Jupiter Ascending Review

Posted on July 5, 2015 by dreager1

This is one film where even the trailer looked bad. Typically, even if a film ends up not being good, the trailer will still grab your attention. Not Jupiter Ascending as it just looked iffy the whole time. It’s hard to describe, but it looks like a mainstream film that should have been a TV movie. Either way, that’s essentially what happened and the film didn’t end up being too good.

Jupiter is rather unsatisfied with her life right now. She helps out with her family by keeping houses clean and scrubbing toilets, but she feels like she was destined for better things. One day, she is nearly kidnapped by aliens, but saved by a different alien and told that she is actually a princess/queen who is the rightful ruler of Earth. That’s not a bad deal, but it also means that three different enemy groups are after her so Jupiter will constantly be on the run. Can she ever go back to her old lifestyle?

The film is a bit of a train wreck from start to finish. Let’s get the positive out of the way first. The action scenes are fairly fun for the most part. The energy affects are fairly neat and I love the fact that one of the big battles takes place in the middle of such a large city. Usually, that just doesn’t happen because the budget is too low or because the films just don’t realize how cool that kind of fight looks. There are also quite a few spaceship battles (Although those are less exciting) and the action was certainly a highlight. The only battle that I didn’t care for was when Caine fought against the lizard hybrid at the end. That fight was a little more brutal and not quite as flashy as the others. In the end, I would definitely give the action a thumbs up.

From there, thing get a little dicey for the film. For starters the romance is poorly handled. Jupiter falls in love with Caine seconds after they meet. Now that’s what I’d call a romance based purely on looks and I don’t see such a relationship going very far. It’s just not a good way to get the main characters together and the film just seemed to add that plot in because it was expected. It doesn’t help that both characters are unlikable as well.

Jupiter complains about her situation a whole lot. She also played a big role in losing the argument at the dinner table because she gave the answer to her opponent while trying to be passively aggressive. It’s why that tactic never works. Even once she’s a ruler, Jupiter never becomes a very likable main character and spends her time being surprised at what’s happening. She’s fairly gullible and gets into a lot of bad situations. Her big scene at the end involves a quick skirmish, but she doesn’t look impressive during that fight either.

As for Caine, he’s as generic as they come. He’s very gruff and certainly not the nicest of companions. He seems to be a little full of himself and his personality just ensured that I wouldn’t like the guy. Acting a little nicer to Jupiter would have been a great start, but it just proved to be too much for him. He also gets humiliated by his boss when they fight and all of his big lines just fall flat.

None of the other characters are likable either, but you may have expected that. There’s the comic relief character who is just here to make everyone feel bad and the other family members who don’t understand Jupiter’s plight. Not that they should as far as the alien part is concerned, but they don’t have any real development. The villains are also rather two dimensional and are really just here so that the film can have some antagonists. They can’t really fight and just rely on the minions to do the fighting for them.

There are also a few bounty hunters in the film who are just around to look cool. They vanish rather quickly and don’t add anything to the plot. Their laser guns are cool I suppose, but that’s just not good enough. One plot involving the bees was also unnecessary and it’s not fun to see the bees just flying all over the place. If I was Jupiter, I would have left that house as fast as possible even if she couldn’t be stung due to her aura of royalty.

While this is a sci-fi film, you’ll feel like nothing really happened by the end of it. Jupiter learned that she owns the Earth and stops a few villains. The rest of the film is mainly fluff and just expanding the universe when it’s not necessary since this is probably not getting a sequel anytime soon. If it ever does get a sequel, hopefully it will prove to be much more interesting than this one.

Ascending also touches upon the classic reincarnation idea as the heroes and villains are brought back into the world once in a while. The claim for this is that the DNA is exactly the same so it may as well be the same person right? Even if the mind is different, the body is the same. I don’t buy this at all, but at least now the villains can tell Jupiter how much she looks like her mother. They all don’t really age since they have a pool of youth that restores their body at the expense of everyone else. It’s a rather shady business, but the aliens don’t really have any morals to keep them from doing this. Generically, the pool also leads to some unnecessary fanservice as one of the characters decides to show Jupiter how to use it. It’s rather self explanatory if you ask me, but Jupiter did seem to be a little slow on the uptake at times.

This is the kind of movie that is simply better as a video game. If the gameplay played out like a Star Fox game or even a 007 title, it could be a lot of fun. Otherwise, this film wasn’t very enjoyable and it just feels worn out the whole time. It tries out a lot of ideas, but it only does so generically and even the fight scenes began to get a little generic by the end. The effects for the battles were still better than average and I liked the boots that Caine wore, but that’s hardly enough to save a film.

Overall, Jupiter Ascending is a movie that you should take a pass on. The action scenes are the only good thing about it and the rest of the film is just unoriginal and not very interesting. Adding in a good villain could have really made a difference, but with no characters to root for, you’ll quickly lose interest in the plot. At least Jupiter starts to appreciate her situation and doesn’t complain as much in the end of the film, but as long as she doesn’t mind showing off her new skills on skyscrapers, the world will likely find out about her ordeal very soon. When that happens, Earth will finally be able to fight back and take out the aliens. If you want a good alien story, then you should probably go watch Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan. That’s an alien story with a lot of tension and action!

Overall 3/10

The Swarm Review

Posted on July 4, 2015 by dreager1

This film definitely came out a good while ago. Whether you’ve heard of the film by name or not, you’ll likely be familiar with the concept. For some reason, a film about bees attacking the world just seems like something that you’ve heard before. It’s not a concept that will excite you and the film certainly doesn’t do that. This is a classic that has not aged very well.

Dr. Crane is found at a government installation and all of the agents are dead. The officials fear that enemy agents managed to break in, but Dr. Crane admits that it was actually the bees. Nobody believes him for a little while, but they are forced to realize the truth when more cities are attacked. The bees have launched a war against humanity and Dr. Crane says that they have been planning the war for some time now. The heroes will have to be careful about how they handle this because they will be doomed if other insects join the fight against the humans.

The film is very long so it likes to take time to develop the scenes. That’s not a good thing since it means that simple actions like taking a walk can drag on for quite a while. The opening scene where the agents find the dead men lying around takes at least 5 minutes before they call in the backup. By the end of the film, you’ll have wondered why the heroes are losing to bees instead of remembering what the plot is.

My main problem with the film would actually just be the fact that I don’t like the concept. It’s always been a little gross to see humans covered by insects and that means that none of the action scenes are enjoyable. The Bees are also animals and while animal violence doesn’t apply to them too much, it’s still not going to really help the film in the long run. That’s why a film can only be as good as its concept and this concept had a lot of limits to it.

There’s also a lot of plot hax as the bees are basically immune to everything and nearly impossible to stop. We get a few twists and the heroes think of a plan at the end of the film, but the death count is incredibly high. Hundreds of thousands of people died against the bees so it really was like a real war. If the Bees can do that much damage to us….imagine what the flies can do! It should be noted that the Bees were actually Super Bees who could destroy the average human in 2-3 stings. That’s why the heroes were so defenseless against the creatures.

This film is incredibly old so there’s no real soundtrack. That being said, we still get a really emotional death scene where a scientist realizes what he has to do to stop the bees. The only downside is that he must die to test out his serum. The guy decided to take a large dose of venom and by the time he applied the antidote, it was too late. The scene is supposed to be really sad, but the scientist just acted so unintelligent that it’s hard to buy the emotion. He should have had an assistant with him and he shouldn’t have started the dosage up at such a high level. His sacrifice was essentially in vain.

I do like the determination that the army had as they went into this fight. The commander always talks a good game and he didn’t make the mistake of underestimating the opponents. That being said, he was forced to defer to Mr. Crane on this war, which meant that he couldn’t actually go through with the war efforts that he wanted to try. Both Mr. Crane’s and the commander’s tactics proved to be useless anyway so it wasn’t a big loss, but he was much more interesting than the main character.

Mr. Crane wasn’t a bad main character by any means, but he may have been a little naive. He persisted in waiting out the Bees even when the casualties were steadily rising. He really had no plan to stop them for a while and the losses shouldn’t have been acceptable to him. Worrying about the environment is good, but America was getting close to being destroyed, he needed to act sooner. His possible romance subplot was also rather iffy and not integral to the plot…it was just there to be there.

