FILM RELEASE
OPENING FRIDAY
SPOTLIGHT
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I've become somewhat of a burgeoning comic book aficionado, with most of my emphasis revolving around the classics, such as Alan Moore and Frank Miller's repertoire. Also, seeing as I have imposed some sort of self exile into long established superheroes territory (Superman, Batman, Spiderman, The Watchmen, The Avengers, etc) I've missed out on Joss Whedon's legendary work on the X-Men franchise, and also his original comic book 'Fray,' which is an extension of the Buffy-verse that catapulted Whedon into the mind's eye. At the same time, neither TV show really appealed to me, so I came into this movie with an indifferent attitude. When I walked out, my opinion of the story hadn't taken a drastic change for better or for worse, but I have decided to go pick up a few of the 'Fray' trades, so in a few ways, the film did its job well. The story revolves around Melaka Fray (Mila Kunis), a thief working in a futuristic city for a fish like mutant. When she meets up with a giant red skinned demon named Urkonn (Michael Clarke Duncan), she is told that she's a slayer, a warrior selected by powers unknown to her. Her new job is to kill vampires, and she couldn't be less enthusiastic. At the same time, a plot is being hatched by the vampires (or 'lurkers,' as they are commonly known) to conquer the city and open a portal to Hell, causing both our world and the underworld to collide. 'Fray' features the hallmarks of Joss Whedon's storytelling. When I interviewed Random about a month ago he mentioned that he was going to stay true to Whedon's vision, and he obviously hasn't strayed far. The biting wit, the breathless pacing that subtly infuses character development with plot movement and a whole lot of ass kicking are reputed trademarks of Whedon's unique style and vision. But where the film fails is on the part of the writer. For the most part, despite some simplistic tying up of loose ends, the plot is flawless, and the character development is strong. The film gets a bit clichéd towards the end, and incredibly easy to telegraph. In many ways, it's easy to compare this film with 'Blade,' a vibe that wasn't emanated from Whedon's TV shows. But where the film really fails lies in the heart of the script itself. As a wise man said once, the editing is a demon from the very deepest depths of hell. The film is chock full of grammatical and spelling mistakes, reducing it to the point of unread ability. It is genuinely difficult to stay tuned into the plot when every other word is misspelled. Ninety percent of the errors could have been caught and corrected by a single, lethargic proof read, which is why 'Fray' smacks of being rushed towards release. Lines such as: "The savage btie mark on the woman's neck bleeds purfusely" and "One is a bald-headed man-mountain, named LUTHER, and he is flanked my a scrawny male and female" are a testament to the speed at which this thing was churned out. Several writers here have also developed a nasty habit of writing awkward sentences in the form: "The BEEPING SOUND draws near and catches the attention of FRAY," which should be re-written as: "The beeping sound catches Fray's attention as it draws nearer," or something in that vein. This happens several times during the script. You may wonder why I'm nitpicking about grammatical mistakes so much, but to put it simply, the film could've scored at least ten points higher if it had hired a decent editor, that's the extent to which the lack of editing derails the story. As for the story itself, it's nothing revolutionary. While it gets down all the requisite aspects of storytelling and tells it a stylized, unhurried manner, it isn't anything special. The sequence prior to the all out vampires vs. humans battle is almost nausea inducing, more suited to the melodrama of 'Braveheart.' It's all the more painful to swallow as Random's complete mastery over the action sequences still shines through. His gift for editing a film at breakneck speed (which was evident in his B movie classic 'Time Shock') seems almost perfunctory here. Despite being pockmarked by inventive action sequences, 'Fray' feels like it's dragging its heels for the entire running length, and hasn't lived up to its full potential. 60/100 Any vampire, action, or science-fiction lover should like Fray. The film is fast-paced, fun, and mostly clean, if a little confusing in some logic points. Then again, not everyone wants to see a movie for its logic. Oh, this is a horror film? Well, it can be considered an action-adventure of sorts with vampires as the main villain. It isn't all that scary. A bit sickening, perhaps, for some, but not terrifying. Be prepared for some serious teeny-girl-pummel-huge-guys. In that sense and a few others—Fray single-handedly "saving the world" and three siblings in a triangle semi-against each other—the film is somewhat cliché. Some aspects are never fully explained, such as the Fray's brother kissing her. At first, I thought he had infected her with something, but that was never verified. There is no love interest, though there is a character who you forget about by his appearance near the end. The entire plot line of "What is Fray, anyway?" never fully develops. Side trails tidily end, like who killed Loo, but the main path disintegrates. Or suffers an earthquake. Or the writer figured it out as he wrote and forgot to go back and fix the hodgepodge he had created in the meantime. As long as you don't pay too much attention to that, it's a fine movie. Fray is a film you probably won't mind seeing a few times; I wouldn't be surprised if it gets some rabid fans. Humor-wise, it's quite amusing, and the tension-humor interplay is great fun. Personally, I find action-based films somewhat mind-numbing, but I think a little more revision would have made this worth remembering and passing on to friends. As it is, the main plot is incomplete—something that the writer would be well-advised to keep an eye on in the future. 