Category Archives: 2 Star Movies

Attack of the 50 Foot Woman Review

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It’s time for a retro film that is actually quite well known. I’ve certainly heard of this one over the years as it has become quite the meme. It was certainly a novel idea at the time, but unfortunately, the execution simply isn’t on point. While it’s supposed to be a very fun popcorn film that you just enjoy and laugh with…it wasn’t that fun. Whenever I talk to someone about this film, I get the classic response that the film is a blast, but I just didn’t get that vibe. Maybe I need to get used to retro humor a little more.

It has been a rough year for Nancy. Her husband finally came back to her as he wanted to get rich quick, but he still openly cheats on her. Nancy doesn’t know what to do about this since she should clearly just make him leave again, but she can’t get past her emotions. In the meantime, Harry keeps insulting her butler and bribing the cops. Harry plans to get her back into an asylum, but he’s not sure how to quickly accomplish this. His worries come to an end when Nancy claims that she saw an alien ship. Harry makes sure to insult and belittle her as much as possible while also slightly encouraging her at times to turn her emotions to jelly before breaking her mind. Nancy is at her breaking point when the alien shows up again and defeats her. Harry runs away and tries to cover this all up, but Nancy turns up the next day. She is unconscious and doesn’t know what happened. Harry is the main suspect so he quickly tries to destroy her, but this plan doesn’t work either. His only chance is to leave town, but can he outrun a 50 foot giant?

I realize that I just said pretty much the whole plot, but it’s hard not too. The whole point of this film is that Nancy turns into a 50 foot giant, but this doesn’t happen until the very end of the film. It’s not a spoiler since it is in the title and promotion so my plot summary has to make it at least that far. There’s just not much more to guess by that point. You’ll probably know the rest of the ending.

All right, lets talk about why I did not like the movie. For starters…it is not fun. I have to address this right off the bat. Nancy is in a very sad predicament and the fact that she is being completely used the whole time and does nothing about it makes the whole film rather sad and underwhelming instead of fun and up beat. Nancy realizes that Harry just wants her money and is being a terrible guy the whole time. She mentions as much, but the problem is that she suffers from quite a few mood swings, which virtually make her forget about these incidents as soon as they happen. Harry tries to sabotage her at every turn and she is not able to do anything about it. If she was a better main lead, then the film could have been more fun. If she was trying to humiliate Harry and take him down for the count, it would have been a lot more even. I would have been able to get behind that. As it is, the whole thing is simply too one sided.

Nancy doesn’t even get to have her revenge since as soon as she turns giant, the power of electricity shows up. It’s just not really a fun resolution so I just don’t see where the fun factor comes in. I suppose that the film is certainly campy, but at the same time, the main plot is seriously sad. That sort of negates the whatever humor the film was going for. Harry’s just such a bad antagonist. Since Nancy won’t fight back, it is just annoying to see him show up.

The butler was a nice character, but it’s a shame that he wasn’t able to beat Harry. I’ll give him some props for actually trying and not just backing off as soon as he showed up. Calling the cops was the right move though so it was good to see the police respond in time. Charlie was a rather suspect deputy as he got bribed by Harry for a while, but at least he stood up to him when the going got tough. Harry’s not bad, but he certainly goofs off a little too much. If I was the sheriff, I’d be looking for a replacement as soon as possible. After all, the sheriff was at the top of his game right from the start. Nancy nearly ran him over, but the guy had good reaction times.

Honey was the other villain who helped advise Harry on how to put Nancy in a bad spot. She was always ready to go the extra mile as she recommended permanent solutions to their predicament. Of course, the joke is also on Harry as the film heavily implies that she doesn’t mind cheating on him either. She’s also just in it for the money so the cycle continues and continues. In the end, they will all likely get a bad ending as a result.

The main highlight of the film is probably the fact that aliens show up. The alien in question doesn’t have the greatest design and he’s just a super large guy, but I’ll take it. Adding aliens always makes for a whole new dynamic in the film. I would have liked to have seen him do more or show up at the end to gloat, but I suppose the mystery is part of his charm. Maybe he’d show up more if the film had gotten a proper sequel. I can’t say that the premise has much potential when it comes to a modern film remaking this, but it could be good if handled right. Lets face it, Nancy would be changed quite a lot for a modern film and I think that’s a good thing. I don’t see her being quite so indecisive in a remake and Harry probably wouldn’t get the first and last laughs. It’s debatable if he got the last laugh here, but he certainly got to have a lot more fun than Nancy so it wasn’t much of a win.

Overall, The film just wasn’t that fun. I suppose you are not supposed to take the main plot all that seriously, but I personally just found it tragic which hurt everything else as a result. Watching Harry just mooch off of Nancy’s riches the whole time was terrible and she never did a thing about it. It’s the kind of plot that you would only see in an older film and it’s one that I certainly don’t miss from the modern times. Nancy didn’t even get to turn giant for very long so you’ll be waiting a while for the actual title to come into play and then the payoff is very small. This film just didn’t work for me and I certainly don’t recommend it. I’m not saying that it’s terrible, or at least not as terrible as some of the other films that I’ve reviewed lately. I would say that it is a bad one though and I’d recommend checking out Godzilla instead.

Overall 2/10

Constantine Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be read as such as a review of the unedited version would be even more negative.
Constantine-2005
Well well, it’s time to look at a horror film that also happens to be a comic book film. I’m not sure about this combo and it certainly didn’t work out this time. Constantine ends up being a very weak title which contradicts its own message and spends a lot of time wondering just where the plot went. One thing’s for sure, this isn’t the sleeper hit of 2005 and it even makes the recent Ghost Rider film look good.

The film’s about a guy named Constantine who exorcises demons. He wants to be allowed into Heaven since he has done a good job of keeping the demons away, but the angel Gabriel reminds him that one cannot enter into Heaven on good works alone. Constantine shows his contempt for this by slamming a Bible on the ground, insulting and berating a lady who is trying to save her sister, and then torturing a spider that he found in his house. Yeah….I wonder why they aren’t letting this guy into Heaven….It’s impossible to root for Constantine from this point on, but one thing leads to another and he’s the only guy standing in the way of a mad quest for power with human lives in the balance. Looks like it’s time to fight again!

It’s hard to know where to start on how bad this film is. We may as well get the ball rolling with Constantine since I’ve already started taking shots at him. He’s just a horrendous main character. Constantine doesn’t seem to even pretend to follow the Bible’s teachings. He spends the entire film being mean to just about everyone and his opening scene where we’re supposed to be impressed with how he handles the exorcist just makes him look bad. He’s not even that good at his job and barely manages to scratch out wins. Constantine loves smoking as well and even after he gets lung cancer, he decides to keep on smoking anyway. Once he gets a sidekick, Constantine tries to be a little more heroic when he’s not pulling guns at demons at a bar where there’s a truce, but it’s too little too late. I’ll never forget the spider incident. Sure, he had a bad day, but taking it out on another living creature is way past crossing the line.

