Fractured (2019) (4 Stars)

This is a Netflix original film, made in 2019. I regret not having been able to see it on the big screen, but the bottom line is that a good film is a good film. Since March I haven't been able to see any films on the big screen anyway. The last film I watched in the cinema was "Ip Man 4" on 10th March in UFA-Palast Stuttgart. Three days later the city of Stuttgart ordered all cinemas to close immediately to prevent the spread of Coronavirus. (This was a local measure. Cinemas in the surrounding towns didn't close until a week later).

Now it's been announced that all cinemas throughout Baden-Württemberg, including Stuttgart, are allowed to re-open on Thursday 4th June, as long as certain conditions are upheld to protect their guests. I don't know the exact conditions, but one thing I know is that UFA-Palast won't be re-opening. The owners announced this morning that they're in financial difficulties because of the two month closure. They're not attempting to save their cinema, they're giving up. So far no other company has expressed any interest in taking over the cinema. That's a real shame, and it's harmful to Stuttgart's film fans. It was the biggest cinema in Stuttgart, with 13 screens and 4300 seats. It specialised in showing blockbusters, the big American films, but it was the only cinema in Stuttgart that showed "Ip Man 4".

But now let's get back to "Fractured"...

Ray Monroe is driving home with his wife and five-year-old daughter Peri after an unpleasant Thanksgiving meal with his parents-in-law. People are supposed to be thankful at this time of year, but it doesn't always work out that way. Arguments can happen any time of year. Ray suggests that they celebrate again when they get home, just the three of them.

They stop at a gas station so that Peri can use the rest room. When Peri is returning to the car she's threatened by a dog. She backs away and falls into a pit. Ray tries to stop her and falls in as well, banging his head and falling unconscious. A few minutes later his wife wakes him. He's unharmed, apart from a few small cuts, but Peri has broken her arm, so he drives her to a small hospital that they passed on the way.

This is where the film begins to get weird. Despite being in an isolated location, the emergency room is full of patients, with ambulances arriving regularly. There's a long wait before Peri can be checked in. Eventually, Peri is sent for a CAT scan to check for any signs of internal head injury. Only one person is allowed to accompany her into the theatre, so Ray goes back to wait in reception while his wife goes in with his daughter.

Ray falls asleep and sleeps for hours. When he wakes up and inquires about his daughter, he's told that there's no record of her being checked in. It's a different shift, so nobody has seen him or his family. When he finally finds a nurse he spoke to who's on a double shift, she says she remembers him, but not his wife and daughter. Ray becomes frustrated and angry, as any man would under such circumstances, so the hospital security guards eject him. He sees two police officers outside and asks them for help. At first they assist him, but they lose their patience with him when all the evidence points against him.

This is a chilling psychological thriller. It's easy to relate to Ray. How would you react if this happened to you?

The film hasn't been released on disc and can only be watched on Netflix.

Clash of the Titans [2010] (4 Stars)

It's getting very difficult for me to write reviews at the moment. The people I'm living with are panicking. The first Coronavirus case has been reported in the village where I live. As a result a doctor's surgery has had to be closed until the staff have been tested.

People are afraid of dying. Why? I don't see any logic in the fear of death. If you're a religious person, you know what's going to happen after you die, so you can make plans for it today. To use religious jargon, "Get right with God".

If you're an atheist, you know that there's nothing after death. Dead is dead, so why worry about it? If you die you won't even know you're dead.

Maybe the problem is that you believe in a fickle, unpredictable God waiting for you after your death. That's the situation in "Clash of the Titans". Zeus created man, and he even says that he loves man, but he's selfish and does what he wants. So the crops fail two years in a row, even though the farmers prayed to him? Sorry, he was too busy chasing virgins to listen to prayers. And when you die you're in the hands of Hades, a cruel God who's fuelled only by his hatred for Zeus.

But nobody believes in Zeus and Hades today, do they? Maybe the trouble is that people don't know what they believe. People in the West have abandoned their faith in Christianity, but they're worried it might really be true. They get sentimental and feel religious when they walk into a beautiful church for a wedding, but the feeling wears off the next week at work.

"Clash of the Titans" is about a war between the man and the Gods. It's not that people don't believe in the Gods, they just don't want to obey them any more. The film's hero, Perseus, fights against the Gods, even though Zeus is his father. Would I have followed Perseus? That's the question I asked myself while watching the film. I think not. I would have followed the Gods, but it wouldn't have been blind devotion. I wouldn't have fought the Gods, but I would have attempted to educate the Gods. I would have told them to listen to mankind instead of partying all day long.

