Sunday, February 8, 2009

Friday the 13th

Friday the 13th
Dir: Marcus Nispel
Starring: Derek Mears, Robin Williams
Runtime: 1 hr 37 mins

Another group of attractive, debaucherous, semi-likable young adults. Another massacre at the hands of masked villain, Jason Voorhees (Channel 101 star, Derek Mears). But this time Jason is depressed. Massacres have lost that massacre-y luster they once held. A single tear rolls down his hockey mask.

The blood is barely dry when a station wagon pulls up. It's none other than Dr. Richard Vanderstein (Robin Williams) and his family. Vanderstein is an eccentric, unorthodox psychiatrist from LA, but for the next week, he's just a family man on vacation with his wife Krystal (Charlize Theron), and their son and daughter.

Mostly out of habit, Jason goes to kill them in their sleep. He hovers over the bed, about to kill Theron, but something just isn't right.

“Can't do it can you?” Robin Williams says. He's sitting in the corner of the room, puffing his trademark corncob pipe. “Don't feel bad. I've tried to do it myself a few times.” Jason just stares.

“Not much of a talker, are you?” says Williams. “That's okay. Listen Jason. I'm a psychiatrist, and I want to help you. There's so much in life. You can't let it pass you by.”

Skip to a later scene: Robin Williams and Jason are sunbathing in the nude (except for the hockey mask of course). “Anyone can kill someone, Jason,” says Williams, “God knows I have. And God knows I'll do it again too. But it's moments like these. Just two guys in the middle of the wilderness. That's what makes life worth living.”

The rest of the movie is about uncovering the layered onion that is Jason Voorhees. He was drowned as a child, and that's bound to create some psychological issues down the road. If only Jason can just learn to let his past go, and learn to love.

Oh, and apparently Jason is also a genius at math somehow. He can multiply huge numbers in his brain, and so towards the end of the movie he gets a job as a professor at MIT. We flash forward five years, and he's winning this prestigious math award. And they ask him, “Is there anyone you want to thank for your success?” And Robin Williams leans forward in his chair, anticipating the praise he rightly deserves. “No,” says Jason, “It was all me.”

Robin Williams thinks he was betrayed, but it turns out that it wasn't really Jason up there, but a malfunctioning android that Jason built to accept the award on his behalf. The real Jason swoops down from the rafters, where he was controlling the robot until it went haywire, and then he and the robot fight it out right there in front of everyone. It looks like the robot is going to win, but Robin Willaims shouts, “Jason! You have to believe in yourself!” And then Jason totally starts believing in himself, and he beats the robot!

“I'd like to thank Dr. Vanderstein,” Jason tells the crowd. Everyone on screen starts cheering, and everyone in the theatre around me started cheering too. I would have cheered along with them, but I was too busy weeping with joy.

“Jason,” I whispered under my breath, “You son of a bitch. Well done.”

Well done.


5 out of 5 stars.

3 comments:

Sean Catlett said...

Let her go, Marcosias.

Tom Thayer said...

I heard a rumor that Kelsey Grammer will be playing Theodore Ward in the movie production of "Tales from Railroad Times."

Abhi said...

I really wish I saw your version of the movie. Sounds much more entertaining that the version I saw...