King Kong Review

Posted on January 26, 2015 by dreager1

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

Posted on January 17, 2015 by dreager1

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

The Mummy Review

Posted on November 7, 2014 by dreager1

Looks like it’s time to check out the original Mummy film! This one came out almost a century ago so you shouldn’t expect the effects to look quite as good as Tron’s. That being said, a film can still manage to be pretty good without effects as long as the writing is strong. That’s what helped a lot of the previous retro installments. Alas, it could not last. This film is nowhere near as good as the remake although I applaud the supernatural elements that made things pretty intriguing at points. Let’s see where the film messed up.

The plot involves an Archeologist and his partner as they are pretty sad. Their expedition into the desert turned out to be a waste of time and they are getting ready to rejoin civilization so that they can be mocked for their efforts. At that moment, a suspicious character tells them of a hidden tomb that is nearby and his minions uncover it for the heroes. The courageous fellows quickly inform the press and send their findings to the museum. This has all been too easy…why would this person help them? It makes more sense when you watch the flashback before this scene as the Mummy is uncovered because a man opened the legendary chest that had a curse inside of it. (Don’t worry, the curse isn’t random, we find out who placed it there towards the end of the film) The Mummy awakens and one of the guys goes insane with laughter as his mind breaks at the mere sight of the Mummy. In the present, The Mummy needs the ancient manuscript for his devious plans and he also wants to revive his partner. Time for the heroes to do something about it!

The plot sounds rather deep and convoluted thanks to how I wrote it, but it’s not as bad as it sounds. You are aware of the Mummy and the sinister developments for a good portion of the film. The heroes are just unsure of what they can really do about it, which results in a lot of tense scenes. None of the characters are really likable though, but more on that later. The film was doing all right in these moments, but let’s look at one of the big pitfalls that the film threw itself into.

First up…Animal Violence! I expect animal violence when I watch something like Sucker Punch or Toriko, but I don’t expect it from one of the most famous horror films of last generation. The scene comes out of nowhere, which is pretty sad. The main heroine randomly admits that she has a dog and takes him to the villain’s base. Seeking to impress her with his hypnosis, the Mummy tells his slave to take the dog away…then the slave murders the dog. Why would he do such a thing and why would the Mummy allow it? The whole point is that he is tricking the heroine and that shouldn’t help matters. Unfortunately, she is rather weak willed and her strength of character is not enough to even remember how her dog died. It was a rather depressing moment in an uninteresting film and I quickly slashed a few points off the score. (Although, even without the animal violence this film was destined to fall within this range. Animal Violence or not…this was not going to crack a 5)

I don’t really comment on the acting so I won’t get into how terribly awkward it was for the film. I’ll just point to how they wrecked the characters through the drama scenes. A lot of scenes just have the characters staring at each other or making terrible decisions that lead to their untimely demise. With that set up…it’s time to look at the characters!

The main character is Frank. He’s better than his predecessor in the opening who goes insane just by looking at the Mummy, but he’s not much better. (I still can’t get over that though. Do people honestly think that someone would go crazy just by sneaking a glance at a dead guy? That was one of the biggest moments of plot hax that I’ve seen since Colonel actually held his own against Forte in the Program of Light and Dark) Frank is the kind of guy who believes in (fake) love at first sight and he really pushes the point when he meets Helen. She keeps on telling him that she is not interested (For about 5 minutes anyway) but he won’t take no for an answer and she quickly relents. After that, he doesn’t really care about anything except helping her and he can’t do a good job of that either. He knows that the Mummy is playing her like a fiddle, but he still decides to just go to sleep on the couch. It should be noted that his partner tried to help by giving Frank an amulet that stops the Pharaoh’s abilities from working, but Frank decides to hang it on the doorknob as a little keychain. You may admire his courageousness, but you’ll probably just face palm as the Mummy quickly uses the Force Choke to take Frank down for the count. A rather embarrassing end and no amount of main character hax that occurs in the film can take that moment away from us. It was pretty inexcusable.

I can’t say that Helen is much better. Again, she tried to say no to Frank, but then she just agreed that the feelings were mutual. They evidently were not at first so she changed her mind way too quickly. Her mind is also very frail since the Mummy is able to quickly convince her that she must go with him. She always enters a trance and he has complete control over her. She tries to fight it once in a while, but with terrible results. Forgetting about her dog was also pretty inexcusable and she should have been able to fight the mind control. This is definitely a strong example for how you do not write a main heroine. It was a rather poor showing.

There were two old men who tried to help out as well, but they couldn’t get the job done. One of them had the simple task of burning a few papers in the fireplace, but the Force Choke surprises him so much that he drops the papers and starts to backpedal until he bites the big one. (Which is when the slave breaks in through the unlocked door and steals the papers) The other guy just gives advice like “Let Helen go to Imhotep so we can find out where his hideout is” before taping an untimely nap. These guys loves to beat around the bush as seen with their interrogation of the Mummy, but they know that they are outmatched. They actually admit it in front of the Mummy, which is pretty sad.

The actual Mummy isn’t great either. We get a sob story for him about how he did all of this for romance and stuff. Unfortunately, deciding to reincarnate yourself is against the law so he’s quickly destroyed….thereby speeding up the reincarnation. I guess they didn’t have any mages back then to counter the Mummy’s spell. After that, he evidently decided to wait years and years for some archaeologists to come and discover the tomb instead of just going inside of it himself. He would have been able to have gotten the scroll without any objections that way and then he could have searched for his reincarnated partner. Alas, he decided to do things the hard way. He has a strong amount of telepathy and possibly some superhuman strength so I guess it’s okay for him to be confident. Unfortunately, he underestimated the humans or overestimated his Force Choke when push came to shove.

The flashbacks and the ending were intriguing, but they just threw in supernatural elements without any true meaning. I applaud the effort as we actually get a “god” at the end who decides to help out, but just barely. The Mummy still would have gotten away for it if not for a few missteps. I mean, the Mummy Did basically laugh at Isis’ rules by coming back to life so you would expect a little more urgency.

Overall, This was definitely not one of the better retro films. I definitely preferred the newer Mummy film. It was more action packed and while it wasn’t downright amazing, it was a lot more fun. The Mummy just isn’t a fun or engaging villain and his telepathy is the only thing that actually made him a threat. A lot of scenes didn’t seem to have really been thought through either. (The heroes going after the Mummy after the villain had a super long head start and still making it in time.) Strictly speaking from Frank’s perspective, the ending felt like a parody. He’s the big hero, but he never got to be useful from start to finish. I would sooner recommend watching the remake or checking out Speed Racer than this film. This film was lacking in positives while still containing a lot of negatives.

Overall 3/10

The Fog Review

Posted on October 31, 2014 by dreager1

Disclaimer This review is of the edited TV 14 version of the film. All thoughts written below only pertain to this version as the uncut review would likely be lower.

It’s time for a Halloween horror film! The Fog presents us with a film that follows the classic formula. The characters are slowly offed as the film progresses and you have to try and figure out how many characters will really survive the experience. It’s a formula that always churns out a low score, but it remains entertaining while watching it. In that sense, you could consider The Fog a success for its genre…but that may be a stretch.