Maybe I'm someone who ought to be afraid of death. I'm an agnostic, someone who doesn't know what's after death. I'm still not worried. If there's a God waiting for me, he needs me to educate Him. (Or Her. Or Them). He needs me to tell Him what He's been doing wrong.

The first time I watched this film I thought it was almost as good as the original 1981 version. Today I changed my mind. It's a very slick, polished film with high quality special effects, but it's lacking the naive beauty of the original. In the original version, Perseus is rewarded for his labours by being allowed to marry Princess Andromeda of Argos. In the remake he turns his back on her, having fallen in love with Gemma Arterton as Io. I think my readers know which choice I would have made.

Success Rate:  + 1.9

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Clash of the Titans [2010] (4½ Stars)

It's taken me a long time to get round to watching this film. It was strongly recommended by my guest writer Kaylena in her review, but I was still reluctant to watch it. The problem is that I love Ray Harryhausen's version so much. For me it's perfection that can't be improved upon. On the other hand, the new version stars Gemma Arterton in one of her early films before she quit Hollywood, which is a reason to watch any film. It's not just her beauty and grace. She has acting skills which set her far above her peers.

Any doubts I had about the quality of the film were washed away within the first five minutes. The cinematography and special effects are perfect, as realistic as computer graphics can make them. Forgive me if it sounds blasphemous, but my first thought was "This is the sort of film Ray Harryhausen would make if he'd been born 50 years later". The flying horse, the Djinn, the winged monsters -- whatever they're called -- they all looked perfect.

Unfortunately, I found that the final scene was a letdown. I don't know what happened, why the portrayal of the Kraken was so disappointing. Maybe the special effects budget had run out by the end of the film. Maybe the director thought that an overpowering, invincible monster would be better portrayed by close ups with only a few complete  shots. Whatever the reason was, I'm disappointed. Compare the two Krakens:

Ray Harryhausen's 1981 Kraken.

The 2010 Kraken.

Do you see what I mean? Even though the older version is obviously a model, it looks more terrifying. It looks more real. Surely today's computers could have done a better job.

I think I detected something of a message in the film. Some of the dialogue seemed to be referring to religion in general, including today's Christianity, not just to the ancient Greek Gods. I'm not certain. Next time I watch it I'll pay attention to this aspect, and I might write something about it.

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The Shack (4 Stars)

Let's start off by saying that if you're a serious Christian, whether Catholic or Protestant, you'll find this film offensive. If you're a follower of another religion, such as Islam or Buddhism, you'll be alienated by the content. If you're an atheist you'll probably find it stupid. That means it will only appeal to you if you're a free thinker or a non-dogmatic Christian. It's a niche film that tugs at the heart strings without offering any real spiritual content.

Nevertheless, I found that the film spoke to me personally, despite the soppy country music interspersed with Christian pop songs.

Mackenzie Phillips (Mack) has grown up in a God-fearing community of church goers. His father was a church elder, a good man in church but a bad man at home, where he frequently used to get drunk and beat his wife and children. This wasn't enough to put Mack off religion. As a man he has a loving wife and three young children, and he sings the hymns loud in church every Sunday.

One weekend he takes his children on a Christian outing, a two day camping trip. His six-year-old daughter disappears. Her body is later found in a mountain shack. The police inform him that she's the victim of a serial killer who has already killed five other children. This destroys his faith and his family life. He no longer goes to church because he blames God for his daughter's death. His family is alienated and they hardly speak to one another.

A few years later Mack is seriously considering suicide, when he receives a letter. God is inviting him to travel to the shack where his daughter's body was found. This is the last place he would ever visit. At first he thinks it's a hoax, but the letter was hand delivered and there are no footprints in the snow, so he decides to travel to the shack.

When Mack arrives at the shack he finds it inhabited by three people, who claim to the the Holy Trinity, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. In a blatant presentation of gender confusion Octavia Spencer claims to be God and calls herself Papa. Mack spends the next two days talking to the three persons. They offer to make him the judge, and he has to tell them what they've done wrong. I won't go into it in any more detail. Spoilers!

Even as I was watching the film in the cinema I was putting myself into Mack's place. I would love to meet God, and I would be especially happy if I found out that God is a woman. Many of the questions that Mack asks are questions that I would ask. Then God has questions for Mack, and the answers he gives aren't necessarily the ones I would give.

I would love to meet God. If I found out that God looks like Octavia Spencer I would become an instant believer. I would challenge God on the questions that I have burning in my mind, some of which I presented in my review of "Silence". However, I suspect that Octavia's charm would overwhelm me into backing down in much of my criticism that I have of God.

