Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)
Director: Philip Kaufman
Screenwriter: W. D. Richter
Starring: Donald Sutherland, Brooke Adams, Veronica Cartwright, Jeff Goldblum, Leonard Nimoy

This film is about aliens. Technically. But also, it isn’t.

This is the second adaptation of “The Body Snatchers” by Jack Finney (following the 1956 Don Siegel adaptation, also titled Invasion of the Body Snatchers). It follows roughly the same plot, where strange, plant-based life forms come to Earth after travelling across the stars, where they grow replicas of human beings in huge pods, each identical save for the removing of emotion (and so no war, no pain, no love). Their infiltration of the community they find themselves in is the scene of paranoia, of the discovery of a conspiracy, of the terror of realising that your family members may look and sound the same, but that they aren’t actually them. A small band of survivors must battle the odds when the system has been infiltrated and turned against them. The novel and original film, taking place in the midst of 1950s Red Scare McCartheyism, is as thinly veiled an allegory for America’s fear of communism as you can get, though Finney denied this throughout his life (movies such as The Thing From Another World and It Came From Outer Space also follow the trend). Both of those texts are also seminal sci-fi horror reading/viewing. The question, therefore, is how does this version stack up?

Part of the genius of this interpretation is the decision to move the action from the small town of Santa Mira (in the film)/Mill County (in the book) to downtown San Francisco. The added chaos of urban life gives a sense of menace to the spreading contamination. The allegory here is of corporations turning people into shells of their former selves, and of the destruction of the natural world – a kind of capitalist updating of the red weed from H. G. Wells’ “The War of the Worlds”. Roger Ebert commented that it might also be influenced by the Watergate scandal, with tapped phones and wires. Whilst this is a possibility, those features were always elements in the novel and the first film. What is certain, is that by putting this viral personality takeover in the middle of a city, the danger is far more immediate. With the first film, if it gets out of the small town, there’s still a chance. There’s a larger civilisation out there to help. Here, if you’re dead in the city, with all that manpower and all those connections, with all that modernity, there’s not much chance that anywhere else is going to last. Along with this updating, the pod-people in their growing stage are much more organic, more tissue-like, adding to the ecological themes. It isn’t as strong a body-horror shift, but perhaps comparable to the way in which the 1958 version of The Fly (starring Vincent Price) was updated for modern audiences: a reimagining rather than a remake, as directed by David Cronenberg in 1986 (ironically, also starring Jeff Goldblum).

The air of being hemmed in is all around. The buildings impose, the close proximity that everyone is to each other (and in some sequences having several of the characters together in every shot one after the other), makes the idea that the people next to you aren’t who they say they are even worse. The main cast is terrific, bringing sufficient weight and drama to a terror slowly building up as the horrific realisation of what is going on dawns on them. The little things occurring in the background add to that paranoia, and is something Edgar Wright specifically mentions as an influence on the background details for Shaun of the Dead in his DVD commentary (ironically, Wright’s body-snatching film The World’s End actually has the ending of the original novel, in which the invading force realises humanity will never be converted, which is something no actual novel adaptation has kept). The occasional shots of the garbage compactors crushing the husks of used pods comes back time and time again unmentioned but always there, and when you realise what they are, by then it’s all too late. Everything’s already over.

Speaking of endings, Kevin McCarthy (who played Dr Miles in the first film) has a cameo in this one, playing very much a similar character (but not the same), slamming on Donald Sutherland’s car and screaming ‘You’re next!’, much like his famous ending to the first film. Even if it’s not Dr Miles, it gives the impression that Miles has been wandering for years warning us of the oncoming apocalypse. It’s so iconic an original ending that one wonders how this film could possibly one-up it. And yet it does, in an ending reveal burned into the public consciousness with just sound. Sound that has drained from the world as the film runs on, with characters fleeing through the streets, their feet slamming against the road. Somehow that’s the most disturbing thing of all. The takeover of the pod people, with their uniformity, has reduced the need for talk, for going anywhere unplanned, for noise. Despite their horrifying screech, the emptiness of the sound of the world is what truly scares. The naturalness of the world has faded. Now it is simply a factory of the pods, a greenhouse for empty husks.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers has everything you could want. A great cast, direction that mostly stands up (there are unfortunately some parts when Kaufman decides to go for some egregious camera movements which betray the camp B-movie roots and lodge in the cinematic throat), an all-consuming tone, and some of the most iconic scenes of all science-fiction and horror. It has to be seen to be believed, and, even with the odd misstep, remains an all-time classic.

Score: 20/24

The Creator (2023)
Director: Gareth Edwards
Screenwriters: Gareth Edwards, Chris Weitz
Starring: John David Washington, Madeleine Yuna Voyles, Gemma Chan, Allison Janney, Ken Watanabe, Ralph Ineson

The greatest critics will say that when viewing a film and critiquing its contents, one must treat that film as its own thing rather than as a part of something wider, that what is most important is how a picture works on its own individual merits: is the story told in a cohesive manner, are the characters engaging, does the camera work look good? 

Of course, some real world events may operate as a caveat to the contents of a film for the moviegoer: one could argue that much of the reason current superhero movies are underperforming is because of the oversaturation of such releases, for example, as opposed to their individual qualities. An important historical example of this duality is All the President’s Men (1976), which found its basis on the 1972 Watergate scandal but still works on its own. Carl Bernstein (Dustin Hoffman) and Bob Woodward (Robert Redford) are charming characters, the mystery they are trying to uncover is thrilling, and the twists and turns that the story takes still feel high stakes, shocking and important. Take away the real life story that the film was based on and it is still very strong in its own right. 

Gareth Edwards’ 2023 release The Creator also has its own outside context…

Set in a dystopian future in which the West is at war with the East over developments in AI, the film finds itself released at the height of both societal and governmental anxieties regarding generative AI’s place in everyday life. More importantly as regards this release, The Creator is one of just a few mid-budget features to have recently found its way into theatres.

For years, the way that the big studios of Hollywood worked is that they would have their major blockbuster releases spread throughout the year. These were the films with big budgets that the studios anticipated would generate bigger returns. In the quieter months, the same studios would release so-called mid-budgets films; smaller films made on smaller budgets, providing less of a risk but much higher reward if the films did well. Good examples of this are A Few Good Men ($33 million budget, $243 million gross) and Dead Poets Society ($16.4 million budget, $235 million gross). These mid-budget projects allowed filmmakers to work with larger budgets than in independent film whilst not having to sacrifice their creative freedom. It was a system in which, for the most part, everyone could win. Recently however, these films have begun to die out or have at least been transitioned into direct-to-streaming releases, the cinema release calendar instead being filled with new franchise entries, higher risk pictures that have (during our time of franchise fatigue and tightening purse strings) in many cases produced higher than usual losses. Thankfully, studios seem to be starting to appreciate the worth of the mid-budget feature film again, with 2022 and 2023 producing the likes of Ticket to Paradise, No Hard Feelings, 65, and now The Creator. So far, these mid-budget genre flicks have mostly managed to make back their studios a little something extra.

