The Swarm Review

Posted on July 4, 2015 by dreager1

This film definitely came out a good while ago. Whether you’ve heard of the film by name or not, you’ll likely be familiar with the concept. For some reason, a film about bees attacking the world just seems like something that you’ve heard before. It’s not a concept that will excite you and the film certainly doesn’t do that. This is a classic that has not aged very well.

Dr. Crane is found at a government installation and all of the agents are dead. The officials fear that enemy agents managed to break in, but Dr. Crane admits that it was actually the bees. Nobody believes him for a little while, but they are forced to realize the truth when more cities are attacked. The bees have launched a war against humanity and Dr. Crane says that they have been planning the war for some time now. The heroes will have to be careful about how they handle this because they will be doomed if other insects join the fight against the humans.

The film is very long so it likes to take time to develop the scenes. That’s not a good thing since it means that simple actions like taking a walk can drag on for quite a while. The opening scene where the agents find the dead men lying around takes at least 5 minutes before they call in the backup. By the end of the film, you’ll have wondered why the heroes are losing to bees instead of remembering what the plot is.

My main problem with the film would actually just be the fact that I don’t like the concept. It’s always been a little gross to see humans covered by insects and that means that none of the action scenes are enjoyable. The Bees are also animals and while animal violence doesn’t apply to them too much, it’s still not going to really help the film in the long run. That’s why a film can only be as good as its concept and this concept had a lot of limits to it.

There’s also a lot of plot hax as the bees are basically immune to everything and nearly impossible to stop. We get a few twists and the heroes think of a plan at the end of the film, but the death count is incredibly high. Hundreds of thousands of people died against the bees so it really was like a real war. If the Bees can do that much damage to us….imagine what the flies can do! It should be noted that the Bees were actually Super Bees who could destroy the average human in 2-3 stings. That’s why the heroes were so defenseless against the creatures.

This film is incredibly old so there’s no real soundtrack. That being said, we still get a really emotional death scene where a scientist realizes what he has to do to stop the bees. The only downside is that he must die to test out his serum. The guy decided to take a large dose of venom and by the time he applied the antidote, it was too late. The scene is supposed to be really sad, but the scientist just acted so unintelligent that it’s hard to buy the emotion. He should have had an assistant with him and he shouldn’t have started the dosage up at such a high level. His sacrifice was essentially in vain.

I do like the determination that the army had as they went into this fight. The commander always talks a good game and he didn’t make the mistake of underestimating the opponents. That being said, he was forced to defer to Mr. Crane on this war, which meant that he couldn’t actually go through with the war efforts that he wanted to try. Both Mr. Crane’s and the commander’s tactics proved to be useless anyway so it wasn’t a big loss, but he was much more interesting than the main character.

Mr. Crane wasn’t a bad main character by any means, but he may have been a little naive. He persisted in waiting out the Bees even when the casualties were steadily rising. He really had no plan to stop them for a while and the losses shouldn’t have been acceptable to him. Worrying about the environment is good, but America was getting close to being destroyed, he needed to act sooner. His possible romance subplot was also rather iffy and not integral to the plot…it was just there to be there.

There’s a little kid in this film who helps to doom his fellow students as he launches an attack on the bees. It was one of those emotional subplots that we didn’t need. While he did a good job of taking down a lot of Bees, he should have known that they would retaliate. The citizens are partially to blame since they had quite a bit of time to get inside, but many of them were still caught unprepared. After the first traumatic attack, I’d imagine that everyone would be especially careful not to be outside too long.

There’s also a subplot where two guys are flirting with an old lady. With all of these subplots, it’s no wonder why the film was so long right? This was mainly just filler and some levity likely intended to take your mind off of the somber Bee plot. The moral is essentially that both guys should have just been satisfied to stay in the friend zone. It would have saved them a lot of grief and they wouldn’t have had to become enemies through their fight over the lady.

At least the writing is all fairly good in the Swarm as this was back in the 1970’s. The characters mostly sound distinguished and Mr. Crane is constantly trying to out think the government. It is hinted that he allowed the Bees to destroy the military base without trying to warn any of the guards and that adds some tension to the equation. I still love the classic dialogue from these olden films and the English language is still my favorite because of how smart and quick it sounds.

It was a little surprising to see some of the victims of the Bees. I wasn’t expecting a good number of the school children to die, but I suppose that it was left in since it wasn’t a violent death. (On screen anyway) It’s too bad that they couldn’t escape though since they didn’t really need to add to the body count. It was already so high by that point. We did get some decent action scenes at the end as the humans grabbed their flame throwers, but they were doomed from the start. There are millions of bees after all and a quick sting is enough to take the fight out of the humans. The Bees even start to give you visions of a giant bee that wants to sting you. Their abilities are certainly fierce!

Overall, The Swarm really isn’t my kind of film. If you want to see how humans would fare against the Bees, then you should like this film. If you buy into Crane’s theory that they are out to get us, then it’ll be even more fun for you as the Bees strategically take down base after base. The film is really dragged out though and it just isn’t that much fun to watch. The Bees don’t work as antagonists for me and while Dr. Crane and the government agents are decent, there are no really good characters. Even the climax may not be all that exciting for you. This is a film to pass and I doubt that it will scare you either as it feels more like a comedy than a horror at times.

Overall 3/10

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Review

Posted on June 27, 2015 by dreager1

After a long time, I have finally gone and seen the sequel to the first Lara Croft film. The first one wasn’t exactly a thrill a minute so this one really tried to add in as much action as possible. The Cradle of Life shows many glimpses of a world where it could actually have been a solid film, but these glimpses are simply too brief and the film is ultimately plagued by a few negatives.

As for the plot, Lara Croft has finally met a challenge that is too much for her. To get to Pandora’s Box, she will need to get into villainous territory. Her two assistants are already out of the picture thanks to the enemies so Lara is forced to free an associate from prison. This man is there for a reason so this is a pretty big gamble, but the two characters have a long history between them. Now that we’ve got the drama in place, the adventure can really start!

The actual plot isn’t bad and Lara is essentially just embarking on a new quest. Unfortunately, bringing someone along was definitely not a good move as the guy drags down the film. His name is Terry and he’s definitely not a good character. For starters, he’s a total criminal who clearly has not reformed in his ways. He talks tough right from the start, but he still gets beat up a few times and Lara also tricks him on more than one occasion. It becomes very evident as to why the two of them ended up parting ways. They definitely can’t trust each other and both prefer riches to companionship. Terry goes off the deep end rather unexpectedly at one point although I didn’t care for him anyway.

He also gives us the worst scene in the film as he and Lara decide to see if they’re still meant for each other. The long romance scene is an example of a very poorly developed plot and one that is completely unnecessary. After not seeing each other for years and parting on bad terms, I find it hard to believe that they would get back together so quickly. If so, the characters are definitely too easy and it hurts any chances that they had of being likable.

Likewise, the scene also hurts Lara’s character and I definitely don’t care for her here. She’s a character who tries to get in as many one liners and burns as possible, but that also means that they don’t all work. While she claims to be a professional, she nearly dies by staying in a crumbling ruins for too long and her banter quickly dies down when held at gunpoint. She’s a decent adventurer, but she’s hardly a great fighter. (Although, she’s good enough to beat her partners at Kendo) Using her feminine wiles to get through the adventure was really the last straw for her character.

As such, there weren’t many likable characters to be found in the film. I actually didn’t mind one of her partners as he was really petty. In the kendo match, he finally got a hit towards the end of their bout and started celebrating a lot. It’s like fighting on For Glory in Smash Bros where the opponent will taunt numerous times after finally getting an elusive KO. The other member is fairly weak and doesn’t add much to the story. He does try to warn Lara about the fact that the villains are on to him, but she is evidently not the sharpest tool in the shed and misses all of the warnings that he gives.

I need to quickly take this time to mention the fact that it’s not really wise for a treasure hunter to have a very well known mansion in the middle of such a big landscape. Lara doesn’t have any real defenses so any villain organization can just bust in as we saw in this film. She really needs to think about adding some much needed security to make the place a little tougher to break into.

