Wetware

Never grab a woman by the elbow; she might be a genetically-enhanced killer.

(2020) Science Fiction  (Gravitas) Cameron Scoggins, Morgan Wolk, Jerry O’Connell, Bret Lada, Aurélia Thiérrée, Susan S. McGinnis, Labhaoise Magee, Lauren Carole Ritter, Matt Salinger, Nicole Shalhoub, Brandon Alan Smith, Ariel Zevon, Jessica Blank, Jeff Zinn, Bianca Ilich, Dallas Mahan, Hunter Hard, Kristan Lyon, Kimberly Arthurs. Directed by Jay Craven

 

The world is changing before our very eyes, and not necessarily in a good way. Climate change is leading to some hard decisions that are, for the most part, being ignored. Overpopulation and automation is leading to a shortage of jobs. Something has got to give.

In this dystopian future, climate change has decimated the world. Most people are chronically unemployed; the jobs that are available are largely menial jobs people are unwilling to perform. In fact, most of them are performed by Mungos, genetically engineered folks who have had their memories purged and given the abilities to do whatever job it is they are assigned to do without complaint.

But there is a worldwide economic crisis in the offing and Galapagos Bioengineering, the company that markets Mungos, is looking to market a new product; genetically engineered super-soldiers that can do just about anything a superspy can do, as well as have the skillsets of an elite soldier. The company desperately needs funds from financier Wendell Blaine (O’Connell) to fund their new project and it is up to genetic engineer Hal Briggs (Scoggins) to create these new superhumans.

But Briggs has a problem. One of those volunteering for the project, Kay (Wolk), has caught his eye and so he engineers her to fall in love with him. As she and the other prototype Jack (Lada) undergo testing under the watchful eye of Carr (Shalhoub), the project manager who has an agenda of her own, Briggs is left to contend with the ethical ramifications of what he’s done and with a hidden conspiracy that threatens everything, not the least of which is his continued existence.

Based on a novel by Craig Nova, Jay Craven – noted for Vermont-set adaptations of novels by Howard Frank Mosher – is a bit of a departure for the New England-based filmmaker. He has given us a remarkably self-assured and thoughtful sci-fi slice with elements of noir. His cast of mostly local Vermont actors are surprisingly strong, with Wolk as the haunted woman who agrees to have her memory wiped and become something new being a particular standout but buttressed by strong performances by Thiérrée and Salinger. The production values are also pretty impressive for a low-budget production.

The movie has a few ideas to kick around, some of which have been recycled from other places – what makes us human, which I thought was better-explored by Ridley Scott’s Philip K. Dick adaptation of Blade Runner and of how central memory is to our identity, also explored in the wonderful Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind by Michel Gondry. Still, there are also ideas that are a bit more timely, such as the lengths we will go to for employment – particularly relevant during the economic crash brought on by the pandemic – and the widening gulf between the haves and have-nots and the shrinking space in the middle class.

Craven’s attempts to add a noir edge to the movie falls mainly in the dark neon-lit spaces and in particular, the dialogue which at times feels a bit pretentious and is the weakest part of the movie. However, Craven wisely doesn’t fill in all the blanks here and leaves viewers to do some thinking, which I think an increasing number of sci-fi cinephiles are learning to appreciate.

REASONS TO SEE: Surprisingly strong performances and production values.
REASONS TO AVOID: The dialogue is trying too hard to be noir-ish.
FAMILY VALUES: There is some violence and sexuality.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Craven’s day job is as a professor of film studies at Marlboro College in Vermont.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Microsoft, Vudu
CRITICAL MASS: As of 12/18/20: Rotten Tomatoes: No score yet; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Blade Runner
FINAL RATING: 6/10
NEXT: Sister of the Groom

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Depraved (2019)

Give yourself a hand

(2019) Horror (IFC Midnight) David Call, Joshua Leonard, Alex Breaux, Ana Kayne, Maria Dizzia, Chloe Levine, Owen Campbell, Addison Timlin, Chris O’Connor, Alice Barrett, Andrew Lasky, Jack Fessenden, James Tam, Zilong Zee, Noah Le Gros, John Speredakos, Stormi Maya, Hope Blackstock, Rev Love, Hannah Townsend. Directed by Larry Fessenden

 

The classic novel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley was originally the result of a competition between herself, her husband poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and the Romantic poet Lord Byron to write a ghost story. Only the tale of a man reanimated, reconstructed from the body parts of other men has withstood the test of time.

