Apollo 18 film in the works

I've just learnt that a new film is in production called Apollo 18 (imdb). The last real Apollo mission was of course number 17 which took place in 1972 and saw the crew land in the Taurus-Littrow valley equipped with a Lunar Rover. NASA did have a real Apollo 18 mission planned and more after that but budget cuts and - would you believe - lack of public interest in manned moon landings put paid to the whole Apollo programme. Many people are saddened by the fact that we have never returned to the moon in nearly 40 years.

At first I thought the new film would be a feature documentary or dramatisation about the real mission and the cancellation of the programme, but it turns out to be a work of fiction with a conspiracy-theory style horror/sci-fi plot. The basic premise is that there actually was a secret Apollo 18 mission and when they got to the Moon they encountered aliens that attacked the crew. I am looking forward to the explanation for why after seven very public moon landing missions there was a need for one mission to be conducted in secret. My guess would be that this is explained because astronauts  "saw something" on one of the previous missions that warranted further investigation.

What I do find interesting is that the premise of this film says more about our changing attitudes: in the late 1960's and 70's we took Apollo for what it was - mankind's greatest endeavour. In that era it's likely that a movie about classified Apollo missions and aliens would have seemed ridiculous, but in the new world of secretive Governments and populations who now know for a fact that they are not always being told the truth, a story like this becomes more plausible. The same is also true of the continuing persistence of the conspiracy theories about how the moon landings were staged - which I've always thought of as a huge insult to the achievement of the astronauts and the team of 400,000 people across the USA who worked on the programme.

Hallowed ground

I worship the Apollo space programme and although the premise of Apollo 18 sounds semi-interesting, I have grave concerns over whether this is going to really treat Apollo with the respect it deserves - it looks like it's being used as the basis for a cheap horror movie that's trying to ride on the back of real-life events. I'll reserve final judgement on Apollo 18 until its release date (currently tracking as the 22nd April) but my gut feel is that this isn't going to be very good at all.

Movie review: The Town

Ben Affleck’s second directing effort is a crime drama set in the Boston neighbourhood of Charlestown, following the career of a crew of bank robbers led by Doug MacRay (Affleck). The film opens with a hit on a bank where things don’t go quite to plan and slightly-unhinged James Coughlin (Jeremy Renner) grabs female bank worker Claire Keesey (Rebecca Hall) as a hostage. They let her go almost immediately, but a few days later Coughlin is concerned that she could lead the police to them and wants to eliminate her. MacRay objects to such an extreme solution and decides instead to follow her to try and determine if she poses a genuine risk.

It’s fairly obvious that MacRay feels guilt for what Claire went through and feels the need to try and help her, which means he doesn’t keep his distance very well and the two meet and strike up a tentative relationship, with MacRay seeing Claire as a way out of the life he wants to get away from. As you would expect, their relationship leads to some tense moments where MacRay’s cover is nearly blown, and his life is further complicated by the police starting to take an interest in him and his crew as they investigate the bank job.

I thoroughly enjoyed Affleck’s first film - Gone Baby Gone - being particularly impressed by the natural style and engaging characters. It has a unique feel, stripping back Hollywood gloss but not going over the top with grittiness in representing the lives and locations of people living in less than ideal conditions. The Town takes a very similar approach and benefits greatly from it. It’s difficult to categorise easily – it’s tempting to say his work has a documentary style because of the sense of realism, but this is doing a disservice to the high quality production, cast and stories he delivers.

If there was one criticism I had with Gone Baby Gone, it was that the behaviour of the characters occasionally went beyond the limits of credibility, or perhaps more correctly - the film didn't do a good enough job of justifying their actions. The same is also true of The Town to a lesser extent – the characters are mostly excellent but one of them in particular is sometimes a little unbelievable: Claire is overly giddy and flirty with Affleck in a scene where they’re having a drink together - out of place given that they are strangers who met in a laundrette moments earlier. Her trauma from the bank job seems to disappear and reappear to suit the story and on the whole it's not a very convincing piece of acting. On the other hand, Ben Affleck plays his part well and makes the character likeable despite his chosen career, although the character’s emotional issues caused by the departure of his mother early in his childhood could have been explained more concisely.

