the EXPERiENCE
because
you can't
have
too much entertainment... October 2003
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 |
Right
Audience. Wrong Response.
Camp Dir:
Todd
Graf Starring:
talented
young unknowns.
Underworld
Dir:
Len
Wiseman
Starring: Kate
Beckinsale, Scott Speedman
Prologue: Your first thought will no doubt be: "What could these two films possibly have in common?" The answer is this: I am the perfect audience for both. I love musicals and anything to do with "theatah people". I also love vampires and supernatural stuff (Witness my undying devotion to Buffy the Vampire Slayer). But unfortunately the most receptive audience member can turn on you if you can't deliver the goods.
Camp signals both its pleasure and pain inducing qualities right from the opening number ...and come to think of it, in most of the subsequent numbers as well. The intro is a spectacularly sung (by Sasha Allen) gospel number "How Shall I See You Through My Tears" which is, unfortunately, juxtaposed clumsily with that ol' sympathetic standby ---images of a kid getting beat up at high school for simply being himself. The movie is painfully literal throughout, never trusting the audience to get the not-at-all-difficult-to-grasp emotional content of the songs themselves.
Another great number toward the finale, the cheesy but undeniably enjoyable "Here's Where I Stand", also runs into ruin. The song is sung by one of the main characters, a shy but powerhouse singer (Tiffany Taylor as "Jenna") whose parents (who we meet very briefly at the beginning) have routinely dismissed and demeaned her. We understand from the beginning of the film that she wants her parents to accept her as is and that they don't. During her moving number, the editing cuts constantly to long reaction shots of her parents so that the lyrics become more loaded with specific meanings than even a toddler would need to understand what's happening in the scene. The song is a culmination of the singer's whole character arc ---now she has the confidence to tell her parents how she feels. Yet the filmmaking team doesn't seem to understand that the song is about the singer. It's not about her parents at all. But Camp, as a film, is like this; It hits a difficult, beautiful high note and then trips during a simple dance move.
Clumsy storytelling aside, there is much to like in Camp. There are several sympathetic and charming characters. Some of the humor is laugh-out-loud funny, particularly for those in the audience who are theater savvy. But despite its endearing charms, Camp falls flat due to the aforementioned amateurism and the kind of sentimentalism welcome only in Hallmark cards. This 'comedy about drama' painfully and predictably shoves aside the comedy for the drama repeatedly. It dives deep into 'life-lessons-learned' more times than I care to recall. Characters actually tell you in cringe-inducing speeches exactly what the movie is teaching you. One scene between two teachers is virtually inexcusable in the audience handholding it's doing. It's as subtle as a torturer pinning a victim's eyes open so they have to watch something horrific.
Camp's amateurism is a shame because there's one killer performance (Anna Kendrick as the scheming, nay, practically diabolical "Fritzi"), a couple near-genius musical moments ("The Ladies Who Lunch" & "And I Am Telling You"). It's an easy film to sit through if you love musical theater. However, in the end, the best that can be said is that it'll be something of a guilty pleasure for obsessive Sondheim fans (myself) and musical theater enthusiasts (also me again, hi!). The pleasure comes loaded with guilt because Camp is most definitely not a good film. C
Equally disappointing is the new Romeo & Juliet of monster movies, Underworld. This would-be creature feature classic throws you immediately into the middle of a centuries-long blood feud between the aristocracy of a vampire clan and the rapidly growing lower class band of lycans. The story is credited to Kevin Grevioux, Len Wiseman, and Danny McBride and the screenplay to McBride. Given that the premise is clever and the storyline surprisingly unpredictable Underworld, like Camp, aches to be a better film than it is. Watching it I felt supernaturally infected -like I'd been bitten by my own inner filmmaker. Immediately an uncontrollable lust for a better film welled up in my veins. But the lust, like the vampires eternal thirst for blood, would never be truly sated. For, alas, Underworld is not very good.
Len Wiseman's film, despite a bundle of original touches in its basic concept and plotting, stubbornly refuses to be anything but derivative in its filmmaking. I must ask: Isn't there anyway to shoot battle scenes these days without using the ice blue filter? I don't think I've seen any other color employed since Batman Returns and Terminator 2 premiered in all their blue-tinged glory a decade ago. And it's not just the color schemes. The battle sequences have no real drama in them. The editing and blocking fail to grip the audience or lead to coherent action sequences (though, to be fair, there is at least one notable standout sequence which involves a fresh werewolf bite and a car chase with a lycan on foot behind the automobile). Even in conception, the action seems poorly thought out. The mundane and fetishized use of firearms (i.e. boring old guns) in a film with vampires and werewolves struck me as unintentional self-sabotage. Vampires and werewolves are, after all, deadly without firearms and in significantly more interesting ways.
Underworld is competently made and its assembled team is hardly lacking in talent. But the inspiration well appears to have run dry. This vampiric/lycan war offers nothing of interest in its cinematography (Oscar nominee Tony Pierce-Roberts), production design, or costuming (multiple Genie nominee Wendy Partridge). Since the premiere of The Matrix, Kym Barrett's costume design has been shamefully plucked on every "cool film" made after it. The X-Men films are only the most high-profile recent example. There is now apparently an invisible edict. All films and characters that want to be cool must use black vinyl or some variation thereof. It's as Ms. Barrett were a vampire herself. Her sleek and dark designs have sucked all the creativity out of every other costume designer who dares a genre film. The same thing happened with production designers after Bladerunner. Greatness nearly always provokes imitation. That's understandable. But after a certain number of years pass, artists should attempt to move on from these trusty but overused templates.
Currently there is talk of Underworld spawning a sequel. If this does prove to be the case I only hope that the filmmakers onboard will take a step back, realize what riches could be milked from the premise, and attempt something both new and great, something deserving of the original ideas from which the film sprang. C-
Epilogue:
(Sigh) Right audience. Wrong response. If Underworld and Camp can't manage to please this fan of vampires and musicals, I can't imagine how non-fans of the two genres represented will react. I doubt I'll watch either film again. Instead, I'll throw in my DVD of the classic Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode, "Once More With Feeling" for the millionth time. Vampires AND Musical numbers coupled with inspired and competent filmmaking! Now, we're talking an A+
-Nathaniel
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