Movie Review: The Woman in Black

Daniel Radcliffe is immensely likeable. He doesn’t just have the specter of saint-like Harry Potter still hovering over him, he is also very outspoken about potentially controversial topics like gay marriage. He has made sizeable donations to – and starred in public service announcements for – The Trevor Project, which supports gay teens. And there is a charming rebellious streak apparent by him copping to being drunk quite a bit while filming the last chapter of the Harry Potter-saga and by going full-frontal on stage during a production of Equus. He is clearly trying to put some distance between him and his bespectacled alter-ego and his first movie on that path is The Woman in Black.

The Woman in Black is an old-fashioned haunted house horror movie that aims to make you squirm not by throwing entrails at your face, but by having carefully lit, spooky surroundings through which the camera creeps, dropping in the occasional unexpected burst of movement or a blast of sound to make you jump. Radcliffe’s primary role is to be the one who guides the viewer through these environments. Rather than run off screaming, he keeps stealthily sneaking towards whatever inexplicable noises echo through the house, which turns out to be less abandoned than advertised. His curiosity is ill-advised perhaps, but also necessary to keep the movie from being really, really short.

The primary motivation for his character to hang around is that he works for a law-firm and has to sort out the paperwork to be able to sell the mansion or lose his job and therefore the means to support his young son. Also, he is still grieving for his wife and is intrigued rather than scared by the idea of ghosts, as that seems to point to an afterlife in which he could be reunited with her. The locals of the town neighboring the house seem very keen to be rid of him, but rather than vocalizing exactly why that is, the writers prefer to have them make vague, ominous comments in an aggressive tone. Looking back, there is no convincing reason why they wouldn’t just spit out the entire back-story of the mansion and run him off. Radcliffe has to find out the slow, roundabout way what happened there and why children die violent deaths in the town at a higher than usual frequency.

The movie is not exactly an acting stretch for Radcliffe, his moods being fairly muted for the most part and switching primarily between sadness, apprehension and fear. But he does make you forget about Harry Potter for long stretches at a time, helped by a period look (end 19th century) that makes him appear more mature. He shies away from anything like glasses, that would remind you of his acting legacy. The Woman in Black isn’t a classic: it feels a bit slow despite being not all that long and though it sets the mood very well, it gets a bit more hokey near the end when the action is upped. But for a relaxed movie night at home with the lights off, on a big screen, curled up against a date, this nostalgic, atmospheric creepfest just about hits the right spot.

Movie Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

Did we really need a Spider-Man reboot so soon after the Sam Raimi-shaped trilogy? Probably not, but the company behind it (Sony Pictures) did, to retain the rights to the character and to keep them from defaulting back to Marvel. Bad news for those hoping to see him join The Avengers anytime soon. And the movie may also have been needed to purge the bad taste left by Spider-Man 3, which was a major letdown after the spectacular Spider-Man 2: the people at the showing I attended even laughed out loud at what was supposed to be a very emotional death scene. And let’s collectively suppress the memory of Tobey Maguire as ‘evil’ Spidey, shall we? Repeat after me: It. Never. Happened.

In any case: The Amazing Spider-Man is actually surprisingly entertaining, considering how unnecessary the entire undertaking feels, basically retelling the superhero’s origin story again while remixing it with new elements from the Spider-Man universe. It gives us The Lizard/Dr. Curt Connors as the supervillain du jour, played by Rhys Ifans. By the way, this must be frustrating for actor Dylan Baker who lingered in the background during the Raimi trilogy as the same character, foreshadowing his ass off, fruitlessly waiting for his time center stage. Andrew Garfield makes for a younger and hipper-but-still-underdog Peter Parker and Emma Stone as Gwen Stacey is a less doe-eyed, more assertive love-interest than Kirsten Dunst was as Mary Jane Watson. Parker discovering his powers is also done better here than it was the last time, with more of a sense of wonder. Spidey’s webshooters, which were creepily organic in the previous incarnation, making for all kinds of pubescent symbolism, are mechanical and somehow less practically believable in this one.

The script is very much by the numbers and at no point was I especially surprised. Like in The Dark Knight Rises, there are big displays counting down to something bad happening, miraculous recoveries and various other unlikelihoods, but because this movie has a more playful and comic-booky feel to it, it seems to hurt less here than it did there. Nevertheless, there are some eye-rollers: I could have done without a sappy moment involving cranes that went for the heart-strings a bit too bluntly. It seemed to ape a similar, but more effective moment from Spider-Man 2. And it is odd that this version of Spider-Man still has a secret identity in the end as he finds himself without his mask in (semi-)public, quite likely within the reach of a camera. But then he doesn’t seem to be all that concerned about remaining anonymous and is soon more out of the closet about it than his predecessor was.

