In talking with Terri about Splice yesterday, I eventually figured out what I disliked so much about the movie.

The trailers made it look like some kind of sci-fi monster movie.  Lots of running, lots of screaming, Dren looking very frightening and aggressive.  I was expecting something more-or-less along the lines of Species – a monster movie featuring a monster that was the product of genetic tinkering.

But that is not what Splice is.

Splice is actually a movie about a couple who make a bad (immoral?) decision, and slowly slide down the slope to ruin.  Their relationship suffers.  Their jobs are in jeopardy.  They can’t trust anyone anymore.  Elsa’s mental health declines, and she starts acting like her abusive mother used to.  There’s tension between Clive and his brother as they try to keep the secret buried.  There’s incest, of a sort…  And child abuse, of a sort…  And rape, of a sort…

Splice, it seems to me, belongs on Lifetime more than on SyFy.

Just like Signs wasn’t actually about aliens, Splice isn’t actually about genetic tampering.  It doesn’t matter that Dren is a genetic chimera until the last 10 minutes of the movie.  Until that point Dren is treated basically like a human child.  It could easily have been a story about child abuse, rather than genetic tampering.  But it isn’t even really about Dren being abused…  It could have been virtually any deep, dark secret they were trying to keep.

It could have been a movie about infidelity of some sort.  Or alcoholism.  Or drug addiction.

The movie was about a couple playing for their mistakes – not the mistake itself.

Now, there’s nothing inherently wrong with that kind of movie.  I know there are plenty of people out there who enjoy that kind of thing.  And that’s fine.

But I’m not one of them.  I don’t watch Lifetime.  I don’t like V. C. Andrews.  If I had known what Splice was actually about, I wouldn’t have gone to see it.

And I think that deception was intentional.  I think they intentionally crafted the trailers and commercials to make the movie look like something it wasn’t.  To draw in folks who wouldn’t go watch it otherwise – folks like me.

Last night, Princess of Mars was on SyFy.  PZ Myers sums up my reaction quite well:

I had to watch a few minutes to discover that it was a heretical abomination which must be burned and its television creators hunted down and punished. I saw enough to notice that:

• The green Martians were made up with some cheesy lumpy appliance over their heads; their tusks wobbled like rubber every time they talked.
• The green Martians had only two arms. Two! They were also runts, far short of 12 feet tall. I tuned out before I could see how amputated the banths or calots were.
• Dejah Thoris was not naked. Nor red. And she was played by Traci Lords, who looked exhausted beyond her years.

It was bad. Really, really bad.

I kind of figured the acting would be a bit cheezy, since it was obviously a low-budget film.  And the dialogue would be corny, since the book was a bit on the corny side too.  But I really hoped for a reasonably accurate translation of the book.

Instead we got tiny little green martians with only two arms…  And more gunfights than swordfights…  And two Earthlings on Mars, instead of just the one…  But it wasn’t really Mars…  And there were no calots…  Nor white apes…  But there were “spiderlings”…  And no planet-shaking love between John Carter and Dejah Thoris…

They took the first third of the book, butchered it up, and then stretched it out into a movie.  They left out at least half the content of the book.  Big, important, climactic elements were just plain gone.

I was really disappointed.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have been raving about it to my wife for a good couple of months.  I hoped the movie would interest her enough to go read the story…  Now I’ll be lucky if I can ever convince her to check it out.

Then, today, we went to see Splice.

It looked like a decent movie…  Some kind of sci-fi thing about splicing human genes with an animals, and things going horribly awry.  The trailers reminded me a bit of Species.  And it was directed by the same guy who did Cube and Nothing – both of which I thoroughly enjoyed.  So I figured it ought to be relatively decent.

It wasn’t.

Sure, the acting and special effects were good.  They definitely made good use of their budget.  But the movie itself just wasn’t terribly enjoyable.

The story itself reminds me more of Frankenstein than Species.  It wasn’t about aliens using our curiosity to invade…  Or even science gone wrong.  It was about humans crossing lines that shouldn’t be crossed and paying the penalty for it.

Having blurred the lines between good and evil when they blurred the lines between human and animal, morality goes right out the window.

We see Elsa start making some very questionable decisions.  She shifts from treating the experiment like a pet, to a child, and back to a pet again.  Her relationship with Clive starts to crumble.  Their jobs are suddenly in jeopardy.  Her sanity seems to be eroding.

Then we have Clive engaging in some kind of bestiality/incest thing with Dren…  And then Dren winds up raping Elsa…  And Elsa sells her child…

It seems as if the movie is some kind of roughly-crafted morality play.  Some kind of warning that if we play god there’ll be hell to pay.  And there’s really nothing wrong with a morality play, but it comes across as very heavy-handed and awkward.

So, instead of a swashbuckling sci-fi romance, I got a horrifying bad adaptation of one of my favorite books.  And instead of a scary sci-fi thriller, I got an overbearing lesson on morality.

What I need now is a stiff drink and a good zombie apocalypse to scrub my brain clean.

