After
Earth (2013/Sony DVD)/The
Colony (2013/Image
Blu-ray)/The Final
Programme (1973/aka The
Last Days Of Man On Earth/Network
U.K. Region 2 PAL Import DVD)/I
Married A Monster From Outer Space
(1958/Paramount/Warner Archive DVD)/Star
Trek: The Art Of Juan Ortiz
(2013/Hardcover/Titan Books)
Picture:
C+/B-/C+/C+ Sound: C+/B-/C+/C Extras: C-/C-/C+/D Films:
D/C-/C+/C Book: B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Final
Programme
Import DVD will only play on DVD players capable of Region 2 PAL
playback and is only available from Network U.K., while I
Married A Monster From Outer Space
is now only available from Warner Bros. through their Warner Archive
series. All can be ordered from the links below.
Now
for a mix of Science Fiction releases that were all mostly different
than expected...
The
big question about M. Night Shyamalan's
After
Earth
(2013) is if it could be worse than his train wreck of a film The
Last Airbender
(2010). Pairing up with Will Smith, the biggest box office star in
the world until recently, plus his son Jaden who could be a rising
star, what would be the result. With a post-apocalyptic science
fiction scenario, this was a big chance for Shyamalan to make a
comeback and Jaden Smith to build on his Karate
Kid
success. So what happened?
Along
with Lone
Ranger,
we have here what might be the worst film of 2013. At first, I
thought it might get better after some initially phony establishing
moments, but instead, it just got worse and worse and worse and
worse. It is as if they combined Last
Airbender
with Travolta's idiotic Battlefield
Earth
and the angriest, phoniest, anti-child episode of The
Cosby Show
ever made and made it worse. Jaden whines too much, which was fine
in Pursuit
Of Happyness,
but he's too old to repeat that behavior here. Will Smith looks
asleep most of the time (though no match for the few audience members
who paid to see this as it bombed at theaters worldwide) and the idea
of the son as reluctant warrior who suddenly performs martial arts
effectively all the sudden is a joke.
Sophie
Okonedo and Zoe Kravitz are among the cast of mostly unknowns in
underwritten roles and despite all the money on screen, this is a
simple stuck-in-a script (Will the father is ill and has to advise
his son how to go into action, if only he would listen to him...) and
the whole thing is an embarrassing mega-vanity project that should
have never happened, is the nadir of all involved, will hurt the
Smiths in the short term and is yet more evidence (the kind Hollywood
keeps ignoring) that Shyamalan is beyond out of ideas. What a
yawner!!!
Extras
include 3 Making Of featurettes: A
Father's Legacy,
1,000
Years In 300 Seconds
and The
Nature Of The Future.
Barely
better but not as intelligence insulting by any means, Jeff Renfroe's
The
Colony
(2013) is another film where earth has a natural disaster permanently
ruining it (After
Earth
had the planet now hostile to humans, much like the film itself) and
here, the survivors have to deal with humans gone mad and even become
neo-ice age zombies. (Ooops... hope I just did not inspire another
bad film.) So Bill Paxton shows up in the beginning and end with
people holding their own in a secret space and Lawrence Fishburne
lands up in battles in between.
Though
third-billed, Kevin Zegers (Transamerica,
Wrong
Turn)
is the actual lead and he is not bad, but not great, yet is not given
much to do as the script quickly flattens out and gives us everything
we have seen a few hundred times of late. A few moments are
interesting, but this runs 94 minutes and needed about 90 more good
ones.
Extras
include Cast/Crew Interviews and a Behind The Scenes featurette.
More
ambitious and intelligent than those duds is Robert Fuest's The
Final Programme
(1973, aka The
Last Days Of Man On Earth),
a darkly comic Science Fiction tale also set in post-apocalyptic
times where a billionaire scientist (Jon Finch) hunts down lost
cloning information only to find out someone is out to create a new
kind of human that can survive the suddenly darker future. Before
this revelation is revealed, we get plenty of witty, sardonic
vignettes with eccentrics, goofs and a few people who may be outright
dangerous, but the screenplay by Fuest (based on the Michael Morecock
book) wants to be Dr.
Strangelove
down to casting Sterling Hayden.