Where will the franchise go from here? Will it re-use the same villains or introduce new, less well-known ones? It’s worrying that The Goblin is getting set up as the villain for a future movie, considering that he wasn’t the best of villains last time, even if he is a main-stay in the comics. The first time around, the character wasn’t served well by the head-covering mask. Going up against the equally masked Spidey, there was an embarrassing whiff of Power Rangers to their fights. If he is indeed headed for this version of Spider-Man, that could spell trouble for Gwen Stacey, going by comic book lore (spoilers). But then, that infamous moment from the comics was already toyed with in the previous trilogy, so the series would be repeating itself. The question remains: will the franchise stick to safe and predictable remixes or actually throw the viewers a curve-ball and prove it has a right to exist? Fingers crossed for the latter.

Movie Review: The Dark Knight Rises

The Dark Knight Rises is the last movie in a trilogy, a series directed and crafted by Christopher Nolan. His take on the Batman legend was to make it gritty and semi-realistic, even if the situations and characters were larger than life. He made it seem psychologically plausible that a kid orphaned by crime would be motivated to spend his adult years running around in a bat costume battling dastardly villains. But the problem is that the grittiness clashes with some of the more outlandish elements of the plot this time around, making the weak spots hard to miss.

Realizing that the finale needed to be bigger in scale to meet inflated expectations, the evil scheme concocted by Batman’s adversary is truly grandiose, unlikely and riddled with plot holes. It just seems the writers didn’t really think things through or skimmed over certain bits in the hope people wouldn’t notice. Among other things: there is an ill-conceived prison, a miraculous healing (actually, make that two at minimum) and there is a chemical that degrades in such a predictable, linear manner that a big, glowing timer can predict to the second when it will suddenly turn catastrophic. This process is also explicitly noted to destabilize the substance progressively, but it stays surprisingly inert while being knocked about with vigor right before the aforementioned catastrophic moment.

All this is not to say The Dark Knight Rises is a bad movie. (I wouldn’t want to get death threats from dangerously fanatic fanboys.) It’s a bit too long but entertaining throughout and a cut above the standard summer blockbuster fare. The attention is spread nicely among a large and capable cast, Batman not even being on screen all that much. Michael Caine (Alfred the butler), Gary Oldman (Commissioner Gordon) and Morgan Freeman (Lucius Fox) all reprise their roles with enthusiasm and Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Anne Hathaway are game as a capable cop and a charming but duplicitous Catwoman respectively. Matthew Modine pops up and had me realize that I would really like to see him in a movie again, but that his character is entirely superfluous in this one. Tom Hardy makes an interesting vocal choice for his imposing muscleman of a villain, sounding like a posh English bloke. It teeters on the edge of ridiculous but works in that it sounds a bit creepy. Covering up his mouth may be in line with his comic book design and serve as a plot-device, but seems like a mistake to me: he can only emote só much with just his eyes. Christian Bale dials back his infamous gravely Batman voice and is fine both in costume and as Bruce Wayne, even if he seems to lack charm as the latter.

I was somewhat disappointed with the movie, but I think that was just because my expectations were too high. I was hoping it would be a classic, trumping the previous two movies and going all out, because a reboot seems likely after this trilogy in any case and Nolan had the opportunity to craft a definitive ending to his Batman saga. That the plot didn’t hang together all that well was an unexpected hitch. Admittedly I should have expected it, as I have heard people point out that the previous two movies also weren’t perfect in this regard, featuring plot holes I missed on first viewing. However, this time there was no missing them. The movie also didn’t flow as well as it could have by cutting some unnecessary scenes involving fringe characters and giving the villain(s) a less anti-climactic exit. I am curious to see if the next Batman film picks up on the interesting way The Dark Knight Rises leaves things or will be a straight-up reboot as happened with the Spiderman franchise. As long as there are no nipples on the Batsuit, I’ll be there to check it out.

