Category Archives: 4 Star Movies

Black Angel Review

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Time for a film that reminds you of how your past skeletons will always come back to hide you. The characters here all tend to have shady pasts except for the heroine who is just trying to do her best but ultimately she ends up having to compromise herself as well. I would definitely say this is a movie where nobody really wins and so the victory ends up feeling a bit on the hollow side. Definitely would have been nice if the characters could have been slightly more heroic.

The movie starts with Marty being super drunk and he is surprised when Mavos doesn’t let him into her apartment. He notices that she lets another guy go up so the whole thing is pretty humiliating. What he doesn’t realize is she gets murdered and a guy named Kirk is the primary suspect. Kirk’s wife Catherine is sure that he is innocent and is determined to find out the truth of the events. Marty agrees to help but unfortunately he ends up falling for Catherine right away. So does he really want to help prove her husband’s innocence or is he content to let Kirk be executed so he can steal her away?

That’s definitely one of the most annoying parts of the film. The fact that Marty is so in love with Catherine when she is already married. The guy doesn’t have any real class and it felt like he was flirting since near the beginning. Catherine certainly notices but she is trying hard to save her husband and can deal with that later. It would have been nice if Marty could have been the bigger man about it and put his feelings aside to help her out instead of being such a nuisance throughout the film. He does help to be sure but he’s helping out from a mess that he really created here so it’s not much of a consolation.

We get a twist for Marty and it certainly doesn’t make him look any better. This guy just had way too many issues the whole time so you’re rooting for him to be defeated. I can’t say that I felt bad for him by the end of the film. He really stuck himself into all of this trouble and so he has to pay the price there now. The guy’s a full antagonist when you really think about it.

Meanwhile you feel bad for Catherine the whole time. She’s in a tough situation with a very fast deadline so she’s doing everything she can in order to find some evidence. This even includes going into super shady locations and even having to perform at a location like that. Then she has to put up with Marty being there the whole time and even the boss Marko wanting her. Where the film takes an unfortunate turn is with her having to be with Marko in order to win his trust and get close to the safe. It all ends up being for naught anyway which is a real shame since that’s adding insult to injury at that point.

I never like any plan that involves compromising yourself to that degree. At that point you have to find another alternative even if it’s a longshot. Like just call the cops to have them take a look or bring in Marty and overpower Marko. Marty’s always looking for a fight and he would definitely assist her there even if it’s for the wrong reasons. Catherine never even led Marty on at all, the guy was just being way too desperate. The whole mission was about saving her husband after all, Marty got way too greedy.

I did like Captain Flood from the cops though. He may not have been convinced of Kirk’s innocence at all but why should he be? The case seemed rather open and shut here with Kirk cheating with Mavos. Kirk even admitted to her blackmailing him about exposing the affair so that makes perfect sense that he would take her out. When you add up all of the circumstantial evidence surrounding the case it definitely pans out. Flood seemed reasonable to me and wasn’t someone who easily jumped to conclusions. But after a point there is really only so much that you can do about these things.

This also made it harder to root for Kirk to be innocent here. Sure, he didn’t murder anyone but we already know that the guy is a complete cheater. It’s a super bad look for him and just makes the guy really awful. It’s another reason why it’s a shame that Catherine had to stoop to his level in order to save him. It’s just such a rough outcome that you can barely even call it happy. I don’t see any of the characters being all that well off by the end of the film. If anything their problems are really just getting started. It’s safe to say that Catherine can never really trust Kirk again so the relationship is ruined. Once you lose trust then you never really get it back. It’s time for her to make a fresh start at this point but at least she won’t have to worry about Marty. Again, I can’t say I have any sympathy for that guy. As always I would say to watch out if you like getting drunk because things can get tricky. I am still of the mind that being drunk only makes you a bigger version of yourself so everything you do is still the true you. So if you aren’t sure just how noble you are deep down, make sure you never take a drink.

Overall, The mystery itself is pretty good in this film. As always the writing is on point and you are interested in learning the truth behind the murder. As the film goes on though, that interest starts to wane a bit with how unlikable the characters arc. Marty is a jerk trying to get Catherine to cheat and her husband is a cheater. You feel like Catherine deserves so much better. Then the film going out of its way to lower her to their level was definitely a real low blow. I’m glad that she at least kept Marty at bay and never gave in there but the film just didn’t end up being a super satisfying watch. That keeps it from being higher and more in line with other noir titles.

Overall 4/10

They Live By Night Review

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It’s time for a noir title with a lot going on but it does not execute as well as it could have. It’s not super out of the ordinary for the main character to be unlikable in a noir title like this but at the same time you still need to have some kind of redeemable quality to really let the film go through smoothly. Mix that in with the underwhelming romance and this is not really one for the books. It can keep you entertained but the characters tend to get you annoyed more often than not which throws you right back out of the title.

The film starts off with Bowie and two other inmates escaping from jail. Bowie supposedly murdered someone which is a pretty big charge so he needs to lie low. The other two criminals are hardened veterans so they find a safehouse with people they know. The next challenge will be to rob a bank so they can free another criminal but this time doing it legally. Bowie is really just along for the ride but he ends up falling for the girl who lives there. Her name is Keechie and she doesn’t know a whole lot about the world. Bowie’s out of his depth as well so this could really work well as a match. Can Bowie get out of this crime circuit though?

Okay so I don’t really sympathize with Bowie because of how far this goes. At the end of the day it may be peer pressure but he was still doing everything. Robbing a bank is a crime no matter how you slice it after all. I do think he at least made the right call in skipping town with Keechie when the stakes were getting real high but at the same time he played it sloppy once one of the other criminals, Chicamaw caught up to him. You have to take the guy out of the picture. The longer you keep him around the worse things will get.

