Written by Tyrone BruinsmaBEGINNINGS AND DARKNESS FALLS Jonathan Liebesman is a fascinating director to analyze as he’s grown from humble origins to work on major blockbusters. Unfortunately, his legacy isn’t the most well revered and his films are sometimes critically mauled…for appropriate reasons. But I have an immense respect for his efforts and want to look over his work. Fun fact, his cousin is fellow film director Dean Israelite who directed Project Almanac and the 2017 Power Rangers movie. Born in South Africa, Liebesman studied film and developed his skills before gaining attention with a short film Genesis and Catastrophe. The positive attention brought him to Hollywood and so to gain notoriety-he made a horror film. According to Ryan Hollinger’s video on Darkness Falls [Remember That Terrible Movie About The EVIL TOOTH FAIRY? - YouTube], Liebesman had no interest in the genre and it was purely a calculated move for his success. I can respect that, many filmmakers tackle projects and genres they’ve no real investment in to further their career. But while he might not have been super invested-the filmmaking shows a degree of passion that other directors would not have put in. Darkness Falls follows the haunting of a town by a ghost entity from its dark past. Initially starting out like a superstition before the body count begins to rise. The main issue with the film is how its opening backstory gets the most narrative weight and the story proper is rather lacking. The backstory is during the mid-1800s, an elderly woman named Matilda would give children a gold coin when they lost their last baby tooth. Tragically, a mysterious fire burns Matilda’s home and she’s left scarred permanently-forced to wear a mask to hide her burns and protect herself from sunlight. One day, two children go missing and Matilda is accused of killing them-being hung for this crime. However, after the children return unharmed-the town bury their secret. But it’s said Matilda returns the night a child loses their last baby tooth, killing them if they dare look at her face. While I have issues with that backstory narratively, it’s a pretty cool premise. The main story is a boy named Kyle witnessing the death of his mother at the hands of Matilda-returning to the town of Darkness Falls as an adult to help a boy suffering the same paranoia as him. There’s very little room for a character arc or interesting development as the film is mostly a series of kills by the ghoulish phantom. While you think there might be some psychological or Scooby-Doo style twist, that never happens. And it’s ruined by how the only mystery of Matilda’s real face behind her porcelain mask is spoiled by the damn cover art. Madilta’s design was originally going to be very akin to what Guillermo Del Toro monsters would look like in later years, but her design and overall presence is haunting…until the underwhelming un-masking scene. Mostly, the film is a weaker version of the feature length adaptation of Lights Out-where the entity relies on darkness to kill its victims. That said, I do think Liebesman’s direction is far better than the film deserves and there’s often a strong atmosphere akin to James Wan’s Dead Silence. The cast does very solid work with what they’re given, even some future stars being included. Angus Sampson would go on to be a major part of the Insidious film and even featured as the Organic in Mad Max Fury Road. Emily Browning would star in Zack Snyder’s Sucker Punch and the American Gods tv series. And Sullivan Stapleton would go on to feature as the lead in 300: Rise of an Empire, and the tv shows Strike Back and Blindspot. The script was conceived by comic writer Joe Harris, with help from Tombstone and Color of Night writer John Fasano and future writer of Zodiac and The Amazing Spider-Man films James Vanderbilt. There’s plenty of talent from writing, production and acting-it’s just unfortunate that the film never reaches the heights it could achieve. I think if Matilda was given either a moral greyness or existential feeling, her presence would be more unnerving. The backstory also could’ve been worked more into the primary narrative instead of an exposition dump. There’s just a lot of choices that don’t pay off as opposed to a town conspiracy or horrific truth that the film never delivers. The film was critically panned upon release, but made over 4 times its $11 Million budget. I think the critical mauling comes more from the horror zeitgeist at the time, less the film itself. Supernatural horror had become rather overdone by 2003 with numerous remakes and derivatives. Plus, extreme horror was