Overview: Rarely do we find low-budget horror movies aspiring to be as intelligent and ambitious as Magdalena’s Brain. Reportedly shot on a shoestring budget of $25 - $30K, Magdalena’s Brain is a professional looking film with some interesting man-machine interface ideas. To limit costs, most of the movie takes place in a single warehouse setting. Unfortunately, this psychological horror is probably a bit too slow for most, and doesn’t have enough gore for the average horror fan (although there are a few good freak-out scenes). But if you do stick with it, you get treated to a fascinating ending twist.

The Story: Former brain surgeon, Magdalena (played wonderfully by Amy Shelton-White) is now a reclusive alcoholic, living in a warehouse, who continually changes out shrinks in the hopes of gaining some semblance of peace. Four years after a tragic accident that left her brilliant husband-scientist, Arthur (Sanjiban Sellew) a quadriplegic and their research in tatters, Magdalena has persevered in the fleeting hopes that things will improve. Magdalena has designed an implant that allows computer-assisted dialogue with her husband. With communication restored, they have been able to continue their research in developing a synthetic brain that processes information 1000 time faster than humans. While the last four years have been slow going, recent advances have shown promise. Currently a blank slate, the organic, crystalline brain structure appears ready memories implanting. Andrew (David Joseph), a love struck former patient of Magdalena (he has inoperable brain cancer), seems to be an obvious test subject, as he will do anything to win over Magdalena.

Magdalena reluctantly takes Arthur’s advice and accepts the help of her creepy brother, Jim (Robert Weingartner), in working out how to kick-start the organic crystalline brain. First, they will download Arthur’s memories into the crystalline structure, then insert the structure into Andrew’s brain, and finally they will remove the tumor. As the story continues, Magdalena becomes more unstable. As everything comes to a head, it appears as if the same issues that led to the tragic accident four years ago might be recurring.

The Pacing: The pacing in Magdalena’s Brain is problematic in places. The first half of the movie crawls at a snail’s pace. In part it’s due to the plot, but the editing decisions certainly contribute. Eventually, it picks up in the second half. The middle of the second half is really where Magdalena’s Brain hits its stride, both in plot and pacing. The movement is brisk and the scenes really tie together well. Unfortunately, the ending action sequence comes across a series of jumbled scenes (again, I’m blaming the editing here). Instead of the frantic chase, they would have been better served having their victim do the slow, bloody crawl, with Magdalena walking after while engaged in her personal struggle. The story would have worked the same either way, but the chosen course asks us to believe that a brain surgeon can’t determine if someone is dead, and that a guy who just had a hole drilled in his brain can run for his life.

The Acting: If there’s one decision that Director Warren Amerman made that other extremely low budget film projects should consider emulating was hiring a real actor/actress to play the lead role. Even with having only a $25,000 budget, a large chunk of that went toward hiring Lost-Angeles based actress, Amy Shelton-White. Had they not done this, Magdalena’s Brain might have been a disaster. Shelton-White shines to the point that she single-handedly carries the project toward respectability, while adeptly displaying a wide range of talent and emotion. The script is problematic in places, the pacing is too slow, and the rest of the cast are role players at best, but in the end this film still works due to Shelton-White’s performance. Being in virtually every scene, she seems to bring out the best in the rest of the cast. I say this because the rest of the cast suffers when in monologue type situations, but generally hold up well when interacting with Amy. David Joseph (Andrew) in particular looks really shaky in places where he’s basically on his own, but gets lots better when interacting with Shelton-White. I haven’t seen Shelton-White in anything else, but clearly she has the chops to go places. Other the lead, the only performance with mentioning is Robert Weingartner – the “look” he generates as a creepy side-kick really worked well.

The Cinematography: Often indie films that venture into the Science Fiction genre attempt to make up for low-budget effects with innovative cinematography and lighting. This definitely is the case for Magdalena’s Brain. The use of lighting and shadow always seems to be in the forefront of Amerman’s thinking when composing a shot. Some scenes, such as the bowling scene, really don’t seem to have a place in the film from a story standpoint, but are probably left there due to the wonderful lighting and composition. Throughout the film Amerman is able to take a truly dingy set and come up with some wonderful shots. Also interesting is the lighting and sound choices for the flashbacks, although the horror shots have a cheesy low-budget feel to them. This, along with Shelton-White’s performance is able to help get the viewer through some of the pacing and editing issues.

Problems With Organic Brain Design: Magdalena’s Brain uses a different approach toward creating AI. Instead of building a set of programs that mimic some trait of humanity (referred to as the “brute force method), they attempt to replicate the operations of a brain. Through the creation of a “crystalline lattice work in a gel suspension” – the thought is to create a structure that supports the firing of electrodes in a way that allows it to build its own pathways and connections. This part of the techy “mumbo jumbo” was wonderfully thought out, sparking interesting thoughts on how one might go about connecting such a “blank slate” learning structure artificial senses so that it might interact with the outside environment. One can imagine that a structure such as this, once connected to sensory input could grow at an impressive rate

Unfortunately, this is where their science falls apart. They “solve” the blank slate problem by simply “downloading” Arthur’s memories into the crystalline brain. Worse, the brain will apparently make its own pathways using a “first-come, first-served” method of storage. Not only does this approach smack of a “miracle occurs here” scaffold, it also removes most of the innovativeness of the crystalline brain learning structure – as opposed to the pathways being organically grown based on ongoing input from its environment, they simply load a bundle of memories (which are apparently discrete chunks of data) up in sequential fashion. In doing so, they seem to be valuing the mass-storage view of the brain while discounting the interconnectedness of the pathways and concepts. This wouldn’t be too much of a problem accept that their synthetic brain seems based on creating its own connections based on organic growth.