Yeah, taking someone out isn’t easy but this guy’s a villain through and through so you can’t really feel bad about that. Bowie also has Keechie to think about at this point so that really means he has to go all in. Ultimately things don’t go great for Bowie and you weren’t expecting them to considering what happened throughout the film. Right through to the end he was outplayed and that’s why he was not meant to be in the criminal game. In a way you could say it’s probably a good thing when you aren’t cut out for the competition but of course it’s even better to not even get involved in the first place.

Now why was the romance so bad? Well I think they overplayed the naive angle for Keechie. She just didn’t seem to know much about anything and so she wanted to take things slow but Bowie was the one always getting upset and trying to speed things up. It’s hard to see what she saw in the guy. From her perspective he’s another crook and someone who is trying to move rather fast instead of getting to know her. Yes, you can say she is desperate because no other guys have wanted her and that definitely throws a sad element into this but it doesn’t make the romance itself any better. In fact you could make the case that it makes the whole thing worse.

Keechie isn’t properly developed at the start of the film. I would argue that she gets a little development later on as she stands up for herself more and makes decisions. It’s not as if it’s a bad relationship all the way through but the start is just way too rocky to buy into. At least it was a way to escape the villain base which was really just a powder keg for a while there.

Also Chicamaw isn’t the best main villain. He’s jealous of Bowie for getting all of the credit for the latest crime but that means the cops won’t be looking for him as hard. That’s almost objectively a good thing from his point of view in every way. The fact that he is so petty that he would put all of this in jeopardy for clout is absolutely crazy. The guy also gets drunk quite a lot so I wouldn’t call him the biggest threat. It’s why Bowie needed to take him out a lot sooner. Yeah he can’t win a straight fight but he could absolutely do something from the sides using trickery.

I will say that the writing is solid as always though. The dialogue between each of the characters is on point without a doubt and the pacing isn’t bad. The film moves from plot point to plot point well, the problem is really that the plot itself wasn’t good enough here. You need to really rewrite large sections of it for the film to be better. It just isn’t the most entertaining film and with so many other better titles to check out, this one just ends up fading into the background.

Overall, They Live by Night is not a film that I would recommend as much as the average noir title. It could have used a mystery or something. Just watching the main guy making various mistakes doesn’t really do anything for me. The main part of the film is also about a romance that I just didn’t care much about either so there was no real saving that part of the film. I was just shaking my head by this point. I do think you could make an interesting story here about the heroine changing a villain from his old ways but you’re not really going to find that here. If the film was aiming for the ending to be a solid book-end to the subplot of Bowie not being ready for these stakes then I do think that was really clever tho.

Overall 4/10

Escape Plan: The Extractors Review

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

Another Escape Plan? Hey some characters have a hard time staying out of jail but at least you know they have a lot of experience by now. This one really goes back to the original in a lot of ways with the main character getting more screentime and doing a lot of fighting. I would even go as far as to say that it’s definitely the most intense one. It has its moments but you can definitely tell that the series is faltering somewhat.

All right so the film starts with reminding us why a bunch of bodyguards just aren’t worth it. Daya’s group is immediately defeated and she is kidnapped. Always better to have one all star than a group tbh. Her father is a big time criminal who operates a lot of prisons and so Ray has decided to take him down. It won’t be easy though because Ray’s group isn’t all that great and they are defeated along with Abigail getting kidnapped. Ah well…looks like Ray is gonna need to do a lot of the heavy lifting here. He’s fairly used to it though. Can he murder all of the villains before they execute the final hostages or is it already too late?

One thing you can definitely tell about this film is that it’s quite a bit edgier than the first two. Gone are the more sci-fi type prisons in place of a very dusty, sand type of area. It looks more like a prison you would see in real life which in a way is good for realism but by film 3 it’s not like that should be a huge consideration right? That’s already all done with by this point. Even the fights are more on the realistic side without all of the big choreography. You just have people getting shot and stabbed.

The fight scenes aren’t bad but they do tend to end with rather violent finishers. You may think Ray is a little too old for all of this but he definitely handles himself well in a fight. you can expect him to typically dominate in the ring. Of course he does have a lot of rage due to the events of this film. There is definitely a body count to be had here and with films always needing to top themselves and elevate things to the next level, you could say that this film took the next logical step. Can’t say it’s one that I’m a really big fan of but hey….that’s how it goes. It’s a big spoiler to say much more than that but one character ends up biting it and I would say this was unnecessary.

I feel like it could have set up some sequels since the dynamic is different but I suppose they didn’t have enough fuel in the tank to squeeze out a 4th one of these. It would definitely be nice if Ray’s teammates could hold their own a bit better. Yeah they each have their specialties like we have the jokester hacker, but at the end of the day it doesn’t feel like he will come through when it counts. You actually want to have someone inside the jail with you taking down tons of opponents.

Ironically the best assistant Ray has is DeRosa who isn’t actually part of the main team. When he shows up the villains start falling like dominoes but his role isn’t quite as big here. He shows up a few times and then at the very end but this is not really his film so think of him more like a guest star. He would do pretty well in continuing the franchise if you had to switch main characters I would say.

The film does give the main villains a connection to the first film so that helps in terms of connecting everything together. I can appreciate that as a writing strategy even if you don’t really need to do it. I understand how you want to end things on a bang and that makes everything feel more personal. It reminds you that you really can’t trust anyone in the prison breaking game. At the end of the day everyone is out for themselves and will mess you over if given half a chance.

