Category Archives: 2 Star Movies

Brothers Review

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

Uh oh, it’s time for one of those films where everyone makes so many mistakes that the film can’t possibly make a comeback. You always hope that maybe, just maybe the film is not going in the direction that you expected it to go but ultimately it does and all you can do is watch it happen in real time.

The film starts off by introducing us to two brothers, Sam and Tommy. They are very different people and contrast each other almost completely. Sam is super responsible and is a soldier who goes off into battle to make the world a better place. Tommy tends to be reckless and get drunk, the guy is just coming out of jail for robbery. Well, one day Sam heads off to war and doesn’t come back. He’s said to be dead and so his wife Grace is devastated. Tommy wants to do his best to step up an help out now but the problem is that he ends up falling for Grace. Is this his big chance to finally have her to himself?

So the first thing that completely obliterates the movie right out of the gate is the romance. Look, we all know these things from a young age thanks to the school of common sense. You don’t go after anyone who is dating family. Doesn’t matter if it’s the girlfriend of a sibling, cousin, parents, some third removed uncle, etc. They are completely off limits. I know this next part’s gonna hurt but bear with me on this. There is no time limit on this. Yessss, even if they break up at some point, you are not allowed to be the rebound. I’m afraid that this girl is out of your reach forever now.

You can cry it out for a little while, put some distance and make sure you don’t see this person for a while, etc. However you need to cope, just remember that this is a social rule of complete authority. Me personally, I don’t care much for a lot of social rules. I tend to think a lot of them are outdated but this is one that just makes sense ethically so yeah it still holds up. If you are in love with that person then you better be prepared to internalize that all the way to the grave. This also applies to friends as well by the way. It’s not quite as ironclad there but it’s still something to keep in mind. Don’t go after your friend’s girl either.

So then the question becomes, “If I’m extremely weak willed how do I resist making a move?” Well if you’re so weak willed that you can’t control yourself then obviously you have to move to another country so that you’re never in the same room together. Fortunately most people have at least basic self control so you should be fine. Unfortunately this movie doesn’t go in that direction. Tommy does end up getting together with Grace after they were both flirting for a while and then get drunk. Maybe…..mayyyyybe you shouldn’t be getting drunk with someone who is emotionally vulnerable at the time?

Make no mistake, Grace gets some of the blame to be sure but I’m putting most of this on Tommy. Simply put, it’s way more personal there since he is actually Sam’s brother. That will always carry a bit more weight since we’re talking direct family here. He never should have let things happen and the fact that they stopped afterwards is barely a silver lining. It still happened and permanently destroyed any trust that the relationship could have had for Sam and Grace. So there’s no coming back from that. The film is about Tommy becoming a better person and helping out but this undermines the whole plot.

Meanwhile it also hurts Grace a whole lot. If the film was going to play her up as in a different role where she wanted a new husband because there were bills to pay or she was going to be in debt now then that would still be terrible but at least it would be a plan and not a mistake. You just can’t make these kinds of mistakes so either way it’s a big loss for her. Finally you have Sam and hey…he’s the role model right? The guy you can count on in all situations to make the right decision? Well the film has to drag him through the mud as well.

After he’s captured and tortured for a while Sam is ultimately told to make the big choice. If he murders someone else in cold blood then he can escape and in that moment Sam puts his life above the other guy’s in order to escape. It’s just awful and a jaded look at how humans will ultimately make the wrong call when put under pressure. That’s a big no no in my book. For starters, you already know they’re going to murder and torture him some more after this so why even go out on their terms? Make a move for the gun or something and best case they shoot you in the head as a painless death. Your odds are much better at dying quickly this way.

Maybe you’ll somehow hit the 1 in a billion jackpot and make a comeback but what you don’t do is murder the guy. If we at least got a scene where Sam says he did it because he thought the guy was going to be tortured a lot more and wanted to put him out of his misery then that would at least be worth discussion. Misguided I would argue but there is a very strong and legitimate case to be made for that reasoning. Nah, Sam just did it on the hopes that he could go home.

Unfortunately he has a lot of PTSD after that and the whole affair with Grace and Tommy did not help matters out at all. Ultimately this leads to a fairly explosive climax. A lot is going on and the film’s certainly very loud but the whole thing got way too dramatic. None of the characters were particularly likable by the end. The film would have been better off being an emotional road to recovery type of film. Remove the scene with Grace and Tommy and instead focus on both of them respectfully working to move on and honor Sam’s memory. The real tragedy here is that the movie has a lot of groundwork for that kind of plot and you can see the potential. In the end it just didn’t happen.

There’s also more drama with Tommy’s father putting him down and saying a lot of hurtful things that he can’t take back. That plot could have been handled more tactfully I’d say. The writing is rather over reliant on language so the TV version really had its work cut out for it there. The pacing is okay at least. The film’s rather long but there is a lot to cover. Of course the war scenes tend to be rather violent so when the film isn’t being dramatic and dark you’re seeing the soldiers get tortured. It’s a little hard to enjoy the happy moments at home as a result. This contrast is intentional but it’s not doing the film any favors.

Overall, The moral of this film is really how one mistake can change a person’s entire life. That’s what happened to all 3 of the main characters. They did things that they can’t take back and will have to live with for the rest of their lives. The ending tries to offer a little hope but for the most part I would say that it is a sad ending. Things will never return to the way that they once were. That’s life of course but usually you hope for better circumstances.

Overall 2/10

The Book of Henry Review

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All right it’s time for a film that is definitely ambitious but I’m afraid that it fails on all accounts. When you see this film you immediately know that it’s not going places and I’m afraid that it never manages to make the comeback. This is a film that you definitely want to avoid. Instead of picking up this book to watch, read a classic book somewhere out there like Tim: Defender of Earth.

