Hey folks, Harry here... I'm dying to see both of these movies as soon as humanly possible, but I'm missing the screening of RED DRAGON tomorrow, due to my residency in Spain... and 28 DAYS LATER will probably hit the U.S. some point next year... sigh... wanna see Danny Boyle Zombie Movie Now!!!
You may refer to me, now and forever, as Jemma McFatBack.
RED DRAGON
First up Red Dragon, which you’ll be seeing very shortly I know. I’ve not seen Manhunter for a long time – not recently enough to compare – but I HAVE seen Silence Of The Lambs and almost all of Brett Ratner’s ‘work’. Well, it’s not up to the standard of Silence, but it’s easily Ratner’s best to date. The opening and closing sections border on the excellent (barring an overly cute but, in my screening, well-received kiss off line), whilst the mid sections get a little bogged down in not-much-investigating and too many star turns to count. Certainly, the weight of some of the names gives you a fair idea that none of them are going to come to any harm. And whilst I won’t say anything about anyone’s fate (although it won’t surprise readers of the books), Ratner doesn’t play with this aspect at all – he uses his stars like no-namers.
Tally’s writing is good enough but, between the source material, his writing of it and Ratner’s direction, I didn’t buy Ralph Fiennes character’s motivation that much – it was marred by cliché. Neither do the pair sufficiently establish the Dolarhyde-Lecter link, meaning that the film’s closing half hour makes sense to the audience not because of quality storytelling but because: a) we came for, and want, Lecter and b) this is a serial-killer movie, so we expect the baddie to do certain things.
Your review from Beaks was pretty much right on for me, but I was a little more positive. I liked Norton, thought Hopkins was good if a little too close to self parody, was annoyed by a couple of scares-through-loud-noises, but they worked for me, and thought the slasher ending that you – Harry – had worries about works very well. Although maybe not for those who’ve read the script already :)
Quibbles then, but it stands alone as a slightly star-heavy serial killer thriller. In terms of quality, it’s way aboveHannibal(I never liked Ridley, even Blade Runner leaves me cold… make that frozen), but in terms of originality and quirks… it doesn’t stand up so well. There are surprises here, but nothing to knock you flat. A solid evening’s entertainment, but a flick I won’t be watching again out of choice.
28 DAYS LATER
Unlike 28 DAYS LATER, which I need to see again to make sense of, as again I had reservations. A slight synopsis is required here – Ciaran Hinds’ character wakes up in a London hospital to find the city deserted, partially desolated, and over-run by pseudo-zombies. He meets some survivors and they make their way up north after hearing a radio message from a group of soldiers holed up in a mansion.
On the positive side, the film has a lot of fun with the zombie genre. The victims are infected with ‘rage’ (apparently a play on society’s problems with road rage, air rage, etc. – this is our dissatisfied temper manifested or somesuch – it doesn’t come across in the film, but it’s a nice idea) and the two main differences to the zombies you’ve seen before are: a) the zombies run and jump, making for some tense action and sidestepping my zombie bugbear – the shots of stumbling zombies not making ground, then a sudden grabbing and, oh no!, our hero is captured – and more importantly b) the virus is transferred by blood or even saliva and is effective immediately. So, none of that waiting around, moralizing as our heroes’ friends wait to turn – the virus is vicious, and makes for two of the film’s best moments, one touching, one shocking as hell.
But – and I’d say this is more of a helper than a spoiler to the uninitiated – the movie runs longer than you’d expect, with a 3rd act almost as long as the 2nd. Here, I sense the influence of Alex Garland’s writing, as the ‘civilised’ survivors turn against one another. As a separate movie, this section would work well (two niggles – anyone sensitive to the threat of violence against women used as suspense-building titillation will be unhappy, and there’s an aspect that raised my ire with regards to the depiction of a black character). In fact, those aside, it would work brilliantly – the film builds to a surprising, innovative, utterly brutal adrenaline-charged finale that swept me up with its vicious nature and was deliciously satisfying as a result. But it doesn’t follow well from the first half, it jars the viewer (Hey! Where’d my ending go?!) leaving you (or me at least) floundering. Have I been ruined by stockHollywoodtemplates? Or was it bad story-telling? I don’t know – that’s why I want to see it again – but it didn’t work for me first time.
As for the bad, well, the final scene is unnecessary – I didn’t see it as a cop out like others have, but it would be better off dropped. And the low-budget digital photography simply isn’t capable of the kind of complex, reflection-within-a-reflection shots that Boyle wanted. Finally, the young girl in it is terrible, but doesn’t have too much to do. Still, the film has a nasty edge, and I got a kick out of that.
Anything else I’ve seen of late? One Hour Photo – you’re bang on, it’s great. David Cronenberg and Ralph Fiennes’ new one – Spider – for me a terribly dull character study, but I can see some loving it – it just wasn’t my thing, despite Fiennes acting his socks off – it felt too much like David crying out to make a *great* film, when there’s easily enough greatness in his catalogue of interesting-but-flawed work to make him never need to strain for his masterpiece, if that makes sense. This certainly isn’t it. And Bend It Like Beckham and 24 Hour Party People – can’t believe you guys haven’t had them yet! They’re both great… look forward.
