Category Archives: 4 Star Movies

Taken 3 Review

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Uh oh, Taken’s back for another copy of the same plot. Who’s going to die/get kidnapped this time and why do they never let Bryan have a happy ending? In truth, the film was actually decently good the whole time except for…a scene with animal violence. Why did they feel the need to destroy the dog? That was sloppy writing and that’s putting it nicely. I expected much more from this film, ah well. Conceptually, having a Taken 3 makes sense for that “One Last Ride” kind of feel and the poster is actually very good. The execution just wasn’t ready for it.

Well, Bryan is having a good day as per usual until he heads home and finds out that his ex-wife has been murdered. He is framed for having done the deed and must prove his innocence while finding the real crooks. It’ll be tough though since they are after his daughter as well now and these guys don’t play by the rules. Furthermore, Bryan is being hunted by the FBI and CIA so that complicates things. Ah well, he’s a pro so he should be able to get the job done.

I don’t really talk about cinematography or camera work much because I don’t really care much about it. Unless it’s really bad camera work like objectionable zoom ins (Michael Bay films) or something then it’s all the same to me. Still, it’s worth mentioning how the camera constantly cuts away in this film. Action scenes use dozens of different camera angles and they all barely last over a moment. It’s like the director was panicking the whole time. It’s unintentionally funny, but I don’t think that’s what he was going for.

The film’s mostly not all that violent which is nice. I dare say that it’s probably the most tame of the 3. After all, this one is really focused on being a big action film as opposed to a dark, more serious kind of revenge tale. That being said, the waterboarding scene was a bit much. Bryan puts the guy under 3 different times in a scene that drags on way too much. The guy will sputter and gargle, talk a tough game, then rinse and repeat twice. I was expecting it to happen twice, but not a third time. That was definitely a twist, just not a good one.

This film wasn’t even all that dark. Again, it’s just a generic action thriller with some iffy plots. One of those plots was that his ex-wife is unsatisfied with her current marriage and wants to cheat on the side with Bryan. He is too honorable for that even if his reaction time is suspiciously slow for breaking it off when she attacks him. We didn’t really need this and it does seem like she’s floating back and forth a little too much. The characters all talk about how her current husband is pretty bad and he does turn out to be one of the big villains, but I don’t see what she saw in him the first time.

The husband is basically just one of those guys who owes a bunch of money to gangsters and is now caught in a position where he owes them a lot of money. Ah well, that’s why you don’t deal with gangsters. The film never tries to get you to sympathize with him and that’s good since I wouldn’t have bought the act. The actual villains are pretty soulless though and don’t get any personality. They’re literally just guys with guns and this isn’t personal for once. I guess there wasn’t as much of a focus on them for a change.

For once the cops actually didn’t look that bad. They still let their guard down a little too quickly at times and lost quite a few rounds, but they tried. While you probably won’t believe how easy Bryan knocks them out and escapes, he’s the main character. The primary detective for the cops ended up doing a good job though. At times the film tried too hard to make him the “tough but laidback” character as he’ll sit down and enjoy a few bagels. He’s clearly still thinking about the case, but tries to get everyone to let their guards down. It was nice to have at least one cop who was fully competent since he helped to elevate everyone else.

Bryan’s daughter got a mild role here as well, but her whole subplot was basically filler. It wasn’t the best time for having a kid or even distracting Bryan with that revelation since he is a wanted man. I can’t say that I care for her friend at all since he vanishes whenever the villains appear and seems to be a little too interested in wine. The daughter also just annoyed me with how ungrateful she was for the bear. I get that it’s not the present she would have wanted, but you should really appreciate any present that you get or at least put a brave face on in the moment. It’s important to take these things in stride.

I can at least say that the pacing is pretty quick. The film goes by in a flash considering the actual time and that’s because the plot is interesting and the characters are rather familiar by now. I do think that Bryan’s friends are given way too much hype at times as they can pull guns on federal agents and just walk away calmly. Does nobody care that these retired pros are interfering with the law? It feels like they can get away with anything so it’s good that they’re heroes at the moment.

Overall, Taken 3 is mostly decent. Take away the animal scene and the random waterboarding and it would grab 2 stars back. Still, there’s nothing original about the film and it does end up as a very generic action movie. It never managed to carve out an identity for itself which is unfortunate. I suppose this was just too much for the movie. If you enjoyed the first two films and don’t mind seeing another rehash then this is the film for you. Keep in mind that nobody is really taken for about 90%n of the film unless you take the title more literally this time around. The first film is really the only one where the plot focused on someone being taken for the majority of the movie.

Overall 4/10

The Mad Ghoul Review

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It’s time for a film that tries to play out like Frankenstein. In its defense, it’s far better than Frankenstein, but that’s not saying a whole lot. It’s a pretty short film with a small cast so it never drags on or anything, but it doesn’t try to do anything exciting either. It’s a movie that simply happens and there isn’t a whole lot more to it. It would have ended up with a more decent score if not for the animal testing at the beginning. Why do so many of these films have to start off by testing on animals? It’s not right and the film should feel bad.

Alfred is a psychotic maniac who wants to see what various old gasses can do. He experiments on some animals and finds that they can completely paralyze you. (and then kill you) He then finds out that by stabbing someone in the heart and giving the liquid (Wouldn’t it just be normal blood?) to the dead person who was hit by the gas would revive them. Ted is a student who becomes an understudy to Alfred. He’s impressed as well, but just wants to hang out with Isabel as he plans to propose to her. She comes over for a visit and explains to Alfred that she no longer loves Ted. Alfred quickly assumes that he is the rebound guy so he tricks Ted into the experiment room and hits him with the gas. Ted now becomes a mindless servant for a while. He’ll regain his consciousness for a bit after getting a heart, but then he’ll be knocked out again. It’s a vicious cycle, but somebody’s got to do it. Can Ted get out of this loop?

In case you’re curious, the rebound guy is Eric. He’s not a bad character, but he’s definitely way too cocky for his own good. He agrees to meet Ted in a dark alley in the middle of nowhere by himself and he gets very close to being murdered. I like the confidence I guess, but you think that he’d be a little more alert right? It’s also hard to like the character since he may have known that Isabel already had someone, but maybe he didn’t know. Isabel certainly changed her mind suddenly, but I suppose that happens. Still, she should have worked up the courage to tell Ted instead of dragging it out and messing with him. That certainly didn’t help the situation and I definitely can’t say that I was a fan of her here. Isabel certainly didn’t act like a great heroine.