The movie starts by introducing us to Henry who is an absolute genius. The boy is still very young, yet he is an inventor, stock broker, and does whatever he has to. He is emotionally a little distant compared to other kids due to this but Henry has helped his family out a lot over the years. Unfortunately he has a big problem to get through now that won’t be easy. It turns out that his next door neighbor Glenn is actually a criminal who has been ruining his daughter Sheila’s life. Unfortunately he is the police chief and has a spotless record so nobody is doing anything about this and Sheila’s not really in a position to do anything either. Nobody except for Henry even suspects that something is going on since she rare has visible bruising. Henry decides that in order to save Sheila, he will have to murder Glenn.

Naturally this is a tough undertaking even for a genius like Henry. Additionally he has some medical issues going on as well and isn’t at peak strength. So he has to find a way to murder Glenn without leaving any evidence or causing his family trouble. His mother Susan enjoys playing a lot of shooters throughout the day and just having fun living life while his brother Peter is a normal kid and so he can’t keep up with these life and death stakes. In a way Henry is sort of on his own with this.

The kid genius characters can be a little hard to take seriously at times and I have to admit that this happens for this movie as well. It’s great to see Henry making his family rich and all but when he tries to be serious I just can’t take the scene quite as seriously. He’s a good kid though which is what counts even if he’s not a very interesting character. His brother Peter doesn’t get a lot to do here. He gets some development near the end as he tries his best to help out but his role in the film is effectively filler.

Susan gets a big role as the mother of course. It was a fresh change of pace to see the adult playing video games and having a good time. So often in these films you see the parents just doing work or reading a book but not having any kind of personality or hobbies. If there are hobbies it would be something like golf. So the video games was pretty fun. In a way her plot is about growing up though which goes against this and by the end you wonder if she will be having as much fun.

For obvious reasons within the film’s context she will be serious for a while but hopefully she still keeps up with gaming and all. The idea that it wouldn’t be a serious hobby is a bit dated if you ask me. Unfortunately she looks really bad near the end as the film makes one of the all time classic blunders. Let me put the scenario in this context. You are face to face with an unrepentant monster who is fully prepared to murder you. You have made it clear that his life will be over if he doesn’t murder you and both of you happen to be in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night with no witnesses.

Your only real options here are to murder him or be murdered. The film tries to present the argument for violence never being the way but does so in very sloppy fashion. By all logic Susan should have been obliterated in that scene. So I’d argue her whole climax is poorly written and makes her look like a really bad character. It’s a selfish decision first of all. If she gets bumped off there, then her kid is going to be in a lot of trouble and things will only get worse for Sheila.

It’s one thing if you’re being held at gunpoint to decide not to fight back and just be resigned to your death. It’s another if you have the opportunity to take the gun away and 3 hostages are behind you. The film definitely lost me here…well it lost me more than it already had. The climax is just really bad and there are many times where being a pacifist is straight up the wrong move. This is definitely one of those times.

I’d argue that in general getting drunk a lot at home to the point where the kids can predict it is irresponsible as well but I guess I won’t deduct as many points from her there. In theory at home should be the one place you can drink past your limit if that’s something you want to do. It doesn’t set up a great example, but that’s how it goes. Meanwhile her friend Sheila doesn’t really add much to the film either. Her scene with Henry just ends up being cringe and this felt like Peter where the film was adding a character to bloat the cast a bit even though she had nothing to do.

David gets a randomly rushed romance setup which makes no sense. You can’t really convince me that this would ever work as just seeing him should bring up bad memories for Susan every time. Then you have Christina who you just feel bad for the whole time. She really went through a lot and nobody was being particularly helpful for a while there. The fact that she hasn’t shut down completely and is able to keep up a nice attitude speaks volumes about her good character.

Then you have Glenn as the main villain who is basically just a character written to be super evil so there’s nothing to like there. You’re just rooting for his downfall the whole time. Still, it’s the subplot that destroys the film so in a way you could blame him for making the film no good. Without him I don’t think this would be a smash hit or anything but it would be considerably better. I would also change Henry’s ending a little bit as well and then the score would immediately be tripled. For a long while into the film I was expecting some kind of fakeout even if that would have been really hard to make convincing.

Overall, The Book of Henry is definitely a film that I would recommend staying away from. It ultimately fails by resorting to shock value with the dark Glenn plot as well as Henry’s plight. The film has so much drama and then the characters don’t react to it properly. Particularly with the first plot as there should have been a lot more urgency here and no getting cold feet at the end when you have the chance. The film isn’t always sure what kind of tone it wants to have and ultimately tends to make the wrong choices.

Overall 2/10

Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome Review

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Strap in folks because it’s time for another Mad Max film. These never fail to disappoint me because the series is so big and yet the films always end up being super underwhelming. This one may beat the original but it’s still not a film that is going to stack up all that high. The film is very dreary the whole time without any big fight scenes to really take it to the next level.

The film starts out with Max getting punked as his vehicle is stolen and so he makes his way to a town that is ruled by violence! They have the famous Thunderdome where you have to fight someone to the death. Max is tough but these guys have a lot of strength too. There are two factions trying for control here. The first group is the one who actually runs the place, Master who is protected by his bodyguard Blaster. Then you have Aunty who has dreams of ruling the place but no way to usurp the throne yet. So she asks Max for help and he agrees so he can get his car and get out of there. Was that a wise move?

The film’s title of being beyond the Thunderdome is pretty accurate since we don’t spend much time in the ring at all. Max is out of there fairly quick as he becomes a runaway and then bumps into a tribe of lost kids. These kids have been waiting for the prophecy of someone like Max to come and save them. They have images of the old world and what the Earth used to be like and that has basically turned into legendary stories over the years. Max breaks it to them gently and works with them to stop the other villains.

