Category Archives: 4 Star Movies

The Preacher’s Wife Review

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Uh oh, it’s time for another Christmas film that I’ve got some issues with. I’m talking serious issues here that definitely do take away from the film. It’s aiming to be a fairly wholesome experience but by the time I’m done with it you’ll see why this didn’t actually work. It’s a shame because the film had some real potential here but ended up fumbling the bag by the end and leaves you wishing that it could have managed to make it to its full potential. It really should have been the next big thing but ultimately it was not to be.

So the movie starts off by introducing us to Henry who is having a hard time as the pastor of his Church lately. Everything in his life is just falling apart, he feels like he can’t get his message across to the congregation anymore and some of the community are starting to get into trouble. One was accused of robbing a store at gunpoint, another is being taken away into a foster home, etc. He also hasn’t made any time for his wife in a long while. Just as things look like they’re about to break, an angel named Dudley appears. He says that he will help make everything better and yet…it seems as if he is after Henry’s wife. If Henry doesn’t move fast then his wife may be gone for good, but how do you stop an angel with unimaginable power?

The bulk of my complaints with the film are about the angel here. As an angel Dudley should be a very virtuous being, one without any real faults who is here to help. If I’m being extra technical he shouldn’t even be a human who died and then became an angel since all will rise up together but there are different theories on that so I can let it slide even if I don’t agree with it. But at the very least he shouldn’t still be interested in romance. I think the plot is partially to hype up Julia as being so attractive that even the divine want her which if that was the film’s intent could be funny but I think the film just seriously wanted a romance which makes no sense here.

The film really goes hard into this plot as they go out on dates and Dudley looks visibly upset when he has to go back to his mission of getting Henry and Julia to be together. One of the worst scenes is the very last one where Julia wants him to stay and he says how he has to go and the two are basically sobbing internally until the guy runs off. We absolutely did not need a final kiss scene there or for both characters to be so filled with regret. It should have been a full break with Dudley just running off. He really didn’t feel like an angel, he was written to be too much like some ordinary joe.

That’s probably the character he should have been written as then. Just make him a friendly ghost who decided he wants to help Henry out to get over the fact that he died early. It doesn’t change much of the plot but makes his flaws a little more understandable. It would still be bad since he is being a homewrecker of course but at least it’s not an angel doing that. That’s just such a crazy plot all the way around. Come onnnnnnnnnn.

I’m afraid Julia is partially to blame here as well. It takes two to tango after all and she’s still having fun dancing with him and doing all of this stuff. She’s even called out on it by her mother and admits that she is window shopping. Look, this is all behavior that is completely inappropriate once you’re married. I actually do believe that guys and girls can be friends which is something that would get you booed off of a lot of streets but it’s a real thing. You just have to know the boundaries. What are those? No 1 on 1 sit down lunch “meetups” because that’s basically a date, absolutely no dancing all right. Let’s not get crazy here. Ice skating together like that is a bad idea because it’ll probably involve a lot of contact, mountain climbing, etc. So yeah a lot of activities are out of bounds now but hey that’s the price of picking your one true love and getting married. You have to acknowledge that your personal life will never be the same. As bad as Henry was throughout the whole film, Julia still has to stay strong on her end as long as they are married.

As for Henry, he was practically begging Julia to cheat on him throughout the movie. He did every single taboo that typically causes this to happen in real life. Completely ignoring her every day, always being outside, not showing her any kind of romance, etc. Part of what makes Henry so bad here is that there is absolutely no excuse. He’s busy yes but he’s not so busy that he couldn’t have made time for her if he actually cared. Choosing to visit someone at the hospital instead of going on the date with her was egregious for multiple reasons. One is that he could have just brought her to the hospital with him and then at least they’re still together. That’s pretty obvious right? He also could have stayed to personally explain this to her instead of ghosting her. Henry finally could have not told Dudley to take her on a date in his place. Henry was just so annoying here and then he has a scene near the end of the film where she makes him a hot chocolate and he ignores her to head out.

Why was that scene so bad? Well, it’s near the end of the film, past the point where he’s supposed to have mostly learned his lesson already. So this scene showed me that he hasn’t learned a single thing. He’s still making the same mistakes over and over and over again. One area where this film was particularly weak even compared to the original is his big confrontation with Dudley about the guy going after his wife. Henry mostly just does a lot of whining here when I was expecting him to be a little fiercer and more direct. Maybe punch the guy out or something right?

The movie does have good humor from start to finish though with some solid writing throughout. You will laugh from time to time because the burns are quite sharp. Outside of the problematic stuff I wrote about above, it can be a pretty wholesome movie as well. It’s just that it’s really hard to overlook the stuff I mentioned. In fact I would say it’s impossible because that’s part of the main plot of the film. So yeah it’s one of those things where whether you like it or not, it’s a big factor and that’s a shame.

Overall, The Preacher’s Wife is a film with a decent plot but one that it doesn’t fully understand. It really wanted to have fun with the premise of the main guy getting so distracted by tons of random stuff that his marriage starts to fall apart. You can do a lot with that plot but having the angel be the one slowly encouraging the wife to cheat is a massive no no. There’s no way he would be doing this much flirting and leading on. He wouldn’t forget his mission like that and it’s a very distracting part of the film. There are good things to be found here but on the whole I would have to give this a thumbs down as a result.