in vogue thanks to New French Extremity and the monstrous success of the Texas Chainsaw remake that same year. Regardless, I think Darkness Falls still stands well enough on its own as a horror film with a strong atmosphere and easily one of the best films he’s done. And with the intention of becoming more noteworthy in Hollywood-it certainly achieved that. After Darkness Falls, Liebesman directed a short film Rings to promote the 2005 Ring Two and earned higher praise than the feature film. TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE: THE BEGINNING After Darkness Falls and Rings, Liebesman gained the attention of producer Michael Bay. Bay had recently started the production company Platinum Dunes, a studio whose goal was remaking classic horror films. Ironically, Bay produced the Texas Chainsaw remake that likely helped earn Darkness Falls such bad reviews. While the 2003 remake was directed by music video Marcus Nispel, Liebesman was brought in for this prequel as Bay was impressed with the young director’s style. In all seriousness, the 2003 remake is one of the best horror remakes around. It doesn’t blatantly copy the original film except in some beautiful atmospheric moments, and stands as an equal to the original. It’s nastier, gorier and implements new characters-but I think that was the right move at the time. Unfortunately, due to the nature of it being a prequel, Liebesman’s inexperience and probably a change in writers-the prequel failed in every area. Being a prequel removes a lot of tension, only providing a backstory for a few characters and the dilapidated town. While Liebesman showed a strong visual style in Darkness Falls, his efforts in this prequel were not strong and it often looks cheap or without passion. I’d say the writers of this prequel were worse, but that’s not the case. The remake was written by Scott Kosar, writer of The Machinist and the prequel was written by David J. Schow who wrote the 1994 film The Crow, and Sheldon Turner-future writer of Up in the Air and X-Men: First Class. I’m honestly shocked they managed to make such a lacking story. While it shows us the messy and rather bad taste origin of Leatherface, the biggest disgrace is what they do to R Lee Ermey’s character. In the remake, Ermey plays the terrifying and brutal Sherriff Hoyt. Ermey’s character represented the inhumane police system in both contemporary 70’s American and an even darker reflection with modern day reality. However, the prequel decides to make it so Ermey’s character killed the real Sherriff to take over the town as his family is the only left to stay. I understand many thought this was a good twist, but I disagree. It takes away the theme of a toxic police/authority system in favor of a rather cheap subversion. Overall, the film turns the remake’s exploitation slasher tone and aesthetic-turning into bad taste shock values. The only interesting idea is two of the leads being enlisted to serve in the Vietnam War, and one is a draft dodger. This doesn’t go anywhere, Leatherface has little presence outside the ending climax and it’s generally just a poor effort. While the film made money, it only made half of what the remake did despite the larger budget. Ultimately, it killed the Platinum Dunes Texas Chainsaw franchise and Liebesman was dropped as director of the Friday the 13th remake. Marcus Nispel returned to direct that film, another greatly underappreciated horror remake. THE KILLING ROOM For his 3rd (and so far, final entry) into the horror genre-Liebesman made The Killing Room in 2009. This is easily the best film he’s made, a smart and tense psychological thriller that doesn’t get enough attention. The movie portrays a modern-day version of the MK Ultra experiments done at the peak of the Cold War. The film is easily one of the best examinations of the subject matter alongside the first Outlast video game. The premise is an experiment where people in a room are slowly killed off to observe their psychology. It’s been rightfully compared to films like Cube and the comparison is a fitting one. This isn’t a film about the visceral violence in death, but the psychological effect on its characters. The cast is excellent; featuring Chloë Sevigny from Zodiac, Peter Stormare from…so many things and the best surprise-a genuinely nuanced performances by Nick Cannon. The confined space, claustrophobic shooting style and excellent performances make this very akin to a Hitchcockian thriller alongside Lifeboat or Rope. I have the least amount to say about it because it does so much excellently and is a small enough scale that it can’t mess up much. The most