The film was surprisingly a little more violent than I had expected it to be. One of the scenes in the climax involves a man burning to death with surprising detail as he melts. Another scene, which I found to be more intense involved a guy who was poisoned. From the way that the scene played out, it started to look like he was literally spitting out his guts. That likely wasn’t what was happening….likely, but it sure looked like that, which was pretty gruesome.

Let’s quickly look at a nice positive for the film, which is the fact that there are monsters to be found. Towards the end of the film, we find out that there are monster guardians which watch over Pandora’s Box. They can phase through objects and their speed isn’t too shabby. It almost goes without saying that there physical strength is very good. Watching them take down the group of humans was like watching the Raptors take everyone down in Jurassic World. The monsters take their time and methodically take everyone down one at a time. It’s very impressive to watch and it was a fun scene as monsters are just what we needed. They were a little too powerful so we never get to see Lara fight one of them, but the plot hax would have likely been too immense so I suppose that it’s fine.

Some of the special effects don’t quite hold up here though. One scene in particular comes to mind as Lara glides across a city. It clearly looks like she is just being held by a string with a background picture that is moving in the background. That definitely looks fake, but I suppose that we can’t have too many films with good effects right? On the bright side, it’s bad in a bit of a campy way so I wouldn’t call it a huge issue. Just something that it fun to note.

It’s really too bad that the film crumbled as it went along because I did find it to be interesting. For example, the opening scene was fun as Lara infiltrated an underwater temple and the plot began. That was the film’s first missed opportunity as Lara should have fought the villains. A nice fight scene at the beginning of the film is always a fun way to start off. We got a fight later on between Lara and another villain that was fun though. Even if the collateral damage did end up destroying the guy’s “priceless” statues. A film just needs more good qualities if it wants to be good. The plot isn’t enough, you need good writing, good characters, and more. This film couldn’t really pull off any of that as I’d call the writing decent at best. Even the final scene’s humor is a plot that’s probably been overdone a little at this point. You will feel a little bad for the two assistants…but very little.

Overall, The Cradle of Life is definitely not going to be the film to give video game adaptions a good name. It had a fairly interesting plot and the monsters at the end were cool, but that wasn’t enough to make it a good film. Making the poison scene a little less graphic and cutting out the make out scene between Lara and Terry would have helped the film a lot and that probably would have put the film in the clear with a 2 star boost. That being said, the could have/should have case can be applied to just about any film. So, when it all boils down to it, The Cradle of Life simply couldn’t stay afloat and Pandora’s Box just wasn’t meant to be found. If you’re looking for a good adventure film, then you should probably watch Indiana Jones…although I haven’t seen those in a while. Be on the lookout for the CGI ants! As for Lara Croft, we’ll have to wait a long while before we get a film that does the classic games justice.

Overall 4/10

The Village Review

Posted on June 24, 2015 by dreager1

Time to take a look at The Village! This is the kind of film that you know will be bad before you actually watch it, but finding out just how bad it is ends up being your main goal. Needless to say, the film met my expectations and maybe even exceeded them in that regard. You certainly won’t be missing much if you skip this title and The Village is certainly no NYC!

The main characters all live in a small village where they are scared of the color red and dare not go near it. They bury anything of that color so that the demons won’t attack them. Unfortunately, one of their members is gravely injured towards the end of the film, but that’s actually when the main plot begins. The main character must now venture outside of the village to get some medicine from the outside world, but since she is blind…can she really defend herself against the demons? Only time will tell!

Well…there’s not a whole lot of good things to say about it. The only good thing that I can say is that the design for the villains was decently good. They certainly seemed like a bit of a threat even if they were extremely slow. So, that’s a plus. Beyond that, the film really just makes mistakes at every corner and even the plot twists are fairly predictable even if they should be. Of course, they do help to create a lot of plot holes and face palm moments.

None of the characters are likable so I should get that out of the way first. The main villain is a psycho who wants to hurt people. We’ve seen this kind of villain many times before and it’s never been enjoyable. He just brings the film down more and more. The main character is blind as I mentioned, which makes for a climax that is hard to believe. Are we really supposed to believe that she can traverse through a forest that she’s never been in before and make a multi hour journey over to the nearest town, get some supplies and find her way back home again? There’s just no way and her fight against the “demons” was also rather unbelievable.

The other villagers are all fairly slow on the uptake as they fall for multiple tricks their whole lives. Have none of them considered fighting the demons who are extremely slow and look rather old? Instead, they all hide in the basement and in the attic as if they were children. A whole village should consider defending themselves a little more than that. That being said, this is the same village whose men didn’t mind leaving a blind girl to fend for herself in a harsh environment so we shouldn’t be too surprised.

One of the main reasons why this film was so terrible was that there was also a lot of animal violence. Several animals are skinned and destroyed in very cruel ways. It’s pretty violent and just one of the many reasons why you should skip this film. It’s just distasteful and adds nothing to the film except to remind us that the villagers are all rather insane. The writing is unbelievably bad as well and none of the characters seems to have an original thought. There are so many red herrings that you begin to wonder if there is even a plot anymore.

An example of this is a security guard who throws a lot of veiled threats at one of the workers and the guard never actually appears on screen. He’s just around to intimidate the audience and try to make the film scary. The director/writers probably wanted this film to be really scary, but it ended up just being rather boring instead. At one point, the heroes all discuss their sob stories in an attempt to justify what they have been doing the whole time, but it’s just an excuse to discuss some dark happenings in the film to make the whole thing tougher to watch.

The main guy also deserves to be singled out as to how bad he was. His big scene is basically him yelling at the main girl as he tells her that he can be quiet if he wants too. It’s a terrible speech and he’s basically just being mean to her because he can. I’m glad that the romance never went anywhere as the guy was a terrible role model and makes the kids from Jurassic World look good. I miss the days when the kids were all like Arthur from the famous animated series. That guy knew what to do. The Chief of The Village condones just about anything and his final speech can’t save him. He goes for the Oscar Bait as he gives what he thinks is a heart warming speech, but it is incredibly generic and just not interesting.

The Village is the kind of film that you wouldn’t expect to get a theater release. It feels like an indie film that simply wasn’t good and is relying on the creepy factor to keep itself going. None of the characters are realistic and there’s no good scenery to look at. Forget about having a soundtrack either and I could go on and on about how bad the film was. It’s the kind of film that could almost make Sucker Punch look good. This film wasn’t even exciting or had any good action scenes and it just felt like a waste of time. Luckily, I had extremely low hopes going into the film and had a feeling that it would be something like 1 star, but it’s not always fun to be right.

Overall, Don’t watch this film. It’s time to stop mentioning all of the negatives and just wrap this up as you get the point. This review was definitely a negative one and I can’t begin to describe just how bad it was. It felt like the film dragged on forever and it continues to remind me why I’m not a fan of horror films. You could argue that this isn’t a complete horror film, but no matter what genre it was, it wouldn’t have been good. When the writing is terrible and all of the characters are unlikable, there’s really nothing that can save such a title. Go check out Terminator 2 if you want to see an epic film instead as this Village is just depressingly bad.

Overall 1/10

Death Takes a Holiday Review

Posted on June 24, 2015 by dreager1

It’s time to look at a very old film. This title came out before Star Wars, Godzilla, and even Twister. I haven’t seen many films from the 1930’s so it was cool to see this one. I’ve always thought that the writing in the older generations was better so a film about an average day more or less for the main characters would be more interesting in the 1930’s than for a 2000’s film. After all, it is fun to see how people used to spend their days and how refined the English Language was.

The title is fairly accurate as to the plot of the film. A group of rich people all head to a large mansion and are intent on having a good time. Things get a little worrisome when the host is visited by Death, who has decided to take a holiday. He won’t be performing his usual duties while on vacation as he wants to learn why people fear him so much. The host reluctantly agrees to let him join in on the festivities and Death warns that if any of the mortals find out his true identity…they’ll all have to die!

