Category Archives: 2 Star Movies

The Empty Man 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

Okay so straight up this is a pretty bad movie however I do give it a point for actually having an ending that makes you really think long and hard about the movie. Way I see it there are 3 ways you can interpret the ending. I’ll explain my interpretation at the end and I think it makes the most sense. Is there a “canon” ending? Well maybe the writer will say but out of film stuff doesn’t count so the way I see it you have to come to your conclusion and just roll with it. Each of the 3 paths appear to have some holes but I could pretty much do an editorial just on the ending. Of course that does mean you have to make it that far.

The film starts off with a group of climbers scaling up a really snowy mountain. It isn’t easy but they have been making consistent work up there. Unfortunately as they’re getting ready to go back down, one of them starts hearing things in the distance. Then he really starts to loose it and now the others could be in danger. Is it just a lack of oxygen right now or is there something more sinister at play? One thing’s for sure, they can’t let their guard down!

Being stranded on a mountain like this with no real way out is a pretty tough situation to be in already so then when you throw a crazy guy it really goes through the roof. Maybe spending 2 hours on here could drag a bit but it’s rare to have a horror movie on a mountain. Crazy stuff for sure….but this isn’t actually the movie. It’s a pretty effective fake out though since this intro portion goes on for quite a while. It ultimately does tie in with the rest of the film though and honestly it’s really effective. I thought the opening part was handled extremely well so it was time to start falling after that.

In the present we have an ex cop named James who is still traumatized over some tragedy that happened to his family. It’s told to us through quick seizure moments so you get most of the details but the exact scenario is something we don’t find out about until later on. I can say that it makes him look awful though so his character basically can’t be recovered by the end. There are just some things that you don’t really come back from and this is definitely one of those. Unfortunately that’s just how it goes.

Well his friend’s daughter went missing one day so James decides to find her. He runs into a whole conspiracy involving a death cult that believes in the Empty Man. A being made up of pure maliciousness and negative desires over the course of human history. Summoning him appears to be rather easy, you just think about him and blow on a bottle. Well James isn’t afraid of any ghosts and does this just to spite the creature. The rest of the legend says that you now have 3 days to live so James has to find the girl and quickly before this is all over.

In some ways this film is 50% mystery and 50% horror. A whole lot of the movie is about James trying to find leads so he talks to all of her friends, infiltrates the cult, etc. There are some scenes that are actually pretty scary though like when he finds himself in an empty field late at night with hundreds of zombies. Mobs are very scary and if you’re not scared of one then you should rethink that. There is virtually no way to survive one because you’re getting hit by hundreds of people at once which means they are virtually bullet proof. James wisely tries running as fast as he can.

Because this is part mystery there are a whole lot of twists and turns. I’ll be avoiding those until the spoiler part of the review of course because if you know things beforehand then it’ll definitely alter your experience. It will cause you to look at scenes differently but your first time in you probably want to go in without as much knowledge as possible. The actual mystery is pretty compelling but also very ominous since the victims are also kids so you figure this is going to be dark no matter how it plays out.

The Empty Man’s actual design is not really that scary. I would have handled it differently because it’s basically a normal dude in a cloak. You never really see much of him but he’s just not that scary and is basically only going after really defenseless people. When a gun is pointed his way he immediately jams it just in case so I wonder how strong he really is. He is probably a cosmic reality warper if I’m not kidding myself though. I don’t think the humans have much of a shot against him but like in the Grudge nobody even tries to fight back which is annoying.

We have the cops around but they don’t really do much here. They basically figure they can’t help out much and only really get involved once the body count starts to rise. Even then they don’t do a ton. The random cult leader is probably more important although the film was a little too content to give this guy a long boring speech that wasn’t needed. The intent is probably to spoon feed us just what the Empty Man is exactly and what he symbolizes but it’s not that hard to comprehend. We didn’t need a log speech about life itself from this guy except to remind us that cults are crazy and we knew that.

Okay now it’s spoiler time to talk about the ending. Skip the next 7 paragraphs if you haven’t seen the film yet.

Okay so basically James confronts the girl who went missing in the beginning and she explains that the cult actually generated him from their thoughts. They created him as the next vessel for the Empty Man since the guy from the intro’s body was finally giving out. The whole bottles thing was nonsense and everything is completely controlled by willpower itself. As best you can say that the bottle was merely the conduit but the power was in their minds all along. James tries to call his friend and she doesn’t remember him anymore. He was summoned 3 days ago which were the only days of his existence and so in the end he runs but the monster goes inside of him so he murders the old man and embraces his fate as the Empty Man. That’s basically the events of the ending so there are 4 ways to interpret this.

Explanation 1: James literally did not exist before the scene in the restaurant where he ordered something for his birthday. His memories are all fabrications from the cult. This includes his cheating affair, the family dying, etc. All of these are false memories and they basically brainwashed everyone in the area in order to pull this off. That’s why cops think they now him, the cult guy saw him before, etc. They have no real limit to their powers after all so why not right?

This is possible sure, but I don’t think it’s likely. It causes a whole lot of suspension of disbelief mainly because we’ve seen so many people who knew James from back in the day. Either they were in on it or their memories were being altered. But then why bother with all the theatrics? The girl at the end mentioned that they needed fear to truly activate James in the end and so they had to slowly break him but if they could manipulate the entire city and then some to keep altering the memories, that doesn’t really make sense. It’s way too convoluted a plan considering their abilities.

Explanation 2: It was all a dream. None of it actually happened and James himself does not exist. The entire film is taking place entirely in his psyche as he was created in the visualization and the whole film is basically just a metaphor for his struggle to fight against the Empty Man. In the real world he actually was the Empty Man murdering all of the teenagers and committing all of the crimes during the movie. It’s why when we flashback to the cult summoning the Empty Man we see that it was James in the shadows. Booo this explanation is pretty awful tbh and doesn’t make sense. Any “it was all a dream” scenarios are pretty boring if you think about it because then the whole thing was pointless. So not really discussing this one much because personally I just don’t like it. Not saying it isn’t a valid theory or anything but it would be supremely underwhelming.

Explanation 3: James was basically a normal guy until 3 days before the events of the film, the girl and her cult friends drugged him and stashed him in their basement. They then ran the trial experiments on him and turned him into a future Empty Man vessel. It would explain why he was seen by the Cult before and also why the cops recognized him. It would also explain why we kept seeing the empty chair every time he thought about his past. He was actually trapped for a while and then they released him into the wild with their memory alterations and of course removing his memories of being there. Mainly the part that doesn’t make sense here is the girl saying she created everything if the events actually did happen prior to being kidnapped. So that does help theory 1 more than theory 3.