Joshua Taylor (John David Washington), an ex-special forces agent, is recruited specifically to hunt down and kill the “Creator” of AI (also known as Nirmata), who has developed a mysterious weapon with the power to single-handedly end the war. Welcome back mid-budget sci-fi.

Like many other science fiction works, The Creator begins with the primary objective of introducing the characters, giving some backstory and establishing the world in which the story is set. Finding its setting in “New Asia”, we are shown the wonderful scenery that the continent has to offer. Filmed primarily on location, much of the film takes place across glorious landscapes, creating a wonderful sense of a world that remains both natural and beautiful all whilst being primarily overrun by futuristic technology: rice fields overshadowed by large metropolitan spaces, forests crushed by large technologically advanced U.S. Army tanks. It creates some beautiful juxtaposition which acts as a useful visual reminder of what the film is really about; the old way of life versus the new.

This motif is most prominent in the story of our protagonist, Joshua Taylor. Though his objective within the film is to track down the weapon (a child, played by Madeleine Yuna Voyles) and keep her safe until the U.S. Army can retain her, the character’s real goal is to track down his wife who was presumed to be dead five years ago. Believing the child – whom Josh affectionately calls Alphie – knows where she is, Taylor uses her in an attempt to find his wife. Through flashbacks we are shown Josh’s relationship with his wife, a major point of contention being that he refused to see A.I. as people, believing they feel nothing, whilst she saw them as family. In his mission to keep Alphie safe, Joshua begins to understand where his wife was coming from.

The relationship between Taylor and Alphie very much follows the familiar odd-couple trope in which the two main characters are worlds apart both personally and ideologically but bond through spending time together and learning to understand one another. It comes as no surprise that director Gareth Edwards cited Paper Moon, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Rain Man as major influences on the film. Edwards and Weitz have written a good script with a well-structured and engaging story, but it seems to be in the key relationships that they have faltered: the chemistry between Washington and Voyles is nowhere near as strong as those they are emulating, though they do a fine job individually. Most of this issue arises from on the nose dialogue; numerous moments in which lines are written with zero subtext and can only be taken at face value. It can diminish much of the emotion that is required to heighten the story or the impact of a line or a scene. Thankfully, both John David Washington and Madeleine Yuna Voyles are so likeable and charming that the emotional impact hits when we really need it to.

The Creator is a grand sci-fi with grand ideas – man versus machine, new versus old, how the next generation are the future – yet it is never delivered in a way that feels as though it is inaccessible, the movie never thinks it’s smarter than it is. Instead, Edwards and company treat The Creator as escapism, pure and simple, and boy does it live up to it. There’s some substance there, sure, and yes there is a clear emotional core to the story, but each individual strand of this narrative is delivered in a way that is easily digestible alongside your popcorn and soda. 

It is a tremendously well built-in world, one that is designed in such a way that we stare with glee at the weapons and spaceships on the screen. The set pieces are filled with thrilling action and some unique ideas too – there is one particular sequence with self-destructing robots that is a joy to watch. The Creator’s crowning jewel, however, comes in the form of the USS NOMAD, a space station capable of launching destructive attacks from orbit. At numerous points in the film we get to see the NOMAD in action, floating along the sky while beaming down a light to the surface, constantly changing shape and lighting up the sky. It is stunning to look at, but once we see the NOMAD lock onto its targets we see the true power of the weapon – it is chilling. 

For all of these reasons, The Creator works well on its own merits. It is clear, however, that many will hold the film’s outside context against it.

Many filmgoers may wonder if they wish to be reminded of society’s fears surrounding A.I. or if a mid-budget feature is worth seeing given its less prominent marketing. But The Creator is, for all intents and purposes, a popcorn movie – this flick is hardly 2001: A Space Odyssey, it won’t change your life or leave you questioning what you just saw. Seeing it in cinemas will, however, certainly help to change the film industry, it will say something to studios about the variety of films audiences wish to see. If it succeeds. It deserves to succeed.

Gareth Edwards has returned to our screens after seven years and crafts an enjoyable two-plus hours of science fiction goodness, bringing with it some beautiful visuals, excellent world building and two charming leads to sweeten the deal. If you are looking for a good time at the movies then look no further than The Creator.

Score: 20/24

The films that have been selected are, I believe, the peak of cinematic mastery. They span nearly the length of cinema’s existence, and are deliberately chosen to reflect a wide range of genres, countries, and times. One major reason for this is to force myself to list films that are not exclusively 1980s horror movies, which I could quite easily do. The second is because that list would be wrong, as although they could be peak horror, some would undoubtedly be worse than films outside the genre.

Therefore, for better or for worse, at the time of writing, listed from oldest to youngest and with no system of ranking, here are my picks for the 10 Best Films of All Time.

Follow me on X (Twitter) – @KJudgeMental

10. La Voyage dans la Lune (1902)

It is impossible to understate how important this film was.

From the grandfather of special effects, Georges Méliès, come fifteen minutes of sheer adventure, adapting the Jules Verne novels “From the Earth to the Moon”, and “Around the Sun”, along with H. G. Wells’ “First Men on the Moon”, it is a film which pushed the limits of the medium, bringing thrills beyond the stars to the screen for all to see.

Hand-painted frame by frame to add a splash of colour, employing all of Méliès’ stage magic knowhow, it still has the power to captivate to this day, despite being created only seven years after the Lumiere brothers demonstrated their kinematograph at the 1895 December World Fair. The rocket splatting into the eye of the moon is an image almost everyone in the world has seen, despite rarely knowing where it comes from.

It is fun and joyous and, thanks to restoration work and new scores, able to keep its legacy going over 120 years later. Not a single cast or crew member from this film is alive today, yet A Trip to the Moon lives on.

9. Psycho (1960)

We could argue over Hitchcock’s best film for decades. Indeed, many have done, and we still never will agree. Vertigo famously dethroned Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound magazine as the best film ever in 2011, a title the Welles film had held for many decades. Yet Psycho takes my vote for numerous reasons.

Not only is its story iconic – the shower scene one of the greatest sequences in cinema history – and its production history something of legend, but it is supreme mastery of cinematic craftsmanship.

Every shot is glorious, every moment timed to perfection. Suspense is at an all-time high, mystery around every corner. Yet perhaps what is most startling is its efficiency, Hitchcock’s most underappreciated skill. If a scene required 50 cuts, he’d have it. If it required a simple shot/reverse shot with the most subtle of powerful, timed camera cuts to a tighter or a lower angle (see the dinner between Marion and Norman), he did it. It is an exercise in extreme precision, in efficiency of storytelling, and it cuts deeper than almost any other film.

