GENERAL INFORMATION

Movie: “The Faculty”

TRAILER:

OFFICFIAL MOVIE PROMOPIC:

Tagline: We’d go in Independence Day-style …. but that’s just us ofcourse

By: Robert Rodriguez (director), David Wechter (story), Bruce Kimmel (story) and Kevin Williamson (screenplay)

With: Elijah Wood (Casey Connor), Laura Harris (Marybeth-Louise Hutchinson), Jordana Brewster (Delilah Profitt), Clea Duvall (Stokely “Stokes” Mitchell), Josh Hartnett (Zeke Tyler), Shawn Hatosy (Stan Rosado), Usher Raymond (Gabe Santora)

REVIEW:

First of all, we’d like to begin with a big “hello” to everyone at www.jordana-brewster.org .

As you can see above, the first movie in our line of Jordana Brewster movies is “The Faculty”, the 1998 sci/fi/horror flick by director Robert Rodriguez.
We personally bought this movie about 4 years ago we believe. Took us a while to find it since aperantly there were no shops that had it in stock.

Please keep in mind that this review might contain some spoilers for the movie, so if you haven’t seen “The Faculty” yet and would like to stay unspoiled …

To sum the movie up in a few words: A couple of high school kids find out that their school’s faculty is taken over by a couple of water-loving-parasites from outer space. Aperanly, there is a little problem with the water supply on their own planet so they want to take advantage of the 80% watermass of planet earth.

A fun little fact about the movie, is that the writer of the original screenplay, Kevin Williamson, had originally titled it “The Feelers” but it was later altered to “The Faculty”. The “official” draft of the script came out on the first of May, 1998. Also, the original screenplay wasn’t set in “Herrington High” but in “Jefferson High” and Elijah Wood’s character was originally named “Pacey” instead of “Casey”. Now we don’t know why they changed the name of the boy, but the aftermath of the (back than) popular “Dawson’s Creek” seems viable?

Unfortunatly, we’ll have to begin with a negative point. The very first scene (with the coach going bizurk on his pupils and then later on tipping over the tables and finding a leak in the field sprinkler system) was, in our opinion completely redundant and could have been stripped completely, or at least changed with another scene.

Now we know that you imediatly see that there is “something” going on on school grounds. But we think that this is a typical example of a scene that looks better on paper (meaning: in the script) than on tape.

Since the following scene in the movie is a small introduction to the characters, we’ll do the same. Ofcourse, we’re not going to write the same as in the movies’ introduction, we’re going to write down what our impressions of each character were.

There are a lot of (semi-) celebrated celebrities in this movie, we’ll keep our character descriptions with the top 6.

General town atmosphere and people: Aperantly, this small-town place in Ohio is simply overflowing when it comes to supporting the high school football team. If there ever is a town that has “school spirit”, its Harrington.

Like in a lot of movies, the kids in town seem to be extremely loosely parented, or parents are just non-existant.

Casey Connor (played by Elijah Wood):

Casey is a young and budding reporter/journalist. He works as a photographer for the school newspaper and doesn’t really have a “crowd” he hangs out with. He’s the first one to suspect “alien invasions” and the one that gathers the troops for the fight. (meaning that he is the one that pretty much leads the story…)

Casey seems to be pretty obsessed with getting on a good side with Delilah. His entire room is a shrine to her (freak much?) and he does whatever he can to put her on a pedistole, affraid to offend her in any way.

We don’t know why, but something about this boy tells us that he’s kept on a very short leash at home. He is insecure, shy, unpopular and “uncool” – to the extend that Delilah calls him “the geeky Stephen King kid.” And that he’s the one all the “bigger kids” go after to pick on. Eventhough he surcomes much of his original insecurities throughout the movie, he still remains the weakest character (mentally) of the group.

Casey is the first one to find a sign of the invasion. While walking back to school, he crosses the football field and finds a strange, seemingly imobile creature on the grass. He takes it to their science teacher, Edward Furlong, and calls the cops on the faculty members when he and Delilah break into the faculty lounge.

One might begin to wonder how Casey ends up leading the group. There are stronger characters in the group who seem to accept the fact that this little rascal is their “leader” without questions asked. That’s the true army mentality right there!

Elijah Wood seems to be a good choise for Casey. He always comes across a little geeky to us (his attempt to look like more of a tough guy by doing “Hooligans” didn’t work…) and he has the kind of voice and movements you’d expect from the school geek.