Explanation 4: Okay so this is the one that I’m on board with and in some ways it’s very close to theory 3. Everything James knew prior to the film did happen. He lived a normal life and everything. When the crew “conjured him up” 3 days ago, it was simply activating him in order to be a host. She telepathically created a backstory for him to break down his psyche like causing him to cheat on his wife with the friend and then causing the accident. The accident actually happened but the affair was a fake memory and she had the friend under the spell the whole time. That’s why she didn’t remember him in the final scene because the villains let the mind control go. Both things would be pretty easy to maneuver without anything being much of a stretch. He eventually got broken due to the mindgames here and of course in the end he succumbed.

The main points against this one of course is that the cult leader had seen James before he said which doesn’t tie in with what James knows. You could say he was kidnapped at some point and indoctrinated as a sleeper agent but it doesn’t really match up. Additionally this doesn’t really address the girl’s speech about creating him with the exact backstory he had. Her just manipulating things from the shadows wouldn’t really explain that at all.

That’s it for the spoilers! So yeah a lot to dive into there. Regardless the ending is very memorable which is good. Would have been nice to have had more of a struggle or something but it is what it is. I do think the film’s dialogue scenes tend to be rather solid. While I did not like James by the end, at least I like how he always has an attitude with everyone. He has no time for all the nonsense and there’s a good amount of back and forth dialogue here. The mystery angle keeps you engaged all the way through with the horror angle and violence just holding the film back. Why did we need to see more dead animals? I feel like horror films just can’t help themselves and keep shooting themselves in the foot.

Honestly if the film had just leaned on the mystery angle and cut out a bunch of the horror stuff it would have been way better. Keep the atmospheric horror of course and the mind controlled cult but you can cut out all the stabby scenes and the more disturbing flashbacks. You’ll still feel a lot of tension and the imposing doom coming to the characters without being overindulgent and just wrecking the whole thing. Toning down the violence a bit would go a long way here.

Overall, The Empty Man is the kind of film that will keep you talking and theorizing for a long while. I have to give the film credit for that because it’s not really easy to pull that off. Still, in the end it’s a pretty bad film that falls into most of the horror tropes. You have the random animal violence that has no business being here. The dark shock twist to make sure you don’t like the main character too much. Virtually every character is massively unlikable with all of the kids falling to peer pressure immediately. Once we get into the human torture trials you know the film is just trying to hit you with everything. I think you could actually pivot this into an interesting action thriller for a sequel based on the ending but if you keep this as horror I don’t think it’s going anywhere because it’s another case of the humans not being able to do much. I’d say maybe they should have kept the whole film on the mountain but honestly that probably wouldn’t have worked very well. It would have dragged.

Overall 2/10

Where the Wild Things Are Review

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This is one of those movies that didn’t have a lot of potential since the main character is just a kid but even then it went lower than I expected. One of the big problems with the film is really that it gets really boring. For the most part I want to say that nearly every film has something really engaging in it. Something that you can sink your teeth into and have a good time but that wasn’t the case with this one. You’re just waiting for it to end and a big reason for that is the annoying main character.

The movie starts with Max building a snow castle but he is bored by himself. He tries to get his sister and her friends to play with him but in the process they break his snow castle so he cries for a while. He decides to embarrass his mother next and then runs away from home. This is where he falls into the land of the monsters and decides to be their king. Fortunately none of them are even remotely smart so they don’t mind working for a kid but is this really the life that he wishes to lead?

Now you may have suspicions on if this is really happening or not but I won’t spoil that for you. All I will say is that the film really does feel aimless for almost the entire run which is really my problem with it. Look, the monster designs aren’t even that cool when you really think about it. I personally didn’t find them scary but I also didn’t find them interesting. It’s like a bad episode of Barney but without the wholesome messages the whole time. Sure, you sort of see what they’re doing as these monsters help Max to see what a jerk he had been but it’s soooo drawn out.

Also, it really hurts that they made Max as unlikable as possible. It’s hard to really be sympathetic to him when he’s causing all of these problems. For example when the kids broke his igloo, sure that wasn’t very fun but it was part of the game and they didn’t realize how bad it was. At least one kid turned around so you know that he knew they went too far but ultimately he left. Max was a little too dependent on them there and should have just kept on keeping on. He got to play with the others for a bit so that should have made him happy.

Then later on his Mom tried her best to help him out and he rewards this by biting her and being a general pest while her rebound boyfriend was around? Nah that’s a really bad look and I’d argue that he never gets much better during the course of the film. With the monsters he tends to be very slow on the uptake and only survives because the creatures aren’t very smart.

It makes for a bit of a cringeworthy kind of film. You have a hard time watching the movie with a straight face. Now granted, I can absolutely see this being fun when you’re a young kid in some instances but I wouldn’t recommend this to a kid because it can be a little intense. The opening scene with the dog for example sets a really bad example. I also thought the dog should have shown up more later on because for a while there I was nervous that he died or something.

That’s not the case but it was a horrible way to open up the film. Worst scene there by far and it shows that Max doesn’t even have any basic common sense. You don’t run around with a fork while terrorizing your pet. That’s just not done and makes him look so bad. So with a main character like Max then you’re just not going to get very far with this film. Additionally for the vast majority of the film he is the only human character. You can’t banter off of the monsters so that means he has to try and hold the whole film by himself which is basically impossible. Trust me he is not up to the task at all.

I think if you really wanted to succeed with this plot then you needed more of a true main villain. An evil king running around and then you have his mom, sister, and the friends all appear as figures within the dream. It would be something more like Narnia for example with maybe a mix of Alice in Wonderland in there. The idea of a kid trying to run away from his problems into a fantasy world is nothing new. It’s been done many times before and done quite well I might add. This one doesn’t work though because it doesn’t have that focus and everything takes so long to happen. I’ve gone into the pacing a lot because it’s just so absolutely critical.

The monsters here are all just really annoying. They are easily tricked and barely serve a function beyond just being convenient figures for the main character to manipulate. Put him in a world with almost any other kind of creature and that would be game over. Mix it with the rather grim setting and they don’t stand out at all. Maybe if you couldn’t have the world be bright, at least make the monsters have bright costumes or something. I think that could have worked out a little better. The film’s chronic issues wouldn’t be fixed so it’s not like this would turn everything around but it would be a start.

