#kelnius

I hope what whoever pulled this prank was proud of themselves...

I did not, until I read this article on Cracked.com, and read a little of this Vulture article that further elucidates upon it.

Not only was he bisexual, he was proud of it and wasn't shy to talk about it with friends and family - although he mostly had to keep that side of himself secret in his public performances, he purportedly wrote the explicit details of his sexual exploits in his diary.

I've been doing research on different kinds of horror film - or "thriller" films - lately, and Monolith was one which caught my eye based on the premise alone. The idea is simple, a young mother gets a very secure, high-tech car that is designed to be completely safe and totally impenetrable... but she accidentally locks her son in the car, and she has to get him out before he dies in the hot car. It's an interesting idea, because there's a lot that you can do with the high-security smart car concept, but despite how sci-fi the car is, this is a very barebones concept.

All this movie is really doing is taking a thing which can be quite scary but is easily solved - i.e. locking your kid in the car - but takes away all the solutions, forcing the character into desperation. Get someone to help? She can't, the car's in the middle of the desert. Wait for someone to help? She can't, the road is abandoned. Call for someone to find you? She can't, her phone is locked in the car. Break the window? She can't, all the windows are bulletproof. Break the door? She can't, the car's security is active & the doors are armoured. Run to get someone to help? She can't, the nearest person is too far away. This film is basically taking that simple adult fear, of locking your child in the car, and ramps it all the way up to eleven... which is why it was surprising to me that this film wasn't very scary.

The first issue is the premise itself, the child is locked in the car because the Monolith - the titular brand of the car - is designed to be safe... but, wait, it's a well-known fact that children and pets die in hot cars. There are even laws against it, so how did the car's manufacturers not realize that this was possible? You could potentially make this work if the car was an early prototype, or if the car's security had become overactive... but, this is specifically a smart car, it even has a talking artificial intelligence, and it adapts to new dangers to keep the occupants safe. One of the plot-points is that it can even tell the weight of each occupant and can estimate age based on that data. So, essentially, this is an Idiot Plot for the car's A.I. - they made this car so smart that in order for this movie to work, the car also has to be very stupid whenever the plot decides it has to be.

Another issue I had with this film is that I didn't find the main character very engaging. I honestly can't tell you if Katrina Bowden is a good actress or not. I wouldn't call her great, and don't get me wrong she is not bad at all, I enjoyed most of her earlier scenes as they were believable and characterized her as Sandra a desperate but imperfect mother. Nixon Hodges and Krew Hodges both do well portraying the four-year old son, David. They would laugh, scream, cry and even gasp desperately for breath pretty convincingly for their age. Last but not least, Katherine Kelly Lang voices Lilith, the A.I. in the car, and I felt she did a good job giving the car personality without humanity. But once the film kicks into gear, David gets locked in the car, and Lilith's speech function deactivates, so it's just us and Sandra, but the script doesn't really give Sandra much to do except be frustrated, get scared & slowly start to die. Sure, she keeps wanting to save her kid, but she doesn't really 'do' much. Once the easy solutions are thwarted, she can't just break the window, so you'd think that she'd spend most of it working out harder solutions, but once again the Monolith car itself creates an issue...

See, the car is impenetrable, but the plot of the story requires that is be penetrable (or at least offer some hope that it might be, or could be), so the writers ran into a Death Star Dilemma - they needed the conflict to be genuine, so they designed a big, scary problem; but then they needed a solution, so they needed to make the big scary problem slightly less scary and big... they needed to create a crack in the armour of the big, scary problem for the hero to exploit - and the way it's written just feels overly convenient and lazy. See, this car has "safety features" which are referenced vaguely, but never explained, so we don't know what this car can do until it does it in the film. This means that whenever a safety feature does pop up, it feels almost random. It's less a new conflict rising from the actions of the main character, and more:   "Huh, I guess the car can do that, then..." So, even though these can add conflict, there's no tension because we're not aware of these until after they happen. Sure, there's the constant tension of the kid in the car the whole time, but the problem is that this is a movie so I was 99% sure that the kid was going to survive. And when some of the problems that arise are resolved by:   "Huh, I guess the car doesn't do that, then..." It just makes me feel like the story isn't so much progressing as treading water.

