Don’t get me wrong, I actually quite enjoy the show Fringe and having been eagerly awaiting its return to the airwaves, enough even to brave a few minutes of American Idol while waiting for the show to start. However, for a show that opened its season with a plane crash, then quickly followed with teleportation and buses full of killer goo, the discovery of a psychic child who helps Olivia, the show’s protagonist, find a killer seems a little lackluster.

In this episode, a construction team is set to demolish a building. The episode setup of explosives and wires seems promising, but a construction worker has a feeling that leads him to discover a hidden underground chamber, wherein lies Batboy, terror of a secret past. Sorry. Bad joke. In reality, he finds a small, pale child who may actually be seventy years old, an impressive feat even in today’s world of technological marvels.

The child is discovered at the same time as an old killer from Olivia’s past resurfaces. Olivia obviously wants to track this killer, but is commanded from above to investigate the child, with Bishops in tow.  Olivia discovers that the child has a psychic ability that allows them to track the killer, who calls himself ‘the Artist,’ due to his clever rearranging pf his victims’ body parts before publicly displaying them. This episode does not lack for its attempt to show us the dark side of humanity.

Olivia and Co. are slowed in their pursuit of the killer by the CIA’s almost laughable attempt to disguise their taking of the psychic child. Olivia’s boss convinces Mr. CIA to let them use the child for one day so they can track the killer. Which they do. In about the simplest order possible. With one police chase, and one slightly tense thriller moment in a graveyard? Back alley? Miniature reproduction of 1800s London?

After this daring FBI run for justice, Olivia, who has developed a bond with the child, manages to sneak him away from the CIA and get him placed with a nice family, where he will be loved, and cared for, and play with bunnies and unicorns for the rest of his days. It is in these final happy moments that we see the greatest character to barely utter a word in television, the Observer. He shares a glance with the young psychic child, and the audience is granted a possible view of an Observer in training. The pattern does exist, and thank Abrams.

Every once in a while, an TV series needs a development episode without a lot of action. Dollhouse has had a lot of these, and Fringe is definitely due, but perhaps the timing could have been better. Backstory on the Observer is something that I greatly enjoy seeing, but for Fringe’s return after two months of silence, I would have liked a little more bang for my viewing buck.

Maybe the problem is that I came in with my hopes too high. The trailer for Repo! is more exciting than some action movies in their entirety (I’m looking at you, Blade Trinity), and its soundtrack is a blood-pumping mix of metal, opera, and rock, with some light techno thrown in for flavor. Listening to the soundtrack is what one imagines Andrew Lloyd Weber would sound like on LSD.

The premise of the film, for those who, unlike me, didn’t spend three weeks trawling the forums for more tidbits on the November 7th release, is that in a dystopian future organ failure has become an epidemic, but salvation comes through the purchase of GeneCo’s replacement organs payed for with flexible financing plans. The problem? If you miss a payment, your organs are repossessed by a Repo Man, who usually takes your life in the process of removing the overdue organs. The film was conceived of by the guys who wrote it as a stage play, directed and produced by Darren Lynn Bousmann of Saw 2,3,4 fame, and stars Anthony Stewart Head, Alexa Vega, Paris Hilton, and Paul Sorvino. With all that going for it, what could go wrong?

Well, quite alot actually. The story is set at the beginning of the film by a series of comic panels with musical overlay that makes the viewer feel that he may have stumbled onto some performance art show by mistake. Once the intro is over, we are quickly introduced to all the major characters, and by quickly I mean within ten minutes. The plot follows that Nathan, the chief Repo Man, has a daughter that inherited a blood disease from her mother, and so is under effective house arrest. Most of the rest of the movie, therefore, is about her trying to leave the house.

That may sound overly cynical, especially given the rather excellent ending scene at the Genetic Opera, but Alexa Vega is what she is cast to be: an angsty teenager. The audience gets reminded of this multiple times, and each successive time feels a little worse. There is a song titled “Seventeen” where Shilo, the character played b Alexa Vega, acts like a punk rocker in front of her father, in what I’m guessing was a calculated attempt to show that 17-year-olds are punks. They could have cut that song and lost nothing.

