Frankenstein’s Movie - DOOMSDAY

There are a lot of options out there to satisfy your thirst for post-apocalyptic action.  Try a little After the Bomb highway mayhem.  Maybe a good dystopian future is your thing.  Zombies are always a possibility.  Or, if you're Neil Marshall in 2008, you could just chop it all up and haphazardly sew the pieces into a lurching genre monstrosity called DOOMSDAY.

The Capsule:

Sometime in the early 21 century, Scotland is plagued by the Reaper Virus (note to scientists, don’t let heavy metal bands name your virus).  In order to contain the infection, the British government walls off the entire country.  When the Reaper Virus resurfaces in London 30-odd years later, the government sends an elite military team into the wasteland in search of Dr. Kane (Malcolm McDowell), who was working on a cure.  Led by badass Major Sinclair (Rhona Mitra), the team must battle hordes of cannibal punks and medieval knights (!) through decaying cities, open roadways, and tourist attractions of post-apocalyptic Scotland.  Even if they manage to find a cure and get out, they will have to deal with Canaris (David O'Hara), a nefarious politician who may not have the public’s best interest at heart.

DOOMSDAY is another case of the advantage of going in with super low expectations.  I heard this movie was terrible, even from a person who’s taste is remarkably close to mine (yes, those people do exist).  But I enjoyed director Neil Marshall’s other work, DOG SOLDIERS and especially THE DESCENT, so I figured as long as it wasn’t a bunch of people leaning in the corner pissing themselves for two hours, I would get something out of it.  I am happy to say it is not two hours of people pissing themselves.  It has some serious problems, but despite everything, I kind of dug it.  

This movie can make no claims at originality.  It’s filled with such blatant lifts that it can’t even be called homage with a serious face.  Obviously, I have no problem with rip-offs (see GRIZZLY, THE CAR,
HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP), even unofficial remakes like LOCKOUT.  The interesting thing with DOOMSDAY is that it doesn’t just rip-off one film, it rips-off a half dozen of them and blends them together into an oddball smoothie.  DOOMSDAY is clearly a take on ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK and ROAD WARRIOR, but it also has elements of GHOST IN THE SHELL (the anime), ALIENS, 28 DAYS LATER, and most bizarrely, EXCALIBUR.  

It is amusing how brazen Marshall is about his cinematic larceny.   He’s kind of playfully smirking about it.  A Carpenter-esque electronic theme plays when Sinclair is being briefed about sneaking into and escaping from the Scottish surrogate for New York.  Two minor characters are named Carpenter and Miller.  The open roads are filled with MAD MAX cast offs, even though there is no real reason for it.  The scene where Sinclair’s team searches Kane’s seemingly abandoned lab evokes ALIENS so intentionally that they use some of the same dialogue.  Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs)—check, yellow rotating emergency lights—check, close quarter gun battles against silent, relentless foes—check.  The only thing missing was a power loader, and that is just because it suddenly changed gears back to ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK.  

Major Sinclair is more GHOST IN THE SHELL’s Major Motoko than Snake Plissken (although she does occasionally wears an eye patch when she’s using her robot eye to look around corners).   Rhona Mitra—who, it turns out, is not Cate Beckinsale—plays her with an icy proficiency.  She never loses her cool even when she is surrounded by people who want to kill and/or eat her.  The closest she comes is her irritation at the guard who keeps whacking her with his spear while she’s trying to talk, up until the moment she kills him with one blow.  Do not interrupt this woman.

She is such a badass that her boss gives her 46 hours to complete her mission.  If they had given her the full two days, she would have just spent the last two hours waiting at the extraction site, smoking.  They had to make it challenging for her.

Sol (Craig Conway), the chairperson of the Glasgow Cannibal League (not sure if that is the official title), is a kick.  He lacks Issac Hayes’ A1 King of New York coolness, but he makes up for it in batshit showmanship. His court is like a post-apocalyptic Cirque du Soleil, with brawling punks spinning on ropes, fire jugglers, and bikers doing stunts in the center ring.  Sol comes strutting out on stage with his fur lined leather coat and receding Mohawk, The Fine Young Cannibals blaring from the speakers.  He gets the crowd amped up about the impending execution/barbecue of one of his captives by throwing paper plates to the crowd.  It’s more of a symbolic gesture; these guys are more into grabbing handfuls of cooked meat than having a proper picnic.  

