McG’s Chrome Plated Rim of the World
What if instead of E.T., written by So and So and directed by Steven Speilberg was actually a script written by some guy named Zack Stentz and directed by McG? What you’d get is Rim of the World a completely forgettable film that is too graphic in its violence, with alien monsters too horrific to be a family film, it is a film where kids riding bicycles save the day. An R rated version of E.T., that managed to avoid the rating because it was released by Netflix.
A version of E.T., where the aliens are not cute cuddly creatures, but monsters. I suppose a Speilbergean cross between E.T., and War of the Worlds only way less Speilbergean and much more Roger Cormanesque. What allows the movie to rise above the low budget mediocrity of a Roger Corman movie is its director. McG might be a hack but if he is he’s one with panache and plenty of flair to burn. He’s more than comfortable with the comic elements of the film and even the jokes that fall flat still have a gloss and shine to them.
The story revolves around four adolescents who meet each other at camp; the Rim of the World. The movie begins like most summer camp movies do, where parents only exist to send their children to camp (Dariush), or to take them to camp and embarrass them in front of all the other adolescent campers (Alex). Once the parents are no longer needed, the camp activities reveal who the summer’s “chicken shit” (Alex) camper just like any other summer camp movie before suddenly shifting gears into a summer alien invasion movie. When an astronaut plummets to earth in a capsule from the space station in earth’s orbit, the kids find her, she gives them a key – the key – that will save the world from the alien invasion and instructs the kids to deliver it to JPL in Pasadena, some seventy miles away.
Along with Alex and Dariush are Zhenzhen, the Chinese orphan girl who traveled across continents just to get to the summer camp and Gabriel winkingly the juvenile delinquent of the bunch in that Sal Mineo wishes he was James Dean sort of way. The freckled faced Jack Gore plays Alex, the reluctant hero who reluctantly leads the group to JPL and Alessio Scalzotto plays the misunderstood thug and both are fine but never shine in the ways that Miya Chech (Zhenzhen) and Benjamin Flores Jr. (Dariush) do. Among the cast the two most recognizable actors, Anabeth Gish and Micheal Beach each have minor roles that do little to utilize their talents.
Gish plays Alex’s mother who, as noted earlier, exists solely to embarrass Alex at camp in that show your mom you love her kind of way. The camp counselors are seen briefly to fulfill that function in broad brush strokes with some slight detail to the canvas that only stands out as a blotch. Two of the camp counselors are young black men who shuck and jive while conversing with each other on how the white patriarchy expects them to shuck and jive being self congratulatory for their meta-self awareness. The shtick is slightly amusing and might of worked if better fleshed out in an actual summer camp movie, but Rim of the World isn’t that movie. It is also kind of obvious that a white guy is critiquing the young self aware black male and seemingly doing so to be hip instead of the tone deaf mess that it is.
Thankfully Stentz doesn’t try to infuse Zhenzhen with some sort of critique of the Asian female and justs lets her be a clever little girl. The same for Dariush, a mixed race kid whose goofy bravado is more endemic of adolescence than it is any other cultural factor. They’re just kids. Kids who will eventually get on bicycles and save the world. First they must get to Pasadena and JPL. A well worn formula is worn like shoddy work clothes on this movie, but even in that condition an adequate workman like movie is built. Often falling short of really entertaining, never nearing the spectacular it sometimes aspires to, McG adds another mildly entertaining movie to his oeveur, even if it is a little kids movie aimed at older kids.