Overall 4/10

Bright Eyes Review

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It’s time for a film that mainly has a very wholesome feel to it but at the same time is a little darker once you actually think about it. I’d say the film goes a bit too far in that area and has enough scenes that just aren’t very fun. The main heroine isn’t really able to hold her ground as the lead either being only a kid and so the film doesn’t go quite as far as it could have. The film ultimately had a lot of room for improvement.

The movie starts off with introducing us to Shirley who lives with her mother in the house of a really rich family that is very mean to the two of them. Mary works as a maid there and so Anita treats her with constant contempt. Shirley’s father died a while back but the Air Force fighters all look after her and help Mary with that task. One of them in particular, Loop really wants to make sure to keep her safe. He suspects that Anita’s family aren’t the nicest but Mary doesn’t complain and he doesn’t really push the envelope there. However, a custody battle over Shirley begins and so he is forced to throw his hat in the ring because if Shirley was forced to join the family he knows they would not treat her properly. Can he claim victory?

Mary is a solid character here who is really just trying to make ends meet and she has done a pretty good job. She puts up with as much disrespect as she needs to in order to get money and look out for Shirley. That’s why it’s rough the way her character arc goes because she was really doing her best and thing still did not go her way at all. I thought the film was really harsh to her because everything went wrong. She lost her husband early on and then another tragedy happens to her.

Then we have Shirley who is okay but she’s very young here so it’s not like there is much for her to do. She is always fairly cheery and takes things in stride. You won’t really see her crying or getting too upset no matter what happens. I’d still say her road isn’t a very happy one even if she doesn’t fully realize what is happening. It would have been nice if she could have spoken up more about Joy, the rich kid who was always being a bully. I know Shirley is a nice person but nothing wrong with calling out the bully and putting her in her place. Shirley may not have had the homefield advantage so the fallout might not be great but I doubt she would really be thinking about that.

Anita and Wellington are fairly cartoonish with how mean they are to Shirley. I’d also say as a result they really aren’t smart at all either. Basically they pretend to be nice to Uncle Ned in order to get their inheritance and yet they do everything possible to make him upset? He says to be nice to Shirley and they basically don’t change their attitudes at all. She keep on allowing their daughter Joy to terrorize Ned and generally be a pain the whole time as well. You just feel like they should have been putting up a much better effort to stay on his good side considering the stakes here. I would say their efforts were pretty awful all around.

Ned was actually a decent character at least. He was actively trying to make things better for Shirley and clearly cared the whole time. It’s really rough not being able to walk on your own since even in a wheelchair his options were limited. I imagine he would have left the family a lot sooner otherwise. The ending is satisfying since you were rooting for him a lot. Loop also did good. The guy was maybe a little more bitter than expected with Adele but it all worked out. I don’t blame him for being upset when she ran off so perhaps getting together again should have been out of the question but otherwise you do need to keep it together for Shirley considering the stakes at play.

For Adele we never got a ton of details on her past and why her relationship with Loop didn’t work out. I was expecting some kind of big reveal/twist on why she left but I guess from the context we have, it was just her making a really big mistake. Ultimately the movie’s ending is good but what holds it back is how it could be a bit mean spirited like I mentioned earlier and the film wasn’t always very entertaining. The songs were definitely really weak here with the main one really not landing in particular. I don’t think Shirley makes for a very good main character either so there isn’t a whole lot of replay value in this one.

Overall, There just isn’t a whole lot of reason to watch this one. It’s not a very bad movie or anything like that but it can be boring at times and I would have handled the plot in a different way. The writing wasn’t always very good and not having great songs hurts as well. I wouldn’t call it a happy movie in the end even if the film tries to really jump forward and not worry about the specifics the whole time. I think you could do better for Christmas films and so for this time I would say to skip this one and check out something else like Jingle All The Way.

Overall 4/10

Someone to Watch Over Me 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 film about betrayal and ultimately not focusing up in time to save the day. This film definitely gets real dramatic and while it had some potential as a solid thriller, it’s ultimately not able to live up to it. The character cast is not very solid and that will ultimately always hold a film back from its full potential.

The movie starts with Claire attending a fancy party with her boyfriend. She decides to quickly ditch him for an old flame though and heads off to have an affair but before she can, he is murdered by the gangster known as Joey. She quickly screams so that Joey knows she witnessed this event and heads to the cops. They assign family man Mike to watch over her until she can testify that Joey is the crook. So there’s a strict house arrest and in theory Claire should be completely safe since this movie is realistic and it’s not like the villains are everywhere. Unfortunately Claire runs off to a party anyway and while Mike is busy having some drinks she is attacked by Joey who confirms that he will murder her if she testifies. Now she has to decide once and for all if she will be the witness here or run off. In the meantime she can betray her boyfriend Neil once again by seducing Mike who has about as much willpower as a folded napkin.

So there’s a lot going on here and definitely a lot to unpack. For starters all of the relationships here are pretty weak. Neil really has no respect for himself with the way he lets Claire run off and show him up all the time. In general I actually think parties are a really bad environment for a relationship, particularly the kind of party where everyone is getting super drunk. I would even go as far as to say you should never do any kind of dancing with other people once you’re in a relationship. Hey I know it’s a bit of a hot take but me personally? I think that’s a good boundary to have.

The sad part for Neil is it’s clear that Claire really doesn’t like him throughout the entire movie. She’s basically just with him because he has money and is a stable guy. So she intends to go crazy and have her fun now but this way she has somewhere to come back to and this guy is completely oblivious. The problem is this makes it a little harder to root for Claire because she’s such a bad character. Couldn’t they have made her a little more heroic or something? I think that would have really gone a long way personally. She just keeps on making mistake after mistake.

