Review Category: VOD

SENSE8

Ever since they started out, the Wachowskis have been established as a highly accomplished duo, having made a name for themselves with incredible work like Bound and the Matrix trilogy. The prospect of them teaming up with acclaimed TV and comic book writer J. Michael Straczynski for a new show on Netflix was an exciting one to say the least. What we have with Sense8 is basically a transcendental action-adventure drama with elements of both sci-fi and romance thrown in for added measure. The story is about eight people living in different parts of the world who are all brought together after discovering special abilities. If you’re sensing déjà vu, then that’s because the setup is very similar to the premise of Heroes, and this show certainly has very a similar vibe and tone to what Heroes had in its first season before it went off the rails. There are, however, some differences; instead of gaining individual super powers, the characters here have the power to connect to each other, transmigrating into each other’s space, seeing, feeling, hearing what another one is experiencing. These eight individuals are referred to as “Sensates”.

The show has a great concept at its heart, and there’s huge potential in that concept, but sadly that concept is never properly explored to its full potential. It’s almost as if the Wachowskis and Straczynski have lost faith in that idea and opted instead to do different character storylines told in different world locations with varying tones and vibes to each one of them. That would be okay, except some are better than others. Some storylines can be basic and somewhat clichéd at times; an Indian woman who’s uncertain of marrying a man her parents adore; a troubled Chicago cop trying to do right in a harsh environment; and a German criminal with a heart of gold. The performances are incredibly solid and the actors do their best to give some of the less-interesting characters more depth and emotion, but they are still somewhat hindered by the occasionally clunky writing.

The strongest character with the strongest storyline and character development is Nomi, a transgender blogger and a reformed “hacktivist” living in San Francisco with her lesbian lover Amanita. Even though she’s part of a bigger universe with the other seven characters, her story arc involving her self-identification, her estrangement with her family and her relationship with Amanita is more deeply explored and more emotionally layered than the other storylines. It seems that Lana Wachowski, herself a trans-woman, had more of a deeper personal connection with Nomi, and Jamie Clayton (also transgender) gives an emotionally raw and captivating performance and her chemistry with Freema Agyeman is both believable and heartfelt. Speaking of which, you’ll see a completely different side to the former Doctor Who girl, so be warned Whovians: you won’t see her in the same way again.

Plus, the show deserves credit for its honest representation on LGBT, and it was massively refreshing seeing that both a lesbian couple and gay couple were being given the same (if not more) attention than any of the straight couples. Usually in mainstream media, a character’s sexuality ends up becoming their only characteristic, but like the Wachowskis demonstrated with the incredible Bound, Sense8 shows that this isn’t the case. With the freedom of Netflix, this show can get graphic with its displays of full-on sex and full-frontal nudity that is sure to make some viewers eyes burn, particularly in one hair-raising scene where several of the main characters use their ability to feel each other across the world in a sensual and psychedelic manner. As well as sexuality, gender and identity, the show also deals with other weighty topics of poverty, religion, racism, sexism, depression, suicide, police brutality and more. It’s almost as if the show’s creators were going through a huge checklist of the biggest crises of modern human history order to reflect and capture the zeitgeist of our times, and sometimes this works brilliantly, yet far too on the nose occasionally.

The binge-watching Netflix format has worked wonders for many of Netflix’s own shows like House of Cards, Orange is the New Black and most recently Daredevil, all feeling like an extended movie rather than the typical TV season. Yet with Sense8, some episodes felt like 20 – 30 minutes of a movie stretched out to several hours, allowing for more setup and “Basil Exposition” dumps before the action happens, and this makes the series as a whole too much of a slow-burner, which doesn’t really work for a sci-fi series of this scale and it could’ve benefited from being faster-paced. When it does become that, the drama kicks in, the action becomes compelling, and the heavy dialogue scenes become more effective as a result.

Yet despite pacing issues, the show’s big sense of scale and scope is highly reflected in its visuals. Instead of copping out and going for any GCI visuals, the Wachowskis wanted to capture the realism of the world and filmed on location in Chicago, San Francisco, London, Berlin, Seoul, Reykjavík, Mexico City, Nairobi and Mumbai. It’s evident watching the series that they certainly got the most out of these staggering locations, and throughout the series there are some breath-taking visuals (all thanks to John Toll, Frank Griebe, Christian Almesberger and Danny Ruhlmann). Plus, the score by Tom Tykwer and Johnny Klimek is excellent and adds some much needed liveliness and edginess to the proceedings.

