ferna_oe Reviews

Neon Genesis Evangelion (1995–1996)

A Science fiction masterpiece.

[10/10 · 27 December 2016]

Neon Genesis Evangelion a solid execution of the alien invasion science fiction archetype. Evangelion messes with the story of spirituality of our catholic western society at the same time as explicitly showing us a credible approach of mankind's extinction with a naturalistic eye.

(SEVERE SPOILERS)

An astronomic event wipes out 80% of the human population, and mankind faces the arrival hostile extra-solar beings. Humanity gathers to form a private international-military-coalition: NERV which contracted by the UN sets the planet in state of site. An ultra-high-tech-project lead by the last scientists develops the ultimate weapon of human-civilization. Evangelion: Gigantic-humanoid-tanks controlled by brainwaves, with superhuman strength, armor against, artillery, missile and nuclear weapons, and a psycho-spiritual-shield of amplified life energy: AT-Fields which renders them almost-unbeatable.

The aliens called angels are of unknown origins and intentions,and seen as messengers of God sent to punish humanity for their sins. Putting myth before science at the forthcoming of the apocalypse, a religious approach overshadows the empiric one. Spectators are witness the last days of the desperate resistance.

In the flooded estuary of Tokyo a fortress-city has been built over the ruins of the former, to hold the military task-force for the Asia-pacific sector of Earth. All the assets left in the whole are focused on up-keeping the population of workers maintaining the military effort.

Fourteen-year-old Shinji Ikari, son of Gendo Ikari the commander-in-chief of the local division of NERV is recruited for test-piloting the Evangelion-unit-01 after reactivation following a long maintenance-run. Suposedly capable of maintaining the required level of neurological-synchronization to be an appropriate pilot, shinji is relocated from the outskirts to a new school and an apartment near the Headquarters and taken care of by a NERV Officer.

He is soon taken into the base to begin with his harsh training. After briefing he is boarded into the Evangelion-unit-01 on a capsule which is injected inside the Eva's spinal-chord linking the neuronal-nets of the pilot and the machine. As the unit is activated Shinji achieves an expected exceptional level of synchronization.He can control the Eva as if his own enhanced body, but everything the machine feels he will too.

Introduced to other pilots which share his position, Shinji realizes the severe physical and psychological trauma caused by the extremely stressful task which overwhelms their emotionally sensitive teenage minds. Way too early he is taken into action on a mission due to the unforeseen arrival of an Angel after a long peace window which the military isn't able to control with regular firepower. Frightened by the situation he is forced to face the Hostile creature in combat. As he fails to overcome his fierce opponent due to flimsy training, the vicious alien abuses the unit-01 breaking its arm and painfully piercing its skull. Thought to be put down with Shinji dead, the unit-01 suddenly reactivates itself and acts alone, obliterating the invader with a high cost to the integrity of the city and its inhabitants.

The story develops showing the psychological efforts the characters are forced to cope with to keep struggling under the immense stress of war and depicting the complex and risky operations NERV has to pull-off with limited resources as further Angels keep coming from the unknown depths of space in relentless waves. All comes at a fair pace to a dramatic climax and the deserved unraveling of the mystery behind the unethical genesis of the Evangelion, to the origin of Angels and the "Human-Instrumentality-Project" lead secretly by NERV's inner circle.

Angels are alien creatures sent by ancient Godlike extraterrestrial beings to make contact with and activate "seeds" placed in the moon and Earth long time before humans were planted on the planet. The seeds gave birth to two alien-semi-deities known by NERV as ADAM and LILITH.

LILITH is being contained in the lower layers of the earth's crust under Tokyo in a special armored facility. While Adam's genetic material extracted from its dead body was used to clone him onto the Evangelions.

Once Adam and Lilith make physical contact, a sacred instance is triggered forcing an evolutionary step towards making humanity a more advanced race in the cosmos. Every human being alive is chemically dissolved into a liquid-primal-substance which flows into the ocean. Using this substance, the being born of ADAM and LILITH unite all humans into one single-entity and harnesses it to Earth to make a planetary-collective-consciousness.

As Shinji and his partner pilot Asuka Langley were both inside Evangelion with AT-Fields while this events took place, they didn't join the Grand Fusion, and become the last human couple capable of reproduction. Shinji's utter desperation, fear and anger make him strangle his partner thus becoming the single last human alive in the universe.

All of this is shown in majestic hand drawn cell animation technique as only the artist in japan can do. The backgrounds are gorgeous depicting destroyed yet beautiful rural landscapes, and credible futuristic urban and military architecture. All the technical assets are exquisitely drawn with detailed technical accuracy in the case of real machinery, and credible creativity in the science fiction elements.