Overall, This film had the issue of having the deck stacked against it from the start. Having a kid as the main character rarely works and certainly not one this unlikable. The story takes forever to move and even by the end I wouldn’t say that it ever got really high tier or anything like that. Eh there’s just not much of a reason to watch this one so stick away and just watch a more engaging picture. You’ve got options out there.

Overall 2/10

The Hand that Rocks The Cradle Review

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

There are some films where you wonder how the plot can work without the main characters looking awful and then you realize that they just do look awful and that’s how the film happens. This should be over in a few minutes if the main characters played it smart tbh but that’s how it goes I guess. I’d say this film’s more of a skip, you don’t really need to check it out.

The movie starts off with Claire and her husband Michael getting ready for her next baby to be born. Unfortunately the doctor at the clinic turns out to be a full criminal and takes advantage of Claire so they sue him and the guy quickly deletes himself. His wife tries to stay strong but fails and when she faints her baby is lost. The wife swears revenge on the main characters and changes her alias to Peyton. Peyton quickly heads to the house and is immediately hired by Claire to be the nanny to help out around the house. Now Peyton can begin work on splitting the family apart and ultimately murdering Claire. How will she pull this off though?

So it turns out that letting a random stranger into your house without any real background checks can be a real danger eh? Peyton starts misplacing items, destroying reports, and basically making Claire look really bad since it’s like she’s losing her mind. Peyton makes sure to threaten the gardener, manipulate Claire’s older daughter against her, and even directly handle the baby far more often than Claire so he stops liking her. Yes it’s all very easy…because the characters make it easy. Seriously none of this should be working out at all.

First off we have Peyton hanging out with the baby more than Claire. Claire should be with the baby as often as possible. Sure, she’s busy but why is Peyton basically left all day to give the baby walks, put her to bed, etc? That should still all be Claire’s duty and not because it’s a job but because you want to be with your baby right? Claire does have asthma and can get sickly at times but not all the time so this always felt a little forced. When you’ve just had a kid you’re usually going to be staying around the house a lot. I know they hired a nanny for a reason but yeah this was not a good idea.

Put it this way, even if Peyton wasn’t evil, it’s still possible that the kid and baby would end up bonding with the nanny over the parents if they spent so much more time with her. It just makes sense. It also would help if the parents actually listened a bit more. When Peyton frames the gardener, they don’t even try to listen to their daughter about how it was all fixed. Yeah the evidence was pretty bad so I wouldn’t expect them to be too reasonable but at least listen to her side for a bit right?

For the most part I would say that Peyton’s not even that subtle about all of this. Wearing her necklace as if to boast about how she’s the mother now, her seduction attempt on the husband, etc. At least to the guy’s credit he never cracks or comes close to cracking on that front but these are all massive red flags. Peyton’s initial appearance was a huge red flag since she wasn’t from any agency and happened to be in the neighborhood? Cmon now it may be a beautiful day in the neighborhood but you don’t just happen to be wandering around one.

Then even once they find out Peyton is the villain and have to take her down they handle is horribly. The husband lets himself get thrown down a flight of stairs and the main heroine’s stab attempt didn’t go very well. This is why you need to at least know some basic self defense. Or if you’re going to run, then run right away. Waiting at the house to pack everything up is always going to take way too long when you have a villain on the loose. You feel bad for Claire’s best friend quite a lot since she was at least making some headway but got way too sloppy towards the end. The classic reverse psychology trick worked on her.

The whole deception to make Claire jealous by revealing that her husband was hanging out with the friend was also really contrived. Look, surprise parties can be fun but never if it means lying to your wife about it. What matters more, keeping the secret or keeping her trust? It should be a really obvious decision or at least I would hope that it is. That’s where you just tell her that there is a surprise party coming up and to keep it on the downlow or something like that.

He has to know how it would look since the friend was an old ex of his. In general you don’t want your husband or wife to hang out with an ex in general, let alone in secret. Now it all comes down to trust so if you’re comfortable with your partner still seeing an ex then hey, power to you. Me personally? Nahhhhhhh, the ex needs to leave the picture completely. It’s way too dangerous to keep an ex around so there’s no hanging out as friends after that. It’s tough terms but that’s just how it has to be in order to keep the relationship strong.

Then you have Solomon who has a rather tragic role for most of this. He’s disabled so he already has a tough time explaining himself or talking so when he’s framed there isn’t a whole lot that he can do about it. He’s just trying to help but he’s in a really tough position the whole time. Especially since you see this coming right from the start of the movie, you can only watch and wait for the inevitable.

Aside from the story being rather weak and forced, the movie just isn’t generally high quality. Using the doctor for shock value at the start of the move is a whole scene that could have been completely skipped. Make up some other reason for revenge, but starting off the movie with Claire being attacked like that was pretty bad. The film also had some obvious fanservice in feeding the baby and while that shows how insane Peyton is in her role, you definitely don’t need to linger on those moments. Mix in the sub par writing and you don’t have a winning movie here.

Overall, This is a movie that only works when all of the characters make the worst decisions as if this was a horror movie. The story only starts at all because they happened to pick Peyton out of all the available candidates without bothering to look into her records at all. Who wouldn’t do their due diligence when you have a baby and a kid in the house right? Then you have the husband randomly keeping a secret when he shouldn’t have, a “accident” murdering the friend and not immediately grabbing a shotgun, the important report completely vanishing, etc. At least Claire picks up on the list of odd coincidences later on but sure took her time in doing so. Yeah this is one you should definitely skip.

Overall 2/10

Season of the Witch Review

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Whenever you have a film taking place back in the olden days with witches, demons, werewolves and the like I have to assume that the film is not going to be very good. Sure that is a general plot and so you can definitely surpass that if need be but what are the odds realistically right? I doubt they are very good at least with the track record and this one is no exception. Sure there are some interesting moments and plot lines scattered around the place but ultimately the movie could not capitalize on any of them and so it failed in the end.

The film starts off by showing us how skilled Felson and Behmen are. They utterly decimate opposing armies in every fight that they are in. We see a montage of them in countless fights and it’s definitely impressive how ahead of the curve they are in the battles. Nobody can really touch them or even come close. Well one day Behmen ends up murdering an innocent civilian and he becomes disillusioned with the whole thing. He now realizes that he was merely a soldier of battle and quite the army. Felson follows him but unfortunately they are quickly captured by the same army again. Their mission is to bring a suspected witch back into custody with them to face justice at a “fair” trial. Behmen doesn’t much like this but orders are orders and trying to escape the whole army again would be tricky. The girl’s name is Anna and she seems incredibly suspicious and crafty but that doesn’t automatically make her a witch. Behmen will have to handle this carefully.

