Never Let Go

Rope Burns

Never Let Go
Directed by Alexandre Aja
USA 2024
Lionsgate (thought they’d
pulled out of UK distribution)
UK Cinema Release Print.

I was going to say I have a bit of a hit and miss relationship with the films of Alexandre Aja but, then I refamiliarised myself with his filmography and it would be fair to say, I think, that it’s more of a miss and miss track record. I have this idea in my head that he starts off each film really well, setting things up for an intense ride which tends to peter out around halfway through and, yeah, that’s kind of what he does here but... I’ll get back to that in a little while.

Never Let Go does have a great idea behind it. Surviving, it’s implied, some apocalyptic influx of evil into the world, a mother played by Halle Berry and her two young boys, played absolutely gob-smackingly amazingly by Percy Daggs IV and Anthony B. Jenkins live in a remote cabin in the woods. They cannot leave the house, however, because it has magical religious properties protecting them from evil. So they have to wear these long ropes around their waste when they go out of the house scavenging for grubs and squirrels to eat. However, as these kids, who are maybe just pre-teen or early teen aged, start to question their mother’s wisdom about the evil that only her and the audience can see... things start to go pear shaped.

And yeah, that’s a nice set up for the plot and it’s mostly all I’m saying about the story here. Other than... not all the three main protagonists survive until two thirds of the way into the movie... so the tension does keep ratcheting up.

What I will say is that the performances by all three of those actors are absolutely amazing and that they manage to carry the film quite nicely. Added to this, the make-up job and CGI work on the ‘evil’ snake tongued people is excellent. And, of course, since it’s the main hook, a good deal of the tension and drama of the story comes from... you know... letting go of the rope.

However, once again the director fails to land a good, solid ending for this film. There’s a set up revolving around what is possibly ‘the last polaroid camera on Earth’ with one shot left in it which, when used towards the conclusion, really contributes to making no sense of just what has been going on by the end of the movie. I mean, it’s like, without giving away anything, it’s an ‘is it or isn’t it?’ kind of deal with the mechanics of the story and how it plays out and, by the end, the director maybe didn’t want to commit to either one of them... instead favouring the idea of having his cake and eating it at the same time. Which, for me, negates and drains all the tension and good work he’s been consistently running with up until around the last ten minutes. I was left there sitting in the mostly empty cinema (it was a Sunday evening) thinking... this makes absolutely no sense.

So, yeah, whether the fact that he managed to keep the tension and be really scary up until that point counts as a good time at the cinema or not is something I can’t really judge. It just feels like Never Let Go really fumbles the ball at the end and takes the ‘lazy story writers’ way out (there’s even one of the actors promoting it in interviews as a strong point, I think, where the audience brings their own baggage as to the ending, so to speak). Nope. This movie clearly doesn’t work for me and it’s a shame because it is quite intense, atmospheric and has some great photography. But, no, I won’t be recommending this one to anybody when all is said and done so... yeah... still waiting to see that great Alexandre Aja movie, I reckon. It’s got to be coming one day. This one just seems like Aja trying to channel M. Night Shyamalan with, sadly, similar results.

Oxygen

 

Get Me O2 Here

Oxygen
France/USA  2021
Directed by Alexandre Aja

Okay, I’m going to try and do this without spoilers... although, by about 20 mins into the film, most people would have figured it all out anyway. One day I’m pretty sure Alexandre Aja is going to make a film which I actually like and which doesn’t let me down somewhat in the last act. Alas, Oxygen is still not that film but it comes close in terms of, if it wasn’t so darned obvious what’s going on and if it had a much better solution to the initial hook of the film, then it might have got there. But, well, yeah, as it stands it’s almost like an exercise in finishing up a film even though you know the audience got there an hour or more before so... hmm.

Okay, Oxygen is basically a one woman show apart from the odd other characters who turn up as either visual memories or voices on a ‘telephone’ call but the central lead is Mélanie Laurent, who I loved in Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds, playing Liz. Liz wakes up in a... well, let’s call it a chamber for the sake of this review... a small chamber on some kind of life support but with only about 36% of her air left. She can’t get out of the capsule and she doesn’t know who she is or why she’s there... although, as I said, the audience will have figured out the main plot ‘twists’, such as they are, by about 20 minutes in. Her only companion is the chamber’s computer MILO, voiced by Mathieu Amalric.

