Category Archives: 6 Star Movies

The X from Outer Space Review

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It’s time for a classic Kaiju film from way back in the day. I do have to admit that I was not very familiar with it but hey that happens. After watching it, it definitely does deliver on the Kaiju action but the human plot is particularly weak even compared to normal. You really don’t care about these guys and the random love triangle going on. It takes forever for Guilala to appear but once the monster does show up then things start to get real interesting. Get ready for a lot of buildings to be destroyed!

So the movie starts with a space crew heading off into space. Unfortunately their doctor gets sick so he has to be replaced with another one who is really not happy about being up here and makes this clear from the jump. Previous expeditions continue to disappear with all of the crew members dying but it’s unknown why that is happening. Well it turns out that there is some kind of tractor beam and an odd sponge/spore type object here. The heroes end up bringing this back to Earth and unfortunately it ends up being a massively powerful Kaiju that is determined to destroy the planet. They must find a way to reverse these effects or its all over!

While I mention Guilala in the summary that is still fairly deep into the film even though I mention it now. I like the deign a lot and Guilala seems to have a lot of powers but they are too much for the budget. For example at one point he starts glowing blue as if this guy thinks he’s Godzilla but then nothing happens. I do like the reaction times of plucking jets out of the sky even if they shouldn’t have been so low to begin with. Don’t underestimate the power of a Kaiju after all. Guilala is definitely the highlight of the film though.

Back to the humans though, so we have the weak romance going on. Sano is a guy in high demand as the local correspondent from Earth is in love with him as well as a new astronaut who is on the mission. It seems like Sano and the first girl are semi official but it’s hard to really know this for sure. She has a picture of him on her desk after all but it could just be her being possessive. During the first call to Earth the new girl makes sure to be extra clingy with Sano so the first girl quickly gets an attitude and gives off the silent treatment.

It all feels a bit unreasonable because Sano was actually doing really well on the ship. He refused the second girl’s offer to dance and basically dodged all of her flirting attempts. I don’t see how he could have handled it any better short of constantly talking about how he was in love with the first girl which would have been a bit tacky. Ultimately the astronaut gets the hint and near the end of the film it’s played off as a really sad moment. Look romance can be tragic, the person you like won’t always like you back but you just gotta buckle up and keep it moving. Don’t be desperate, don’t try too hard, and just move on.

All that being said, Sano is the only one who came out of this looking good. The second girl was moving way too fast and the first one was just way too insecure. She never actually made a move to talk to Sano about this or discuss rationally. Instead she just became super upset for no reason. If she is going to fly off the handle that much when any girl talks to Sano then I suspect this will be a pretty rough romance going forward.

As for the doctor who didn’t want to be on the mission, I think the idea of the character is good. I’d like to see this guy complaining constantly and bringing everyone down but his role is rather minimal so he doesn’t end up actually doing a lot. His role could and should have been a whole lot bigger. I guess he had the one moment where he cracked and ran for the controls at least….it’ll have to do.

Meanwhile the sense of distance was a bit odd here. So the whole mission is super dangerous and stuff because you have to go deep into space where people keep vanishing right? Well at one point they run out of fuel…so the main heroine flies in from the base with the extra fuel. She gets there in a matter of minutes but we could say it was hours in real time. Either way it seems like it was absolutely trivial to get to where the main characters were in space so how does that make any sense? It’s just a bit odd if you ask me.

The whole film I wouldn’t say is thought out all that well which is why the Kaiju is what is saving it the whole time. Without the Kaiju this film would have just ended up being boring. At least this way there was something to keep you engaged even if there could be some recycled animation at times. There wasn’t a whole lot of monster footage but it was a decent start. The effects of the Kaiju deforming were pretty good at least.

Overall, Creature X isn’t nearly as good as it could have been but I would still say it was fun enough. I had a good time watching the film even if I was taking shots the whole time. It’s an easy film to poke fun at for all of the missed opportunities and such. At the same time the Kaiju is still cool and while the characters aren’t good, the film avoids making any big mistakes. It’s short enough where even the poor pacing of the first half won’t hurt the replay value too much. I could watch this one again even if there is not much point as long as the main Godzilla films exist which absolutely crush this one.

Overall 6/10

Transformers: Rise of the Beasts Review

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Transformers has definitely had a lot of films over the years. The original animated one was excellent but then the live action ones have tended to have a lot of issues for the most part. This one’s here to take us in a new direction and on one hand it’s got a pretty grand plot. On the other hand the fights are severely lacking compared to the old ones so that’s something that I’m hoping can improve pretty soon for the next one. It’s also probably a good idea to not cut out the best scene in the movie.

The film starts with the Maximals being under attack by an incredibly powerful fighter named Scourge. He isn’t a Decepticon nor an Autobot but a Terracon who works for Unicron. He effortlessly destroys one of the fighters and proves why he is a threat to be reckoned with. We then cut to Noah who is our lead here. He’s around some bad influences and once he doesn’t make the cut for the job he applied to, he resorts to a life of crime. Things don’t go well though as the car he tries to steal ends up being an Autobot and he is taken to their base. They want him to take some kind of artifact from a museum and then he can go on his way but the Terracons know about this and want it as well. Can the Autobots take Scourge down and save the planet or will they all be eaten by Unicron?

Okay so lets go with the good, the bad, and the ugly. To start with I will say that the humans plot is handled a lot more gracefully than in older films. None of the characters are pervs, there’s not a ton of comedy running around, and they’re all decent. I wouldn’t say any of the characters are particularly interesting but the plot is played very seriously the whole time and Noah feels like a real character. Perhaps a bit too “real” though as he’s quick to be ready to betray the Autobots even as we get near the end of the film. He’s not someone to be trusted. Now his motivations were reasonable as he wanted to protect his family but betraying the robots is not a great call.

