★☆☆☆☆
24 January 2020
A movie review of COLOR OUR OF SPACE. |
D: Richard Stanley (The Island of Dr. Moreau).
S: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight, Q'orianka Kilcher, Tommy Chong.
“Everybody loves ducks,” Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage)
Nathan has a small herd of alpacas on his farm. A Cage character kind of animal if there ever was one. Nathan drinks alpaca milk. Cage doing Cage. Nic Cage's brand of acting causes a few chortles, but runs out of steam. Isn’t he tired of it? When I see his name attached to a project now, my heart sinks. However, because of FACE/OFF [1997], CON AIR [1997], and ADAPTATION [2002], there is always hope for a Cage-renaissance.
Richard Stanley directs COLOR OUT OF SPACE. The documentary, LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU [2014], has built anticipation after 23 years for Stanley’s next film. It saddens me to write: Is this it?
S: Nicolas Cage, Joely Richardson, Madeleine Arthur, Elliot Knight, Q'orianka Kilcher, Tommy Chong.
“Everybody loves ducks,” Nathan Gardner (Nicolas Cage)
Nathan has a small herd of alpacas on his farm. A Cage character kind of animal if there ever was one. Nathan drinks alpaca milk. Cage doing Cage. Nic Cage's brand of acting causes a few chortles, but runs out of steam. Isn’t he tired of it? When I see his name attached to a project now, my heart sinks. However, because of FACE/OFF [1997], CON AIR [1997], and ADAPTATION [2002], there is always hope for a Cage-renaissance.
Richard Stanley directs COLOR OUT OF SPACE. The documentary, LOST SOUL: THE DOOMED JOURNEY OF RICHARD STANLEY’S ISLAND OF DR MOREAU [2014], has built anticipation after 23 years for Stanley’s next film. It saddens me to write: Is this it?
Nathan’s daughter Lavinia (Madeleine Arthur) rides a horse called comet, and then a meteorite arrives setting off the plot. Groan. Like the far better SLITHER [2006], there is mutation and mind alteration. Unlike SLITHER, what should the audience be scared of here? I kept thinking of better films, from extraterrestrial body horror THE THING [1982] to well crawling J-horror RINGU [1998]. The land changing is not WAR OF THE WORLDS [2005] stomach-churning. Nathan’s youngest son is drawn to the alien. Er, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND [1977], POLTERGEIST [1982], etc. Plus we are dished the isolation cliché. A car ride from the nearest help. Contrast THE CONJURING 2 [2016], set in London, where even surrounded by a metropolis is still no use to assuage the terror.
The colour scheme made me think of a better Nic Cage flick, MANDY [2018]. (That also was not the Nic Cage-renaissance hoped for, as the revenge plot was too simplistic. However, the lighting there was remarkable, and the music score pounded you into your cinema seat.) In literature to say the light is not like any colour seen before, fair enough, but in a movie to say that and then have a bland pink filter is laughable and frustrating.
Time distorts, but we don’t feel it. There is a conquering extraterrestrial entity but we don’t get a handle on it. COLOR OUT OF SPACE is a vague movie without any real attention to detail. The story and filmmaking feels slapdash.
At least there is casting diversity albeit among the secondary characters. Having a Native American mayor and not use it to observe something socio-political-historical is a waste. She is just the JAWS [1975] mayor. (A quality joke in the GHOSTBUSTERS [2016] reboot.) Wife Theresa (Joely Richardson) is a stockbroker working out of their attic, but there is no comment on the financial crash of 2008. The whole thing does not even feel like a first draft. Ezra (played by Tommy Chong) owns a cat called G spot. The humour is a mixed bag. A news broadcast mentions Dunwich. ‘The Dunwich Horror’ is also from source author H.P. Lovecraft. Are we going to get an H.P. Lovecraft universe?
COLOR OUT OF SPACE contains annoying sound effects and annoying lighting effects. There is the truly tired jump scare. Loud music. Loud light. All in all, lacklustre horror gubbins. It's a grating experience.