However,
even with a fine supporting cast, the film has not aged well, is more
of a time capsule than when I last saw it years ago and though the
film print used does not do justice to the work of Director of
Photography Norman Warwick (The
Last Valley,
The
Kids Are Alright,
Son Of
Dracula,
Dr.
Jekyll & Sister Hyde,
Fuest's The
Abominable Dr. Phibes)
captures the great production design and look intended, but the film
never delivers the impact or message intended. However, for serious
film and science fiction fans, they should see it once for all the
moments that work and the irony of certain scenes.
Extras
include a DVD-ROM PDF of the original U.K. Press Kit, which is very
well made, while the DVD adds a full
screen 1.33 X 1 version of the film that is softer, Still Gallery,
U.K. & Italian Trailers and the original Italian opening of the
film. Oddly and sadly, it is missing the terrific feature length
commentary with Fuest, lead actress Jenny Runacre and the writer
Johnathan Sothcott which appeared on the U.S. Anchor Bay DVD 12 years
ago. However, this needs restored, upgraded with a proper color
print and maybe a few more extras, so we'll see, but at least this
version is now in print and worth a look despite tis flaws.
Gene
Fowler Jr.'s I
Married A Monster From Outer Space
(1958) may be a fun and unintentionally funny B-movie celebrating its
55th
Anniversary, but I is still more competent than most of the films in
its genre lately, as shown in this text. A young woman (Gloria
Talbott) is ready to enjoy being happily married in the suburbs when
she realizes something is wrong with her husband. As we see, he has
ben taken over by a disturbing, violent force that turns out to be an
alien!
Even
worse, the same fate is happening to men all over town as the
invader/visitors are doing this to breed and survive. The town is
(of course) slow to realize this, but a smart doctor (Ken Lynch in a
fun turn) is more open to things and eventually the ugly truth starts
to become apparent, even if I not in time for some of the locals.
The
visual effects are not always great, but not bad and do not need to
be massively impressive, especially since this is a mystery thriller.
That helps it hold up, but the actors, hilarious music and
portrayal of the early suburbs with nice black and white filming, it
is a fun film back in print just in time for Halloween 2013.
There
are sadly no extras.
Finally
we have a nice coffee table hardback book, Star
Trek: The Art Of Juan Ortiz
(2013) which has the artist imagine all the episodes of the classic,
original 1960s TV series as theatrical film releases, down to
imitating art styles of the period. The results are fun, especially
the more you know each episode (now all on Blu-ray, which you can
read more about elsewhere on this site) and also reminded me at times
of the posters for Man
From U.N.C.L.E.
films cut from episodes (with some added content) that MGM put into
theaters at the time. The art itself is impressive and even non-fans
will be entertained. A nice idea rendered well, it makes you want to
see more of Ortiz's work. Titan image reproduction is top rate too,
as usual.
The
1080p 2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Colony
is stylized and has plenty of CG visual effects, including too many
that are obvious, yet it is the best visual performer on the list and
it is hard to tell if an Earth
Blu-ray could surpass it or not, though a Programme
Blu-ray from a real
dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor version of the film would
likely top both. His is fine for what it is, but nothing special or
visually memorable is presented, though that is a picnic as compared
to the anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image on Earth
which is softer, has more digital visual work and is more junked in
its mise-en-scene. Shyamalan's films don't have the vivid look they
used to have, but that is decline for you.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 on Programme
(despite a print that looks like the same master we've seen already
with softness and limited color, but certainly not a real Technicolor
print like the ones originally issued on the film) and anamorphically
enhanced black and white 1.85 X 1 image on Monster
(which has its sharp moments, but I wish it had more) are more than
the equal of Earth.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Colony
is the best sonic presentation here too, but it can be more towards
the front channels and not as consistent as one would expect. The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Earth
is even weak and tends to count too much on its .1 LFE subwoofer
channel, though I wonder if the lossless Blu-ray track would. As a
result, the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on Programme,
sounding good for tis age and with its still-interesting editing, can
compete. That leaves the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
on Monster
the
oldest entry here, showing its age, well recorded, but this version
is sadly a generation down and too low in playback.
As
noted above, you can order The
Final Programme
DVD import exclusively from Network U.K. at:
http://networkonair.com/
… and
to order I
Married A Monster From Outer Space
DVD via the Warner Archive, go to this link for them and many more
great web-exclusive releases at:
http://www.warnerarchive.com/
-
Nicholas Sheffo
