Double Movie Feature: Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn / John Dies at the End

Originally a five part miniseries, the movie was a small feature released prior to the Xbox release of Halo 4. It follows the story of Lasky, the commander of the ship 'Forward Unto Dawn', and his training years at the academy. His struggle to find his place in his floundering unit and his health problems are just a speck when faced with a new enemy, the Covenant.

It's kind of hard to judge this appropriately, as it is a small indie film with a bigger budget. It was very interesting for the first ten minutes, slow and boring for the next forty minutes and then action-packed for the next half hour. The characters were poorly developed, but the special effects and overall story was good. This isn't meant to be a feature film, but its higher budget makes it feel like it should have been better.

---

Don't listen to the description this movie gives you. I still don't really know what happened, but it involved two guys named David and John, some strange drug that gives you control over time and space and an all-powerful sentient being from another dimension.

It's strange, confusing and erratic, but there is a plot in there somewhere. Regardless, it was a fun journey as long as your head doesn't explode, which happened a lot in the movie.

Double Movie Feature: Would You Rather (2013) / The Crazies (2010)

Would You Rather pays homage to the original premise that Saw introduced us to: Torture Porn. Eight strangers down on their luck are offered the chance to have all their problems solved by a 'charity' organisation if they win a game of 'Would you rather?' The game starts out innocently enough, but quickly begins to spiral into a game of life and death.

I found this movie to be far more tasteful than Saw, paying more attention to the psychological aspects of people under pressure. It's also far less gory, which I was appreciative of. Aside from that, it was very uninspired with uninteresting characters and a 'kick-in-the-guts' ending which left the whole movie feeling cheap. Good to watch if you don't want a serious movie.

---

The Crazies is a remake of the 1973 Romero film of the same name. The townspeople of Ogen Marsh begin to become infected, with insanity. When the military steps in to contain it by all means necessary, the sheriff and his wife fight to get out of the town before the military or the townspeople stop them first.

I haven't watched the original film, but I found the remake to be both interesting and well cast. The characters were interesting and the premise was well executed. The outbreak was well escalated, but the movie plateaued for a while after the first 30 minutes and became a bit drawn out for my liking. The Crazies is an above average horror movie with some very good direction. It doesn't overdo the gore, which makes it a much better thriller than a horror.

Double Movie Feature: American Sniper (2014) / Warm Bodies (2013)

American Sniper is based off the story of Chris Kyle, a decorated member of the US SEALS and the most deadly sniper in US history. Played by Bradley Cooper and directed by Clint Eastwood; the exceptionally long movie (174 minutes) is a very dramatised sequence based off the autobiography written by Chris Kyle before his death in 2013.

Clint Eastwood certainly knows how to direct a good movie and Bradley Cooper played the role very well. It’s a harrowing and gritty story with some rather disturbing scenes, but as a war movie, it has to be taken with a few spoonfuls of salt. Many aspects of the movie are not reflections of the real events and the issue that audiences who haven’t read his book may be led to believe incorrect details is a real concern. For movie purposes, I understand the need to make the movie capture audience’s attention, but I felt more could have been done to distinguish between fact and fiction. It causes the movie to sway very hard towards being a propaganda piece.

Otherwise, the movie is actually very good and despite its marathon length it’s not difficult to sit through.

---

Warm Bodies is a new spin on the modern zombie movie. With humans sheltering away behind massive walls, the zombies wander the city, but they are not as dead as we thought. They’re still alive in a dead kind of way, trying to find some sense of place in their new world. Still driven to eat people, a zombie named R departs for the city with a group of other zombies including his closest ‘friend’ played by Rob Corddry. When they attack a group of young scavengers, R sees a girl named Julie and falls in love. He protects her from the others and tries to find a way to make things work, craving the need to try and find his humanity again. Little does he know, the time they spend together is changing everything they know about the world.

On paper, Warm Bodies is probably one of the corniest movie ideas you could think of, but the movie is itself is so unique that it is now right up there with my favourites. It’s not a perfect movie by far, with some mediocre acting, superficial supporting characters and a few inconsistencies. However, the movie just lays on so much charm it becomes sickly sweet with optimism and romance. It’s well paced and was gripping all the way through, with a good lather of humour.

Akin to the quality of Shaun of the Dead, Warm Bodies brings new ‘life’ to the paranormal romantic zombie comedy genre. Did that exist before?

The Thing

Watched the remake/prequel of the 1982 move of the same name; The Thing is a pretty gorey movie but aims for the more horrific scenes to scare you, rather than the usual jump-out-at-you scares. I have already watched the $15 million, 1982 version made by John Carpenter, so I had a decent idea of what events needed to be in the prequel and how it needed to end.

Unlike the original, all the monsters were clearly done with CG, which was disappointing compared to the horrific puppetry from the Carpenter version. Although computer generated graphics are getting extremely realistic these days, there is just that sense that it's not real when thay create something like this. The reason why the Carpenter one is scarier is because they were real puppets and props and you could tell.

So I won't spoil too much, but overall, the movie was a decent stab in the right direction, but it suffered like the Carpenter version, focusing so much on the gore and horror that it built up little plot investment in the characters since there are quite a few of them and many don't last long. In some scenes it felt that when a character died or became a 'Thing' I had no idea what that person actually did.

In all, it tried to be as good at the Carpenter original, but it followed in his footsteps far too much and suffered just as much as the original did. It's simply a case of, it's nothing new at all really. If you're gonna watch this movie, you're going to watch it for the gore. I did have fun watching it, but I doubt I'd watch it again as most of the scares are one-time affairs.

It scrapes in at just 3 out of 5 stars for me.

I also found this remake of the 1982 'The Thing', happily portrayed by Pingu the Penguin. Enjoy!