The Last Days on Mars [2013] (English): A Sci-Fi Thriller with no new ideas, but clockwork-perfect execution

This is a movie about a manned mission's Last Days on Mars. So this makes it one of the few movies that says it all in the title itself.

Aurora Mission...
Duration: 6 months...
Remaining time: 19 hours... 

It is their last excursion out in the sands of the Red Planet. Kim, an ambitious and now disillusioned scientist, is busy collecting the last samples they would take back home. Samples, that she dejectedly observes, are as sterile and fruitless as the ones they have been collecting for the past 6 months... As she is driven back to base by the team 'chauffers' (would the term "Rover Driver" sound funny?) Campbell and Lane, another scientist, Marko, prepares to go out. He claims that he needs to check "a Gamma sensor that's not responding", something he confesses he forgot to check. As he heads out, Kim, his obvious rival, becomes suspicious. She checks his workstation. What she finds out implicates two things: one - Marko lied, and two - he may have stumbled upon a profound discovery... And then disaster strikes...

The story is strictly okay. On the sci-fi front, it does not explore any new ideas. On the action front, it does not add any unnecessary and unrealistic stunts. On the thriller-horror part, it delivers shocks and jolts with the pitch-perfect timing. The characters are neither too shallow, nor too detailed. Some of the characters are well-sketched enough to fit into the plot. <Spoiler> The idea that the very first discovered extra-terrestrial bacteria should turn humans into zombies, is quite preposterous, not to mention a bit difficult to digest... </Spoiler> 

The special effects are quite nice. The spaceship, the base and the rovers are depicted very nicely. Can't comment on the depiction of the Mars itself. Never been there, you know ;-P... But it looked too drab, like some desert on earth itself viewed through an orange red filter. Maybe the red planet is as arid and drab as depicted in the movie? Who knows? The sets and props of the insides of the rovers and the base are good enough enough. Some of the scenes shot through the dark, abandoned and wrecked corridors and rooms of the Base well shot enough to make one's hair stand on end.

Almost all the performances are good enough. Liev Schrieber, who plays the role of Vincent Campbell, steals the show. He fits the role of the reluctant protagonist like a glove on the hand - so much so that he almost defined the character by his performance. I also liked the performances of Olivia William (as Kim Aldrich, the scientist), Elias Koteas (as Brunel, the leader of the team) and Romola Garai (as Lane).

This is the second sci-fi movie of this year (2013), that I liked because it steers clear of unnecessary dramatics (the first one was Europa Report - which is a better movie than this one though). And therein lies its charm... It refrains from taking the well-trodden path of a typical action-packed horror-thriller in space. It keeps everything low-key. And yet manages to deliver thrills and jolts at exactly the right places and manages to maintain a steady pace. There is action, yes, but its pretty realistic. No extraordinary stunts. No super-human feats. And yet, it manages to entertain. In short the movie is very well executed and well directed.

In short, it is certainly worth a watch at least once.

My Rating: 2.5

Shaun of the Dead [2004] (English) - a parody on the dreaded Z-word

Shaun is your regular working class type, staying with his annoying and dim-witted friend Ed, and trying to keep things from falling apart with his girlfriend, his job and his mom and step-dad. And failing miserably. His only solace, the regular trips to the local pub Winchester with Ed.

Shaun's buddy, Ed does not wish to grow up. His girlfriend wants Shaun to grow up. His Mom expects him to remember her every now and then. His step-father expects him to do what his mom expects. Being a nobody at the job isn't helping. His world falls apart when his girlfriend splits up with him. But it is not his world alone that's going down the drain... People all around, who had been busy doing their daily chores in a zombie-like fashion, have suddenly started turning into actual ... need I mention the famous Z-word? 

To say that Shaun of the Dead is a parody about Zombie movies, would be as accurate as stating a theorem. For it does sum up the movie, but fails to elaborate on its intricate and interesting content. In a funny yet realistic way, the movie, as it starts, portrays the pains of being a nobody in his late twenties. It parodies the daily life of the urban populace where people go around their daily chores in a zombie-like fashion devoid of life or excitement, even before the outbreak.