Integration of Synthetic Processing Structures with Human Brains: The most interesting cyberpunk thought in Magdalena’s Brain involves integrating synthetic processing structures with human brains. In the movie, the integrated structure will already have a sentient presence in it (see the downloading memories part above). This is an interesting approach toward building a cyborg with synthetic thinking capabilities, and is a somewhat different approach from say, the Ghost in the Shell method of increasing human capacity. In the GITS Cyborg model, computers are essentially integrated into the human mind, almost as a huge memory bank. The action thinking and decision making largely remain with the human portion of the brain (there are also fully AI processors like the Puppet Master, but they aren’t cyborgs). In the Magdalena’s Brain approach toward cyborgs, one wonders what happens when the two brain structures (synthetic and natural) occupy the same body – will they work in harmony; will one dominate the other; or will a type of schizophrenia emerge? This is all the more interesting when transposed against the psychological struggle Magdalena is undergoing.

Is Magdalena’s Brain Cyberpunk? Magdalena’s Brain is one of those movies that I think barely makes it into the genre. It takes place in the present, not near future (at least that we can tell), and has no connections to evil corporations. Nor does it have much in the way of cyberpunk visuals. It does however have negative impact of technology down in spades, and an interesting take on the fusion of man and machine. For these reasons, I’ve decided to include it, but just barely.

The Bottom Line: Magdalena’s Brain puts forward a terrific production considering the virtually non-existent budget. It’s very difficult to do a convincing science fiction movie on that type of shoot. I would like discuss the psychological horror aspect of Magdalena’s Brain, but won’t for fear of ruining the ending. The high points are definitely Amy Shelton-White’s performance, and a good number of some well-shot scenes. The audio FX are also worth mentioning, but the score doesn’t always fit. That said, the pacing issues will significantly reduce the potential market for Magdalena’s Brain, as most horror (and many cyberpunk) fans won’t stick with it long enough to get to the fast-paced ending. While it certainly has its problems, Magdalena’s Brain gets a passing grade. There is enough here for indie fans to give it a go, and enough of a jolt at the end that many horror fans will enjoy as well.

Overview: Code 46 is a movie that generates significant disagreement on ratings. The pacing is glacially slow, but there are enough interesting ideas that many viewers will really dig the final product. Viruses as transhuman upgrades, memory removal, and problems brought on by mass cloning all are mashed together to give an interesting, but somewhat incoherent view of a near-term dystopic future. The cinematography is interesting, and the story itself may end up working well enough for some to enjoy the final product.

The Setting: Code 46 takes place in a non-specific near future, where overpopulation and degradation of the earth have led to a situation where cities have become protected entities. The population is now divided into those living in the outside and those citizens who have rights to live within. Each city has restricted access – a person is required to have “papelles” (a valid passport/visa) to enter. For some reason, even though there is massive overpopulation, cloning has been used in an overabundant fashion. There is even a law, Code 46, which restricts the relations between those who are genetically similar. Viruses have been genetically engineered to allow new capabilities for people, but also have become so deadly that people must have a valid insurance policy to stay in the city.

The Story: William Geld, played by Time Robbins, is an insurance investigator imbued with an empathy virus, who’s been tasked to track down a forged papelle ring in Shanghai. Shortly after arriving, William quickly determines that the guilty party is a worker named Maria Gonzales (Samantha Morton), but he doesn’t turn her in. For some reason, even though he is happily married, he is strangely attracted to Maria, so he falsely implicates someone else. After following her home, Maria and William become fall for one another. William leaves the next day for home, but is brought back a few weeks later when the forged papelles continue to be produced. He decides to turn Maria in, but she has left. After investigating, he finds that she had incurred a code 46 violation. William fears that he is the genetically similar party and sets off to find her.

The Acting: Director Michael Winterbottom seems to be going for a Lost in Translation type vibe, but this feel doesn’t really work very well. The leads both turn in believable performances, but something is missing. While the world certainly has an alienated feel, there’s never a sense that the chemistry William and Samantha is strong enough to support a “genetic attraction.” It’s all cerebral. Unfortunately, with the rediculously slow pacing of the movie, this merely adds disconnectedness with the audience.

Viruses as Genetic Upgrades: In Code 46, custom made viruses are used for short to long term sensory upgrades. William has an “empathy” virus which allows him to read people’s thoughts. Other viruses allow skills to be developed. The weird thing about the use of viruses as an idea for genetic manipulation is that it causes all sorts of dangerous linkages. For instance, viruses can be passed on, and worse, can change over time. This, I think, is why insurance may play such a large role in Code 46, and why the cities are cordoned off (again, this isn’t really explored all that well). It does make you wonder though, how exactly will genetic manipulation be used in the future? If we are to look for transhuman-like upgrades, are we going to be purchasing an ensemble of cocktail viruses?

Futuristic Low-budget Worldbuilding: Without a large budget, and the absence of CG, director Winterbottom struggles to make his world look futuristic. Mostly based on locations, Winterbottom also emphasizes pastel florescent shades to indicate futurism. Pastel florescent pinks, greens, and blue tones are used in most of the otherwise normal looking city scenes. The outside world is mostly desert, apparently brought on by the effects of global warming, whereas the people all dress like they’re in New Dehli. The night scenes are generally neon shots of Shanghai, which sort of fit in the cyberpunk, near-future genre. Still, there are glaring problems which break suspension of disbelief, where the futuristic world looks identical in most places. The most obvious one deals with the liberal use of modern day cars - apparently the auto industry got laid off after 2003. A cheap solution would have been to jimmy up a few futuristic fiberglass bodies to stick on-top of a jeep or VW, but instead, we are almost left with an alternate view of the present.

Cyberpunk Tower of Babel – the Creole Merging of Languages: In Code 46, English seems to be the only language used, but it has been “creoled” in that many of the words have been replaced with words from other languages. Boy and girl is now chico and chica; paper is now papelle; hello has been transformed to “meehow”; discontinued is now discontinuago. The cool part about this is how naturally the actors work the word changes into the dialogue. The problematic part of this is that within 50 years or less, the world (even if only the industrial parts) would transform into a single language. If there even is a trend toward this, I think we’d be looking more like 300-500 years for a place like Shanghai to do away with their native Chinese. The more interesting question this raises though is the issue of whether the human race is moving toward a reverse Tower of Babel, or whether the local cultures will become more entrenched as a defense against a globalized language and culture. The world is getting smaller all the time – the implications of this are far from understood right now.