75/100 Language: 6/10 (present, not overtly excessive, but could've had less) Intimacy: N/A This is Random’s latest film here at HTG. He has taken on the “Buffy Universe” with this film. Here is how it fared in my review. PLOT: The plot consists of Melaka Fray (Mila Kunis) sees here brother Harth (Shia LeBeouf) gets killed by a vampire, Icarus (Ron Perlman). Many years pass and we see that Melaka has become a thief and is now working jobs for a reptile like creature names Gunther (Joe Pantoliano). Worst is now her sister, Erin (Rebecca Romijn) is part of the law and is after her. She gets more bad news when she is told by a demon creature on the good side named Urkonn (Michael Clarke Duncan) that she is the slayer and she must save the world from the vampires. She finds out that the head of the vampires that will bring hell back to Earth is her dead brother, Harth. There is a big battle of the vampires versus the humans and the vampires. Harth ends up leaving at the end of the battle. Melaka has saved the world, but what’s next? The plot was interesting in the semi Buffy kind of way, but yes, we have seen it before. I thought that there would be more to the battles but Fray finds out who she is and really is thrown into battle. I expected to see more training time in the film. I thought that the film was a bit too short in this aspect. It isn’t the worst plot created but it certainly isn’t the best. FINAL PLOT GRADE: 60/100 DIALOGUE: The dialogue wasn’t too bad although the spelling mistakes made it hard to understand what they were saying at points. The dialogue stays to the Buffy way by making it pretty funny at times and Melaka has great dialogue and she has very believable dialogue at the same time. Most of the dialogue worked, so I have to give it a fairly high grade. FINAL DIALOGUE GRADE: 80/100 CHARACTERS: Melaka was a pretty interesting character but I just wish the film would have been longer so that we could have had more insight into her. Like most characters, they all have flaws and just can be uninteresting at times. I thought that the character of Loo was nice but far too young sounding to be played by Dakota Fanning. I think though that the characters are the film’s strongest point as this is a Joss Whedon comic and he is great at making interesting characters. FINAL CHARACTERS GRADE: 85/100 CASTING: I thought that Mila Kunis was a great choice for Melaka. She has the perfect mix of comedy and drama for the role. I however am one not to forgive Bryan Singer for directing. Joss Whedon would have made a better choice and frankly, this comic isn’t really Singer’s kind of work either. He can make other comics, just not this one. I thought that Michael Clarke Duncan and Joe Pantoliano were interesting choices for their roles and they did a pretty good acting job in the film. I thought though that Dakota’s sister, Elle would have made a better choice for the role of Loo. FINAL CASTING GRADE: 50/100 PACING: The pacing was ok, not too bad, not too good. It felt fast at a lot of moments. I wanted to get to know more about the characters rather than just have a lot of fight sequences. We get some insight into the characters like Melaka and how she developed into becoming the slayer, but not enough. The final fight scene to me was a bit too short. It seemed like the writer was in a complete rush to get the film finished. The fight scene just seemed to go by way too fast and not in a good way. I think that the pacing was like average and mediocre, so here is the score... FINAL PACING GRADE: 55/100 ADVERTISING: I really liked the advertising of this film for what I saw. I wish that there would have been a bit more of it though. I loved the posters though, whoever did them did a great job. The Mila Kunis pictorial was great and the theater poster kicked some serious ass too. However, yes, I would have liked more. FINAL ADVERTISING GRADE: 85/100 WRITING: Sloppy at a lot of times. The grammar and the spelling errors got to be almost nauseating. How many times can you misspell Jesus? Our lord and savior would have cringed and would have had Random killed. The film seems to be rushed to much and is too short for its own good. The film was written interestingly enough though to keep our interest at least some of the time. Like I said though, the film seemed to be rushed, which can lead to sloppy writing. FINAL WRITING GRADE: 55/100 FINAL OVERALL GRADE: 68/100 I am a big fan of Joss Whedon’s “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” – got all the seasons on DVD, watched the spin-off “Angel” a bit (but I’m absolutely terrible at watching a series week-to-week on TV.) I am also a big fan of the producer of this film, Random, and his mostly sci-fi scripts, such as the “System” flicks, “Time Shock”, etc. So you take a comic book created by Joss Whedon called “Fray” (which I’ve never read) about a slayer centuries into the future and add Random – you’ve got a mix I’m very excited about. Centuries after the happenings of “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel”, the story revolves a nineteen-year-old woman named Meleka “Mel” Fray (Mila Kunis) who is a thief, working for the fish-mutant Gunther (Joe Pantoliano). And it seems in addition to being a thief she’s also destined to be the savior of the world. According to the large, imposing, and ugly red demon Urkonn (Michael Clarke Duncan) Fray is a slayer and it is up to her to take on the vampire Icarus (Ron