Next up is Ted and he has definitely got to be one of the more naive and gullible main characters out there. He should have suspected foul play the instant he was trapped in the room with the gas. How could that have been an accident? He believed Alfred for some reason which was pretty dicey and then he could never put the pieces together when he would regain consciousness. The guy was just way too dense and I couldn’t take his monster form very seriously at all. It’s like he had a bad hair day every few minutes or something. Not very scary or intimidating if you ask me.

Alfred is basically your average mad scientist. He wants revenge on everyone who has spurned him and he’ll make the world burn. There’s not much to the guy and old scientists rarely make for very interesting villains. The guy’s love for music is probably the only interesting thing about him since we don’t get enough musical villains. That being said, it’s not as if it ultimately turns him into a very good character or anything. He’s still the same unoriginal villain that he always was.

The best character in this film was a detective. Unfortunately he didn’t get to live very long. Still, he was able to figure out that it was no coincidence how Isabel would perform somewhere and then a murder would occur. He knew that the Mad Ghoul was following her around. The problem is that he used a very risky plan and ended up paying for it. At least the cops got a little more serious after this and decided to make their move. It’s too bad that the detective had to go though since he had all of the good one liners. He didn’t take orders from anyone and loved to get the last word in.

One thing that could have helped the film would have been to have actually had a good monster suit at the ready. Messing with Ted’s hair wasn’t all that scary to be honest. I wanted to be scared, but I just couldn’t bring myself to buy into it. The monster also doesn’t really do anything very impressive as he just walks around and tries to look scary half the time. Still, I wouldn’t call the film boring or anything. It’s reasonably entertaining as it flies by, but I would have liked a little more excitement or some good characters to deliver some banter for the film. Without that…it just doesn’t work.

Overall, It’s not as if this film makes you perform a lot of logical leaps or that there are a bunch of negatives to be found here. The film just didn’t do much to make you engaged with what was happening. Add to that the quick animal scene and it was absolutely curtains for the film. If you like watching retro monster films, I’d recommend checking out Gamera instead. The actual monster there is a little more notable and the character roster is better. When the only good character is a detective who doesn’t live for very long, you know that there’s a problem.

Overall 4/10

The Tender Trap Review

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Whenever someone yells “It’s a Trap!” you typically want to listen. In this case, Julie knows deep down that Charlie is not a good person and getting together with him isn’t a good idea…but she ignores this feeling. What happens next is what you would expect, drama and tragedy. What holds this film back is how unlikable Charlie is and the fact that you can’t believe him when he tries to show how much he has changed. He gives us too many fakeouts during the film for this to even be somewhat believable. It’s too bad, Julie could have chosen someone a lot more noble.

The film starts with Charlie’s old friend Joe shows up to live with him for a while. He basically showed up unannounced except for a letter informing Charlie of the new situation. Charlie’s fine with this arrangement, but Joe quickly grows jealous. Joe may be married and have 2 kids already, but he’s greedy and wants to be able to play the field again. He gives in to the temptations of the big city and quickly becomes a terrible character. Meanwhile, Charlie is using everyone that he can, but one day a girl by the name of Julie refuses to get together with him. Charlie takes it personal and decides that he’s going to change her mind.

As you can already see here, one of the tricky parts of the film is that Charlie revels in his life style. He cheats on all of his girl friends. It’s played for laughs, but that will immediately cause you to dislike him. There is really just no going back from this point on. Even after he proposes to someone else, he quickly does the same with Julie and is quickly found out. Julie may be extremely gullible and not all that smart, but even she is able to piece the puzzle together once it becomes plain as day. It was just too late for Charlie to change things.

Another plot line in the film is about the corruption of the big city. Joe was happy with his life until he fell for the “Grass is always greener” trick and began to date someone even though he’s already married. That was the first red flag. After that, he even gets ready to propose to someone and goes to call his wife to explain why they can’t be together anymore. He is shut down by the person that he proposes to (Sylvia) so he ends up keeping the marriage but it makes you wonder how real it is. The wife will never know what a backstabber Joe is which is unfortunate.

I can’t say that Sylvia or any of the other people who hung out with Charlie were any good. The argument that Sylvia made is that they had no prospects left so they didn’t mind being the 2nd or 3rd choices, but that’s a really low standard to set for yourself. It makes it less personal when Charlie cheats on them I suppose, but it doesn’t help their cause. Julie is the only one with real personality and backbone, but the plot just doesn’t go well for her. At first, she does a good job of explaining why she shouldn’t bother eating out with people she’s not serious about. That’s an argument that I can buy into. Next, she explains that she has a very specific plan which even has a deadline on when she has to be married. That’s when she lost me.

Julie has planned out the rest of her life which includes how many kids she’ll have, what schools they’ll go too, when she’ll be married, etc. She has to follow her plan by the book and it doesn’t allow for any debate or alterations. The obvious downside of this is that she’ll have to rush and find someone if the deadline is close, even if it’s not the ideal person. The plan is essentially what makes her choose Charlie and it’s not the greatest way to pick a husband. After he tricked and cheated on her multiple times, I was kind of hoping that she would do something about it. Like you know…..breaking the whole thing off? Instead she apologizes for getting in the way of affairs and decides to settle for being one of them. They break up again after Charlie does more of this, but they get back together again so you have to wonder what the point of it all was.

The film is fairly well written, but that’s not enough to save it. You can have the best writing in the world, but if the characters are unlikable, then it is all for naught. Of course, you can make the case that a well written film would automatically make the characters likable, which is valid I suppose. It could have been better, but the script wasn’t that bad. The themes were just the main part that I could not agree with. I differed with the film quite consistently. Otherwise, the film didn’t do much wrong. It had a few humor moments scattered in and the living room setting gave the film a retro Odd Couple sort of feeling. It made the film more personal and laid back. It’s no thriller of course, but that would have just meant that the director had mixed up the genres.

There are a few songs in this film since Frank Sinatra is in it, but they don’t play as much of a role as you might expect. The tunes definitely weren’t bad, they weren’t the greatest, but they’ll do in a pinch. A little music can go a long way as long as it’s quality and the actual songs are certainly better than what you may hear nowadays. I could go on a tangent about the state of the music industry, but this isn’t really the time or place for that debate.

