Terminator: Salvation (2009)

I'm not going to go in to why McG calls himself that, when I'm sure his parents gave him an actual name. A director's moniker shouldn't save or sink a film (unless he's called Scorsese or Wood, Jr.), so McG's name isn't the reason why Terminator: Salvation is tosh. Christian Bale's (in)famous rant at his cinematographer shouldn't be a reason why this film is so bad, nor should it cause any prejudice either. We don't care that Klaus Kinski pulled a gun and threatened to kill Werner Herzog during the tumultuous shoot of Fitzcarraldo (1982), even after seeing it on countless documentaries, like My Best Friend. It was inconsequential - Fitzcarraldo turned out to be an amazing film. Whether the feud between Kinski and Herzog was the reason, one can only speculate. No, Terminator: Salvation is tosh regardless of the knowledge that Bale spew out verbal bile on a hapless cinematographer.

I grew on Star Wars on VHS. So, I was spoon-fed about its awesomeness from a very early age (though I don't agree with it today). The first Terminator film came out when I was 2, so I wasn't able to watch it then. But, when the Terminator 2: Judgment Day came out, I actually saw it in theater. I was speechless at T-1000 walking through prison bars ("what is  a prison, dad?"). I had nightmares when Jennette Goldstein stabbed her husband with her arm (say what?). And as a teenager my favourite catch-up line was "Hasta la vista, baby" - I couldn't speak Spanish then and most of the recipients of this line couldn't speak English. In other words, I grew up as a Terminator-freak. It defined my childhood and teenage years, until I saw Mel Gibson painted half his face blue. I hated the third Terminator - I can't even remember what the plot was. I remember Arnie acting like he was bored and a little too old for this role. And there was a hot Terminator chick, but she wasn't Linda Hamilton. No, sir.

And now this. Tosh. What made the first two Terminators so good was the humour and the mythology. There is none of that humour in the fourth (and please, make it the last) instalment. I feel like my childhood is being raped over and over again ("Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles" ... puh-leeze!). Why? With each version they are making less money and gaining more bad criticism from the critics and the public. Why do they keep on doing them? I admit, I am weak - I actually went to see it. I paid to see it. Big mistake. All I want to do right now is watch the first two and remind myself how good they were.

One other thing. I don't think Terminator: Salvation is bad only when compared to the previous films. It's bad on all counts. The acting is at best on par with The Hottie and the Nottie. There are a couple of decent chase scenes and the obligatory action scene involving a truck, but "A-Team" had those too. A good action scene doesn't make a good film (see Ronin). A good film needs good characters, dialogue ... you know the drill.

There will probably be worse films this year, but none will be as disappointing as Terminator: Salvation. Please, don't be back.

This Is England (2006)

Shane Meadows is a great filmmaker. Perhaps the most consistently brilliant British director of the last decade. Even though Danny Boyle gets the international and occasional commercial accolades (deservedly so) and Ken Loach still produces magnificent films even after forty years in the business, Shane Meadows is the real deal. I am a little biased here as a former resident of Nottingham and an alumnus of the city's main university, where I took a course in his then very brief but distinguished career. With its short running time (just 60 minutes), Small Time (1996) was an astonishing film. 24:7, starring Bob Hoskins, was a fantastic coming-of-age story shot in a nostalgia-inducing black and white. There were duds, of course. Once upon a Time in the Midlands (2002) failed despite best intentions. No one was ready, though, for the emotional assault that his next film had brought: Dead Man's Shoes is quite probably the best British film of the decade.

With This Is England, Meadows follows his similar theme and setting: working-class youths trying to find their way in small town Nottinghamshire. The humour, which was crucially missing in Dead Man's Shoes, is back here with buckets. We are in 1983. Britain is at war with Argentina and ska is everywhere. Sean, whose father dies fighting for the British in the Falklands, is bullied at school. On the last day of the term he befriends a gang of wannabe skinheads / ska punks. They cut his hair and show him around the block. Sean, for the first time in his life, feels respected. Things go sour when a real-deal skinhead, Combo, comes back from serving three years in prison. He wants recruits to sweep the nation from "foreigners". He takes a liking for Sean and takes him under his wings. The rest of the original gang want nothing of it and leave Sean to Combo's mercy.

