Bean Encounters

Rating: Null/10 (17 August 2009)

This was on the positive side of science fiction for me, if only because not everything was extreme. There was no flawless babe, no effortless superhero nonsense. It was obvious that there were efforts to have some distinction.
But we are still stuck with your run of the mill evil megaweapons corporation with secret labs and thoroughly compliant technicians. An alien society that has superior technology but all of which looks like something we already have or have "invented" for our prior movies. A set of social and human commentaries that I encountered in pulps fifty years ago. And gosh, we must, must, must have anthropomorphic aliens, right? With nerdy, precocious kids?
The narrative stance was strange. It is cast in the form of an investigative journalism report about two years after the events. Much of it is clearly meant to be read as found or stolen footage from surveillance cameras. Some of the scenes which clearly cannot be, are still treated as if they were with annotations. Interwoven with this is conventional observation, though often with human or creature blood spattered on "lenses." I assumed that with Jackson's sponsorship, WETA would do its most amazing stuff. They did not. The compositing and creature animation is fine, but that WETA ethic of advanced spatial camera movement is gone.
Perhaps it was just too hard with all the production players. That's the usual barrier. But it may also have been the knowledge that too novel a camera would have messed with the faux documentary feel.
So we are left with holding tight to a few of the amplified strokes. The main character is true enough, ordinary and klutzy in a way that works. It would have been better for me if we had been given more than the trivial connections he has with his environment. The wife, father in law, coworkers are stereotypes albeit with a South Africa twist. The technology is highlighted, but never explored. There is a balance among mystery, novelty and comprehension that "Alien" got so right they defined that balance. A new balance is not justified here and I am left unsatisfied.
In particular: the heads up computer displays were pretty cool animations. But here was the place where we could have had some hints of organization, some coherence. This, I believe, if done well could have spawned a subculture of fans, like those who pore over plans of the Enterprise, or who map plot implications of Memento. What we get is what we have seen before and roughly promised from lumbering technology companies like MNU.
So like the hero, it is good enough, but it leaves us on Earth while the interesting promise sails away.
Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.