I did find part of the intro funny in how quickly the two leads were captured though. These were the kingdom’s best warriors and yet they could be brought back in so easily? Have to admit that they lost a lot of hype there. I give some credit for wanting to leave the army in the first place of course but I really didn’t think that they would be brought back so quickly. As for the mission itself, well in a way they know that this won’t be a fair trial but they aren’t the justice system so what can be done? I think just running off for a second time would have been just fine to be honest but it is what it is.

Anna is unashamedly suspicious the whole time to the point where it can definitely be real amusing. She keeps on using magic and messing with the heroes so it seems obvious that she is a witch but they can’t prove it yet. She even goes out of her way to save someone who nearly plummeted to his doom by using her super strength. Even the characters can be confused sometimes on if she is sympathetic or not. It’s just really hard to get a read on her and that’s definitely by design. For what it’s worth she was a good antagonist for this reason. She really kept the heroes sharp and always on edge. Her abilities were solid too and versatile. She had flight, mind manipulation, animal summoning/transformation, super strength, etc. Yeah that’s a lot for any human to deal with and by the end her scenes get even better in hindsight.

Unfortunately you can probably guess how the animal summoning ended up being a net negative here. We have to sit through an extended scene of the heroes destroying a bunch of dogs that she transformed into werewolves. Definitely a scene that didn’t need to be here and it really drags down the experience. At this point they should have taken her down since this also directly murdered some members of the team. You don’t exactly need a trial when the villain openly murders people in front of you right? Well, unfortunately Debelzaq the priest says you do need that so there isn’t much the heroes can do about this. Behmen ultimately stands down but the body count only continues to rise.

These are guys who don’t have a no killing code or anything like that so in light of this it just doesn’t make sense to spare her. Anna will only continue to cause more death and destruction in her wake the longer they keep her alive. It’s always hard to defeat the supernatural and this is just another example of that. Behmen and the others are completely outmatched and only plot armor is enough to help them win. It’s why I say films always need to be careful not to make their villains end up being too powerful or there’s just no way to buy into the hero ever winning. When you create an unwinnable situation that’s exactly what happens.

Ultimately I did like Behmen as a character though. He wanted to do the right thing and protect everyone. His motivations were always good and he let his actions do the talking for him like when he left the army early on. He won’t be a part of anything that is unjust and has the strongest moral center of the group. His partner Felson is solid as well but that guy’s more relaxed and will just do whatever he feels like doing. He follows Behmen since they’re friends but it’s less about the morality of it and more because that’s just what he wants to do.

The film actually has a fairly large cast of characters accompanying the main two on the trip but you will forget most of them immediately because they don’t do anything. You’ve got a guy with a tragic past, the priest who is always ready to exorcise, the comic relief maps guy, etc. They’re all just here for the body count and you know it. There is never even an attempt to start liking these guys or making them a part of the main cast. It’s just not happening and so the film treats their characters rather half heartedly.

You’ve got your share of jump scares here but the film is more action than horror. The film just likes using some strong imagery so that you can see how threatening the villains are. We get lots of zoom ins on rather deformed faces on the witch side and while the film isn’t super violent, it does have some moments here and there. The imagery can be more gross than violent at times although I suppose it depends on the scene.

I think this film could have really shined by focusing on the main two guys as they look for a battle that is worth fighting. They stop just blindly listening to orders and look for a chance to really make a difference. Having them work for the army again was a really odd move and not the one I would have chosen. From there they are back to following orders even when they have doubts and that’s what doesn’t work as well about this film. It sort of goes against their whole character choice in the beginning to do that.

Overall, I liked one of the twists at the end of the film but this one didn’t live up to its full potential. After a while it felt like this film was even trying to be the next Exorcist although it still beats those easily. Witches can make for decent villains when you focus more on their magic and the cool fantasy battles we can have but outside of that they aren’t super interesting. So when you just have Anna locked up in the cage for most of the film it takes some of the bite out of the experience. A sequel could maybe do better but lets shift the time-frame to modern day. Trust me that setting works way better.

Overall 2/10

Sicario Review

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

It’s time for a very gritty look at what it can be like to try and stop a force as powerful as the cartels. It’s a tough reality that in some areas the police basically have no power and so everyone operates under the books in a society where might makes right. The main character learns this the hard way and while it can be a reminder how your life could always be more difficult, it doesn’t make for a great film. The excessive violence eventually knocks the fun out of the experience.

The movie starts with Kate and her partner Reggie arriving at a house where they take down the villains but unfortunately were too late to save the innocents. The building is filled with the bodies of everyone that they murdered and Kate feels rather hollow about this victory. The government calls her in though because this was traced to the Mexican cartels. They are sending in a task force to basically cause a lot of commotion and take these guys out at any cost. Kate decides to join in because she wants to see justice done but she’s about to see that “Justice” is going to encompass a whole lot of actions here. It’s not quite like any of her previous missions up til now.

Shortly after entering Mexico the main characters have their first gunfight which quickly gets you up to speed on how you really need to keep your guard up at all times. You always have to watch your back and even be staring inside the other cars because if you react late then your life is already over. You have to basically make the first move or be ready to make a move before the shooting actually begins. It’s certainly a tense atmosphere and as Alejandro tells Kate you can’t even trust your own allies. You never know who has been bought off or defected to the other side so at the end of the day you can only really trust yourself.

I’d say it takes a whole lot of grit in order to be able to survive in an atmosphere like this for even just a short while. For the members here who have been in the territory for years, well that’s not something that just anyone can do. Additionally the characters do resort to torture and other extreme methods in order to get answers which also requires a tough stomach. I’m still never on board with torture though even if it can be the only way to get results. It just feels like a line where once you cross it, you become one of the villains even if it’s for a noble cause. It’s just going too extreme even if it helps to serve your cause.

That’s one of the main struggles for Kate in this film as she just doesn’t agree with how extreme everything is here. You have people going on revenge missions and everyone is really using everyone else. This mission only works because some goals temporarily align but what happens when they don’t? You’re always having to keep score of whose interests are being served and that’s exhausting. Unfortunately Kate’s ways of coping with this aren’t always great.

