Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle Review

Posted on December 11, 2014 by dreager1

The Angels are back and they’re better than ever…..or are they? The sequel falls into many of the same holes as the first film and it still doesn’t make for a good viewing experience. It’s hard to really enjoy the fights when you have to cringe because one of the main characters has let out another wince worthy line. The fanservice may have been reduced a lot at first, but the film makes sure to correct that in the second half. All I can say is…this doesn’t bode well for the franchise as a whole.

The film starts out with a pretty sad scene in the desert that can really sum up the film. The three angels realize that they are going to have to use their physical attributes to solve the case once again so Natalie handles that part while her partners try to free a captive. The captive trips and busts a rib so the distraction doesn’t work as well as they thought. Alex has the foresight to say something along the lines of “They don’t stand a chance” when the captive mentions how it’s just the three of them against 50 beer guzzlers. Then….the Angels are unable to take down almost any of them. They all go into their poses, but one guy takes out a gun. Obviously, this means that they should run away so they dive out the window with the guy who has a broken rib. No worries…he endures the fall.

The writers must have realized that this was an utterly terrible way to show us how tough the main characters are so he fixes that by giving us an over the top moment where the heroes free fall onto a helicopter as they dodge the blades several times until they safely grab on to it. It doesn’t look believable in any setting, but I suppose that it’ll have to do. The real mission involves recovering two rings that can leak the identities of all undercover operatives on the planet or just from the U.S.A. The villains already have both rings so they’ve probably downloaded the names onto a USB drive by now, but the heroes are confident that the villains would never do such a thing! The villains are waiting until someone buys the rings from them to make a move and they wouldn’t want to copy the data as insurance or anything…..it would violate the buyer’s trust after all!

Now that we’ve talked about the rather shaky plot, let’s discuss some of the film’s negatives. I suppose that we should tackle the whole fanservice part first. If there was ever a film that openly supported sexism and objectification it was Charlie’s Angels. I have to assume that the show was better, but this film quickly follows that. The heroines are always completing their jobs by using false deductive skills or just wooing the villains. Natalie uses quite a few double entendre in a short amount of time to distract the villain so that the other two agents could do some recon. It’s just sad to see because you know that this wouldn’t be the case if a guy was the main character. I try not to pull that card too often since you could probably go around in circles discussing it in various films, but this one makes it too easy. Would James Bond have ran away from a room full of guys if he was with two other 009 agents? I have a feeling that he would not, but I suppose that it is debatable. He does go around seducing people, but he typically does it for the lulz since he is already solving the case.

The worst scene is easily the nightclub one where the Angels are reduced to being strippers who dance for perverted people’s entertainment. It’s sad that they are so committed to their job since anyone with an ounce of self respect would have told Charlie to think of a real plan. He probably didn’t think of this one, but none of the Angels should have either. Remember…there is always another way. One that will keep their dignity with them! Before that, the fanservice was bad, but not as all over the place as the first film. This one had sooooo much that it basically threw that feat out the window.

Romance is always on the minds of the three main characters and I like to think that it certainly holds them back. It clouds their judgment and it makes them look pretty bad. Hitting on surfers or even the local jogger is something that you will see them do. Keep in mind that two of them are supposedly taken already. There is a really rushed romance plot with Dylan since she doesn’t have someone yet, but it just makes her look bad and it doesn’t help the Thin Man either. He was one of the villains from the last film who vanished without a trace. He appears here for a quick race (Where he crashes headfirst into a road and there is an explosion, but he gets up like nothing happened because the script probably didn’t finish that part up) and then a spar with the main villain of the film. He and Dylan then share a moment of passion before he is quickly terminated and you are left wondering what just happened. They’re really stretching it here with how quickly a romance can just start up and it’s sad. Dylan is still my least favorite Angel although I suppose that this isn’t saying a whole lot.

Seamus is the big villain of the film or I guess you can say that he’s just the sub villain. He’s got his own plan in all of this, but he’s technically still a lackey to Madison. (Albeit, unknowingly) He wants to destroy Dylan because she sold him out to the police,m which is pretty petty so the film actually portrayed him accurately there. Thus, he’s about as unlikable as you would expect. The film once again tries to show that just training a little in jail can get you onto the same level as one of the Angels. He is able to give Dylan a pretty good fight and that’s more than a little sad for her. In the “epic” confrontation scene where it’s him and some gang members it would have been fun to have seen a big fight. Seamus basically embodies the whole “One and Done” theme for villains that we see in the films. He’s unlikable from start to finish so you’ll probably forget him pretty quickly.

“I was never good…I was great!” is Madison’s most memorable lines since she’s crying and the actress was probably hoping for an Oscar Nomination there. There’s no reason for her to cry there, but she is a little deranged so I suppose that it’s fitting. For the most part, she’s actually a pretty good villain, but she shows her true colors in the climax where she spends too much time bragging to remember that there are 3 Angels on the loose. Losing her guns after that was also rather embarrassing. She is a good fighter though and I have a feeling that she was a better angel than the 3 new members. Too bad she went over to the dark side.

The main three angels are as unlikable as in the first film. Natalie gets her obligatory dance scene at the beginning where she is joined by the other two this time and she plays the seduction card the most. I could have sworn that she had an iconic line where she said “Bring it on _______” but I didn’t recall hearing it this time. It also sums up her character a little since just saying “Bring it On” is intense enough as a catchphrase. She has a romance subplot that gives her another dance scene, but it certainly doesn’t help her case. Dylan is pretty much written out of the film for a while, but her subplot is a major factor in the plot. She decides to leave the team for about 5-10 minutes because she is worried that staying with them will result in their untimely demise. What she does not suspect is that joining forces with them won’t make a whole lot of difference.

Alex isn’t great either because she keeps up a pretense that is bad for the Dad. It’s a really unnecessary subplot that fills the Dad with sad ideas about what his daughter has become. He never finds out the truth as the film ends either so he really got the short end of the stick. Even ignoring the subplot, Alex just isn’t much better than the other two. She’s still in the romance fad even though she has a boyfriend, which is pretty unacceptable to be honest. You should probably leave the team once you are romantically involved with someone.

A solid soundtrack was one of the only positives for the first film, but it was unsurprisingly changed to a more generic array of songs in this film. We even get the retro Hollywood theme, which is fun, but basically public domain. The fights are also typically a highlight and I will admit that they do put some life into the film. It was cool to see Madison take out the three angels with her superb marksmanship and I think that was when we all realized that some plot hax would probably be necessary in the climax. As least the film tried to be subtle about it, but it was still pretty sad.

On a final note, a new Bosley joined the crew here. I definitely didn’t buy his Irish scene where he tricked someone into letting him in by pulling the race card. It’s a well played card for the most part, but I just don’t see it working here. It’s hard to say whether he beats the old Bosley or not, but he actually might. He’s very down to Earth and he’s excited about being a part of the team. That means that he’s completely immune to the Angels’ tricks and the whole romance game is beneath him. His Home Run at the end was also pretty intense and I applauded his bold effort in Clue. If you’re going to play a board game, you should always be confident of your imminent victory. He was actually better than…100% of the cast. I hardly liked the rest of the characters so it’s not an immense feat, but we’ll take it.

Overall, Full Throttle is an apt title for the film since it really just plunges into just about every film hole that you can think of. We had way too much fanservice and romance in this film and the plot wasn’t very well thought out. There are too many subplots for the film to handle as well since we have old Angels coming virtually and physically as well as the guy who wants to destroy Dylan because of their tragic history. This is the kind of film that should be good popcorn fun, but it just isn’t because of all the unnecessary content. I definitely can’t recommend this film to anyone and you’re better off staying away from the franchise as a whole. I plan on getting the Gamecube video game for the Charlie’s Angels since it can help to partially restore the franchise’s rep, but we shall see. Until then, watch the animated Wonder Woman film for a better depiction of how a female warrior gets her point across.

Overall 1/10

Pitch Perfect Review

Posted on December 4, 2014 by dreager1

If you’ve been a loyal follower of my blog reviews then you can probably tell that this is not going to be a positive review. How could it be when it’s a musical that basically revolves around fan service and suggestive material? The poster can basically sum up the film, but you still can’t judge a film until you’ve seen a few pics or a still and watching the whole thing gives you more credibility as well. Let’s see where it messed up.

There are a few A Capella groups that compete across the various districts in Regional Tournaments. They make all of the music and sounds using just their mouths so no instruments are allowed. One year, one of the schools panics and the victory ends up going to the Treblemakers. Well, a year has passed and the girls decide that they are going to win this year. The problem is that there are only two members left so they go to recruit some people.