There’s a little kid in this film who helps to doom his fellow students as he launches an attack on the bees. It was one of those emotional subplots that we didn’t need. While he did a good job of taking down a lot of Bees, he should have known that they would retaliate. The citizens are partially to blame since they had quite a bit of time to get inside, but many of them were still caught unprepared. After the first traumatic attack, I’d imagine that everyone would be especially careful not to be outside too long.

There’s also a subplot where two guys are flirting with an old lady. With all of these subplots, it’s no wonder why the film was so long right? This was mainly just filler and some levity likely intended to take your mind off of the somber Bee plot. The moral is essentially that both guys should have just been satisfied to stay in the friend zone. It would have saved them a lot of grief and they wouldn’t have had to become enemies through their fight over the lady.

At least the writing is all fairly good in the Swarm as this was back in the 1970’s. The characters mostly sound distinguished and Mr. Crane is constantly trying to out think the government. It is hinted that he allowed the Bees to destroy the military base without trying to warn any of the guards and that adds some tension to the equation. I still love the classic dialogue from these olden films and the English language is still my favorite because of how smart and quick it sounds.

It was a little surprising to see some of the victims of the Bees. I wasn’t expecting a good number of the school children to die, but I suppose that it was left in since it wasn’t a violent death. (On screen anyway) It’s too bad that they couldn’t escape though since they didn’t really need to add to the body count. It was already so high by that point. We did get some decent action scenes at the end as the humans grabbed their flame throwers, but they were doomed from the start. There are millions of bees after all and a quick sting is enough to take the fight out of the humans. The Bees even start to give you visions of a giant bee that wants to sting you. Their abilities are certainly fierce!

Overall, The Swarm really isn’t my kind of film. If you want to see how humans would fare against the Bees, then you should like this film. If you buy into Crane’s theory that they are out to get us, then it’ll be even more fun for you as the Bees strategically take down base after base. The film is really dragged out though and it just isn’t that much fun to watch. The Bees don’t work as antagonists for me and while Dr. Crane and the government agents are decent, there are no really good characters. Even the climax may not be all that exciting for you. This is a film to pass and I doubt that it will scare you either as it feels more like a comedy than a horror at times.

Overall 3/10

True Lies Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time for another Arnold film and this is one that I definitely hadn’t heard of before. It essentially tries to be a James Bond film and I have to wonder if Cameron has ever seen one. That is one formula that you really don’t want to emulate and this film falls into a lot of the same holes that the Bond films create. True Lies ended up being below average and a film that I would not recommend, but it was decent for the most part. It simply could not recover from its mistakes.

Harry is a double agent who works for a very secret organization. His family does not know about this and they think that he just has a very boring job. His wife knows that Harry is passionate about it though so everything was going well until the Terrorists struck. Harry must now try to stop them even if it may expose his identity and Helen decides to get into an adventure of her own, but this ends up being a bit of a dangerous move. Will she be able to succeed or is she doomed? Those are the main plots of the film.

Let’s dive into the main negative, which crippled the film. That would be Helen’s plot as she essentially decides to abandon her family and practically cheat on Harry as she meets someone who claims to be a secret agent. She stops him after the guy tries to make out with her, but he still succeeded for a little before she stopped him, which was awful. From there, she also accepted a mission to be a hooker and we had a painfully long scene of her dancing for the villain in disguise. It was all just terrible and that scene alone guaranteed that this film would get a negative score. That was just terrible and I don’t think that any film could recover from such a thing.

The Helen subplot was just not necessary and it took quite a while to finish. Harry was also way too mean during those moments as well like when he forced her to take up the mission and do all of those degrading things. He was not a good main character by any stretch of the imagination nor was she a good heroine. She was ready to abandon her family and travel to another country on a whim, that’s just not smart and she also appeared to be very naive.

As for Harry, I’ve already explained how he’s a pretty bad hero. He also flirts with the enemies in classic James Bond style. At least James Bond isn’t married, but Harry is so he really shouldn’t be messing around. He doesn’t actually do anything, but the flirting is still unnecessary. He can accomplish his mission while being stone cold, that’s what the villains do right? He’s a good fighter and typically knows how to beat a group of enemies with a single gun. As an agent, Harry is probably even better than James Bond since 007 managed to lose to a random thief in Skyline while he was at his peak. I don’t think it’s even debatable which agent is more adept at hand to hand combat.

The film’s fairly light toned as it is a mix of comedy and action throughout. There is even a scene where a character drops a gun and the bullets take out about a dozen men. Harry takes care of the rest and he gets an epic one liner as he takes down the leader of the villains. There were no real interesting villains as the main one is very generic. At least the film used him to make the terrorists look rather inept, which is always good and I wouldn’t want him to be likable anyway. One of his foot soldiers is the lady who is around to distract Harry, but she never really gets to try this and just acts to make Helen jealous.

As you can see, most of the characters are pretty bad. Even Harry’s daughter is rather sad as she actually steals money from people and it’s a very unnecessary addition to her character. She is presented to be overly rude and that’s considering that Helen and Harry are already not the greatest of leads. Harry’s partner is the “funny” guy of the group and he gets a ton of burns and one liners, but he also has a number of them that just make him look bad. I definitely didn’t like him either although he’s certainly more charismatic than the other players.

It’s too bad because the film actually started out really well. The opening scene was like a James Bond film, but without going too far and the snow action scene was good. Of course, the first sign that this film was going to take a plunge was when Harry hit two dogs into each other. That was when I knew that the film didn’t really stand a chance and animal violence is always a sign that the film’s writers did not know what to do. It’s just unnecessary and rather sad. I really don’t mind the fact that this film didn’t get a sequel. It would ideally be better than the first film, but that’s still not saying much.

At least, I got to see another meme in the making. When Harry punches the fake agent while they are in the car, I instantly recognized the scene. It was used a lot online back in the day and I always wondered where it came from. Now that I’ve seen that one and the one from the Planet of the Apes, I’ve seen just about all of the big meme/gifs from the olden days. The main one that I’m missing now is the slow clap gif and I may still have scene that film. The actor in it looks familiar at any rate.

This film could not win so it’s good that Cameron already has a good resume with other films. It will be ironic if James Bond comes back to defeat True Lies with its upcoming film and the scary thing is that there is actually a possibility of that. The next James Bond film looks like it could finally be decent and it has more potential than all of the old ones with the exception of Skyfall. Skyfall wasn’t great, but they cut out most of the romance plots that have plagued the series and this one looks to continue that. Of course, Mission Impossible was always a better James Bond than the James Bond films so it’s all a little moot.

Overall, This is an old blockbuster that really couldn’t match up to the newer ones. Arnold and Cameron were around, but they simply couldn’t produce another winner this time. With such a large budget, they should have put more funds towards making the characters more likable. This review actually came across as even more negative than I had planned, but sometimes retrospect can make a film age even worse than you may have guessed. At the moment, it’s hard to think of any real positives. The film was fun during a lot of the moments, which would have to be its only real pro. It’s easy to watch for the most part and the pacing wasn’t bad, but when you have to endure the Helen subplot for well over 20 minutes…it just gets to be a little too much.

Overall 3/10

Jurassic World Review

Posted on June 12, 2015 by dreager1

I recently saw all three Jurassic Park films so I was all set for this one. To an extent, the premise of the Jurassic Park franchise guarantees that the films will always get low scores thanks to the fact that it revolves around dinosaurs and will have a lot of animal violence. This film is no exception and it’s safe to say that it does lose to Jurassic Park III, but beats the first two films. If you’re a fan of the older films, you should definitely enjoy this one.

Claire has helped to put Jurassic Park back onto the map as the new amusement park, Jurassic World. While her boss doesn’t care to much about the financial part of the operations, that’s where she comes in. She had her team create a new dinosaur that was even bigger than the T Rex to increase the wow factor of the park, but ends up underestimating the creature. It escapes so she is forced to call in the resident dinosaur expert, Owen Grady!

