Netflix A-Z Double Feature: Dollhouse (2012) & Dark Skies (2013)

A double feature for letter D seems to be so fitting! Maybe not but coincidentally, right before I started this segment I had seen this Irish drama I’ll be looking at briefly called Dollhouse.  Adding on to my original choice of Dark Skies, we’re in for a little contrast of movies here where the only two things in common are that they are movies starting with D and that the director is also the writer.

Let’s check them out!

Dollhouse (2012)

Director/writer: Kirsten Sheridan

Cast: Seana Kerslake, Johnny Ward, Kate Stanley Brennan, Shane Curry, Ciaran McCabe, Jack Reynor

A group of street teens from Dublin’s inner city break into a house in an upper class suburb. The break-in quickly moves into a night of frenzy, scandal and consequence.-IMDB 

I’m not going to spend too much time on this one.  Dollhouse has a good idea.  It does.  It pulls it together with a relatively better ending. Wait, I’m getting ahead of myself…again.  Dollhouse is empty.  Its a lot of teens just messing around in this fancy house.  They break the stuff, trash the kitchen, mess around inside and outside. Then they sit around and play games.  Eventually you have a reveal fairly soon about what this is all about because the neighbor’s son drops by to see what is going on with the noise and whatnot.  Then there’s more random talking, trashy dialogue and things kind of go full on crazy once they get high and/or drunk.  There is some meaning behind how certain people have better friendship than others and how there’s something hidden nagging at us the whole way.

Although the whole beginning part really doesn’t feel like much the ending does have a reveal that I didn’t see coming.  Its not enough to make me say that its a good movie and it still feels pretty meaningless.  I’m kind of indifferent.  I know its trying to send a message, kind of a coming of age, breaking free and finding out what’s important, maybe.  It is a little sad because at various points it feels like the teens here each have an underlying personality besides their crazy self with their friends and it wants to get deeper into that but then it never fully commits to building on the characters enough for me to care.

Dollhouse is an empty Irish teen drama who doesn’t build enough of its characters but delivers a good final act which unfortunately still doesn’t help the movie feel more meaningful than it probably was intended to.

Dark Skies (2013)

Director & Writer: Scott Stewart

Cast: Keri Russell, Josh Hamilton, Dakota Goyo, Kadan Rockett, L.J. Benet, J.K. Simmons

As the Barret family’s peaceful suburban life is rocked by an escalating series of disturbing events, they come to learn that a terrifying and deadly force is after them.-IMDB

 Sci-fi horror featuring alien invasion sort of angles have been tough for me. I mean, I love the Alien series.  But, thinking about it now, I haven’t been a fan of anything specific.  The first comes to mind is Signs and I didn’t enjoy that one much.  Let’s just say that I was a little nervous going into Dark Skies.  I didn’t know what the story was about but all I knew was that there are aliens and they are invading this family.  That’s it.  But sometimes, its best to go in blind.  Dark Skies had some super creepy screenshots on Netflix and it had me wondering whether I’d be able to handle it.  As it turns out, Dark Skies is a pretty effective horror featuring alien invasion sort of plotline.  I don’t want to ruin the movie so I’m going to keep this as spoiler free as possible.

Dark Skies has an amazing atmosphere.  Its set up effectively to build tension and give you the proper creepy scares.  From the first moment that strange things happen, it already started freaking me out a little.  Then as the plot escalades and we learn more about what is going on, it was just downright scary.  There was one part that was a little weird in the effects department but I quickly overlooked that as the story took an even crazier turn in events.  Although, I have to admit that the twist they put, I had my suspicions already.  Still, it was pretty nice that a movie was able to pull it off in such a clever way.

Another thing that makes Dark Skies effective is that they focus around a family and particularly kids.  Kids in any horror just make things creepier.  When they are pulled into the equation, it just makes it more personal somehow.  In this one, there were two brothers in this family, the Barrets.  The kids were overall pretty great in this.  They did their roles really well.

As for the parents, played by Keri Russell and Josh Hamilton, there isn’t much to say.  I personally like Keri Russell a lot.  Its the first time I’ve seen her do horror so I wondered how it would turn out.  As the movie started getting tense, I started remembering that Keri Russell’s scary face is also being nervous and tense but it worked out great here and I enjoyed it a lot.  Her mom character really set the story in motion many times and there’s that one seen which made me hold my breath a little.  Josh Hamilton on the other hand, played the skeptical parent and I think his character was meant to be a little frustrating to watch because he wouldn’t see what the mom was seeing.  However, the contrast in itself is what makes these two characters paired up well.

I guess the surprise here is the little part that J.K. Simmons has in this one but its exactly what needs to be.  He is the alien expert and he exists to tell us his theories.  As always, as small a role as it is, it still had its purpose and it worked out great.

However, as enjoyable as Dark Skies is, it doesn’t come with no flaws.  The main one being in some of the choices these characters make.  At times, you question their logic.  In the midst of everything that was going on, it sometimes felt that they forgot they were trapped in this weird situation with random things happening or that their children or themselves were in danger.  It seemed a little awkward.

Dark Skies is an effective alien sci-fi horror that works on many levels.  I had some issues with effects and some issues with the logic of certain actions executed by the characters.  However, it does a fine job at building tension and the story itself has a lot of substance.  If anything, it built quite a bit of fear in me that I kept the lights on that night.

Have you seen Dollhouse and/or Dark Skies? What did you think of them? Are there any other memorable sci-fi/horror/alien invasion movies I should check out? 