A couple of things we do have a problem with are his hight (he’s smaller than half of the female cast..), his eyes (he never moves them, rendering them emotionless and he squints) and the way he portrays a person who’s “high”. His over-the-top giggle makes the entire scene worthless and makes him sound like a 12 year old boy making the transtion to manhood.

Marybeth-Louise Hutchinson (played by Laura Harris):

MLH is the typical new kid in town, every movie that involves a high school has one. She’s a transfer from Atlanta who seems to have no problem in accepting the untimely death of her parents, who died in a car crash. She is the love interest of Zeke and has a very nasty allergy to medication that include Aspirin.

She’s quiet and all-accepting of all kinds and likes of mankind. She tries to befriend the typical high school punks and becomes chem partners with Stokely, who is believed to be a lesbian by many (“fly free”). She speaks with a southern-American accent and is always dressed rather traditionally.

MLH gets dragged into the gang when her and Zeke listen in on the other guys’ conversation about the alien invasion. She is forced to put her life at risk by taking some of Zeke’s magic Dust (“Scat”), eventhough highly allergetic.

Ofcourse, this is all a sharade for what is to become a defining moment in history of film, to everyone’s big surprise, MLH isn’t a typical southern transfer at all (shock rises!), she is in fact the big (fat) momma alien! Tentacles and all!

Laura Harris might have seemed like an odd choise for a girl from Atlanta, seeing that she’s from Canada. She really stepped up to the plate when it comes to dialect classes, you can hardly hear the Canadien accent coming through, other than a few hick-ups here and there, the dialect coach deserves a big round of applause on that one.
Other than the alien swimming in the water, she’s the only one that strips down to her birthday suit – may it be completely overshadowed and only for half a second of the movie, we have read of some people (most likely guys?) actually freeze framing that half a’ second to see a half breast flash up on their tv screens…
She did pretty good, conciddering the material that was given to her…

Delilah Profitt (played by Jordana Brewster):

Delilah is captain of the cheerleaders (ofcourse) and combines that job with that of being the editor-in-chief of the school newspaper. She comes from a home of a past away father and a drunk of a mother.

Eventhough Delilah seems to have everything under control at all times, we do suspect some sort of insecurity or even emotional damage caused by her traumatic family life. Some incidents in her alien state indicate that she is still not over her father’s death (and neither is her mother we assume…). One can only imagine what her life behind the closed doors of her house looks like, but aperantly, she never leaves home without her hairspray and her contacts (and we do mean lenzes.)

There is a sort of sensitivity that comes off of Delilah, yet she seems to hide it really well. She’s “in love” with Stan, the football player (another surprise) and is the love interest of Casey.

Delilah gets infected with Alien during a short battle between the gang and Mr. Furlong. After a short incubation time (and a sniff of “Scat”), she finds herself invaded with little worm-like thingies that seem to be running a race in her body and that crawl underneath her skin.

In her alien-state, she tries to persuade Casey that being an alien isn’t all that bad. (after all, she “hasn’t been this happy since her dad died”) but is luckily saved and ends up as Casey’s girlfriend (really???)

Jordana Brewster had a first taste of feature film with this role. Unfortunatly, it shows. We’re not saying that she did a terrible or horrible job in the movie, cuz she didn’t. Lets just keep it at: the acting of Jordana is aligned with the acting of all the other actors in this movie, they did the best they could with the experience and material they were given. Not to sound preachery, but the script could’ve used more work…

She did look beautiful in her Tommy’s (There was product placement by Tommy Hilfiger). Eventhough the glasses where a bit big, she still looked rather cute in her lumberjack garments (we are so glad that the crazy Jeans-craze of the late 90’s dissapeared!)
She did manage to portray Delilah’s vulnerability and emotions the way you’d expect of a girl that age, coming from Delilah’s background and environment. Eventhough not her best in a long shot, Jordana still deserves praise for giving the most believable portrayal of all cast members.

Stan Rosado (played by Shawn Hatosy):

Stan is the jock of the group. However, he wants to quit the football team to become a stronger academic than he has been. He’s got a really strong moral sense (he opposed a teacher giving him an A for winning a football game).
His high moralities, however, don’t stop him from following his co-footballers (and Delilah…) like a little puppy-dog.

In the course of the movie, Stan’s character evolves from being the jock, to being the person that holds the group together. He is a mix of just enough geek with just enough cool. He is a kind-hearted guy (a softie..) but seems to feel the need to hang out with homever is at the top of the “cool list”.