That’s essentially the plot in a nutshell and while I will be talking about the film a lot, I’ll try to avoid spoilers. I managed to see this film yesterday which was fun since a day 0 viewing is always intense. The audience wasn’t quite as ready to roll as they were in Age of Ultron or the first Avengers, but it’s mostly due to the timeslot. They were still ready for action though and I had my comfortable recliner so I was ready for anything as well.

I was cracking up for the first 30-45 minutes. Roughly of course since this isn’t the kind of film where you will be glancing at your watch. It was probably partially intentional by the film, but I mostly didn’t laugh at its jokes, but at the scenes due to being unintentionally funny. One example of a joke where I was laughing (on the inside, I rarely laugh on the outside) was when the parents tease Zach after his heartwarming moment with his friend. It was all in good fun so the parents went a little higher on my coolness chart. They were essentially non factors here though as their screen time was minimal. The kids were fairly awful, but they did help the humor for the film.

Another example is when the two kids finally meet up with Claire. She tries to be nice and excited about seeing them only to get one of the more awkward receptions. Zach basically doesn’t want to talk to her at all and Gray’s mood swings of being somber and then super excited don’t wait for anyone. Claire can’t stay so she lets her assistant babysit them. You just gotta feel bad for Claire and I sympathized with her for the whole film. She doesn’t have a lot of free time so it makes sense that she hasn’t seen her nephews in 7 years. It’s regrettable, but these things happen and the kids shouldn’t hold it against her. She’s trying to be a good Aunt, but they never even gave her a chance. Gray may have, but he was disheartened when she couldn’t stay.

Let’s quickly talk about the two kids. Zach’s thing is that he believes that he’s really cool. He completely ignores his parents at times and ends up flirting with every single girl that he meets. (Even though he’s taken) Zach’s constantly giving Gray a hard time. “Sometimes we have to grow up!” Those may not have been his exact words, but he gets a lot of the most generic dialogue in the film and he’s also a shining bad example in many situations like when he decides to head to the forbidden zone. He felt like the kind of character that you would see in a commercial warning you not to hang out with people like that. He has his hero moments towards the end with Gray of course and he sees the light, but that would help him in the sequel, not here. He was just terrible.

No worries, Gray was awful as well. He’s way too excited and constantly blasts through rides to the dismay of the babysitter. At one point, he starts to whine about where all the dinosaurs are…even though we see that dozens of them are in front of him only about a minute later. There’s no way that he wouldn’t have been able to see them. It reminds me of a critique for the flowers film where someone saw a dead body before they ever could have seen it. Sort of the opposite of this event. Gray really had no consideration for anyone but himself during his visit to the park and while you can sympathize with him since Zach doesn’t want to hang out with him, Gray should have still done a better job of enjoying the park. He’s also pretty emotionless when pointing out a giant dinosaur that is around.

Time for a few quick nitpicks. After two characters jump into a lake, we see them walking a few minutes later and they are hardly wet. Their hair is matter and one of the T shirts is soggy, but the characters look way too dry considering the fact that they were completely underwater for a little while. Anyone who has ever jumped into a pool and then walked out will know that you don’t dry out that quickly. There’s also the ball ride where two characters explore the park. Even once an emergency announcement cuts off the presentation and tells everyone to leave…the ball is unaffected. The passenger still has complete control of it and that’s certainly not very safe. If passengers could control these things to go wherever they wanted, people would constantly be crashing into dinosaurs.

I did also chuckle at the fact that one guy’s whole job was making sure that all of the balls were safe during the crisis. He tells everyone that they’re all safe until he actually looks at the screen and realizes that one is gone. Whoops….that didn’t look too good for the guy. I liked his Dinosaur collection and admired the fact that he always talked a good game, but he was out of his league and he also tried flirting towards the end. Luckily, it wound up being the ultimate friend zone moment and I thought that it was handled rather well. We need more friend zone moments to be honest as they would make just about every film better.

The actual park is definitely somewhere that you would want to go and it looks kind of like Epcot. They have big water rides and a petting zoo section as well. You could say that it’s a fusion of your local zoo with one of the big amusement parks. It’s hard to believe that people would get bored of such a place even though the wow factor was apparently leaving. How I see it, Zoos have remained relevant for decades, a Dinosaur park would at least last 20 years without any big decline in viewership. That being said, Claire may have been overreacting as the numbers still seemed to be quite good when she was mentioning the statistics.

Let’s take this time to quickly talk about Owen and Claire. I haven’t really mentioned Owen up til now, but he did have some solid scenes. I did enjoy his interactions with the Raptors and I like how it was handled. He was their partner, not their boss although he thought of himself as an Alpha. Owen’s essentially your average action hero who has his good moments and his iffy ones. His flirting and dicey remarks keep him from being a good character, but he’s still decent for the most part. It’s easy to root for him at any rate and he certainly knows what he’s doing. He’s another guy who never bows to authority and talks when he feels like it. Imagine if everyone in real life were so bold right? I think the world would be topsy turvy before long.

Claire is a good main heroine for the film and she was actually one of my favorite characters. She didn’t want to have kids which is a noble goal and she has spent her career moving up in the ranks until she became one of the higher ups at the biggest amusement park in the world. That’s no small feat to say the least. Towards the end of the film, she has a bit of a generic ending where you can probably guess that she decides to back away from one part of her logic, but she was still a good character through and through. I thought that she did a decent job watching the kids. Sure, she left that to the assistant, but she gave them VIP passes and they got to have a blast. It’s not like she could take a day off when the big bosses were in town and awaiting her sales pitch after all. I also can’t really imagine her getting on some of the rides and having a blast like the kids. Actually, one of the rides was only built for 2 anyway.

The assistant was actually fairly likable and I originally thought that she was going to be one of the main characters. The actress looked like the main one from Twilight so I thought that I may have just been out of the loop there, but considering her minimal role, I’m going to assume that it was someone else. She definitely didn’t care to be there, but she’s probably seen and been on all of the rides many times over at this point. Still, her facade was good enough to fool the kids I’d say, but they were intent on giving her a tough time right from the start. Her character path goes down a dicey road and I felt bad for the whole time. It just wasn’t her day.

The higher up in charge of the park was decently charismatic. The film was going for a Tony Stark kind of feel for the guy and it worked to an extent. He started to look a little iffy towards the end though, but at least he cared about the dinosaurs a little. As always, there is a human antagonist to liven things up and he is similar to the guy from the first film. He talks tough to everyone and he has his own plans in mind. He gave the film another jolt of humor and I liked him as one of the big bads. This guy certainly wasn’t playing around.

Time to talk about the mystery dino. If you’re seen the trailers, then you know that there is a new Dinosaur hybrid attacking everyone. While she is a little smaller than I had expected, she still packs a punch and makes for a great threat. There are few dinos who can hope to match up to this fighter and she is also very smart. The fact that this dinosaur has been created in a lab gave the writers a little freedom to add some new techniques so this dinosaur doesn’t just need to rely on physical strength. It has two defensive skills, which greatly increase how deadly it can be in a fight. This dinosaur was definitely one of the highlights.

The classics like the T Rex and the Raptor are also present of course and I still love both dinosaurs. Once you see this film, you’ll be reminded why the T Rex is so awesome and how merciless the Raptors can be. It would have been fun to have seen the Spinosaurus enter the fray, but maybe next time. The Raptors get a fairly large role and are integral to the plot. They are still my favorite Dinosaurs out there and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. They just look so happy and cuddly next to all of the others.

As you might expect, there is a big climactic fight towards the end of the film and it’s quite impressive. It was a fight that I actually called out as I walked into the theater and I was thrilled to see it play out. The fighters gave it their all and we see some nice teamwork as well. The fight isn’t that short either and gives the dinosaurs enough time to really show what they are made of. It’s easily the best fight scene that we’ve gotten in the Jurassic Park franchise and it’s hard to picture this one being topped.

There are some plot elements left around to get you ready for the inevitable sequel. Let’s just say that the next film could have dog sized super dinosaurs running around and it’ll make for a pretty epic clash. Alternately, it could have a plot similar to the original King Kong. Either way, the sequel should be fun and I wonder if the main characters would return or if it would be time for a new cast. I would like these characters to return, but I’m open to change so that we wouldn’t have to see the kids return.

