Movie Review: THE WARD

THE WARD

2011
R


"If I were you, I'd watch out, new girl."
-- Sarah

The Ward is a 2011 horror film directed by John Carpenter that serves as his first directorial effort in nearly a decade. The story follows a young girl named Kristen (Amber Heard) who is placed in a psychiatric hospital after burning down a farmhouse; however, she has no recollection of any events prior to her arrival at the hospital. As she tries to settle into her new environment, she meets the other girls in her ward: Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), Emily (Mamie Gummer) and Zoey (Laura-Leigh). She also meets Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris), who the girls say is trying an experimental method of therapy in their treatment. Although everything seems normal in the hospital, things start to go awry when Kristen starts to see an apparition haunting the halls. Fearful for her life and for the lives of the other girls, she attempts to break away from the ward.

While I'm not terribly well-versed on Carpenters directorial resumé, I have seen a handful of his films, and I have to say that he's been a tad hit-and-miss for me. I loved Halloween (1978), but I hated Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). I raved about 1982's The Thing, but I merely liked 1988's They Live. Because he's been so back-and-forth for me personally, I wasn't quite sure what to expect from The Ward. I thought it had the potential to be a great return to the horror genre for him, but sadly, the film just didn't really deliver.

I could probably break down the screenplay quite a bit and give you reasons as to why it isn't that good, but it would be too harsh to trash it all completely. There's a good story hidden somewhere inside this film, and were it not so painfully dull, I might have been captivated by the plot's twists and turns. To be honest, it all just felt a tad too predictable. I saw Carpenter's every move from a mile away, and I just thought he fell into horror convention a bit too much. For a man who broke ground in the horror genre so many years ago, it's sad to see him fall into conformity this way.

It's a shame he doesn't really get much help from his cast, either. While it's not the worst bit of acting you'll see, there's not really much good to say about our actors here. Amber Heard plays her character a tad bit over-the-top, and she turns into a whiny, broken record pretty quickly. We do get some okay performances from the likes of Harris and the other girls, but seeing as Heard is the star of the show, we have to suffer through her piece for the film's entirety. She may not bring down the film on her own, but she could have done a lot more to lift it from its current state.

Despite everything I've just said, the real issue with The Ward is that it just isn't scary. Whereas Carpenter has made a career on leaving his audiences in suspense, he instead chose the foray of cheap thrills for this particular film. Those of you who have been reading me for a while will know that I don't consider "cheap thrills" to be true horror. Sure, you might jump out of your seat, but you're not going to remember the scares a day or two later. Suspense will keep you awake at night, but cheap thrills will pass. Because of this, I just couldn't find the film all that terrifying, and considering the "jump" moments couldn't even cause a stir, I'd have to say that this was a rather failed experiment in the horror genre.

At the end of the day, The Ward is an interesting effort from a horror icon, but sadly, it fails on nearly every level. It breaks the first rule of the horror genre by not being scary in the slightest, and the rest of the issues with the film fall into place after that. It's not the worst film I've ever seen, but I can't in my right mind begin to recommend you watch it.

Movie Review Summary
Grade: D-
1.5 Thumbs Down

Movie Review: DRIVE ANGRY 3D

DRIVE ANGRY 3D

2011
R

Drive Angry 3D is a 2011 action film directed by Patrick Lussier. When Milton (Nicolas Cage) learns of his daughter's murder and granddaughter's kidnapping, he sets out to exact revenge on the man responsible for the heinous act: Satanic magic cult leader Jonah King (Billy Burke). Early in his journey, he meets a young woman named Piper (Amber Heard) whom he befriends and takes on his quest for vengeance. As the two continue to track King, Piper begins to question who Milton really is. A series of violent encounters that result in the deaths of many cause her a great amount of concern, but she ultimately chooses to stand by Milton for as long as it takes to retrieve his infant granddaughter. At the same time, however, a mysterious man known only as the Accountant (William Fichtner) continues to stalk Milton, growing ever closer as the film progresses towards its conclusion.

When I first heard about this movie, I had the automatic - and now seemingly standard - reaction that many an individual has for a Nicolas Cage venture. Because of his slew of financial troubles over the past few years, Cage has elected to sign onto any film that will give him a chance, and it almost begs one to wonder whether he actually reads scripts anymore. Still, I was bored enough to give this one a gander today, but I'll tell you know: I honestly wish I could have those two hours of my life back.

To be fair to the actors, they're not really given much to work with. Even for a movie that begs the audience to abandon any sense of logic or reason, Drive Angry is just a little too over-the-top. I get that the filmmakers were going for the whole "grindhouse" '70s flick feel, but I just couldn't get into it at all (and I'm a huge fan of grindhouse-style features). The plot was pretty predictable and the dialogue was a tad bit stale, but not atrocious. I think the fact that it was easy to understand exactly where everything was going took a little bit of the mystery away from any of the twists and turns, if you even want to call them that.

The acting wasn't much better, with Cage headlining a cast that essentially mails in their collective performances. When Amber Heard is the best actor on-screen, there's something wrong (and I mean no disrespect to Miss Heard, who actually did relatively well with her role). Cage gives us another stinker of a performance, as has become the norm of the past few years. It's truly heart-breaking to see the levels to which this Oscar-winner has stooped, to the point where it's almost painful to keep making fun of him. I know that there's a good actor locked somewhere inside that front he puts up every day, but aside from his supporting role in 2010's Kick-Ass, he hasn't been relevant as an acting force since 2005's Lord of War. Fichtner has a couple of decent moments, but he doesn't get enough screen-time to be considered a scene-stealer. If anyone has to take the loss here, it's definitely Burke, whose performance was the epitome of chewing the scenery.

Ultimately, the real selling point of this film as a failure is the fact that it couldn't keep my interest. The action scenes weren't all that compelling, and when you can't get any excitement out of an action-based flick, you're going to lose your audience. The CGI and the 3D are rudimentary compared to some of the other visual effects we've seen in 2011, so that's just another knock against the film as a whole. Overall, I'd say it's probably not worth your time to give this one a viewing. I know that Nic Cage has some real acting chops buried deep inside him somewhere, but Drive Angry 3D is not the film that brings them back to the surface.

Movie Review Summary:

Grade: D1.5 Thumbs Down