Cyberpunk Oedipus Complex: Harkening back to Freud, Code 46 explores the issue of a man in love with his mother. In Code 46, this connection is so strong that it exists even when the relationship itself is not known to the participants. Personally, I never bought into anything as generalized as Freud’s Oedipus complex, and I don’t know that it works all that well here. But the genetic/cloning slant to this question certainly raises some interesting thoughts. Still, with the advent of overpopulation, its hard to see why people would resort to making an abundance of clones. Perhaps for nefarious thoughts such as body replacement parts, but it would be a stretch for an overpopulated world to create massive versions of the same person. Based on the huge insurance slant in Code 46, we might assume it had something to do with contaminated bodies, but like so many other aspects of this future world, this is never really explained.

Removal of Memories: The idea of memory modification and their removal has been explored in other movies (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, for instance), but the general question is probably similar. Are memories discrete entities that can be targeted and wiped out, or is something more organic going on? Also, if your spouse cheats on you, will a future option for conflict resolution be to simply have the memories of the offending person and the deed itself removed? If so, would you still think your spouse cheated?

The Bottom Line: Although the plot runs at a glacial pace, and the chemistry between the actors is stilted at best, the inclusion of interesting thoughts, however haphazard, potentially make Code 46 worth a watch. I would have liked to see a bit more clarity on the basis for the technology selections, and definitely would have liked to see more emotive chemistry between the leads. The “Lost in Translation” vibe just doesn’t work here all that well. Bottom line, if you’re someone who doesn’t mind watching interesting looking paint dry, you might end up liking Code 46.

Overview: It’s a rare instance when we find a movie that has all the trappings of a “B” SciFi shlock-fest – one with an overly cheesy name, a DVD cover advertising the movie as a classic drive-in flick (as was the original marketing art), one which has the standard “B” movie high-pitched moaning female chanting alien vocal track duing the credits and a creature-feature font typeface for its title – but in fact isn’t. Creature of the Humanoids practically screams “low-budget, exploitative SciFi crapfest” but…isn’t. Instead, after digging beneath the voluminous trappings of “B” cinema, we find a very intelligent, but low-budget movie – one which in 1962 has captured a good number of the cyberpunk themes that would dominate literature and movies twenty years later. Contrary to the DVD cover, which combines Creation of the Humans with War Between the Planets (which is pretty much what you think it is), this is a slow-paced, thinking person’s movie. Said another way, I’d probably be damn bugged if I had taken a date to see this at a drive-in, but as an intelligent movie for CyberpunkReview, it works fine.

The Setting: A nuclear war has taken place, resulting in the extermination of 92% of the human race. Those that remain are riddled with radiation poisoning, leaving very few couples who can create viable offspring. To keep civilization running, the remaining humans significantly ramped up their production of robots, which now number almost a billion in total, and handle most of the mundane tasks of society. Over time, advances in AI and automation have created a “race” of robots that have become sentient, and even more capable than their human counterparts. Because humans couldn’t stand working next to machine-looking things that seemed smarter than them, robots began being constructed to emulate humans. Now, 20% of all robots look humanoid in nature. However a backlash has formed - a hate group called the “Order of Flash and Blood” is pushing for the ban on all humanoid-looking robots. Because of a backlash by many humans, these robots can only look 70% similar to humans.

The Story: Capt. Kenneth Cragis (Don Megowan) is a leader in the Order of Flesh and Blood, the robot hate group. While on monitoring the activity of “clickers,” a derogatory term for robots, he notices some suspicious activity entering the robot shrine, a building off-limits to humans, which contains the central AI program that most robots now take direction from, and practically worship. In getting Flesh and Blood members to storm the shrine, they find a robot that looks almost fully human (96%) who has just killed a rogue scientist. As robots are all programmed to follow what essentially are Asimov’s three laws of robotics, this constitutes the first instance of a robot killing a human. Cragis sees this as an opportunity for the order to finally break-through and convince the human leadership of the righteousness of their cause. But in analyzing the human-looking robot, they discover something horrifying – it turns out that this robot actually “thought” he was a person, and appeared to have been created by taking the essence of a person recently dead, and replicating them inside of a robot.

Cragis also has another dilemma, his position in the order is now threatened, as its come to light that his sister has recently entered “rapport” with a robot named Pax. When in rapport, the robot and human essentially share the same mindset – everything his sister desires is instantly understood by the Pax and her needs are met. They are essentially soul mates. Cragis and his sister are on complete opposite sides of this issue, and there is no way for him to convince her otherwise. But things go from worse to weird when Cragis, and his newly found love (Erica Elliott) discover a truth about themselves that will shake the foundations of humanity.

The Production Values Suck: If I were grading Creation of the Humanoids based on production values alone it would be grateful to achieve even a three-star rating. From a production value standpoint, this movie is poorly made. The very few sets that exist look like warehouse sets quickly done up with extra junk from other SciFi movies and the only music accompaniment used everywhere (including love scenes) is the eerie “alien ship is coming” sound. The FX, especially of the robots are very poor, consisting primarily of bald-hair pieces and green makeup. Aside for a few of the leads (Don Megowan, the most important character is decent) is sub par at best. From a production value standpoint, Creation of the Humanoids seems far better suited to a play than a movie. If fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this was the original intention of Jay Simms’ script. The DVD treatment, which provides a far better than expected transfer, essentially tries to mimic a drive-in movie experience. This is annoying it that there is no chapter feature. You are forced to click through the upfront stuff, the first feature, and the intermission crap to even get to Creature of the Humanoids.

If a Man Loses His Leg, Is His Soul Affected? this is the question posed by Creation of the Humanoids. If one answers that the soul is not affected, the follow-on thought is what if the whole body was replaced but that the essence that is “you” survives in an android shell. Do you still have a soul? If not, when did you lose it? Creation of the Humanoids provides us a world where humans are quickly becoming extinct, and where their salvation is going to be a situation where their personalities – all that makes them unique – are transferred into robotic bodies. They even will still be able to procreate, after a fashion. So the larger question this movie finally poses is: in this completely post-human world, does humanity still exist?