The plot involves a nice little town that is about to celebrate its 100 year anniversary. They are dedicating it to their founders who made such a great voyage back in the days. Stevie has her own radio station as she plays some tunes to celebrate and the world seems to be at peace. Unfortunately, a mist…I mean a fog is rolling into town. The Weatherman doesn’t think that it’s anything to worry about, but a few fisherman disappear at sea. One of the bodies is found, but it looks like he died years ago. Mr. Malone also finds out a startling truth about the founders. Will The Fog consume the entire town…or will it engulf the planet!? Only time will tell.

As I said earlier, the film plays out rather predictably. We see a few poor travelers who are drunk (of course) and they notice the fog. Unfortunately, they were not ready to take on these supernatural forces and are quickly dealt with. A third member doesn’t notice that the other two have been defeated and he doesn’t put up much of a fight since he barely notices when he bites the big one. After that we get a “peaceful” break for a good 20-30 minutes. Then, the fog strikes back, but this time it’s hear to stay. These guys don’t plan on leaving until they fulfill their objective.

Mr. Malone found the book from the dead people so he should have known what they wanted, but he couldn’t bring himself to keep on reading after he heard about the tragedies. This was a job for the main character and it was a tense moment since he would have to dash a few feet to the couch to grab the book and the fog was approaching. Luckily, he only took his time to contemplate briefly as he was able to make it back. This is a true main character right? Well…..I suppose that he helped out in the end.

Mr. Malone isn’t really one of the main characters, but the casualties really begin to rise because of him. If he had given the villains what they wanted in the first place..maybe they would have left. Okay, they still weren’t going to leave without destroying 7 people, but maybe he could have bought the heroes some time. Hiding in the basement until the climax is not the way to become a likable character.

Stevie is the main character although she doesn’t see a lot of action. She’s always ready with a message to broadcast, but she sounds so dead over the radio. I definitely wouldn’t be tuning into that station at night! (Something a little more lively would be my preference) The stakes get real when her son gets involved in the crisis, but Stevie just doesn’t do much. She’s really a bystander in this whole occurrence and her brief fight against the two undead guys may have been good for her, but I would just call it plot hax.

Nick Castle is one of the main leads and he gets more chase scenes to himself. He was just driving down the road one day when he saw a hitchhiker. He let her in and it turns out that she is just heading in the direction that he is. They drive and we learn that Elizabeth doesn’t have any more morals than Nick so they devolve into the fake romance tropes. I say fake because that’s how it seems given how quickly they moved past the friend zone. Not cool! Nick’s big moment is where he saves a kid or when he goes for the book. That’s good for him I suppose, but I can’t say that I ever found him to be likable.

Elizabeth is the hitchhiker and she’s no better than Nick. She didn’t notice when one of the guys got up from a stretcher even though that would definitely make some sound and she didn’t help a whole lot in the climax. She’s definitely another character who didn’t really stand out in the end and ended up being a negative aspect for the film. (Let’s face it, most of the characters will fall in this pile!)

What about Joey? There’s no Joey to be found, but we do have Blake. Blake is the main villain of the film and he’s the leader of “The Fog.” The Fog is created to mask the locations of his army and they all attack when he gives the go ahead. I don’t think that they are bullet proof and they don’t seem very quick. They may have some slight super strength, but it’s definitely not a huge amount since they can barely break a door down. Blake’s design isn’t bad although it’s not quite as memorable as your average horror villain. The film doesn’t try to make you sympathize with his goal, which is always a plus since I wouldn’t have bought into it anyway. As a villain, Blake really isn’t bad. I forgot how awful he may have been during his sob story, but as an undead he had his villain morals. He only went for the destruction of his opponent and he didn’t beat around the bush. He easily beats the average horror villain.

One of the reasons why this kind of horror film never ends up getting a positive score is that everyone dying just lacks the replay value appeal. Even for the initial watch, you’re kind of hoping that the heroes can start to fight back, but it never happens. I think the film also went a little too far when the nice old lady is taken out by the villains. Did that really have to happen!? The film just should have made the baby sitter a beefy 30 year old who talks a good game. It would have been more fun. Another victim is the Weatherman, but he makes the same mistake as the old lady. Both of them open the door and then give the outside world their back. It’s not very wise to do such a thing when you’re on such a shady island during a fog storm.

The violence isn’t terrible considering the hooks that the villains use. We do see a body that is a little graphic and we can see the villains stabbing the heroes. We just usually do not see the damage that the stabs are doing, which is good even if we can still hear everything. Aside from that aspect, another negative would be the romance moment that has nothing to do with anything. It’s a classic horror trope that someone has to make out at least once before a jump scene, but it’s a trope that should really just fade away at this point.

It should be noted that we do get a twist ending. Let’s face it, you never want to have a horror film that doesn’t have a twist right? Well, let’s just say that Blake wanted to have the last laugh and boy was he going to get it! You almost feel bad for his victim, but the victim was being a little too inquisitive. “Why didn’t Blake destroy me when he had the chance!?” is basically his last line. Way to tempt the villain sir……

Overall, There were a few other characters to be found in this film, but there’s not a whole lot to say about them. We had the “tough” sidekick to the lady giving the speech, but they were both just around to show the audience (us) how to react to certain plot twists. The character cast was pretty weak and this is really just your average horror film where everyone dies until they figure out how to avenge the wrongs that their ancestors did. Nothing happens for a while in the film so you begin to wonder when the villains are going to strike. As you’re waiting, the film isn’t getting any better. There’s nothing special here and it really isn’t a fun film. If you want to watch a scary film that also has heart..check out the Subspace Emissary cutscenes from Super Smash Bros Brawl. That’s sure to send a shiver down your spine!

Overall 3/10

The Box Review

Posted on October 23, 2014 by dreager1

All right folks, it’s true that Avengers:Age of Ultron’s trailer finally debuted, but we need to quickly refocus our attention to an older film. The Box arrived onto the world in 2009 and it was a very ambitious film that didn’t really know its own limits. Needless to say, it’s not exactly at Avengers level and I can’t guarantee an epic viewing experience. What I can guarantee…is a story with more riddles than characters.

We start off this adventure with Norma and Arthur Lewis as they try to make ends meet. Arthur wants to go to Mars and Norma just wants to get through another semester at her school. Unfortunately, both of their dreams are shattered when Norma is basically fired and Arthur fails the psych exam. (Red Herring number 1) Luckily, a sketchy man by the name of Mr. Stewart gives them a box and tells them that they can push the button and receive 1 million dollars…at the cost of someone’s life. Will the heroes quickly realize what the morally correct decision is or will they run for the money? This is Hollywood, but more importantly…this is the planet Earth. Who wouldn’t push the button? (Average main characters only so we’re not counting naturally epic characters like Superman and Batman)

Well, that’s not a bad start right? Well, things get pretty crazy from there. You remember that red herring from earlier? Well, the film is full of them and many plots are introduced without any resolutions. Is Arthur a little crazy or is Mr. Stewart just messing with him? (My money’s on the latter) Mr. Stewart warns the heroes not to contact the police and he takes it pretty personally when they do, but why should he care? By the end of the film, we find out that the police can’t really do anything about it either. Why is the government so corrupt? Okay, let’s address these issues a little more coherently after we check out the main characters.

