Richard Matheson

  • The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

    The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Criterion Streaming, January 2021) Despite knowing better, I approached The Incredible Shrinking Man with the wrong set of expectations. I thought I was in for a cheap 1950s Sci-Fi film, and the first few initial scenes (detailing how radiation plus chemicals could cause a normal man to start shrinking) didn’t do much to challenge that preconception. But under the pen of noted SF prose writer and screenwriter Richard Matheson, the film soon heads into far more interesting territory, backed up with special effects that are still surprisingly effective. As our lead character shrinks, the nature of his challenges changes: From medical curiosity and national news celebrity, his universe gets smaller as he does. One of the film’s two most memorable sequences has him facing an ordinary tabby cat—I was rather unamused to see my own house cat paying an atypical amount of attention to what was happening on the TV screen during that time. The other big sequence has him fight against a spider, and it still packs a thrill even after multiple generations of special effects improvements. Still, it’s probably the ongoing internal monologue of the main character that impresses the most, especially as the film reaches an inevitable but not hopeless conclusion: That’s when The Incredible Shrinking Man leaps into cosmic existentialism, taking the edge off what could have been a dark and downbeat ending. All of this places the film significantly above the average 1950s Science Fiction film, and well into the decade’s best classic SF. It’s quite a nice surprise, and it’s now unsurprising if the film earns everything from a spot on best-of lists and airtime on the celebrated Criterion Channel.

  • The Omega Man (1971)

    The Omega Man (1971)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) One of the benefits of a classic Hollywood film education is discovering earlier version of later remakes, and being able to compare how different eras approached similar themes. The Omega Man is (at this time) the middle version of a Richard Matheson novel I am Legend, filmed earlier as The Last Man on Earth (1964, with Vincent Price) and later as I am Legend (2007, with Will Smith). The compelling premise remains the same, as a lone human survives in a city occupied by vampires/creatures/mutants. But this version does have quite a few things making it special even today. The decision to set the film in an eerily deserted early-1970s Los Angeles makes for terrific visuals, and having none other than Charlton Heston makes for a good showcase for him. The interracial romance of the film is still enormously appealing today—and Rosalind Cash looks great despite being saddled with some dated dialogue. I am not, however, so happy with the film’s silly-looking antagonists, or the evolution of a remarkably good first act into the messier and somewhat dumber final section. Much of the action doesn’t hold up, nor do many of the characters’ decisions. While interesting by itself, The Omega Man is perhaps most interesting when compared with other takes on the same story. None of them completely satisfy, but the more I see of the earlier versions, the less I’m impressed by 2007’s I am Legend. Let’s wait another twenty years and maybe the next version will get it right.

  • The Last Man on Earth (1964)

    The Last Man on Earth (1964)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, March 2019) Considering that no less than three well-remembered films (1964’s The Last Man on Earth, 1971’s The Omega Man and 2007’s I am Legend) all came from the same 1954 Richard Matheson novel I am Legend, it’s tempting to keep comparing all three adaptations to each other. While my favourite is probably The Omega Man, it’s not by a wide margin and you can certainly argue that The Last Man on Earth is fast acquiring a patina of almost quaint charm, so artificial does it now feel compared to modern standards or later adaptations. This is clearly Vincent Price’s movie, so central is he to the action and how thoroughly comfortable he seems to be in the role. It’s a bit cheap and shot in Italy to save further costs, but the ideas are there and developed relatively well—despite the familiarity with the story, I still found the finale a bit surprising. Of course, much of The Last Man on Earth will feel humdrum to modern viewers considering that its premise has been mined and remade left and right. Still, it’s not a bad beginning for the novel’s string of adaptations, and it’s definitely worth more than a historical look.

  • Real Steel (2011)

    Real Steel (2011)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (Cable TV, July 2012) I’m not betraying any big trade secret when I reveal that SF nerds love to slice-and-dice SF movies to find out whether they are true examples of True and Good Science-Fiction rather than cheap sci-fi knockoffs made for the rubes.  Films like Real Steel are good fodder for such conversations, because while it unarguably depends on a science-fiction premise (Boxing Robots! How much more SF can you get?  Plus, it’s adapted from a short story by real SF writer Richard Matheson), it’s somewhat lazy in working out the second-order implications of such a premise on the rest of the world.  Real Steel is a kid’s film, mind you, and it’s far more interested in showing father and son bonding over rock’em-sock’em robot fighting than in offering a convincing portrait of the near future.  While SF nerds will be disappointed to point out the flaws in the film’s chronology (which posits vast institutions build around boxing robots by 2020, which seems like a ridiculously short time) and the lack of robots in non-boxing roles, most of the film’s audience will be satisfied by the father-son drama, the fights and the superb rural scenery.  (I don’t recall ever seeing that many farms and two-lane roads in a SF film.)  This nostalgic attachment to a quasi-mythical Americana extends to the safe thematic concerns of the script, which blends fatherhood, populism, scraping by and punching things into a crowd-pleasing mix.  It seems all very calculated, but Real Steel is successful because it’s very good at what it attempts to do: the cinematography is luminous, the soundtrack is peppy, the plot is cleanly delivered, the special effects are impressive, Hugh Jackman is charming as a hustling ex-fighter learning how to care for his son and director Shawn Levey keeps the film moving at a good pace.  Only the abrupt ending, missing an epilogue, seems to miss a beat.  Still, the film is all about pleasing audiences, and there’s a lesson or two to be learned here in how a movie can humanize a technological gimmick into something that even the broadest crowds can love. 

  • The Box (2009)

    The Box (2009)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On DVD, May 2010) Richard Kelly is a filmmaker to approach with caution, because his capable instincts often get the better of his rational mind.  The Box coming after Donnie Darko and Southland Tales, it’s not hard to see him tackle projects that he doesn’t have the discipline to keep under control.  So it is that his latest film is, once again, an accumulation of strange and ominous portents that fail to cohere: We often see weirdness for weirdness’ sake, but our faith in whether he’ll be able to satisfyingly tie all of this together dwindles as the film slowly (very slowly) progresses.  It doesn’t help that the morality lesson at the core of the premise is so mind-numbingly stupid: Richard Matheson’s short story had the grace of being, well, short: at feature-film lengths, we get far too much time to be exasperated at the characters’ lack of suspicions.  It really doesn’t help that the nature of the latter moral dilemmas proposed to the characters is so arbitrary: From intriguing moral drama, The Box soon sinks into, basically, a demonstration of capricious powers beyond human ken.  Characters are mystified; so are viewers.  Some unsettling visions are likely to remain with viewers for a while, but the overall picture is so scattered that the pieces don’t fit together in a satisfying fashion.  Compare and contrast to The Prestige, where absurdity and ominous portents didn’t prevent the picture from making complete sense in the end.  But then again, Christopher Nolan is a far better writer/director than Richard Kelly: it’s unfair to compare the two.  Until Kelly learns some self-discipline, we’re stuck with films like The Box –not fun enough to be entertaining and not even deep enough to be intriguing except at small doses.