Sense8 has a great premise, imaginative ideas, great performances (plaudits to Ms. Clayton), and stunning visuals. But whilst that core concept could’ve been fleshed out more, it would seem that in this first series, it has been sacrificed somewhat for more in-depth character drama, which is strong for some yet isn’t for others despite how strong the performances are. The slow build-up and exposition layering slows down the drama and faster pacing is much needed to liven proceedings. However, its sprawling ambition is still incredibly admirable, and like the Wachowskis’ Cloud Atlas, it may improve over multiple viewings. A second season wouldn’t be a bad thing, because that’ll hopefully allow for the ideas of the show to be explored in greater depth, now that we’re familiar with the characters and their scenarios. A mixed bag overall, but an admirable one nonetheless.

INFO: SENSE8 / CERT: 18 / CREATOR: ANDY WACHOWSKI, LANA WACHOWSKI / SCREENPLAY: ANDY WACHOWSKI, LANA WACHOWSKI, J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKI / STARRING: MIGUEL ANGEL SILVESTRE, DOONA BAE, JAMIE CLAYTON, TINA DESAI, BRIAN J. SMITH / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

BURYING THE EX

Joe Dante, check. Horror movie, check. Zombie comedy, check. Romance… well okay, we’ll go with it. After all, Shaun of The Dead is a romantic comedy in its right and look how well that film turned out! The concept of an ex-girlfriend returning from the dead is most definitely one that sparks the imagination; the idea sells itself. A director with Gremlins on his filmography should bring all the horror bliss to this crazy, zombie romp, but truth be told, it’s a bit of a disappointment.

Max (Yelchin) is a horror film fanatic and has recently moved in with his vegan, eco-friendly girlfriend, Evelyn (Greene). He meets Olivier (Daddario), who shares his love of horror, and Evelyn is soon green with jealously. When Max realises the obvious – that he’s not happy with his relationship – he plans to break up with his over-bearing and sensitive girlfriend. Before he can, Evelyn is hit by a bus. Stricken with grief, when he is finally ready to move on, Evelyn appears on his doorstep, fresh from the grave. His crazy needy girlfriend becomes a crazy needy zombie. Filled with guilt and partially terrified of her immortal abilities, Max just can’t get rid of her. Now he has to balance his two relationships: the dead and the living.

There are some great 80’s horror movie tropes and really fun ideas you would expect from Dante. You can see what he was trying to accomplish: it’s a love affair with the macabre, but it just doesn’t quite achieve the lust of horror B-movie. The tone is very confusing. Are we happy or are we sad? Is this supposed to be funny? Anton Yelchin’s performance is rather blank, with everything going on he should be losing his shit, but he’s just a blank canvas. He’s obviously meant to be the ‘Jesse Eisenberg’ of the film, but they’ve either tried too hard or not hard enough. The soundtrack doesn’t do much for the atmosphere either, there are some good punk rock tunes, however, it contrasts with rather depressing notes and whilst someone does die, it’s a little too heavy and out of place for a romantic zombie comedy.

With exceptions from Oliver Cooper, who plays Travis, Max’s half-brother and Ashley Greene, the awkward dialogue falls flat from the rest of the cast. Where it’s trying to be cute, it’s cringeworthy where it’s meant to be funny, it’s boring, and writer Alan Trezza can’t take the blame for this. Cooper and Greene deliver just the right amount of enthusiasm and crazy into their characters, making their dialogue work. Yelchin and Daddario, on the other hand, just aren’t feeling it and the audience aren’t buying it. For any zombie horror fan, it’s worth a watch with its obvious appreciation for the genre, but don’t expect too much.

INFO: BURYING THE EX / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JOE DANTE / SCREENPLAY: ALAN TREZZA /STARRING: ANTON YELCHIN, ASHLEY GREENE, ALEXANDRA DADDARIO, OLIVER COOPER / RELEASE DATE: JUNE 19TH (VOD)
 

P.O.V.

Zack (Tom Clear) has just been dumped by his girlfriend. In a misguided attempt to cheer him up, his brother and friends decide to throw a party in an abandoned retirement home currently undergoing serious refurbishment. As is the way of things, the old house has a tainted history involving demonic possession and fiery sacrifice, and inevitably the party soon begins to get out of control.

This no-budget British horror is formulaic, predictable and full of irritating characters you’d rather see meet their end as soon and as bloodily as possible. The fact that despite all that P.O.V. is as interesting and enjoyable as it ends up being is to the great credit of writer and director Richard Anthony Dunford and the unknown, yet talented cast he has assembled. Opening scenes set the tone of the relationship between the four leads, with (mostly) good natured ribbing giving way to genuine affection and comradery in the face of any external interference. There are some revelations and home truths delivered, at times somewhat bluntly, but on the whole the film moves along at a decent pace. As soon as the true history of the home is delivered by way of a well-constructed ghost story, the whole tone shifts and P.O.V. then becomes a horror chase movie, with the hapless Zack pursued through the property by all manner of possessed former friends.