Replicants in Years Past: While Blade Runner is most often credited as having the definitive replicants, clearly this idea has been around for a lot longer. In Creation of the Humanoids, robots that are 96% human capability are created by taking a recently diseased person (within six hours of death) and extracting all that is unique about them (their memories, learning, skills, philosophy, etc.) and inserting it into a special thalamus chip to be integrated into a robot’s cerebral cortex processing unit. In doing so, they wipe all memory of the human’s last moments (their deaths). The end result are robots that still think they are human. For all times other than between 4:00 – 5:00 am, the robots act completely human. But during that one hour, they remember who they really are and report back to the robot society.

Asimov’s Laws Were Already Being Followed By 1962: Creation of the Humanoids gives us a glimpse of the incredible influence that Asimov’s “I, Robot” a mere 12 years later. The Robots in this already adhere to the laws, and have already worked out methods to break them. Robots must never harm other humans, and must always work to serve their best interests. Yet, unfortunately, humans don’t always know what is in their best interests, and thus, the robots must become subversive to meet this law.

When Robots Control Humanity: One of the more interesting arguments Creation of the Humanoids engages in is the question of what life will be like if and when the robots control mankind. In this movie, the robots have already gained control of who is in gets elected, even though the regular populace has no clue this has occurred. The robots also engage in subtle methods of mind control and brainwashing, all to make the populace more accepting of robot rule. Because the robots believe humans do things not in their best interests, it becomes their duty to “manage” human life. The question is then raised whether humanity will still want to pursue knowledge and self-betterment – after all, what’s the point if everything you even think you might want is automatically provided for you? The answer is rather depressing here – it has already happened – that we’ve just now realized it is almost irrelevant.

The Bottom Line: While the production values suck, the story in Creation of Humanoids is both complex and interesting. Many ideas presented are wonderful grist for later books and movies. As long as you realize that the production values in this flick make the old Dr. Who series look high-tech, you’ll probably enjoy it. While it is very slow-paced and only has about 5 separate scenes, the ideas presented are interesting enough to keep your attention. Aside for the commentary on race relations (obviously a big issue in the early 60s) Creature of the Humanoids makes us think through some interesting notions of post-humanity. While I’d give it 3 stars for its production values, I’d give it an 8 star rating for its story. This won’t appeal to everyone, but is certainly good enough that it shouldn’t be forgotten.

Overview: While Alien 1 and 2 were both stellar movies, the later two sequels definite suffer in comparison. Still, Alien Resurrection provides a significantly different Ripley than is encountered in the first three movies. Ripley is a clone, and an altered one at that. In fact she’s a merging of both the alien and human. With a significantly different approach to visuals and storytelling, Alien Resurrection may not equal the quality of the first two, but certainly can be considered original, which is sometimes a feat in itself for a sequel. The cyberpunk elements, while present, are still sedated, similar to the first Alien (I don’t really consider Alien 2 or 3 to have enough to consider them cyberpunk).

The Story: Two hundred years after her death, Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) has been cloned for the purpose of giving birth to the Alien Queen inside of her at the end of Alien 3. It’s not the corporation this time, instead it’s the good ‘ole government. While it’s never really fully explained how the melding of the two came about, you basically have to “roll” with it if you want to enjoy the movie. In any event, Ripley somehow survives the birth of the Alien, and is kept alive for “study” purposes.

Meanwhile, the Alien Queen that Ripley births requires hosts for her eggs. Enter a group of mercenaries led by Elgyn (Michael Wincott). His group also includes Winona Ryder, Dominique Pinon, Ron Perlman, Gary Dourdan, and Kim Flowers. The mercenaries have captured a ship full of people in suspended animation, and have brought the victims to the military research ship for money and other goodies (including a few days sleep in a regular bed). Things go bad when fanatatical crazed head scientist, Dr. Jonathan Gediman (Brad Dourif) makes the mistake of leaving three of the Alien births in the same cage. Two of the aliens kill the third, who’s acidic innards then create a hole in the floor, thus forming a jail break. From there, its on – aliens are in control and have a field day in eating up the poor humans who can’t escape on time. But unfortunately for the Queen, her DNA has been melded with Ripley’s and her second generation offspring has turned out differently than intended.

Ripley is Different in Resurrection: In Resurrection, we don’t get the tired, beaten down Ripley from the previous two movies who somehow manages to persevere and survive. Instead, Weaver takes to her genetic change with a gusto that mixes just the right mix of alien swagger, camp, and tender humanity. Most importantly, Weaver doesn’t take herself too seriously here. Ripley’s smirks more than anything else make the impossible set-up bearable. Its almost as if she’s saying, “Yeah, this is Frankenstein 4, but you knew the monster (me) needed to come back from the dead if there was to be a sequel, right? Just roll with it and we’ll be OK.” In short, Weaver almost single-handedly makes this sequel work. Ripley’s one liners (such as, “Who do I have to fuck to get off this ship?”) sometimes even come close to equaling those in Aliens. However, this approach can only go so far - if they ever plan on doing an Alien 5, they’re gonna need to revive Abbot and Costello!

The Rest of the Cast: While Weaver shines, the same cannot be said of the rest of the cast. Some of the member are really hit or miss, while others fail altogether. Winona Ryder’s role was a bit too much for her to pull off. First she had to be a believable mechanic (Kaylee, she’s not!), and then had to be an undercover resistance member and finally had to work as a {SPOILER – highlight to read} second generation android. I don’t know who could have worked all three of these aspects into a coherent whole, but Ryder was not able to pull it off. Although, Ryder does shine in some of the scenes – especially those that are similar to Ripley’s role in the first movie where the Ryder is struggling to maintain sanity when everything is stacked against them. For other examples, Brad Dourif as the crazed scientist is too over the top, and Dan Hadaya as the military commander comes off as a complete imbecile. Two notable standouts are mercenaries Ron Perlman and David St. James – both turn in very solid and interesting performances.