Here’s one of the big problems with the Mad Max films in general, you have no real reason to care about the plot. Most of these characters are as generic as they come and there is no real escape. The whole world has already been completely obliterated and even if you escape one group, another one will find you before long. Nobody is trying to rebuild society or anything. There is no progress of that from the first film to the last. If anything I’d say it’s gotten worse. At least in the first film you would still see some semblances of humanity. Now it’s all empty desert which I’m guessing is due to climate change or something.

It’s a world that has given up on being saved and so you just don’t really care at this point. There are no particularly likable characters here and just about everyone is corrupt. The kids aren’t evil yet of course but you doubt that they will be able to become upstanding citizens when they do grow up. Assuming they even live that long with how rough things are. The Mad Max universe is like if everyone was forced to permanently be barbarians until the end of time. As if time never actually moved forward because well it can’t. Without someone trying to change things then we will forever be stuck in the era.

It’s a setting that didn’t work the first time and it doesn’t work now. The film is super grim and while this one is less explicit than some of the other titles, it’s still rather painful. Nobody has a good quality of life here and I can’t think of any real happy scenes here. It goes without saying that Max very rarely smiles but unless you count evil smiles, nobody else is really smiling either. So as the viewer…what is left for me? Not much……not much at all.

The special effects aren’t anything to write home about and I can’t think of any good themes either. The big fight between Blaster and Max isn’t even good because it’s really just a lot of jumping. The way it works in the ring, you use any weapon that you get and you are on a harness so you can jump around a lot. It means there isn’t a ton of actual fighting going on. This is good for Max because it’s made very clear that he wasn’t going to last long in a straight fight against such a built guy. On the other hand, you still could have had some good choreography and martial arts if you really wanted to. Unfortunately the film did not want to do that and so that means there weren’t even a bunch of great fights here.

Then I’m not typically a big fan of kids in these things either and this didn’t exactly change that. The kid mean well but they can’t really fight or anything so they’re not all that helpful for the most part. They help with sheer numbers and back up Max by the end but I definitely could have done without that whole plot. Look, in a film like this I can usually at least jump on the movie having a bunch of animal violence, fanservice, or other issues but at least there’s something to really dive into.

Part of the problem with this film is there aren’t even a bunch of topics to tackle like that. There’s nothing you’re super invested in getting into because the film is just boring. The next Mad Max has more to jump into because it’s a much worse film but the Thunderdome? There’s just not much point to it at all. The whole film should have been about the Thunderdome, at least then we would have a tournament even if my hopes would be extremely low. I have serious doubts that the film would really be able to deliver with the big fights here.

Overall, Mad Max Beyond the Thunderdome is definitely not very good. It’s not as crazy as some other titles in the series to be sure but it’s just so boring. You just really don’t care about anything and this has to be one of the blandest dystopia worlds that I’ve ever seen. Give me some high tech devices or something at the very least. I want a cool character or something. Maybe throw in some witty banter? We get absolutely nothing like that. There’s seriously not a single interesting thing about the movie so skip this at all costs.

Overall 2/10

Kingdom of the Spiders Review

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It’s time for a story about evil spiders so you know that this is going to be intense. Spiders do not hold back and I can tell you that from experience. I personally don’t think they’re quite as scary as the movies would have you believe but then again I’ve never come face to face with one of those huge ones in real life. I’ve only been around the smaller variety. This movie is a pretty intense thriller through and through with a really solid ending but the characters are not amazing and there is some serious plot armor here.

Okay so the story starts off with Rack messing around. He’s probably the best doctor in this small town in part because he’s the only one. When a horse dies from some venom randomly he’s kind of puzzled but calls in an expert. Diane shows up and explains that it was a spider bite but Rack doesn’t take her seriously for a moment and keeps flirting with her. He’s also busy flirting with another girl but gets mistaken for his dead brother which ruins that moment. Rack just wants romance! So he keeps trying with everyone but what the town really needs is for someone to focus because the death count starts to increase. Even the farm dog gets murdered which the film added as a little punch to the gut for any viewers who were hoping for a high quality experience. It turns out that Diane was right and an army of spiders are approaching to destroy everyone, all around the world. They’re going to destroy everyone Rack loves, starting with the people in the town. Can he stop them?

Now while I give Rack a lot of grief for being a completely patronizing, irresponsible jerk, things wouldn’t have changed much even if he took the threat seriously from the start. The reason comes down to a numbers advantage, there are millions and millions of spiders running around. They can tank fire by going underground and they can run really fast. Short of nuking the area or something like that you are not going to defeat them. The mayor wants to use some strong chemicals but aside from the fact that it would end up hurting a lot of humans as well, the spiders may be immune because they are mutant types.

So the town was always doomed. What was a bit surprising is that we actually see a large part of the fight onscreen. Usually you see the aftermath or something but no we see the spiders jumping people and taking them down. It’s a little hard to buy at face value but the film does put in some work to make it a little more plausible. For example, one bite is enough to seriously start to paralyze you and if you hit the ground then you’ll die right away because of the endless bites. So your best bet is not to get hit at all or to get bit once while running and the adrenaline will help you out.

It’s pretty tragic if anything seeing everyone get taken down though. The climax gets surprisingly violent with everyone being eaten alive. Even the mayor/sheriff had a bit of a grisly end there. I don’t know why people were trying to stop his car though except to doom them all. Like those people are already dead men walking so at least let this guy escape right? Ah well I suppose that wasn’t in the cards. Now the film does bend this law a bit though which is where the plot armor comes in.