The ace-in-the-whole, the USP if you will, is in the camerawork. As the title would suggest, Dunford’s film is seen entirely through the eyes of the lead, never once shifting its perspective. It would be fair to say this isn’t always successful with some angles feeling a little unnatural and strangely elevated, but it is an effective enough tool to maintain interest from the viewer throughout. You find yourself wanting to see what they do with this, how they develop the story, and are engaged enough to ignore some of the less obvious issues.

One of obvious ones however is that the final third of the film seems to be just Zack running down the same corridor, slamming through the same door, pursued by the same baddie over and over again. This repetition gives the impression that the original concept was for a short film, and these elongated chase scenes are included simply to draw out the running time. The peripheral characters remain, well, just that, being weaker than the leads in the acting stakes and serving little real purpose other than to fill out the sparsely attended party.

Criticism of P.O.V., though, feels harsh as the filmmakers are attempting something different, a change to the usual found footage motif so many low budget films adopt. For this they should be applauded, and while P.O.V. isn’t successful at everything it attempts, it does enough to warrant an audience and is very much worth seeking out.

INFO: P.O.V. / DIRECTOR: RICHARD ANTHONY DUNFORD / SCREENPLAY: RICARD ANTHONY DUNFORD / STARRING: TOM CLEAR, KARL KENNEDY-WILLIAMS, TUULA COSTELLOE, LEWIS SANDERSON / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

VOD REVIEW: EVANGELINE / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: KAREN LAM / SCREENPLAY: KAREN LAM / STARRING: KAT DE LIEVA, RICHARD HARMON, MAYUMI YOSHIDA, DAVID LEWIS, KELVIN REDVERS / RELEASE DATE: MAY 8TH (US VOD), JUNE 9TH (US DVD), TBC (UK)

When naive student Evangeline starts a new life at college she hopes to leave her lonely and tragic past behind her. However, after being brutalised and left for dead by a trio of psychotic frat boys, she merges with the sprit of a vengeance demon and begins striding down a path of violent revenge stained with blood and corpses.

With Evangeline, Karen Lam expands her 2011 serial killer short Doll Parts into a feature-length fable looking at the repercussions of kidnapping and murder from the perspective of the victim and those they leave behind. The film is in essence a dark fairytale, with techniques like skewed camera angles, blurred focus, flared lighting and echoing sound granting it an ethereal and dreamlike atmosphere, a Guillermo del Toro movie stripped of visual intensity. The gothic ambience (seen more recently in Lam’s web series Mythos) is like a visual representation of a poem’s imagery, juxtaposing the darkness of humanity with forces of supernatural destruction.

Far from a simple possession or direct channelling, Eva and the demon exist in a spiritual symbiosis; while she draws strength from the entity to exact her revenge she still remains herself, albeit with ghostly features, sunken eyes and a slow progressive erosion of her humanity. With every life she takes, she further exposes herself to the darkness spreading within that seeks to consume her soul until all that she ever was is swallowed in a purgatorial limbo.

The story is incredibly simple yet utterly compelling. The personalities of the characters are swiftly defined by their actions, and it’s easy to get a feel for who they are despite little in the way of backstory being offered. As the eponymous star, Kat de Lieva (Halo 4: Forward Unto Dawn) has the kind of cherubic beauty that makes her age difficult to estimate, but serves well in portraying Eva’s innocence. It also acts as a visual counterpoint to the hate and rage the demon instils in her, a faint smile of righteous sadism flitting across her youthful face as she inflicts brutal and merciless vengeance upon those who wronged her. As the leader of the murderous gang, Richard Harmon (Continuum, Bates Motel, The 100) continues to forge a career as the world’s most terrifying emo, drawing on a dark intensity that brings forth a chilling, almost reptilian gaze that knows no empathy and seeks no understanding.

As well as a supernatural vengeance film, Evangeline is also a statement against misogyny. It’s no accident that the villains are all men, and each of them targets Eva for no other reason than she is a girl and thus a viable object upon whom they can assert their masculine dominance. The tenets of Eva’s Christian faith occasionally echo in her mind, specifically the bits about mercy and forgiveness, but the film asks why men like this should be deemed worthy of the absolution such teachings advocate. The only remorse any of them show for their actions is at the point of death; they’re not sorry for the things they’ve done, they’re sorry they’ve been dealt the consequences. Vengeance might draw you down a one-way path of darkness, but if the actions taken on it are the only justice to be had, then what you lose of yourself on the way might be worth the sacrifice.
 

As the series is heading towards the end, things start to take shape as, in Episode 4, a kidnap plan goes haywire; John apparently having hidden motives of his own, and after being pushed to the very brink, Sophie’s plans for getting more Portal lead to murder.