Movie Review: Triple Bill

During a transatlantic flight, I recently watched three movies in a row on the little screen embedded in the seat in front of me. My long legs in combination with cramped Economy seating made it impossible to sleep, so I pushed through the night by focusing on the tales I was being told. In order, I saw: Men in Black 3, Snow White and the Huntsman and Dark Shadows. A short review of each seems appropriate. I won’t be commenting on cinematography though, as movies are butchered/adapted to fit on the small screen, meaning 2.35:1 (cinema size) turns into ye olde television size (4:3). Shots that show two people having a conversation turn into a succession of shots cutting back and forth between them and large parts of the screen get snipped off. I am not sure why they still do this as people are now used to watching movies in the original format on their various teensy pad-devices. In any case, here were my sleep-deprived impressions:

Men in Black 3 – Agent J (Will Smith) and Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) make as good a dynamic duo as ever, policing aliens who are living on earth undercover. Mostly they do this, it seems, by zapping them with guns that make them explode into colorful goo. There is a hitch in operations when a criminal from K’s past escapes from space-prison and wipes him out of history, necessitating that J travel to 1969 to set things right. Here he ends up working with a younger version of K, played by Josh Brolin. Seeing Brolin do a dead-on impersonation of Tommy Lee Jones is pretty much enough on its own to make this movie worth your time. MIB3 feels like a return to form after the bloated and chaotic MIB2, with a pretty tidy script that has charm, loads of comic-booky action and a sweet little twist at the end. MIB4 is already being planned and if they can make it as engaging as this chapter, I’m all for it.

Snow White and the Huntsman – This is a somewhat confused retelling of the well-known fairytale. The tone veers between gritty action and cheesy fantasy sequences. For a while it even feels like it wants to be part of the Lord of the Rings franchise. Highlight of the film is Charlize Theron’s wicked performance as the Evil Queen Ravenna and she is supported by some cool and creepy visual effects that reminded me of the Brothers Grimm origin of the Snow White story. A love-triangle is set up between Snow White, the Huntsman and her childhood best friend but this thread is left dangling completely at the end, very obviously baiting a sequel. However, making one has gotten tricky: the married director of the film (Rupert Sanders) had a much-publicized affair with his lead (Kristen Stewart) which got more publicity than the film itself and broke up Stewart with her Twilight co-star Robert Pattinson. The affair was extra-awkward as the director’s wife played an admittedly minor part as Snow White’s doomed mom. A spin-off just starring Chris Hemsworth as The Huntsman is now likely to be made instead.

Dark Shadows – This homage to a supernatural soap-series from the sixties reunites director Tim Burton with actor Johnny Depp for what was at last count the umpteenth time. Burton’s wife Helena Bonham Carter also stars, as does Michelle Pfeiffer. The basic plot: when the head of the renowned Collins family (Depp) doesn’t return a witch’s love after an ill-advised thryst, she rather creatively curses him with vampirism. He gets buried alive (or rather ‘undead’) and only by chance resurfaces a couple of hundred years later, during the swinging sixties, gaining acceptance surprisingly easily with his Collins descendants even though he undeniably looks and acts strange and is not averse to the occasional killing spree. But then, there is more than one oddball in the dysfunctional family. The witch has also survived through the centuries and continues her feud against him, his descendants and their business, which is in direct competition to hers. All she demands is his love… Dark Shadows is fun to observe, but you feel like you’re on the outside looking in at a group of actors having a hell of a good time - which admittedly is entertaining in itself - rather than getting in on the story. As with most of Burton’s movies, the designs are great, with this time a blend of gothic and sixties elements. But there’s no sympathy to be had for a character who feels only marginally guilty about killing a bunch of innocent people or for a family who turns a blind eye to it. The ending also doesn’t really satisfy and is annoyingly open. Dark Shadows is not Burton’s best, but if you just focus on the surface and don’t give the plot too much thought, it is weird and funny enough to keep you smiling during a sleep-deprived transatlantic flight while stuffed into Economy seating.

Movie Review: The Cabin in the Woods

The Cabin in the Woods is a horror movie that comes with a pedigree, albeit not one rooted in straight-up horror. Director Drew Goddard was a writer for Alias, Lost, Angel and Buffy – The Vampire Slayer, the latter two being franchises created by his co-writer on this movie: Joss Whedon. As I have already declared my devotion to The Whedon recently, I am not getting into it again, but my expectation of snappy dialogue and inventive thrills was met. The movie’s release was massively delayed (by three years) because of bankruptcy of the studio that made it (MGM) and then by a later abandoned plan to convert it to 3D, so you’ll be seeing a surprisingly young, pre-Thor Chris Hemsworth.

