reVIEW (38)
FALLEN

“There are moments which mark your life. Moments when you realize nothing will ever be the same, and time is divided into two parts: before this, and after this.”

A bit of voice-over narration that sounds suspiciously as if it was lifted from Rosellen Brown’s excellent novel, Before And After, and a good case in point of what’s wrong with Gregory Hoblit’s Fallen: there is nothing original here.
A convicted serial killer named Reece (Elias Koteas) is executed for his crimes, but somehow manages to wreak more havoc on the innocent. Let’s see: Shocker, The First Power, The Horror Show.
Early on in the film, we are also shown that there is actually an entity that jumps from body to body, and it’s actually this entity that’s behind the murders. Ummm… The Hidden? Even Jason Goes To Hell: The Final Friday used this tack.

Now, one may argue that in this day and age, nothing is original anymore; Shakespeare’s done it all.
At the very least though, one can still give old material a new spin and come up with a good (or at times, great) piece of work: Ridley Scott’s visionary Alien reworked the Ten Little Indians scenario, gave us a haunted house in outer space, and produced a sci-fi/horror classic.
Sadly, Fallen doesn’t aim very high. It fails to do anything innovative with the material, and worse, doesn’t even succeed in giving the audience a thrill-packed ride.

“Cops are chosen people, Lou.”
-- Hobbes

The fault lies in Fallen’s script; written by Nicholas Kazan (who penned the riveting Reversal of Fortune for Barbet Schroeder), the screenplay is amazingly flat, a tension-free exercise in by-the-numbers suspense.
Denzel Washington (as Detective John Hobbes), though bringing a certain sensitivity and sympathy to his character, doesn’t get much to work with. And though I’m always glad to see Donald Sutherland (as Lt. Stanton), he isn’t given much to work with either, and ends up underutilized and wasted.

It seems a mystery why setting up the entire scenario for Hobbes and his adversary Azazel, takes a full hour, considering that anyone who’s seen the film’s trailer knows what Fallen is about.
Then, just when you think there could be a promising direction for the narrative to take—when theology teacher Greatta Milano (Schindler’s List’s Embeth Davidtz) mentions a possible source of help—Kazan’s script seems to just disregard the avenue completely, leaving the audience to languidly follow in the movie’s footsteps (or rather, bound two or three steps ahead, waiting impatiently for the film to catch up).
And though the squad room banter is snappy and commendable, one doesn’t really sign up for Fallen to see Hill Street Blues on the big screen either.

Of course, the film isn’t helped any by Hoblit’s matter-of-course directing.
Let’s face it—Hoblit’s Primal Fear wasn’t anything to write home about either; the only noteworthy thing about Primal Fear was Edward Norton’s stunning performance. (Well… okay. Laura Linney was good too.)
Sure, the Azazel POV shots in Fallen are interesting, but Michael Wadleigh did it in Wolfen, as did Paul Schrader in his remake of Cat People.
Save for a couple of intense body-jumping sequences about halfway through Fallen, most of the time, the audience is left with idle moments, allowing their minds to wander freely (much like the disembodied Azazel) and predict what’s going to happen next.
Ultimately, you just know how the film will end, including whose body Azazel will occupy in the final battle of wills with Hobbes.

“I have so many, many ways.”
-- Azazel

Curious, this penchant Azazel has for singing; I have yet to come across any reference to indicate Azazel has some musical bent (unless I’m reading the wrong books). The only link I can find (and it’s a long stretch, tenuous at best) is in the original Greek root for the word “tragedy.”
Or maybe Azazel just picked up the habit recently, in karaoke bars…
But I digress.
Going back to Fallen, ultimately we’re left with a drab film that doesn’t break any new ground, and spending two hours to find this out is, to my mind, not a very productive way to pass the time.
Not even the “surprise” concerning the voice-over bits (which are quite frankly annoying and intrusive) does much for the film.
Which all leads me to one inescapable conclusion: if you aren’t going to say anything new, then what’s the point?
As good old Jack once said in As Good As It Gets, “If you can’t at least be mildly interesting, then shut the hell up.”
A rather apt quote for this film, I think.

(Fallen OS courtesy of impawards.com; DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

(The above is a slightly altered version of a previously published review entitled, “Fallen Flat On Its Face.”)