Meanwhile Elena is solid as well. Her boss is always stealing credit and so she hasn’t been able to move up. Perhaps this whole experience can help her finally make a name for herself….provided she survives this at least. I would say the best part of the human plot would definitely be the after credits scene for the film. It’s definitely an excellent moment and gets you hyped for the future. So that’s something the film definitely did really well there. I’d have probably thrown in an extra character or something but there’s a lot of possibilities here.

The robot designs are also on point. Scourge looks really strong right out of the gate. He works well as the main villain and is probably the best villain out of all the live action Transformers villains. The guy has presence and you can feel his power. Optimus Prime has a great personality as well. Like in the Bayverse films this Prime is very bloodthirsty and just wants to destroy everyone. The film cut out his best scene involving this but the guy wasn’t playing around. Prime should be desperate to get back home and stop the villains after all the deaths so the characterization makes a whole lot of sense.

Okay so those are the main positive elements of the film. Now lets talk about some of the negatives here. For the first thing, the fights just aren’t good. They aren’t just the weakest Transformers fights but I would say they are weak movie fights in general. A lot of the times you’re just looking at a quick tackle, a stab, and then the fight is over. That or they’re just blasting each other a while. There’s never a sense of just how strong or weak someone is because they all look really fragile in battle. A good example of this is how effortlessly Prime was defeated by Scourge.

In practice it makes a lot of sense. You want to show how good Scourge is so you clown on Prime a bit but the execution was way off. It just made Prime look like a chump as opposed to making Scourge look like a champ and that’s really my main problem here. It’s absolutely not the way to go about this and there’s now weight to the battles. You have Noah blasting away at Scourge later on and distracting him while the guy was no selling hits from Prime? The power levels were too wonky and yet too one sided at the same time. So even when you had the rest of the robots getting involved it didn’t really do anything for me.

The visuals are good of course but the actual fights were definitely below average. The soundtrack’s also extremely weak but for a movie that’s not a huge deal. You mostly don’t even notice the music in these things anyway. Of course it’d be nice if it was a lot better but I’m just saying I wasn’t expecting a whole lot either way. So the movie has good pacing and you’re engaged during it but you feel a bit sad because the whole Unicron experience can only happen once and now we’ve already used it up. At least the opening battles with Scourge and we can’t get those back again.

Ultimately I just think a bit of a problem here is that without big fights the film can be a little more on the forgettable side. I know everything that happened with the story beats and all but for example I couldn’t tell you quite as much about the individual robots. Of course we had Bumblebee around and he did great near the climax but there wasn’t much to him if you take away the knowledge you already have. Same with most of the other robots as only Mirage got a ton to do.

Now I will say even if on average the fights weren’t top tier, the visual of Bumblebee getting taken out was pretty intense. You will still have some major doubts on the heroes looking so bad there of course but it’s still something that you won’t forget. There is also something to be said for this being a well written film of course. It’s a good title and while it doesn’t have a lot of replay value it definitely did more good things than bad ones. I’d be able to confidently say that I’m a fan of the film, it just has potential to be so much more. I think it’s time to bring in Megatron in the next film for some kind of big team up. Especially with the new characters who will be showing up soon since in theory they should absolutely decimate the Autobots in a straight fight.

Overall, Transformers is always a fun movie to watch. This one does have a lot of action and thrilling scenes. I like seeing the robots smashing each other to bits but it just slacked off on the actual battles a little too hard. The most important thing is the story of course and that’s on point but I really did want some big battles here. A battle with giant robots should always be supremely engaging and if it isn’t then something went terribly wrong. This is not the way that it was supposed to go….not at alllllllll. Also if you’re here for the Maximals, don’t be. There’s a reason why I went the whole review without even mentioning them and that’s because they are completely pointless to the story. They add nothing. None of them are interesting. We don’t even get a proper fight between them and the Autobots. It’s just like how the Dinobots were wasted, I can safely say that these guys were completely wasted too. That said, I am hyped for the sequel and will absolutely be there right away. I’ve still got pretty high hopes there.

Overall 6/10

Living Review

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Living is a movie about the meaning of life and coping with death. It makes for a decent movie even if some parts can be a bit drawn out. It’s likely hard to avoid that since they really want to freeze the film at some points to give you time to ponder about what’s going on as well. It just starts to show itself more in the ending as we jump between present and past several times. I personally would have kept the film chronological even if I see what they were going for there.

The movie starts off with Wakeling getting ready because it’s his first day at a new job. It’s one of those classic desk jobs with a lot of paperwork but unfortunately there is a ton of bureaucracy so it is hard to do anything. It’s also a very old school type job where you can’t ride in the same train as the boss and once you’re at work everyone is at the same table together. It honestly seems like the kind of job that is a dream come true if you get along with your colleagues but a complete nightmare when there are ever any problems because it’s deathly quiet as you’re all huddled in together. The boss Rodney is known as a very cold guy who only talks as needed. He’s not mean or anything but it’s just hard to connect with him.

One day Rodney goes to the doctor’s office and finds out that he is terminally ill with only 6 months left to live. He doesn’t really know who to turn to or to confide in because he has no real relationships. His relationship with his son has been strained since the guy married a lady who isn’t particularly pleasant and the guy’s rather spineless so that was game over. Eventually the only person he can find to talk to is Miss Harris who used to work at his company. He’s an old man and she’s fairly young so some gossip starts but he really has nobody else so they hang out and he tries to find some real purpose in his life. Can he do this with the final 6 months or is it game over?

