Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Event Horizon / * (1997)

I can’t imagine what intentions the filmmakers behind “Event Horizon” had in making this endeavor, but I suspect their minds exist in a parallel universe where structural rules and logic are cheerfully abandoned concepts. Here they are possessed not by desire or purpose to say something astounding or even entertaining in accordance with their genre of choice, but by a bewildering notion to throw as many scenes of shock and awe at us as possible without the benefit of setup. Most of the scenes are gratuitous in nature, and seem plucked from superior visual sources before being mutated beyond recognition. If I were a psychologist hired to analyze the people who made this, I would conclude that everyone involved needed to take their inner child out back and shoot it.

The premise starts off in a promising manner. Seven years have passed since a ship called the Event Horizon went into deep space to explore the far reaches of the universe and then completely disappeared off radar; now, in the year 2047, Earth has received a signal from the missing vessel near the surface of Neptune, and a crew of individuals, led by the headstrong Captain Miller (Laurence Fishburne), has been sent off to investigate. This approach, science fiction gurus will remind you, is one of the classic setups of sci-fi horror, to be matched in most scenarios by a building sense of tension as characters prod the quiet corridors of said vessel until it reveals some very disturbing secrets. The movie is fairly in line with that sentiment, except the secrets it chooses to divulge might as well be conveyed in Morse code for the good it will do them.

The most important character aboard the rescue vessel is Dr. Weir (Sam Neill), who created the unique technology aboard the Event Horizon, and is coming along out of an apparent necessity to decode the ship’s intricate language in order to access hidden files. What makes the technology distinct as opposed to other space vessels is the Horizon’s ability to bend space and time in order to travel far distances in a fraction of a second. Weir explains this in more elementary terms by punching two holes at opposing ends of a poster and folding it so that the holes match up. You and I get it, but it’s obvious that no one on board this ship ever passed a physics class.

The ship itself is massive and quiet, with a crew that has long since perished, and contains mysteries that are… what, exactly? The movie has about as much clue as we do. If the writer, Philip Eisner, drew inspiration for his screenplay from any single picture, it would easily be Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Solaris.” Similar to the planet in that film, the ship here seems to cause dark memories within the new arrivals to manifest themselves, eventually causing some to become insane or, worse yet, fatalities in some kind of space game for blood. Weir is adamant amidst all of this that the ship has been to some very dark corners of the universe and has returned with amazing stories, but the film dangles this information in front of the audience without any inclination to resolve it with an answer. The reason: I sense the movie is more interested in exploiting its players in the same way that the “Hellraiser” films did: by torturing them to no purpose of dramatic enhancement or tension, but just for, you know, the heck of it.

The opening scenes are its best assets. The camera hones in on a ship as it glides its way between stars while an eerie quiet resonates around it. Neptune practically sashays into view like a giant blue orb vying for screen time, providing a glimpse into the scope that the cinematographers have in mind. They are the real stars here, and for 96 minutes their cameras peer into corridors and over vast empty spaces like hopeful tourists waiting for something monumental to happen. Sometimes we are privileged enough to see things that would shine in a film more deserving of the images, like a hallway leading to the ship’s core that looks like a meat grinder twirling in constant motion, or a metallic gateway into other dimensions that may contain more riddles than it lets on. My question: how in the world could any filmmaker look at what these special effects wizards are capable of executing, and squander away their efforts so passively? This is a movie with the visual spine of something enthralling, wasted on a screenplay that is bare bones on exposition and even weaker on supplying us with information that would allow the images to resonate.

The movie was directed by Paul W.S. Anderson, who would later go on to unleash material onto the theater screen even more infuriating than “Event Horizon,” including “Alien vs. Predator” and the “Resident Evil” series. I hated those movies for a number of reasons, not the least of which was the same primary problem that kills this one: they were too concentrated on flashy cuts and images and not enough on anything else. Someone with the forethought to care about potential futures in the movies ought to have seen this project, the first in a long line of miscalculations, as a desperate cry for help on part of the director, who no doubt meant to make a good movie even on a passable escapist entertainment platform. What was he thinking the rest of the time? One law of cause and effect suggests that if no one bothers holding a mirror up to a bad habit the first time, the habit will become part of a destructive pattern.

Written by DAVID KEYES

Science Fiction (US); 1997; Rated R for strong violence and gore, language and some nudity; Running Time: 96 Minutes

Cast:
Laurence Fishburne: Captain Miller
Sam Neill: Dr. William Weir
Kathleen Quinlan: Peters
Joely Richardson: Lt. Starck
Richard T. Jones: Cooper
Jack Noseworthy: Justin

Produced by
Jeremy Bolt, Colin Brown, Nick Gillot, Lawrence Gordon, Sarah Isherwood and Lloyd LevinDirected by Paul W. S. Anderson; Written by Philip Eisner

12 comments:

brian said...

I agree with you. Thanks for saying it better than I could.

Anonymous said...

Not everyone needs to be told everything to enioy a movie, this "critic" (who is nothing more than some loser blogger) just whines because the movie forced him to theorize on his own what truly happened to the ship.

If you are incapable of doing that, you have zero business blogging about films, even a little kid understands this movie better than this "critic".

Anonymous said...

I have a feeling the user above is just very easy to please as opposed to the critic being too harsh. The movie is lame, and not very exciting either even if you were to "theorize."

rjthompson said...

"Anonymous" at least the critic has the balls to put his name to his opinion. Furthermore I may not always agree with his reviews but he always has well thought out arguments for why he did not think a movie was good, unlike your childish name calling rebuttal, if you can call it that. It was more of a tantrum because someone didn't like what you like.

Ihaveshitmyselfinthepast said...

This is probably the best of all Paul Anderson's films. Which is no accolade really.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
Unknown said...

Life's short. Do dumb stuff.

Matthew Van Achteren said...

Fantastic movie.

Every movie doesn't need to tick every box on your review check list, well at least not for me. But this is your site for sharing your opinion.

I really enjoyed the ideas surrounding the hellish universe to where the ship was temporarily located. This wasn't your standard affair nasty intolerant or world conquering alien - this was something else entirely. I was left inspired top create my own content about this universe.

Doug Clement said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Free Business Secrets said...

The movie is everything but lame. And you are clearly one of those very,very small people who get a kick out of sucking up to anyone who has even a modicum of fame, however doubtful it might be.

Free Business Secrets said...

I hope you didn't get paid for this 'review'. That would be a travesty.

Doug Clement said...

I agree with the blogger....THe best part of the film was when "Dr. Weir" had to explain to the crew how the gravity drive functioned. Now, this is a crew of doctors and engineers so you would expect them to have taken a few basic physics classes, but apparently the writers thought the viewers were as stupid as the crew and didn't really have the creativity to explain how it worked any other way. "Justin" was there for......Reasons..... The movie didn't even attempt to be creative with other horror movie references (the Shining being the most obvious). The only compelling character was Dr. Weir. Laurence Fishburne did alright with what he had to work with, but the rest of the cast could have just as well have been replaced with cardboard cutouts. I hate this movie because they wasted a great concept by bad execution. Oh well, watch the 1979 film "Alien" instead.

Even Mortal Kombat is better than this stinker.