Greetings And Salutations, and welcome to my review of Joey aka Making Contact; here's the breakdown of my ratings:
Story: 0.25 Direction: 0.50 Pace: 0.75 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.00
TOTAL: 3.50 out of 10.00.
There's no doubting that from 1992 onwards, with the release of Universal Soldier, Roland Emmerich's skills as a director had grown. Especially after watching Making Contact, where he doesn't only borrow ideas for the storyline but his scenes too. There are so many movies in this one picture it's hard to say which bandwagon he's jumped onto until you realise the films have one thing in common - Steven Spielberg. You'll easily spot the visual and narrative similarities between ET, Poltergeist, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and The Goonies. Due to how Spielberg feels about the likes of Amazon and Netflix making movies that are acceptable at the Oscars, I'm amazed Stevie didn't sue the ass off Emmerich for this flick - maybe he took it as a homage.
That aside: the story, penned by Emmerich, Hans Haller, and Thomas Lechner, tells the story of Joey, a young lad who has just lost his father, except after the funeral, Joey receives a call from his dearly deceased daddy...on his red toy telephone - something a kid his age should've trashed a long time before. But Daddy isn't the only new thing in the house. Joey now possesses the psychic ability to move objects. All he has to do is use his thoughts to ask dad for help, and hey presto, the glass of OJ slides across the table. Oh, and don't forget the ventriloquist dummy he rescued from the dilapidated house down the lane, which has also sprung to life and is now making Joey and his mother's lives miserable. Ooops, I nearly forgot the cute self-powered electronic robot that does what it wants, like hiding from girls because it's shy. With all this going on in his life, it's easy to see why Joey finds it hard to make friends at school - and why the other boys have taken to mocking and bullying him. With this much content, you'd think it'd be a great story. Well, it could've been. Sadly, none of the writers takes the time to develop the characters. Everybody is too quick to accept the strange phenomena occurring in the house. Nobody questions them. Even when the truckloads of paranormal researchers arrive, they treat the flying objects and levitating people as run-of-the-mill events, which, in itself, lessens the supernatural episodes for the movie and the audience. I found it hard to believe that Joey's mother is his mother. The characters are that poorly constructed. There's no motherly bond between them, and she doesn't appear to care too much about his safety. She's not too broken up over her husband's death either. She quickly slides into the caring male teacher's life and arms. And then we get to the story's structure. The writers failed to fully realise the hodge-podge of story ideas, making the whole tale jagged and disjointed. And the ending is so throw-away terrible that I won't mention it.
As for Emmerich's direction - well, before he came into his own, he was a poor man's Spielberg, Tobe Hooper, and Richard Donner, all of whom did a better job with their pictures. However, replicating those guys' works aided his growth. Sadly, after the main setback of the story, the movie suffers from a lack of budget and over-stretching of ideas. Compared with the rolling storm clouds in The Lost Ark and Poltergeist, these ones look sad and powerless. And speaking of Poltergeist, those flying spinning objects got flack because they quickly looked outdated. Well, wait until you see these air riders. The Poltergeist floaties will look like masterpieces of special effects once again. But that said, there is a couple of decent FX. One is the maze they find themselves in when they break into the tumbledown house at the end of the lane. Yep the cellar is a gateway to...well, we don't know, and Emmerich and the writers didn't appear to care - it was just another of those annoying ideas. Anyways, it looks good, and there's a dragonlike creature beyond its walls, as well as a ginormous version of the dummy, and a monstrous child-devouring beef burger in its lair within the maze. And though these look good and are passable, they're let down by the story and the direction. Emmerich keeps everything ticking over at a swift pace. Regrettably, using this tempo with the manic FX adds a more rabid look and feel to the scenes. It looks as though Dreamworks had received a Cujo bite.
The cast is okay: They can only do the best with what the writers supply and how the director instructs them. Had the writers done a better job with the characterisations and had Emmerich pointed them in better directions, the movie would be more acceptable for their performances. As it stands, the characters are dull, and the performers do their best to keep them as boring and uninteresting as the writers and Emmerich wanted.
So, by now, you should know what I'm about to say - Stay away from this picture; I cannot recommend that strongly enough. If you want to watch Emmerich at his best, I suggest you start with Universal Soldier and go from there. But if the notion of this story tickled your interests, then go and get copies of ET, The Goonies, Poltergeist, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then sit back and enjoy those films. All are better than Joey - Making Contact.
Gottle of gear. Give me my gloody gottle of gear. Now while I swig this gloody gear down my wooden neck, go check out my IMDb list - Absolute Horror, to see where I ranked Joey.