Alex (Campbell) is having an argument with his girlfriend Lucy (Levine) whose only crime was to compliment him on what a good father he’d make. Alex sees it as putting undue pressure on him to become a husband and father, neither of which he’s ready for. He grabs his hipster beret and stalks out into the night – only to run into a murderous mugger. Face to black, Alex.

Only Alex isn’t completely gone. Adam (Breaux) wakes up on an operating table in a Brooklyn loft, not knowing who he is or even what he is. He is literally a tabula rasa, a blank slate. Henry (Call), an Army doctor who served in Iraq and came back home with a massive case of PTSD for his trouble, calms the confused Adam down. Eventually he begins to teach him the basics of motor skills and human speech, which eventually Adam begins to develop as a self-aware human being.

Covered in scars, Adam doesn’t understand why he is different than other people nor does he know that he is a pawn in a game being played by Polidori (Leonard), a would-be pharmaceutical billionaire who is eager to market the drug that aided Henry in the revivication process. As Adam grows more self-aware, some of his memories as Alex begin to resurface, confusing him further. As anyone who has ever seen a Frankenstein movie or read the book will tell you, the path for Adam will lead inexorably towards bloodshed.

Fessenden, who has carved a niche in indie horror with strong, character-driven films, utilizes camera effects to give audiences a sense of the confusion Adam is feeling and how his memories as Alex begin to overlap with his own. There isn’t an awful lot of gore in the film other than some in the initial going as Alex meets his fate, and as with most Frankenstein adaptations, most of the blood flows in the final reel. Horror fans who crave lots of gore might be disappointed with this one, although there is plenty for my own taste.

While some have labeled this an update of the original Shelley novel, I think it’s far more accurate to call this a deconstruction, taking the elements of Shelley’s novel, updating the location and time and then creating something entirely new with it. This is much more of a psychological horror piece than a gothic one.

There is an awful lot of dialogue here – maybe too much. There are some moments in the film that drag a bit too much and the movie would have benefited, in the immortal words of Elvis, with “a little less talk and a little more action.” Still, the movie is much smarter than the average horror film and looks in a meaningful way with out own fear of mortality, much as Shelley’s original novel did but putting it in terms that are more modern and understandable.

This isn’t destined to be a horror classic. For one thing, most people familiar with the story of Frankenstein are going to find the plot somewhat predictable despite the updated setting; Depraved is essentially in that sense an updated remake. It’s in the places where it strays from the source material that the movie has its best moments. Many movie critics will tell you that we are currently experiencing a renaissance of the horror genre; while this movie isn’t on the leading edge of that wave, it certainly is a solid entry into the genre as an early entry into the Halloween sweepstakes for 2019.

REASONS TO SEE: A deconstruction of the Frankenstein mythos, set in Brooklyn.
REASONS TO AVOID: A bit tedious in places.
FAMILY VALUES: There is a fair amount of profanity, sexuality, some violence and horrifying images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Fessenden has a cameo in the film as Ratso.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 9/18/19: Rotten Tomatoes: 88% positive reviews: Metacritic: 68/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Frankenstein (1931)
FINAL RATING: 6,5.10
NEXT: Ant-Man and the Wasp

Blade Runner 2049

Welcome to your future – breathing is optional.

(2017) Science Fiction (Warner Brothers) Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Jared Leto, Ana de Armas, Edward James Olmos, Sean Young, Dave Bautista, Robin Wright, Wood Harris, Sylvia Hoeks, Hiam Abbass, David Dastmalchian, Mark Arnold, Lennie James, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Barkhad Abdi, Ben Thompson, Suzie Kennedy, David Benson, Stephen Triffitt, Elarica Johnson. Directed by Denis Villeneuve

 

Some classic films are so perfect, so self-contained that even the idea of a sequel is ridiculous. Why mess with perfection, after all? However, sometimes even beloved classics can have sequels that are as good and maybe some might say even better than the original. It doesn’t happen very often though.

