March of the Penguins/La Marche de l'Empereur (2005, documentary) - Incredible Antarctic recordings appended to grating animal narration

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The majestic emperor penguin with its chick makes up this poster for Luc Jacquet's March of the Penguins

On the South Pole lives a clan of emperor penguins, where almost no other living being can survive. They walk the long way across the ice to arrive at the mating spot and go through hunger and pain for the sake of their chicks.

 

March of the Penguins is written and directed by feature-debuting Luc Jacquet (Antarctica: Ice and Sky/La Glace et le Ciel (2015)). The original French title translates to 'the march of the emperor'.

It is an incredibly shot chronicle about some moving, beautiful animals. The stunning footage is enjoyed, but unfortunately the film doesn't spice the images up; neither with interesting, supportive information, nor with a good story (as for instance in the case of The Bear (1988).) Instead we are treated to insipid animal narration (in the English version though, Morgan Freeman (Driving Miss Daisy (1989)) handles narration that is not supposed to be from the penguins.) This choice makes March of the Penguins a sometimes dull watch.

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 8 mil. $

Box office: 127.3 mil. $

= Mega-hit (returned 15.91 times its cost)

[March of the Penguins premiered 21 January (Sundance Film Festival) and runs 86 minutes. Shooting took place over the course of 13 months in Antarctica. Freeman was paid 1 mil. $ for his narration, which was recorded in one day. The film opened 28 to a 137k $ first weekend in 4 theaters in North America, where it peaked at #6 and in 2,506 theaters (different weeks), grossing 77.4 mil. $ (60.8 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were France with 12 mil. $ (9.4 %) and Germany with 9.2 mil. $ (7.2 %). The film won the Best Documentary Oscar. It was also nominated for 2 BAFTAs, a European Film award, won 1/4 César award nominations, was nominated for a David di Donatello award and won 2 National Board of Review awards, among other honors. Roger Ebert gave the film a 3.5/4 star review, translating to 2 notches over this one. Jacquet returned with The Fox and the Child/Le Renard et l'Enfant (2007). Jacquet later made the much less successful sequel, March of the Penguins 2: The Next Step/L'Empereur (2017). March of the Penguins is certified fresh at 94 % with a 7.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

 

What do you think of March of the Penguins?

Happy Feet (2006) - Mind-numbing one-trick pony animation

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A happy-faced penguin is dancing on a - presumably thawing - block of ice on this poster for George Miller, Warren Coleman and Judy Morris' Happy Feet

In the world of emperor penguins singing is pivotal. But young Mumble doesn't have the knack for it. What he can do, however, is dance!

 

Happy Feet is written by John Collee (Wolf Totem (2015)) and co-writer/directors Judy Morris (Luigi's Ladies (1989)), Warren Coleman (Effie: Just Quietly (2001, TV-series)) and great Australian filmmaker George Miller (Mad Max (1979)).

The animation of Antarctic animals is impressive. - Regrettably they are dropped into an insultingly hollow and unoriginal film, which seems to promise us a gay penguin story - but instead settles for tap-dancing penguin idiocy, and an environmental afterthought ending that's just twaddle. Happy Feet is intolerable.

 

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2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I] 

2015 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess 

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2006 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Twilight Zone The Movie (1983) - Fear takes many forms in tragedy-struck anthology (segment director)

 

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 100 mil. $

Box office: 384.3 mil. $

= Big hit (returned 3.84 times its cost)

[Happy Feet was released 16 November (Malaysia, Thailand) and runs 108 minutes. Production took place in Sydney, Australia and lasted 4 years. Motion capture was used to make the penguins dance convincingly like humans. The film opened #1 to a 41.5 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another 2 weekends at #1 and then another 2 in the top 5 (#2-#4), grossing 198 mil. $ (51.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were the UK with 37.7 mil. $ (9.8 %) and Australia with 26.2 mil. $ (6.9 %). The film won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. It also won 1/2 BAFTA nominations, an AFI award, 1/2 Golden Globe nominations, was nominated for 2 Grammys and many other honors. It also made in excess of 213.8 mil. $ on DVD and Blu-ray sales in North America. Miller (and several voice stars) returned with Happy Feet Two (2011), a major flop. Morris and Coleman have not directed since. Elijah Wood (Cooties (2014)) returned in 3 TV and video game credits prior to his theatrical return in Year Zero (2007); Brittany Murphy (Drive (1997)) in The Ramen Girl (2008). Happy Feet is certified fresh at 76 % with a 6.90/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Happy Feet?

The Thing/The Thing Awakens/The Thing: The Beginning (2011) - Career-ending, flawed monster horror prequel

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1 Time Film Excess Nominee:

Best Digital Effects (lost to Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol)

One icy poster for Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.'s The Thing

QUICK REVIEW:

In this Thing prequel, we are to learn about the time prior to the events in John Carpenter's masterpiece The Thing (1982), that is, the catastrophe in the Norwegian company in the Antarctic, who were the first to meet the thing! There's of course a storm, and the paranoia is revisited, (this time only with teeth examinations instead of blood samples.) Most of it is seen through the eyes of the only woman up there, an uninspired and forgettable Mary Elizabeth Winstead (Kill the Messenger (2014)), who takes command over the Norwegians.