Recommended for you: The Greatest Film Trailer of All Time? Psycho (1960)

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania (2023)
Director: Peyton Reed
Screenwriter: Jeff Loveness
Starring: Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Jonathan Majors, Kathryn Newton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Michael Douglas, William Jackson Harper, Katy M O’Brian, David Dastmalchian, Bill Murray

In 1964, Kang the Conqueror made his debut in Marvel comics, a year after appearing as another character entirely (it’s complicated, but basically Marvel writers later decided an Egyptian Pharaoh villain was another version of the time-travelling terror). After menacing The Avengers and the Fantastic Four for decades on the page in some of the most convoluted and regularly ret-conned stories around, he finally made his live-action debut in the Season 1 finale of ‘Loki’, hiding at the nexus of all realities as He Who Remains, portrayed by Jonathan Majors. His demise was one of the events that cracked open the Marvel Multiverse, and now Majors returns as Kang proper to clash with the MCU’s seemingly most insignificant super-family. Got all that? Good.

The newfound comfortable existence of Scott Lang/Ant-Man (Paul Rudd) as a well-liked world-saver plugging his memoir is shaken when Janet Van Dyne’s (Michelle Pfeiffer) time trapped in the Quantum Realm comes back to haunt her. Threat to all reality, Kang the Conqueror (Jonathan Majors), who has been banished to the microverse, brings the Lang/Van Dyne family – including Scott’s partner Hope Van Dyne/Wasp (Evangeline Lilly), Scott’s now teenage daughter Cassie (Kathryn Newton) and Dr Hank Pym (Michael Douglas) – to the Quantum Realm in order to use their size-changing technology to escape his prison.

In Ant Man and the Wasp, during our brief sojourn to the Quantum Realm to rescue Michelle Pfeiffer, a lot was made of the fact that it “melts your mind”, implying something pretty psychedelic and out-there. There are certainly some surreal vistas and weird lifeforms inspired by micro photography, especially when our tiny heroes first plummet into a tinier world, but they could have definitely gone further with the brain-melting, especially in movie with such an attention-grabbing title as Quantumania. 

The denizens of the Quantum Realm are an assortment of interesting-looking creatures you might find on the covers of pulp sci-fi magazines in the 1950s, ranging from living broccoli to anthropomorphic glowing goo to Bill Murray. Then there’s the new secondary villain, android M.O.D.O.K, who looks absolutely terrible and completely breaks your suspension of disbelief whenever he’s on screen, though that is partly because they’re trying to do the impossible and adapt his particularly goofy design from the comics faithfully into live-action.

Paul Rudd remains the lovable core of this corner of the MCU, and as well as hearing his thoughts on his fellow Avengers out loud (“I was just happy to meet a raccoon who could talk”) this time Scott Lang is really put through the wringer. There’s a warm chemistry between Scott, Hope and Cassie, here recast as Kathryn Newton (Freaky), who regularly threatens to steal the show with her sheer moxie. It’s also refreshing that Cassie has to learn to effectively use her powers very much through trial and error – the five years she was on her own post-Thanos snapping half the universe away was used productively and she has a gifted scientific mind, but she has never had to test this technology in a fight before. Michelle Pfeiffer is on (admittedly committed) exposition duty for much of the movie, while Michael Douglas keeps a straight face with his hands stuck in a couple of slugs to fly a quantum spaceship. 

But this is Kang’s or, more accurately, Jonathan Majors’ movie. This particular saga of the MCU’s ongoing story has taken some time to gain traction, but the arrival of this particular big bad could very well accelerate things. A time-travelling world-conqueror whose many variants from other timelines have caused temporal and inter-dimensional chaos, Kang creates an oppressive regime within the Quantum Realm. He desires to correct the mistakes of his other selves and ultimately escape the tyranny of time itself. Majors is a charisma supernova and is able to convey with a gesture what many of his contemporaries would struggle to evoke with a monologue, not to mention that his physique makes him a credible threat even without his advanced weaponry.

The visual effects work on this movie, M.O.D.O.K aside, is certainly more polished than on Love and Thunder, which makes you think the VFX artists were given more ample time to complete the considerable task that was being asked of them. It’s all very bright and colourful, and the action scenes are dynamic, but shots can feel a bit busy and hard to pick out the details that really matter; a problem that will only be exacerbated in post-converted 3-D, which is disappointingly starting to re-surface with another ridiculously successful Avatar instalment.

The humour in Marvel movies often receives criticism for being incessant and interfering with dramatic moments landing with real impact, and the same could be argued here. Thankfully, Rudd, Newton and even Douglas demonstrate good enough timing to make sure most of the jokes about their family’s crazy science projects and tendency to land in jail really hit home. As fun as the film’s frankly ridiculous final stretch is, for a time it looks like they’re going for something pretty bold and grounded for a change before chickening out last-minute, which is a shame.

The main problem with Quantumania is that it is trying to be two very different movies that don’t really fit together. On the one hand you’ve got a fun, Fantastic Voyage-meets-Star Wars family sci-fi, and on the other you’ve got a deathly serious Kang origin story following a tortured time-travelling mass-murderer that’s like one of the darker ‘Doctor Who‘ stories. Given that he has apparently killed a lot of Avengers in other universes, Kang understandably underestimates Scott, his family and their capabilities to his cost, and it’s this perhaps misplaced faith in his own power and the fact that he’s just a man using technology from the future and not a space god that may ultimately make him more interesting in upcoming films than Thanos was. 

Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania is OK, but continues the slightly underwhelming, slow downward trend of the post-Endgame Marvel Cinematic Universe. At least it shows some imaginative flourishes and compellingly sets up the many faces of the next villain big enough to prompt the Avengers to reform and save the universe once more.

Score: 15/24

Nope (2022) Review
Director: Jordan Peele
Screenwriter: Jordan Peele
Starring: Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, Steven Yeun, Brandon Perea, Michael Wincott, Wren Schmidt, Kieth David, Terry Notary, Jacob Kim 

Jordan Peele’s latest genre-smashing film Nope has arrived hotly anticipated and under an impenetrable cloud of secrecy. For almost a year, all we had to go on was a poster depicting an ominous nimbus with the one-word title, then several teasers that mostly just showed people looking up into the sky. You’d be well-served to go into this one without watching any of the film’s more recent marketing, but suffice to say this particular sci-fi suspense thriller will not be going quite the way you think it might.

Following the sudden death of their father, Hollywood horse training siblings OJ and Emerald Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer) begin experiencing strange happenings at their California ranch that point towards extraterrestrial visitors. With the help of over-enthusiastic tech support guy Angel (Brandon Perea) and eccentric cinematographer Antlers Holst (Michael Wincott), the Haywoods set out on a mission to capture incontrovertible evidence that we are not alone in the universe.