Overall, The Tender Affair is a pretty misleading title. There’s nothing tender about this one as you could call it something more appropriate with ease. “The Rebound Affair” “The Artificial Affair” “The Planned Affair” etc. There wasn’t anything tender about it, both Julie and Charlie needed the affair for personal reasons. They weren’t very noble either. Julie let her idealistic version of romance cloud her judgment and Charlie had been through many affairs before. He just likes the attention. If you want a real romance film…then I can’t really think of anything off the top of my head. If you want a film about the bonds of friendship and making the tough calls, watch Madoka Magica Rebellion. That’s a film that you won’t regret checking out!

Overall 4/10

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them Review

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It’s time to look at the Harry Potter prequel. While it is a prequel, don’t expect it to connect to the main series at all. There are always 2 kind of prequels. There are the “Episode of Trunks” prequels that heavily relate to the main plot and add more depth to the universe. Then there are the random prequels like Attack on Titan Before The Fall which don’t really add much to the franchise at all except for some padding. This film is the latter and the problem is that it cannot stand on its own at all. Annoying characters mixed in with a random out of nowhere dark subplot and this film is a recipe for disaster.

Newt is one of those guys who likes to defy authority. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really have the power to pull this off so he is apprehended by the magic cops right away. He struggles a bit, but ultimately couldn’t escape. Luckily, they decide to use him to find all of the giant monsters that he let loose. Meanwhile, the magicians also have their hands full trying to stop a kid who has unlimited power. He may prove to be dangerous so they have to contain the threat. So, what’s the focus of the film and why should we care about any of this? Wait til the sequel I suppose.

I can’t stress enough how bad of a character Newt is. He’s extremely annoying and secretive for no reason. He gets triggered rather easily which proves that his comic relief facade isn’t very strong yet. He’s not very skilled as he loses his one and only fight. His attempts at humor are pretty laughable. I’m afraid that the main heroine isn’t much better. She lets Newt get away too easily. While this may not count as a complaint against Tina, her actress also looked shocked during the entire film. It’s as if the character never changed expressions and it was just odd the whole time. That was probably the most interesting thing about Tina. Otherwise she was just around.

The sad thing is that you could say this about the whole cast. The only good character was Graves and a final twist at the end of the film actually hurts his character quite a bit. Why do we need plot twists when you had such a good villain? Aw well, I guess the film couldn’t resist and it ended up hurting the movie. It’s not something that would affect the score at all, it was just unfortunate since he was the best character. One problem that you can probably glean from all of this is that the film just wasn’t exciting in the slightest. With no good characters that you could root for, how can the plot possibly be engaging? It also didn’t even try to be exciting as there is very little action in the whole film. We have a very brief fight scene at the end…that’s it. The rest of the film is just the characters walking, flirting, and talking. It makes for one boring journey.

Still, a boring film can still be decent enough right? Well, this movie decided to throw in a rather dark plot towards the end that had no point in being here. Essentially, the lady in charge of an orphanage was beating up the kids inside. Tina knew about this, but chose not to do something. Perhaps she was not brave enough or there will be a sob story to explain this, but it absolutely did not do her character any favors. If there was any chance of me liking her before that, it was gone at this moment. The lady is destroyed by the end, but the plot just had no point in being here. They could have left her as the conspiracy nut and that would have been good enough. It also didn’t fit with the rest of the movie since it was pretty light themed otherwise.

Another issue here is the ending. In the end, Newt and friends didn’t have enough guts to defy the government. Even though the government was clearly evil and could not be trusted by this point, Newt and friends decided to listen to them. They clearly are not my kind of characters. Did they forget that they were nearly destroyed by the government just for knowing too much? It seems like all of its personnel are just your average “Yes” men who will follow any orders. It’s easy to see why Voldemort took over so quickly.

The characters are just sooooo annoying! One thing that the film did get right was the opening credits and the first 1-2 minutes of the film. The camera work and music made the intro feel like a Marvel movie. The visuals were solid and it got the film off to a good start. It may have crashed and burned after that, but at least it put up a really good effort for the intro. The overall special effects weren’t bad either, it’s just that all of the monster designs were pretty bad. They felt like random animal hybrids that weren’t given a whole lot of thought. I wasn’t expecting anything more though. I didn’t think that this film looked all that interesting even when I saw the first trailer. It just didn’t stand out to me and that’s because there’s not a whole lot to it.

Overall, I can’t say that I recommend this prequel. It’s just not very interesting or exciting. You’ll just notice that it’s dragging on and on even when it’s supposed to be in the “tense” parts. It just never grabs your attention. It doesn’t help that all of the characters are constantly betraying each other. Newt even sells out his friend for some intel even though he claims that he wouldn’t have gone through with the deal. It’s all just very suspect and I’m hoping that the next film is a little more impressive. What it needs to do is actually embrace its magical heritage. Add some actual fights. I mean, what’s the point of having a bunch of sorcerers around if they’re just going to talk through most of their problems? The film is setting up a bunch of plots so hopefully at least one of them will turn out to be a winner. At the very least, hopefully Newt will fix his briefcase. If you’re a big Harry Potter fan then I suppose you’ll need to watch this. Just bring a lot of snacks and a few Harry Potter trivia quizzes with you. They could come in handy.

Overall 4/10

Kong: Skull Island Review

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It’s time to take a look at the new King Kong film. I’m not a King Kong fan nor will I ever be at this rate, but this film got a lot of hype since it’s in the same continuity as Godzilla. Maybe the latter’s quality would rub off on King Kong and elevate the series to new heights. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It’s still the same old King Kong with a fresh layer of paint. It makes the same mistakes although at least it doesn’t force any random romance plots into the film. Still, you can’t help but wish that the film had chosen a very different path.

The film is about two scientists convincing the government that they should head to Kaiju island to see what’s there. They are escorted by Preston and his team of commandos along with James, a skilled mercenary. They decide to bomb the island to scare everyone into submission, but this wakes up the mighty King Kong. The majority of the “heroes” are destroyed in the initial confrontation and the survivors have to find a way off the island. That’ll be tough since there are many monsters aside from King Kong. Preston also wants revenge on the big gorilla and he has some guns at the ready. Can he win this round?