In fact, I think the whole cannibal angle is mostly for show.  There don’t seem to be enough non-cannibal affiliated people around for these guys to sustain a full man eating lifestyle.  Plus, it is shown that there are huge herds of wild cows just outside of Glasgow, so they are clearly not desperate for food.  Cannibalism is merely a status thing in Scotland.  Every once in a while they make a big show out of eating a dude.  They are kind of like lapsed Catholics only going to Mass at Christmas.  

Malcolm McDowell’s role is not nearly as meaty (cannibal pun!).  Kane is the standard brilliant scientist driven mad by isolation and paranoia, holding power through ruthless dogma.  He makes grandiose but senseless statements like, “In the land of the infected, the immune man is king.”  Since all the hundreds of survivors in Scotland are immune, doesn’t that make everyone a king?  Clearly people just go along with him because Malcolm McDowell makes everything sound dramatic and important.

More interesting by far is the whacked out medieval world he’s built.  His people haven’t just adopted a simpler way of life, they’ve gone full Renaissance Fair.  There are serfs and blacksmiths and dudes with hay carts.  I think I saw Hodor in one crowd shot.  Sinclair even has a fight with the Black Knight!  I am sure none of the extras had any idea they were in a movie set in the future.  And as soon as they escape the castle, bam, straight into the ROAD WARRIOR.  You could get whiplash from this movie.  

You could also get whiplash from the fight scenes, which unquestionably are the worst thing about the movie.  They are cut so quick and shaky, I had no idea what was going on most of the time.  Sinclair’s fight with Sol’s girlfriend, Tattoo Face (Lee-Anne Liebenberg, officially named Viper, but I’m sure you will agree Tattoo Face is more appropriate), is an absolute nightmare.  It plays out like an epileptic seizure until the moment Tattoo Face gets decapitated.  At least Marshall gave us a moment to appreciate that gag.

The Black Knight fight at least provided a few wide shots that last more than a half second.  This was especially important since the opponents are so unevenly matched (he has a full suit of armor, she has a tank top).  It does establish that she has the advantage of speed and she targets the knight’s weak spots, making her victory at least somewhat plausible, but the whole thing could have been done so much better.  Given that Marshall (and his DP, Sam McCurdy) went on to do some absolutely eye popping fight sequences for Game of Thrones, this seems especially embarrassing.  The problem is more with the editing, my opinion.  This is a great looking movie and many of the shots are beautifully composed.  It's a pity you barely get the chance to see them.

Then there are the ROAD WARRIOR sequences, which have their own issues.  It is a nice juxtaposition to see a bunch of crazy, spiked up wasteland vehicles chasing after a brand new, shiny Bentley, but if you are competing with George Miller at his own game, you are going to lose.  The bad guy’s cars look more conspicuously designed than efficiently and realistically pieced together, and there just isn’t enough creative stunt work.  There are a few nice moments, like when the Bentley drives straight through Sol’s Murderbus.  It’s an impressive endorsement for Bentley, because the car makes it through without a scratch.  Forget muscle cars and tanks, this is the baby you want to be tooling around in after the fall of civilization.  

It’s also a cute touch that Sol has his dead girlfriend propped up beside him in his car, and she keeps getting more and more accidental abuse.  It turns out to be a very misguided gesture of affection.

Even though he stumbles on the action, Marshall sticks to his horror roots and makes it nice and bloody (at least in the unrated version I have).  The squibs are super juicy, heads explode, and the virus makeup is mega gross and boily.  The wide eyed doctor from Sinclair’s team actually stops running for a second just so he can wince when a biker punk has a messy wipeout.  Overall, it is very satisfying.  

Another bright spot in the movie is Sinclair’s boss, Bill Nelson, played by Bob Hoskins.  He’s mostly just in the 28 DAYS LATER style London under siege by the infected scenes, and he plays the same guy Bob Hoskins always plays, but any Bob Hoskins is refreshing.  I love that he represents the Cockney perspective in the austere, upper crust Parliamentary briefings.  He gets to use the phrases “tits-up” and “fuck-all” in the same speech.  It’s a nice counter to Alexander Siddig’s wimpy Prime Minister Hatcher and the overtly evil Canaris.  

