Category Archives: 3 Star Movies

Jurassic Park Review

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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

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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

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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

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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

The Happening Review

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This review is of the edited TV PG version. All thoughts below pertain to such even if I reference the fact that it was not originally PG. Know that a review of the uncut version would likely be harsher and have a lower score.
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It’s time to check out the next horror film…The Happening! Many of you have probably heard of this film. I probably saw the title at some point, but I wasn’t very into the world of films at the time so I missed out on most of the titles. Still, it has a reputation of not being so great and I can safely say that the reputation is deserved. It’s essentially your average horror film and there are no real original or creative scenes to be found here. It relies on the driving power of its shock value scenes and that’s never a recipe for success.

One day, a large group of people decide to destroy themselves. Scientists believe that this is an attack from terrorists and they try to calm the people, but it is too late. These attacks are spreading across the country and even manage to take out New Jersey and New York. This just got very personal and Elliott quickly dashes onto a train so that he can get out of Philadelphia. The problem is that no state in the US is safe…perhaps no place in the world! Are these isolates incidents at all of the big parks and small towns really the work of terrorists or is it something more…environmental?

Hmmm…makes you think a little eh? This is the kind of film that I would consider to be a slasher even if we don’t have a Jason or a Freddy running around. It feels like a Slasher in the sense that everyone dies in brutal ways as the cast is offed one by one. So, nobody’s destroying them, but you almost get the same effect. There are so many shock value scenes that you will just be trying to figure out how it’s all going to end. Who will be the last survivor and who will end up being the victor. That’s what we’ll really have to think about here.

To an extent, I still do give horror films some credit in that area. The plot does tend to be pretty interesting. I can’t argue against that. Whether it be Resident Evil or The Fog, the plot is typically pretty engaging. It’s just ruined by all of the over the top violence, typical fanservice, language, and any other factors that you can think of. There’s essentially no fanservice here so we can at least rule that out…but not the other two. The language is certainly around since it’s a go to for the average horror writer.

As for the violence part….oh yeah. It’s definitely there! The version that I saw was pretty good with cutting most of it out, but based on where the screen ends, you can definitely see why it would be so intense. The mower scene was probably the grittiest, but most of the big ends try to give it some competition. Even kids are not safe from guns, which is another line that the average film won’t cross. That wasn’t to be here, even if the kids were being real awful about the whole thing. Talk about asking to get shot, those kids were trying to put the people inside of the cabin in danger just so they could get some food/water. It’s the end of the world….they should have realized the danger.

All right guys, I think it’s time to mention what the cause of all this is. It’s actually obvious right from the start since this film lacks subtlety anyway. So…it is….the….plants. See, the plants are tired of the humans messing around with the planet so they are going to emit some poisons all around the world that switch our preservation switches so that we have an instinct to die instead of to live. In theory, that’s actually possible for some kind of bio weapon in the future, but for the planets….hehehehehehehe. But this is a film so I suppose that we’ll cut it some slack in that department. Still, how can you fight plants? The easy answer is that you really can’t. Even if we could somehow destroy all of them, we would be left with no air to breathe since you learn about the whole carbon dioxide equation back in 1st grade.

It’s game over for the humans, but it still makes for an interesting tale. Also, perhaps the writer knew that the audience would figure out the main villain right away so he throws a ton of red herrings. We have a mysterious plot where the bees flew away. None of the other animals are effected…only the bees. Next, the heroes head into a house that is deserted and filled with fake things. Sort of like the prop you would see in a nuclear testing site. Maybe the government really is involved! There’s also an odd lady who barely appears to be human and she makes no sense. What is she? These things are all just here to mess with you and it’s best to just tune them out all together.

The main way to save yourself is to make sure that you don’t travel in groups. If there are too many humans in one place, then the flowers activate their toxins. There’s not much of a rhyme or reason to the attacks since they’re incredibly sporadic, but it’s nice to know that they care. The plants shall protect the planet…..in theory.

There’s not much of a soundtrack, but it actually does get very ominous at some points. It reminds me of a documentary that I saw about Monsanto a while back. The directors know that you’ll realize something is up if they don’t distract you so they throw in the music to stop you in your tracks. It’s rather ingenious and at least the themes give it an edge over the average horror film.