So the majority of the action in the film is all set in this small chamber with the occasional cut to what’s outside the chamber and the odd, wordless memory. From the outset, the film becomes about how Liz is to survive both the oxygen running out and how she can escape the inevitable while also trying to remember just who she is and what she’s doing there... her memories being a process that becomes part of the solution to the movie, as well as her personal downfall, in some ways. Along the way she also has to battle with various protocols and dangers from MILO, negotiating certain things and battling automated processes which will lessen her chances of survival.

And there’s not much else I can really tell you about the story itself because, it is very simplistic and also revealing anything else will just spell out what’s happening to you right away without you needing to even see a frame of film. So, yeah, in terms of the story and the follow up to the compelling hook, the film sucks in that department, it has to be said.

However, let’s not focus on the negatives because, aside from the story, Aja does a really quite good and interesting job with the materials that he does have to work with (and, out of all the ones I’ve seen by him, this one is still my favourite of his films).

For example, the film opens strongly with a lab rat in a maze leading into a pull back revealing a bigger maze, while the title of the film comes up over the top of it in very clinical whites and, while the metaphor being pushed this early in the film is somewhat sloppy in tipping the hand on certain elements of the later 'twists', it looks great. Then, in a series of shots that introduce the character waking, we get flashes of her in a red lit environment (for a while) in a kind of stroboscopic reveal of her situation, with odd memories of her life also cross cut and crashing in on the action in the same manner. So, yeah, a nice pulse theme going on there.

Later on, the idea of a pulse is revisited when, as we hear Liz’ heartbeat on the audio to increase suspense as she loses more oxygen, the camera does little mini zooms in and out in time with the rhythm... which really pushes the intensity of her plight and her state of mind.

Another big plus is the acting from Laurent which is, admittedly a bit histrionic in places but, ultimately, pretty good. She manages to engage the viewer and carry the film on her shoulders very well. I mean, it’s a bit of a ‘one note’ character in terms of how she develops (or doesn’t, more accurately) during the course of the movie but there’s an obvious, limiting reason for this which is bound to her identity and which the audience will figure out maybe an hour before she does, so it’s certainly not the acting at fault. Like I said, she does a great job... it’s just the story which is the weakest link here.

The other good thing is the score by ROB, which is something I would immediately rush to purchase on CD as a stand alone listen except, nope, it’s only available as a stupid, electronic download (which really doesn’t count as a great representation of music as far as I’m concerned). It seems that the once reliable Milan record label have now joined the ranks of Watertower and such like as ‘the bad guys’ of their field... the enemies of music in its proper form on CD. Which is a shame... so they won’t be getting my money while only this rough facsimile is available, for sure. I would have liked to hear it as a stand alone.

All in all, Oxygen looks spectacular, is well acted, is well told by the director and has a terrific, if unavailable score... it’s just the obviousness of the story which annoys me. Don’t get me wrong, if I’d seen this film when I was six years old or had managed to grow up having never seen any movies my whole life, then I probably would have been blown away by it but, alas, I think it’s one of those works that, on a story level at least, will only appeal to the young or less cine-literate and I find it a bit sad that a director such as Aja, who certainly seems to know how to get the best out of a production, is choosing to shoot material which seems somewhat beneath him in terms of contributing something new or personal to the cinematic landscape. And I can’t find anything more to say about this one. Ten out of ten for style, three out of ten for story content.

Crawl

Crawl Intentions

Crawl
Directed by Alexandre Aja
2019 USA/Serbia/Canada
UK cinema release print.

Okay, so I didn’t bother with Crawl when it premiered at FrightFest a few weeks ago because a) I knew it was getting a general release the same week, b) I have no interest in alligator thrillers and c) I am not all that taken with the cinema of Alexandre Aja. It was always my intention to just let this one crawl right past me but so many people said, something along the lines of ”No, you should check this one out, it’s really jumpy and you’ll have a good time with it.” So I did.

So many people were wrong.

Although, to be fair, the movie does get a little bit jumpy from time to time but only because, in an unusual bid for a lack of character logic which is ropy in modern thriller and suspense movies anyway, the characters outdo themselves in behaving in a manner which gives them, surely, the least chance of survival possible. This plus an almost unprecedented level of ‘lets see how much bad luck we can pour on to manufacture an extended dramatic situation’ not experienced since the mini masterpiece that was Gravity (reviewed here).