There’s also this subplot in the desert where a guy finds a spear which mind controls him and forces the guy to come over to the city. Not only does this plot go nowhere until the very end of the film, but it is immensely boring and just slows the film’s pacing down even more. The film never really gets good or exciting so it may not matter all that much while you’re watching, but it doesn’t help matters.

The film can also be pretty violent at times and also just grotesque with the various demons running around. Supernatural films like this one love going for those crazy visuals. There were some good ones here like when Constantine went into hell. I liked how the place looked and the film had potential with some of the fight scenes and other special effects. It was one of the few positives that this title had to offer.

Back to the negatives, the film decides to make God (Yes, the film actually decided to go with the real God in this film. Big mistake considering that they decided to make him look terrible) look incredibly unintelligent and he spends the entire film getting tricked by everyone around him. Part of the premise in this film is that God and the Devil are having a chess game with humans being the pawns in it. Neither one of them can affect the humans directly, but they can tempt them. The Devil tempts them to do wrong things with his demon hybrids while God has the half angels. Full fledged Demons and Angels are forbidden from interfering. Aside from the moral ambiguity of this game, you’d think that God would ensure that the match is fair right? Nope, he doesn’t realize it, but the Devil has rigged the match from the start.

He’s not even subtle as he just summons a bunch of Demons to Earth and directly attacks people. His allies even go to bars and start indiscriminately murdering people. They also murder one of Constantine’s allies and an angel can do nothing but watch since he’s heavily outnumbered. Of course, the fact that the angel was watching and doing nothing the entire time is another negative. It gets even worse as one of the higher ranked Angels turns out to be crazy and evil. God appointed him as one of the 4 big Angels so you’d think that the interview process would have been more rigid. The Angel believes that he’s still a good guy and that genocide will help the human race turn to God before they die. He believes that suffering always has this effect, but you can see how crazy he is.

Also, the Devil is portrayed as incredibly strong and while God won’t set foot on Earth, he has no qualms about it. He shows up and wrecks everybody. The final straw is the fact that he can mess with Heaven as well. So, remember the part where Constantine can’t earn his way into Heaven with actions? Yeah…the film forgot about that. By being heroic and helping someone out, he was able to earn his way into Heaven, but the Devil can’t have that. He literally reaches up and just pulls Constantine back to Earth. Wow…..I can’t even….

So…yeah, this movie had a very warped idea of how Heaven and Hell works. It’s always nice to see a film actually bring Christianity to the forefront and tackle these concepts, but it was done so horrendously that it backfired completely. I don’t believe we even got any lines where the characters remind Constantine that he can only get into Heaven through Jesus Christ. It seemed to completely revolve around being a nice person instead, which is 100% false. No matter how many good deeds you do or how nice you are as a person, it will never be enough to get you into Heaven without accepting Jesus Christ as your lord and savior. The whole point of faith in Christianity is that you know that you can’t make it to Heaven on your own. You need Jesus, but this film decides to go around that. Also, the concept of an Angel being evil is pretty terrible. Lucifer was an angel once and there are other Fallen Angels, but they are fallen. There aren’t any evil Angels still lurking or anything like that. That’s just Hollywood trying for an epic plot twist, but there isn’t any to be found in Heaven. I don’t think for one minute that any bad guy can trick God into letting him in.

As for the rest of the supporting characters, the main heroine was decent. Angela was certainly a big improvement over Constantine and she goes through a lot of trials in order to help her sister out. Her sister committed suicide, but Angela knows that she would never do such a thing and it finally helps her to believe in the supernatural. This brings another negative to light which I almost forgot about. All right, stay with me here since the film decides to use its crazy logic again.

So, a demon possessed Isabel and forced her to destroy herself. That wasn’t her own free will so she surely wouldn’t be penalized for it would she? Nope…she actually is. See, as part of the match, this falls into the whole “Satan influencing people” part so it’s actually a legitimate victory for him with Isabel now being doomed to Hell for eternity. Now you can see how this whole game is so rigged right? Luckily, Isabel ends up having a happy ending, but once again, the Devil was just portrayed as way too powerful here. Essentially, he was the one with power over Heaven and Hell in this version given how he can influence the game to such a degree.

So, Angela’s a good character. I also liked Chas, who’s the comic relief character of the film. He did a good job in the role and helped out as best he could. Things didn’t go too well for him, but he does get a big plot twist in the post credits scene…which may or may not be canon as I also read that it was an alternate ending. I’m pretty sure that it is canon though, but I don’t really care enough about the film to do any searching. If you see the film you can stick around past the credits and tell me if it’s there. None of the villains were particularly likable and the demons didn’t have great designs. The final fights were pretty decent, but Constantine was so far out of his league that it was scary. He’s a human with a gun….there’s only so much he can do against a very fast/powerful demon. Plot hax is really his only weapon at this point.

Overall, Constantine is pretty terrible to be honest. I’d stick far away from this film if I were you. The film defies its own logic and the logic is already super flawed and fake from the get go. You won’t learn anything from this film because there is nothing to learn and the actual movie isn’t well made anyway. Constantine is a very unlikable main character and even the edited version can’t save the film’s writing and the excessive violence that shows up at times. All of Constantine’s allies (One of which is a priest who likes to drink a lot. Gee….the film had to fit that in didn’t it?) are doomed to painful and unfortunate ends at the hands of the demons and since the heroes never had a shot from the beginning…what’s the point? If you want a better comic book film, I recommend Batman V Superman, the original theater version. That film has it all, hype, action, and an epic soundtrack!

Overall 2/10

Sense and Sensibility Review

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Sense_and_sensibility
It’s time for a romance drama. As you may have expected, this was a fairly terrible movie. It tries very hard to be the next Cinderella, but somewhere along the road it lost sight of what was happening and devolved into a train wreck much like the Street Fighter V release. If only this film could have been as emotional as ET!

The characters and their names do not really matter in this film so let’s get right to the plot. There are these two sisters and their mother who used to have a fairly nice life. One day, their benefactor died and his full inheritance went to someone who was unrelated to them. The dying man told this guy to make sure that the ladies were well provided for, but his wife quickly convinced him to renege on his word. The guy agreed since deep down he does love money and the girls were quickly thrown into a life of hardship and passive aggressive dealings. If they had been tough enough to actually stand up for themselves in this civilized time, then maybe things could have been a little different.

Either way, this was the only part of the film where you could feel bad for the main heroines. It’s a plot that I never like to see, but at least the plight was very real. It’s sad to go from owning your own house to essentially being the maidservants there. The film lost me when the heroines left to live with a nice old couple though. Suddenly, their situation wasn’t half bad and the place was actually pleasant. They no longer needed to worry about their situation financially and the upbeat atmosphere of the mansion would do wonders for the cast…or would it? Unfortunately, not everyone is very grateful.

