Black Mirror Revisit: Playtest

 

Last year, I compiled a non-definitive ranking of Black Mirror episodes. Once a month, I revisit an episode, starting from the bottom. Today, we tackle my 14th seeded choice, Season 3's Playtest.

The Talent: Playtest is another Charlie Brooker script, but the direction comes courtesy of Dan Trachtenberg, who also gave us the good-but-better-the-more-you-think-about-it 10 Cloverfield Lane. Our lead is the achingly likable Wyatt Russell and his main costar is none other than Wunmi Mosaku, who, with Lovecraft Country and His House, has rather immediately become one of the most exciting actors working today.

The Setup: Cooper is your definitive bearded backpacking American adventurer, leaving behind his distant widowed mother to travel the world and try to move past the recent death of his much more beloved father. When his credit cards are compromised, Cooper finds a quick job testing the newest video game technology from the Nintendo-like SaitoGemu.

Despite reasonable warnings to turn off his cell phone, Cooper can't resist taking a few pics in the hopes of selling the information to a high bidder. Led by Katie, he proceeds with the official "playtest", which puts him in a Victorian mansion filled with his own subconsciously simulated fears.  

The Ending: As Cooper's visions become realer and more horrifying, the test is forcibly ended only to be revealed to, well, never have started. Because he didn't turn off his phone, a ring from his mother when the technology was being implanted caused some kind of surge, killing the player before he could actually press start.

The Theme: In some ways, Playtest's gotcha ending undermines what it's actually trying to do in terms of its story. Cooper's psyche being invaded only to create its own beasts is clearly something Brooker wants you to sit with, but the "HE WAS ACTUALLY DEAD ALONG" rug pull is so, well, specific (particularly to certain viewers with strong feelings on cell phone abuse) that it's hard to leave the episode--even on a second viewing--without much else.

The Verdict: It's hard to not enjoy watching Wyatt Russell. I'm usually predisposed to judging the children of celebrities a bit harsher than your average worked-really-hard-and-nailed-just-the-right-audition civilian actors who have a much harder, often impossible hill to climb, but Russell is so gosh darn charismatic (a similar trait he shares with his dad) that Playtest, which rests entirely upon his very tall shoulders, is, if nothing else, a compelling ride with a guy you can't help but like. In the wrong hands, Coop could have been insufferable, an ugly American millennial who makes mistakes and pays for them. It's hard not to be reminded often, as I and probably no one else in the world is, of just how wrong this goes in The Darkest Hour, which ALSO begins with a flight attendant having to ask an American tourist to turn off his phone. But see, I wanted Max.... and the rest of that cast to die a horrible death because they were, well, just douchebags. I'm sure Wyatt Russell could play a villain, and I'll pay to see it, but by golly, the dude has it.

Technology Tip: As I've been known to shout whisper at many a stranger in a movie theater, when the rule is given, listen and turn off your motherf*cking phone.

The Black Mirror Grade
Cruelty Scale:4/10
I mean, by GOSH is Russell someone you don't want to see die, but I'm old enough to have experienced the first wave of cell phone abuse, and therefore, I have a hard time being too crushed by the tragic but very avoidable passing of someone who didn't obey a very simple rule

Quality Scale: 6/10
Of course the episode looks good, right down to the CGI intended to look like CGI, and the haunted house theme has its scares, but the overall effect is so inconsistent that I still think this one belongs in its rightful middle of the pack place

Enjoyment Scale: 7/10
All that being said, Wyatt Russell is so effortlessly enjoyable to watch that Playtest is never a slog. I don't love a lot of its decisions, but I certainly didn't mind my time with it again.

Up Next (Month): We dive all the way back to season 1 with the dystopian 15 Million Merits

I See No Aliens! No Really: They're Invisible, I Don't See Them

When TCM Underground airs a film whose description boils down to "alien zombies in business suits," you're not going to get much of an argument out of me.

Quick Plot: In the years following the nuclear devastation of World War II, many scientists became hesitant to continue exploring atomic physics. After his colleague Karol Noymann is killed in a lab explosion, Dr. Adam Penner decides to step away from science altogether. 

Things change significantly when Adam is visited by Karol's reanimated corpse, now occupied by an alien invader issuing a warning: tell the world to surrender or his space companions will take over the rest earth's dead bodies and wreak havoc upon the entire planet. We are invisible aliens who have been living on the moon, and now, we want to eff you up.

Shockingly, the general public doesn't quite buy the initial message.