Now, this review sounds decently positive so you may expect something like a 7? A 7 is what the film would have gotten if not for the main negative, but it is something that it almost literally impossible for the Jurassic Park franchise to get away from. That is…animal violence. It’s a dinosaur eat dinosaur world out there so it’s expected and I’m not surprised at the fact that dinosaurs are getting hurt all over the place. It simply makes sense even if it is regrettable. So, while I enjoyed the film as a whole, I’ve still got to cripple the final rating due to how many times an animal is injured and how prevalent this is in the film.

One scene is really just there so that the mini army can get some hype as a gun man casually shoots one of the Pterodactyls. That was just unnecessary and a lot of the other animal scenes aren’t much better. We see dinosaurs blown up, eaten, and effectively drowned. If you’re a dinosaur in this film, then you’re in a whole lot of trouble. A lot of the hurt also comes to my good ole Raptors, which is unfortunate, but probably a price of being one of the main characters. I could go on and on, but you get the drift and it occurs too often to be overlooked so you should prepare for a fairly low score on this one.

Still, it was more fun than the first three Jurassic Park films and certainly seemed to have more fun with itself as well. I’m glad that the Park finally got to open and the film was certainly able to make it look much more authentic than it could have with older effects. This is one of those times where the fact that it’s modern and has some good effects, really helps it. To an extent, I feel like new technology will always help films to have an edge over older ones. The older ones typically hold their own through the better writing, but when you have a good modern film against a good old one, the modern one certainly has that extra edge. Jurassic Park III still wins overall, but the tone and pacing of this film can’t be beat. World feels like a classic Summer Blockbuster.

Hmmm, have I touched on everything? I managed to stay pretty vague on all spoiler related areas and that also slightly limits what I can discuss in the review. The first half was really funny and made this the funniest film in the series and the ending also had the best action scene from all 4 so it was a nice balance. Any scene with the Raptors is typically a good scene as well. As for the soundtrack, you’ll certainly recognize the classic theme from the first film as well as the trailer theme, which plays during one of the scenes. The soundtrack may be a tad generic at points, but the main theme is still iconic and you probably won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. As long as you have one memorable scene, that’s more than most films have got.

While the animal violence is really the only big negative, there are some mild ones as well since this still wouldn’t be a perfect film if the violence was gone. (Although it would be a good-very good one) The kids naturally weren’t good characters, but the rest of the cast helped to nullify them. The writing isn’t great although this is mainly due to Owen and Zach’s characters as the rest are typically fine. There is one scene that will puzzle you a little bit as two security guards seem to have no idea that the Park is in trouble even though the alarms had already gone through a good half hour ago. It struck me as a little odd and random. That’s about it so the film was mostly solid. At around 2 hours, it was a good run time, which gave the film enough time to develop the characters and showcase the dinosaurs.

While Jurassic World is mainly a popcorn film with a lot of epic action and enjoyable moments, it can actually get pretty somber and sad at other moments. One of those moments is the Dinosaur graveyard, which is definitely tragic and one of the more emotional moments of the film. One moment that is supposed to be emotional is when we learn of a divorce, but it has no point in the film and its thrown out so randomly that you probably won’t feel any emotion other than a casual wince. Of course, if you like to have fun with films, then that may be a good thing as I was having fun grinning and wincing for some of the dialogue, but in a good way. On the whole, Jurassic World is still a fairly upbeat film that stays happy for most of its run time as it only gets sad once in a while.

The Pterodactyl attack scene will just get thrown in with the rest of the animal violence issue, but I wonder how some critics will take it. I read a critique of Jurassic Park III that Pterodactyls shouldn’t be strong enough to lift a grown man. Let’s just say that they lift quite a few people during the attack in this one. Is the science/films right or are the real life keyboard warriors correct on this one? I don’t know myself, but it seems perfectly feasible that Pterodactyle could lift humans up since animals are typically so tough. I’m no dinosaur expert though and am happy just being a casual moviegoer.

Overall, I’m definitely glad that I saw this one. If you liked the first three Jurassic Park films, then you should definitely like this one a lot. At the most, you may not like the fact that it’s much more of an action film than the first Jurassic Park, which was a survival film, but it’s still about dinosaurs and it’s still a good film so I believe that you would end up enjoying it. The animal violence is regrettable and it’s something that likely won’t leave the series until they bring in the mecha dinosaurs and I’m ready for that to enter the picture soon. Well, next stop should be good ole Terminator and it’ll be fun to see how that holds up.

Overall 3/10

Still of the Night Review

Posted on June 4, 2015 by dreager1

Time for a modern mystery film! The poster is quite good as it takes the classic saying and throws in a knife for good measure. The only reason why it doesn’t work is because none of the characters look particularly intimidating in that scene. Hmmmm….ah well. I appreciate the effort. This film was not quite as good as the last two that I mentioned and it never ended up rising above itself. While I get what the film was aiming for with the flashbacks…it shouldn’t have bothered.

The main character is named Sam. He is a pretty good psychiatrist, but one of his patients is murdered one day. Sam takes this personally and begins to look into the matter. A mysterious lady who says that she had an affair with the guy appears. Her name is Brooke and she works with auctions. Sam forgets that one should always stay objective in a case and falls for her right away. That’s pretty embarrassing for the guy given that she had been messing around with a married man. Doesn’t Sam know a trap when he sees one? It becomes more and more evident that she may have destroyed the guy, but isn’t that too obvious? Sam better hope so because his life continues to be in more and more danger as the cops suspect that Sam’s days are numbered.

I almost chuckled when I googled this film to grab the names and saw that it said PG on the right. This film got a PG….really? You can tell that the Indiana Jones film was needed as the days before the PG-13 rating were certainly scary.The film isn’t that violent, but the Teddy Bear scene alone would make it PG-13 and that’s before the film becomes a horror thriller when the girl appears with the knife. Even the fact that there are flashbacks with a terrible character would make it PG-13 for all of the insanity that he is spewing.

As I’ve essentially established, I didn’t care for Sam. Going for someone who’s already been in a pretty bad affair is not the way to start a romance. Later on, we find out that she was calling it off, but it’s still a bit much and Sam didn’t know that for a while. Sam is also not the bravest action hero that I’ve seen recently. His life is at stake of course so he should be nervous, but going to the laundry room in the creepy basement at life is not the greatest of moves. Even if my life was not threatened, I wouldn’t be doing something like that.

Then, Sam also went to Central Park at night and was nearly destroyed by a random mugger. Again, that wasn’t his best move and the mugger wasn’t even that tough as he was easily defeated a few minutes later. I don’t see how the guy wouldn’t hear the heels getting close to him so he evidently lost in what must have been close to a fair fight. Sam just took too many risks in solving the mystery. I definitely couldn’t get behind him.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for Brooke. The beginning really destroyed her chances of being likable. Especially when you consider that she was hanging out with a guy who seemed to not exactly be a nice guy. She also didn’t help make herself less suspicious since Brooke was constantly acting a little shady and it’s easy to picture her destroying the guy. There are several times when she is following Sam and acting very suspicious so that you can think that she did it. But…did she do it? That’s the question!

No matter who the main villain was, Sam didn’t look too good at the end. He forgets to lock his car door and his reflexes and hearing are pretty bad. You’ll know where the scene is going as soon as there is some rustling in the backseat and it’s hard to even feel bad for Sam. Why would he not notice someone in his car? Definitely not a great move on his part and you’ll just be facepalming as it goes from bad to worse when he makes his last appearance. He basically just yells “Stop!” without making a move. I wonder if the villain will decide to stop…

The film certainly has a lot of misdirection as it tries to make everyone seem pretty imposing and scary so that Sam is unsure of who to trust. The scene with the laundry was a perfect example of this and it was also quite iffy. Someone was certainly messing around down there so were they doing it as a prank or were there ghosts in the machines? I prefer to think that it’s the latter, but you never can tell sometimes.