The heroines act as if the old couple are a nuisance (Aside from the youngest sister) and they apparently prefer the quietness of being servants than the loud rumblings of the current dinner situation. That’s where I lost my sympathy, how could they ever miss the old days when the situation is so good over here. Sure, the old couple gossips a lot and they’re always talking, but it certainly beats the alternatives. The problem is that the main characters are not likable. None of the characters are really likable although the old couple would be the best characters by default I suppose. It’s still not saying a whole lot.

This whole film revolves around the question, “Do you care if you’re simply the rebound guy?” None of the characters do and they’re personally satisfied with it, but would you be? Just think about it for a moment, the person that you like has repeatedly turned you down and been very rude to you your whole life since you’re just an annoyance to the person. An obstacle that should be gone. One day, the friend’s love interest reveals that he’s just been using her for the thrills and runs off so she says that she’ll go with you now. The main guy in the film basically says “Great, I’ll grab my stuff!” as they’re married the very next day. (Something like that) It felt rather odd, but also sad because it’s actually realistic.

People are so easy nowadays that they’re desperate for love. This scenario is actually not all that uncommon and just makes the characters look even worse. Essentially, the same thing happens with another pair, only they broke up like 3 times first and again, the girl was the second choice. The guy had made a promise to someone else that he would marry her about a decade earlier so when he remembered the promise, it was game over for the main character. The lady called it off though so the guy quickly went back to the main charcater, but he had already dumped her twice and ignored her several times at a party, pretending not to know her. He even sent her a letter saying that he had never loved her. Erm….is this what true romance is?

One of the characters admitted that classics like Romeo and Juliet had “pathetic endings” which I did have to agree with. I don’t use such strong words, but you have to admit that those romances are rather terrible and know nothing about true love. If you have fallen in love at first sight, then you know that it is fake love. The problem is that most people will never realize this so we’ll get films like this one.

No worries guys, this film’s still not getting a 0 or anything like that. I’m not even giving it a 1 since it’s not horrendous. It’s terrible and boring, but doesn’t cross the line into Sucker Punch territory. My main complaint with the film aside from the characters is the fact that it is very boring. The film drags on and on and the plot doesn’t make a lot of sense. As I explained, the characters should have been happy with the old couple, but for the sake of drama, they quickly revolted. That’s not cool. The romance was handled very poorly as well, but you probably saw that coming didn’t you? I have been bashing it for quite a few paragraphs at this point….

Who knows, maybe zombies would have spiced things up a bit. I can definitely say that the MVPs of this film were definitely the dogs that had been running around the place. They were neat and it makes me wish that they could have been around a little more to mock the main characters and their unwise choices. I also have to say that tripping in a grassy plain is quite lazy and does make it seem as if you’re a very weak character. We wouldn’t want people to get the right impression now would we?

Overall, This is a very boring film and one that you should not bother to watch. It doesn’t help that this is set in the olden times where everything looked dreary and dull. How I miss my modernized glass buildings and video games at every twist and turn. There’s no real language, which is one of the good things about having an old film, but with a large array of terrible characters at every turn, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference. If you want to watch an emotional movie, check out Peanuts instead. At least that one has Snoopy and it’s said that he can hold an entire film all on his own. Now that’s what I call talent!

Overall 2/10

The Hunger Games Mockingjay Part 2 Review

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THE HUNGEER GAMES A REVOLTA 2 POSTER FINAL - Cópia (2)
Well, I finally got to see the final Hunger Games film a while back (Saw it day 1, but I took my time writing the review) and it met my expectations. Unfortunately, that’s a bad thing in this case. The film is still very slow paced and way too dramatic to the point where you have to wonder what the point of the series is anymore. It had a plot in the first and second film. After that, it’s like we kept seeing the same old things over and over again. I’m definitely not sad to see this series go. Who knows, maybe the upcoming prequel/spinoff will end up beating this one.

Katniss is still mad at President Snow for being a mean person and trying to enslave the districts. She’s helping the uprising take over his city to restore law and order to the world. It’ll be tough though because his military might is very great and he has already brainwashed one of Katniss’ friends. It’s a bleak path to victory and just about everything that is worth fighting for is already tarnished, but Katniss must press on for victory and for glory!

Where to start with this film right? For starters, the film still isn’t any fun. It’s very bleak and it’s very overly dramatic. The characters are constantly whining and yelling in despair about how bleak everything is. I don’t think the sun really rises until the very last scenes of the film. Before that, it’s pretty much always cloudy with a gloomy backdrop. The characters are constantly injured or on the brink of tears so they can’t have any good discussions without wondering about moral boundaries. Katniss doesn’t want the heroes to become as bad as the villains, but nobody seems to be on her side with this. They’ll take Snow down however they can. No matter how many casualties and injuries occur in the process!

Katniss is also still a very unlikable character. Her only good plan in the film is when she says that she’ll escape on her own to take down Snow. The problem is that she doesn’t actually go through with it and waits until a few more members die to just take command of the operation for everyone. At that point she goes, but it dampens any epic impact that she could have had. At the end, she realizes the truth about one of the villains and quickly makes a bold move. At this point, her options were limited, but perhaps not voting to put the Hunger Games into place once more would have changed things a bit although it would have made getting the fatality a little more difficult. Essentially, it was a classic lose-lose situation, which you’ll see a lot of in these films.

I really did not like Peeta. Once he was brainwashed, that was the end for him. He could never be likable again as he just served to up the drama in the films. Sure, Snow had a lot of time to break him, but it doesn’t mean that I have to actually end up liking Peeta in the end. As far as I’m concerned, he’s just not my kind of character nor will he ever be. The film would have been better off without him. Likewise, his rival, Gale, was no better. Gale thinks that the ends justify the means so he’s already portrayed as a bit of a bad guy. He likes Katniss and isn’t afraid to remind the audience of that quite a few times, but you knew that he was doomed from the start. Of course, I was hoping that both characters would be doomed.

Most of the other characters are non factors here. Naturally, we do have the leader of the resistance. She wants to be the leader of the new world and she claims to have the people’s best interests at heart. Hopefully that’s true…but it seems a little far fetched. It’s a shame since she’s actually a decent character for the most part. Someone who actually stands up to Snow? That’s what we’ve needed all these years although the fake crying was a bit much. I liked the field commander who actually trusted Katniss and decided to defy the government. I’ll give him some props there.

Near the end, we’re reminded again why I don’t care for Katniss as a character. When she arrives home, the “hero” decides to start throwing things at her cat in a rage not unlike those seen on For Glory in the recent Super Smash bros game. It’s a terrible scene and I wish that the cat had simply left for greener passions. After something like that, I don’t think Katniss is worthy to be the owner, but we ahve to wonder whether she ever was. It’s a whole host of problems that plagued Katniss from start to finish, but scenes like this did not help.

All right, what did the film do right? Well, there was certainly a lot more action than in the first film. We had some machine guns, grenades, and even a large amount of tar water that attacked the heroes from all sides. It’s not much, but it’s something. The film’s certainly not lacking in action the same way that the previous installment was. Something is typically happening in this film, it’s just stretched out to the point where many scenes don’t have a point.

