Perfect Creature
by Glenn Standring
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Dougray Scott, Saffron BurrowsDirector: Glenn Standring
Brand: Fox
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 88 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-07-17
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: 20th Century Fox
Movie Reviews of Perfect Creature
Movie Review: Steampunk Perfection
Summary: 5 Stars
Late last year I read the amazing book Wicked Gentlemen by Ginn Hale, an anachronistic mash-up of futuristic sci-fi technology and Victoriana, that served as my introduction to "steampunk," a genre of literature and film that I'd never heard of before.
Perfect Creature, like Hale's book, is a steampunk thriller that pairs up a stoic police officer (Saffron Burrows) and an ethereal non-human (Dougray Scott) in a murder investigation/manhunt.
It takes place on a "world not unlike our own" where horsedrawn carriages share the streets with London black cabs, while dirigibles float silently overhead. Despite the fact that the Jamestown slums, with their rampant poverty and workhouses, seem to harken back to Dickens's Victorian England, the technology is straight out of WWII and fashion seems to span the better part of the Twentieth Century. In lesser hands, this all might have come off as cheesy, but the art direction is amazing and it was easy and enjoyable to be a part of this world for an all too brief 85 minutes. [Brevity being yet another quality it shares with Ginn Hale's book.]
Beyond the incredible worldbuilding, Perfect Creature offers moving performances by the three leads as well as the entire supporting cast. There's not a clunker in the bunch. Dougray Scott (who left me cold in Drew Barrymore's delightful Ever After) puts in a restrained and ultimately heartbreaking performance as the lonely priest/vampire and Saffron Burrows is affecting as the police captain who has never recovered from the loss of her husband and young daughter to influenza.
Where a Hollywood genre film will always sacrifice emotional impact for a cheap throwaway "catch phrase," this film has none of that. It's serious and heartfelt. When someone dies, even a minor character, we are given a glimpse into the sadness of the survivor(s) and through them, we grieve too. The writer/director doesn't underestimate the intelligence of his audience; we're allowed to understand all the characters, even if we don't like them. Plus it's deeply romantic. I actually cried near the end. I never, and I mean NEVER, cry at the end of films like this. But really, my point is, there are no films like this. This isn't your typical vampire film. This is an entirely different animal. I mean, for heaven's sake, there's even an homage of sorts to one of my favourite German art-house flicks - Wings of Desire. Your typical C-Grade Hollywood vampire movie (Blood Rayne, anyone?) - this is not.
On the surface, this film might be compared to the stylish Russian sci-fi films Night Watch/Day Watch, but it has much more heart. And there is no US film that comes close. Everything that the Underworld, Blade and Matrix films want to be, this film is. And then some.
Summary of Perfect Creature
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