One reason why the film is not so good is naturally the romance between the two leads as it makes them look pretty bad. The dream also had something to do with it as the Teddy Bear getting injured was completely unnecessary. That was an example of the film just trying to be gritty for the lolz. That was pretty not cool and the film quickly turns into a horror for the climax as the heroes nearly don’t make it.

Still, that’s not really enough to break the film down to a 3 is it? No, the final piece in the puzzle is the flashback scenes with the guy who died. The film is trying to be deep and have a lot of layers by adding in this feature, but it was better off without it. We quickly learn that the guy was a pretty bad individual and almost all of his lines will just make you cringe. It’s easy to see how this guy was murdered and his speeches just bring down the overall quality of the film. His lines give us some hints as to who got him of course, but we could have found out that intel another way.

Did I mention that the cops also don’t look too good? The Detective starts to get onto the trail of the villains so he is quickly taken out of the picture. I suppose that he never had any proper combat training as he was taken down so quickly that it ended up being off screen. Yeah….that’s not cool. He was around a lot, but he never really got anything done.

Overall, Still of the Night is a film that took a lot of wide turns and didn’t succeed. While it started out as your average mystery film, the ending decided to play out like a horror film as the villain moved in with the knife all Jason Voorhees style and started to cut the cast down to size. It was handled decently although the protagonists IQs started to drop as the scenes went on. The film was simply riddled with too many problems along the way like the romance, the flashbacks, and the Dream. The Dream was totally unnecessary and we had to see it more than once. Not cool! There’s also something about the actual film that will keep it from catching your attention. Perhaps it is the characters as they definitely do not grab you. If you’re looking for a good thriller, horror, or mystery film, you can do better. This one is better left at Blockbuster this time.

Overall 3/10

The Lost World: Jurassic Park Review

Posted on May 19, 2015 by dreager1

It is time to look at the sequel to Jurassic Park! It’s no secret that I wasn’t a fan of the first one and I was hoping that this title would be an improvement. The sequel was certainly better than the first one, but I can’t say that it was a significant difference either. It falls into the animal violence issue as expected and the characters are not quite as cool as they could have been. Third time’s the charm, or so they say, but let’s take a deeper look at this film.

Ian has tried to forget about the Jurassic Park incident, but that proves to be impossible very quickly. Everyone knows that he has been there and he can’t find any peace. While he was paid a decent sum of money to stay quiet about what happened, his reputation is still in ruin. Making matters worse is the fact that his girlfriend decided to venture off to a dinosaur island on her own. John Hammond effectively used her as bait since he knows that Ian will have to go after her. Ian leads a small strike squad there, but a bigger group is also on the island to enslave the dinosaurs. It will be a race against time and money as Ian tries to get everyone back home in one peace.

For starters, let’s look at what the film did wrong so that we can end the review off with some positives. First of all, the animal violence is certainly back. A dog is eaten in one of the final scenes of the film and it’s the kind of moment that makes you want to go and get a hoagie from 711 to help douse the pain. There’s no point for this scene to be there and it’s just animal violence for the sake of violence. It’s not cool and it wrecked any chance that the film had of actually being decent. Without this scene, I think that a 4 may have sufficed although I suppose that it still could have gotten a 3.

Another point against the film is the fact that the humans start to enslave them all. I came to watch Dinosaurs be the kings, not to watch them get defeated by the humans. I never like to watch the humans fight these creatures because the humans will always win and it is sad to watch the dinosaurs be defeated. One of them fractures his foot and other dinosaurs are quickly thrown into captivity. I could have done without that plot altogether and the film would have been better off without them.

This film also decided that the first one wasn’t edgy enough as this becomes a pseudo slasher at one point. You will possibly be surprised at just how violent the title can get as blood runs rampant here. It’s an unnecessary change and we didn’t come to Jurassic Park to watch a slasher film. Another scene that’s just painful to watch is the one where the mini raptors attack the villain. He’s a villain who is used for animal violence so the film has him brutally murdered, but it’s just not a good cycle. Essentially, we’re supposed to feel good since the bad character was killed off for doing something mean, but instead we’re just given two bad scenes that hurt the film even more. If we didn’t get the scene of the human antagonizing the dinosaurs, then we wouldn’t have needed the scene where he dies so violently. It’s a case of bad character development.

As you can see, the film was in pretty hot water throughout and it couldn’t recover. A raptor is even stabbed as it falls to help a “hero” moment turn into a fail. Now, let’s gather our bearings and look at what the film did right. Well, I actually like Ian as the main character. I think that he was more impressive in the first film and his dialogue was certainly a lot better, but he can hold his own film. He’s always ready and Ian warned the people that this was a bad idea from the start. You really can’t blame him for what happens and he actually gets the short end of the stick when you consider his reputation.

Ian’s daughter is less likable. She’s an improvement from the kids in the last film, but she still panics and holds the team back at times. If she had not told Ian to take her up to the trees where they would be a bigger target, Ian could have potentially stopped the falling tractor scene from ever taking place. Making a fire in a dinosaur land is also not a great move and she made a pretty big mess in the portable home. She means well, but this is why kids should not be main or supporting characters in most films.

The final big character is Sarah, but I can’t say that I was very impressed with her either. She left Ian without saying anything, which I found to be very irresponsible. She also acts as if Ian is not around because she takes many big risks when she doesn’t need too. Petting a dinosaur and messing with a cub is practically asking to be eaten. I don’t see how she would have survived the adventure and I couldn’t take her side in the disagreements. She placed everyone in danger by coming to the island and she’s not remorseful in the slightest. Ian’s got his faults as well of course, but at least he only puts himself in danger.

As this is the sequel, Lost World certainly feels a lot lower budget than the first film. The soundtrack and effects are not nearly as good as the first film and this one could have easily been a straight to DVD film. It definitely doesn’t have that theatrical feel that the first one had. You can say that for many theater films so it’s not unique to this title, but you could never say that the first film did not feel theatrical without grabbing some Air Head candies to keep you from making a straight face. The slasher elements and constant 3D (In your face) techniques also keep it from feeling quite as grand and real. I’m still not a 3D fan and I probably won’t be for another 40-60 years, when we will have finally learned how to make true 3D.

Some parts of the film do test your imagination a little bit like the actual premise. I don’t believe that the government would not have made a move at this point. People died in the Dinosaur adventures so they would not allow dinosaurs to quickly be brought into the cities and zoos. That’s simply not going to happen and with the amount of red tape that we have in the US, it would be years before any real traction would be made at that front. At most, They’d just let people visit the dinosaur land at their own peril, but there would likely be a huge fee and I could see them just keeping the island as a testing facility.

The Raptors still remind me of good ole Yoshi whenever they appear. They are my favorite dinosaurs although the good ole T Rex is in second. The Raptors mean business and there are not many animals who can defeat them while the Raptors are in a group. The climax may have had the dog scene, but I liked it a lot otherwise. It’s played out like a Kaiju film as everyone is running away from the Dino and many yells can be heard. The stakes have simply never been this high before and it was a decent reaction of how people would respond to such a creature. I think that some people wouldn’t be frightened as there are people of all sorts of personalities, but having everyone run away does make for more enjoyable scenes of terror.

Overall, The Lost World is a decent follow up to the second one. It greatly reduces the animal violence, which is certainly a good thing although it is weaker than the first film in all technical aspects. It simply doesn’t command your attention the same way that the first did although you will still be interested in seeing what happens anyway. The landscapes simply aren’t as interesting, but there is less mud and gross scenes, which is great. If you liked the first film, then you’ll like this one. Otherwise, you should skip this one and just wait until a really good dinosaur film arrives on your TV.

Overall 3/10

Jurassic Park Review

Posted on May 16, 2015 by dreager1

Jurassic World is almost upon us and I shall certainly be checking it out. That being said, I’ve never been a huge fan of Jurassic Park. Come at me! Now, I do like the concept behind it and who doesn’t like to see a good T Rex? The main problem is that a film like this one tends to have quite a few animal violence scenes and this film was no exception. I have a bad feeling that Jurassic World will be using this as well so it may go the route of most animal films. That being said, let’s see just how it fared.

