THE FOG (2005)

So when the producers of this movie looked at the final draft of this script they were like "Ahhh yeah, this is it.  This is the movie we want to make."?  It boggles the mind.  How could anybody have been happy with this soulless garbage.  It's nothing.  Sadly, this remake cost $18M and ended up bringing in $46M worldwide, so what the fuck do I know.

Just like in the original stinker, the residents of Antonio Island (it was a coastal town in the original) are celebrating their 100th birthday.  Ends up the town was founded using money stolen from a leper colony the founders massacred a hundred years ago.  Interesting idea.  I can just see a horde of leper zombies rising from their watery graves and slaughtering the entire town.  Tearing out intestines, crushing skulls, impaling people on spikes and then parading them around town, gouging dudes eyeballs out and then ripping their testicles off and sticking the testicles in their eyeholes, then putting their eyeballs where their nuts used to be...you know, normal leper colony zombie stuff.  Unfortunately, all we get is a dude and his hot girlfriend thinking something weird is going on. Then a reimagining of all the lame shit that happened in the first movie.  Even some of the same lines are reused.  Boring.  The biggest differences are the lame CG ghosts and the dumb as hell ending.  And I mean dumb!  Other than that, it's the same slow-moving snoozefest as the first movie.

Zero horror, boring story, zero gore, zero blood, zero nudity, generic bad guys and one of the most unsatisfying endings of all time.  Also, I love the fuck out of Tom Welling on Smallville, but he was on autopilot here.  THE FOG remake is a total waste of time.  Skip it.

If you need me I'll be in my room reading J. F. Gonzalez' "Clickers".

Original - The Fog (1980)

THE LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE (2003)

Asano Tadanobu, Riki Takeuchi and Takashi Miike all acting in the same movie.  Albeit, both Miike and Takeuchi have very small roles, but still it was cool seeing all three of these massive talents on the screen together.

Asano Tadanobu is a quiet loner.  He seems to think a lot about killing himself, but it doesn't look like he's serious.  It's more of a HAROLD AND MAUDE-style fascination with death and the inconvenience of living.  The biggest inconvenience of his life is his yakuza brother who is constantly crashing at his house.  During one visit an assassin kills the brother.  Asano ends up killing the assassin, so now he has two dead bodies in his apartment.  Later on he is contemplating jumping off a low bridge when he spots a cute girl he saw earlier at his bookstore job.  As he's looking at her a car runs her over and kills her.  Asano ends up bonding with the dead girls free-spirited sister and going to stay at her house since he's scared to go back to his.

There's not much to the story, but all the same I really enjoyed THE LAST LIFE IN THE UNIVERSE.  The main reason is Asano Tadanobu.  A lot of actors, in a quiet role like this, would have overplayed the part and looked foolish or underplayed it and just stood there with a blank look on their face the entire movie.  Tadanobu plays it perfectly.  The main emotional tone of this film rides on his body language and facial expressions.  That said, I wish he had been given a strong female actress to work with.  The girl is this movie does an okay job, but the film would have definitely benefited from a better actress. 

Enjoyable slow pace, beautiful photography, a super delightful reference to a previous Tadanobu/Miike collaboration.  Recommended.