The film’s quite enjoyable which is always a good thing for a movie. Ultimately, you want to have a good time watching it and the film succeeded for me as I never grew bored. As I mentioned, it’s essentially a slice of life film as Death ponders some deep questions about life, but the film is completely dialogue based. Don’t expect any long chase scenes or anything like that. To an extent, you could also call it a bit of a romance film between Death and the main heroine, Grazia. It’s an old school romance so it’s played out better than 90% of the modern ones. They don’t actually start kissing or acting as if they’ve known each other for years. Rather, it’s played more delicately and the moral involves looking beyond the exterior when in love. It’s a good message and handled well.

That being said, I didn’t care for Grazia. She was rather vague at times and couldn’t always seem to make up her mind. She definitely kept her allies confused the whole time and I’m sure that they were very puzzled as she would faint and practically invite death as she goaded her friend into driving very quickly. You’ll possibly feel bad for the guy as he wanted to be with her, but was quickly friend zones. Grazia even said that she loved the guy…as a friend. That was probably one of the best moments in the film and I still say that it should happen more often.

Death isn’t a great main character as he is not very smart in the ways of humans so he is always slow on the uptake. The plot of an alien or concept trying to learn Earth customs has never been my favorite. Death tries to get the hang of things, but I feel like he should have a better understanding of Earth since he’s always creeping around. Evidently, you don’t learn how to be subtle while sending people to their graves. The host was probably the best character as he did try to shoot Death. While he may have lost his nerve after that, he started out strong and he was one of the more reasonable characters, it’s just too bad that he was so scared.

Of course, you could say that about the whole cast as they were petrified of Death. Even when they thought that Grazia was in danger, they didn’t step in to help her. Fearing death is a little overblown here as the heroes should be willing to risk death to save their friend. Especially the guy who wanted to be Grazia’s boyfriend, he simply backed down when he should have tried to press on.

One part of the plot that was fairly humorous was the fact that nobody could die since Death was on vacation. The film showed various disasters where people should have died and then the newspaper would say that everyone survived. That was neat and certainly fun as the heroes would wonder what was happening. Those people must have been very lucky eh? The most unbelievable for the heroes was the guy who jumped off of a skyscraper and just got back up. I wonder if he got any injuries or if “dying” resets you back to normal. It’s interesting to think about.

The film’s fairly short as it is just a little over an hour. It makes for a very quick watch. The film was good and there isn’t a whole lot of negatives to say about it. The main cast could have been better, but at least the unlikable characters here are still far better than the average unlikable characters from the modern films. One negative would probably be the plot where two of the characters are constantly flirting with Death as it does come across as a little unnecessary, but it’s not too bothersome. It’s just around and then it fades away.

Overall, Death Takes a Holiday is a solid film. The scene where the host is warning everyone not to upset Death was fun as there was a lot of tension in the air and it had a similar effect as if he had told everyone that the guy was Death anyway. Thinking about a world without Death is interesting, but the world would be overpopulated very quickly and the world would be in a state of ruin. The film briefly touches on that and the concept of what happens after Death as well. For Christians like myself, Death holds no sway as we have Heaven to look forward too. This film shows that without such a firm belief as to where you go after Death, Death itself has a lot of control over the individual. In the remake, it would be fun to see a Christian character and how they would interact with Death. That would add a whole new layer to the experience. Either way, I definitely recommend this title. It’s almost a century old, but holds up quite well and is as enjoyable now as it was back in the day.

Overall 7/10

True Lies Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time for another Arnold film and this is one that I definitely hadn’t heard of before. It essentially tries to be a James Bond film and I have to wonder if Cameron has ever seen one. That is one formula that you really don’t want to emulate and this film falls into a lot of the same holes that the Bond films create. True Lies ended up being below average and a film that I would not recommend, but it was decent for the most part. It simply could not recover from its mistakes.

Harry is a double agent who works for a very secret organization. His family does not know about this and they think that he just has a very boring job. His wife knows that Harry is passionate about it though so everything was going well until the Terrorists struck. Harry must now try to stop them even if it may expose his identity and Helen decides to get into an adventure of her own, but this ends up being a bit of a dangerous move. Will she be able to succeed or is she doomed? Those are the main plots of the film.

Let’s dive into the main negative, which crippled the film. That would be Helen’s plot as she essentially decides to abandon her family and practically cheat on Harry as she meets someone who claims to be a secret agent. She stops him after the guy tries to make out with her, but he still succeeded for a little before she stopped him, which was awful. From there, she also accepted a mission to be a hooker and we had a painfully long scene of her dancing for the villain in disguise. It was all just terrible and that scene alone guaranteed that this film would get a negative score. That was just terrible and I don’t think that any film could recover from such a thing.

The Helen subplot was just not necessary and it took quite a while to finish. Harry was also way too mean during those moments as well like when he forced her to take up the mission and do all of those degrading things. He was not a good main character by any stretch of the imagination nor was she a good heroine. She was ready to abandon her family and travel to another country on a whim, that’s just not smart and she also appeared to be very naive.

As for Harry, I’ve already explained how he’s a pretty bad hero. He also flirts with the enemies in classic James Bond style. At least James Bond isn’t married, but Harry is so he really shouldn’t be messing around. He doesn’t actually do anything, but the flirting is still unnecessary. He can accomplish his mission while being stone cold, that’s what the villains do right? He’s a good fighter and typically knows how to beat a group of enemies with a single gun. As an agent, Harry is probably even better than James Bond since 007 managed to lose to a random thief in Skyline while he was at his peak. I don’t think it’s even debatable which agent is more adept at hand to hand combat.

The film’s fairly light toned as it is a mix of comedy and action throughout. There is even a scene where a character drops a gun and the bullets take out about a dozen men. Harry takes care of the rest and he gets an epic one liner as he takes down the leader of the villains. There were no real interesting villains as the main one is very generic. At least the film used him to make the terrorists look rather inept, which is always good and I wouldn’t want him to be likable anyway. One of his foot soldiers is the lady who is around to distract Harry, but she never really gets to try this and just acts to make Helen jealous.

As you can see, most of the characters are pretty bad. Even Harry’s daughter is rather sad as she actually steals money from people and it’s a very unnecessary addition to her character. She is presented to be overly rude and that’s considering that Helen and Harry are already not the greatest of leads. Harry’s partner is the “funny” guy of the group and he gets a ton of burns and one liners, but he also has a number of them that just make him look bad. I definitely didn’t like him either although he’s certainly more charismatic than the other players.

It’s too bad because the film actually started out really well. The opening scene was like a James Bond film, but without going too far and the snow action scene was good. Of course, the first sign that this film was going to take a plunge was when Harry hit two dogs into each other. That was when I knew that the film didn’t really stand a chance and animal violence is always a sign that the film’s writers did not know what to do. It’s just unnecessary and rather sad. I really don’t mind the fact that this film didn’t get a sequel. It would ideally be better than the first film, but that’s still not saying much.

At least, I got to see another meme in the making. When Harry punches the fake agent while they are in the car, I instantly recognized the scene. It was used a lot online back in the day and I always wondered where it came from. Now that I’ve seen that one and the one from the Planet of the Apes, I’ve seen just about all of the big meme/gifs from the olden days. The main one that I’m missing now is the slow clap gif and I may still have scene that film. The actor in it looks familiar at any rate.

This film could not win so it’s good that Cameron already has a good resume with other films. It will be ironic if James Bond comes back to defeat True Lies with its upcoming film and the scary thing is that there is actually a possibility of that. The next James Bond film looks like it could finally be decent and it has more potential than all of the old ones with the exception of Skyfall. Skyfall wasn’t great, but they cut out most of the romance plots that have plagued the series and this one looks to continue that. Of course, Mission Impossible was always a better James Bond than the James Bond films so it’s all a little moot.

Overall, This is an old blockbuster that really couldn’t match up to the newer ones. Arnold and Cameron were around, but they simply couldn’t produce another winner this time. With such a large budget, they should have put more funds towards making the characters more likable. This review actually came across as even more negative than I had planned, but sometimes retrospect can make a film age even worse than you may have guessed. At the moment, it’s hard to think of any real positives. The film was fun during a lot of the moments, which would have to be its only real pro. It’s easy to watch for the most part and the pacing wasn’t bad, but when you have to endure the Helen subplot for well over 20 minutes…it just gets to be a little too much.