Now, to be fair, the performances here are top notch with the astonishing beauty of the last Pirates Of The Caribbean film (reviewed here) that is Kaya Scodelario playing swimming champion called Haley, who has to go and try and rescue her injured father Dave, played equally well by Barry Pepper, from a basement in a house in New Orleans during a major hurricane. Alas, it’s not long before both of them find themselves in a basement slowly filling up with water but unable to leave because of various alligators swimming around said basement and treating it like it’s their personal cafeteria.

Oh, wait. Did I mention Haley’s a swimming champion? Of course I did. Because that’s obviously the most convenient kind of person to get trapped in a sink or swim situation underwater with carnivorous reptiles. In fact, the whole film is about keeping this one spark of an idea going in the most blatantly fabricated ways possible. Don’t get me wrong, in some ways this is quite a nicely made film in its ability to pour on the shock moments but it just feels like there could have been less silly ways of doing these kinds of things other than giving this wonderful cast incredibly, unreasonably stupid characters who can’t figure their way out of this and then relying on a load of frequent, freak coincidences to give them ways of trying to escape.

In fact, I was quite relieved on a couple of fronts where the director sets things up and he didn’t actually yank those threads at all. For instance, the singling out of a tattoo on Haley’s arm in the opening sequence was, I was sure from the moment we saw it, so we could identify the arm when it was floating loose from the lead actress later in the movie. As it happens, the tattoo shot turned out to have no such relevance at all. Secondly, the introduction of a certain kind of character looked like she was there to just get eaten quickly to deliver the necessary shock moment but, I’m glad to say, that particular character did not meet the fate I’d immediately assigned to her. Indeed, without giving too much away here, this one character showed more common sense throughout the whole movie than both father and daughter combined so... yeah... I won’t spoil that one for you.

But, yeah, it doesn’t take too long for the writers to start bringing in peripheral characters like looters and rescue cops in, just to the keep the body count ticking over and so the people trapped can freak out a bit more as they see the number of items on the menu diminishing once more.  Again, it's something I could have done without but it's not an unusual step for movies with a killer element in them to take... in order to remind the audience just what is at stake here. So I guess I can’t moan about it too much although it does, it has to be said, seem to just call attention to itself in the most blatant way possible here.

Now, I might not think that much of Aja for the most part but he does know how to put together a competently crafted movie, despite blatant plot devices, so there are some nicely done scenes of suspense and a sense of claustrophobia throughout the film but, ultimately, a lot of the good work here is undermined by having characters who would be cover poster stars for a book entitled ‘What not to do if you find yourself trapped in the middle of a hurricane, about to drown, with a load of alligators.’ So, yeah, I had mixed feelings about the movie.

It also didn’t help that new ‘laws of motion picture natural history’ seem to have been applied here. Not that an alligator would go too much out of their way to attack a human but, if they did, this film introduces us to the rule that, if an alligator is swimming after you and you hop out of the water onto land or a bit of furniture, then it’s unable to follow you. What the heck? Seriously, there’s one point in the story when Haley is swimming for land and then, when the land slopes up to take her onto, relatively, dry land... the alligator who was just seconds away from biting her ankle immediately gives up. This seemed a bit far fetched to me, it has to be said.

Other than that, though... the film was fun in places but ultimately I wasn’t riveted to the screen and I also noticed the film had less exploitation value than most films which feature scantily clad ladies swimming about for hours in high levels of water. The goriness of the effects seemed a bit wanting too, which seemed to me a bit out of kilter with the reputation of the director. And make no mistake, this is definitely a movie which is trying hard to be a modern exploitation movie, for sure. It just doesn’t necessarily succeed at it too well... at least, that’s how it seemed to me.

So that’s me done on this one. I’m quite happy that I did get to see Crawl on my Cineworld Unlimited card and not have to pay out for a Blu Ray at some point in the future.. so that’s a possible silver lining, I guess. Also, I’d have to say there are certain people who I know who I could recommend this movie to because I think they might get a kick out of it... I just wouldn’t include myself on that list, in regards to this movie. I don't ever need to see this again.

Piranha 3D

Fish, Drugs and Rock n’ Roll

Piranha 3D USA 2010

Directed by Alexandre Aja

Entertainment In Video Region 2

Okay... so Piranha 3D is one of the most non-politically correct, sexist pieces of cinematic trash committed to celluloid. The whole movie feels like it was written to be the worst ever, unsubtle “Carry On film on acid” there ever was... it objectifies women to a disturbing degree and contradicts all its own subtext just for the sake of extra violent gore.