The worst scene of this is when she decides to get drunk with the crew and then have an affair with someone that she’d never met before. Naturally he turned out to be one of the gang members and she’s very lucky that Alejandro showed up in time or she would have been dead. It just seemed very sloppy though. You’re effectively in enemy territory for all intents and purposes so now isn’t the time to be having a one night stand. For the most part she didn’t panic and make many bad moves during the film so this one really stood out. The only other moment was randomly attacking Matt in a fit of rage.

Sure he was complicit in knowing what Alejandro was doing but suddenly attacking him like that could have easily gotten her shot. She’s lucky that things didn’t get worse there. Meanwhile Matt does a pretty good job here. He is sort of like a less personally invested version of Alejandro. The guy is a capable field leader and knows how to fight but to him it’s still a job while to Alejandro it’s really his life. That’s a world of difference when going up against enemies in Mexico because you’re going to take less risks. Matt basically plays things by the (underworld) book and it all works out pretty well for him as a result.

As for Alejandro, he does well here. The guy definitely does have a big revenge motive but considering what the cartel did to his family you can definitely understand where he is coming from. It certainly doesn’t make him a hero and is why he can so ruthlessly torture anyone in his way but it does give him drive. You don’t want to mess with this guy because he does not mind collateral damage. The whole final scene is basically about how he has become the very kind of guy he has spent his life destroying. At this point he’s completely gone down the rabbit hole. It makes him an interesting Punisher type of main character to follow but certainly someone that you would consider to be another villain in the grand scheme of things. His crimes against humanity would be guilty under any court which is why he needs fake reports and such saying he is innocent. Not that the government is likely to openly mess with him either way but he doesn’t want to be vanished either.

Finally you have Kate’s partner Reggie who does a good job here. He basically pushed himself back into the mix to watch Kate’s back and he also makes sure that they get some answers. He’s not someone that you can just push around and I thought that he did a good job of backing her up. SO he fulfilled his objectives but ultimately he can only go so far here and a lot of the time Kate does have to be on her own

Ultimately I would believe this to be a very fair depiction of events in many war torn areas. It just make sense that you would see both sides breaking all sorts of unspoken rules of engagement and framing each other constantly. In any sort of battle with a gang, cartel, or some kind of corrupt government where you can’t count on a system to back you up then naturally you are going to turn to less desirable ways of completing your objectives. That’s just how it is but on the other hand the film could have definitely toned down some of it and made the movie more enjoyable. Remove the torture, more of the close up violence/aftermath, etc. At the end of the day you don’t get to be entertained here for very long before something drastic happens again and so it’s a fairly painful cycle of events. It’s definitely not a movie that has a whole lot of replay value.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend checking out Sicario. It’s certainly a movie about perpetuating the cycle of violence to keep everyone busy which means while there are some winners there will always be losers as well. In a fight like this there will always be a lot of casualties and so it’s the innocent people in the middle who really end up getting squashed. Complex global issues like this will never have a clean solution where everyone triumphs but you always hope to try and minimize the casualties as best you can. The very last scene is definitely depressing when you think about it.

Overall 2/10

On The Beach Review

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On The Beach has to be one of the most boring titles that I’ve watched. Seriously that’s the only issue with the film which is that it drags on and on for a super long amount of time. At no point in the adventure are you having a lot of fun. Now this is a very serious title so fun was always going to be tricky but then you have to have really likable characters to root for or something. Instead the film is really about everyone facing their imminent doom and how they deal with it.

The movie starts rather mysteriously. The world seems rather empty and there is a group in a boat just sort of drifting along. They are looking for something…but what is it? The film keeps this suspense up for a while but basically it turns out that World War III happened and the world is dying of nuclear fallout. It seems that there is no safe place in the world but Captain Dwight is trying to find some possible shred of hope. It just isn’t appearing though and slowly but surely he is watching everyone start to fade away. His family is likely dead as well but he’s not sure if he wants to rebound with a lady named Moira quite yet. There’s also another guy, Julian who likes her but with the end of the world coming in quick there isn’t a whole lot of time for that. How will these characters spend their last days?

In this film everyone is already defeated. There is seemingly no way to survive the radiation and after a point nobody even wants to try. The government is even handing out murder pills which will destroy you in an instant and a lot of people start taking them. Others start to end themselves in more creative ways like locking themselves in a car with the engine on or running off the road and exploding. That’s really where the film starts to lose you because after a point it’s really just a bunch of people committing suicide and that doesn’t make for the most engaging experience.

I would have liked the characters to have kept fighting until the bitter end. I know this film is quite old but surely someone could come up with a protective suit or something like that. Something to just keep them going a little longer and buy some time. Dying of radiation would certainly be a rough way to go so I get it. It’s why if we did ever have an end of the world event during my lifetime I’d want to be in the epicenter so it’s over quickly as opposed to getting dragged out. The reactions in the film are realistic so I’m not saying otherwise but it doesn’t make for great TV.

This movie is just made to be rather depressing all the way through and it succeeds in that. It just means that there are no real positives to enjoy either though. Then the first half is just slow as the heroes inspect different areas looking for radiation. They have to move really slowly through the ocean or while on land so they don’t trip. Because of this even a simple walk can take a very long time to get through and all the while you’re waiting for some excitement. Something to break the status quo and get some new energy in there. It doesn’t happen though.

Then the romance is also really weak. So Moira likes Dwight but part of the issue here is that Dwight did have a family. They are almost certainly dead by this point but he is really ready to move on so quickly? I just don’t like that. It seems like a pretty fast turnaround and it’s the end of the world. Why even start a new relationship when you are going to die shortly anyway? The ending just underscores this as they are not going to be together anyway so there was no point in even starting this. At best it just passes some time but then you’re paying a heavy price for that.

There are a lot of other areas we could have gone with this film that would be more enjoyable. It’s a classic prompt to ask someone what they would do if they knew they only had a few days to live. Of course that is usually assuming that you’re in a normal world so you say that you want to eat a lot of good food or things like that. In this case mostly everything is gone since most people are dead but you could still have some fun events. Like the quick race we got, that was fun enough. I’m not saying the film has to be upbeat but there are a lot of fairly lighthearted things you can do with this premise before going all grim dark at the end. That would have made the film a whole lot more enjoyable and definitely would have ended up being more fun.

Instead the only real dialogue we get here is characters debating the pill. Naturally it was a very controversial conversation for one family since that is a stressful choice. I think the wife and kid should have just gone with the father on the ship though. By this point do the usual formalities really matter? Moira went on the ship as she pleased until the end where she had to stay (Which didn’t make any sense). So just go on and at least be together until the end. I don’t really get the logic of splitting up when the end is so near but I guess it ups the drama.