The Cabin in the Woods is to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre as Scream was to Halloween, although it is less afraid to completely break the format in the end. The viewer is tipped off straightaway that (s)he is watching more than just a generic teen slasher flick, by odd scenes of a couple of scientists who are gearing up for an important day at work. What that work is and how it relates to a small group of teenagers who are getting ready for a weekend of fate-tempting fun at a remote cabin, is not yet clear. I won’t reveal more to avoid spoilers, but suffice to say that from then on, there be twist upon twist. Some critics have said that there are in fact a few twists too many and that the entire thing gets a bit ridiculous. Admittedly, I’d be hard-pressed to explain the logic and exact workings of what is going on in the finale and I suspect it doesn’t hang together all that well on closer inspection. But for me, the way that things get hysterical and unapologetically over-the-top near the end is the best thing about the movie. There is a satire here with some moral points to make, but mostly The Cabin in the Woods is about laughs, gore and gallons of blood. It doesn’t expect you to take it at all seriously, just to follow along until its goofy conclusion with a grin on your face. Scares are secondary, and there wasn’t a moment that made me jump in my seat.

If the movie has a fault apart from fuzzy logic, it’s that the constant overlay of irony keeps you at a distance from the characters. You don’t feel all that invested in keeping them alive. That it just as well as it is a given that most (potentially all) of them won’t make it to the finish line, but it does leave you observing more than feeling the horror. Which fits neatly with the framework of the movie, but makes it lack emotional impact. The first third or so of the movie sticks close to horror cliché, necessary to subvert those same cliché’s later on. But on their own, the scenes moving the teenagers into position for bloodshed would have been a bit boring, only holding the attention because of the assurance that something more complex is going on.

This movie is destined to be a classic along the lines of Evil Dead, be it with a bigger budget. The writers have set themselves a bit of a challenge should the studio ask for a sequel, but then I guess a prequel that addresses some of the many questions it leaves viewers with could be interesting. However, it may be better to leave this as a one-off; an innovative pallet cleanser that reminds us that horror doesn’t just have to be a repetitive string of meaningless deaths being dropped off the conveyor belt of entertainment into your local cinema. May The Cabin in the Woods serve as an axe to the atrophied brain of the mainstream torture-porn horror genre and leave it with a fresh perspective when it rises up again. As horror always must: to explore our fascination with death and dying.

Game Review: Saint's Row: The Third

I tend to have a hard time being a bad guy in video games. Whenever there is a choice between doing something moral and something immoral I tend to go with the first, because it helps my feeling of immersion: my character is acting close to the way I imagine I would in similar, far-fetched circumstances. (Even if in reality I’m more likely to hide under the bed hoping the problem will go away.) My aspirations to Heroism and being a Good Guy hold true even if the character I’m being handed is a morally dubious anti-hero, like Niko Bellic from Grand Theft Auto IV. Though the world of GTA IV is that of a gangster movie and definitely larger than life, there still is a kind of grittiness and realism to it. Because of that, I felt bad if my car swerved and accidentally hit an innocent bystander. For the rest of the time, you were mostly killing other criminals so the violence was justified. Sort of. However, any semblance of virtual morality went straight out the window while I was playing Saint’s Row: The Third.

Saint’s Row: The Third is not surprisingly the third installment of a franchise, one which ran parallel to GTA for a while: in both series you play a gangster in a big, sprawling city that is your playground and you can engage in various criminal activities all over the place to your heart’s content. There is a storyline running through the main missions and there are optional activities that can also be played separately from the story as mini-challenges trying to beat your own initial score and to evolve your character while gaining assets. Most GTA games were somewhat serious even if they cracked more of a smile during the San Andreas and The Ballad of Gay Tony incarnations. Saint’s Row started out serious, got goofy in the second installment and in its third outing has cut ties with reality completely and exploded into an orgasmic celebration of absurdity. The game is crass, juvenile and a whole lot of fleeting fun.

It starts at full speed with a spectacular bank heist gone wrong, then sees you skydiving through the length of a plummeting plane and have a gunfight in midair while holding a teammate who is cussing you out for being an inconsiderate asshole. It plays like a parody on action movies. The story boiled down: you want to take over the city of Steelport with your gang and are eliminating competition while fighting the authorities who are trying to take you down. Absolutely no one cares about collateral damage, be it to property or civilians. To call the main concept a story - with a proper beginning, middle and end - is actually giving it too much credit; it’s more like a series of ludicrous vignettes strung together tenuously. Consequences of plot don’t impact your free-reign activities all that much. Early on you get a penthouse for you and your homies, which is later besieged and blown up. However, it is magically restored once the mission in question ends and you can still go out on the town without getting instantly apprehended.