Perlman), who killed her brother Harth (Shia LeBeouf), in order to save the world. There was a little bit of an outcry from ner—err…. concerned fans… when it was announced Bryan Singer would be directing the movie instead of Joss Whedon. I, however, despite being a Whedon fan, didn’t necessarily care who the director was. Really, in a game like HTG, who you pick as the director doesn’t particularly mean squat. I could make “My Little Ponies: The Movie II” and have Paul Verhoeven as director (That would rule, by the way) and write it as a cheesy, sappy, whatever the hell the show and movie were, despite Verhoeven being director. Far more important is the casting of the title character Fray. I have to say that while I think Mila Kunis is hot, the only thing I have ever seen her in is “That 70’s Show” - that doesn’t inspire much confidence that she could be a good Fray. Granted, maybe she’s been in other roles that inspire much more confidence but I haven’t seen ‘em and there ain’t any way to fix that. So my enjoyment (though not my scoring of the film) was slightly hampered going in. On the plus side the rest of the casting was flawless. The pacing of the film was a breakneck speed that never lets up. Despite the almost 90 page length, it felt like I’d only been at the computer for a few minutes. It was so quick that I wanted to yell “Stop!” at some parts. The lack of detail in some areas was impossible to ignore. Little detail was given to the setting – we don’t know its name, where it is, and for the most part even what it looks like. Not even a basic, general idea. Visuals in sci-fi movies are part of the fun. There’s really no need to tell us what happened in the past to Buffy, Angel, etc. because that’s not important to the story and would only serve to tie those characters down in other works about them. However, when a Watcher comes to Fray and lights himself on fire, something other than a few words about the Watchers going crazy would be nice. According to the story, a long time ago a Slayer banished all the demons and magic from the world. But hey, look at the vampires (usually called ‘lurkers’ here) and the big red dude named Urkonn. No explanation for that and I think “the Watchers dispersed because their job was pretty much over” instead of “they went crazy” would’ve worked better. Despite no explanation about his origins, a demon showing the slayer her destiny was a very fun touch. I mentioned the casting of Mila Kunis slightly hampered my enjoyment but not my score. However, the seemingly endless errors in the script hampered both. In the very first page of the script, we are introduced to Fray – “A young FRAY (mila Kunis) and HARTH (Shia LeBeouf) are running along the rooftop.” When the first name of the start of the film isn’t capitalized, you know things can’t be good. In one page Fray mentions a criminal named “Rubberin”- in the very next Gunther mentions “Reubrin.” There were a great deal of spelling mistakes like “loks”, “shads”, “loof”, “violenty”, “gree” instead of green, and “beginnning” just to name a few. Like the pace it started off in the beginning and never let up. It’s all the more infuriating because Spellcheck could’ve taken care of this. Or, um, gee I dunno, a studio head actually reading it. Although odds are this was rushed like hell close to the release date (Though I’m not exactly one to talk about that.) Despite its problems this is a fun and entertaining movie and Joss Whedon is definitely felt. The dialogue is fantastic, able to go from the trademark humorous wit (and I should note the funny in the movie wasn’t just limited to the dialogue) into more serious territory without losing anything and indeed only getting better. While the story of saving the world wasn’t anything new (I was reminded of the numerous jokes in the TV show about how many times Buffy and the Scoobies had saved the world), Fray was an interesting enough character and the film had enough twists that it kept the storyline from being bland and just a repeat of previous stories – the revelations about Harth and Urkonn were surprising and great. And of course one of the best parts was hands down the action. I’ve never read the comics so I can’t say how closely the story in the film is to them, but since the action in comics is visual I know Random had to bring it to written (or typed, I guess) word, which as usual he excelled at. The fights with the vampires were great, whether it was Fray taking them on or the people rallied to defend themselves from the vampire assault. The highpoint was Fray taking on the serpent demon – being swallowed and then freeing herself via its eye. Unfortunately the serpent demon fell dead, Harth ran for the hills, and that was it for the action from that point on. The movie was over. It leaves open an obvious sequel, but in an anti-climactic way. I would give it a score of 65 out of 100.
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CRITIC'S
CORNER STAFF
BlackSmith Ritchie Steven DISCLAMER "The Critic's Corner" is a fictional review website from the game "Hollywood: The Game". None of these movies are real and as such, you cannot watch them or purchase them on DVD. Also, we will not release your movie for you or take reviews of actual films. We don't have the power to do so, see? Any use of actors, logos and other names is purely for an entertainment purpose. This is a non-profit webiste and no profit is gained through the use of the names. No copyright infringement is intended. We recognize the original companies as owners of the names. This site and everything you see here is false. It's all lies. Even the things that are true are lies. But they're entertaining lies. And in the end, isn't that the real truth? The answer is no. |