So as I explained if you are bitten then it’s game over. You can just throw in the white flag because there is no getting away from this right? Wrong! Rack gets bit a ton of times and then hits the floor. By everything we’ve seen in the film that means he is dead and yet somehow he gathers up enough energy to recover and rejoin the rest of the cast. The scene made absolutely no sense and was completely annoying. You can’t just have plot armor like that for no reason. If they said he was a poison expert or something and was already immune for the most part then that would be fine but there’s no reason he should be alive here. I just can’t accept that.

It doesn’t help that he’s such a bad character too. The guy doesn’t take anything seriously and having more than one romance plot in the same movie is always a massive thumbs down. This guy’s not loyal nor is he trustworthy. You would not want to be paired with him because ultimately he’ll just see you as the next romance partner. It’s why Diane ended up being disappointing as she quickly ended up liking him anyway. There was no reason for that.

It’s too bad because the idea of trying to shelter in a house while spiders try to break in from all sides is pretty tense. The film just doesn’t execute particularly well. Any film with animals attacking you is likely to be a dicey one as that can quickly go into animal violence but it doesn’t need to happen. Why even have the dog appear at all? It’d be nice if the spiders had not gone after any animals and were just shredding the humans. They shouldn’t have any beef with the other wildlife right?

All that aside, the ending is really good though. It makes for a solid cliffhanger and is like something out of Resident Evil. The true horrors still await the main cast and you know that they are not in a good spot. I would argue that they aren’t quite doomed yet though. Given that the spiders are small I feel like you should be able to just make a break for it. They can’t bite you through your sneakers and if you run hard enough none of them should be able to climb up your pants. The tough part is just finding out how widespread these things are. If they go on for too long then you will get tired and eventually die but if not, then you have a chance. A sequel would have been very interesting here.

Overall, The Kingdom of the Spiders makes for an intense thriller but ultimately it made too many mistakes to get a passing grade. Having better characters would have gone a very long way to be honest because then you’re more invested in seeing the characters do well and overcome the audience. Without that it just feels like you aren’t going to be quite as engaged with the whole adventure and I wouldn’t really recommend this to anyone. It’s an interesting premise….but that’s not enough to save it.

Overall 2/10

Jeopardy Review

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So this is one of those rare noir films that I really didn’t like. The plot was a little suspect from the jump and then the execution basically went the way that I was hoping it wouldn’t. By the end of the film you’re going to be pretty annoyed and not even the ending can help you feel satisfied here. Definitely a film you want to avoid at all costs!

The film starts off with Helen getting ready to enjoy a nice vacation with her husband Doug and their son Bobby. It was going to be a lot of fun but unfortunately her husband gets stuck under a bunch of wood and high tide is approaching. If he can’t get out in time then he will drown. There aren’t any supplied at the hut so Helen has to try and find some people to get a rope but they are in the middle of nowhere and time is ticking. She bumps into a guy named Lawson who offers to help but what she doesn’t realize is that he’s a wanted murderer and has no intentions of saving her husband. What can she do?

As you can guess Lawson is basically a grade A jerk who is just in it for himself. He’s a full antagonist here and basically spends the film blackmailing Helen into having an affair with him. So in order words he’s completely taking advantage of her and it’s some of the scummiest behavior you can do. Helen feels like she can’t say no to his advances or her husband will certainly be dead and this guy relishes the power that it gives him. The film would already be dead on arrival at this point because such a plot is just absolutely terrible.

Where the film sinks even lower is by not even portraying him as a full villain. Later on he starts to play the mind games of how Helen actually likes him and then she wavers and starts to feel like this too. Even by the end she is willing to run off with him as gratitude…..what? This guy was totally going to ditch Doug and the fact that he helped at the end doesn’t mean she should suddenly ditch her husband like that. The ending is awful but this whole plot was handled poorly. The film needed to condemn Lawson as being 100% in the wrong and a total psychopath. Not try to make him sympathetic and lonely by the end. I wasn’t buying it one bit.

Unfortunately that romance is a massive part of the film so there’s really no getting around it. To call it an uncomfortable romance would be an understatement and you’re rooting for the cops to show up and blow the guy away already. That would have been a super satisfying ending and I’d have been cheering. Instead the film takes a very cautious approach to how it all ends. My view is that he got taken out but I would have liked it to have been clearer.

The film ends up dragging a whole lot due to all of these scenes so this feels like a very long noir title. In part this is probably also due to how small the cast is so a lot of the scenes are filled with dialogue. That would work with likable characters but falls flat otherwise. We needed more action here to distract from the story like a few gun fights or something. Maybe even some long chase scenes.

So while Lawson is the worst character here, Helen also loses a lot of points. Obviously I’m not deducting points away from her when she was basically being forced to stick around or her husband would be destroyed. Where she falters massively is in how undecided she is and how she doesn’t condemn this guy for being so awful. Helen actually seems worried about him and feels bad for Lawson when there is no reason too. So yeah stockholm syndrome hit her real fast.

The best parts of the film are really centered around Doug and Bobby. Even while Doug is close to drowning and knows that he’s in a lot of danger, he keeps up a brave face for his son. He tries to prepare Bobby for what’s about to happen so he can stay safe as the tide comes up. It’s got to be tough not to start panicking when you’re approaching a slow death like this but Doug never loses his resolve.

He easily has the most fortitude out of all the characters and sees the big picture right from the start. He also tries a few plans to get out from under the rubble but ultimately there was just too much wait so it simply wasn’t possible. Bobby doesn’t do great here but he’s a little kid so it’s not like you can blame him much. He does try his best like making a coffee for Doug even if it doesn’t come out well. So at least the effort is there.