Overall 3/10

Terminator Salvation Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

It’s been nearly three years since I first saw this film and it was cool to see that I am still giving it the same score that I gave it all those years ago. It just goes to show that while some films may vary as the years go by, Salvation has managed to hold its place for quite a while. It’s certainly not as thrilling as the first three films and is mainly an information film.

Judgment Day occurred and John simply couldn’t stop it. He is now one of the pivotal figures in the war against the machines, but he is more of a figure head than a leader. He finds out that Skynet is preparing something big so the resistance decides to destroy it once and for all. As both sides get ready, he realizes that Kyle has been kidnapped. If Kyle is destroyed, John may cease to exist and everything will be wrecked. It’s time to get back onto the front lines to save the world and a new character is also running around.

First of all, I still have to question parts of the time loop. Since it seems like time moves linearly in this universe, Kyle’s death shouldn’t really matter. Just like how Skynet can see that its past Terminators fail because they failed in real time, Kyle’s death wouldn’t stop the fact that he already went to the past. How I see it, John would not cease to exist through Sarah’s death because of Kyle’s death. Of course, this is time travel so there are many ways for this to play out.

The main drawback for Salvation is the fact that the plot moves at a very slow pace. It’s simply not as action packed as the other three films and there is never a sense of danger. The heroes are just moving across a world that has essentially been terminated already. They aren’t trying to save the world, they are just trying to end the war once and for all. The film seems to mostly just be trying to emphasize just how tricky this new world is and you’re meant to ponder why humanity lost so easily. It’s not about explosions and epic action like the first three films and it’s just about taking in all of the information.

If you walk into the film assuming that you are going to get an action blockbuster, it will definitely be a disappointment. If you walk in thinking that it will be a slice of futuristic life film, then this will be up your ally. There is really only one action scene and that occurs at the very end of the film as John fights against the T-800. That was a cool fight even if it was a little short and there was not as much actual fighting as you would expect. The film didn’t have the budget to pull off the incredible action scenes that the third film had and it’s safe to say that the T-800 should be able to crush Marcus with ease.

The soundtrack is also rather bare bones next to the other films and there isn’t much of an antagonist. A few bullies appear at one point and Marcus gets to beat them up, proving that he is the ultimate main character. At least, that was the intention. He’s not bad, but he’s not very good either. I liked him more than John Conner, but Marcus never did a good job of explaining his intentions and just seemed to want to fight Skynet. There are some twists about this, but Marcus never really got to develop as a great main character. He was fairly generic and while he did beat John from T2 and T3 and Sarah Conner from film 1, he wasn’t great.

I quickly have to pause and praise one of the things that Salvation did right. As in T3, where we find out that Skynet outsmarted the humans, she does the same thing in this film. Everything that happened was part of her plan and it makes the ending that much more satisfying. It’s safe to say that Skynet is constantly toying with the humans and they shall never be able to defeat her. Machines will always trump man and our arrogance is what created Godzilla according to a trailer for that Kaiju’s film. It was still awesome and the opening of the film felt like a scene out of Resident Evil as there as Terminators everywhere. It is certainly the beginning of the end for the resistance.

Back to the characters, I didn’t care for John Conner all that much. I’m glad that he made the hero call to rescue everyone, but he just came off as a little mean at various points and he seemed to have even less of a recollection as to what happened in T2 and T3. I wanted more references to those films and I feel like he didn’t deliver in that aspect. One of his lines when he told Marcus to get him inside the base also came off very awkwardly and just didn’t work. That was supposed to be one of his big lines as well since it even came again during the climax of the film in a flashback. John simply couldn’t pull this off.

Finally, we have the main heroine. Blair was a decent fighter and she always talked tough even when she was in a tough situation. She was a good character even if she did appear to be trying to start up a romance. Marcus was too tough for that and luckily the plot never went anywhere. She still made the hero call when she helped Marcus out of a jam and proved that she was more loyal than just about anyone else. Kyle is a decently important character I suppose, but he’s unlikable and the actor didn’t do a good job of looking like the guy from the first/5th films. His partner wasn’t great either and that subplot really wasn’t needed in the film at all. It was just there to buy some time.

One of the big positives about this film is that they finally went ahead and toned down the violence a lot. I believe that they did the same for language and all other areas of the film as they finally bumped it down to a PG-13 from the start. That was a really great move on the film’s part and helps to make it a safer experience. If not for a few scenes, it could easily have gotten close to a PG as well, but some of the themes alone would prevent that. As it is, it’s one of the tamer PG-13’s. If we had some more action and good fight scenes, then it could have gone far, that just didn’t happen.

As a Terminator film, this title is fairly bad as it has nothing to do with the franchise. Technically, we are seeing the resistance a little, but you can see why it can basically be discarded and nothing would change. The only thing of importance that we saw is how John got his scar. It reminds me of the Chimera Arc from Hunter X Hunter, which was essentially 7 years of filler or a good chunk of the war arc in Naruto, but at least it still felt like Naruto. This Terminator film didn’t really have any time travel and you can’t really have a film in this series without the T-800.

As a normal film, it is still decently interesting. Who doesn’t like to see a future that has been taken over by robots? If you watch this as a stand alone film, then it may pique your interest a lot more. It just didn’t last too long as a Terminator film and I’m confident that the upcoming one will defeat it unless there is some animal violence to stop it. Salvation is a good film, but it can just be a little dull.

Overall, Terminator Salvation wasn’t very exciting. It has some of the worst camera that I have ever seen in a film as everything looked uninteresting and the pacing was very slow. Marcus was a decent lead though and the concept of robots taking over the world is still fairly fun. I’m glad that Skynet continues to have the last laugh and the humans can never stop her. This film does drastically cut down on the violence and other unnecessary content which also helps it. Technically, it does still beat the first film for me although the first one was more exciting. If you want to watch a good sci-fi film, I recommend checking this one out. Just don’t expect a whole lot of action.

Overall 6/10

Terminator 3 Rise of The Machines Review

Posted on June 17, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time to take a look at the third Terminator film! The second one was very enjoyable and really captured the feel of what a Terminator film should be like. The villain was impressive and the time travel aspects were handled well even if I had some questions on it. The third film wasn’t quite as big as the second film and certainly not as legendary, but it actually holds up to the second film. They’re very close and while I may give the second film the slight edge….it’s very close. Both of them outdo each other in various ways and I’ll compare them again towards the end of the review.

Sarah Conner is gone and John must now fend for himself. The problem is that John wasn’t prepared to attack the world on his own. He has managed to scrape by somehow, but now Skynet has sent another Terminator after him. The original Terminator is around to help John against the TX, but can the older model really prove to be effective at this point? Judgment day is at hand and the humans will have to get ready for what is about to happen. Only John can save the world, but can he even save himself?

As with the last film, John makes for a very poor protagonist. It’s hard to root for him when you consider the fact that one of his very first scenes is him getting locked up in a cage and swallowing some intriguing pills. He doesn’t get much better than that as his personality is simply unlikable. It’s like he was only half listening to Sarah’s warnings and he barely even seems to remember the Terminator from the second film. Granted, it’s another version of the character, but I expected more of a reaction although he clearly does remember the cyborg since he references the second film several times. I don’t know, he just didn’t feel consistent in that area and he never became likable.

Kate is the main heroine and she probably gets the saddest role in the film. The TX naturally takes down her fiance so that she essentially has no choice but to hook up with the main guy. She moves on from the Fiance in about 5 minutes so I don’t think that the relationship was that serious anyway, but it still makes her look bad. She really had no reason to like John since they hadn’t seen each other in years and the Hollywood effect (As I like to call it anyway) should have just let her off the hook here. As just friends, it would have worked out a little better.

Enough about the humans though. John and Kate are really the only two important ones. Kate’s father does have a role involving Skynet though and the fan favorite Dr.Peter also makes a quick guest star appearance for another fun scene. Beyond that, the Terminators really take on most of the important scenes so let’s talk about them. The classic T-800 is still a very likable character. He remembers what happened in the second film thanks to a sort of unified mind or something like that.