The characters are all credible as they show their frail humanity searching for courage in harsh times. Some may find certain scenes melodramatic, but you need to understand this is Japanese storytelling and thus have different narrative standards are used on cathartic evocations. The alien creatures are varied in shapes ranging from microscopic to kilo-metric and shows different behaviors, as brutal very-hostile-beast-like-creatures or intelligent a-moral schemers capable of communicating and empathizing with humans. The design of the Evangelion is unique, making them an instant reference in the culture of the 90's genre.

Evangelion is a true feat of animation and an unequaled masterpiece in the science-fiction genre which will give to speak and re-watch for decades to come. 10/10

The Conjuring 2 (2016)

Genre saturation Showcase.

[3/10 · 12 June 2016]

Don't take me wrong. I did not hate The conjuring 2. It is an enjoyable film, in many terms. But I need to stress out, that this is one of the many films that have come lately, which is absolutely all about selling the product. The Hype. The anticipation. The goal of the producers lies 1 second after the ticket is sold, and not quite 1 second after the film is over. The conjuring 2 takes its context out of a very documented paranormal case which took place in England in 1977. It narrates the story of a family of 5, single mom, and 4 children, which are tormented by a spirit, and who eventually, get to be assisted by experts-in-these-topics Ed and Loraine Warren.

The premise might not be original at all, but it still works. The problem comes when such a premise is used at an attempt to pull off an over 2 hours long feature film.

About 30 minutes in, you will start to notice that this film is desperate. It is desperate to make you scared and live up to its own trailers and expectations. It might succeed on some (mostly children under 14 who sneaked inside the theater or whose irresponsible parents lied about their age at the ticket booth). But seasoned horror film enthusiasts will be able to anticipate almost every single jump-scare or even take a leap of faith and predict the outcome of a whole scene. Why? Because everything that happens in the conjuring 2, you have already seen or experienced in other films. This is the type of film you can watch with a notebook and start checking those clichés as they appear. The effort through which the writers struggled to come out with anything barely original or "never seen" before is noticeable, and every time they fail. Now considering this film is 110+min long, you will get tired quickly of hearing a loud noise, the a scream, and the some generic paranormal door slam, or furniture dash, because it happens a lot, and it get old a lot faster.

Don't get me wrong. It is not a trash film. Production values alone are worth the ticket. The film is beautifully filmed, in dark and ominous colors, and the house looks stunning even in almost 95% darkness. The music is interesting and tense, and the acting is top notch. (And the vile nun got myself quite convinced it was Marilyn Manson) But if you're there for the technical specs of it, you could have gone to other place to watch Citizen Kane.

It saddens me a little, to be witness of the decadence of the horror genre. Where most of the production money goes towards jump-scare roller-coaster rides like this one. The recipe for box office success was found, and they just keep making the same cake with different glazing. You will probably notice that before the film even starts, when you see that 4 trailers, and then you cannot make the difference between the 4 generic horror movies you've been shown. Probably you won't even be able to recall the names of the films. Because it doesn't matter. 3 stars. Enjoyable overall, but terribly generic.

Insidious (I) (2010)

Clichés galore. Still fun to laugh at.

[2/10 · 5 April 2016]

Insidious is another one to follow this late horror film tendency which started with the conjuring, to throw all the classic horror film elements onto the grill and shamelessly pretend to achieve something new or fresh, actually not achieving anything at all.

As it starts, you can already take your notebook out and start checking on your cliché list: Old widow ghost, check, moving to an old haunted house check, baby monitors check, child's drawings check, rocking toy horse check, skeptical father, kid ghost, twins ghost, Gothic vampire ghost, esoteric technicians installing monitors, esoteric rites, the only missing stuff was the monster of Dr. Frankenstein, the mummy and green slime dripping off the walls.

After all that mess, you get to see the father go into the beyond to rescue his child from a pedophile bondage sex loving demon, which instead of horrifying is ridiculous and cheesy as it can get. And predictably, an evil twist the end which of course is the trampoline production wanted to leave there in order to have a stating point for the obvious sequels, because, you never want to stop milking the cookie cutter horror films cow.

Seriously, this film is far from horror. Is mostly an exercise for cinema students on how much used resources and clichés can ruin the very fabric of art. Think of this. How many changes should yo make to this film to turn it into a Scary Movie 9 or even an Adventure Time episode? Not many. That's how not scary it is.

Magic Magic (2013)

Not an entertaining film, but a true piece of art.