There are plenty of cringe-inducing scenes and plenty of scenes that are purely horrific. The finale has brought tears to my eyes. Meadows' use of music should make Danny Boyle pretty uncomfortable in his throne. Without telling much of what everybody feels, the scenes play out organically and the result is another resounding success. I haven't yet seen Somers Town - set in London - but I'm pretty sure it's going to be exceptional. The real superstar director of Britain isn't Boyle. It should be Meadows.

[Rec] (2007)

It seems we're still not getting sick of watching epileptic videos of people in peril, knowing or assuming that those screaming and agonizing poor sods probably did not live to tell the tale themselves. What The Blair Witch Project did more than a decade prior - setting up a viral ad campaign to mythologise what is obviously a human construct - continued last year with the JJ Abrams-produced Godzilla wannabe, Cloverfield and its doomed videographer and his friends as they escape a gigantic metaphor for the September 11th attacks. I was abjectly unimpressed by either film, albeit watched in awe at least a couple of scenes in each, such as the ambiguous and terrifying finale of the former and the criminally-underused arachnids that terrorised the New York subway system in the latter.

Spain's answer to this trend - already remade in the US as Quarantine (2008) - doesn't have the audacity to claim its veracity with a disclaimer. We are plunged in to the situation from the get-go: a TV crew accompanies firemen to a "boring" call for an old woman trapped in her apartment. Two policemen at the scene debrief the firemen and before they know it the old lade bites one of the policemen in the neck. Zombie-bashing ensues. Meanwhile, the police have cordoned off the building - rather quickly, I must say - and won't let anybody in or out. You can guess what transpires from this point on: one by one, the one-dimensional inhabitants of the building, the firemen, and the policeman fall prey to the menace until the "final girl" survives ... along with the cameraman.

The scares are a-plenty, but thet very seldom catch you off guard. The acting is as shaky as the camera itself and the violence is satisfyingly gory, though not so much to put off the average horror fan. There is an absurd attempt at explaining the whole shebang, which derails the film from its promising track onto an old and tired one. The homage to The Silence of the Lambs at the finale doesn't save it from shooting itself in the foot. All in all a mildyly satisfying film, but is let down by a clunky justification. There was no need for it.

Fermat's Room (La habitacion de Fermat, 2007)

The movie psychos are geniuses. They are impeccable masterminds that manipulate an entire city to carry out their evil plan. They are the puppet-masters with infinite access to incredible wealth and technological know-how. Fermat's Room riffs on the same notion that, when needed, a criminal mastermind will devise a plan so devious, it falls to the characters to explain what the hell is going on.

In this case, we have four individuals who also happen to be mathematical geniuses. So, a regular layman or your run-of-the-mill police officer will not even come close to expose the genius behind the riddle. I'm throwing around the word "genius" very liberally, because I wanted to counterbalance its lack in the film itself.

Four master mathematicians are called to a secret meeting at a secret location in the Spanish countryside. The anonymous participants soon find themselves in an immaculately decorated room in an abandoned factory. So far, so good. We are then introduced to the titular Fermat, who happens to be the person that sent out the invitations. However, he seems like an unassuming old chap. After having dinner, Fermat receives a call from the hospital where his brain-dead daughter is. After he leaves, the remaining four receive enigmas through a PDA. If they can't solve them in time, the walls start closing in.


As it usually happens, the guests try to solve the mystery behind Fermat and the room. And, of course, why they are here facing an inevitable death. Along the way certain secrets and connections are revealed between the characters and that's when the film starts a downward spiral that it never recovers from. It is not that the secrets are obvious - they are random at best - but the way they are revealed is utterly pointless. They just tell each other. One secret is exposed, then the camera lingers on another member and he/she reveals his/her secret. That's it. They keep on talking as the walls start moving in.

What was great about Cube and its comparably poorer sequels was that we didn't know who or what was behind the incarceration of these people. It didn't matter. They just had to get out of the Cube, somehow. By explaining, Fermat's Room shoots itself in the foot. Despite its premise, it is one of the stupidest films I have ever seen.

As for the acting ...