The DNA Mixing: OK, the DNA mixing explanation is just too hokey to work. Joss Whedon deserves some credit for at least not running away from this impossible task – instead he makes it a centerpiece to the story (but it still doesn’t’ work – then again, I don’t think anything would). Basically they needed a way of both recreating Ripley will still keeping her memories intact. Their work-around is to state that Ripley’s and the Alien’s DNAs melded together (I suppose this happened in the lava? Good thing they were able to retrieve it, ey?). OK, fine, but I have a few questions: Aliens are uniquely different from humans but their DNA is so close that its not distinguishable form one another? Or assuming the DNA was melded, how exactly did they know what they were looking at? More to the point, how did they figure out (even with lots of trial and error) to make two completely separate organisms out of the DNA? But even taking the ocean of salt needed to buy that explanation, how is it that an alien organism who grows by eating the material in the lungs is able to read Ripley’s memories and retain them? Again, while this clearly is problematic, you really just have to roll with it if you want to enjoy Resurrection.

Genetic Manipulation Scare: Probably the scariest aspect of Alien Resurrection is the notion that in the semi-near future, genetics will be advanced enough and so well understood that even your basic crackpot scientists with the right equipment can play Josef Mengele in experimenting with mixing lifeforms to their hearts content. One can imagine a number of variations to this, but the jist of the concern is that its not too far a stretch to imagine that in the near future, less savory governments or corporations may be lured to do various genetic trials of this kind in the pursuit of fame and profit. This concept in Resurrection is as cyberpunk as one can get.

The Android: Unfortunately the back story is glossed over, but in Alien Resurrection, the androids have somehow developed a second generation android, one who is not beholden to human command. Not surprisingly humanity targeted them for termination, which caused the remaining second generation androids to burn out their communications devices and go into hiding. In Alien Resurrection, it’s the android who holds the tenets of humanity most dear. The android is more concerned with the fate of mankind than all the shallow and flawed humans in this movie. The android is even religious. One wishes this aspect of the androids was explored. If they truly feel that they indeed have a purpose for existence, how is this rationalized, and how have they changed the concept of a human deity to accommodate their self-worth?

The Visuals: Director Jeunet and visual effects supervisor Pitof deserve credit for creating some wonderful visuals in Alien Resurrection. Resurrection contintually treats us to some wonderfully composed shots – shots that far exceed the qualities of the acting. Even if the plot and acting turn you off, the cinematography, wonderful set pieces, models and creature FX will help keep Alien Resurrection bearable. Like many cyberpunk films, a single color dominates the film – yellow in this case. Yes there are some blacks, but yellow seems to permeate all the key scenes.

The Bottom Line: Yes, Alien Resurrection has an extremely problematic story within a flawed movie, but it ends up being more fun than it probably deserves. Even though the rest of the cast doesn’t always support her, Sigourney Weaver turns in a terrific performance. This, along with the originality, the wonderful cinematography and FX make Alien Resurrections a step up from Alien 3, and worthy enough to watch. While the cyberpunk elements are subdued, the android along with the genetics and dystopic civilization (destroyed by human wastes and technology) are enough to include it in this site. Alien Resurrection won’t flip your world like the first two did, but its still worth a watch.

Overview: In the best of cases, remakes of cherished shows rarely turn out good. The MTV Aeon Flux cartoon series was an intensely creative post-modern show by Peter Chung, who broke all the rules of how narratives are supposed to be told. The lead character, Aeon Flux, the ultimate anti-heroine, dies on a regular basis; nobody was purely evil or purely good; and everything was high-tech body modification chaos. Unfortunately, the movie does away with all that. In an attempt to “humanize” the iconic figure of Aeon Flux, the movie version goes for a standard rebels-versus-Orwellian bad guys movie with a twist. While some of the visuals are absolutely terrific (including some wonderful action scenes by Charlize Theron), in the end, this is a very different story with very different characters, and must be understood as such.

The Story: Aeon Flux takes place 400 years after a virus has devastated humanity, killing off 99% of the population. Now, one walled city named Bregna, holding 5 million people is all that remains of humanity. Bregna is ruled by a council of genetic scientists who have (supposedly) been avidly working on fixing the fallout of the virus for the past 400 years. For reasons only partially explained later in the story, the ruling council has instituted a totalitarian government with an extreme crackdown on personal freedoms, and have backed their authority with an intense surveillance apparatus. A group of rebels called the “Monicans” have challenged their right to rule, and have vowed to destroy the ruling council, especially their leader, Trevor Goodchild (Marton Csokas), at all costs.

Aeon Flux (Charlize Theron) is the Monican’s very athletic, butt-kicking, black spandex wearing operator-extraordinaire. No mission is too dangerous, and no obstacle is insurmountable. In what serves as the prologue, Aeon’s last surviving family member, her sister is killed by the Bregan Council authorities – all that remains for Aeon is revenge and the mission. Finally her time comes when the fiery-haired Monican handler (Frances McDormand) authorizes her to go assassinate Trevor Goodchild. So Aeon and her partner with four hands and no feet, Sithandra (Sophie Okonedo), storm the garden and infiltrate the Brega Council compound.

Unfortunately, as Aeon finally encounters Trevor, not all is at it seems. She suddenly has memories of kissing Trevor in a former life. Worse, it looks like there are other forces at work, and perhaps Trevor isn’t the bad guy the Monicans have made him out to be. As Aeon follows her heart and the ever expanding mystery, she engenders anger from the Monicans, while Trevor ends up at the wrong side of a coup-des-tat at the hands of his evil brother, Oren Goodchild (Jonny Lee Miller).

Story Problems: While the front half of the Aeon Flux story works, the back-end is riddled with inconsistencies. If you spend an ounce of time thinking through the motivations, the actions of the main bad guy make no sense. What he really wants (immortality) can be accomplished even Trevor’s experiments prove successful. This is muddied further when the Jurassic Park mantra, “Nature finds a way” is added to the mix. Even weirder is Pete Postlethwaite’s character, who comes across almost as the watcher in a Fantastic Four comic. We are never sure if he is real or Memorex. Worse, his final monologue where he explains his actions adds yet another strange element to the scifi-mix – precognition. In the end, there are too many fantasy-like technologies for this to come across as believable. In brief discussions with on the writers (Phil Hay), it appears that the original script might have been tampered with. I really hope this is the case, as the visuals of the movie were more than strong that they would work for even a passable story.

