Tag: Dexter Fletcher

Doom (2005, Andrzej Bartkowiak), the unrated version

Doom may very well be the worst inoffensive film I’ve ever seen. Director Bartkowiak and his crew redefine ineptness in production values. No one does a good job, everyone does something benignly terrible, whether it’s photographer Tony Pierce-Roberts’s blue hue for everything or composer Clint Mansell’s inability to create tension. It’s all bad.

Bartkowiak has absolutely no ambition for the film. It’s a video game adaptation featuring a lengthy sequence where the protagonist (Karl Urban) “plays the game” and the audience watches. The action in that scene, mimicking the video game, is–in terms of content–better than any of the other action sequences. Instead of translating the game’s content to a film medium, Bartkowiak rips off every popular sci-fi action movie since the late seventies and creates a bunch of Mars-centered nonsense.

It’s pointless. Why bother? Because it’s obvious and bad and it’s sort of compelling to see something where no one tries so nothing can go right or wrong. The blue lighting, for example. How much does it matter? Good lighting wouldn’t make the movie any good, just a little bit more competent. Not even better, because the ineptness is the closest Doom gets to charm.

There’s some decent acting from Deobia Oparei and Razaaq Adoti. Bad acting from Richard Brake and Al Weaver. The three leads–Karl Urban, Rosamund Pike and Dwayne Johnson–are sometimes okay and sometimes bad.

Doom is a terrible film. But the script’s inventively derivative enough to keep it moving.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Andrzej Bartkowiak; screenplay by Dave Callaham and Wesley Strick, based on a story by Callaham; director of photography, Tony Pierce-Roberts; edited by Derek Brechin; music by Clint Mansell; production designer, Stephen Scott; produced by Lorenzo di Bonaventura and John Wells; released by Universal Pictures.

Starring Karl Urban (John Grimm), Dwayne Johnson (Sarge), Rosamund Pike (Samantha Grimm), Deobia Oparei (Destroyer), Razaaq Adoti (Duke), Richard Brake (Portman), Al Weaver (The Kid), Brian Steele (Hell Knight), Ben Daniels (Goat), Yao Chin (Mac) and Dexter Fletcher (Pinky).

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The Man Who Knew Too Little (1997, Jon Amiel)

As unlikely as it might seem, The Man Who Knew Too Little could have been really good. Here’s the basic plot–an American rube, who loves movies and television so much he knows the lines, is confused for a dangerous psychopathic hitman involved in international intrigue while vacationing in the UK. All of his hitman lines, for example, could be from movies or something.

Instead, Too Little is a train wreck of a star vehicle for Bill Murray. One has to wonder if co-stars Joanne Whalley, Peter Gallagher and Alfred Molina recognized Murray’s terrible performance on set. If they did, and still managed such good performances opposite him, it says something about their skill… and professionalism.

Murray is awful. Obviously, the script is at fault to some degree, but it’s really Murray. An engaged actor could have overcome any script problems.

However, Murray’s not entirely at fault for Too Little. Director Amiel is the other obvious culprit. Amiel’s attempts at a spy thriller–even a spoof of a spy thriller–are awful. He apparently told composer Christopher Young to make the score sound like a Pink Panther cartoon. Young’s credited as “Chris Young” here… maybe he was embarrassed by the lame score. It’s technically fine, just stupid.

Another fine performance is from Anna Chancellor, in her too small role as Gallagher’s wife. Of course, the film forgets about branding she and Gallagher terrorists so it can get to its idiotic finish.

Too Little is dreadful and shouldn’t have been.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Jon Amiel; screenplay by Robert Farrar and Howard Franklin, based on a novel by Farrar; director of photography, Robert M. Stevens; edited by Pamela Power and Paul Karasick; music by Christopher Young; production designer, Jim Clay; produced by Arnon Milchan, Michael G. Nathanson and Mark Tarlov; released by Warner Bros.

Starring Bill Murray (Wallace Ritchie), Peter Gallagher (James Ritchie), Joanne Whalley (Lori), Alfred Molina (Boris ‘The Butcher’ Blavasky), Richard Wilson (Sir Roger Daggenhurst), John Standing (Gilbert Embleton), Simon Chandler (Hawkins), Geraldine James (Dr. Ludmilla Kropotkin), Anna Chancellor (Barbara Ritchie), Nicholas Woodeson (Sergei), Cliff Parisi (Uri), Dexter Fletcher (Otto) and Eddie Marsan (Mugger #1).

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