Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Let's just say... I'm not surprised by these two reviews. The first is vicious, the second not glowing. In other words, the first review brought the chainsaw, the filleting knives and the superglue and the second reviewer brought a wooden paddle with a couple of holes drilled through to this party. The trailer was warmed over ass, although Elisha Cuthbert is a hottie. I'll give it a shot, but I'm not expecting too much. Here are the reviews!!!
Hey Harry, Moriarty, Quint, Merrick... everyone else, So you've run a couple of my reviews before, albeit under a different alias. Please allow me to proffer another critical analysis of a film that's hitting your side of the pond in a couple of weeks, and is currently doing the rounds here in the UK. Yes, let's talk about Captivity. Torture porn is the buzz phrase du jour that I'm learning to loathe. It's a lazy categorisation of any current movie that features scenes of brutality, and it leaves me scratching my head as to why it's never bandied about in the same sentence as Mel Gibson's The Passion Of The Jeebus, because that's frankly the most torture-porn-rific gorefest going. And once again, that catchphrase has reared its ugly head in the same breath as Captivity - although this time, it's a little more apt. For whereas Captivity features little in the way of porn (unless you're a sandophiliac - alright, I made that one up), it sure as shit is absolute torture to sit through. I knew frankly fuck-all about this film prior to sitting down to "enjoy" it - all I was aware of was that it starred Elisha Cuthbert and that the billboards had got a lot of people hecked up in your fair land. Turns out, it's the story of an It-girl supermodel who gets drugged and captured one evening in a nightclub, and is then made to endure several nasty mind games before teaming up with the captive-next-door and trying to escape her unseen tormentor. And that's about it, really. A Post-It note premise stretched to eighty five minutes of agonising tedium, stupidity and utterly woeful logic. Cuthbert - who really should be an old pro at dealing with capture given her long-running stint on the Jack Bauer Power Hour - is about as one-dimensional as characters can get. Sure, perhaps that's part of the statement - she's a vacuous bint and deserves what's coming to her, but it doesn't really fly too well. Much as I'd love to throw acid in Paris Hilton's wonky face too, Captivity fails to actually satirise the empty-headed lifestyle of these supposed fashion leaders or justify the actions of its antagonists. Instead, Cuthbert just comes across as a non-entity, and therefore you fail to empathise with either her or the guy pulling the dungeon strings. The third-act revelation will surprise nobody who has ever seen a movie before, and from that point on the film's scant character logic disappears up its own arse as random actions are thoughtlessly churned out for the purpose of prolonging the running time enough to keep this out of the short film section on Amazon. It's difficult to pinpoint exactly what I'm talking about here without dispensing spoilers (although, as this film is so weak, I'm almost inclined to ruin it for everyone and save you $10) - but suffice, once that oh-so-predictable revelation occurs, the movie seems to enter a bizarre fantasy world where cops actually prolong their enquiries to watch the football at your house, and deep-running familial bonds are swiftly severed just for the sake of a little tits and ass (although, there are no actual tits on display in this film, so put your pecker back in your Transformers grundies). The scenes of torture are fairly nauseating, but that's not an endorsement. Although the hyper-active spastic editing of the Saw sequels is reined in a little, there's still nothing artful about some body-surgery close ups. I can see most of that crap on any lifestyle channel plastic surgery documentary, thanks. Early on, one guy does receive a sledgehammer to the balls for no real good reason, and you can't help but wish everyone involved in this film had met a similar fate before shooting wrapped up. Which brings us to the makers of this garbage - as I hurriedly left my seat at the film's close, I was more horrified than anything I'd seen on screen to discover that not only was this dreck directed by Roland "The Mission" Joffe, but it was also written by one of my B-movie heroes - Larry Cohen. Cohen can do satire fairly well when he tries - The Stuff is a wickedly funny flick. Here, however, he's forsaken intelligent thought for repeated scenes of Elisha Cuthbert tied to chair and acting with her chin. Not cool, Larry. Not cool at all. So Captivity sucks, then - even by recent horror standards. There's probably a fairly neat psychological thriller tucked away somewhere in this mess, but it's suffocated by the need to have repeatedly meaningless scenes of acid facials and DIY dentistry - none of which actually happens to Cuthbert, by the way, despite this being about her "captivity." If you do happen along to see this on July 13 (and I'll ask you politely - fuckin' don't), you may overhear some jackass and his girlfriend discussing the movie as you depart. And if, like a couple did after my screening, you hear them exclaim how exciting (it isn't) and scary (it isn't) this flick is, do me a favour - kick them square in the groin, and send them my love. If you use this, you can call me Catnip Thief.
