Grabbers Review

The mood for a scary movie doesn't strike often, as I don't care for the horror genre much as a matter of preference. Teetering between horror and a light hearted comedy, I found a nice compromise. It's an Irish film called Grabbers (2012). Residents of an Irish island must get very drunk to survive attacks by blood-sucking alien monsters who can't tolerate a high blood alcohol level in their victims. You can't tell me that doesn't sound like a fun time. It's kind of a spiritual sequel to Tremors or Slither but with more alcohol.

On Aran Island, an idyllic fishing village off the coast of Ireland, a charming but somewhat work-shy police officer Ciaran O'Shea (Richard Coyle), is tasked with greeting officer Lisa Nolan (Ruth Bradley), a straight-laced young officer who has arrived from the mainland for temporary assignment. Not that there is much for them to do, aside from dealing with the occasional drunk, and that's usually O'Shea himself. Simultaniously, blood-thirsty, sea-dwelling aliens arrive at the quiet island to propagate. As dead whales wash up on shore and people start mysteriously disappearing, the officers and marine ecologist Dr. Adam Smith (Russell Tovey) slowly discover their peril along with one sure defense - high blood alcohol levels, which the aliens can't stomach. As a storm approaches, enabling hungry alien hatchlings access to the locals, an open bar kicks off a desperate bid for survival as inebriated police and friends stagger to remain cognizant long enough to thwart the alien invasion.

It's tricky to make a good horror/comedy movie. It needs to be balanced. You don't want too much horror or you won't like the characters. Inversely too much comedy and you'll hate the creature; let's face it, that's what you came to see. Grabbers manages to balance them evenly. The characters develop with each other rapidly and the creature is well made. The Grabbers do kill off a couple of people, as is expected, but overall it's not gratuitous with the violence. It's got just the right mix of scares and humor, and we end up with a pretty fun movie overall.

The humor is varied and usually intelligent enough to keep audiences engaged. It wasn't over the top with actors trying to punctuate insipid, juvenile humor with ridiculous facial expressions like you might see Will Farrell or Adam Sandler do to indicate that they think they have done something funny. There is a lot of self referential humor that plays on just about every Irish joke ever told. In an early scene, Dr. Smith is researching the dead whales washed up on the beach. O'Shea finds an alien egg and not knowing what it was yet starts beating it with a stick before Dr. Smith has a chance to study it. Annoyed Smith says to him, "You... really are Irish."

In another scene, after O'Shea manages to remove one of the Grabber aliens from his face, he, Nolan, and Smith start beating it with everything they can until it stops moving. Dr. Smith, having mixed feelings about this says, "This was one of the most important discoveries of the century, and you killed it." O'Shea responds by saying "Nope, still moving" and the three panic and start stomping on the creature again. Later on, a very drunk Dr. Smith, oblivious to the danger he is in, tries to get a picture with one of the large Grabbers. "I need a photograph with it for National Geographic! And Facebook." The dialogue is funny, and decently well written.

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) did not review Grabbers to give it a rating, so it is officially "Not Rated" or NR. It is rated 15 in the UK, and 15A in Ireland; I assume that's something like PG-13 by American standards. Grabbers is tricky, though. It ends up in kind of a grey area between PG-13 and R. As stated, the violence is not gratuitous, there is no nudity, and as there are many drunken Irishmen in this movie, there is therefore some strong profanity. But some of the delightful Irish accents are so thick, I didn't recognize some of their vocabulary as profanity until I was halfway through the movie. There are also two pretty convincing decapitated head props used, though we don't actually see the decapitations occur. If you're not too offended by that, I'd say this is a PG-13 movie.

The story is a standard creature feature with jump scares and ugly man-eating monsters. The movie doesn't really do anything original as far as what we typically see in the genre, though it does put a funny spin on it by requiring the protagonists to have a high blood alcohol level to stay safe from the aliens. This adds some humor and tension, as we aren't sure if they are coherent enough to fight the monsters off or escape from a building. I can't think of other horror movies that get gorgeous shots of the Irish countryside. It is well enough made that it tends to be a cut above the rest of the straight to video creature features out there. The CGI on the Grabbers really is quite good, too!

Grabbers is a fairly standard creature feature with some competent actors, funny humor, a few decent scares, good camera work, good digital animation, some beautiful Irish scenery, and thankfully doesn't take itself very seriously. In general, this isn't going to appeal much to audiences who aren't already fans of campy creature features. It's not for everyone. Even if you are not a fan, this is still a pretty good time for a light movie. Out of all the bad decisions you may have drunkenly made, one viewing of Grabbers makes up for a lot of them. With or without beer goggles, it's an entertaining film - and without any regrets the following morning!

What is your favorite "creature feature?" Comment below and let me know!