Finding purpose in life is definitely something you want to do when you’re young because if you wait until the end like this then you can really get depressed. Some would say that life is what you make of it, others consider it a trial you must get through until you die and others would just say to live every day as if it’s your last and have a blast. People put their meaning in life in different things. Some do this through money, fame, fortune, friends, material desires, religion, politics, making a difference in the world, etc. Ultimately what you choose will greatly alter your perception of death and how you feel about this.

For example as a Christian I can look forward to death. However good Earth is, Heaven is infinitely better. There are no shortcuts there so you just have to accept Jesus Christ into your heart and live a full life but if you are given a diagnosis that you are going to die, it would be a positive thing. You would enjoy your last days as much as you could and then well, the trial is over. Not to be too blasé about it of course, I know plenty of Christians who still fear death and others who don’t fear it but want to last as long as possible. Everyone has different feelings about the subject and it’s fair to say that your thoughts about it are very likely to change once it actually happens to you. 6 months is a lot of time for some but barely any for others.

I would just say to always have some hobbies and things to keep you busy so if this were to happen you have things that you can do. I feel like not having hobbies is a very quick way to get depressed because then the days will feel long and you wonder what you are actually doing with yourself. Be careful on what you pair to your identity, what makes you tick. If you place it on something external like sports or politics then that can often backfire, you want to place your faith and personality on something you can more actively control so something directly in your life.

Now back to the film, unfortunately Rodney really doesn’t have anything. He sees his job as being pretty much pointless for a while there and he has no actual friends or anything that has made a lasting impact. This is what encourages him to finally do something really kind for someone and he works hard to help a local group with a playground they were trying to build. He opts to do something meaningful with the remainder of his life which makes for a pretty positive message in the film. I’d still say Rodney was depressed for most of the film and it took him a while to find his passion but at least he did before the end.

The film doesn’t end on a total happy note though. One character mentions how not everyone can ultimately turn their life around the way that he did and the ending heavily underscores that point. There is always a big difference between knowing what the right thing to do is and actually going ahead with it. It’s easy in the spur of the moment to say that you will do something but actually going through with it is another matter entirely. It would have been nice if the film could have had a brighter ending but it’s not tragic enough where it will hurt the score.

As mentioned before, the only thing keeping the movie from a higher score is that the pacing could really die down at times. You can only have so many lingering shots before you get the idea of how deep the scene is supposed to be. I would say the movie is quite clear with its messaging so the extra drawn out moments and such really aren’t necessary. The movie can really tell its own story quite well. The supporting characters also aren’t bad. Miss. Harris is probably the best one here as she did help Rodney a lot in finding his own peace and making his last 6 months be a positive experience. The rest of the staff ultimately didn’t step up.

Not like most of them had much of an option of course so I usually wouldn’t be dunking on them but the last scene was pretty bad. Also Rodney’s son looked pretty bad so while you feel bad for him in the ending, it really is on him. He should have made an effort to talk to his father before it was too late but he was just busy getting pushed around by his wife the whole time.

Overall, Living does a good job of being an emotional film where you get to wonder what you would do if you found out that you had a terminal illness. I would say to always remember that no diagnosis is perfect though so one recommendation is not to rack up a lot of debt. I’ve heard several stories where people did that but ended up living well past the designated death time and that became very troublesome. You should absolutely live large and have more fun than you normally would but do everything in moderation. Stronger miracles have happened in the past after all so you’ve always got a chance out there. I recommend this film if you don’t mind more of a slow burn title with a lot of drama. There aren’t any high action moments here after all but the writing is on point so I had a good time. It was somber without being too try-hard about it.

Overall 6/10

Side Street Review

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The tagline here is a little misleading since Joe didn’t just happen to wander into some cash. Nah he just went and stole it. The film’s basically about a guy who becomes a small time criminal but is completely in over his head against the more experienced ones. Look you’re not going to beat a career criminal when you’re jumping in as someone new to the game. It’s just not happening and so things don’t go very well for Joe throughout the movie. He’s constantly on the back foot here.

The movie starts off with giving us some context as to why Joe went down the dark path. He’s not doing very well financially and his wife Ellen is having a kid. He wants to get some extra money and fast so he went the easy route of becoming a criminal. He stole some money from a lawyer while making his rounds but what he didn’t realize is that he stole a huge sum because that guy was another crook being blackmailed by a third group of crooks. Ultimately Joe has just gotten himself into a whole conspiracy and he has absolutely no clue on what to do here. The guy is completely and utterly out of his depth.

Now the film has a narrator that does his best to make you feel bad for Joe. He tries to explain how none of this is Joe’s fault and all of that, how anyone could crack in those circumstances so you should just ignore him. Not everyone would just think to start stealing, in fact most wouldn’t. So the guy’s trying to create a bunch of excuses for Joe and it just doesn’t line up. The film can be a bit heavy handed with trying to make you feel bad for Joe. Sure it’s a rotten situation but he really caused all of this trouble for himself without a doubt.

This is a fairly old school noir with a lot going on so you should be engaged the whole time. The pacing is good so even though the film is not super long, it feels like a lot happens regardless. Since Joe is in the dark the whole time as well as the viewer you don’t get all of the details for a while. You have more context than he does though and you get to have a fun time back seat driving as he makes mistake after mistake. I’m sure everyone groaned in the theaters when Joe decided to leave his fortune with a random bartender. Really now?

That was super sloppy. I don’t care if it’s your best friend, you should never leave a fortune with anyone because that’s a lot of temptation. It’s literally life changing money and Nick (The bar tender) probably should have just left town to be honest. Travel to a different country and never look back. Nothing good can come out of sticking around and he sure found that out the hard way. You literally have kids trying to make a buck in this movie and are willing to sell people out. You can’t trust anyone.