As for the characters, most of them aren’t very likable, but we have some decent ones. The main guy actually isn’t bad. He seems like a pretty likable professor and he’s certainly interested in the work that he is doing. He takes the situation in stride for the most part and he’s pretty forgiving of the main heroine. She…was not quite as good. She’s very quiet and sullen the whole time and we know that she is having some kind of argument with the main lead, but the film never really goes into that so it’s hard to pick one side over the other. Meanwhile, the main character’s friend is a math whiz who makes all of the wrong choices. His wife went all the way over to NJ to buy a backpack after the attacks had already started. Not a good move and the friend naturally went to help, but he didn’t last long. The daughter stayed with the main heroes and she wasn’t the best either, but she’s here to show us that we wouldn’t last 5 minutes in an apocalyptic future. That’s nice for the film….but I still like to think that in times of trouble we will all become Eren Jaegers and simply adapt, crack, adapt, crack, and keep going through the cycle until our minds really do burst.

One of the supporting characters loves hot dogs and it’s nice to know that he’s ready for the adventure, but he has no point in this film so you can certainly just forget about him and it won’t really affect the film. That’s about it as far as the big characters go. I liked the Cop and the main character. Beyond that….the rest of the cast could not rise above mediocrity. It’s a shame, but it’s just how it goes. Even the train drivers weren’t great as they decided to be randomly vague the whole time instead of just letting everyone know that they were toast. Staying in the train may have actually been a wise decision…so we can’t have any of that!

We can’t forget that the film has a twist ending. You’ll see it coming from a mile away, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s pretty intense. All horror films need twists, I’m almost convinced of this fact at this point. If the film’s going to get a low score anyway, might as well end it in a way that will have people talking about the title for a long time right? It’s a sound strategy and I was glad that the guy on TV now has a solid case. People wouldn’t believe him unless more attacks occurred right? Time for this guy to put them in their place. (His smug attitude quickly made him the best character in the film although the guy he was debating would probably rank in 2nd)

Overall, by all accounts, the Happening could have been a decent film. It’s interesting, has a good plot, and the lead is actually likable. The main problem is that it decides to be edgy for the lolz. According to the super reputable site known as Wikipedia, it was even advertised for being the writer’s first R film. You can see why they threw in so many intense death scenes and sprinkled in the language for good measure. This film could easily have been PG 13 and you could have even made it PG without taking away any critical scenes. It just goes to show that some writers can handle the pressures of making a good horror film while others cannot. Instead of checking this title out, I recommend watching The Avengers (2012) to see a survival film where humanity must unite to fight off the big aliens! That’s a film with a good script and some nice writing techniques.

Overall 3/10

Spawn Review

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It’s time for a triple horror review on the blog. Not in one post of course, but I’ll be posting them consecutively as I get to work on the film backlog. The third film review isn’t technically horror, but it’s a tragedy, which shares many of the same qualities as a horror. Why not right? All right, back to Spawn! This is one of those films that had an incredible premise, an awesome poster, and yet you knew that it wouldn’t be a very good film. Probably not even a good one. Well, your fears were well founded as this title shows why it will always be known as one of the weaker superhero films.

Al worked as a hit man of sorts for a shady company. He took out threats to the country in secrecy. One day he finally realized just how much collateral damage he was dealing to the outside world during this chaos and decided to fight back. He told his boss that he would quit so the boss had his replacement shoot him with more holes than a chunk of Swiss Cheese. The joke was on the boss though as Al was sent back to Earth from Hell so that he could lead the demon’s army against Earth. No worries though, the demons will allow Al to get his vengeance first!

It’s hard to know where to start first for a film like this one so let’s just look at things from the demon’s point of view first. After all, his plan doesn’t make a great deal of sense. For starters, why did Al have to lose his memory of the deal that he made in Hell when he went back to Earth? If not for the clown, AKA, The Violator, he would not have known to lead the armies anyway. Al was incredibly mixed up for a great chunk of the film and it felt like the villains almost didn’t care. That was rather sloppy and if Al has retained his memories from the start, he may have stayed on the path of darkness. Their loss I suppose.