Now... bearing in mind everything I just wrote then, I have to admit that I found this film to be, not only everything I was expecting from all of the previous Piranha films (they all failed to deliver) but also to be generally better made than all its predecessors too. I actually kind of enjoyed it somewhat... although everything inside me is telling me that’s probably wrong.

Now I have to confess here that, while the DVD has the 3D version and a couple of sets of (way too small for an average head wearing normal glasses) 3D glasses to watch it by... I only lasted a few minutes on this print. I just couldn’t get the 3D to work properly and I got tired of watching double images all over the movie. So I gave up for the sake of a speedier afternoon and switched discs to the 2D version. Sorry about this but it had to be done.

My first big criticism is that it does exactly the opposite of what the awful 90s TV remake did... in that it isn’t in any way a remake. Now what I would have liked to have seen was for this to be an alternative, improved version of the original material, with some characters and places still in the movie... but this one not only dispenses with all of the characters from the first movie... it also throws out the plot completely. This school of Piranhas are not the military engineered killers invented to put an end to the Vietnam war before the funding was withdrawn, as they were in the Joe Dante movie. In this one a completely unexplained tremor opens a rift under a lake which lets loose various prehistoric, baby piranha which are thought to have been extinct for, like, a gazillion years. These are the toothed killers that do all the fleshy damage in this movie and the plot of the original never, unfortunately, rears its head on this one at all.

The film starts a lot better than I thought it would with a fishing Richard Dreyfuss being the newly released fishies first victim. Not only that but, to boot, he’s singing “Show me the way to go home” just like he did in Jaws. So this movie starts off by smartly playing with a dead-on reference to the film the original Piranha movie from 1978 was trying to cash in on. Unfortunately, this standard of post-modernistic japery is not prevalent for most of the movie and very quickly this film becomes all about the cinematic worship of female breasts. Now as a spirited male individual I have to say that I did greatly enjoy the profusion of female flesh displayed in this movie, which is easily the most exploitational in the series so far, but I also found myself pretty much cringing at the male derogatory attitudes towards women to be found on display in this story. I have to admit that, by the end of the movie, my head and my groin were feeling fairly conflicted and confused by this experience.

The effects and goriness are mostly impressive... a lot of people come to horrendously nasty ends which gives this killer fish movie a bit more bite than its predecessors. Now I don’t usually like gore for gore’s sake but there were a couple of bits of bloody death in this one which weren’t completely fish related and had an edge because they were completely unexpected.

One sequence which was interesting is when an out-of-control electrical cable accidentally slices a woman diagonally in half through the cleavage. It takes a while for both the audience and the victim to realise what just happened, as the lady in question watches as her top bits gradually slide away from the rest of her body. Another inventive sequence of goriness is when a lady being bitten by lively fish gets her long hair caught in the outboard motor of a boat being driven by a fleeing teenage boy. When he finally gets the motor restarted it scalps the woman, tearing half of her skin from her head. 

Little touches like this are, it should be acknowledged, fairly grotesque but also somewhat satisfying when mixed in with the other fish related carnage. These sequences raised the bar a little on the expectations of what a movie like this could give it’s audience and you have to applaud it a little for not just relying on nibbly teeth to comply with the appetite of the gore-gore crowd. 

There’s a lot of humour in the film, especially the last few seconds following the revelations as to the nature of these particular predators by a fish expert played by Christopher Lloyd (it was also nice to see Christopher Lloyd and Elizabeth Shue working together again since their time on the second and third Back To The Future movies) but, for the most part, this movie relies too much on jokes relating to various bits of female anatomy to the point where it kinda wears you down a little. It works fine for the first couple of one-liners but after a while it just gets old really fast.

As a red blooded male I have to say that Piranha 3D has a lot of bosomy women on screen, so it’s not a film I found boring on any level. At the same time, I can’t bring myself to recommend a film that treats women as objects as much as this one does (even with Shue playing such a strong female lead). Ultimately, if you want to see a movie with loads of nudity (some of it quite stunning, it has to be acknowledged) and violence towards... um... anything human, then you’re probably going to end up watching this one whether you want to or not at some point. Either way, I’m almost looking forward to seeing the sequel when it comes to cinemas soon. Review to follow shortly.