John is rich and decides that he wants to open a theme park where people can meet dinosaurs. That would be pretty epic for the whole world, but an accident happens and a member of the staff dies. The only way that he can open the park now is if he can get a pair of signatures from top line professionals to agree that the park is a good idea. That’s where Alan, along with his partner Allie, and Ian step in. These guys are skeptical about the operation and then the power goes out. The dinosaurs are free and they are ready to eat everyone all around the world. Still, they shall have to start with Jurassic Park!

Have you ever been face to face with a T Rex? I haven’t, but I’ve been face to face with my pet dog, Sonic, and I’m sure that it is a similar experience of terror and wonder. Ignoring that this is a film for a second, I don’t think that this park would ever be able to exist. People simply wouldn’t allow it too with all of the various protest groups that are around. Even if Jurassic Park was created, it would “leak” all over the world way before it actually opened. It would be hard to hide them even with an elaborate helicopter ride.

I’m not an outdoors guy so I wouldn’t check out the park, but I’m sure that it would certainly earn quite a bit of money. That was a bit of a detour so let’s go back to talking about the film. Many comparisons can be made to Attack on Titan. Jurassic Park really feels professional. The soundtrack is solid and makes the film feel theatrical. The characters quickly gain a lot of personality and it is a fairly exciting experience. Pretending that the animal violence was not present, I’d say that the film was a blast and a half all the way until the car scene where Alan goes to help the kids. That’s where the film quickly started to go downhill.

It may not come as a surprise to you if you’ve read a lot of my reviews, but I don’t tend to care for “kid” characters. If a character is around 13 or younger, then they’re probably going to be very unlikable. That doesn’t change here as I don’t like either of the two kids who join the adventure. They just slow the main character down and result in a subplot that is fairly boring the whole time. The guy risks all of their lives by clinging to an electrified net and the girl breaks down during their stressful adventure. The sneezing scene with the dinosaur was also very gross and one of the kids threw up at one point.

The film is very messy to the point where I would call it crude humor. You could also just say that the film is being way too realistic. The heroes get muddied and we are very far away from civilization. That doesn’t make for a good mix and it’s the primary reason why I want all films to take place in New York. Now, that’s the kind of backdrop that can make a film more exciting. In the jungle, it’s just not the same. It’s why the film lost a lot of its excitement and replayability once the heroes were all stranded among the trees.

Given the nature of the film, I’m not even going to talk about the plot hax. Just know that there is a lot of it, but you were likely expecting that when you walked into the film. Back to the positives for the film. The dinosaurs certainly look life like and I like the Raptor’s design. They remind me of Yoshi and I’ve always liked the Raptors. Those guys knew when it was time to win and when it was time to hunt. The T Rex is also a classic and it’s hard to picture him losing to a Spinosaurus. This guy was just invincible in this film.

Alan made for a likable main character even if he was a little overly rude to the kids at some points. I’m not a kid guy myself, but you have to at least put on a bluff face or whip out a Nintendo 3DS to save face. Alan knew his stuff though and didn’t change his mind about the park being safe towards the middle like I was expecting. Ellie is his partner and she isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty as she gets to the bottom of the dinosaurs being ill situation. She is also prepared to go into the battlefield when necessary as she proves to be critical in turning the power back on. She’s a strong heroine and made for a good supporting character.

Ian is a solid rival for Alan aside from the flirting at the beginning of the film. He sees the big picture that the other characters do not and he is the first guy to realize that Jurassic Park is not going to work. He’s certainly the cleverest character of the bunch and someone that you can root for. Things don’t end too well for him during his big fight with the T Rex, but it’s hard to picture anyone lasting long against that monster. He’s certainly an improvement over the average “rival” in this kind of film.

John is the rich guy in charge of Jurassic Park and he seems like a likable fellow. He uses his old age to his advantage to try to get the others to not want to vote against him, but the main characters are professionals so they make the tough calls. He got some good ice cream and he really did a good job on the park. While he made the wrong decision in continuing on with his adventure, he did mean well and was a nice person. The only guy that he didn’t get along with was the tech man who ended up betraying the team. It’s too bad that the guy was a villain since he had been one of the more humorous characters. He’s the kind of guy in real life who has nerves of steel. You can imagine him snapping at the President or insulting a would be kidnapper. This guy was always ready to make his case and nothing could make him back off. His end isn’t pleasant and will remind you of how tough the dinosaurs can be.

That being said, the film isn’t overly violent although still more than you would expect from a 90’s blockbuster. The main thing that cripples the film is the large amounts of animal violence. It gets so bad that I couldn’t even come close to saying that this is a good film. We see an animal part get thrown onto the car and several animals are eaten alive. It’s barbaric and reminds me why John is more cruel than he appears to be on the surface. Condoning such behavior is simply not right. Other dinosaurs are also eaten and the film really broke down when it counted. If it was just one or two scenes it may have been okay, but by the end, I knew that the film had been defeated.

You can have the best soundtrack, the most likable characters, and the best graphics that money can buy, but if you step into a big enough hole, the film is going to lose regardless of all the precautions that you could have taken. That’s what happened here and I fear that it will happen in the other three films as well. Hopefully it will be safe, but you shouldn’t count on it. I do fully expect at least one of the other three films to beat this one though, maybe all of them. We’ll see I suppose.

Overall, I’ve seen this film at least twice by now and other clips of it I’ve seen on numerous occasions. The kids really throw you out of the film along with the animal violence. It’s a classic that really has not aged well and the movie just isn’t my type. It certainly wouldn’t pique my interest aside from the fact that I do technically like creature films a lot. It’s like me and alien films, I like aliens even though their films tend to get really low scores. The holes are regrettable and stop me from giving it a good score, but the films are still fairly fun while in the moment. You are just thrown a curve ball every 10-15 minutes. If you are okay with the animal violence and kids getting in the main character’s way, you should enjoy this film. Otherwise, I recommend watching a classic film like the Bee movie if you want a film that is more about animals than humans. Now, I’m ready for the T Rex to continue to conquer all of the foes who stand in his way!

Overall 3/10

2 Fast 2 Furious Review

Posted on April 10, 2015 by dreager1

With Furious 7 out in theaters, it’s the perfect time to continue my journey through the series. I can’t say that I was impressed with the first one at all, but this looks like one of those series that gets better as you go along. In theory anyway. This one is certainly more fun than the first film, but it still falls into most of the holes that the first did, which prevents it from ultimately being a good film.

Brian has fallen from the good grace of the police for letting his target escape in the first film. He now has fun in underground racing so he has ironically become the very criminal that he used to hunt. The cops eventually show up with a job for him. He is to pose as a racer for a criminal mastermind so that he can help the cops get some evidence on him. Brian will need a partner and that’s where Roman comes into play. They’re going to need to drive hard and drive fast if they want to win this round!

All right, let’s talk about the improvements from the first film first. For one thing, the racing scene at the beginning totally destroys the scenes from the previous film. The cars were going very fast and the new nitro effects were a lot of fun to watch. The dark background of the night contrasted with the bright colors and made for a very explosive race. It was tough to beat..evidently too tough to be honest. The film could not even come close to matching that race for the rest of the film, but it was still a very epic way to start off the film.

The characters are also a lot more interesting than the ones from the previous film. The dynamic between Brian and Roman can be good at times. Brian is portrayed as an expert when it comes to this kind of operation. After all, he has been through this before back during his cop days. That being said, he starts to lose control of the mission whenever he sees a pretty face. That’s where Roman comes in. He may not be an old pro officially, but he knows how to fit in rather easily and probably does a better job of convincing the villains of their authenticity than Brian. He’s probably not as good a driver as Brian, but he’s good enough.

The film is typically a lot of fun, which is a shame that it fell into numerous holes. Where to start right? First of all, let’s go for the rat scene. Each of these films will probably try to have at least one big gangster moment to show us how evil the villains are. The first one had the scene where the villains forced someone to drink oil and this one has the villain pin a man down and watch as a rat starts to eat through his stomach. It’s a very gruesome scene to say the least. I prefer the classic “Held at gunpoint” trope as it shows that the villain is ready and the hero still knows that the guy is willing to pull the trigger.

