SerpApi.Org
Filmmaker David Twohy will forever have my respect for writing two of the best horror movies of the late 1980s: Mick Garris' "Critters 2: The Main Course" and Steve Miner's "Warlock" (R.I.P. to the star, Julian Sands). Both films are clever, intense, and possess strong characters and a wild sense of humor. If you haven't seen "Critters 2" or "Warlock," you're missing out. Twohy made his directorial debut in 1992 with the Jeff Daniels time travel thriller "Timescape," which few people remember, but everyone remembers his screenplay for the 1993 ultra-hit "The Fugitive," on which Twohy is co-credited with Jeb Stuart.
Twohy has remained a notable presence in Hollywood ever since, churning out both classics and shlock. He penned or co-penned flicks like "Terminal Velocity," "Waterworld," and "G.I. Jane," and wrote/directed the not-very-well-received "The Arrival" (the Charlie Sheen film from the '90s, not Denis Villeneuve's film from 2016). He wrote that the film "Imposter" was one of the worst adaptations of Philip K. Dick. To sci-fi fans, Twohy will always be beloved for writing and directing "Pitch Black" in 2000, which led to the well-regarded Vin Diesel spinoff vehicles "The Chronicles of Riddick" in 2004 and "Riddick" in 2013.
Between those "Riddick" sequels, though, Twohy made a film that few people remember called "A Perfect Getaway." Twohy's film was about three couples — strangers — who find themselves in the same remote jungle in Hawai'i, all one vacation. Tensions mount between them when news breaks on the radio that there is a male-female serial killer couple lurking nearby, and that they target honeymooning newlyweds. The couples are played by Steve Zahn & Milla Jovovich, Timothy Olyphant & Kiele Sanchez, and Chris Hemsworth & Marley Shelton. Is one of these couples a pair of murderers?
Critics liked this one.
Read more: Famous Actors Who Refuse To Work With Each Other
Does anyone remember A Perfect Getaway?
I dare not reveal who the killer or killers are in "A Perfect Getaway." Needless to say, not everyone is who they say they are. Chris Hemsworth plays the most suspicious character, and the characters played by Steve Zahn and Milla Jovovich seem, at least at first, to be the most trustworthy. This is a great Hitchcockian setup, born of paranoia. It takes a while to even figure out who the proper protagonists are meant to be. Before the end of the movie, people will indeed kill one another, and a few lingering survivors will remain.
"A Perfect Getaway" also had a pretty clever marketing campaign. One can still go to the YouTube channel of "ChannelEightNewsNow," a fictional local news station, and watch fake reports about missing couples that have been murdered on their honeymoons. The fake news reports give no indication that they are movie promotions, and they don't prominently feature any of the actors from the movie. They were merely meant to add a spark of real-world texture to the premise of the upcoming "Getaway." YouTube was only about four years old at the time, so using it in marketing was seen as somewhat novel. Although it wasn't as notable as when "The Blair Witch Project" set up its own fake-news website in 1999, leading people to believe the film was real.
The campaign didn't work terribly well, however, if the box office of "A Perfect Getaway" is any indicator. On a relatively low $14 million budget, the film made under $23 million at the box office. Recall that Chris Hemsworth wouldn't become a recognized, worldwide star until his appearance in "Thor" two years later, so he wasn't a big draw yet.
What critics thought of A Perfect Getaway
At the time, Milla Jovovich was the biggest star of "A Perfect Getaway," having already starred in three of the hit "Resident Evil" movies by 2009. Also, Timothy Olyphant had recently completed a successful run on the hit Western TV series "Deadwood," although he was a year away from his other hit Western TV series, "Justified."
Critics liked "A Perfect Getaway" okay, and it currently holds an average 62% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 138 reviews. Dennis Harvey, writing for Variety, gave the film a positive review, calling it a popcorn film (in a complimentary fashion) and stating that director David Twohy possessed a great deal of "muscularity." He noted that the movie seemed to exist for its beautiful landscape and, naturally, the attractiveness of its cast; he compared it to the hot-people-in-swimsuits thriller "Into the Blue" from 2005.
Roger Ebert gave the film three stars (out of four), noting that he was actually caught by surprise, something few thrillers are capable of doing anymore. It helped, he admitted, that he had seen no ads and didn't know anything about the story going in. He didn't even know it was a thriller. Ebert liked this detail:
"Cliff (Zahn) says he's a screenwriter, and Nick (Hemsworth) finds out a particular screenplay is being rewritten and busts his chops about that, and then Nick mentions 'red snappers,' and Cliff says the correct term is 'red herrings,' and let us say that although the dinner menu includes mountain goat and macaroni and cheese, there is no fish course."
That means that someone among us is a red herring. It's a cute little meta-joke for the audience.
If you're looking for the easiest way to keep up with all the major movie and TV news, why not sign up to our free newsletter? You can also add us as a preferred search source or follow us on Google.
Read the original article on SlashFilm.