If we did get another film we’d have to see how they force Ray back into a prison. Are we going with the ole hostage routine again, some kind of challenge like a mega prison? The latter would look bad for Ray while the first would feel lazy. I dare say the best thing to do is ditch the prison theme. It’s not called prison break after all. Have Ray be on an island where a coup happens and now he has to escape or maybe put him on an airplane that gets hijacked. This franchise could have really expanded in a whole lot of ways but instead it just ended.

The writing here isn’t bad either. Perhaps a bit on the generic side but I had no real problems with it. The setup is decent and the film’s pacing is good. If you just take away some of the excessive violence and grit here then this would really be fine. It may be hard to avoid all of that in a prison film but I would say the first two films did a better job of this. It all just feels a little less hopeless with how things are going. You feel like there really is something worth fighting for while by the end of this film things are a bit too far gone. Still not pointless by any means as there are people to save but it doesn’t hit in quite the same way.

Overall, Escape Plan 3 is probably the weakest one here. It goes a bit far at times to be sure. I don’t think the plot itself was bad. The supporting cast may be a bit annoying in how they hold Ray back but realistically he is the leader for a reason. It makes sense that he would be the strongest after all. Maybe they can just make his teammates a bit stronger next time, I liked the main fighter in film 2 after all and DeRosa is solid. Put them as the main trio for a whole film and then we’re talking. Still, unless you absolutely need to watch the whole trilogy I would say to watch the first two films and then call it a day.

Overall 4/10

A Holiday to Remember Review

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Oh nooooo, it’s a romance film that focuses on a rebound? And we’ve got a love triangle going? This one definitely gets real dramatic and while most of the film is still decent enough, it takes way too long for the characters to make any decent decisions. Additionally, I felt like the main guy was getting gaslit throughout the entire film so that was a bit annoying at times. He has some valid points here.

The movie starts with Carolyn deciding to leave the big city to go back to the small village she grew up in. It’s a humble existence but you know…it was a fun one. Now her daughter Jordy can have a good time here as well. The only problem is that her ex-fiancé is here. Uh oh….this wasn’t part of the plan. Clay is still upset over what happened in their past and so he’s not thrilled to see her but what sucks for that guy is he basically has every job in the village. He’s the cop, handyman, etc. Looks like they’re going to have to try and get along but is there still a flame between them?

Obviously there shouldn’t be since they have been apart for so long and they left on bad terms. Instead of any spark there should just be animosity here. Lets get into exactly why they broke up. Carolyn panicked…and left him at the alter. She just dashed out of town and never even said goodbye to him. Carolyn has a daughter so she already met someone else but I forget what happened there. I’ll assume they just broke up but either way Clay is at best going to be the rebound guy. Things aren’t going great for her economically and now he can help out. Clay should want no part of this.

I think the roughest part is how Clay talks in depth about how upsetting the whole thing was. He was super embarrassed and humiliated in front of the whole town. It’s not something you just forget you know, that’s a huge deal. He must have felt awful for years wondering what he did that was so wrong. Then you want to know the worst part? Nobody is all that sympathetic to him. They say he should get over it, to stop being a wimp, etc. Even Carolyn has that same energy of “That was so long ago tho” and it’s absolutely crazy. Putting so much of the burden on Clay to just move on makes no sense.

So I was not rooting for this romance at all. It never felt like it made a lot of sense or was even a reasonable one. Too much time has passed and Carolyn really lived her life at this rate. It’s too late to turn around now. Then in the village there is also another girl who likes Clay. She’s been dropping tons of hints and making moves on the guy but none of them have been all that effective. She is less than pleased to see that Carolyn is back and of course her fears are completely justified. That said, why continue to pursue a guy who doesn’t actually care about you right? That’s my main problem with the whole thing. I guess you don’t have to stop until you’re rejected but it won’t be the basis of a great relationship. I can definitely guarantee that.

I should mention there is another aspect to the plot. There’s a homeless kid wandering around the village who steals food to survive. He steals from Carolyn but the main heroine has pity on him and decides to let him stay at the house. She intends to adopt him but the village has a strict policy on this. So Carolyn wants Clay to break the rules and gets upset when he doesn’t. This is also rather unfair because it’s not like he created the rules. As always, everyone takes Carolyn’s side and makes Clay feel bad for literally upholding the rules. Cmon now, that’s just not cool. He really didn’t deserve all of the hate here. Sure, the rules may seem harsh but you can’t break them just because you don’t like a rule. How would there be any law and order at that point?

Also I would say Jordy looks pretty bad here. She gets along with the kid well enough but messes him over near the climax by taking the role he wanted. That was a big blow and there wasn’t really a way to come back from that. Ultimately they get along and we have the wholesome ending but this is one minor subplot that we probably didn’t need. There was already plenty of drama among the main characters by this point.

Look, basically what I’m saying here is that Carolyn should have taken way more responsibility for what happened earlier. That wouldn’t have saved the romance plot but it certainly would have helped. It’s also just annoying to see them do the whole “We’re just gonna be friends” and then immediately go further. At this point they’re both adults and they’ve been around each other for a long time so why would they even assume it wouldn’t happen again? Just feels rather cheesy here.

A romance film is only as good as its romance and that’s where this one falters. Aside from that, it’s always hype to have a film that takes place around Christmas. The snow was really fun to see and I liked the sets in general. Everything looked nice and the writing was good when it wasn’t just everyone dunking on Clay the whole time. Poor guy’s own mother never took his side in any of this.

