'Poltergeist' (2015) Review

The Family Friendly Poltergeist

BY IAN TAN

 

"The CGI people are coming"

            Remakes. Remakes everywhere. Sigh. As much as we’d hate to admit it, there may come a time where Hollywood just won’t be releasing any more original material. Every major blockbuster this year is either a sequel, reboot, shared universe release, or all three. Well, it’s been like that for many years now but it’s the most noticeable today. With original films such as Tomorrowland bombing at the box office, Hollywood’s descend to only making films that have an existing fan-base isn’t a far cry away. Sorry, Brad Bird; I guess Hollywood doesn’t have any new ideas.

            Enter 2015’s Poltergeist, a remake that’ll probably make kids show-off that they’ve sat through a horror movie (because it’s really not that scary) and/or make teens or adults who did watch the original wallow up in disappointment at how this remake just isn’t better than the original, because it’s just not. It tries to be, but overall, it mostly underwhelms and leaves viewers feeling somewhat shortchanged.

            The plot remains true to the original – the youngest daughter in the family is kidnapped by supernatural entities and is taken into their insidious realm that leave her family members seeking out help to rescue her from The Further  said realm; a premise already made modern with James Wan’s Insidious, which really is this generation’s Poltergeist and a proper throwback to it.

 

The lights are...alivee!

            Before getting to the downsides of this film, let’s take a look at the ups. Sam Rockwell, who plays the father in the family, does a good job in his role. The way his character was written to be struggling financially is also a nice addition to the character and makes him more relatable than the father in the original film, played by Craig T. Nelson. On top of that, the child actors here have more to do than the ones in the original did and give the film more characters to follow. It seems that, like Steven Spielberg himself, director Gil Kenan is at his directorial best when directing children, even if the child actors aren’t the best actors around. I quite liked Maddison’s (the youngest child) brother Griffin played by Kyle Catlett. On another note, one scene involving a drill and a hole in the wall was interesting to see, and added something new to the remake. The comedy is hit-or-miss, but most of the jokes conjured up a chuckle or two in me. 

Fun fact: That tall guy in the back was in Disney's Sky High

            On the downside however, Gil Kenan’s Poltergeist fails at nearly every level when trying to provide it share of scares. Setting has always played a major role in horror movies. The environment in which the characters live in can do so much to give the audience an eerie feeling about things, but the house in this movie just really isn’t scary. Furthermore, quite a number of the scares happen in broad daylight and add little to the scare factor of the movie. Save for that one scene with the drill, nothing else really stood out in terms of the terror this movie should be leaving us with.

The first Poltergeist, although a PG-rated horror film, left audiences terrified of everyday things like trees, clowns and (oh, boy) television. This 2015 version doesn’t. In fact, so many of the scares in this film are executed in an almost …fun… and family friendly way… and that’s totally not what they should be going for. Poltergeist wasn’t meant to be a kiddie horror film. Granted, the original had some kid-like scares (that smoky, cartoony hand that emerged from the TV), but it also had some really chilling moments (the maggots in the meatloaf, that guy peeling his face off). And the overuse of CGI in this remake, and bad CGI at that, makes things even less frightening. Everything in this remake that pays tribute to the original was done better in the original, i.e. the moving tree, the dead corpses, that toy clown, furniture moving on its own. This movie is filled with a terrible over-reliance on CGI to bring the scares to life, when so many of the scares in this film could have been achieved with practical effects like they were in the original.

Told ya they were alive, kid. Oh well. 

Like the disappointing Annabelle last year, Poltergeist (2015)’s poster proves to be scarier than the actual film. Was the budget compromised? Did the studio choose to fund the movie less knowing that people would come see it anyway? Gil Kenan did a pretty good job with Monster House back in 2006, so I’m sure he’d be able to make this movie a better one if he had better production values and a slightly bigger budget. At the end of the day, I would recommend this movie for families more than anyone else. Other moviegoers, be it people who’ve seen the 1982 film, horror buffs or teenagers, will likely be disappointed. It’s a great introductory horror film for kids; I’ll give it that.

_________________________________________________________________

Final Verdict

Poltergeist gets 5.5 out of 10 stars – They don’t know what scares you.

            

'Jurassic World' Review

Jurassic World Review:

Hold On To Your Butts

BY IAN TAN

Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park was an instant classic and an achievement in cinema back when it came out in 1993. Not only did it give audiences a glimpse of photo-realistic dinosaurs through breakthrough visual effects and animatronics, it also reminded audiences of the power of the silver screen and its ability to evoke magic, awe and wonder. And John Williams’ unforgettable score for the film only added to that movie magic. Flash forward two decades later and we have Jurassic World, a sequel that could either make or break the franchise.