It's a very good film, but it could have been better. Why did Mack have to meet the whole Trinity in the shack? It would have been enough just to meet with God herself. Jesus (on the left in the top photo in this post) seems to be a pleasant enough character as a drinking buddy, but he doesn't provide anything that God couldn't have done without him. The Holy Spirit, who calls herself Sarayu, moves around like a new age hippy, but she has little purpose in the film. If the shack had been inhabited by only one person, God, the film would have been accessible to a wider audience.

Everest (4 Stars)

This film tells the story of the multiple expeditions to reach the top of Mount Everest in 1996. In the first few minutes we're told about the problems. In the past the mountain had been scaled by very few elite, highly skilled climbers. Now Everest had become commercialised. Different companies were offering tours to the top of Everest for people who may have been fit, by normal standards, but certainly weren't the elite climbers who should have been attempting such a dangerous ascent. At a price of $65,000 per customer it was good business.

The film focuses on the leaders of two tours, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer, who decide to pool their efforts and lead their teams together, despite their different styles. Rob is a hand-holder, whereas Scott demands that his customers do as much as they can themselves, otherwise they don't deserve to be on Everest. We briefly see other teams at the beginning of the film. Rob especially is shocked by the crowds at Everest's Base Camp and predicts that they will be getting in one another's way.

Five people died trying to get back down from the peak. Five people shown in the film, that is. On the same day another three people died in another team not shown in the film. Was it worth it? Was it worth taking commercial tours to the top of the most dangerous mountain on Earth? It could be asked whether it's worth climbing Everest at all, but there will always be adventurers who put their lives at risk to achieve extraordinary feats.

The film is spectacular. The actors themselves tend to fade into the background. The film's real star is the mountain itself. Some scenes were shot on location, at Everest's Base Camp (5335 metres) and Camp 2 (6400 metres). Those are presumably the highest locations on the mountain accessible to normal people. The higher scenes were filmed in Pinewood Studios, England. The end result is breathtaking. This is also one of the few films I've seen in recent years that profits from 3D.

Despite the big publicity that the 1996 "Mount Everest Disaster" received, it's been pointed out, somewhat cynically, that it was a good year. Only 3% of the climbers who ascended higher than Base Camp died, compared with the previous yearly average of 3.3%. Was eight deaths in a single day exceptional? Not at all. For instance, on April 18th 2014, while the film was being made, 16 sherpa guides setting up equipment for the climbing season were killed in an avalanche. This never made the news. They were only poor local people, not rich westerners.

Terminator: Salvation (3 Stars)

In 2003 Marcus Wright, an inmate on death row, donates his body to science after his death. He's executed. Then 15 years later he finds himself walking around in a world run by machines. He's in the world after Judgement Day, which took place in 2004 at the end of "Terminator 3". But how did he get there? Maybe the resistance leader, John Connor, can give him an answer.

This isn't a bad film. It's not a bad film at all. It's a sci-fi action thriller with a dash of mystery as mankind battles against an overwhelmingly powerful foe. So what's wrong?

The problem is that the film stands in the shadow of the previous films, especially the first two. The Terminator film series could have ended with "Terminator 2". The loose ends of the first film had been tied up, and the world had been saved. Then "Terminator 3" was made in 2003 to milk the cow. Why end a series if it's making money? Though not reaching the heights of the first two films, "Terminator 3" has an appeal that I appreciate more every time I watch it. Then there was a diversion with the TV series "The Sarah Connor Chronicles" (2008-2009), which took place between "Terminator 2" and "Terminator 3". The series contained some very good ideas, but it was cancelled after the second season, in the middle of a mind-bending cliffhanger. In my opinion, it would have been a good idea to make a film concluding the story started in the TV series, but it was simply ignored, and "Terminator: Salvation" (which I prefer to call "Terminator 4") was written to continue the story from "Terminator 3".

There's something that the first three Terminator films and the TV series have in common: mind-twisting temporal paradoxes. These aren't the paradoxes of the Marvel Universe, in which every time the past is changed a new time line is created, so there are multiple pasts and multiple futures. In the Terminator Universe there is only one past and one future, so if you go into the past and start changing things you might return to the future and find yourself in a different world. That's a problem for quantum physicists and sci-fi writers to deal with, while the rest of us just sit and scratch our heads. This head-scratching is what made the Terminator films and TV series great. It's missing from "Terminator 4", apart from the matter of John Connor having to find and save his father Kyle Reese, who is still a teenager. "Terminator 4" is only a sci-fi action thriller with a dash of mystery.