In the end [Spoiler], Sinclair gives Nelson the recording she made of Canaris’ boasting about letting all the poor people in London die out before offering the cure to the virus.  The implication being that Nelson will release it to cause a huge public outcry against Canaris.  Because we all know that releasing a recording of damaging statements and showing a cavalier attitude toward abuse of power will end a politician's career instantly.  Unless Canaris explains it was just “locker room talk”.

Extra crazy points for the last scene.  Sinclair has decided to stay in the Scottish Wastelands, for some reason.  She goes back to Glasgow and presents the cannibal punks with Sol’s head.  After a second to reflect, they all cheer and accept Sinclair as their new leader.  I don’t quite see her motivation for doing that, but those guys do seem like a fun bunch and they really know how to throw a barbecue, so why not?  

In keeping with the theme, though, it is a totally rip off of the end of FURY ROAD.  Wait a minute…

C Chaka   

Highbrow Ass Kicking: HAYWIRE

Action movies are often, unjustly, looked down upon for two things.  One is that they are generally thought of as lowbrow.  Just set the camera up, throw a bunch of guns, fist fights, car chases, and explosions in its direction, and call it a day.  Rarely are they applauded for their wit, composition, design, or style.  Action is also often thought of as a guy’s movie, the diametric opposite of a chick flick.  If there are women involved, they are there to be rescued or swept off their feet by the testosterone-pumped hero.  Or if you are still thinking lowbrow, they are just there for the sex scenes.  Then George Miller dropped a little wake-call in the form of MAD MAX: FURY ROAD and blew away those preconceived notions with style, a female centered plot, and yes, car chases and explosions.  Before FURY ROAD, though, there was another prime example that action movies could rise above the stereotypes.  Steven Soderburgh’s HAYWIRE (2007) is the quieter, low key alternative to Miller’s epic, a luscious, sexy world of intrigue, brutal fight scenes, and an absolutely indomitably female lead.

The Capsule:

Mallory Kane (champion MMA fighter Gina Carano) is a 100% badass independent contractor (the kind that rescues people, not the kind that remodels your kitchen).  Just before she can cut ties with her smarmy boss, Kenneth (Ewan McGregor), she accepts one last job from him.  It should be a friendly information exchange in Dublin, but after a double cross she finds herself framed for murder and targeted by her teammate (Michael Fassbender).  Kenneth seriously underestimates Ms. Kane, though.  After taking out her would be assassin and eluding an army of cops, Mallory makes it back to the States.  To clear her name, Mallory will have to keep one step ahead of Kenneth, her ex-associate Aaron (Channing Tatum), and the authorities, while unraveling a multinational conspiracy.  Before it is over, she will introduce her foot to many a face.

HAYWIRE is a very rare beast, a full-on action movie that is dripping with style.  It is gorgeously shot, with graceful tracking shots following our heroine as she slips in and out of trouble.  The editing gives you room to breathe without sacrificing any of the kinetic flow.  The score harkens back to a silky ‘60’s spy movie, giving it a glamorous feel.  There is just enough humor peppered throughout to keep the serious script from getting grim.  Under all the elegance, though, is a thoroughly badass action flick.  There are all the things you would expect, car chases, shootouts, near death escapes, and absolutely bone crunching fights.  Soderbergh mixes everything together in one sexy, smooth package that subtly messes with your expectations.

The movie open sets the tone perfectly.  Mallory, looking cold and disheveled, is nursing a cup of coffee in a snow covered upstate NY diner. A car pulls up.  She recognizes the man in the car and is not happy about it.  Aaron drops into the seat in front of her, impatient and hung-over.  He wants her to get in the car, she’s adamant about not going.  Everything is civil until, without warning, he splashes hot coffee in her face and begins beating the shit out of her.  His actions are sudden and shocking; it feels like a scene of brutal domestic violence.  Except that the second Aaron’s assault is interrupted by the diner patrons, Mallory comes back at him just as fast and even more viciously.  She disarms him, overpowers him, and breaks his arm.  The take down is precise and unemotional.  Aaron isn’t the abusive boyfriend, he’s the guy who should have brought backup.  Even with a sucker punch and gun, he’s not in her league.