We are told early on that the first moving image was of a black man riding a horse. We know that Eadweard Muybridge filmed it, but we don’t know the name of the first movie star/stuntman in this revolutionary 2 seconds of film. Peele capitalises on this historical erasure by making Otis Haywood (Kieth David) and his children the direct descendants of this man – they have working with horses, and on movies, in their blood. 

The film explores two seemingly separate thematic paths that nevertheless intersect in some fascinating ways: 1. The compulsive human need to gawp at spectacle; 2. How most animals’ behaviour becomes more erratic and dangerous as soon as a human makes direct eye contact with it.

We open with an incident, seemingly unrelated to the rest of the UFO-chasing narrative, in which a chimp viciously attacks its co-stars on a hit 90s sitcom. Later, Jupe (Jacob Kim), the child actor who miraculously escaped unscathed, has grown up to be a successful showman (now played by Steven Yeun) who uses his traumatic experience to fuel his desire to deliver a one-of-a-kind live experience to a shamelessly entertainment-craving audience. Jupe’s Western-themed amusement park is of course just a stone’s throw from the Haywood ranch, and before long everyone’s lives will be inextricably tied together.

The slow-build tension of Nope‘s first half certainly has the vibe of a Close Encounters or a Signs in so much as you can’t quite figure out how much is real or in the heads of some of these troubled characters. You’re given plenty of time to get to know each of the protagonists and what they want out of life, which always helps when the threat level ramps up, and Kaluuya and Palmer’s endearing and completely believable family squabbles, plus Wincott’s slightly mad, gravelly drawl of his pretentious dialogue, are the highlights of this small but memorable ensemble. 

It becomes a lot more like Jaws or other giant animal movies in its second half, except that it trades the open ocean for the rolling California hills and a tell-tale fin in the water for an uncannily still cloud in a clear blue sky as the ragtag group try to work out exactly what is going on and how, or if, it can be stopped.

There are plenty of mythological and religious references to be found throughout Peele’s screenplay and the kinds of visuals he most heavily relies upon, from the biblical quote that comes pre-titles (“I will cast abominable filth upon you, make you vile and make you a spectacle.”) to the idea from Greek myths of a “monster” whose terrible power is linked to being looked at. Of course the camera is something modern humans rely on and believe often more than their own eyes, so it becomes the ultimate symbol of our gullibility.  

There have been an encouraging amount of thoughtful, thematically rich sci-fi films over the last decade, from Andrew Patterson’s The Vast of Night to Benson and Moorhead’s duology Resolution and The Endless. The former was all about the visceral human reaction to sound and storytelling, and the latter, very much like Nope, is about the power of visual stimuli and the need for answers that remain frustratingly elusive. None of those aforementioned indie alien movies had anything like the scale, scope or the $68 million budget of Peele’s film, but he certainly doesn’t waste it.

Nope showcases the most interesting looking alien since Denis Villeneuve’s Arrival. It very much appears to be a retro flying saucer type when it first appears, but from the right angle looks an awful lot like an iconic object from another genre too, and as it reveals more of its true form it only gets weirder, and strangely, more believable as a real organism. The IMAX camera of Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar; Spectre) makes the whole thing feel appropriately grand and sweeping, and the action scenes that make an asset of the seemingly endless landscape are thrilling in an old-fashioned kind of way like you’d find in the Western films the Haywoods built their business around. 

Nope might not punch you in the stomach like Get Out or slap you in the face like Us, but it creeps up on you and has a power all its own. It’s certainly a grower, and promises to reveal much more on each rewatch. Because he started out the gate with two such attention-grabbing horror films on the bounce, Jordan Peele has most often been compared to frequent horror directors like John Carpenter and Wes Craven, but Nope proves his versatility and his talent for getting character right first and foremost, before developing some original ideas and then providing the spectacle we all crave to cap it all off. With Nope, Peele is well on his way to being the next Steven Spielberg. 

Score: 22/24

Minority Report (2002)
Director: Steven Spielberg
Screenwriters: Scott Frank, Jon Cohen
Starring: Tom Cruise, Colin Farrell, Samantha Morton, Max von Sydow, Steve Harris, Neal McDonough, Kathryn Morris, Lois Smith, Peter Stormare, Tim Blake Nelson  

Far more than just another Tom Cruise running and jumping movie (though he still does plenty of both in this) Minority Report is pretty deceptive as a blockbuster. As one of Steven Spielberg’s (relatively speaking) under-appreciated directorial efforts, now celebrating its 20th anniversary, what better time is there to give this ground-breaking Philip K. Dick adaptation one more shot? “I’m sorry John, but you’re gonna have to run again…”

Washington DC, the year 2054. The PreCrime Initiative which predicts crimes of passion and apprehends perpetrators before they can cause harm, is a daily reality. Exploiting the gifts of a trio of psychic “Precogs”, the DC Police Department have virtually eradicated violent crime in their city and are preparing to roll out the programme across the country. The system works, every time. But everything changes when Chief John Anderton (Tom Cruise) is named as a future murderer of a man he has never met. 

Delayed multiple times due to scheduling conflicts and passed from director to director for years, what started being pitched out as a sequel to another film adaptation of a Philip K. Dick short story (the Arnold Schwarzenegger-starring Total Recall) eventually landed with director Steven Spielberg who was attracted to the story being “50 percent character and 50 percent very complicated storytelling with layers and layers of murder mystery and plot.”

The rules of this world 50 years in the future are quickly and elegantly established, not through over-explanation in Scott Frank and Jon Cohen’s lean script but primarily through clean visual storytelling. We witness Anderton’s daily routine play out and get a quick sense of what is different about this world and what is the same. Even the exposition that brings Colin Farrell’s Danny Witwer up to speed when he first arrives at PreCrime serves the purpose of planting all the relevant details to solving this mystery in the back of the viewer’s mind and sets up Witwer and Anderton being manipulated, their ironclad laws bent and broken as the plot thickens.

The way the Precog vision is realised is an incredibly effective visual; cold, distant and eerie. It is also intentionally limited, focussed enough that the viewer’s mind (as well as the psychic dreamer’s) tends to focus only on the details the storyteller (whether that be Spielberg or the film’s big bad) wants you to see, allowing for the rug to be pulled out from under you, and Anderton, multiple times.

It’s amazing how close this film got to predicting near-future technological developments. A lot of these ideas may have been well on their way in the early 2000s, but it would be amusing to find out how many concept/development meetings at the big tech firms ended with “I love it, but make it more like Minority Report”. Motion controls, VR, HUDs, personalised advertising, widespread retina and facial recognition software – the gang’s all here!