This takes us to the main character. Her name is Beca and she’s not a very sociable person. She just wants to be a DJ so she blows off her classes once she arrives at this new college. Her father is a professor there and he tells her that if she sticks with a club until the end of the year and still doesn’t like it…he’ll help her find a place in L.A. to become a DJ. She ~~actually~~ believes this and quickly decides to join the A Capella group alongside Fat Amy. Other girls quickly join the club through tryouts (The club just picks them all since they’re desperate) and now the girls have a chance to win the tournament and get everyone to admit that the Trebelmakers are last year’s news. Speaking of which….the Trebelmakers bring in a new guy as well. He happens to be Beca’s coworker so he’s pretty talented. This could be a close match!

It’s a little hard to know where to start when discussing this film. It’s basically a modernized Bring It On and the scary part is that it actually may contain more fanservice and suggestive material. That is saying a Lot if you are familiar with Bring It On. Of course, I haven’t seen that film in quite a long time so it’s possible that it’s still the much worse film. You just can’t get away from all of the inappropriate jokes and lines. It’s almost literally every other sentence so you’re basically doomed as soon as it has begun.

The “Big” scenes also don’t do it for me. You know the kind of scene that I mean right? The one where the audience is supposed to jump up and say thing like “Hey!” “All right” or “That’s what I’m talking about.” Action scenes where this applies is: When Coulson shoots Loki, Superman tackles Zod, or when Godzilla blasts Muto. So, our equivalent here might be when Beca starts to sing on stage as she wrecks Aubrey’s plan, When she jumps in during the underground tournament, or when she leads them into their final song. These are the “Big” moments for the film, but I can safely say that I didn’t get up and start cheering. It’s simply a different kind of scene and not one that I can get into. (It helps that she was rapping in the second scene) They were bold moves on her part, but that’s about all that I can say for it. It didn’t help me like her more as a character.

Beca is basically your average main character for this kind of film. The twist is that she can be a little goth, but she is actually a nice person deep down. She likes DJ a lot so she is familiar with rap songs. This comes back to bite her later since A Capella groups simply don’t rap. (The Trebepmakers evidently forget this as they rap for their final song.) Beca is pretty reasonable at first sonce she decides that she is mot going to fall for the romance trap. You can imagine that this definitely did not last long. She falls into all of the tropes that you would expect her to fall into, but that definitely doesn’t help her character.

Aubrey is the mean leader who is always living in the past. I can respect the fact that she heavily enforces the anti romance rules for the club, but she doesn’t have the best reasoning for it. It is definitely hard to find her likable so I am sure that we were all hoping that Beca would take the reins sooner than later.

Chloe is Aubrey’s partner and she could be the best main character in theory. It is a little “by default” but we will take it. She is nice to Beca and she revolts against Aubrey’s leadership at times, but she still isn’t a very good character. She should have been a little bolder in her quest to win the tournament. Taking the lead like Beca did would have helped with that.

~~Fat~~ Amy is the fan favorite character who gets a pretty big role. She’s the one who brings a lot of the main characters together in the first place. She’s portrayed to be the overweight character who’s actually pretty smart and well versed in the ways of the world. It makes you feel bad for the other characters at times since they are so outmatched. That being said, she’s still not very likable. She falls into all of the faults that the other characters possess and she’s too interested in the romance angle. (All of them are to an extent though)

There are other members of the main squad, but they don’t really have much of a role in this story. Lilly’s gimmick was particularly annoying since her voice was so soft that nobody could hear her. You know what that means right? We get a scene at the end where she begins to rap and all of the characters are blown away. At the very least, the audience is supposed to do a double take. One member seems to be there just so we can have some more jokes to make about how easy the guys are.

Jesse is the main guy, but he’s a pretty bad character from start to finish. Beca keeps trying to stay as platonic friends during the intro of the film, but Jesse won’t have that for a second. This is a film so naturally they both become pretty close by the end, but then Jesse quickly deserts Beca after one of her outbursts. He started things so it looks kind of sad for him to be rushing out so quickly. He’s also a talented singer though, which is pretty lucky for him considering the circumstances. Now he can stay relevant to the plot. He definitely didn’t do anything for me.

The leader of the Trebelmakers is the main villain and he’s as sad as you would expect. He’s actually pretty good and his team won the tournament many times in the previous years. If he was a nice person, things would probably be very different. That being said, you can’t blame him for ditching the team to become rich and famous. He definitely could have told his teammates about this in a nicer way, but that’s just how his character is. I’m pretty sure that we would all make a similar decision or maybe try to do both, but we would certainly not let go of the money.

The announcers for the shows are good when they’re insulting all of the competitors, but that’s about all that they are good for. They still make way too many crude jokes so that you can’t actually enjoy what they are saying. The film seemed like it just wanted to go overboard in every way possible. The stereotype that every guy is perverted is also getting really old very quickly. It makes them look soooo terrible.

Finally, the film lost a lot of points on the actual singing and dancing. At least have them sing some respectable songs! The heroes are typically using their bodies to wow the audience and the lyrics can be forgettable. I was actually rooting for the Trebelmakers based on their songs for a while, but then their final one just threw that out the window. The main characters are basically objectifying themselves in order to win a simple trophy and that’s hardly worth the effort. It’s also pretty degrading to their characters to participate in this.

The film doesn’t really have much of a soundtrack beyond the musical parts, but I didn’t really enjoy the songs. The film is really just a bundle of negatives for me that have been rolled into a film. It’s pretty enjoyable in the few instances where there are no crude lines, but that’s like eating a giant bowl of tomatoes (Or insert food that you don’t like) to find a chocolate chip. So, I really can’t say that the film had any pros. The script just doomed it instantly and the fanservice certainly didn’t help matters.

Overall, Pitch Perfect is about what you would expect. It’s the kind of film that I couldn’t recommend to a guy on principle. Technically, it’s more or less okay for all others, but you can still find something nicer to enjoy like Yugioh. The fanservice is just too much as it corrodes the film and every character is basically objectified. The songs also tend to be pretty edgy and the rapping didn’t help matters. This just shows how bad a script can be when film writers don’t know what to do except for the classic rule that fanservice sells. There’s also a scene that shows us how an animal has been mistreated for a while, which is supposed to be funny, but just made the film sink a little more. Seriously, go watch High School Musical instead!

Overall 1/10

Charlie’s Angels Review

Posted on November 28, 2014 by dreager1

Well, it’s been a little over 2 years since I last saw this film, which brings it up to 2-3 times that I’ve seen it so far. It’s a pretty neat concept and I’ve heard that the show was pretty good, but the film has a lot of flaws that are barely hidden beneath the surface. It had a lot of potential thanks to some of the techniques that they used, which will remind you of the good ole films, but it’s simply not enough.

Charlie’s Angels is actually one of those films that can make you really worried for a Wonder Woman or Ms. Marvel film. Let’s just say that if one of those films was like this one, it would make audiences around the world shudder. A 30% on Rotten Tomatoes would likely shock me as it could be even lower. This one is spared that because of when it came out. I can guarantee that if this film came out now it would make waves…and not the good kind!

The plot involved a multi billionare (Probably) named Charlie. He hires three women to work for him as they stop crimes that no ordinary police force ever could. Their missions are dangerous, but these women are even deadlier! Natalie, Dylan, and Alex are the three main characters and they’re all pretty different, but are about equal in overall fighting technique. (Very, Very arguable) Well, they finish another mission when they find out that a computer whiz has been kidnapped. He has created a tech that can figure out a person’s voice print pretty quickly. It’s like tapping a phone, but it works on the actual voice. The Angels must find him and stop this from getting into the wrong hands.

Now, I just have to point something out about the premise that is pretty interesting. The climax involves Charlie making a phone call and the villain stalling him to try and figure out his location through the voice prints. It’s like a GPS and using some satellites he can track him down. That’s cool….until you remember that we can actually tap phones nowadays and you can track a person’s real location without inventing some made up technology about the voice prints. So, why is the voice print even necessary? Your guess is as good as mine…….the only way out of this logic hole would be if phone tracers had not been invented yet, but I’m pretty sure that they have been.

Okay, let’s quickly digress into some of the positives for the film. It has a very Dragon Ball Evoloution feel to it, which works pretty well. We get a lot of slow motion, interesting action shots, and facial expressions that would make film creators proud. It’s hard to describe how it feels like “That” kind of film, but watch any classic video game or manga inspired film like the one I just mentioned or the original Street Fighter and you’ll get my jist.