Norma is the first character to meet up with Mr. Stewart and she tries to make the most of it. She’s had a pretty tough time recently and she also suffered from an accident that left her without most of her foot. The idea of getting 1 million dollars is just too great for her and she crumbles. It’s pretty sad for her even if it was expected. The reason why I can’t really root for her is that Norma isn’t very realistic. I don’t mind unrealistic characters, but this was not a good thing here. I’m addressing her attitude towards Mr. Stewart. It was like the guy could do no wrong at some points. Even after he messed with their son and threatened the heroes multiple times, Norma treated him as if he was just a friend of theirs. She never really treated him as an enemy and that could definitely be pretty annoying.

Arthur isn’t much better although I dare say that I liked him a little more than Norma. His lack of realism comes from the Library chase scene and basically every scene in the second half of the film. A lot of supernatural things are happening and he takes it way too calmly. He doesn’t even seem to care half of the time as he just asks where the exit is…instead of wondering why the whole town is out to get him. He gets a classic rage mode scene where he threatens someone, but he doesn’t end up doing anything. Likewise, he grabs a gun during one scene, but he lacks the drive to pull through. It’s the hero’s move of course, but he still shouldn’t have let Mr. Stewart just walk out like that.

Mr. Stewart is the main villain and he’s not completely human. He doesn’t appear to possess any supernatural powers although he may have telepathy. He has alien technology that his employers gave him that allows him to subjugate anyone who is caught in the blue liquid. This gives him an army and then he’s ready to blackmail everyone. He throws a lot of threats around and he tries to be sympathetic as well, but I can’t say that it really worked. He betrayed the human race after the accident and he allowed himself to be corrupted. I don’t know why Arthur didn’t try to tackle him in the end. (You should have seen how Mr. Stewart ran!) At least Mr. Stewart can talk tough to the government and get away with it.

I don’t really like the main kid in this film so I’ll mainly bypass his section. He’s a little too much of a know it all and he’s not very smart when it comes to practical situations. He didn’t help matters for the heroes and he just ended up being a liability. Why couldn’t he have stayed home reading comics?

Okay, where to start! Things really blew up for the film when the nosebleeds start to happen. All of the townsfolk seem to be possessed at certain points before they “regain themselves” and try to help the heroes by giving signs. Pretty weak mind control eh? The expendables keep flip flopping in and out of their trance. We learn that they were all forced to go into the blue vat, which is how they lost their free will. So, are we to believe that all of these people were put into the pool? It seems like dozens upon dozens of people were thrown in…even a clown got in on the action! This is also fairly convenient for the bully from the beginning since we find out that he may have been possessed.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t add up. Mr. Stewart has no motive to make the kid insult Norma so we have to believe that he’s just normally a cheap character. Still, we do know that he was also possessed along with the bell boy so things start to get a little dicey. Mr. Stewart’s wife/right hand woman also jumps into the fray since she owns the library. It seems like she still has her free will, which is interesting, but I’m going to assume that she was meant to be possessed since it was out of place and Mr. Stewart is more alien than human now.

Once there, Arthur is given a choice between 3 portals. 2 will lead to Eternal Damnation and one will lead to Eternal Peace. Arthur obviously picks the Eternal Peace portal. (He found out after breaking through the mind control and getting the slaves to tell him, which the good portal was. Although, it was fairly obvious since two of the portals were dark blue and one was light blue) Unfortunately, he finds out that it was a sham since it just leads him back to his living room after a dimensional journey.

Spoiler Alert. I’ll just give you more time to get out of this paragraph with this line so that you can be sure to dodge the spoiler. The ending shows us that the two main characters are actually stuck in Purgatory and their choices here will result in whether they go to Heaven or Hell. (Or the film equivalents anyway) So, it is just the main characters in this place and everyone else is fake? Is everyone real and the whole town was thrown into Purgatory or is Earth itself already in Purgatory and it may have happened before they were born? The film will never bother to explain so you can make your own theories about it.

Of course, this brings us to the point of this whole charade. I guess it’s a morality test that Mr. Stewart has set up, but what about the town inhabitants that he has enslaved? Do they not deserve to get their own test to see if they are good people or have they already failed the test? One guy’s son is dragged off since I guess he completed his test, but now he’ll have to complete another one. The government warns him that his decision will have grave consequences, but he doesn’t seem to care since he’s basically drugged and out of it by that point.

Ah yes….the Government. Skeptics of the NSA will have a blast with this since they decide to work with a mad alien. Why did they just bow before Mr. Stewart so willingly? We actually see many armed guards just stand by the main villain with the NSA director just watching and (almost) crying. The NSA seems to be petrified of this guy, but it’s confirmed that a bullet is enough to destroy Mr. Stewart so they should be a little braver. He has some hi tech equipment, but he’s still just a guy. Let his “Employers” come…the NSA will just take them out too!

You could go on and on about this film for quite a long time, but you start to lose track of what’s going on with the film’s many plots. Mr. Stewart’s technology allows you to rid someone of their senses (2 out of 5 in this case) but then he can also give the person back their senses somehow. I suppose that he actually does have some powers to pull that off since it wasn’t a matter of tech that time. It’s sad for the humans since they’re basically powerless to stop these “high above” beings and they will just be toyed with. Even if they win their tests, these guys will just make new ones up so it’s ultimately pointless. The villains also seem confused since they go to the trouble of getting the wife and the son, but they allow Arthur to drive back home with Norma. (They still get the kid though) With their powers, they could have forced Arthur to stay back, but I guess it was all part of the plan.

The ending is pretty underwhelming as you may expect. It’s similar to a certain Ronin film and it’s not the kind of ending that you wouldn’t even wish upon your least favorite film! The heroes basically just accepted their insignificance in the grand scheme of things and allowed themselves to be puppets in the end. That’s not very satisfying if you ask me and they should have done something to escape their fate. Maybe next year…

I would talk about the soundtrack, but it’s basically nonexistent here. There’s not really a lot of romance so that’s always a plus. A little here and there, but it could be a lot worse. The bully at school is pretty wince worthy and the deformations can be a little hard to look at, but I suppose that it’s part of the point. I still wish that Arthur and Norma could have been a little more assertive in those scenes. The babysitter’s lies may have made for an intriguing moment and especially as she went through the motel with the brain controlled zombies, but we all had a feeling that the plot would vanish given the film’s track record. Everything goes back to nothing. (I don’t believe that all of the town’s folk could be kidnapped by the NSA and nobody would notice…it’s a bit of a stretch)

Overall, The Box is the kind of film that you would only want to watch if you like to watch films that are very vague so that you can make up your own version of what happened. There are some scenes that are fairly interesting and they had potential, but the film couldn’t live up to it. It just blew itself up along the way and ended up going out with a whimper. I do applaud the fact that is tried to be contain so much in a single film, but it couldn’t pull it off. Don’t bite off more than you can chew after all. (Meta + Unexplained, Convoluted Plotlines + Arthur = Loss) If you want a complex film filled with mystery and adventure…check out The Big Sleep. It’s a classic and I dare say that it’s a little more suspenseful.

Overall 3/10

Firestarter Review

Posted on October 20, 2014 by dreager1

Note that this review is of the edited TV 14 version. All thoughts below pertain to this specific version as a review of the original would likely be more negative.