Another aspect is still the underground/gangster feel that the films try to have. This results in a whole lot of unfortunate fanservice. The characters wear skimpy attire and are constantly making suggestive remarks. Roman and Brian naturally take part in these shenanigans as well, which is sad. What happened to professionalism? I fear that it died with James Bond and Captain Kirk taking office. It almost goes without saying that we also get language issues and birdies as well. The film should stick away from those things. It’s a writing issue and it’s one of the things that I’m hoping the films can change later on.

That may not seem like a lot of “holes” as I put it, but they are so frequent that there may as well be a dozen issues with it. The film simply can’t control itself. The main villain is also rather unlikable. He’s another guy who’s really just interested in getting rich and getting the girl. I would have preferred for him to have just been a good driver who wanted to get rich the quick way. He would still be a villain, but at least he would be someone that you could get hyped to fight.

The cops naturally look pretty bad as this is Brian’s show. A squad of around 20 cars can’t match up against two and they are constantly crashing. The FBI is fooled by the ole switcheroo tactic and they are also kept out of the loop a whole lot. You have to wonder why they always need to ask Brian for help during the beginning of these films, but the latter scenes show why they need him. On their own, they simply can’t stand up to the gangsters.

The final big scene where the heroes summon hundreds of cars is really the definition of plot hax. I really don’t buy that happening for a second. Getting everyone into the garage and into their cars while also allowing enough space for the heroes to fit in and get their car into the middle? That’s way too unpractical and elaborate to actually happen. It’s worse than the heroes constantly betting hundreds of dollars against each other every day. There must be a gold mine around there that we don’t know about.

I still have a problem with such large areas not being covered by the police as well. With their fancy satellites and FBI guys on the case, you would think that underground racing would really be a thing of the past at this rate. Of course, that probably won’t be the case as long as Brian is on the case. After all, he loves a good underground race apparently.

I was pleasantly surprised by one of the detectives making the right call at one point. After being threatened with the rat, he still managed to assemble the cops to have one last clash. I hope that he got his family to safety first so that he could really focus on this issue. It’s still too bad that the cops weren’t more organized, but at least the detective did the right thing. Hopefully he can live safe and sound now.

My main piece of advice for the series would certainly be to include more race scenes. We only got to proper races and one was just a back and forth route so it wasn’t a true race. Car action scenes are okay, but they’re not even close to being as epic as a race. A real race gets your heat pumping and you become ready for more. If the whole film had been epic races like the intro, it could have bumped it up a star. 1 star may not sound like a lot, but it’s something. Improving the races is simply one element to add to the whole. If it can get everything right, soon it could be one of the best racing franchises out there. (In movie world. F Zero and the famous Captain Falcon own the streets otherwise)

Overall, This film was better than the first one. It’s slowly becoming more of a respectable franchise, but it is really slow going. As soon as it gets rid of the suggestive themes and bad writing, the films will begin to rise up rather quickly. As it stands, none of the characters are actually likable. Brian and Roman are charismatic characters and they certainly have personality, but they’re way too into women, which distracts them from their moral compass as well as their job. I look forward to the FBI appearing to hire the heroes once again. I’m not sure when I’ll be seeing the next film, but eventually I’ll be onto the current one. Then we’ll see if it manages to live up to the hype or if the series has not changed quite as much as I hoped.

Overall 3/10

Bridge To Terabithia Review

Posted on March 31, 2015 by dreager1

Bridge To Terabithia is a Disney film that came out a while ago and yet it is probably still one of the more well known films based off of a book from the company. Disney needs to adapt more of them to give us a break from the usual Hunger Games titles. That being said, the ending of this film does severely hurt it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It should be noted that I attempt not to mention the actual ending directly, but it will become pretty obvious as I talk about it. So for spoiler purposes, I recommend not checking out this film until you see the movie..and I don’t really recommend checking the movie out because of the ending so it’s one of those cycles…

The main character of the film is named Jesse and his life isn’t very fun at the moment. The kids at school bully him and his parents seem very distant or downright inhospitable at times. The only character who actually likes him is his little sister and he’s not typically around for her. Jesse is the kind of kid who gets bullied a lot because he typically just takes it. Unfortunately, dishing it back out could also get him expelled. Things look up when a girl moves into town. It should be noted that Jesse’s hobby is running and he was the fastest kid in the class. Not anymore! The girl easily crushes him in the race and tries to be friends.

Jesse naturally feels salty (“Salty” meaning that a person is upset, irritated, or sulky because they have just been humiliated in a sport or battle) about this and doesn’t want to be friends with her for a while. Eventually he cracks. It’s not hard to choose to be friends with the nicest character in the film after all. Her name is Leslie and she suggests that they hang out at a club house so that they can get away from the outside world. She loves to imagine things and gets Jesse to play with her. It’s rough going at first since Jesse forgot to stretch his imagination before he left home, but he gets the hang of it. What can go wrong now?

That’s the plot in a nutshell. The film tries to make Jesse’s life before Leslie arrives as dark as possible. He likes drawing and running, but those two hobbies can’t last for very long in a day so he’s typically bored. His older sisters are typically pretty mean to him while his younger one has higher values than the others. His dad is willing to destroy animal creatures so that he can make some money and he’s a very unreasonable character. The mom simply isn’t around very often.

The contrast is very clear once Leslie is introduced to the mix. Her family is pretty awesome and reminds me of mine. They all hang out together, paint, have snacks, and it’s all merry. The folks even allow Leslie to keep the dog that Jesse gave her even though they had no warning beforehand. That’s pretty understanding right? It really makes you feel bad about Jesse. It should be noted that the bullies also attempt to take on Leslie, but they grow bored a lot quicker so she gets to be left alone a lot after the initial encounters.

The film was going well…until the final event. That was pretty disappointing and a really bad way to end the film. It happens suddenly so at least you can’t say that you were really expecting it unless you followed the foreshadowing scenes. (Diving paper, tide rising abnormally high, rope seeming to be withered…etc) Needless to say, the twist may have been unexpected, but that doesn’t make it good. I would have much preferred a fake out, like the characters were simply tricking Jesse. It would have been a little out of character, but I could have handled that.

I give the film kudos for actually mentioning God and Heaven. The heroes have a discussion about it where the sister tells Leslie that you will go to hell if you don’t believe in God. Leslie denies this and she’s pretty young so it can probably be odd to hear back then, but the sister actually made valid points here. Does this mean that Leslie would hypothetically go to hell if everything ended that instant? You could say so, but I am inclined to say that it’s no guarantee.

Think about a situation where a baby or a toddler dies. They hadn’t truly made a decision to follow God or not since they were so young. God is omnipotent so he knows what they would have decided and I believe that this is how the system works. (Or the tip of the iceberg at least) So, there’s always a chance that Leslie would have accepted Christ into her life a little later on once she had really begun to think about it. Our minds aren’t really developed until we’re in our later teens or early adulthood. I doubt that many of us look at things the same way that we did when we were kids right?

It is still a pretty sad topic to think about though. After all, there are many “good” or nice people who will go to hell regardless of how moral they were during their lives. That’s because morality will never be enough to get you to Heaven. The only way there is through Jesus Christ. If you don’t accept him into your heart, no amount of good works will save you from going to hell. That’s why it’s always so important to preach the gospel and get people to really think about it so that they can hopefully see the truth. There’s no guarantee that Leslie would have eventually become a Christian, but at least Jesse’s household is a Christian one. Since she had started going to church with him on Sundays, there’s always the chance that she would have started to believe. Sometimes, all it takes is one really good sermon to make everything click. Also, since this is a film, I can just choose to believe that she would have accepted the Lord into her heart so the ending is a lot happier than it was.

Now, how old do you have to be to die and just go to hell if you didn’t accept Christ? That’s hard to answer and I’m sure that it varies from person to person. It’s generally accepted that babies and toddlers wouldn’t be sent to hell as they couldn’t comprehend the notion of Christianity at the time and I personally expect that the same would be true for all minors. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Only God knows such things after all.