That was a slim positive, but I really can’t think of many more. I guess there’s a positive in the sense that it could have been worse. The characters could have been worse and the film could have been more dreary. It’s a matter of looking at the film as half full or half empty. No matter how you slice it though, the negatives do outweigh the positives. The random zombies were intriguing here though and the film did try to recreate the Alien scenes from the good ole days of film making. The zombies have no real character and they’re pretty slow, but at least it works as a tense scene. Honestly, it’s probably the film’s best action scene even if that’s not saying a whole lot at this point.

Finally, I have to take another shot at Katniss and her final plan. Her final plan basically involves committing suicide to avoid capture and an untimely fate. Not only does she still manage to mess this up somehow, but it’s not a great plan. I can acknowledge heroes who go on suicide missions to save their friends, but not when they just decide to destroy themselves like in the Ronin film. It’s a very big difference between those two actions. Whatever the outcome, Katniss needed to either think of an escape plan or another way to carry out the plan. Just grabbing the pill is a big cop out and unfortunately an accurate representation of her character.

Overall, This film was an improvement over part 1 as we at least had some action, but it’s not enough to actually make this a good film. It’s just not a fun ride and the series was never fun from start to finish. The films dragged on for as long as possible and I was just waiting for the film to end. The “happy” ending at the end is still pretty lackluster. For starters, the romance between the two characters definitely wasn’t all that good to begin with and the friend zone should have occurred. Instead of being inspiring, the ending just feels rushed and out of the blue. The Hunger Games is truly worthy of the title…overrated.

Overall 2/10

Spectre Review

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images
I saw this film a while back so this review’s been on the back burner for quite a while at this point. Needless to say, I was not impressed and Spectre is a big drop from Skyfall. It tries to play out like the old James Bond films and that’s a bad thing. Not only is it not long enough for this film to be considered nostalgic like with what Creed and Star Wars are doing (Nostalgia in the sense that it brings back old scenes/plot references to get a rise out of the audience in an epic way) but it just brings up all of the reasons why I never liked the films in the first place. Brace yourselves because things are about to get real.

James Bond is on the hunt for an organization known as Spectre. They’re a worldwide terrorist organization that is bent on committing as many crimes as possible. Bond’s own MI6 is being taken over by a new company that wants to take control of all spy programs across the planet so the agent is on his own. Gee, I hope that the company is on the up and up though. Having complete control over the planet’s surveilance programs is a lot of power is one guy’s hand after all. Bond is so good that he still has a lot of high tech equipment at his side even without the company and he gets close to catching up to Spectre a few times only to be evaded at the last second. He’s going to need his old pal Q if he wants to come out on top!

The film is very long so the plot changes rather dramatically as the film progresses. Let’s just get the negatives out of the way first so we can discuss the characters and the film itself. For starters, the romance and objectification is back in full force for this feature. The opening credits are terrible and show why the James Bond franchise will never be respectable and why it will never be a good one either. The romance plots here are all terrible, forced, and simply unnecessary in the grand scheme of things. A widow who lost her husband about a day or two ago quickly gets over it and decides to move on to Bond. Granted, she didn’t seem to like the guy much and he was a villain, but it’s still not cool. It’s also hard to see her getting out of the place alive since Bond just left her with a phone number for an embassy.

One person is never enough so Bond also goes to the daughter of an old villain, Madeleine. She’s the main heroine of the film and while she tries to act like the tough heroine at all times, it didn’t take her long to get past the friend zone with Bond. The two characters keep on splitting up and getting back together throughout the entire film, which ends up being a plot line that drags on and doesn’t contribute to the film. It also makes the characters make some poor decisions. For example, Madeleine says that she’s had enough of Bond so she walks away to a dark alley during a tense moment where the villains are on the loose. Lo and behold, the villains kidnap her. Who did not see this coming?

There’s also the fact that even the fight scenes aren’t as enjoyable as they used to be. Remember when fight scenes were about slugging it out and just being the last man standing? That’s not how it goes now as the villains immediately go for eye shots, which makes for a long grapple where the villain will either succeed or fail. Instead of being an enjoyable bout, it turns into a fight that’s grimacing to watch. I’ve always been partial to eye shots and just don’t like to see them in my fights. Unfortunately, they tend to occur quite frequently nowadays.

This film is also pretty violent at times like when one villain pulls the eye shot on another. It’s a painfully long scene meant to show us how sinister and evil the villain is..but we already knew that. Everyone in the theater knew that these guys were evil already. We also get a long scene where the main villain drills through James Bond for a while before the agent is finally able to get free. The extra edge factor is not needed. It’s like adding a 6th cheese to a 5 cheese pizza. At that point, it doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.

All right, we’ve mostly gone through the main negatives at this point. Now, onto the characters! James Bond is actually very out of character here compared to Craig’s previous roles. Unlike the other Bonds, he was never overly interested in women to the point where he would flirt with everyone. He preferred to be detached from everyone and we only saw his affairs once in a while. Here? Nah, he’s back to being the original Bond. Who needs continuity when you have nostalgia moments for the fans right? Unfortunately, it destroys any chance that he had of being likable and Bond is a terrible main character. It’s good that he decided to leave MI6 once it was getting corrupt, but at the same time, he should have failed in his mission. My suspense for disbelief can only go so far as Bond managed to evade everyone for around a year. (I forgot exactly how long the timeskip was) Bond is a little tougher here than he was in Skyfall (The most embarrassing film of his career) but he still continues to lose to random guys with steroids. What’s the point of mastering hand to hand combat if you’ll get wrecked by any joker with super strength? I don’t fully understand! Ah well, his loss.

Ernst is the main villain and another intellectual whose only gimmick is that he can talk a good game. That’s it. He can’t fight and Ernst is only relevant because he has a large organization to back him up. While strategic villains can be all right sometimes like Light Yagami, most of the time I want the main villain to be able to fight back. Otherwise, it’s hard to take him seriously no matter how much hype the guy gets.

As far as the heroines in James Bond films go, Madeleine is a big improvement. If we ignore the romance parts, then she’s a decent character. She actually knows how to fight and isn’t afraid to use a gun. Madeleine has good reason to be upset with Bond as he gave her father a gun and basically assisted in the guy’s suicide. Certainly a less painful end for the guy since Spectre was going to destroy him, but it still doesn’t change the fact that James gave him the means to an end. Madeleine was too indecisive though and could not make up her mind no matter how great the stakes were.

Q is still a good tech person even if it’s hard to forget the more classic versions of the character. He’s younger and has less respect for Bond, but it’s very hard to respect 007 so I can sympathize. His inventions aren’t bad and Q does help a little during the film. At least he’s a loyal friend so that’s always good. I can respect Q as a character. M is probably my favorite character in the film even if he talks a little too much. He spends most of the climax bragging even though C manages to get the upper hand on him. That’s considering that M had the advantage of surprise. Again, he was too busy bragging to even consider that C might try to tackle him. C has no real fighting experience, but he can still give M a good fight, which probably isn’t a good sign for the old guy. I liked C as a political villain. I always love seeing politics even if it made everyone look bad. The CIA and the FBI aren’t so unintelligent that they would fall for this trap. Seriously, letting someone control their agencies? Hahahahahaha.