I’m sure that we’re all familiar with Stephen King. His books are definitely popular and he has written a ton of them. They’re about as mainstream as you can get for older fiction and many of his titles have naturally gotten films and miniseries. Firestarter came out quite a long time ago so we’ll see if the story is as chilling and action packed as it used to be back in the day. I can say that the sound effects really hold up!

“mm mm mm mm” is a sound that you’ll never forget after watching this film! Well, the plot involves Andy McGee and his daughter Charlene as they try to evade the cops. ….Just kidding, these guys are actually from “The Shop,” but they are just as deadly. Andy possesses telepathy and some brief telekinesis or the technology equivalent while Charlene has advanced pyrotechnic abilities. Charlene is said to have the power to blow up an entire planet (Once she’s older) and Andy can definitely become a threat depending on who he comes into contact with. The Shop must recapture these individuals and use their abilities to create more meta humans and take down America’s enemies. All in a day’s work eh!?

The film definitely feels dated for some of the scenes, but I’m always ready for a retro adventure. The feel of the film also tips you off that it’s aiming at older audiences with the few death scenes that we get. The film actually isn’t very violent considering, but the guy who starts to blow up at the hospital and the wife’s demise keeps things in perspective. Most of the other deaths happen with special effects thanks to the fire that is being thrown around.

The fire effects are pretty fun to watch and you’ll feel like you’re watching a TV show with super humans. No matter how old or new the show is, live action episodes tend to be fighting on the same level so a fire blast in the 80’s from Charlene can hold up just as well as a fire blast from a villain in Agents of Shield or The Flash. It’s a good or bad thing for the medium depending on how you look at it, I enjoy the effects so I’d say that it’s pretty good and fire is one of the basic elements so it’s natural that it would be perfected fairly early in TV history.

The fight scene with Charlene at the end it pretty intense since we’ve been waiting for her to fight! The action scene is longer than I would have guessed and it’s also more impressive than I could have thought as well. Bullets definitely aren’t a good bet against her and Charlene is basically invincible at this point. The only thing that she has to worry about is the time that it takes for her to power up.

Charlene is about as decent as a kid can be, but I still don’t really care for protagonists that are kids. It works better in anime I’d say. In a film, it’s just hard to take a child seriously and Charlene is also very gullible when the situation starts to get dangerous. I felt bad for Andy because if the powers had been reversed, things could have been a lot different. Charlene’s powers are incredible, but then she decides to never use them against someone again….during a moment where the situation is even more dangerous than usual. It’s good not to destroy someone of course, but she should still use scare tactics and hurl fireballs to keep the enemies guessing.

Andy is a pretty decent main character although he doesn’t think things through as much as he should. His final scene comes to mind as a number of other commands would have been more effective than “Jump.” “Drop The Gun, Give Me The Gun, Throw The Gun, Shoot…..all of your bullets away,” etc. Beyond that, it’s hard not to like Andy when you consider his power. It’s very catchy since he basically says “mm mm mm mm” directly into your mind as he overcomes it. It was likely a directorial choice to add the sound effect, but maybe they asked Mr. King about it. Either way, it made his power a lot more interesting since that was a lot of fun. Andy definitely could have trained a little more though. He really scrunches up his face whenever he uses the ability so you can tell that he can’t keep it up for very long. (I felt bad for the Cab Driver since he’s going to go home a lot poorer than he thought!) Andy’s original scene in the hospital is super cheesy, but I’ll let it slide this time. He’s definitely a product of the 70’s/80’s and he’s got the accent to top it all off. He’s better than your average protagonist. Thinking about it….Andy may just not be hero material. After someone shoots Charlene with a sleeping dart…he doesn’t move away and Andy lets the guy shoot him as well. His reflexes are very slow.

John Rainbird is one of the main villains and he can definitely hurt the overall score. I dare say that he ended up bringing the score down from a 4-5 to 3 in the end. His scenes as he pretends to be a janitor are pretty painful to watch and you’re just waiting for him to take a loss the whole time. Again, Charlene was way too gullible here. John also has some mild resistance to the telepathy, which was disappointing, but it was partially Andy’s fault. John doesn’t have any redeemable qualities as a villain and he just pulled the film down.

The heroes get driven to a house by a nice resident at one point and I liked the guy. He was pretty sharp on the uptake and he was ready to defend the heroes. He was skeptical at first, but I would have been as well. The important thing is that he ultimately decided to help out and show the heroes what a true gunman is. He may have been knocked out of the fight pretty quickly, but the important thing is that he really tried.

Hollister could be called the main villain I suppose. He seems to be the highest ranking villain at “The Shop” and his ambitions are pretty great. He starts to play second fiddle towards the end though and he’s intimidated by John’s threats. He’s a much better villain than John, but I still can’t say that he was great. His plan was risky from the get go and he didn’t handle the Charlene situation very well. At least he takes a good amount of time out of his day to work on his haircut. It’s a start. We also have a doctor who is introduced at one point, but his most memorable scene is when he’s driving away on his trolley as he continues to look back to where Charlene is. It wasn’t his best move!

There isn’t really much of a soundtrack aside from the “mm mm mm mm” noises during the telepathy sessions. The effects are good though so that helps out as well. I don’t think it will end up being a terribly memorable film, but it was worth the trek. One final thing that reminds you that this is more of a retro film is one of the decisions that the villains make. As Charlene is blowing up a bunch of cars…a few of the men run towards one. This would prove to be their final mistake as it ended up exploding, but you have to wonder what they were thinking. They were seriously outgunned.

I do have to give the film a big thumbs up for one scene. Towards the end of the film, everything is burning so we think that the horses may be toast. Luckily, Charlene saves them and the camera makes sure to show you that they got away safely. It was a classy move on the film’s part and it shows that you can definitely avoid animal violence if you really want too. That was definitely a solid move.

Overall, Firestarter is an intriguing film. I dare say that it feels like an old school slasher during some parts of the film and more like a slice of life in others. The two main characters aren’t bad, but the villains range from slightly under average to terrible. The guy with the shotgun was pretty great although it was sad that he couldn’t do a little better in the gunfight. This is the film for you if you want a Supernatural type of adventure with escaped convicts and action. Still, you’ll have more fun watching DBZ Cooler’s Revenge if you want a story of a Saiyan overcoming hardship as he shows the world that he is more than human. As a sidenote, it’s interesting to wonder how Charlene would fair against the Avengers from the 2012 film. We can assume that a fireball would likely crush Hawkeye, Black Widow, and Captain America. Iron Man’s armor has been shown to be weak against fire and Thor had to dodge machine gun fire so I’m not sure how he would fair. Hulk could end up being the final obstacle and then it all depends on how long Charlene can evade him. Given time, I believe that she could defeat him as well. Still, I guess I would side with the Avengers if they all fought against her at once. (This is assuming that she is already in her awakened state of course, so no charge up is necessary)

Overall 3/10

Good Morning Vietnam Review

Posted on September 17, 2014 by dreager1

This review is of the edited TV 14 version of the film. Note that all of the statements above only pertain to this version and that the original version would likely be lower.