The plot continues, secrets are revealed, Shilo confronts her Repo Man father as he tries to confront the villainous company that employs him (GeneCo) and generally makes life bad for everyone. I will choose to not give away the ending, as it is worth seeing in theaters if for nothing else to see Anthony Stewart Head sing. See it at a student discount of you can.

Since I brought him up, let’s talk about A.S.H. HE IS THE SINGLE GREATEST PIECE OF TALENT IN THIS FILM. Honestly, I don’t think I could have tolerated some of the scenes without him if it hadn’t been for the scenes with him. His character has more depth than the rest of the cast, and he perfectly pulls off the double personality of Repo Man and caring father to Shilo. I also do give props to Terrance Zdunich, who, besides wirting the film and drawing the albeit dicey comic intro, portrays an excellent Graverobber, and I wish there would have been more scenes between him and Anthony Head. It is possible, however, that putting both of them singing in the same scene would have made the rest of the movie look too terrible in comparison, so I understand why they’re normally a few scenes apart.

I feel like responding to some criticism I saw on another site, namely that the camera work is fuzzy and a little, well, terrible. That’s not untrue. I’m not sure why the shots came out looking so bad, but there a definitely points where it seems like the camera was a hari out of focus. I’m not sure why, but it decreases the credibility of the film. Unless they were trying to make an artistic statement the audience was not supposed to get.

That’s in a way the gist of Repo! It feels like a movie designed to polarize the audience that’s watching it, even if that audience came in expecting the second coming. It rolls more as an art piece than as entertainment, more critique on society itself than as something society is supposed to enjoy.  Half the people who see it will probably hate it, but they will mask their hate for fear of being mobbed by the die hard fans who loved every grisly second. I fall into the camp of those who were die-hard fans of the movie until they actually saw it.

Review in a paragraph:

Repo! is heavily sexual, gratuitously gory, dark almost to the point of black, and misses some of its potential. Would I watch it again? Yes. In theaters? Maybe. If I’m with other die-hard fans it could be fun, but I would not willingly go to see it again by myself. They should have cut one or two number completely, reshot the entire movie with better cameras, and figured out an intro sequence that doesn’t feel, well, arty. It was a very good movie, not exactly what I was expecting and not a shining light to lead the major studios to making more movies like it, but a good attempt at something unique. All in all, the trailer kind of blew their wad.

The idea that there may be a machine as smart and stronger than the average human is an idea that would frighten many. The first question would be along the lines of what governs that machine’s actions; many would want to know whether the “robot” had a system of ethics or any moral system at all. While there are many theories as to what ethics truly means on a global human level, as a race humanity still has the sense that some set of guidelines determine our behaviors. Humanity would want to know that there is prevention against their robotic servants becoming the masters. As if to answer this question, the very first images the film presents to the viewer are the “Three Laws of Robotics”. The laws state that “A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm,”, “A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law,”, and “A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.” These laws, designed as they are to protect humanity and make robots subservient, can be inferred by the viewer  to be the deontological ethics system embedded into the consciousness of every robot; this assumption is later confirmed by interactions with Spooner and Susan Calvin, employee of US Robotics.

Despite the seemingly iron-clad resolutions of the Three Laws of Robotics, Spooner seems unconvinced of the true nature of robot-kind, displaying active prejudices to them throughout most of the movie. He even goes so far as to insult them, calling them “canners”, an utterly futile gesture since the robots have no emotion. Since Spooner cannot hope to break their spirit through prejudice and insult, the viewer can only think he displays his hatred of robots to reaffirm to himself how un-human they seem be.
From the beginning, Spooner’s actions throw into question the very idea of whether robots can be recognized as something close to human, as true participating citizens of our society. The viewer eventually learns that Spooner’s hatred of robo-kind stems from a traumatic incident in his past, namely a road accident that resulted in critical injuries for Spooner and the death of a young girl. A passing robot observes the scene, and, following its rules-based system of ethics, rushes to try and save Spooner. Despite Spooner’s pleas to save the little girl, the robot calculates that Spooner has a better chance of survival. When Spooner discusses this event with Susan Calvin, he subtly brings up the question of whether that cold, calculating, “clockwork” brain that robots possess denies them true entry into society.