One of the big weaknesses of this film is the..crude humor! Trust me, that’s the last thing that you want to see in a super hero film that’s supposed to be really dark and gritty. A little crude humor doesn’t tend to phase me, but it was extremely over the top and very cringe worthy. The scene where the clown bites into a certain slice of pizza is really what did it for me and you really will feel like losing your lunch. If the film was trying to be original, it may have succeeded, but certainly not in a good way.

The clown is also an example of another poor character. All of his scenes are pretty bad and some of his lines are pretty terrible. His threats to Al may be pretty personal, but it just makes him a rather despicable villain, not a likable one. You will certainly be pulling for Spawn to take him down already. The Clown also isn’t an incredibly impressive fighter, it’s just that Spawn isn’t very strong here. He definitely has a lot of work to do if he wishes to master his abilities. I could have definitely preferred another sidekick to help Spawn instead of this guy.

Okay, let’s back up a bit and look at some of the film’s pros. Spawn is a pretty likable character. It’s good that he wanted to get out of the shady business and he ultimately decides to act in the name of justice over being an emissary from Hell. Given his circumstances, it certainly shows a lot of willpower. In the hands of a better writer, he could have been a great protagonist. As it stands, he was simply a good one. He did make all of the right choices after all. Spawn can be rather slow on the uptake and it takes him a very long time to even think of using some of his abilities, but he would likely have been much more powerful in the sequel. A shame that we’ll never get one for this film…..or not.

Another big positive is the soundtrack. It’s easily one of the greatest comic book soundtracks of all time. I definitely prefer the instrumental themes though since that’s where all of the real action is at. The rock/metal themes really get your heart pumping and you’ll be ready to see what kind of action scenes they throw at you. I haven’t heard a film with fight themes like this since Mortal Kombat and Man of Steel! (Man of Steel had one good battle theme anyway!)

I can’t really complain about the fights either. They holds up pretty well. Spawn’s fight with the Violator will remind you of Spidey’s recent clash against the Lizard in TASM while Spawn’s epic fight against the master demon is something that is very original. Most of the fight is in CGI, which actually works quite well since it looks like a video game. I was loving every second of that fight and Spawn definitely got some good durability feats as he was constantly slammed to the ground and kept on getting back up. He also used his spikes to impale dozens of villains at once, which is something that he’ll get better at as the years go forward. Even Spawn’s quick spar against his replacement is pretty intense. The fight reminded me of Resident Evil…only less graphically intense, which was neat. Spawn definitely knew what it was doing in the action category.

All righty, back to the negatives. So far, this probably sounds like a 5-6 right? Well, we’re bumping it down 2-3 spots from that so we need to figure out why. Wait for it….waiiiiit for it….Animal Violence. Talk about adding insult to injury right? A dog gets punches by the big villain and we see him limping in his next appearance. That’s simply inexcusable and you’ll want to exit the room right after this happens. It really had no place in the film and I don’t see why they would add this. It made things more personal of course, but how much more personal does this have to get before Spawn unlocks his true powers?

Beyond that, the film is pretty tame violence wise compared to what you may expect. Granted, they may have edited out some of the violence on TV, but usually the language is what gets hit the hardest. So, I didn’t find the violence to be that bad. There isn’t really any romance although one of the plots also seems a little crazy. So, Al’s wife moves on to his best friend after he vanished. Really? Sure, he may have been dead, but that’s an incredibly low blow and especially after she said that she would be with him forever. It’s why you’ve always got to be careful before you fall into the romance trap. I’m still glad that it didn’t get more screen time since that could have been dicey.

Another reason why this film simply wasn’t that good is some scenes can drag a bit. The main example of this is when Spawn first returns to the world. He can’t talk so we just see him crawling and walking around as he has no clue what he should do. It’s pretty painful to watch the scenes as the Clown gets to mess with him for a while. I want to see Spawn verbally debating the pros and cons of fighting with a neat cloak, not getting thrown into an alley to get some more sleep!

I think we’ve mostly established why this is a film of missed opportunities. One more thing that needs to be mentioned is the ally who lends his strength to Spawn. This guy pops up out of nowhere and he has some connection to Hell or Heaven. It’s all very vague and he silently threatens to kill Spawn at one point before just joining him into the fray. He looks decent when it comes down to a fight, but he’s also pretty old so he can’t last very long in the heat of battle. He got his moments I suppose, but he really needed some actual character. One minute he’s basically telling Spawn to let his revenge go and then encouraging him to tackle the human villain in the next scene.