Good Morning Vietnam is a story that is loosely based off of real events and it takes place during the Vietnam war. That was definitely a pretty sad time for Americans and I watched a documentary on it a while back. It’s one of the only wars that we basically lost and we also had to deal with a lot of political drama back at home with rebellions happening all around the place. This film just focuses on the Vietnam aspect and how one man could try to keep the morale of the troops up.

Adrian gets transferred over to Vietnam to be the broadcaster for a radio station that is around to keep morale up for the troops. He enjoys the job and he’s pretty good at it. Adrian becomes friends with a native as he tries to romance a woman that he meets over there. Not everything is dandy though as his superior and his superior’s superior don’t like him. Luckily, his superior’s superiors superior does think he is doing a good job and that’s what counts. Will it be enough to keep him safe?

Well, that’s basically the gist of the film. The war is pretty grim so Adrian has to help everyone forget about it as they go about their daily duties. There is a lot of drama that is added through the subplots. The main character gets to see firsthand how destructive the battle is and that’s when he decides that the troops have a right to know what is going on. That really puts him at odds with the higher ups and things get pretty dangerous for him. Should he say what is happening?

Well, in this case I would have to agree with the government. I don’t think Adrian should lie about what is happening, but he just shouldn’t mention the war and what’s going on. For one thing, the transmissions could easily be intercepted by the enemy. We don’t want to them to know exactly what is going on. (Nowadays, information is definitely more available thanks to the internet) It’s like with the recent Snowden leaks. Many are glad about them because we know what the NSA has been up too, but it’s also compromised a lot of our data to the enemy and to our “allies.” Giving out any tactical information over the radio could definitely be dicey. I don’t think mentioning the place blowing up would be that bad for the government intelligence, but maybe the enemy would be glad to know just how many agents were injured during the blast. It’s probably good that we don’t supply them with that kind of information.

The end of the film seems to definitely take on a political stance as we get a traitor to the cause. He then gets emotional and tells the main character that the Americans aren’t wanted here. They keep on shooting innocent people and messing with government affairs that they don’t comprehend. The film is basically echoing the sentiments that many people had about the war. Many people think it was a mistake to get involved in the first place and especially our decision to keep on sending more and more troops to a losing battle. So, the film is on that stance and I have to wonder about mine. I’m pretty sure that it was a good move to come in to help and I like to think that not all of our soldiers became corrupt and started shooting innocent people everywhere. Back in those days, it unfortunately did happen sometimes, but to every country. No country is completely safe from that.

The Army did look pretty bad on a few occasions here though. One scene shows that some of the military personnel just hang out at a bar indulging their sinful pleasures when they could definitely be doing something more constructive. Did I mention that they are also shown to be racist? They don’t make up the majority of the troops and I would easily put them in the vast minority, but it’s still sad to see them portrayed like that.

The film can be pretty violent at times so I would advise you to think twice about seeing it if you don’t like realistic violence. It’s made in a way to look very similar to real battlegrounds after a fight and you definitely see the injuries on the soldiers. We also see people shot point blank inside a house and a chicken is almost murdered. It escapes, but it’s all pretty gritty at that point. Gritty is an appropriate word to describe the film as Adrian goes to the poverty sections of Vietnam and gets to see what the living arrangements are like. It’s all very bleak.

I can’t say that I cared for Adrian in this film. He’s just not the kind of main character that I can root for and he’s way too interested in romance. One of his first scenes makes sure to show this as he keeps believing that he sees the same person over and over. He’s way too desperate to get to her and he should be more focused on his radio broadcast. He’s a natural comedian though and he does a good job of thinking up his lines as he goes along. It’s definitely amazing to see him switch his voice so effectively. His jokes do go a little over the top at some points though so his style isn’t my favorite. The army seems to really love it, but I can’t say that I found most of the jokes to be funny. I suppose that it was before my time.

The main character’s friend is mostly around to be the comic relief of the story. He gets a bike that doesn’t fit and he’s there to laugh at Adrian’s jokes. The main superior thinks that he’s a great comedian as well, but nobody finds him funny, which can be pretty sad for the guy. He tried so hard and it just wasn’t enough this time. The superior of that guy is the main antagonist and he just wants Adrian out of the way. He didn’t like him from day 1 and that doesn’t change during the course of the film. Their styles are just too different and they weren’t going to get along. Due to a twist, the native that Adrian gets along with is definitely not likable and I didn’t care for the main heroine either. I don’t blame her for not wanting to go with Adrian, but then just completely tell him no and end it. She shouldn’t even let him take her out to the movies if she wants to stay away.

I didn’t care for the romance subplot and I could have done without the war stories. I think this film could have definitely scored a 5-6 if it had just stuck to the radio plot. Imagine if the film took place in NYC and Adrian had problems with his higher ups about his broadcasts. That definitely could have been an intriguing plot and it would have been able to hold up pretty well. It wouldn’t have been quite as “deep” but it still would have been pretty intense.

Overall, This film is an intriguing adaption of the Vietnam War. I shouldn’t call it an adaption of the war I suppose, but of something that happened in the war. Still, I don’t think that real life events should be crossed over with films. If it’s going to be an event, then just make it a documentary and vice versa. We should keep these two things separate for the time being. If you are interested in the Vietnam war you are likely just going to want to see a documentary. Robin William’s acting for his broadcasts is pretty good so fans of his may want to check this film out to remember him in one of his biggest roles. Otherwise, I would sooner recommend that you watch the current Naruto Shippuden episodes if you want to watch a big war.

Overall 3/10

Chronicle Review

Posted on September 15, 2014 by dreager1

It’s time to review the shaky camera film that came out not too long ago. It feels a whole lot older than 2012 though since I could have sworn that it’s been more than 3 years since we rented it. Ah well, memory doesn’t always go in a linear fashion and mine in particular has never been great. I don’t care for the camera style and there has never been a good movie that has used it (Sorry Cloverfield!). Still, maybe this will be the exception right?…..

The plot involves Andrew Detmer as he decides to start recording his life on camera from now on. He gets bullied at school and he has no friends. At home, his Dad is always drunk so Andrew is really in a tough spot. It may not make for a good film to watch on tape when he grows up, but at least he’ll have proof for the cops. Did I mention that suspicious characters have practically formed a gang and taken over his neighborhood as well? One day, Andrew is called out by Steve to follow him and Matt into an underground tunnel. Andrew refuses every step of the way, but his body and his mind don’t seem to be on the same page as he dashes in. He reminds everyone that they shouldn’t be down there as they grab the crystal and are instantly defeated. When they wake up, the three heroes realize that they have advanced telekinesis. With this kind of power…they can do anything! Will they learn to use their powers for the good of humanity or will they decide to crush all of the obstacles that had been in their life?

Well, I can’t say that this film was a winner for me anymore than Cloverfield. The shaky camera certainly doesn’t help and I don’t think that I will be converting into a fan in the foreseeable future. It just takes away from all of the scenes since you’re wondering how long the film will be until the camera goes away. A person was mugged at a bar for using the Google Glass in real life so imagine how much worse it would be for a kid who is already bullied to start bringing a camera with him to school? Only the plot allowed his camera to survive and the bullying actually gets a little worse once he starts using it. It also helps Andrew to withdraw from humanity along with the viewers.

