Don't Look Up (2010)

Simply Perfect

A Masterpiece!

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

(Insert obligatory joke about "Don't look it up")With that out of the way... yes. This looked interesting from the blurb: folk tales and urban legends impinging on modern day filmmakers. Remakes of Asian horror have always been variable quality, from the big budget blockbusters, to the bloodless knockoffs - and ever since the glory days of Ju-on and Ringu, any eastern horror seems to have been considered fair game.There's nothing wrong with the premise, per se: a doomed film shoot has residual psychic leaks and curses that are inflicted on someone wanting to take up the project decades later. Weird things are seen, accidents happen, fair enough. But the execution is lacking more than a firing squad with blank cartridges. The production in general feels like it would be cheap for a TV movie, with some terrible special effects and props. The acting is almost uniformly taken from the "dull surprise" handbook. And the actual storyline?I'm sure it made sense when it was being written. Maybe parts were cut out that were integral to the plot, or to try to make it more mysterious and arty. It didn't work, it just made the entire film a confusing slog. Viewers can get the general ideas, but so many things just come right out of nowhere - demon cancers on people's necks, glowing angel girlfriends who have secretly been dead for months - that more time is spent thinking you missed something than actually watching the movie. Hinting at something in a movie without outright telling, in order to let the viewer draw their own conclusions is admirable, but to just throw in seemingly random scenes or twists just for the sake of it means the conclusions drawn are that the scriptwriter and editor need to be replaced.It's not a total waste of celluloid - some people may enjoy it, by the other reviews some people have. I found it a painful, confusing experience with some parts that could have really played up the creepy aspect (the missing, undeveloped frames for instance) but instead chose to try for bizarre imagery and ridiculously contrived plot devices over substance.

I'm somewhat used to indie-films zipping around from past to present to dream sequences and back to any combination of the above. But this movie was just plain dumb. A legend says gypsy girl is killed due to a pact with the devil. A silent film maker tries to make a film about the legend, he disappears. A modern day film maker decides to try again, turmoil ensues. The plot is so contrived in the first 15 minutes that I lost interest. Then, people started beating each other up for no apparent reason, then people started dying. People that I really didn't care about, people who were so uninteresting that I started wondering who they were. Oh yeah, they were the people working on the movie, but no one had a back-story, besides the director, who, all you figured out was that he was a whack-doodle. Don't think I'm giving away any major plot points, but I always put a spoiler alert just to be on the safe side. Rent it or watch it "on demand," but don't waste your money buy it.

Sure, it's not a GREAT movie, but it's far from bad. It's a Japanese director's attempt at making a more western-oriented horror film. It DOES have some gore (though no nudity, but who gives a shite about nudity unless they can't get laid? Most of us can see real nudity whenever we want it, so that shouldn't be an issue to most Americans). This is actually a quite decent interpretation of Asian horror. The script is certainly no more lame than other 'revered' Asian horror films like The Ring or The Grudge or The Eye. Give it a chance and an open mind and you'll see that it's not a classic, but still quite good compared to most horror films produced nowadays.

There was a time that Japanese or Asian flicks were the next big thing. Gore galore and brutality used was a common thing. Sadly, Hollywood saw the dollars coming in and started to remake most of those flicks, many of them flopped. Even worser, those eastern directors were asked to make Hollywood movies. Bad idea, they are really crap. Here, Fruit Chan, the director couldn't deliver the stuff. And even as the granddaughter of actor, Charles Chaplin, plays in it it really is a dreg. The idea is okay, but done before a year ago in two other films. The movie in the movie, remember The Hills Run Red and Midnight Movie. Here a director would like to remake a movie that was never finished due to, as legends go, evil spirits. Those evil spirits are killing all crew members or anyone involved in the making of the movie. The supernatural is a main thing in this flick but appears too much via CGI. No gore, no nudity, no suspense, no nothing. I would recommend it for teenagers seeking for a good time with a beer and some crisps.