Overall, Spawn is a dicey experience. Some scenes can certainly be funny and it actually does work as more of a comedy than a horror. That being said, it goes too far in too many different ways to really be a good film. The animal violence, crude humor, and unnecessary scenes/lines keep it from being the kind of film that you will want to rewatch. The costumes and effects are way ahead of its time, but a film can’t get a good score on good looks. If it could, then I’d expect TASM2 (Electro vs Spidey) to have better scores than most other films. The video game is probably much better than the film, but I can’t really vouch for that. Either way, this is a film that you will want to skip and you’ll be better off watching the first Ghost Rider. It really outranks this title in just about every way.

Overall 3/10

The Picture of Dorian Gray (1945) Review

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It’s time to look at one of the adaptions for Dorian Grey. This is the 1945 film and this was at an era where there were dozens of great films. Typically, the writing for films in the 40’s-60’s was very engaging and the dialogue was enough to keep you glued to the seat. For some reason, that didn’t work here and I did not care for this film, but at least the visuals still make it easy to see what is happening. Let’s see why this film couldn’t bring in a retro victory.

The film follows a man named Dorian Gray and he wants someone to make a portrait of him. This happens and he wishes that the painting could age instead of him. This results in Gray obtaining immortality so now he can live forever or it actually means that his looks do not age while he still does on the inside. I’m inclined to think that it is the former, but I suppose that you can still make a case for both. Now that he is immortal….what will he do next?

I feel like the film didn’t know what to do at that point. Once he became immortal, Gray had no real ambitions and he just started to get psychotic as the film went on. Destroying those who got in his way was something that he did for no real reason and let’s not forget the moments of black mail. It’s definitely very hard to actually find Dorian Gray to be a likable character amidst all of this and no matter how sympathetic he tries to be at the end, it doesn’t work. We don’t get a reason to believe that he could have been a changed person since his random episodes during the film make trusting him a little difficult.

When you have a film where the lead character is not interesting or likable, then you’re bound to run into some problems. As I mentioned earlier, I typically enjoy the back and forth dialogue in these kinds of films, but it didn’t work this time. The characters weren’t very engaging and neither was the plot so most of the dialogue just felt like filler that never went anywhere. Listening to the characters talk about their own view on ethics may be intriguing, but it won’t do anything for you.

It should also be noted that the film starts off on a really low note with a butterfly being destroyed in one of the opening scenes. It’s a scene like that, which quickly takes you out of a film and it’s hard to really enjoy it. If a film is good enough, it can still rise above that and get a decent rating, but when a film is already intended to be a little bleak and uneventful…this does not help its case as the event will stay fresh in your memory. Another character doesn’t help his case after that as he tries to destroy another animal and ends up destroying a human instead. It was an accident of course, but it shows why shooting for sport is definitely not a good hobby.

The film is very old so the violence isn’t terrible. We get a quick death by stabbing that is mostly seen through a silhouette, but the most gruesome part of the film is easily the painting. The whole film is in black and white aside from the painting, which is in color. This is used to show us just how grotesque the main character is, but the film goes way too far. Between all of the blood that is on the painting and the poor condition of the man’s body, it’s just pretty gross to look at. We could have gotten the same impression without the blood of the ugly bits by just making the guys eyes black or throwing some horns on. As it stands, you’ll just want to look away whenever the painting actually appears.

One of the main things that also hurt the film is that it’s one of those movies that will make you start to feel sleepy as you watch it. That’s because you go through long periods of time where nothing happens like in the Hobbit or LOTR films. It all goes back to the fact that there isn’t really a plot once Gray becomes immortal. It’s basically just him walking around and discovering that being immortal is not a whole lot of fun. Typically, it might have been, but he did sell his soul to become immortal so the cost was too great for him.

At the very least, the message is pretty good since the film shows that selling your soul for any price is never worth it. Immortality and riches are meaningless if you’re just going to burn away in hell for an eternity afterwards. Let’s face it, even if you are immortal, you’ll be taken out eventually once people find out. In the film, nobody really seems concerned that Gray always looks the same and they seem to think that he just has some kind of secret, but 50 years from then, you can bet that the government and many villains would be getting suspicious. Gray made the wrong move and he definitely paid for it throughout the film.