As far as the length is concerned, James Bond films are always a little too long so I can’t say that I was surprised. It’s still not a good thing though as the film does tend to drag on from time to time. It’s not as bad as the Hobbit where I would be on the verge of ZZZs though. I’d never really get that tired from James Bond with all of the explosions that were around, but it would have done well to have cut out a good chunk of time if you ask me. It may sound like a stretch, but a good 30-40 minutes could easily be shaved off.

While I was not very impressed with the fight scenes, I still enjoyed the nice car chase scenes. Those are always a lot of fun and it’s why films like Need for Speed and Fast & and the Furious always have potential. With a nice night backdrop to add some hype to the race, you can really never count a race out as being the best part of a film. It certainly was here even if Bond’s car should be a little faster considering that it’s a one of a kind machine that was built by Q.

Still, the film just couldn’t live up to the hype from the trailer. I figured that I wouldn’t like this film, but the trailer still hinted that this could be the best Bond film yet. I like the idea of an evil organization like Spectre and Bond having to face them all. It could have been so epic, but the film just never pulls this off. Even from small things like the organization having to remind us that they’re dealing with human trafficking (Again, we know they’re evil so why the extra details?) or the first action scene taking place in a packed area where the locale isn’t as vibrant and interesting as a city backdrop, the film couldn’t get as hype as it should have been.

Overall, I’m definitely fine with this being the final Bond film in the Craig era. Maybe it’s just time to give the franchise a long break and then we can check on it again in like 20 years or so. That’s definitely not a bad idea if you ask me. Listen to the reviews this time folks and just skip out on this film. If you want a more enjoyable theater experience, then go check out Creed or the new Mission Impossible. Mission Impossible continues to be a better secret agent film series than James Bond and at this point, the gap is so wide that I don’t see this changing in the near or far future. Game over Mr. Bond.

Overall 2/10

The Man with the Golden Arm Review

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It’s time to look at another old film, but this one won’t fare any better than Harper. In fact, I’d say that Harper actually ends up having the edge here as this film’s main character may be worse than Harper He definitely doesn’t make a whole lot of correct choices and the subplot involving his wife can certainly tire you out very quickly. Granted, the film does sound better than the film, where the ending seems like it would be a little more dicey.

Frankie has just gotten out or rehab and he’s looking to get a new start on his life. He is getting our of the dealing game and he doesn’t intend to do drugs anymore. That being said, it’s tricky to keep to this goal as his wife is constantly trying to shoot his hopes down and she does not want him to succeed. She pretends to be incapable of walking to keep Frankie together with her. The guilt tripping tactics prove to be quite effective. Can Frankie end this cycle?

Well, this film definitely wasn’t for me. I’m all for a slice of life film, but this one wasn’t very interesting. Moreover, I never like watching the guilt tactics work on the heroes so easily. It’s similar to “Whatever Happened To Baby Jane” except it’s not quite that bad. At least Frankie can still leave, he just doesn’t really think about this option enough. His mistake if you ask me. The whole film his wife is pestering him and it gets really old fast. Not to mention that Frankie should have known that she could walk the instant that he found his drumsticks on top of the high drawer. That’s a little suspicious and the fact that she tries to sabotage his career the whole time is also a little iffy.

This film mainly deals with the problems of drugs and how addicting they can be. Any vice is extremely hard to break away from as any long time smoker can tell you. So, Frankie’s battle against it is fairly realistic even if it does take up way too much screen time in this film. The problem is that he keeps making all of the wrong choices over and over again even though he knows that it will cost him his job. It’s definitely a pretty serious addiction that he has going for him and if not for his wife, he probably would have beaten it right away. The stress just got to him though and then he kept on relapsing over and over again. It certainly doesn’t make for an enjoyable watch. So, while this is a topic that isn’t tackled all that much, it’s probably best to leave it for the documentaries or it’ll be a bit of a downer.

I would have been content if more of the film had been about the dealings as Frankie was a part of an underground card playing association. The games were definitely high stakes and I love watching card games. That certainly would have kept my interest as those scenes were the best part of the movie. Once again, Frankie made the wrong call and it came back to bite him. That’s really the story of his life and I definitely did not like him.

The villains are naturally unlikable although, the underling of the drug dealer was always fun to watch as he panicked during the card games. Molly was a good supporting character and she was really the reason why Frankie managed to come out of this film in one piece. She was certainly a very helpful character and one you could root for. The plot with the drunk person was a little iffy and maybe Molly should try not to go overboard with the whole being nice thing, but she tries. Frankie also had another friend who helped groom dogs. That guy would support him, but also got Frankie into trouble by bringing him stolen shirts. It was another unfortunate moment for the lead although he should not have accepted since he knew that they were stolen.

The soundtrack was definitely intense and whenever Frankie would go to get a shot, a really quick/ominous theme would play. It was actually quite memorable and that’s more than I can say for most movies so I’ll give the film a lot of props there. It’s not every day that you see such a stellar soundtrack. It’s a shame that the rest of the movie couldn’t have been that good. I was also glad that a dog got to appear for a while and nothing happened to him. Not including animal violence in your film is the first step to success. While this film couldn’t rise above that, it was still nice to see.

There is also some action in the film. Not a whole lot of course, but one guy is slammed to the ground and another one is pushed off of a tall staircase. It was an impressive show of strength for one character although it made the other person look a little iffy. Why would you threaten to shake someone’s life to their core when you’re going to turn your back to that individual while laughing? The villain clearly did not think his plan through at all and certainly regretted that course of action. Then, we have the quick chase scene at the end. You can almost feel the tension in the air as the main characters make the tough calls…almost. It gets quite fatal for at least one individual.

Overall, The Man With The Golden Arm wasn’t a very good film, it was actually a very bad one. Part of the problem is that it just didn’t live up to its name. His Golden Arm allowed Frankie to be great at card games and music, but both of those areas were not explored as well as they should have been. Honestly, the title is a little misleading and I suppose that you could dig up some other meanings behind that like how he always got the drugs in that arm, but it doesn’t eliminate the fact that you may have expected a different movie. I certainly didn’t expect such a large portion of the film to be about his drug problem. It’s good to raise awareness on such things and hopefully get people not to take drugs, but it comes at the expense of how much you can enjoy the film. I just didn’t enjoy this one and the run time felt like forever while watching it. Just think of the movie as being like a bad hotel experience. You arrive with great hopes, only to find that it’s an empty room with nothing to help you pass the time. That’s the essence of the film in a nutshell. If you want a good retro film, then your best bet is to watch the original Astro Boy TV show.