You know what, I've mentioned a few issues, but do you know what the main problem of this film is? It doesn't seem to mean anything. Out of curiosity, I checked to see if I was right, and the director talks about high-minded ideals. It's about "how we lose our agency to the perils of technology"; it's about "how even parenting is being put in the hands of machines". It's interesting that he says that, because he could also SAY that the film was about anything he wants, but it doesn't change what the cameras captured. If I had to tell you what the film ultimately meant, based on the film I watched, it seems to be "geez, deserts really suck, don't they?" Nothing about mankind, machines or motherhood. Just that it sucks to be in the desert, especially when you don't have easy access to a phone. Or, maybe "don't be an early adopter of technology - especially if you’re a parent". And that really sucks, because that whole thing about parenting, and technology? Yeah, that's what I thought this film was going to be about. That's why I loved the premise... in an attempt to keep her son safe, a mother buys a car that can keep her son safe from everything - including herself.

Now, don't get me wrong - I know that I am here to review the movie I watched, not the movie it could have been. I'm a reviewer, not a script doctor [although, I probably could be a good script doctor... any takers?], so I'm not upset that this film wasn't what I wanted it to be. I'm upset that it wasn't anything else. This didn’t seem to have any meaning or allegory, but if your movie isn't allegorical, then you need to lean hard on narrative and realism and this film doesn't do that either. It takes a beautiful premise and squanders it on a middling plot, with only one or two original ideas throughout.

The Lifeline Bookfest was on not that long ago, and I went to get some cool, cheap books.

One of the biggest complaints that people have against Superman is that he's overpowered. I'm no comicbook expert but based on what I've heard from comicbook analysts, the fact that he is overpowered can be an issue with bad writers; however, the best stories turn that "flaw" into a feature, by focusing on the conflict others face by having to confront the a perfect, powerful hero. So, with such an all-powerful good guy, it practically begs the question...      What if Superman was evil? For legal reasons, this Sony movie can't just outright admit that their main character is based on Superman™ (since the movie rights still belong to Warner Brothers despite how much they've been abusing it), so instead of “Clark Kent”, Brandon Breyer is a child with an alliterative name who is completely invulnerable to harm, possesses astonishing strength, develops the ability to fly as fast as a speeding bullet and can fire lasers from his eyes. This guy is Superman in all but name and, of course, personality, since he turns out to not exactly be a "good guy". And, rather than being from Smallville, this kid's alien pod crash-landed in Brightburn, Kansas - hence the title. See, this isn't just an evil superman, but an evil Superman origin story...

And to be honest, and that's the first mistake. Don't get me wrong, piecemeal revelations regarding this kid's powers are cool, but this movie doesn't really dwell on that. Instead, we're given one or two creepy scenes where the kid learns about his powers (and his origins not long after). But, he basically learns his abilities through the course of a single day, and can use them with great skill and accuracy from then on out. The only reason I can think of as to why they fast-forward through these is because the writer didn’t know how to make an immortal, unstoppable child scary unless he had all of superman’s powers, so they wrote him to have his full loadout from the offset.

Sure, the way those scenes are shot are very effective, and the music swells appropriately - but you probably already knew that since they were all in the trailer. In fact, everything original in this movie shows up in the trailer - the first few "kills", the creepy outfit, his interaction with fellow kids and even some of the scenes from the third act (although, in the movie the gore isn't censored). To be frank,  this whole movie feels like it was shot for the trailer. Each scene feels like it was designed to be cut up and edited into a cool scene for the trailer, to advertise the "evil superman" gimmick. So, despite the fact that this has good cinematography and editing, it feels like it was wasted.

Part of the reason why it feels that way is because there aren't really any characters in this movie, they don’t act like normal people, but rather they need to act in a contrived way to take us from one horror set-piece to another. So, there's not so much character growth and development, as instead there are a series of character actions, to keep the plot going. The kid dresses up in a creepy cape and hood for no explained reason - and at one point he actually flies away in the middle of a scene just so that he can make a costume change and return wearing the creepy hood. The mother keeps secrets, for no explained reason, only to reveal them at the most dramatic moment. The kid goes from an all-powerful tyrannical psycho back to pretending to be a regular boy as easily as the flick of a lightswitch, whenever the plot requires it. The local police somehow intuits that the most likely killer in the town is an eleven year old child, simply because of a tag at the crime scene which looks like his initials, despite the fact that they have no reason to believe that this kid is capable of the such superhuman acts. The kid himself also decides to draw detailed sketches of all of his crimes, for no explicable reason other than so that someone can find it later in the movie. And worst of all, there are some really effective scenes in this movie which I thought were interesting, but each time those subplots were quickly dropped.

