Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
Had a chance to see this last Friday, but I got totally jammed up with something. As a result, if I want a dose of Crispin, I’m going to have to see it opening weekend. If it keeps getting reviews like this, it sounds like it’ll be well worth the effort.
And for those of you who are looking at those banner ads overhead, I’ll point out that both of these reviews came from people who have their own websites who felt like they had to write in to tell us what they thought:
Harry,
Saw a complete workprint of the movie WILLARD today. Here is the quick and easy review, WITH SPOILERS. I have another version of the review, without spoilers, at my website.
*** SPOILERS AHEAD ***
I expect most people have already heard/know about the movie, so I won't bother with all the boring details.
Plot: Lonely guy learns to communicate with rats and uses them to get revenge. Personal notes: I never saw the original.
Crispin Glover, formerly George McFly from BACK TO THE FUTURE, plays the titular lead. Willard lives at home with his creepy mom, who seems about a couple of days away from croaking on her own miserable living conditions. Willard's life is hell - he has no friends and his boss at work (R. Lee Ermey, FULL METAL JACKET) spends all his time torturing the poor boy. You see, Willard's dad used to own the business, but sold it to Ermey's Martin with only one stipulation: He cannot fire Willard from the job, ever. So in an effort to make Willard quit on his own, Martin mercilessly makes Willard's life at work a living hell. This means, of course, that Martin is going to become rat food by the end of the movie.
The thing is, it takes a very loooooooong time for Martin to become rat food, especially when we all know it's going to happen. Instead, we get treated to endless minutes of Martin destroying what little self-confidence Willard still has (if he ever had any to begin with, which I doubt very much). And when the rat attack scene finally comes, it's a little disappointing, although I was a bit relieved it was finally over with. I was starting to wonder just how long they were going to keep the suspense (tongue firmly in cheek) about Martin's predictable death from us. After Martin becomes rat food, Willard turns on the rats, and tries to bake them in the basement. It doesn't work. Which leads me to...
Big Ben. There are two rodents in Willard's life. There's the cute white mouse Socrates, who effectively becomes Willard's buddy and confidant. And then there's Ben. Big, big Ben. Who is the size of a freaking cat. Ben is a badass. He doesn't listen to Willard more than he goes along with Willard, if just to see what kind of mischief he can get into with this loser human guy. Ben is the man. Ben is the king of rats. Ben MAKES this movie. And if you don't already know it, Ben is going to be the Freddy Krueger, the Jason Voorhees, and the Michael Myers of this particular rat franchise. And there will be a franchise. The movie's ending, with big Ben's shadow creeping up against a backlit window, is the scene sequels are made of.
WILLARD isn't a bad movie. It's not a great one either. The world of Willard's house is pretty well done. But the movie isn't as violent or dark as you would think by the trailers. There are only two rat-on-human attack scenes: One against Martin, and the other one against Willard himself. In-between, we get a couple of cat attacks, and at one point Willard sends the rats to tear up the tires of Martin's sports car. The film is pretty unnerving if you have problems with rats. The movie opens with a pile of rats squirming about, and ends about the same way. There are a lot of rats present, and most of them are real rats, not CGI. As to the CGI rats, you saw them in the trailer.
A number of things: Glen Morgan and his partner James Wong produced the film together, but WILLARD doesn't look anything like the duo's previous works. It doesn't look like THE ONE or FINAL DESTINATION. The look and vibe of WILLARD is pretty surreal. This is the type of world that makes a guy talking to rats possible. That doesn't mean it's great, I'm just saying that the vibe and atmosphere is appropriate.
Also, Morgan and Wong, most known for their work on "The X-Files", pays homage to Dana Scully with a cat that, unfortunately, gets to meet big Ben up close and personal. And although IMDB.com credits Kristen Cloke as being in the movie, I didn't see her in this workprint, but maybe they'll include her in the final cut. (If you don't know, Cloke is writer/director Morgan's wife.)
Peace out,
NIXFLIX
Not the most wildly enthusiastic review I’ve ever read. This next guy, who went to the Drafthouse showing with Crispin in attendance, seemed to enjoy it much more:
Hey, Harry, it's me again, Greg the Ghostbusters freak, aka G-Dude. I'm writing from my banishment in Aggieland to chime in with my review of Willard. I also wanted to compliment you for putting on an awesome screening last night, especially since that was my first experience at the Drafthouse. I was glad I finally got to meet you, and you really are a great guy, especially for putting on a screening such as this. Also, anyone who doesn't know me and can stand there and talk to me for ten minutes is being truly generous and is indeed a kind soul. I must say, I can totally understand why the Drafthouse is your favorite theatre on the face of the planet. I'm not sure if I'll ever be able to get the same enjoyment out of my dinky old cineplex again, especially now that I've had the enjoyment of sitting in a darkened movie theatre with a bowel of rich chocolate ice cream. The Alamo Drafthouse has spoiled me, and it's your fault, Mr. Knowles. Anyway, now that my love rant for the Alamo Drafthouse is complete, here's my review:
Willard Stiles is a lonely man.
His life is horribly dull and pathetic; he has no friends to speak of, he lives with his mother who hates him, his boss keeps him around merely out of a contractual obligation with Willard’s dead father. He’s never known anything out of his daily routine, which consists of going to work (and arriving late pretty much every day), coming home and taking care of his mother, an invalid who looks like a body that deceased four years ago but forgot to let herself in on the fact, and then finally catching a few blessed moments of sleep at the crack of dawn before having to wake up and restart the process all over again an hour later. All this time, you can see in Willard’s eyes and face that there is a confident, normal person striving to get out, tell his boss off, and ask that pretty coworker of his on a date.