Soderbergh then flips another gender trope by having Mallory (politely) kidnap the wide-eyed good-Samaritan Scott (Michael Angarano) in order to get away.  She guides him through fixing the gunshot wound in her arm while she high tails it in his new car.  She assures him he’s going to be fine and tries to keep him calm, all while effortlessly evading the police.  She even saves him during an ambush shootout.  There’s no time for him to return the favor or kindle any romance, she dumps him off as soon as it is safe.  Slam, bam, thank you sir.  Her time with Scott is also used as a clever framing device for the story.  The movie slips back and forth in time as she drills him on all the pertinent details of her last few days so he can get her side of the story out.  

One of the cool things about the movie is that for the most part, the fact that Mallory is a woman is kind of irrelevant.  She’s a professional, first and foremost.  When her team comes together for her first mission, she confidently takes control right out of the gate.  She is the most experienced and capable member of the team, and no one bucks it just because she’s a girl.  Aaron tries to give her a little shit, but it’s more about tactics than her leadership and Mallory is quick to shut it down.  The mission goes off successfully, and she personally takes care of the loose ends (by way of a beat down).  After the mission, as Aaron clumsily tries to flirt with her, she grabs him by the belt and takes charge of that situation, too.  When Kenneth wants her for one last job, going undercover as the wife of British operative Paul (Fassbender), she balks.  “I don’t wear the dress.”  Only his pleading and the promise of a substantial paycheck for an easy job convinces her.

It turns out that she wears a dress quite well.  She and Paul make an adorable couple, slipping into a fancy soiree at a Dublin mansion to exchange information with a shady contact.  Her unease at being all dolled up and on display works well for her cover, making her seem like a slightly overwhelmed and timid American trespassing into the European high life.  Uncomfortable or not, she is still on the top of her game, and she senses something is up.  Once she is away from Paul, Mallory does a bit of sleuthing on her own and realizes she is actually there to be set up for a murder.  Paul is in on it, and Kenneth is the man pulling the strings.  In order to find out more information, Mallory has to play along and pretend she’s still in the dark.  Until they return to their hotel, when the game changes.

Mallory’s big fight with Paul has to be one of the all-time greatest cinematic fight scenes.  It starts with this amazing sense of anticipation.  Mallory and Paul are returning to their room, chatting casually, trying not to show each other’s hand.  Paul is pretending he’s not about kill her, she is pretending she doesn’t know what he’s up to.  As he gets the door, she is slipping off her shoes.  It’s hard to do a round house kick in high heels (presumably).  Paul isn’t taken chances, either.  He sucker punches her in the back of the neck the second he closes the door.  What follows is an expertly staged, incredibly brutal, no holds barred smack down.  Really well trained actors can make a fight scene believable.  Professional athletes like Carano can make a fight scene feel real.  They seem evenly matched at first, but even though Paul is clearly well trained, Mallory soon dominates.  She comes at him like a lioness.  Paul throws her into a set of glass shelves, Mallory responds with a vase upside Paul’s head (Carano apparently did that for real by accident).   Every hit he lands, she lands two.  He gives it everything he has, but Paul never had a chance.  Once he’s down, she finishes him with a bullet to the head, not giving him a second thought.  Her mind is already on the next move.

Mallory is the only female character in the movie, and the story really boils down to how she deals with the men in her life.  Some, like Scott and her dad (Bill Paxton) want to help, but can’t offer much.  Some, like the high ranking company man, Alex (Michael Douglas), and his associate Rodrigo (Antonio Banderas) say they are sympathetic, but have their own agenda.  It’s even complicated with Kenneth, the man who definitely wants her dead.  He claims the setup was only a business opportunity (“the motive is money, the motive is always money”), but a big factor seems to be that not only is Mallory leaving his employment, she also recently dumped him.  When he’s posing as a government agent to get information from Mallory’s father, he asks him if she’s ever mentioned anyone named Kenneth, and he is clearly upset when her dad says no.  Underneath all his covert schemes and power plays, he’s really just a jilted boyfriend nursing his pride.  Earlier, when he’s briefing Paul about his target, he warns, “Don’t think of her as a woman.  That would be a mistake.”  I got the feeling he was trying to convince himself as much as his hired killer.

Gina Carano was new to acting at this point and caught some flak for her performance.  Some thought it was flat, but I think it’s perfect for her character.  Mallory is a reserved, buttoned down, disciplined person.  She doesn’t make small talk, she doesn’t show her emotions.  Her professional fighting experience gives her an incredible physical presence.  Carano fits right in with stoic action icons like Eastwood and Bronson.  Her best acting is nonverbal.  She has incredibly expressive eyes.  I totally bought her as Mallory.  

