This Weekend’s Film Festival - Dystopias

With WATCHMEN arriving on Blu-ray and DVD this week, This Weekend's Film Festival is going dark with a look at cinematic dystopias. Alternative histories. Drug-regimented populations. Crime crippled cities. Fascist governments. And a bit of the ole ultra-violence. Look into the future through a glass darkly.

Zack Snyder faithfully adapted Alan Moore's quintessential graphic novel into a superhero film like no other superhero film before. Its length and ponderous tone have left audiences split, but it certainly started talk. In this version of the 1980s, Richard Nixon is still president and the U.S. won Vietnam with the help of its super-man Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup), a blue glowing god-like being who looks at humanity with a cosmic perspective viewing to a single human as simply a blip on the vast scale of the universe. Before they were outlawed, masked vigilantes fought crime on the streets and now someone is killing them. The sociopath Rorschach, played brilliantly by Oscar nominee Jackie Earle Haley, is on the trail of those responsible and in the process meets up with his old partners. Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) is now a cubby has-been. Silk Spectre II (Malin Akerman) was happy to give up the spandex and step out of the shadow of her famous crime-fighting mother (Carla Gugino). She's dating Dr. Manhattan, but it's not easy dating someone who regards humans like nothing more special than ants. The film deals with lofty ideas on the nature of existence, and evil in the name of the greater good. As I said in my original review, "Big budget films haven’t been this deep since the 1970s."

EQUILIBRIUM is set in a dystopic future where the government drugs all citizens in order to control their emotions, thus ending wars. But there are rebels who want to feel love and sadness and joy. These Sense Offenders are hunted by Clerics. John Preston, played stoically by Christian Bale, is a best Cleric in the world. But when he arrests rebel Mary O'Brien (Emily Watson), he is reminded of his own wife's sense offense and decides to see what its like from the rebels point of view. Off his meds, he doesn't want to go back and must hide his emotions from his eager new partner Brandt (Taye Diggs). As I said in my original review, "This sci-fi flick is part 1984 part MATRIX. The plot is completely borrowed from the classic sci-fi novels like the aforementioned Orwell novel, FAHRENHEIT 451 and A BRAVE NEW WORLD. The high-octane fight sequences are all MATRIX." Mixing a modern critique of the over medication of the population and iconic action sequences, this new twist on sci-fi standards has more feeling than the rest.

Paul Verhoeven's ROBOCOP is set in a near future Detroit where criminals rule the streets. Law enforcement has been outsourced to mega-corporations that are building military caliber robots to unleash on the population. Alex Murphy (Peter Weller) is an honest cop who is slaughtered by gang killers. After a mishap with a police robot, the mega-corporation goes with a cyborg powered by Murphy's brain. The RoboCop combines the precision of a machine with the instincts of a human. But when Murphy's old partner Anne Lewis (Nancy Allen) sees him as the cyborg, he begins to question is identity. This dark satire pokes fun at military outsourcing and cutthroat corporate politics, but underneath the humor and the violence, the film has something touching to say about bio-ethics and what makes a human a human being. As I said in my original review, "While its funny and action-packed for sure, this is more than just a silly action film."

In a lineup inspired by WATCHMEN and dystopias, one would be remiss not to include V FOR VENDETTA, another film based on a graphic novel by master Alan Moore. In this future, America has become a leper colony and Britain's fascist government uses the fear of terrorism to keep its citizens in line. But there is a vigilante in the streets named V, played by Hugo Weaving who gives a surprisingly effective performance while hidden behind an unmoving mask. He blows up Old Bailey as a symbolic attack on the corrupt government and promises to do the same to parliament one year later. V rescues TV station employee Evey (Natalie Portman) from the secret police and trains her to assist him in revealing the government's ills to the public. The Big Brother-like leader Adam Sutler (John Hurt) enlists Detective Finch (Stephen Rea) to hunt the masked man down. The films attacks on totalitarian governments will conjure up a host of different world leaders throughout history depending on the viewer, while walking the fine line between terrorist and freedom fighter in its portrayal of V. As I said in my original review, "In its message it isn’t really saying anything new, but it’s nevertheless daring in how it says it… As V says, people should not be scared of their governments, governments should be scared of the people."

This week's lineup closes with one of the screens' most famous dystopias in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Gangs of bored and undisciplined youth engage in beatings and rape for fun. Alex De Large, played deviously by Malcolm McDowell, is the leader of one of these gangs, who gets pinched after his gang double-crosses him. In prison, he submits himself to a new procedure that will "cure" him of his violence and set him free. The cure doesn't change his desire for violence, only his reaction to it. Violence and sex simply make him ill, leaving him incapable to defend himself against his revengeful victims on the outside. Based on Anthony Burgess's novel, Stanley Kubrick's provocative masterpiece is a bleak critique of society's inability to recognize the individual roots of social ills. Alex, despite being a rapist and a murderer, is embraced by both sides of the crime debate as a poster child for their agenda. The film portrays all humans as potentially violent and that good and evil must come from personal responsibility or you deny humans of free will. The famed critic Pauline Kael called the film pornographic and a dangerous portrait of violence because youth will view the charming killer is "not as bad" as the abusive and regimented government. But in my original review I said, "In her assessment of the film she views the end as Alex’s victory over society, but any rational person will see it as the demise of society. The grinning sociopath put on top by a corrupt society. They made him and they freed him and they fashioned him the hero."

To take a trip in this time machine to the future simply head to the videostore, update the Netflix queue, check out sites to stream at HelloMovies.com, visit Zap2It.com for TV listings, or help support the site by buying the films on DVD or Blu-ray at the links below.