Changes With Aeon and Trevor From the Cartoon: The move version of Aeon Flux in no way matches the lead characters of Aeon Flux and Trevor. In Peter Chung’s cartoon, Aeon Flux comes across as the ultimate anti-heroine. While she clearly knows right from wrong, and generally tries to stop the worst abuses, Aeon is an ultra-acrobatic, top-notch action-espionage heroine who works for herself, and only operates under her own agenda. Trevor is a mostly malevolent, superior dictatorial character who as a true soft-spot for Aeon. For her, he will bend his approach, but otherwise he rarely is a nice guy. We rarely see fear, doubt, or self-loathing out of Aeon, although she too has an eternal love for Trevor that trumps all. Kusama’s version of Aeon and Trevor tries to humanize them, and in doing so, removes much of their uniqueness and appeal. New motivations and afflictions are created where none previously existed. Worse, their very nature changes. In the end, Trevor turns out to be a misunderstood hero who works valiantly to save humanity – his only fault is he turns a blind eye to his brother’s excesses. Aeon becomes an agent working for others goals, but only later turns to herself based on principled evaluation of what is right and wrong. Again, while both of these characters may be interesting if done well, they bare little resemblance to the mindset of the Aeon and Trevor characters from the original show.

Still, I must give credit to Charlize Theron’s athletic feats in this movie. By all accounts she spent 3 months training to be a gymnast and fighter, and it shows. While for the most part she does away with the ultra skimpy clothes from the cartoon, she really does nail the gracefulness and style of the cartoon Aeon Flux. And while I don’t necessarily agree with the humanization approach, Aeon does pull this off very well, especially considering she has very little dialogue. The fact that she got seriously injured on the tenth day of shooting (herniated disc injury), but came back to continue the vast majority of the stunt work is a testament to her commitment and professionalness, and should be applauded. If I had one complaint with her protrayal, she really doesn’t really “look” the part, in that the cartoon character was a taller figure with a far more angular face and tapered hair.

Editing is Way Too Frantic: Aeon Flux was a very contemplative animated show. Almost always, you had time to properly digest a scene. The atmosphere of the original series is largely based on the pacing. In the movie version, the editing seems designed to artificially hype the tension. In the end, it results in sucking the life out of many of the scenes. You rarely have time to feel connected to the scenes. More often, you feel like you’re riding a roller coaster, even when the scene is nothing more than two people talking.

The Technologies in Aeon Flux: The body modifications (such as hands replacing feet, and various stuff stored within the skin) in Aeon Flux really added to the visual appeal. Also, there were a number of interesting technological innovations. Probably the biggest was the peer-to-peer interaction in “brain space” that the Monicans use to elude the Orwellian-style surveillance systems that the council has set up. The flat metal slices that turn into semi-autonomous exploding balls were visually cool, as was the room that worked in two dimensions (each dimension of frequency holding completely different items). I also liked the bubbling Band-Aids that Aeon has stored, hiding on her skin.

The larger technology involved cloning. In Aeon Flux, cloning equates to flawed reincarnation. With each generation the people are cloned, the memories of their lives somehow stay with their soul – yet with each time they are cloned, the new person has memories from the previous versions. Over time, the cloning ends up destroying each other’s reality. For the most part, I don’t think this idea worked all that well. It gets especially troublesome when we look at the Keeper, who seems to be able to “remember forward” and thus, make decisions 400 years ago that will help save the world well into the future.

The Visuals: Visually, Aeon Flux is a gorgeous movie. We have also sorts of beautiful futuristic city settings, beautiful characters, and really fun FX. Some of the visuals are completely nonsensical though – the most egregious being an early scene involving Aeon wearing white for the ONLY time in the movie when she wants to stealthily sneak into the Brega compound at night. While this helped make Aeon’s character stand out more, it immediately brings a sense of Hollywood unreality to the whole affair. Still, while many of the action scenes didn’t make lots of sense, they were all nicely shot. Some of the fights were pretty gritty, but for the most part, the resembled a gun-version of a kung-fu dance movie.

Lots of Hawt Chick Fighting! One of the better aspects of Aeon Flux involves the massive amounts of hawt chick fighting! Yes, its low-brow, but we like it. We get some really juicy fights between Aeon and Sithandra, and Aeon and Trevor’s bodyguard, Freya (Caroline Chikezie). And of course we have massive amounts of Charlize Theron in tight black spandex, kicking butt. While some have compared this aspect to Catwoman, the comparisons are unfair in that 1) we don’t have Mouseketeer ears, 2) all the fighters are very athletic, unlike Sharon Stone in Catwoman, and 3) the fight choreography is far far better.

The Bottom Line: While there enough to like in Aeon Flux to give it a passing grade, I really can’t give it more than that. A movie version of Aeon Flux should have been a creative, postmodern event that stayed true to the cores of the characters in the cartoon. Evidentally, the studio thought an innovative approach such as this wouldn’t fly with the vast movie-going public. What was created instead, even though different, could have been decent, but was mired down with horrid editing choices and incoherent motivations in the later half of the story. In the end, it’s hard to buy a number of the decisions various characters made.

However, the narrative problems in Aeon Flux may be due more to ridiculous studio meddling than with the actual script – apparently the editing was one casualty of studio meddling. Phil Hay has indicated that he will write an essay on how the Director’s Cut would have been different. He is hoping that DVD sales will be high enough that the studio will agree to release the Director’s Cut, which he claims is a very different movie. Still, Charlize Theron’s excellent acrobatics makes for good eye candy, and turns in a credible performance as a humanized version of Aeon (the Trevor portrayal is completely uncrecognizable from the cartoon though). The visuals are terrific, and the technology is pretty interesting. Similar to other 6 star movies that are high on visuals but have problematic stories (Ultraviolet, T3, Appleseed), you may still be interested in giving this a watch.