interesting note is how one of the writers also wrote the 2005 Narnia film, making it a strange transition for them. The Killing Room keeps the audience on a tightrope of tension, exposes the moral darkness of post-9/11 America and provides the right amount of thrills to be one of the best films of the year. The most interesting note is where it lies amongst over 2009 horror films. Films in 2009 like Saw 6, The Collector, My Bloody Valentine 3D and even Splice tried to create super violent and gory films. It’s quite impressive for The Killing Room to show such restraint for a psychological effect when I railed against Liebesman’s use bad taste gore in the Texas Chainsaw Prequel. BATTLE LOS ANGELES After playing in horror for almost a decade and having enough work under his belt, Liebesman leapt into blockbuster action territory for the first time with Battle Los Angeles. The script and story were conceived by writer Christopher Bertolini, whose only other real script was The General’s Daughter-a forgettable 1999 John Travolta thriller. Liebesman began to implement his directorial passion for the first time, wanting the film to look consistent with modern warfare footage. Despite the film being an alien invasion, he wanted to avoid the gloss of Independence Day and similar efforts. The film visually had more in common with the recent Hurt Locker film than any contemporary sci-fi work. A short step however is that while Liebesman’s intent comes through, the execution is lacking. For cinematographer, Liebesman hired his prior colleague on his last few works. Meanwhile, cinematographer Barry Ackroyd of The Hurt Locker and United 93 was hired to bring his naturalistic capturing of war to other films like Green Zone, Coriolanus and Captain Philips. If Liebesman was fully committed to this realism approach, I think he would’ve been wiser to bring on somebody else to shoot it. The ultimate problem with Battle Los Angeles is that despite being an adrenaline focused, shaking camera sci-fi war film…it’s just boring. Despite having the right look and feel for Liebesman, there’s no genuinely interesting action scene in the film. And aiming for a family friendly PG-13 rating did not do the film a favor as it lacks pure brutality. And despite references to World War 2 Japanese attacks and the aliens representing genocidal nazis-it’s far too bland to get that across. The premise feels like someone tried to turn Call of Duty: Modern Warfare into a film by adding aliens and it’s fairly boring. There’s video game style objectives that would be good in a video game, but aren’t as interesting to watch unfold on screen. In fact, this film did get a solid enough video game adaptation. Mostly it just ends up being rather lifeless, ending on a “see you in the sequel” note and providing no real grasp for audiences. One promo on the Blu-ray cover called the film “District 9, but more awesome”, a quote I detest because District 9 is both awesome and one of the best films of the 21st century. Battle Los Angeles is a forgotten action film that still hasn’t gotten its long-planned sequel. So, despite making a pretty boring first attempt at a blockbuster that received negative reviews; the film made a decent profit of $211 Million on a $70 Million budget. And in momentarily grabbing the cinematic zeitgeist, Liebesman was seen as a viable blockbuster filmmaker. Immediately after this, he was given directing duties on the sequel to the 2010 remake of Clash of the Titans. WRATH OF THE TITANS Clash of the Titans was a bit of production mess that turned out mostly ok. It’s got a solid cast, a good director and memorable moments. Scenes like the giant scorpion and Medusa battles, plus everything to do with the Kraken was enough to keep it out of forgettable garbage. Unfortunately, Wrath of the Titans was complete garbage. I’ve heard some critics say it was better than the first and I just cannot agree. The pacing is in too much of a hurry to get started before slowing to a crawl. The film opens with speedy exposition, rapid plot movements, monsters appearing out of nowhere and Sam Worthington fighting a Chimera. After that, the film turns into a long fetch quest. Nothing really happens until the big bad titan Kronos appears and the film just becomes a poorly recreated Dragonball Z fight. And Liebesman’s shaking camera returns despite this being an epic fantasy film. Ben Davis was the cinematographer on this film, shooting films like Kick-Ass and four of the MCU films with solid action should’ve made this work. But aside from one long tracking shot, the action is lots of shaking and quick cutting. While I’m