(NOTE: The following review may contain spoilers!)

 
There are many things that prevent Premonition from being the movie it should have been. The film’s intelligence and lofty goals are great, but the bland and sloppy execution by director Mennan Yapo hinder’s the film’s effectiveness at every turn. The screenplay by Bill Kelly is basically all the film is, since Yapo seems terrified of messing with it. A lot of the scenes feel like they could have been taken right off the page without any effort to make them better. This means that the film is about as exciting as reading a script and the only time a script is exciting is when it’s written by M. Night Shyamalan. 

The film deals with a woman Linda Hanson (Sandra Bullock) whose husband (Julian McMahon) dies in a tragic car accident. Or at least she is told he died in a car accident. In the following week she finds out that he is dead/not dead/is about to die in what seems to be a time-lapsing order. While Linda tries to figure out what’s happening, why is it happening, and if her husband’s death is preventable, the audience, well me at least, is trying to find a point. When the message of the film is finally revealed (using a pries of course) near the end of the film it’s empty and almost indescirnable. I t isn’t until the film’s ridiculous reveal (ridiculous because it is technically impossible within a non-fantasy world which the film is set in) that Linda is pregnant that the puzzle pieces of the script attempt to put together all the plot points.

I noticed that if Kelly had written this week in chronology without the time-swap plot point and left the film as a simple drama, he would have been much more successful at reaching his goal and sending his “the world is full of miracles” message. The film is basically an excerpt of the life of these people, during which there are hard questions to be answered and big problems to be dealt with. This family’s effort to stay together, even until the very end, is something Kelly is only marginally successful at depicting realistically enough for anyone to care. The inevitable death of the husband and father is one that should be more powerful as an image, but the script leaves this character off-screen for too long and when he is on screen he is dry and emotionless, so when he dies, one feels nothing would change.

The acting in the film is not good. Sandra Bullock is unattractive, and inappropriate in her role. I think she needs to take a break. She has been in good films of late (Crash, The Lake House, Infamous), but she was frequently the worst actress in them. The other actors do a simply alright job, except for the emotionless McMahon, but even though they all have fair performances, Bullock is on screen above 95% of the time and the movie depends on her terrible performance and is therefore plagued by it at every turn.

Technically, the film doesn’t deliver on the promise of its artsy poster. Cinematographer Torsten Lippstock uses his camera only to reveal the so-called ‘twists’ in the script, and adds nothing new or exciting with his bland colring. For some reason blood is not red enough, and the day is not bright enough. I understand the need to suppress, but being consistent with it is something that should not be rewarded, as it creates an ugly, one-note film. A positive thing about the camera work is its movement and thrashing about during scenes that are supposed to hit hard with the funeral home casket scene being a stand-out. The editing is good, but editor Neil Travis seems to be going strictly by the script, without any needed deviations. The best part of the technical side of the film is Hans Zimmer protege Klaus Badelt’s emotional-to-the-core musical score. It elevates all of the emotional scenes to an undeserved level with touching tones and grand compositions that are almost too much for the mnimalist approach of the film.

Overall, Premonition is an average film. A few good production values and a relatively intelligent if flawed screenplay act as its saving graces. But the bad acting, unexciting direction, and overall blandness of the production brings it way down. it is unlikely anyone will hate this film, but it is even more unlikely that anyone will find something to love about it. Premonition simply comes and goes, it’s just that after it has gone you find you’ve spent $10. What a bad feeling.

If director James Wan and writer Leigh Whannell want to get on my good side any time soon, they need to start aiming a little higher during the filmmaking process. They demonstrated their inability to do that with Saw (and need to thank Darren Lynn Bousman for saving that franchise with the sequel) and have finally confirmed it with the painfully average Dead Silence. While Saw was technically Wan’s directorial debut for a major motion picture, and is therefore more forgiveable, Dead Silence shows Wan hasn’t learned from his mistakes.

As if propelled by one of the most pedestrian sripts I’ve seen put on screen in a long while, Wan jumps to the old gimmick-y style he observed in his debut. The whole of Dead Silence is money shot after money shot after money shot all culminating in an extended cameo by Jigsaw’s puppet that does double duty as an extended early advertisement for Saw 4 and a crucial plot device in a script that has revealed itself to be an Alexandre Aja-esque crowd-pleaser and nothing more.

To be honest, the film can be pleasing at times. That is especially true for the horror crowd as Wan’s imagery, although it spans a few different horror niches (ghosts, puppets, exploitation) melds together nicely and provides a film that can be fun to look at because of its mutating and genre-spanning visuals. Wan and cinematographer John Leonetti take advantage of all the scenarios in order to provide a memorable and at best, scary, experience that may stay with audience members that are afraid of dolls after the film is over.

It is too bad James Wan still can’t direct actors. Donnie Wahlberg (who really needs to stop partnering up with Wan and Whannell) is completely wasted in an empty and annoying role. He is, though, the best actor in the whole cast with names like veteran Michael Fairman and newcomer Amber Valleta (who also played a supporting role in Premonition) hamming it up in plot device-roles. It is evident that Wan doesn’t really care about acting, thinking that the audience wouldn’t care, but he is wrong. Every time a laughable line is delivered, and there are too many for the short running time fo the film, I felt embarassed for the people involved in the film, except for Wan and Whannell - I was angry at them.