After having a slow start with the first three episodes, the action starts to kick in and things get more visceral than before. We see just how desperate Sophie’s situation is as she’s prepared to murder people to get what she wants, but it’s major plaudits to Chelsea Edge that we’re still invested in her character and her story arc. Chelsea makes Sophie believable and you honestly believe that she doesn’t want to murder people, despite how desperate she is to escape from her own harsh reality. She superbly manages to convey the desperation and fear, and without her Sophie could’ve ended up being a bland character as a result.

We also start to learn a little bit more about John and what his possible motives may be. It all seems to suggest towards a revenge scheme due to some unfortunate incident in his past, but Clay Whitter keeps things very controlled and he makes the character emotionally withdrawn in order to give the character more intrigue and mystery about him.

The intrigue and mystery plays a part in the episode’s atmosphere, and this episode is probably the most atmospheric episode to date. Craig Porter’s cinematography is very visceral and striking with creative uses of shadows and blacks used to create an almost noire-esque quality to it at times. Combined with Ashmore’s hand-held direction that is playfully used to crank up the tension and suspense, it makes the whole thing seem like a horror thriller. That horror aspect is also perfectly reflected by the use of music at the very beginning of the episode, which also adds a foreboding tone for what’s to come in the episode.

Portal has so far been playing an interesting game with its clever use of character arcs and intertwining plotlines, and this is the episode where all that starts to come together and take shape, and the cliff-hanger in this episode is actually a great one for once as it doesn’t feel abrupt as previous cliff-hangers before and will certainly leave people impatient for the next episode and what occurs in that.
 

Events start to take shape in episode 3, as the dealers of the Portal drug plan to further expand their business strategy by any means necessary, even if it involves kidnapping someone, and Sarah is pushed to the deep end after getting into huge trouble with her overbearing boss and is more determined to get her hands on Portal.

Although short, there’s still enough that promises something big for the next episodes when the action kicks in. This episode, like the previous two, is pretty much the calm before the storm. Like always, Chelsea Edge’s scenes are the most interesting, and she does give a very nuanced and tragic performance of someone who’s pretty much at rock bottom and is trying her best to escape from that nightmare. The scene where she’s being harassed and berated by her cruel and overbearing boss shows us just how strong Chelsea is as an actress as she’s trying her best to hide her emotions, despite how hopeless her situation is. We also find out that she’s connected to Victoria Connett’s character and we learn this is how she’s able to achieve Portal, so this gives us the sense that all of these character’s paths are connected and are going to collide sooner rather than later.

We get a glimpse of the criminal organisation that is misusing Portal as teased in the first episode, and we learn just how cunning and malicious Chris Kerry’s crime boss can be. The gathering of these crooks may look like something out of a Guy Ritchie movie, but it manages to be solid enough that it thankfully doesn’t go into the whole annoying, Pinteresque gangster shtick that filmmakers like Ritchie has been known for.

However, there are faults to be found here; like before, you do get the sense that you are watching a cut-down segment of a movie, and this is pretty much more of a slow-burner episode that sets things up for the big stuff happens next. Yet, both the cinematography and direction is as solid as before, the performances are great with plaudits still going to Chelsea Edge, and there’s plenty of intrigue in there that makes the whole episode enticing enough that it doesn’t end up becoming stale.
 

VOD REVIEW: BOSCH / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: VARIOUS / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: TITUS WELLIVER, JAMIE HECTOR, AMY AQUINO, LANCE REDDICK / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

Michael Connelly’s highly successful Harry Bosch novels have been brought to life for Amazon Prime streaming. With Connelly very much hands-on with the project, there’s no doubt it’s his baby, and what a good looking baby it is!

Written and produced by Connelly, with some help from Eric Overmyer (co-creator, writer and co-producer) and T.L. Lankford (producer and writer), who all flex their respective talents, along with directors Ernest A. Dickerson, Kevin Dowling and Alex Zakrzewski, who collectively have breathed life into this refreshing detective series.

Connelly’s books, Echo Park and City of Bones, form the basis of the story, as L.A.P.D. homicide detective Harry Bosch has his hands full with investigating the death of a 13-year-old boy while standing trial in federal court for the murder of a serial killer.

And you thought you had bad days!

Titus (Lost) Welliver is exceptional as Bosch, who lives in the hills overlooking the seedy, dark, underbelly of Los Angeles while he solaces with his affinity listening to his jazz collection. He’s the perfect choice to play the character, fleshing the part out with the right amount of vulnerability, gestures, dialogue delivery and facial expressions. Watching the wheels turn in his mind as he puts the pieces of the murderer’s puzzle together is a delight. It’s a role he was born to play. The supporting cast are equally outstanding, and it’s almost as if they walked right out of the books.

The sharp, crisp writing moves the show ahead at full speed, which, along with the dynamic cinematography of Los Angeles make this a show to watch over and over.

An instant classic.