Overall 2/10

Horror of Dracula Review

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Time to look at another Dracula film! Dracula has always been my least favorite of the classic monster legends. Yes…he’s less enjoyable for me than Frankenstein! I didn’t have high hopes for this film, but it was an old one so maybe it would be good. Alas, it wasn’t to be. The film made all of the mistakes that you would expect of it aside from animal violence. While I am grateful about the last part, it’s not enough to save the whole film.

Mr. Harker heads to Dracula’s lair to end the vampire once and for all. Little did he know that the mission was doomed to fail right from the start. Dracula is simply too powerful and with his telekinesis..there is really nothing that a mere mortal can do. Van Helsing realizes that Harker has been gone for a long time and decides to take out Dracula himself. Can he really beat the vampire or will everyone have to die first?

The film is surprisingly violent so you should be ready for a large body count. Characters are impaled and naturally bitten as this is a vampire film. It’s why I will never be able to get into Vampire films since blood sucking is essentially inevitable. If a 50’s version of Dracula is this violent, you can imagine how gruesome the latter ones are. Dracula takes no prisoners and simply creates more and more vampires whenever he fights.

I will give the film some credit for actually doing a good job of making you think that Mr. Harker actually stands a chance. He’s very confident and puts on a good poker face when talking to Dracula. His mistake was letting his feelings get in the way of his mission. He should have found it a little suspicious that there was a girl who wouldn’t tell him much, yet she still wanted to bypass the friend zone with him. Sadly, Mr. Harker is like the average film protagonist in the sense that he just doesn’t care. It certainly came back to bite him.

Vampires are typically weak against Garlic, Sunlight, and the sign of the Cross. It depends on the version, but all three are effective in this version and they are the best way to fight them off. Van Helsing uses all three, but he forgets them for the final battle so we get to see a quick fist fight. As with most classic monsters, Dracula likes to resort to the classic choking attack to take the heroes down for the count. It proves to be a bit of a mistake as it always gives the heroes a little extra time to prepare themselves.

Dracula doesn’t have a whole lot of personality and it seems like he just wants to make everyone miserable and suck as much blood as possible. His character had potential in the opening scenes, but then he quickly went off the deep end and became a villain who simply needed to be stopped. I suppose that’s all the character that he really needs, but it doesn’t make me care for him as an antagonist.

Mr. Harker was a decent lead, but his one mistake was a huge one and made him look like a rookie. How can you let yourself get bitten? Howwwwwwww! Van Helsing is more prepared than Mr. Harker, but he loves to be vague. Instead of rushing over to challenge Dracula, he likes to have some bait ready and it always cooking up a scheme that will allow him to approach the vampire from a defensive standpoint. Helsing is smart, but not overly brave and he could have reduced the body count if he had been upfront with the other characters from the start.

He certainly doesn’t deserve all of the blame though as the rest of the characters look pretty bad as well. Dracula’s victims aren’t able to fight their urges nor are they able to defend themselves so Dracula easily manages to take them out. If you know that you’re about to die anyway, you may as well through a good punch or something. It’ll look good on the stat sheet.

The first vampire lady to appear was rather odd on that front. She asked Harker to help her and then she attacked him. That’s not a very effective way to get someone to help and then Dracula defeated her. I assume that her lust for blood was just too powerful, but that still makes her look terrible. If you want to escape, then that should give you enough motivation to escape instead of going back and forth with the decisions. Ah well, that’s why her mission ultimately failed.

The beginning of the film with Mr. Harker was the best part and I feel like the whole film would have been better off if it had followed his plot a little more. Spending 80% of the film as a mystery thriller with him would have been epic. He would have had to die at some point anyway, but that would be the climax and the rest of the film would have still been fairly epic. Fans who went in expecting Dracula to get a big role would have been disappointed, but it would have all been worth it for the epic intro.

Dracula doesn’t look very tough in this version. I would still choose him over The Mummy in a fight as their physical abilities are more or less equal, but Dracula has the speed edge. Beyond that, I have a feeling that bullets would hurt him in this version as he didn’t seem all too sturdy. If he really cannot turn into a bat as Helsing believes, that also hurts his retreat options. The humans could have beaten Dracula if they knew any good judo tricks. Running up to Dracula and throwing a punch is simply not going to cut it here.

Overall, Dracula doesn’t manage to be as entertaining as the Mummy film. It’s short, but it’s still just pretty bad. The violence was a little over the top and you’ll just be reminded of why vampire films are no fun. The bitemarks are always a little gross and the concept of blood sucking is rather sad as well. Dracula Untold managed to avoid all of that for the most part and if you want to watch a film with the legend, check that one out instead. This one is best left in the relics of yesterday as it is forgotten while in the shadow of the original. Of course, this film did get 8 sequels…which is very intriguing. The legacy did not die here!

Overall 2/10

The Woman in Black 2 Angel of Death Review

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All right, it is time to see the sequel to the Woman in Black. While I do like the saying about not judging a book by its cover…you often can. There are some movies where you know that they will not be good and vice versa. It would take something rather dramatic for me to dislike Age of Ultron and the trailer for something like Mad Max would have to be extremely misleading for me to believe that it is good. These things aren’t set in stone, but I have a fairly good idea of what to expect before I head in. This film essentially met my expectations so my gut instinct was right on this one.

Well, this may be the second film, but it is actually a prequel. That’s fairly disappointing I suppose since it is always preferable to look to the future as the plot can advance. After all, we basically know the ending thanks to the plot twist about the swamp in the first film right? Well, the backstory was only lightly touched upon so you still may not guess the ending although you will certainly predict the twist. Now, let’s really talk about the plot.

Eve is the main character and she heads to a mysterious house along with a group of orphans/kids who need protecting. World War II is raging on after all so the heroes have to get to safety. Eve is not the headmistress, but she helps out along with the leader. The house seems to be evil and strange occurrences like moving doors and sounds start to happen, but the main characters try to tune this out. The area is strategically sound as the rising tide makes it impossible to approach the house during most parts of the day unless you have a boat. That being said, someone appears to have infiltrated the island and wanders from tree to tree! Uh oh…can Eve defeat The Woman in Black?

When was the last time that you sneezed when watching a film. Was it when Lex Luthor kicked Superman down a flight of stairs or when Godzilla was crushed by Mothra many years ago? You may get in a few sneezes here as The Woman In Black tries to make her presence known while also being vague. The film is short as it is nowhere near 2 hours so there isn’t a lot of time for the villains to do anything. A surprisingly large amount of time is just given for the heroes to wander about and wonder what they are going to do. Still, when the Woman in Black does arrive…she is not very impressive. Evidently, she can roar and scream, but she can’t do anything else. She doesn’t display any level of super strength and the heroes could likely beat her in a fight if they actually tried. The problem is that the characters always run away from her instead of trying to do anything. The main guy actually backs away when he sees one of the possessed kids. Dude…it…he..is still a kid!

