Category Archives: Live Action Movie Reviews

The Land That Time Forgot Review

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It’s time for a dinosaur film with a group of people having to try and get along. You can probably guess how the latter goes but surprisingly the dinosaurs themselves don’t do much for a majority of the film. If anything it’s more about the cave people who tend to generally be annoying. Unfortunately this film uses time travel in the opposite way of how you would want it to be used. Ideally you always want to go to the future with lots of cool gadgets and awesome concepts. Instead it ended up going to the past which is not the direction you want to go. There just aren’t nearly as many possibilities to be had there.

The movie starts with a ship being destroyed and so only a few of the passengers manage to survive. They are able to use their quick wits to take over an enemy submarine though and after a lot of in-fighting they manage to get the ship landed on a mysterious island. This island is like something out of the prehistoric age. There are dinosaurs around, cave people, and basically no sign of modern civilization. This could spell trouble or the heroes could adapt to the place. They will need some oil in order to get the ship operational again but will they be able to survive long enough to do so? It will all come down to whether this group of adventurers can get along with each other.

Now I am poking fun at the idea of these guys all working together and that’s because there are a lot of reasons to hold grudges with each other. Half of the crew are British and the other half are German and they would quickly murder each other if given the chance. The Germans are the ones who blew up the British ship at the start and then now they were being held hostage. So resentment is quite high and they will only work together for as long as is necessary. If either side shows any sign of weakness then it is absolutely game over. There will be no coming back from that.

That’s why true teamwork just won’t work here. Yes a shared goal may sound like it’s enough but not when you know that the person behind you wants to absolutely destroy you as soon as possible. That just means you have to watch yourself carefully at all times. You don’t actually trust the person standing right next to you. In the film we see constant betrayals and the main group keeps on getting whittled down. Realistically if they were one tight unit then the film would have been over rather quickly. They would have easily been able to defend themselves from the dinosaurs, fight off the cave people, and get their oil. Instead all the bickering and arguing slowed them down a little too much.

The dinosaurs that we do see get to have some action and fights but they didn’t help the film. For one thing, the dinosaurs are not bullet proof at all so they’re getting riddled with bullets the whole time and dying. Their first death scene even takes forever which has one of the characters comment on it. It’s just a little rough to be seeing the dinosaur getting absolutely dominated like that. Typically you would expect them to be the scary antagonists right? Sure they do still scare everyone but you can’t take it quite as seriously as long as the guns are around.

So what you have is some extra animal violence here and that’s not even considering the dinosaur vs dinosaur fights. I would definitely recommend cutting the dinosaurs out of the film entirely since they don’t change much. That or just keep them in the background since the designs themselves weren’t bad. Meanwhile what also hurts the film generally are the cave people. Naturally it is hard to have a conversation with them due to the language barrier and so those scenes tend to drag on. We didn’t need the brief fanservice by showing us how the egg work with the tribe jumping into the pool and generally this is why I don’t care much for the past. It was less sophisticated and doesn’t end up being as entertaining.

Whenever the main characters were getting defeated I would be shaking my head. Yeah these cave people would be tough in close quarters combat but why take so long to ready your gun? Half the time the heroes were using the gun like a baseball bat rather than as a projectile. That’s definitely the way to lose a fight, it’s certainly not going to help you win one. I can guarantee you that! At least one guy remembered to flip the opponent and use his momentum against him. The rest were picked off like novices.

One thing I will give the film is that the writing is still pretty good. I at least liked the attempts at teamwork and there was some good banter here. Yeah you knew that the alliance was doomed but getting to that point was still written very well. It wasn’t like the characters were written out of character or that it was all contrived. I thought it was fairly realistic as to how this could all play out without diminishing the intelligence of any of the characters. So I definitely appreciated that.

Overall, The Land That Time Forgot is a film that’s not very good and large part it is due to the premise. I don’t think there’s a lot you can do about a movie going back to the olden days. It felt like the writers more or less knew what they were doing and they couldn’t save the concept. Even aside from the animal violence and the characters being more on the annoying side, I think the biggest issue was that the film could be rather boring at times. It feels long as you’re going through the movie and it would have been so much better if no such island ever showed up. Have the tension be about the characters needing to survive on a week’s worth of supplies with both sides getting more and more anxious about the situation. If you do that then I would argue that the whole movie would work a lot better. I know it is a completely different movie at that point though so for better or worse, that’s the way I can see to save this film. But hey it could have been a whole lot worse to be honest.

Overall 4/10

The Unsuspected Review

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It’s time for an old school mystery thriller. This one definitely has a lot of characters running around which helps to enhance the mystery angle and I would say that it ends up working out really well. There are enough characters here where you can really start making your own guesses on what happened and who the true culprit is. There are a solid number of twists and turns here so it will be tough to really guess it all correctly but trying to come close is definitely the main objective here.

So the movie starts with a lady getting murdered. She was actually on the phone with someone but completely panicked and so while she was being murdered she didn’t yell out the person’s name, description, or anything like that. In fact she dropped the phone so only a scream was heard which didn’t seem to bother the other person on the line nearly as much as you would have expected it to. We then get to the main house where there is a big party for Victor ongoing. Just about everyone is here and it should be all good except a mysterious guy shows up. His name is Steven and he claims to be the husband of Matilda, the lady who died out at sea.

Nobody has been aware of her being married before and as it happens, she was quite rich. So naturally her family were expecting to get everything and now this guy has shown up? Is he just here for the money and is this some kind of a scam? They’ll need to figure it out quickly and does this have anything to do with the murder of the other lady? More and more characters enter the plot as the film goes on and the main thing I would say is that this is one of those films where you really can’t rust anyone. They’ve all got an angle that they are working on.

