teleportation – Movies of the Soul

Vampire Owl: I know that humans call us the monsters.

Vampire Bat: Well, this is not about us, for sure.

Vampire Owl: I do know that humans are the monsters though.

Vampire Bat: That idea has been reiterated so many times.

Vampire Owl: We have seen the same clearly in the film, Kuruthi.

Vampire Bat: I am sure that there are many more examples outside the movies.

Vampire Owl: I had known the same from an alien in The Blackout too.

Vampire Bat: The aliens always know things better.

Vampire Owl: Yes, it is why the aliens won’t talk to humans.

Vampire Bat: I think that it is better for aliens to not talk to these humans. They are hopeless creatures living in hatred for their own kind.

[Gets a marble cake and three glasses of blackcurrant shake].

What is the movie about? :: In a parallel world, referred to as the New World, humans are fighting monsters all the time, and these creatures come from under the sands, while people use ships looking like galleys and galleons to travel on the sands of this particular world. There, one of the people (Tony Jaa), a skilled warrior against monsters is separated from the other crew members of their ship, as they are attached by Diablos, a huge, powerful subterranean monster. Back on Earth, United States Army soldiers led by Natalie Artemis (Milla Jovovich) and her United Nations team are searching for their missing team in a desert. They come across a huge storm with lightning which seems to activate some stones there having inscriptions. They are taken into a portal, and from there, they enter a space without gravity and then into the New World. There they find what remains of the missing soldiers and also their vehicles. The don’t figure out what happened, and the place looks like a different type of desert with so much of sand.

So, what happens with the events here? :: The map doesn’t match with what is seen at the map, and all the technology they have for guidance is messed up without any chance for a repair. They are relieved to find that at least their weapons and vehicles seem to work. But none of their weapons are even a little effective against the monster which seems to be protected against such weaponry with some kind of armour. Some of them are killed, and the remaining troops go into a cave, only to be attacked another type of monsters, spider-like, and crawling through the caves. There are many such monsters who fill up the cave, and they are all infected by the monsters, dead or almost all good as dead. Natalie manages to escape from their cocoons because she was only paralyzed earlier, and had overcome the same. She manages to escape the same, and it is still to found if she can survive in this world full of monsters, and it is to be seen what role Hunter has to play in her survival and a possible return to Earth. But with monsters everywhere, that is indeed doubtful.

The defence of Monster Hunter :: This is one full action film with the terrifying monsters adding nicely to it in style. The creatures are all terrifying and detailed enough to catch our attention, and the slaying methods entertaining as they should be. There are grand moments with such creatures all around and attacking with full strength, and you have dragons as well as sand-serpents along with crawlers. The new world with its elements are also a joy to watch. There are so much to be seen with the visual splendour, even thought it is not that colourful – the situation is rather dark when we look at it, seemingly a lost world. A new world created makes our escapist tendencies feel better every time. The film, as it is based on the video game of the same name, does remind us of a computer game with its features – the world itself is something which suits a high quality video game, but it is not a game which is popular around here, and I am yet to find someone from life to have played it. The sound effects and the music nicely adds to what is seen on the screen. It also has a special scene in between the credits, so do look forward to that.

The claws of flaw :: This doesn’t manage to move out of the video game feeling enough to create a full film effect. There is very less importance given to the characters, and we don’t really know much about what is happening in the new world or the old one. We just have the action, and so many characters from the original world are killed too early for our liking. As this is more or less like an origin story of a possible franchise, there should have been a better explanation for things in the beginning. Waiting for a sequel with only this much action done is a little too less for our liking. A few things also get repetitive at times, not just related to this film, but also about other movies. The focus is also only one two characters, and we have a few others in the beginning and the end, and nothing more. The game also happens to be Capcom’s second biggest seller after the Resident Evil franchise, and so one has to wonder if this film is enough for the game, and only those who have played one or two of the games in the franchise can tell us clearly about it.