Overall, On the Beach is a film that I highly recommend avoiding. It is always interesting to see how far back people had been thinking about the possibility of World War III. It’s something that will likely always loom over our heads but so long as everyone has nukes, at least we can have mutually assured destruction which beats this kind of apocalyptic setting. There isn’t really any reason to watch this one though because it doesn’t have any fun with the premise and if you wanted to see an abandoned world with the characters having nothing to do….well then I guess you can watch this film. Otherwise there is really no incentive here. It just drags on forever.

Overall 2/10

Summer and Smoke Review

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Summer and Smoke is about an old school romance that doesn’t go so well this time. See, you’d usually expect the classic trope of the innocent girl who falls for the bad boy to play out in a certain way. She gets him to be a little less wild and he gets her to live it up a little and it’s happily ever after. This takes a more serious look at how this would typically play out and while it does end up being a lot more realistic, it’s definitely not what I would call a feel good movie. It drags on a lot and since none of the characters are particularly likable that puts you in a rough spot right out of the gate.

The movie introduces us to Alma as a child who didn’t get along great with the other kids. She was always off on her own but she did like John who was fairly popular. John was definitely a tough kid already by that point and didn’t have time for the kind of serious romance that she was looking for. Many years have passed by and things haven’t changed. John lives a very problematic lifestyle and is always leaving town on adventures while Alma has been the dutiful daughter who takes care of her sick mother and keeps living on the straight and narrow. With John back in town Alma had been hoping they could finally get together but that isn’t working. Will she have to descend to his level for them to get together or is there a better way?

Of course the answer to this should clearly be that if you have to lower your level to be with someone then that’s not worth it. A true relationship can only blossom when you are being yourself and are with someone where you are comfortable doing that. If you feel like you need to change yourself then that’s already a massive red flag. Additionally John isn’t someone who could possibly be trusted to have a stable relationship with. Throughout the film he is involved in lots of different affairs and it is clear that he likes to play the field. He always goes for the most attractive girl in the group and then moves on when someone even more beautiful arrives. It’s a very clear pattern even if Alma tries to deny this.

Now you absolutely can feel bad for Alma. She has had a rough go of it as her mother has lost a significant portion of her mind so she acts rather crazy on a day to day basis and her father can be quite strict. So she has grown up in a way where she had to be very mature from a young age which didn’t help her when it came to mingling with the rest of town. Even her high education ends up getting in the way a bit as others think she is looking down on them. Ultimately it can be hard to make friends but if she was less obsessed with John then perhaps she could have found someone. She does have a few friends including one guy who likes her but she only really has eyes for John in the end.

Ultimately by the time she is ready to make a move like that it is just too late and it’s still probably for the best. The way her character ends in the film is not very satisfying though. I would instead argue that the ending is pretty bad since she is basically settling for someone else as she is desperate to have any man and she’s not thinking straight. An affair born out of desperation just isn’t going to end up working out. Ironically John probably has a more stable future ahead of him. Hey it’s great that it worked out but it can also be a bit annoying to see considering how much trouble he had caused beforehand. It’s just hard to forget that.

He’s also what brings the film down quite a lot here. See this is a very dramatic romance film. It’s not part comedy so you are going to have a lot of serious plots here like John’s decisions causing his father to get shot and a lot of feelings are hurt all the time. So by the time he has his offscreen redemption after a long timeskip you’re just tired of this guy already. You just don’t even want to see him because you know just seeing the guy is going to get you really annoyed. That’s just the kind of character he is. It’s like watching someone destroy a town and then show up a few years later to build a house. It’s great that he got his life back together but you just would rather he do it somewhere else.

The only really solid character in the whole film has to be the young lady who shows up at the end to deliver one last blow to Alma. Technically this girl doesn’t know any of the backstory so at no point does she have any malicious intentions. It does feel like there is a bit of an age gap there but ultimately she seems like the only character to be very nice with no ulterior motives so it’s easy to root for her. Everyone else can just be annoying.

I feel like the movie didn’t even need the plot about Alma’s mother. All it served to do was make the film a little more dreary and downcast with how Alma couldn’t even rest at home. The film already had enough of that so this was just throwing things over the edge. There’s also not a whole lot of fun to be had in the movie. You will barely find any real happy moments at all. I don’t count the crazy drunk parties John would have because that’s not the kind of happy moment I’m thinking about. You always see the negative connotations there. I’m talking about an actual lighthearted upbeat moment and those are rare. The closest may be when Alma and John go to the carnival and even then you know something bad is about to happen.

Overall, This is definitely a film that I highly recommend skipping. For starters it is a very long film. It drags on and on and on as the relationships keep going back and forth. The cast is weak and the story is annoying at best. The romances here are all awful so you’re not rooting for anyone to get together and the ending is really the big arrow to the heart. It ends things off on such a sour note and whether the relationship works or not, it feels like a pure desperation rebound which is never what you want to see here. There’s just nothing wholesome about that. Maybe the film should have taken place in the winter instead so as to work as a metaphor about how hard all of their hearts became by the end.

Overall 2/10

Piranha Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 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 that time of year again folks, it’s time for a creature feature! Now you may be thinking this should count as more of a horror film and that’s fair but these piranha really mean business and whenever they are on screen you know that things are about to get tricky. They take no prisoners and take no breaks. They just shred everyone in their way. At the end of the day it is a bit of a Jaws homage to be sure but I like how they go all in on this. I dare say it’s pretty close to Jaws in quality too but of course you know that’s not necessarily a good thing.

So the movie starts off with a pair of teenagers deciding to make a foolish mistake and that is to jump in the water near an abandoned testing site. How clean would this water be even if there weren’t piranha around? Well Maggie is called in to find them so she looks around a while and eventually comes across a guy named Paul who enjoys a quiet existence in a little cabin of his. He’s got a good gig going there and doesn’t want to be mixed up in any trouble but there isn’t really any dissuading Maggie so they check out the old government installation. They fight off a crazy guy and release all the piranha accidentally. Now these creatures are headed to a nearby town to take everyone down!

One thing that’s harder to capture in a newer film is how suddenly things happen. The heroes just wander into a crazy little hut and release a terrifying force onto humanity. There isn’t a lot of build up or foreshadowing to this. It just happens and the execution is fairly decent. The scientist could have potentially made things a little better for the world if he had tried to talk instead of immediately going to beat these characters up. C’mon this guy should have known that strategy wasn’t going to work and while it was an emergency, there were lots of ways to quickly get this across instead of the way that he did it. Ultimately this cost him his life which was a really heavy price to make for a simple mistake but that’s how things can go in these films.

