Bullet Points: Shadow in the Cloud
Watching films before they are released used to give me such a feeling of accomplishment. There was such an excitement when I pushed ‘play’ and sat down with my cold beverage. It felt like I was a real “professional” and not just some schlub with a WordPress account. At some point all of that disappeared like a foul fart on a fast moving escalator. I started with that innocent “glass half full” outlook and was quickly crushed under the weight of a dozen dreadful films that stretched the very definition of “storytelling”. So now I’m reluctantly returning to the land of screeners in the hope that this film won’t add to the post traumatic stress from past movie experiences. Only time will tell…
Synopsis: A female WWII pilot traveling with top secret documents on a B-17 Flying Fortress encounters an evil presence on board the flight.
- An animated warning: The film starts with a brief cartoon that talks about “gremlins” on board planes. They are talking less about physical creatures that attack you with their snarling teeth and claws and more about problems that occur on a plane due to lack of preparation or focus. Or even the dreaded mechanical failure that occurs due to no fault of the crew. I’m sure that planes, like cars, have mechanical issues that arise from seemingly out of nowhere.
- Welcome to the crew: Maude Garrett (Chloë Grace Moretz) boards the plane known as The Fool’s Errand with a crew that is familiar with one another and also not interested in anything to do with her “mission”. She, with her English accent, attempts to use her role as an aviator and the paper documents from a superior officer to get them to treat her better but to no avail. They are absolute assholes to her from the moment she walks on. One kind gentleman does agree to watch her package since she is quickly shoved down to the ball turret under the plane. His name is Quaid (Taylor John Smith) and he is most assuredly gonna survive longer than all of the lame bullies.
- Dialogue disaster: My least favorite thing about Shadow in the Cloud was the dialogue. I’m not sure who wrote for these characters during these early scenes (there were two credited writers) but they need a serious lesson on how men talked in this period. Admittedly, I am no expert on the subject but this film feels like it was written by a couple of hacks just waiting to stick a “that’s what she said” or “your momma” joke in there.
- What I saw on the underbelly: Maude is sitting down in the turret just getting ridiculed by the crew when she sees something crawling around on the wing. She attempts to say something but they just assume she’s scared and tease her before trying to pull her from the turret. But not before the creature attacks her with its snarling teeth and sharp claws. She fights it off by clumsily shooting at it with the pistol she snuck onto the plane. Oh boy! These guys are really gonna be pissed!
- Under attack: It’s not just the gremlins in the sky that are after her but the crew are trying to jerk her out of the turret. Then, from suddenly outta nowhere, a Japanese craft attacks them and she goes into full-on survival mode and shoots it out of the sky like she’s playing Top Gun from the original Playstation. The questions come pretty fast and hard after this encounter as the men are even more curious as to who the hell she really is.
- The package: They get some sort of intel that Maude isn’t the Maude that she claims to be. I won’t get into all of that other than to say that none of it plays out well and she soon drops her fake accent and starts telling sob stories the likes I haven’t heard since I watched a season of The Voice. All the time she’s down there, she continues to inquire about her package. It turns out that the package has HER BABY IN IT! What the hell was she thinking??
- Mary the Queen of Sue’s: The term “Mary Sue” is defined as a type of female character who is depicted as unrealistically lacking in flaws or weaknesses. There is no better way to describe Maude in this film. She does it all; she’s an engineer, a crack shot from the ball turret, and excellent climber, pilot, hand to hand expert, document forger, and one hell of a sous-chef. If you’re thinking that I would overlook this all if she was played by Jason Statham then you’re probably right. However, he isn’t a 22 year old woman in a position that was only held by men for another three decades.
- A secret badass: Finally, the crew understands that the gremlin causing mass destruction on the plane is more important than why Maude brought a baby on board their plane. They try to fight back but are slowly offed in mostly meaningless ways off screen. The fact is that Maude is the only character that matters and even she seems not to be afraid. From the moment she escapes the turret, her baby package (not a euphemism for her vagina) is at the forefront of her mind and we’re given several looks into the package to relieve us that the baby is still unharmed. My guess, though, was that no matter what happened to that baby Maude would have somehow brought it back to life.
- Bow down and give homage: If you’re a fan of bad cinema, consider this your magnum opus. Shadow in the Cloud is enjoyed much better as a comedy even though I don’t think that was the intention. Each scene in the final third of the film is more ridiculous than the previous. It really is a chore, at first, but then because mostly funny the crazier it gets. From shooting gremlins from a moving plane to fist-fighting the thing like she was Sylvester Stallone, Maude turns into one incredible ass-kicker! Then she pulls her titty out and nurses that baby right there. Talk about a legend….
The Verdict: Is this the movie Max Landis wrote to try and get himself out of the doghouse? Is this the bouquet of roses or the expensive jewelry that he thought would bring him back into the good graces of the liberal Hollywood elites? Penned alongside Director Roseanne Liang, Shadow in the Cloud is a puzzling film for many reasons, including that it seems so far out of left field. There is no way that this movie can escape the stain of Landis’ name and the fact that it is a festering mound of shit certainly shines a brighter light on it and his inadequacies. I spent a considerable amount of time trying to come up with something that I enjoyed about the film but the best I could come up with was the short runtime (83 mins). Watching this and writing this post is me jumping on the proverbial grenade for all of you. Stay as far away from this as you can. Consider it that video from The Ring that kills everyone, except much, much worse.