Each character appears to have some kind of motive and most of them just don’t get along at all. You have Althea who stole Matilda’s boyfriend from her right before they were to be married so there would definitely still be some resentment there. Unfortunately he fell off quickly so now Althea isn’t even happy. Steven’s motivations are obvious of course, if he is faking the marriage then he is here for money and if not, then he may be out for some revenge. He appears to be digging into the recent “suicide” as well which raises more questions. I should mention now that unfortunately the opening murder was ruled a suicide since there was no evidence of a struggle or anything. It’s a shame because the whole movie wouldn’t have happened in the same way if the victim had just yelled anything specific before getting bumped off.

Meanwhile Victor is naturally a suspect for generally being shady and also not reacting much to any of the news. He reads a lot of murder mysteries and different thrillers over the radio so he has experience in these kinds of scenarios. The film tends to open up more questions as it goes on as well when the various characters begin interacting with each other. There are so many secret conversations, layered threats, blackmail, etc. Everything is happening here. That is where the film shines though. The pacing is very fast and they manage to squeeze in many different plots before the film is over.

Naturally the writing is also really good although that should come as no surprise. These old films always tend to have a great script and was crafted with a lot of care. Most of the characters are written to be rather unlikable but it is done in a careful way where they aren’t obnoxious or anything like that. You are rooting for things not to go tooo well for them but they’re not actively hurting the film in the process. For example Althea’s husband spends the whole film being really drunk so he’s annoying and someone to root against but the film doesn’t overplay its hand by having him show up dozens and dozens of times over to beat you over the head with how annoying he is. You get the basis of his character right away. Likewise you see how Althea is always chasing different men and can’t really be trusted.

The flaws that the characters have are rather obvious without being overbearing and that’s absolutely the right away to do it. So in short, the film didn’t really have any negatives for me. Yeah I still think it’s a real stretch how in the first murder the girl didn’t do anything even while she was already on the phone. That whole thing felt more than a little sloppy to me and the film should have written the scene in a different way. Just don’t have her be on the phone you know? I feel like in part it was there to be a red herring as well and the problem is that it’s a little too good as a red herring to the point where it almost becomes a plot hole of sorts. Plot hole is too strong since you can explain it away but all I’m saying is that the first scene doesn’t work all that well despite the rest of the film being really strong.

Also there’s a major plot point/whole storyline that I didn’t mention because the actual plot would be a spoiler in itself. All I’ll say there is that you always have to trust your own recollection or lack thereof rather than someone else’s story. Even if it might work out sometimes, you see so many characters being gaslit because they didn’t trust their own instincts. That is always a problem. Just trust in your instincts and generally everything will work out.

Overall, This is the kind of film where I try not to give too much away because all of the twists and turns as a primary factor in how much you enjoy the film. It’s why a repeat viewing will never hit quite the same way as the initial watch. Still, it is done well enough where you would still have a good time either way. I definitely recommend watching this movie and extra credit to you if you guess who the main culprit is.

Overall 7/10

Rambo Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version of the movie would be more negative.

Lets look at the 4th Rambo which just so happens to be the weakest one in the series so far. It’s definitely going for a dark angle right from the jump and that aspect of the film is quite unrelenting. It takes a long while until Rambo himself gets involved to fight back and it’s one of those films where even once the heroes win, there are a ton of casualties and you know there are other villains running around. There’s nothing particularly light hearted/happy about this movie which is rough.

The movie starts with a quick introduction to remind us just how evil the villains are. No worries they’re going to do this a whole lot as the film goes over but it’s definitely an awful way to kick the movie off in general. Instead of building up hype or getting you excited it is giving you reasons to want to avoid the film. Like why would I want to be seeing any of this? Well, we eventually cut to Rambo himself who now works by capturing snakes and putting them in the cages to get ready for animal cruelty fights. He is approached by a group of missionaries who want to head deep into enemy territory to spread the good word.

It’s a noble goal but unfortunately these characters are incredibly naive. The main pastor even believes that you cannot take a life even in self defense so when they are attacked by pirates he doesn’t do anything about it. He even threatens to get Rambo in trouble if he can. Needless to say, after Rambo drops them off at their designated location they are captured almost immediately. So much for that eh? Of course you feel bad for them, they’re just written to be such unlikable characters the whole time that it’s crazy. So the Church hires some vigilantes to go save them and Rambo decides to come along and do what he can. Are the missionaries even still alive by this point?

Well, only the power of plot armor is able to help them here because by all accounts they really should have been long dead. I’m not sure why the villains spared them for so long. They’re stuck in cages but mostly everyone else had already been murdered. I suppose they had the luck of the draw on that one. Not much of a consolation because their living conditions still sucked but at least they were able to last. Nobody else is so lucky so even while the heroes are heading over there to free them, we see countless people getting tortured and murdered. The film is going for maximum shock value the whole time so if you can picture a dark plot element then you are going to find it in the film.

Naturally all of the vigilantes tend to be rather crass and not very heroic at all. They are here for the paycheck and are happy to murder anybody but they don’t have any real kind of honor code. Rambo has to actively threaten the main one in order to keep him going or the guy would have left almost immediately. Rambo himself looks good at least. He does smash up a ton of the villains and shows why he is still one of the strongest agents around. He hasn’t forgotten his skills at all, that’s for sure. He’s on a completely different level even from the trained mercenaries.

