I just watched "Pontypool" tonight, and found it to be a very cool take on the zombie movie. It's a Canadian movie (or is, at least, set in Canada) and basically has this word virus that occurs when people say two words in close succession that have similar sounds. Like "symptom" and "symbol" or "Mister" and "missing" -- that kind of thing. It triggers a kind of crazy feedback loop in the minds of the victims, turning them into zombies, basically, as their brains short-circuit and they chase others around trying to kind of "complete the circuit" or something.
Anyway, it was nice to see a fresh take on zombies! The movie focuses on a small radio station in the middle of nowhere in Canada (I'm assuming somewhere in Quebec, since French-Canadian elements pop up a few times in it), and the story is seen almost entirely from the vantage point of the characters in the little radio station, with grizzled radio star Grant Mazzy as the protagonist of it (played by Stephen McHattie, who played the Svengali-like therapist for Elaine in SEINFELD, as well as Nite Owl I in "Watchmen" among various other parts). He has a great voice for the part of a radio host, and that's a nice element in it.
The virus is haunting enough to make you a bit paranoid about the use of language -- as a writer and editor myself, I am acutely aware of the use of language, and could spot the "triggers" the moment they appeared, thinking "Oh, no!" It seems like the filmmaker was kind of making a point about the damaging effects of talk radio on some level, although this thematic point doesn't get in the way of the larger effort.
I really liked this movie, and the tension is well-maintained in it, perhaps more so because of what you don't see -- most of the zombie horror is occurring outside, beyond the sight of the characters -- which helps keep production costs down, sure, but also creates a real kind of bunker atmosphere that was claustrophobic and haunting.
The director said: "At Rue Morgue's 2008 Festival of Fear expo, director Bruce McDonald stressed the victims of the virus detailed in the film were not zombies, calling them "Conversationalists". He described the stages of the disease: There are three stages to this virus. The first stage is you might begin to repeat a word. Something gets stuck. And usually it's words that are terms of endearment like sweetheart or honey. The second stage is your language becomes scrambled and you can't express yourself properly. The third stage you become so distraught at your condition that the only way out of the situation you feel, as an infected person, is to try and chew your way through the mouth of another person."
Good times! A welcome addition to the zombie movie subgenre! And be sure to watch past the end credits!
Thursday, May 20, 2010
Severance (2006)
I watched the British horror movie/black comedy "Severance" last night, hoping it was something it wasn't. The trailers for it make it seem like it's this wry, dark comedy -- I mean, it's referred to as a horror-comedy, for fuck's sake...
"Severance" trailer
The biggest problem: NOT FUNNY.
And it's not simply a matter of an American kind of failure to appreciate British humor on my part -- if anybody understands both black comedy and dry humor, it's me. The problem was that the movie just wasn't funny -- sure, there were a few wryly amusing gags in it, but the movie just fails completely to live up to the promise of its premise. Seriously, you want horror-comedy? "Cabin Fever" delivers that aplenty. This movie doesn't.
For all of the front-end mentioning about the company retreat, there's almost no actual satire of workplace bullshittery in it. I imagine the writer pitched this movie with that otherwise solid concept and ultimately failed to offer a comedic payoff.
The characters aren't well-developed, and the situation just devolves into a hum-drum slaughterfest against some completely uninspiring villains (near as I can tell, they're pissed-off Hungarians out for revenge). The writer was clearly trying to make a political/satirical point about arms dealers getting what's coming to them by getting killed by and large by the weapons that their company makes, but it falls flat -- the writer just didn't know what to do with the premise.
For example, the nebbishy guy (in the clip above, caught in the bear trap) -- they play that moment for comedic effect by having the others try to free him, and they slip their grip on the trap, leading him to get yet another snap of the trap on his leg, making him scream all over again.
Okay, I get it -- funny on the first slip, sure. And then they do it again. And again. And again. Four times? Five? And, oh, big shock -- his leg gets severed. Ha. Ha. They overuse the joke and the nebbish doesn't even get the satisfaction of doing anything more than screaming -- he should at least get to scream out something about the people being butterfingered fuckwits or something. It's like the pie in the face -- the first pie, sure. Okay, but halve the laughs with each subsequent pie, until only the crickets are chirping.
