Movie Review: Incident at Loch Ness (update: December 31, 2008)
A truly scary documentary about the moment man finally comes in contact with a prehistoric monster which, up to the release of this film, has totally been hailed as one of the biggest hoax of modern day. Hollywood dude Zak Penn teams up with famous German dude Werner Herzog to embark on a journey to Inverness in Northern Scotland where the Loch Ness, a lake, resides. Shortly after Werner arrives, it becomes so clear that Zak Penn, as the producer has like, a totally major Hollywood production in mind, whereas Herzog thinks he is set out to make another Herzog meditation on the human nature and the pursuit of dreams. As if!
When things start to fall apart, Herzog threatens to walk off, but instead other crucial crew members jump ship in the middle of the night. What follows is just so like… unbelievable! OMG! GET OUT!!!!!! Here for the first time is totally clear, totally uncut totally unaltered images of the awesome Loch Ness Monster, totally unrehearsed, totally real. This documentation will finally convert all the naysayers into believers.
Yeah yeah, the bookworms might harp and carry on about this film being an allegorical vehicle on the creative act that goes into film-making, that the search for something that doesn’t exist is a metaphor akin to a sea captain’s white whale, a president’s WMD, or every man’s lifelong search for the unattainable. They may even add that Zak Penn is the embodiment of the capitalistic concept of film as entertainment, achievement as winning versus Werner’s notion that film as revelation, and a discovery of the self. Or they will haughtily observe that this film may be inspired from that other film from the 60s, the happening in the park, Psychosymbioxtstatsis, or that the mythical creature of the Loch Ness, is in fact, Werner, and that the notion of adventurous film-making, which Herzog pioneered and which so many of us believed in once, is now quickly being replaced by the easy CGI computer generated films, where an ant could easily push a steam ship over a mountain without even yelling at the cinematographer for a burger. Like…whatever!
But let’s face it, all these heady intellectual discussions pale to the moment you see what we all come to this movie to see.
Everyone’s really mean to Zak Penn though. I deduct one star from this film for Werner being such a total jerk to Zak. It’s totally uncool that a guy who does a movie about the Dalai Lama could turn out to be such a complete frienemy. If you listen to the audio commentary on the second round, you will get more of it. I honestly don’t understand it.
Zak’s just doing exactly what Werner does in all his films.