It’s all the most tragic for Ellen though just being thrown into the middle of this when she had no clue what was going on. She clearly would not have signed off on Joe’s plan which is why he had to do all of this in secret. If he had talked things over with her then the whole situation could have been avoided and everything would have been a lot cleaner. Meanwhile we have the main police captain Anderson trying to solve this case but his role is a lot smaller than I would have guessed.

From his scene at the beginning of the film you figure he will be close to one of the main characters but instead he vanishes for large portions of the film. It’s a shame since he’s such a fun character but I suppose not everyone can get to steal the show. As for the villains, they’re fairly standard here. You have the main blackmailer who is confident and knows how to play the long game. His decision to pretend he didn’t know what Joe was talking about when the guy tried to return the money was clever. He wasn’t about to fall for some kind of sting operation.

Then you had the right hand man who was a good enforcer. He was always ready to rough some people up if they started to get annoying, sort of like Joe. Joe also loses more points because he ends up cracking and getting seduced by one of the villains. She broke him real quick and I don’t want to hear any of Joe’s excuses on that. He’s just a pretty bad character all the way around but fortunately in a Noir title like this you don’t necessarily need a great main character.

It all comes down to the writing and story after all. Fortunately that was on point the whole time. I thought the story was interesting all the way through so that makes this one a winner. I would say what keeps it from moving forward though is there isn’t a specific angle that I could say stuck out. It’s a good noir film but if I was recommending a film in the genre to someone then this probably wouldn’t be one of the first 20 names that I would think of. It’s a case of it just being lost in the shuffle.

I suppose we at least do have a big car chase scene in the end. The driver of the taxi was not very smart at all though. Why would you start to run when someone has a gun and really wants to complete the mission? As the driver I think your best bet is to quickly crash into something and then run out while the passengers are stunned. It’s a high risk strategy of course but I do think it should work more often than not and what do you have to lose? You’ll definitely die if you don’t do anything.

Overall, Side Street is a good movie. There is always a lot of things going on so you will want to pay attention to every character. It’s also a cautionary tale about how committing a small crime can suddenly get you mixed up into something big. A crime’s a crime after all no matter how small. I’d like to see the police get a bigger role if we ever get a remake to this so we can see more of what’s going on though. By following Joe it feels like we miss out on a lot of the action.

Overall 6/10

The Black Scorpion Review

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With a title like the Black Scorpion you’re expecting massive hype and lots of creature action right? Well, it takes a very long time for the big scorpion to show up. Once it does we do get a good amount of screen time but for that whole first half you’re just wondering what happened. Surely they wouldn’t be keeping the main draw of the film on the shelf for so long right? Well sometimes that’s just how it happens I guess. It’s still a decently good movie but one with relatively low replay value and loses to the average creature feature.

The movie starts off with a pair of archeologists driving around when they notice an abandoned police car. Eventually they find an empty house with a baby in it and a corpse nearby. There was no blood around though so how was this guy taken down so easily? His gun had also already fired all of its bullets. Well no time to worry about that, the characters do more investigating and sleuthing until it turns out that there are Giant Scorpions running around! They’re murdering everybody and now the heroes have to think of a way to stop them before the entire town is destroyed. First the Scorpions will destroy the town….and then the world!

Lets talk about some of the positives here first. I do think that the writing is pretty solid. It’s not amazing or anything but it makes logical sense and the script should keep you decently engaged. I like how serious everyone is about the giant scorpion threat and that the government actually gets to look decent. The two leads get rather cocky after blowing up some of the Scorpions so that they basically don’t want to hear about there being any survivors. The government puts a stop to that real quick and it’s rare to see them pull rank like that.

Additionally this allows the film to effectively have two climaxes. You have the first one in the caves and then the second one on the go when the Scorpion returns to cause vengeance. So that was pretty solid because you don’t see that happening very often. In a way the humans got super lucky here because they fumbled the bag on several occasions (Letting all the poison get destroyed, missing the target with their thunder arrow, etc) but the giant scorpion ended up destroying most of the competition on its own so that bought some time. If the Scorpions had actually teamed up with each other and with the other giant creatures then it would have been over. You could have packed humanity up, they would have stood no chance.

Even that idea (One monster destroying the rest) is one that you don’t see very often. So you’ve got some decent ideas here but the film doesn’t really make them as exciting as they could be. The giant monster fights were fairly decent though, we had some classic wrestling and all of that. All of the creatures were absolutely doomed against the big scorpion though. They never stood a chance! I felt bad for the big one in the end though, of course you know the humans have to win eventually but it was so close!

As for the main characters, well they were just pretty annoying the whole time. As I mentioned they got too cocky about beating all of the scorpions to the point where they didn’t even wanna take the government serious about their chances of being alive. Then near the beginning of the film when a lady falls off her horse it felt like they immediately jumped into a lot of flirting. She seriously had to say she was fine like 5 times before they finally got the hint and backed off. Of course we still get the obligatory romance after that which was super rushed and unneeded. These films don’t always need a romance!

Of course the worst character is the local kid who was trying to help. He disobeys orders numerous times and stows away in their vehicles more than once. In each instance he just ends up causing a lot of trouble. The worst part about him is really that he has no remorse the whole time. The guy will try to explain why what he did was wrong and the kid will just say again that he was trying to help. No apology, no “I’ll never do it again” or anything like that. So you know the kid absolutely would do this again and no lesson was learned.

Then even the local cops don’t look great here as we have a super unnecessary character death near the end. The main captain misses his shot so he goes to pick up the thunder arrow but everyone forgot to turn the charge off so he gets bumped off. The main characters then fire the second shot but that has to be one of the worst ways to go out. Because he should not have died in the first place. I’d be majorly peeved if that happened to me. Also it’s not like it was an easy shot at all, you have to aim for the weak spot by the creature’s throat while it’s running around and beating up the army. Also , props to the guys in the tanks getting up close and knowing they will be destroyed but just buying time for the heroes. That can’t have been an easy mission.