The soundtrack is also very intense. I can’t confirm that the lyrics for all of the songs are okay since some of the songs can be sketchy, but others were great. We got some really fast paced rock/battle themes that were all over the place and it made the scenes a whole lot more fun. It’s the kind of soundtrack that would never win you an Oscar, but that’s actually a good thing in this case. Oscar films can actually have some good tunes as well, but never anything quite like this. For every good song, there is still a bad song as well to highlight the fact that this film still uses a lot of not very subtle fanservice in between (and during) fight scenes. Ah well, I’ll take what I can get I suppose!

Dylan is my least favorite member of the Angels so I’ll start with her. She’s a decent fighter like the others, but she comes off as more of a tom boy. That doesn’t stop her from using her charm to seduce the characters that she can, but it ultimately results in a pretty embarrassing moment for her. Let’s just say that you should never start hanging out with a suspect so casually unless you want to get burned. Even without that scene she was likely my least favorite, but it certainly didn’t help her case.

Natalie is more laid back, but she still needs romance in her life so she quickly brings in a bar tender that she met and they instantly made it past the bounds of friendship. That was quick and then she went off to continue fighting and saving the world. Again, I find it hard to like her at all since she needs to have more hobbies aside from romance. She danced for a while, but it was pretty bad and again..it didn’t help her case.

Alex is the final member and she already has a stable romance going so she’s already set from the get go. Again, it’s hard to like the Angels because they don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond the romance. It’s quite sad. They are also willing to do just about anything to complete their mission so you almost start to feel bad for their boyfriends. (Almost! They’re not exactly innocent either) She can fight as well, which is good since you would be doomed otherwise against the villains.

Bosley is another one of the main characters and he looks pretty bad. One of his first scenes has him give the girls a long speech about love and how they can make it stronger while they’re basically mocking him and then he proceeds to get tricked by one of the main villains. (Naturally, the villain was female) He has enough strength of mind to tell her that he was going to keep it professional, but he still looked really terrible by letting her in the house from the start. You don’t do that when you have a billion dollar program inside and the person outside the door is a suspect.

There’s not much to say about Charlie. He’s rich and he’s old, but he barely gets to appear. At least he reminds the Angels that he’s watching over them before sending them on extremely dangerous missions. One of the main villains is known as the Thin Man and he’s pretty awesome…at first. We find out that he has something for hair and he gets a little too emotionally involved in that aspect. You just knew that the film would find some way to wreck his character. He started out as a really serious villain as he took on the three main characters. By the end, he was reduced to getting clobbered in a one on one fight and basically running for the hills. No worries…he’ll be back!

It may not sound that bad from all of that, but there is one ultimate reason why it was doomed right from the get go. The fanservice! This could probably hold its own against just about anything else in this area. You’ll get a scene that fits this description in almost every scene in the film. Whether the heroes are seducing someone to distract him or just striking unnecessary poses, it’s just sad. Every male character is presented to be someone who’s heads over heels for them. The guys just care about their outer appearance and none of them are morally ethical. It’s pretty sad to see guys depicted like this. It’s actually common place to an extent, but certainly not to this level. Even in James Bon….well, it’s basically at the same level. It’s just more fanservice than actually going further while it’s the opposite in James Bond.

An example of this is the traditional planning scene where the heroes explain what the security is like. The camera quickly zooms in on their mouth so we can have some really awkward visuals to distract us from what they’re actually saying. It’s pretty cringe worthy. It’s what drives this film down to Sucker Punch levels. Of course, Sucker Punch didn’t suffer from fanservice, but that’s another story. It’s a sad coincidence that those two films are down at the 1’s because they both could have been very good. What happened? The film just needed a different director and writer and then maybe it could have stood a chance.

After all, the fight scenes are pretty good when they happen. At one point, the three Angels team up to fight someone and he actually holds his own against the three of them for a while. It’s fun to watch, but it definitely doesn’t make the main characters look impressive. How can the three of them be having such a tough time when it’s so early in the film? Obviously, the writers forgot that you’re supposed to make the characters very likable and strong before you give them a villain that they can’t defeat.

The two main villains are pretty bad as well. One of them has a gun, but she’s still strong enough to give one of the Angels a tough time in hand to hand combat. If someone who seems like she doesn’t have that much time to train can give them a good fight….just how tough are the Angels? It definitely makes you wonder. The guy is very weak, but he knows that the main characters are always using their charms so he just uses that to his advantage. A surprisingly cunning strategy, but it never would have worked on a halfway decent character. Never!

Overall, Charlie’s Angels isn’t any better than I remember it. The film still puts too much emphasis on the heroes’ bodies and not enough on their character. Every other scene will have you looking away or wincing because you know that the film is just getting started. The soundtrack is pretty good and the actual plot is so retro that it still works despite the logical errors. It’s simply not enough to overlook this and it won’t help the feminist position. Let’s face it, we’d never have a film where three guys are constantly being used for fanservice throughout the film. It wouldn’t happen. Instead of checking out this film, watch the original Mortal Kombat to see how the film could have/should have/would have gone if the writers had realized sooner what they had done. There was simply tooooooo much fanservice here and I can’t stress enough just how sad it was. I highly recommend skipping it, no matter what type of film you’re looking for.

Overall 1/10

The Amityville Horror Review

Posted on November 8, 2014 by dreager1

Disclaimer: This review is of the edited TV 14 version of the film. All thoughts written below should be addressed accordingly as a review of the unedited version would likely be even more negative.

The Amityville Horror is a film that you could probably judge from the title and know what to expect. I came into the film with reasonably low expectations and it still managed to crash way below them. This title is filled with red herrings and uninteresting characters to distract you from the fact that not much really happens in this film. If you haven’t seen it, now’s your chance to quickly back away to spare yourself some time.

The plot involves George and Kathy as they decide to move to a new house. They are pretty strapped for cash, but they really want a new house. Unfortunately, that’s just how it is in the modern world. The house is really beat up and the previous occupants were participants in a gruesome act, but the new owners don’t mind. They quickly pay up and the real estate agent was probably thrilled that someone finally fell for her tricks. The heroes settle in with their 3 kids and things seem to be going smoothly. Then, mysterious things start to happen and the heroes realize that the house may be tougher than it looks.

Well, there are many placed to start with this film. Let’s talk about the characters first. George is a pretty terrible lead and his “strength of character” is nonexistent. All it takes is an artificial chill that the spirit produces to start corrupting him. He loses his temper constantly and yells at the dog just to provide him with some amount of “toughness” for his character. It really just makes him look petty and even worse. I wasn’t rooting for him almost from the second that he appeared. He is distracted by romance, but not enough so that he can resist the influence of the dark spirits. Feeling cold isn’t fun, but his mind deteriorates way too quickly through this feeling. He continues to crack as the film goes on. He gets a heroic scene towards the end to try and redeem his character, but that was basically impossible by that point. It helps his character to be sure, but it’s simply too late for him.

Kathy is the main heroine and she doesn’t really look much better. SHe keeps on telling George that they shouldn’t get the house, but then she relents and they move in. From then on, she basically just has to watch as George goes crazy and she can’t really do anything about it. In the climax, she decides to fight, but it’s one of the worst attempts of all time. She gives up after a few seconds and she really showed no combat experience. That’s all right, but anyone can throw a punch and I would expect a much better fight out of someone who’s fighting for several lives. That was pretty poor form and she never became likable as the film went on.

The film plays out as a reverse slasher in the sense that the spirit picks off everyone one by one, but it doesn’t typically finish them off. It just gives them a scare so they will leave the house. Failure to comply with it will result in a car crash or permanent paralysis. Sometimes both. It’s a unique approach I suppose, but you do have to wonder what the point of it all is. The spirit gets some character development towards the end, but it’s very slight.

The film also really wanted to push the “Even God can’t save you now” angle. I suppose that it can be seen as the ultimate scare since you would really be doomed. Ignoring that this scenario would never even be possible, it just goes very far to show this. The heroes put up a mini statue of the cross and the spirit makes sure to burn it. Later on, the Father at one of the churches comes over to bless the house and the spirit overwhelms him with a powerful curse. We see him try to leave a Bible, but the spirit forces him to pick it back up and run away. Later on, he tries to go back, but the spirit just takes out his car and essentially ends his life since he’s almost brain dead at this point. Most Hollywood/mainstream films like to point out that demons and spirits can be alive while the same isn’t true for Angels and God. It’s a film so they can always mess with the rules that way, but it makes the whole thing pretty lopsided. The film is also trying to claim that it’s from a true story although I suppose that we all knew better about 15 minutes into the film. Demons are real so some horror stories are probably real, but this is one of the tales that was probably just made up for a quick buck and their 5 minutes of fame.

