King of the Ants

[So I'm going to try turning this thing "Netflix-friendly". That is, I'm going to start linking movies to their respective Netflix pages. I'm not really sure why--I think it's because it's something I would like, so maybe there's one other person out there that'll appreciate it. I've been on the Netflix for maybe close to a year now. It changed my life. I love it. Give me a free account.]



Still deciding about this one, but I figured I'd dive into it. I posted the picture to the book this movie is based on--because the cover of the DVD is pretty misleading. Makes it look like some stupid zombie movie or something. Ahem. Although, in fact, it is directed by Stuart Gordon of Re-Animator fame. I know that's not neccessarily a good thing--but in this case it is.

Now I haven't read the book--though looking in to it makes me interested in the author Charlie Higson's other work. The whole thing starts off pretty poorly, we're pretty much immediately tossed into a pretty standard loner getting mixed up with bad guys story. The bad guys even being George Wendt (bought the rights to the book many years ago) and Daniel Baldwin (the poor man's Baldwin even!), but they actually do a pretty decent job in their roles. The main guy, Sean, is played by a guy who's mainly only done tv show appearances--and this is what causes some problems. Its a very tough role to sell. His character is a pretty unlikable guy and the first 10 minutes or so are pretty rough because as we're supposed to be getting into the movie we find ourselves stuck with this dumb guy and a rather badly executed story.

But after our anti-hero kills the guy from Office Space the unexpected twists start showing up and a wholly original story appears. As does Kahri Wuhrer's breastses (some geeks out there interested in that). But I digress... There is a fair amount of violence in what ends up to being an intersting origin story for a twisted and slightly disturbed new hero. The actor playing our hero, Chris McKenna doesn't end up leaving too bad an impression. He's appearing in Art School Confidential next, based on Daniel Clowes' comic book, which I'm highly anticipating, so I'm still hoping he'll get better as he goes along. I recommend putting it on your queue especially if you liked the Miike movies and we're disapointed by some of Gordon's last few. But you don't have to rush it to the top.

3 out of 5 severed George Wendt heads approve.

I have to go back to watching Versus now. So far I've been a bit disapointed with it, but the pot's definately helping.