Much like with Blade Runner, the film adapts the core premise of Philip K. Dick’s 1956 short story and freely expands on it in order to create a grotesque mirror of the American Justice System. It packs an even bigger punch now, because you know plenty of people would vote for pre-emptively incarcerating potential murderers if it was an option. “The fact that you prevented it happening doesn’t change the fact that it was going to happen”.

This is among Spielberg’s most philosophical films as well, being all about fate or lack thereof. It plays with this concept throughout, from the horrific implications of the flaw in the “perfect” system and the fact that, in theory, nobody can act spontaneously (“Put the gun down John, I don’t hear a red ball!”). Anderton’s son Sean’s unsolved disappearance is a tragic failure which grounds his experiences and leaves his life without much meaning; the only real closure he ever gets is hearing a “what if?” story from Precog Agatha (a haunting Samantha Morton).

Of course we follow a grieving, broken father stuck in the past; it is a Spielberg movie, after all. The film also has one of the best jump-scares since the head popping out of the boat in Jaws. He has a lot to answer for in how a lot of modern sci-fi films look too, from many of the same assembly line action scene gags cropping up in Attack of the Clones (filmmaker besties will talk) to JJ Abrams’ shiny, lens-flarey Star Trek reboot that would likely never have turned out the way it did without exactly the same aesthetic being used in Minority Report. The sick-stick and the sonic gun, despite only being used once apiece, make their mark as some of the coolest ever future weapons, and the police spider drones are such a creepy idea. The birds-eye-view of their relentless apartment search for Anderton offers the hilarious sight of a couple stopping their full-blown domestic mid-flow to be scanned before immediately resuming their argument. 

Some things seem to exist in the film purely to add a little colour and richness to the world. Just about everyone seems to have a streaming cold, which possibly means something, unless it’s just a genre-appropriate Chinatown reference. Peter Stormare’s mucus-y sinister appearance as a backstreet surgeon/organ harvester (“Nothing quite like taking a shower with this large fella with an attitude you can’t even knock down with a hammer”) strengthens this possible connection by playing his part very much like he’s in a Polanski picture. Spielberg rarely goes this dark in a genre piece.

Did we need the scene where sentient vines attack Cruise to wake the audience up just before a big talky scene? Not really. Should they have thought about how stupid it is that Anderton can get back into PreCrime using his old eyes in a little plastic baggy without setting off any other security measures like facial recognition? Probably. But these are nit-pick queries that can mostly be answered with “because it’s a movie” and don’t threaten to unseat Minority Report as one of the great contemplative and mind-melting mysteries on film. 

Score: 22/24

When it comes to movie aliens, there may be none more dangerous than the Predator. A metal-masked hunting machine with weapons to spare, it tracks its prey from the treeline, blending into the foliage with its cloaking device. One by one, it picks off its victims using heat-seeking technology, claiming their skulls and spinal cords as trophies. That is what sets the Predator apart from the galaxy’s other most menacing extra-terrestrials: they kill by instinct; the Predator kills for fun.

In the years since Predator was first released in 1987, the creature has been the subject of three sequels, two spin-offs and various video games and comics. It has fought the Xenomorph, Batman and even the residents of Riverdale. With a new prequel slated for 2022, this edition of Ranked takes a look at the four films in the Predator franchise to determine which deserve a place in the trophy room and which should be left on the jungle floor.

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4. The Predator (2018)

“It’s like an alien Whoopi Goldberg.”

Ironically, the worst entry of the Predator series was helmed by one of the original cast members.

Shane Black’s 2018 update to the series tries to crossbreed some classic ‘80s action movie mentality with a more modern take, yet the whole thing doesn’t quite work. The tightly controlled snappiness of Black’s other work (Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang; The Nice Guys) is absent here, and you can practically smell the studio interference on the editing which often feels like a jigsaw with the pieces put in the wrong places.

Tone is also quickly established as a major issue as the film becomes a self-aware comedy in which there are groan-inducing call-backs and jokes abound. Sure, there are lines of dialogue capable of getting a laugh or two – this is a Shane Black film, after all – but amongst the one-liners and awkward Tourette’s-based humour, any sense of atmosphere or danger is lost. Most of the elements seen here have been implemented better earlier in the series, and the lack of practical effects and over-reliance on CGI take away what little fun there may have been in watching the alien slaughter its victims, leaving The Predator feeling like the latest brainless actioner on an ever-growing pile.

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3. Predator 2 (1990)

“Hey, kid. Welcome to the war.”

Swapping the tropical jungle for a concrete one, Predator 2 is hampered by the fact that it never really makes entertaining use of its new setting, instead restricting the action to alleyways, apartments and warehouses. Given the Predator’s affinity for hiding in the branches of trees, the lack of rooftop scaling seems like a missed opportunity, and the whole production ends up feeling a little cheap, despite having a higher budget than its predecessor.

To its credit, Predator 2 is the only franchise entry to break away from the guerrilla team dynamic, with Danny Glover (Lethal Weapon) giving a sweatily intense performance as Harrigan, a Los Angeles police lieutenant who makes it his own personal mission to find the killer responsible for a series of seemingly gang-related murders, unknowingly putting himself squarely in the Predator’s sights. Bill Paxton (hopping over from another certain sci-fi horror sequel) assists Harrigan while Gary Busey competes with the Predator to see whose toothy jaw can open the widest.

Outside of a couple of interesting scenes, Predator 2 just isn’t all that engaging, focusing too much on the voodoo gang wars that run amuck in futuristic L.A. instead of the titular alien we want to see terrorising the streets.

Planet of the Apes (2001)
Director: Tim Burton
Screenwriter: William Broyles Jr, Lawrence Konner
Starring: Mark Wahlberg, Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, Estella Warren, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, David Warner, Kris Kristofferson, Erick Avari, Charlton Heston 

Various writers and directors at 20th Century Fox had been trying to get a new Planet of the Apes off the ground for over a decade by the time Tim Burton signed on to the project. A sword-and-sandals epic, but with apes, had been mooted, as had a simian Arnold Schwarzenegger actioner. After years of deliberation, in July 2001 Burton’s lavish franchise reboot was released (after a truncated production) to decidedly mixed results. 

While attempting to rescue a chimp test subject from the vacuum of space, astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) is sucked into a portal and arrives on a strange planet with intelligent apes as the dominant species and humans as their slaves. Meeting human-sympathising ape aristocrat Ari (Helena Bonham Carter), Leo leads a Homo sapien prison break and embarks on a quest to an ape holy ground that contains the remains of his spacecraft, meanwhile the human-hating autocratic ape General Thade (Tim Roth) and his army seeks to wipe out the slave rebellion.