A few demonstrations are in order, as the aliens make some pit stops at large sporting events to spread their message. For added dramatic effect, they also begin destroying major buildings, bridges, and dams across the world. Worst of all, they make good on their promise to take over recent corpses, lumbering through the streets in the guise of the deceased.

Yes indeed, Invisible Aliens is an early zombie film, and surprisingly good one at that. While the selling point for me may have indeed been "alien zombies in business suits," the final product is creepy, quick, and rewarding. Director Edward Cahn attacks the material from a smart and timely standpoint, making our main characters an interesting assortment of post-war types. We start with the scientists dealing with the guilt of atomic warfare and now having to re-enter the aggressive developments to save the world again. Later, a regular ol’ American soldier becomes a key player in addressing the morality of zombie/ghost/alien warfare.

There’s no doubt in my mind that Invisible Aliens--this here early zombie film that I’ve never heard mentioned in film discussion before--was viewed by a young George Romero some time before hauling a film crew to Pittsburgh. While there were certainly zombie movies prior to this one, the shambling corpses on display here are easily the closest thing I’ve seen a genuine precursor to Night of the Living Dead. When you smartly stuff that narrative into a swift 67 minutes, you’re doing a lot right. 

High Points

While the effects are certainly dated, the basic concept and design of these invisible corpse renting invaders is quite unnerving 

Low Points

This really has nothing to do with the film, but when I google image search “invisible aliens,” all that comes up first are stills from what might be the most infuriating film I’ve ever reviewed here, The Darkest Hour. Yes, it has invisible aliens, but it’s also THE STUPIDEST THING YOU SHOULD NEVER SEE.

Rant. Over.

Lessons Learned

It's pretty difficult to convince the American public that the planet is about to be invaded by invisible space invaders who possess corpses without a hint of evidence

Invisible moon people do not lift their feet when they walk

The best place to start spreading a message of planetary invasion is Syracuse, NY

Rent/Bury/Buy

Any zombie lover who hasn’t seen Invisible Aliens should definitely carve out a whopping 67 minutes to sneak it in. This isn’t the best sci-fi horror film to come out of the ‘50s, but it’s far better than many and offers a whole lot to enjoy in its brief running time. In the current open encyclopediac culture of cinema, I’m surprised it’s not discussed more often. 

The Darkest Hour (& a half that I've watched in quite some time)

Sigh. 

For a movie fan, few things hurt quite so much as a strong young director following up something great with something awful. Thusly do we get Chris Gorak’s blander than a low sodium rice cake dud The Darkest Hour after his positively brilliant Twilight Zone episode of a film Right At Your Door.

I am sad.

Quick Plot: Two boring-to-awful young software developers are flying to Moscow to pitch their new social networking website. One is played by Anthony Mingella’s son with the personality of mayonnaise. The other is played by the usually charming, here just irksome Emile Hirsch.

I do not know or care what their names are.

Okay, fine. You might think I’m being overly harsh on a film that’s just begun, but this, THIS is the opening scene:

Two American dudes are on an airplane. The pilot announces they’re approaching landing mode, prompting the flight attendant to kindly ask Emile Hirsch to turn off his mobile device. Rather than, you know, TURNING OFF HIS MOBILE DEVICE LIKE EVERYONE ELSE, Emile Hirsch launches into a smarmy, poorly written (by Prometheus scribe Jon Spaihts, I say with shivers) monologue that I assume is supposed to be charming about how that’s actually a myth and like, have you ever TESTED that theory?

This man is supposed to be our hero.

I reach for the barf bag.

Once in Moscow, our duo learns that their Swedish partner has hijacked their idea and already sold it. Naturally, two ugly Americans mourn by heading to a hip Russian club where everyone is incredibly attractive, including a fellow American girl (Brunette) and Aussie (Blonde, and yes, that will be their names for the rest of this review because I DON’T CARE). They’re making painfully dull smalltalk when suddenly, orbs of light start falling from the sky and dissolving any living thing that comes into their zone.

It’s an alien invasion! I use the exclamation point because finally, something happens onscreen that makes me actually want to look up from my burrito to my TV screen. The design of the alien attack is actually quite original: rather than big tentacled creatures, the monsters in this case travel via wavelengths. They’re mostly invisible to the human eye, appearing as spots of light that will trigger electricity nearby. So that’s neat.

If only I cared about a single character the aliens were attacking. Our quartet plus the nasty Swede hide out in the club’s cellar as a time stamp—no, seriously—tells us they stay there for “Monday” and “Tuesday.” THAT is the kind of movie this is: one so inept in its script that it can’t express the passage of a small amount of time without blatantly spelling out WHAT DAYS HAVE JUST PASSED.