The studios still want to milk the cow. "Terminator 4" has an open end. It would be easy to make a sequel or a series of sequels where it left off. "Terminator 4" made a huge profit at the box offices, over $170 million, so it would make financial sense to continue. But the studios have listened to the fans, most of whom are disappointed with "Terminator 4". There will be a new Terminator film released later this year which will use the end of "Terminator 4" as a hook to travel back in time and reboot the series. This isn't a stupid reboot, like "The Amazing Spider-Man", in which a story is retold just because the old director has been fired and replaced by his inferior. In the case of the Terminator films time travel rewrites the past, so we can expect a Terminator reboot in every generation. It's a shame I won't live long enough to see "Terminator 25 3D Holographic" in 2115. But it might never happen. Instead of a fictional Judgement Day, Vladimir Putin, the President of Lies, might have destroyed the world by then.

"I vant to destroy the vurld, and nobody vill stop me".

Texas Killing Fields (3 Stars)

"Inspired by true events"? I hope the true events referred to weren't too identical to what was shown in this film. The characters are ugly, throughout. Though it has been rated as a good film by many others I couldn't enjoy it for the simple reason that I found nobody among the main characters who I could like and relate to.

Brian Heigh (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) is a deeply religious police detective who has been transferred from New York to Texas City, Texas. His partner is Mike Souder (Sam Worthington), a disillusioned godless man who solves the crimes given to him, but that's it; he has no motivation to do any more, despite the begging of his ex-wife Pam (Jessica Chastain), also a police detective in neighboring Clark County. A girl has been reported missing in Texas City, another day in the office for Detectives Heigh and Souder. Pam suggests that the missing girl is connected to over 60 killings in her district. Brian wants to look into it, but Mike tells him to stay away because it's "not their jurisdiction". Besides, the killings took place in a swamp area known locally as the Killing Fields, and anyone from Texas knows that it's best to stay out.

Texas City is an ugly place, judging by the film. The area is full of prostitutes, some as young as 14. The pimps are violent to the girls. The police are violent to the pimps, beating them up during interrogation. This is one place I would not like to be questioned by the police, I would leave the station without any teeth. When the film was over I didn't know who I hated the most, the killers or the police.

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Clash of the Titans [Guest Writer] (5 Stars)

Princess Andromeda (Alexa Davalos) is the daughter of King Cepheus, who has gained a victory against the gods. The vengeful god of the underworld, Hades (Ralph Fiennes), demands that Andromeda is offered as a sacrifice or he will unleash the Kraken against Argos. A desperate King Cepheus asks demi-god Perseus (Sam Worthington) to find a way to defeat the Kraken. Perseus accepts the challenge because Hades was responsible for his family's death. He discovers that the way to kill the Kraken lies with getting the head of the gorgon Medusa.

I absolutely love movies that have to do anything with Greek Mythology and loved this movie to bits and pieces. This movie made me a huge fan of Sam Worthington and his work and it didn't hurt that it had some other favorites of mine - Ralph Fiennes and Liam Neeson. The story was engaging although I do admit that Sam's character annoyed me with his stubborn pride that constantly put the other supporting characters' lives in danger but I suppose that he can't help the way his character was written. The action and special effects scenes were very fantastical and really kept me on the edge of my seat and it even had a bit of romance for the ladies although it definitely wasn't a main subplot of the movie. It seems as if they had all their bases covered to appeal to the masses so kudos to them for that. This is definitely a movie I would recommend for action and fantasy lovers.

(I thought I had already done a review on this but perhaps I was wrong since I couldn't find it. If anyone else out there finds it, let me know. Sometimes I feel old and senile which is ridiculous at my age but oh well. Ha!)

Avatar (4½ Stars)

Today I watched "Avatar" for the first time. Two years late. Why did I wait so long? The answer is simple. The whole hype about the film put me off. If someone tells me a film is great and I should see it I might watch it, depending on what I know about the person's tastes. If a few people tell me a film is great I almost certainly will watch it, to see what the fuss is about. But if almost everyone is telling me a film is great I rebel against the public opinion. I don't want to watch what everyone is watching. I want to be different.

Having said that, I have to admit that "Avatar" is a good film. It's not a science fiction masterpiece like "Terminator" or "The Matrix", but it's certainly better than the Star Wars films that I've always considered overrated.

I don't want to say too much about the content of the film itself. I expect most of my readers have already seen it. The premise is simple. A wheelchair-bound ex-marine is sent as part of an expedition to a remote planet called Pandora. With the aid of computer controlled biogenetics his consciousness is transferred into an artificial body which resembles the natives of the planet. While his mission is to infiltrate the native population for the purpose of mining valuable ore, he grows more and more sympathetic with the natives and their plight.