The American protagonist in it ("Maggie") gets points for being an ass-kicking chick -- she fights hard and at least has the benefit of making the right moves at the right time (she's a stone-cold killer); there's a drugged-out Brit male character (can't remember his name -- I'll call him "Limey McGee") who also survives, but he's just a dolt and a twit -- it felt like the writer had extra-fondness for that character (maybe reminding the writer of himself? Not sure), who just gets high and trips out most of the time, and sloppily fights his way to survival before ending up with a pair of Slavic escort babes and a stated desire for a foursome at the end of the movie.
Oh, and they led off with the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park," the bastards. Of course, at that point, I didn't realize how sucky the movie was going to be, so there was still hope then.
The movie's just a drab slaughterfest, not nearly as smart or funny as it thinks it is, and it was a big disappointment. FAIL.
"Severance" trailer
The biggest problem: NOT FUNNY.
And it's not simply a matter of an American kind of failure to appreciate British humor on my part -- if anybody understands both black comedy and dry humor, it's me. The problem was that the movie just wasn't funny -- sure, there were a few wryly amusing gags in it, but the movie just fails completely to live up to the promise of its premise. Seriously, you want horror-comedy? "Cabin Fever" delivers that aplenty. This movie doesn't.
For all of the front-end mentioning about the company retreat, there's almost no actual satire of workplace bullshittery in it. I imagine the writer pitched this movie with that otherwise solid concept and ultimately failed to offer a comedic payoff.
The characters aren't well-developed, and the situation just devolves into a hum-drum slaughterfest against some completely uninspiring villains (near as I can tell, they're pissed-off Hungarians out for revenge). The writer was clearly trying to make a political/satirical point about arms dealers getting what's coming to them by getting killed by and large by the weapons that their company makes, but it falls flat -- the writer just didn't know what to do with the premise.
For example, the nebbishy guy (in the clip above, caught in the bear trap) -- they play that moment for comedic effect by having the others try to free him, and they slip their grip on the trap, leading him to get yet another snap of the trap on his leg, making him scream all over again.
Okay, I get it -- funny on the first slip, sure. And then they do it again. And again. And again. Four times? Five? And, oh, big shock -- his leg gets severed. Ha. Ha. They overuse the joke and the nebbish doesn't even get the satisfaction of doing anything more than screaming -- he should at least get to scream out something about the people being butterfingered fuckwits or something. It's like the pie in the face -- the first pie, sure. Okay, but halve the laughs with each subsequent pie, until only the crickets are chirping.
The American protagonist in it ("Maggie") gets points for being an ass-kicking chick -- she fights hard and at least has the benefit of making the right moves at the right time (she's a stone-cold killer); there's a drugged-out Brit male character (can't remember his name -- I'll call him "Limey McGee") who also survives, but he's just a dolt and a twit -- it felt like the writer had extra-fondness for that character (maybe reminding the writer of himself? Not sure), who just gets high and trips out most of the time, and sloppily fights his way to survival before ending up with a pair of Slavic escort babes and a stated desire for a foursome at the end of the movie.
Oh, and they led off with the Small Faces' "Itchycoo Park," the bastards. Of course, at that point, I didn't realize how sucky the movie was going to be, so there was still hope then.
The movie's just a drab slaughterfest, not nearly as smart or funny as it thinks it is, and it was a big disappointment. FAIL.
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
The Devil's Rejects (1/2)
I watched some of "The Devil's Rejects" last night, before falling asleep (yeah, it put me to sleep). Rob Zombie is an acknowledged fan of Horror, but watching that movie (or what I did of it), I knew that being a fan of Horror and being able to actually write and/or direct a horror movie is a very different thing.
What I saw of it was mean-spirited and icky -- there's clearly money behind it, because it doesn't look cheap, but there's just something terribly foul (and dirt-cheap) in this movie -- good horror confronts the viewer with the sublime, and there's simply nothing sublime in this movie. There is misogyny, cruelty, foulness, barbarity -- and there is a sense of editorial approval on the part of Zombie for the villains (they're too repugnant to even be considered "antiheroes"). It's weird to imagine the raw cynicism at work in the filming of this movie, like the aesthetics of pretend depravity -- "Oh, I was Naked Girl Corpse Number 1 in "The Devil's Rejects"). And there's precious little humor in it -- it appears to take itself very seriously, and that misses out on a vital element of horror: HUMOR. Even black humor is humorous, and this movie piles on the carnage without a lick of humor in it (it reminds me a bit of oh-so-serious Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" -- which also took itself incredibly seriously as it bludgeoned the audience into submission, while pretending to be offering some kind of cogent social commentary). The victims of the "Rejects" aren't deserving targets -- they are unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time. Horrific, sure, but Horror? No. The character of Captain Spaulding brings only the barest whiff of humor to the story, and even that is just a tiny whiff that gets overshadowed in the bloodbath.
