Weekend Retreat

Hercules is a legendary character regardless of who plays him. Clint Eastwood is legendary regardless of who he plays (or directs). It is here that the connections between Don Siegel’s Escape from Alcatraz and Pietro Francisci’s Hercules Unchained end. Rather, there is not really any connection between the 1979 prison break film and the MST3K treatment of the Italian sword and sandal film made 20 years earlier.

Based on J. Campbell Bruce’s book of the same name, the story needs little explaining aside from the title. The non-fiction story ends with a degree of ambiguity as to whether or not the escape was successful. The real men’s bodies were never found. Eastwood’s athletic figure figured prominently in both his casting and his un-simulated stunt work during the escape. Most of the movie is actually the preparation for what would be a daring and exciting break for freedom.

The story itself is truly fascinating and the movie does pretty well creating the rivalry between prisoner and guard. The prisoners, despite having failed at some point, are often intelligent, talented, and observant to every potentially helpful detail. What seems ironic is that the only reason for escape is the desire to do something with all that time. Yet it is precisely that time that is needed to perfect a means to escape. The fact that Alcatraz is the most infamous prison ever makes both the need to escape and its success more captivating.

On the other hand we have muscle-bound Hercules traveling the countryside until he meets someone a little bit larger and must fight him, ultimately throwing him into the sea. This time, Hercules drinks from the Fountain of Forgetfulness and is inadvertently lives with some gaudily beautiful princess. There he is forced to live the life of leisure with his own slave boy who tries to convince him he is actually the great Hercules. Fortunately, the film fell into the hands of the MST3K guys who made it slightly more bearable. With Hercules Versus the Moon Men they did not. This film does not end with a giant sandstorm. Rather, Hercules battles tigers and mercenaries with his giant chest and puts everything back in its place. The bad English dubbing doesn’t help one understand the story yet when Hercules takes to the Octagon, who cares?

I hate to say it, but I would like to see another take on the Alcatraz escape (No, not The Rock) film. If it refrained from being an adrenaline and action driven film the potential for a very psychological preparation/outwitting/escape is certainly there. If they never made another Hercules film I could probably die just fine.

Revisited: Armageddon

I have not seen Michael Bay’s 1998 film since theatres with my cousin and aunt as a naïve and wide-eyed child. The past few years have had me plagued with a curious desire to rewatch the movie that I remember as epic and amazing. Imagine my disappointment. Granted, the past 11 years have seen my film education multiply infinitely but regardless of such fact, this film, er movie, would fail miserably.

In the vein of Bay’s previous film, The Rock, it is a hard-hitting and implausible adventure. However, this time the entire world is on the line and the only people to save it are an amalgamated list of A and B stars who all suffer from bad acting. Not that much more should be expected. And much akin to Bay’s feature length epic-music video set on Alcatraz, it is a nauseating and flamboyantly disorganized experiment in what David Bordwell might call hyper-intensified continuity. If the camera doesn't move that we hardly see the cut long enough to decipher such. And if nothing is exploding or ticking down or going wrong, or even if it is, then it will likely be basked in a cold blue or green light. And if the shot isn’t of the entire city being wiped out by a meteor chunk than its someone’s cringing faces as something else goes wrong. This movie’s pace slows not, even for tender moments between father and daughter as he is about to save the world from the inevitable Texas sized meteor.

I really hate to call Bay an auteur because it suggests an artistically and tonally motivated appearance of his oeuvre, but fast cuts, flying cameras, silhouetted helicopters, and ridiculous plots are evident in practically all his films. I can’t wait to see what the next Untitled Jerry Bruckheimer/Michael Bay project entails. But lets reflect on the one hint of possible quality of this film; the belief that we as humans have the ability to save ourselves from extra-cosmic events far beyond the scale of our strengths. Giant meteor? Nuke it. The film almost tries to deal with the inevitability of death and human place among the stars but falls to the commercial explosions, action, and patriotism. It’s surprising that the bomb wasn't painted as an American Flag.

What’s wrong with this movie? Its like watching an exhausting and poorly constructed trailer for over two hours and coming away with even less of a message than could be packed into a two minute teaser. The biggest event of mankind is played off like another Roland Emmerich movie. I should clarify that I was not disappointed with this movie; I certainly didn't want to like it. So if anything it should be complete satisfaction. At least in a way.