Movie Review: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time

Generally, when a non-movie media become popular some Einstein in Hollywood thinks there needs to be a movie based off of it. These have varying degrees of success. Movies based on books usually do okay; comic books tend to be hit or miss; and TV show movies tend to be pretty bad. They have yet to make a good movie based on a video game, with the worst probably being the Super Mario Bros. movie (1993). Disney had some success with making Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl(2003) which was based on the Disneyland attraction. Evidently, Disney thought that with the success thatPirates of the Caribbean brought them, a similar production based on a long running video game series would be good idea.

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (2010) is set in a romanticized ancient Persia. In the prologue, King Sharaman (Ronald Pickup) adopts an orphaned street urchin, Dastan, to rear along with his other sons. King Sharaman thought Dastan was worthy of becoming nobility because Dastan defended another boy who was being beaten and then escaped by running around on rooftops. Dastan (Jake Gyllenhaal) grows to become a reputed warrior and prince. After receiving information that the Holy City of Alamut is supplying weapons to the enemies of Persia, Dastan’s adoptive brothers Garsiv (Toby Kebbell) and Tus (Richard Coyle) prepare to attack the city. While attacking the city, Dastan comes into possession of a strange dagger. King Sharaman stops the attack and arranged for the marriage of Tus to Alamut’s princess, Tamina (Gemma Arterton). Dastan is later framed for the mysterious murder of King Sharaman. Dastan escapes with Princess Tamina who tells him about the dagger’s power to send its wielder back in time by a few seconds. Dastan and Tamina set out to discover who is behind the false rumors about Alamut, the murder of King Sharaman, who is after the time-altering dagger and why.

Similar to Pirates of the Caribbean, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time is full of silly characters, over the top action scenes, and special effects. The only Prince of Persia game I’ve ever played was in 1989 on an Apple II computer. The storyline there wasn’t any more complicated than that of Super Mario Bros. game in 1985: save the princess. Other Prince of Persia games have been released, but I don’t know how the movie compares, as I have never played the more recent ones.

Dastan is a painfully generic hero character. He’s inherently good and incorruptible; he isn’t challenged by moral dilemmas, he just does the right thing because he’s good. This makes him very uninteresting. He’s also a carbon copy of every Persian hero to ever grace the silver screen; Disney’sAladdin (1992) and The Thief of Bagdad (1940) come to mind. He’s really not any different at the end of the movie than he is at the beginning. He’s just boring.

Tamina drove me nuts! There’s hardly a single line that she speaks to Dastan that isn’t somehow insulting, demeaning, or challenging of his capabilities or competence. She was bratty, untrusting of anyone, and would stab Dastan in the back at her earliest convenience. Why on earth were they in love by the end of the movie!? I would have tied her to a cactus half way through the movie and left her for dead. The romantic interest between Dastan and Tamina had no basis or logic behind it. The meager romance was included for the sake of having romantic scenes in the movie. Towards the climax of the movie Dastan has Tamina by the arm over a cliff, keeping her from falling to her death. I actually shouted at Dastan to just let go and put her out of his misery. She is pretty, but I’d like to think there should be more requirements to being a princess than just being pretty. Tamina is one of the worst damsels in distresses I’ve ever seen.

The action scenes were rather confusing. A lot of the movie was filmed in front of a green screen. The backgrounds occasionally didn’t match up with the movements of the camera very well, which gave the viewer a vague sense of space. On top of this the camera was often doing close shots of the actors fighting. This gave you a good sense that something was happening, but not a good sense of what was happening. Yes they are fighting, but what is it they are doing and who is winning? I felt like I should be on the edge of my seat, but I wasn’t sure why since I couldn’t tell what was actually going on.

At one point, Dastan is sinking in huge sinkhole of sand. I’m not really sure how he got there and it certainly doesn’t show how he got out. One moment he’s in the sinkhole, the next moment he’s on this cascading waterfall of sand tumbling down towards a cliff. It doesn’t show Dastan falling through the sinkhole and onto the sand-waterfall; it doesn’t show him escaping the sinkhole only to fall again into the sand-waterfall. This is more an issue of bad editing than confusing action scenes.

Not only were the characters uninteresting and shallow, but I wasn’t really sure what they were fighting for. Sure, keep the Dagger of Time away from the evil Uncle Nizam (Ben Kingsley), but what happens if he gets it? They could just reset time they way they want it. No one has a risk of dying; they just go back in time a few seconds and prevent the death. They do this several times in the movie. So, if you can just correct anything with the dagger, who cares of Nazim becomes King of the Persian Empire? Who cares if anyone dies? It can just be corrected.

Disney seemed to be trying to make another swashbuckler action movie with Prince of Persia, but the movie just ended up being really underdeveloped and shoddily done. If you look at it in the context of being a very simple fairy tale with some over the top action scenes, it becomes slightly more palatable. The movie is also such light viewing that you could put it on as background noise while cleaning the house, catch glimpses once in a while, and still not miss anything. It’s a pretty clean movie, too. It would be alright for a family movie night with kids, but really there are much better movies you can watch as a family.