Apart from those minor criticisms, The Town is an excellent film and almost certainly my favourite of 2010. The action scenes aim for realism rather than overblown thrills but still remain tense and exciting. The Boston setting gives the film a unique feel - a welcome departure from the usual crime story locations of New York or Los Angeles. It falls just short of being a classic but is another excellent piece of work from what is turning out to be a surprisingly good director.

Movie review: The Expendables

One Saturday morning back in the summer I saw one of those cheaply-produced movie shows that mostly consists of trailers for upcoming films and - if you’re lucky – an interview with one of the stars. There was a piece about a new film called The Expendables and after watching some clips and the enthusiastic and funny interview with Stallone I was sold - it looked brilliant. A film that pays tribute to the great action films of the 1980’s, with an all-star cast. To top it off, I think Stallone did a superb job of the recent Rocky and Rambo updates. Many people cringed at the thought of another Rocky film after the franchise was destroyed by increasingly bad sequels, but what we got was a sincere and honest film with an engaging and surprisingly credible story. It was also smart enough to realise that the only truly great Rocky film was the first one because it also knew that what actually matters is the characters and story rather than the overblown fight scenes of the sequels.

Speaking of character stories, that is exactly what The Expendables isn’t. Who are these guys? How did they meet? What are they trying to do? None of these questions even come close to being answered. The answer is almost certainly that it doesn’t matter, they are ‘expendables’ after all. My problem with this is that for an action movie to be good, you have to enjoy the action scenes. For action scenes to be good you have to care about the outcome, and for that to happen there has to be some sort of connection with the characters involved.

I’ll keep the plot summary brief as you’ve probably either read it elsewhere already, or quite possibly don’t care: the basic premise is that a fictional island called Vilena is being ruled by a corrupt ex-CIA operative and a home-grown dictator. Barney Ross (Stallone) and his crew are offered a big payout to overthrow him, so they head over there on a recon where they meet a girl who’s one of the few locals putting up any kind of resistance. There’s soon trouble and they have to flee but Barney is fixated by the girl and vows to return and save her.

Without any characterisation in the film, the action sequences have a massive job to do because they have to deliver real spectacle to keep the viewer entertained - which they do with mixed success. There’s a great scene where Jason Statham pops out of the nose of a seaplane with a cannon and they carry out an aerial strafing attack on a jetty, finishing it off by dumping fuel out of the aircraft and igniting it. But some other scenes are less impressive - in particular I found the car chase sequence with Gunner Jensen (Dolph Lundgren) dull. The grand finale is also a bit patchy in places.

Some of the jokes and plot devices in the film are particularly dated. Lee Christmas (Statham) has an on-off relationship with a woman who has a new man that turns out to be a woman-basher. Eventually Christmas finds out and beats the living daylights out him while she looks on in admiration. Very contrived and something that should have stayed in the 1980’s. There’s also a scene where you feel embarrassed for Jet Li acting out a supposedly funny dialog about being short.

The Expendables isn’t a terrible film but the problem is the feeling of it being a wasted opportunity given the talent involved and all-star cast. A follow-up is apparently in the works, but it really needs to offer more than just a simple concept and an outstanding cast. I’d like to see a prequel that fills the story out a bit more, but the age of some of the actors is going to make this difficult. Perhaps some scenes showing the FBI looking over the character profiles of the expendables crew would be enough to provide some kind of identity to the characters. Either that or get Michael Bay in to direct the action scenes and push that side of it a bit more.

Maybe stick to Rambo and Rocky next time Sly – from his other films I’d recommend First Blood, Rambo (2008), Rocky Balboa and even the cheesy Cliffhanger as offering more quality and fun respectively.