Much of the success has to do with the remarkable direction of Steven Soderbergh, well known of movies like SCHIZOPOLIS (1996), BUBBLE (2005), and THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIMENT (2009), among others.  Everything about the film is unbelievably tight, no excess, no filler.  Contrary to the title, Soderbergh is in control the entire time, handling the editing and cinematography himself.  It’s all his vision.  Sound design, art design, costumes, and stunts are all flawless.  The fights are shot wide and clean, allowing you to appreciate what is actually happening.  The movie is essentially a masterpiece.  Tragically, it wasn’t a huge hit.   There is some speculation (by me) that this disappointment was the reason Soderbergh retired from film directing, for three years.  Gina Carano has gone on to other high profile roles in FURIOUS 6 and DEADPOOL, though nothing quite as ass-kicking as Mallory Kane.  In a perfect world, she would have gone on to be the new Bond.  I mean Mallory Kane would have become a franchise like Bond, not that Gina Carano would take over the role of Bond.  That would be silly.  We all know Emily Blunt should play the next Bond.

C. Chaka

The Future Is Garbage - HARDWARE

I love exploring new worlds in movies, especially the ones that are both familiar enough to relate to and funky enough to be intriguing.  The best ones are crammed full of little unexplained details.  The expansive settings of STAR WARS and LORD OF THE RINGS are great, but sometimes I prefer the more slanted remodeling of our own society, usually in the future, and mostly for the worst.  I’m talking about the dystopia, a movie that is simultaneously a grim warning (stop fucking up the planet) and a reassurance (you think you got it bad?).  Part of the fun is seeing how our regular human needs and desires, and particularly our weaknesses, are met and exploited in crazy new ways.  MAD MAX: FURY ROAD has its twisted salvation-through-horsepower religion, STARSHIP TROOPERS has its smiley faced fascism, and HARDWARE (1990) has its self-sustaining/destructing world of garbage.

The Capsule:

Sometime in the unspecified future, things are looking bright.  Bright red, especially over the radioactive desert near Hardware City (real name and location also unspecified).  A gas mask wearing scavenger digs up a robot skull in the sand and sells it to ex-military tough guy Moses (Dylan McDermott, before he was a lawyer in Boston).  He gives the skull to his metal sculpting artist girlfriend, Jill, who uses it for the centerpiece of her latest piece of industrial pop art.  Turns out that Moses has terrible taste in gifts, because the robot skull is part of the Mark 13, an advanced, self-repairing, people hating cyborg.  The Mark 13 builds a new body out of scrap and power tools and looks to disassemble anyone it comes across, starting with Jill, some security guards, a creepy peeping tom, Moses, and his acid dropping pal, Shades.  If they can’t stop this robot rampage, the world is slightly more screwed than it already was.
 

The crazy, used up world of HARDWARE is as much a character as Jill, Moses, or the Mark 13.  It isn’t a straight up, after-the-bomb wasteland.  It’s somewhere after the social decay of MAD MAX, but before the Lord Humongous anarchy of ROAD WARRIOR.  Whatever nation it’s supposed to be in still has a government, just not a very good one.  It offers free sterilization programs in order to promote population control, or as the politicians call it, “a clean break with procreation.”  Instead of one devastating global war, the planet is being ruined by a bunch of little ones, rebellions, and general strife.  The streets of Hardware City are filled with trashy open air bazaars, jury-rigged rickshaws, and huddled masses.  One of the only forms of revenue for the people not lucky enough to be on welfare is to salvage junk from the desert and sell it to Alvy, a stingy, chubby faced scrap dealer.  Hmm, I wonder if that idea will catch on.

In a cute twist, getting on government assistance automatically elevates people like Jill to what I guess is middle class.  The lower class is so low they aren’t even recognized.  As far as I could tell, HARDWARE doesn’t have an upper class, at least not one that lives planet side (there is some talk of off world colonies, I bet all the rich bastards live there).  Being on welfare does allow Jill to live in a semi-secure apartment building, be free to weld, smoke lots of government sanctioned dope, and have a refrigerator full of Ultragator Synthmilk.  It’s still a shitty building, though.  As Moses and Shades go up the stairwell, they pass a toddler leashed to a dead person, sort of like a dog tied up outside a coffee shop.  They barely notice.  I’m sure the owner will be back soon.