Any guesses on the selection for E? Think Bollywood! 😉
(I thought about changing it but I’m committing to my original choice)

Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)

I’m not one of those opening day movie goers.  Not because I don’t want to, I just don’t really like the crowds but a few of my friends have been wanting to see this as much as I’ve wanted to so one of them used his coupons and booked us some seats at the VIP cinema.  Its a pretty luxurious cinema experience limited to adults only and you can eat with a little table, more comfy seats for a more expensive price.  Either way, we all got some food, our drinks and sat back to what we shortly before the movie started learned an almost 3 hour movie.  All I hoped in my mind when it started was the the dinobots would kick some ass.

I don’t usually post revews on the weekend but I just wanted to enjoy being the first few to catch a movie on opening weekend. Lets check it out! 😉

Director: Michael Bay

Cast: Mark Wahlberg, Stanley Tucci, Nicola Peltz, Kelsey Grammar, Jack Reynor, Sophia Myles, Bingbing Li

Picking up after the last epic battle in Chicago, the world is stricken with fear with the robots in general and the government has decided to not be in line with any robots regardless of which side they stand.  As they pick up their pieces, in Texas, Cade Yaeger (Mark Wahlberg) and his teenage daughter, Tessa (Nicola Peltz) try to live their lives struggling to pay their bills and keep afloat financially. Thats when he finds a broken truck which turns out to be a damaged Optimus Prime.  He decides to try to fix him while the black ops (I think) tracks them and wants to neutralize Optimus.  With Tess’s secret boyfriend Shane (Jack Reynor), they struggle to escape while helping the Autobots reunite and find out who is trying to destroy them.

Referring back to my opening paragraph, it seems that I had very low expectations.  The fact is after the garbage presented in Transformers 2 & 3, I wasn’t too confident about how this one would turn out. However, I had hopes because one, Shia LaBeouf wasn’t part of this anymore and it was replaced with the much more competent Mark Wahlberg and there was dinobots.  Plus, with Michael Bay, there is a certain level of dumb, over the top, CGI-y, explosions and action going on.  Pretty much defines an action movie that is simply enjoyable without having to think much.

As I’m writing this out, I just got out of the movie less than 4 hours ago.  Transformers was everything that I expected it to be and maybe it even gave me hopes of it keeping that quality for following movies.  Sure, there was some cheesy and rather laughable moments that kind of gave me a few shake my head and face-palm moments, like for example, the slow motion low angle shooting the agents coming in with their jackets flapping in the wind or deliberately making Tessa and her short shorts walking slow pace.  Not to mention, the movie was ridiculously long and at about 90 minutes in, I almost felt like it was losing steam.  However, it did come back with some more action as usual.

Lets just say that Michael Bay keeps his signature Michael Bay stuff and this movie is more in line with the enjoyment level I had for the first one and might even have surpassed it.  One of those reasons goes to Mark Wahlberg.  I like Wahlberg a lot.  Seriously, the man is very many.  Like he has a very likable appearance and his acting is pretty good.  I’ve enjoyed a lot of the movies that he has been in and no, I haven’t seen The Happening so I can’t comment. I felt like he brought a lot more than anything that Shia Lebeouf could offer in the previous instalments.  Plus, Wahlberg is diversified as an actor.  He can bring a bit of humor and do good in action and that really is needed in this role.

I’m going to go straight out and say that the cast really impressed me.  I love Stanley Tucci and the man is kick ass funny and just great.  I haven’t dived much into his character but he does have a pretty key role as he ends up stuck with Cade and group as they escape from their many dangers.  Along with that, we have Kelsey Grammar as the second line bad guy.  I kind of found his character annoying but that makes sense seeing as that was the role he was given.  I spent the whole movie trying to figure out where I saw Nicola Peltz and realized as the IMDB page was loading that she was in Bates Motel.  I’m not exactly sure that I like her as an actress or I just didn’t really like it always giving the girls a stupid roles and lines, although I do like her more than Megan Fox. Plus, there’s a smaller role for Sophia Myles who is the main girl in the series Moonlight (that I love although it only had one season).

On the other side of things, in the trailers you see it anyways, which was also a highlight for me is bringing in the whole Hong Kong scene.  For one, there was a few cameos from known actors in the Hong Kong and China entertainment. Then, my friend and I had a bet before of who can identify which buildings were real and which were CGI. While we are talking about this, Bingbing Li has a little role in this one.  I had to add a picture of her just because I believe Mikey@Screenkicker told me he has a thing for Asian girls so here’s a picture for him. She is better than Ziyi Zhang 😉 Plus, she’s an actress that I’m slowly liking more and more.

If you haven’t liked the previous Transformers, I’m going to say that you probably won’t like this one either and I’d say to just back away from it.  You get exactly what you’d expect from a Michael Bay movie and thats an over the top summer blockbuster which is a tad dumb, and over the top with action and explosion. The only difference that gives it a little edge is that it doesn’t take itself seriously and for that, I can sit down and watch this and have a great laugh.  Plus, I really dig this cast and the Chinese actor cameos. Mark Wahlberg brings something fresh to the whole equation and the dinobots kicked serious butt even if they weren’t there for too long.  The Transformers themselves made the movie great as well.

I had a lot of fun with this one.  Its not a masterpiece and I hope that you don’t walk in expecting it to be.  How I feel for this one pretty much measures up to why and how I love silly movies like Resident Evil Retribution and The Expendables.  There’s going to be lots of criticisms about this one.  I’m pretty sure about that but hey, what counts in the end to have fun and I definitely did 🙂

Have you seen Transformers 4? Do you intend to? What are your thoughts on Mark Wahlberg?