Performances of the soul :: Milla Jovovich in an action film is always joy to watch, as she has shown the best in the Resident Evil films, which ended with Resident Evil: Retribution and Resident Evil: The Final Chapter. Whenever she is around, we can be sure that there can a lot of spectacular action sequences coming together, and this one is no exception. She is like the action heroine who is there for such sequences forever. It is the similar case of Tony Jaa who is also known for the same genre, even though Mila had some horror added to her films every time, mixing the genres rather than sticking to one thing. Other than these two, there is no other character who has anything significant to do here. They do make a good team, especially as action is all that they need to do here. Maybe, there could be a video game based on this film some day, rather than the other way around. The only other person whom I can think of, related to such action films is Kate Beckinsale, the lady vampire of Underworld and its sequels as well as Total Recall.

How it finishes :: Adapted from the video game of the same name, this film also maintains the effect of being inside a game, and even though it might not have received the positive reviews just like the other game adaptation, this is an effective one. I did find movies based on computer games to be better than what the critics said, and Hitman: Codename 47, Need for Speed, Doom: Annihilation, Prince of Persia and Max Payne are a few of them. There were surely the bad ones, like Assassin’s Creed, but movies based on games have a tendency different from the rest. Well, this one makes an interesting film in that list for sure. You are transported into a new world that reminds on of Avatar and John Carter, even though this is mostly a world of desert terrain, which means there is not that much to enjoy the colours. But with this one, you enjoy the action set in a new world with monsters all around, and watching such monster hunting is fun enough. You are never really short of some fine monsters around here, that is for sure.

Release date: 28th May 2020
Running time: 116 minutes
Directed by: Paul WS Anderson
Starring: Milla Jovovich, Tony Jaa, Meagan Good, Tip Harris, Diego Boneta, Josh Helman, Jin Au-Yeung, Ron Perlman

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Vampire Owl: Do you remember Doom? The only and only Doom?

Vampire Bat: Doom is not one and only. There are many Dooms.

Vampire Owl: What do you mean? How many do you know as of now?

Vampire Bat: I played the video game named Doom, in the 1990s.

Vampire Owl: Okay, the game which you played before you had Unreal Tournament, Warcraft, Age of Empires, Resident Evil, Silent Hill, Hitman and Need for Speed.

Vampire Bat: Yes, and then I had a little bit of Doom II until it was replaced by Unreal Tournament and later adding some Quake 3 Arena.

Vampire Owl: I remember you having said something about Quake and Quake II. You had quite a metamorphosis with the computer games then.

Vampire Bat: There were others from the same video game developers, id Software including Wolfenstein, Heretic and Hexen.

Vampire Owl: So, your memories go beyond The Rock starrer movie of the same name.

Vampire Bat: Yes, those PC gaming memories are beautiful, and there was no reason why I wouldn’t watch this particular movie. Doom is like a legendary game during those days when I first had a computer. It was first love.

[Gets some french fries and three cups of masala tea].

What is the movie about? :: United Aerospace Corporation (UAC) has established a base on Phobos, the innermost and the larger one among the two natural satellites of Mars. Dr. Malcolm Betruger (Dominic Mafham), after years of research, tries to teleport a volunteer from a UAC lab in Nevada to their lab on Phobos by using teleporters. Even though the experiment seems to be successful in the begining, with the subject travelling all the way to Phobos and returning in one piece, there seems to be some problem with him – there are some deformities with him, not just outside, but also inside, with nothing much normal about him. Against the wishes of the other scientists inclduing the senior Ahmed Kahn (Hari Dhillon), Malcolm decides to make one more teleportation, this time with himself on the portal. But things don’t go as planned, and there is a problem with the power supply, and things don’t go as planned.