Andrew Detmer is the main character and he is part of the moral of the story. What’s the moral? It’s essentially that power corrupts and “what goes around comes around.” Andrew has been bullied by his family and schoolmates for a long time and once he obtains his powers, Andrew finally snaps. The thing is, Andrew had likely already snapped many times in the past, but he just couldn’t do anything about it without his powers. It’s one of the reasons why the gun control law debates are so fierce. There are many bar room brawls that escalate and if they had guns, I’m sure that we would get many reports of people being shot. Andrew wastes no time as he blows up a hole in a hospital and starts to rampage through the city. He goes from Hero to Zero (I love that Kingdom Hearts rhyme) or essentially from bullied kid to the deranged bully.

I didn’t like him from the start and he’s just not my kind of film lead. It’s really why I didn’t like Peter Parker in the first installment of the reboot series. There are plenty of anime leads who start out quiet and sad like Aichi and Haruyuki, but they learn how to be sociable as they make friends. Andrew made two friends, but the camera prevents him from truly bonding with them. He is actually doing pretty well until his big incident at the party where he tries to prove that he is a man through romance. If great power won’t corrupt a person, romance certainly will. Did he really think that it would be a wise move to get intimate with a girl that he just met for 2 minutes? Andrew didn’t think it through and everyone would have walked all over him as they absorbed the money that he would earn with his abilities. His whole situation is pretty messed up and it’s very tough to get out of something like that, but he definitely didn’t handle it well.

See, once you have great powers..then the situation should naturally get better. The main character can emit a barrier around himself with telekenesis so he doesn’t have to worry about his bullies or his Dad anymore. He doesn’t have to hurt them, he can just protect himself or freeze them in place for a minute or two so they understand their powerlessness. There are a lot of ways to improve the situation once you have such useful powers and Andrew made all of the wrong calls. It’s one of the reasons why he wasn’t really likable by the end.

Matt is the main character’s cousin and he means well. He seems to put more of an effort into helping Andrew than the others, but it’s not easy. He can’t always be there so he doesn’t truly understand Andrew’s plight and it’s tough to really talk to the main character. Matt is also dealing with relationship troubles of his own at this point and he wants one of the girls to understand why he is so much cooler than everyone else. He doesn’t participate in the High School popularity stunts and he can be pretty arrogant. At the end of the film, it’s up to him to make the tough calls. He was possibly the nicest guy from the main three, but it’s still hard to find him likable. He has some good moments and then he also has some bad moments. He’s really just interested in romance when he talks to the main girl and that’s not cool. I never cared for the romance stereotype, but it’ll likely stay around for a while.

Steve is the third member of the group and he’s the one who really links the three main characters. He involves both of them when they find the chunk of rock that gives them powers and he is pretty popular at school. His life is pretty perfect compared to the other two and he takes everything in stride. Of course, he does help the other two pull off some pretty mean spirited pranks and he’s also way too interested in romance and using his powers for pretty bad means. Yeah, Steve does beat Andrew, but he could still be a lot better. He looks pretty awful in his final moments though since he is basically sucker zapped.

Richard is Andrew’s father and he’s really here as an obstacle to be overcome. His personality is just that he likes to get drunk and make Andrew’s life as miserable as he can. An accident made him quit his job and even though he has healed..he doesn’t bother to do anything with his life. He has no point in the story except to push Andrew over the edge. He says that Andrew is responsible for his mother’s final end because he was looking for Andrew to mess with him when the wife was dying. It’s the whole blame game and it doesn’t end. Richard really has nobody but himself to blame for everything that’s happened to him in the last few years.

There is no real soundtrack so I’ll skip the audio section. (0/5 for the soundtrack by default…) The fight scenes are surprisingly good, which is probably the biggest plus of the film. Maybe it’s actually not too hard to do them and films typically just avoid these type of fight scenes for fear of reviews like in Man of Steel, but they’re very well done. We see the craters from the big clash and the telekinesis abilities are a little more refined than when Jean Grey used to fight in the X Men movies. (Granted..this is a 2012 film) The fight scene wasn’t totally satisfying since one of the fighters was trying not to fight while the other one was already pretty crazy, but I’ll take what I can get. You can definitely draw a lot of parallels to Superman in the way that they fought. Not a whole lot of punches are thrown, but they fly in Superman stances and the craters may remind you of the fight between Superman and Zod. It’s just a lot better than I would have expected for this film and it would have been even better with a different camera style.

This is not a film where you should expect a happy ending. One of the reasons why this film isn’t that good is that it’s not very enjoyable. This is the kind of film that you can call a downer. Everything goes wrong for the main character from start to finish. He made the wrong choices at the end, which result in his end, but there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. It’s very gloomy and we just watch everyone bite the big one in the end. The cops naturally decide to shoot at the good guy who’s defending the city instead of the villain. There is also a really unnecessary scene where Andrew literally rips a spider apart. That’s when we realized that Andrew had completely gone off the deep end along with his speeches on natural selection. (Remember that he is talking to himself on camera…just saying..)

The only time where things are actually going pretty well for the heroes is when they’re pulling pranks at other people’s expense or when they’re at the talent show and Andrew realizes that showing off his powers for romance and money is all that he really wants anymore. It’s just a very somber film that won’t leave you singing “Everything is Awesome” the way that something like the Avengers would. The film will leave you worn out even though it isn’t very long since the ending will leave part of the city in shambles and more than a few people are either down for the count or in the hospital. At least, the one person with powers left should be able to get by just fine. (Overpowered powers are overpowered after all)

Overall, Chronicle makes most of the classic film mistakes. It has animal violence and no real themes. The main characters are not likable since they have many of the flaws that you see in everyday life. They just spam swear words through their daily life and just care about romance and being “cool.” It’s safe to say that the camera didn’t help either. Chronicle did have some great action scenes though and a sequel could work out a lot better than this one if it follows Matt’s story and goes with a traditional camera view. That would give it a pretty good chance of not only beating this film, but perhaps doubling its score. That would be pretty impressive for a sequel! If you want to watch a shaky cam film then you’re out of luck as far as recommendations go since I wouldn’t recommend this one. However, if you want a film about people with super powers that isn’t Sky High, I would recommend checking out Naruto Shippuden Film 3!

Overall 3/10

Minority Report Review

Posted on September 2, 2014 by dreager1

My expectations for Minority Report were a little higher than they were for the average film. After all, the video game was excellent with the story (almost) holding its own against the gameplay. The fact that Tom Cruise is the lead is also intriguing since he was so popular back in the day and the concept was great. I also saw a clip of it a while back and it was pretty cool how stores could find out what you wanted through an eye scan as you walked in the store. This was a film with a lot of potential, but my hopes crashed into the ground once the film actually started. This is definitely not a title that I would recommend!

The film starts out by introducing us to this new world. Pre Crime has officers who are able to go travel around and stop crimes before they actually occur. At first, I thought that they were time travelling, which would have created a lot of plot questions, but they just go to the location of the crime and stop it from being committed. This is possible through the three pre cogs that exist at their main headquarters. They can predict a murder a day before it happens or sometimes only a few hours in advance. John Anderton is the main person in charge of finding out where the murder is taking place by analyzing the visions that the pre cogs have. It’s a tough job, but someone’s got to do it! One day, the pre cogs announce that John will murder someone so now he must run for his life and prove that he is innocent! Of course, we have to wonder…is he innocent?