Another negative would be the George getting corrupted part. It’s so overdone and it’s one of the worst horror plots. Give us a supernatural enemy who can’t be stopped (Which is bad enough) but let’s at least give the main characters some determination and a will to fight back. Seeing him turn on everyone is just not enjoyable and it’s an easy way out of using special effects or good writing. The hit towards the end was basically the cliff that the film went over since he was no longer redeemable although he may have already passed that part earlier.

The film is not the most violent horror film that you’ll encounter. There are only a handful of scenes, but one of them is particularly brutal as one of the main characters has a dream. It’s enough that you could instantly guess that this film was a little stronger than your average summer blockbuster and it didn’t do any wonders for the film. Violence against noncombatants always ends up appearing as a negative compared to fighting violence. See, a fighter getting injured is way different than a pedestrian getting hit since they are prepared for two vastly different roles.

The kids are also pretty bad characters. The girl has an imaginary friend once again who turns out to be the spirit of the house. It explains that it wants them to stay in the house forever so that’s basically why it wants George to destroy them all. Or, so it would seem. The spirit is evidently strong enough to destroy them all on his own, but I guess it wants things to end up just like how they did last time. It mostly seems to have power over the mind, but its abilities have a real impact on the human world so it’s not just simple telepathy. Most likely it has advanced reality warping abilities since that’s a favorite for most horror writers. You don’t have to do any work, just make it able to do literally anything and you can call it a day.

I’d say that the film is actually more grotesque than scary. The film came out decades ago so you can mostly anticipate everything that it’s going to do, which is why it can be tough to be scared. The grotesque part goes back to the flies, which were some of the worst scenes in the film. One thing that I’ve never liked are insect scares since it’s just about insects crawling all over somebody so you can imagine the worst. It was a painfully bad scene as they attack the Father and force him out of the house. The guy takes his time leaving even though an ordinary person would have dashed out. The spirit continues to torment the guy with boils and such since the guy keeps trying to warn the heroes of the imminent danger.

The other scary scene would likely be when the babysitter is trapped in the closet. You’re supposed to be extra worried for her since she already has braces so everything is a little tougher for her. It’s really more unpleasant and sad to watch than it is scary and the lights turn off, but we already know that the spirit refuses to destroy anyone. It just wants to scare them over and over again until George cracks and does the work for him. The Babysitter literally had no point in the story. She was just there to get taken down.

The heroes have a dog and he’s probably the only positive thing that I can say about the whole experience. There is a little dog violence unfortunately as he scratches at a wall so hard that his paws bleed. Luckily, the film redeemed itself by saving the dog at the end so he wouldn’t have to bring the film down even more. It’s a shame that the other characters wanted to leave him (Kathy did anyway) but I would expect no less from her. George went back, which was good since it shows that he could have been a good character if not for the mind control.

The soundtrack was better than your average horror film so I guess that’s another positive. Considering when it came out, it’s surprisingly fast paced at times and it’s decently memorable. A horror film having a soundtrack in the first place is pretty surprising and it being a good one even more so. If only we had some good scenes to go along with it.

The spirit’s true form is only shown twice, but he seems like a decently tough demon. He’s pretty large, but he can probably shape shift at will so he will likely look different each time. He would have been a little cooler if he had fought some more, but the budget probably wasn’t there yet unless they used a suit like in the old Godzilla films. That would have been pretty interesting.

Some plot lines never really get time to develop either since the film didn’t know where it was going. We have the Detective who tries to act tough and sneaks around for clues, but he never ends up doing anything. He just abruptly disappears and ends up playing no role in the story. He was just there for filler, nothing more. Another woman is possessed by the spirits and tells them that the well is a gateway to Hell. Okay…I think we could have guessed that when we saw the endless tar coming out of it. What does that have to do with anything? The heroes never decide to close the well and the info didn’t help anyone out. I’m guessing that the original climax would have had the heroes plug it up, but maybe it was written out due to time constraints and a rapidly falling budget.

Overall, The Amityville Horror is not a film that you’ll want to check out anytime soon. The monster design is pretty good and the soundtrack is good as well, but everything else about the film really hit rock bottom. There was only 1 or 2 jump scenes and neither of them worked since we weren’t watching the film in super 3D in the dead of night with speakers that make you shiver with loud noises. The gross scenes will just make you back up a little and George’s plot is extremely wince worthy. The film also gives the Father way too cruel of a fate just so it could make a point that wouldn’t help the film anyway. Burning the cross and effectively destroying the Father…we get the point. (We also can’t forget making the Nun so sick that she has to end up leaving the house almost immediately) It’s hard to tell which negatives pushed my buttons the most to deserve a 1 since there were so many of them and they just kept adding up and up and up. Ah well, at least it was a pretty easy decision. I had the rating set before the film had even ended. While you’re steering clear of this film, just play a scary game like Dirge of Cerberus or take the opposite effect and take this time to rent Megaman Battle Network 5. Either way, you’ll be better off as this film goes into Sucker Punch levels of terrible. If you do watch the film, you should try to make a list of plots and characters that ended up not adding anything to the film.

Overall 1/10

Hide and Seek Review

Posted on September 29, 2014 by dreager1

Please note that this review is of the edited TV 14 version of the film. All of the writing below should only be addressed to this particular version as the uncut one would likely get an even lower score or the review would just be more negative.

It’s really no stretch to say that horror films are my least favorite genre. Even romance or comedy films tend to have more heart to them. Of course, there are likely some genres that could go under horror if we really went drastic. (Infinite categories out there. Kaiju films, Space Kaiju Films, Undergeround Kaiju films, etc.) War Documentaries would be pretty close to horror films, but I barely count documentaries as films as it is. A regular War film would still be applicable though and we can’t forget about Zombie films. (Even though they would likely count as horror) I can safely say that this film was even worse than the average horror and it goes to Sucker Punch levels of bad. Can you say a 1 for effort? Let’s see what it did wrong.

First, we need to try to remember the plot that all horror films have. A guy and his daughter decide to move to an abandoned area on the outskirts of New York after the mother dies. Unfortunately, strange things begin to happen. Is the House haunted? Is the Dad crazy? Is the Daughter Possessed? Are there Demons hanging around? Zombies? Ghosts? Plot Holes? Take your pick and then get ready to cringe through the background plot as you await the chills and thrills. The body count is pretty low for most of the film, but the ending decides to quickly change this as the film becomes your average slasher. I definitely got some “I know what you did Last Summer” vibes from the ending since it’s fairly similar. (Then again…I could say that about most horror films!) The main characters are certainly in trouble so this could get deadly.

Well, the cast is pretty small in this film. That’s probably a good thing since most of the characters would have been pretty bad anyway. The main character is Mr. Callaway. I dare say that he’s slightly worse than the average lead for a horror film and that’s saying something. He’s pretty unstable and you don’t know what to expect from him. One second he’s a professional on the mind so he can out psych the daughter through her issues and the next second he’s panicking and running away from her. He needs some more training to say the least. Once the murders begin, he decides to cover them up instead of reporting it to the proper authorities and he’s definitely outmatched against Charlie. There aren’t any likable qualities to Mr. Callaway, but he’s not the only terrible character.

Did I mention that Charlie gets a big role in the film. He’s just as unlikable as Mr. Callaway. He likes to play games and it’s heavily implied that he has super speed or invisibility. He probably has dozens of other powers since horror films like to make their villains unstoppable right? Well, Charlie definitely doesn’t have what it takes to be a cool villain. His character design is pretty awful and he’s also fairly weak so he has to rely on tricks and surprise attacks to win his fights. He certainly didn’t help the film.

Emily is the daughter and she doesn’t help the film. She spends most of it being pretty distant and refusing to talk until she meets Charlie. She did just go through a pretty traumatic accident so we can sympathize with her, but it still doesn’t make her an enjoyable character to see on screen. She’s typically a downer. We find out that Emily does try to help out at certain points and she does well during the ending, but she’s still not what I’d call a very good character. She did have some opportunities to quickly end things although I’m sure that it could have backfired since most of the other characters are slow on the uptake.

We have the Sheriff who looks pretty terrible throughout the film. He wanders into the house during the climax and he knows that there has already been a murder. (More than one, but he only knows about one) So, he goes into the room and the lights turn off. He panics and runs towards the basement…that doesn’t end well. Should I mention that he never even reaches for his gun? This guy must be super confident to be walking into closets and constantly giving his back to every direction.