Maggie is a decent heroine. She was persistent in her search for the teenagers which is admirable because I don’t think anyone would have faulted her for taking a step back after not finding any trace in the mountains instead of recruiting the old guy to help her. She really just wanted to see the job through and that’s always good. She never lost her determination throughout the film. As for Paul, he’s less of your classic hero and is just someone trying to stay out of harm’s way. He very reluctantly helped out with the search. Sure he did get going once they figured out what was happening but he just as easily would have rolled back into bed if Maggie wasn’t so insistent on his coming. Fortunately he can fight which came in handy against the scientist.

The army actually get involved later on which was nice since I always like to see them around. The only mixed thing here is the way the heroes escape just felt really cheesy. Cmon the security cannot be so weak that they basically just run out after a quick gag. The movie’s fairly serious so perhaps they thought we needed some humor thrown in but it almost feels out of place. I think they could have done a lot better with this whole plot personally. I wanted to see the army get some action even if in a way it would be hard to do when the enemies are fish. Have them fire at the water to no effect or something. They do use some poison but of course that isn’t going to do much here.

The movie does lightly touch on the classic conspiracy angle though. The government naturally doesn’t want anyone to find out what is going on here and they do a good job of covering it all up at least until that is no longer possible. They just didn’t seem very smart with how they handled it. They are trying to salvage things again by the end though so they are consistent. You have to give them some props there. Ultimately the instant you make mutated creatures that have super skills there probably isn’t much of anything that you can do but you still have to try hard. I would have had the film end with a piranha starting to grow a fist or something. Hey with mutations it should be possible right?

The effects aren’t bad but the soundtrack is on the forgettable side. The film’s best quality is its overall atmosphere but at the end of the day that’s really all that it’s got. With the Piranha murdering everyone everywhere it quickly just becomes another animal attack film. Fortunately with piranhas there is less chance of animal violence as it’s mostly just them eating people. It’s still fairly violent as it sure takes them a long time to shred people to bits though. This is not one for the faint of heart. Ultimately it is another good reason why you don’t really want to be in the ocean at all. I feel like on land you can reasonably protect yourself against most threats or feel like you have a shot but in the water there is nothing to anchor you or to really give you good ground beneath your feet so it’s all a lot more terrifying.

I wouldn’t say the movie is particularly scary to be honest but if you put yourself in that position then you can absolutely understand what the fear would be like. It’s not really my kind of film though. I would need more quality characters and a bigger role from the government for this title to really take off. I also think just by nature of the film it would be difficult for this one to be pretty good. When you have an evil animal you’re either going to see the humans destroy it or the animal destroy them and in each case it’s likely going to be a rather violent affair.

Overall, Piranha must have been quite the hit with how many films it has spawned but ultimately I would say that this is one that you can really skip on. There isn’t a whole lot of reason to watch this one when you have much better options on the horizon. Watch Godzilla vs the Sea Monster instead if you want to see what an aquatic animal can really do with full size enhancements to take on the government. Yes that’s definitely the way to do it!

Overall 2/10

Prom Night Review

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This review is of the TV-14 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 for another school movie where a disaster takes place. There isn’t a huge explosion this time around but there may as well have been as things get really intense here. The movie doesn’t start off on the best note, nor does it end in a great way either. This is really just your dime a dozen slasher movie going through its paces and it never tries to be anything more than that. As a result this movie just isn’t very good at all with a lot of forgettable characters.

The movie starts off with a bunch of cruel children picking on one girl until they corner her by a window where she falls through and dies. They decide not to tell anyone and run off. Years later, someone has decided to avenge the girl. Each of the children who were involved start to get threatening phone calls confirming that they will all be dying at the prom. The heroines are grown up now though and figure these are prank calls and don’t worry about it. As the bodies start piling up they have to be careful though. Can they actually stop this monster before they are obliterated?

Schools really are quite huge so it does work as a big battleground here. For example with the big prom taking place in the main lobby, the rest of the school is completely empty. That gives the murderer plenty of places to hide. It’s a location where you can buy into a cloaked figure even camping out for the whole day. You’ve got several floors each with 12+ rooms plus restrooms and such that are completely empty. Naturally some students leave to go and have affairs and such which makes them easy pickings. In that way the prom was the easiest date to pull this off for because everybody is making the job easier. They split off on their own without telling people intentionally.

Of course it’s also annoying to see them all fall for this by the same token. You just know that the characters are doomed the instant the villain appears. As always they all just don’t know how to fight at all and can’t defend themselves. The only exception to this is a guy named Slick who has a lot of self confidence. It was impressive how he just rode up in his big car and got someone to go out with him immediately although whether it’s a feather in his cap or the lady was too easy is something we can’t say. It’s as rushed a romance as you can get so I’m not exactly going to give that a high score.

Surprisingly Slick actually made this a real fight and went back and forth with the villain for quite some time though. That scene went on for way longer than I had anticipated. Yeah the ending is probably inevitable to be sure but I always prefer when someone puts up a fight rather than meekly going down. When your life is at stake you better find some adrenaline to fight back because if you lose then that’s game over. There is no retry option or anything like that even if it would be cool to have one of those.

The main heroine here is Kim and she does feel bad about what happened. It’s just like 10 years too late but I’ll take what I can get. There isn’t a whole lot to her character though. I mean in a way her character is that she isn’t nearly as desperate as the others who are all either one with the world now or have completely moved on. You just know that they’re all doomed while Kim at least has a chance of figuring things out. Well, she is the main character so that makes sense but she also just seems a lot more reasonable than the others. She feels like your average everyday character if that makes sense.

It’s not a bad thing, I’ll take being a forgettable character over being a really bad one but you can tell that this movie was more about putting the effort in to how everyone would be bumped off rather than the characters. There actually is one side bonus to this although I think it’s probably unintentional. The characters are so forgettable that when they reveal who the villain is, it takes you a minute to remember who the character is. You quickly understand from the context clues but there will be a few moments where you scratch your head and just wonder what’s going on. It all does make sense in hindsight and in a way this is the only culprit that would make sense.

The film does offer an obvious red herring from the start but the movie forgot to be subtle about this so because of that nobody falls for it. Now in a way slasher films are always going to be doomed no matter what setting they take place in but I would argue that taking place at a school puts you at an extra disadvantage by default. First you have all of the drama and poorly developed romances going on. It makes the characters look really annoying and unprepared from the jump. Then you have the fact that the teachers and principal are inevitably not going to help or do much anyway so why even include them in here? If the movie takes place on the mountains or something then at least it’s a unique environment and you have the extra tension of trying to escape from there in one piece.