certain Liebesman chose this quick cutting, shaking camera style due to his past work and Clash of Titans lacking this-it could’ve been a studio decision too. At the time, The Bourne Ultimatum and Taken style of “realism” through shaking and fast edits were in vogue. The Hunger Games, The Expendables and Quantum of Solace all used the style to lesser effect. That said, regardless of who chose the style-the technique does not work. The story is boring, the acting pedestrian and it’s overall not fun. The only entertaining scene was Bill Nighy appearing and just chewing the scenery for a few minutes with drunken ramblings. It’s like he saw how much fun Johnny Depp was having on the Pirates of the Caribbean films and wanted to do that. In the end, the film received worse reviews than the first and only made double its $150 Million budget. A sequel titled Revenge of the Titans was intended to be made, but the negatives reviews and lack of ideas lead to its inevitable cancellation. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES But, Liebesman was still seen as a viable talent and was one of two directors in negotiations for Michael Bay’s adaptation of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Considering the other director was Brett Ratner; director of garbage like Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand and Tower Heist-as well as being a homophobic sexual harasser…Liebesman was the better choice. The main controversy of the film’s production was the Turtles going to be part of an alien race. Having seen the outline for the plot, it seems like the kind of this a LOT of 2000’s adaptations were doing. If you look up JJ Abrams’ radical take on Superman before it was scrapped-you will know that this was not uncommon. But fans soundly rejected the idea and it was changed to the original status quo-to the point the finished film makes fun of the alien idea. Another issue was the white washing of The Shedder. William Fichtner of Heat, The Dark Knight and Modern Warfare 3 was hired to play the role. But fans and the original creators objected to this-forcing reshoots to make the Shredder Japanese. A problem is that these reshoots didn’t change much and tries to hide it through clever editing and ADR. But on a serious controversy, human teddy bear Alan Ritchson who played Raphael revealed that Bay, producers and the studio mistreated all of the Turtles actors. They were underpaid, last to leave set and denied the right to be interviewed. Ritchson should be applauded for revealing this and only did after this reboot series was eventually scrapped. With all that said, the negative reception this film received from fans and critics…this is easily one of Liebesman’s best films. While the design of the turtles is a controversial subject, adapting the foot clan into mercenaries and Shredder into a Transformer is up for debate-I think the film works. It’s a good-looking blockbuster film, has some funny moments and a couple of awesome action scenes. I like Megan Fox as April; I love all the actors who played the turtles and their dialogue, and that mountain action scene was executed wonderfully. The plot is pretty damn clunky and downright silly, but this is based on a comic that takes the piss out of superheroes in the first place. I don’t ask for a film about giant fighting turtles to be real-I ask it to be fun. And for the most part, it is fun. But I can agree that it was a clear attempt to make another Transformers. It made almost $500 Million and was guaranteed a sequel. The sequel received better reviews and adhered closer to the tone and style of the cartoons everyone loved. Bebop and Rocksteady were awesome, the plane/Amazon fight was well done, Casey Jones worked well and the rest of the villains were a lot of fun. Unfortunately, it only made half of what the original did and the series was subsequently scrapped. To be fair, 2016 had a lot of major box office bombs-Huntsman: Winter's War, Alice Through the Looking Glass, Ghostbusters, Kubo and the Two Strings, Deepwater Horizon and more all failed that year. DOLITTLE