Of course I’m not going to shield Mike at all though. The guy is married and so any fooling around is completely taboo. Mike still allows himself to fall for Claire and that’s game over. It makes him such a bad character. Once you have gone and taken the oath you really can’t be doing things like that. He needs to stay strong and just be a quality character rather than just sabotaging his life like that. The worst part is of course he’s messing things up for his wife Ellie and their kid as well. It’s the kind of thing you can’t take back. There are no second chances when you cheat like that.

SO then you can’t root for Mike either and you’re hoping he gets bumped off in the end. The final ending of the film isn’t really satisfying for anyone. All of the characters were just so bad and it goes without saying that the romance here is abysmal as well since you’re dreading every moment with Claire and Mike. You just knew from the start that they would get together no matter how much of a bad idea that was. The film should have focused more on the actual protection angle and the main plot with Joey. I guarantee that would have been many times better than what we got.

As a villain Joey is fairly generic. He’s got a whole gang at the ready and doesn’t want to leave town since he owns the place. If the heroes actually played things smart then he wouldn’t have had a chance which is why of course they had to go to parties and such. The hostage situation was likely inevitable after a certain point which is why having Mike’s family stay in a seedy area was a bit of a risky move. I suppose you can’t move every time there is a dangerous situation but it certainly didn’t help matters.

In general the writing isn’t bad at least. You actually are invested in what’s going on which is good. It just would have been sooooo much better if the characters were more likable. I guarantee it would have helped the film turn the corner and gain a few stars. When more of the film is about the cheating plot than the actual witness protection then you know that something went wrong. Focus more on Mike lying to Claire about the danger she’s in and have the drama be about that. Get rid of them hooking up at all and instead have more moments of Joey trying to break in or some minions lurking around. Play up the paranoid angle, etc. Lots of ways you could have pushed this to make it a really dramatic film with a lot of action rather than one about bad choices all the way.

Overall, This was not a good film. The main characters absolutely sabotaged it and the ending was very weak. It just wasn’t deserved so I would have handled that wayyyy differently. Past a certain point the film was doomed anyway but at least the ending could have tried to deal with the severity of it a little better instead of brushing it all to the side. I would recommend skipping this film. There are way better thrillers out there that focus on the main plot all the way through as opposed to all of the drama.

Overall 4/10

Out of the Fog Review

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It’s time for one of those movies where 90% of it wouldn’t happen if the characters would just talk to each other. Unfortunately everyone’s rather tightlipped here which leads to the villain getting away with a whole lot. At least it should serve as a cautionary tale that sometimes you need a little help to deal with a villain and that’s okay.

The movie starts with Olaf and Jonah enjoying their fishing as per usual. It’s their main hobby as a way to take a break from their day jobs and it’s been a long standing position. Well one day a guy named Harold shows up and basically he’s a criminal who blackmails people into giving them money. He says that if the heroes don’t give him money then he’s going to break their boat and beat them up. If they continue to resist then he will ultimately destroy them. Jonah is completely against this while Olaf believes they should just pay the money. meanwhile Harold starts dating Jonah’s daughter and Jonah doesn’t have the heart to tell her what a bad man he is. will they be okay?

There’s a lot of issues here of course but the biggest one is not telling Stella about Harold from the beginning. As soon as Jonah found out he should have told her so she could hopefully break this off and then he could make a move. Instead he stays silent about the whole thing even after Harold comes over one day and beats Jonah up for lying about the money. It’s just a really crummy situation all around. I appreciate Jonah standing up for himself for a bit but he really needed to take that a step further.

Get the cops involved, let Stella know, make this a really big deal as needed. Jonah is well known in the area so he would have a lot of support. Yes Harold is dangerous but the longer you let him dictate the terms of engagement the worse it’s going to be in the end. Olaf is a lot more passive so I don’t agree with him in just paying the toll. The toll is simply going to get more and more expensive which is why in general you’re never supposed to give a blackmailer what they want. It will just never end so while it’s going to be dangerous you have to do something about it.

Olaf and Jonah ultimately come up with a plan to murder Harold which is good but they do fumble a bit when they aren’t able to go through with it. Fortunately luck is on their side and it works out but they easily could have died there. When you make an attempt to murder someone but then stop halfway, that’s usually going to end very poorly. Trust me that’s the worst way to go.

As the main villain Harold is pretty annoying here. He’s your general blackmailer so nothing special there but he just keeps getting wins here due to the heroes not coordinating properly. The fact that he’s persistent with Stella until she agrees to go out with him is awful. Then he’s basically rubbing it in Jonah’s face while the guy doesn’t say anything. Yeah he needed to go down a whole lot sooner.

Stella is unfortunately an awful character as well. So you know how I was upset with Jonah for not telling her the truth about Harold from the jump right? Well later on he finally manages to tell her that he blackmails people and she basically just says that everyone has to make a living somehow. She’s completely fine with this guy being a crook as long as it means she gets to travel and live a rich lifestyle. It’s a really big hit against her character because it shows how she is really lacking a moral compass. She will do whatever she needs to in order to move forward.

Yes this includes betraying George, the guy who’s been with her for a while. Yeah their relationship wasn’t exactly official all the way through. I guess you could say she was keeping him around until she found something better but it’s a pretty rough deal for him. He even tries to fight Harold but unfortunately gets folded immediately. This guy just needs to forget about Stella because she really doesn’t seem worth it.

