It's not often that you can find British movies at a video store that don't begin with the words 'Monty Python' or 'Sherlock Holmes and...' Even more rare is it to find a bad kung-fu movie that does not come out of Asia or Central California. So what are the odds that you would find both in one weird little package? Apparently, there is at least 1%, since my friends and I managed to do just that. This movie, according to the internet, was born out of a short film that got government funding to become full-length. So far, I can compare it to Peter Jackson's Bad Taste, but will the good comparisons end there? Do you think that I would be reviewing it here if it was great? Get real now, people. This is...
The film begins with a bit of opening narration by Ian McKellen! Oh wow, he's in this movie?!? What's that, you say? He only does the narration and has nothing else to do with the film? Well, screw you then. The movie quickly gets away from that star and introduces us to our lead...a guy I've never seen before. Just like the unknown guy from Hellboy, his role is to be around and have the cast explain how the secret government organization works. By all means, elaborate on your secret organization! Fortunately, we get away from this character set-up when two aliens (read: humans) break into the building. A long chase and series of shoot-out ensues, ending with both of them (one man, one woman) being shot to death. Wow, that movie was brief. I guess I'll just...oh, the guy comes back to life, apparently. It seems that bullets cannot kill him, although his lady friend is not so lucky. That's the kind of logic that I've come to expect from movies like this. So we've got an alien on the loose. Continue...
*
Basically, we get a mix of chasing, intrigue and more chasing. Our lead begins to wonder about whether the government agents have any ulterior motives, which they do. The alien runs around and people talk about their plans. We also get introduced to the lead villain- a top agent named Radius. Why, Radius? Because anyone that gets in his immediate radius. I'll let you in on a little secret though- he is played Mark Strange, the same man who plays the karate-wielding alien. Kind of puts a damper on the potential Radius/Alien fight, doesn't it? Get used to disappointment in Displaced though. When you get a film where the aliens look like humans and their only power is the ability to make shaky-cam when they run a la Night Hunter, you learn not to expect much. The middle is also padded down with a lot of exposition and ancillary characters. This is what you get when you have a formula built around a beginning and ending & have to fill in the rest. This film needs a big chase scene.
*
The last ten to fifteen minutes of the movie is pretty much just one big chase scene that randomly stops for a fight scene and then resumes. A whole bunch of people get too close to the truth and Radius ends up on their tail. They flee a building with the man in pursuit. Every minute to two minutes, a group of them stops running, tries to fight him and loses. Wow, I just love seeing this over and over and over again. I love repetition repetition. At least the fighting is pretty good. Well, the guy doing Radius is good, while the others look a bit too practiced. Anyone who has seen enough martial arts films can tell the difference. As I made clear earlier, Radius never fights 'himself as an alien.' Instead, our human lead sneaks up on him and chokes him with piano wire from above. We kept expecting him to counter it or something, but, no, he dies. The surviving alien gets his ship back and all ends happily. Well, unless you are Radius.
*
You should not try and adapt your 10-15 minute short film designed to show off your martial arts skill into a real movie. When you clearly have the plot of a short film, it just does not work. If you look at this as Mark Strange's resume for future stunt work, it is not that bad. Oh wait, I'm actually watching this to be entertained, not to evaluate whether or not I should hire him. You can do worse with direct-to-video films, but those usually suffer for trying to be too ambitious. This just tries to be a series of action scenes somehow framed into a humanized tale of government, intrigue and aliens. Enjoy the CG at the beginning and McKellen's narration, because it all goes downhill from there.
*
Next up, a big pile of hay turns in a movie that is a big pile of something else. Can it be worse than Blood Harvest or better than Scarecrows? Stay tuned...
A Programming Note: the regular reviews will be all horror this month, alternating as much as I can from good to bad to good again. This segment will be a breather every Saturday from that.
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