Planet of the Apes

The 1968 "Planet of the Apes" is first-class science fiction. It does all the things science fiction is supposed to do: it creates a believable world, populates it with interesting characters, and uses those characters in that world to comment on the issues of the day.

During its development phase, it's clear that "Planet"'s creative team took the time to think their ape society through. The team created a coherent and believable timeline, architecture, and culture, which led to an immersive experience for me and my spawn. Then they cast the apes with quality actors such as Roddy McDowell, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, and James Whitmore, all actors able to generate authenticity even when acting behind masks. And of course, Charlton Heston can carry a movie in his sleep. "Get your hands off me, you damn dirty apes!" has moved into the lexicon, but it's dramatically effective because we believe in Heston's desperation and fury, even as we see the perspective of the apes.

These elements can lead to a good movie, but "Planet of the Apes" is good science fiction because it also works as a fable of science versus superstition. Further, I was impressed with the way it turns in upon itself, questions its own premise. Sure, there are some hamfisted "Never trust anyone over 30" moments, but "Planet" is smarter than I'd given it credit for.

And then, of course, there's the ending. Perhaps the best thing about watching this movie, for me, was watching my son describe it to his mom later that evening. "And then he went around the corner and he saw the (spoiler deleted) and said (spoiler deleted). Because it was (spoiler deleted). Isn't that cool?!? Isn't it?!? Isn't it?!?"

How awesome can you get?

THX-1138

THX-1138 is solid, ‘70s experimental science fiction. It presents with an antiseptic Orwellian world and one man, THX-1138, who begins to realize that there’s more to life than he’s been led to believe. Robert Duvall plays THX-1138, and it’s a masterful, understated performance. THX lives in a society in which emotion is discouraged, and Duvall is a master of showing us the deep currents swirling beneath his character’s calm exterior.

Where THX-1138 triumphs in the performance of its lead, however, it flounders in its actual story. Though the film begins with an intriguing vision of a dystopic future, it ends as one extended chase, going from foot to high-speed vehicle to foot again. Nothing really happens during this chase, story-wise. THX doesn’t learn anything about himself, nor does he develop in any way. It’s as if the film didn’t know where to go, but figured audiences love chases and that would do as well as anything.

So, should you see THX-1138? If you’re a fan of George Lucas, whose first science fiction feature this was, then I suppose you should. If you’re a fan of Robert Duvall, then you definitely should. If you’re neither, it may be worth your while if you find it on cable. That’s good enough, I suppose.

The Last Starfighter

THE LAST STARFIGHTER is better than STAR WARS. It's as much better than STAR WARS as Robert "A pool table! Dontcha understand?" Preston is than Alec "Man, there's nothin' I love more than buildin' bridges!" Guinness.

The movie opens with a young Lance Guest, trailer park teen, defeating a video game called "Starfighter." Wouldn'tcha know it, the thing's actually a recruiting tool for some interstellar navy, and guess who's doing the recruiting? That's right, Robert Preston: a guy who could sell sand to Arabs, sell salt water to Tahitians, sell a woman as a male female impersonator to French club-goers! We're talking about an alien emissary and mentor-figure with more charisma in his hairpiece than the entire cast and crew of STAR WARS has en toto. When Robert Preston tells you to go man up a spaceship and save the galaxy, buddy, you go.

Pay no attention to the fact that the film's special effects make Season One of "Babylon 5" look like the new "Battlestar Galactica." Pay no attention to the fact that Villain #1 is just plain silly. Instead, groove on the excellent prosthetic work, the sense of goofy fun, the awesome closing line of Villain #2, and the fact that, unlike Luke Skywalker, Lance Guest's Alex Rogan is actually going to close the deal with the romantic lead. Oh, and groove on Robert Preston in his final Big Screen role, hamming it up, having a great time, and, yes, saving the galaxy.

THE LAST STARFIGHTER is a success. It does all the things it sets out to do, and it hits all the right notes in so doing. This is a neat movie.

The 6th Day

THE 6TH DAY combines bad filmmaking with bad science fiction to make the worst film I’ve seen in months.

In THE 6TH DAY, Arnold Schwarzenegger plays a charter jetcopter pilot who gets in the crosshairs of an evil corporate mastermind with a god complex. Thus begins your basic chase-thriller, but with a twist: the picture is set in the near future, and the evil corporate mastermind likes to clone people for fun and profit. Is Schwarzenegger’s clumsily named Adam a clone or an original edition? Will he live long enough to bring down the evil mastermind’s dastardly scheme? Have you ever been to the movies before?

THE 6TH DAY is bad filmmaking on so many levels that I’m having difficulty deciding where to begin. Do I start with the horrifically glaring product placements that make suspending disbelief impossible? How about the mechanical, by-the-numbers script that telegraphs absolutely everything that will occur in acts two and three in the first fifteen minutes? Of course, there’re always the wooden performances, ghastly set design, and glaring continuity errors, but that seems like piling on. Tell you what – let’s handle this by focusing in one bad judgment that’ll give you a sense of the wrong-headedness of the rest of the production. The evil corporate mastermind (Aside: Ever notice how studio films, which are paid for by corporations, love to use corporations as villains? Do you find the hypocrisy as insulting as I do?) needs a brilliant scientist to actually do his work. THE 6TH DAY employs Robert Duvall in the role, and it’s about the worst choice imaginable. Duvall is making an entirely different movie than everyone else involved in this train wreck, and his character’s pathos, humanity, and fundamental decency so overcome the weakness of his arc and dialogue that he single-handedly shows us what might have been. Like the men in the Plato’s Cave Analogy, we’d have been better off ignorant: Duvall’s brilliance makes everything around him look like nothing more than shadows on a wall, and his casting reflects the same kind of poor judgment that permeates every facet of the production.

THE 6TH DAY is bad science fiction because it steals whole concepts and conceits from other works without bothering to credit them or toss them a nod in any way. Additionally, it weasels out of crafting a compelling vision of the future by telling us that it's taking place in "the near future - sooner than you think." Of course, what vision it does muster looks just like everyone else’s vision of the future - silly wigs, but with more product placement. And its technology – well, it’s simply counterintuitive and unbelievable.

What a disappointment.

Pitch Black

There's no way I'm going to argue that 'Pitch Black' is a good movie. The editing is amatuerish, the plot's holes threaten to overwhelm it, the monsters behave inconsistently, and the movie goes from horror picture to bughunt with such alacrity that I doubt the creators even knew what kind of picture they were trying to make.

I liked it.

'Pitch Black' starts with a bang, which is just what I was in the mood for. An interstellar transport encounters a meteor shower and lots of things go wrong very quickly, culminating in a fiery crash that pegged my "cool 'splosions" meter right from the get-go. The survivors are your usual lot of deadmeats and heroes, and it's easy to figure out who's going to be which pretty early on. See, here's the problem: there's monsters on this here planet, and our characters have to figure out how to survive. Oh, there's another problem: Vin Diesel. His character, a guy named Riddick, is a killer with a heart of coal who has the one thing the group needs to survive on this planet (where, by the way, the coming night should last about a year): surgically-created super night vision. Do they trust him? Does he trust them?

So, there's your setup, and it's a great way to launch a solid 112 minutes of fun. Yes, this a movie that's supposed to mostly happen at night, but that sports an awful lot of ambient light. Yes, it's the kind of movie in which a character will flick a lighter to look around, and a strategically placed key light will snap on a split-second before the flame appears. And yes, it's the kind of movie that manages plenty of shots down the lead actress's shirt for no other reason than to remind us that yes, she is a woman. It's brainless, it's silly, and it's utterly predictable.

I'm glad I watched it.