Unfortunately, Willard has been walked on all his life, and he is simply one of those guys who’d rather turn the other cheek than let things escalate. He’s slowly starting to crack, as years of torment for being the lonely outsider begin to seep through, and every time something happens to anger him, you can see in his eyes that there’s an internal struggle, an inability to decide if he wants to take action this time or simply roll over and let the storm pass.
The loneliness is beginning to take its toll on Willard Stiles, a loneliness that is only replaced when Willard discovers a unique ability he possess: he can talk to rats. Lots of rats. Aided by his mouse friend, Socrates, and the leader of the rats, Ben, Willard slowly begins to use his newfound abilities to get back at those who have caused him so much grief in his life.
Did I mention that this movie is one of the best dark comedies to come out of Hollywood in a long, long time?
If it doesn’t sound like a movie that would make you laugh, then that’s probably part of what makes Willard work so well.
The film struck me in a particular way, in that it took the time to linger on Willard doing little things, showing him go to the store for pest control products and becoming increasingly frustrated with the inane system the grocery has for picking out which rat poison is best for you. You don’t see that often nowadays, where most of the time you’ve got minions of Bruckheimer churning out the most flashy, gaudy and abrasive film they can for a quick buck, and to see what’s being marketed (wrongly) as a horror B-flick turn out to be fun, enjoyable, involving and thoughtful all at the same time seems to be more and more of a feat nowadays.
As a performance, Crispin Glover is firing on all pistons here, and it’s been quite a while since I’ve seen an actor have a part that seemed to be tailor made for him as much as Glover and Willard are: they mesh together so smoothly and perfectly that you’re a little unsettled by it. At the beginning of the film, you feel for Willard, or at least I did. He’s a lonely guy, who doesn’t have much to offer the world and life has dealt him a rotten hand in return. However, as the film progresses, you begin to feel creeped out about Willard, not in a Norman Bates kind of way, but there’s certain breath of uneasiness that Willard has about himself that you share right along with him. The scenes of him attempting to rid himself of the rats he once held so dear are darkly funny (rat BBQ in the basement?) yet tragic at the same time, mainly because of Willard’s relationship with the head rat, Ben.
Ben is a huge rat, and I’m not sure which was more astounding: that they’d think up an idea to make Ben a rat that was big enough to be mistaken as a small dog with an ugly tail, or that nature had already beat them to the punch. The Ben you see in the movie is a real African rat, which weighs in at around 7 pounds. The thing is huge, and surprisingly, menacing as hell. There is a sort of love/hate relationship between Willard and Ben, one that slowly becomes the backbone of the story. Ben is like a rat version of Willard; he’s different from the others and he wants Willard’s approval. However, Willard doesn’t want to accept Ben, he’s mean to him, and only finds use of him when he needs to use the rats to seek vengeance. In that way, you could sort of call Ben the protagonist for the film’s second half, but the show is Glover’s all the way, from the opening frames to the final shot.
The supporting cast fares a little differently. While there are fine performances all across the board, the only two standouts in the supporting cast is R. Lee Emery as Willard’s cruel supervisor, who channels Ernest Borgnine perfectly, and Jackie Burroughs as Willard’s spiteful mother. Laura Harring is nice as Willard’s potential love interest, but her character doesn’t ever become useful or serve a purpose. All she does is say how sorry she feels for the guy and gives him the cat that leads to one of the film’s most darkly comic moments. The rest of the cast is pretty much bit parts of a few lines of dialogue, although I got a kick out of Ms. Leech, Mr. Martin’s personal secretary who hates her boss but is still willing to slum herself for a foot massage in order to keep her job
The real star of the show here is the cinematography. It was a perfect contrast to the bleakness of The Ring, the last horror movie that I got a kick out of. There are rich browns and oranges throughout, making the film’s dark treatment of its characters even more unsettling, and therein lies the comedy, oddly enough. There are moments in Willard where the laughs are almost whimsical, and although the characters are rather unlikeable (including Willard himself at some points,) you can’t help but smile with a sort of twisted glee as you watch this loser get back at those he loathes.
Another mention has to go to Shirley Walker's score, which is fits nicely into the background while still envoking pleasant memories of Danny Elfman back in his heyday. The score really helped the mood in both its tone and keeping things dark enough for the story yet not so depressing that we couldn't take our pleasure of watching these people get their comeuppance.
I’m not too sure how Willard will play for mass audiences, because I fear that the message is being sent through the advertising that this is supposed to be a film that will scare you and creep you out. While there is defiantly some well earned creepiness from Glover’s performance, there aren’t any real jump moments, and the blood in the movie is kept for the most part suggestive and minimal. This shouldn’t deter anyone who’s simply looking for a movie that doesn’t exactly strive to be a work of art, but as a piece of entertainment, Willard is certainly the grade A cheese (excuse the bad pun.)
Thanks again for an incredible night at the Drafthouse. I'm defiantly looking forward to that screening of Levity, as well as any others you may be putting on there in great town of Austin (one complaint: Austin is a total bitch to drive in if you don't know which part of I-35 you're supposed to be on. Other than that, the town is wonderful.) Until then, I'll live with pleasant memories of what is possibly the single best screening I've ever been to.
Now, if you can just manage to work your way past Fox and get a screening of X2 at the Drafthouse, all will be right in the universe (or at least in my version of it, anyway.)
Until next time,
G-Dude
Thanks, guys.
"Moriarty" out.