The worst part is that the fishing hobby will never be quite as relaxing as it once was. Now the two main characters will always be on the lookout a bit wondering if someone else is going to try to appear and pull a fast one on them. Additionally it’s not like the relationship with Jonah and his daughter will ever be the same since she basically chose a random stranger over trusting in his advice. That’s a really tough blow and so the fallout from this film will likely be rather large.

The writing is good though. As you’ve come to expect from these old titles, the script is on point and the pacing is good. The film doesn’t drag on or anything like that even if you may be grimacing at some points. At its core this also feels like a situation that can and probably has happened to people before. So make sure you have your proper takeaways from the film on what not to do and how you could avoid this outcome.

Overall, Out of the Fog is a movie that has some pretty interesting storylines but the whole thing just comes across as annoying. Harold should have been stopped a whole lot sooner than he was if the characters had actually been paying attention here. Just bring in the cops and end this real fast. Instead they have to suffer for quite a while until they finally manage to take this guy down with a little luck. If the characters had acted better it all would have been over a lot quicker. I’d say you could do better in the Noir genre.

Overall 4/10

April Fool’s Day 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

April Fool’s Day is definitely an interesting film. Because of the nature of being a film about the trickiest day of the year there are a ton of different fake outs and craziness going on. At the same time, the film is still quite violent and doesn’t hold back with those moments so the question is if the context can sort of help out here or is it still the same thing in the end? I will say the absurd nature of it does give the film a little extra punch but ultimately it’s still not one I would be very likely to recommend.

The film starts off with a bunch of students getting invited to a big April Fool’s party at the fancy mansion of Muffy. The teens are always messing with each other a whole lot with all kinds of pranks but things start to go a bit far when someone is murdered. Is this all really a prank or is someone taking this chance to bump off each and every student? One thing’s for sure, these guys are going to need to try and stay one step ahead of the pranks or they are doomed!

You’re supposed to be kept off balance from the jump because of how much these guys love pranking each other. Put it this way, we have a fake death very early on in the film with the two guys faking an accident by the boat. From there on you know that no prank is out of bounds and even if the characters start to physically fight each other it may be part of the act. So you can’t trust any of the characters or their actions for the duration of the film because you really don’t know what is fake and what is real. I’d say that’s the most effective part of the film because it almost borderlines on being parody but it’s still played very seriously.

It does mean that none of the characters are all that likable though. You just feel like they all go too far with it and so hanging around any of them during the April Fool’s week would be completely unbearable. Even the nicer characters like Muffy are constantly pranking everyone! I would quickly come up with some kind of excuse every year about how I have to go abroad or something. Anything to stay away from the absolute madness!

All of the romances in the film are very weak since they all just seem to be quick affairs over the summer without a whole lot to them. None of these guys and girls actually seem all that loyal or faithful and would cheat in a heartbeat. They’re basically joking about that throughout as it is. You could say in a lot of ways the teenagers in this film are the stereotypical figures you would expect from a horror title like this. None of them would make for great friends but hey they all get along at least.

Of course this is another thing limiting the film. If you don’t really care for the characters then all of the fake jump scares and pranks aren’t going to work quite as well. The film can be on the violent side as well at times with the deaths. Obviously not on the same level as any of the real big slashers though.

Now this is a film with some twists and turns in it. Some of those twists will really change your outlook on the film as a whole so it’s important to factor that in. I will say that it is effective and I can’t even say that I saw the twists coming. Not all of them anyway. Some are a bit hard to believe in hindsight though like we’re talking big stretches of disbelief on how you could have pulled some of the pranks off. I suppose I can accept the disbelief though only because I can maybe picture how it would work. I don’t think it’s likely for these teens to pull them off though.

There is also a lot of convenience in terms of characters being in the right place at the right time to get pranked or notice a deal that the culprit wants them to find but I can buy this one a little more. My excuse would be that there are tons of extra pranks and backup traps so if one doesn’t work then you have a backup at the ready. Mayyyyybe a stretch but not as much of one.

Overall, I’d say how much you enjoy this film will all depend on how much you enjoy all the fakeouts. Either you will get burned out after a while and think the film overdoes it or you’ll enjoy how much it doubles down. The film is completely relentless on this right up through to the end so it never gets sidetracked. The ending is really solid to be honest and actually does win the film back a star or two. So ultimately I liked the idea behind the whole movie. The execution just needs to be so much better and it’s rough because I don’t think these are twists you should pull off too often or it’ll get old fast. So you can already say that one of the opportunities has been wasted now. Next time just make the characters a lot more likable, improve the writing and we’d really be in business. Until then this one will have to be a pass.

Overall 4/10

The Outsiders Review

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It’s time for a film about a bunch of teenagers who grew up in a rather rough town and basically had to adapt to survive. Unfortunately due to this there aren’t very many winners at all. By the end of the film everyone’s really in a bit of trouble and none of the characters are all that likable. There’s definitely a lot going on here but mainly I’d call it more of a depressing film half the time.

The movie starts off by introducing us to Ponyboy and Johnny. They’re good friends who generally try living their lives without causing trouble but the town is divided into two gangs and so they are members of one group (Greasers) and do have to fight when the others show up. (SOCS) They generally all get along in the first gang but things always escalate with the other one. Well, one day in self defense Johnny murders a member of the opposing gang while protecting Ponyboy and now he has to be on the run. Can they ever get their normal lives back?