Overall, This in a way feels like one of those classic Hallmark Christmas movies but without the wholesome energy of it. This one feels a bit more jaded and it’s also just a bit more mean spirited. I would have liked if the dynamic could have been more pleasant. Honestly not having them already be each other’s ex would have been a good way to start that off. It’s just hard to recover from that and especially when you give such a tough backstory. Look I’m just gonna say it one last time, I don’t think how you can ever forgive and forget when you’re left at the alter like that. There are plenty of other romance films to check out so check one of those out instead.

Overall 4/10

Double Impact Review

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

All right, it’s time for one of those films that has a solid premise but I think the execution was off. It didn’t really play around with the two main characters looking the same as much as I would have liked. They didn’t even get as many big conversations together as you would expect considering what a big revelation this is. The movie makes all of the easy mistakes and ends up being a below average action film. It doesn’t compete with some of the star’s other movies.

The movie starts off with the main character’s parents celebrating a big accomplishment in opening up a tunnel. They are feeling so hype in fact that they tell their bodyguard he can head out as they drive home. This wasn’t a smart plan as they are quickly shot up by the Triad group. The two kids barely survive with the body guard Frank saving one of them and the other is taken to another country. Still, with the parents out of the way, Triad takes over the tunnel and now has the credit for how it is being used.

We cut to the present where Chad leads a very successful dojo along with Frank. It’s been a quiet but fulfilling life. This all changes when Frank lets Chad know about a new business they can run in Hong Kong. Chad is skeptical but his worries quickly vanish when a girl named Danielle starts flirting with him. Chad thinks he has finally won the lottery when he is knocked out by his twin brother Alex. Basically Alex runs a lot of shady operations out here and has become a really solid fighter as well. Chad has more traditional skills as he teaches martial arts but Alex has street skills which work just as well in a pinch. Frank lets them know the truth about what happened to their parents and how they have to stop Triad. Can the two brothers put aside their differences in order to pull this off?

So I’ve got a few issues here but the first is what I mentioned earlier about the brothers not getting nearly as much dialogue with each other as you would have expected. I really feel like this is a gold mine of opportunity with the characters interacting and bonding. Maybe throw in an extended fight scene. Nah, in the end we do get some banter but there isn’t much about them being twins. They could have just been random people brought together and it would be the same effect.

The film also goes the very dicey way of having Danielle fall for Chad. She was originally with Alex but the guy doesn’t even treat her right at all so you can see why she would leave. The big problem is this just doesn’t feel like an organic relationship, I would argue it doesn’t even feel like a positive one in any way. Rebounding with the brother is never a good idea, you don’t go through different family members like that. Chad should have also been ready to break it off. The initial scene with them is one you can’t blame Chad for since he didn’t know, but after that he takes a lot of responsibility here.

We just didn’t need this kind of drama. Alex starts to feel a little bad about himself later on but it’s also really late for that as well. He’s basically a villain after all, just not quite as out there as the Triad group. So he just wasn’t ready for a relationship either way. The whole using the girl to make the two guys fight is just rather cliche though and not one of the better ones. The film could have definitely done better there.

The film also decides to make one of the villains more on the creepy side for no reason. Kara notices that Danielle is being shady when the heroine was spying on the villains. So Kara messes with her a lot and the whole scene definitely goes on for way too long. There isn’t really a point to Kara frisking Danielle to such a degree except as basically a power play and the movie could have handled things a little more classy than that.

The main villains are basically your average thugs so there’s not much to them. Kara had the most personality, just a shame it wasn’t a better one. She’s definitely not the kind of villain that you want to underestimate though. On the heroes side, Frank was a solid character. He did a good job of trying to get the boys back together and had their backs the whole time. He’s a good man who is really trying to do the right thing. He knew how to fight and was experienced with a gun so the guy always came to the situation prepared.

I didn’t really care for either Chad or Alex though. Alex was just too much of a villain for most of this so either way you wouldn’t trust him outside the mission. His treatment of Danielle was an automatic L for the guy. Meanwhile I liked Chad’s confidence but he could definitely be way too much of a flirt and never kept his eye on the mission. When you lose focus as easily as this guy, that means you are definitely not cut out for the big leagues. Even if there was no villain conspiracy going on, I don’t feel like he would have what it takes to launch a big business. It feels like Frank would have to do all of the heavy lifting and I bet that’s the case back home as well. Chad’s just not a very responsible kind of guy.

The fight scenes are solid as you would expect from this star though. The choreography is on point and you really feel the blows. It’s clear that the characters know what they are doing and that really makes a lot of difference. This isn’t just a bunch of amateurs messing around or anything like that. It can always be a bit cheesy to see a guy knocking out a ton of gunmen with his fists though. The gunmen just end up looking completely incompetent because the main characters aren’t exactly quite about this. Still, it can be funny even if that wasn’t the overall intention.

Overall, Double Impact isn’t my favorite film. The fight scenes are good but the story is weak and the main characters are even weaker. There was no point to the scene of Danielle getting searched and that definitely could have been dropped out of the film. If you want to watch a film just for the fights, there are many better option so I would recommend those instead of this one. Double Impact should have focused more on the lost twins angle with a lot of good scenes you could have had there. Instead, it was game over for this one.

Overall 4/10

Elysium Review

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

Elysium is one of those films that you may think will be okay since it’s sci-fi in nature and takes place in the future. That being said, it ends up feeling more like one of those gritty dystopias that defeats the purpose of the sci-fi angle since most things are fairly low tech. The characters aren’t all that good and some of the plans are even worse. Ultimately this is a film that you can definitely skip and you won’t really be missing much of anything.