Went to see Iron Man 2 over the weekend…

Received a couple free comics at the theater.  Enjoyed the movie.  Looks like They’re coming out with a Thor movie.  Saw a trailer for Super 8.

The trailer for Super 8 reminds me a lot of the trailer for Cloverfield – dramatic and vague.  It reveals basically nothing about the movie.  Nor does the official website.

And it is being directed by J.J. Abrams.

All of which leads me to believe that I’m probably going to wind up disliking the movie.

I was really not very impressed with Cloverfield.  It looked cool…  Plenty of running and screaming…  Good special effects…  But it was more like one long action sequence than an actual movie.

The characters were introduced before the movie ever came out, via FaceBook and MySpace and YouTube.  There was no exposition or development within the confines of the movie itself.

There was no exploration of what the monster was, or where it came from, or what it wanted.  No exploration of the characters – who they were, what they wanted, why we should care about them.  No arc to any of it.  Just a monster smashing things.

And, judging from the fans that crawled out of the woodwork to incinerate my opinion, this kind of crap is typical of Abrams.

We went to see Clash of the Titans yesterday…  I’ve always been a big fan of the 1980 movie, and Greek mythology in general…  And this one looked to be a special-effects extravaganza, so we had to see it in the theater.

Our theater was not carrying the 3D version, which was initially a disappointment…  But the reviews I’m seeing afterward indicate that I didn’t miss out on much.

I’ve got very mixed feelings about the movie…

All sorts of plot elements were re-arranged…  Characters were changed…  The whole basic storyline was altered…  The end result barely resembles the original movie at all.

The basic storyline of the original has the Kraken released and sacrifice demanded because Queen Cassiopeia compares Andromeda’s beauty to that of the Goddess Thetis…  But in the remake we’ve got Hades scheming to overthrow Zeus, and mankind is in open rebellion against the gods, and Queen Cassiopeia’s words are just an excuse after Hades has already been given permission to release the Kraken.

It isn’t really that I’m such a huge fan of the original movie…  So much as the fact that it’s based on Greek mythology.  It seems downright weird to have so many key elements of that mythology go missing or be altered.

According to the mythology – Perseus was given a sword, shield, and a helmet to help him along his quest.  He slew Medusa, rescued Andromeda from a sea monster, and married her.

According to the 1980 movie – Perseus was given a sword, shield, and a helmet to help him along his quest.  He slew Medusa, rescued Andromeda from a sea monster, and married her.

According to the 2010 movie – Perseus was only given a sword to help him along his quest, and he spent most of the movie refusing to use that gift.  The slew Medusa, rescued Andromeda from a sea monster, sent Hades back to the underworld, then turned down Andromeda’s invitation and rode off into the sunset with Io instead.

But…  I didn’t really go to see Clash of the Titans to revel in complex storylines and deep characters.  I went to see monsters and mayhem.  And in that respect the movie most certainly delivers.

The gods are genuinely impressive in their gleaming armor atop Mount Olympus.  Hades looks genuinely malicious.  The three witches don’t exactly look like witches…  But they’re creepy none-the-less.  The scorpions, and Calibos (or is it Acrisius?), and Medusa are plenty monstrous.   And the Kraken is downright terrifying.

Lots of action, lots of fun fights, lots of noise and movement and special effects – much like I was hoping for.

So…  I’m not really sure what to say in the end.

It was certainly an entertaining movie.  I don’t regret spending my money to go see it.

But, at the same time, it feels like the movie was missing something.  I was, at least somewhat, looking for a remake of the 1980 movie – and this is most certainly not it.

We went to see Alice on opening weekend.  That Friday, in fact.  I mention this because it’s so unusual for us to do that.  Neither Terri nor myself enjoy crowds.  We’ll normally try to see a movie when it would be least crowded…  We’ll go to R-rated things in the middle of the day on Saturday, for example, figuring that most folks have better things to do with themselves.

But Terri has a soft spot in her heart for all things Wonderland…  And we’re both big fans of Tim Burton and Johnny Depp…  So we just had to see it as soon as possible.  Which meant braving one hell of a crowd on a Friday night.

It was worth it.

The movie was shown in that fancy new digital 3D that Disney is using these days, and it was very effective.  Subtle, unlike the old bicolor cardboard glasses…  But effective.  It added a very real feeling of depth to everything on the screen.

The story is basically that of Through the Looking Glass…  At least in that Alice winds up defeating the Red Queen and killing the Jabberwocky.  It’ll be familiar to anyone who’s read the stories or seen any of the previous movies.  But it’s also got a very original feel to the movie, and plenty of liberties were taken.

The acting was all very good…  If, perhaps, a bit odd at times.

Alice was a very likable character.  I definitely wanted to see her save the day and reclaim her muchness.

The White Queen was just plain strange…  She kept yammering on about her vows and floating around with her arms in the air…

The Red Queen was a lot of fun.  Delightfully malicious.

The Red Knight was another odd one…  Sinister one moment, comical the next.