It’s definitely a film with a fairly slow pace as a lot of it is the characters reflecting about life an just what it means to live in a society. Johnny and Ponyboy have to stay at different hideouts for a while but things continue to escalate and more and more people die. The reason I would say this is a depressing film is because of all that. Sure the characters learn some lessons about how violence isn’t worth it and how the squabbles shouldn’t take over your life. That said, everyones’ lives are ruined by that point so does it really matter? I can see how this i s listed as a coming of age movie but usually you’d expect those to be a little happier. This one’s just grim for pretty much the entire duration.

Also right off the bat the film doesn’t do the best job of making the Greasers all that likable. One of their members is a guy named Dallas who goes around aggressively flirting with the ladies, is into shady clubs and runs around with a gun causing trouble. Yes the film does show that he really cares about Ponyboy and the rest of his friends but he’s still not shown as a particularly good character. He’s a complex character to be sure but a little more heroic would be nice.

I dare say the most heroic character was Darry who did his best trying to keep Ponyboy and Sodapop on the straight and narrow. It was just difficult doing it on his own while he’s still a kid himself. At least I would say he installed a decent amount of goodness into them compared to the others. Ponyboy for example really didn’t want to be fighting and getting into trouble. He seemed like a good kid who would be defending his friends. He did defend the girl at the movie theater who was being harassed so a scene like that goes a long way.

The film is at its best when it’s about Ponyboy and Johnny just enjoying their friendship and having a good time. It’s a nice breather from everything constantly going wrong for them. Johnny was also a really good friend. He stepped up to save Ponyboy even at the expense of his future and throughout the movie he was a really good friend to have. Probably the most likable character out of the group.

We get to see Johnny take a huge risk to save a lot of lives later on which is something some of the other characters probably would have hesitated with. It’s a shame that the characters couldn’t all let bygones be bygones by that point but we do end up needing to have one more big fight in the end. The film does go to show that some of the SOCS are reasonable and don’t actually want to fight. In that respect the film keeps it realistic with both gangs having some good people in them.

Unfortunately when they are in a crowd there is ultimately not enough of them to stop the gang activities as a whole. I’m always a bit iffy on this since I feel like you just need to leave the gang then and not be a part of this. It’s just easier said than done in a small town where everyone is a part of one of the two gangs. So if you try to leave then you may not end up living through that experience. Which in a way proves the point of how dangerous they are.

I like to think that after the definitive gang fight at the end there won’t be any more rumbles since everyone learned their lesson but at the same time a part of you kind of doubts it. Well, it’s definitely good that the gang culture isn’t nearly as mainstream now as it was then. Of course gangs will always exist but it’s not like every teenager is in on it nowadays the way they all are in this film.

Overall, I think the film could have done with being a little more lighthearted. Tone down the body count by one or two so there is something to really celebrate by the end. It certainly succeeds in being really emotional and somber the whole time but that usually limits a film’s potential. Sure things are finally going to be looking up after the final events since the cycle of violence is finally ended but it came at a massive cost. This is a film that wouldn’t have a lot of replay value because it would just make for a tough watch. There’s a lot happening in the movie so you’ll never be bored but ultimately that’s just not enough to make it really solid. I would say to give this one a skip.

Overall 4/10

Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter 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 some more vampires! This movie definitely got some buzz because of the whole Abraham Lincoln thing which I thought was pretty clever. It’s a nice way to blend the supernatural and history by adding him in there. Naturally I do prefer a more futuristic setting myself but it works out better than some of the other vampire films that I’ve seen. Still not a thumbs up mind you but not a horrible film or anything.

The movie doesn’t waste time as Abraham’s mother is murdered by a vampire early on. He wants to avenge her but isn’t really able to do anything against superhuman creatures like this. Initially he doesn’t even know that the assailant was a vampire and tries using a gun but it doesn’t do much. Fortunately he runs into a guy named Henry who offers to train Abraham but only if the hero puts aside his quest for vengeance. Henry will give him the targets and they will continue to take down all of the vampires but slowly and surely. Abraham lies and agrees to this but knows that deep down he has to avenge his mother at all cots! He trains in the art of slaying vampire and gets quite good at it which also starts to get the attention of the higher up members among the villains. Will Abraham be okay?

It’s always fun to have someone find out about what’s going on beyond their small pocket of the world. Once Abraham learns about the vampires he starts seeing them everywhere. Sure enough there are tons of them and murdering them all will take more than a lifetime. Henry does offer to turn Abraham into a vampire but he declines since that would be going a step too far. I definitely get it since being immortal really sounds like a pain after a while. You have endless enemies and while you can’t die, you can be put into positions where you might wish that you could.

I do think Henry’s role is a little too passive at times though. He has Abraham do most of the work but doesn’t actively take down a bunch of vampires himself. Henry makes some excuses like how he can’t really go against them and I forget if it’s a power level thing or something relating to the blood but you have to find a way to get around that. In a way being a vampire puts him in a better position to do a lot of damage than Abe when you really think about it. So yeah he really just needs to step up and get the job done.

I did like him for the most part beyond that but he does have some sketchy moments later on. Basically he’s the kind of guy who will always be hiding some things and you have to decide if that’s a dealbreaker or not. For Abraham it nearly was but ultimately he gets past it. Abraham is a very reasonable main character. He fights as needed and helps a lot of people out. He doesn’t really love having to use violence all the time but it’s the only way that really works.

Near the end of the film he even tries to give up fighting for a while but it wasn’t to be. I do like that we actually got to see him as President/leader for a while though. At first he’s just a solo hunter doing his own thing but after that he gets to make commands and lead his troops. With the villains using an army of vampires the heroes did have to adapt after all. I do question if the weapons are really enough to balance things though. Once the vampires started to move more openly I feel like the humans wouldn’t stand a chance. Being so outmatched physically is something that it’s difficult to make up for even with a bunch of guns and ammo.

