Tag: Paul W.S. Anderson

Mortal Kombat (1995, Paul W.S. Anderson)

I can’t think of another movie with such a dearth of acting ability. It’s another reason Mortal Kombat, specifically its financial success, is something of a milestone. Combined with the terrible CG, the movie’s box office achievement shows how little general audiences—specifically males—care about anything of quality.

I think Trevor Goddard gives the best performance. He’s supposed to be evil and dumb. I believed his character to be both.

For such a big movie, Mortal Kombat only has a handful of actors, supporting and principal. Robin Shou, Linden Ashby, Bridgette Wilson, Christopher Lambert and Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa are basically the speaking cast (in addition to Goddard).

In another achievement, the film actually features a Lambert performance where he’s better than someone else. Tagawa’s exaggerated facial expressions suggest director Anderson told him to perform like a maniacal cartoon. It’s truly one of the silliest, bad performances.

The earnest attempts—from Shou and Wilson—are no better. Shou struts around with hair from an eighties band (all he needs is a hat). In fact, a hat would help, it might be able to act. Wilson’s even worse. Some of her problem is screenwriter Droney’s dialogue, but not all of it. She’s just awful. When the film follows her, it’s hard to believe Anderson and the crew were able to shoot the scene without giggling.

Ashby’s weak, also because of the script, but I suppose he’s better than Shou and Wilson.

Anderson’s got some decent setups, but Mortal Kombat’s still dreadful.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson; screenplay by Kevin Droney, based on video games by Ed Boon and John Tobias; director of photography, John R. Leonetti; edited by Martin Hunter; music by George S. Clinton; production designer, Jonathan A. Carlson; produced by Lauri Apelian and Lawrence Kasanoff; released by New Line Cinema.

Starring Robin Shou (Liu Kang), Linden Ashby (Johnny Cage), Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (Shang Tsung), Bridgette Wilson (Sonya Blade), Talisa Soto (Princess Kitana), Trevor Goddard (Kano), Chris Casamassa (Scorpion), François Petit (Sub-Zero) and Christopher Lambert (Lord Rayden).

RELATED

  • OTHER FILMS DIRECTED BY PAUL W.S. ANDERSON
  • OTHER 1995 RELEASES

    • Pandorum (2009, Christian Alvart)

    A lot of Pandorum is the best thing producers Jeremy Bolt and Paul W.S. Anderson have ever had their names on. It falls apart, after a weak open no less, at the end. The very end. It reminded me of Outland, the exit is so stupid. It totally invalidates the trials the protagonists went through for two hours. Very disappointing.

    The film takes forever to get going–I think it’s about a half hour in before we hear anyone talk besides Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster.

    Foster manages to apply his acting skills to what’s either a lame action hero role or a miscast character actor role. He turns it into something special, a self-reflective protagonist. He’s excellent.

    Quaid’s good too, especially considering he spends most of his time talking into a radio to Foster.

    What’s so nice about Pandorum, which is really just a b sci-fi movie made with modern special effects (in Panavision), is how it manages to actually have a surprise ending. It doesn’t set it up at all, it doesn’t hint at it at all–there’s some diversion going on, but the diversion seems a lot like it’s going to be the surprise ending. It’s great. Then it goes to pot with the exit.

    There are some good supporting performances–Antje Traue and Eddie Rouse in particular. The only bad performance is Cam Gigandet, who’s just godawful.

    Alvart’s direction is fine, but someone like John Carpenter probably could have done wonders with the script.

    1.5/4★½

    CREDITS

    Directed by Christian Alvart; screenplay by Travis Milloy, based on a story by Milloy and Alvart; director of photography, Wedigo von Schultzendorff; edited by Philipp Stahl and Yvonne Valdez; music by Michl Britsch; production designer, Richard Bridgland; produced by Paul W.S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer and Martin Moszkowicz; released by Overture Films.

    Starring Dennis Quaid (Payton), Ben Foster (Bower), Cam Gigandet (Gallo), Antje Traue (Nadia), Cung Le (Manh), Eddie Rouse (Leland) and Norman Reedus (Shepard).

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    Death Race (2008, Paul W.S. Anderson)

    Death Race opens with an almost too classy intro text (reminiscent of Escape from New York, intentionally I’m sure) informing the viewer in 2012, the U.S. economy collapses. Death Race opened in August 2008… is Paul W.S. Anderson now a seer? With all-powerful, insulated corporations and cops beating protesters… it’s the perfect movie for this year. It’s just too bad they were using rubber bullets instead of Tasers, so I guess Anderson isn’t always spot-on in his fortune telling.

    All joking aside, Death Race has to be Anderson’s best film. He manages to fully embrace his own mediocrity, but here he infuses it with a more capable cast than usual and his action scenes are good. They aren’t exciting, but they’re masterfully executed, which is more than enough to engage the viewer. It’s the only time I’ve ever thought of Anderson in the same vein as Carpenter–but whereas Carpenter was inventive, Anderson’s simply a competent recycler of other people’s better ideas.

    There isn’t a single interesting thing Anderson does in Death Race, except maybe go soft for his ending. But it’s slick and well-produced.