Overall, The Black Scorpion is a film where the humans tend to be annoying so you’re really going to have to be in it for the creatures. The Scorpions make for imposing villains with their huge tails and long reach. Definitely not a foe that you will want to take lightly and the movie shows just how dangerous they can be. They’re not super fast but when characters trip and don’t start their engines in time it means that the body count here will still be fairly large. I’d be down for a sequel to this some day. There’s always room for more creature feature films but I hope the humans can be a bit more likable here. Honestly you don’t have to do a lot to be a decent human in a film like this. Just make some decent plans and fight a bit, that’s all you gotta do. Also the creature should appear way earlier, the dead time before it was just too long. I mean it’s an old film so at least the dialogue is good enough where you can still get through the first half just fine but it’s very noticeable considering the film’s name when the title creature takes so long to appear.

Overall 6/10

Lifeboat Review

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When you’ve got the whole cast stranded in one location you definitely need to make sure that the writing is engaging or you’re going to be in for a really rough time. Fortunately this movie is up to the task and it ends up being a fun adventure. I do think having more locations would have made it more fun but the time doesn’t drag and there’s still a lot happening here. The film reminds you that you never want to be stranded with anyone for too long or things could get dicey.

The movie kicks off with a ship being bombed by the Germans and only a handful of people survive. They all have to huddle together on one of the big lifeboats that was around. They all fit in rather comfortably at least to the point where they can all stretch and even play card games. Still, there is the issue of how the food and water are quickly going so they can’t survive like this forever. Additionally one German washed up onto the boat and some of the crew want to quickly throw him overboard while others think this would be morally bankrupt. The tensions only continue to grow as the film goes on. Will they all be able to keep it together?

Being stuck with strangers for a few minutes can be tough, let alone whole days. When you consider that the characters can’t shower or anything the whole place would be hot and hard to breath in. So the characters being in a bad mood makes sense. Even without Willi (The German) around I’m sure things would have been really tough. Kovac believes he is the best person to be leader of the craft and takes a rather aggressive/threatening tone about it. Gus gets drunk rather easily and he has a spot of bad luck which sidelines him the whole film.

If all of the characters were at 100% health that would help too but of course that’s not really how things play out. While Kovac can be unreasonable at times, he does make for a good central character. He’s solid enough but the whole romance plot was pretty bad. He really can’t stand Connie’s jewelry to the point where he refuses to be nice to her as a result. How can you make a good romance out of that? It seems to me that no romance would really be starting on a ship like this so you should cut out this one and the other one that was happening.

It’s a do or die situation and everyone needs to stay focused! Meanwhile Rittenhouse was my favorite character because he keeps his composure more than the others. He at least tries to be the voice of reason in all of this and only gets upset when Kovac begins to obviously cheat at cards. Yeah definitely another knock against Kovac since he was rubbing this in Rittenhouse’s face and was generally being a delinquent. It reminds you not to trust him at all.

Connie is usually the focus of his rage though because she tends to talk a whole lot and so she gets on everyone’s nerves. You’d think she would tone this down after a bit but I guess she’s a bold character. Things really go rotten for Connie the whole time as she loses her camera and basically everything else by the end. Of course surviving is the most important thing but you feel like the characters are a bit meaner than needed. The whole scene with the fishing hook was just downright tragic.

Gus was more on the annoying side. I know he was drunk for part of the film after the operation but even so he was always getting into trouble. Kovac and the others had a point that if his girl was going to leave him because he couldn’t dance then she probably wasn’t a keeper anyway. Of course he tries to turn this into a fight. Now personally if I was him I would have said no to the amputation. Mainly because I absolutely would not trust Willi for a single moment. Like seriously that guy could try anything and you’re giving him a blade? Also, maybe the leg doesn’t actually need to go.

So yeah I definitely wouldn’t have gone through with that. As for Willi, Kovac is on his case the whole time. He’s definitely determined to get Willi off the boa and doesn’t give him much of a chance so it’s ironic how the film keeps showing how the lead was actually right. You know that feeling when someone is right but for the wrong reasons? That’s basically Kovac the whole time and things really keep escalating with Willi messing with everyone for a whole long while before the ending. I’d say his plot ends on a pretty good note with the crew making the right call but it sure took a while.

In general I’d say the film had a strong ending. Perhaps a bit mean spirited towards Connie but it was otherwise solid around the board. The movie had a good plot and the writing was on point. I would say it lags behind some of the other Hitchcock movies in part because of the limited setting and also it’s not really a mystery the way that the others are. There is less replay value here as well because there’s not a whole lot of story. The fun is seeing how the characters handle the situation but once you’ve seen it once there is really no reason to ever watch it again. I’d say that’s probably true for a lot of single location films like this one.

Overall, Lifeboat is a good movie. I had a fun time with it and it’s really a tough spot to be in. If you’re ever trapped in the middle of the ocean like this then you instinctively know that yours odds of surviving are very low. At that point you’re really just waiting for the inevitable and hoping that something can change that. Especially since at that point you’re likely going to die from starving, dehydration, or drowning. All of which are really rough ways to go out.

Overall 6/10

Airport ’77 Review

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It’s time for another Airport movie and once again the actual airport is really nowhere to be found. That’s got to be the biggest weakness of the series at this point because you would think that by now they would have gone back to the roots right? Seriously this one barely has to do with an airplane at this point since it functions as a boat for most of the movie. Still, it does end up trying something more interesting than the second film and I would actually say this was a reasonable title. It certainly doesn’t beat the first film but I would end up giving it the edge over the second one.