The action scenes can be good when they aren’t being too try hard on the violence. When they do that is when they really start to lose the plot. Lets just say this is a regular occurrence in this film as well. The film is plenty violent the whole time even with the TV edits. So again the film is just trying too hard instead of letting the narrative talk for it. The problem there is that the actual plot isn’t very good either. Of course I have a lot of respect for people who go into these active war areas to spread the gospel and try to help out. It does feel like they’re creating more chances to become a hostage or get into trouble but if they can save anyone then it’s a win.

It doesn’t make for a great movie though. Even if you think of this like a power fantasy, the problem is that the first half is all about the villains dominating and having their way with the heroes. In no way is this a particularly captivating story and you want a film that’s fairly uplifting. Seeing Rambo beat up on the villains is the goal so you need to do that sooner. Focus more on the heroic comeback than on the villain slaughter to start things off. As a starting point you at least need to get rid of the opening montage showing off all of the villainous exploits.

Honestly the film has so may issues that it would still have gotten a fairly low score though. The Rambo series is just cooked at this point and it will be hard for it to make a true comeback. We unfortunately didn’t have the usual hype man for Rambo either. There are reasons for that but they should have invented a new character to take up the role. It may be a little cheesy but I always thought it was pretty fun and it made the films more memorable. Perhaps that aided in making this the worst Rambo title. There is still another one I haven’t watched so perhaps that will be even lower but we will have to see.

Overall, Rambo is a pretty awful film. It’s definitely over the top violent the whole time with a ton of dark themes and the film doesn’t allow itself to really have any fun moments. It’s a slog to get through and you can see why Rambo didn’t even want to get involved at this point. The amount of casualties and criminals appear to be endless so why even get involved in all of that if you don’t have to right? You absolutely get what he is feeling in all of this. So you should just skip this movie as well. It’s rather unnecessary and doesn’t really add anything to the series.

Overall 1/10

The Goodbye Girl Review

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It’s time for a rom-com that’s definitely got a good amount of drama in it. One of the main messages here I would say is to be careful who you decide to date because things can easily move sideways. Ultimately the film is entertaining and you’ll have a good time but you can’t really buy into the romance considering how much both characters hated each other for a while there. Well, mainly it was on Paula’s side towards Elliot but he didn’t really help matters.

The film starts by introducing us to Paula who has had a rough time of things. She and her husband divorced so now she takes care of her daughter Lucy by herself. She meets a guy named Tony who seems all right except for the fact that he is already married but Paula makes the terrible decision of getting with him too. Inevitably he ditches her shortly after. Additionally, he ends up renting out Paula’s apartment over to his friend Elliot. Paula has to vacate the place immediately and well she’s not happy about that. So when Elliot moves in, Paula decides not to move out. Can these two manage to get along?

Now both characters are jerks to each other for a while there but I will say I am a bit more sympathetic for Elliot here. The guy actually did pay for the apartment for several months in advance so yeah he does own the apartment. legally. The whole time Paula is giving him a ton of attitude but he’s actually being very tolerant since he really could have her kicked out. At the end of the day he is a good guy who doesn’t actually want to kick her out mainly because of the kid. I do think he’s restrained a whole lot so as not to make things tough for Lucy.

Yeah during the movie he retaliates a whole lot but I can’t blame him for that. Additionally he was expecting to have the place to himself so he could do whatever he wanted and now he basically has roommates. Paula starts giving him a ton of different house rules right out of the gate. Elliot quickly comes up with his own rules, some of which are a bit much I’ll admit. The morning yoga with burning incense comes to the top of my mind. Playing the guitar during the night isn’t a big deal if you ask me though.

Basically he’s trying for a reaction at times and Paula makes it really easy since she has a big reaction to everything. As for Paula, she’s been through a lot so you feel bad for her. You’d expect her to be a little less aggressive to be honest since she doesn’t have much of a leg to stand on here though. If she ever gets Elliot really upset he could really just kick her out since their whole temporary agreement isn’t legally binding in any way. She’s certainly been jaded by the men in her life but it has also removed her tactical experience. Every time Elliot messes with her she reacts in the wrong way, it’s almost funny how badly she is losing the battle initially.

Lucy is used as a contrast here where we see how she isn’t bothered by anything that he does. Elliot playing guitar through the night? Lucy doesn’t notice. Elliot starts chanting in the morning? Lucy notices but doesn’t care. Every single time Paula looks to Lucy to have a comrade in arms who is really upset but Lucy has already fallen asleep again or doesn’t really care. So Lucy does well I would say. She’s also very reluctant about having another man in the house and I don’t blame her since the last ones have all struck out. In that way I’d actually say she is being more sensible as well. The whole roommates to lovers thing just seems like a weak foundation for a romance if you ask me. Both of them are just charmed in the short run to have someone nice to talk to but that’s about it. It’s probably why Paula has been running through relationships.

Now I should say for a romance like this where both people are fighting, there are ways to make this work. Basically you can’t have either character go too far with how much they dislike each other. You establish that part of it is a defense mechanism and for the most part there should not be any prior baggage. Part of why this one doesn’t work is because for Paula at minimum this is the third guy. The squabbling romance works better when it’s an initial romance. Additionally it just doesn’t feel like there is any reason for each character to fall for each other because of all the bitterness here. I would say Elliot does put in most of the work here though. While Paula is still being rather rude and petty at times, Paula does his best like helping out with expenses and not intentionally messing with her. Aside from his early trolling with the yoga, he typically doesn’t start any of the fights. It still doesn’t make the romance work any smoother but I can at least say it’s not quite as fast as some other movies where it happens immediately.

