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Canyon (The)
R1 - America - Magnolia Home Entertainment/Magnet Review written by and copyright: Jeremiah Chin (11th January 2010). |
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The Film
 Nature can be really spooky, especially for us city folk. Just think of all the bugs and noises out there in the dark. Alright so maybe not as terrifying as the psychotic murderers that live in the forests and cities, but still it can be scary. But being single, I have no fear of nature because there is one firm and solid rule: if you are going to get scared in the middle of nowhere, it always happens as a young couple. Or at least that’s what the movies say. All it takes is a simple formula: young couple + natural surroundings + alone together = spooky. And that’s about all “The Canyon” (2009) builds off of, almost like the movie keeps saying “that’s kinda freaky right?” as you sit shaking your head no, trying not to fall asleep. This time the young couple is Lori (Yvonne Strahovski) and Nick (Eion Bailey) who just barely aloped to have a quick Vegas wedding. On the first few nights of their honeymoon, they decide to go down and visit the Grand Canyon, but unfortunately don’t want to wait for the permits and guides to take them deep down into the canyon. Fortunately the ornery old Henry (Will Patton) has the permits, supplies and know how to take them down into the canyon for a few days. Henry entices Nick with the thought of seeing some old Anasazi ruins in the area and they leave their plotted course. Soon Henry’s mule is spooked by a rattle snake, causing all three of them to fall off their mules, all their supplies to run away and Henry to be bitten multiple times by the snake. Now Lori and Nick have to find a way back without their guide and without supplies. First off, I have to admit that every time a film uses papyrus font, it just lowers my standards. Especially when I’m not ready for it, the fonts on the cover don’t use papyrus so I was perfectly fine heading in, but then, boom, papyrus. Not good. The movie doesn’t get much better than that either. In order to really drive home a nature/survival/horror sort of movie you need 3 things: good writing, good directing and good actors. Unfortunately “The Canyon” can’t pull together any of them. The most blatant is the terrible writing by Steve Allrich, who doesn’t quite seem to put together what it means to make a tense movie. Just relying on location and a few wolves isn’t quite enough, combined with the lack of real backstory or good dialogue between the couple. Then the acting and the directing are sub par on their own. Strahovski and Bailey have virtually no chemistry between them and are barely believeable as a third date let alone a couple that just got married. Then the way that Bailey tries to play off his character’s supposedly witty lines (which are also a fault of Allrich’s script), he just comes across as trying far too hard to appear cool. Having the weak relationship, bad writing and bad dialogue all fall apart as the entire movie is based around the idea of this couple being stuck together for a little over an hour and a half. Just to complete the trifecta, the directing by Richard Harrah peaks at plain. He gives some good scenery of the area but even in these smaller sequences he doesn’t seem able to pull good performances out of his actors or even bring a good look to the film. There’s a little hotness and desertness to the look of the film, but he doesn’t really bring out the colors or scope to enhance the desertedness or feel of the film. Overall “The Canyon” is a really forgettably bad film, it tries to make a turn for the better near the end when (spoilers) Nick’s leg gets stuck in a rock and so they decide the best idea is to cut it off and try to carry on. Unfortunately about a day or so after cutting it off Lori gets hopeless and decides to end it all by suffocating Nick to put him out of his misery, seconds before a helicopter appears over the horizon. While the convinently timed irony is nice and bittersweet, I’m already nodding off to sleep by this point because the film barely kept my interest. At least the credits weren’t in papyrus, or else there would be hell to pay.
Video
Presented in an anamorphic 2.40:1 aspect ratio the film has a decidedly cheap and independent look, even considering the $10 million budget. But rather than using the low budget to propel creativity, they just sort of wallow in plain shots and average environments that don’t get to the brightness or colors of being in the middle of the Arizona desert. Everything is so toned down it seems less warm than creating the environment, plus the transfer itself is a little muddied and grainy with some other small visual problems that pop up occasionally to make for a mediocre transfer that doesn’t have much to work with to begin with.
Audio
Similarly the English Dolby Digital 5.1 sound track is really plain, mostly because of the lacking original content. Filled mostly with odd ambient noises and sounds that sound to come from a ‘sounds of the desert’ CD you get from the dollar store, along with a soundtrack that is equally generic, the movie’s sound is underwhelming in adding any sort of move to the film. At the same time the mastering into 5.1 has no real movement in it, which would really add to a film about wolves going after people or about cutting off one’s leg. This is a time for real sound, but there’s nothing good enough to make things work. There’s also an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track, as well as Spanish subtitles.
Extras
Magnolia/Magnet has released this film with a collection of three featurettes, a series of deleted scenes and bonus trailers. Below is a closer look. First is the “Yvonne Strahovski Casting Session” featurette runs for 4 minutes 59 seconds, that is essentially her audition tape for the film, with her reading lines back and forth in front of a plain background. Really boring, unless you’re obsessed with Strahovski. The deleted scenes are compounded together into one 7 minute and 18 second feature, including scenes of Nick and Lori go to look down into the Grand Canyon and have a conversation about changing, Henry telling Nick and Lori some stories about his tours through the canyon, and some more glimpses of their early trek. “Discovering the Canyon” runs for 11 minutes and 53 seconds, this is the basic making-of featurette, using all kinds of talking heads and behind-the-scenes footage where everyone gets to talk about working on the film. The actors talk about their rapport and chemistry that they think happens (that I don’t see), while showing off some of their stunts and preparation for the film. Really it’s mostly actors praising themselves and talking about how deep the dug to get the emotion for the film and how intense their situations were. “Behind-the-Scenes Montage” runs for 5 minutes and 15 seconds, this featurette does exactly what it says, just going behind the scenes with a montage set to some of the really soft music from the film. There’s some mildly interesting behind-the-scenes work, but with a more boring presentation it’s not terribly engaging. Bonus trailers on the disc are: - “Ong Bak 2: The Beginning” which runs for 1 minute and 21 seconds. - “Humpday” runs for 2 minutes. - “World’s Greatest Dad” runs for 2 minutes and 29 seconds. - “Is Anybody There?” runs for 2 minutes and 11 seconds. - “HDNet” spot runs for 1 minute.
Overall
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