The Crazies

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The Crazies

Tuesday, March 09, 2010

The Crazies is coincidentally what I call my three dogs when I walk in the house and they all go nuts. Luckily they have not yet started showing any signs of interest in homicide, unless they're trying to lick me to pieces or something. Hasn't worked yet.

Reviewer
Brad
Categories
Movies

Reviewed by Brad Cook

The Crazies (2010)

The Crazies would not be particularly notable if it weren't for two things: the fact that it's a loose remake of an old Romero film, and the fact that Timothy Olyphant stars in it. Now, Timothy Olyphant was not the best actor on Deadwood by any stretch of the imagination. To be honest, he's probably not even the tenth best actor on that show, and I actually thought he was damn near bad at some points. Be that as it may, there is something about him that makes me like him. Regardless, my hopes weren't inflated by any means, and I suppose that's why I thought it was a decent movie.

The film starts at a baseball game in a small Iowan town. The local sheriff and his deputy, amongst others, are making small talk about the game when in the distance they spot a man who is quite obviously not a player walking down the field. Just to make things fun, he's get a shotgun dangling from his arm, and he's walking all creepy-like. The sheriff goes out to confront ol' Rory, shooing the kids off the field. Needless to say, he has become one of the crazies.

Though The Crazies is surprisingly intelligent, there are some moments that are undoubtedly unrealistic. In my opinion, this isn't an issue because with any movie even tangentially related to zombies (although "crazies" are not zombies), you pretty much have to suspend disbelief. Regardless, the film isn't necessarily one to take too seriously, and this is highlighted by the fact that the remake has considerably fewer political points or implications by minimizing the use of a story element that the original largely dealt with.

To an extent, The Crazies relies on conventional scare tactics like loud noises and quick, sudden movements, but it also excels at creating tense, excruciatingly long and/or horrific moments that will stay with you for a while, particularly a scene involving a pitchfork. Another thing: maybe I've just been playing too much Mass Effect 2 recently, but it seemed like there were a lot of situations where David (Olyphant) had to make a morally ambiguous decision. I could almost picture his Paragon/Renegade meters filling with every choice he made. One thing that really surprised me was how good Timothy Olyphant was in this movie.

One thing the movie does well is make you sympathize with the characters. The Crazies takes few prisoners and has little mercy, so you will see close relationships torn apart -- practically literally -- and you will feel something for these people. It isn't the scariest movie, it doesn't necessarily have a political agenda, and it's not overly realistic, but it does have plenty of guns and gore; nothing too excessive, but if you don't like blood you won't like this. The story doesn't necessarily play out like you might think, but anyone with half a brain could predict much of what's to come. The plot ambles along like one of the crazies, and allows the characters to let their guns do the talking, which keeps it relatively simple and straightforward. It almost feels wrong to say this because of how somber and horrifying some parts of the movie are, but it works because as a thriller, it's fun.

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