The Mark 13 is a pretty unconventional killer robot.  It was created by the government for warfare.  The project was suspended, not because it’s partially organic brain was so kill-crazy, but because it susceptible to humidity.  Since it had to rebuild its body from whatever scraps and wires it could find, it’s not sleek and efficient like a Terminator.  More horror than sci-fi, it has stumpy little legs so it spends most of its time crawling.  Kind of like a scorpion with buzzsaws instead of claws (note: it has claws too, and power drills and chainsaws).  It seems very much like the world around it, a hodgepodge abomination pieced together from dangerous junk.  Just looking at it is enough to give you tetanus.  

There’s a nice slow build before the mayhem starts, allowing you to soak in the weird, depressing environment.  Once the Mark 13 really gets going, though, the movie becomes a very tense, disorienting cat and mouse thriller.  Most of the action is confined to Jill’s claustrophobic little apartment.  It’s sort of like if the Nostromo from ALIEN had only three cramped rooms.  The robot bides its time in the shadows a lot, toying with Jill before springing at her.  The most horrifying scene in the movie, though, is when Jill opens the door to her apartment to this…

…her skeevy, tongue waggling peeping tom neighbor, Lincoln Wineberg, Jr.  This is perhaps the most repulsive character I’ve ever seen, Troma movies and MEET THE FEEBLES included.  He’s like one of those horrible KY coated animatronic creature from a sleazy, low budget ‘80’s monster movie, except that he’s a real person.  They douse him in sweat and give him a few disgusting facial sores, but mostly it’s all in the performance, because the actor, William Hootkins, is primarily known for being an average looking human being.  You might remember him from his “Top men” speech to Harrison Ford at the end of RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, or as Red Six, the X-Wing pilot who did not stay on target in the Death Star attack from STAR WARS.  He’s primarily not a freak.  Not so in this movie.  Lincoln (or Link to his friends, all of whom he has surely murdered) spends all day in his hellish apartment, making obscene phone calls and leering through a high tech telescope at Jill as she has sex.  He has a carefully annotated display of girl’s sandals hanging from his wall, along with a plastic Santa head.  He always wears surgical gloves.  Seriously, in any other movie, this motherfucker would be the villain.  When he slips through Jill’s door, ostensibly to help Jill with her malfunctioning apartment, it actually makes the rampaging robot she’s trapped with seem less menacing.  It’s an incredibly tense scene in an already tense movie.  For a moment, it seems like Link might just be a socially awkward weirdo when he starts talking like a regular IT nerd poking at her computer.  Then he starts singing creepy made-up nursery rhymes to her, and he’s back to full-on serial killer vibe.  When the Mark 13 suddenly and messily kills him (SPOILER), our sympathies momentarily realign.  Maybe the robot isn’t so bad after all.

Stacey Travis, the actress playing Jill, has done about a million small parts in movies and TV since this, but has never had such a meaty leading role.  It’s a pity, because her performance really stands out.  Jill starts off as an emotionally distant shut-in, but considering the world around her, being shut in is the most reasonable option.  Despite the amount of dope she smokes, she is very clever.  Once she realizes the Mark 13 is tracking her with thermal sensors PREDATOR style, she lowers her temperature in the refrigerator.  She lures the robot into traps, trying to determine its weakness.  She also keeps her cool, not panicking when faced with both a killer robot and a sicko stalker neighbor.  The movie has a nice feminist edge to it.  Jill is the only woman (aside from the Chinese mother in the apartment below who bangs on the ceiling with a broom when the racket gets too loud), and she is by far the most competent character.  She is surrounded by well-meaning but ineffectual men.  Even tough guy Moses, who does get a few good shots in, ultimately fails to save her.  She has to deal with the Mark 13 herself.  
  

Director Richard Stanley had plans for a sequel, but he’s had shit luck as a director and never got as far as he should have.  These days, the world-as-a-junkyard torch is held highest by Neill Blomkamp, with his grotty South African dystopias like DISTRICT 9 and ELYSIUM.  He manages to mix amazing visuals, hard pounding action, and social commentary into a satisfyingly quirky stew.  I’ll always have a soft spot for HARDWARE’s ambitious, rust covered coziness, though.  It goes great with a few rad-free reindeer steaks and a tall glass of Lactoplasm.

C Chaka