Among the Norwegians, even great Danish actor Ulrich Thomsen (Banshee (2013-16)), who varies between speaking Danish and Norwegian (...) bores. The characters are vaguely sketched and uninteresting; the suspense curve is unsophisticated and the update as a whole is unoriginal. Script by Eric Heisserer (Final Destination 5 (2011)).
Furthermore, Michel Abramowicz' (Taken (2008)) cinematography shakes in otherwise dead still dialogs, - very annoyingly.
But in the film's second half, The Thing experience brightens up some due to inventive CGI and one genuine shock. Of course a major part of what makes the '82 film so thrilling is its incredible practical effects, which this new film doesn't even try to achieve, and there's no doubt that the new Thing doesn't gain anything from simply overtaking its title from its much superior predecessor.
It is directed by Dutch filmmaker Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. (Zien (2004), video).

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2011 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III] 

Watch the red band trailer for the film here

Cost: 38 mil. $
Box office: 27.4 mil. $
= Huge flop
[The Thing was something of a disaster commercially; opening #3 in North America to 8.4 mil. $, it fell our of the top 10 in its second week, grossed 16.9 mil. $ (62 % of the total gross) and was even less successful abroad. The film, which was lambasted by many, effectively ended Heijningen's career: He hasn't made anything film-related at all since.]

What do you think of The Thing?

Alien vs. Predator/AVP (2004) - No one wins with Anderson's fundamentally bad monster clash

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+ Most Undeserved Hit of the Year

The titular movie monsters of Paul W.S. Anderson's Alien vs. Predator come together on the poster with the film's seemingly accidentally honest tagline, - which makes it clear that audiences are in for a loss

Alien vs. Predator is an uninteresting spin-off, based on a 1989 comic book, which merges the two great alien-centered franchises, Alien and Predator.

Far below the Antarctica lies a pyramid, which some scientist types somehow awaken to life, and an intergalactic war between two extraterrestrial monster species takes form.

Whatever Lance Henriksen (Dark Awakening (2014)) is doing in this movie, I don't know; he played the robot Bishop in Aliens (1986) beautifully, - here he's another character in the plot set some 150 years before that movie takes place, who then supposedly later becomes the model for the future robot...
Building suspense, or creating engaging, full characters and/or scenes have either not been a priority for the three-person script team behind Alien vs. Predator, or they have just totally failed in their attempts. The responsible are Dan O'Bannon (Alien (1979)), Ronald Shusett (Total Recall (1990)), who both supplied story elements, and writer/director Paul W. S. Anderson (Resident Evil (2002)). Why the first two writers have felt obligated or enticed to do this to their fine, initial work in the Alien franchise is beyond me. Anderson, on the other hand, is a juggernaut of pointless action shlock such as this and seems permanently out of reach.
Alien vs. Predator is big and noisy, and that's about all you will remember from it just a few hours after having seen it. Take my advice: Try and avoid it.

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Alien 3 (1992) or, The Monsters Go to Jail!
Aliens (1986) or, Alien War
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Watch a short 'chest-burster' scene from the film here

Cost: 60 mil. $
Box office: 172.5 mil. $
= Box office success (returned 2.87 times its cost)
[Alien vs. Predator premiered 12 August (Puerto Rico and Thailand) and runs 101 minutes. The two central Alien master filmmakers, Ridley Scott (Alien) and James Cameron (Aliens (1986)) were both opposed to the film, however Cameron has later stated that he "liked it a lot." The story was set about 150 years before the first Alien (1979) and after Predator (1987), designed not to clash with anything already established in the franchises. Shooting took place in Italy, France and in Prague, the Czech Republic from October 2003 - ?. No less than 10 production companies were involved in the production. The film opened #1 to a 38.2 mil. $ first weekend in North America, where it spent another week in the top 5 (#4) and grossed a handsome 80.2 mil. $ (46.5 % of the total gross). The 2nd and 3rd biggest markets were Japan with 16.1 mil. $ (9.3 %) and the UK with 9.3 mil. $ (5.4 %). An even worse sequel, Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) was made. The Predator franchise was rebooted with Predators (2010), and the Alien franchise had its next real chapter in Prometheus (2012). Anderson returned with Drift (2006, TV movie) and theatrically with Death Race (2008). Sanaa Lathan (Repentance (2013)) returned in The Golden Blaze (2005, video) and theatrically in Something New (2006); Raoul Bova (Ever Been to the Moon?/Sei Mai Stata Sulla Luna? (2015)) in Giovani Talenti Italiani (2004, video), Karol: A Man Who Became Pope/Karol, un Uomo Diventato Papa (2005, TV movie) and theatrically in I'll Do It Tonight/Stasera lo Faccio (2005); Henriksen in Keep Right (2004, short) and theatrically in Modigliani (2004). Alien vs. Predator is rotten at 21 % with a 4.06/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Alien vs. Predator?