Planet of the Apes 2001 seems to be aiming to offer a very different experience to the 1968 classic of the same name – it wishes to be more epic and grand, but it can never quite escape its forebear’s shadow, and occasionally actively invites the comparison. The effects and makeup of the original might look relatively archaic today, but the complex themes and indelible imagery still hold up and then some. The story changes that screenwriters William Broyles Jr and Lawrence Konner decide to make serve little discernible purpose and the dialogue they decide to keep and re-purpose proves to be ill-thought-through: there’s an early groan-inducing species inversion of the original film’s most famous line, and later there’s a direct quote of the other famous line delivered by a cameoing, apeified Charlton Heston, seemingly under duress. 

This is not Mark Wahlberg’s best work sadly, partly because there’s very little opportunity for him to be earnest, which is what he’s best at, and partly because they filed off every edge of his character until he resembled little more than an astronaut Action Man. Luckily Helena Bonham Carter and Tim Roth make up for his shortcomings, projecting theatrical flourish, humanity (ape-manity? simian-ity?) and a remarkable amount of pathos as different kinds of outcasts from their society, all from behind Rick Baker’s detailed but hugely restrictive prosthetics.

Elsewhere the very best character actors inhabit the ape suits, from a dignified David Warner as a senator to a rumbling Michael Clarke Duncan as a general and Paul Giamatti, whose irredeemable, slimy coward slave trader is a particular highlight and seems to have arrived from a different and far funnier film.

It’s the rich and detailed production design that nearly saves the 2001 Planet of the Apes from bland mediocrity and is particularly memorable for not being typically Burton-y in its aesthetic. Burton is a strange choice for this material in general, with very few instances where you can tell it’s even him at the wheel, and he seems to have largely avoided further studio franchise fare on the back of a bad experience here – he declared afterwards he would “rather jump out a window” than do a sequel. The film’s production is now known to have been incredibly rushed and hobbled by studio interference, and Wahlberg has publicly declared that the script wasn’t good enough from the beginning and that a director like Burton should have been left to do what he does best. What else can be said but that Wahlberg was right.

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The film uses a lot of common fantasy epic tropes that would soon be enshrined thanks to the releases of Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter in quick succession later the same year. An unlikely group form a party to go on a quest; a prophecy is foretold; a series of skirmishes and chases break up their long journey leading up to a final decisive pitched battle, and then it all comes down to a one-on-one fight between the main hero and villain.

The fight scenes are pretty well done in general, and you have to feel for the poor stunt performers’ lower backs and legs after spending so long running on all fours as chimps, but the wirework used to make the apes leap ten feet in the air looks pretty laughable, as is the obvious and distracting use of stock sound effects including the infamous Wilhelm Scream in the big battle scene towards the end. 

While the original run of Apes films weren’t always the most tonally consistent films in the world (veering from high-concept parable to cheap schlock cash-in), at least they didn’t give you mood whiplash. On the one hand you have Roth playing a Shakespearean baddie and there’s a creepy scene of a privileged ape family picking out a little girl to be their house pet, and on the other you have something that feels like it has fallen out of a Carry On film when our heroes are being chased by soldiers and run through an ape brothel, interrupting an undressed lady ape teasing her customer. 

Surely if there’s one thing you don’t change in a Planet of the Apes remake it’s the ending? Whether more faithful to the Pierre Boulle novel or not, the new one just doesn’t make a lick of sense and is clearly just there to shock everyone who thinks they know which American landmark will be involved, or worse to set up a never-made sequel that might hypothetically have explained it.

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes wasn’t a complete disaster – the production design remains outstanding and a couple of the better performances manage to make a connection – but almost every aspect of the storytelling was miscalculated and it still completely fails not only to live up to the original film or offer something memorably different. Tim Burton and 20th Century Fox left us with a dull, gritty re-imagining that doesn’t know what it wants to be, what it’s trying to say or how to keep its audience’s attention.

8/12

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The Midnight Sky (2020)
Director: George Clooney
Screenwriter: Mark L. Smith
Starring: George Clooney, Felicity Jones, David Oyelowo, Caoilinn Springall, Kyle Chandler, Demián Bichir, Tiffany Boone, Sophie Rundle, Ethan Peck

George Clooney is no stranger to space-based fare, his starring turns in Steven Soderbergh’s remake of Solaris in 2002 and Alfonso Cuarón’s all-time great Oscar-winner Gravity (2013) being two unique and well respected films that he experienced on both sides of the camera. In The Midnight Sky, his on-screen presence is bound solely to Earth, but his directorial focus takes us from the harsh climates of a post-apocalyptic North Pole to the moons of Jupiter and everywhere in between, his work clearly drawing inspiration from Messrs Soderbergh and Cuarón but ultimately lacking the same level of sophistication.

Adapted from the novel “Good Morning Midnight” by Lily Brooks-Dalton, and distributed worldwide by Netflix, The Midnight Sky tells two parallel stories – one of the last man living on Earth’s disaster-ravaged surface, and the other of a crew of astronauts returning from a voyage across the galaxy. Starring Clooney himself as the Earth-bound character sending signals into the sky in the hope of reaching fellow members of his species, and Felicity Jones and David Oyelowo as two of the astronauts setting course to return home to a planet that has all-but ended unbeknownst to them, The Midnight Sky tackles relevant themes such as climate change, generational responsibility and deep-rooted regret as its action transpires. Yet, despite a strong base from which a talented director like Clooney (Confessions of a Dangerous Mind; The Ides of March) could operate, The Midnight Sky is a self-serious and unintentionally cheesy science-fiction-drama that feels completely lifeless.

For a film released in 2020 and set largely in CG-scapes, the CGI is awful. It’s awful, but also inescapable. And it can’t be overlooked because Clooney highlights it with long, swooping shots and the use of uplifting moments in the score as if to evoke the epicness of 2001: A Space Odyssey, or the sheer magnitude of Interstellar. It’s a film that feels every bit the product of a director inexperienced with integrating CG, Clooney borrowing from the free-flowing shots of Cuarón’s work in Gravity but without the same meaning or experiential purpose. This is most evident and damaging in establishing shots where Clooney’s work highlights every fault in the video game level graphics, especially as regards space stations and far-galaxy planets, but there’s an outdated approach across the board of pushing the CG onto the monitors in every location, of which there are many even in the film’s quieter and more grounded moments with Clooney on Earth. These are CG computer graphics that hint at some idealistic future of being able to endlessly navigate several screens at once with the swipe of a hand, but it is quite clear that none of it is functional, and the way it is plastered onto the monitors to a standard just above being a bad meme, makes the entire film feel less “idealistic future” and more mid-budget 2005 studio film. In short… outdated, old and rubbish.

It doesn’t help that The Midnight Sky is also photographed poorly. Like TV, but not the cinematic TV of the likes of ‘Game of Thrones’ and ‘Breaking Bad’, more the TV of ‘Casualty’ and ‘CSI: Miami’. The camera is always panning, swooping around without any real intention. It’s not disorientating – the visuals remain well focused – but it would be a stretch to suggest such constant movement is a purposeful storytelling device, and it is clear very early on that it does nothing to improve the overall experience. It feels cheap, and comes across as rushed or even patronising, and the vast and over the top colour palette only force this thought more and more. It’s a film that is aiming to look like the great post-apocalyptic movies and space movies of eras gone by, but at times looks no more convincing or cinematic than Spy Kids or Shark Boy vs Lava Girl.