[8/10 · 27 September 2015]

This film will not entertain you. It may even upset you. If you want to have a good time, go watch Mr. Bean on vacation or Age of Ultron.This film is all about trying to understand a reality that may be totally alien to a normal person. Based on an experience Director Sebastian Silva had on a trip to Brazil, it portrays how seemingly mundane situations can turn out to be nightmarish for someone with traces of Paranoid-Schizophrenia: Alicia, a timid California girl, joins her cousin Sarah on a road trip to southern Chile. Along come Agustin (Sarah's boyfriend), Barbara (Agustin's older sister), and Brink, an annoying, hyper active and not very empathetic American friend of Agustin. Sarah is quickly out of the crew due to having to perform an exam to save her college year. Later on it is revealed that it was just an excuse to get an abortion. Her absence leaves Alicia alone with the trio of Spanish speaking strangers, which seem to increasingly alienate and harass her. Tension builds up slowly, as Brink and Agustin try to have fun just to make Alicia feel more and more uncomfortable and scared, escalating to a dramatic ending. Lots of scenes are beautifully filmed, and portray stunning panoramas of southern Chile's Lakes and mountains. (I'd dare to say the film's location is some isle on the middle of Lago Ranco) This film is filled with subtleties that will give you hints on how to understand Alice's seemingly insane behaviour. If you have had an experience with someone who suffers such a disease, you will understand it right on. It is not simple to achieve what Silva has masterfully done with this film. Not an easy to recommend film, but certainly a must watch.

V/H/S Viral (2014)

Awful

[1/10 · 25 March 2015]

Well I certainly expected to be disappointed by the third one after the decline from 1st to 2nd. But his goes beyond disappointment.

First of all, in general terms, V/H/S's formula is very, very simple. A baseline Story about people in strange circumstances finds recorded footage containing even stranger circumstances. The one and only challenge here is the creativity to make up an excuse for the characters to be "casually filming" the obscure and bizarre.

1st did it quite well. All of the stories felt very natural and candid. 2nd one felt a bit more forced. But his one fails completely, I could not understand if they betrayed this simple formula in order to give themselves "more room" to tell more complex stories (and utterly failed in the process) or they were simply too lazy to give their own stories a creative way of narrating them with one point of view.

About each individual story: 1st one, Dante. This one gets 0/10 stars. It is just awful. The kind of thing that makes you feel vicarious shame. This is the most overly produced of the three, with multiple camera shots, and even some interviews with fake "personas" that give their opinion on a police case. It centers around a Magician with a demonic cloak that was supposed to have been Houdinni's. Just putting it that way makes it sound like something you could watch in AXN at 16:00 on cable TV. But I assure it is much worse. There's quasi matrix style fighting, very poor pacing, and what absolutely killed it for me was the fireballs. Worse of all, it was not scary At All. It was just a dumb, badly executed, capricious story about a magician. No one wants to watch that.

2nd one: Spanish portal. This one gets 5/10 stars. To be fair, it was the one that made me keep watching the film. It took a quite bold approach to a theme that hasn't been touched too much in sci-fi cinema at all. That made it tickle my curiosity quite a bit. It is about a Spanish engineer or inventor who creates an inter-dimensional gate in his basement. On his final attempt, he manages to connect his doorway with one of an identical Spanish inventor's in a mirror imaged dimension. They say hello and swap universes for 15 minutes. By that time I was quite wondered with the creativity and the simple but none the less, filled with infinite possibilities plot that was put in front of me after the mess that was Dante. To make it short, the other universe was a Satanic/Demonic/Anticatholic but quite candid version of this one. Though not directly "Scary", they managed to pace it at a very tense rate and created a quite unsettling ambiance. This is the only one worth watching.

3rd one. Fu-Manchu's Evil Eye video-clip: This one gets 1/10 stars. It looks like a film that those very same skaters could have filmed over the weekend for a school project. Since there's nothing interesting on this one, I will sum it up: Skater kids filming skating videos go to Mexico to skate on an abandoned ditch. They're attacked by zombie / skeleton creatures. They retaliate with skateboards and a gun. That's it. Nothing more worth commenting. Just plain, cheap zombie short. Not scary, not even fun.

Finally, the centerline: This one also gets 1/10 stars. You never quite understand what the point of this story is. In other V/H/S Films, the centerline is related to how were the other videos found. This one does not. It is just a mess of intentionally badly edited footage of a guy filming his girlfriend in different places. Suddenly it is all about a very dumb and very hard to make to sense ice cream truck police chase. The ice cream truck is a lame, overly used cliché on its own. No body knows why, the girlfriend disappears, and camera guy chases after the truck on a bike. This makes you think, how can a guy on a bike, filming, can get to the truck and the police can not. Well, after few totally unnecessary scenes with gratuitous violence and a guy that films girls getting naked in a taxi (wtf?), camera guy get to the truck that is parked in the middle of a ditch. Inside there's old TVs and a recording of his girlfriend telling him to push a button. He does. His girlfriend appears outside the truck dead, with a phone on her mouth. Not scary, not fun, No sense at all.

It really saddens me to see how a franchise that felt so fresh and interesting, and that was actually quite scary on it beginning (mostly the 1st V/H/S's web cam aliens, demon-chick and night stalker) has taken such a stupid, lazy, uncaring and even pretentious path. Please excuse my English (: