Lima

If I had to compare, Cronenberg's remake is more nutritious in terms of horror properties, full of irresistible filth, but this prequel has a more elaborate story structure. During the first half an hour the director plays a paranoid game with the viewer (is this woman really crazy, or what the hell is going on?) and then, thanks to flashbacks, a horrible twist is revealed, where the brutal murder in the press is not the end of the story; on the contrary, the filmmakers prepare one more surprise, thanks to which the story turns 180 degrees. Some of the scenes are real top-notch horror, I would never have guessed how thrilling catching an ordinary fly could be, knowing that a human life is actually at stake, and it also has a unique science-fantasy dimension. The Fly became an important milestone in the development of cinematic science fiction as a whole. As many smart books state, this is the very first film to use the idea of nuclear fission and fusion, the idea that matter can be converted into energy and energy back into matter, exactly the same principle that was adopted 20 years later by Star Trek and its famous teleportation device. And if nothing else, this wonderful film gives us the revelation that flies like milk mixed with rum :o)

If you take away the over-the-top digital effects, this film doesn’t have much to offer. Yes, Sommers knows how to give the impression that his films are epic. His work is filled with beautiful views of sandstorms, Egyptian cities in their heyday, or in a kind of eye-catching splendour of their ruins (the set of the crumbling Egyptian mansion must have been terribly expensive), and the dungeons full of treasures are also eye-catching. But the film has otherwise aged terribly, unlike its predecessors, because much of its charm is based on digital attractions, and those no longer impress anyone in the face of today's technology. The Mummy in its early stages is downright digitally awful (but not in the good creepy sense of the word), and Arnold Vosloo overacts like a pig until he becomes a caricature of himself. The only thing that survives unscathed to this day is Jerry Goldsmith's music; it's beautiful, even after repeated listens. It's also quite nice that the film doesn't take itself too seriously and is surprisingly funny in places, like when the offending skeleton heads are blown off like in a baseball game, or when Rachel Weisz demolishes an entire library in a domino effect – that’s the first scene I always remember when I think of Sommer’s The Mummy.

Unlike Fisher's film, this loose sequel is so lifelessly static. The overwhelming majority of the runtime is on a not very interesting conversational plane, the Egyptian line (strange, garishly coloured sets) is rather sloppy and stitched together by two locations. The act of revenge by the strangely tarted-up mummy, who doesn't appear until 20 minutes before the end, is pretty routine, though Carreras tries to embellish it in two scenes of ominously hovering mist. Even the 30 years older Mummy had a more sinister edge, here the stuntman moves so strangely under the bandages that I just don't believe him – bood old Christopher Lee. Unfortunately, what you will remember the most is the terrible performances of two characters: Jeanne Roland is completely bloodless, with no believable emotions, she can only manage a Diblical pout, and Fred Clark as the profiteering businessman is so terribly overacted that he ruins every scene he appears in. In the words of Miloš Kopecký: if I were a director, I would love to "make him unemployed" :o)

An adaptation from the legendary British film studio Hammer, and that should tell you everything. Hammer films, especially in the 50s and 60s, were renowned for their gorgeous sets and seductively horrific atmosphere, and this is one is no exception. Here, they basically made do with three locations: a studio oasis, a large house in London and a swamp, with occasional exteriors somewhere in the landscape around the studio. The oasis in particular looks gorgeous, beautifully overlit, with garish colours. I am under no illusion that this is what an Egyptian landscape could have looked like, not at all, but the viewer's eye is feasted; Hammer knew how to render these studio landscapes. Another triumph is the central acting duo: legendary Hammer stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Cushing may have been prescribed a role that would be more appropriate for an actor at least a generation younger (it looks weird when he calls a fellow actor the same age "daddy"), but his charisma carries over. It's worse with Christopher Lee, who has punishingly small space – in the flashback from ancient Egypt he doesn't show much, in Victorian England he's a mummy, he's all puffed up, has a strange limp (the result of an injury he sustained during filming) and basically he has to play with his eyes and he can't do much with them alone. The plot is predictable, you as a viewer will be about two or three steps ahead of the actors, but it doesn't matter, watching them is like observing a complex but elegant machine in action. You know what I mean.

A lazy sequel, methinks. The producers milked the original success of The Mummy to the last drop, this is the fourth and final sequel, and thankfully it all comes to a close. At least it has a hint of charisma, it was shot mostly on location, so the swampy landscape does look like a swamp and the hidden abandoned place with the sarcophagus looks quite nice, too, but otherwise it's a repeat of "revenge motif #5”, the same thing the fifth time, the only difference in this case is that the originator of the evil is some mujahideen with a fez on his head. Lon Chaney, the star and the only name on the poster, has no room to showcase any of his acting skills. The whole film over-hyped from head to toe, the mummy always flashes for half a minute, extends its claw, kills someone and disappears again. At least he’s nicely dusty, like a real mummy :o) The laziness of the creators lies not only in the script, but in such details as the character of Princess Ananka, who digs herself out of the mud, all dirty, gets into a puddle and a minute later is beautiful, clean, with blown-out hair. And then there’s that five-minute flashback, AGAIN borrowed in its entirety from the original film, and again repeated in its entirety, without a shred of change. That’s how you inflate a runtime. :)

The verbal humour was a bit hammy at times, but otherwise it was pleasantly irreverent, with an impeccable Salma Hayek. I hate to use the cliché that she “had fun”, but in her case it really applies and she must have enjoyed her part incredibly. I guess the guys and gals behind the camera on set must have had fun during her performances too, including the flapper. Moreover, in the case of Salma, this is clear evidence that a woman in her fifties can look great even without hideous plastic surgery (Hollywood princesses say hello).

Porn-guru D'Amato pulled it off. This film is surprisingly free of holes in logic, and the guy even spared cheap nudity. Pomo probably had a weaker moment, because there is nothing outrageous or disgusting, if you’re is used to the 1980s brutality of Italian cinema. The completely unknown youngsters were fine, the girls played it fine, I trusted their every twitch of fear, the violence was subtly dosed, and the second half even had a pleasantly depressing atmosphere. Only the title, Killing Birds, is nonsense, but that's just how the Italians sold their films in the 1980s.

Yeah, well, badass chicks and dumb guys are all the rage in Hollywood these days. Plus, Tanya Wexler has as much of a clue about the action genre as I do about cooking or how to darn socks. But unlike her, who is not able to pull off a single interesting action scene in this femi-terror, I can at least manage to cook hard boiled eggs :o) Her previous film, Hysteria, was very nice and decent, but someone should tell the executives to stop forcing women where they are not comfortable (with honorable exceptions like Kathryn Bigelow). PS: This time, botox didn't do to Beckinsale as much damage as it has done to her colleagues (Nicole Kidman says hello), she’s still hot.

Great work by the makeup artists, the lead actress with her sheer physicality tries her best, and you can never have enough claustrophobic thrillers inside planes, and I also found the storyline of how she came to her vampirism compelling. The problem is that from the “barbecue in the car” scene onwards, it gets dangerously close to full B-movie, where logic takes a holiday, with a horribly overacting main villain who mistakenly thought that the more he screamed, jerked his head like a pigeon and shouted, the more horrible he would be. Mistake. But he wasn't up to the nasty little brat, who was as likable as a freshly attached tick and had about as much acting talent as Okamura and Babiš.

I don’t get it, really. I'm as big as The Rock (give or take 50cm), I'm as rich as The Rock (I regularly return returnable bottles), so why don't women want me? :o) ..... Probably because I don't play in similar interchangeable disposable mass produced movies. So, Disney Mouse, what's next?