The fight is certainly tough for the Terminator since he’s really outgunned at this point. The TX is supposed to be superior in every way so only plot hax can protect the T-800. He’s still the best character in the film, but I have to admit that the fight scenes were really stretching logic at times although I’ll go into that more in a second. If you liked The Terminator in the first two films, you’ll likely enjoy him here. He gets more than one great burn and most of his scenes have him doing something cool like “Talk to the hand!” or “You’re Terminated” There was definitely a lot of memorable material here.

The TX is the first female cyborg to be shown and she makes for a merciless villain. Technically, she is easily the strongest Terminator that we have seen at this point and her weapons are very impressive. A single hit from her energy gun can destroy most Terminators and her instant regeneration is about as good as the T-1000’s. She can take over other pieces of technology and just acts more like a modern robot villain in general. She was certainly an imposing figure and made for a good enemy to the T-800. Even if she was a little overpowered to be honest.

Unfortunately, this film has more plot hax than the first two by a long shot. As mentioned, the TX is supposed to be superior to the T-800 in every way and she proves that in several scenes. Yet, the T-800 is able to physically overpower her during the big showdown and he actually lands a number of hits. It’s like watching a Mario player in Super Smash fight someone who doesn’t know how to DI. The Terminator simply keeps hitting and flipping her and she doesn’t really try to fight back. Eventually, she just seems to realize that she’s in a fight and disposes of him rather quickly. Perhaps she was toying with him since the Terminators do have a little personality at times, but the film didn’t play it off that way. She also had many opportunities to destroy John, but didn’t. One example is when she was on the car that he was in. Simply firing her energy blast would easily destroy him along with the vehicle. Such a minor explosion would barely harm her after all, but instead she tried throwing some punches and got knocked off of the car. Rookie mistake TX….

While the plot hax was around, the fight scenes were still the best in the franchise. The film producers/directors must have realized that CGI is the way of the future as the battles are like watching the Man of Steel if it was made a few years ago. The characters are really landing heavy blows on each other and they even have some decent speed feats. The action scenes are certainly ahead of their time and while you won’t enjoy them if you don’t care for CGI, CGI fans like myself (Only for live action) will definitely get a kick out of the bout. The TX should have won without much of a fight, but it’s more entertaining this way I suppose. Their battle was certainly the highlight of the film.

I found this film to be less violent than the second one and it feels like the series is getting a little tamer with each installment, which is always good. Of course, keep in mind that I am reviewing the edited version. The film can also still be intense at times like when the TX impales someone and drives while in that position. That scene was definitely pretty gruesome and the body count does get rather large at times. The implied violence can also get to you so naturally, you should know that you are about to watch a pretty intense film when you start this one. The soundtrack is also great and I have to say that it might even be better than the second’s. It’s very fast paced and the classic theme also shows up to increase the intensity. Most of the tracks really fit the scenes and while you won’t remember them for long, they are enjoyable while present.

In the end, how does this film stack up against the second one? Well, T2 has the edge with the main protagonist as Sarah is much better than John. T2 has less plot hax in the fight scenes and it was also a lot more epic as the stakes felt more real and theatrical. T3 was really epic as well, but in a way, you could tell that it was the sequel that was meant to be more comic bookey. Not a real word, but that’s a good way to describe it. While T2 was more of a thriller, T3 felt like a comic book film with super villains fighting the main lead. Even just looking at how the Terminators teleport onto the scene. T2 had the much cooler entrance as the Cyborgs just appear while T3 has a black bubble that appears first, which looked decently interesting, but it wasn’t quite as epic. T3 easily had the best action scenes of the trilogy and I dare say that it had better one liners for Arnold although most of his lines tend to be really cool. As such, it’s a close battle and both films are neck and neck, but I’ve got to give T3 the slight edge here. It’s hard to say whether T3 will always have the lead or not as one may age better than the other, but it’ll be interesting to see.

I’ve also got to give T3 props for the ending as it was fairly incredible and the kind of ending that you don’t see very often anymore. At least, not without a “Part II” or a direct sequel. While Salvation would end up rolling along, this was still an ending to a complete film and one that was fairly surprising. I was expecting more plot hax to be honest like the bomb plan actually working, but I loved every bit of the ending. It was all part of the plan and the heroes were just being led along. I’d love to see another ending like that sometimes, but it’s hard to handle correctly. We’ll just have to see if anymore films have it in them.

Overall, Terminator 3 was better than I ever could have anticipated. The fights were a lot of fun and the humor was handled well. It felt like a complete film and a very interesting one that used time travel to its fullest. Skynet never gives up and the quick pacing of the film keeps the audience guessing. The pacing isn’t quite as good as T2 as it slows down sometimes, but it’s typically fast enough. If John had been a better main character, the film would have been that much better. I definitely recommend this film to Terminator fans and you may be pleasantly surprised upon watching it. I wonder if the upcoming Terminator film will manage to have a stronger Terminator than the TX. Somehow, I doubt it, but that would be interesting to see.

Overall 7/10

Jurassic World Review

Posted on June 12, 2015 by dreager1

I recently saw all three Jurassic Park films so I was all set for this one. To an extent, the premise of the Jurassic Park franchise guarantees that the films will always get low scores thanks to the fact that it revolves around dinosaurs and will have a lot of animal violence. This film is no exception and it’s safe to say that it does lose to Jurassic Park III, but beats the first two films. If you’re a fan of the older films, you should definitely enjoy this one.

Claire has helped to put Jurassic Park back onto the map as the new amusement park, Jurassic World. While her boss doesn’t care to much about the financial part of the operations, that’s where she comes in. She had her team create a new dinosaur that was even bigger than the T Rex to increase the wow factor of the park, but ends up underestimating the creature. It escapes so she is forced to call in the resident dinosaur expert, Owen Grady!

That’s essentially the plot in a nutshell and while I will be talking about the film a lot, I’ll try to avoid spoilers. I managed to see this film yesterday which was fun since a day 0 viewing is always intense. The audience wasn’t quite as ready to roll as they were in Age of Ultron or the first Avengers, but it’s mostly due to the timeslot. They were still ready for action though and I had my comfortable recliner so I was ready for anything as well.

I was cracking up for the first 30-45 minutes. Roughly of course since this isn’t the kind of film where you will be glancing at your watch. It was probably partially intentional by the film, but I mostly didn’t laugh at its jokes, but at the scenes due to being unintentionally funny. One example of a joke where I was laughing (on the inside, I rarely laugh on the outside) was when the parents tease Zach after his heartwarming moment with his friend. It was all in good fun so the parents went a little higher on my coolness chart. They were essentially non factors here though as their screen time was minimal. The kids were fairly awful, but they did help the humor for the film.

Another example is when the two kids finally meet up with Claire. She tries to be nice and excited about seeing them only to get one of the more awkward receptions. Zach basically doesn’t want to talk to her at all and Gray’s mood swings of being somber and then super excited don’t wait for anyone. Claire can’t stay so she lets her assistant babysit them. You just gotta feel bad for Claire and I sympathized with her for the whole film. She doesn’t have a lot of free time so it makes sense that she hasn’t seen her nephews in 7 years. It’s regrettable, but these things happen and the kids shouldn’t hold it against her. She’s trying to be a good Aunt, but they never even gave her a chance. Gray may have, but he was disheartened when she couldn’t stay.

Let’s quickly talk about the two kids. Zach’s thing is that he believes that he’s really cool. He completely ignores his parents at times and ends up flirting with every single girl that he meets. (Even though he’s taken) Zach’s constantly giving Gray a hard time. “Sometimes we have to grow up!” Those may not have been his exact words, but he gets a lot of the most generic dialogue in the film and he’s also a shining bad example in many situations like when he decides to head to the forbidden zone. He felt like the kind of character that you would see in a commercial warning you not to hang out with people like that. He has his hero moments towards the end with Gray of course and he sees the light, but that would help him in the sequel, not here. He was just terrible.