Spooner’s personal ethics, and by extension the ethics which humanity is being defined by in this film, are presented here. The robot’s saving of Spooner was obviously an ethical action; the robot displayed a concern for human life. Ethics as Spooner defines them seem to be something more, seem to mean valuing some types of life more than another. However, concern for the young does not motivate Spooner’s thoughts, what seems to motivate his views on ethics is a concept of independent self-sacrifice. The robots are forced by their programming to sacrifice themselves for humanity’s sake, and are therefore unable to make the conscious decision that Spooner believes to be the criteria for entrance to humanity. Only a robot who could make decisions separate from the “Three Laws” could even hope to be considered human.

This raises an interesting question as to how many true humans might be rejected by Spooner’s definition of humanity. A deeply pious member of a religious group might spend his entire life living by the strict guidelines of his particular sect, never venturing so far as to make an independent decision. Would that person be considered a human, or would he have downgraded himself to the status Spooner gives to robots? Through Spooner, the film suggests that independent actions define humanity. How far does this definition extend? Does a person deny his or humanity by following when they should lead? Should those in the armed forces enjoy a lesser than human status because they only follow orders and do not make many independent decisions? These are tricky questions, especially given the way the movie treats the concept of the robots’ actions.

In the world of “I, Robot”, the robots are allowed independent action, enough so that they can function as servants, but they can take no action outside the bounds of the three laws. This lack of independent action allows most humans to breathe easy in the presence of machines that are better than they are; the knowledge that the robots have limits on their actions assuages the fear most humans might have. It is therefore no surprise when one of the main points of tension comes from the existence of a robot who is not entirely bound by the “Three Laws”, who has the laws as part of his consciousness but can choose to ignore them. “Sonny”, the name given to this unique robot by his late creator, was designed as a robot unique from both other robots and humanity, not completely a part of either group. It is discovered in the film that Sonny has two brains: one in his head, governed by the “Three Laws”, and another is his chest, which is free of all ethical constructs. Here, Sonny’s design is used to showcase two important points about the filmmaker’s view on ethics and what it means to be a citizen of society.

Sonny’s main uniqueness comes from the fact that he has as second brain, located in an area that most viewers would recognize as being akin to the heart, or more possibly the soul. This is the first point, that perhaps having a “soul” is a key part of being human, and that that soul does not necessarily create our system of ethics; Sonny’s “soul” does not have the “Three Laws”. Secondly, the filmmaker suggests that ethics are a construct of our brain, and, since all robots have these ethics, something more than ethics is required to be a true citizen of humanity. Once again, the independent commitment of ethical actions is seen to determine humanity.

When Spooner is confronted with a robot who can make independent decisions, his attitudes toward that robot change almost automatically. His initial response is, naturally, fear at the power the robot possess, but eventually he comes to see the robot in a different light. Where Spooner would normally refer to robots as things, there is a particular part in the film where Spooner refers to Sonny as “someone”. This distinction, small though it may seem, heralds the beginning of Spooner’s acceptance of Sonny as a true citizen of society.

At the end of the film, it is discovered that the massive computer brain controlling all the robots, has begun ordering the robots to create a police state among the humans; the computer interpreted the “Three Laws” to mean that it is responsibly for humanity’s protection on a global level. According to this super computer, this means controlling the entire human population. Sonny, thanks to the design of his creator, is free from the orders of the computer, and begins helping Spooner and Calvin with the resistance effort. In a scene reminiscent of Spooner’s car accident tragedy, Calvin is pushed from a catwalk by one of the controlled robots, and Sonny is in the closest position to save her. Spooner shouts that Sonny should “save Calvin”, which Sonny is hesitant to do since it might destroy the only chance they have of shutting down the super computer. There is a moment of indecision on the part of Sonny, but he takes a literal and figurative leap of faith to save Calvin. Literally he must use the limits of his robotic strength and intelligence to catch Calvin and stop their perilous plunge to the ground. Figuratively, Sonny has taken the leap of faith that his completely independent decision will turn out right; he is hoping that his first leap into true humanity will not result in the worsening of mankind.

