R, 1 hr. 40 min. Directed by: Vincenzo Natali. Release Date: June 4, 2010. DVD Release Date: October 5, 2010.
I have to wonder if the “science” we witness here
suffered from the Jurassic Park
effect: you know, it’s vaguely based on
real science but could never be duplicated in the real world. In some ways, this makes for good science
fiction. But, barely. Some of what we witness in the telling of
Dren’s (the creature cloned from random bits of DNA) story seems forced, and a bit
too pat. I’m still trying to figure out
what bit of DNA cobbled together to form this new matrix might have spawned that
prehensile tail with its poisoned spine, but it did make for one heck of a plot device.
Despite my questions, the effects are interesting to look at, although I
find that Dren all growed up is more creepy than sexy, despite the
posturing.
I vaguely remember having a discussion about how
everything George Clooney stars in becomes a “George Clooney” movie. I’m beginning to think that Adrian Brody is
the other side of that coin. I’ve seen
Brody in one or two movies that were off his normal patterns and realized that
somewhere under all that crap is some talent.
But, unfortunately, what we normally get are his “Adrian Brody”
movies. For me, it’s a movie that
generally lacks any real style or intelligence, but isn’t offensive. If it was a color, it would be gray. Some medium shade of gray that would go with
just about every other color.
There are worse ways to spend your time than with an
Adrian Brody movie. This is especially
true if you’re just looking to kill some time, which is what was going on in my
head when I popped this into my DVD player.
This wasn’t something I would have gone out of my way to see, even
though it is the sort of movie I might find my way to in a theater.
I had trouble placing this movie using my Futurama-inspired ratings system. When the movie was over, I was mostly
satisfied. But not enough to rave about
this (I’m beginning to realize if this review was a color, it might be gray),
and I’m thinking of that line from 10
Things I Hate About You, asking whether or not you can just be
whelmed. That’s pretty much how I felt
about this. Whelmed.