My intuitive sense of Zombie in this movie is someone with the means to indulge his enthusiasm for the genre, without having the narrative, intellectual, or aesthetic chops to really pull it off. Now, I haven't seen the rest of the movie, but what I saw of it was fucking dreadful -- horrible people doing horrible things to people -- that kind of inverted ethic where fans of this are supposed to identify (?) with the killers at the expense of the victims (?) -- not sure where he was taking it, whether the trip is worth taking, and so on.
I enjoy Horror, but to me, this wasn't really Horror -- it's the same reason I avoid so-called "Splatterpunk" and "Torture Porn" and the whole "Saw" franchise. Popping people into the meatgrinder isn't Horror in my view, although it is surely horrific. Maybe my intrinsic sense of righteousness demands that the evil be punished, and the lead characters in this movie most definitely need to be napalmed -- and I'm not entirely sure that this'll even happen.
Movies like "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" are, while not marketed as such, most definitely Horror movies (and horrific) -- they call forth a monstrous dread in the viewer, invoke Terror and Horror in graphic ways -- but there is enough character weight in these harrowing movies to carry the audience through. Since the killers are the nominal protagonists of this movie, there is nobody to identify with (except for sympathy for the victims and the actors starring in this movie). It's very dehumanizing.
Horror, for all of its reputation, is not a dehumanizing genre -- it actually places a huge and high value on humanity, and approaches issues of what makes us human by exploring the horrors of Man and Nature. None of that is evident in this movie.
(I'll comment on the rest of it after I've watched it, which I'm only doing out of a sense of narrative closure -- judging from the front end of it, I think I know what's coming on the back end)
What I saw of it was mean-spirited and icky -- there's clearly money behind it, because it doesn't look cheap, but there's just something terribly foul (and dirt-cheap) in this movie -- good horror confronts the viewer with the sublime, and there's simply nothing sublime in this movie. There is misogyny, cruelty, foulness, barbarity -- and there is a sense of editorial approval on the part of Zombie for the villains (they're too repugnant to even be considered "antiheroes"). It's weird to imagine the raw cynicism at work in the filming of this movie, like the aesthetics of pretend depravity -- "Oh, I was Naked Girl Corpse Number 1 in "The Devil's Rejects"). And there's precious little humor in it -- it appears to take itself very seriously, and that misses out on a vital element of horror: HUMOR. Even black humor is humorous, and this movie piles on the carnage without a lick of humor in it (it reminds me a bit of oh-so-serious Oliver Stone's "Natural Born Killers" -- which also took itself incredibly seriously as it bludgeoned the audience into submission, while pretending to be offering some kind of cogent social commentary). The victims of the "Rejects" aren't deserving targets -- they are unfortunates in the wrong place at the wrong time. Horrific, sure, but Horror? No. The character of Captain Spaulding brings only the barest whiff of humor to the story, and even that is just a tiny whiff that gets overshadowed in the bloodbath.
My intuitive sense of Zombie in this movie is someone with the means to indulge his enthusiasm for the genre, without having the narrative, intellectual, or aesthetic chops to really pull it off. Now, I haven't seen the rest of the movie, but what I saw of it was fucking dreadful -- horrible people doing horrible things to people -- that kind of inverted ethic where fans of this are supposed to identify (?) with the killers at the expense of the victims (?) -- not sure where he was taking it, whether the trip is worth taking, and so on.
I enjoy Horror, but to me, this wasn't really Horror -- it's the same reason I avoid so-called "Splatterpunk" and "Torture Porn" and the whole "Saw" franchise. Popping people into the meatgrinder isn't Horror in my view, although it is surely horrific. Maybe my intrinsic sense of righteousness demands that the evil be punished, and the lead characters in this movie most definitely need to be napalmed -- and I'm not entirely sure that this'll even happen.