What’s worse is that unlike those two children’s movies, The Midnight Sky isn’t funny, nor is it even fun. It is slow, but not patient. Stories overlap from different timelines, different planets, different characters. It’s the end of the world, but also the start of another, but also the character is dying, and we are asked to question whether he is going insane. There’s a lot going on and it’s all thrown at the screen in such a way that indicates a lack of control. It’s like Clooney is trying to direct a character study, but the plot is absolutely event driven. As a result, the film doesn’t quite know what it is, forcing progression in moments and feeling overly drawn out in others. It feels messy, broken even.

Key to this certain disparity between directorial intent and the content the director is adapting for the screen is the woeful dialogue. For a film with so few words relative to other mainstream dramas, and each delivered at a slow pace, the exchanges are incredibly cliché and almost entirely expository in nature. It’s lazy. Clooney’s Augustine speaks to a small girl entirely in exposition – “the signal isn’t strong enough”, “we have to talk to them to let them know we’re okay”, etc. – and when it’s not his character, it’s David Oyelowo talking into a computer about the history of the characters on the space station and their mission, or one of his crew mates explaining how they’re doing their work for their family. You’d think the exposition would eventually stop when all the characters are introduced and the circumstances regarding their journey have been laid out, but it doesn’t. It never does. It’s as unrelenting as the bad CG, but even more damaging to the overall experience.

What’s worse is that there are no reasons to care.

Flashbacks to Augustine’s youth aren’t presented as if moments of contention or regret, but moments of fallacy; B Movie stuff where his love interest tells him her opinion and he just contemplates it without question or debate, or even a hint towards a wider meaning other than to reinforce the character’s already very clear purpose and easy to predict plot twist. These moments are key to the narrative, but they’re forced in like the plot development is squashed into the minor dialogue exchanges, leaving a film that feels not only lifeless to look at, but has characters who barely register a human emotion or speak like normal people. The Midnight Sky is a film about humanity, yet features virtually none of it.

Ultimately derivative of the great films it aims to replicate, and entirely unfaithful to the human experience, the genre of science fiction and the whole practice of reasonable book-to-film adaptations, George Clooney’s seventh feature directorial effort thinks itself remarkable, but is far from being so.

4/24

People have not been very nice about David Lynch’s Dune (1984). An ambitious adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 sci-fi bestseller, the movie has been described as “impossible to follow” by Empire Magazine, “pointless” by Roger Ebert, and “a huge gigantic sadness” by none other than Lynch himself. Such sentiments were echoed by cinema-goers, leading to Dune bombing at the box office and enjoying little appreciation outside of a meagre cult following.

But its cult status is not completely unfounded; beneath unconvincing effects, a monotonous structure, and what feels like an incomplete narrative, is a science fiction achievement parallel to the works of Stanley Kubrick or Ridley Scott. Lynch’s sadness is illuminating; he knows what Dune could have been were it not for his failures in assuming artistic ownership of the project. There are even a few fans, both those who’ve read the book and those who haven’t, who deem Lynch’s Dune to be the definitive version, warts and all.

With so much hype surrounding Blade Runner 2049 director Denis Villeneuve’s attempt, earmarked for release in late 2021, Lynch’s interpretation risks being overshadowed and written off as a complete failure. It’s high time we explored what Lynch may have got right, what nuggets of brilliance shine through, and what aspects of the book were given justice on the big screen, in ways that only such a master of surrealism could have pulled off.

So why is there so much anxiety surrounding the filming of Dune?

It is indeed an epic and complex tome, packed to the brim with characters, lore, literary devices, and esoteric science-fiction concepts. The book mostly follows Paul Atreides and his plight to redeem his dynasty, House Atreides. His family are bid by Emperor Shaddam IV, ruler of the known universe, to supervise the desert planet Arrakis (also known as Dune). Paul’s father knows something is amiss, and such suspicions are confirmed when the evil Baron Harkonnen, acting as a pawn for the Emperor, invades Arrakis and kills Paul, the last heir to House Atreides – or so the Baron thinks.

Paul secretly survives, along with his mother Jessica. She knows her son to be the subject of an ancient prophecy; he is the Kwisatz Haderach, the one who will lead the natives of Arrakis to overthrow the aggressors, though this is a campaign at risk of becoming a bloody, horrific jihad. At the centre of all this politics is The Spice, a potent drug found only on Arrakis. Spice extends life, activates spiritual insight, and is even used by navigators to manipulate space-time. It’s what everyone’s addicted to, and what everyone’s fighting over. Spice is what makes Dune such a valuable planet to govern, it being an otherwise inhospitable desert-scape inhabited only by huge sandworms and standoffish natives.

This synopsis misses out a thousand details, and as Villeneuve correctly stated, “it’s a world that takes its power in details”. It can be difficult to grasp one aspect of Herbert’s universe without understanding the universe as a whole. For example, Dune’s philosophical implications are mixed up in its biosphere. Its hero’s coming-of-age story has more than “theological overtones” as Ebert suggests – its theology defines it, encompassing it. And wrapping all this up is The Spice, a complex and occult drug that informs the world’s religions and technologies, and the motivations of every individual character, of every warring faction, of every dumb animal.

How does one fit all this, including the appendices, glossary and map, into a two-and-a-half hour film? With difficulty, it seems.

Plot and structure are the primary failures of Lynch’s Dune, with important lore left unexplained whilst other mundane concepts are hammered home. Herbert’s mantric style of repeating a pertinent phrase (“Fear is the mind-killer”) translates badly to cinema when interrupting scenes in the form of jarring internal monologues. Surreal cutaways ruin otherwise grounded and engaging sequences, a constant shift that leads to a sort of narrative nausea. Then suddenly we’re plunged into a segment of such epic proportions that we feel as if the film is about to end, even when there’s still an hour left on the clock.

But Lynch gets so much right, even in his pacing. Amidst all the chaos, he finds time to let important scenes linger. For example, Paul’s mother Jessica has much political and personal rivalry with the Bene Gesserit, the order to which she belongs. By training Paul in the “weirding ways”, she is attempting to fulfil a terrible prophecy, something that attracts the vitriol of her Reverend Mother. Their interactions, and the subsequent test of pain which the Reverend Mother inflicts upon Paul, are given space to breathe.