The movie starts off by explaining that in the future, the humans messed Earth up as expected so all of the rich moved to a sky country known as Elysium. There they can ignore what is going on and live their lives in peace. Every so often some people will try to sneak over there and get shot out of the sky or captured. Delacourt is the head of security but she is frustrated with how lax the government is being so she makes a deal with the head of corporate known as John. They will stage a coup and take everything over. He will be even richer than he already is and then she will have control. There’s nothing that can stand in their way…nothing except a guy named Max.

Max is a guy who is rather down on his luck right now. He used to be one of the best criminals in the game but he was caught and is trying to live an honest life now. The problem is that all humans are basically slaves on Earth now and everyone continues to mess with him. He finally has enough when he gets stuck inside a server room and nearly burns to death. In fact, he will be dead shortly because of the crazy amounts of radiation. This causes him to go back to his old crime partner Spider. He will help the guy with whatever he wants to do in exchange for a ticket to Elysium. Spider agrees to this but is this a smart move?

Now, right off the bat the film does give Max a whole lot of reasons to do this. We see how his life is completely hopeless right now and it is not going to get any better. Even if Delacourt takes over, she is going to continue the slavery system. Max really just needs to find a way to get into Elysium and live a new life but that’s not very likely either. He actually criticized the whole system early on about how the attempts to break in would always fail so what would be different now? Well, not much but you might as well get shot to death instead of slowly dying by radiation.

The mission doesn’t go great though and now Max has the secrets of the world in his head. He can effectively override everything set up across the planet and Elysium. Here’s where his plan gets really bad although I admit I don’t really know what alternatives there are. Keep in mind that Max is dying any day now either way. His only chance is the medical technology of Elysium but any kind of cure will probably mean rendering him unconscious for a while. You see the dilemma right? The secrets in his head are the only things keeping him alive so he has that as a bargaining chip but he then has to trust the villains at their word when they say they will cure him.

There’s no shot that will work so….yeah this isn’t a great situation to be in. I think Max’s only move right from the start was to shut everything down and start a global panic if that’s what he wanted to do, or let himself get taken to Elysium without being cured. Then he can at least live out his final days in relative comfort in a more beautiful environment. Those are his only calls and ultimately he is forced into a decision by the end but I didn’t think that any of his decisions were all that great. He was in a bad situation but he kept on making it worse like going inside the server room.

It’s easy to Monday Quarterback the situation from the sidelines but that’s just how I see it. I did enjoy Delacourt as the villain quite a bit. She seemed to be someone who was actually rather reasonable and saw the big picture on things. She was harsh and would do whatever she needed to in order to protect the civilians and that’s what you would expect the commander to do. She held onto her post well and that makes for a good villain. She was fighting for her ideals and everything.

John’s only ideals were corporate greed but in a way I can sort of respect that too. He didn’t care about the internal struggle for power or anything like that. He just wanted his money up front and whoever could do that would end up being his ally. It’s a simple motivation but he represents corporate really well. It’s just what they do after all. Kruger was a decent wild card as someone who was hired to do the tough jobs. Obviously he’s not the kind of guy you ever trust but every solid shadow government needs someone off the books to help out when they’re in a pinch. This guy absolutely ends up covering that base.

The fact that the villains still let their guard down around him is absolutely crazy. We also have the main heroine Frey here as another important character. She comes in clutch to help Max on different occasions and was a good person. She helps to add in the emotional punch to the film as more incentive for why Max can’t just give up. If he does, then her daughter is doomed since she is also very sick and of course nobody on Earth ever gets any help. There’s definitely a lot of suffering going on and it’s why this would definitely be considered a failed timeline. The rich won and the poor lost.

The film has a happy ending at least. You imagine it won’t go quite as smoothly as it might appear but at least people have a brief moment to relax and take a break. Ultimately some of the themes in this movie are ones that you could see playing out in real life. Certainly the idea of minimizing benefits as much as possible is a big one and with robots around, you could see them handling a lot of jobs down the line. They can’t be reasoned with and so that will get rather difficult for the humans. Naturally I never see things getting quite as dramatic as they are in this film though.

It would have been nice if the film could have just focused more on the sci-fi. We get a brief fight with Max taking on one of the droids once he has the exo suit but that’s about it. This is definitely not an action film first and foremost. There are a number of shootouts and the film can even get rather violent at times but most of this is more about the journey. Where the film really falters is that most of the characters aren’t likable. Hey it sucks that the humans have to put up with all of this and it’s understandable that most of them would become cruel or jaded as well but it doesn’t make them likable at all. The fact that the villains are more charismatic than the heroes is a bit of a problem for them. Not saying you root for the villains but you can also see how the humans would wreck the setup.

Overall, Elysium could have easily taken place in the past and not much of the story would really change. That’s why it feels like a waste of the futuristic setting. Yes, we do have robots running around and all but most of the environments are still really run down to show how bad Earth has gotten. The premise could have been a lot more interesting. At the end of the day the film just isn’t much fun to watch and that is the golden rule of any movie. Check out a different futuristic movie instead like Star Trek.

Overall 4/10

From Here to Eternity Review

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It’s time for a very dramatic war film. Get ready for a lot of unlikable characters running around. It’s a film that will keep you engaged the whole time to be sure but I do think it could have used a few boosts to really make it a very solid title. Maybe more war scenes since surprisingly that doesn’t actually happen until the very end of the film. Most of it is really just setup and a bunch of hazing.

The movie kicks off with Prewitt being transferred over to a new war base. He was unsatisfied at the last posting because he didn’t get the promotion that he felt was deserved. Warden’s job is to see to it that Prewitt joins the army’s boxing club because otherwise his boss will be upset. Prewitt refuses due to an incident that happened back when he was a boxer so now he has to try and stay strong while the army attempts to bully him into submission. Will he be able to stick to his guns or will the army break him? That is really the core plot of the movie and that seems to happen a lot in these titles. Half the time you feel like if these army guys are your allies then you’re already in hot water.