Overall, This is a pretty awful movie. It’s basically about stockholm syndrome but there are so many better ways that it could have been handled. I feel like the movie underestimated just how bad the scenes made Lawson look. He was completely irredeemable, not just some misunderstood soul who’s been out of luck. I think a remake could definitely execute on this premise a whole lot better but in the meantime definitely take a pass on this one. The Noir genre is chock full of much better films all around so pick one of those and you’re set. This one is better left forgotten.

Overall 2/10

The Thing Review

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

It’s time to look at one of the most iconic horror movies out there. It’s definitely really intense all the way through with a lot of tension and intrigue the whole time. Ultimately it does fall flat due to some unfortunate animal violence and a monster design that leaves a lot to be desired. The film has a core premise that could work if we could get a redo on this someday with a future remake.

The film starts off by introducing us to MacReady and a group of researchers in Antartica. It’s a rather isolated place but these guys are used to it. One day a nearby squad seemingly goes insane as they try to murder a dog and so the heroes take them out. Did the cold weather get to them? No, it appears that a monster is afoot and it can shapeshift as the person it is controlling. This means that any one of the heroes or even more than one are currently aliens in disguise. Is there any way to find out who the culprits are or will distrust doom the squad right off the bat?

There are a lot of suspects here as there are quite a few characters. Additionally just because someone isn’t being controlled in one scene doesn’t mean that he won’t be taken over later on. Any time a character leaves the screen for a prolonged amount of time you have to consider that he may have been compromised and that’s a very dangerous proposition for the other characters. The alien is definitely impressive as it allows the subject to perfectly keep his personality and reason so by all accounts you can’t really tell externally. Additionally the alien is still plotting your death all the while.

So it’s like a live action adaption of Among Us in some ways. I would even say the intrigue is stronger than Invasion of the Body Snatchers which has a similar premise. Having the characters be stuck in Antarctica is a good idea as well because it means there is really no escape. So either you end up taking out the aliens or you get consumed. There are no other options here and the movie keeps this tension up all throughout the movie. So why did it fumble in the end?

Well the main thing here that ends up hurting is of course the animal violence. The Thing starts by murdering most of the dogs and then absorbing the others. One of them ends up getting shot as well and of course they’re all trapped within the cage so when the Thing shows up they can’t even escape. The whole thing’s pretty depressing there and the film should have just had The Thing taking the humans over from the jump. That would have been a whole lot better and then you’d avoid this landmine entirely. The whole scene with the dogs is pretty explicit.

Then you have the creature design as well which isn’t as cool as it needed to be. It’s a slippery mess of tentacles running around and it almost looks like it’s in pain the whole time. It has a cool looking dinosaur mode near the very end but for the most part it just looks like a way less impressive version of Biollante. Give me a more solid monsters to get behind. His attacks were impressive but even then the effects make it look more gross than impressive. It should have looked a whole lot more impressive.

The characters tend to be on the better side though. MacReady is the lead and he knows when it’s time to get serious and stop playing games. He takes command towards the end by force and it makes sense since he actually has a plan while the others would just keep on fighting and not getting anywhere. Considering that the alien is around as well, there is no real time for democracy here. You either take the lead or you end up going down. Using dynamite as a hostage was a great idea since nobody could try and blow him up at that point.

Childs is someone who gives MacReady a tough time for most of the film. Mainly because he also knows they can’t trust anyone and he got some really strong circumstantial evidence that made him really distrust MacReady. I couldn’t really blame him there because the evidence did look pretty bad. Childs is quick on his feet and does pretty well otherwise. Blair is the character I didn’t like because he completely cracks at one point and only makes things worse for everyone. He’s extremely annoying as a result. I do wonder if maybe it’s just that he was being controlled from the jump but I don’t feel like the movie was really implying that. It would have been interesting but that’s more of a baseless theory.

The film is able to juggle a fairly big cast pretty well by giving each character their own full personality and keeping them memorable. So even as the bodies begin to pile up there are enough characters around to keep everyone scrambling. It also makes the place look even more empty and remote as more and more characters keep falling. If you’re claustrophobic then this movie will be extra intense for you and certainly you won’t be thrilled to go to Antarctica after that.

The ending is definitely pretty excellent. Naturally I do suspect one of the two characters in particular based on some events that happened near the end but keeping it open ended is part of what makes this an effective way to close out the movie. I can’t help but think that a full on sequel would really be a lot of fun though. Have the creature get loose in a major city or something with everyone scrambling to stop him. That would just be so much fun right? It would be more of an action than a thriller at that point but it would work.

Overall, The Thing is a movie where I can definitely see how it’s really well liked. There are some things to enjoy here like the tension I keep talking about and the mystery angle. Not being able to trust anyone is definitely a good way to keep you engaged the whole time. Ultimately the film just went too far in trying to be disturbing as well with the design and the dog scenes which prevented this from being a smash hit. My advice would unfortunately be to give this film a skip, they should have just had the alien jump in as a human from the jump and that could have really gone a long way.

Overall 2/10

Final Destination 2 Review

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

I’ll admit that the poster for this film really goes hard. That said, there’s still not really a lot to this series and in many ways it’s just retreading ground from the first title. The heroes have made Death mad and now he is going to systematically take them out one at a time. What can some humans do against a being who transcends dimensions? Well they will need some teamwork if they want to at least try and delay the inevitable.

The film starts off with Kimberly heading off with her friends on a big trip. They’re all delinquents who have no respect for the law and seem like terrible influences. They’re ready to do drugs and as much bad stuff as they can but the group perishes in a tragic pile up involving tree logs and a lot of explosions. Kimberly then wakes up in the car right before this happens. She attempts to stop the car early so she won’t be in the pileup and succeeds however her friends still blow up. Instead she managed to save a few strangers and now they are all being targeted by death. Can they possibly survive this malevolent force or are they all doomed?