Movies like "Straw Dogs" and "Deliverance" are, while not marketed as such, most definitely Horror movies (and horrific) -- they call forth a monstrous dread in the viewer, invoke Terror and Horror in graphic ways -- but there is enough character weight in these harrowing movies to carry the audience through. Since the killers are the nominal protagonists of this movie, there is nobody to identify with (except for sympathy for the victims and the actors starring in this movie). It's very dehumanizing.
Horror, for all of its reputation, is not a dehumanizing genre -- it actually places a huge and high value on humanity, and approaches issues of what makes us human by exploring the horrors of Man and Nature. None of that is evident in this movie.
(I'll comment on the rest of it after I've watched it, which I'm only doing out of a sense of narrative closure -- judging from the front end of it, I think I know what's coming on the back end)
Monday, May 17, 2010
Cabin Fever
It's nice to see that Eli Roth's "Cabin Fever" (2002) still remains one of my favorite horror movies. It's dark, gruesome, and darkly hilarious. It has some of my all-time favorite horror movie moments, including this one...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMS9Rv3ksrU&feature=related
Bahaha! In the context of the movie (where some college kids go off to a cabin and get infected by a mysterious and horrible disease that picks them off one by one), it's just too perfect a set up, and the group cohesion falls apart as they're confronted with their own mortality. There are some very memorable images from it
Of course, it's not some sensitive Emo fable -- rather, it's a darkly funny exercise in mayhem, and nothing is sacred. It's got some stupid elements in it, it's got some funny-as-hell elements in it, and it's got some seriously horrific elements in it -- basically, a good time IF you enjoy horror movies.
I finally got it on DVD over the weekend, after not having seen it for years (and often touting "Harmonica Man" from it, which is, sadly, not properly shown on YouTube), and was pleased that I enjoyed it as much or more as I did the first times I saw it.
The asshole characters are extra assholish, and the plague falls on the just and unjust in roughly equal measure, coupled with rogue rednecks on the rampage (itself a bit of a wink-and-nod at the preconceptions of the characters).
It's fun, it's funny, and it's horrifying, and in a culture that runs from death and disease as much as ours does (I mean, who wouldn't want to run away from death and disease, right?) -- it hits a nice nerve, and bravo to Roth for tapping it (and the mean-spirited nature of the protagonists in it amuses me, too -- the selfishness of youth?)
Some horror fans I know hate this movie, but I think they're wrong -- it's all kinds of good, and you can't help but laugh while you're busy grimacing and squirming from it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMS9Rv3ksrU&feature=related
Bahaha! In the context of the movie (where some college kids go off to a cabin and get infected by a mysterious and horrible disease that picks them off one by one), it's just too perfect a set up, and the group cohesion falls apart as they're confronted with their own mortality. There are some very memorable images from it
Of course, it's not some sensitive Emo fable -- rather, it's a darkly funny exercise in mayhem, and nothing is sacred. It's got some stupid elements in it, it's got some funny-as-hell elements in it, and it's got some seriously horrific elements in it -- basically, a good time IF you enjoy horror movies.
I finally got it on DVD over the weekend, after not having seen it for years (and often touting "Harmonica Man" from it, which is, sadly, not properly shown on YouTube), and was pleased that I enjoyed it as much or more as I did the first times I saw it.
The asshole characters are extra assholish, and the plague falls on the just and unjust in roughly equal measure, coupled with rogue rednecks on the rampage (itself a bit of a wink-and-nod at the preconceptions of the characters).
It's fun, it's funny, and it's horrifying, and in a culture that runs from death and disease as much as ours does (I mean, who wouldn't want to run away from death and disease, right?) -- it hits a nice nerve, and bravo to Roth for tapping it (and the mean-spirited nature of the protagonists in it amuses me, too -- the selfishness of youth?)
Some horror fans I know hate this movie, but I think they're wrong -- it's all kinds of good, and you can't help but laugh while you're busy grimacing and squirming from it.
