31 January 2012, 13:20 Culture

Zack from the past

The series "Alcatraz" on Fox

Yuri Moritz close 100%

The Fox TV channel has begun airing the series “Alcatraz,” in which J. J. Abrams says hello to “The X-Files” and offers to dive into the secrets of the main American prison.

In civil service, which is dangerous and difficult, anything can happen: during another chase, the pretty detective Rebecca Madsen lost her partner. The blond killer looked piercingly at the pursuer and disappeared, and the authorities suggested that the girl look for a new mate. However, there was no need to do this. On the very first mission to kill an elderly FBI agent, Rebecca is pushed away from the corpse, under the guise of authority from her superiors, by a graying security officer with the beautiful name Emerson Houser ( Sam Neill ). Taking up an independent investigation, stubborn Rebecca discovered on a broken frame with an old photograph of the murdered man the fingerprints of a long-dead prisoner of the famous Alcatraz prison (which is now, as we know, a museum). It was then that Hauser appeared on the horizon again, politely explaining that

50 years ago, Alcatraz was closed not because of faulty plumbing, but because of the sudden disappearance of all 246 prisoners and 56 guards, who now decided to return, obeying someone's mysterious will.

Now Madsen will work for Hauser, and her partner will be the fat doctor Diego Soto ( Jorge Garcia ), who accidentally fits into this book, the author of a monograph on Alcatraz.

In general, we are faced with a complete scam. Let's remember: J. J. Abrams - the author of "Lost" and half of all the plots of the "serial revolution" - is launching his second series in a season and, apparently, is cementing his reputation as the main Hollywood swindler. If you don’t even count the sudden free remake of “E. T.,” “Super 8” and the rebooted “Star Trek,” this man manages to fool even his most devoted fans time and time again. The recently launched “Suspect” turned out to be not a mysterious story in the spirit of its main brainchild, but a completely trivial (albeit not without brilliance) detective story.

“Alcatraz” immediately greets its viewer with so many winks that it’s time to immediately, rejecting sentimentality, tell Abrams to go to hell for his speculations.

Firstly, Jorge Garcia - Hurley from Lost - starred in the role of Dr. Soto, and at first it is impossible to associate him with anyone else. Secondly, the film immediately speculates on the legacy of The X-Files: confirmation of this is the figure of an excellent special agent, as well as a mysterious intelligence officer, subtly reminiscent of the ever-memorable Smoker. Add to this white letters with the name of the film in spaces between scenes and a multi-figured (three hundred characters) mystical intrigue, promising the viewer that at least something will become clear here, at best, by the third season. And this despite the fact that many still have not forgiven Abrams for the elegant but disappointing ending of his main brainchild. The lack of gorgeous tropical landscapes and the fact that the main character is catastrophically lost behind powerful male characters also work against the new picture: Sam Neill is simply a brilliant actor who plays tricksters extremely well, and there’s nothing to say about Garcia’s charm.

Nevertheless, despite all the apparent sloppiness, Alcatraz hooks the viewer from the end of the first episode. Abrams, of course, is not at all Spielberg in the sense of filmmaking and not Tarantino in the sense of pure love for cinema.

However, it seems that few people today know how to create such fog that the viewer, while spitting, still peers at the screen with interest: what will happen next.

Each subsequent prisoner from the past is more psychopathic than the previous one, and a mysterious bald prison owner looms on the horizon, looking like the uncomical Dr. Evil. And in the end, it would be nice to find out what Sam Neill is up to. And this interest, in contrast to the rather unsuccessful experience with “The Suspect,” is very similar to the lazy curiosity with which millions of viewers a few years ago wanted to find out where this black smoke comes from.