Overall, The Picture of Dorian Gray is definitely not one of the better films. From the 40’s titles that I’ve seen, it very well could be the worst, but I can’t say that with 100% certainty. The film just isn’t very interesting and the grotesque painting coupled with the animal violence really hurt it. There are also no real likable characters since most of them are corrupt or just decide to take the easy way out of situations. It’s a film that would work better if the immortality bit was just a side plot and the real story involved some kind of adventure of something. They definitely need to add some more meat to the story. I definitely would not recommend this film and if you want to see something that’s retro, check out the old Superman shorts of one of the Bogart and Bacall films. Then you’ll see how action can really help a story.

Overall 3/10

The Fast and The Furious Review

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The Fast and the Furious is a film series that many are familiar with at this point. It is getting close to 10 films at this point and the films are earning more and more money as they go on. The latter ones look pretty exciting, but this film doesn’t exactly start the series on a high note. Some cool races to be sure, but it was lacking in other areas.

There are many people engaged in underground racing and the FBI sends an agent in. The agent’s name is Brian and he must gain the trust of these outlaws and find some proof so they could be locked away. As serious as the underground racing is, the mysterious attacks on truck drivers is even worse. Unfortunately, the agent begins to develop feelings for one of the characters and starts to become friends with the boss, Dominic. Brian may be in a little too deep now!

It is a pretty good premise…well, mostly anyway. The beginning of the film feels like a level from Need For Speed as the newcomer challenges the pros so that he can earn some respect. The night race is pretty good. The visuals are not quite as exciting as its counterparts in Speed Racer and Need For Speed, but this is only the first film so it will likely improve as the series goes on. The races are the selling point of the series after all. If the film had kept that as a focus then it could have been really good, unfortunately that didn’t happen.

The film really suffers from the fanservice and unnecessary scenes of romance/physical pleasure. Most of the characters are in the slums area and they hang out with many shady characters. A lot of attention is drawn to the skimpy attire that the characters wear and it’s all in rather poor taste. This may be underground racing, but I would prefer the film to place the emphasis on the dangerous racing than on the background characters. This is an obstacle that the film never gets around. It simply keeps popping up over and over again.

The main character isn’t likable either as a result since he quickly succumbs to a one night stand. Brian likes the character, but if she is that easy then he should probably reconsider the situation. His final decision is also one that I don’t agree with. Naturally, the film tried to make Dominic sympathetic, but he was still guilty. Do the crime and then do the time. He shouldn’t be left off the hook so easily just because he experienced a sad event back in the day. As long as he stays in such a troubled environment, problems will continue to occur around him. Of course, these two characters were still a lot better than most of the supporting characters, but that isn’t saying a whole lot. None of them were actually likable after all.

The language wasn’t as much of a problem as I had expected given how the characters were interacting. There is still some there, but it was not abundant enough to really warrant much of a warning. You will likely forget about it by the end. The film isn’t very violent either although the scene where the villains force someone to swallow motor oil is a little intense. A guy also gets stuck to a truck, which makes his arm get pretty injured. By and large, it’s still nothing worse than the average action film. Actually, it turns out that the film does have quite a bit of language. With 3 ultimately bad words and a high number of others, the language does actually work against the film. I saw the TV version, which edited out most of the language, but if you end up watching it on DVD or somewhere where the language is kept in, then I deduct the rating to a 2 and definitely advise you to stay away from this title. Check out a good Pac Man ep for fun or some Speed Racer cartoons if you want another racing dvd.

As this is a film with a lot of car action, there is bound to be a lot of plot hax. Driving at high speeds without hitting any other cars when there are a lot of blind turns. The cops crash a lot of course. The biggest scene does not involve a race though, it was the battle against the truck driver. With his shotgun, the heroes should have been doomed from the start. He had a lot of point blank opportunities to hit them and simply breaking would have saved him several times. At least the truck driver won in the final battle, but the casualties would likely have been a lot higher. The first encounter was also pretty suspect as the driver just stood there and watched as he got pwned. I hope that they would put up a better fight if this happened in real life.

