This month’s picks include
an amnesiac romance and acts of sentient killer robot rampage.
‘Monsters of
Man’اضافة اعلان
(Photo: IMDb)
Mark Toia’s film is set during the
pivotal moment when the creature escapes its maker — in this case, when
military robots acquire the ability to think for themselves, go rogue and
decide to kill everything in sight.
Three computer nerds run what they
think is a navigation test involving four mechanical soldiers being airdropped
into a jungle in the Golden Triangle.
They don’t have a problem with black ops
involving secret weapons until things go haywire, and “Monsters of Man” is
quite good at describing the techies’ hubris and utter lack of morals, as well
as their terminal naïveté: What did they think they were building, exactly? Not
that the trio’s handlers are any better.
The film’s ruthlessness in killing
off almost every character, including women and children, may feel
exploitative, but there is honesty in showing the full range of casualties
caused by American weaponry. If you thought drone attacks were bad, wait until
you see what autonomous robots that were built to kill are capable of.
The film overstays its welcome by a
solid half-hour (it is not about a time loop but feels like one because the
last third is so repetitive) but its nihilism and violence are unsettling
because the action feels as if it’s set just minutes into the future.
‘A Living
Dog’
(Photo: IMDb)
So, what happens after the killer
mechs become sentient? Daniel Raboldt’s debut feature, that’s what.
In it, the robots have fully taken
over and exterminated as much of humankind as they could — details are fuzzy
but it looks as if there are few people left. A banged-up survivor, Tomasz
(Stefan Ebel), moves around in a foil-lined van and sets up camp in an empty
house in the woods, which he protects with a jury-rigged force field. He meets
Lilja (Siri Nase), a member of the local resistance with a plan to vanquish the
killing machines, and together they take off for a long walk to a mysterious
destination.
Much of this, along with flashbacks
showing how the world ended up in this mess, is told wordlessly to avoid
alerting the new overlords — the German “A Living Dog” is a bit like “A Quiet
Place” with robots instead of aliens. Raboldt shot in a Finnish forest by the
Arctic Circle, an inspired location that gives the film a natural grandeur and
beauty while suggesting a forlorn emptiness.
Another asset is that unlike too
many CGI creations, the robots project a real sense of massive weight. Add a
steady, deliberate pace that is mostly absorbing, and you have a solid debut
that doesn’t always match its ambition, but at least puts up a valiant fight.
‘Monster
Hunter’
(Photo: IMDb)
Do not confuse this movie with the
schlocky (in a bad way) “Monster Hunters.”
This “Monster Hunter” is the one in
which a feline cook, the Meowscular Chef, prepares a meal Benihana-style for a
crew of desert pirates led by Ron Perlman, who then asks a flabbergasted Milla
Jovovich: “What’s the matter? You don’t have cats in your world?”
If this makes you laugh — I did — by
all means cue up the preposterously entertaining latest by Jovovich and her
husband, Paul W.S. Anderson, one of the best action directors around.
Based on a video game, as is so
often the case with Anderson, the film is essentially an extended
dash-and-fight sequence. Jovovich’s Captain Artemis finds herself marooned in a
strange landscape packed with bloodthirsty creatures, which she must defeat if
she ever wants to go home. Every time a beastie goes down, a bigger one pops
up.
Good thing a badass warrior played
by Tony Jaa (from the “Ong-Bak” series) is there to lend a hand. The film is
big, loud, boisterous and proudly nutty. Naturally for such an unabashed
exercise in pulp fiction, the ending invites a sequel. Bring it on.
‘Multiverse’
(Photo: IMDb)
Has there ever been a movie where
hopscotching between dimensions went smoothly? The various strands and
timelines tend not to interact in harmonious ways, creating headaches for
everybody involved (including screenwriters trying to overcome niggling
paradoxes). Those problems are at the core of Gaurav Seth’s indie film, in
which a student experiment exploring the coexistence of multiple planes spins
out of control: This is what happens when STEM education spills from physics
into metaphysics.
A car accident at the very beginning
is just one in a cascade of consequences and choices, many of them deeply
personal for the students. In one world, for example, a deaf woman (Sandra Mae
Frank) can hear, but is that better?
Another character gets so carried
away that he forgets all about ethics and basic decency, raising quandaries on
how to handle him.
The film is at its most interesting when it juggles a series
of interlocking tendrils — you may feel compelled to rewatch the beginning to
search for missed clues about the final plot twist. Seth probably had a
fraction of Paul W.S. Anderson’s catering budget for “Monster Hunter,” so the
“Multiverse” description of alternate realities relies on dialogue and a
goldfish rather than explosions and rampaging Black Diablos. But the issues it
raises are almost as infinite as the universes it posits.
Read more Trending