COLOR OUT OF SPACE MM D: Richard Stanley. U.S. 111 min. Sep 9, 8:30 pm, Scotiabank 12 Sep 14, 5 pm, Scotiabank 12. Rating: NNN
South African filmmaker Stanley – who made his name in the early 90s with Hardware and Dust Devil – delivers his first feature in 27 years, an update of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story about a farm, and the family that lives on it, slowly overrun by an otherworldly contamination.
It’s a bit of a slow roller, taking its time setting up the eerie atmosphere and giving leads Nicolas Cage and Joely Richardson some room to establish a loving rapport as a big-city couple who’ve retreated to the sticks after a cancer diagnosis. (Cage also gets to say the word “alpaca” until it loses all meaning. It’s a thing.)
But once Stanley unleashes the CG-driven chaos he can’t really control it, and Color Out Of Space trades its tension for a barely coherent cosmic light show. That said, barely coherent cosmic light shows play pretty well on the Scotiabank’s IMAX screen, which is where the movie’s remaining screenings will be held.