Abraham’s boss Joshua was a good character. He had some nice banter and went over well as one of the supporting characters. His friend Will also did good and the whole time I had been expecting him to be some kind of undercover agent/traitor so I was glad instead he was someone that Lincoln could depend on. Mary shows up for a bit which makes sense if you know your history and she was a solid character. In general the heroes were all reasonably solid here.

The villains are more on the forgettable side. Yeah they’re definitely powerful and don’t go down easily but they’re basically just your standard vampires. So watch enough in the genre and you won’t even remember them. They’re not bad though, I guess at least Adam was good as the main leader of the vampires. The one who bumped off the mother was more on the petty side and he wasn’t nearly as impressive. He’s only able to win when the odds are overwhelmingly in his favor but otherwise he’s not much of a thinker or anything like that.

The film ultimately suffers from the usual vampire issues. It can be a little brutal on the violence with everyone getting bitten and the blood sucking never ends up working out. The fight scenes do require an extensive amount of disbelief to be thrown out the window because no matter how big the axe is, Abe is still just a normal guy. The vampires all have super speed and strength so they should have a leg up on the competition. Dodging an axe for example should be rather easy right? Yet Abe is slaughtering tons of vampires and by the end of the film they really get hit with the nerf as they can’t do anything. You just know that doesn’t make sense.

There isn’t a whole lot of time for fun in this film. It’s really a lot of going from one vampire attack to the next but it still does track better than most other vampire films because it feels like there’s a real story here. Yeah that probably seems like a big shot to the other films but for example the sole focus isn’t on everyone getting bitten. Abe has an actual character arc going here and it can almost feel like a comic book movie at times.

Overall, Abe Lincoln makes for a fun protagonist and I definitely think this movie was a good idea. I’d just put him up against robots or something but making more alternate historical pasts with a supernatural twist is just a lot of fun. It’s probably a bit riskier in the sense that you want to be careful how you adapt certain characters for fear of backlash but if there’s enough good attention to detail then you should be fine. From everything I know of Abe I’d say the film’s portrayal seemed rather solid. I also really liked the ending which isn’t really a cliffhanger so much as a callback but it could work both ways.

Overall 4/10

The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar Review

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This is definitely a pretty interesting gimmick movie. That said, gimmicks tend to run out rather quickly and that’s what happened to this one. Even at only around 40 minutes the movie begins to drag by the halfway point. You won’t be forgetting it anytime soon and yet it still will not end up being one of the big titles. I feel like with any gimmick you still need a really strong product around it or that’s game over.

The movie starts with someone talking about Henry Sugar who was a super rich guy who ended up reading a book about a doctor who met a guy who could see with his eyes closed who learned this from an old master back in the day so he could get rich. In effect this is like having 4 stories overlaid among each other. The stories are accompanied by nonstop narration which is the main gimmick here as someone is always talking while following the characters around. It’s mainly told from a third person perspective and the narrator switches each time. There are a ton of practical effects used here as the whole thing is a bit like a stage.

So it makes for an interesting production but not a very interesting movie. The way everyone talks is intentionally very stilted and there is barely even a plot. Sure the plot is what I described above but it’s basically just being told like a story but you aren’t invested in it. It takes a while for things to really happen and there isn’t much dialogue between the characters. When I’m thinking of a story I’m thinking of a situation that is changing dynamically the whole time with lots of action and excitement. It doesn’t have to be action in the literal sense but a ton of plot progression and all that. You don’t really get any of that here.

There isn’t a whole lot of personality to the characters either, particularly since they don’t give narration for most of the time. The ending ties everything together which works well enough but you’re fairly checked out by that point. A film like this could have really used a lot of humor and I think that would have really taken it to the next stage. Instead without that it ends up being a little more on the forgettable side. I do want to emphasize that the film doesn’t make any really big mistakes.

The biggest issue here is just that it gets boring rather quickly. The absurdity of what’s going on is really the kind of humor that the film is going for but I think it needed to have gone a little more bonkers in order to have actually made this effective. Give me something to really laugh about, you know? Or if not, I dare say you need to film this more traditionally than in the style that was used here.

It does make sense to be more experimental on a short though so I applaud the effort. It’s never really a bad thing to try and explore some new ideas but inevitably that does mean that some will not be successful. I would just say that this is one of those times and if they ever want to make a remake but in a different format, the idea of someone who can see even with their eyes covered is pretty fun. You could still play that off as a light hearted drama with the guy figuring out how to get rich. There’s all kinds of good you could do with that kind of ability.

Overall, The Wonderful Life of Henry Sugar is a very unique film but that’s really all that it has going for it. The pacing isn’t great and I wouldn’t say that any of the characters are particularly interesting. The best part of the film is likely with the first doctor trying to figure out how this is possible. He had the most personality for sure and this was still early on enough where everything felt fresh. Ultimately it just couldn’t hold out after that. Only check this film out if you really want to see what an experimental film can be like.

Overall 4/10

Who Was That Lady? Review

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All right so imagine you walk into a room and you see your husband with another lady in the position of the poster. Now…..unless you’re a grade A sucker this is where the film ends because you’re pulling in the papers and axing the whole thing off right? Well this movie’s all about the main guy trying to gaslight his wife into thinking that this isn’t actually happening. Will he succeed or will justice prevail?? Time to find out!