Back to the film. I still wasn’t crazy about the ending. Even with the happy ending that I thought up, it’s still really sad for everyone in the present. The film tries to end on a bright note by having Jesse continue his sister, but it just feels hollow. You won’t be able to feel good about that part because you’re still reeling from the ending. Bridge To Terabithia certainly did a good job of making sure that the ending is sad…but maybe it was too good. Sad scenes aren’t bad in question, but the sadder the scene, the more likely that I’m not going to like it. After all, we’re watching this for escapism right? Let’s keep the nitty gritty out of this.

I’ve been trying to think of what the “best” sad scene was. Something sad, yet not overdone too much so you can still enjoy the rest of what you were watching. I’m coming up with a blank here. Krillin’s death in DBZ comes to the mind as that is definitely near the top. Hinata’s fate against Pain, Nami’s loss to Arlong. There are many scenes that come to mind. The main similarity between them all is that the main hero gets into a rage after the scenes happen, which is impossible to do with a live action film. I feel like the rage helps to offset the sadness because then you really get angry at the villain alongside the hero and root for him to drastically win. That’s my view on the matter anyway.

As this film deals with the imagination a lot, the film decides to have fun with that. Mythical creatures attack at several points and imagination begins to meld with reality. This leads to some odd scenes where trees come alive and gremlins attack, but it’s all fake so you essentially take it with a grain of salt. The dog was really cool in these action scenes though and always got the better of the villains. He was and is a true hero.

Overall, Bridge To Terabithia is a fun film until the ending. Jesse saved an animal from crushing the film even more through animal violence and Leslie was a really good character. It’s safe to say that I wasn’t a fan of Jesse from start to finish. (He didn’t help his sister when a bully showed up and he constantly forgot how to imagine and made things tough for Leslie) Of course, Leslie being such a perfect (The film really tries to make her perfect and essentially succeeds since she has no negative qualities) character makes the ending even dicier. The supporting characters didn’t add much to the film and I’m sure that we’re all tired of watching bullies, but I suppose that they help for character development and all. It’s an entertaining film, but I’m afraid that the ending throws all of that out the window. So, I can’t recommend the film and you should watch Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time instead. That film has some tragic moments like a city getting burnt and someone losing his dragon, but it never goes too far. It’s juuuuust right.

Overall 3/10

Dracula Untold Review

Posted on March 17, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to check out a film with vampires in it! That’s typically a bad sign for me to be honest since vampires = blood sucking which = instant loss. Luckily, that doesn’t really happen much until the end of the film, which is a big plus. It’s still filled with enough negatives to fill a bowl of mashed potatoes, but it’s a start and a franchise with this film at the center could be pretty decent. It should also be noted that the poster for this film is pretty incredible!

Dracula grew up as a nice guy until he was sold to the villains. He helped them destroy hundreds/thousands of opponents and then left to rule his homeland. Well, the villains are back and they want most of the youth along with Dracula’s son. Dracula quickly slays the minions who report this and prepares for war. If he is to beat an army, he will need some extra power! (Especially since Dracula’s allies are extremely weak) Dracula heads to a mountain where an old vampire gives him vampire abilities. This is how the legend of Dracula begins! The change will not be permanent if Dracula can resist the urge of blood for 3 days. Can he really win the war in that time? Let’s hope so!

Considering that this film is about Dracula, I think it’s safe to say that we know the answer to that last question. Still, he tries pretty hard not to give in to the temptation and he certainly had the potential to win the war in 3 days. His strength and speed were greatly enhanced and this could be one of the strongest incarnations of Dracula that we have seen. He can manipulate the weather and his super speed allows him to take down dozens of opponents in an instant. That is certainly a feat that one can respect.

All right, let’s go into the negatives before we look at the rest of the film. It was teetering on the edge between 3-4 stars, but one area ended up plunging it down. I nearly forgot about it at first, but the film has quite a few romance scenes that do not age well. The film isn’t that old, but the writers may already realize the problem here. There’s no point to the scenes with Dracula and his wife as they don’t impact the plot. It’s also not a good or developed romance as they just make out with each other for no reason. That’s the kind of romance that will hurt any film and this one is no exception.

The next negative would be the classic animal violence part. A dog is attacked in the background. Again…there is no reason for this! We also watch as a spider catches his prey and there’s no need for this as well. Unfortunately, this is where we get to the blood sucking part and it’s no better than usual. It’s pretty gross to see Dracula drink the blood from a cup from the get go, but it’s even worse once he starts to bite his opponents and steal their strength. Dracula even goes as far as to bite someone who was already dying for his extra bit of power. His excessive biting eventually backfires on him, but he really over did it.

The fight scenes were better than anticipated at first. Dracula was finishing everyone off, but it wasn’t in an unnecessarily gritty/violent way. That changed for the climax as it went all Lord of the Rings/Prince Caspian on us. The heroes were biting all of the villains that they could find and then we remembered that there were no more heroes. They were all gone or corrupted by this point. The film definitely lost steam by the end.

Still, the film does end on a great note. Not just a good note, but a great one as we see the true potential of this new universe. The ending involves a certain character in the modern world. A necessary step if we are to have a shared universe after all and then we see the big villain. Presumably, he shall be the big threat in the first crossover film. He states that the games will now begin and you can’t help but feel excited for what may come next. There appears to be a war between two immortal figures. We know that one of them is the old vampire and he has already recruited Dracula to his side. (Dracula has no choice in the matter) I’m speculating that Imhotep is the other one and maybe he’ll recruit a Werewolf or Frankenstein. Then we’ll have the biggest fight on our hands since Batman vs Superman! Of course, we need the shared universe to really start if that’s to happen so they’re going to need to hurry with that. If they back off now, that’ll be sad for the fans!

There’s not much of a soundtrack to be found here I’m afraid. The effects are decently good and it’s fun to see Dracula in his bat form. How likable is Dracula as a character? He’s actually good for a while and I can sympathize with his desire to protect his people at any price. That being said, he should have easily ended the war right away. When it was night time, he should have headed straight for the opposing king after messing up the enemies. He also could have done a better job commanding the troops and letting them know of his abilities so that others could not spoil the opportunity for him. It’s pretty terrible that the people were so scared of him when they found out, but that’s the casual observers for you. They simply were not ready. Dracula was also very powerful before he became a vampire, which was certainly a welcome twist. He made the right decision when he didn’t hand over his son.

The final battle between Dracula and the human is riddled with plot hax all around, but the important thing is that he still won. The film had to make the clash dramatic somehow, but they should have simply thought of another way. I’m sure they could have made it a little more believable if they really put their mind to it. It was interesting to see the main villain because he looks a lot like Howard Stark from Agent Carter. I couldn’t help but think of the guy whenever the villain appeared so it was always humorous to see him. The characters are stark contrasts of each other after all.

There’s not much of a cast here though since almost all of the other characters don’t actually get any personality. They’re just here to talk big or to lose dramatically. The ending proves that none of them have any strength of will and most of the heroes are traitors anyway. The only one Dracula can count on is himself. There’s an odd guy who follows Dracula around and wants to be his servant. The guy just didn’t make any sense as he wanted to help Dracula one moment and destroy him the next. He seriously needed to make up his mind!

I give the film some props for its mention of Heaven considering how much Hell is discussed. Dracula says something along the lines of “Now that I know Hell is real, I know Heaven exists as well” when a certain someone dies. The Cross also continues to have power over the vampires once they have consumed human blood. It’s always good to see those influences here since horror films tend to only show you half of the equation. It’s not much, but it’s a start!

Overall, Dracula Untold suffered from the negatives that follow just about any vampire film, but it did have some enjoyable moments. The ending really leaves it with a lot of potential for a good sequel and the film did a good job of making Dracula more likable and sympathetic than usual. Unfortunately, the romance, animal violence, and blood sucking ensure that I cannot recommend this film. If you want to see a good horror film that doesn’t even try to take itself seriously, go check out Scooby Doo Frankencreepy. If you want to see something with Dracula in it, I recommend waiting for the (possible) sequel or maybe checking out The Batman vs Dracula if you’re feeling bold. Finally, I know you have one more question. Could Dracula defeat the Avengers? The sad answer is…yes…yes he could. At least, the movie versions, but we’ll see if I still think this once Age of Ultron comes out!!!

Overall 3/10

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Category Archives: 3 Star Movies

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Bridge To Terabithia Review

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