I guess I should start out with the beginning. We get a random bunch of scenes with people being murdered and everything is gritty and chaotic. We eventually see that this is to show how gruesome murder is and how John is around to prevent it. Then we see the scene like 5-8 more times as John tries to figure out where the murder is. Let’s not forget that we see a lady drowning about a dozen or so times as well. Murder is a main theme of the film so it’s to be expected that we’ll see a lot of it, but we don’t need to keep seeing it over and over again. Telling us what John is about to do would have a similar effect. It’s also just not a very good way to start a film. You need a beginning that makes you want to watch the film, not one that chases you away!

Also, this film takes place in the future and there’s a lot that they can do with that. Unfortunately, they never delve into any of the interesting parts. I like to see how films imagine the future to be because they can be close to the truth in some instances and far removed in others. I can see eye scans delivering personal advertisements in the far future and likewise with hover cars. (Although I doubt they’ll be building any vertical roads in the near or far future) We only get glimpses of these things and they were all more interesting than the main plot.

Why? The actual plot is a pretty sound one and it’s like a thriller with a bit of mystery in it. What stops the film from being enjoyable is the unnecessary grotesqueness in several scenes. We have a guy who’s eyeball is missing and it’s really hard to look at him. Now, in real life it’s just sad to see that happen to someone, but in a film…do we need to see this? I don’t think so since it’s just there for shock value. Another set of scenes would be the eyeball transaction. Ugh..

This was easily one of the worst collection of scenes in the film. John decides that he needs new eye balls so he goes to an illegal surgeon. This surgeon isn’t very hygenienic by the way and he used to be a bigger criminal. He’s still illegal, but this is a more subtle practice. He reminds John of this once John is paralyzed and it’s easy to expect the worst. Even without the worst happening, the whole scene is very gross and we even see John’s old eyes in a plastic bag. Just thinking about it makes me wince.

No, it doesn’t stop there! After the long transfer, John goes to the kitchen to make himself a sandwich. He ends up biting a chunk out of a mold sandwich and then he downs it with a green colored milk. Now they’re just adding insult to injury aren’t they? That was pretty gross and it certainly didn’t help the film. The Doctor’s assistant is also pretty bad and she adds nothing to the story except to make you feel bad for John.

Your suspense for disbelief will also need to be decently high to accept the fact that the Government allows Pre Crime to have so much power. Their spider bots can go into your house without a warrant to scan your eyes. I really don’t think that will be happening anytime soon. These spider bots are also not as advanced as they should be since jumping into a pool is enough to fool their heat sensors. Is that really all it takes to evade these guys? My dog Sonic would be able to sniff out the villains faster than the bots! All right, I’ve covered most of the bases for the film. Now, let’s talk about the characters.

John Anderton is the main character of the story and he certainly has a lot more drama than the average lead. After a traumatic event caused him to lose his son, John split up with his wife and became addicted to the “clear” whistle. It’s basically a drug and it’s a pretty low time for John. He works at Pre Crime to prevent murder from ever happening again. It’s definitely a move that makes sense in response to this and I don’t mind that he’s still broken up about what happened. It’s been years, but you never forget something like that. Turning to drugs is definitely going too far though since he can vent his frustration through other means.

John has his big choice during the climax of the film. Do the legal thing and bring the villain to justice or take out the gun and fire. Ethically, we all know what he should do, but it’s still a hard choice to make in person. I won’t disagree with John’s choice, but I don’t really like how he went about it. Letting the man grab the gun at one point is really not cool and it shows that John should have kept his guard up a little more. John’s a pretty good fighter and he takes on many officers from Pre Crime. The fight scenes were pretty fun even though there weren’t many of them and I would have liked to have seen more of the shockwave gun in action. John is a pretty good character overall. He made some pretty big mistakes, but he’s pretty heroic throughout. I would have liked him more though if he had skipped the drugs and also tried to help the pre cogs sooner.

Lamar is an old man who proudly helped to establish Pre Crime. He’s always wanted a chance to end murder once and for all and this was his ticket. Now he is finally preparing to retire and leave the organization to John. Then the big frame up happens and things quickly start to change. Lamar may seem like a nice old man, but I definitely don’t care for him. He doesn’t really possess any of the traits that make a character likable for me, while possessing a few that make it natural for me to dislike him. The character did well inside of his role and it was a necessary one, but I still don’t care for him. Essentially, he was a good addition to the film, but I don’t really sympathize with his plight.

Agatha is the main pre cog from the three members and she’s the only one who is shown to be able to talk with the others. (Not that the other two were really in a state to do that) She doesn’t talk all that often, but she definitely helps John out a lot when he is in a pinch. Her fate isn’t very great at the beginning since the Pre Cogs are basically forced to watch the future and alert the people to who will be murdered next. Their minds are always connected to the network so they don’t have much of a choice about anything. It’s a pretty rough way to live and Agatha finally gets her chance for freedom later on. Of course, if the cops catch her and Anderton…it’s all over. She didn’t really have a chance to become a very likable character since she doesn’t really get to adjust to the modern world. She seems like she’s a good person and that’ll have to do.

Danny is the cop who’s trying to find John during the film. He’s pretty tough and he never backs down from a fight. I typically like the type of character that he is since he is always serious about his job. Danny is going to do whatever it takes to bring John in and he never doubts his cause. I will admit that his reaction times are rather slow though and he didn’t have the greatest ending to his character arc. Luckily, he did get a solid fight scene in the film so we know that he really isn’t all talk. I dare say that he was a more likable character than the main lead although it can be debatable. Perhaps he put too much trust in the magical ball that foretold the future though…

Lara is John’s ex wife and she plays a large role towards the end of the film. I was surprised by it since it appeared like her role would be small at best. She turns out to be pretty good by the end although she certainly made her share of mistakes during the film. Given the circumstances, Lara ends up being one of the better characters in the film. I would have preferred if she could have landed a solid blow on one of the villains at some point, but it wasn’t to be.

It’s also disappointing to see the fact that the Pre Cogs are just left in the pool for eternity to help Pre Crime out. Doesn’t anyone see something wrong with this system? It’s obviously not a pleasant experience for the three Pre Cogs and someone should do something about this. It makes you wonder how ethical the world that they live in is. Sure, they’ve effectively gotten rid of murder in that area, but there are still many other crimes out there. Let’s hope the government is prepared for what comes next.

Overall, Minority Report definitely couldn’t live up to the video game. The game was awesome on all levels and this one was a pale reflection at best. They both contain many identical scenes, but the game managed to really capture you with the plot without resorting to gross moments or excessive murder displays. The film spent too much time trying to shock the audience instead of just going through the story naturally. The dark element involved in the tragedy for the main character may make him more sympathetic, but it doesn’t help the actual film. Such a move will never help the film since a happier sob story would be better. I don’t recommend this film and if you want a futuristic film that actually shows how the future will probably be in 800 years, I recommend Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time!