As if the situations you end up in aren’t silly enough as-is, the game encourages you to keep pimping your character to look as odd as possible, making the cutscenes he is placed in look even more crazy. For most of the game, my counterpart was a shirtless, black muscleman with a big dragon tattoo on his chest, runny mascara under his eyes and an odd hat. He proved he could maintain a good sprint while in high heels and carrying a rocket launcher. You can also decide on the look of your gang, making them as outlandish as you feel like. However, the design of your main sidekicks, who follow you on the story missions and feature in the cutscenes, is non-negotiable and interestingly, the game does manage to make you care about them a little bit at least among the vague suggestions of a plot. This is because the voice-acting is decent and though some of the jokes fall flat, a lot of the dialogue is at least smile-worthy. I didn’t use the ‘default’ voice offered for my alter-ego, but selected one (‘Male Voice 2’) that seemed to fit better with my look as described, so I can’t judge on the quality of the other leads. The game offers three male options, three female ones and there is even a ‘zombie’ voice option, making you simply groan unintelligibly whenever you would normally speak. Have I mentioned yet that the game doesn’t take itself seriously? Special voice acting mention goes out to the woman playing the nasally radio newscaster who always reads out a drily comical synopsis of whatever crazy event just happened.

Identification with your alter-ego gets a bit complicated as he comes with a spinning moral compass. On the surface, he seems a charismatic and friendly guy who cares about and is loyal to his sidekicks. Undeniably, however, he is a drugs and arms dealing pimp and a gang leader who slaughters untold numbers of innocents in pursuit of his self-interest, without a second thought. Mass murdering psychopath just about covers it. The general populace in Steelport seems to have extremely mixed and fluid feelings about him and his gang The Saints: one moment he is a hero, the next a menace and back again. There are stores selling Saints merchandise in the game, which is likely supposed to be a cynical comment on fame.

Given the overall tone and the fact that you are being handed toys to cause mayhem on a grand scale at every turn, it is nearly impossible to resist the cathartic urge to cut loose and act like a supervillain. I bought the game during a Steam sale, bundled with some extra DLC. Among other things, I was handed a bonus car that sucks up people when you bump into them and then allows you to shoot them out from a cannon mounted to the top and a gun that shoots chum, causing a shark to burst out from the ground underneath, dragging whatever victim I was aiming at down implausibly. The game is good at delivering these short-lived visceral thrills, throwing as many of them at you as it can come up with, terrified that you will get bored. And indeed, you are always veering between excitement and boredom because a lot of it seems a bit pointless. The main missions keep throwing stuff at you as a reward, adding cars, planes, weapons, outfits, allies and strongholds to your inventory and some of these can be upgraded to be even more cool, but it starts to feel like overkill. There is much more stuff than there is use for. And the mini-challenges that are left for you to take part in all across the city once the main story runs out, lack a purpose. You’ll level up your character, take over more of the city and get even more money to buy even more stuff, but for what? The pacing seems off, the game giving you a bit too much, too soon. On the other hand, if you enjoy the game as just a violent, crazy sandbox with plenty of options to act out in, without any real context, that is what the game provides pretty much from the beginning.

Though this caricature world of bimbo’s and himbo’s is ultimately somewhat insubstantial, I did have a great time playing around in it. The fact that I finished the main missions, unlike during my GTA experiences, is an indication of that. I kept being curious about what weird stuff they would come up with next. Because it doesn’t take itself the least bit serious, I could feel guilt-free about giving in to my more Evil and destructive side. Fans of lamely funny, politically incorrect humor, bizarre flights of fancy and incoherent action will definitely get their money’s worth. It’s a shame that the narrative – such as it is – hits a brick wall ultimately: it ends with little advance warning and plenty of dangling plot threads. Probably the intent is to wrap it up in a sequel or with DLC. (EDIT: Actually, I just realized that there is an alternate ending (SPOILERS) that does provide more closure, but requires you to make a painful sacrifice.) As for how long you’ll stick around once you’ve finished the main campaign and tried all the different types of activities once or twice – probably not that long. But Saint’s Row: The Third makes for a fun and imaginative walk on the wild side while it lasts.