One subplot was based around Caitlyn, a local schoolgirl played wonderfully by Emmie Hunter that the superpowered kid seems to find cute, but when he discovers his powers he starts to stalk, abuse and harass her. In each scene she acts the hell out of it, making you feel terrified for her, since she looks so scared and vulnerable, but there’s a total of two, maybe two-and-a-half scenes where this happens, only to then move on to more horror set-pieces. There are also a few scenes where Mr Breyer, the father played with convincing fear and anger by David Denman starts to suspect that his “son” is even more alien than he first thought, but this whole subplot seems to occupy a little over five minutes of screentime. I also want to praise the work of Duncan A. Dunn, who portrays Brandon Breyer the main “evil superhero” character, because although he sometimes seems kinda dull, I know that this isn't bad kid acting. In the earliest scenes we get to see him emote, and when he resorts to intimidation in one scene, he is scary even without the mask on, so I know for a fact that this this kid can act very well, which means it has to be the direction making him to act so unnaturally.

See, the absolute worst part of this movie is that this kid isn't a real character. Sure, he is an “evil superman”, but the thing is, the kid never chooses to be evil, there’s not actually a character-driven reason behind it. What makes him evil is that a creepy voice from his birth-pod tells him to be evil. In fact, by the way that he’s forced to repeat the alien words, and even slowly understands what they mean, it seems to be implying that it’s compelling him to be evil. Sure, there is a scene or two where he acts uncaring, and he outright says that he's superior to other people, but there's no reason to believe that he chose to believe that, or was raised to have these evil feelings. Instead, he might as well have got an "evil" software update when he synced with his birth-pod... 

You might be thinking that I'm being a spoilsport - that it's not about the story but the horror and death scenes. Well maybe, but they're not done very well either. Okay, that's not fair, they are done as well as any other horror these days... there is pretty convincing blood and gore, and they take advantage of that R-rating.  The kid’s victims experience very explicit trauma and it’s not discreet - it’s often framed centre-screen for us to see in explicit detail. Although one or two scenes made me question the director’s understanding of biology, it wasn’t blatant enough to detract from the effect they were going for, so if you’re squeamish, this is not the film for you. This is your standard gory R-rated Horror. And that’s my problem here - they don’t really seem to do anything interesting with the evil superman concept. Sure, he wears a spooky mask, but other than that, there’s nothing that gives this monster any personality. For instance, Brandon (for reasons that aren't really explained) seems to makes electronics malfunction and lights flicker when he's angry; but the only reason for this is so that they can play into the spooky flickering lights trope. He also has the ability to move at superhuman speed which he uses effectively - in one scene (which, again, we saw in the trailer); but the main reason for this power is either so that they can justify the offscreen teleportation trope, or simply to make him pop up in a few dozen jump-scares, like every other teleporting ghost or demon in horror films since the early 2000s. The kid also has laser vision, which he does use for just one interesting scene; but, the main reason he has it seems to be so that they can make his eyes glow red against his dark silhouette when he's chasing people in the scary scenes.

The part that annoys me the most is that he keeps playing hide-and-seek with his victims (often using superspeed) during the scary scenes, and will even slip away before he's caught, which doesn't make any sense. To me the scariest part about an evil superman would be that he's invincible - he’s literally an unstoppable monster - but even if you don't agree, you can't deny that this kid has no reason to run away, since literally nothing can hurt him. Rather than playing peekaboo, he could simply stalk them like Terminator, or maybe even like the succubus from It Follows, and just tear through anything that tries to stop them. This might make sense if he was doing these things in secret, but the story seems to go out of its way to debunk that theory, since it is both heavily implied and explicitly stated that he sees human beings as inferior and worthless, so why does he keep lying to appease “inferior” human beings? It’s not even like there appears to be some conflict within him about whether he should be evil or not because as I mentioned there’s no character growth, he’s just suddenly evil because alien technology told him to be.

Now, if they did some of this stuff to pay homage to the horror tropes that inspired this, but also did something new and original as well to really take advantage of the fact that they have an evil superman on their hands, then I would be rejoicing instead of ranting, but they don't do that. You could easily rewrite this so that the kid is possessed by a demon, or being haunted by a killer ghost, and the movie could be identical. I think you'd only have to rewrite the end, and that's just because they saved one of their iconic "evil superman" moments for the end, but it’s not enough to give this film a personality of its own - this kid may be superman in all but name, but this film is just a generic, modern horror movie in all but marketing.

So, at the end of the day (and the film) the best part of this movie appears to have been the pitch:     What if Superman was evil? Yeah, it's a great question, but so far we haven't gotten a very good answer. The best that this movie can come up with is "well, if he was evil, then he'd probably kill a bunch of people" ... yeah that's true, but whilst they're not wrong, I don't think that's the same thing as being right.

