Survival of the Dead

admin — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 00:00:00 +0000

Pop films that take on politics tend to do so as an add-on and go all over the place. Since I have come late to zombie films and director George Romero, perhaps I am being unfair to Romero and his Survival of the Dead, the latest of his zombie films, in expecting consistent politics from a gore fest, but perhaps dystopia deserves its due.

The only zombie film I have ever seen—if “seen” can mean glimpsed out of the corner of a fearful child’s eye—was a production rerun on afternoon television sometime in the 1950s, in my case, to keep children content while they waited for a school bus. However, like Romero, I was a fan of pre-code horror comic books. A gloomy disposition predisposes me to dystopia. With this risk factor, perhaps I was slated to become zombie food.

The movie takes place in the near future in which a disease has conferred a horrid form of immortality on the dead. National Guardsman Sarge (Alan Van Sprang) is on killing duty in the morgue, where bodies spring to murderous life. A fellow Guardsman who refuses to shoot a buddy-turned-zombie is summarily executed; Sarge and a few comrades say enough already—actually, “I didn’t sign up for this”—and go AWOL into a lawless United States, where the only protection is individual armed self-protection, but nighttime comics telling zombie jokes can still be downloaded on a PC. Surviving as thieves, Sarge and his band are busy not only killing zombies coming back to life, but also dealing with the generalized violent breakdown of society.

After a confrontation with another band of renegades, a young man (Devon Bostick) who survives the encounter (and provides some additional snarky, intergenerational conflict) joins up with them to take off in an armored van with a safe full of money. The posse ends up heading for Plum Island (ostensibly off the coast of Delaware, though the film was shot in Canada) because an Internet huckster, Patrick O’Flynn, is luring social outcasts, now much of the population, there to rob them. O’Flynn has been exiled from the island as a result of a long-standing family feud with another clan. (How two Irish clans got on this island in the first place is left unexplained, but there are hints of religious fundamentalism and right-wing survivalism.) A great subplot is the hopeless courting of the lesbian tomboy by her would-be Latin lover/comrade in arms and the genuine nonsexual affection between them.

Romero is quoted as saying the movie is about war, but it could as easily be about too permissive gun laws justified by the Second Amendment. Or out-of-control conflicts over different strategies for dealing with a serious threat—the overlay of the feud. Or it could just be a corkboard for any one-off social commentary—about professional salaries or the narrow perspectives of small towns—that can be stuck in a spot in the plot.

The real Plum Island, off the coast of Long Island, is the site of the federal Animal Disease Center run by the Department of Homeland Security, and at one time a secret bio-weapons research facility. There, any wild mammal is said to be shot on sight. This is O’Flynn’s solution to the zombie problem, while his rival, Muldoon, wants to rehabilitate them.

“Zombie”—as in banks—is fast becoming an overused metaphor. In the book Imaginal Machines, cultural theorist Stevphen Shukaitis presents an analysis of the capitalist transformation of human workers into labor power, living into dead labor; cooptation/recuperation of social movements into nightmare versions of themselves; and the question of whether such altered movements could be truly revitalized or need to be put out of their misery—all strung, along with their sources, on the extended metaphor of zombification.

Personally, I like zombies better as the main attraction, when they are actors in heavy makeup “getting their brains” blown out in movies; and when social commentary, however scattershot, is the sideshow.

Written by: Frances Chapman, June 10th 2010

Terminator Salvation

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 19:13:00 +0000

Directed by McG

Warner Bros. Pictures

The story behind Christian Bale’s casting in the latest installment of the Terminator franchise is as follows. Director McG approached Bale to play the role of Marcus (the role that eventually went to up-and-coming Aussie actor Sam Worthington). Instead, Bale asked to play John Connor and insisted that the storyline be so airtight that it would hold up without special effects.

In that regard, Terminator Salvation succeeds. I couldn’t find any plot holes in this two-hour installment. However, Salvation takes itself a little too seriously, lacking much of the fun of the previous installments.

The film, which serves as both a sequel and a prequel, is set in 2018, fourteen years after the events of Terminator: Rise of The Machines. We are introduced to a thirty-three year old John Connor. A mid-ranking officer in the human resistance, Connor is viewed as the fulfillment of a messianic prophecy by some, and a delusional fake by others. He spends much of his time reaching out to far-flung members of the resistance via radio.

Meanwhile, a mysterious stranger, Marcus, wanders around in the wasteland that used to be Southern California. He encounters two lone members of the Los Angeles based resistance, a teenaged Kyle Reese (an absolutely adorable Anton Yelchin) and a mute Star (an even cuter Jadagrace). While they make their way to John Connor’s camp, Kyle and Star are captured by Skynet, which is holding large numbers of humans as hostages.

While Marcus makes his way to the Resistance, he crosses paths with Blair (Moon Bloodgood), a resistance fighter who gets shot down during a dogfight with Skynet. They hike for two days in order to reach camp. I can’t give any more plot details without revealing the ending, but let’s just say that there is a lot more to Marcus than originally meets the eye.

I wanted to like—no, love—this movie. After all, I am a huge fan of the Terminator series, and I have nursed a crush on Christian Bale since I first saw him in the satirical, but incredibly controversial, American Psycho. And I did like the fact that the movie dealt with heavy existential questions on what it truly means to be human.

However, the film never thrilled me. Salvation is too flawed for that. In fact, I found myself fidgeting in my seat despite the lean 130-minute runtime. The opening sequence gave away too much information about Marcus, which allowed me to make a fairly accurate guess at what his role in the story was. If McG had dealt with Marcus’s back story in flashbacks, the plot twist that occurs near the end would have packed much more of a dramatic punch. The cinematography is downright boring—you can only sit through so many shots of a barren sun-scorched landscape. The movie is often overpowered by Danny Elfman’s blaringly dramatic score. The dialogue is leaden in numerous spots with Bale using his creepy Batman Begins voice one time too many; several actors (Bryce Dallas Howard, Common, and Jane Alexander amongst others) are wasted. The CGI cameo of the Governator himself inspired yawns, not gasps of surprise. And, in my not-so-humble opinion, not allowing John Connor to die at the end of the movie was a cop-out.

That said, only check out this film if you are a fan of the series and are eager to see which loose ends do and don’t get tied up. Otherwise, skip it.

Written by: Ebony Edwards-Ellis, June 1st 2009

futuristic

Survival of the Dead

Terminator Salvation