The movie starts by introducing us to the characters. They’re mostly rather annoying as you would expect. You have a lady who seems unhappy with her current relationship and likes to flirt with everyone while also using blackmail. She refuses to let her guy talk to anyone though so this way she can be in complete control at all times. You have the Captain who is at least a good character even if there isn’t much to him beyond being the captain. Then there are the group of terrorists who have decided to take over the plane to get rich with the exotic artwork on board. You’ve got a doctor, the wife and kid of the Ceo who built the plane, and of course Patroni. Unfortunately Patroni’s role here is really small.

So the group get on the plane and prepare for a nice flight but things go wrong when the hijackers take over and the whole thing crashes real quick into the ocean. Now you may think that’s better than crashing on land…and that’s true. However, they are sinking fast and it is looking like it will be very difficult to exit the plane in time. If the heroes don’t think of something soon then it’s all going to be over. All their dreams and goals will be gone like the waves. Can they survive long enough for the plane to be found or are they going to drown?

Particularly with the recent submarine incident in real life, you can imagine how terrifying it would be to be stuck underwater in a plane like this. It’s not even a boat so you can’t trust the plane to hang in there forever. Death by drowning or suffocation are some of the worst ways to go and in that respect I’ll take the quick death in a plane crash into the mountain or something. Still once you’re alive you have to try and make the best of it which is where some of the characters get annoying. They’re still yelling a lot and giving the captain a hard time. I know they’re all stressed but these characters do not do well in emergency situations, that’s for sure.

The Captain is the best character by far because at least he’s doing something about this. He takes risks as needed to get the crew off the boat and does his best to keep everyone calm. I’m not going to say that he’s perfect but I would say he really does everything you can possibly expect him to do and considering that he was knocked out at one point the crew is lucky that he wasn’t too dazed. You definitely feel bad for the one guard who got murdered because the villains ended up hitting him harder than they planned. It definitely goes to show how these hijackers won’t be going for any sympathy points here.

Patroni’s cameo is nice but that’s basically all that it is. The characters ask if he wants to take a more hands on approach to saving everyone but he explains that he can direct better from homebase which makes a lot of sense. Particularly at his age would it really make sense to go out there? Probably not although it still would have been cool to see. The CEO character is nice enough. There’s a lot of family drama going on in his plot but it sort of feels like there’s no point to it because inevitably he will only get to see the family for a minute or two at the very end of the film. So there’s only so much you can do with that.

I’d say where the film shines is that you do get the danger of being in this situation. Everyone knows the fear of the water and when you mix that in with a plane crash then even more so. The film doesn’t overplay its hand with a lot of tragic sob stories or anything like that which I really appreciated. That could have also been annoying but the film doesn’t fall into that. So you’re allowed to see how scary it all is without the film beating you over the head about it. You probably will forget that they’re inside a plane after a while but that’s fine.

The rescue efforts also looked pretty cool. I liked the idea behind it. Of course I would be skeptical in practice but the film depicted the attempt well. It takes itself very seriously so there’s almost no room for humor but the pacing isn’t bad. The movie doesn’t overstay its welcome and so that’s why I would say that this is a good movie. It’s admittedly more of a forgettable movie so you won’t remember it in a year or two. That’s why I won’t say it’s a very good movie or anything but you will be entertained and it doesn’t make any big mistakes so I think it’s fair to put it at this level.

Overall, Airport’77 may be an extremely misleading title for the film since it’s really a submarine film that wants to be an airport movie, but it still works well. The tension is carried across nicely and the effects are solid. The cast is just super forgettable and can’t really hold their own against the casts of the previous two films which isn’t a great look. These guys by and large feel more like horror movie type characters in that almost all of them are really annoying and just exist to set the heroes back as much as possible. Seriously you don’t want any of these guys on your team except for the captain.

Overall 6/10

The Trial Review

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The Trial is definitely a very unique film because the whole thing is really crazy from start to finish. A short story is played before the movie starts about how the logic of a dream can always be hard to follow and that seems to be what they are going for with this film. Things don’t tend to make sense and it’s like a scene out of the Twilight Zone. It makes for a pretty fun adventure even if it does drag on a bit towards the end.

The movie starts with Josef K waking up to find that a bunch of people are in the room with him. They seem to be detectives…possibly but they don’t identify themselves. They cryptically tell Josef that he’s under suspicion of something but won’t mention any details. Josef just knows that he will be arrested soon and his coworkers aren’t being very helpful about this. He has a crush on his next door neighbor but she’s a lady of the night and so bad rumors have been spread around her. At least Josef is allowed to go to work while he is being accused but what can he really do to clear his name when he doesn’t know the charges?

Right from the start things are going batty but I would say that is where the film is at its strongest. The beginning is incredibly memorable. The whole film has a very spooky atmosphere to it but this has to be the scariest scene because you have to wonder if he is even able to leave the room. What’s waiting for him outside those doors? In theory it’s all normal outside those doors but after everything that has been going on it’s just hard to say for sure. The world seems very empty, nobody is on his side..well he has his uncle I guess.

It’s almost like Josef has entered a big conspiracy that he doesn’t remember joining. He makes for a pretty good main character for the most part but as the film goes on he starts to lose his willpower a bit. Of course he liked Ms. Burstner but then he lets himself get seduced by the mistress of his lawyer who seems to enjoy hearing about her adventures. Josef ends up not really having a lot of self respect for himself here. Sure he might be about to die here but even so he doesn’t need to go through with these affairs.

The “romance” if you can call it that is pretty weak here. It doesn’t really help with the trippy vibe or do anything to enhance the plot. It’s just sort of around and I would have cut that part out in order to save some time. It’s not like there’s any real emotion to this either which is part of the gag. Burstner was practically falling asleep when Josef was trying to get together with her which is rather embarrassing if you think about it.