It won’t solve the core issues but it’s a start. As you’d expect the film suffers from excessive violence and poor writing. There are no really likable characters as it’s really hard to forget that opening scene. I don’t care how young they were, you have to be pretty messed up to attack that little girl the way that they did. It was a really rough way to start the film and unfortunately set the tone for how the rest of the movie was going to play out. It’s really hard to recover from a moment like that.

Overall, At least the principal tried to help things out by putting the pressure on with locating another criminal on the loose. I give him credit for doing his best, he was just doomed from the start and you as the viewer knew it. Some things just can’t be easily stopped. I don’t think there is really anything you can get from this film that can’t be found in any number of other slashers. The movie doesn’t have much in the way of redeeming values as even the mystery of trying to find out who the killer is won’t interest you very much.

Overall 2/10

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters 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

Hansel & Gretel is definitely a very classic story that I’m sure just about everyone has heard of at one point or another. Doing a modern action film based on that premise could be a lot of fun. So on one hand they do succeed in adding a ton of action and it has a very Resident Evil/Underworld feel to it. Everyone’s wearing leather jackets and there is a lot of loud music as everyone just starts attacking. I always like the vibe but the film also decides to be quite over the top violent the whole time which ends up weakening it entirely. It’s a shame since otherwise I think this could have ended up being a whole lot of fun but instead it ends up being rather underwhelming.

The movie starts off with the origin story as Hansel and Gretel are abandoned by their father and a witch invites them to her house. For a long while she has them captured but eventually they destroy her and escape. They then decide to become witch hunters and are very good at it. They’ve slain so many over the years it’s almost like they are superhuman or something. Hansel’s one weakness is that he has magical diabetes so he has to take a shot every few hours or else he can’t move. One day they save an innocent civilian from being executed by a bunch of crazy townsfolk and prepare to stop the true enemy Muriel. The tough part about this is that she is one of the strongest witches in existence. Defeating her will not be easy by any stretch of the imagination.

It is hard to picture how the heroes lasted this long against the witches though because they just aren’t very impressive in a fight. Sure they have the gun and the crossbow not to mention that magical bolts don’t affect them directly (Strange isn’t it?) but that’s it. They still only have human level stats so you’d think the witches could overwhelm them with speed or manipulating the environment to choke them or something. They don’t end up doing any of that and every time they are defeated you have to shake your head a bit.

This gets even more drastic once Muriel steps in because she’s much stronger as I mentioned before. She moves so fast that it’s like she is teleporting and her energy blasts have a wide range to them. I get that she can’t use her mind control on the heroes but there are still so many ways to beat them. This is definitely an example of a movie where they made the difference between the heroes and villains way too drastic. You always gotta keep it at least a bit equal or the plot armor starts to show off too much. At least Muriel does make for a decently good villain though. She has a very concrete goal and takes steps to achieve it. Her plan wasn’t even bad so she put in a whole lot of work here.

Then we have Mina as the girl who was nearly executed. She gets a fairly big role in the film but ultimately ends up being very underwhelming. For the first half I actually just thought she was going to be a really powerful villain that the heroes had to worry about but as the film went on you started to realize that this might not be in the cards. She’s a character whose concept is a lot cooler than the execution. You got the feeling that she could end up being really cool but then the climax happens and that was it.

Likewise there is a white witch in the flashback who looks really bad. Basically like in Final Fantasy a white witch has healing powers while the dark witches use your classic attack spells. The problem is that the white witches are such pacifists that they literally refuse to lift up a hand to fight back even when they are being absolutely crushed. Not a good look if you ask me. There has to be a point where you are going to defend yourself because if you just let people murder you like that then I’m not going to like the character. It’s as simple as that.

Now there is a sidekick character named Ben who wants to help the main duo but he’s just annoying. For starters he lost any single shred of decency he might have had when he tries to take advantage of Gretel while she was asleep. I mean that’s case closed in one fell swoop. You just don’t come back from a blow like that, no shot! He mainly just exists to be the comic relief and doesn’t add anything to the film so you could absolutely cut him out and nothing would really change.

The heroes run into a troll named Edward later on who is nice enough. He helps out Gretel quite a bit which is always good and he means well. He may not be the smartest character out there but he knows enough to be of help when it counts. The guy has the physical strength needed to win almost any one on one fight and he seems like he would be a very loyal ally to have around so there’s no problem with him watching your back.

Then we have Hansel who is a good main character. He has quite the grudge against witches but who wouldn’t in his position right? The witch basically ruined his life and he will never be fully better again so after that it is really hard to forget such a moment. He can fight well which is the important part and is always looking out for Gretel. Likewise Gretel has Hansel’s back and they make a good team. She’s very confident and is always ready to press on in the fight. Their sibling dynamic worked well and isn’t one you see very often in the movies so that was fun. It’s why you could cut out Ben and just keep the dynamic duo banter intact.

Of course the film still has to squeeze in some romance which is why Mina steps in. This whole plot is very rushed and there just isn’t time for romance when you’re trying to take down witches. Lives are at stake and they also have to watch out for the corrupt townsfolk who are everywhere. So instead of pairing up and all of that maybe they should be focused on winning the fight ahead of them. That would have made way more sense at least and it could give them time to develop as friends instead. Yeah the romance should have been cut out.

As mentioned earlier the violence also could have been toned down a whole lot. Characters are being blown up and sliced and diced left and right. The film also goes for some downright gross imagery at different points as well like with Muriel forcing some guys to eat a bunch of bugs. Like did we really need to go there? Sure it shows how superior she is as a mage but cmon now. Then the film has to get edgy with all the townsfolk being brutes who go after Gretel at one point. The film is trying to be as extreme as possible at all moments and it works against the film.

Overall, Hansel & Gretel had some nice potential here. I liked some of the twists and the whole action angle was nice. I do think it could have ended up being a good film if it just showed some restraint. Instead it didn’t show any though and that’s what hurts the film a whole lot. There is no real replay value here and you’ll be cringing a whole lot. It’s time for another hard reboot to this series. You can still keep the witch hunter angle but the whole direction just needs to be changed. Hey, if you do that then you could have a winner on your side but in the meantime you should absolutely skip this one. At least the soundtrack is really good though.

Overall 2/10