As for each character’s individual plot, Paula is trying to become a dancer again but the problem is that she has been out of the game for too long. She’s gotten a bit too old and dancing is really a young person’s game. Ultimately she tries and it doesn’t work out which does make sense. It’s hard to compete with other dancers who have been doing this their whole life. When that doesn’t work she tries other jobs like being a car salesman but things don’t go too well. She is trying so you have to give her some credit there, it’s just tough to really get into a job sometimes with no prior experience at the ready.

Meanwhile Elliot’s definitely got a tough road here as well. He is an aspiring actor about to finally get his big role but the problem is that the director’s kind of a hack. He wants to butcher a production of Richard III by completely changing his character and personality. All of Elliot’s previous training and rehearsing has completely gone down the drain now. I’d be upset if I was him as well. Unfortunately the director does have way more power than the actor in this case. He tries to make the best of it and ultimately does get a few concessions from the director.

Overall, The Goodbye Girl is a film that’s fun enough. It tend to land more on the comedy than the romance though so the first half ends up beating the latter. It’s actually a decently long movie so at least there is plenty of time for the fun comedy before things get serious. With films like this it is always inevitable that the main two are going to get together no matter how improbable it is. You’ll be rolling your eyes a bit at all of that but the banter before then is handled well. I’d say the writing is on point as well and so this is a movie that I can recommend.

Overall 6/10

Kin Review

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All right so it’s time for a sci-fi film that could have started some kind of big franchise but ultimately that was not in the cards. Wasn’t even close to be honest since I never saw anybody talking about this film. It had some interesting ideas but the main problem is that you could make the case that the whole film is set up for the actual film. The cool sci-fi robot/aliens don’t get to do anything until the very end. In a way you could have easily cut the sci-fi stuff out and just made this a film about bonding with family and letting go of the past.

The film starts off with some robots running around and fighting something but no worries that won’t matter for a long time. The main plot starts by introducing us to Eli who is having a tough time at school. His home setup isn’t exactly great which doesn’t help matters. His step father Hal is a fairly strict guy who isn’t a bad person but he hasn’t done much to connect with Eli. He seems to have a tough time opening up and unfortunately he won’t get much time for that. Hal’s son Jimmy shows up one day as he’s finally out of prison but he wants some money to pay off a dangerous person he took a loan from.

Hal isn’t about to break the law so he says no but Jimmy ends up breaking into his shop with a few gangsters. Unfortunately Hal is gunned down during the battle so Jimmy runs off with Eli who doesn’t realize that Hal is dead yet. They are being pursued by Taylor who wants revenge for Jimmy bumping off his brother. A lot of drama going on for sure. Will they be able to stay safe with so many enemies around. Also, what does any of this have to do with the aliens??

So yeah like I said in the beginning, this doesn’t really have much to do with the sci-fi angle at all. The only element that is relevant is that Eli finds a sci-fi gun that one of them drops and this helps him out a whole lot. It can take down just about anyone in a single hit. It takes a little time to master the gun but it definitely comes in handy. Again though, it is something you could remove from the film and almost nothing changes. That’s why it feels like a really odd direction for this movie.

The climax ends up feeling like a completely different movie all of a sudden. We learn about different concepts and some crazy stuff happening in space but that’s all for the sequel. So a lot of potential here but that sequel’s probably never actually going to happen which just makes the whole thing even more pointless. At least I did like the visuals though. They did a great job on the armors and the future plot did sound interesting.

Now while that all sounds negative, I actually did like the movie. Because the foundation is good even considering the fact that the sci-fi part didn’t really add anything. First up, Hal’s actually a solid character. The film achieved a much better balance with him being a strict Dad but still a good person compared to many other films that cross the line and just make this kind of character an antagonist. He handled Jimmy well even if his son didn’t see things that way. Hal can’t just hire him out of the blue, it wouldn’t make sense and the guy was just trying to get him back on the right path. I do think he handled the robbery attempt rather badly but you can chalk some of that up to shock and part of it to underestimating his opponents.

Meanwhile Eli’s a good main character. It does take him a little while to get going but he is young so I can cut him a little slack. I do think he’ll end up being better in a hypothetical sequel. For now I can at least be satisfied with his heart being in the right place. He also ends up going all out with the alien gun which was good. When you’re being attacked you really can’t worry about holding back, especially when you are outnumbered.

Jimmy though, I did not like at all. I know he goes through the whole character arc about finally being mature and everything but it takes too long. He made way too many mistakes here. Owing all that money to a bunch of gangsters was a really bad idea, then taking Eli to a strip club, getting drunk, etc. He was really his own worst enemy in this film and made things a lot tougher for everyone. If he could have wizened up a lot sooner then that would have really made a difference.

Meanwhile Milly is a solid character. She does call out Jimmy for how irresponsible he is being the whole time. The guy definitely needed a lecture. The whole strip club venue did feel like a rather cheap attempt to get some fanservice into the movie though. It really has nothing to do with anything except to further show how far Jimmy has fallen but we didn’t need that. There comes a point where you make a character a little too unlikable after all and this is really that point.

As for the villains, I mean they’re basically just generic gangsters so there’s not much to say about them. Taylor comes across as not really thinking things through. His brother got shot because they started a gun fight so the whole quest for revenge feels like an ego trip. I would have much preferred fighting some aliens or something a little cooler at the end. The climax is only tense in the sense that Jimmy could get bumped off which isn’t the worst thing in the world. I’ll give the film props for having one of the cops actually help out a bit as opposed to everyone dying immediately though.

Overall, Kin is a reasonable action film. It’s at its best when it’s not worrying about the sci-fi stuff. Having the main characters be on the run from a bunch of gangters while the main character doesn’t even know they are on the run is pretty intense. Jimmy may be annoying but on the whole the writing here is good and there are definitely way more positives than negatives. The soundtrack could be decent at times and there aren’t a lot of issues to be found here. Just treat it as a solid one-shot and you should have a good time here.