Well of course we know the answer should be the latter based on the prior film but we do seemingly have a weakness for death now. You can actually end a death cycle by creating new life. Of course it would take a long while to quickly create a baby so they have to find someone who is close to giving birth. The plan is highly risky though because this is just their guess based on vague wording from a guy at the morgue so there is a massive chance that this is all cope from the heroes. Still it gives them something to try for and we get other retroactive rules in place here to shake things up.

The film is at least trying to make this a deeper dynamic which I can respect but it really doesn’t change a whole lot. Death is still going to mess everyone over in different ways as always and that happens right on queue here. Interestingly Clear returns for this film as she survived the first one but I’m not buying it. Basically she is in a padded room so there is in theory nothing that Death could use to destroy her. That is her logic but remember Death can do anything. So when she’s eating her safe yogurt he could still make that get stuck in her chest and she dies. He could have the air vents stop working so she suffocates in there, etc. I choose to believe that the only reason she survived so long is because Death was just toying with her as he does with the rest. He wanted her to feel good just so he could flip that later on.

Perhaps he respected her determination. A lot of explanations work here but yeah nothing is going to stop Death so easily. I would say that on average the murders are a bit more violent here but I’m sure it’s probably debatable. The scene of a guy getting torn apart by flying objects was definitely intense while the explosion deaths aren’t as violent since it’s all fire. I would say the characters are a little better here than in the first one. They may take a while to believe the main heroine but that’s all for valid reasons. You don’t have any of them randomly getting upset at having their lives spared.

It’s probably why taking the old friends out of the equation was such a good move here. They only appeared briefly but were super annoying the whole way through. Even with that, the problem with this film once again is that it feels like there’s just not much point to it. No matter what the heroes do, death will come for them eventually. There isn’t anywhere you can go where you can hope to avoid it. That’s just not happening and so you can choose to hide in a cell and just survive like that as long as you can, or go about your business as normal and eventually die. Either way, your options are fairly limited.

While the body count is higher than in film 1, we got to have more survivors for a longer period as it’s the climax that really started to speed things up. Interestingly the very last scene of the film is played a bit more as a comedic moment rather than a dark twist even though what is happening on screen is pretty sinister. Perhaps that wasn’t the intent but with the crazy music playing it certainly felt like that. A “here we go againnnn” Magic School Bus kind of moment all around.

After a while the real question is, how do you fix this film/series? As it stands it is really just a compilation of people getting murdered in crazy ways as you try to wonder who will be next. The plot itself barely matters as it’s really just a back drop for this. So I think again you make this part comedy but if you really want to make this more of a horror, lets tone down the shock value deaths a bit and give some tangible goals here. Like if you survive for one week then death will let you go and you can await a normal demise. That would give some incentive to the characters for them to survive. It wouldn’t be quite so hopeless at that point.

Overall, Final Destination 2 is mainly concerned with being bigger and more explosive than the first. It certainly succeeds on that but when you get past the fluff there still isn’t a whole lot here. The ending is a bit bizarre but at least it’s a little funny so I get that. I actually think this franchise would be significantly better if it didn’t take itself so seriously. Imagine this film as a dark comedy, I actually think it would work extremely well even if that’s not likely to ever happen. Ah well, lets see how the next film goes. Also I missed having the cops get a really big role in the film. Sure we had the one cop who was helping the heroine out but the first film had the FBI, CIA, and more conspiracy stuff like that. That’s what I want to see, lets just embrace the craziness.

Overall 2/10

Final Destination Review

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

Final Destination is a film that I dare say is a bit iconic. Just about everyone has heard of this film at some point or another. It’s got many sequels and the concept is unique. You basically have to try and watch out because anything can turn into a cause of death and that’s the basic plot of the franchise. Beyond that it’s not going to go down as a great film or anything but it’s an interesting one.

The film starts off with Alex being a little paranoid as he gets on a plane for a school trip. He’s looking around a whole lot because everything looks real suspicious but then this comes to a head when he dies in the plane along with the rest of the school. He wakes up back in the plane a few minutes before the explosion and realizes that this was all a big vision. So he makes a scene and gets thrown off the plane with a few other students while everyone else dies in the explosion. Death isn’t a fun of this though and decides to go take the survivors down for the count. Can they overcome death?

Now the main problem you may guess right off the bat here is that of course there is no real way to beat death. In the end all of the heroes will die at some point so the question is really if they can get death to leave them alone for a while. The short answer to that is….no. Death is a very petty and very determined figure. He intends to stay on their tails until he has taken them all down and will bend all of the rules to make this possible. That means manipulating liquids and objects to place them in positions to choke or murder the characters straight up. Death isn’t interesting in playing fair or doing anything like that. No, it’s just here to cause unimaginable damage.

The heroes discover some rules here like Death has to try and murder them in order. If an attempt fails then it moves onto the next person before eventually repeating the cycle. The cycle never ends though so it’s only a matter of time before it’s your turn again. So the general plan Alex has is to try and delay the murders as long as possible but in the end that’s all he can do, just delay them. Ultimately they will catch up to him and then it’s curtains.

As a main character Alex is fairly decent though. His natural paranoia mixed in with the fact that he now has visions of the future makes for an interesting character. Naturally the other characters don’t tend to believe him until it’s too late but at least Alex keeps on trying. He’s a very determined guy who is really just trying to do his best.

