From Drew Dietsch
| Published
I recently had to write a script for a list of films that I owed a little or a big guilt The matrix. One of the films on which I concentrated for the shortest time in this video was 2002 of the video balanceWritten and staged by Kurt Wimmer, writer and director of the 2020s Children of the cornOne of the worst Stephen King films of all time I have ever seen.
So because I admitted to give Kurt Sci-fi Film The Short Shrift in this video and I really reminded the people he made, no joke, a worse Stephen King film than both The missing person Continuation, I would like to give Wimmer’s best control effort a fair shaking when I look back because both the film and its publication are definitely worth another look.
Smart sci-fi makes balance stupid
So the very first criticism of balance We have to address the story and the alternative future world in which it takes place, because a word that I am certainly used against this film is “derivative”.
It is a word that is used when a work of art takes a recognizable source of inspiration, and people don’t have the feeling that it does something … well, inspires. Instead, they cannot help but see it as a copy and paste job.
balance Undoubtedly inspire and create a world in a fascist state in which emotions and artistic expression are suppressed in a fascist state in a fascist state in the name of the war.
It reminds me more than a little of my favorite video that I made for this channel Harrison Bergeron. You should watch that.
Libria’s society in balanceAn open fascist state (nobody has accused nobody of subtlety) retains peace by using that everyone takes an emotional medication called Procatio. As I said, Kurt and subtily are not bedding, even if this is just a topical reef and a renaming of Soma from Huxley’s Brave New World.
balanceThe handling of his inspiration reminds me of another science fiction film that gets the “D” word, 2013’s oblivion. The visual styles of both films are action-oriented and their science fiction world designs are slim, stripped and optimized. The same applies to your plug-and-play approach with your influences.
Imagine that every specific inspiration for a work of art is another colored wooden block, like the Alphabet children with which children play. Do children still play with it? I have not been a child for a few years. However, artists take each of these wooden blocks and can use them, but they want to build their own art. Some could carve the blocks into new shapes, others could smash the blocks into pieces and then glue something new out of the broken shards.
But like films oblivion And balance Feel how you take these blocks and hardly do them as you next to and on top of each other. The best you can find from your influences is just a larger block.
I think this kind of way of thinking is what people try to convey when they call a film as “derivative”. And I would argue balance‘S sci-fi history and the world succumb to the larger block problem. Although his topics, character arches and the overall count are presented strongly, they hardly bring anything new to the table that was not better researched in better stories.
Weapons, actors and the shattered pumpkins
What balance Offers that these literary stories are not a few cool, stupid cannon trees with a Christian balm that looks stupid. balance It is best if it is just a simple but stylish action film. It may act with an empty head (literally at one point), but we understand how to make weapons fights that show unique places or conceptually stylish sequences such as The Blackout Shootout.
And next to Christian Bale the rest of balanceThe line -up does exactly what is required by you and the material you have to work with. There is really no weak link in the ensemble. The real heroes of balance are actually the casting directors. I mean, Angus Macfadyen is there. Comodo of Warrior of virtue! Love ‘in.
And Wimmer uses shooting in Berlin, a place whose fascist architecture certainly contributes to the real fears he uses balance.
Okay, I don’t know where else can do it in the script. Before we talk about it balance‘S release and box office and all the good things, I just have to let the editor do something, so wear it with me while I explain a few things very quickly.
A “Temptrack” is a temporary music soundtrack that consists of music material (usually different film values), which is used in the processing of film material so that filmmakers have music before they have their own original score.
If you watch as many films as long as I do, you can start hearing when an original score tries to sound like another well -known film music, and it is likely that you are relating to this familiar film music for your pace track.
What does that have to do with that? balance? If I never have the chance to illustrate this again, I theoretes that balance Use a very unique choice on his Temptrack: The Smashing Pumpkin’s song “The beginning is the end is the beginning” from the Batman & Robin Soundtrack. Not the score, the soundtrack. Do I get crazy, you?
The secret success of the balance
Okay, so what happens to balance To denote it a failure? Well, most critics have not received a great warm reception at the time and currently has a critic of 40% Lazy tomatoes. Roger Ebert gave him three out of four stars. So if you have kept an overview with our videos, this is still a half star than Spawn.
If you look at the basic data balanceThe US cinema publication and the treasurer will take well below 10% of the U.Sheater screens available at this time like a bitter error that opens on Place #20 on only 301 screens of the country.
balance Scratched 1.2 million US dollars on the US evening fund and another international 4.1 million US dollar, which means that his theater hardly takes a quarter of his budget of $ 20 million. Sounds like bad news, isn’t it?
Well, this is an instance in which the real money has already been earned before the film ever hit a single screen. Thanks to the sales before publication in various markets around the world, such as B. theater exhibition fees and home video contracts, balance Had had enough of a win that the dealers decided to withdraw advertisements and advertising, which in turn meant reducing the number of screens where the film would play everywhere.
Fortunately, balance Seems to have this failure behind it, since the audience has contributed to the fact that the film is widespread. It is not so strong for me such a strong effectiveness for me, and some of his bigger block problems are even more lunkled today, but I can still enjoy its simpler and even stupid joys. And I will take every anti -fascist action film that I can get now.
And hey, I will even throw Kurt Wimmer a bone. I’m still saying balance is his best rule of directors, but he also wrote The beekeeper Last year, which surprised me, how brazen his sociopolitan comment was and was stupid and fun at the same time.
balance It’s stupid and funny, and that’s okay, even if it tries to be much smarter than it is. It’s definitely smarter than Children of the corn.
Take a look at the podcast Chat Sematary Where I put in a whole episode about Kurt Wimmer’s Stephen King’s Children of the corn. Take a look at that Genre Follow on Warrior of virtue For more of my Angus Macfadyen obsession.
And the most important thing is that you will return here more on huge freakin robots.