And here's the more positive review... of course, by more positive I mean not so pissed off. "Meh" is the word of the day for our next spy, notorious for carrying around a bloody ax. Enjoy!
Harry, For whatever reason, CAPTIVITY has opened in the UK before the US, which gets it on Friday 13th July. Here's my review. If you use it, call me Jack Torrance (I've had stuff used by you before). CAPTIVITY (SPOILERS AHEAD!!) Following the highly controversial billboards earlier this year, you would expect, going in to CAPTIVITY, to see one of the most disturbing horror movies ever made. Instead, you'll come away thinking "meh." Lazily dubbed as another entry in the sub-genre of "torture porn", probably a tag the makers welcome in the hope of boffo box-office, Roland Joffe's movie sees the model Jennifer, played by the lovely Elisha Cuthbert, drugged and abducted. She wakes up in a dingy room and discovers she's being held by a sadistic murderer who tortures and kills his victims and captures it all on video. He helpfully shows one of his videos to Jennifer just so she gets the full picture. But Jennifer's not alone. There's a man, Gary (Daniel Gillies), who's also being held in the room next to her. Through their struggle, they bond and try to escape. The first half of the movie has a repetitive structure. The mystery sadist drugs Jennifer, she wakes up in another room, he does nasty things to her, then puts her back in her room. He drugs her again, does more bad things, and so on. Most of these scenes, though well executed, look almost identical to some shots from the SAW trilogy. These scenes have an arbitrary feel to them, as though the writers were ticking off a checklist of what kind of things people expect from a movie of this kind. With stories of extensive re-shoots and editing, there are two scenes of torture in particular which felt like they'd been added as afterthoughts to amp up the gore levels. One of them, in which Jennifer is forced to drink a rather unique milkshake that you wouldn't get down at your local Mickey D's, is so over the top, I found it hilarious. There's also a moment where Jennifer utters a line very reminiscent of John McClane's "thanks for the tip" in the first DIE HARD. Cute but it doesn't belong in a horror film. Halfway through, there's a twist which I'd half-predicted - half-predicted in that it happens but not quite how I expected. At this point, the movie became far more interesting and I was intrigued to see how it would pan out. But the dark, dank atmosphere that pervaded the first half evaporates as the movie changes gear into conventional thriller territory and also commits the classic horror crime of revealing too much about the torturer. I say torturer because the actual murders are committed by...Anyway, while he's faceless, he's creepy. When he's unmasked in the full glare of light, he's just a rent-a-psycho. And with the current vogue for providing backstories for deranged killers, we find out the killer was sexually abused by his mother. Whatever happened to murderers who are just plain evil or sick? And oy!, how many more horror movies are going to riff on THE SHINING and have the maniac smash through a door with a large blade? This is by no means a bad movie. After the truly woeful remake of THE HITCHER, this is THE EXORCIST in comparison. Daniel Pearl's scope cinematography is visually arresting, the always reliable Marco Beltrami delivers a fine score, and there's adequate gore and action to satisfy gorehounds. Cuthbert does well in a role that doesn't call for much beyond screaming and being scared. She's an actress with great potential but this script doesn't really stretch her. The climax has no surprises and that's another of Captivity's failings. For a film so inspired by SAW and its ilk, which have raised the bar, you'd think there would be some devilishly clever showdown or twist. But in the end, it doesn't do anything new. If you're a horror fan, or a fan of Cuthbert's acting (and cleavage), you could do a lot worse than kill 90 minutes watching this movie. But it ain't no SAW (or SAW II or SAW III for that matter).