Most of the other characters aren’t quite as reasonable. The one who takes the cake in that regard is Carter though. The film makes him as over the top as possible. Alex literally saved his life and yet this guy has 0 gratitude and wants to fight Alex for no real reason. He listens to crazy music as he drives by and is basically a cartoon villain. By the end he actually gets a character arc which I was noy expecting. I figured he would just die early on as the typical jerk character. Even so, he was a little too far gone so I still didn’t care for him by the end.

The main heroine Clear took a while to really support Alex but at least she still handled it all very logically. She heard Alex out and even when she didn’t agree with him, she wasn’t going out of her way to be mean about it. So Clear gets some credit there at least and ends up lasting a while because she was really vigilant the whole time. The rest of the characters went off to do their own things and it doesn’t go well. Again you can’t really blame the others though and to an extent even if they agreed with Alex, there wasn’t much of a plan at the beginning. They would have still died in some way or another with death watching them.

Again that goes back to the futility of the whole thing. As much a the film seems to want you to think that you can evade Death for a while, I take it more as Death just toying with them. He likes to mainly use liquids to set off the traps but other times he can lock windows and such. It’s clear that he can use any ability as needed and warp reality so at that point it’s still a losing battle. It’s an issue I have with this film like I did with the Grudge. When there is absolutely no hope of winning then it takes away a lot from the movie because you just can’t get as invested. It simply isn’t possible to get involved because the heroes just don’t have a ghost of a chance.

Naturally the film can get fairly violent with some of the deaths. Others aren’t so much violent as they are disturbing like the one friend who gets hanged in the bathroom. The idea is that these are all ways you could theoretically die in real life if you just have bad luck or are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Death is just speeding things up a bit. So the film as a whole ends up being rather depressing as there is no time for any happy moments. Outside of the opening scene getting ready to board the plane…yeah there is no time for positive moments. The heroes are just running from one danger to the next. Each death attempt they dodge only brings them closer to the next one which is just depressing.

Overall, This is one of those movies where you might be tempted to watch it for the novelty but overall I’d say to give it a skip. It’s really just about trying to get as many creative deaths in as possible and that’s not enough to support a whole movie. The film can be rather violent with a bunch of annoying characters running around. There is no hope to escape their destiny so in the end it’s all a futile endeavor. I at least did enjoy the brief appearance from the guy at the morgue. I like the idea of someone at least knowing what’s going on and just going through life knowing that nobody else has this knowledge.

Overall 2/10

Dead of Night (1977) Review

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Uh oh it’s time for one of those horror anthologies. I have to admit that a lot of times these aren’t exactly up to snuff. Why is that? I don’t even know tbh but there has to be a logical explanation. It’s possibly because there just isn’t enough time to make every story solid or it’s also just that the odds of a story not being very good keep on growing larger. Either way this one doesn’t break the trend and ends up falling under its own weight.

The first story will take you for a loop because there’s nothing particularly scary about it. A guy named Frank ends up getting warped to the past. His car is stolen by some random people and even when an elderly couple urge him to report that the car was stolen, he decides not to. The whole short is as if he’s in a daze and you the viewer are wondering what’s going on. Is this all building up to some kind of zombie showing up and things going crazy? Nah he eventually finds himself in the present and he needs to repair the same car again. The whole thing went full circle and well…that’s it. There’s not really a climax or anything.

Frank tries to see what they remember about the past events but the owners don’t remember anything so did the whole tale even really happen? At the very least he should be supremely confident in his car repair skills. Who knows maybe he can master the ability and travel through time more in the future. So this wasn’t a bad story, it’s easily the best of the 3 but I have to admit that it’s just rather pointless. Like nothing really happens, there isn’t a lot of danger and you’re just left wondering what they were going for with this one. I guess it has a Twilight Zone kind of vibe but without the payoff.

The next story is more of a classic horror. So Alexis is being terrorized by a vampire that comes to her room and bites her at night. By the time she wakes up all traces of him are gone and her husband Gheria does not believe in vampires. Still, it’s hard to refute the evidence of bite marks on her neck every night so he calls in his friend Michael and they will say up all night to get to the bottom of this. Can they stop the vampire though? The short definitely has a pretty big twist up its sleeve and I can’t say that I saw it coming. The twist is effective and reshapes all of the events. So I give the short full marks there but ultimately this is a vampire story so it’s not going to fare too well.

You’ve got a lot of blood sucking going on here and it’s definitely the most violent of the 3. One guy definitely gets stabbed through quite a bit and ultimately most of the characters don’t really have a happy ending here. It’s actually a pretty dark ending no matter how you slice it and you didn’t have very many good characters. The only solid one here would have to be the butler by the time it was all said and done. If you love vampires then you’ll like this special but otherwise there’s really not much to it.

Finally we get to the 3rd special which is the longest by far but it really ends up dragging a whole lot. A Mom is grieving because her son ended up drowning and she decides to try and use dark magic to bring him back to life. Well it seems like it worked because Bobby shows up but he seems a little shadier than usual. He talks as if he was a grown up and begins getting scarier and scarier. Finally he throws off the charade and basically announces that he plans to destroy her. Can she fend off this child or will it be too much to put her kid back in the grave once more?

This one really feels like it goes on forever. At first Bobby is just being disrespectful and petty like not eating and intentionally trying to make his Mom feel bad. Then he keeps on escalating with trying to murder her and going crazy. We do get a twist about Bobby but it ironically still makes Bobby look really bad since he would have been complicit in this. At one point she lands a solid double tap on him with her gun but needed to press the advantage. Obviously it’s hard to be attacking a kid like this but then you need to get out of there. She briefly tried but his cosmic abilities kept on preventing the exit routes from working. You have to double down and keep trying or take him out.