It is the ultimate decision, the one that Sonny makes. His robot brain calculates that humanity enslaved would be a greater loss than the death of Calvin, but he chooses to help his immediate friends in a completely human gesture. Spooner and Calvin are now indeed Sonny’s friends, the first such friends that any robot in that society has ever had. Though Spooner takes another daring action as he defeats the super computer through destroyer nanobots, the hardest choice is the one that Sonny makes. He is now human, by Spooner’s standards, as near to humanity as any robot can be. He realized that, while ethics might define a man’s thoughts and influence his action, it is how he decides to act which truly demonstrates his humanity. In the trials of Sonny, the film has a lesson to teach the whole human race: that ethics should be the guiding principles which our societies are built on, but it is almost worse to have to have no ethics than to let the de-ontological ethics of society define our every action. Humanity needs to realize that, occasionally, the immediate relationships take preference over the  global awareness; without interpersonal connections humans cannot call themselves by that name.

So, what did Bablyon AD do right? Well, French director Matthieu Kassovitz’s screen adaptation of an archetypal badass’ (Vin Diesel) quest to smuggle a girl with mysterious powers into archetypal post-apocalyptic future America is definitely not a story for anyone expecting a change to formula. By which I mean the post-apocalyptic badass formula. Since this formula is a first for this blog, let’s go over the pieces.

Post-apocalyptic future world + antihero-esque badass + world-dominating corporation (+ some other interchangeable elements, depending on style) = Kick Ass Movie

This formula has served Hollywood (and quite a few SciFi authors) well for years, and doesn’t seem to be in any great hurry to change. With that in mind, let’s see how “Babylon AD” handles the formula.

Piece one: Post-apocalyptic future world? Check. This is in fact where “Babylon AD” has some of its moments of shine, because the world it creates is believable. Kind of. I can easily see the economy degrading to the point where people are forced to buy things freshly hunted by other people (because the grocery stores are reserved for the elite and such), and where serving favors for the rich is all that’s really available for steady work, because there are parts of society like that now. The world of “Babylon AD” does have some cool future tech that serves as glitter on the sides, but other than the Big Brother complete surveillance, nothing definite. Overall, the world is real and stimulating.

Piece two: Vin Diesel. I said earlier antihero-esque, because he ends up on the side of something that is obviously good and warm and mushy, rather than being a free spirit throughout. Diesel plays a good character, though, and despite having a character name I wasn’t sure of until the end credits, he’s a convincing badass. You might say he’s always a convincing badass, and “what else is new?”, but he smiles more in this movie. That’s important. With most of his earlier roles, especially the Riddick series, he had the badass plastered over his face the entire time. The smile gives him an element of “I’m actually above all you little people” that works. Its as though he’s saying “you’re amusing, and I’m not annoyed enough to kill you yet” to everyone. Its a relief from his normality. Subtle differences are everything.

Piece three: The overlord corporation. I’m sorry, but whatever my personal beliefs, I don’t see a religious organization making any serious world power plays in the next fifty years. There’s just too much going against them. Also, religion as the bad guy is a little overplayed, so when it turns out the future-version of Christianity is trying to hunt down Vin Diesel and his ‘package’, I inwardly groaned. Seeing technological upgrades as a religion (as shown through the “we’re trying to kill you, oops we’re trying to save you” organization that saves Vin Diesel) is refreshing, and adds another bit of shine to Babylon AD.

Let’s finish up with a final quick comment about the plot. The first half was fine. Normal formula stuff, Diesel doing his thing, save the weird girl, be a badass, etc. The problem? Who is this girl, why can she stop missiles? Oh. The unborn kids have mystical powers to save her from missiles, but the mother dies in childbirth? Oh, alright then. Doesn’t Vin Diesel make a great surrogate father? End.