Movie Review: Less Than Zero (1987)

A coming-of-age drugs-and-sex morality tales, Less Than Zero oozes style but reeks of plastic music-video superficiality.

Classmates Clay (Andrew McCarthy), his girlfriend Blair (Jami Gertz), and Julian (Robert Downey Jr.) were best friends from wealthy families at their Los Angeles high school. After graduation Clay heads out to college, Blair stays in LA to pursue a modeling career, and Julian dreams of successful business investment ventures using his father's money. At Thanksgiving Clay discovers that Blair and Julian are sleeping together, and at Christmas he returns home for another visit at Blair's request.

Clay finds Julian broke, addicted, and descending into a spiral of hard drugs supplied by slick dealer Rip (James Spader). Julian is still charismatic and dreaming of his next big venture, but running on empty, and owing Rip a lot of money. Clay reconnects with Blair and they rekindle their relationship as they try to help Julian break out of his destructive cycle.

A loose adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis' celebrated book about life among LA's decadent teens, Less Than Zero is loud but exceedingly tedious. Self-consciously directed by Marek Kanievska, the film looks sumptuous, with every frame an attempted work of art, Kanievska particularly fond of symmetrical framing and glitzy hyperactive lights puncturing the LA nights. The music, for better or for worse, is the other notable achievement, Less Than Zero featuring a nonstop soundtrack of what passed for cool rock and party tunes in the mid to late 1980s.

Otherwise this is a story about teenagers attending parties and dabbling in unconstrained sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll dreams, but unfortunately the film drops to the vacuous level of its protagonists. Clay and Blair attend party after party, usually looking for Julian as he struggles through his latest drug-induced haze, only to restart the same cycle the next day. Kanievska may have intended the endless succession of parties with throbbing music and stroboscopic lights to meld into one long 98 minutes as a metaphor for lives being wasted on indistinguishable highs, but as a viewing experience, the film dances up a sweat in one place and gets nowhere fast.

Apart from the insatiable appetite for all-night parties featuring flickering mountains of monitors as the decor object of choice, the film struggles to reconcile the main character interactions with their age. Andrew McCarthy, Jami Gertz, Robert Downey Jr., and James Spader represent core and loose affiliates of the Brat Pack, and here they fail to convince as 19 year olds six months out of high school. The actors range in age from 22 (Gertz) to 27 (Spader), and the dialogue, courtesy of a Harley Peyton script, suggests thirtysomethings rather than spoiled teenagers. McCarthy comes off worst in his perpetual dreamlike state. Downey Jr. and Spader are suitably intense and slimy respectively, while Gertz is adequate.

With plenty of throbbing ostentation, Less Than Zero is not wholly negative, but it is less than meets the eye.

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Movie Review: Twister (1996)

With awe-inspiring special effects undermined by a childish script and hackneyed love triangle, Twister is only tolerable when all the characters shut-up and the twisters are allowed to roar.

Former expert storm chaser Bill Harding (Bill Paxton) is settling down to a career as a television weatherman, and about to marry Dr. Melissa Reeves (Jami Gertz). He just needs to finalize his divorce papers from first wife and former storm-chasing partner Jo Harding (Helen Hunt), who still leads a ramshackle tornado chasing team. Jo has a burning passion to improve the science of predicting tornadoes, having lost her dad to a twister when she was a child. What should be Bill's final quick visit to Jo's camp turns into a wild storm-chasing adventure when a series of wild twisters descend onto the landscape.

Bill's old competitive juices are reignited, not to mention his lust for Jo, as he leaves Melissa twisting in the wind and joins Jo's crew as they attempt to place a new scientific device in a twister's path to gain valuable scientific data about the innards of tornadoes. Competing with them is a well-funded research team led by Jonas Miller (Cary Elwes), who used to be part of Bill's crew before going corporate.