And Depp delivered one hell of a Mad Hatter.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Scottish hatter wielding a claymore before…

It was all thoroughly enjoyable.  Completely engaging.  Definitely worth the cost of admission, and even worth dealing with those horrible crowds.

We watched 2012.

I know…  It’s gotten horrible reviews.  Everyone says it’s bad.  I didn’t expect much, and we rented it from one of the RedBox kiosks, so we were only out $1.  And I generally enjoy a disaster movie.

But 2012 was a whole new kind of horrible.

I expected it to be fairly bad.  I didn’t expect amazing acting or anything like that.  But I really wanted a decent disaster movie…  Lots of screaming and running, stuff exploding, people dying.  The kind of sound and noise that may signify nothing, but at least distracts you from reality for a while.

And while 2012 did have lots of sound and noise, I was too distracted by all the awfulness to actually be distracted from reality – if that makes any sense.

The flow of the movie was just awful.  We see some scientist in India who discovers that neutrinos are somehow interacting with water to superheat the Earth’s crust (WTF?!).  Then he’s at some political meeting trying to talk to some guy.  And then he disappears for a while.

We’re introduced to some random writer-turned-chauffeur and his family.  I suppose he’s kind of the everyman of the movie…  But he isn’t particularly likable.  Nor is it clear why we’d be rooting for him as opposed to the plastic surgeon his wife is now in love with.

We see some shady-looking people evidently selling seats on some kind of ark or escape-pod or bunker or something.

We see some people collecting famous works of art to be preserved.

It all seems to drag on an awful lot.  I wasn’t looking at a clock, but it felt like absolutely nothing was happening for the longest time.  Just various people going around doing various things.  No explosions, no chaos, no disaster…  Nada.

And then, when things start going wrong, it doesn’t make sense.

I mean…  Not that a disaster movie like this is ever really going to make a lot of sense…  But this was worse than usual.

Mr. Writer Guy somehow puts everything together just in time to race home and toss his family into the limo…  And then races through a rapidly-crumbling LA to the airport…  And it’s a damn good thing that Mr. Plastic Surgeon is a pilot…  And then they fly through a rapidly-crumbling LA…  To an almost-ready-to-crumble Yellowstone…  And then to an almost-ready-to-crumble Las Vegas…

Watching these cities disintegrate before our eyes could have been very dramatic, if it weren’t for the horrible construction of the scenes.  It felt more like I was watching a cartoon than a disaster movie.  The characters are all gawking with open mouths at the carnage around them.  The limo drives through a skyscraper as it falls to the ground.  There’s light-hearted comments and comical expressions every few minutes.

The characters make basically no sense.  None of them.

We’re introduced to various people…  Some musicians going on a cruise, a Russian mafioso, the President…  And we’re given some direction in how we’re supposed to feel about them…  And then they just stop mattering.

The Russian mafioso, for example…  He starts out looking like an asshole.  He’s a scary jerk of a Russian mobster.  Obviously not a nice guy.  Probably made all his money by kicking puppies and eating kittens.

But then he starts acting more human.  Starts to seem like he might be a nice guy.  And everyone’s expecting to see some kind of change of heart…  Maybe he’ll wind up saving someone, or sacrificing himself…  Or maybe he’ll at least turn out to be a not-so-horrible person.

But then he abandons everyone, including his girlfriend, to the mercies of the apocalypse and hops on a helicopter headed for safety.

So…  Why did they attempt to humanize him?  Why not just leave us with an asshole of a Russian mobster?

The whole movie is just one contrived emergency after another.  Every time it looks like our heroes have reached safety, some new ridiculous problem arises.

By the end of the movie I was just waiting for the credits to roll.  I simply wanted it to end.  I’m not sure how long the movie actually was…  But it felt like an eternity.

We went to see Alice in Wonderland over the weekend…  And I’ll have more to say about that later…  But right now I want to mention the trailer we saw for Tron Legacy.

Tron was a terrific movie back in the day.  Had a huge impact on me.  I still enjoy it to this day.

I was pretty skeptical about Tron Legacy…  It’s awfully hard to do a cult movie like that justice.  Especially when the original was so thoroughly a product of the time it was created in.

And then I heard that part of the plot of Tron Legacy would involve hacking Skynet from the inside…  Well, that sounds pretty horrible to me.

But the trailer looks good.  It looks very good.  And it’ll be in Disney Digital 3-D, which I’ve been very impressed with so far.

So, I’m cautiously optimistic at this point…  I’ll have to see the thing in theaters.  There’s really no other choice.  Even if the reviews are absolutely awful I’ll wind up going.  But right now I’m thinking that it might actually be an entertaining way to waste a few hours of my life.  Time will tell.

New trailer for Iron Man 2…  Looks pretty good.  I thoroughly enjoyed the first movie.  My only complaint was that you didn’t really get to see too much of Tony being heroic.  Granted, Tony isn’t exactly hero-material…  But I still wanted to see him fighting evil and saving the day.  Looks like the sequel will have plenty of that.