The unique crisp direction, and the dialogues loaded with satire make this a refreshingly comic romp through the zombie-movie-land. But its not just about the comedy. There are scenes loaded with emotions too - for example, scenes between Shaun and his stepfather, and with his mom, before he has to part ways with them... It displays the acting skills of Simon Pegg, proving that he can be versatile enough to take on serious scenes too.

It is the first movie in the Flavours Cornetto Trilogy, co-written and directed by Edgar Wright and starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. It is a complete movie in itself and has no relationship whatsoever with the other two movies in the series. The fact that the three movies form a trilogy is probably a joke by the movie makers, in the same way they poke fun at a specific genre through each movie. Though its story is not as intricate as Hot Fuzz, nor is the characterization and scripting as well-crafted as that of The World's End, yet the movie stands out because of the unique directorial skills of Edgar Wright and good script for a parody.

This parody about Zombie movies, does not contribute anything new to the Zombie movie genre, except to add a few laughs and poke fun at the outrageously ridiculous outbreak of the Z-word in movies across the world. There is action and gore aplenty, apocalypse and adventure, and lots and lots of dumb zombies out to get you. But don't watch this one for the Zombie fun. Watch it instead for the rollicking antics of Simon Pegg who plays Shaun, and Nick Frost who plays Ed, both good comic actors.

I had quite a lot of laughs watching this one. Its certainly worth watching at least once...

My ratings: 2.5

World War Z [2013] (Eng): a zombie movie on a global scale

For me it started with 28 Days Later. There was something about the idea of the world and the life as we know it, being shot to hell, that sucked me in... Empty streets, abandoned houses, crashed lonely vehicles, not a being in sight... And add to that, the danger of your fellow humans gone wild, crazy and, technically dead... Zombies out to get you on the mean streets of a deserted city, chasing you down dark corridors of apartment buildings... It was your worst nightmare come true...

I lapped them all up. Right from Rec and Rec 2 to I am Legend and Frank Darabont's Walking Dead TV Series. Some of them were groundbreaking and stunning. Many others were just copy-paste jobs with hardly any inspired or original contributions to the genre.

World War Z does expand the horizons of the Zombie genre by portraying the zombie apocalypse on a global scale. Its does for zombie movies what 2012 did for natural disaster movies.

It is the story of a former United Nations investigator who is out with his family when the streets around him abruptly erupt into chaos. He manages to flee with his wife and two daughters as they try to survive the sudden outbreak of a rabies like disease (what a cliché) that turns a human bitten by an infected one into a frenzied biting zombie within seconds. He gets help and shelter from his former boss, a high-ranking official in the UN. His family is safe for now, but on one condition. He is reluctantly entrusted the task of accompanying a virologist and a team of soldiers, as the venture out into the midst of danger and chaos, in search for the origins of the disease, hoping to find a cure. Thus starts his perilous journey which will take him round the globe, in search for a possible cure to this apocalyptic disease.

Seriously speaking, story and concept-wise, there is hardly anything original about this one. Some of the ideas are almost preposterous. The plot and the story are too over-dramatic and unrealistic. And yet there are two things that make this movie worth watching at least once. Awesome visuals and breathtaking action sequences.

It portrays the zombie outbreak pretty nicely. Throngs upon throngs of frenzied infected zombies fill up the screen like hundreds of ants. The action is intense. The story roars ahead at breakneck speed, hardly allowing the viewer a moment to mull upon the ridiculousness of some of the ideas. Arial views of fallen cities and zombie-infested landscapes are visually stunning. An international cast of actors that ensure good acting that went waste thanks to an over-dramatic script.

If you don't mind switching off your brain and watching the movie for pure entertainment's sake, then you are in for a pretty intense joy ride. For me, the movie earns no points for realism and originality. But it succeeds to entertain pretty well.

My Rating: 2.0