The Crazies (1:41, R) — Borderline, 3rd string, remake
Pretty sad that this retread is the best SF&F film of 2010 so far, tho still not one that I'd really recommend. Here Timothy Olyphant, in a big-screen stopover on his way between portraying a sheriff in HBO's Deadwood and a sheriff in FX's Justified, is cast against type as a sheriff.
The film wastes no time getting right into the meat of the story, as the opening scene shows a town in flames, littered with wrecked vehicles. We cut quickly to "2 days earlier", opening day of baseball season in the little town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa (pop. 1260), as Rory Hamill, the town drunk — expressionless, disheveled, wearing grimy overalls — walks onto the field with a shotgun. The players scatter, and Pierce County Sheriff David Dutton (who apparently knows everyone in town on a 1st-name basis) walks out to calm Rory down and persuade him to put down the gun. It doesn't end well.
Over the ensuing day or so, a number of other town residents start exhibiting strange behavior: subdued, listless, forgetful. Some of them show up in the office of the town doc, Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), the sheriff's pregnant wife. But she can't find anything wrong with them beyond a slightly elevated temperature, and they agree. "{My wife} worries too much. I'm fine. Just a little tired.", says one man. Then, moments later, he says it again. He'll be the next one to wig out.
Intercut among the scenes of tranquil rural life are quick shots from satellite recon cameras and, later, from inside a mysterious black SUV with tinted windows. This gives us reason to think that there's more going on than, say, H2N2. This is confirmed about the time the sheriff does a little detective work to discover that the craziness is probably due to contaminated water flowing downstream from the village's eponymous marsh, and the overhead view gets an ominous new caption: "Initiate containment procedures".
From there on, it's the sheriff, his wife, his chief deputy (Joe Anderson as the decidedly non- Barney-Fife-like, competent, reliable Russell Clank), and teenage candy-striper Becca Darling (Danielle Panabaker) against the crazies themselves, vengeful relatives, panicky townspeople, well armed rednecks, and hordes of gas-masked soldiers who themselves aren't quite sure what they've been ordered to do but aren't about to take any lip from civilians, badge or no.
Things go to hell pretty realistically, there aren't any unbelievable heroics or faky jumpatchas, and there's a serious effort made to field a plausible scientific explanation for everything. Indeed, that very plausibility prompts me to classify this film as borderline, rather than pure SF, since it's something that arguably could happen in real life.
Does it all turn out OK in the end? That would be telling, wouldn't it?
George A. Romero executive produced this remake of his 1973 film of the same name, which was set in Pennsylvania. (You may recognize him as the man behind the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead and its many remakes and sequels. Apparently he's a guy who believes in milking the cow until she implodes.) I never saw the original, so I can't say whether it meets my standard test for whether a remake is justified, namely that the original idea was poorly executed but worthy of being done right.
The 2010 edition, considered all by itself, is reasonably good but by no means a must-see.
Pretty sad that this retread is the best SF&F film of 2010 so far, tho still not one that I'd really recommend. Here Timothy Olyphant, in a big-screen stopover on his way between portraying a sheriff in HBO's Deadwood and a sheriff in FX's Justified, is cast against type as a sheriff.
The film wastes no time getting right into the meat of the story, as the opening scene shows a town in flames, littered with wrecked vehicles. We cut quickly to "2 days earlier", opening day of baseball season in the little town of Ogden Marsh, Iowa (pop. 1260), as Rory Hamill, the town drunk — expressionless, disheveled, wearing grimy overalls — walks onto the field with a shotgun. The players scatter, and Pierce County Sheriff David Dutton (who apparently knows everyone in town on a 1st-name basis) walks out to calm Rory down and persuade him to put down the gun. It doesn't end well.
Over the ensuing day or so, a number of other town residents start exhibiting strange behavior: subdued, listless, forgetful. Some of them show up in the office of the town doc, Judy Dutton (Radha Mitchell), the sheriff's pregnant wife. But she can't find anything wrong with them beyond a slightly elevated temperature, and they agree. "{My wife} worries too much. I'm fine. Just a little tired.", says one man. Then, moments later, he says it again. He'll be the next one to wig out.
Intercut among the scenes of tranquil rural life are quick shots from satellite recon cameras and, later, from inside a mysterious black SUV with tinted windows. This gives us reason to think that there's more going on than, say, H2N2. This is confirmed about the time the sheriff does a little detective work to discover that the craziness is probably due to contaminated water flowing downstream from the village's eponymous marsh, and the overhead view gets an ominous new caption: "Initiate containment procedures".
From there on, it's the sheriff, his wife, his chief deputy (Joe Anderson as the decidedly non- Barney-Fife-like, competent, reliable Russell Clank), and teenage candy-striper Becca Darling (Danielle Panabaker) against the crazies themselves, vengeful relatives, panicky townspeople, well armed rednecks, and hordes of gas-masked soldiers who themselves aren't quite sure what they've been ordered to do but aren't about to take any lip from civilians, badge or no.
Things go to hell pretty realistically, there aren't any unbelievable heroics or faky jumpatchas, and there's a serious effort made to field a plausible scientific explanation for everything. Indeed, that very plausibility prompts me to classify this film as borderline, rather than pure SF, since it's something that arguably could happen in real life.
Does it all turn out OK in the end? That would be telling, wouldn't it?
George A. Romero executive produced this remake of his 1973 film of the same name, which was set in Pennsylvania. (You may recognize him as the man behind the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead and its many remakes and sequels. Apparently he's a guy who believes in milking the cow until she implodes.) I never saw the original, so I can't say whether it meets my standard test for whether a remake is justified, namely that the original idea was poorly executed but worthy of being done right.
The 2010 edition, considered all by itself, is reasonably good but by no means a must-see.