Eric German | Sunday, 28 December 2008

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This is not your planet

That’s what the alien Klaatu (Keanu Reeves), tells US Secretary of Defence Regina Jackson (Kathy Bates).
He wants to deliver a message to the UN but on arrival, he’s shot and during surgery, the placenta-like material that enfolds him is stripped away to reveal a human form. The only one he half trusts is Dr Helen Benson (Jennifer Connelly), a scientist and a widow with a young step son, Jaden (Jacob Smith).
Klaatu explains that planets which can sustain life are rare and since we’re bent on destroying Earth, mankind must be destroyed so that the planet can be rehabilitated and survive. Helen tries to persuade him to give us a second chance but the military is anxious to kill him and Jaden intends to give him away.
The credits sequence attempts to give Klaatu some back story but it adds nothing to the film other than a little length. Shortly afterwards, the film becomes very exciting as Klaatu’s vehicle, a huge pulsating sphere, hurtles towards Earth.
Scott Derrickson’s direction catches the urgency in both the explicit show of force and in suggestive scenes such as when Helen is practically abducted by federal agents and speeded off to form part of the “crisis response team.”
The sequence showing the landing of the sphere in Central Park conveys the scale of the event but Derrickson doesn’t use spectacle and special effects for their own sake. This is serious sci-fi with a message but the special effects are first rate.
Similarly, the remake alters several things contained in Robert Wise’s 1951 film but all the changes are understandable. These include changing the reason for Klaatu’s visit from mankind’s self-destructive lust for war to the contemporary one of environmental annihilation.
But it weakens the film because the theme doesn’t carry the same dramatic punch that man’s obsession with war did.
Critics are always calling Keanu Reeves “wooden,” often without justification. As the alien, he has to remain unmoved for most of the time and the lack of expression eventually becomes monotonous. In some of the later scenes he shares with Helen and Jacob, he’s allowed to show some emotion and he does this in a low key.
Helen’s function is little more than to help advance the plot but Connelly’s performance lifts the character well above such limitations. Kathy Bates’ brass balls Secretary of Defence makes the perfect foil for Klaatu but the best performance comes from John Cleese who only has a single but important scene.
Klaatu has a gigantic guardian robot and when it goes into action, it’s intimidating. Nostalgically, I missed the sleek spaceship of the 1951 film but objectively, the remake’s glowing sphere is beautifully realised and it’s used for several impressive purposes.

Hardcore romance

Writer-director-editor Kevin Smith nearly ended up without his film being advertised in US newspapers. The word “porno” misled them into thinking it was a hardcore porn film and some cinemas wouldn’t screen it.
The film co-stars real life XXX star Katie Morgan and the legendary former porn star Traci Lords but the sex is simulated and usually it’s for comic effect. You’ll be pleased or dismayed to learn that there’s only one brief scene of female full frontal nudity but loads of the male variety.
Zach (Seth Rogen) and Miriam (Elizabeth Banks) have been best friends since grade one. They share an apartment but have never had sex which they seem to regard as something that would spoil their deep friendship.
They’re broke, their water and electricity is turned off on Thanksgiving and they’re so behind with the rent that they fear they’ll lose their apartment. At a school reunion, they meet a former classmate who’s gay and who’s making lots of money by doing gay porn movies.
This ‘inspires’ Zach into making a porn film with himself and Miri as co-stars but at first it only gets them, Zach’s ‘producer’ friend (Craig Robinson) and the ex-high school friend who’s shooting it (Jason Mewes) deeper in debt.
Smith remains the only filmmaker who continues to disregard political correctness, make racial jokes, deals with losers or slackers, uses the “F” word like some people use punctuation marks (the British Board of Film Censors counted 200 ”uses of strong language”) and include risqué topics.
And he’s the only one to do so and still come out smelling like roses because his brand of comedy is as good-natured as it’s raunchy. The only disappointment is that Smith uses a gross-out bodily function gag for the first time.
Zach and Miri finds him toying comically with amateur porn filmmaking. But it’s his freshest film in a decade because it’s his first romantic comedy and it’s surprising how romantic Smith can be while retaining his trademark profane humour. This is nothing less than a hardcore romance, but not literally.
There’s a lot of dialogue and this tends to be off putting in some of the longer takes but many others have a good dose of funny one liners.
Visual humour isn’t lacking and one such gag has Miriam becoming unintentionally famous after two youths use a cell phone to take pictures of her in what she calls her “period panties,” but which become known as “granny panties” on the web.
I didn’t warm up to Seth Rogen in Knocked Up but I did so in this film. Elizabeth Banks played the vixen in The40-year-old Virgin but as Miri, she’s thoroughly lovable and she’s so good as a comedienne that this could well be her breakthrough performance.

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