So I have to say whenever the main character gets off too easy I tend to be annoyed and that happens here. I was waiting for things to really turn on him but they never really do. Basically the film starts off with a student staying after class and pulls the moves on him. His reaction times were dead in the water but for the sake of argument we can say he was putting up a struggle but lacked the power. David’s wife Ann walks in and sees this so she dashes off and says they will be getting divorced. David knows his only hope is to get the help of his best friend Michael to lie on his behalf. Lying is like breathing for Michael so you could even say that he was born for this task and boy is he eager to pull it off!

The story they go with is that David is part of the FBI and part of his job is going on dates and having affairs with various women who are actually operatives from enemy establishments. The whole thing sounds so bogus but Ann believes it because a part of her wants to believe in her husband which is actually just tragic when you think about it. Now David’s web of lies continues to grow and grow but he’s having a blast. What can possibly go wrong with this?? Well when the real FBI step in things start to get a little shaky.

Yeah so I have no sympathy for the main character here. David makes all of the usual excuses and one liners here but I don’t buy any of them. It was a mistake…it happened too fast, etc. Nahhh that’s not going to work. What’s even worse is when he goes with Michael on the group date. He absolutely needed to say no and just deal with the consequences. Even if nothing ended up happening, just going on the group date was a really bad idea. Sure he got to experience some danger near the end but for the most part there were no real downsides to the adventure. He just got to mess around a lot and in the end things are actually better off for him than when he started the film. Life and death situations can change a person but there was no real reason for Ann to forgive him.

Meanwhile Ann may be a lot more sympathetic than David but I was still not a fan. She gets fooled way too easily especially considering how weak the story is. She should have stuck to her guns. I actually think a more interesting premise would have been that she was doubting him the whole film so he keeps on making the stories more and more fantastic in a bid to get her to believe him. By the end she finally starts to believe him when something goes wrong and he has to come clean. Boom that’s so many times better than what we got and it would have also made her look a whole lot better.

Then you have his friend Michael who is the king of being a bad influence. You can always count on him to make sure that things don’t go well. He always starts off with fairly clever ideas but ends up doubling down on them so many times that they go all the way around into being bad ideas. He really instigates a lot of the problems. So make no mistake he’s definitely a true antagonist here and someone you can’t root for. At the same time he is easily the most entertaining character. It’s always a lot of fun to see him with the fast talk and trying to outsmart everyone.

In the climax when the two are attacked by villains he’s the only one who actually tries to put up a fight. He still gets folded real fast but I appreciated the attempt. I feel like the really confident fast talkers like this guy can usually at least know the basics of combat so that made sense. Ultimately that’s no substitute for having actual abilities though. His confidence at least makes other characters think twice and he was really able to dominate for most of the film because of this.

There’s also the main FBI agent who gets a decent role here. He ultimately pays a bit of a price for being too passive in the film though. If he had jumped in from the jump then he could have really changed a ton of events in the film. Instead he wanted to be nice and in the end actually dragged things out a lot more. Poor guy just wanted to relax and wasn’t ready for all of this.

The film definitely has a lot of funny moments and has a decent script so it’s not a really bad movie or anything like that. You should grin now and again but the basic premise does hold it back quite a lot. You definitely can’t get behind the romance and the main character ends up crossing a little too far into unlikable territory. You can deal with a main character who’s not super likable or anything like that but when he’s this bad it does end up taking a toll on the film. Ultimately it also feels a bit more stretched out than it needs to be as well.

Overall, This is one film where the main character should have lost at the end. At least maybe have Ann get some kind of quick revenge on him for a little while to try and even the score. It was all just a little too easy considering that she actually saw him cheating. It’s not like it was word of mouth or a rumor where you could debate it. I get the feeling a modern remake would have things play out a little differently for David and for once I think that would actually make sense here. That kind of moment is typically game over after all even if the film tries to brush it aside a bit. I enjoy a fun/light tone as much as the next guy of course and the events are cool but the premise just puts a bit of a damper on it.

Overall 4/10

The Net Review

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I’m going to let you in on a little secret folks. If you find out that someone is hiding a gun and manage to get your hands on it…don’t give it back to that guy. Get out of there and if you’re trapped then hang onto it! This film will constantly have you shaking your head as the main heroine acts like she is in a horror movie. It all doesn’t make any sense and you just expect better. The movie has its moments but ultimately could and should have been a whole lot better than it was. It just hasn’t aged as well as it could have.

Okay so the movie starts off with a guy destroying himself and then we cut to Angela who is a computer whiz. She knows how to remove viruses from different programs and so when there is a problem she is the first one contacted. She had a remote job before it was cool! Almost nobody even knows what she looks like as a result but hey that’s how it goes. One day one of her colleagues wants to come over to show her something but he dies in a plane crash. There’s not much else she can do about that so she hops on a plane to go on vacation! There she meets a rich guy so they immediately have an affair but it turns out that he is here to murder her! So she escapes but he has basically erased her from the world and put in a fake.

Earlier Angela let some guy steal her wallet and so now she has no form of identification and is on the run. If anyone catches her then it will be game over. Her only hope is a married guy she used to cheat with but they are up against a very experienced hacker whose abilities may even exceed theirs. His resources are also considerable since he is a part of a massive global terrorist organization. One thing’s for sure, Angela will need to watch her back on this one!