After seeing his franchise beaten and battered in 2001’s Jurassic Park III, Steven Spielberg probably never thought of returning to the franchise again. Thankfully, he serves as executive producer on this film with director Colin Trevorrow in his first attempt at a big-budget Hollywood blockbuster sequel/reboot. It sounds like quite the risk for Universal Pictures to hire a director whose last film was titled Safety Not Guaranteed, but Trevorrow delivers the goods in this worthy sequel to Steven Spielberg’s original classic. Forget The Lost World and Jurassic Park III.

 

What are they looking at? :/

The plot of Jurassic World is simple enough: the owners of the now world-famous Jurassic World theme park decide to create a hybrid dinosaur -the Indominus Rex - in order to attract more visitors without batting an eye on the possibility of said dinosaur going rogue and putting the park, and its visitors, in mortal danger. Of course, the Indominus Rex ultimately goes rogue and puts the park, and its people, in mortal danger, and it's up to Chris Pratt and his posse of velociraptor buddies to save the day. It’s not a superb plot; it’s actually quite a generic one as far as monster movies go, but in Trevorrow’s hands, he executes it with enough thrills and spectacle that’s enough to distract from the not-so-original story.

The characters in World, although not as interesting or as memorable as those in Park, are charming and likable in their own way. Chris Pratt plays a subtler but more commanding version of his Star-Lord character from last year’s Guardians of the Galaxy that immediately makes you want to take his side, literally and figuratively. He’s a solid action star, and I think everyone can agree that he’s going to be a great Indiana Jones after seeing him in this movie. In the first quarter of the film, Bryce Dallas Howard’s character almost borders along the annoying, but thanks to a well-balanced performance and a naturally flowing character arc, her character didn’t seem too bad after all. She could have easily been sidelined to damsel-in-distress status toward the latter half of the movie, and it’s great that the filmmakers opted not to do so and instead allowed her character to feel relevant and useful in the film’s final act. Child actors Ty Simpkins (Insidious, Iron Man 3) and Nick Robinson act believably enough as well and add to the Spielberg-esque child-like magic of the film. Ty Simpkins, who plays the younger brother, is especially likeable. 

That smile

Now let’s get to the good stuff: the theme park itself. Boy oh boy, do I wish Jurassic World existed for real. The theme park seen in the film is incredibly well realised, with attractions that combine the best of Universal Studios and Sea World, with dinosaurs. Dr. Hammond would be oh, so proud. They really spared no expense. Several nods to the first film are sprinkled here and there and will definitely please fans. No Jeff Goldblum or Sam Neill cameo to be found here though, unfortunately.

Feeding Time

The dinosaurs themselves are awesome to look at, and Jurassic World makes the best use of the franchise’s infamous velociraptors. They have more personality now than ever, with the help of some motion-capture technology. However, considering that it’s been 22 years since the first Jurassic Park, the visual effects and CGI haven’t seemed to improve much in my opinion. In fact, I think some of it looked better in 1993. The look of the raptors now seem less convincing than they did back then, probably due to the fact that the dinosaurs in this film are required to do things on a more physically demanding scale than they have before. There was really only one scene I noticed where an actual animatronic dinosaur was used, and that scene felt the most realistic because the actors were acting with a practical prop, not a green stick that would soon be digitally replaced with a dinosaur. Speaking of dinosaurs, Jurassic World‘s main attraction - the Indominus Rex – is quite terrifying. I wish they showed a little more of it though, to have a proper look at the creature in all its glory ala the final T-Rex shot in the first Jurassic Park.

"Dance off, me and you."

As expected, no scene in this movie compares with the intense kitchen scene in the original. There are attempts at recreating that same level of suspense, but it rarely gets your heart racing as much as it did in the first film. The film’s climax however, was PERFECT. It was the most crowd-pleasing moment I’ve ever witnessed in a cinema. Without spoiling anything, I’ll just say that the final action set piece will make you disregard whatever flaws you might have had with the film, given that you are already a Jurassic Park fan. It brought back that same sense of Spielbergian magic from the 1993 film and was just the ultimate fan-service climax the franchise deserves. Plus, with all its visual glory and sense of scale, I can’t justify seeing this movie in any other format than IMAX. (Edited: Okay, D-Box would be pretty awesome as well). 

Mercedes Benz in the back

Dinosaurs aside, this film is filled with product placement. It probably has the most of any movie this year. Chris Pratt drinks a nice glass of Coke. All vehicles - cars, trucks, and motorbikes – are products of Mercedes Benz. Everyone uses a Samsung smartphone. Samsung’s new Ultra-HD curved TVs even make a three-second cameo in the park’s very own Samsung-sponsored tech hub. Just saying.

Overall, Jurassic World is an entertaining sequel that pays homage to its original film and adds even more to the franchise’s world. For fans of the original Jurassic Park, this movie will make you feel like a little kid again. For newcomers, it’ll wow you for its spectacle alone, and may make you want to see the first Jurassic Park to know how it all started. This movie’s up there with Mad Max: Fury Road as one of my favourite films of the summer.

Final Verdict

Jurassic World gets 8.7 out of 10 stars – That was 22 years worth waiting for.