No worries, Gray was awful as well. He’s way too excited and constantly blasts through rides to the dismay of the babysitter. At one point, he starts to whine about where all the dinosaurs are…even though we see that dozens of them are in front of him only about a minute later. There’s no way that he wouldn’t have been able to see them. It reminds me of a critique for the flowers film where someone saw a dead body before they ever could have seen it. Sort of the opposite of this event. Gray really had no consideration for anyone but himself during his visit to the park and while you can sympathize with him since Zach doesn’t want to hang out with him, Gray should have still done a better job of enjoying the park. He’s also pretty emotionless when pointing out a giant dinosaur that is around.

Time for a few quick nitpicks. After two characters jump into a lake, we see them walking a few minutes later and they are hardly wet. Their hair is matter and one of the T shirts is soggy, but the characters look way too dry considering the fact that they were completely underwater for a little while. Anyone who has ever jumped into a pool and then walked out will know that you don’t dry out that quickly. There’s also the ball ride where two characters explore the park. Even once an emergency announcement cuts off the presentation and tells everyone to leave…the ball is unaffected. The passenger still has complete control of it and that’s certainly not very safe. If passengers could control these things to go wherever they wanted, people would constantly be crashing into dinosaurs.

I did also chuckle at the fact that one guy’s whole job was making sure that all of the balls were safe during the crisis. He tells everyone that they’re all safe until he actually looks at the screen and realizes that one is gone. Whoops….that didn’t look too good for the guy. I liked his Dinosaur collection and admired the fact that he always talked a good game, but he was out of his league and he also tried flirting towards the end. Luckily, it wound up being the ultimate friend zone moment and I thought that it was handled rather well. We need more friend zone moments to be honest as they would make just about every film better.

The actual park is definitely somewhere that you would want to go and it looks kind of like Epcot. They have big water rides and a petting zoo section as well. You could say that it’s a fusion of your local zoo with one of the big amusement parks. It’s hard to believe that people would get bored of such a place even though the wow factor was apparently leaving. How I see it, Zoos have remained relevant for decades, a Dinosaur park would at least last 20 years without any big decline in viewership. That being said, Claire may have been overreacting as the numbers still seemed to be quite good when she was mentioning the statistics.

Let’s take this time to quickly talk about Owen and Claire. I haven’t really mentioned Owen up til now, but he did have some solid scenes. I did enjoy his interactions with the Raptors and I like how it was handled. He was their partner, not their boss although he thought of himself as an Alpha. Owen’s essentially your average action hero who has his good moments and his iffy ones. His flirting and dicey remarks keep him from being a good character, but he’s still decent for the most part. It’s easy to root for him at any rate and he certainly knows what he’s doing. He’s another guy who never bows to authority and talks when he feels like it. Imagine if everyone in real life were so bold right? I think the world would be topsy turvy before long.

Claire is a good main heroine for the film and she was actually one of my favorite characters. She didn’t want to have kids which is a noble goal and she has spent her career moving up in the ranks until she became one of the higher ups at the biggest amusement park in the world. That’s no small feat to say the least. Towards the end of the film, she has a bit of a generic ending where you can probably guess that she decides to back away from one part of her logic, but she was still a good character through and through. I thought that she did a decent job watching the kids. Sure, she left that to the assistant, but she gave them VIP passes and they got to have a blast. It’s not like she could take a day off when the big bosses were in town and awaiting her sales pitch after all. I also can’t really imagine her getting on some of the rides and having a blast like the kids. Actually, one of the rides was only built for 2 anyway.

The assistant was actually fairly likable and I originally thought that she was going to be one of the main characters. The actress looked like the main one from Twilight so I thought that I may have just been out of the loop there, but considering her minimal role, I’m going to assume that it was someone else. She definitely didn’t care to be there, but she’s probably seen and been on all of the rides many times over at this point. Still, her facade was good enough to fool the kids I’d say, but they were intent on giving her a tough time right from the start. Her character path goes down a dicey road and I felt bad for the whole time. It just wasn’t her day.

The higher up in charge of the park was decently charismatic. The film was going for a Tony Stark kind of feel for the guy and it worked to an extent. He started to look a little iffy towards the end though, but at least he cared about the dinosaurs a little. As always, there is a human antagonist to liven things up and he is similar to the guy from the first film. He talks tough to everyone and he has his own plans in mind. He gave the film another jolt of humor and I liked him as one of the big bads. This guy certainly wasn’t playing around.

Time to talk about the mystery dino. If you’re seen the trailers, then you know that there is a new Dinosaur hybrid attacking everyone. While she is a little smaller than I had expected, she still packs a punch and makes for a great threat. There are few dinos who can hope to match up to this fighter and she is also very smart. The fact that this dinosaur has been created in a lab gave the writers a little freedom to add some new techniques so this dinosaur doesn’t just need to rely on physical strength. It has two defensive skills, which greatly increase how deadly it can be in a fight. This dinosaur was definitely one of the highlights.

The classics like the T Rex and the Raptor are also present of course and I still love both dinosaurs. Once you see this film, you’ll be reminded why the T Rex is so awesome and how merciless the Raptors can be. It would have been fun to have seen the Spinosaurus enter the fray, but maybe next time. The Raptors get a fairly large role and are integral to the plot. They are still my favorite Dinosaurs out there and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. They just look so happy and cuddly next to all of the others.

As you might expect, there is a big climactic fight towards the end of the film and it’s quite impressive. It was a fight that I actually called out as I walked into the theater and I was thrilled to see it play out. The fighters gave it their all and we see some nice teamwork as well. The fight isn’t that short either and gives the dinosaurs enough time to really show what they are made of. It’s easily the best fight scene that we’ve gotten in the Jurassic Park franchise and it’s hard to picture this one being topped.

There are some plot elements left around to get you ready for the inevitable sequel. Let’s just say that the next film could have dog sized super dinosaurs running around and it’ll make for a pretty epic clash. Alternately, it could have a plot similar to the original King Kong. Either way, the sequel should be fun and I wonder if the main characters would return or if it would be time for a new cast. I would like these characters to return, but I’m open to change so that we wouldn’t have to see the kids return.

Now, this review sounds decently positive so you may expect something like a 7? A 7 is what the film would have gotten if not for the main negative, but it is something that it almost literally impossible for the Jurassic Park franchise to get away from. That is…animal violence. It’s a dinosaur eat dinosaur world out there so it’s expected and I’m not surprised at the fact that dinosaurs are getting hurt all over the place. It simply makes sense even if it is regrettable. So, while I enjoyed the film as a whole, I’ve still got to cripple the final rating due to how many times an animal is injured and how prevalent this is in the film.

One scene is really just there so that the mini army can get some hype as a gun man casually shoots one of the Pterodactyls. That was just unnecessary and a lot of the other animal scenes aren’t much better. We see dinosaurs blown up, eaten, and effectively drowned. If you’re a dinosaur in this film, then you’re in a whole lot of trouble. A lot of the hurt also comes to my good ole Raptors, which is unfortunate, but probably a price of being one of the main characters. I could go on and on, but you get the drift and it occurs too often to be overlooked so you should prepare for a fairly low score on this one.

Still, it was more fun than the first three Jurassic Park films and certainly seemed to have more fun with itself as well. I’m glad that the Park finally got to open and the film was certainly able to make it look much more authentic than it could have with older effects. This is one of those times where the fact that it’s modern and has some good effects, really helps it. To an extent, I feel like new technology will always help films to have an edge over older ones. The older ones typically hold their own through the better writing, but when you have a good modern film against a good old one, the modern one certainly has that extra edge. Jurassic Park III still wins overall, but the tone and pacing of this film can’t be beat. World feels like a classic Summer Blockbuster.

Hmmm, have I touched on everything? I managed to stay pretty vague on all spoiler related areas and that also slightly limits what I can discuss in the review. The first half was really funny and made this the funniest film in the series and the ending also had the best action scene from all 4 so it was a nice balance. Any scene with the Raptors is typically a good scene as well. As for the soundtrack, you’ll certainly recognize the classic theme from the first film as well as the trailer theme, which plays during one of the scenes. The soundtrack may be a tad generic at points, but the main theme is still iconic and you probably won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. As long as you have one memorable scene, that’s more than most films have got.