Overall 3/10

Escape from the Planet of the Apes Review

Posted on July 30, 2014 by dreager1

The Planet of the Apes is back with another film. Surely it can’t be any worse than the first one…right? I can safely say that the series is definitely showing some improvement with this installment. It falls into a few holes, but they would be incredibly hard to avoid. The plot is intriguing, even if it’s a little unnecessary. It’s time for the humans to strike back.

The plot involves three apes who managed to escape the planet before it…met an abrupt end. Sure, that could be a spoiler, but I expect my readers to have seen the last film in the series before reading my review of this one. It just wouldn’t make any sense otherwise right? Back to the plot, the three apes are greeted by the military and they act like normal apes to protect themselves. Unfortunately, the act can’t hold for long when Zira has one of her moments so the two scientists who learn of this (Lewis and Stephanie) decide to show the world. Will the Apes be regarded as friend or foe? They’re about to find out one way or another! (In case I need to clear this up. The Apes have arrived into the past before the Earth blew up and Apes began to rule.

Well, the film already showed signs of improvement from the first one since the setting was better. I’ll take a regular city over a barren wasteland any day. Civilization was finally back and the unfortunate subplots of crazy humans and slavery could be over and done with. Those reasons almost guaranteed that this film would be higher than the last one on principal.

Zira is back and she’s one of the main characters in this film. Unfortunately, I can’t say that she was a very good character. Most of the trouble and problems that arise are really her fault. She talks when the other Apes warned her not too so then the humans find out about it. It’s not like they were even trying to humiliate her or anything. The humans were just testing their intelligence. Then, Zira is tricked into revealing all of the secrets from the future. Her biggest mistake was when she decided to leave her suitcase outside of the hiding place so that the humans could find and destroy them. She’s supposed to be the smart one of the group, but she definitely didn’t look the part in this film.

Milo is the baby who appears in this film. He’s the next generation of Ape you could say and the entire government is after him. He’s still a baby so it’s not like he can do a whole lot. So, I can’t say that he’s an unlikable character, but his final scene isn’t that great. Still, we can’t really judge his character until the next film.

Cornelius is back along with Zira and he’s more of a fighter in this film. He’s definitely more confident and bold as he speaks up against Zira more. He talks to the humans and shows them that he is serious about his work. He definitely overreacted when the humans would use the term monkey though and the scene where he took out the guy holding a tray was intriguing. I don’t see how the guy died from such an attack, but I guess Cornelius is just that tough. He does mess up in the ending though as he goes too far away when looking around the hideout. Not a wise move.

Lewis is the main human of the film or at least as far as the protagonists go. He does his best to help out the Apes, but there’s not much for him to do. He can let the army take him down or he can help the apes in secret. It’s a tough call of course but he ultimately makes the right call. Well…that is pretty arguable since he could have stuck up for them more. He was doomed to lose against politics, but he could have kept on trying until the bitter end. He basically just accepts the end and moves on as the film closes.

Stephanie is certainly not the bravest character out there. She faints when the Apes first begin to speak. Sure, it may have been surprising, but fainting isn’t really the best reaction. She helps out against the cops after that, but that’s about it. She’s a good driver, but she would need more courage for me to be a fan of her.

Dr. Milo doesn’t appear for very long and there’s a good reason for that. He lacks the power needed to keep up with the others. An Ape gets him in a headlock and he can’t break free…so he doesn’t really make it. His role must have been painful for his fans because it’s a very sad way to go out. You’d expect much more of a fight from such a big character. The scene just came so suddenly. At least he gets some hype from the other characters after he is taken out, but it’s not really the same as actually appearing right?

The President was definitely my favorite character. He got to call the shots while drinking his coffee and he never let anything slide. This was a man who was comfortable with wielding large amounts of power and nobody could corrupt him. Unfortunately, underlings tend to get away with a lot when the leader is so far away. The President is always relaxing so he doesn’t really know what’s going on. He still gives it his all though.

Otto is the main villain of the film and he really makes sure that the apes know this. He’s worried that the apes are going to enslave the humans so they must be stopped. Well, I’ll talk more about this in a minute, but he’s definitely an exaggerated character. He should have been locked up right away, but nobody suspected just how dangerous he was until it was too late. He gets away with a whole lot of shooting before he’s finally hit. Then the army finishes the job for him. I can definitely say that Otto doesn’t make for a good villain.

The soundtrack for the film definitely isn’t very good. The tunes just don’t make a lot of sense and they can get repetitive very quickly. The music definitely isn’t as action packed as something like Final Wars, but I suppose that it’ll have to do. It didn’t exactly help the film, but it’s not like the themes could hurt it all that much.

The main offense that I have with this film is that it’s just boring. There aren’t really any moments where you’ll stand up and cheer or even crack a smile. You’re just watching the film in awkward silence as you glance at your watch from time to time. The film isn’t even that long, but it takes a while for anything to happen. In that sense, it definitely rivals the Lord of The Rings/Hobbit.

The climax is also contains less action than usual. It’s really a one on one gunfight, but it’s not official. By that, I mean that one guy shoots someone and then someone else shoots him from behind. I’ve seen more action in My Little Pony and Scooby Doo. The film definitely ends on a low note. The ending was definitely not very enjoyable. Let’s just say that you can probably guess what happens based on the ending of the last film. It’s pretty similar.

The final, final scene is still pretty sad as well. We have someone yelling out a name…over and over and over again. It keeps on going once the screen has gone dark as well. It’s an example of a scene that could have been interesting, but ended up getting dragged on for far too long. Although, the final 20 minutes or so was all pretty underwhelming.

I also think that one of the things that hurts the film is how unbelievable some of the parts are. There’s no way Apes would ever enslave humanity and this guy shouldn’t really believe it. It’s no better than a fortune teller telling them that something will happen in the future. Unfortunately, the Judge and Juries do agree with him to an extent and announce that the baby must be destroyed. That’s rather crude for the United States. So much for Freedom and Independence. Also, I like to think that the general populace would have been able to help them or to at least find out the truth about what the government did. It shouldn’t be too hard to piece the puzzles together.

One thing that I can’t forget to mention is how bad the acting is. Especially for the Apes as their facial expressions always seem fake. They’ll randomly glare at people or engage in eye contact for a very long time. It’s so bad that it can be funny at times. Special effects were limited at the time and I can understand that, but it still doesn’t look very good. This is something that the series likely won’t get much better at until the newer films, but I can hope.

Overall, This film was definitely a step up from the last one. It’s a world of difference in quality and this one definitely wasn’t unbearable to watch. It’s really just boring, which is still a pretty big crime for a film, but it could be worse. What the film really needed was a better ending and better characters. Zira proved that the apes couldn’t be trusted thanks to her sadistic experiments and the humans weren’t any better as they became paranoid very quickly. I can’t say that I’m a fan of the Apes franchise even after this film, but it was certainly an improvement. Hopefully the sequel can fix these issues and gives us a better soundtrack as well. This review wasn’t very long because the film itself was pretty uneventful. It didn’t make too many errors, but it didn’t really try. The first half was just about the Apes having fun and then the ending is where things go south for them. The court scenes were intriguing, although they could have been handled much better. I would recommend watching Godzilla vs King Kong instead of this film though since King Kong makes for a hardcore fighter and the action scenes can be pretty intense.

Overall 3/10

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