And Then There Were None

And Then There Were None (tv miniseries)

Starring Douglas Booth, Charles Dance, Maeve Dermody, Burn Gorman, Anna Maxwell Martin, Sam Neill, Miranda Richardson, Toby Stephens, Noah Taylor, and Aidan Turner

Directed by Craig Viveiros

Written by Sarah Phelps

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  D

The Commuter

The Commuter (2018)

Starring Liam Neeson, Vera Farmiga, Patrick Wilson, Jonathan Banks, Elizabeth McGovern, and Sam Neill

Directed by Jaume Collet-Serra

Written by Byron Willinger, Philip de Blasi, and Ryan Engle
***This film is currently streaming via Amazon Prime***

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  C-

Movie Review - Jurassic Park III

Jurassic Park III (2001)

Starring Sam Neill, William H. Macy, Téa Leoni, Alessandro Nivola, Trevor Morgan, Michael Jeter, and Laura Dern

Directed by Joe Johnston

After the debacle that was The Lost World, Jurassic Park III really didn't need to do much to fare better and fortunately this third film of the Jurassic Park Quadrilogy at least finds itself having a little more fun than its predecessor.  There's an action-comedy vibe reminiscent of Romancing the Stone here thanks to the repartee between newcomers William H. Macy and Téa Leoni as divorced couple Paul and Amanda searching for their son Eric (Trevor Morgan) who is lost on the dinosaur-infested Costa Rican island after a paragliding accident.  Paul and Amanda trick original Jurassic Park character Alan Grant (Sam Neill) into helping them find their son and -- surprise, surprise -- a bit of chaos ensues.

Right off the bat, bringing Alan Grant back into the mix proves to be a much bigger benefit than Ian Malcolm of Part 2.  Jeff Goldblum's stuttering kooky shtick worked as a secondary player in the first film, but having him take the bulk of the focus proved to be more annoying than anything else.  Sam Neill's Alan Grant has already played "the lead" before and he carries a bit more authority and believable presence which works in the film's favor.

Some may find Macy and Leoni a tad obnoxious, but I found their banter a pleasant diversion, adding the light comedy back into the mix that was welcome in the first film (wherein Grant and Laura Dern's Ellie bounced barbs back and forth to one another -- Dern also appears here in a brief role and is a welcome addition).  This couple's plight and their lovingly conniving motivations for coming to the island worked as a valid storytelling reason to return to this land again.  Surprisingly, the film doesn't add too many superfluous characters who are simply there to be eaten.  This is a positive as we already know the carnage these giant reptiles can enact so no need to be so blatantly over-the-top with it.

Here, Steven Spielberg stepped down as director and Joe Johnston stepped up to the plate, proving to be more than adequate.  He attempts to blend a little more puppetry/robotics into the mix a la the original Jurassic Park and while he isn't as successful as Spielberg's first effort, the effects are still much better than The Lost World which still boggles my mind with how dismal the dinos looked in it.  Johnston also keeps the pace surprisingly quick with this being the shortest entry into the quadrilogy by nearly thirty minutes.  There isn't much exposition at the start, but it's certainly enough to set up the story and get the ball rolling.

Jurassic Park III is a different beast altogether -- it's a "rescue" movie whereas the first two dealt a little more with the science of bringing these giants back to life.  There's not much talk of gene-splicing and DNA in this one and that's a bit of a relief.  Unfortunately, despite all the positives, the film still isn't all that fantastic.  It works, but it's still a pale shadow of the original.  It lacks the spirit and awe-inspiring moments of Jurassic Park.  While infinitely better than The Lost World, Jurassic Park III is simply a little-better-than-average summer popcorn flick.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+

Join in tomorrow as we explore more of the Jurassic Park Quadrilogy:
Tomorrow:  Jurassic World
Previously:  Jurassic Park
Previously: The Lost World: Jurassic Park

The Personal Canon - Jurassic Park

The Personal Canon is a recurring column discussing my favorite movies of all time.  While they may not necessarily be "A" rated, they are the movies that, for some reason or another, hold a special place in my filmgoing experience.

