There are, sadly, very few hard and fast rules around making movies. There are plenty of unwritten ones, sure, like don't let your teenage son attend a party at Kevin Spacey's house or don't let Uwe Boll anywhere near your videogame franchise. I guess what I'm really saying is that you seem to be able to get away with any old shite nowadays
Contrary to what you might believe from reading these posts, it's very rare that a movie that makes it to cinema is actually shit. It might be a uninspired, convoluted, intensely dull, overly long, or plain nonsensical, but a good majority of films that make it to theatres are actually bad. No Ladies and Gents, the realm of truly, genuinely shit films isn't even restricted to bargain bins and straight to DVD; it's marched across its borders and annexed its neighbours in the world of on-demand streaming services. If you really want to get your hands dirty in the Kingdom of the Dire, that's where you need to set up camp.
There is a point to all this, I assure you although that is ironic given how pointless this week's movie was. After the head-fuckery and brutalism of Possessor I thought I might cleanse my palette a little with some potentially terrible but straightforward Action Sci-Fi. I was not fully prepared.
Anti Life is shit. So shit in fact it was called Breach until it as released but they must have figured Anti Life was a better title. It is objectively not. Hyperbole notwithstanding it is absolutely riddled with almost every conceivable possible thing that would prompt an audience to soil themselves in protest at having to sit through it. The only positive I can take away from it is that I didn't pay any extra than my Netflix subscription fee to watch it. The trailer made it look passable, but if you can stomach a few bowel-related puns, there isn't enough fibre in the world.
The initial thing that took me aback is that there are some genuinely big name actors in this. You may of heard of a gentleman named Bruce Willis who is proving year on year that not everyone can work to Nicholas Cage's gruelling straight-to-DVD schedule and come out smelling of roses. Thomas Jane, former Punisher and shark wrangler is in here, as well as Rachel Nicholls who has done her share of fair to middling action shenanigans including buddying up with a beardless pre-Aquaman in that Conan remake from a few years back. There are some recognisable henchman faces here and there too, so on the face of it you might expect some half-decent action-acting (which is wildly different from proper acting and to pretend otherwise is just foolish). Thing is, literally everyone in this movie is terrible. The script is flat out awful, granted but I've seen worse actors do better with less. It just feels like nobody actually wants to be here; judging from his performance Bruce presumably decided the best way to portray an alcoholic was by just showing up drunk everyday and hoping nobody caught on. Jane barks out some clichéd military bullshit then goes into cryosleep for the next 45 minutes of screen time and everyone else sort of just plays to that level.
I guess it's not all their fault. The script/story is what prompted my little rant at the beginning about rules. the first rule of movie club should really be "If you're thinking of stealing the concepts directly out of Alien maybe don't. Especially if you have nowhere near the grasp of directing that Ridley Scott does". Look, it's a very specific rule, but Anti Life is a very specific type of soulless plagiarism. This is the kind of thing kids with camcorders would try and pull off, except these are just bigger kids with more expensive cameras. They've straight up nicked bits like the whole acid melting through the hull and they probably thought they were being edgy and clever when they made the alien parasite fully explode the host rather than simply burst out of their chests or when they swapped the Xenomorph for Zombies, (they weren't) but then they ruined that gag when they introduced a xenomorph as well. I guess my point is that if you're going to blatantly steal an idea at least try not to make it suck quite so bad.
The problem is two-fold; firstly there is no tension, atmosphere, drama or suspense and secondly they obviously pissed their budget up the wall on salaries for their marquee stars because the special effects are so bad it defies belief. The sets are basic and non descript but the absolute stand outs are the flamethrowers that are so badly rendered, the flames have this wierd slow-motion flowing effect, like they're being poured horizontally rather than being, you know... thrown? It seems like a petty thing but when Bruce awkwardly delivers what is probably intended to be a badass one-liner with all the feeling of a man wondering whether or not he left something important in the pocket of his jeans before they went in the wash and this failure of a flame tumbles out of the end of the very clearly 'made-from-drainpipes' gun, the whole thing is just laughable.
The xenomorph/parasite/big bad is pretty crappy looking even before you consider how bad the FX are. I can't tell if it was practical or CGI, which you would usually say is a good thing, but there so little movement from the thing it's difficult to say. I think it was CG. Design wise, it looks more like it was kit-bashed out of Games Workshop models than anything else but again, that isn't a compliment. I almost feel bad taking a shit all over their hard work, but they did a bad thing and they hould feel bad.
There's very little in the way of redeeming features unfortunately. Everyone just seems to mill about, then run about between rooms that start as safe and inevitably become less so. Even the quote,unquote twist ending (because of course there's a twist) has been done a million times before, a million times better. Honestly I can say I'm surprised, and I've only got myself to blame really. I'd say it's a shame but honestly after 90 minutes of this toss I was rooting for everyone to die in a colossal fireball, badly rendered or not.
I've got some better stuff lined up for the next couple of weeks, or at least I hope it is. Couldn't get much worse.
The Social Media apocalypse continues.
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