I can’t recommend Dead Silence. It only delivers on the absolute basic needs of a horror film fan. In the thematic and contextual departments, even The Messengers is better. This could have been a much better film if the creators decided to take their time in the filmmaking process. I know Wan never sat down beforehand to figure out alternatives to scenes or at least better lines of dialogue. Just like with Saw, he directs a first draft of a terrible and incomplete screenplay, that not even his good eye for visuals can save from becoming a simple failure, if not a total one. 

Throughout Zack (Dawn of the Dead) Snyder’s chest-thumping epic 300, the emotions, imagery, and conflic run rampant in a visual array that is undeniable. Only the most unappreciative of audience members will frown at the artsy presentation of the Battle of Thermopylae. While Snyder again isn’t able to create a more emotional film that will connect with the audience, which was the worst mistake in Dawn, he at least tries harder this time around. When Snyder’s unfogiving imagery renders a headless corpse falling slowly to the ground, something goes down your spine; what is in front of you touches you because of its expected consequences that it will eventually trigger.

The best part of the meandering and predictable screenplay, which also rescues the film on every turn, is its surprising way of keeping this fantastical story grounded using modern thematic references and basic human beliefs. A great example is the role of the woman in the Spartan society. The film continuously reverts back and reminds us of the strength of Queen Gorgo (played well by the beautiful Lena Headey), which acts as a catalyst of emotion as the audience finds the humanity of Sparta among the barbaric slavery of the Persians.

The film looks great on the technical side, if not exactly as stunning as previously promised. For every shot that is as amazing as they get (the elephants falling off the cliff, the one-take fight sequences), there is an underwhelming special effects shot just around the corner (the black wolf, the hunchback, even though it was simply a bad make-up job). Thebest part of the film on the technical side is the cinematography by Larry Fong who thankfully doesn’t show his “Lost” roots and tries to make every shot worth noting and while he is not successfull all the time, what is on display here is commendable. I mean, who knew that an epic war film could be artsy?

The acting is variable at best. Gerard Butler does well as King Leonidas, moving from appropriately over-the-top to thoughtful, to reminiscent, pretty smoothly. Everyone else, except for the Hunchback guy probably do well and stay method, which is important considering the lines in the script are at times cheesier than anything in Alexander.

The film has been labeled as ‘original’ and ‘a revolutionary technological marvel’, but it is neither. Sin City is the sole reason for both of those to be false. What 300 is instead is the very definition of a ‘war film.’ Not once does the film try to be anti-war or to suit the hero-hating liberals of this country, sticking instead to describing the characters’ heroics as nothing but that. Sometimes it is about war, not politics, and even if the end is not all happy, we may be better for it.

It’s not that director Mark Steven Johnson is a bad filmmaker. He is simply lazy. Truth be told, I never read the comic this film is based off of, but I doubt that the material is anywhere near as cold and unaffectionate as this film is. It is Johnson’s worst film, only because in Daredevil at least he shows care in dealing with the tragedy that that particular superhero has to go through. But Ghost Rider’s story is a sadder one and definitely a more tragic one than that of Daredevil. I mean really, what’s worse, blinness and your girlfriend getting killed, or eternal responsibility to fight off monsters that are trying to put Hell on Earth. I’d take the former any day. Especially since the latter turns the damned superhero into a burning skeleton that looks like something not even his own mother would love, even if she was blind.

So it’s a real shame that Johnson doesn’t tap into that emotion any deeper than by simplytreating it as an observation of the character. Unlike in Daredevil, the audience never becomes a part of the story, and simply looks on in anticipation of the next joke, or the next action sequence involving a bad guy too ugly and conveniently stupid to imagine. Couple that with average acting and dialogue that ranges from boring to horrendous (this is apparent during the more serious parts of the screenplay), you have yourself a film that, while endlessly watchable, can only be described as effortlessly empty.

The material the film is based on has potential to be compelling and artsy if adapted to the screen in the right way. But this is Mark Steven Johnson, not Kurt Wimmer. Johnson’s unexciting, meandering camerawork is so dependent on pre-established Ron Howard-cliches that getting bored is easier than I anticipated — I am watching a comic book film after all. The imagery in the film is also questionable. While cinematographer Russell Boyd (who is one of the best in the game) tries to bring something more sinister to saome of the scenes (Blacheart’s entrance is memorable), he is let down by the ‘good enough I guess’ attitude of production designer of Kirk Petruccelli, whose next project is, God help us, an Ang Lee-less The Incredible Hulk. Still, I’m not ready to say this is a bad-looking film, it is in fact better than both Daredevil and Simon Birch, but when gloss is there without the accompaniment of any substance, it isn’t really worth it.

I can’t recommend this film on any basis whatsoever, unless all you want is a night at the movies that won’t make you think too much. Just be advised that in addition to that, it also won’tchange you, affect you, or satisfy you in any way. That is of course if Eva Mendes’s cleavage is good enough to do all of those at once.