Jurassic Park (1993)

Starring Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough, Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards, and Samuel L. Jackson

Directed by Steven Spielberg

Join in over the next four days for a look at the Jurassic Park Quadrilogy:
Today:  Jurassic Park
Thursday:  The Lost World: Jurassic Park
Friday:  Jurassic Park III
Saturday:  Jurassic World

This is how you make a movie that is innately special effects-driven work.  More than twenty years later, Jurassic Park still works its magic and I was quite happy to be able to see it once again on the big screen (even if the 3D, though admirably done, wasn't really necessary).  Editor's Note:  I watched Jurassic Park in its theatrical re-release two years ago, but for some reason failed to complete this review.  With the impending Jurassic World release, I decided to revisit the film (and its sequels) on dvd again.  This review is mix of the theatrical release draft I created and new work.

Everyone knows the plot -- billionaire entrepreneur John Hammond (Richard Attenborough) invites a trio of scientists (Sam Neill, Laura Dern, and Jeff Goldblum) and his grandchildren (Joseph Mazzello, Ariana Richards) to a remote Central American island off the coast of Costa Rica where his researchers have created a slew of dinosaurs that Hammond plans to show off in a theme park-like setting.  Michael Crichton has taken a seemingly ridiculous plot and created something (along with co-screenwriter David Koepp) that comes off as totally believable and fathomable.  Rather than have the science come off as silly, it seems legitimate and this intelligent base for a big-budget blockbuster action flick can't help but resonate.  

The early 90s were a pivotal time in my movie-going life with Beauty and the Beast coming onto the scene in 1991 and then the influential year of 1993 which featured both Jurassic Park and The Fugitive -- two movies that absolutely enthralled me as an eager film-loving thirteen year-old.  (And that's not even including Schindler's List, Philadelphia, Mrs. Doubtfire, and Sleepless in Seattle [another Personal Canon film])  Admittedly, Jurassic Park was probably the film that put Steven Spielberg on the film map for me.  Here, the director takes just the right amount of time to set up the story before turning everything upside down.  Surprisingly, both aspects of the plot -- the exposition and the payoff -- work incredibly well with neither feeling like they wear out their welcome or are cut short by the other.

There are so many really great moments here --

• The first moment the scientists see the giant dinos and that iconic John Williams music just swells.  This is also the first moment that we see the dinos as well and considering this film was made more than two decades ago, the special effects look absolutely fantastic.  There are moments in this movie that I feel like the effects look better than most of what is out there today.
• The entire sequence of the T-Rex wreaking havoc on the two tour vehicles.  From the moment when that cup of water starts to shake to the giant reptile eating the guy on the toilet (Spielberg also has a eye for uncomfortable comedy) to the two kids being panicked in the car -- it's all great stuff.
• Although I dislike the very end of the showdown with the velociraptors, the kitchen scene with the two grandkids is stellar stuff.
• Even the scientific set-up with the animated DNA strand is amusingly done.  This should be boring expository stuff and it still is amazingly interesting.  

Jurassic Park really is a fantastic flick and one that truly stands the test of time.  It's an incredibly fun roller coaster ride that Steven Spielberg crafted here and it's one of the best "popcorn" movies of all time.

The RyMickey Rating:  A

Movie Review - A Long Way Down

A Long Way Down (2014)

Starring Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, Imogen Poots, Rosamund Pike, Tuppence Middleton, and Sam Neill

Directed by Pascal Chaumeil

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Lacking any type of balance, A Long Way Down is a drama/comedy mash-up that's a big ole mess.  Four strangers meet each other on the roof of a high rise building in London on New Years' Eve.  All had the intention of jumping to their deaths because of how horrible their lives were, but none of them go through with it, instead making a pact with one another to keep themselves alive until Valentine's Day at which point they can reassess their standing in life.

This odd premise doesn't crystallize into a proper story at any point in time throughout director Pascal Chaumeil's film.  There are attempts by Pierce Brosnan, Toni Collette, Aaron Paul, and Imogen Poots to round out their characters into more fully realized souls, but they aren't given much with which to work.  Collette fares the best as the struggling mother of a twentysomething son with cerebral palsy, but her counterparts aren't so lucky.  Brosnan as a slimy news reporter, Paul as an introverted musician, and Poots as a politician's rambunctious daughter are all simply caricatures.  Granted, Collette's character's struggle is nothing more than a stereotype as well, but her character's intentions post-suicide attempt are the most believable which is much more than I can say for the rest of the film's depressed quartet.

The RyMickey Rating:  D

Movie Review - Daybreakers

Daybreakers (2010)

Starring Ethan Hawke, Willem Dafoe, and Sam Neill

Directed by Michael and Peter Spierig

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Oh, lowered expectations, how you please me at times.  Now, it's not like Daybreakers is a masterpiece, but it's an enjoyable B-movie style vampire flick that brings an entirely new premise to the screen that proves to be moderately intriguing in its uniqueness.

