Today I’m going to be looking at something fairly different from the usual simple-minded gore and explosions that usually tend to grace the movie reviews section of my blog: Человек с киноаппаратом (Man With a Movie Camera) is a silent documentary film made in 1929 by Russian director Dziga Vertov. While originally accompanied by live music, the score has been long-since lost, replaced instead by various iterations over the years — the version I saw over on Google Video features an original soundtrack by The Cinematic Orchestra, which seemed to fit the mood and theme of the film perfectly, aside from a minor quibble I’ll elaborate on below.

While I’m not nearly enough of a hipster to elaborate upon the more complex aspects of this film, allow me to at least cover the basics: In a nutshell, the film shows the people of the 1920s Soviet Union at work and play, the eponymous man with the movie camera making appearances everywhere from beneath moving trains to a hospital where a woman is giving birth, from a coal mine to a beach, and many other locales both mundane and exotic. Perhaps on its own, this wouldn’t be enough for a compelling experience, but the addition of numerous and varied film editing effects, many of which must have been highly original and advanced for their time, as well as the relaxing-yet-eerie soundtrack — which I know wasn’t part of the original, yet seems to compliment the experience so well — combines to produce something quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.

One aspect I found both surprising and intriguing was the fact that — aside from the occasional snippets of Russian language on signs and whatnot — it’s easy to mistake many of the people and places as being something from a similar era in America or Britain, and in a way, that struck me as being almost the ultimate anti-propaganda, the realization that regardless of geographical location, people really aren’t all that different at all.

My only real complaint was that after being absorbed into the somewhat dream-like atmosphere of the uniquely-edited scenes, a scene near the end drags the viewer out of this comfort zone with a disquieting abruptness almost reminiscent of something one would expect from Videodrome; attributable both to the original film and the soundtrack in equal measure, a camera assembles itself, ‘looks’ and moves around in a stop-motion animation sequence while accompanied by a quirky, electronic soundtrack — something I found vaguely unsettling for reasons that escape me — followed by a harsh discord of notes and a blur of black and white lines. It doesn’t fit at all with the rest of the film’s theme and feel, especially due to the vaguely menacing overtones.

Nontheless, an overall unique experience, one that I’d recommend to the curious, though be warned that the meandering pace, lack of commentary or cohesive theme may be offputting. I’d recommend watching the first fifteen minutes or so, at the least — if you’re not strangely hooked by that point, then perhaps it’s not for you.

I think a large part of the reason I’m so fond of movies from the 80s is due to the shameless acceptance that — for the most part — they don’t take themselves seriously. Classic examples of such include the Evil Dead trilogy, the Gremlins movies, Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure, and other such offerings; you go into it knowing that the movies intend to take themselves with a pinch of salt, and unlike more modern offerings, there was a certain charm and appeal to this light-hearted nature. While this mentality is largely dead in the modern era of movies, there are still a few gems that manage to recreate the old magic, first and foremost of which is the 2007 action movie Shoot ‘Em Up, starring Clive Owen as the enigmatic, carrot-munching gunman with a penchant for hating just about everything.

If this movie teaches anything, it's to not fuck with a guy who eats raw carrots.

The story is frankly ridiculous, which fits in perfectly with the overall experience — that being a balls-to-the-wall, hilariously implausible spree of violence, all starting with our ornery hero known only as Mr. Smith becoming reluctantly embroiled in a plot that, through convoluted yet eventually cogent means, involves a fairly stereotypical, bearded bad guy and his apparently limitless legions of goons attempting to hunt down and kill a defenseless newborn baby. It’s not long until underhanded government assassins get wind of the goings-on and join in the hunt for their own sinister ends, and that’s when this spree of rampant, idiotic-yet-superb action begins, and it doesn’t let up until the very second the end credits roll.

Imagine then, if you will, a movie about an ex-special-forces gunman with a deus ex machina-like ability to turn any situation to his advantage which puts even the A-Team to shame, on the run from goons and government alike, all the while trying to defend a baby whose very existence is enough to warrant such reckless hate. The first ten minutes alone involve a henchman being killed with a carrot, acrobatic gunfighting that would make The Matrix green with envy, the newborn baby’s umbilical cord being severed with a gunshot, and a rooftop shootout involving a neon sign for “FAULK TRUCK & TOOL” being strategically destroyed until the remaining letters spell out a taunting insult.

The remainder of the movie keeps the relentless pace with only a few breaks to elaborate upon the unfolding story and offer some minimal, though often amusing character development, such as inconveniently-timed phone calls between the primary villain, Karl Hertz (Paul Giamatti), and his estranged wife as their marriage collapses practically in sync with the predictable and inevitable downfall of his dastardly plans. It almost feels like watching an hour and a half long trailer, with increasingly unlikely confrontations — the fight against the government man in the bathroom is my personal favourite, with strategic use of a wall-mounted hand dryer — and sometimes groan-inducing, but largely genuinely amusing quips. While the plot seems to falter a little at times, sometimes feeling almost inexplicably nonsensical, things are quickly explained away and the pace moves ever onwards, always leaving the viewer wondering just how much more epic and surreal the next battle will be.

If you’re looking for something flashy, amusing, violent, yet not intended to be taken even slightly seriously — a great contender for drunken movie nights, perhaps — then you can’t go far wrong with Shoot ‘Em Up, one of my personal favourite action movies of all time.

Oh dear.

Yes, Max, we all feel that way about your movie.

I think the entire sum of the movie can be described with those two words, which in itself should be a suitable omen of things to come: While, admittedly, my standards were set fairly low to begin with — as one must do when dealing with movies based upon games — much of my disappointment lies in the significant change of style. Max Payne – the game — was moody, dark, atmospheric, and had a heavy influence from film noir; the movie, contrastingly, is a plodding and clumsily-constructed effort that seems unable to decide what it’s trying to be, and missing the mark entirely along the way.