Overview: Cyberpunk is a documentary that looks back at the 80s cyberpunk movement, and more specifically, how this has led to a trend in the “real” world where people were starting to refer to themselves as “cyberpunk.” The documentary sees “cyberpunks” as being synonymous with hackers. A number of writers, artists, musicians and scientists are interviewed to provide context to this movement. The guiding meme, as told by Gibson, is that information “wants” to be free. 60s counter-culture drug philosopher, Timothy Leary, provides a prediction that cyberpunks will “decentralize knowledge,” which will serve to remove power from those “in power” and bring it back to the masses. Many different potential technologies are discussed, including “smart drugs,” sentient machines, advanced prosthetics – all of which serve to give context to the idea of post-humanity and its imminent arrival on the world stage.

As a documentary, Cyberpunk is haphazard. Some of the interviews, such as those by William Gibson and Timothy Leary are interesting, while others are mired in mediocrity. To mitigate the boredom of some of these, the film makers stoop to using cheesy visual effects to increase the interest. In one case, an interviewer is duplicated to four small windows, and in another, the talking head is completely moiréd out except for their eye. In fact, we are barraged by a stream of weird, experimental effects – one imagines that these are supposed to give us the “hacker-cyberpunk mindset” or something. In general, they don’t work, but I’m guessing the late 80s CG graphics probably looked far more futuristic back then.

The Bottom Line: This documentary really almost serves as a time capsule for capturing a still emerging hacker counter-culture. From a cinematic perspective, I’m saddened that Blade Runner was virtually non-existent in this. While they covered books, music (Front Line Assembly was the main one), science and art (Jaron Lanier, who coined the term “Virtual Reality”), their coverage of film was pretty sparse, generally restricted to obscure animes (which looked cyberpunk, but unfortunately I’m not familiar with). I will say I liked the younger William Gibson LOTS more than on his No Maps for These Territories documentary. He talks excitedly about cyberpunk, hackers, and our direction towards post-humananity. Ten years later, Gibson comes off completely bored with these ideas, and almost seems to wish he was never associated with the term, Cyberpunk.

Overview: Impostor got bashed by critics for having bizarre cut always, too many slow motion scenes, and generally weird and herky-jerky cinematography decisions. Additionally, others criticize it due to originally being a 30-40 minute short that got extended into a full-length movie. While all true, I truly like both the story (basically the Fugitive, done in a near future setting) and the acting, especially by Gary Sinise and Madeleine Stowe. While the cinematography is definitely subpar in this Philip K. Dick story, the movie itself is still worth a watch.

The Story: Impostor is set in the year 2079, a time when a race of aliens are attempting to invade the earth. To protect the population, humans now live in high-tech “bubbles” which seem to be able to keep out Alien weapon systems. Because of this, the aliens have resorted to creating DNA-based replicants, not unlike those in Battlestar Gallactica, by a process which apparently involves copying captured humans. These replicants are in actuality very powerful bombs, but have no self-awareness of being replicants – when their “trigger” is invoked (such as being in close proximity to their target), they explode.

Sinise plays Spencer Olham, a weapons scientist who has been accused of being replaced by a replicant (called a cyborg in the movie). The security head (Vincent D’Onofrio) captures him and threatens to rip out his heart in order to prove that he’s not a human. Sinise escapes and then engages on a journey to prove his innocence. Olham determines that he can prove his innocence by equipment at the hospital where his wife (Madeleine Stowe) works, that compares a previous body scan with his current body. Unfortunately, he’s already gotten out of the city, and now needs to figure out how to get past security to return.

How Do You Know You’re You? This, in essence is the question Impostor is asking when it’s not in chase-filler mode. Is Spencer Olham a human caught in a horrid mistake, or is he a cyborg comprised of human-like bio-matter that is in actuality a powerful bomb sent by aliens to infiltrate Earth’s defenses in order to kill human leadership? If you were a cyborg-replicant imbued with the memories of the original host, how could you figure it out? Imposter briefly mentions the notion that the cyborgs don’t have a soul, but this is never pursued. One wishes they had come up with some way of quantifying a soul. But in the end, we are left to answer this question ourselves.

The Middle “Chase” scenes are Filler: Originally, Impostor was shot as a 30-40 minute movie short that was intended to be part of a larger collection. Apparently, Miramax liked the short enough (or cooled to the short collection idea) that they wanted it extended into a full length feature film. However, in doing so, they were left with a relatively tight beginning and tight end, and then a vast chasm of nothingness in the middle. By and large, the middle is filled with semi-pointless chase scenes that are sprinkled with people that aren’t germane to the central plot. Now we get a whole underground dystopia thing added to the mix, whereby it turns out that the nice hospital is ONLY for those who live in the bubble, while those in the outer area get little or no medicine and support. In its better moments, the middle part of the movie seems to want to emulate a “Fugitive” type feeling, but this doesn’t always work well. The DVD also includes the original movie short which is definitely worth a watch.

The Visuals: Impostor’s vision of the future is terrific in some places and haphazard in others. The cityscape scenes look right out of blade runner, the bubble city coverings, torture look great, but the majority of Imposter involves treks through regular looking tunnels. The torture equipment and medial imagine equipment are both more than passable. Imposter is strongly dominated by blue tones, which pervade most every aspect, from the chase scenes to the interrogation scenes.

The Acting: By far, the best aspect of Impostor is the acting.Gary Sinise in particular really sells his role well, but Madeleine Stowe and Vincent D’Onofrio also give high quality performances, and Mekhi Phifer is at least passable. With slightly worse performances, Imposter could have easily ended up in the cheesy “B” Movie bin. The effects are uneven enough (some looked great, others looked TV-ish) that solid acting was a must to keep this movie watchable.

The Editing: Impostor is rightly criticized for crazy and continuous cut-shots. Rare is the shot that lasts more than 4 to 5 seconds before cutting to another view. The goal was to add to the tension of the chase scene, but the editors went overboard. Especially when combined with some strange shot angles, Imposter almost takes on an experimental vibe, as if they weren’t sure what would work, so they tried various different things.