One thing about King Kong is that a lot of people don’t find him to be all that scary. Why would they when falling off of a building is enough to destroy him? This version is a little bigger than most of the old film versions so that helps his case a little, but he is still injured by bullets here. A well placed fire blast does a lot of damage as well so I’m going to feel bad for him if he ever has to fight Godzilla. If ordinary fire can do that, imagine what ATOMIC breath will do to him. The poor guy would be incinerated in an instant. The only sad part is that King Kong is the heavy under dog in the fight so I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins as a result. Anyone remember Batman V Superman? The Godzilla angle is the main reason why you guys are watching this film so you should start to consider this angle. I am hyped for the big crossover even if it isn’t happening for quite a while. It’ll certainly be worth the wait. There is an after credits scene in this film so stick around.

Now, why am I disliking this film so much? There are a few reasons, but lets start with the obvious one. The animal violence is a problem here. We get a whole scene where we see Preston blow up a bird’s head. He’s the villain here so it’s to show us how mean he is, but it’s not helping the film’s case at all. There is a very thin line between monsters and animals and this film opted to have them be closer to animals than monsters. Bad move because the violence is a lot worse this way. It’s also sad when you consider that the humans are picking this fight. The monsters were just fine on their own until their island started to get blown up. They were simply defending themselves even if the film tries to get you to root for the humans. Not me, I was on the creatures side from day 1. It doesn’t help that all of the humans are just annoying the whole time. They weren’t all bad though, just not likable enough to be excused.

Preston was certainly not likable at all. The film gave him a ton of hype though so that was amusing. He is so out classed here so I couldn’t take that angle seriously. James is another hype character, but he never gets to do all that much. He has his big scene at the beginning, but he seems to panic just as much as the others and didn’t seem as tough and gritty as you’d expect. His “confrontation” with Mason on the bottom of the ship wasn’t as hype as the film thought it would be. They both talk tough and call each other’s bluff, but neither one actually gets anywhere. They were essentially fueling each other’s ego. James essentially never got any real character and the scene where he grabs a sword was just incredibly random. It also wasn’t a good scene since he was slashing a bunch of bats. Mason wasn’t a bad character either, but she really had no character either. At least she tried to help one of the monsters which was nice. She beats her counterpart from the earlier films. The rest of the cast were basically comic relief and didn’t do anything. A common trend here is that most of the characters weren’t bad, they just weren’t that interesting or likable either.

King Kong’s fight against the Skullcrawler was pretty good. The mini ones were pretty outmatched so they went down quickly, but I’ll definitely take that over the usual T Rex fight. These guys certainly had a better design after all and then the big one made for a nice villain as well. I was actually expecting a plot twist about these guys being the original Godzillas and the final one would return after the credits in his new Godzilla form. Maybe it’s for the best that it didn’t happen, but that would have been interesting. The King Kong vs human scenes are what you’d expect as they just get stomped the whole time. Preston puts up a fight of course, but once the gimmicks are gone, he doesn’t last all that long.

The film had some nice cuts like the spider claw stabbing a poor guy and King Kong rising up above the Sun. Those were probably the highlight as far as the visuals are concerned. I would still take Godzilla 2014 over this though with the awesome energy blasts and the fight against Muto was a lot more fun. What King Kong needs is his own energy blast or an opponent who has one. Of course, then King Kong would probably lose if it’s the latter so maybe he can get his own special attack in the sequel. This film probably took its special effects a little to seriously in some scenes as you’d see the characters load their guns rapid style. A Scooby Doo film used the same trick a while back and I actually don’t care for it. The sounds are distracting if anything and the visuals weren’t cool to look at. Maybe do it for something with a little more pop like a cool lightning blast or something. King Kong doesn’t have much options for that though so the technique is just wasted here.

None of the themes really stood out to me. It’s your standard action film stuff, but without the one stand out theme that is usually around. The end credits really pressed the point as they were eerily silent the whole time. The tune they picked for it really did not work. I’ll give the film some props for having the characters on the island the whole time. The film did start rather quickly and the action never stopped once they were on board. This was a double edged sword with all of the animal violence of course, but in theory it was a good move. I doubt the film would have been much better without the island anyway, maybe it could have scored a 6, but it would have been rather uneventful. You’d be taking the Skull Island out of Kong: Skull Island. New York City is a far superior backdrop, but I guess we can’t have every film take place there. Hopefully the crossover does though as that will really help with the visuals and intensity of the film.

The writing for this film wasn’t terrible. There isn’t constant panic with expletives this time around although they do artificially force the worst word in once just to get the crowd going. With the review just about done, lets briefly talk about what could be cool to see in a sequel. To make the sequel better, we need to have King Kong come to NYC. That’s step 1. Next would be to give King Kong a cool robot suit or a transformation where he grows wings and does battle with a true Kaiju. Next, ensure that the main humans are all red shirts so they can all die in the crossfire without any humans getting too much hype. We don’t want another fire damages King Kong scene after all. Throw in a cool techno theme and we’ll have the makings of a great movie.

Overall, Kong: Skull Island didn’t do it for me, but the odds of me liking the film were never great. You can’t take place on a retro island like this one that’s filled with animals and expect to be good. The odds of animal violence are simply too high and King Kong doesn’t have a great track record either. Also, it’s not like the film was subtle with the animal violence…a bird’s head was blown up…I’m not getting over that one. I don’t care much for apes and monkeys either so it would be very hard for me to really like Kong as a character. He did a good job of protecting his turf of course so I can respect that, but he’s still not all that “cool.” I’m excited for seeing where the cinematic universe goes from here though. We should be getting a lot of hype battles in the near future. Still, you don’t need to see this film to understand that though so I’d recommend checking out Pacific Rim or Godzilla (2014) instead. Both of those films do a better job of tackling the giant monster concept and have far better scenery and backdrops to grab your attention when the monsters aren’t around.

Overall 4/10

Maximum Ride Review

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Maximum Ride may have been a really popular book series back in its hay day, but that doesn’t mean that it was destined to get a big budget film. On the contrary, the film got a really low budget title instead. The effects in this feature look worse than some fan made projects that I’ve seen and I’d expect a lot more out of it. Parts of the film show glimpses of hope and potential, but on the whole it is simply not a great adaption. Ah well, maybe it’s for the best that it ended here since an adaption of the last few books would have been dicey even with a big budget. Hopefully the inevitable Daniel X Netflix pilot gets a higher budget.