The movie does have a few subplots though but they don’t do much to help the movie. For starters we have Warden getting into an affair with his boss’s wife. Huge fatal mistake right there. As I’ve always said there is no real coming back from cheating and when the Warden made a conscientious effort to get to her, he was already doomed. It’s a shame because he had a lot of entertaining scenes otherwise. He makes for a pretty solid boss. Certainly a corrupt one, but a guy who is very crafty and careful with his wording. Warden knows how to manipulate people and how to stay safe amidst all of the inter army politics.

He prides himself on being a very smart guy so it’s a shame that he makes such a dumb mistake. Ultimately this subplot persists throughout most of the movie until some stuff happens in the climax and he decides to switch goals. Not due to any kind of redemption arc though so his personality hasn’t gotten any better. He’s still not someone you can possibly root for. Naturally the boss’s wife is also pretty bad in having her affairs. Everyone is cheating on someone in this film and it plays a big part in why all of the romances are so weak.

Prewitt has a romance going on too but it’s also not a great one. He falls in love with one of the girls at the club he visits and doesn’t seem to understand that it’s their job to act nice with everyone. He immediately gets super possessive and starts to cause a lot of trouble with everyone. The guy can’t hold his drinks super well and gets really annoying for large parts of the film. Ultimately when the chips are down he doesn’t listen to the girl and runs off which is always a trend in these things.

He only has one friend in the army who has his back, Maggio. Unfortunately Maggio is even worse at holding his liquor and picks a bunch of fights as well. Ultimately this doesn’t end well for the guy which is unfortunate. The film is definitely filled with quite a few tragedies as all of the characters tend to end things off worse than how they started. Most of this is because of drinks or generally just not being great people though.

In general the film’s writing is good. When you take away the individual characters for a moment, you’ve got a strong film about trying to resist everyone forcing you into a path you don’t want to follow. It’s incredibly difficult when everyone is against you and there is all kinds of corruption within the ranks. I do think it would be enough to completely turn you against the army and try to get out of there. If this kind of thing happened to enough folks there would be so many mutiny attempts and the army would really go crazy. It’s always unfortunate to see so many people within the film be okay with it though.

These are theoretically the heroes we’re supposed to be rooting for when the villains attack but it’s hard to do so when you see how cruel they are. This leads to vigilante justice as the film goes on which is really shown to be the only effective way to stop them. You basically have to root for Prewitt because otherwise nothing is going to get done. The ending feels a bit unnecessary as the lead didn’t think things through but the final fight was on point. Felt like a grim ending that happened because it was planned out (Or I guess that’s how it happened in real life perhaps) but the setup in the film really didn’t make any kind of sense. Like going out to try and prove something that didn’t need proving.

Ultimately this is a movie that is really just held back by the characters. They all have significant flaws which keeps them from being likable. Any character who seems nice enough quickly has a film ending flaw before the adventure is over. Whether it be getting drunk the whole time, having a quick temper, not being very smart, cheating, etc. The idea is probably to be as realistic as possible which can be a depressing thought in itself. The film is based on true events to an extent so I was mixed on whether I would give this one a score or not. Ultimately it was about a 50/50 since a lot of events were true but it seems like the names were switched and a bunch of extra stuff was added. Might as well throw it in.

Overall, The movie had some good ideas but ultimately I would have to give it a thumbs down. After a point having a cast filled with unlikable characters will often bring down the film as a whole. The whole thing feels pretty unfair to the main character the whole time and things never really went well for him. Again you’d feel sorrier for him if he was more likable but that’s how it goes. If you really enjoy seeing the inner workings of an army base and what the day to day could look like then you should have a good time here but you can definitely do a lot better with these old war films.

Overall 4/10

Marty Review

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Uh oh, it’s time for a romance film that desperately tries to get you to sympathize with the main character but it doesn’t work. I consider myself a bit of an expert when it comes to the world of romance so I am here to shatter the delusions. I’ve seen hundreds of hours of debate topics and insights into that part of life and I can tell you that this isn’t it. Marty himself ends up bringing down the film somewhat.

All right so we’re introduced to a guy in his 30s who has been having a really hard time finding anybody to be with him. The poor guy is just down on his luck at this point but his mother keeps trying to help him find somebody. His friends aren’t the most helpful either as they’re all single and miserable too. Their days usually consist of them sabotaging each other’s efforts and just being rather sad influences. Still, there’s nothing else to do but one day at one of those meet and greet events he meets a lady named Clara. She was ditched by the guy she came with and he feels bad for her. Along the way he realizes that she is a nice girl. Can this be the one for him?

Okay so there’s a lot of issues here and just about all of them come from Marty’s side. First off, all of the peer pressure stuff is really just an excuse. The fact that he allows himself to constantly go down the wrong paths just because his friends are doing that is absolutely crazy. What happened to taking accountability for yourself? Even to the very end he makes this mistake such as when he doesn’t call Clara because he felt ashamed. The reason this is a big deal is because it’s at the very end of the film. He should have learned his lesson early on but didn’t. To be honest, Clara should have just rejected him and that’s how the film ends.

It brings another plot element into the mix which is that it feels like they’re both settling for each other. Marty doesn’t actually think she’s super attractive. He thinks she is really nice and someone that he can finally talk to which is why he likes her but the fact that he refers to her as someone who is not very attractive is absolutely crazy. Looks aren’t everything in a relationship to put it mildly. However, you do need a high level of physical attractiveness to your partner at the outset. As you both get older that becomes less important but if you start off like this it’ll create more problems. More temptations on both sides and a lot of future issues that snowball from there.