The only scene that was amusing was when she called her husband and he kept repeating what she was saying. It then turned out that some reality warping or at the very least voice mimicry was at work here. For how long were things being manipulated? It’s hard to say. Either way she was on the defensive here and the underdog since he probably has a lot of abilities but it still makes for an annoying segment the whole time. I can’t take this kid seriously as a villain even if he may have super powers. None of them seemed to increase his weight or raw power so just throw him around or tie him up. Yes it’s a horror so that probably wouldn’t work but you have to give that a try.

Overall, This is definitely an anthology that I would say is worth giving a full skip. The only segment that’s any good is the first one and even then it just feels aimless the whole time. The vampire one is basically just going through the motions and the last one dragged on forever. You can do much better than this title if you want some scares and it’s another example of the limitations of the anthology setup. Ultimately any story with potential will end too quickly and any annoying story will end up dragging on. It’s a scenario where you can’t win and ultimately you’re just not going to have any real fun with this one.

Overall 2/10

Insidious: The Last Key Review

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The main insidious thing about this film is the sharp drop in writing quality. One thing the series was always good for was some pretty solid writing and lines as the heroes dealt with the crazy villains everywhere. This one almost felt like a B movie with the writing and not in a good/funny way. Just in an annoying eye roll way and ultimately it misses the boat really quickly. It’s telling that the spookiest scene is at the very end which ties into the first film.

The movie starts off by giving us a look into Elise’s childhood. She grew up in an abusive home where she was especially picked on by her father for being able to see supernatural creatures. Unfortunately Elise could not help herself in continuing to mention them and getting beaten as a result. Eventually she ran out but did not take her brother Christian with her so he still resents her to this day. In the “present” (Still before film 1) she gets a call from someone who lives in the house she grew up in. He’s being haunted and needs some supernatural help. Elise calls in her teammates Specs and Tucker since it’s always safest to move as a group Elise decides not to call in her teammates Specs and Tucker because she needs to handle this on her own since it’s so personal. They ignore her so the 3 head in to the house. Can Elise solve this spirit case or will the fact that she has no offensive abilities at the ready come back to haunt her?

Elise is confident and talks a good game at times but the extent of her plan seems to just be to try and talk the ghosts down. She doesn’t do much else and so honestly you get the feeling that she got lucky a whole lot of times. She may as well be a rookie instead for all the good she does here. Her memories of childhood keep spooking her throughout the movie so it’s not like the villain has to do much. When Keyface (At least that’s what he is called on Wikipedia) shows up he’s able to beat her with extreme ease. She may as well have just been some random person.

So I can’t say I liked Elise very much in this film. She just felt completely out of her depth and wasn’t making logical moves the whole time. Then her partners Specs and Tucker are the worst. Pretty much every scene with them is just poor attempts to flirt with two teenagers who are just trying to mind their own business. It gets worse when a traumatic event happens to one of them and they continue to flirt with the other. They have no tact and no class. The humor is incredibly off putting and really poorly handled. I haven’t seen a comic relief character this bad since possibly Transformers 2 which has to really take the cake there. I’m probably forgetting some films but the point is…they were brutal. And unfortunately they appear a lot.

I guess maybe the writers thought the film was too scary so you needed the comedic duo to lighten things up every few minutes? The problem being that this film isn’t even all that scary. Again, the first and even second Insidious films are way scarier than this one. This one also has too many other fighters running around the playing field. For example we actually get a real life villain where the film temporarily becomes more of a thriller as the heroes have to take him out. Then we go back to the supernatural stuff.

When we finally go into the other side where the spirits reign then things start to get back into their normal place. That’s really a lot more like it but it’s pretty late in the game by then. It’s also not like that’s going to suddenly fix the writing. Spending more time on the scares and showing off the villain would have been a really good idea since the non supernatural stuff drag the film down.

Lets look at the non supernatural stuff for a minute here. We have a guy who was murdering a bunch of women and stuffing them in an abandoned tunnel. Very grim dark for no real reason. Elise’s abusive father also turned out to be a murderer on the side and did something similar with a poor lady who was in there. You can question why she didn’t make a run for it when the door was unlocked and the kids were around but the point is really that the film was desperate to make things as dark as possible here. Adding all of these women who were getting murdered in the past doesn’t add anything to the film as we already knew the other characters were pretty bad. It’s more shock value than anything else.

We always see these evil ghosts running around and haunting someone so it’d be nice as a change of pace to see some of these victims show up and start claiming their revenge. They certainly should have regrets so why wouldn’t they become powerful spirits too right? Why do only the evil ones get to have a lot of power in the afterlife? It should be a little more balanced by that point. Ultimately Keyface ends up being a little underwhelming as a result because he gets so little screen time. It just feels like he barley gets to appear. His ability to turn off your voice is a little scary I’ll admit but it comes at the expense of his effectiveness.

Because he has to turn your voice off first, it takes forever to actually murder anyone. He easily should have destroyed Elise and then the other girl who he caught since he had plenty of time before being interrupted. Yet he wasn’t able to finish the job. This lets us have some emotional moments at the end of course but it really comes at the expense of this villain’s credability.

Overall, This was definitely a very weak Insidious film. The visuals are still fun and there are maybe a small handful of spooky moments but ultimately it really lost the point of this series early on. Insidious is about dealing with demonic threats from the other side and learning how to subdue them. Having a whole long tangent about abusive fathers and actual serial murders is completely jarring and out of touch with the supernatural. It’s like making a Paranormal Activity film where the heroes are spooked at night but during the day are taking on Jack the Ripper. Stick to the supernatural stuff and you could really have an intense movie. You can add some of that stuff for a quick origin but it should never be such a major part of the movie. Also you need to drop the comedy duo, their scenes were just completely cringe and not even remotely entertaining. They realllllly hurt the movie every time they appear.

Overall 2/10