Bullet Points: The Lair
We’ve all that feeling of being really into a band *before* they hit it big. It was so incredible to listen to their music in our cars, mouthing along to the lyrics and going so far as to make CD’s (or playlists, I guess) for other people just so they can get a taste of what you love. The saddest part is when that band finally does hit it big and get fandom beyond what you might believe possible. For me, it always ends up with me not liking them as much. Is it the feeling of “selling out” or just the fact that they are no longer “my band” and instead everyone’s band. Just not as special of a feeling.
This is how I felt about Neil Marshall. I was a huge fan of Dog Soldiers and when he followed it up with The Descent, Doomsday, and Centurion, I thought I might have found my movie director soulmate. Then, he “hit it big” with Game of Thrones. After that, it felt like everything changed and we just weren’t meant to be anymore. I am willing, however, to give our relationship a second chance…..
Synopsis: When Royal Air Force pilot Lt. Kate Sinclair is shot down over Afghanistan, she finds refuge in an abandoned underground bunker where deadly man-made biological weapons – half human, half alien – are awakened.
- MOAB: A message comes across the screen and tells us that the U.S. drop a MOAB (Mother of all bombs) on an isolated area in Afghanistan that is supposed to be the hideout of some insurgents. Based on the poster of this film I’m assuming that there is more to this than meets the eye.
- Enter the lab: Pilot Lt. Kate Sinclair gets shot down along with her partner and then attacked by some Taliban. This is the part of the film that really begins the ass-kicking odyssey of Charlotte Kirk. She blasts away with pistols and rifles and then escapes through the rocky terrain. Eventually, her chase ends at some secret bunker and she disappears into it with the bad guys on her tail.
- Fighting back: The escape into the bunker/lab isn’t exactly the greatest of ideas. The place turns out to be something of a Resident Evil nightmare but with Taliban fighters also running around. Like the boss that she is, Lt. Sinclair is like a Lady Rambo in there and barely escape once again as a giant and freakishly deadly creature nearly rips her to bits. Oh yeah! I guess that lab was full of those mothers!
- The Soviet Menace: As the film goes on we start to learn a little more about what the hell was going on in that bunker. Things are probably worse than you would ever expect and I think it adds an element to the film that it didn’t already have. It would have been easy to just make them some cave-dwelling creatures like in The Descent but this one takes an added step. As much as I like the idea of the creatures from The Descent having some extended Cinematic Universe of some kind, I still liked this.
- Creature effects: One of the biggest strengths of the entire film is the creature design and the gruesome deaths that we get. Neil Marshall might not have the amazing Hollywood juice that he once had but he’s still have some of those amazing talents that made his earlier pictures unforgettable.
- Characters and characterizations: Where The Lair struggles, at times, is when characters spend too much time on the screen without being killed or chased through dark tunnels. A few of them aren’t as annoying but when they get into stereotypes that are less cool and tough and more lame then I just wanted to check out. Bring back the beasts!
- Burn it down: The creatures aren’t big fans of the sunlight and even though that gives our heroes an advantage, they still chase them down into the cave. Is it smart? Probably not. It’s actually quite stupid and I wish that I could look past it. Finally, as the film starts to draw to a close, a scene with a creature literally punching through a man’s face allows me to forget the stupidity. Excellent!
The Verdict: I’m not going to lie, when I started watching The Lair I thought that I was watching the Nick Chinlund film where a group of soldiers are trapped in a cave in Afghanistan with some creature. It turns out that I was wrong and this was a different movie where U.S. soldiers get trapped in a cave with a violent and mysterious creature. There are tons of nods and references to Predator and that truly puts a smile on my face. From the local origin of the creatures to the end credits, The Lair would love nothing more than to make it on a list of ‘Best films that wannabe Predator‘. The biggest problem with the film is that we get time with a ton of characters instead of a ton of time with just a few. I didn’t really care about the ones that you would think I should and the others were just waiting to die. Charlotte Kirk is totally badass and she really excels in the first 20 minutes of the film only to kinda take a backseat to Jonathon Howard’s Sgt. Hook. If they had been able to keep up the momentum that she had built up and not wasted so much time with tertiary characters who never had a chance, this one would be an instant cult classic. Still, it’s better than 90% of the Predator knock-offs out there and there is no doubt that Neil Marshall “still gots it”.