Overall 7/10

Safe in Hell Review

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When you’ve got a title like this you already know that the main character’s probably stuck in a rather tricky situation. It’s definitely a film where the heroine has to go through a whole lot. There definitely is a lot of tension but I can’t say that it’s the kind that really helps to elevate a film. Ultimately there are very few likable characters here at all and it’s always hard for a film to really survive that.

So the movie starts off with introducing us to Gilda who has had a rough time of things. She has not been able to hold down a steady job for a long time due to one guy who basically blackmailed her into an affair and then his wife found out. So Gilda was blackballed from every industry and ended up becoming a lady of the night. Well, one day that guy returns and Gilda accidentally murders him in self defense. Her boyfriend Carl shows up just in time to save her from the police. While he’s not thrilled about what Gilda has been doing, he takes her to an island to hide from the cops for a while. He’ll go figure something out but she’ll have to stay on the island for at least a month. That wouldn’t be so bad except…this is an island inhabited by a bunch of criminals and degenerated and they’ve all got their sights on her. Can Gilda remain faithful amidst all this temptation and can she even remain safe?

So now you can see how none of the characters are particularly likable. They’re all just throwing themselves at her the whole time despite knowing that she is already with a guy. None of them have much in the way of class at all. Of course some are worse than others. The worst of which is a guy who shows up at the island later on after a plot twist. Definitely the kind of villain you don’t want the heroine to go easy on. Just bump him off and everyone will be happier off for it. He’s the kind of villain who actively brings down the quality of the movie.

Another thing that brings it down is the ending though. It’ really a rough way to go out and I definitely prefer for a movie to have an ending with a bit more hope. You basically have to stomach the fact that the villains won in the end. Perhaps not in all the ways they wanted but they still got a win which is absolutely undeserved. I get the feeling that the film didn’t want Gilda to have a happy ending after the mistakes she made but they were all under rather drastic circumstances. She’s certainly not without fault but is nowhere in the same league as the other characters. The whole film just doesn’t feel all that fair to her at all.

I’d argue Carl should absorb some of the blame here. He ditches her for months at a time on his job which always leaves her to fend for herself. Yeah Carl’s a sailor so he’s gone a lot but it seems like there is absolutely no way to reach him. So when Gilda was out of a job with no hope in the beginning, there was no way to reach Carl. Then when she was stuck on the island, there was no way to contact him easily again. She is constantly left on her own in the absolute worst circumstances. Now she does send a letter later on so there is at least a way to eventually reach him. Maybe she should have trusted him a bit more and reached out sooner but I get why she figured she had to stick it out. Ultimately she does still get more of the blame because she didn’t trust Carl when it counted. Sometimes trying to stick something out by yourself doesn’t work, particularly in a realistic setting like this.

So if she has to have a bad end, then that should apply to the rest of the characters. At least Bruno who ends up being just as demented as the other characters. In fact he was the second worst beyond the first guy. Nothing happening to him is really a shame. It’s like the film could have used an extra segment at the end. It is really short as it stands, the film is barely over an hour. So maybe extend this to 90 minutes and have an epilogue where various characters are taken out. Have a big revenge scene where Carl shows up and blows everyone away.

You could also have just included the moral of trusting him at the end. Instead of doing the false confession to get executed, have her make her speech which is when Carl shows up. Maybe have one of the other hotel guests reveal that he saw the whole thing with her being handed the gun. There are so many ways you could have written around the ending to have her actually make it out of there in one piece and given Bruno the chair instead.

Overall, Safe in Hell is definitely a pretty awful film. It’s one of those never ending stories of misery the whole time with a bad ending to boot. None of the characters do anything to actually help Gilda out which is where the film really fumbles the landing. With this kind of premise you’d assume that by the end most of the guys would actually be decent and would end up defending her. Maybe bumping off the corrupt cops or just lying about the whole thing when the real authorities get there. Just about any of those endings would have been more appreciated. Instead Gilda is consistently punished for her use of self defense in what I would call the most valid situations to use it. Definitely stay as far away from this film as possible!

Overall 2/10

Destination Inner Space Review

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It’s time for one of those classic creature feature films. You can always expect a whole lot of action out of a title like this. It’s a retro film that has aged well with solid pacing and a fun monster. I definitely won’t say that it’s out of this world or anything like that but it gets the job done. Your interest will be maintained the whole time and the simple plot makes for a good amount of replay value.

The movie starts with some kind of underwater object being spotted. It doesn’t appear to be a submarine or any kind of life that we have previously known. A few experts are brought in and Commander Wayne is ready to lead the team. Technically this falls more under the doctor’s authority than the marines so Wayne is a bit more limited in power than he normally would be but he is still ready to do what must be done. Unfortunately there is some drama though as a guy named Maddox is here and he keeps insinuating that Wayne did something really terrible a long time ago. It’s some kind of conspiracy that must not be uttered and it’s threatening to tear this crew apart.

While this is a creature feature film, you could definitely say that most of the stakes and danger actually come from the human plot. Maddox is really a loose cannon and definitely the worst character in the film. All of these passive aggressive jabs he takes at Wayne just feels really petty. It gets much worse once we actually find out the truth about his past. The guy was making a whole lot of noise for something that really wasn’t Wayne’s fault, even remotely. Seriously, the guy’s doing a lot of squawking when he should only be blaming himself. It makes him look super bad to be honest and I would argue that he never recovers from this. Just a really bad character all around.