At least Josef didn’t let this break him though. One character is thoroughly broken to the point where he kneels before the lawyer and degrades himself. Seriously that guy was a lost cause. After a point you may as well just face prison or the execution room instead of allowing yourself to be manipulated by this guy. If you’ve lost all your self respect then will your life really be as satisfying and complete as you had hoped?

I’ll give Hastler credit of course because somehow he pulled this off. He got clients who are so desperate for his help that they would do anything and that’s a skill in itself. He also was just an entertaining character in general as he was just chilling while everyone was so stressed out. The guy had fun just running his mouth the whole time and you really didn’t know how much if anything of what he was saying was actually true or not. There just wasn’t any way to tell.

Then the film will randomly introduce minor characters who don’t actually add anything to the plot. For example Josef’s younger cousin who shows up randomly and then vanishes as soon as she had appeared. You have this lady with a robotic leg helping pack Burstner’s things and then she doesn’t really appear again. Even Grubach sort of vanishes after the opening scenes. Characters will disappear and then reappear as needed but sometimes they won’t reappear at all so this way you’re always kept guessing. The police detectives from the start of the film looked pretty tough but then things go downhill for them after that.

I’m sure people have probably written long essays explaining exactly what happened here but for the most part I feel like you can come to your own conclusions. You can absolutely analyze what was going on and make some kind of full story out of it but part of the fun is in how vague the whole thing is. I feel like this whole movie is a dream but of course it’s more fun if we take it as being very literal. In that case Josef probably was framed as some kind of huge conspiracy. I guess he made some very powerful enemies and that’s a good way to just vanish unexpectedly.

As mentioned earlier my only real issue with the film is that it does drag a little bit. The first half is a lot more exciting in a lot of ways because you’re being introduced to the world and how crazy it is. You get to be as shocked as Josef is at how things are playing out. Somewhere towards the middle of the film it just doesn’t have the same wow factor going on so while crazy things are still happening, it’s not as crazy as that bold intro. The ending definitely keeps the crazy factor in though so that was good.

I wouldn’t mind seeing more films operating on dream logic like this. You still need quality writing to pull it off so it doesn’t ultimately feel pointless or boring after all. You can probably allow it to be a little pointless but you need to be entertained all the way through. Ultimately Josef probably should have just tried fighting these guys. In dreams people usually can’t fight as much so mow through them and reclaim your freedom!

Now in terms of the story I’ll give my quick interpretation here. So the way I see it, one of Josef’s coworkers was jealous of him. Probably the nosy one who was snooping through the neighbor’s room. That guy also had a crush on her so he needed to bump Josef off which he did by giving the cops some incriminating evidence that Josef was dealing drugs. That’s why they were searching his apartment. Additionally the reason they let him go back to work was so they could find where he had the stash. I think it works about as well as you can do it with all these variables here.

Overall, Dreams are a blast when you have them but it’s hard to summon a dream on command. So watching a film like this is definitely the next best option. It may not be perfect but it’s very entertaining and that’s what counts. You definitely need to go into it with the right mindset but if you do then I think you’ll have a good time. I’m sure it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but that’s how it goes with being unique. This really could have turned into a horror film if the writers wanted to go that way so I think there’s potential for that within this crazy sub genre of sorts.

Overall 6/10

Airport (1975) Review

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Now it’s time to venture into the second Airport film. It’s actually a good film across the board but the problem with it is similar to the problems that Airplane 2 had. It’s just weaker than the original one in pretty much every way. In a vacuum the movie is perfectly acceptable and you won’t have any problems with it but at the same time you feel like it could do so much more with the concept. Also, the premise on the poster is better than the whole movie. “The Crew is dead” would have made for a really intense plot. Like only the stewardess is left to try and survive. Then of course you would need more scenes on the ground to balance this.

So this movie starts by introducing us to a lot of characters getting ready to board their plane. You have some travelling nuns, a sick child who badly needs a rib/kidney transplant, a stewardess who wants to get into a serious relationship, etc. Everyone is stressed and ready to get going but the plane ends up colliding with another one so now the plane is going to go down unless they can find a way to land this craft without the pilot. It’s going to take a lot of teamwork with the ground crew but this is the moment to surpass all of their limits!

I know what you’re thinking here. The film is called “Airport” so what about the airport scenes? Well unfortunately there aren’t a whole lot of those this time. The plane takes off fairly early in the film and the vast majority of the scenes take place up there. You do have scenes in the subplot with the grounds crew trying to direct the stewardess but very few scenes in the airport itself. I think that’s the biggest shame here because you need that for proper setup. When you jump right into the plane then you lose a whole lot.

For example, I would make the case that virtually every plot in the first film is more developed than this one. The cast of characters is a lot stronger and even the bomb threat was a lot more engaging than the collision plot here. The main problem is there are only so many ways you can drag out the tension on a small plane like this. After a while everyone is just panicking in the same ways and it doesn’t feel like a whole lot of progress is being made. That’s really the roughest part here. The movie quickly runs out of material.

Nancy is a good main character. She does a good job controlling the plane and doing her best to get it back up during the emergency. You have to give her a lot of credit there and yet the scenes do go on a bit too long. There’s a lot of yelling and reading out what’s on the panels a lot. The film is going for maximum realism here and I’m sure anyone familiar with the inner workings of the plane will get an extra kick out of that but as a viewer you can’t help but wish they could speed things up a little bit. This plays out more like an airplane simulator at times than a few movie and the first film had a much better balance on that.

