|
Reel Advice, by Steve Anderson
Dark Heaven
DVD
**1/2
Written by
Douglas Schulze
Directed by
Douglas Schulze
Cast
Jon Bennett
Christina Sheldon
Jeff Beorger
Christopher Miller
Lizzy Russell
Alex Safi
John Coorigan
Mark C. Schwarz
R
90 mins
I have to worry about a movie that starts off with a Bible quote, and yet can't
correctly cite the source it used (there is no book in the Bible called
"mathew", it's "matthew."). There are only sixty-six books in the thing; you'd
figure someone could take the trouble to open the thing up and check to make
sure they spelled the word correctly.
Are my worries founded? Well, yes and no....
There are certainly some solid features to Dark Heaven. The opening hour,
especially. We have an excellent setup here. Yet, the last twenty minutes
can't seem to capitalize on its opening successes. Let me show you what I mean.
Now I'll give them a lot of credit here. The beginning is nothing short of
eerie, with a cop waking up in the middle of an abandoned precinct house to the
sounds of an air raid siren. He then goes out to find the streets abandoned as
well. It's very "Omega Man" and I'm rather pleased with it. Very survival
horror. You don't see much of that any more and I'm glad for it.
And we can tell something serious is wrong with all this. Our cop finds
abandoned buildings all over the place. In some cases, he even finds wallets
loaded with cash in the middle of abandoned bars. Now that MEANS something,
folks.
A radio announcement on a wrecked prison bus lays it out--there have been
possibly millions of disappearances in the last several hours, and residents are
advised to stay indoors in the wake of this unusual event.
Now, some of you are screaming "Holy flurking shnit, Video Store Guy! It's the
RAPTURE!" And I admit, right at this point here, I'm screaming it right along
with you. We're screaming it for a reason--that's exactly what's going on.
Or at least it sure seems that way.
A huge chunk of the populace is suddenly missing. People are wandering around
with triangular marks on their foreheads and hands. Angels and demons are
marauding the countryside for miles around and no one's really too sure, the
audience included, just what's going on around here. Plus, there's a great
abundance of disturbing images, including our cop looking at himself, completely
and very visibly naked, holding an empty handgun to his temple and screaming
nonstop.
See what I mean? The opening hour of Dark Heaven is the unsettling intermingled
with the alarming. Shocks and terror gently mixed to provide what should be a
spine-tingling experience.
It's the last twenty minutes or so that the problem kicks in.
The biggest problem with Dark Heaven is the last twenty minutes. While the
movie is exciting throughout, but plays fast and loose with the Scriptural
adaptation, the point of the movie is somewhat suspect. Basically we've just
been following a cop around while he tries to piece together what's going on.
The ending is actually a surprise, albeit an OVERDONE surprise. It's
satisfying, but a little confusing.
That's the major problem here with Dark Heaven.
What exactly were they going for with it? Is this some kind of vague
representation of the Apocalypse? Is it a rapture and tribulation allegory
produced by someone OTHER than Cloud Ten Pictures, who seemed to have a corner
on the market by making every Left Behind movie?
What is the POINT here??
Like the music over the ending credit crawl, the point just seems to kick in too
late, and hesitantly, if at all.
But anyway, the extra features are limited to a director's commentary and
trailers for "Hallow's End," "Nightmare Boulevard," and "Eyes of Fire." Not a
subtitle to be found, and this always saddens me.
All in all, Dark Heaven isn't bad, but it isn't terribly good, either. While it
starts out abundantly well, setting itself up to be one of the finest movies of
the year, it can't seem to capitalize on its successes. It leaves the audience
with a nonsensical, flat ending that could have done something truly impressive.
Dark Heaven suffers badly from what might have been.
-------------------- I guess that wasn't his flipper...
 (From Questionable Content. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
Damn. I feel a tad guilty tangenting this comic again because I've done, what, three tangents on it already? But... I mean, dude, really. It's got a dolphin molesting a marine biologist! I had to tangent this one! *mischievous grin*
When I was in high school, I strongly wanted to become a marine biologist. I didn't because of a couple of factors. First, I wasn't sure how much of a career I could find as a marine biologist. It seemed one of those jobs that I could get a degree in and then never find work. (So naturally enough I went and got an English degree instead, and since haven't been able to find work. *rolls eyes* Go with your dreams, guys. It's better than having a piece of paper that you can't do much with.) Second, when I started taking biology classes, it required dissecting things. Stuff preserved in formaldehyde. Seems when I start smelling formaldehyde I get rather ill and it takes all my concentration to hold down the contents of my stomach, let alone dissect things.
And I wanted to study life. Not death. So I put that dream behind me, along with the dream of wanting to study dolphin behavior and communication and try to figure out just how complex dolphin social structures are and all of that. Ellen is pursuing a dream I'm interested in.
Of course, I'm kind of lucky in that I'm a guy. We hear plenty of stories of female biologists being molested by male dolphins, but not too many of guys molested by dolphins. Though my friend Steve said that knowing my luck, I'd find the lone gay dolphin. It would squeak like Rip Taylor and wear bandannas around its muzzle.