The most surreal part of the film though happens once we’ve learned the tragic backstory. The heroine who likes Maddox suddenly says that she has gained respect for him. It’s supposed to be a touching moment since he just came clean about everything but instead you’re just rolling your eyes. You can’t take this seriously at all because one, it had to be completely dragged out of him. He was ready to keep up the pretense the entire time and blame Wayne for everything. He was actively lying about the events and if Wayne wasn’t persistent enough then this would have really gone sideways. It’s only after enough pressure was applied that he cracks. And second, it just makes Maddox look terrible.

Even if you make some excuses for the guy, at best you don’t lose respect. I don’t see how you could gain it though. So yeah that romance plot was pretty bad. Wayne’s romance plot wasn’t much better though. In his plot he tries convincing a girl to give a guy a chance. This lady is super jaded about men in general and I don’t blame her since Wayne’s first instinct when coming aboard the ship is to flirt with both of the women there. So it does make him come across as rather shallow I have to admit. This romance definitely doesn’t need to be in the film at all.

Wayne’s a solid main character aside from that though. He’s focused on the mission and doing his best to keep everyone alive. He knows what he’s doing which is more than I can say for most of the other characters. The main scientist/doctor here looks really bad. The guy is so concerned with getting a big discovery and achieving new science that he is willing to risk everyone’s lives without a good plan. The guy is actively getting everyone into trouble and does so very unapologetically. Having this guy around is really like having an enemy on deck. Things would have gotten a lot smoother without him.

Now how about the monster? Well the creature is definitely a lot of fun. It’s got a very colorful design and is an aquatic type creature like the Gill Man. The aliens are fairly high tech with the UFO and it made for a good antagonist. It is far from being the strongest villain on the block though. The humans are able to overpower this creature physically which does mean that it would be absolutely stomped/devastated by the average opponent. It would certainly not be going toe to toe with a Xenomorph for example.

The design is what counts though. It also got lucky with one of the humans pouring water on it so it wouldn’t die. Giving water to a water based alien creature is probably the #1 thing you should not do if you want to survive an alien encounter. The humans make a lot of pretty bad mistakes here but I would still say the writing itself is good. Sometimes characters are bound to make some really bad moves and that can be realistic in its own way. It’s not like these guys have to be super geniuses or anything like that.

Like I said earlier, the pacing is pretty good too. Things tend to move fast but you have to really enjoy the situation itself since the creatures take a while to do anything. This is definitely a film about the tension of the unknown and the human drama as much as it is a creature feature film. The action scenes hold up when they occur though and this film just makes for a good time. It’s really got everything I could want/expect from this type of movie.

Overall, Destination Inner Space has a clever title and this makes for a good movie. Even today the ocean is filled with mysteries and you can imagine a lot of spooky stuff being down there. Perhaps no humanoid aliens like this but it makes for a fun element. The movie isn’t flashy so don’t expect a bunch of giant explosions or anything like that. At the same time, what you can bank on is a lot of good fun. This is a film that delivers all the way and you aren’t going to forget it.

Overall 7/10

White Noise Review

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White Noise is one of those desperate horror films that actually snagged an interesting idea but rushed to churn out some random product that barely made use of it. I can’t say I was all that disappointed because to be honest I had fairly low expectations going into it. The movie’s fairly bad as you would guess. The villains are overpowered with no weaknesses and the whole film is an exercise in futility. At least the film has some restraint and doesn’t go too crazy though.

The film starts off with Jonathan being married to Anna and she is even expecting a kid which is hype. Unfortunately she dies after that so Jonathan gets rather depressed. He ends up meeting a shady guy who was following him around for a while though named Raymond. He dabbles in the arcane arts and explains that Sarah’s spirit can still be heard through the computer. They just have to listen hard enough and he’s a pro at the electro voice phenomenon and has made it his life’s work. He’s been helping another lady named Sarah as well. Now she can help Jonathan a bit because Raymond gets bumped off soon after. The spirits don’t appreciate this intrusion and plan to keep on murdering people. What can Jonathan do against these demonic entities?

Nothing to be honest. Lol you thought this guy could do anything about it? These ghosts are intangible, they’ve got super speed, super strength, endless stamina, they can control your body and make you jump out a window, etc. Their abilities are basically limitless so all Jonathan can do is flail around for a while until the ghosts have had enough of him. That’s my main problem with some titles like this. You have to at least introduce a concept that gives Jonathan some kind of a chance in this fight. Otherwise, what is even the point of watching the film? It’s just pointless if his only escape is his inevitable death. At that point then what are we even doing here?

The film also gets rather boring at times. It’s good that Jonathan is super good at hearing because half the time I couldn’t even get what the ghosts were saying through the computer screen. It could be like gibberish at times and I’m someone who tends to like white noise. I use it every night to create that hype atmosphere although I’ve thought about buying a more custom noise like a rainforest sound or something. I think those could even be more fun although I haven’t tried that yet. But even so it’s not something that can carry a movie. I did appreciate that most of the transitions were done using white noise though. The general colors, backgrounds, and effects weren’t bad either.

There just isn’t a lot of them to go around and they tend to be very repetitive. Also, it goes through the annoying cliche of only the evil spirits having power while the good ones can only repeat one or two phrases like an NPC. Anna shows up a few times to tell Jonathan to run but she never gives any more details than that. Also lets face it, running’s not even going to do anything at this point although I appreciate the attempt. No, he’s doomed no matter how you slice it.

One plot point that starts kind of late is how Jonathan can quickly see into the future. He is given glimpses into different dark fates that await various characters but with enough time to save them or help out in time. He does help out a bit but I’d be annoyed with this ability because it doesn’t come with any hints or anything. He just has to run around until he finds out what is going on. It’s also usually a half victory as someone still dies or gets injured while he saves someone else.