The film starts off with Max and the rest of her flock. She is a human who has had wings grafted onto her and the same applies to her friends. They escaped from the villains thanks to the help of a scientist there. It’s been many years and the scientist never returned for them. He is either dead or imprisoned. Max and her flock have been hiding at a hut during this time, but the Erasers (Wolf hybrids that were created by the villains) show up one day and kidnap Angel. (The youngest of the group) Max and Fang (The “tough” rival) decide to go after her while they leave the little kid, the blind one, and the fashion girl to fend for themselves. Is this a wise move? Probably not, but Max has to save Angel as soon as possible. The clock is ticking after all.

This movie definitely doesn’t bother to explain a whole lot to the viewers, but that’s okay. It gave you enough to make piecing the puzzle together pretty easy. It gets right to the plot, but unfortunately it isn’t executed well. Maximum herself is one of the big issues here. Now, the film did do a good job of casting her so that she actually looks like my interpretation of Max as opposed to the manga. (Worst design for Maximum ever) That’s where the positives end for her. She talks a really good game and is constantly making threats, but always ends up losing. She loses in one hit to a minion and then loses to an ordinary guy with a gun. She even loses to Ari when they meet up. It makes her confidence seem very hollow and undeserved. Max is definitely a lot more reasonable than the other characters, but that’s a very small consolation when you are still losing left and right.

The other characters are mostly just around to make bad decisions. Nudge is more interested in fashion than in keeping up with the others. She nearly jeopardizes everyone’s safety over a sweater and also takes the time to browse while Angel is in trouble. I certainly couldn’t sympathize with her at all. Gazzy likes explosives and messing around with them even after being told not too. He’s essentially your average kid and isn’t all that likable as a result. Iggy isn’t a bad character, but being blind is his only personality. Beyond that, he’s just an everyday guy who can talk a decently tough game, but doesn’t do a whole lot beyond that.

Ari is the main villain of this film or at least the guy with the biggest role. He’s a minion who has a personal grudge against Max. He snarls a lot and makes faces to be intimidating, but I can’t say that the act was all that convincing. It was hard to ever respect him as a villain either since he came across as really petty. He just got jealous of Max and that’s why he decided to become a villain. Certainly not the best reason eh? Jeb shows up and acts as shady as possible. I never trusted this guy from the start and I’d advise you to do the same. No matter what his reasons are, he did leave the heroes alone for years and didn’t seem all that broken up about it. Yeah…the guy seems suspect to say the least. I never liked him in the books either though.

Fang was horribly miscast, but ignoring that…he’s just not a good character. His romance feels very artificial and he always gives Max bad advice. Telling her not to help people and to actively just ignore trouble is something you’d expect a villain to say. It’s hard for Fang to get past this and he comes off as very self centered. Finally, there’s Angel. She’s not nearly as shady as in the books (yet) so she’s a good character. I do question how she was captured so easily when mind reading is her own gimmick. I mean…..it just didn’t make sense. She could even hear the thoughts while she was still far away from the villains. Naturally, the movie cut away so you couldn’t see what happened next since nobody would have believed it otherwise.

I’ll give the film some props for the dynamic opening credits. It sounded like something out of a video game adaption or a Tron kind of movie. Was it totally fitting for this film? No, but it should have been. How I see it, a good novel adaption can be mainstream like Harry Potter or it can be more of a niche product that aims at the hardcore fans. The theme fits the latter and I feel like the film was going for that, the execution just wasn’t there. There wasn’t much of a soundtrack otherwise and the writing is pretty generic.

One noticable issue is the bad special effects. It’s not as if special effects is a huge deal, but they are so painfully bad that you have to wonder who was handling this. I’ve seen fan projects with better effects or at least flashier ones at any rate. Whenever the characters fly around, it looks like they’re just jumping in front of a background as if we’re back in the 60s. It was scary just how unrealistic it all looked. I’m sure the film tried its best, but the result just wasn’t very good. If the effects were gonna be bad anyway, then I would have liked to have had some big fight scenes along the way. Not having any real action in the whole film is a bit of a let down. The film’s not all that bad as a drama adventure I suppose, but it’s hard to take the heroes so seriously when they’re this weak. If they can’t even beat a thug with a gun, then how can they hope to stop this whole organization? You really have to stretch your disbelief with this.

The heroes also take a little long to get to Angel. While she’s being repeatedly zapped, they’re busy getting knocked out, spending time at a hospital, and flirting instead of going full steam. It made them seem a little unemotional when they should have been going full blast constantly. Naturally, Fang kept saying that they should take a break and rest since that’s all he’s good for during the film.

Overall, Maximum Ride isn’t a really good adaption. The heroes are too weak and all of the villains are as generic as can be. Considering how young Angel is, it’s also a little grating to see her getting zapped over and over again as she waits for the heroes. The cliffhanger for the possible sequel is definitely not much of a draw either. The dream came out of nowhere and didn’t really help much. My final pet peeve is the opening scene as well as when it comes in at the end. Max jumps off of a cliff to escape the villains. It’s a dramatic moment and I figured it wouldshow her taking out the wings and flying off. It didn’t happen either times so I’ll assume she just died in the dream world. Maybe the budget ran out, but everything in the scene pointed towards her being ready to fly and it just didn’t happen. It was fitting I suppose.

Overall 4/10

Sleepless in Seattle Review

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While better than the last two romance films that I’ve reviewed, Sleepless in Seattle falls into some of the typical romance film traps. While very different than the horror movie tropes, Romance ones can be about as harmful. Here are some of the landmines that this film steps into. Rebound guy/girls ✔ Love at first sight ✔ The bad advice friend ✔ It doesn’t step into other landmines like characters immediately forgetting social etiquette and jumping into bed so I’ll give the film some credit there. As I said, it’s a fairly decent romance film, it’s just that romance is typically not going to get a very high score because the genre ends up limiting itself.

Sam is not in the best of moods because his wife passed away. He’s decided to respect her memory and not move on with his life. Unfortunately, Jonah wants to have a Mom again so he calls a radio station and gets them to give Sam a live interview. Sam tries to decline this, but it’s too late now and he ends up spilling his life story to the rest of the world. One of the people listening was Annie and while she had a steady relationship with Walter to the point where they were very serious, she decides that she wants Sam. The problem is that she needs an excuse to get to New York City to meet him on top of a large building like in her favorite film. Meanwhile, Jonah needs to get Sam up there since he already found a new girlfriend himself. Those radio stations do work quickly don’t they? Can Jonah get the main two characters together or will he respect Sam’s feelings and not put him in another awkward situation?