Catherine is another major in psychology and she proves to be more proficient at it than the main character. She doesn’t get a huge role, but this is a slasher so she does make sure to grab a gun and get involved in the climax. She looks downright terrible during most of it, but she finally gets to land a good hit in the end. She’s easily the best character in the film and it’s too bad that she couldn’t have gotten involved sooner. At least we had one pretty good character right?

We also had some supporting characters that had no point in the film except to be red herrings. So that I don’t spoil which one is the red herring, I shall quickly name 4 side characters. Apologies if it’s obvious who the red herring is, but this isn’t exactly Inception! We have the neighbors Laura and her husband. Laura’s a little overly friendly and she constantly goes to the house while her husband hangs around outside and meets up with the daughter. There’s also another acquaintance who has a daughter and they decide to visit the house as well. It should be noted that both neighbors as well as the mother look pretty much identical and I was wondering if they decided to save the budget by having one actress portray all three. Let’s face it, this film didn’t get a big budget!

Well, that’s basically the cast. If this doesn’t sound like a 1 star film yet, then you have not seen Man of Steel! (Man of Steel’s awesomeness in comparison should show you that this is basically a one star film) One of the numerous negatives in this film is the classic animal violence. Every horror film has it so this one quickly includes it as well. Let’s just say that it’s a cat this time and it’s as sad as you may have expected.

This is a slasher so you can expect a lot of gratuitous violence as well. We get the blood bath tub that seems to be featured prominently in all of the 18 and up slashers. It’s really their calling card I suppose. Other people get slashed and we even have doll violence where the dolls are so grotesquely broken that you have to wonder if it’s even possible. One of the characters really crushes one of them in the span of a few seconds. Sort of like Attack on Titan, this film helps to show us that too much violence can just water down the story.

This next negative is probably a given, but the film is also a downer. There’s a happy ending at the end of course, but it only gets about a minute of screentime while the other events take up the rest of the film. You would have more fun watching the Broncos get blown out of the Super Bowl again and I have to say that the game was pretty painful. (I was rooting for the Broncos) There aren’t any scenes that will make you cheer or even any that will make you smile at all. The whole film is devoid of enjoyment or entertainment.

The final plot twist is pretty generic and not in a good way. Of course, I would have said that the twist was generic if it had ended up being one of the other twists that I had labeled in the beginning. All of those are just stale at this point so none of them are surprising. As expected, the film chose the worst one of the group since that is just continuing with the film’s history of bad choices. The only twist that could have been worse would have been if the red herring was the actual villain because of the plot holes and the idea of such a threat. Nonetheless, this is still a pretty awful second and it didn’t do the film any favors. I should also mention that the film tries to be deep and complex by having a subplot filled with flashbacks and a mysterious waking at 2:06 every morning, but that won’t stop you from snoozing throughout the film and checking your watch.

“Hey, you forgot the positives!” Actually..this film had no positives. It’s one of those films that doesn’t even need to exist. It just takes all the worst tropes of your average horror film and throws them together. On that note, you could say that the film is even worse than Sucker Punch since the other film at least had action scenes, but the worst scenes in Sucker Punch are probably worse than the worst ones here so it’s a dicey showdown. Either way, this is a film that you really just want to see panned by critics and smashed at the Box Office.

Overall, Hide and Seek is as bad as the title would suggest. You’d have a much better time playing Hide and Seek in a one room apartment during the afternoon. I usually give a quick recap of the positives and negatives in this paragraph, but the whole review is basically made up of the negatives so you probably still remember them. This goes without saying, but I strongly recommend staying away from this film. (and horrors/slashers in general) If you want a classy film that’s still pretty scary, I would recommend the 4th Bleach film or even playing a level in Luigi’s Mansion. In the meantime, you’ll be spared from watching this film. Thus, saving you at least 100 minutes of your life that you can use towards racking up trophies on your PS3.

Overall 1/10

2001: A Space Odyssey Review

Posted on September 3, 2014 by dreager1

Have you ever seen a film that made you go to sleep? No, I’m not talking about the Lord of the Rings! 2001: A Space Odyssey surpasses that film in that category as the scenes are even more stretched out and the film runs for around the same amount of time. With less plot than a Saturday Morning Cartoon; A main character that makes Alex Hopper look like Tom Cruise; and an ending that would make Inception viewers cringe….we have this film! I hope that you’ve prepared yourself accordingly because watching this film is basically like throwing hours of your life out the window.

What is the plot? The film never figured that out so it’s barely worth mentioning. The first plot is about animal violence and how we descended from Apes. The Apes learned to destroy each other until they managed to become as brutal as the modern humans. After that, we go to David Bowman as he goes to the board meeting. It’s a big conspiracy between the members as they can’t let the press find out what they’re about to do. This journey will be dangerous after all so they convince everyone that there is a plague on board. David takes Frank and Hal 9000 as they head off into the great unknown. However, nothing is as it seems and the humans eventually start to distrust Hal 9000. Obviously, there is only room for one type of being so now they will have to fight. Man vs Machine!

It’s like watching a bad sci-fi film that doesn’t know if it wants to be a thriller, a political film, or a thematic sensation. As a result, the story telling is very convoluted and nothing makes sense. The writing makes the Amazing Spider Man 2 look amazing and it makes the Lord of The Rings appear to be a thrill a minute in comparison. It’s no shock to say that I’m giving this film a single star and it would be hard to say where that star came from. (Or not, Hal 9000 was pretty epic after all) Let’s quickly talk about the characters since there really aren’t many to talk about.

David Bowman is the main lead of the film, but it won’t matter all that much by the end since he has no real personality to speak of. He’s pretty careful around the news reporters, which is good and he doesn’t really gossip. He’s pretty much a no nonsense character and he seems to be pretty reasonable. Did he get a little too drastic in his plan to get Hal 9000? That’s something we’ll discuss later on. Overall, I would actually say that Bowman was a decently good main character. He was very bland and he didn’t have much of a personality, but that also meant that he didn’t really have time to make many mistakes. I can’t say that he fell into any character holes. He’s a perfectly acceptable main character.

Frank Poole is his friend/co worker. You could say that he’s a more aggressive version of David Bowman. Bowman never really voices his opinion about Hal 9000 being dangerous until Frank suggests that they take him out. Bowman was hinting at it, but he was very indecisive and he seemed to want Frank’s agreement before even suggesting it. Frank isn’t subtle like that and everything he does is direct. Because of this, Frank ends up being more likable than David and he’s the best human character in the film. Going outside when the ship is a suspect may be a little….optimistic at best, but every character makes a big error at some point right? Frank Poole was definitely a good character.

Hal 9000 is the big villain of the film. He’s famous and everyone knows about Hal 9000. Despite this, Hal 9000 isn’t actually a very big player. His screen time is a lot shorter than I would have thought. Despite this, Hal 9000 is still as sinister as I had pictured. You really can’t get past his sarcastic voice. “Hello Dave” “I can’t do that Dave” are some of his lines and Hal 9000 never lets up. He has nothing but contempt for humanity and it really shows. I can definitely see why he was remembered since he was one of the only really good things about the film. Right down to the end, Hal 9000’s voice will give you the chills and his end is probably where the film should have ended.

Unfortunately, the film did not end! After that, we just get a lot of scenes that don’t really have any relevance to them. There are a lot of meta readings that you can take from the scenes, but you can also just go to sleep and let the film end on its own. The problem with trying to have a lot of symbolic interpretations is that there is no correct answer. Once you put out a vague ending, the viewer can name any ending that they please and it won’t really be wrong. Thus, there really isn’t a point anymore. The film had no point and that’s one of the saddest parts. We never really begin to like the main characters so there isn’t a sense of relief at the end.

The whole film is really dragged out. The first 5-8 minutes of the film are pure darkness and we even have an intermission with more darkness. The final 15-20 minutes just consist of random oceans and other locations where we can appreciate the view. If I wanted a good view, then I’d pop in my Homer Price dvd and check out the realistic donuts! The main character eventually goes insane and that basically represents the audience by this point. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll lose interest before the halfway mark of the film anyway, but this would throw you off if you were still on board. Even eating a sandwich can take a while in this film as they slowly go for the food and they take forever to finish it. Don’t worry, they silently jog afterwards to burn off the calories. Another example of how the film is dragged out is the conversation with the media. “I’m not at liberty to discuss this” is something that the main character says when they try to get information out of him. What’s his next line? The same exact thing! The writers were just grasping at straws at that point as they just wanted to drag out the dialogue as much as possible. The characters make sure to cough and take deep breaths so that they can stop themselves from replying for a little longer. The camera also has a little lag to it so the scenes end up staying on the screen for longer than necessary. Not that we could expect anything less from this film!