SKINWALKERS
(Review)

As I mentioned in my review of Katja von Garnier‘s Blood and Chocolate, compared to the vampire, the werewolf has always gotten the shorter end of the proverbial stick (and in the case of the Underworld films, both races get screwed).
The latest film to feature our lupine friends, Jim Isaac’s Skinwalkers, is a curious mix of win and loss.

The premise is simple: skinwalkers (werewolves to the midnight movie crowd) exist, and the race is split down the middle; there are those who think of the monthly change as a curse, while others—those addicted to the kill—relish it as a gift.
There is a prophecy (isn’t there always?) of a special child who will hold the destiny of all skinwalkers in his hands.
Rachel (Nip/Tuck’s Rhona Mitra) is the mother of Timothy (Matthew Knight; The Grudge 2), who happens to be the child in question. Ignorant of their pivotal roles in this primeval struggle, widowed Rachel and child are being cared for and sheltered by Rachel’s brother-in-law Jonas (Elias Koteas, seen recently in David Fincher’s Zodiac) and his extended family.
And when skinwalker baddie Varek (Roswell’s Jason Behr) and his hairy homeys track down the prophesied child, Rachel realizes she married into a whole heap of trouble.

First, the cons.
The depiction of both sides of the war is decidedly uneven: while there is some attempt at sketching out the relationships and personalities of the good skinwalkers, Varek and his crew are little more than loping, savage ciphers. Save for one, there is no indication of who these skinwalkers were before they became the cruel hunters they are now, no inkling of motivation other than that they’re addicted to blood. There really aren’t even any tiny quirks to make one stand out from the other.
That’s exacerbated by performances that are rather bland and one-note, sadly a shortcoming that extends even to the goodie skinwalker camp. The only actors who actually register are the always interesting Koteas, Shawn Roberts (from George Romero’s Land of the Dead and the upcoming Diary of the Dead) as Adam, and, to a limited extent, Knight.
Particularly disappointing on this front are Mitra, who doesn’t quite convince as the woman who’s been lied to for thirteen years but must now step up to fight for her son’s life, and Behr, whose Varek isn’t the intimidating baddie this film so desperately needs. Their characters are all surface, with no emotional depth to them, like skinwalkers hiding behind flimsy human facades.

The script (by James DeMonaco, Todd Harthan, and James Roday) doesn’t help matters any either.
It’s a slow starter, taking some twenty minutes to kick into gear, really seriously moving only when Nana (Barbara Gordon), bless her soul, pulls out her piece and starts to shoot up Main Street. Once the narrative’s engine revs up though, it quickly settles into a choppy ride, the film never really quite hitting a satisfying stride.
Additionally, the plot’s surprises aren’t really surprises at all. Skinwalkers is rather transparent; given how the relationships and conflicts are laid out, you can basically see how it’s all going to turn out. And it’s never a good thing, when you can anticipate the beats of a story. (It also makes the characters looks pretty stupid when the audience knows more than they do.)

But there are pros.
One: the creature design by Stan Winston Studios.
Winston, who’s given us everything from xenomorphs to Pumpkinhead to animatronic dinos, delivers lupine bipeds with unsettling facial features, something new to the werewolf catalogue.
Sure, the transformation scenes could have used more bite, but man, those beasties were sure walloped by the ugly stick.

And two: despite my less than enthusiastic response to the film, it does end on a note that actually makes me look forward to a sequel, if one is even on the cards. Skinwalkers wraps on a situation that opens the door to the possibility of a down-and-dirty genre actioneer, with loads of guns and ammo, fangs and fur.

In the end, Skinwalkers isn’t a total loss, and if the right people can come together to deliver a swift and savage sequel, then this flawed effort would not have been in vain.

Parting shot: Jim Isaac’s past directorial efforts include The Horror Show and Jason X, both dismal affairs. Skinwalkers is his best film by far.
He’s also done fx work on such David Cronenberg films as The Fly, Naked Lunch, and eXistenZ, all of which I love.
(It’s safe to say I’m a bigger fan of Jim Isaac the special effects guy, than I am of Jim Isaac the director…)
It’s also interesting to note that Isaac considers Cronenberg a mentor of sorts, and not only thanks him in Skinwalkers’ end credits, but actually cast him in a small role in Jason X.

(Original Skinwalkers OS courtesy of empiremovies.com—the film’s release date was later moved to July; image courtesy of shocktillyoudrop.com.)