undeadbydawn

How much did I want to enjoy this film. First spotted in HMV, on the high sales chart. An HMV exclusive DVD, no less. It’s the first film I’ve bought from the iTunes store.

It’s supposedly filmed on a budget of £45. Which is cool. Lots of indie cred, right there. But as to the film itself….

This is probably the first zombie film to show the zombie perspective. We follow Colin from the moment he is turned, on a journey through Infectedville. He encounters many people and situations on the way, none of which had any lasting effect on me. Most of it is done in ShakeyCam, and pretty much all action scenes are dark. ‘Action Scenes’ I here define as any shot in which the camera is not completely still. This can work fairly well. A bit of well placed shakeycam can bring about a good sense of shock or bewilderment, a slab of action-vertigo or well intended motion sickness. This is frequently the case in Colin, and rightly so. It’s frickin chaos out there, right?

Colin has a story. He has a family, who care for him and want to try to cure him. They look out for him even as he cannot look out for them [on account of being undead]. This, for me, had one no doubt unintended but fatal effect. We are supposed to care about Colin and his family. We are supposed to care about all the Bad Things that are happening. I did not. I sat through the entire film very very badly wanting to empathise with someone, something, ANYTHING. I did not because this film has no characters.

There is not one single person, moment, action, event in this film that moved me emotionally at all. For all the efforts made it fell completely flat and I really badly wanted to like it, to love it because I adore this genre. I want indie filmmakers to succeed. I have no expectations, but I want to enjoy.

To give some examples, there is a scene in a near pitch-black basement, which is offered as refuge. It should have been dark and disturbing – a horrific comment on the human condition, the evil that men do. But it was utterly soulless. Boring. Colin is held at his family home and acts as a zombie acts. There was no horror there, just an act that meant nothing and should have meant everything.

Colin is a fine example [purely, again, in my opinion] of a film that people want to like because of the sheer joy of its existence. An independent no budget film that made it.

unfortunately it fails to do the one thing I want a film to do, and that is simply be interesting.

In which Jony Jaa discovers his feminine side.

There really is a real plot to Ong Bak 2. It matters. It makes sense. No matter what you read on that silly old IMDb there is a bucketload of action and the last 20 minutes make total narrative sense.

Ong Bak 2 is a stupidly beautiful film, but not for reasons of production value, high budget, camera work or even those stunningly lush locations.
No. Ong Bak 2 is a celebration of the beauty of the human form. It gorges itself on the possibilities inherent in the body, the visceral action-reaction of violent physics in physical violence, the pure poetry of motion, the lyricism of grunt and roar as body crunches into body, the glint of muted sun on bronzed flesh, the art of blood on dirt, the glory of broken bone and the slow, inevitable sink into lifelessness when man after man drops to his doom.

We know Tony Jaa does Muay Thai. We know how fast and brutal that is. Tony knows we’ve seen that and expect more of the same: he brought us that thrilling experience, and again. Now Tony wants you to understand other physical poetry. other forms of beautiful, violent expression. Here he branches sublimely into a gentle dashing of Samurai and a brain-blowing exhibition of Kung Fu. There is no chatter here, no mundane threat, no posing, no floppy silken attire, no class vs class, no fooling around. This is stunning portrayal after portrayal of the purpose of the Tiger, of the Snake, of the Crane, of sake. Here we have the raw power of the beasts as the old Boxer Masters would have it, where claws dig and rake, where fingertip gouges, where elbow and knee claim blood and bone in equal excess. The Tiger is shown at its peak here, taking the centre of the stage and the bulk of the victims: and rightly so, for the Tiger is the greatest mix of strength and speed – the closest spiritually to the power of Jaa’s native Muay Thai. The Tiger chambers, pounces at the exact moment and flips and roars and does not stop until its prey is dead. It is speed, it is power, it is grace.

And grace is here in abundance. Do not expect for an instant that any opportunity to show the glory of the physical is lost. We even have a few brief interjections of music and dance, exquisitely performed by a glowing innocent, coda to yet more explosive performance. The only thing missing is full nudity and sex, neither of which would have been remotely welcome.

Did I mention the weapons? No, fool that I am. There are many. Here we have the dance of the blade handled expert by the many, from dagger to curved sword to broadsword, Turkish dagger and steel claw, each against the other and frequently against Jaa’s bare hands. He glides around and between, through and around, turning back over himself and his opponents to find a way to flow the blood, time after time.

But my own treasure in this film, similarly to Jet Li’s immortal “Fist of Legend” is the awesome power of the flight of hand. Oh so many scenes in lesser films rely on great, swooping kicks, high flying and swinging and good-looking in slo-mo and totally absurd to even try to use in an actual fight. No. We have, here, object lessons in how a few insanely fast and thoroughly plausible applications of hand and fist and forearm and elbow can send someone flying breathless and with no idea what happened. In those few masterly motions we have the true power of well-learned Martial Arts, the glory of Kung Fu, the grace of Muay Thai – that, simply, when practised properly not only should an action be fast and effective, the poor bastard lying on the floor should have absolutely no clue what just hit him.

Roll on Ong Bak 3

It is my opinion that the recent 3D revolution will be the saving grace of the Cinema experience. Far from being a shiny new gimmick, it actively adds value to viewing pleasure by providing an environment that will be exceedingly difficult to replicate without a seriously high-end home cinema set-up. It’s also FUN.

Admittedly the first 3D outing [as I recall] Journey To The Center Of The Earth was… crap. 3D was tacked on as an afterthought to make some special effects slightly more impressive. It had virtually no impact on the action or story and was pretty much wasted. Then a series of animated features began to integrate 3D to be a real part of the picture, not just an add-on. The first film to make serious use of the effect and make it absolutely integral to the story was Coraline 3D. That film also had the bonus of being genuinely scary, wonderfully written and expertly directed. Hell, I even liked the extra character!

Now we have Ice Age. I enjoyed the first two films a lot. This came as a pleasant surprise as I expected them to be dull and poorly written. I was wrong. I can think of very few series which needed 3D more, as Ice Age has always acted with a great sense of scale, speed and urgency. There’s a lot of physical humour in there as well, plus a few welcome gags for the grown ups. Dawn Of The Dinosaurs is no exception [though the title is curious as dinosaurs are frequently referred to in the film as being extinct]. The usual crowd are all here, with the addition of Ellie [woolly mammoth] being pregnant.

This pregnancy is causing something of a rift within the pack, as some feel alienated and others are plain jealous. A split threatens, and endearing sloth Sid goes in search of his own pack. He finds them in the shape of three eggs, buried underfoot in an ice cavern. He takes the eggs as his own, and the fun starts. Can you guess? A lot of physical humour kicks in, including a good few moments that had the adults in the audience laughing loud and long. Yup, we have three baby T-Rex’s. Before long Mummy comes a’huntin and Sid is dragged off to Dinosaur World. The pack quickly follow in pursuit.

The obligatory new character is a superb weasel, quite quite mad and voiced by Simon Pegg. He may be utterly quackers, but he’s also bang on the money and proves to be a loyal and hyper-effective guide. There follows a chase full of epic battles, amazing flights and comedy moments that’ll have you in tears.

If you have children to use as an excuse I fully recommend this as Summer Holiday fun. They’ll thank you for it. If you don’t, then wait for a rainy day and go cheer yourself up with some damned fine comedy 3D action. You’ll like it. Promise.

xx

Tags: movie, review, 3D, animated, comedy

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