It's 2019 and us humans have all but been obliterated by vampires.  While there are some rogue groups of homo sapiens out there, for the most part, the fanged monsters have taken over the earth.  They seemingly live just like humans -- drive cars, have jobs, wear normal clothing -- but they just need a blood supply to survive.  However, since they've managed to eradicate nearly the whole human race, the vampires are attempting to find a blood substitute and hematologist vampire Edward Dalton (Ethan Hawke) is leading the charge.  (Side Note:  Between this and Twilight, do all vampire protagonists need to be named Edward?)  Edward actually despises his need for human blood and hates the "farm system" his employer, the wealthy Charles Bromley (Sam Neill), has set up to both collect and sell the "product," so when he meets Elvis Cormac (Willem Defoe) who says he has a way of turning vampires human again, Edward is undeniably fascinated.

The story of Daybreakers really sold me.  I mean, maybe it's been done before, but this was fresh and extremely interesting to me.  Co-directors and co-screenwriters the Spierig Brothers definitely brought something new to the table.  Their somewhat-dystopian vampire society was brought vividly to the screen by both their visuals and their story.  Granted, the dialog is sometimes straight from B-movies of yore and the acting falls into one of two categories -- over-the-top (Sam Neill and Willem Defoe) or mind-numbingly muted (Ethan Hawke) -- but neither distract greatly from the overall tone of the film.

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - In the Mouth of Madness

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Starring Sam Neill, Julie Carmen, Jürgen Prochnow, and Charlton Heston(!?!?)

Directed by John Carpenter

***This film is currently streaming on Netflx***

I don't know why, but this is another one of those flicks that I wanted to see back when I was a teen, but never got around to it.  I was very horror-deprived growing up when it came to movies.  Horror books were a staple of my youth, but I never got to watch many horror movies...which probably accounts for the odd abundance of horror flicks I watch nowadays.  Seeing as how I loved reading horror, this film about a horror writer whose books begin to come to life seemed like an ingenious idea to me at the time.  Fifteen years later, the premise of In the Mouth of Madness seems a little flimsy and while it isn't exactly executed to perfection, I've got to say that I had a moderately enjoyable time watching this.

Sam Neill plays John Trent, an insurance investigator hired by Jackson Harglow (Charlton Heston), the head of a publishing film, to investigate the disappearance of the world's best selling author Sutter Cane.  Much like Stephen King who based many of his books in the fictional New England town of Castle Rock, horror novelist Cane (Jürgen Prochnow) created the town of Hobb's End, and Trent believes that Cane is hiding out in the vicinity of where that town would be found in the Northeast.  Trent, along with Cane's editor Linda (Julie Carmen), set out to track down Cane only to discover that they may have somehow fallen into the freakish Cane's vivid creations in which the lines between fiction and reality are greatly blurred.

It helps the ludicrous storyline that Sam Neill is actually darn good here.  There's a winking sensibility in his performance that he knows everything he's forced to do or say his just plain silly, but he never stoops to the level of playing things for laughs or hamming it up.  Unfortunately the same can't be said for his co-stars Julie Carmen or Jürgen Prochnow -- never heard of them?  I didn't either and there's certainly a reason they never achieved stardom.  (Although their filmographies on imdb are actually quite extensive which is rather surprising.)

Director John Carpenter does an adequate job keeping things tense.  He fills the flick with random stream of consciousness quick cuts that surprisingly add to the eeriness rather than seeming like unnecessary directorial flourishes.  Granted, my ventures into the Carpenter oeuvre are slim (I've never seen his supposed "masterpiece" Halloween), but I liked what he did with In the Mouth of Madness even if it is silly and ridiculous at times (but, let's be honest...silly and ridiculous just plain works in horror movies sometimes).

The RyMickey Rating:  B-

Movie Review - Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010)

Featuring the voices of Jim Sturgess, Helen Mirren, Sam Neill, Geoffrey Rush, Hugo Weaving, and Anthony LaPaglia

Directed by Zack Snyder

An ungainly title leads to a rather ungainly movie in The Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole.  While the film looks quite lush and is beautifully animated, I was insanely bored while watching it.

