Movie Reviews 6

The Mangler 2
I’m still not sure if I like this one. On the face of it, it’s just another ‘computer gone wild’ story and this one is overlaid with the cliché back to school group of kids. The ‘mangler’ effects (before the final scene) are as lame as you can get, just a bunch of wires sneaking around. But there are some positive points to the movie. Lance Henriksen for one. Even not as his best, he was able to whip up decent finale. And instead of just following the antics of the students around the school, great comic relief was provided by the distinctly Quebecois cafeteria cook (Philipe Bergeron). Not sure how the Tabarnac and Hostie’s played with non-Canadian viewers, but I loved it. Most of the acting is horrid and dialog is lame, but in the end I seemed to care when my DVD skipped a section of the movie, and I guess that does mean something.

Ultraviolet
Immaculate imagery and vivid colors. Spectacular visuals and action filled scenes. Eloquent posing and futuristic architecture. All this and Mila Jojovich. Now if only they could have put together a decent story around all this stylistic content. Once all the visuals have sunk in, the realizations that the movie is an absolute bore comes as a shock.

May
There are many quirky things going on here, and all of them are good. May is former abused child that clings to her favorite boxed doll to console her as she tries to deal with the real world. As a veterinarian assistant she begins to nurture her obsession to bloody scrapes and cuts. Thwarted in love of neighborhood mechanic whose hands she adores, she even flirts with lesbianism with a coworker. But being spurned again, she succumbs to her final fantasy.

Strange Days
It’s been a long time since I watched this great movie, almost to the point that it was all new to me. The science fiction element of being able to record peoples actual life experiences and then having the ability to play them back, all illegal activities, is the basis for a political and social revolution. The superb cast featuring Ralph Fiennes and Angela Basset make this fast paced thriller a great ride. I wasn’t surprised to see that James Cameron was one of the writers and that recent academy award winner Kathryn Bigelow directed this mid 90’s flick.

Accelerando

Accelerando – Charles Stross (2005)

Accelerando is one of those highly convoluted stories that is hard to read because it has so many ideas coming at you at one time it’s hard to digest it all in one sitting. While many of the ideas are fascinating, they come at you in a barrage and, for me at least, this took away all of the enjoyment. I nearly gave up on the novel on several occasions, each time being pulled back in, but always coming back to the feeling that the effort wasn’t worth the enjoyment. Stross’ style was not to my liking at all, although I could see how some people may enjoy this masochistic style of storytelling.

Stross and a few other noted authors are the forerunners who explored the concept of the singularity in which our human derived electronic computational devices have attained the level where they become sentient. At the beginning of Accelerando, it is not yet a fait accompli, but something just around the corner. The protagonist is a rebel savant individual with a touch of Robin Hood against DRM enslavery. His brilliance spawns patents that he releases to the masses, much to the chagrin of the corporate world as well as the IRS who would like to see their share of the potential billions he could make if he only played entrepreneur with all his great ideas.

The story is partitioned as three separate generations, Manfred Macx, his daughter and his grandson and a cat. This is not as clear as it sounds since the technology and the singularity muddies the waters as regarding parental lineage once ‘people’ start spawning copies of themselves. Some of the fun is in the choice of embodiment as ‘people’ are no longer tied to ‘human’ bodies. Which bring us to ‘the cat’ a recurring pet that seems to be there whenever problems arise.

There is plenty of technobable and geek speak throughout, but it can also be annoying as it seems to be just more clutter than needed information most of the time. Other interesting aspects include the concept of mass and relative CPU computational power as land mass is converted to CPU. There is also a lot of historical politics brought into the story. The long shelved Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) initiative and battle is rejuvenated with odd consequences, Those who would like to see sentient AI enshrined both support and oppose the ERA. If it can be passed, an AI would have rights and potentially a vote. But would it also not mean that AI could eventually overrule all humans?

One last time I just have to mention. There are references to the Kennedys in a few passing phrases, but I distinctly remember reading about ‘grassy knoll’ at least twice and perhaps even three times. I’m pretty sure I missed out on some hidden message in all that, but because the writing style is all over the place, I probably missed a lot of other messages as well.

Bottom line: Not for me.