I’m at such a loss for words, in fact, that it’s hard to know what else to say: Any element of the dark, brooding, noir atmosphere from the host game has been thoroughly stripped away, along with the story which seems to have been largely re-written into something shallower than a puddle and about as interesting. This is unfortunate, since the vast majority of said movie focuses heavily on the bumbling attempt of a story, while the remarkably few action sequences manage the seemingly impossible, as they garner even less interest than the rest. Some of the “special” effects are frankly laughable, such as the scene where Max — having just dispatched two nameless thugs with a pump-action shotgun — bends over backwards and takes out a third on the walkway above and behind him, as if trying and failing to mimic a Matrix-like stunt.

I found the whole experience to be thoroughly dull and a pale shadow of what it could have been; the reinvention of the drug Valkyr — a major plot device in the original game — into a failed experiment at creating super-soldiers (oh, I’m sorry, was that a spoiler?) is a tired and yawn-inducing plot device that has been done so much better in, oh, just about everything else, and while the experience is almost partially salvaged by the hallucinations involving jet-black angels of death — valkyries, we’re led to believe, though they hardly fit the profile — this whole aspect is both inadequately explained and largely wasted.

Overall, an abysmally bland, entirely forgettable attempt.

They'll kick your ass if you don't watch this movie.

I know many people disliked the movie adaptation of Doom, an endeavour so ill-fated that it was almost inevitable. Sporting a lamentable 5.2/10 on IMDb (lower than Terminator 3; lower, even, than Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within), the popular sentiment seems to have been echoed — games based on movies invariably suck. Well, pull up a chair, because I’m going to tell you why I think Doom is worthy of redemption, and moreover, an entertaining no-brainer flick for those of us willing to disengage the grey matter and let our eyeballs run on autopilot for a while. But first, let me take a moment to indulge myself and go through the weaker points.

I’m a big fan of the Doom series of games — I played the original two back when I was a young teen, and while I wasn’t as enamoured with the third in the series, at least it held true to Doom’s original principles; that is to say, all hell has broken loose in the most literal possible meaning of the phrase, and a (more or less) nameless Marine in the service of UAC — the Union Aerospace Corporation, who started the mess in the first place — is all that stands between Satan’s armies and the destruction of mankind. It’s a solid storyline for a game series that revolves around slaughtering hundreds of horrific abominations, and for a no-brainer “dick flick” like this one, it seems it’d be hard to go wrong.

Recurring themes: Dark rooms and dead people.

Imagine my disappointment, then, when I discover that the entire theme of Hell’s armies being unleashed from Mars was casually thrown away and pounded into the dirt, replaced instead by an obnoxiously generic excuse of the classic deus ex machina bullshit of “it’s a virus that mutates people” (well, genetic modification actually, but close enough). The presence of the UAC is limited to mere logos in the background, as if in a vain attempt to appease fans. While the visuals of this movie are possibly the best silver screen rendition of Doom 3 one could hope for — complete, naturally, with the iconic B.F.G. 9000 — the storyline could just as easily be ripped straight from 28 Days Later, only replacing flesh-eating zombies with… uh… flesh-eating mutants. Yeah. Even the “lone Marine versus the armies of Hell” theme has been ripped away and urinated upon, though I suppose I’ll concede that point — with only one character, it wouldn’t make for a terribly interesting movie.

“But wait, Grave, didn’t you say you liked this movie?” It has its flaws, but there’s certainly a charm beneath the surface, yes.

The movie begins with what I was lead to assume was an elite commando team (despite one member being a frightened rookie who acts like he’s never seen combat), whose job is to go through the “Ark” — an interstellar gateway leading to Mars, built by a long-dead alien civilization — to investigate what happened to a group of scientists working on the base, even after we — the viewers — are shown them being brutally murdered by unseen foes. In the fashion that even a child could have seen coming from a mile away, it all goes awry and we’re launched into a visceral journey of both murders and dissections, as the paper-thin plot of the movie is spooned out in most transparent terms.

He doesn't like you. I don't like you either.

The acting is adequate enough and the characters — while shallow — have enough personality to be likable; in particular, “Sarge” (played by none other than The Rock), “Duke” (Razaaq Adoti), and Dr. Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pike) stand out the most, and it should say something about the depth of this experience when a character played by The Rock could be considered one of the most interesting. But therein lies the beauty of the experience, and I hope by now my point is beginning to take form: Because of the unashamedly testosterone-driven, brick-to-the-face nature of Doom, the shallow characterization and weak storyline can easily be pushed aside, leaving a macabre ride which alternates between sinister and action-packed, and leads to what I believe is one of the greatest pieces of work in action movie history.

I’m referring, of course, to the first-person sequence that attempts to mimic the style of modern FPS games, complete with “look, Ma, no hands!” aiming and ridiculously exaggerated reloading, a sequence which every neuron in my brain was screaming at me that I should find ridiculous, and yet I was unable to shift the painfully wide smile that had taken up residence on my face, unable to resist the sheer, unrefined amount of badass present in this scene. I would go so far as to say that no man (or particularly masculine woman) is complete without having experienced it, and that alone should make the bargain-bucket price tag all the more worthwhile.

And that, good readers, is exactly why everyone should experience Doom — at least once — because despite its flaws, if it can bring even an elitist prick of a pseudo-intellectual myself to such a level of joy, then the rest of you have no excuse. Shut down your brain, lock and load, and get ready for the uncompromising — albeit inane — experience.