The Bottom Line: While this “Fugitive-like” movie has lots of interesting scenes, it’s the ending that I really like - definitely a cool twist. The acting is solid and the visuals are sometimes, but not always, pretty decent. There are lots of pointless tunnel-running that easily could have been cut by 15-20 minutes, and also, there are enough questions and plot holes that stop Imposter from being a great movie. Still, the question of determining humanity is an interesting one, and is well executed.

Overview: Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed recently got a second anime treatment. The last was in 1988 – this time, in 2004, the anime is done up in eye-popping 3D graphics. With a budget of only 10 million as compared to over 90 million for a movie like The Incredibles, we shouldn’t be expecting too much. Surprisingly, we get far more than expected, especially with regards to the wonderfuly rendered backgrounds. While the animation is interesting enough, the story is more problematic. So too are the change in the feel of the characters. This is really where the original version succeeds far better than Aramaki’s version.

The Story: Appleseed takes place in the year 2131, a war-ravaged dystopian future where most all of human society is in ruins. Over two years after the last war, the only example of advanced human civilization is a newly made city called Olympia, which has been engineered to be a created as a perfect refuge from the rest of the world. Over half of the city’s inhabitants are comprised of bio-engineered “biodroids,” which are human-like beings designed to serve specific roles in the society. An all-knowing computer named GIA supports the city council in controlling all aspects of city life.

Deunan Knute, a fighter extraordinaire has been living alone in the wastelands, not realizing that the war is over. She is beset by two warring groups of fighters, one of which who is trying to kill her, and the other group, which rescues her and takes her to Olympia. There she is re-acquainted with her long lost lover, Briareos, who now has been transformed into a cyborg after his body was lost in the war. She is tasked to join “ESWAT,” a special mecha-enabled police force that keeps order within the city. Deunan also befriends a biodroid named Hitomi, who shows her around the city. Unfortunately, Deunan barely gets a chance to settle down before the assassination attempts on her life start.

Duenan quickly learns that she has been dropped in the middle of a power struggle between humans, who are concerned that the biodroids secretly aim to exterminate them, and biodroids, who worry the same about the humans. Somehow, Deunan has become essential in this struggle, yet it has nothing to do with her fighting capabilities. It turns out that her parents, before dying, developed a method for biodroids to reproduce, which would make them almost exactly like humans. But this research was lost long ago. Now, Deunan has become a pawn for both sides of this struggle, and worse, it appears as if her ex-lover, Briareos has chosen sides.

Unfortunately, the story in this version of Appleseed is problematic at best. There are too many sub-plots that obfuscate the key points. The myriad of loose ends introduced that are never followed up on. Gia, the sentient computer that runs Olympus is the probably the worst casualty. We get introduced to her, and, if you know something of the Appleseed story from the Manga, you expect to see lots more than what actually ends up being conveyed. In the end, the plot centers on a simple theme of racism. This is a shame as there were so many interesting cyberpunk aspects of Olympus that get short-circuited.

The Animation: Appleseed’s backgrounds are wonderfully rendered. This more than anything accounts for the majority of the “wows” Appleseed received. They are done in a way that allows 3D camera maneuvering, so as to allow you to see the same scene from multiple angles, and at times, even provides Matrix bullet-time effects. For the most part, the 3D CG overlaid with 2D cell shading really works. It’s an extension of the idea we saw in Malice@Doll, only with far better rendering tools. The machines look especially awesome. Both the Gunhed style tanks at the beginning of the movie and the platform sentinels at the end. Unlike many cyberpunk movies, there isn’t a dominating color palette in Appleseed, but the color scheme seems to stick more often than not to light and dark shades blue-greens, with yellow & browns in transition scenes.

In terms of the characters, only Deunan Knute really looks polished. Her body movements, facial expressions and general actions really work. The rest, especially the human characters, often look stilted in their moments. Hitomi, their biodroid friend, is especially problematic at times. This might be due more to the motion-capture techniques they use, which work wonderfully for the city, but not so well for the characters. Also, I really dislike the way they animated the hair. The hair on the humans in the 2004 edition look like something out of Reboot. However, considering the budget, I think they made the right decision in spending scarce resources on Deunan. Had they just made everyone look slightly better, Appleseed would have faltered horribly. By at least making Deunan polished, they developed a star that fit right alongside their wonderful backgrounds.

The Sound: Many times throughout the anime, Appleseed plays more like a music video than it does a movie. The modern heavy rock beats worked well for the action scenes. And truly, the action scenes are where Appleseed excels. There, the 3D positional sound, the music accompaniment and the 3D CG graphics are at their absolute best. The accompanying score really wasn’t all the memorable, but at least served up the slower paced moods fairly well.

Differences From Shirow’s Work: While both animes deviate from Masamune Shirow’s Appleseed Manga, Aramaki’s version is the most egregious. While the 2004 version starts outside of Olympia as the Manga does, it only has Duenan there, whereas in the Manga has both. This version introduces a new dramatic twist of Duenan and Briareos getting back together for the first time in two years. While this in itself isn’t bad, the side-effect is: these two characters are no NOTHING like the Manga. The Duenan Knute and Briareos of Shirow’s Manga, and of the 1988 version, are precursors to the Ghost in the Shell’s Motoko and Batou. Here, Briareos is a moody, lost soul trying to deal with his cyborg body, and Duenan is far more vulnerable than tough. The playful chemistry we see between these two both in the Manga and the 1988 anime is completely missing here. For those who aren’t familiar with the Manga, this probably won’t bug you, but it certainly sapped some of the enjoyment out of this movie for me – so much so that I’m dropping a star off the review for it.

The Bottom Line: Appleseed is definitely worth seeing for the visuals alone. While some of the characters don’t work, the Duenan, the machines and the action scenes work wonderfully. Unfortunately, the story doesn’t equal up. Too many elements are introduced and then discarded in favor of a truly simplistic storyline. They could have done better. Also, as I mention above, this is not the Deunan and Briareos I’ve become familiar with – these characters are different from both the Manga and the earlier anime. This bugged me enough to drop a star from the review, but you might not mind so much.

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