While the animal violence is really the only big negative, there are some mild ones as well since this still wouldn’t be a perfect film if the violence was gone. (Although it would be a good-very good one) The kids naturally weren’t good characters, but the rest of the cast helped to nullify them. The writing isn’t great although this is mainly due to Owen and Zach’s characters as the rest are typically fine. There is one scene that will puzzle you a little bit as two security guards seem to have no idea that the Park is in trouble even though the alarms had already gone through a good half hour ago. It struck me as a little odd and random. That’s about it so the film was mostly solid. At around 2 hours, it was a good run time, which gave the film enough time to develop the characters and showcase the dinosaurs.

While Jurassic World is mainly a popcorn film with a lot of epic action and enjoyable moments, it can actually get pretty somber and sad at other moments. One of those moments is the Dinosaur graveyard, which is definitely tragic and one of the more emotional moments of the film. One moment that is supposed to be emotional is when we learn of a divorce, but it has no point in the film and its thrown out so randomly that you probably won’t feel any emotion other than a casual wince. Of course, if you like to have fun with films, then that may be a good thing as I was having fun grinning and wincing for some of the dialogue, but in a good way. On the whole, Jurassic World is still a fairly upbeat film that stays happy for most of its run time as it only gets sad once in a while.

The Pterodactyl attack scene will just get thrown in with the rest of the animal violence issue, but I wonder how some critics will take it. I read a critique of Jurassic Park III that Pterodactyls shouldn’t be strong enough to lift a grown man. Let’s just say that they lift quite a few people during the attack in this one. Is the science/films right or are the real life keyboard warriors correct on this one? I don’t know myself, but it seems perfectly feasible that Pterodactyle could lift humans up since animals are typically so tough. I’m no dinosaur expert though and am happy just being a casual moviegoer.

Overall, I’m definitely glad that I saw this one. If you liked the first three Jurassic Park films, then you should definitely like this one a lot. At the most, you may not like the fact that it’s much more of an action film than the first Jurassic Park, which was a survival film, but it’s still about dinosaurs and it’s still a good film so I believe that you would end up enjoying it. The animal violence is regrettable and it’s something that likely won’t leave the series until they bring in the mecha dinosaurs and I’m ready for that to enter the picture soon. Well, next stop should be good ole Terminator and it’ll be fun to see how that holds up.

Overall 3/10

Terminator 2: Judgment Day Review

Posted on June 10, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time to look at the sequel to the first Terminator. This was the big film and you could say that this is what really put the franchise on the map. As well received as the first film was, the second would show us what the series could do with a real budget. We could get some more action now and a new villain who may even be stronger than the Terminator! I enjoyed this one more than the first and it got rid of one of my main negatives with the first film.

Sarah may have survived her last ordeal, but she is now being kept in an asylum as the police don’t really believe the fact that she destroyed a Terminator. They just think that it was a random guy with a cool pair of shades who managed to take everyone down. When The Terminator does appear again, Sarah prepared for the end, only to fnid out that he is on her side now along with her son, John Connor. Sarah doesn’t have much time to celebrate this as she decides to destroy Skynet before it is ever created. Can she get past the new Super Terminator from the future?

First off, the film did a good job of being very action packed like the first one. The Terminator shows up and quickly starts to mess his opponents up and then we meet the new and improved Terminator. With two enemies gunning after her, Sarah wouldn’t have stood a chance. Luckily, the first Terminator is on the side of the heroes for now. Like the last film, something is basically always happening and the film keeps up with a quick pace. With the budget improved, the liquid Terminator can really show off his strengths.

Time to talk about one of the plot devices, which I thought was a little iffy. In the first film, Kyle mentions that Skynet sent a Cyborg into the past so the humans countered with him. In this film, we find out that Skynet actually sent two Cyborgs and we used the time loop to our advantage to reprogram the first one and send it after the second. Hmmmm……I don’t think that this adds up too well. I guess you could say that we were able to reverse engineer the Terminator from the arm and chip that survived the first film, but how did the main characters get it? Also, adding in the fact that two Cyborgs were sent just seems like a mild retcon. Reprograming the original Terminator is another iffy part.

Regardless, plot holes rarely hurt films and they are just fun to look at. You can also make the case that they aren’t plot holes and that I just need to refill my Popcorn and continue with the review. Just keep that in mind since in Genysis…..it seems like more time twists are going to occur.

The Terminator is an iconic character and I’ve always known him as a good guy so it’s nice to see him be a protagonist here. He’s still a Cyborg and doesn’t really feel emotions, but he starts to get the hang of them by the end. He seems like a nice guy even when he’s shooting everyone as he is still trying to help John. Deciding not to destroy humans anymore was also a pivotal part of his character development. This film was also where he got his famous sayings and iconic weapons like the Mini Gun. (I love that weapon in just about every shooter. It’s just so good!) He was definitely the best character in the film.

Now, I know that many people consider Ripley Scott to essentially be the ultimate female protagonist of her time. She was tough and knew how to fight. Alien did come out before the Terminator films so it’s a valid reputation although I was never very impressed by her. That being said, I’d say that Sarah is much more impressive than Ripley and especially in the first part of the film as she breaks out from the Asylum and helps the Terminator fight against the new one. (I’ll just call him the T-1000 from here on out) She did start to lose some of her edge in the second half as she panics when trying to destroy Skynet and the dreams overtake her, but by and large, she was a very impressive hero. Not backing down from the T-1000 shows just why I consider her to be in the top 3 female movie protagonists. (Humans only and only counting her depiction from this film. Let’s ignore what happened in the first film)

There are a few dogs around like last time and they manage to stay uninjured. I wanted to quickly reassure all of you that the film didn’t make the big mistake of including animal violence. That would have been quite sad. Unfortunately, John is a very unlikable character and easily one of the worst in the film. Just about every scene where he has a “tough” moment is sad. He is in the rebelling phase and he actually steals money from people to use at the arcade. He’s certainly no hero and I can see why the Resistance is getting blasted by the Terminators. The film tries to push the argument that the humans will win and the Terminators are scared, but I can’t picture the humans winning. They simply don’t have what it takes at this point.

As for the T-1000, he’s a good villain. He starts to show some mild emotion at the very end like when he shakes his finger at Sarah, but for the most part he is not very emotional. His liquid metal abilities make him quite the threat and it’s safe to say that The Terminator doesn’t stand much of a chance against him in a fist fight. The original Terminator does seem to physically be stronger than the T-1000 though and he was winning in pure fisticuffs until the T-1000 started to use his Liquid Abilities. With them, he is very hard to destroy and his regeneration is also impressive. He made for a very good villain and it’s going to be tough for the future films to top him.

The soundtrack is excellent and I would expect nothing less from the Terminator series. As much as I enjoyed the music in the first film, this one managed to top it. A lot of the themes are very epic and make you feel the intensity of the scene. The iconic main theme is also very pronounced here and I can see why it is still remembered today. A good soundtrack really makes all the difference in a film and Terminator 2 certainly did a good job with it.

One of the things that holds the film back a little is still the fact that it can be pretty violent at times. Thanks to me seeing the edited version, it wasn’t too bad. Usually, the screen would cut away when a character got stabbed so while you can tell how the character was destroyed, it’s not brought to the screen’s view too often although you can usually see the corpse in the background as a quiet shock moment. Naturally, the film could have certainly trimmed the violence down without affecting the story and the film could have easily been PG-13 level if they really tried although I’m not sure if the rating was around back then.

There was one scene that nearly made me take away a star though. To show that the Asylum is not a safe place, we get a scene where the guy in charge of guarding the prisoners is actually a psycho himself. The scene literally has no point to it and it just serves to show us that there are always shady characters around. It was still a pretty distasteful scene though and nearly brought the film down. Had it gone any further than what was shown, I certainly would have had to cripple the score a little more. Luckily, it never went that far.