Okay, we’ve established that the film is boring right? I could keep on mentioning this fact and give more examples, but I think you get the point. Still, that can’t be enough to give it a 1 right? Even the Lord of the Rings scored higher than that! Well, one big hole that the film charged into was the classic case of animal violence. Yes, there is animal violence in a space film that is about man vs machines. Why is animal violence present? Because the film forgot what it was about!

The first half hour or so is about a group of monkeys massacring each other. That’s it….there’s no plot, no point, and no fun. It’s just about the animals hurting each other and maturing into humans. It’s essentially a silent film at this stage and it makes the silent scenes of the Arthur tv show look profound and relevant. By this point in the film, I already had a sneaking suspicion that the film could not score above a three. Little did I know that it would never rise up from this error.

The end of the film is all about being trippy and we have a lot of inverted colors and random events that occur. You keep waiting for something to happen and it never does so you’re left with an empty feeling. This is why you shouldn’t make a film very crazy looking just so that you can try to win some awards and get recognition for being unique. Using the tried and true formula of the Mario Bros film would be much better.

Now, should the humans have decided to destroy/dismantle Hal 9000 and his upper functions? He did make a mistake with the satellite, but was it really on purpose as part of some conspiracy? I definitely think that he was trying to cover up his mistake as the film went on, but I don’t think he would have felt that it was necessary to murder the whole crew if Bowman and Frank hadn’t discussed their plan. (Talking in front of a window is never a really smart thing to do) It just seemed like the humans were a little rash in their thinking. Hal 9000 may have been in error, but he didn’t seem to be malicious. There were possibly some veiled threats in his dialogue with the main characters and if he’s so smart…then the mistake had to be intentional right? Nonetheless, while there are some doubts as to what side Hal 9000 was on, they should have given him a chance. At least wait until they’re back on the ground to disable him. Going on the offensive just wasn’t a wise thing to do in their situation. Then, sending out Frank to put the satellite back in place? That’s just asking for trouble. I can’t say with complete confidence that deciding to work with Hal 9000 would have helped them out in the end, but I do think that he wouldn’t have turned completely evil. (Not so quickly anyway)

Overall, 2001: A Space Odyssey is a lot worse than you may have guessed from the cover. There isn’t much of a plot and the events that could have taken 30-40 minutes end up stretching to around 3 hours. The director really wanted this film to be long so he used every artificial technique that he could think of to keep the film going. Because of this, over a third of the film consists of pointless aerial shots or stills of the characters thinking. The intro with the animals is also pointless and the ending doesn’t add anything to the film. The only part with any meat to it was the battle against Hal and that was all too brief. Stay away from this film and all of its animal violence. You would have more fun watching paint dry or taking a nap. The only slight positive would be the main characters, but that’s really not enough to save such a long film. This film may be known as a classic, but I’ll just know it as the film that was more tedious than Lord of the Rings. Watch the latest Star Trek film if you want a good spaceship film.

Overall 1/10

Conquest of The Planet of The Apes Review

Posted on August 1, 2014 by dreager1

It’s time for the Apes to return and you can tell that there will be a lot of action in this one based off of the title. That is usually a good thing, but not necessarily for this series. After the last film where the series managed to briefly rise up, this one definitely shot it right back down. Why did this film not succeed when it had so much potential? That’s what we’re about to find out!

The world has changed since the last film and around 10+ years have passed. Dogs and Cats were eliminated from the Earth by a plague and humans decided to take in Apes as pets. (Obviously, they ignored the warnings that this is how the Ape dominion would start) Unfortunately, America then decides to use them as slaves and Milo finds out about this. He switches his name to Caesar and decides to overthrow the humans, but can such a bold conquest really work? That’s the plot for this film. I’ll get into all of the negatives in a moment, but let’s look at the character roster first since it’s so small.

Caesar is the main character of the film and his main goal is to save the Apes. It’s a noble goal, but accomplishing it will be difficult. He starts off by helping the Apes make a mockery of the humans by messing up in their tasks, but it’s not enough. He needs to completely stop their tyrannical rule. Unfortunately, he basically cracks by the end as he decides to destroy all of the humans before enslaving them. It doesn’t look like things will be changing anytime soon and one race will end up enslaved no matter who wins. I also can’t say that I liked Caesar’s plans, but more on that in a minute. Nontheless, Caesar is still better than most of the other apes.

MacDonald is one of the only guys who’s on the heroes side of things. He doesn’t believe in slavery, but there’s not much that he can do about it while in the system. He tries to help out whenever possible, which is good. Unfortunately, it can also be a little sad seeing him since you know that he has no chance of stopping this through peace. War is the only thing that General Breck and his men will understand at this point.

Governor Breck is the main villain of the film. He really believes that the Apes pose a threat to the human race and he really wants to see them enslaved. He’s basically against all Apes and he takes great satisfaction in their imprisonment. He’s a rather petty villain who is definitely not very enjoyable. He needs some more charisma and character development in order to be a good villain. His final speech is also pretty nonsensical as he turns into a philosopher and explains that people only dislike the Apes because they see their dark side in them. I don’t think anyone will really buy that. If only the President was still around to save the day.

Armando is the circus owner from the last film and he’s a good guy. He probably shouldn’t have gone back to meet with the police, but he was basically doomed either way. It’s really Caesar’s fault that things got dicey for Armando, but something had to happen I suppose. Armando was definitely one of the more likable characters in the film and at least he put up a fight against the police. He does have his human rights to think of after all and nobody was going to stop him! The film could have been better if he had lasted a little longer.

The soundtrack definitely isn’t that good. The opening scene is mostly lolz worthy as we get a fairly comedic tune as we see Apes performing all kinds of tasks. A tragic piece of music would have been more appropriate. What’s worse is that the scene takes a very long time to end. It keeps on going and going until you wonder how long this song can actually be. The film finally starts, but it wasn’t a big improvement. Time to see why the film wasn’t that good for me…or rather, why it was pretty bad.

The slavery aspect would definitely be the first part. There’s no way that America would fall so low. Of course, that’s optimistic, but it’s hard to picture America allowing slavery in any form. We just finished getting rid of it so bringing it back for the Apes would not make sense. That was part of the main plot and it was pretty bad. That was definitely a bad sign for the film since the slavery wasn’t going to disappear as the film went on. Maybe a few people would believe that Apes would destroy us all, but certainly not the majority. Only conspirators could possible believe this and it is still taken so seriously.

Another part would be how cruel the people are to the Apes. It doesn’t make economic sense to train them all to do these tasks when they just end up doing it sloppily and are forced to go back for more training. What’s the point of using these Apes for the task? The film explains that they are really useful in some areas, but it never shows us any of them. All we see is the fact that the Apes aren’t really good at any of the tasks because the humans won’t bother tho show them anything. If anything, it takes longer to do everything when you have to worry about apes making a mistake or doing something incorrectly.

Building off of this, the scenes also drag on for too long. We get that the humans are really mean to the Apes so we don’t need to keep on seeing it. At one point, the humans lead Caesar through a lab where we see how the Apes are conditioned. They get practice on how to get beaten up without fighting back, how to get burned to stop being frightened of the fire, and how to get zapped for no real reason except to make them fear humans. These scenes are pretty terrible and they guaranteed that the film was going to get a low rating. The sheer amount of animal violence in the film is off the charts. The Apes don’t typically count as the same kind of animal violence as an average dog or a cat would, but things change in this film. Most of the apes are normal apes now so they are back to totally being animals so all of the scenes are pretty relentless. If you’ve been reading my reviews long enough then you’ll know that animal violence is an instant no no. Viewers shouldn’t have to put up with that and it’s bad enough that Lassie is a fan favorite..

Meanwhile, the acting hasn’t gotten any better. The humans are all right of course, but the Apes still seem very fake. They’ll glare at each other and move really slowly at times for the drama. You almost feel like chuckling when Caesar glares at the Apes from the shadows. The suits definitely need a lot of work, but that kind of work takes time so I wouldn’t expect it to get much better in the sequel. We can hope of course….we can hope.

I also need to criticize Caesar’s military tactics. He’s never fought a war of course, but I expect better out of him. He uses some of the Apes as pawns as he gets many of them to mess up in their duties so they are sent to his base. After they launch the assault, Caesar definitely didn’t count on the villains having guns. The whole army walks right towards them and the complete slaughter of his troops is prevented by the humans hesitating before firing. Most of them still go down quickly and the others only manage to stay upright through plot convenience. The fire plan definitely didn’t do the Apes any wonders. Maybe it’s time for Caesar to step down as leader eh?