From the start you can tell that the ending of the film may not be all that satisfactory. I’m an active backer of the friend zone and believe that if a character doesn’t want to move on, Hollywood shouldn’t make him. Sam’s wife died so maybe it isn’t good for him to get a new girlfriend and marry again. Personally, moving on like that just isn’t a very good move if you ask me. Movies try to make it seem normal and make it sound like a good thing that you’re moving on, but it just makes me question the character’s devotion in the first place. If the chosen love of your life dies, I don’t think you should try to find a replacement.

It gets worse when you consider that Jonah pushed him into this by calling that company. The fact that Sam got so many letters is a little alarming since it shows how many desperate people there are out there. The plot gets a little suspect when you realize that one of these letters if from Annie. I mean, I don’t blame Sam for not wanting to go all the way to NYC to meet someone based purely on a letter. That would have been pretty desperate of him as well.

I’ve always been against love at first sight, but is this even more shallow than that? From Annie’s perspective, she has no idea who Sam is or what he looks like. All she has is a radio broadcast to go by and she’s willing to axe her relationship over that and takes a huge gamble with her life. It may be a classic Hollywood ending as everything works out for the best, but you really have to question the whole thing from all sides. I wonder how Annie feels about being the third choice as well. After all, Sam had been dating someone else before he was forced to go to NYC. I guess he’s going to have to awkwardly tell her that he dumped her for someone else that he literally just met. Gee……that’s probably going to be a fun day for her.

Lets not forget about the other guy who was dropped like a sack of potatoes…good ole Walter. He’s a nice guy who just wanted to have a good time. He bought Annie whatever she wanted and his only character flaw was that he is allergic to a lot of things. Beyond that, the film never gives you a reason to root against him. Walter even realizes that Annie is treating him like the rebound guy so he decides to let her go and start his life fresh. It’s great that he was understanding about the whole thing, but it must be rough to suddenly get dumped for a random stranger after being with someone for months. That’s life I guess and when you enter the arena of romance you never know what’s going to happen.

The main cast is relatively small since it’s really about the drama. Sam’s not a great main character since I disconnected with him after he listened to a radio show and immediately got a girl friend. It all happened so fast that you have to wonder how serious any of them were about it. I don’t have much more hopes for this next romance either. Annie is possibly worse since her position was really unreasonable the entire time. I don’t care how charismatic someone sounds over the radio, you don’t make a life altering choice over something like that to just dump someone and get together. Listening to strangers making promises over the internet and asking to meet somewhere is just going to get you in trouble in the real world. Jonah is as annoying as your average kid. He keeps trying to mess with Sam and forcing the guy’s hand by heading over to NYC on his own was very selfish and dangerous. It was the only unrealistic part of the film and Jonah never met any consequences for this. On the contrary, he’s probably pleased with himself for playing the role of matchmaker so efficiently. If I was Sam, I’d probably be a little upset.

All right, this review’s had a pretty negative tone so far so lets talk about the positives. The film has a pretty good soundtrack. The songs are fairly emotional and add some impact to the film. It feels pretty high budget and all of the landscapes really stand out. The writing is pretty solid during the film so you don’t have to worry about the characters getting too crazy. We see some aspects of the film that could have been pretty interesting like Sam’s job, but they don’t get too much screen time to give more of that to the romance. So, the film is fairly reasonable and I’d say that it’s one of the better romance films that I’ve seen.

Overall, Sleepless in Seattle is a film where the premise will throw you for a loop. It’s all about moving on and getting to the next battle, but I’ve always disagreed with that moral. It’s the complete opposite of Madoka Magica Rebellion. Homura never moved on from Madoka’s memory and decided to do something about it. Now, Sam can’t just run into Heaven (If his wife was a Christian) and snatch his wife back like Homura did, but I do think he could have just stayed single and lived a content life until they were reunited. This way he could be ready to have a nice reunion with the wife instead of a very awkward one when he shows up with his new wife and the brief girlfriend comes by to say hello. So, I think the film was barking up the wrong tree here. There was also no time for chemistry or development with the romance since the characters didn’t get to actually meet until the final 3 minutes of the film. (Unless you count a brief hello where they see each other across the street) It’s hard to call that a real romance. It’s very Hollywood and akin to something out of the olden days, but doesn’t work too well in practice. That being said, the film does manage to avoid any real objectionable content since it’s only PG and it’s a relatively mild romance film. If you like romance, then you will enjoy this one. For myself, I couldn’t give it the thumbs up approval in the end because I disagree with the film’s message too strongly. If you want to see a counter argument to this film, then check out Madoka Rebellion to point out why you shouldn’t always move on.

Overall 4/10

Star Trek: The Cage Review

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It’s time to take a look at the pilot that began the whole Star Trek craze. It will feel very familiar even if you haven’t watched the pilot before since the original TV show re-adapted this story. It’s definitely not the best one and I don’t imagine that it would have went over very well with the fans, but it’s not terrible either. The main cast just isn’t all that likable and I can see why many of them got the axe.

Captain Pike received a distress call when his ship was in proximity to a nearby planet. He wasn’t thrilled about checking it out since he prefers not to risk his life for perfect strangers, but the others prove beyond a reasonable doubt that someone is down there and now Pike must help or risk looking antagonistic. He reluctantly beams down and is kidnapped by a group of aliens. They used illusions to trick the heroes and their telepathic abilities are formidable. They let Pike know that he has to live a fairy tail illusion life with a woman they rescued a while back or he will be destroyed. Pike half heartedly resists the whole time so he continues to get zapped along with the girl. The rest of the Enterprise tries to help, but it’s no good. Can Pike talk his way out of this one?

I feel like the special intentionally tried to make Pike unlikable. I’m just not sure what the rationale behind such a decision was. One of his lines would be pretty infamous nowadays as one of the lieutenants shows up to give him something to sign and Pike says “I don’t like seeing women on the bridge” That may not be word for word, but that’s essentially what he said. Only men may walk in the main offices and even if they have tasks for him to do, they are to wait downstairs. He even reminds the same lieutenant of that at the end of the film to ensure that they know nothing has changed. It’s not the kind of thing that you would expect from the main character and this was a trait that you wouldn’t soon forget.