If the film made it clear that he thought she was really attractive and had to hide this for fear of his friends that would be another story. He would still look horrible of course but at least it can work. Just meeting on the personality bit? That could be fine as well if he didn’t constantly say how he had to settle because he was getting older and she felt the same way. You can’t have a healthy relationship if you settle. That’s why there are so many problems out in the world. If the person you’re actually in love with is unavailable then hey that’s tough but instead of settling you should just focus on other hobbies.

The film doesn’t give you much reason for Clara to like Marty either except…she was desperate. The red flags in this relationship continue to grow larger and larger. She just wants to find someone so people can get off her back. Hey, I’m pulling for things to go well for them but it’s not a romance that you could easily root for in this film. Not at all, in fact it just makes this a weak romance. Since the romance is such a large part of the film that hurts as well. If we had a scene of Marty throwing his friends away early on that would have been great. He needed to stand his ground and show that he really cared for Clara. Waiting for the final scene was not a great idea.

Clara also puts up with too much here. She was fully within her rights to reject Marty’s first advance. He was moving a little too quickly and I didn’t think he handled that too well. It was a lot of pressure for her too and he wasn’t very aware of the stress she was under. Another rocky part to their relationship there. I’m glad that she stayed strong though and didn’t give in to the pressure there. She had more willpower than he did to be honest.

I’m afraid the side characters were not immune either. Marty’s aunt is super annoying the whole time as she tries to poison his mother against him. She says how Marty will ditch her and everything. Why should the mother listen to any of this? She’s the one who has been trying to have Marty find a girl and all of a sudden she does a 180 because someone told her to? That was absolutely crazy and completely destroyed both characters. It was very disappointing to have Marty’s Mom bad mouthing Clara as well. That feels like something that would be hard to repair afterwards.

Marty’s so called best friend was also no help and didn’t do anything to encourage the relationship either. Basically the film is a cautionary tale about why you should avoid hanging out with fake friends. Rather than encourage, they will do everything in their power to get in your way and undermine your efforts. Better to go it alone than to risk a social network that will not be beneficial to you. Just about every character in the film is super toxic.

Overall, Marty is a film that’s supposed to be a fun underdog story for a guy who finally finds his girl. The problem is that the message gets real muddy with how everyone is settling and this isn’t exactly true love. “True Love” may be a term that people shy away from but that’s the only kind of love that really counts. Without that, a relationship just isn’t going to go the distance. Don’t be like Marty, things won’t often end quite like this film’s adventure. If you try for every girl around before you eventually settle, it just makes you look desperate and then you will really lose out.

Overall 4/10

The Lawnmower Man Review

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

It’s time for a sci-fi film about why virtual reality and augmenting a person’s brain could be a dangerous idea. Technology will inevitably become too much for humanity to handle and once that happens it is game over. So what does that have to do with a Lawnmower? Well somebody gets murdered with one and it’s a cool title. The main guy also does lawnmowing so it makes sense but I can see how it would seem like a superhero name.

The film starts by showing us an experiment that is being run on a chimp. He is taken to a virtual reality world where he has to shoot all of the enemies dead. The experiments are going well and this is proof that the technology works but he manages to escape. He gets far enough to meet a guy named Jobe who gets picked on constantly by everyone for not being smart. Father Francis beats him and doesn’t help at all so Jobe is glad to have a friend but the chimp is shot dead. Now Jobe is back to being on his own until a guy named Angelo shows up who offers Jobe a lot of intelligence and success if he helps with a certain experiment. Jobe really has nothing to lose so he agrees to these tests but are these experiments going to make him unbalanced?

First up, if I was Jobe I would have definitely said yes to the experiments as well. Sure, they seem a bit risky but it can’t be any worse than his current situation. That’s exactly how I would have felt about it so it makes a lot of sense that he would get on board with this. Also, the effects are really good at first. He can actually have intelligent conversations and everyone respects him more. Unfortunately corporate steps in at this point and sabotages everything. If they had not done that, I dare say the experiment probably would have been a complete success. Leave it to corporate to rush things a bit too far and blow everything up though. They just couldn’t wait to get the natural gains that would have happened.

This isn’t an action film first and foremost but we do get some fight scenes. At one point Jobe basically takes on the army with his flying nanobots which was pretty fun. At this point, there isn’t much that can stop him though as he transcends his mortal body. The guy completely cracks and turns evil by the end but the film does a good job of showing just how much he had to put up with before then. He didn’t have much to protect or live for by this point since everyone was getting bumped off. So yeah at that point you might as well end the world.

At its core I would call this a revenge fantasy film. We see how everyone mistreats Jobe and the only characters who have his back are beaten up or murdered. So now that he has these telepathic abilities he can enact his full revenge on them all. You can definitely see where the film is going with this right from the jump. It can get a little overzealous on the deaths with this though. The film has a tendency to cut away so it’s not incredibly graphic or anything but the deaths themselves can definitely be painful.

Also the film did murder the chimp near the beginning which was unfortunate. Animal violence is always a good way to knock yourself down a peg. It was hard for the film to really come back from that. It’s also just a bit too mean spirited. I would have liked more characters to have had Jobe’s back and defended him when things weren’t going well. It would have shown that at least humanity was not fully cooked yet. Sure we had a few characters like Angelo, Marnie, and Jobe’s coworker but that was about it. They also weren’t able to be there 24/7.

