 The Faculty (1998) In short, The Faculty is a token Body Snatcher rip-off. The movie was written by Kevin Williamson, who is fast becoming my arch-enemy. Again, I don't know where to begin with the reasons why he has forfeited his right to exist. Let's see … there's Scream, Scream 2, and I Know What You Did Last Summer, to name a few. Mr. Williamson, along with millions of other credulous people in Hollywood, seems to think that writing self-analytical dialogue and self-reference have merit. For instance, in Scream, a horror movie, that stupid video store kid keeps rattling off the rules of a horror movie, and this passes for poignancy/humor. Nuh-uh. They do the same shite in The Faculty, where the ugly outcast girl who's into science fiction books cites precedents from Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Puppet Masters to figure out how to kill the aliens, because of course she knows that she's in the same kind of movie. This is just bad. I don't want to think about Kevin Williamson anymore so I'll get on with it. The cast is kind of strange. You have Elijah Wood playing the lead character. He hasn't aged very well and is very awkward to look at and listen to. Add to that he plays a nerd and you want to hit him so he won't appear in the rest of the film. He does get beaten up and has his testicles rammed into a flagpole a couple times, though. Robert Patrick (morphing again!) is a pretty decent hard-ass football coach. Salma Hayek is in the movie for about two seconds. Piper Laurie's in it and looks pretty old. Speaking of old, there's an extremely disturbing shower scene where a really old woman strips down to almost nothing and then sort of melts. Jon Stewart (why?) plays a science teacher, and he gets stabbed in the eye, which is fine by me. Usher's in it, and judging by the commercials and the poster, you'd think he'd play a good guy, but you'd be wrong, because he plays a bad guy. His character is kind of useless so I figure he's just a token black guy. The rest of the cast is a bunch of mangy teens, and adults you've probably seen in other movies. Then there're the commercials. The one they keep showing shows someone's finger morphing into a slimy alien finger, but it was nowhere in the film! I hate when they do that. Also, there's a big Tommy Hilfiger tie-in which surprisingly doesn't show that much in the movie, but judging by the commercials you'd think the movie was one giant ad. The special effects were decent, and of course there was a big monster at the end. They showed some nudity, too (I'm still talking about the monster), but it was one of those body double deals and it was just thrown in there. If you're going to use nudity, it better be the SSC kind. There was no SSC in this film. There was one scene where this girl gets her head bashed into the hard deck around the swimming pool, is dragged under water with blood flowing out of her mouth, and she gets out of the pool like nothing happened. I had to mention that because I'm pretty bad at noticing stupid stuff like that but it jumped out at me. There are also some other dumb inconsistencies but I won't go too far into all of it because it's not worth anyone's time. I was more entertained by the audience than what was on the screen. This woman sitting behind me and to the right burped in a really funny way. It sounded like something a seven-year-old would produce. I was comforted by the moans, groans, and sighs of those around me, knowing that we were all in this one together. I still owe my friend money for getting my ticket (he had the notion that the movie would be sold out, so he bought tickets early), but I think there is a much greater debt that Kevin Williamson owes me. This makes TWO movies of his I've paid to see, and because of that he owes me about $14, plus millions in mental anguish. Don't see this movie in the theater. Don't rent it either. If it's on cable or someone you know rents it, maybe you can watch but I'd advise against it. It's likely that "Law & Order" will be on at that time anyway so you can always watch that.
Review by Tolbert Tonberry |