Ultimately though, it’s all rather futile like I mentioned. Jonathan never stood a chance at winning or doing much of anything. Depending on how you interpret the ending, it’s not looking much better for the other characters either. Part of the ending is a little funny though with some more static noise showing up and we get one last line from one of the characters. Everyone looks either shocked or happy except for the driver who is over the whole thing. He just drives off looking rather annoyed and I don’t blame him because from his point of view the whole thing’s probably been a real drag. Now he’s going to have to compete with a legacy that will probably be dramatized a bit. If he was in the sequel I’d bet that things would not go well for him.

Ultimately the message here is really not to mess with the dead and spirits. Once someone dies then you’ve gotta move on and fast. No trying to contact them or anything because you’re just going to be going around in circles and contacting demons anyway. I’d also say you should never trust some random guy who’s been following you around and telling you all of these weird stories. I get that Jonathan was desperate but yeah you definitely need to be able to move on. Not rebound of course, but just keep it calm and not chase after her spirit.

The film also has a really random plot twist near the end of the film that doesn’t make any sense. Feels more like a shock value moment than anything to be honest. Lets just say there is one human villain here to make things a little more tense at the end but there’s just no point to that. We already know that the demons can do anything they want so why involve a human? Just to mess with the main character? That seems like the only possible explanation. The demons strike me as really unreasonable villains who always have some kind of a chip on their shoulders even when they are the ones who created the situation. Yeah they’re not winning any points in my book any time soon.

Overall, At the end of the day there’s not much to positive to really say about the film. It’s a very by the numbers horror film but it doesn’t have a ton of good jump scares. The computer screen moments tend to be on the boring side and you’re really waiting for some action. Unfortunately there’s not much for the main character to even fight for most of the film and by the time we get a human villain the film is ending. This is a film that should have had more fun with the electronic setup. That should have also played into the demons weakness somehow. You know, just give us something with a bit more substance instead of dwelling on the computer screen for so long. Additionally the whole sub plot of Jonathan playing superhero by seeing into the future didn’t make a lot of sense and felt shoehorned in. The film just didn’t have time to really go into this plot so it felt pointless.

Overall 3/10

Bad Day at Black Rock Review

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All right it’s time for one of those films that I hadn’t heard of before but was actually really solid. There’s a lot of good tension here and at times it can even play out a bit like a Twilight Zone episode. The main character did annoy me at times with how much disrespect he was taking from the other characters but ultimately it was a tough situation and the movie was careful not to give him any easy outs. It makes for a tense watch the whole way through.

The film starts with a guy named John getting off of a train and into a small town. For some reason nobody is happy to see him and he is given the cold shoulder immediately. The concierge straight up tells him to go home and nobody wants to give him a car to drive. He’s told all of the hotel rooms are booked, people threaten him, etc. John came here in search of a guy named Komoko but the instant he brings up this name things get even worse. The local sheriff is completely drunk and refuses to help while everyone else just acts like a villain. It’s clear that nothing good happened to Komoko and now something is about to happen to John. Someone lets him know that he will be murdered by the town at the end of the day. Outnumbered with no vehicles, weapons, and 1 dead arm, can John find a way out of here?

You can see how the situation is definitely not in his favor. I’d say the biggest issue is really that he only has 1 good arm. It means that even with the element of surprise, any attack option will be incredibly risky. One bad hit and John will be on the ground with no real way to defend himself. Yeah it’s possible to fight with one arm but it gives you dozens of new weaknesses. You have to really fight perfectly and even then winning is only a possibility. Particularly with a whole town against you. Yes, it’s a small town but we’re still talking around 6-8 guys against 1 man. Those are not good odds.

John does his best not to pick any fights and to keep his head low but it’s clear that this won’t work. Now that he’s entered this town he won’t be allowed to leave. A good chunk of the film is really about the town making veiled threats against John as he tries to figure out what to do. Actually to be honest the threats are barely even veiled by the end. For most of the movie I was expecting there to be a twist like John could use his second arm or he had some kind of gun but that’s not the way things go. He is actually able to fight reasonably well but like I said, that’s not enough to really make him feel safe. If I was him I would have finished off the first attacker during the bar fight though. At least you take one guy down before dying.

In these kinds of situations I always feel like it’s better to die quickly than risk a slow death. So you jump into the fray which will force the enemy to shoot you a few times and then bam, you’re out of the picture. So you either win or you die fast and there’s no middle-ground. Now I should say that in the town not everyone is super evil. Some are just weak willed and don’t have the courage to stand up to the mob. It’s particularly tough in a small town like this. As one lady says, John will at least be dead in short order but the rest of them have to continue living in the town. It’s not even much of a town either.

They are running out of food and water, nobody ever visits and the place is completely isolated. There are less than 20 people living in the village and it doesn’t look like they will be having any kids anytime soon. It’s like watching an extinction in real time. The fact that the survivors actively try to prevent anyone from visiting definitely says a lot too. They are really making history here but the wrong kind.

As for what happened to Komoko, well it is explained. You can probably guess almost immediately what happened to him though based on how the town is. It’s definitely a pretty tragic event and it makes everyone look really bad. Even the characters who try to help out by the end I still don’t have a whole lot of sympathy for. They didn’t act when it counted the first time and that made everyone complicit. It’s almost worse in a way for the “good guys” who did nothing compared to the villains who are openly evil. If you don’t do anything then you really helped out in the end. The Sheriff in particular is rather toothless as he gets threatened as well and pushed around. That was definitely not a good look.

