TRAIN TO BUSAN Review

I just heard about TRAIN TO BUSAN about 4 hours before writing this review. One of my favorite websites, io9, mentioned a movie that they described as “Zombies on a Train.” Being a horror movie fan, and having a particular warm spot for zombies, this piqued my interest. Living in Hawaii, I assumed it wouldn’t come here. But io9 luckily provided the movie’s website which had a list of all the theatres it was playing at. I looked through and saw that Hawaii did, in fact, have 1 theatre showing the film. I checked movie times and saw one last show of the night was in 45 minutes. The theatre was 40 minutes away, so I grabbed my keys and started driving.

From the trailer I expected to have a great time with the film. Anytime you throw zombies in a movie you have to expect a lot of silliness. But I’m a fan of the silly horror movies as long as they’re fun and not completely insulting my intelligence. And I’ve been let down by a premise such as “Zombies on a Train” before… I’m looking at you Snakes on a Plane… I’m glad to say that TRAIN TO BUSAN delivers exactly what you’d expect: Fun, savage zombie carnage. But what I didn’t expect was to be emotionally drawn into the film.

Yes. You read that correctly. This is something a lot of American horror movies lack. A heart. It’s one reason why most horror films suck. We don’t get attached to the characters so when the horror happens we don’t feel anything. Horror films that focus only on the scares or the gore aren’t as fun because we have no connection and therefore no stakes in anything going on. It’s very similar with action films.

One thing I must clarify is these aren’t slow zombies. No. These are fast zombies that the DAWN OF THE DEAD remake popularized. Not as absurd as WORLD WAR Z zombies. It’s more along the lines of 28 DAYS LATER. The infection spreads quickly and causes some very weird, yet cool reanimations. Some don’t even get a chance to die before turning. But those that do have frightening twitches before almost leaping up on their feet. If the movie hadn’t already pulled me in at this point then it could have easily come off as silly.

I have to come back to this because it’s so important to why this film works so damn well. I cared about these characters. A lot. This is a horror movie, a zombie flick, and it pulled tears out of my eyes. Yes. A silly zombie movie made me shed tears. Not just once, either. It not only has its main character have a fully fleshed out arc, but some of the side characters get their great moments and a few get some nice arcs as well. I didn’t care for all the characters that were around the main 2, but the majority of the core set were great. There is a “villain” (for lack of a better word) who is too cliché and annoying. I hated that one character. I know we’re supposed to, and it is a realistic character given the situation. But I think it could have been handled better. Thematically it works, though. The movie does stress the importance of selflessness and even takes a scene to show how dangerous irrational fear can be in one of my favorite scenes of the movie.

I know I haven’t talked much about the action. Don’t worry, I will. The action is great. The scares are great. But I can’t emphasize enough about how much this movie really benefits from having that strong emotional core. I really wish more movies, especially American horror and action films, would really learn from movies like this and take the time to establish a strong connection as a foundation for the action.

Now with that said, when TRAIN starts chugging along (I had to throw in one of these) it is exciting as hell. Wonderfully staged set pieces ranging from all hell breaking loose at a train station, guys having to fight their way through several train cars full of zombies, a couple times running after a train to get on, and even trying to sneak passed the zombies. It’s all incredibly exciting. The action set pieces are fun while the more tense scenes kept my knuckles in my mouth.

The zombies are frightening. The make up for the zombies is fantastic. The way they all moved was really unnerving. It’s also the first zombie movie I’ve seen (other than SHAUN OF THE DEAD) that actually refers to the zombies as zombies. Think about it. When was the last time you heard a zombie movie use the word “zombie.” Granted, it only uses the word once and it isn’t spoken, but I was glad it still put that in there. But it doesn’t assume you know anything about zombies. Which brings me to another point that American films are becoming very poor at…

Show, don’t tell. You get turned into a zombie by being bitten. Yet not one character ever says this. One of the first zombies we see doesn’t start as one. She’s a regular person with a bit mark on her leg. Now, if you’ve seen a zombie movie before you already know what’s going to happen. But the movie uses this scene to establish this. It puts the bite mark center frame. Then shows the character suffer and die. Then the character gets reanimated and immediately attacks the closest person. Within moments that person dies and shortly after reanimates and attacks the next person. This establishes how the infection spreads and how quickly it takes effect and what the infection does. Other characters see this but there’s never a moment in the film where two characters say to each other “I think it spreads through the bites.” It doesn’t say this BECAUSE IT JUST SHOWED US! And it showed the characters seeing it happen.