The government hangs out in the shadows as you would expect and they show that merely having a lot of resources is not always good enough to solve the case. They only have one special agent on the field so they really are running in blind the entire time. They talk a pretty good game and it is amusing to see their bravado in the midst of such a tricky situation, but the ultimate irony is that they were actually right from the start this time. They pegged it on Dominic from the very beginning and the main character is the one who tried to divert suspicion away from him. So, if you ever wanted to see the government look sort of smart in a film like this…this could be your big chance.

The soundtrack is very fast and lively, but it could still be better. This is one of those times where instrumental just works better. The lyrics are just distracting and while you probably won’t even know what they are saying, it would be for the best if they had just left then out. The actual rhythms certainly work well with the film though.

Overall, The Fast and the Furious is a film that could have been much better than it was. It was plagued by many of the problems that arise in the average film, but to a higher degree than you would expect. The film tries a little too hard to depict how the slums look and goes overboard on making every character unlikable. The racing scenes are typically a lot of fun, but we only get 2 real races in the film. There are a lot of scenes that involve cars in other ways, but I would have liked some more pure races. I am confident that the series will improve and I recommend just taking a pass on this title. If you want some good races, then check out Speed Racer!

Overall 3/10

King Kong Review

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It’s time to look at one of the oldest films that I have ever seen. This came out in 1933 so even I had not been born yet. This was also before Godzilla’s debut yet so we didn’t know what a true Kaiju was like at the time. A giant Ape is still pretty creative I suppose…and he makes for an intriguing beast. The film definitely suffers from too much animal violence, but it made for a starting point to the monster era.

A film producer is looking for a heroine to star in his new action film. He’s going on a very dangerous quest to the filming location and he won’t even tell the crew where they are headed. Naturally, most people want nothing to do with him, but he eventually finds a lady who was attempting to rob a merchant. She agrees to go with him and they set off for Skull Island. An all power being is located there by the name of Kong…King Kong! The crew will have to subdue him if they’re going to get this movie underway so the fight of their lives begins!

It’s an old film so the writing is expected to be pretty strong, but I wasn’t as crazy about it as I usually am. It’s probably the fact that the main characters aren’t all that interesting. The main guy who becomes the love interest for the heroine is pretty rude the whole time so it’s a bit of a stretch when he finally decides to play the hero. I can’t forget all of the insults so easily and he’s the kind of sexist character that we try to forget from those days. The producer of the film isn’t bad and he’s definitely pretty confident. That being said, the movie is more important to him than Kong’s health so he definitely takes a shot to his character there. We get glimpses of how the film would be without King Kong during the cilmax when everyone arrives for the show. Ironically, it would probably get a higher score since it has potential as a stage thriller, but it wasn’t in the cards. The main heroine is decent, but she’s not great either as she falls into the romance trap with someone who had been insulting her mere minutes earlier. He does try to save her life on several occasions, but she should have placed him in the friend zone. Considering that the director saved her, it makes sense that she would be willing to be in such a dangerous movie, but she shouldn’t have stayed next to the edge while on the boat. Ah well, she was not as fun as the director, but she was better than the main guy.

King Kong is naturally the big character in this production. He’s featured as the antagonist, but he’s mostly just your average animal. He does what he can to survive, but he doesn’t have much of a concept on good or evil. He destroys his enemies and does what he wants with his life. He naturally starts to like the main heroine and he’s famous for that at this point. You’ll feel bad for him when the army is blasting away at him and you’ll feel bad for the humans and animals that he destroys. I definitely don’t like King Kong and I never had. He’s simply not one of the better monsters out there and monkeys happen to be one of my least favorite animals. It would have been hard for this film to have changed that anyway, but I’m glad that he gave it his all. It is also good that he escaped the chains at the end since being a prisoner would have been a cruel fate.

The main thing that really hurts the film is the excessive animal violence. You simply cannot get away from this negative and it comes back to bite you every time. A dinosaur gets violently defeated and likewise with a cool Rodan monster. The snake is also injured and you’ll even feel bad for King Kong when he’s defeated. This guarenteed that the film would certainly get a negative score and while I’ll still give it a higher one than a 2 (Which would be slightly excessive) it was not going to get up to a 5 or a 4. Animal Violence is something that we have to avoid at any cost and King Kong simply couldn’t get past that.