First, the story seems oddly simple and convoluted at the same time.  The basis of the tale is one parliament of good owls fighting against one parliament of bad owls. [Yes, a group of owls is called a "parliament."]  However, things get much more complicated.  Soren and his brother Kludd are two owls learning how to fly.  One evening, they're essentially kidnapped by a group headed by Metalbeak who desires to create a race of "Pure Ones" by eradicating all owls that would not fit into this category -- very WWII Germany.  While Soren manages to escape, Kludd immediately begins to side with Metalbeak's gang, setting up the brother against brother storyline that's only one part of this mishmash of tales.  Once Soren flees, he meets up with some other owls who play no significant role except to be either helpful or careless depending on what the story calls for at that time.  Together, this group of owls travels to the land of Ga'Hoole where the good owls live -- the ones who will do whatever it takes to rid the world of Metalbeak and his followers.

Egads...way too much story there.  Still, despite the abundance of plot, the movie goes nowhere.  It's an oddly simple "journey tale" where the good guy meets other good guys along the way who help him defeat the bad guy.  

Adding to the ennui are characters that, while well animated, have no significant individual development.  There are scads of owls that are introduced that seriously serve no purpose whatsoever.  And when the owls themselves all look alike, adding more to the mix doesn't help matters.  

Additionally, and I'm not trying to sound overly nationalistic here, but the Australian and British accents had a way of lulling me into a sense of sleep.  I understand that owls themselves are rather regal, stoic creatures and the foreign accents may have fit the bill, but they also added an aire of pretentiousness that this movie didn't need in the slightest.

All my qualms are rather unfortunate because the film looks quite lovely.  The animation is great and, being somewhat of an animation geek, I was quite impressed with the mouth movements and facial expressions of the characters.  There was a very natural feel to the whole proceeding, so it's a real shame that the story falls tremendously flat.

The RyMickey Rating:  D+

Movie Review - Dead Calm

Dead Calm (1989)

Starring Nicole Kidman, Sam Neill, and Billy Zane

Directed by Philip Noyce

 **Currently streaming on Netflix**

This is one of those flicks that I've wanted to see forever and thanks to Netflix streaming, I've now got my chance.  Unfortunately, once again (as is often the case), the flick just isn't all that good.

Dead Calm is actually fairly promising for its first half.  A couple, John and Rae (Sam Neill and Nicole Kidman), who just went through the tragedy of losing their toddler son decide to take a sailboat trip in the Pacific.  While out at sea, they come across another sailboat with a single passenger named Hughie (Billy Zane).  With Hughie's boat sinking, they decide to take him aboard.  Unbeknown to them, however, Hughie is a psychopathic killer who murdered his fellow crew members and may likely to the same to them.

This initial set-up is well-paced and well-shot.  However, the problem with the film comes in the second half when Hughie's true colors begin to show.  This is one of those movies where the screenwriters got together and said, "Our bad guy's crazy, so whatever he does really doesn't have to make any sense."  Unfortunately, using the guy's insanity as an "out," they also negate any sense of realism that was here in the first place.  Any moments of tension are simply laughed off by the viewer because the bad guy simply isn't making any sense. 

Philip Noyce certainly does an admirable job directing -- the film takes place, for the most part, on the confined quarters of a sailboat and Noyce creates a feeling of entrapment for his characters.  Nicole Kidman is also quite good in what was one of first starring roles.  

But in the end, the film really fails in its second half and it just can't garner a recommendation from me.  

The RyMickey Rating: C-

Movie Review - Event Horizon (1997)

Starring Laurence Fishburne, Sam Neill, Kathleen Quinlin, and Joely Richardson

Directed by Paul W.S. Anderson

I watched this movie on video shortly after it came out in the late 90s and I remember that it put me on edge. Not scared, per se, but it filled me with nervousness.

Cut to over ten years later and I wonder what the hell I was thinking back then.

The year is 2047 and we're exploring the outer realms of our solar system. A ship named the Event Horizon has gone missing on the other side of Neptune and a recovery ship - the Lewis and Clark - captained by Laurence Fishburne is sent to look for them. Shortly after they find the Event Horizon and dock there, strange things start happening to the crew and everyone soon begins to realize that the ship itself may be alive.

The final act of the film is genuinely creepy. But it wasn't nearly as nerve-wracking as I remembered it...probably a bad thing that I had any recollection of the movie. Part of the problem is that the special effects are pretty awful. Even putting it in the context that it was made ten years ago, the effects are bad. And the actors are forced to deliver the most ridiculous lines. Just silly stuff.

Oh, well. I sometimes bring this movie up when I talk about movies that made me jumpy. At least I can now never talk about this movie again.

The RyMickey Rating: D+