Take Care & Stay Well.
Story: 0.25 Direction: 0.50 Pace: 0.75 Acting: 1.00 Enjoyment: 1.00
TOTAL: 3.50 out of 10.00.
There's no doubting that from 1992 onwards, with the release of Universal Soldier, Roland Emmerich's skills as a director had grown. Especially after watching Making Contact, where he doesn't only borrow ideas for the storyline but his scenes too. There are so many movies in this one picture it's hard to say which bandwagon he's jumped onto until you realise the films have one thing in common - Steven Spielberg. You'll easily spot the visual and narrative similarities between ET, Poltergeist, Raiders of The Lost Ark, and The Goonies. Due to how Spielberg feels about the likes of Amazon and Netflix making movies that are acceptable at the Oscars, I'm amazed Stevie didn't sue the ass off Emmerich for this flick - maybe he took it as a homage.
That aside: the story, penned by Emmerich, Hans Haller, and Thomas Lechner, tells the story of Joey, a young lad who has just lost his father, except after the funeral, Joey receives a call from his dearly deceased daddy...on his red toy telephone - something a kid his age should've trashed a long time before. But Daddy isn't the only new thing in the house. Joey now possesses the psychic ability to move objects. All he has to do is use his thoughts to ask dad for help, and hey presto, the glass of OJ slides across the table. Oh, and don't forget the ventriloquist dummy he rescued from the dilapidated house down the lane, which has also sprung to life and is now making Joey and his mother's lives miserable. Ooops, I nearly forgot the cute self-powered electronic robot that does what it wants, like hiding from girls because it's shy. With all this going on in his life, it's easy to see why Joey finds it hard to make friends at school - and why the other boys have taken to mocking and bullying him. With this much content, you'd think it'd be a great story. Well, it could've been. Sadly, none of the writers takes the time to develop the characters. Everybody is too quick to accept the strange phenomena occurring in the house. Nobody questions them. Even when the truckloads of paranormal researchers arrive, they treat the flying objects and levitating people as run-of-the-mill events, which, in itself, lessens the supernatural episodes for the movie and the audience. I found it hard to believe that Joey's mother is his mother. The characters are that poorly constructed. There's no motherly bond between them, and she doesn't appear to care too much about his safety. She's not too broken up over her husband's death either. She quickly slides into the caring male teacher's life and arms. And then we get to the story's structure. The writers failed to fully realise the hodge-podge of story ideas, making the whole tale jagged and disjointed. And the ending is so throw-away terrible that I won't mention it.
As for Emmerich's direction - well, before he came into his own, he was a poor man's Spielberg, Tobe Hooper, and Richard Donner, all of whom did a better job with their pictures. However, replicating those guys' works aided his growth. Sadly, after the main setback of the story, the movie suffers from a lack of budget and over-stretching of ideas. Compared with the rolling storm clouds in The Lost Ark and Poltergeist, these ones look sad and powerless. And speaking of Poltergeist, those flying spinning objects got flack because they quickly looked outdated. Well, wait until you see these air riders. The Poltergeist floaties will look like masterpieces of special effects once again. But that said, there is a couple of decent FX. One is the maze they find themselves in when they break into the tumbledown house at the end of the lane. Yep the cellar is a gateway to...well, we don't know, and Emmerich and the writers didn't appear to care - it was just another of those annoying ideas. Anyways, it looks good, and there's a dragonlike creature beyond its walls, as well as a ginormous version of the dummy, and a monstrous child-devouring beef burger in its lair within the maze. And though these look good and are passable, they're let down by the story and the direction. Emmerich keeps everything ticking over at a swift pace. Regrettably, using this tempo with the manic FX adds a more rabid look and feel to the scenes. It looks as though Dreamworks had received a Cujo bite.
The cast is okay: They can only do the best with what the writers supply and how the director instructs them. Had the writers done a better job with the characterisations and had Emmerich pointed them in better directions, the movie would be more acceptable for their performances. As it stands, the characters are dull, and the performers do their best to keep them as boring and uninteresting as the writers and Emmerich wanted.
So, by now, you should know what I'm about to say - Stay away from this picture; I cannot recommend that strongly enough. If you want to watch Emmerich at his best, I suggest you start with Universal Soldier and go from there. But if the notion of this story tickled your interests, then go and get copies of ET, The Goonies, Poltergeist, and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Then sit back and enjoy those films. All are better than Joey - Making Contact.
Gottle of gear. Give me my gloody gottle of gear. Now while I swig this gloody gear down my wooden neck, go check out my IMDb list - Absolute Horror, to see where I ranked Joey.
Take Care & Stay Well.