It’s still not enough to make this movie go into the red of course but keeps it from a higher score. Same with the writing in general. You may crack a smile at some moments but it’s not nearly as funny as the original one. Some of the characters really just see like jerks the whole time although at least there is less cheating going on. For example one character keeps panicking and taking shots at all of the staff when he should be more focused on letting everyone concentrate. I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic because there are absolutely people like that but he gets annoying fast.

People just panic so much when the plane is in the air and you’d figure they would know there is nothing that can be done and would just calm down. After a while that’s the only sensible thing to do. Then on the ground I think they could have given better instructions to Nancy on how to fly the plane out. It’s not like driving it is easy but the instructions to turn didn’t seem that bad if they didn’t take forever to get each instruction out.

At the end of the day the pacing here was definitely shot from the jump. The pilots weren’t the most likable ones like the young one who was constantly flirting. At least the older one stayed respectable for the most part but ultimately he does get written out of most of the film. The movie will definitely remind you why flying is always a risk and to try and get some sleep so you won’t notice what is going on. One guy did that for the whole film and it ended up being a great idea since he had no stress.

Fortunately there aren’t any particularly bad scenes that will have you groaning though. The reason why I can still call this a good film is because it’s not hard to watch. It may drag on at some points to be sure but you can still get through those moments. The effects on the plane were good too. Some of the subplots introduced don’t even really get resolved which is interesting in a subversive way. The film ends rather quickly and for the most part you can assume how all of the plots ended up. Some in positive ways and some in negative but at the end of he day it didn’t really need an aftermath. Life just went on.

Overall, Airport 1975 is a film that doesn’t feel like it serves much purpose in the grand scheme of things. You aren’t likely to remember it after a while and for sure it will be overshadowed by the original as well as the fun parody Airplane. Still, I’d be able to recommend this film easily enough. You just have to have a high tolerance for listening to the characters talk about the details of how to fly the plane for a very, very long time and it’s all played very seriously. The movie doesn’t really take much time for humor and I think it could have used more jokes. Like I said earlier though, this film’s sort of like an airplane simulator insead.

Overall 6/10

Going in Style Review

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I definitely like the title since it works well out of context and even better in context. This film on the whole is a pretty fun one. Some moments can drag a bit which does keep it from reaching the next level but all in all you should have a good time. It’s a fairly unique film since you don’t see too many about old people just hanging out.

The movie starts with Joe, Al, and Willie just hanging out on the bench as they always do. Joe has had enough of this though and tells the others about his brilliant plan to make their lives more exciting. They need to rob a bank and get rich so they can do all kinds of fun things. All their lives they have made ends meet and have had a good time but that’s about it. At this point if they are caught they will go to jail and live a comfortable life there or if they succeed then they can do whatever they want. His two friends are very skeptical but Joe gets them on board. In a way the real trick will not be in escaping from the bank with the money, but in keeping their freedom after that!

I would say the main positive in the film is the humor. The characters have a lot of fun banter and the humor is kept rather subtle and not super in your face but it works out well. The main characters have a good attitude about them and it’s easy to root for the group. The film has a pretty positive vibe overall there and so even when there isn’t a whole lot happening, you’re still having a good time here. Now the film does get more and more serious as it goes on so depending how you take the scenes it can throw a really somber tone onto the whole thing.

At the end of the day though, the characters got to have their big adventures and spice up the life a bit so I’d say it was really a win/win in the end. None of their lives ultimately got worse for it and so it was good. For that reason though I would have shortened some of the emotional scenes a bit and had the film keep up its quick pace. Those are the only scenes that could drag on a bit and of course that’s because it is the emotional center of the whole thing but even so I think you could have side stepped that a little bit.

The heist is pretty quick but made for a fun scene. You can definitely see how any heist can quickly turn violent as all it takes is one guy to try playing the hero and then the main characters would have to choose whether they shoot or get taken in. There’s no easy scenarios there which is why in the end it’s never good to steal. Of course in the film this is played off more as a fun thing but ultimately it doesn’t take away from the characters basically becoming criminals here. It may have spiced up their lives but it wasn’t the right thing to do.

As the brains of the operation Joe is definitely the best character here. He’s always coming up with the plans and is a very determined character. I feel as though the other two would have cracked if put into the same situations that he was in. Joe always stayed strong though and did his best to help everyone out. He wasn’t selfish about any of this and always put on a brave face even if he wasn’t doing well. He had all the makings of a true hero.

Al and Willie were really followers compared to Joe. They went along with this plan but if he didn’t say anything then they would have been content on the bench. In a lo of ways they are more laidback as a result. They don’t have grand ambitions and they don’t miss the things that they never got to try. Still, they’re good sports about the whole thing and the plan is absolutely more fun when it’s all 3 of them. I don’t think you could do as much with just one persona nd of course there would be a lot less banter that way.

We do get a rather long side tangent into the casino which doesn’t really affect the plot much. It was a good way to see them having some more fun but that one you probably could have added a little more variety too. It did subvert my expectations the whole time though since I was expecting things to go very badly for them. So in that way the film did use the tension very well.

Writing is key for a film like this because on its face the plot won’t sound all that exciting. This film is about day to day life and not end of the world type events. So if the writing wasn’t all that good then this film would be boring in the best case or awful in the worst case. That’s not a problem here which works out but I wonder if the new version would really be all that good. I’ll definitely be curious to see someday but yeah they did a good job with this one.

Overall, Going in Style could have been reworded to Going Out in Style but the former is a little more subtle while getting the same effect so it makes sense. To enjoy this film I think you really just have to have fun watching the characters just hang out and do things they’ve always wanted to do. It makes for a fun viewing even if my bucket list items would have been way different. Forget the casino, that’s never been all that tempting to me. I’d have gone to different food places around the world or something like that. Now that would have been exciting!

Overall 6/10