It happened here with this sequel to Ridley Scott’s dystopian sci-fi classic Blade Runner (1982). You’ll recall that the movie was concerned with Rick Deckard (Ford), a Los Angeles cop tasked with hunting down androids – called “replicants” – and killing them – called “retiring.” These sorts of cops are called blade runners for reasons never fully explained. The movie has a wonderful noir edge, terrific performances by Rutger Hauer, Darryl Hannah, Sean Young and Ford, as well as being one of those rare sci-fi films that is entertaining and thought-provoking.

The sequel is set 30 years later and the dystopian rain-soaked future has dried out and become even grimmer which 1982 audiences wouldn’t have thought possible. There are still replicants and blade runners but replicants are no longer used as slave labor since most of the tasks they performed have been fully automated. K (Gosling) is a blade runner who stumbles onto a secret that might change everything – there’s evidence that a replicant father and a human mother conceived a child. This was thought to be impossible but K has to follow the lead, find the child and kill it before its very existence throws civilization into further chaos. Yes, things can always get worse.

The chase leads K to find Deckard who disappeared decades ago. The ex-cop has been hiding out in a decrepit Las Vegas casino, abandoned to the desert sands and nostalgic memories of a bygone age that properly never really existed; however there are forces hard on K’s trail – some looking for their own answers, others looking to make sure that K never completes his mission. And K himself is beginning to have real doubts about the reality of what he’s doing.

Villeneuve who helmed last year’s brilliant and smart alien encounter film Arrival is proving himself to be one of the most truly visionary directors working today. He has delivered another brilliant and smart science fiction film, one loaded with thought-provoking subjects that have to do not only with what it means to be human – a theme thoroughly explored in the first film – but whether it is even preferable being human. There are plenty of topics the film brings up that fans and intellectuals will be arguing about for years to come.

The performances here are strong. Gosling could well get an Oscar nomination again for his performance as the haunted hunter K. He is supported by another outstanding job by Ford resurrecting a classic character he created, as well as Wright as K’s badass boss, Leto as the creepy industrialist who is the main antagonist, de Armas as K’s assistant who is just a little bit different and Hoeks as the malevolent flunky who is out to stop K by any means necessary.

What may impress you most about Blade Runner 2049 are the visuals. I can’t think of a single movie released this year that has created an environment that is so fantastic and yet seems so real and lived in. From the first frame to the last, everything you see onscreen is dazzling. This may well be a slam dunk for an effects Oscar. The only drawback to the film is that it is way too long and could have used a bit more editing.

This is likely to end up on a lot of year end top ten lists and has an outside chance at a Best Picture nomination. The fact that it came out between the summer blockbuster season and the fall and holiday Oscar season may end up hurting it on Academy nomination ballots but as it is close to being released on Streaming and DVD/Blu-Ray (January 16), those who missed it on the big screen (and shame on you – this deserves to be seen that way) have an opportunity to appreciate one of the very best movies of 2017 in their own homes. And for those who already saw it, it will mean a chance to revisit and find new wonders to talk about with movie buff friends.

REASONS TO GO: The story is intelligent and sophisticated. The visuals are absolutely amazing. This is the rare case of a sequel nearly outdoing the classic original.
REASONS TO STAY: The movie is way too long.
FAMILY VALUES: There is violence, some sexuality, brief nudity and profanity throughout.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The role of K was written with Gosling in mind; no other actor was considered for the part.
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, Fandango Now, Frontier, Google Play, iTunes, Microsoft, Movies Anywhere, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 1/3/18: Rotten Tomatoes: 87% Positive Reviews. Metacritic: 81/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: A Dog and His Boy
FINAL RATING: 8.5/10
NEXT: American Made