Harry is the main guy and he doesn’t look very good. He’s a decent character and he means well, but the sob story just came out of the blue. He needed one though to fit the film. In this kind of film, everyone has something that they wish to hide or a dark past that has yet to be explored. It happens almost every time. At least he went out like a man and had a decent ending even though he should have been able to put up a better fight. At least he made the right call,

Eve is fairly generic for a lead, but she does try her best to do the right thing. There’s certainly no real negative things to say about her. The romance is rather rushed, unnecessary, and also generic, but she can only claim half of the blame for that. She locked the door and warned everyone about the supernatural so Eve was a lot more helpful than the rest of the cast. Naturally, this did make her a bit of a target. The villains can’t have any of that!

As per usual, the horror films love to give demons a whole lot of props. They can possess you and totally override your free will. It is a little sad as hollywood is brainwashing us into looking at only half of the equation. Demons are real, but their power is greatly exaggerated. Don’t underestimate how lethal they can be, but they are certainly not all powerful. In this film, the humans have no chance against them. The demons are basically just toying with the heroes for as long as they can and the twist ending basically solidifies this.

As per usual, we have a twist ending. I have grown to expect them in horror films and they are needed since every film should have a twist ending. That being said, it is handled in a very generic way as everyone knew what to expect. Seriously….there was no other way that the ending was going to be handled at that point. A more subtle twist like the Woman in Black growing wings and shooting energy blasts would have been nice, but this is better than nothing I suppose.

Some films like to start off with an epic intro while others prefer to start off on a low note. Unfortunately, this film had some brief animal violence to start things off. A lamb/sheep got caught on the fence, which injured it. This wasn’t a terrible moment of animal violence, but it was completely unnecessary and did nothing to help the film. I don’t know whose idea it was to add this animal, but it was certainly a terrible one.

It is also unfortunate that there are kids in this film. Seeing the demons basically force them to destroy themselves was very bad. It is one of the things that will always hurt a film. Keep the children out of it and just give us unlikable characters to defeat instead. This just makes the film not enjoyable to watch and one of the reasons that it wouldn’t be able to succeed. There’s also a crazy, blind guy who is really only here to give us some more jump scenes. I don’t think there was a point to adding him and there aren’t supposed to be other people in the area. This guy is definitely a security risk if I ever saw one.

So, the film played out as it would be expected to. There is a monster/demon who is running around trying to wreck lives and turn the heroes against each other. We have animal violence and the humans are helpless against these forces . It doesn’t make for a very engaging film and nothing ends up happening. The heroes basically just stayed at the house for a while and eventually left. If nothing else, prequels are supposed to serve a purpose and I didn’t see one here. We could have not made the prequel and literally nothing would change. If you’re looking for development for the Woman in Black, you’re not going to find anything new here. It is basically just the same rambling from the 1st film.

Overall, The Woman In Black 2 is a film that I wouldn’t recommend. It suffers from the typical problems of the horror genre and there’s ultimately no point to it. We don’t learn any new data so the prequel may have not even come out. Actually, a mild correction there. This is actually still a sequel and takes place 40 years after the 1st one. Wow…you would never guess that and this is actually the biggest twist that the film series could have given me. In a way..the writers deserve some praise for this. The film isn’t fun and the only kudos that I could give it is the fact that the film’s ending is slightly happier than you may have expected. I thought that the whole cast would just drown or something, but the actual ending is much better. We also get the twist ending, which hints that everyone is doomed, but maybe they’ll be okay. If you want a scary film, check out Justice League Starcrossed as the Earth gets invaded. Can the heroes win!?

Overall 2/10

Heist Review

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Note that this review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be understood as belonging to this version of the film as a review of the uncut version would likely be more negative.
HEIST
Time to look at a Heist film, hence the title. This genre can be quite good as we saw in Ocean’s Eleven and I’m confident that the Ant-Man film coming up will be good or decent. Unfortunately, Heist doesn’t live up to its name and it takes the genre way too literally. It plays out like a classic crime film and you can barely even call it a heist by the end. Seriously…the heroes just don’t do anything for most of the film.

The main characters were part of a gang, but they decided to stop robbing stores when their leader was caught on camera as he attempted to escape. Unfortunately for Joe, another mobster wants him to do one more job. It’s not exactly a request and Joe has no money so he can’t escape otherwise. He’ll have to comply, but can he really suceed in this job when he also has to deal with a watchdog on his tail? Not a literal one, but the mobster’s son/nephew/some kind of relative is assigned to watch. Joe doesn’t like this one bit!

Joe may not like that, but it’s safe to say that I don’t like Joe. The film flopped for several reasons, but let’s get into the biggest one right away. The writing. This film has more language than the average horror film and it’s very in your face. The heroes will swear in just about every scene and Joe went on a roll at one point where he would curse in just about every sentence that he spoke. I always found that provocative language is just a sign of bad writing. The writers don’t know how to engage the audience in the scene so they just use course language to get everyone to pay attention. It’s a bold strategy, but one that it always doomed to fail.

The characters also reuse the same words over and over again. “It’s burned Joe” No, it’s not burnt Bob” It’s burnt…burrrrrrrrrnt!” They say the word, burn, and its other variations many times as the film goes on. You’ll eventually start wincing and wondering what’s going on here. No exaggeration, they probably say this at least 20-30 times. It gets old very quickly. The conversations go round and round and round. The film may have had some hope otherwise, but it’s almost literally impossible to be a good film when the writing is this lousy. A by product of this is that every character is instantly unlikable so it’s safe to say that their potential is out the window.

No worries, this film wasn’t about to just make one critical mistake. There’s also a degree of fanservice involved as Joe sends his wife to entice one of the villains. The very thought of Joe sending her off on such a mission already shows you more than a little about his true character. It’s a pretty cheap trick and the villains don’t really buy into it anyway. The scenes with her and the villain are rather unnecessary and the heroes could have tried to trick them in a better way.

Those are really my main two complaints with the film, but they sure deal a lot of damage. Another factor to add in is that the film simply isn’t interesting. There’s barely even a plot as it goes on. Joe will try to trick everyone and keep his money, but the villains won’t let him and that’s really all that happens. There is also a lot of the usual plot hax of course, like a police guard being defeated so easily and the cop actually believing what she heard in a bar. Naturally, these things will happen I suppose. Joe is also given an awful lot of time by himself to paint his hold and hide it in two trucks considering that the villains are on to him….

If I had to pick a character that was at least a little likable or close to it, I would pick Joe’s main assistant. He’s essentially the bouncer and since Joe isn’t the greatest fighter around, the guy protects him. He gets a pretty happy ending and he did good in the big fight scenes. It’s a little hard to imagine how he was able to stay underwater so long without an obvious air pipe sticking out, but we’ve already questioned the film’s writing so let’s not go there…

There are actually some fight scenes, but none of them are very good. They’re simply standard punches and kicks, which won’t be winning the film any brownie points. What it needs to do is look back and reflect on the many things that went wrong so that a potential reboot can be made better. For one thing, serious and heist don’t really go together. If the heist is played too seriously, then there’s a chance that the film will overcompensate by making all of the heroes really unlikable and evil.