Helen Hunt does her best to carry the acting load, but even she struggles with a script (by Michael Crichton and Ann-Marie Martin) written at Grade 5 level and assembling the most puerile of plot elements and throwing them together with no attempt at sophistication. The Jo / Bill / Melissa triangle is a candidate for the most contrived - and physically annoying - romantic entanglement ever placed on the screen, while the mostly faceless Jonas team motoring along in their black motorcade check off every trite and overused "bad guys" stereotype in the beginner's guide to writing screenplays.

Bill Paxton is far from ready to carry the male lead in a big budget production, and his performance is firmly bogged down in stiff daytime soap quality. Cary Elwes is even worse, and his battle against stock antagonist mannerisms is lost in his first scene. Philip Seymour Hoffman, in a predictable but at least entertaining role as an unkempt member of Jo's team, is left to add some supporting colour.

Twister is much better whenever the storms move in and the chase teams gun their engines and start to race towards the path of destruction, attempting to get as close as possible without getting swept up into the swirling debris. The tornado special effects are powerful, loud, impressive and immersive, director Jan de Bont clearly in his element brushing his cast up against momentous disaster. Twister's final 30 minutes is one long chase of a massive, destructive series of tornadoes, and the film finally hits its stride, the true star of the show proving to be the Industrial Light and Magic special effects crew.

But in this case the special effects just make Twister watchable, not necessarily enjoyable. The film's soul is a swirling emptiness lost in the middle of a large tornado.

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Movie Review: The Lost Boys (1987)

Before movie vampires were cuddly, hunky, and tragically romantic, they were pretty rotten creatures, none more so than the small colony of murderous blood suckers in The Lost Boys. These vampires have no redeeming features whatsoever, and they look fairly hideous whether in human or monster mode.

With Joel Schumacher directing, Richard Donner co-producing, and a cast of characters that brought together some of the better young talent of the era, The Lost Boys is a classy tongue-in-cheek horror flick with a few good moments of humour thrown in to spice up the fun.

Teenager Michael (Jason Patric) and his younger brother Sam (Corey Haim) are new arrivals to the small coastal California town of Santa Carla, where their mom Lucy (Dianne Wiest) has relocated their lives following a divorce. Beyond perpetually cheesy fairgrounds, Santa Carla has little going for it, and it loses it's minimal appeal when Michael and Sam realize that they are now in the murder capital of the country. Someone or something is committing a lot of violence in what should be a sleepy little resort community.

Things brighten up momentarily when Michael meets the flirty Star (Jami Gertz); but she turns out to be just a lure to attract Michael to a group of rowdy vampires led by David (Kiefer Sutherland). The impressionable Michael shares a drink of blood and is half-way to becoming a vampire; he just needs to kill something to complete the transformation, and Sam looks like a reasonable target. Sam enlists the help of local vampire hunters Edgar (Corey Feldman) and Alan (geddit?) to fight off Michael, destroy David and his gang, and find out whether Lucy's new friend Max (Edward Herrmann), a meek but creepy video store manager, has anything to do with the local carnage.

The Lost Boys brings together a talented young cast that sparkles, sometimes under heavy make-up, despite the Santa Clara darkness. Kiefer Sutherland has rarely had a better opportunity to growl and drip evil on the big screen, while the role of Sam is perfect for Corey Haim's screen persona of scrappy resourcefulness. His regular screen partner Corey Feldman is also a natural as Edgar, all fake bravado, surviving thanks to equal measures of dumb luck and misguided initiative.

The Lost Boys also benefits from a sultry Jami Gertz at the peak of a career that promised much but fizzled too early. Jason Patric gets the most central role, but delivers a less interesting performance, all 1980s hair and little engagement. Dianne Wiest and Edward Herrmann add a dose of classiness to the movie.

Schumacher creates an atmosphere of silly dread, never aiming to be really scary but still managing to engineer a few effectively bloody moments. The Lost Boys has no message of value, but enjoys itself all the same delivering  high quality nonsensical fun.

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