The movie sticks the landing and has a satisfying conclusion. I had a good time watching the movie. There are a decent amount of characters all things considered and they are written well. The villains have a lot of screen presence and all of the characters seem rather realistic. Like I said, I’d have liked John to do some things a bit different but who knows how things would have gone. At least keep the gun once you knocked the first guy out, that could have been super handy.

Overall, Bad Day at Black Rock is definitely an intense film. I would say part of what makes it rather scary as well is that you can picture this happening in real life. You always do want to be careful where you travel and you should always do some research first. Even the best of countries have rough areas, neighborhoods, and yeah even towns can fall into the picture. If you go unprepared then you are likely to vanish in the wind. Back in the day it was harder to actually do research like that though. John certainly had no idea what he was walking into. The movie tackles some serious themes and does so without missing a beat or overplaying its hand. I would certainly recommend checking it out.

Overall 7/10

Blood on the Moon Review

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It’s time for a fairly emotional western title. It’s one where the romance can definitely be a little bit on the weaker side but I do think the story is more engaging than the last one. We once again have different factions here but it’s a more obvious good vs evil scenario this time. It just takes the main character a little long to actually make up his mind and pick the right group.

The film starts by introducing us to Joe who really just enjoys doing his own thing. He’s always wandering around from place to place but he is short on funds at the moment. His old friend Tate shows up and wants Jim to help him with a mission that’s going to pay super great. Basically they have to keep John and the other livestock owners from getting them off the property in time. See, Tate wants to buy up all of the animals from John’ family but he only wants to pay bottom dollar. So this forced John to have to get out fast because if he stays too long then I think he would be over the deadline and it would be trespassing. Of course it’s not like this is really legal but back in the day it was hard to patrol everything. So Jim is on board since he needs the money but his conscience isn’t a happy camper.

Jim slowly gets to be a little close to John’s family and sees just how cruel Tate’s group is. Tate’s group doesn’t really trust Jim as it is so he has to be extra careful when he leaves them. Meanwhile, John’s daughter Amy doesn’t really care for Jim either after a big misunderstanding during their first meeting that doesn’t really get much better after that. She really made up her mind about him early on though so here wasn’t a whole lot for him to do about this. It’s part of why it’s hard to see a romance really going anywhere here. Amy was completely murder him when they first met. Yes, she sees why that would be a bad idea but jumping all the way to romance feels rather extreme. I just couldn’t buy into it.

It’s still better than her sister Carol’s plot though. In a storyline as old as time, Carol believes that the bad boy Tate actually likes her and so she is ready to sell out her father immediately. Sure he gives the usual lines like he won’t actually murder John but why would she actually believe that? She feels like a massive sucker throughout the film and it’s all a really bad look for her. Even if Tate wasn’t going to murder John, he was still going to steal all of the cattle and put them in a serious jam. There’s no way she bought into his half hearted logic the whole time. So that means she just overlooked it in order to be with him which is definitely not good. She’s just a traitor plain and simple. There was no way for her to go up from there.

Meanwhile I actually thought Tate made for a good villain. Yeah he got really lucky to have a traitor at the ready but even beyond that he was a quick talker and always had a plan going. So the guy definitely wasn’t lazy like some main villains. He also had skills of his own but at the end of the day he just wasn’t skilled enough to win. That’s really what it boils down to. Romance aside, Amy was a solid heroine here. I give her points for having a gun and being ready to fight at all times. Her enthusiasm often tended to be on a higher level than her actual skills but she does actually land some good hits in the climax.

The climax is one of those classic shootouts where the heroes are all in a cabin and trying to fire at the villains who are right outside. It always felt like it would be really difficult for anyone to land a hit here since you’re both walls or rocks that wouldn’t easily be shredded by bullets. I suppose it’s all about how risky each side gets and who lands a lucky hit first. Also if you run out of bullets then that’s another issue. Amy and Jim had help from one guy who was avenging his son so they made for a really good team.

Then we have Jim who is a decent main character but I can’t say that he was all that great. Again, it took him a while to actually choose the heroic side in the conflict here. Things could have easily gone in a way where he never got to defect from the group and the main problem here is that a main character with good morals would have never faltered in the first place. The fact that Jim was originally doing this for the money is a bad look for him. So he did improve by the end but ultimately he’s not one of the best western lead characters.

Then John was okay. He actually had some fairly good ideas and traps here like giving out fake directions on a map to see who would take the bait. Ultimately there are only so many plans you can come up with in this setting though and in the end you need muscle to win in these battles. You’d think more of the people who wanted to keep their cattle and stay safe would have fought back but for the most part these guys are just watching the whole time and not doing much of anything.

Meanwhile the writing is solid as you would expect. The script is good as always with a lot of fun dialogue and everyone talks in that very retro way of speaking. The story is well developed with a lot of moving pieces as well. We even get the local government involved at one point which was nice. These guys definitely wasn’t as smart and tend to get themselves into trouble but I liked that angle since you don’t often see the government in these films. It helped add an extra oomph to the movie without a doubt and I’d like to see this become more of a thing. It’s technically still a very small element in this movie so another film could definitely take it farther.

Overall, This film had a good plot going and the main cast was solid. You are fairly well engaged the whole time and the action scenes are pretty good. The pacing is on point and the climax is really solid. I would have liked it if the main character wasn’t just ready to work on super shady dealings for the money but at least he did switch up once he saw just how bad his group is. That definitely worked as a wake up call for him. The ending is definitely wholesome and so I would recommend this film. Get ready for a fairly rushed ending in terms of romance but otherwise it works out. The main moral I’d say here is to watch out before you start shooting all over the place because there could be a misunderstanding.

Overall 7/10