Put on your best sea-faring garb and prepare to get excited about wrestling with a giant octopus all over again (after the mega disappointment of Mega Shark Vs Mega Octopus (2/10), which was mega only in name- and in disappointment) as news breaks that David Fincher is set to direct the next Disney ride to get a movie, 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea! Potentially exciting news? I think so!
LEG-CROSSING EXCITEMENT DESPITE NO CEREBRAL KISS CHASE
Obviously, we’ve all seen the 1954 Disney original with James Mason acting mysteriously as if he’d just been hit on the head as Captain Nemo and the plastic squid battling antics therein, and many of us will have ridden on the underwhelming under the sea ride at one of Disney’s sprawling theme parks, but I can barely contain my excitement at the news that a new movie version is coming to our (no doubt 3D IMAX) screens sometime soon!
Actually, that’s a total lie. I can more than contain my excitement, and to prove it I cross my legs in your general direction and think of something entirely unexcitedly different, like the 2 pointless Avatar sequels that will shortly be razzle-dazzling their way in front of our eyes and not making any effort at all to play kiss chase with our hearts and brains.
PIRATICAL ASIDE
That said, I’d really love this to be a success. Disney have shown that they can turn a ride into a decent crowd pleasing movie with the first Pirates of the Caribbean (8/10), which I really enjoyed, and so with the right talent on board I’ve got high hopes for this 20, 000 Leagues. Although money-hungry twat hounds did follow up Pirates 1 with two absolutely awful sequels which were the filmic equivalent of someone prising up your fingernails and replacing them with Russell Brand’s no doubt hilariously asinine DVDs whilst kicking your dog in the head and kicking you in the balls (testicles or ovaries, depending). Incredibly, the big wig bog brains are also readying a fresh piratical voyage into unending monotony (https://pablumbiolab.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/piratesofthecaribbean4/), so be sure not to watch that space.
FAECAL IN A POSITIVE SENSE
But still, the news that Fincher has bumped the odiously untalented McG (whose filmmaking talent resembles a particularly leprous and amourous smegma mite aggressively forcing its seeping wounds into your guzzlehutch) from the 20, 000 Leagues project can only be good news. I make no secret of my admiration for Fincher’s work, especially the criminally underrated Alien3 (9.2/10). Although his most recent movies (The Neverending Film Of Benjamin Button (6/10) and the going nowhere slowly enigma of Zodiac, 5.5/10) have been disappointing, I am always heartened by his run of excellent movies in the 1990s- Alien3, The Game (8/10), Se7en (8/10), Fight Club (8.5/10), even perhaps Panic Room (7/10). Each of those films is packed with visual panache, sensitively paced and well wrought drama, unexpected moments of delight, and ultimate punch packing satisfaction. Fincher’s cut of Alien3 may well be my favourite of that trilogy (Alien Resurrection (2.5/10) simply doesn’t count, and is a turd that deserves to be flushed out of the toilet of reality for ever), with its brooding sense of menace and slowly unfolding melancholy all wrapped up in a sickly greenish brown faecal murk and endlessly beautiful corridors. And for once I mean the word faecal in a really positive sense. Like the sun intermittently breaking through scattered cloud cover, Button and Zodiac both have their moments of Fincher’s genius shining through, but both are fatally flawed by being overlong and lacking the narrative energy to propel you effectively through their lengthy running times. I struggled to really identify or engage with either. I don’t hold up high hopes for Fincher being able to make the story of Facebook interesting with the forthcoming The Social Network or for his slightly unnecessary remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (why not just watch the original?), but a fizz-banging undersea fantasy? I’m interested.
BIG SALTY KISS (NOT COCK PUS)
20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea may be just what Fincher needs to really grip us by the throat and drag us under the waves for a big salty kiss. It should be a gripping and propulsive rollicking thrill ride under the ocean, but with enough dark spaces for the audience to take a breath and goggle our weary eyeballs at some wondrous scenery. Tight plotting, a bit of realism mixed with the fantasy, a retro sensibility (keeping the CG nonsense to a minimum), and strong performances based on an intelligently written script should help. If Fincher’s later work sometimes lacks the narrative punch to keep us going in the final third, 20, 000 Leagues should allow him to remedy that problem in style.
The movie is being scripted by Scott Z Burns, who also worked on The Bourne Ultimatum and The Informant!, which hopefully this means it will be saved from being another vacuous piece of blockbuster cock pus for pea brained fart howlers. To add to my excitement for this movie, co-writer Randall Wallace has been making encouraging noises about his time spent working on the project. Apparently it has real ‘heart and a more realistic lucidness than what we would think of as the normal fantasy fare’, and Wallace has also been at pains to point out that he’s no fan of idiot pixels either. I’d like to see a return to the good old days of model shots and a total absence of iPhone inspired onscreen snazzy graphics and cutting edge computer wet dreaming. I’d be quite happy if the only computer in the movie whirred incompetently in the background, asked you questions about DOS, and had a monitor that took up half the Nautilus itself.
PLENTY OF TIME TO BUGGER
The movie isn’t going to be out for a while though. Fincher has just been announced as joining the project, and they’re still scripting it at this stage, so there’s plenty of time for them to totally bugger it up and maybe even hire some amazingly talented brain-raping director like Judd Apatow or John Woo to flash and dazzle it up or fill it full of vacuous dead-eyed jokes about bum cracks delivered by assholes, so I’m not holding my breath just yet. Fincher also has to work on his Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, which I’ll probably resolutely ignore in favour of something more interesting.
All in all I hope 20, 000 Leagues Under The Sea is going to be all it can be (a wonderful piece of intelligent escapist fantasy) rather than all it probably will be (akin to going to bed with a gorgeous piece of loveliness and then waking up the next morning to find her/his face has been replaced by a gaping chasm of sewer vomit oozing with maggots and pus and with Janiston inspiring wonderful hair).
Deeply Submerged Regards
Biolab
Pablum from the (bio)Lablum 