Eventhough we give praise to the fact that he was written as a sensitive guy with the need to achieve better academically, we have a problem with the way the character is portrayed by Shawn. Out of the entire cast, he is probably the one that we like least. When he speaks - he sounds bored, when he runs – it seems like someone put a cast around his spine and when he looks into the camera it seems as if you’re watching into an abyss of nothing.

He’s not convincing at all, he irks his voice at annoying and unfit times and his appearance on screen makes us want to fast-forward to the spot where Stan runs off to join the bad guys…which he also manages to do unconvincingly might we add…

Stokely “Stokes” Mitchell (played by Clea DuVall):

Stokely is an insecure teenager with a passion for the freakish and sci-fi. She knows all about “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” and is convinced that the aliens who’r trying to take over Herrington High will work in the same, methotical way. She is the only one of the entire group that has a friendly relationship with Casey and she is also the one that Casey calls upon to solve the mistery of the found specimen.

She is conciddered to be a lesbian by most of her peers. In fact, she has a big ol’ crush on Stan. She’s forcefully teamed up with Marybeth in chem class, who pushes her on Stan’s lap – thus being the cause of their first actual conversation

First of all, we don’t see how this can be a challenging role for Clea DuVall. She always ends up doing these dark, broody insecure girls or women that, in the end, find their raison d’être and the lover of her dreams.

Lets make some links to other Clea-movies and/or series:

The Faculty: insecure teenager, into sci-fi, ends up with Stan
Ten Inch Hero: insecure adult trying to find love online…finds it
Buffy the vampire Slayer: insecure, dissapearing teenager

And so on and so forth.

Zeke Tyler (played by Josh Hartnett):

Zeke is a smart kid. He’s good at chemistry and has succeeded into making his very own chemical drug (congrats on ruining youth…). He’s irresponsible and annoying and has a gun.

His parents are away a lot and pretty much don’t care about him. He has a never-ending stock of pen-tubes in which he carries his home-manufacured drug “Scat”.

He’s a couple years older than the rest of the gang and is in his senior high school year. He’s in a constant struggle with his English teacher, Ms. Burke.

Zeke runs all kinds of obscure businesses on school propperty and he’s the one that discovers that the aliens die if they’re powdered or infected with “Scat”.

He starts off infatuated with newcomer Marybeth (might we say “ick”) and overhears the alien conversation of the rest of the gang when him and MLH are making out/getting supplies from their chem class. He’s a pretty scared boy who’s having more problem’s than he’ll ever admit with the absense of his parents.

1998 was the year Josh Hartnett started out in Hollywood. A lot of people seem to druel over the guy (for reasons unbeknownst to us). We think he did reasonably well with this movie, just like he does reasonably well in all of his movies… we don’t think he did as best as he can but his performance wasn’t all that and a bag a’ chips.

The Alien(s?) (suggested: Laura Harris and CGI)

: How to describe the aliens? Little piranah-like worm fish-like creature that really, really, really love themselves some H²O (water)
Aperantly, they come from a “world with limitless oceans as far as the eye can see”…

———————————————————————————————————————

Now, do we completely hate this movie? No, not at all – its cute in a very highschool bubble gum kinda way. The acting in the movie is …okay and its one of those movies that tv stations like to air on Halloween night for kids or something like that. Like, not the actual Freddie Krueger kinda flicks, but the ones they show on a more child-friendly time.

The characters are diverse and colorful and they’ve got a really nice “everyone can get along in a time of crisis” message to them.

However, we do find it funny that (other than Usher Raymond and Jordana Brewster), everyone in the entire school seems to be caucasian? Here we were thinking that the United States where a melting pot of cultures and ethnicities…but not in Herrington, OH.

The script needed some work… some of the dialogues where a little woody and out of character, however it was at an acceptable level for High School sci-fi.

The Sci-Fi…we had a huuuuugggee problem with. The CGI wasn’t all that (yes, we know its expensive, but its their job to make an efford…) and Famke Janssen’s head walking to her body on tentacles was pretty redundant, not to mention rediculous.

Location wise, they didn’t do a bad job. We had however wished to see more of the town than just the gym, the football field, casey’s room and the way to Zeke’s place… If you have aliens trying to take over the world, then show the world, show what’s at stake…we cannot think of a single high school student that would mind alien infestation in his or her high school…as long as they can skip a class – so we pretty much lacked any sense of emotional bonding with WHY the infestations should be stopped.

Music-wise, there isn’t really that much we can talk about. In the past couple of years, we have been slapped around our ears with cover after cover after cover of “Another Brick in the Wall”. We don’t understand why they chose that song..since the movie isn’t about education at all…

Education ? infestation

The movie itself is pretty quiet music-wise, it’s not blurring through the amps and there’s no noticable songs used either. The only time you actually notice the music is when “ABITW” is played during the big football field-scene.