It’s why the sequels don’t have a lot of hope either. The T Rex scene is famous and I’m confident that it is in both of the upcoming films. With updated graphics, the fights could be even worse. This film is about 2 hours, but it’ll definitely feel pretty long as you enter the second half. It only drags on at some points though as the battle in the Jungle is pretty fun and I do like the climax. It’s more towards the beginning of the middle where it drags for a while. That’s forgivable though since the film is expected to have some slow moments. (Get ready for the 3 and a half hour remake…)

The human scenes aren’t bad, but they aren’t extremely entertaining either. The captain of the ship was nice enough and he did a good job of guarding against the enemies. I don’t really care for the extremely rushed romance between the main heroine and the sailor though as it is another case of love at first sight, which I don’t buy into. The humans definitely look pretty corrupt as they are actually proud of the fact that they turned King Kong from a king into a captive. It’s something that you would hope the heroes didn’t take pride in. Apparently, money is what’s important to them so they don’t care about Kong’s well being. Likewise with all of the people in the audience of course.

The film is just pretty tragic and that’s one of the main reasons why it couldn’t be as great as Godzilla or the other big monster films. Take away the animal violence and this film would instantly be a whole lot better. King Kong being a captive was sad, but he did break free so that was good. He got to get his hits in before they finally mowed him down. At least he would end up returning in Godzilla vs King Kong about 20 years later.

Overall, King Kong is one of those classics that isn’t truly great. Without our nostalgia glasses I don’t think that it holds weight, but we know that we cannot get rid of the glasses. They are why I still see the original TMNT game for Gamecube as an exceptional title of epic proportions and why Super Smash Bros Melee will always have my fondest memories for any video game. I saw Godzilla first and I have a feeling that it will always outrank King Kong. Kong’s just at a disadvantage since he’s a real animal and he’s not even close to Godzilla’s size. He is also not immune to bullets so that should end the debate against Godzilla right there. Fans of the old monster films may enjoy this one, but definitely not if you don’t like animal violence. I’d recommend the original Godzilla film instead as it is much better.

Overall 3/10

Insidious Review

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Time for another horror review. It’s been a while since I saw a film like this one, but you’ll definitely still be ready for what’s about to come. It was about as good as I expected, maybe a little better. That being said, there’s only so much that you can do with this kind of plot. It’s not my style, but if you’re looking for a nice horror film, this one beats the average flick in that genre.

A family moves into a house where their son falls off a ladder and enters a coma. A few months later, they start to see demons and they fear that the house is haunted. The main couple actually decides to move to another house, which is pretty impressive since that choice is rarely made. Unfortunately, it appears that the demons have followed them. Will they be able to fend them off and save their son? The poster gives us a not very subtle hint about what’s really going on.

Well, we get tons of jump scenes and a lot of fake outs as well to try and get that perfect balance that we’ve always wanted. The atmosphere is definitely creepy and the film does a good job of setting the tone early. It probably tried a little too hard to be scary at the beginning, but the director/writers know that you have to scare the audience early on or they’ll move on to the next film. The first half is pretty average and the main characters are powerless to stop these creatures, but that’s when a few new characters show up to help.

Bring in the Ghost Busters and an old lady who happens to be their leader. They deal with supernatural forces all the time and they know how to not only detect these guys, but they can see them as well. As you can expect, they aren’t actually good at fighting these guys. They merely detect them and try to reason with the demons. You may be underwhelmed during the mask scene as the old lady tries to convince the kid to come home, but then the demons take him away again. All she can do is watch so that’s not a great help to him.

That’s when the film’s biggest twist occurs, we’ve actually got enough budget in the film to visit the astral plane. It’s safe to say that this places the film on a higher level than most horror films. Many films would have been satisfied to have just let the kid make it back and we never actually see the astral plane. Not here! The main character wanders into the astral plane to find his son and he actually gets to duel with one of the demons. He does pretty well once he realizes that he’s stronger than the demon, but he doesn’t look too good against the main villain. The main villain isn’t strong enough to drag the kid away once he is running, but he’s still tough enough to throw around an adult for a while. It’s just how these things roll. In the astral world, will power is really what counts.