Even though BUSAN has some faults. Some of the CG is kind of bad. Never terrible to the point where it took me out of the film, but noticeable. I can’t really comment much on the acting with it being a foreign film, but I did believe all the actors. And sometimes the score was a little off for the scene. But none of that matters too much as BUSAN is just so much fun. TRAIN TO BUSAN is fun zombie carnage for those who just want the excitement with a meatier emotional core who want something more filling. One of my favorite films of the year.

HIGHEST RECOMMENDATION

Original post HERE

DAY 5 (Web Series) Review

This week I was mulling over which movie I wanted to review. JASON BOURNE was the first pick, but almost everything I’ve heard about it was pretty bad. Then I thought about BAD MOMS or NERVE... then I realized I have to do laundry and I think that’s more important. So what’s something I can review from home that’s fairly new? Oh yeah, DAY 5 is approaching its season finale this Sunday, why not that?

I may be a bit biased as I’ve been a fan of Rooster Teeth for well over a decade. Almost right after moving to Hawaii a friend showed me an episode of Red Vs Blue and I became immediately hooked. I’ve seen the company grow from just a few guys making a little Halo series to a full blown multi-million dollar company with their own expo. It’s been a wild ride. So, of course I’m always excited about everything they do and most of their content is at least really good. So when I saw they were doing a post-apocalyptic web series, I was on board.

DAY 5 was conceived mostly as a way to make an apocalypse film on a low budget. The premise is that one day, sleep became fatal. If you fall asleep, you die. If you’ve ever tried staying away for more than a day, you know not only how hard it is but what it does to you. So to make sleep fatal is pretty scary.

As the title suggests, the show takes place 5 days after this event occurred. So all the characters in the show have been awake for a while. Each person has their own reason why. The lead character, Jake was on a drug bender, Sam, the first person Jake meets, is a young kid who we never really get a reason why. Ally was working a graveyard shift at a hospital, and Ellis was a pilot for a red eye flight. They all come together by chance, but Ellis thinks he may know how they can find the origin of what caused the event.

Each episode is a lot bigger than Rooster Teeth has done before. Typically going with 5-15 minute episode web series, DAY 5 clocks each episode at around 45 minutes. It’s quite a task, and it does show that they are fairly new to this format. Not all the seams are ironed out and there are some pacing issues with each episode. But the guys at Rooster Teeth are competent filmmakers. They know how to get some really nice shots, set up scenes, and write really good, dynamic characters.

Comedy has always been RT’s strongest attribute. The majority of RT’s content is comedy and DAY 5 is a full on drama. There is a lot of comedy in the show to keep it grounded and the characters relatable, but it’s focused more on making you care about what’s happening rather than making you laugh. And, for the most part, I do. I want to see what’s causing the phenomena. I want to see these characters make it through this. I’m worried when things get difficult.

While DAY 5 does some pretty cool things with its concept I don’t think it did enough with it. If you’ve ever stayed away for an entire day or even tried to go for 2 you know how crazy you feel. The physical exhaustion is one thing, but you start to get delirious. Visual and audible hallucinating is very common for people with sleep deprivation. Knowing that even if you lay down you may close your eyes and die might drive you to do crazy things. And there’s episodes that touch on these things, but it feels more like an episode gimmick than an ongoing thing. And for people who’ve been awake for 5 days they’re pretty well focused for the most part. I just wish it did a bit more with the side effects rather than just flash them for an episode then leave it at that.

DAY 5 is a short series. 5 episodes (plus one side story short) are out right now and the 6th and final episode releases Sunday. The show’s far from perfect. But it’s fresh take on the apocalypse and does some pretty fun things for a low budget show. It’s also short enough to where it doesn’t outstay its welcome or the idea well dries up.

RECOMMENDED

Original post HERE
Watch DAY 5 HERE

STAR TREK BEYOND

The new Star Trek universe has had some major ups and downs. Coming right out of the gate with a bang, STAR TREK was a fantastic film. Not just for Star Trek fans, but for new fans as well. J.J. Abrams, for better and worse, made Star Trek a lot of fun. It put more emphasis on the spectacle rather than the science. This does cause some disappointment with long-time fans (rightfully so). But still, that first film is a solid 9/10.

The second Star Trek movie, INTO DARKNESS, was a real mess. What made it worse was the producers and Director J.J. Abrams himself lied to fans. The whole "It's not Khan" then it turns out that was a lie and it was Khan. While that itself doesn't really take away from the film, the film itself just doesn't make much sense. It's way too much spectacle for spectacle's sake and too little about the characters and focuses too much on nostalgia and "Hey, know how they did this in Star Trek before? Now we doing the same thing, but opposite." Just a mess and a movie I have no desire to revisit. 4/10

So that brings us to STAR TREK BEYOND. I was hesitant to say the least. I really didn't like the previous film and was worried this was going to be a one-off franchise trying to milk it as long as it possibly can like ICE AGE. Bringing aboard Justin Lin from the FAST AND FURIOUS franchise was a nice touch along with Simon Pegg on co-writing details. It made me cautiously optimistic about the film. Sure enough, it's light years BEYOND... sorry... ahead of STID, but it doesn't have that magic that the reboot had.