Book: The Ruins
I may link to some of my older Amazon reviews, just for fun, before sorting out future reviews with Amazon...
http://www.amazon.com/review/R12WIRUEI41UZD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
http://www.amazon.com/review/R12WIRUEI41UZD/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm
Friday, May 14, 2010
Music: Swervedriver remasters
I love Swervedriver, and when I saw that they were reissuing their albums as remasters, I jumped on that, more out of a show of support for the band (and really, really wanting them to turn out new material -- hint, hint?) -- not because I needed the albums (which I already have), or even the additional tracks (there are four on each of the albums I bought -- "Raise" and "Mezcal Head" -- which have some of their best tracks). But I was secretly hoping that the remasters would really make the albums even better than they had been in the past (as was the case with the remastered "The Who Sell Out," the Small Faces's "Ogden's Nut Gone Flake" mono remaster, and the New York Dolls's remastered debut album [which is the best remaster I've yet encountered -- it's fantastic if you run across it -- like a whole new album]).
Anyway, I was disappointed that the Swervie remasters don't sound different from the original albums -- they may indeed be remasters, but if so, the producers did so with a very, very light hand, as I can't honestly discern anything new. I tend to listen to my music with headphones, so any changes are immediately apparent (again, in the case of the three excellent remasters above, it's very, very clear that they were improved), and I just didn't pick those up on these.
But I would still recommend them if you've never heard Swervedriver before (I would also recommend "Ejector Seat Reservation," which is one of the best albums of the 90s, not that anybody would know it). If you have the older Swervie albums, there's not much reason to get these remasters, unless you just want to support the band in some way, shape, or form (or, for some reason, don't have the bonus tracks).
Anyway, I was disappointed that the Swervie remasters don't sound different from the original albums -- they may indeed be remasters, but if so, the producers did so with a very, very light hand, as I can't honestly discern anything new. I tend to listen to my music with headphones, so any changes are immediately apparent (again, in the case of the three excellent remasters above, it's very, very clear that they were improved), and I just didn't pick those up on these.
But I would still recommend them if you've never heard Swervedriver before (I would also recommend "Ejector Seat Reservation," which is one of the best albums of the 90s, not that anybody would know it). If you have the older Swervie albums, there's not much reason to get these remasters, unless you just want to support the band in some way, shape, or form (or, for some reason, don't have the bonus tracks).
Defendor
So, I watched "Defendor" last night, under the pretense that it was some kind of darkly comic take on superheroes (kind of, I don't know, "Mystery Men" meets "Taxi Driver" or something). The trailer certainly makes it seem like that...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7ur4ji7r8
But no. It's not like that at all. The trailer is misleading. I'm not even going to put a spoiler warning in this, because there's nothing to spoil. Woody does a good job with his character, but he goes almost "full retard" on it (to coin the term thrown out in "Tropic Thunder") -- Arthur Poppington in it is a serious mental defective and/or mentally-ill guy who's a nitwit wannabe do-gooder. There's more than a little "Don Quixote" in this quest for justice, with the prostitute/junkie played by Kat Denning as his Sancho Panza -- alternately, Arthur is Jesus and Kat Denning's character is Mary Magdalene. There are plenty of "This Is Jesus" movies out there, where a simple-but-good character offers some redemption for a dirty, ugly world (typically by dying). It's been done and done.
This movie is at war with what it's trying to say -- the comedic possibilities of it are completely undermined by the obvious handicaps of Arthur. The guy needs institutionalization or at least a halfway house. The weight of his moral crusade is offset by his near-inability to really clearly see reality around him -- that's the Don Quixote in the mix. Captain Industry is his image of evil, and he fixates on this Serbian crimelord (who could be windmill or Satan, you choose) as Captain Industry, and tries to go after him bravely, and stupidly, and becomes martryed -- inspiring people in the world around him to do and be better people.
The bad guys are just footnotes in the movie -- they're bad because they're bad, and we don't see much of them, not nearly enough. Kat (I'm not even digging again for her character's name, it's too much work) is the snarky hooker with a heart of gold who gloms onto Defendor for some reason. Blah blah blah.
I read that this was director (and writer) Peter Stebbing's first effort, and it shows in my view -- the narrative is just off, the characterizations are off, the pacing is bad, the movie doesn't know what it's trying to be (except, as I see it, a vaguely Catholic Christ-influenced superhero narrative in the mold of, say, "Constantine," "Hellboy," "The Crow," "Dogma," "Forrest Gump," "The Matrix," and probably "Legion" -- although I didn't see that last one). Movies with that emphasis you can kind of spot because the people in it area invariably wretches kind of at odds with life and with themselves, and are, in some way, shape, and form, healed by the redemptive power of the nitwit Messiah and his sacrifice.