Josh is the main lead and he’s not a great main character. He stays at school pretty late to grade tests a lot of times when he should be home to help against the demons. Give all of the students As and Bs if you have too, but fighting demons is a lot more important. It’s good that he does ultimately journey to the Astral World to save Dalton, but then he decides to stay back so he could have a few words with one of the ghosts who’s been following him since he was a kid. Bad move Josh…bad move.

Renai is the other main character and she’s a decent heroine. She tries to get through this dangerous situation, but the demons are just too powerful so it is a losing battle. She tries to get help from many sources and she manages to last at the house while the demons are basically keeping her up all night with their random sounds. She definitely gives it her all, but knowing that it is all futile can be pretty sad.

The supporting characters are typically here to either look bad or add to the plot. We naturally have the pastor who comes to help, but is pretty ineffective and he leaves right away. Then we have the Ghost Busters who are treated as a joke until their leader appears. I really liked the Ghost Busters and a whole film about them fighting the demons would have been pretty good. Their leader is pretty knowledgable, but not quite as likable. She’s a little too old to be fighting demons and it seems like she hasn’t trained a successor. Once she is gone, humanity will be gone.

Again, I definitely give the film props for its special effects on the Astral Plane. It was pretty fun seeing Josh go in there and it’s a very trippy world. Things change in the blink of an eye and it would make for a pretty fun virtual ride in some amusement parks. I imagine that it would give many people heart attacks though so they would probably need to make the jump scenes a little less scary. There is a passing moment where we learn that one of the previous families was murdered by one of their own during this trippy moment and I wasn’t too surprised. Horror films love this twist so I guess they wanted to include it somehow.

So, where did the film go wrong? Well, one passing moment that was pretty wince worthy was when the demon decided to act demonic and stuck out his tongue. We know that the demons are evil, but let’s see that in a classy way and not in a cheap way. I’d rather that they just took out guns or something classic like that. The main reason why the film definitely gets a low score (Barring the fact that it is a horror film and watching the main characters get toyed around with for an hour and 40+ minutes is just not my cup of tea) is that the kid is basically defenseless against these guys, but he’s forced to stay in the astral world for months. They do mention that time flows differently over there, but that’s still a pretty sad fate for him. The demons seem to have attacked him off screen and we know what happens in the ending.

To an extent, I could extend that complaint to all of the main characters. I never like to see non combatants get injured by the villains because they didn’t sign up for this. It’s like watching a cop go up against an immensely powerful super villain. He’s a brave cop, but we don’t need to see him get beaten up for a while. That’s what it feels like when you see the humans trying to stand up to the demons. It’s more fun if one of the heroes can actually fight with supernatural powers or something like that. Then we’ve got a film. As it stands, this still takes down other films like Amityville and Haunted in Connecticut. Those make this one look like a masterpiece!

On the bright side, the villains actually have real designs and we get to see them pretty clearly on more than one occasion. No cop outs where they are just spirit forms or something like that. Now those are the kinds of plot twists that can be pretty annoying to see. They actually went to the trouble of getting some pretty scary costumes so the film went all out there. It makes up for the lack of a soundtrack I suppose since I wasn’t expecting any real music here anyway.

Now, this wouldn’t be a horror film without a twist ending right? There were really only two scenarios that I could think of as the ending drew near and let’s just say that the film probably made the right choice if we want the heroes to be doomed. It’s safe to say that these guys shouldn’t be in the sequel since there wouldn’t be a good reason for their survival. If you were expecting a happy ending then I will have to recommend taking another look at the genre for this film or maybe even the title. I appreciate the fact that the film keeps up with the horror standard of having a twist ending even if it does make the characters look bad and increases the body count. It’s expected, although I can’t say that it really helps the film. Who wants to see an old lady get attacked by one of the villains? Definitely not a fun scene.

Overall, Insidious is a horror film that tries to really scare the viewers. That is the job of such a film after all and it tries pretty hard. It probably has more jump scenes than almost any other horror film that I’ve seen. There’s probably almost one a minute during some parts of the film. There isn’t any animal violence and it’s classier than a lot of its counterparts, but it’s still not my kind of film. There’s no hope for the heroes and idea of the kid being stuck in the astral world for over 3 months is pretty terrible. If you are ready for your next horror film then this is probably the way to go, but if you really want a film that gets your heart racing, check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time and get ready to duel!

Overall 3/10