursts through his forehead in slow motion.
At this point, I’m thinking this movie was a hell of an action flick and succeeded in originality, both stylistically and plot-wise. Wasn’t the most brilliant plot, but more than we have come to expect from action movies.
And at this point, apparently, the creators were thinking: How can we shit all over the viewers? I mean euphamistically—like, how can we totally insult them for spending their time and money watching this? How can we leave them walking away saying, ‘That was the stupidest ending I’ve ever seen?’”
Here’s how: McAvoy gives a voice-over monologue about taking control of his life and making something of himself—admittedly the theme of the movie—then looks right at the camera and says, “What the fuck have you done lately?”
What the fuck have I done? I just paid $10.00 and spend two hours of my life watching your movie. Don’t insult me for it, jackass.
-Kyle Adams
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