I would have preferred it to have been more like "Taxi Driver" if it wanted to be serious; or more like "Mystery Men" if it wanted to be funny. But while it's framed as an action/comedy-drama, there is precious little comedy in it, and while it strives for some kind of poignancy, it just amounts to a stupid man going up against evil men, and in his stupidity (while condemning himself to death), manages to bring them to justice.
To fix the movie, I'd have increased the pacing of it, the dramatic structure, made it either funny or serious (or at least seriously funny), would have aced Kat Denning's pointless character and upped the role of the friend who cares for his half-retarded buddy, Arthur, and would have beefed up the roles of the villains in it considerably.
Anyway, don't see it expecting it to be funny or exciting (e.g., action) because it's not. Apparently the studios wouldn't touch this movie because they found it difficult to characterize, and that was a wise move on their parts -- some things things are difficult to characterize because they're visionary; other things are difficult to characterize because they suck. This is the latter. It doesn't suck completely -- it could have been good, but it needed serious work on the script to actually flow properly.
Watch "The Crow" -- it's a far better movie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=do7ur4ji7r8
But no. It's not like that at all. The trailer is misleading. I'm not even going to put a spoiler warning in this, because there's nothing to spoil. Woody does a good job with his character, but he goes almost "full retard" on it (to coin the term thrown out in "Tropic Thunder") -- Arthur Poppington in it is a serious mental defective and/or mentally-ill guy who's a nitwit wannabe do-gooder. There's more than a little "Don Quixote" in this quest for justice, with the prostitute/junkie played by Kat Denning as his Sancho Panza -- alternately, Arthur is Jesus and Kat Denning's character is Mary Magdalene. There are plenty of "This Is Jesus" movies out there, where a simple-but-good character offers some redemption for a dirty, ugly world (typically by dying). It's been done and done.
This movie is at war with what it's trying to say -- the comedic possibilities of it are completely undermined by the obvious handicaps of Arthur. The guy needs institutionalization or at least a halfway house. The weight of his moral crusade is offset by his near-inability to really clearly see reality around him -- that's the Don Quixote in the mix. Captain Industry is his image of evil, and he fixates on this Serbian crimelord (who could be windmill or Satan, you choose) as Captain Industry, and tries to go after him bravely, and stupidly, and becomes martryed -- inspiring people in the world around him to do and be better people.
The bad guys are just footnotes in the movie -- they're bad because they're bad, and we don't see much of them, not nearly enough. Kat (I'm not even digging again for her character's name, it's too much work) is the snarky hooker with a heart of gold who gloms onto Defendor for some reason. Blah blah blah.
I read that this was director (and writer) Peter Stebbing's first effort, and it shows in my view -- the narrative is just off, the characterizations are off, the pacing is bad, the movie doesn't know what it's trying to be (except, as I see it, a vaguely Catholic Christ-influenced superhero narrative in the mold of, say, "Constantine," "Hellboy," "The Crow," "Dogma," "Forrest Gump," "The Matrix," and probably "Legion" -- although I didn't see that last one). Movies with that emphasis you can kind of spot because the people in it area invariably wretches kind of at odds with life and with themselves, and are, in some way, shape, and form, healed by the redemptive power of the nitwit Messiah and his sacrifice.
I would have preferred it to have been more like "Taxi Driver" if it wanted to be serious; or more like "Mystery Men" if it wanted to be funny. But while it's framed as an action/comedy-drama, there is precious little comedy in it, and while it strives for some kind of poignancy, it just amounts to a stupid man going up against evil men, and in his stupidity (while condemning himself to death), manages to bring them to justice.
To fix the movie, I'd have increased the pacing of it, the dramatic structure, made it either funny or serious (or at least seriously funny), would have aced Kat Denning's pointless character and upped the role of the friend who cares for his half-retarded buddy, Arthur, and would have beefed up the roles of the villains in it considerably.
Anyway, don't see it expecting it to be funny or exciting (e.g., action) because it's not. Apparently the studios wouldn't touch this movie because they found it difficult to characterize, and that was a wise move on their parts -- some things things are difficult to characterize because they're visionary; other things are difficult to characterize because they suck. This is the latter. It doesn't suck completely -- it could have been good, but it needed serious work on the script to actually flow properly.
Watch "The Crow" -- it's a far better movie.
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