Okay so lets talk about Angela here. She makes every possible mistake and only survives this movie through an abundance of plot armor. We’ve established that she works remotely and stays at home to the point where nobody knows what she looks like. Her neighbors and even her land lady have never really seen her. So when the hacker turns to her and changes her contact ID in the federal database….there is no way for her to fight back. Literally this doesn’t work if she has some photos of her life or family who can corroborate this but she doesn’t. The guy stole her ID rather easily beforehand and she has no backups. (More understandable since this was the 90s) This is already a bit of a stretch but for now we can’t blame her all that much right?

Well she’s supposed to be a computer whiz but is extremely slow on the uptake here. So lets go back in time real quick. How did this happen? Well she went to a message board that’s a lot like Reddit and was talking about how she really needs a boyfriend. The very helpful posters asked her what she would like to see in a boyfriend and she wants a high value man. Someone very tall, wealthy, James Bond meets Captain America (in her words) and someone whose job involves helping out the world. Naturally she immediately gets doxed so when she goes on vacation a super great guy is waiting for her there. (The reason the terrorists want her is because she has a disc that can hack the entire U.S. government and every private company within the country. Yeah….don’t think about this one too hard)

Okay so the villains’ entire plan revolves around her falling in love with this guy as if she’s the most shallow person in the planet. What kind of person falls in love at first sight with someone they’ve just met right? Right……uh oh. The guy invites her on his private yacht and she immediately accepts and they have a one night stand. The whole time she explains that she never does this kind of thing but I don’t particularly believe her. Weird thing happens though….the guy runs out of stamina really fast and goes away for a drink but he left his clothes and in it was a loaded gun.

So if you’re Angela what do you do? Do you A. Keep the gun as self defense because this guy could be looney tunes? B. Throw it overboard since this seems dangerous. C. Give him back the gun and ask why he has it…..or D. Go for the immediate headshot, throw him overboard and steal all the money from his wallet? Well D’s a total crime and would make you a villain anyway but I think option A is the best bet right? Well she goes with C. The guy gives a lame excuse about how he uses it for hunting but wouldn’t you know it, Angela’s a part time hunting expert too? Haha! So she calls him out on the lie and then flexes by showing that she removed the bullets.

Unfortunately he just strangles her at this point and she dies 😦 At least that’s what would happen in 99% of instances but through plot armor she fights him off and escapes. I always say that I criticize actions regardless of outcomes though and so I have to take shots here. Giving this guy the gun back is absolute insanity. I don’t care that she took out the bullets. The film establishes that she is a computer nerd through and through. She doesn’t work out, have some kind of super powers or anything like that. He’s stronger than her by all metrics and they are alone on a yacht in the middle of the ocean.

You don’t give the guy his gun back in this circumstance! You can’t, that’s like signing your own death warrant. It’s one of the worst moves I’ve seen the heroine pull in quite a while. That was just brutal and at least things don’t get worse after that but it was just a really bad moment for her. Getting into an affair with a random stranger you just met is also pretty bad but most movie protagonists do that so I won’t dock as many points there. The rest of the film plays out mostly normal. She used to cheat with a married man named Alan and successfully broke his home as the guy got divorced but then the hackers get him next but she manages to break into the villain’s base and turn the tables. All’s well that ends well and all that.

The main villain Jack is also pretty weak here. The guy literally has numerous opportunities to take Angela down and cannot do it. Put it this way, he very clearly did not even need to hire a random pickpocket to take her wallet. She just went along with him to his private yacht for an affair at night so he had a million opportunities to murder her. There’s really nothing she would be able to do at this point and then he can grab the disc he needs to take over the world. The film has plot armor on constantly and this guy looks completely powerless for not being able to do anything. The movie shows that he actually grew to like her….sighhhhhhhhh. So that’s why he couldn’t go all out but it just means that his conviction was nonexistent.

Then we have Alan who completely forgot the role of doctor and patient in having an affair with Angela early on. At least he is single now so it’s not as bad but the damage is done. It makes it hard for you to really like the guy. The movie in general didn’t have a very strong cast even if I do like the idea of your identity being stolen and having to engage in a whole online battle to get it back. I’d have actually liked to have had the message board users get more involved in the whole battle. One of them was a bit handy at least in getting info but Angela is also supremely lucky.

Seriously one of them was already a terrorist and then she decided that they could still be trusted? She looked up the ages and everything to find their “real” identities but could she really be sure that they were accurate? Angela seemed to have no doubts about it so okay….we’ll roll with that. I will say that the icons were fun though and in general the film had good effects for all of the viruses. It’s fun to see how everything looked back then during the original days of the internet.

The movie goes by fast and the pacing is good. It does make for a fairly easy watch, you just have to be prepared to be shaking your head a lot. The movie will absolutely be throwing you for a loop most of the time. The effects are good and I do like the city backdrops the whole time. Visually the movie looks good and while some of the scenarios aren’t super realistic, on the whole the writing is okay. It doesn’t have any super big issues beyond the romance and the questionable decisions. They do keep this from being a movie that I could positively recommend but it’s far from one of the weakest titles that I’ve watched.

Overall, The Net is one of those films I can rant about for quite a while but fortunately for it, most of the issues are around plot armor and convenience. Those are he kinds of issues that don’t hurt a film’s score quite as much. That being said, the romance is just so rushed here and since it is crucial to the villain’s plan that just makes it even more egregious. If the main heroine had a little more restraint then things would have really been a whole lot different. Check it out if you’re interested in the old days of the internet but the novelty is really the main thing that the film has going for it and that doesn’t last the whole picture.

Overall 4/10