Anyway, our boring white people emerge from the cellar to travel the barren streets of Moscow, perhaps the one other glint of neatness in the drudge of an 89 minute film. Seeing the Kremlin all but empty IS cool, don’t get me wrong. But seeing that the only people inhabiting it are like coffee break stand-ins for Jesse Eisenberg and Andrew Garfield in The Social Network is just sad.

At a certain point, our “heroes” meet a band of Russian badasses who are actively fighting the alien light thingies. These dudes ride horses clad in Tupperware, shoot machine guns with proud Russian bullets, and carry a wonderful sense of personality so direly lacking in our main characters. Why oh why couldn’t The Darkest Hour be about THEM?

Chris Gorak’s previous film was a smart and effective indie called Right At Your Door, wherein a stay-at-home husband had to decide whether or not to let his wife inside during a nuclear attack after she had already been exposed to deadly fallout. It was challenging and scary, filled with wonderfully rich characters and a brilliantly drawn sense of doom done with little budget. The Darkest Hour, in contrast, is a big, ugly, and worst of all, BORING retread through alien invasion. The film was released in 3D and ouch does that hurt its appearance on DVD. While I do think the concept of the monsters is quite different, the execution comes off flat. When we finally see the creatures, we might as well be watching test effects reels from the ABC miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Langoliers.

Except we’re not, because for all its faults, at least The Langoliers had diverse characters. Towards the end of The Darkest Hour, one character starts screaming for Natalie, Natalie, we can’t leave with Natalie! My notes:

“Who’s Natalie?”

She’s the Brunette. The Brunette who I know nothing about, nor do I care to learn. I don’t expect rich Tolstoy-esque writing from a sci-fi action thriller, but that doesn’t mean you can just give mildly attractive 20somethings directions to run, look scared, and occasionally cry and I’m supposed to care an ounce whether they survive or not, especially when they’re essentially asking other, more likable characters to put their OWN lives at risk in order to do so. Who IS Natalie? There’s some mention about an ex-boyfriend and her being valedictorian. The Blonde has an Aussie accent. Emile Hirsch sassed a flight attendant. Anthony Mingella’s son…exists.

I count myself amongst the fairly vocal contingent that thought Cloverfield was a groovy exercise hampered by dreadfully unsympathetic characters. Well folks, I take that back: compared to The Darkest Hour, the cast of Cloverfield deserve to win every Oscar and Nobel Prize known to man.

High Points

It’s mildly surprising when a few of our leads meet the Invisible Smoke Monster of Dissolving Doom. Of course, it’d be more effective IF WE ACTUALLY CARED

Low Points

Aside from pretty much everything, how about the fact that we’re never really given any chance to consider the millions of Muscovites who were wiped out in the initial attack? Our barely legal leads carry no weight with them (which is bad enough) but considering this film had access to some truly amazing parts of one of the most interesting cities in the world, you’d think they could establish SOMETHING worth noticing, like an abandoned ferris wheel at Gorky Park or a grand theater just emptied of its ticketholders. There’s never the single slightest sense that a genocide has taken place, meaning not only do we already NOT care about the survivors, but we have no real context as to who they even outlived

Lessons Learned

Young people make rash decisions

Always carry a Sharpee when traveling

Hey screenwriters, here’s a lesson: if you want the audience to immediately hate your hero, have your opening scene involve him harassing a perfectly nice flight attendant just trying to do her job. Guaranteed way to get us off his side

Rent/Bury/Buy

I was enthusiastically looking forward to The Darkest Hour and even felt slightly bummed to have missed its brief theatrical run. I LOVED Gorak’s last film, and since I spent 9 months in Moscow a few years back as an ESL teacher, the chance to see the city onscreen in one of my favorite genres was incredibly exciting. All this makes the utter dullness of The Darkest Hour positively tragic. This is a boring, uninspired, and poorly constructed film. Hardcore sci-fi nerds might appreciate the new spin on the alien forms, but that’s the extent of my recommendation. Towards the end of the film, our leads reach a boat and suddenly I started thinking to myself “Hey! I wonder if Haunted Boat is still on Instant Watch.” Now kids, Haunted Boat was without a doubt one of the absolute WORST films I’ve ever watched for this here blog, and yet I would have traded my full stash of Tootsie Rolls won in a piñata raid to switch endings just so I could at least enjoy some aspect onscreen. It might seem like I’m being overly hard on The Darkest Hour, considering I’ve given a pass to such hated works as the Nightmare On Elm Street reboo—er, remake and… But truthfully, this movie made me sad and angry. That’s a dangerous combination.