Val Kilmer Movie Month Presents: Red Planet

Red Planet (2000)

Director: Antony Hoffman
Writer: Chuck Pfarrer
Genre: Sci-Fi/Action/Thriller

Story

The earth is overpopulated and over polluted and we have no other idea than inhabit another planet to solve the problem (Mars looks like a nice place!). For years, we have been shooting algae bombs up to Mars to try and create an atmosphere and a livable environment. Everything seemed to be going well because there was oxygen and plenty of green vegetation that could be seen from Earth, but for some reason the vegetation disappeared all of the sudden and a group of scientists or astronauts are sent to try and find out what happened. The movie follows this small group as they journey to the Red Planet to find out what went wrong.

Everything Else

The story was not all that bad; although the execution of it was vital and failed miserably. Let’s start with the best part about the film, the actors. I know what you are thinking if you saw it, “the acting was terrible.” Well, you may be right, but let me point out that we have a few actors here that have proven they are good and although this movie did not prove their talent, I am going to blame the director and writer for it.

Should I run from the explosion or just stay here and take myself out of this movie?

One case in point, the scene where most of the actors are running from an explosion in the spaceship was definitely the result of poor directing. In this scene, the actors look like they are taking a meaningless jog just for the sake of exercise or something, but then you see fire chasing them down the halls as they try and get to a safe area. None of the actors showed even the slightest bit of worry on their face and did not even seem to be running fast. In this moment it would have only made sense for them to be running for their lives, but they apparently don’t care about being burned alive. The fire is completely fake as is the rest of the special effects in Red Planet and therefore simply changing how close the fire was to the actors would have saved this scene and made the acting make a lot more sense than it did. Possibly the special effects team is to blame, but someone needed to speak up here. Ok, I will try not to degrade to simple Red Planet bashing; just for the sake of finishing this review though.

The special effects as I mentioned above looked like a PS1 game. I saw this one a long time ago not long after it came to DVD and remember it looking bad, but when I watched it again I would say it is some of the worst special effects I have ever seen. This is the classic example of a movie using CG to try and make things they do not want to expend the time and money on to make models of. CG was not capable of looking good enough to use the way they did and this makes the movie age so quickly you might as well burn if you have a copy.

In case you are wondering, this is what fire looks like.

But what if you are just looking for a story and some action and are able to ignore the bad special effects? Well the story was decent, but there were plenty of parts that simply did not make any sense. I will not go into it, but basically every time there was a problem, the solution for it seemed ridiculous and poorly written.

Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer was the star of this one and it’s not a bad thing being next to Sizemore again, but I am sure Kilmer had wished he hadn’t been in this one after he got to see the first screening of it. Kilmer like all of the other actors in Red Planet seemed to have been swindled by the director and writer. It was simply not a good movie and even the best of performances would not have saved this film.

Why did I take this job?

The Real Deal

I enjoyed Red Planet a lot actually. What? Yes, I enjoyed Red Planet because I love goodbad movies and this is exactly what Red Planet was. It was a movie that was so bad that it was funny and therefore enjoyable. I just keep thinking about how the director must have thought that he was making something good here, but it is just so bad. Don’t see this movie if you are looking for a good movie. You should only watch this movie to laugh at it and if you don’t want to think about anything for about an hour and a half. As far as the PG-13 rating goes, the language and violence were the worst part about this movie, but it was not all that distracting; plus everything was so dumb it did not seem emotional at any point. When characters die you are likely to laugh; somehow I do not think the director intended for the movie to get that kind of response.


The Short Version

Raw Score: 435,293
Sharon Movie? No

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Val Kilmer Movie March Presents: Heat

Heat (1995)

Director: Michael Mann
Writer: Michael Mann
Genre: Crime/Drama/Thriller

The Story

Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is the head a small group of professional thieves and Lt. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is after them. Hanna will stop at nothing to find them after their heist of an armored truck and McCauley won't stop planning and proceeding with heists. The story is fairly simple overall, but the character complexity and depth of emotion make this film one of my favorites of all time.


Everything Else

The Last of the Mohicans, Heat, The Insider, Ali, Collateral, and Miami Vice. These are the last six movies that Michael Mann has made. I think I will start calling him Michael "the" Mann from now on. I have loved all of those movies and even his earlier effort Manhunter was pretty good. It had a little too much of the 80s in it, but it was still good. Heat is likely the movie that really made people realize how good of a director that Michael Mann really is. Heat was astonishing for its story, scripting, locations, and acting, and for its great soundtrack. People often have a problem with the two hour and forty-five minute runtime, but I loved every second of it.


The film looks great visually and the constant use of blue tones and vast empty backdrops invokes an incredible emotion on its own. The story was fairly basic, but the scripting brought the story to life. There is so much depth to the characters it is hard to believe anyone could get bored even with the long runtime. Of course the scripting would not have worked without the tremendous talent involved. With Robert De Niro and Al Pacino being the two main stars, you would have to be crazy to pass this one up. They both did an amazing job as is to be expected. Then you have a stellar group of supporting actors and actresses to back them up. There was Val Kilmer of course (it wouldn't be a Val Kilmer movie without him, duh), Tom Sizemore, Jon Voight, Diane Venora, Ashley Judd, Natalie Portman, and Dennis Haysbert. You even get to see a short scene with Jeremy Piven. No one can argue whether Heat had a killer cast.