Pike also made things hard on the other captive. She lets him know that she’ll be punished if he continues to ask her questions and defy the captors, but Pike continues on. I’m fine with him resisting since he should in this situation, but he should try to keep her out of it. He always brings her into danger by asking all sorts of questions. She tried to switch the topic at least 10 times at one point, but Pike kept bringing it back. Pike’s will power did start to fade by the end, but that’s when two of his crew mates showed up. We learn plot twists about them that we didn’t really need to know and it certainly made the problem a little trickier.

I do have to say that the aliens were lucky that the crew was so docile though. The heroes had actually broken through to the villain base a while back, but didn’t know it because of the illusions. This would have been found out had any of the heroes actually tried to touch the mountain though. I feel like they usually would at some point right? Apparently nobody did and that was that. It was still clever of Pike to figure out this weakness and while the aliens could have still won by using a lot of other illusions and making the heroes walk in circles all day, they had clearly had enough by the end. At least they claim that they won’t try to do the same to any more people. Their goals and motives still seemed to come out of the blue and based on how they actually helped the other captive back in the day..it doesn’t make much sense. Even if she was disfigured, she should have gone back with Pike and the others. I wouldn’t have stayed with the aliens for anything in the world.

It’s just a sad special though and that ends up hurting it in the long run. Lets ignore Captain Pike. Even without him, it would be hard for the special to be too good because the villains are just too powerful. It gets annoying to keep seeing them zap the heroes whenever they try to make a move. They didn’t have many options and you’ll especially feel bad for the old captive since she was apparently treated well at the start of things. I guess the aliens just got corrupted and Pike’s presence was too much for them to resist.

Overall, This special didn’t have a whole lot of Trekking in it, but it still feels like a Star Trek kind of plot. At least we didn’t have a lot of forced romance, but seeing as how the whole episode revolved around the premise of the captive trying to seduce Pike, it was felt anyway. There wasn’t any easy way out of the situation, but I’m sure that a better main character would have made it all more interesting. I’d recommend just watching the actual Star Trek TV show if you’re looking for some interesting plots and you can just skip the pilot. It is just a pilot for a reason after all and I’m sure that they used the critiques from the early viewers to improve upon their original ideas and to make the show solid. I’m sure that one complaint was just that the special wasn’t all that enjoyable. It’s pretty grim the whole time and if that’s what viewers thought they could expect from the show, they probably were not all that interested. It was fun to see the retro special effects though. They’ve actually aged pretty well so that’s impressive. This is just a pilot episode so it is pretty short in case you do decide to watch it. It’s not as if it’s a big investment of your time.

Overall 4/10

A Christmas Story Review

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It’s time for a classic Christmas film. Despite it being so classic, I can’t say that I was really familiar with this movie before watching it or that it left much of an impression afterwards. While not quite as interesting as other slice of life comedies of its nature, A Christmas Story doesn’t make too many mistakes. It just hasn’t aged particularly well, but its use of the narrator voice is quite good and I’d like for more films to do it. It could definitely make the kid characters a lot more interesting and while it wouldn’t completely fix my issue with them, it would help quite a lot.

For Christmas Ralph wants a BB gun toy. Unfortunately, his parents do not approve because it is easy to injure yourself with such a dangerous toy so they continually point out that he should just get something plain instead. Ralph decides that he’ll have to convince them somehow, but he must proceed carefully. Luckily, his adult self is here to show us his thought process and maybe this will be enough to get him to claim victory. Hopefully because he is completely sunk otherwise!

I can’t say that I like Ralph, but I do like his adult voice that is used whenever he is thinking. It makes him sound like a good character and it makes him more interesting as well. Unfortunately, the actual Ralph is basically just your average kid and not even a very nice one. He ditches his friends whenever the going gets tough. If a bully shows up, he’ll let his friend take the fall. If one of his friends is stuck to a lamp pole, he’ll pretend not to know about it. That’s just the kind of guy Ralph is and he’s also a chronic liar to boot. He doesn’t have a lot of good qualities and while he is supposed to be endearing, I can’t say that this ever worked.

His parents were a lot more reasonable although they had their flaws too. The Dad enjoyed the sketchy lamp a little too much and I can see why the Mother quickly decided to break it. His attitude towards the neighborhood dogs was also a little iffy and the most dicey part of the film was when he closed the door on one of their ears. It’s meant to be funny, but if you’ve been following my reviews then you’ll realize that it was anything but funny. The Mother opposed the gun plan and I can certainly agree with her on that. Giving Ralph the soap treatment for repeating a bad word was also a good thing.

It was nice to see Santa and his elves appear as well. They were pretty realistic interpretations of what to expect if you ever went to a mall to meet up with Santa Claus. They are paid by the hour so naturally they wouldn’t want anyone to take up to much time and once it’s 5, they’re ready to head out. Even then they gave Ralph some nice advice so that was awfully considerate of them. Ralph should have heeded the warning since he ended up injuring himself as soon as he got the gun. Not a very smart play eh? There was also a sub plot where the bullies would corner the heroes every day and force them to give up some money. I have to admit that this plot did grow old rather quickly. Seeing it once or twice was enough and the kids probably should have done something about it. Ralph did end up beating one of them up in one of the more cheesy scenes and I guess that ended the plot at least.

One of the better moments of the film was when the Ovaltine conspiracy happened. Ralph had to buy a lot of Ovaltine containers to win the decoder so he could figure out the messages on the radio. It turns out that the message was to “Buy more Ovaltine” which was a nice slap in the face to consumers. It wasn’t even subtle as to get the decoder you had to buy a lot of Ovaltine and now this was saying that you had to buy some more. I don’t imagine that the company had a lot of happy customers, but I suppose that it doesn’t matter too much when they’ve already bought the decoder. It’s a rather slick move, but that’s why it’s so genius.

The film actually has a pretty small cast when you think about it. Aside from the parents, Ralph is really the only notable characters. Yes, there are classmates, the bullies, and Ralph’s kid brother, but they don’t do much. That may be part of the point since Ralph is the main character and he’s telling the story. I can’t say that it matters much either way, but since Ralph wasn’t really a good character, it may have been helpful to have another main lead to help hold the film. There’s no guarantee that the other character would have been much better, but it certainly would have helped the odds. It also may have just come out at the wrong time. If this film was a little older than the writing would have given it a boost and the setting would be all different. If it was newer than they probably would have tried to make it more exciting. This could be a case of wrong place, wrong time.

