Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with some Rumblings From The Lab.
It must be because I've been up all night. That's the reason. Or maybe it's because I was hanging out with the right group of friends tonight. Or maybe I've got a fever. I mean, there must be an explanation. I can't seriously be considering giving New Line's JASON X, the latest attempt to breathe life into the FRIDAY THE 13th series, a good review... can I?
I mean, sure... you have to give props to Bill Dill and Derick Underschultz, the cinematographers of the film, for doing such a great job with their relatively tight budget of under $15 million. They've beaten George Lucas to the punch by shooting the entire film in 24 fps digital high def, and it's surprisingly lovely. This is easily the best looking film that Jason Voorhees has ever appeared in. I'm amazed how much bang first-time feature director James Isaac got for his buck. This is a full-blown SF film, with outer space sequences, sweeping planetary surfacescape shots, and a fair amount of CG gore. The digital effects work done by Toybox is pretty clever stuff, and even with a little bit of it still unfinished, I'm impressed. This is a more consistently well-executed FX picture than SPAWN, and seeing it digitally projected at the Burbank North 6 AMC Theater tonight showed it off to maximum effect.
And, yes... you have to acknowledge that Todd Farmer's script moves with a certain manic energy and is smart enough to never take itself too seriously. It's not great work, but there's a clever quality to the thing, and there's moments of great invention. Late in the film, the main characters are trying to distract the reanimated SuperRoboJason (I'll explain below), and they use a virtual reality reproduction of Camp Crystal Lake to do so. There's a strange kick to the image of Jason standing on the shore of that lake again, looking around, trying to make sense of it all. When two nearly naked girls show up to "drink some booze, smoke some pot, and have some premarital sex!" it would take a truly sour prick not to laugh.
I guess part of the reason I'm conflicted is that there's no getting over just how incredibly goofy the entire prospect of this film is. We start out in the near future at the Crystal Lake Research Facility, where Jason Voorhees has been isolated for study. There's a crazed opening-title sequence that apes FIGHT CLUB shamelessly, and it leads into a standoff between Dr. Wimmer (David Cronenberg in a very quick cameo) and Lexa Doig, the film's star, playing Rowan, a researcher who believes Jason must be kept where he is and treated with utmost caution. Wimmer throws caution to the wind, and sure enough, Jason breaks loose, goes all mass murdery, and ends up stalking Rowan, the sole survivor, into the very bowels of the building. She leads him into a cryogenic freezing chamber and manages to trap him inside and throw the switch. He stabs her through the door, causing a leak, and both of them end up frozen.
Four hundred plus years later, a field trip of students of... something... end up poking around in this old abandoned research facility. They find the two bodies. Rowan is still alive, and they immediately set out to save her, bring her out of the stasis in one piece. Jason appears to be dead, so they of course pack him up and bring him back to the ship as well. You see where this is going? Once we get onboard the ship they came in, we learn a few things very quickly.
A: James Isaac and Todd Farmer are big fans of ALIENS.
B: Weaselly bad guy character Professor Lowe (Jason Potts) didn't learn anything from what happened to Paul Reiser's character in ALIENS. Gotta love the line, "Hey, guys, it's all right! He just wanted his machete back!"
C: Nanotechnology is not a toy.
D: Belly shirts will still be very popular in 400 years.
E: In space, no one can hear horny teenagers making out in their cabin. Except Jason. And he kills them.
F: Bad one-liners won't be any funnier in the future.
G: The $15 million neighborhood is looking a lot higher tech than it used to.
H: Fans of the SF series ANDROMEDA are going to be happy to see both Lexa Doig and Lisa Ryder show up here.
I: You can smell a Canadian movie if you concentrate reeeeal hard. Smells like bacon.
I don't want to mislead anyone here. JASON X isn't going to change anyone's mind about the merits or lack thereof inherent to the genre, but it certainly has enough charm to become a cult hit, and to breathe a bit of new life into the series. I'd be surprised if this didn't make at least enough money to justify one more follow-up. Hell, I've even got to admire the tongue-in-cheek sequel setup they toss in at the end. It's funny stuff, and I didn't feel like anyone was insulting me with the scene. Maybe that's the thing that makes this all fly. There's a basic respect for the audience. Yes... this is a movie about SuperRoboJason. In Space. In the future. Really. But it's the best damn SuperRoboJason in space in the future movie that you're ever going to see. Several times in the film, I laughed out loud at the audacity of this idea or that, at the sheer nerve of some of the makeup effects, or at the way Issac and Farmer tweak expectation knowingly. There's a scene involving a potential rescue and a space station known as the SOLARIS that made me howl. And I think that was actually the point. It's not a movie you make fun of because it's so bad. It's a movie that you eventually give in to because it's not bad... because it's actually fairly decent fun.
I've even got to give them credit for the way they accomplish my least favorite thing in every Jason film... the way they kill him and bring him back. For the first 2/3 of the movie, he's just Frostbite Jason, the same loveable lug who's been killing kids for centuries. But he gets most of his head blown away, one leg shot off, and his chest and organs splashed across one wall of a lab. He's deeeeeeeaaaaaaaaddddd. No doubt about it. The main characters all leave him where he is because of how obviously finished he is. What they seem to not notice is that he's been left on one of the nanotech medical repair tables, and it sets to work repairing him. When it can't find enough of Jason's original organic material to repair him with, it begins to use inorganic material to do the trick. This is how we get SuperRoboJason, whose titanium hockeymaskfaceplatething reminds me of the Mighty Ducks mascot. He's not menacing in this final form, but he's certainly memorable.
For those of us who grew up with Jason as a regular staple on the bigscreen, there's a distinct kick to seeing someone have some real fun with the character. It's been a long time coming, and maybe it's a minor pleasure, but it's a pleasure nonetheless. God help me, JASON X is dumb fun, exactly the popcorn trifle I wanted when I went to the screening tonight. When Friday, April 13, 2001 rolls around, I'm willing to bet you'll have the same kind of fun our audience did tonight. Keep your expectations realistic. The film's got some pacing issues. The most creative of the Jason killings happens right up front when he freezes a girl's face in liquid nitrogen, then slams her head into a worktable, shattering it like ice. It's hard to top, and it makes the middle of the film drag as a result.
I expect you may hear from some of the net's shadier characters in the days and weeks ahead, as many of them were skulking about tonight's screening. I caught a glimpse of Mysterio's glass-domed head during the screening. He was seated next to what appeared to be a dwarf of some sort. I crossed paths briefly with Fandom.com's Smilin' Jack Ruby, who I spotted knifefighting with John Robie in the parking lot after the film. Gregor Samsa scuttled out once the lights went down and tried to climb into the popcorn that Harry Lime and I were eating. Overall, the geeks seemed to be out in force tonight. Any film that attracts this many nefarious characters to the same early screening is probably going to attract a fair amount of geek buzz before its release in the spring. Here's hoping fans enjoy the treat they have in store. Until then...
"Moriarty" out.