So, what happens with the events here? :: On a UAC transport vessel, a group of Marines on a mission to guard the Phobos base wakes up from cryo-sleep. Joan Dark (Amy Manson), a disgraced lieutenant is among the first to wake up and go through the procedures. She is someone whom nobody in the team wants to work with, except for her former boyfriend Bennett Stone (Luke Allen-Gale), a scientist who is excited to be sent to that high tech facility on a moon far away from Earth. The team is led by Hector Savage (James Weber Brown) who is not happy about the fighting going on inside the team, and hopes that they will work together well during their next mission on Phobos, which could be more or less about making sure that nobody steals from the high-tech facility, as almost everything in there is supposed to be worth millions of dollars. Unable to communicate with the base, they enter through the emergency entrance only to find trouble. Can they survive the horror inside the facility and restore it, or will they perish?

The defence of Doom: Annihilation :: This movie brings that long gone video game feeling back, as it is something that we fans of the first person shooters have always wanted, getting that much needed nostalgia too. Even with a low budget, the movie has brought the looks of a moon and space station into believable mode. With the usual first person shooter look written into it, there are maps in the helmets of the marines which they can access, and the characters move accordingly – they also have different access cards, and entering some areas are prohibited just like in those good old video games. This movie is more or less deserving a gamer’s love rather than of the others. Still, you can’t deny its quality shooting sequences, creatures attacking all of a sudden and continuing to create a world of terror, simple but effective work of a facility in space, a hell being designed and looking pretty effective and above all, the idea which we know from the game itself. The movie also has its heart and soul at the right place, while it also adds some humour and hope for an even better sequel.

The claws of flaw :: Doom: Annihilation does suffer from the low budget, and the signs can be seen here, and with some of the demons and places showing missing links in the design. It could have actually had more demons, with some more locations inside the facility – each creature and space could have been different, with one grand antagonist in the end. But the movie doesn’t try that, and neither does it have as many weapons as the game, only trying to get one big gun before the ending moments. They could have brought some fine effects into place here with variety in demons and also the action sequences. Instead the movie chooses to go the straight path, which was too easy, considering the fact that a good number of games established the path a long time ago. It also has to be noted that some people had already declared this to be a bad movie because they didn’t like the previous movie, and because this is based on a video game, especially a first person shooter – that seems to have affected the number of people watching this.

Performers of the soul :: When a movie tries to live by the name of the highly successful, magnificent, nostalgic first person shooter gaming franchise, it would provide more action, thrills and even horror than dialogues, and we have the same here. The Scottish actress Amy Manson is in the lead here, and she has undoubtedly done a fantastic job here, as the marine punished for disobeying a direct order from the higher authorities. From the moment she gets out of the cryo-sleep chamber, we know that she is to play the determined marine is a very much believable manner – she keeps that level throughout the movie’s run. She has an emotional side, and is perfectly suited to action, making us hope that the movie’s possible sequel would also have her in the lead. After Amy, Jemma Moore is the next one we see early, among those marines, but she is not there to stay, while most of the marines follow the same pattern, except three who stays further, and you know who has to survive till the end, as it is no surprise. Dominic Mafham reminds one of Event Horizon, and does well.

How it finishes :: If you have played any of the games in the Doom franchise, there is a certain amount of nostalgia related to this particular movie. As far as I can remember, Doom was the first of the first person shooter games which I had played. There we fought our way through demons from the other world, playing the game which would be considered as a pioneer among the titles of the same kind. It had also inspired me to buy Quake, another video game built on the style of Doom. For all of us who have played computer games in the 1990s, this is a dose of nostalgia, and for others, there is that memory of the 2015 version – the one which had quite a star cast including The Rock, Karl Urban and Rosamund Pike. With the negative reviews all around, it was not quite a success, and even with a cast which is not that famous, this one manages to be a better adventure. It might have something to do with my love for the game franchise, but I did enjoy watching this movie very much.

Release date: 1st October 2019
Running time: 96 minutes
Directed by: Tony Giglio
Starring: Amy Manson, Dominic Mafham, Luke Allen-Gale, Nina Bergman, Katrina Nare, Clayton Adams, James Weber Brown, Jemma Moore, Gavin Brocker, Amer Chadha-Patel, Chidi Ajufo, Hari Dhillon, Arkie Reece, Louis Mandylor, Cassidy Little, Plamena Bozhilova, Lorina Kamburova, Nathan Cooper