The sound of Heat is actually something I would like to make a point of now. The sound effects are unique in that the guns do not sound normal for an action film and a lot of the sounds are even muted a bit. I absolutely loved the shooting in the middle of the city with its incredible echoes. I can't get over how awesome those shots sounded. The soundtrack will also be remembered for its excellent help in controlling the mood and building the intensity. I only saw Miami Vice once, but I seem to recall a lot of similarities in the two films. Possibly that is why I liked Miami Vice so much. Also, I had never seen any of the original TV shows which I hear make Miami Vice difficult to like. In its own right though I think it was incredible. Getting back to the sound effects and soundtrack of Heat though, the sounds were the greatest finishing touches I could have wanted for Heat.


Val Kilmer

Val Kilmer did yet another smashing job. He stood back in the cast and provided a solid supporting role for the two stars. The movie was about Pacino and De Niro, so it would have been annoying to see Kilmer steal any of the show. With that said though, his performance could be described as strong and professional. He joined Sizemore with his performance here and this worked great. Heat was an excellent move for Kilmer broadening his acting talent to be more of a key supporting role even though he had already proven his ability as a lead.


The Real Deal

I loved Heat and that should be obvious by the review above. In fact I still think Heat is overlooked too often. I can't wait until I have a Blu-ray player again and can afford to buy movies. Heat would be amazing in high definition. There is a lot of language and violence in Heat, but it is mostly gunshots and such so it isn't overly gross like a horror movie or something. Even so the R rating is quite appropriate. Heat was intense and powerful and will always be loved as it seems to get better with each viewing.

The Short Version

Raw Score: 901,293
Sharon Movie? No

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Val Kilmer Movie March Presents: True Romance

True Romance (1993)

Director: Tony Scott
Writer: Quentin Tarantino
Genre: Crime/Drama/Romance/Thriller

The Story

It is Calrence's (Christian Slater) birthday. His boss decides to get him a call girl for his birthday without his knowledge, but the call girl Alabama Whitman (Patricia Arquette) ends up falling for Clarence almost immediately. Clarence decides he needs to get Alabama's stuff from her pimp, but when he goes to get it he causes a stir and ends up with dead bodies and a suitcase full of cocaine. Now he has to figure out what to do about the cocaine and the people looking for him and the cocaine. Clarence decides to try and sell the cocaine to a Hollywood producer for a great deal just so he can get out fast. The deal is more difficult for Clarence to pull off than he had originally imagined.


Everything Else

The directing of True Romance was unique in a lot of ways, but did not really take flight the same way that Top Gun did. Although the directing was solid as most Tony Scott films are, it lacked the intensity of other Scott films like Days of Thunder or Crimson Tide. I fell in love with True Romance for its scripting and story; thank you Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino sold this script to get enough money to make Reservoir Dogs and the rest is history as they say.


True Romance does not have the edge of a typical Tarantino film because of Tony Scott, but that does not hinder the excellent story much. Also, it allowed for plenty of stars to be included in True Romance; but then again I seem to recall some decent names in Reservoir Dogs. Ah well, the point is they got paid a lot more for True Romance. That says a lot about how the actors thought about Tarantino's talent.


Back to True Romance, Slater did an excellent job. Slater has a real talent, but for some reason I have never really liked his acting style. We may visit his talent a couple more times in some later Val Kilmer movies. Speaking of Kilmer, I did not even realize he was in True Romance the first time around. That might have been due to his out of focus 15 second part in the film. He apparently shot his part in just two days. The rest of the actors did quite well. You have Dennis Hopper, Tom Sizemore, James Gandolfini, Christopher Walken, Bronson Pinchot (suspect in my opinion), Samuel L. Jackson for about 5 seconds, Brad Pitt, Gary Oldman, Michael Rapaport, Patricia Arquette, and blah blah blah. Honestly it seemed odd that all of these stars were in this movie and only some of them like Pinchot got big roles. Maybe they could not afford the big names for much play time. It really worked though. However, look at Pinchot's face below; I think this says it all. I just don't buy it.


Val Kilmer

To be honest, there is really not a lot to say about Kilmer's performance in True Romance. We can say that he did well as Elvis, but he was in the movie for less than a minute. Kilmer originally wanted to play the role of Clarence, but agreed to do just the small role of Elvis. This was the second Tony Scott film that Val Kilmer appeared in. Possibly Val Kilmer was concentrating on more important roles such as his amazing role in Tombstone as Doc Holliday.


The Real Deal

I still like True Romance after the third viewing. I find the soundtrack a little bit annoying at times and still wish Quentin Tarantino had had the money to make this film on his own, but I will have to live with it the way it is. True Romance is a great movie if you are looking to see a large ensemble of great actors all together in a movie. There is a lot of sex, blood, and language, so keep that in mind if you are thinking of making this a family rental (it isn't).


The Short Version

Raw Score: 812,293
Sharon Movie? No

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