    The key is Jason Statham. Statham can make Anderson’s dialogue sound good. There are other good performances in the movie, but only Statham’s delivery rises above the material. The secret to Statham’s solid performance–as usual for him–is his ability to appear to be an intelligent actor but never condescend the material. The more respectable actors in the cast–Joan Allen and Ian McShane–are both aware of Death Race‘s artistic import (specifically, its lack thereof). Allen seems to be slumming for fun and has a great time, while McShane is miscast. While he’s fine, he doesn’t embrace the movie’s absurdity. He isn’t having fun and all Death Race is about is fun.

    Another solid performance comes from Tyrese Gibson. I’ve never seen him in anything before–wait, I guess he was in Transformers but didn’t make an impression; his performance is strong. He’s a likable antagonist. He doesn’t manage to escape all of Anderson’s lousy dialogue–in some ways, he has the worst of it–but his good moments far exceed his bad. Anderson always ends Gibson’s scenes with some exit line and the exit lines are always terrible. Some of them even look like they were added in post-production, which is unfortunate.

    Death Race actually comes close–during the racing scenes, where Anderson is running a pure filmic adrenaline line–to being a good movie. Because these are the best scenes and are unrelated to the larger story, it’s obviously not going to work out. But they’re good enough to convince some magic might occur. After all, he did see the future of the economy. The ending disappoints in some ways–despite handling Allen so well, he objectifies Natalie Martinez (after spending the whole movie not treating her in that manner). I forgot about Martinez above; she’s okay, some bad scenes, some good… but better than expected. Just like the rest of the movie.

    Wait, I’m wrong. Anderson does do something really interesting with Death Race. He implies Gibson’s character is gay. One scene gives Gibson the opportunity to deny it and he doesn’t. It’s a bold move for a b-movie pseudo-blockbuster….

    1.5/4★½

    CREDITS

    Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson; screenplay and screen story by Anderson, based on a screenplay by Robert Thom and Charles B. Griffith and a story by Ib Melchior; director of photography, Scott Kevan; edited by Niven Howie; music by Paul Haslinger; production designer, Paul D. Austerberry; produced by Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Roger Corman and Paula Wagner; released by Universal Pictures.

    Starring Jason Statham (Jensen Ames), Joan Allen (Hennessey), Ian McShane (Coach), Tyrese Gibson (Machine Gun Joe Mason), Natalie Martinez (Elizabeth Case), Max Ryan (Pachenko), Jacob Vargas (Gunner), Jason Clarke (Ulrich), Frederick Koehler (Lists), Justin Mader (Travis Colt), Robert LaSardo (Grimm) and Robin Shou (14K).

    RELATED

    Alien vs. Predator (2004, Paul W.S. Anderson), the director’s cut

    Now, who exactly thought a film entitled Alien vs. Predator could be good? I mean… just from the title, it’s obvious there’s a fairly low potential for the film. As such, Alien vs. Predator is fine. It’s wholly watchable. It’s stupid and there are some enormous plot holes–not just in the established Alien or Predator canon, but in what the film itself has already established–but it’s called Alien vs. Predator. Any film with “vs.” in the title is automatically exempt from certain critical reasoning. Those plot holes in Alien vs. Predator shouldn’t bother anyone because the point of the film is not the understand it, rather to see it. I’ve seen Alien vs. Predator before (there was a review up on The Stop Button over a year ago, in the pre-archive) and when I was actually able to rent the monumental director’s cut (it adds eight minutes and I noticed maybe one new scene, but it isn’t like I had the film committed to memory).

    In a few ways, Alien vs. Predator reminded me of Superman Returns, as I got to see some things I didn’t expect. Had any filmmaker of any merit made another Alien sequel or another Predator sequel, he or she would never have glazed on some of Alien vs. Predator’s enjoyable stupidity. No one with any artistic ability would ever have an Alien Queen chasing someone like a dinosaur out of Jurassic Park (or so visibly lift the opening to Jurassic Park for another über-mainstream film), but that lack of creativity is Paul W.S. Anderson’s strongest filmmaking virtue. Anderson makes a pseudo-scientific argument, which struck me as a goof on some film I can’t quite remember, some occasionally witty dialogue, a handful of lame characters (played, usually, by good actors), and let loose. The result was a film with some decent action (though the Alien and Predator fights could have been more dynamic) and some decent visuals. Anderson litters the film with references to the other Alien and Predator films, but he never really has any good money shots. It might be–this example being the only significant inconsistency I couldn’t let go–because the Predators are all short. They’re short and stocky and they don’t look right. They were designed to be lean and tall and Anderson doesn’t redesign the look in a way not to make them look like runts. Interestingly, the guy who played all the Predator roles was 7’1”, so Anderson did something wrong.

    With the casting, however, Anderson did all right. Lance Henriksen is boring in his glorified cameo and Sanaa Latham is only acceptable when she’s got speaking actors to act off, but otherwise there’s some decent performances. Maybe I’m being a little rough on Latham, but she spends the last twenty minutes or so with no one to talk to and it messes up her performance, making Alien vs. Predator, for the first time, seem like something not even the actors could take seriously. Raoul Bova, Ewen Bremner, and Tommy Flanagan are all good, with Bremner and Flanagan even really acting in their scenes together.

    I just realized how long this post is getting, but Alien vs. Predator is one of the more known films I’ve written up (I can always easily rant on a discussed topic). I’m unable to get over the negative response to this film. If you want a good movie, you don’t see one called Alien vs. Predator–nothing with a title like this one has any promise of being good. Unfortunately, I imagine the Alien vs. Predator movie the fans “wanted” would be even worse.