We need some kind of plot twist to show that they’re stealing from someone who’s actually crooked. At least they try not to murder any civilians, but it’s only a small start. (That reminds me that it’s hard to believe that they could grab a job at the local coffee shop and drug everyone’s coffee….) Ocean’s Eleven was the perfect example of how to do the genre and this film should have taken some notes. The main characters in Ocean’s Eleven (Some of them anyway) were pretty likable villains. You still do need to call them villains since they are robbing the place, but they’re doing it in a professional manner. These guys lacked professionalism at every corner. Granted, you need good writing to pull off what Ocean’s Eleven did, but you could say the same for just about every film. There’s no real soundtrack so we’ll have to skip that section.

Now, let’s think of how the film could have realistically been improved. 1. Each of the characters is professional and the writing is on par with The Avengers GI Joe. 2. Get rid of the fanservice and the whole plot between the main villain’s relative and heroine. 3. Establish more of an actual plot. We need to know what they’re stealing and how they’re going to do it directly. Not in between all of the burnt comments. That’s not a lot of things, but it would have bumped up the score by at least 3-4 stars. That’s pretty good if you ask me.

Overall, Heist is terrible. It’s the kind of film where you’ll be counting down the minutes until it’s finally over. The ending has one of the main characters smirking, but you’ll be wondering why he’s smirking. One of his friends isn’t around anymore and his wife is gone. He got some money…but that’s hardly going to change things. If you want to see a good heist film, check out Ocean’s Eleven like I’ve been hinting or check out Dragon Ball Z, but be warned that it’s not actually related to the heist genre. Why did I recommend it? Simply because DBZ is pretty awesome. Now, we simply have to wait for the Ant Man film to see how it handles the slippery slope of being a heist film.

Overall 2/10

Unbreakable Review

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It’s time to look at a superhero film that doesn’t involve good ole DC or Marvel. Naturally, that can be a little dicey at times since we don’t have the tried and true Stan Lee to ensure that character development goes well. Unfortunately, my fears were realized as the film quickly crashed once the superhero element began. Seriously, the film was good for over 60% of its run time, but then everything went downhill from there!

David works as a security guard and he’s pretty good at his job. One day, he is approached by Elijah, a man who claims that David may have the uncanny ability of being unbreakable. David cannot get sick and Elijah is on the opposite end of the spectrum as his bones break at the slightest touch. David is intrigued, but he doesn’t know what to do about all this. Ah well, he has about an hour-90 minutes to decide where he goes from here.

All right, here’s why the superhero part failed. The film decided to go for grit and darkness instead of actually providing us with a real threat. David can see the past, which is one of the worst powers that you can think of since he will know that things have happened to people, but he can’t stop them. Conveniently, he sees a problem that he can still help with, but the damage has been done and that’s why the film sunk. The film showed us a bunch of grim happenings that happened to the characters around the lead and there’s no need for it. Assault, Rape, Murder, you basically see all of that and the main character can’t do anything about this. As far as I am concerned, that destroyed any chance that the film had of being even somewhat decent.

David attacks the murderer and defeats him, but the film didn’t need to show us the other situations. If they had to display his ability to see the past, they should have just showed us people stealing jewels or robbing a hot dog stand. Minor crimes would give us the same image without just being dark to be dark. It’s a lesson that more films could definitely learn if they want to succeed the way that Bonds Beyond Time did.

The final fight is actually pretty humorous because of how it happens. Let’s just say that it’s hard to know what the director was going for here. David has been shown to be able to bench press over 350 pounds so we know that he has some degree of super strength. And yet…he can barely take out the average thug. He gets the guy into a choke hold and then they wrestle for an awkward 5-10 minutes. The guy simply won’t go down and David looks extremely unimpressive. Naturally, David decides not to take any prisoners so he pulls a Man of Steel on us. Yeah, this guy’s going to end up being more like the Punisher than a real hero at this rate. He also lost round 1 when he was simply pushed into a pool.

Again, every bit of the superhero part of this film was pretty bad, but it was actually good before that. Elijah’s backstory was pretty sad, but we got to see him make it through that in one piece and own an art gallery. He was pretty unreasonable, but the scene of him defending comics as actual art was pretty funny. Elijah was a decent character for a while. The ending makes him very unlikable of course and the way that he trashed the comic store was completely uncalled for. So, he had his moments in the film, but he could have been better. Considering his condition, he shouldn’t be much of a threat to David.

As for David, I guess he’s a decent character although he’s rather slow on the uptake at times. He just spends a lot of time dragging things out and being rather indecisive. I find it hard to believe that he simply forgot about his past. You don’t really forget events like that and how has he never realized that he had super strength? A bit of a stretch in those areas, but he tries to be a nice guy. The main outlier is the opening scene where David decides to flirt and hides his wedding band. That made him pretty despicable. For most of the film, he’s certainly not a bad character, but you can’t easily forget such a scene. David gets some development later on, which possibly counteracts the scene. Hopefuly..he just needs to work on improving himself a bit. That shouldn’t be a problem. Once he is used to being a hero, maybe he’ll remember that you have to be heroic and take the villains to the authorities to qualify.

David’s kid is a pretty annoying character I’m afraid and he shows why kids should never be main or supporting characters in any films. His decision to shoot David to prove that he was a superhero is pretty crazy and he should know that with great super strength doesn’t always come great durability. The kid certainly hasn’t been keeping up with the comics even though he owns some action figures. There was an odd romance going on between David and the heroine, but it didn’t have a place in the film and it makes you wonder what the point of it all was. They are already married so that subplot could have just been terminated before it even began.

The film isn’t great with pacing. There are many points in the film where it is clearly stalling to inflate the run time. This film could have easily happened in closer to 70 minutes as we have almost half an hour of fluff. David just thinking or other characters standing still and waiting to be blown away. The film needed to move a little quicker and show us that there was still a point to all of this. The problem is that there isn’t much to the plot if they played it straight. It was a little convenient how the characters found out about David’s weakness and it would have been more natural if they hadn’t found out until he fell in the pool. It would have been a big “Connect the dots” moment and more of a shocker that way. Not really a negative though, just a different path that it could have taken.

Overall, Unbreakable is a classic example of what happens to a film without an end goal in mind. Once David became a superhero, the film fell apart very quickly. If it had just stuck to being a suspense thriller, it really could have gone far. As it stands, you are better off checking out Man of Steel or the Avengers. Those superhero films are always ready for action and they will inspire you to see other superhero films while this one can just make you avoid them. I can’t say that I would hold out much hope for a sequel being good, but you never know. Either way, the next time you want something that is unbreakable, I recommend buying some Jaw Breakers! (Disclaimer, those candies are choking hazards and are as tough to chew as they are delicious to eat)

Overall 2/10