Overall, A Christmas Story may not do a whole lot of things wrong, but its biggest crime is probably just the fact that it can be boring. The film tries way too hard to be normal and to be an example of an every day Christmas for the every day family. It doesn’t have any animal violence, the writing’s not terrible, and it’s not edgy. The problem is just that it doesn’t do a whole lot of good either. The family tries so hard to be realistic that it really isn’t and the characters don’t have a lot of personality. I think the main problem that the film faces all comes down to Ralph as the main character. Lets face it, it’s hard to have a kid as the main character and still manage to be an interesting film. It’s simply very rare and not even the cool voice could do it. If you’re looking for something peaceful to watch then this film could work well for you, but you’re better off watching another Christmas film like Jingle All The Way or Christmas with the Kranks. They’ll give you more laughs and just have more personality in general. I fear that this film has simply not aged well.

Overall 4/10

Insomnia Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.
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It’s time for a dark thriller by Nolan. This film’s a pretty sharp contrast to the light hearted Christmas films that I’ve reviewed of late so it’ll serve as foreshadowing to the horror films coming your way. The film’s battle between Will and Walter is interesting enough and the writing is pretty deep as you would expect. It gets a little too dark by the end though and the film ends on a rather bad note, which ends up hurting the film in the end.

Will is a pretty good detective who is caught in the middle of a rather tricky controversy. His partner wants to sell Will out because otherwise he’ll be the one who is caught in prison. Will has a solid reputation so he wouldn’t be in jail for too long, but the real problem is that many of his cases were dependent on his word so if he becomes a convict, a lot of villains will go free. It’s a tough moral dilemma and Will ends up shooting his partner. It’s an accident, but as the film goes on, Will begins to question whether or not that is really the case. Making things even worse is the fact that he is now being blackmailed by Walter, a villain who murdered a teenage girl. If Walter takes him to justice, then he’ll be freeing many other murderers and if he lets him go, Walter may go on to hurt others. What will Will do?

You can already tell that this is the kind of film where nobody really wins. It doesn’t matter what Will does to an extent, people are gonna get hurt. Now, this is true in life as there are always more villains out there and every choice has its repercussion, but it’s just a little too much if you ask me. I won’t spoil the ending I suppose, but lets just say that it’s verrrry dark. It’s heavily implied that one character makes a certain decision which means that the courts could make another decision that’ll end up with a lot of victims. Now, it’s not a 100% guarantee that the convicts will get out, but as there is no epilogue to the contrary, it’s just a very sad ending. It could have been easily fixed with a single scene at the end where the felons are still behind bars or a judge just says that the old cases are completely shut. It does show why vigilantism won’t work too well in the long run though. The truth always catches up to you and Will learned that the hard way.

The main plot is also rather dark with Walter murdering the girl. Not only did she die, but first she also had an abusive boyfriend who immediately moved on to her friend right after that. The rebounds were strong here and it’s why you can’t always trust sketchy friends from school. I don’t think we needed all of these dark elements. The film was already somber, this just helped to make it grittier and grittier with every scene. Of course, I’d expect no less from a Nolan and Al Pacino team up. Mix dark with gritty…and you get a dark, gritty film.

Will’s a good main character for the most part though. I’m of the opinion that it really was an accident when he shot the partner although the film makes it very ambiguous. You wouldn’t be wrong if you chose either option since it’s up to the viewer to make the final call. It’s a shame that we couldn’t see Will in his prime since he is clearly a very good detective, but doesn’t get to shine since he is being black mailed and manipulated the whole time. Walter’s actually a step ahead of him for the majority of the film, which is rather annoying. It seems like the villains are always geniuses as well in these kind of films.

Walter wasn’t a likable villain, but of course, he’s not meant to be. He’s just there to fill in the antagonist role and give Will an obstacle to overcome. There’s nothing redeeming about him and he’s just another psychopath on who needs to be brought to justice. It’s why you have to remember that someone’s always watching and lies will be found out eventually. In this case, it’s the worst possible scenario as it’s best to be found out by law enforcement or some kind of positive force rather than being found out by a villain. Then they can manipulate you as they please.

Ellie was a good supporting character. You feel bad for her since she looks up to Will and wants to prove herself as a detective, but slowly realizes that he is actually the culprit this time. She really did do a good job and ended up proving herself, but not in the way that she would have liked. Letting her guard down against the villain was pretty sloppy though and Walter really did embarrass just about everyone in this film. Again, it’s why it would have been fun to have a film where she could have teamed up with Will first before this situation had to pop up. No matter, Ellie made all of the right calls and depending on how you look at the ending, maybe she made another one. The decisions were all very hard, but in the end she had to accept the truth, whether or not she liked it.

The other supporting characters were mostly all good as well. I liked the local chief of police as he didn’t want to engage in all of the spying and double talk and just got down to business. He didn’t care about the scandals, he just wanted to solve the case. The local detective was also good and while Will kept on trying to steer him down the wrong path, the detective wouldn’t listen. He did a good job and I can sympathize with him since nobody likes to get pushed out of their job. He didn’t let Will’s legacy intimidate him and he just kept on chugging.

So, the whole film is just rather tragic. You’ve got a lot of good guys and girls trying to solve a murder, but little do they know that one of their own has been compromised. Will does try to break free of the black mail a few times, but Walter’s just too smart. The film also adds another layer to this by having Will murder an animal to try and use a gun’s bullets as some kind of evidence. I forgot the exact purpose of this, but I definitely don’t like to see any dead animals. Upon second thought, the animal may have already been dead and he just put the bullets in it, but I forgot. It wasn’t a pretty sight either way.

Overall, This was a well written movie and a fairly engaging one at that. There’s just only so much that a tragedy film can do and this is an example of a dark film getting too dark. There’s just too much misery here and almost no “feel good” scenes at all. It’s a somber ride from start to finish and it’s definitely not a film that I can recommend because you won’t enjoy it. It’s the kind of film that you simply experience. Cut out a few of the subplots and parts of the main plot…and maybe you’ve got yourself a good film. If you want a thriller with a good battle of the minds, then check out the recent Sherlock Holmes films. Those were actually quite good and also have a lot of engaging mind battles.

Overall 4/10