Which, when you think of it, sounds like something that would be in Questionable Content.
Anyway, last week we had a bit of character development between Faye and Marten. It seems that our feisty indie lady is finally coming out of her shell... and opening up to Marten more. Which of course will make the inevitable backslide yet more annoying... oh wait, I'm thinking of Margaret from College Roomies, who thinks that two steps forward and five steps back is progress. *wink*
Still, it's nice to see how some of our secondaries are doing. It's been weeks since we last saw Ellen and Steve, or Ellen's roommate whose name escapes me at the moment. Of course, once Marten and Faye move into their new apartment we'll be seeing a lot more of Ellen, I'm sure. But there have been times I've forgotten all about the move to a new apartment. I'm unsure how many people really think of it.
Personally, I still think Dora would make a better girlfriend for Marten than Faye. But I know Marten's type. When we get a girl in our sights, we stay the course, no matter how ornery the girl is or how doubtful it is we'll win her over. It's called stupidity. Er, I mean being romantic. *wink*
Anyway, go! Read! And find out why it's important the peaches aren't ripe in New England right now!
Robert A. Howard
----------------------- Do not underestimate the power of Emperor Whedon...
 (From PvP. Click on image to see full-sized image.)
I don't remember much about seeing the first Star Wars movie. I was a kid. All I really remember of it was feeling excited about it and wowed by the special effects. The campiness of the series, the little mistakes, the inconsistencies... these wouldn't bother me for at least a decade. What mattered was that this movie was everything I wanted to see - science fiction brought to life, with spaceships and aliens and spectacular music and special effects that were top-of-the-line for the time.
Looking back, I remember how the ships didn't move so much as... I don't know... I'm not sure how to describe it. I mean, if you look at the SciFi Channel's "Battlestar Galactica" and watch the ships flipping over and moving at angles that seem so alien to traditional science fiction movies and the dogfighting that happened in it (as if space were just atmosphere without clouds or color)... well, it's fairly true to real life physics (and this is part of the reason I enjoy the new Battlestar Galactica so much) and they seem to flow much smoother now. Old Star Wars just didn't feel... natural.
Yes, I know. It was top-notch special effects back then, using models and camera angles and all of that. And as classic science fiction, it is good. Or... it was good.
Then George Lucas ruined it for me.
I'm not quite like Brent in this. He was disillusioned by "Phantom" and "Clones". Me, I actually enjoyed those movies. Sure, I was a bit unhappy with how they turned Anakin Skywalker from someone who was hinted to be a teenager or young adult... maybe a couple years older than Luke himself when he was first trained... to a kid who was "born of the Force" and managed through dumb luck (oh, I'm sorry, "The Force") to take out the command ship of the invading alien fleet and escape unharmed. But I just rolled with it. "Phantom" wasn't that bad of a movie.
Nor was "Clones" that bad. Yes, it took everything I (and quite a few other people) envisioned for the Clone Wars and tossed it on our ears (I'd been under the impression that the war was against the Clones, and that the Clones had turned evil or something), but again, it wasn't too bad of a movie. And we got to make fun of "little orphan Annie" and of Amidala's wearing more and more revealing outfits while telling "Annie" that she can't run off and roll in the hay with him.
No, the deathblow to my enjoying Star Wars was in Lucas's "recreating" of the original three movies with new special effects and some recreating of scenes. We've all heard that "Han shot first" and of other little bits... but what truly upset me was the final scene in Episode VI... when we saw the Force Ghosts of Yoda, Ben, and Anakin.
Lucas replaced the older, seasoned, middle-aged Anakin Skywalker with the "young Anakin" from the movies. I suppose Lucas felt that the force ghost would show Anakin as he was before he fell to the Dark Side... but why not show Yoda and Ben at the height of their power? (Then again, I'd consider that a slap in the face of the actor who played Ben Kenobi. There's no satisfying me, is there? *chuckle*)
What's more, the original format of the movies is not available anymore. I liked the old Star Wars. And once the last VCR tapes of Episodes IV, V, and VI fall apart or are eaten by tape machines, that will be it. The original Star Wars will exist only in the stars, beamed on radio signals broadcast from Earth when it showed on television.
So I'm with Brent in this. I have little interest in Episode VI. "Sith" will be on the same level as "Clones" and "Phantom" in my eyes, on the same level as the "remastered" versions of the first movies.
And I've got a Cole Skywalker urging me to go see it as well, in the form of my roommate. He's watched all the others. He loves Star Wars for what it is. It's got Wookies and it'll be fun and exciting and it's science fiction... and my other friends are all excited about it as well.
No doubt they'll drag me to see it. And I might even enjoy it. But it will be a hollow enjoyment, because Star Wars isn't for me anymore. I, like Brent, have moved on. And hey, in half a year Serenity will be in theaters and I can watch something good.
Scott Kurtz? You get a nromlicious homemade oatmeal cookie. This strip was perfect.
Robert A. Howard
------------------------- |