Half of BEYOND works incredibly while while the other half bounces between competent and messy. First thing that comes to mind is how beautiful the film looks. The visual detail is astounding. The nebulas, planets, spaceship interiors, all look great. The stand out visual piece was the space station called Yorktown -- kind of an odd name, but whatever. It reminded me of the Citadel from the Mass Effect series. A hub for the enterprise with a weird gravitational setup. While I understood why the Citadel basically used centripetal force to make its gravity the way it was, Yorktown just seemed kind of odd. Visually it's amazing. But the science side of me just questions the logic behind it. And when it kind of gets explained I guess it works, but I still am not sure if I buy it. But most of that was afterthought and when the movie was going on I just accepted it.

One major criticism by Trekkies is the new universe is trying too hard to be Star Wars. And if you don't understand what that means, it basically means they're turning more into action movies than science-fiction movies. And this criticism isn't wrong. Even though it's not as true as STID. For me, I'm all for it. It does need to smooth its direction out a little bit more, but it's getting a lot better. Most of the action set pieces are stunning. The main problem is when it gets to hand-to-hand combat. The series has had terrible fight sequences. They're just awful. BEYOND does nothing to help. In fact, it may be the worst. Every fight scene is shot way too close and way too shaky and cut way too quick to get a feel for what's going on. There is one fight scene that is decently shot, but it suffers from other problems. One of the new characters mentions a key moment of her past which sets up a fight with the main villain's right-hand. But because we have no idea who any of the villains are (more on this in a bit) when the time comes for this fight to happen I had no idea why it was so important. Then the characters have a face-to-face moment and mentions something and it clicks. But this is bad. When you have a character moment like this, a character facing the actual thing that has shaped who that character is to this point, you need to make the stakes completely clear BEFORE you get to the actual moment.

Which leads me to the problem with the villains. What the villains got right was their threat. These guys are not to be messed with. They will wreck you. Completely. It's a terrifying threat. Not just because they have the capability to completely destroy everything you own. But the ways they are able to do it are terrifying. And there's several ways some of the hero's fodder bite the dust. Let's face it, even with real threats, you know in a franchise like this the main characters are safe, even if you don't feel it in the moment. And this movie does that really well. Even though you KNOW Kirk and Spock and Chekov and Scottie, and everyone else are going to live. You still feel that tension. I'll call that a big plus for the villains.

However, the villains themselves, while intimidating, are really bland. Idris Elba is one of my favorite actors and I feel he is kind of wasted here. He does a fine job, but the character is so basic, and his backstory isn't revealed until so late, that I just didn't really care for him. I get him. I understand him (kinda). But I don't care. But that's fine because the threat he poses is real enough to be worried. Oh, and he has a bunch of henchmen. Two I think get names, but I couldn't tell you what they were. You won't really care anyway.

Side note: this may just be me, but every time they said the villain's name "Krall" I kept visualizing Pauly Shore... If you get why... *high five*

I also want to note the movie sometimes assumes things of its audience. There's a key point in the film where a main character has a revelation about another character because of a small detail. It seems like a complete stretch unless you know that that character is really good at that particular thing. I know that seems vague, but giving details would be a minor spoiler. But this is a detail not established in this film. It was a detail established 2 films ago. So unless you saw that film, and cared enough about that character to know that about them, this would seem like reaching. This could have been resolved if earlier in the film they had this character do this as part of that character's job then you'd be like "OK. That makes sense."

I know that seems like nit-picking, and it kind of is. But the movie has several small moments like this. While each individual moment isn't enough to knock the film too much, it does show either some lazy writing or just missing it in some proof reads.

Most importantly, though, the movie is a lot of fun. That was the main failings of STID, it was boring. Here, the characters are fun again. There's heart to the movie. You care about what's going on -- even if it does get illogical at times. And the movie is funny. Making Simon Pegg a writer was a brilliant move that gave so much life to this film. So many small, funny moments really bring life to the film. My favorite one being when they had Beastie Boys playing (which was relevant to the plot) one character asked "Is this classical music?" This is brilliant not just as a great joke, but it's great world-building.

STAR TREK BEYOND definitely takes steps in the right direction for this franchise even if it's not quite yet on the right path. It makes me rather excited for the next entry which is a relief given how I almost gave up after STID. A great popcorn flick for the summer despite some glaring flaws. Probably going to get this on Blu-ray when it comes out.

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