Since 2014, Liebesman’s work has slowed. His only contribution to cinema recently was as a reshoot director on the 2020 disaster Dolittle. And since I feel like it, we’re gonna go into this film and the concept of reshoots. The project started in 2017 with Robert Downey Jnr signing on the play the title character. Stephen Gaghan, Oscar winning writer of Traffic, Syriana and Call of Duty: Ghosts was assigned to the project. I’m a little curious as to who at Universal thought a man experienced in gritty political thrillers should helm a big family friendly blockbuster, but that was the result. Dolittle is an old series dating back to the 1920s and most modern audiences would only have vague memories of the Eddie Murphy comedies. After filming in 2018, early test screenings were reportedly bad as the comedy was not working. Seth Rogen and one of his partners came in to add comedy, but promptly left. With Gaghan’s involvement, Chris McKay of Robot Chicken and The Lego Batman Movie was brought in to rewrite while Liebesman worked as director. McKay was tasked with storyboarding new sequences and creating a new edit, but soon left to direct The Tomorrow War-with Liebesman taking over those duties. John Wittington, a writer on The Lego Batman Movie and the upcoming Sonic The Hedgehog 2 film gave ideas to Robert Downey Jnr…who tore them up in favor of other ideas. The film released early in 2020 before Covid became a global disaster, earning over $250 Million. While it was the 7th highest grossing film of the year due to lacking cinema goers, it still lost Universal roughly $100 Million and was rightfully mauled by critics. I can’t really tell you where I think the reshoots started outside of one disconnected action scene. It’s pretty much a lackluster fetch quest that feels like an attempt to rip-off the Pirates of the Caribbean films. Despite an amazing cast, the acting is overdone or boring and Robert Downey Jnr was just annoying. It spends way too long getting to the point, has really weak comedy, and I only remember Ralph Fiennes as a depressed tiger and a dragon farting out a bagpipe. No, I’m not making that last one up. To answer the question as to what reshoots are, they’re new scenes or new versions of scenes filmed to address issues or missing pieces in the initial cut. Not all reshoots equal a bad film, some like Lord of the Rings are designed to improve a film. It’s just that in recent years, the publicity of reshoots with completely new directors mandated by studio fear has become very telling about Hollywood. Reshoots like Fant4sitc, Suicide Squad, Justice League and X-Men Dark Phoenix all come to mind. Sometimes you get good results like Tony Gilroy reshooting Gareth Edwards’ Rogue One and all parties admit happiness with the results. Sometimes you get Fede Alvarez reshooting for Doug Liman’s Chaos Walking and the film sucks regardless. Reshoots can fine tune a good film, fix a bad film, or destroy a good film the studio doesn’t understand. But most of the time, reshoots fail to fix a broken film that was a bad idea from the start. That’s what Dolittle was. Reshoot directors are considered fairly important and reliable workers, even if their name is tied to lackluster works. For example, the 2017 film Geostorm was directed by Independence Day producer Dean Devlin, but after test screenings failed to please-the studio hired Danny Cannon of 1995’s Judge Dredd and I Still Know What You Did Last Summer to reshoot. So Liebesman being brought in indicated a high level of trust from the studio as Liebesman had not worked for Universal before. CONCLUSION So, what’s my final assessment on Jonathan Liebesman? I can’t call them a bad director, just a director of some bad films. The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning and Wrath of the Titans represent the worst of his catalogue, but he’s shown promise. I think Liebesman should find projects he genuinely wants, I’m not sure if the horror/blockbuster route is where his heart is. I’m not sure if he’s interested in dramas, biopics or something else entirely-but I want him to make whatever he’s genuinely passionate about. His films have made over a billion dollars despite the reviews and I want any filmmaker like him to just create their personal visions. I could be wrong and maybe he’s happy being a studio man hired to fix projects, that’s fine too. If I had to rank his films from worst to best, it would be: -Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning -Wrath of the Titans -Battle: Los Angeles -Darkness Falls -TMNT -The Killing Room And I’d only recommend the latter 3 as Darkness Falls has a strong enough atmosphere, TMNT is a fun enough and well produced action film, and The Killing Room is just a genuinely excellent thriller. I look forward to seeing what Liebesman makes in the future, hopefully another psychological thriller or maybe a political drama. And if Liebesman is watching this-I respect you man. Filmmaking is hard, you don’t always get to pick your work and combatting studios over big budget projects can be difficult. But you’ve done good work and I never want you to stop.
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