A similar slowness is employed when Paul is being informed about Arrakis and the mission of House Atreides. We learn a lot about Dune – its nature, geography, and politics – through Paul’s ‘filmbook’ and his conversations with close confidants. Even interactions between the evil Baron Harkonnen and his red-haired acolytes, or the Emperor and the deformed Guild Navigators, are given time; we learn more than just lore. We see where they live, what they wear, even witness some personal habits. The Baron’s disgusting pustules, maniacal laugh, and quasi-sexual abuse of boys, are not integral to the plot. They are, however, absolutely integral to us despising the Baron, and are arguably more important than many narrative details that Lynch had to leave out.

In these slower scenes, both the dialogue and the space in between are charged with emotion, politics, and smattered with references to the wider world. Not only is the plot developed; the Duniverse is too. Rather than merely speaking about the task at hand, characters and factions are always mentioning one another. Even if we’re not particularly informed about the Spacing Guild, the Great Houses of the Landsraad, The Fremen, and the Order of the Bene Gesserit, hearing these names indicates a rich wider world. It throws us, a little scared and confused, into a universe we don’t fully understand, leaving us hungry for more.

When it comes to casting, everyone has a different image of a book’s characters in their heads, but Lynch’s casting choices are nonetheless sophisticated and wise. Kyle MacLachlan, later used by Lynch as the star of Blue Velvet (1986) and the TV show ‘Twin Peaks’, has the deep eyes and stoic gaze of our Paul. Much like his literary counterpart, Paul begins as an observer, carefully watching the plot pass him by, and ends up as a warrior, bringing about change with that self-same humility and strength of character. His interactions with his father are strangely stilted and sentimental compared with the rest of the film – in a similar vein to Lynch’s The Elephant Man (1980) but with less depth. Otherwise, however, Paul’s father Leto (Jürgen Prochnow) is a commanding presence, and his concubine Jessica (Francesca Annis) is dutiful, intelligent, with eyes that genuinely express fear for her son’s life. Lynch, in what little time he affords it, finds soul in this family unit.

The evil Harkonnens are also well cast. Kenneth McMillan’s Baron may be a little overly-manic, a little comic-book, but such criticisms are overshadowed by his great successes; the Baron Harkonnen is a revolting, drooling, leering creature, with a shrewd glimmer in his eye. More contentious is the casting for the Baron’s nephew Feyd-Rautha, played by none other than Sting of The Police. Seeing the pop icon in Dune breaks immersion for some, but it’s nonetheless an example of Lynch taking on board one of Frank Herbert’s primary aesthetic tenets: not everyone nice has to be attractive, and not everyone evil has to be ugly. Herbert describing Paul’s most loyal friend Gurney Halleck as a “rolling, ugly man” is just one example of the believability that Lynch took to heart, unashamedly giving good guys unattractive qualities – like Thurfir’s drug-induced rashes and inhumanly long eyebrows – wherever he felt fitting.

In addition to his casting, Lynch expertly uses the visual medium to differentiate between factions. The Harkonnens are perhaps least faithful to the book; rather than being Romanesque, barbaric, and above all functional, Lynch appears more inspired by psychosexual artists like Giger, resulting in the Harkonnen aesthetic being unexpectedly stylish and shiny, albeit surreal and funny. Nonetheless, he expresses well a planet blighted by industry, and individual rooms in the Harkonnen Headquarters are appropriately cold and metallic.

The design choices for the Harkonnens are probably the most contentious. If we’re discounting poor digital and practical effects, such as the sandworms that look like Muppets from the wrong angle, there’s little else to fault. The planet Arrakis is just as vast and orange as one imagined. The Atreides’ castles and ships are grandiose but functional; the Fremen hideouts are ancient but futuristic, sporting a minimalist, art-gallery-style smoothness in contrast to the rugged climate of their planet; and, towering above the design of all other factions, is the palace of the Emperor. The first set we see, it blows us away. Adorned with blocky gold and turquoise allure, it’s like futurism, art-deco, and Aztec lustre all rolled into one. It’s alien and strange, stunning and beautiful. Courtiers mill about in strange costumes, accompanied by pugs in equally strange costumes, and those of us who’ve read the book immediately know where we are.

Much like with his conversations, Lynch lets us enjoy these set pieces. We’re given long shots and sweeping pans of the universe and its environs, rather than the handheld action that seems to permeate much of modern cinema. After all, so much of Dune is in the world, in the details. These achievements in pacing prove that Lynch’s film was not too long, and that in fact the two movies he initially fought for could well have spelled success for the adaptation – considering that Alejandro Jodorowsky’s mid-1970s attempt was intended to be twelve hours long, the fact that Lynch fits so much into just over two is astounding. As a result, Lynch unfortunately leaves out large chunks of the story, including the jihad that is so central to Paul’s spiritual journey. To his credit, though, he keenly explores some fundamental elements of the book rather than squeezing everything in at the expense of depth, a brave and admirable stance to take in the face of baying Frank Herbert fans.

Lovers of “Dune” are not as other sci-fi readers; “Dune” is their Bible, and Herbert something of a messiah. Its universal truths have resonated with a portion of every generation since its release, and its literary devices for exploring theology, psychology, philosophy and addiction credit “Dune” much literary merit over many other soft science fiction and fantasy novels. Lynch, rather than shying away from these integral elements, dives right in with numerous surreal segments, many of which are confusing, poorly written and badly executed. But, as absurd a claim as it seems, Lynch had the right idea. To ignore these themes, expressed in the book through a mixture of internal monologues, passages of scripture, and descriptions of mystical visions, would be to ignore the very soul of the book.

Lynch is equally brave in his attempt to represent the technologies of “Dune”, with varying success. The voice, a psychological vocal technique that Jessica (and later Paul) use to command enemies is shown to us via an alien-like, low-pitched filter over the actor’s speech. It’s symbolic rather than realistic, but no doubt memorable. The same can be said for the personal shields that block fast-moving objects, facilitating knife combat over gunfights. Lynch employs some blocky CGI effects, dated and comical enough to break immersion, but once again memorable. One could have used much more subtle effects for each of these technologies, but Lynch makes them strange and unforgettable rather than allowing them to sink into mundanity. Whether or not they’re well executed is a different matter.

In conclusion, it’s hard to decry many of the criticisms levelled at David Lynch’s adaptation. He blames studio interference, and an admission that he sold out, claiming Dune (1984) to be his career’s only failure. Despite many agreeing, there is undoubtedly something special buried in its flaws. With intellectual and cinematic majesty akin to Forbidden Planet (1956) and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), Lynch’s defective masterpiece goes lengths to capture the mature, mystical, psychedelic qualities of “Dune” in a way that sets it apart from bog-standard science fiction. Lynch doesn’t want to think about it, or talk about it, and will not be seeing Villeneuve’s interpretation, but those of us who see genius in this much maligned flick can enjoy the film, seeing it as a valiant effort, a near-success, and a lesson learned.

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Written by Louis B Scheuer

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