I initially watched this film for one reason - because it was a time-travel movie with black people in it. Ever since seeing Black Panther, I was made consciously aware of just how many movies don’t have black actors, and I wanted to expand my horizons. Since I like sci-fi, I figured that this would be a fun little dip into more racially diverse films, and I was lucky in finding out that this was yet another afrofuturist piece. Unfortunately, the film is a little inconsistent, so I was left feeling a little underwhelmed, but I don't think that sentiment alone summarizes this movie and its impact.

Don't get me wrong, the director and writer of this can make an amazing family adventure movie, and I've seen how well he can put together a "street drama" about race and community. Unfortunately, the reason I've seen that is because he tried to do both at the same time in this film. Whilst both of those elements separately are done perfect, this film puts the two together, and as a result struggles to portray a clear tone. See, the idea behind this film is that a young black girl named CJ, and her friend Sebastian, develop time travel. At the beginning of the film, CJ has perfected the principles, but the actual time machine (two backpacks that can open up a wormhole) still need tweaking in order to actually go through time. They manage to achieve a successful trip, but one week later, CJ's older brother is unjustly shot by police in a scene which was painfully accurate to the real world.

And this is where the tonal issues come in. When the two friends are building their "Temporal Relocation Packs" or taking supplies from the school laboratory, or travelling through wormholes, this film is brightly lit with technobabbled dialogue and the props look over-designed with goofy bulk or lights, with exaggerated caricatures and a bombastic score. But then they walk through the streets of a Bronx neighbourhood and are confronted by police, or they have a quiet heart-to-heart at home with family members, we're given low-lighting or soft lighting, no score, long takes and a focus on character and dialogue.

Perhaps this was a stylistic choice, but it feels like you could cut the transition between these two modes with a knife, which is a tragedy, since this is a coherent story with a solid idea at its core, but this style makes it feel less cohesive. I mean, in time travel movies we've seen before - with white people - we fly to the far-off future to save later generations, or we slip into the distant past to save our predecessors; meanwhile, in this film, a black girl travels back a single day, because 24 hours ago police shot her brother. That is so real, it hurts. That is the basis of the movie - if a black person could change the past, could they go back and stop police brutality from happening? For that reason, I feel like this is a movie that needed to be made - and perhaps that's why there's such a tonal whiplash for this film. It's taking a premise that we've used in kid-friendly family movies, and saying, what if you could stop black teenagers from dying?

And this movie sees just how potent the idea is. Early on the movie CJ talks to her science teacher, Mister Lockhart (played by Michael J. Fox in a perfect little cameo that proves he is still a great actor despite his disease), and he says that the science of time travel is ultimately secondary, since CJ should be considering the philosophy and ethics of time travel, about the responsibility that power endows. Actually, I need to take a moment to celebrate all the great actors in this film. Eden Duncan-Smith plays CJ, the beautiful and brilliant young scientist, whose single-mindedness manifests as both determination and stubbornness. Her friend Sebastian is acted by Dante Crichlow, and he has amazing chemistry with CJ, and although he is usually her co-conspirator, he can be the conscience that she is overlooking when she needs that. In my opinion, the breakout performance has to be Jonathan Nieves who plays Eduardo, a Colombian boy who is awkwardly enamoured with CJ, and although he is just the comedic relief he owns every scene he is in.

These actors are amazing, this story is amazing, the cinematography is amazing and this director is amazing... but, unfortunately, there are a few issues that let this film down. Of course, the major one is that choice to shift between genre styles. Perhaps it was a stylistic choice, but it doesn't help the theme and could be distracting during some core moments of this film. As well, probably because my suspension of disbelief was already damaged, I was distracted by how cheap some of the props were. The time machines, although they did create a practical "machine", they put them in backpacks, meaning that in most shots it just looks like two backpacks with a clear tube sticking out of it - and that was distracting, since despite this being a "prototype time machine", they built... two; there is also a prop which is meant to be advanced circuitry, but looks exactly like someone spray-painted a motherboard gold and screwed a perspex plate onto it, & most distracting (to me, at least) whenever they time travel, the kids wear goggles which, for no reason, have a steampunk aesthetic. These kids are supposedly scraping together bits and pieces to make these things, yet waste money for protective goggles on cosplay?

This film won't win any awards - and not just because most of those award shows are racially biased -  but when this film works, it works. When it was trying to be funny, I laughed; when it was trying to be endearing, I smiled; when it was trying to be sombre, I felt sad & when it was trying to tell me something, I listened. That's what I want from my movies, so although this film doesn't get the best score, I still think you should see it. Did I mention that it's on Netflix (at time of writing)? It's not perfect, but it's better than expected.