Thursday, April 21, 2011

Is "tired old cliche" one?

I mentioned the other day that I’m in possession of a large number of borrowed Blu-rays, provided to me by a movie-obsessed co-worker. You think my collection is large? We once estimated that he must have over 2,500 DVDs! He doesn’t rent movies. He doesn’t go to the theatre. He buys everything he watches. And he watches a LOT. It’s great to have access to such a bountiful supply of movies, but that supply covers a very bizarre and interesting spectrum. I don’t recognize half of the movies he lends me. Which sometimes makes for some pleasant surprises. Sometimes.

On Monday night I browsed through the stack of movies currently on-loan and decided to pop Skyline into the PS3. I knew it was an alien flick. Someone once described it as a cross between Cloverfield and War of the Worlds. Cloverfield is a clever, unique film (if somewhat dizzying) and War of the Worlds is a great blockbuster with equal parts action and suspense. Both films have earned a spot in my collection. So with that in mind Skyline should have been fantastic. It should have been engaging, thrilling and intelligent.

As my wife would say, “Don’t should all over yourself.”

While Skyline had terrific special effects and a couple of exciting moments, it was, for the most part, a heaping pile of cliché. Most films include at least one or two typical clichés. You know, one of the main characters decides to wander off in search of someone or something, by themselves, while the monster/alien/texas-chainsaw-wielding-madman is still out there on the loose. Or the group of terrified teenagers decides to slowly walk backwards out of a room, their backs to the camera, not taking a single glance behind them to make sure they’re not walking into certain death.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that cliché in film is always bad. Letting that bomb tick away until the last second before the hero finally defuses it can create effective tension if done right. But when film cliché goes bad, it goes really bad. Skyline is a great example. Or a horrible example. Depends which way you want to look at it. If you want my opinion, I suggest you don’t look at it at all. The movie, that is.

The film's tag-line is "Don't Look Up".
I say "Don't Look. At this movie. At all".

I first knew things were going horribly wrong when the main character committed a particularly annoying cliché. He had been injured in some fashion. I won’t spoil how, except to say that he was psychically “burned” by the invading aliens which left his skin marked with black lines where his blood vessels were, causing him extreme pain and giving him a slight, mental insight into the mind of the alien invaders. Oops. Did I give too much away? Oh well, I guess you don’t have to watch the movie now. You can thank me later.

At any rate, when asked by a fellow survivor if he was ok, he instantly covered himself up and said “Yes, I’m fine.” This happens a LOT in film. Someone gets hurt and decides the best course of action is to hide that injury from everyone and pretend that it will just go away on its own. I guess some directors feel that this builds tension for the audience. “Ooh, I wonder what will happen with that mysterious injury?” It doesn’t. It just frustrates us and reeks of arrogance and ignorance. Not great qualities in a hero. And the person asking him if he was ok wasn’t just some random character. It was his pregnant girlfriend! Probably the closest person he knew or had a relationship with. That just made the cover up all the more frustrating.

Aliens attack L.A. 'Nuff said?

I’m not sure why I focused on that moment, but there it is. The movie really went down hill from there, although there were some cool battle scenes. But that’s just visual candy. There was no substance and the terrible clichés just reinforced the thought that these characters weren’t worth caring about.

Give Skyline a miss. Instead, watch a movie that uses some of those clichés in a much more satisfying and subtle manner. The Hurt Locker immediately comes to mind and is far more worthy of your time.

Having said all that, what are some your most annoying and frustrating clichés in film? Post a comment and let me know.

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