By the end, he basically admits that the Apes are doomed for a while and that they’ll have to wait until World War Three to strike again. I guess that means that the Apes involved in this rebellion are probably all doomed. Well, maybe they’ll be able to stay in hiding or something until the tensions die down, but it’ll be tough.

It almost goes without saying that the fight scenes were poorly done as well. We get a lot of Apes tackling humans and vice versa as they wrestle around for a while. The camera makes sure to keep on shifting from side to side and all around so that we get to see many fight scenes instead of focusing on any of them. It becomes rather chaotic and since we can’t root for either side, it’s rather boring. I still don’t buy the fact that any of the Apes lived when the humans had so many guns at the ready. Talk about getting one shotted….

Overall, This is definitely another bad installment in the Apes franchise. It may not have been quite as bad as the second film, but this is certainly open to debate. There was nothing good about this film once again and the characters were unlikable. I liked the circus owner and MacDonald was okay, but they weren’t strong enough to hold up a whole film. The massive amounts of animal violence mixed with the sheer dullness of the film ensured that this would not be an enjoyable experience. I definitely do not recommend checking this film out and you would be better watching a retro episode of the Andy Griffith show. I can only hope that the final installment in this series is better than this one. How can it be worse or even on the same level right? Well, that’s what I thought after the second film…

Overall 1/10

Beneath The Planet of the Apes Review

Posted on July 24, 2014 by dreager1

I’ve never liked the Planet of the Apes franchise. It wasn’t terrible, but the films just weren’t for me. I mean, a series where the main villains are Apes? This will inevitably lead to humans shooting apes and apes shooting people so the films were doomed from the start. Even the new Dawn of the Planet of the Apes looks pretty bad if you ask me. However, even I was not expecting this film to be quite as bad as it was. It actually ranks up there with Sucker Punch…and that’s definitely not a good thing!

The plot takes place shortly after the first film. Taylor and Nova are still aimlessly wandering about. One day, Taylor sees a big fire so he jumps into a mountain, but the mountain wasn’t actually there and he must have met a sad end. Nova moves on with her life and treks across the planet until she finds a guy by the name of Brent. Brent crash landed on this planet along with another guy, but the futureshock was too much for him. (That’s what Judge Dredd calls it anyway) He quickly dies so Brent decides to go with Nova to find out what’s going on. Unfortunately, the Apes still want to conquer the world so Brent runs away, but he’s quickly captures. His only chance is to get off of this planet or to find some more humans who have a mind. The sad thing is…Brent’s doomed either way!!

It’s hard to know where to begin describing this “film.” We may as well go in a semi chronological order. The first scene that you’ll have to wince at is when Brent’s partner wakes up. We get several minutes of Brent telling him to stay alive as he tries to help the poor guy. The guy won’t hear any of it and he loudly exclaims that everyone he knew is dead. That’s pretty obvious since they’ve time traveled 2000 years into the future and Brent doesn’t seem to care. The guy just dies and you have to wonder why he was so weak willed. He was a pretty sad character.

We aren’t given a break either as the next scene involves Nova coming to help. This scene was pretty terrible since it feels like 20 minutes of Brent trying to talk to her. The problem is that Nova doesn’t believe in showing emotion and since she can’t talk and only has limited hearing…it makes discussion difficult. The two of them just stare at each other in awe as they can’t communicate and Brent finally jumps on the horse. The horse looked exhausted after a few steps and I felt bad for him.

Things don’t really get any better as the Ape scenes were pretty boring. Skipping along, the next sad moment was when the Horses started to get shot. This occurs throughout the movie and it was pretty awful. Classic animal violence is something that is common in the Ape films and that’s just too bad. The Apes themselves look so fake that I don’t really count them for the most part, but the horses are definitely enough!

After that, SPOILER ALERT……………………………………………They find a human colony and some more wince worthy scenes follow. The humans have advanced ESP and they attempt to force Brent to drown Nova. After a terrible scene, Brent regains control and heads into the enemy base. They beat him up using their mind abilities while telling him that they are peaceful. In particular, a guy by the name of Ongaro seems to despise humans as he continues to blast Brent. They use their mind abilities to try and make Brent destroy Taylor as well and the two of them have a boring fight. The film wasn’t even two hours and it felt like a millenia.

Another factor of the film that didn’t help was the random violence that jumped out towards the end. It was pretty over the top towards the end as someone gets violently impaled and another one gets shot to death in a graphic fashion. We see live apes burning to death in one scene and even though it is an illusion, it is a realistic one. The statue also begins to bleed a lot and we can’t forget Brent and Taylor’s fight as they keep throwing each other into the spikes. (Well, Brent was getting pummeled the whole time so he didn’t really get a chance) I dare say that this film is much more violent than the two newest Ape films in theaters partially due to the effects. This amount of blood usually doesn’t pore out so quickly and it’s due to the difference in special effects.

Brent is the new main character of the film and I can’t say that he’s very likable. Maybe for the first few minutes, but he died once Nova came along. He is very weak willed as shown when the telepathy people came along. Brent isn’t much of a fighter as he got pummeled a lot and he just seems to be very rude whenever he talks to anyone.

Nova isn’t any better than the first film. It would be good if she could at least react when someone was talking to her or a sound was made, but she’s just lifeless the whole time. Her scenes just aren’t fun to watch and while she does get a big “hero” moment, it’s not very cool and it’s a little too expected.

Taylor is from the first film, but he doesn’t get a huge role and he basically goes out while begging for help. He made an interesting call as he fell down and that was cool, but I can’t really forget how he was weak against mind control as well. Jumping into the mountain was also pretty risky and he had a gun with him so he should have had the edge against any opponent.

Ongaro is the antagonistic human who likes to mess with the primitive humans. He blasts them with his mind for fun and he likes to watch them destroy each other. He claims to be a peaceful person, but you can tell that it’s all fake. He’s just lying to them because he finds it to be fun.

Dr. Zaius isn’t really likable either. He refuses to help the main characters because they cause a lot of destruction as he helps the Apes murder everyone in sight. He doesn’t like to oppose authority and he believes that everything should stay the same. He doesn’t have any ambition in him and he’s pretty weak willed.

Mendez is basically a joke the entire time. He has a nuclear weapon at his disposal and he’s ready to use it against the Apes. The problem is that he waits until they enter his room so they shoot him down before he has time to use it. That’s extremely sloppy and he basically died for no good reason. He didn’t really have a point in the story since he was just going to stand there and die.

Ursus is the leader of the Ape military and he doesn’t really have a point in this film as well. He talks tough and he wants to help end a famine before it begins so he goes into the forbidden zone. There was not any food to be found so you could say that it was a wasted effort anyway. He may be the leader, but he is very interchangeable. He only got a handful of lines and he bit the big one in a very quick fight.

Zira is mostly there to rebel against the government, but she never does anything about it. She’s really all talk and gets written out of the film very quickly. It’s good to talk to the government and try to change them, but she has absolutely no political power so her efforts were doomed from the start. Her husband tries to talk her out of her plans as well, but Zira does get a chance to be leader for a few hours so we’ll see what she does about it…or not.

The soundtrack is nonexistent in this film. It’s too bad since that could have ever so slightly helped the film, but we can’t even have that I suppose. The special effects are pretty bad as well, but this film is ancient so one can overlook that. The photoshopped fire…..it burrrrrns!

Another thing that hurts the film is the fact that the characters aren’t likable. It’s a classic tale of how everyone has been corrupted. The Apes worship their idols and the humans have forgotten God and they now worship a rocket. The humans are completely evil and likewise with the Apes so it’s a lose/lose situation. It’s why the ending was one of the only ways that could have helped the film. It was a good ending (Last 2 seconds anyway) but it couldn’t really help in the end. (Too bad this film got a sequel eh?) I can’t say that I expected the humans to look That bad. Their scenes are also pretty unnecessarily gross as their faces are rotted and they all look like a pile of veins. It’s not pretty and you almost have to exit the room when they appear on screen.

I’m also not crazy about the setting. It’s basically a big desert and the landscape is primitive. Because of this, the heroes don’t wear much and they’re barefoot. Personally, that kind of thing has always bothered me and the acting is horrendous for everyone as well. Every character is constantly grinning, but their face looks like they’re in pain. I’m guessing that the actors were told to grin and squint as if the sun was shining very brightly upon them. It definitely didn’t help from a viewer’s perspective as it just made the scenes that much harder to watch.