Movie Review: Prometheus

The scifi-horror movie Prometheus didn’t lack hype due to a very good trailer and the reunion of Ridley Scott with the Alien franchise he himself launched. What exactly the story would be was a source of much speculation. One early rumor had him rebooting the Alien-saga halfway by picking up where the second movie (James Cameron’s Aliens) left off, another had him making a prequel, explaining how the crashed spaceship that played a role in the first two movies ended up on the planet with the doomed colonists. As it happens, even after watching it, I still am not quite sure how exactly the movie ties in to the franchise. It’s indeed a prequel going by the year in which things happen and it does give some vague background on the species that crashed the spaceship, but for the rest, it’s speculation ahoy.

The condensed surface story, under which metaphors lurk: the ever-morally-ambiguous Weyland Corporation dispatches a team to investigate a faraway solar system which may give a clue on the origin of mankind. Two bright-eyed scientists whose discovery got the ball rolling, soon find out there is nefarious scheming going on and that on this mission scientific discovery is taking a back-seat or rather that it is clinging precariously to the back bumper. As one might suspect, soon everybody is in way over their heads and said heads start taking a fair amount of graphic abuse, thinning out the cast severely. In a way, the characters are asking for it as they seem to be averse to safety measures, taking off their helmets in an alien environment because it ‘seems’ safe (microbiologists will cringe), are not especially strict with quarantine and enjoy playfully teasing unknown local wildlife in a way that not surprisingly proves to be unwise. And there’s an android named David who delights in poking and prodding ancient devices without pondering the possible consequences even a little, or maybe he just doesn’t give a toss.

Prometheus starts off well and atmospheric, slowly building tension. It’s when things turns more action-packed later on that the story comes apart at the seams. I think there are two main problems. First off: the movie is bad at handling its characters. They often come across as empty vessels for the plot, behaving as they need to for the movie to end the way it does, rather than organically, taking into account logic and personality. Then again, a fair amount of the characters barely have a personality, some being so flat it’s surprising the actors manage to stay upright. The relationships between characters are also a bit sketchy. For instance, at one point noble sacrifices are made based on sparse information given by someone whose trust didn’t seem earned. (Spoilers prevent me from being more clear.) The person filling in the ‘Ripley’ role here, can’t live up to that iconic status and I am not at all sure why Guy Pearce is in the movie in dodgy old-person make-up, when it seems they could have just cast someone actually old. I’m sure there must have been a reason. As it stands, Michael Fassbender steals the show as the creepy but fascinating David, with corporate, cold-hearted Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) and charming captain Janek (Idris Elba, television’s Luther) coming in not too far behind.

The second problem is that the movie is clumsy at imparting information. Towards the end, the viewer is getting clued in about the explanation for what it going on by various characters blurting out bits of exposition. It’s not always clear how they came about their information, other than making intuitive leaps or maybe attending a not-pictured general meeting in which the crew pieced things together. However, when all is said and done, the reveal doesn’t reveal nearly enough, leaving you with a multitude of questions, about both details and the big picture. ‘But if… then how….? And why…?’ To be fair: this may have been the intent. There is enough Obvious Symbolism scattered throughout, mostly concerning Religion and Good and Evil, that it invites looking beyond the surface and speculating. The first scene of the movie doesn’t even make sense unless you go beyond what you’re being told directly. However, a more coherent and convincing surface, would have inspired more motivation to look beyond it.

Despite me being so down on Prometheus, I do recommend it, especially on a large screen in 3D. There are beautiful visuals, there is some impressive action and there are interesting concepts. Just be prepared for the storytelling to be a bit of a mess, nowhere near as simple and creepy as that of Alien and, for that matter, nowhere near as tight and streamlined as that of Aliens. It is frustrating because it feels like there is a better movie hiding inside of this one. I suspect a lot was left on the cutting room floor (speaking in ancient celluloid terms) and that at some point there may be a (much) longer version which fleshes out characters and explains apparent lapses in logic and story. But even then, there will remain some crucial moments that teeter on the edge of silliness, in particular a scene involving a nigh-magical Operate-Thyself machine, which seemingly is able to perform almost any emergency surgical procedure without having a doctor around. It is mentioned only a few were made (Why? It was too useful and life-saving?) and it is also mentioned that it is configured for a man even though the owner is Theron’s character, presumably a woman. Or is she? Oh, so many unanswered questions…

Ps: if you have seen the movie and want some answers look here. (Contains spoilers of course.)