Now some notes that we made while watching the movie:

- According to MLH, the aliens come from a world of limitLESS oceans…this is strange, seeing the the limitless oceans seem to be drying up. Causing the species to come to Earth.
Doesn’t limitless mean that there are no limits though? As in, forever-ongoing?

- Either Zeke has a subscription to receive all the pens that didn’t go through production..or he owns his own pen factory..Nobody has that many pens (all identical might we add) lying around the house…even if you’re running a freaking drug lab in the house of your absent parents

- MLH’s kind is very sensitive to Scat, however, MLH herself doesn’t have any problem being completely covered by the powder and even kills one of her own kind while pretty much bathing in it…Ofcourse, in the end (when Our Big Hero, Casey) needs it the most..she melts away like ice when coming in contact with the stuff.

- Other than being a bit of an attention…seeker – why would Delilah end up with Casey? Other than the obvious flirting on Casey’s side, and her liking the attention he’s giving her, the only reason why we can imagine her going with him is because she likes to be accompanied by people who are in some way (rather) famous. She dates Stan, when he’s a star quarterback… than gets together with Casey at the peek of his personal glory after having defeated the aliens.

- What a jaw Stokely must have don’t you think? First you see her smashing to the ground at the swimming pool, and her bleeding all over the place. You can hear a snapping or a breaking sound as she strikes the floor. Then, under water, a huge puddle of blood colors the water a crimson shade of red. But THEN BEHOLD! She miraculously heals her wounds after being taken out of the water. Just a small wound on her lip appears. Not only that, but she can even speak! Without any problems, without a hissign sound NADA. Not even a bruised jaw. Now one must think about one thing. Have you ever been slammed to the ground (on your jaw) and NOT feel a thing? It’s guaranteed to hurt you a lot, and it’s guaranteed to take out one or two teeth. but NOOOO Stokely is superwoman, Stokely the brave gets away with it, without a single injury or painful feeling. We want what she’s having!

- Casey tells Stan “If you were going to take over the world, would you blow up the White House, Independence Day style, or sneak in through the back door?”

however, we remember a huuuugge explosion of the White house in “Independence Day” … in “The Faculty”, the big evil alien gets…squashed between bleechers

mm…now if we were the aliens, and we had the choise (since Casey puts us to the question), we’d deffo go for blowing up the White house (if the Secret Service reads this….please note that we’re talking about “Independence Day” VS “The Faculty” …this is merely our POV as aliens LOL) …. taking over a little high school in (cough) Herrington, Ohio seems so…. peanuts – also there’s that huge scare-factor you’re missing if you’re only taking over a school. Everyone can do that! (see: student rallies in the 60’s and 70’s, anti Vietnam rallies,…)

See?

Independence Day:

… The faculty:

Our overall opinion about the movie is everything but glorious. We think the story has been told before and that some characters needed a lot of work. However we do have to note that this is one of the few movies where, of so many starting actors, so many lasted in the harsh world of Hollywood. A lot of simular movies end up with the cast becoming one-hit-wonders in the film industry, in this one you have:

Elijah “Frodo” Wood – who ofcourse went on the LOTR
Jordana Brewster – “The fast & the Furious”, “D.E.B.S.” (which reached its own cult-status), …
Laura Harris – who went on doing things like “Dead Like Me”, “Women’s Murder Club”
Josh Hartnett – “Pearl Harbor”, “Black Hawk Down”, “The Black Dahlia” anyone…

And than the supporting cast including Salma Hayek, Robert Patrick and Famke Janssen …bravo!

SOUNDTRACK:
For the people that want to know more about the songs used in the movie, Amazon has a soundtrack listed with the following tracks. We’re sure other (on/ and offline) stores carry the soundtrack for who’s interested…

We guess this kinda concludes our review for “The Faculty”.

Sorry for it being so lengthy, and that we couldn’t bring you more positive news about this movie. We hope you enjoyed reading it though!

Our score: 5.5/10
Mood about movie: *yawn* - not even Jordana Brewster or Laura Harris could save this one…

Recommended for: People who love to laugh at … questionable movies, people who like to spot errors in movies, Sci-Fi’s, fans of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers”, people that like references to Sigourney Weaver or Aliens, people who love to freeze-frame half breasts
Not reccomended for: people that are looking for great examples of screenplay writing, the big majority of mankind..And everyone else

This concludes our review for “The Faculty”