Overall, This is easily one of the worst films that I have ever seen. There is not a single redeemable quality about the film and it was painful from start to finish. None of the characters were likable, The Setting was bad, The action was boring, and the violence was really there for no reason. I highly recommend avoiding this film and don’t let the G rating fool you. This is easily PG-13 stuff by the end and the 90 or so minutes of the film actually ends up feeling like a Lord of The Rings movie. This is just one of those films that you should just take a pass on. If you want a good future story, then check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time. That film has heart and passion…two qualities that this film could have used. At the very least, I’m sure that the rest of the Apes films cannot be as bad as this one.

Overall 1/10

The Lone Ranger Review

Posted on January 1, 2014 by dreager1

Ah, the Lone Ranger…..this was a franchise that I could never get into. Despite the fact that the comics tend to get good reviews, they always looked pretty bad to me. The movie didn’t really look any better as it mixes the things that I don’t like in films together. The fact that it’s a wild west film and that there are no likable characters (Yes, I can tell when there were no likable characters from the trailers!) were not signs of hope for me. The only viewable entertainment that was able to pull off the whole “Wild West” aspect was Trigon and the best parts of that show don’t even take place in that setting. (Ex: Final battle is in a garden…a Garden!!!!!)

Anyway, back to the movie. Before I reveal that Spoiler Alert the whole thing is actually a fairy tale told by an old man who hangs out at a museum, I need to mention that the Lone Ranger is fake in this film. The real main character is a little kid who buys peanuts for sale and then goes to the museum to check out the exhibits. Sooooooo…….the whole movie is a story that may or may not be real, but let’s ignore that and just enjoy the story for what it is. End Spoiler

The Lone Ranger starts off his “epic” film debut by throwing a poor girl’s toy out the window. It’s not the greatest start and was probably the tipping point of the film. It all went downhill from there as he ran after the crooks while a lot of happenstance took place. Believe it or not….but the cops had arrested a villain for a change, but they tied him up right over a gun and his hands are barely cuffed so he was able to put it in his coat. Now, we know that there are traitors everywhere because according to this movie, everyone is basically evil until proven innocent. The army is able to be bought off with silver. I can’t even….

Even if you consider the fact that the traitor put the gun there and set him up, how did they manage to put him right over it? That’s some serious coincidence and the traitor putting him on that seat is still a little iffy. If the cops weren’t so drunk on power and beer, they would have stopped him as he was opening the floorboard. Still, we mustn’t get distracted just yet! I’ve barely mentioned the plot within the plot. One thing leads to another and the Lone Ranger dies. Tonto saves him and they decide to have a blast and beat people up as they head off to their destiny and avenge the Lone Ranger’s bro.

It’s not much of a plot description, but I hadn’t the heart to keep on going. Just think of a really generic plot and you’ll have figured this movie out. Honestly, I’d compare it to the likes or Pirates of the Carrabean and Sucker Punch which is a really (really) sad thing. This is probably Disney’s worst film of all time and easily one of the worst films that I’ve seen. It made the mistake of having the three big Vs. Animal Violence, (Every other minute it felt like. Horses, Rabbits, and a lot of other animals die as the film goes on) Gross Violence, (One of the characters is a cannibal….yeah, Disney went there) and Excessive Violence. (Back to the cannibal and every other fighting scene. Nearly every fight would have a scene or two that is not necessary and just makes the whole scene a lot more violent and unwatchable. Seriously, the film has absolutely no replay value and I deeply hope that they don’t make a sequel)

It’s hard to think of the film without wincing. It’s like the film was mocking the very essence of my being as I sat there and winced through the 2+ hour film that was incinerating every piece of morale that films had. I can’t think of anything that it did right. The main character is pretty weak, generic, and unheroic. The girl that he likes was married to his brother and he basically starts flirting with her (Right in front of his bro btw) as soon as he sees her. I knew that he would be an unlikable character right at that moment.

Let’s not forget his partner, Tonto. Tonto is pretty annoying as well and he has quite a few moments that will make you grimace. The “steralized” arrow comes to mind and you may need a barf bag for this film. The film isn’t as gross as the humor in Pirates, but there are times when it comes very close. There is also a lot of jumping in this film as we go to the “future” and the “past” and then back to the “present” Quotations must be used because we must remember that this is not as it appears. (See, spoiler paragraph for details)

Writing about this film is easy since everything is a negative, but that’s also why it’s tough for me to stay on one topic for long. My review may seem a little scattered as I jump from one point to another, but there’s so much to cover that I just don’t want to miss anything. Needless to say, there isn’t anything redeemable about this film.

Need I go on? The characters are all bad, the film is excessively violent, this film is not suitable for…anyone since I highly do not recommend the film. If you want to see something even remotely cool or fun, go watch an episode of Blues Clues. At least you’ll likely learn something in the process. All that you can learn in this film is what not to do. Seriously, someone jumps off of a very fast train at least 10+ feet to another train and he lands on a bunch of Silver Rocks. Not only is the character okay, but he’s not hurt in the slightest. I usually would have taken a step back for something like that, but I expected no less from the film.

I’m not sure how much more I can really say. Just…do not watch it. Spare yourself and just watch anything else. Maybe take a stroll in your backyard and play with your Dog. You can also go check out the 1 star reviews for the film on various sites and you can have a good laugh. It’s something that I enjoy doing as well! I hope that I’ve reached you all in time before you got to see the film. Who knows, maybe some of you would like it….but don’t count on it! This is the worst film that I’ve seen since Sucker Punch and that’s saying something. Hollywood is truly going downhill. (I refer to any Live Action Film as a “Hollywood” product if it’s from America…just saiyan)

Overall 1/10

Psycho Review

Posted on December 3, 2013 by dreager1

Psycho is a pretty famous movie from Hitchcock and it’s pretty legendary. Unfortunately, it’s one of those films where the hype is definitely more intense than the film. This is essentially a horror/slasher film that plays out as you would expect most of those too go. The only difference is that there is no twist ending involved, which probably wouldn’t have hurt. I’ve never watched a good slasher film and I doubt that there is such a thing, but this is definitely Hitchcock’s worst film. He should stick to the murder mysteries, but let’s jump to the plot!

The film opens up with an awful scene involving Marion and Sam which should quickly start the warning bells in your head. Once she leaves, Marion goes to her nice ole job where people throw lots of money around. One look at that money is enough to corrupt Marion and she quickly gets out of town and decides to head to a private island. This is obviously the only course of action for her by this point and she makes it a point to act as suspicious as she can. She even falls asleep at the road and quickly starts to act like a criminal. She decides to stop at an abandoned motel to spend the night. At least the landlord seems nice and he’s got a nice mother…what could possibly go wrong!?

If you’ve seen any sort of slasher film, then you can probably guess where the film will go from here. Norman Bates is the main villain of this story and the fact that he believes in animal violence should have helped the main character realize this. Unlike Jason or Freddy, Norman isn’t much of a fighter and he relies on the fact that his opponents are either kids or people who are not ready to fight or have any experience in it. He also takes any opportunity to land a cheap shot in. There are no likable characters in this film so don’t hold your breath for one of them to make a solid decision!

One of the main problems with this film is the fact that there doesn’t seem to be a point to the whole thing. The villain murders people and the heroes don’t know what to do. The cycle repeats and repeats until it’s about time for the climax. There was an unnecessarily long shower scene that was really awful and the opening scene did no wonders for the romance section. If you cut out both of those scenes, then the film is a lot better, but it still would have been doomed in the long run.

We’ve already established why Marion and Norman were both pretty bad characters. Marion got corrupted very easily which wasn’t a good thing. Norman made the mistake of being a psycho and he wasn’t a likable character while he was acting either. He’s just your average mass murderer, just take away the part where he’s actually tough. Lila wasn’t much better as she talked tough, but froze up when the going got tough. I disliked Sam from the start and he never turned out to be a good character.

The police officer could have been a solid character, but he failed in the end. I was actually liking him until he just stopped appearing. He just got written out of the script and vanished. The Sherrif wasn’t very smart and the guy whose money was stolen in the first place was pretty bad as well. Let’s skip the rest of the characters and just remember that they’re pretty bad.

Long story short, this is definitely not a film that I recommend. It was very close to getting a 1/10 for a while, but by the end, the detective was so awful that I had to raise it to a 2. The scene was just so inaccurate that it raised the score. As I mentioned earlier, the film just didn’t have any point to it and it was like watching paint dry. What’s the point in the end? This is a film that has 0 replay value as well. If you want to watch a true film, then check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time!

Overall 2/10

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Category Archives: 1 Star Movies

Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle Review

Pitch Perfect Review

Charlie’s Angels Review

The Amityville Horror Review

Hide and Seek Review

2001: A Space Odyssey Review

Conquest of The Planet of The Apes Review

Beneath The Planet of the Apes Review

The Lone Ranger Review

Psycho Review

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