So Jobe was a good character and it’s just too bad that the power got to him. He still made the right move and helped the kid by the end though. Angelo was also solid as he would talk back to corporate but I also think he could have been a little more cautious at times. I felt like he turned his back to the company and then didn’t have a plan for when they would inevitably target him. Not a very smart move if you ask me and the guy’s supposed to be a genius. He did good in setting up the technology but underestimated humanity.

Father Francis should be considered as the main villain of the film in large part because he’s the one who should have been watching out for Jobe. Instead of supporting the guy, he basically took every excuse to punish him over and over. He was actively trying to prevent Jobe from learning more and so yeah this guy didn’t really have any redeeming qualities. You just needed him to be bumped off as soon as possible. Until that were to happen there was just no way to move forward.

Overall, The Lawnmower Man had some interesting ideas. I also enjoyed seeing the virtual world with the super retro CG. In some ways that’s the kind of CG that tends to be fun as it really makes you feel like you’re in a computer game. I could have done without the romance though which was particularly weak and more disturbing than anything inside the screen. That was just never going to work out there and it all went too fast. The film would have been better if it toned down the amount of bullies and randoms who were just cruel and evil for no real reason though. It’s just way too slanted and pretty much forces Jobe down the path of corruption. It’s not a film that makes for a particularly easy watch so I would recommend other sci-fi titles above this one.

Overall 4/10

Alice Adams Review

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Uh oh, I’m on a roll with the negative film reviews. You’d expect a super old 30s romance to be pretty fun and get the automatic win but that’s not the case for this one. The characters are just too unlikable so you’re actively rooting against them here. I didn’t think the heroine deserved to win and all of the characters just made such big mistakes for themselves. There’s just no way to climb back up from how far they fell.

The film starts off by introducing us to the Adams family who are really poor and down on their luck. The father has been sick for ages and while his boss continues to pay his checks, it’s not a lot of money. The mother continues to hound and berate him the whole time about how he has failed the family. Walter continues to waste his money on every kind of vice possible so he’s definitely as irresponsible as possible. Finally you have Alice who is really self conscious about the whole thing and so she is constantly lying in order to trick the people round her into thinking that she is wealthy.

She has kept these lies up for a while but then a guy named Arthur shows up and Alice likes him quite a lot. The guy is fairly wealthy and Alice really doesn’t want him to know the truth. As their relationship gets more serious though it becomes hard to hide this. Can she continue to deceive him all the way until marriage or is this relationship doomed to fall to ruins?

So right from the bat I can’t root for the romance here because a romance built on deception is absolutely not going to go well. I think it’s very difficult to come back from that. Yes, everyone starts off with a bit of a mask when the relationship first starts. That’s normal and I don’t see anything wrong with that. There’s a big difference between that kind of setup and flat out lies though. Alice is straight up lying to Arthur the whole time and about fairly massive stuff. The fact that she was lying to everybody about even mild things also shows how she completely lost the plot.

Sure you could say it’s part of her character development but the problem is that it’s clear she would have kept on lying if she wasn’t caught. This kind of plot works way better if it’s an internal decision where she decides to come clean before being forced to do so. As a result this was just not going to work and it’s really cheesy that Arthur was still okay with the whole thing. It looked really bad by the end as it was coupled with her brother being a crook and her father seemingly stealing from the company he worked for. Arthur shouldn’t have turned around so quickly.

I can appreciate a happy ending of course but it just wasn’t very realistic at all. Arthur comes across as a bit of a pushover there. I won’t fault him for being a nice guy but yeah he could have done some things differently there. I will just say I am glad that he doesn’t walk around immediately believing in the rumors though. That was nice because other guys are the opposite extreme in these films where a rumor starts and they are immediately jumping in and buying into it.

Back to the family, Walter was a particularly disgraceful character as he turned a bad situation into a worse one. Actively stealing money is just awful especially since his father is the one who recommended him for the job. So now he’s making his father out to be a liar and someone who cannot be trusted while also incriminating the whole family. In a small town like this that can be an absolute death sentence to the rest of the characters. This guy was not thinking clearly at all.

Both parents were rather bad characters as well. The mother loses a lot of points for constantly complaining about everything and giving the dad bad advice. Quitting the company that helped pay his sick expenses for months and months is crazy and then wanting to burn the bridge for some quick money? She was definitely thinking about things in the short term. Then he takes a lot of the blame for following along with the advice even when he knew it was no good. I dare say it’s almost worse when you’re in that position because you’re ignoring your conscience. At least for her you can say that she thought it was the right thing to do but since he knows that it’s wrong, that’s bad business.

They’re all just lucky that the business owner was so lenient and forgiving. That was also rather cheesy by the way. So the main characters all got off rather easily and I’m not sure that they actually learned their lessons. The weak character cast is what really hurts this film because for a romance film like this you absolutely need quality characters. Otherwise the whole thing falls apart because it’s not like you have big fight scenes or special effects to make up the difference. The writing itself was good despite the characters since I still like the old style dialogue but it’s almost impressive how the film makes all of the main characters look this bad.

Overall, Don’t use this film as any kind of reference to getting a good romance relationship going. Trust me when I say that it isn’t likely to go smoothly if you follow these steps. A good partner will be patient but when it’s someone that you only just met, you can’t really test them to this extent. The film ends up leaving you rather annoyed by the end which is the wrong feeling for a romantic comedy and so it should have either leaned harder on being a comedy to the point of parody or just made the characters more redeemable. Have Alice give some quick little lies out of nervousness which she is forced to double down on later on as opposed to going over the top and even blaming the maid when things don’t go well. She just went way too far.

Overall 4/10