I did actually feel bad for the two guys who tried to help John when they thought that the Terminator was about to attack him. They came to help only to get some broken bones out of the ordeal when John thought that it would be funny to inflict a little pain. Once again, John proved that he was definitely not a very heroic protagonist and someone that you couldn’t root for. I can only hope that he is better in Terminator 3.

The best scene in the film is probably when the Terminator meets up with the T-1000 in the Asylum as the heroes finally manage to find Sarah. That’s where the film really got interesting and the death race got going. That’s the kind of moment that I hope to see in Batman vs Superman or in the Infinity War. Two big characters finally meeting up and the other characters as witnesses. That scene will definitely be remembered as a classic.

Overall, Terminator 2 was a worthy successor to the first film. It’s really going to be tough to top this installment as we had a great villain and good heroes in Sarah and the Terminator. John was a really bad character, but at least he wasn’t too integral to the plot so it was easy to ignore him. The sci-fi elements are always fun to watch and the opening scene with the future really showed off just what the series could do with a big budget. I definitely want to see more of the future soon since that plot looks super interesting. In Florida, they had a ride where a great part of the movie inside took place in the future. Something like that would make for a great film. There may be a few plot points that I found iffy, but you can safely jot it down to the time travel aspect. I definitely recommend this if you saw the first Terminator film and if you’re looking for an intense time travel film, this is what you’re looking for.

Overall 7/10

The Terminator Review

Posted on June 7, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

All right, it’s time to take a look at one of the cinematic legends! The Terminator is a film that many people grew up with and it has quite the reputation. I’ve now seen most if not all of the great film classics like Jaws, Alien, and Twister. Most of the iconic legends were fun to watch, but still crumpled when it came down to the overall rating. Whether it was through animal violence, excessive violence, or just an unimpressive climax, they couldn’t match up to today’s films like Avengers, Man of Steel, and Tron. I’m happy to say that The Terminator was more fun than most if not all of the other classics. Twister gives it a decent fight. The Terminator still makes enough mistakes to keep me from giving it a truly solid rating, but I can see why this title is a classic.

Sarah was living her life as usual when things suddenly changed. A mysterious cyborg from the future was sent to destroy her so that the human resistance in the future would never come to be. The humans sent back one of their own to her time and his name is Kyle ~~Rayner~~ Reese. He has to destroy the cyborg and keep Sarah safe, but that will be tough since The Terminator is just about invincible. Destroying him will take a lot of guts and determination. Sarah is also not helping matters since she doesn’t trust Kyle and goes to the Police. Can the cops help out or will they add to the body count!?

Let’s start off with the positives of the film. I have always loved time travel as the main focus. There are so many things that you can do with it so long as you head to the future or the future comes to the present. As long as you completely disregard the past, then I’m all set. We’ve seen great time travel adventures in shows like DBZ and Justice League in the past. Just about every big franchise has dealt with this plot and Terminator was probably the first to really popularize this. The concept of a machine coming to destroy you from the future is a good one. It’s hard to say who had handled it the best, but I’m tempted to say that Sonic The Hedgehog 2006 did.

The film also had a really fun soundtrack. This was during the time when it was okay to add quick techno themes to films in theaters. The battle themes are a lot of fun and the beats are catchy. Nowadays, it’s a little harder to picture a big film doing that, but some gems are still hidden among the others like with the Tron film. Having a nice soundtrack definitely helps to rise this film even higher among the classic titles.

I was also pleasantly surprised to see some more glimpses of the future after the initial scenes in the film. The blasters were fun to watch and the humans were managing to hold their own. Personally, I don’t think that they stand a chance against the powerful forces of Skynet, but it was still fun to watch. The future was definitely a grim place and it reminds us why robots shouldn’t be given too much power too quickly.

Finally, the film is just very interesting. There’s a constant sense of danger as Sarah runs away from the Terminator and the backdrops hold up fairly well. Something is always happening and the action rarely lets up to give you a breather. Unfortunately, that’s when things tend to get a little dicey, but the film’s tempo was another one of its strong points. Once you stop moving, it’s game over.

For time travel, there are many different theories on how it would work and I tend to like them all except for the one which claims that you can never alter the future. DC tried that in the Booster Gold comics and I definitely disagreed with that. As long as you can go to the past, you can certainly alter it. Whether you experience the changes in real time or not (Like in DBZ, where it just affects another timeline) you will still have changed things. This series is essentially using a closed loop system. The instant that The Terminator and Kyle went in the time portal, everything began to happen infinitely. Everyone would keep on doing the same things over and over again. The future would always go on and the past would always happen time and time again. It’s fun to wrap your head around that and it sort of starts the Chicken and Egg story.

Time for the negatives. Well, let’s start off with Kyle and his relationship with Sarah. Only in the movies will a character be running from deadly machines and the notion of time travel take time to quickly have a baby before doing some more running. Kyle and Sarah getting together did not make any sense and the whole thing happened way too quickly. They only knew each other for like a day and they were still willing to go all the way like that. Kyle claims that he loved her ever since he saw a picture of her and that also proves that he’s very shallow and just liked her for her looks. Possibly her reputation, but falling in love with someone because of a picture is pretty bad. Kyle ended up being my least favorite character in the film.

It was cool that he had a similar voice to Silver (Sonic) and Trunks (DBZ) but that was really his best quality. He was quick to threaten Sarah and he was constantly panicking when he showed up. It was pretty funny to see him take the conversation with the cops so seriously when they were clearly making fun of him. I guess that there is less time for sarcasm in the future eh? Kyle means well as he tries to save the future, but he should have stayed in the friend zone.

As for Sarah, she’s a decent lead. Of course, she also panics a lot and does allow herself to be with Kyle. So, I wouldn’t say that she’s a great character, but she’s not too bad and she does keep the dog in the end. That was a good move on her part and it does lead into one of the big positives of the film. I also enjoyed the police officers as they did a pretty good job of securing the perimeter. Did you think that the Terminator would scare these guys? Not a chance! The chief had it all figured out and he had about 30 men at his disposal for the fight. The officers were outgunned, but they had a lot of the best moments in the film. You can’t forget how one of them took pokes at Kyle’s story and showed why it could make a good novel..or film.

One of the big positives that I noticed in the film was a distinct aversion to animal violence. Just about all films nowadays could learn a thing or two from this one. At one point, The Terminator comes face to face with a dog and decides not to shoot him. That one moment had more depth than the entirety of the Jurassic Park trilogy and the writing was stellar. I feel like the film could have won an Oscar for that moment alone. There were several other dogs who appeared in the film and all of them lived. Even the two police dogs who went up against the Terminator came away from the battle unscathed. I was quite worried during those moments and I was mentally jotting notes on it. It’s safe to say that a scene of animal violence would have certainly pushed the overall score into the red.

Naturally, this film was originally in the mature rating so the film is excessively violent at different points. The scene where the Terminator shows his true eye is particularly gruesome and he impales quite a few people for the lolz. As far as the violence goes, it could have certainly been worse or better. It’s still a little more than there should be so I added it to this section. Again, due to the rating, it’s to be expected and it’s why most of the legendary films never get to have a great rating. Compare these to something like The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and that film will almost always have the edge as it had an incredible fight scene with many epic things happening. The film dragged on a little though and still had its issues as well.

It also needs to be mentioned that there is an abundance of plot hax in this film. Again…it’s to be expected since the film is about humans trying to fight a super powered cyborg. They never stood a chance of defeating such a villain. So, I could name a few scenes in particular, but you get the jist of it. Terminator missing gunshots at point blank range many, many times. The army not coming to help the town (Welll….a bit of a nitpick there) and others. Mainly, it’s just the Terminator not destroying Sarah parts since he really had a chance to do so in just about every scene. His intelligence also seemed to greatly vary as he would make plans in one scene and just seem to walk around aimlessly in others.

As for the actual Terminator, he made for a good villain. Robots/Cyborgs are great when they’re played straight. The fact that he has no emotions is what makes him a very intriguing villain and he did a good job of hunting the heroes. He doesn’t have his iconic shotgun yet, but I mostly know him from the latter films. Seeing him as the antagonist was definitely interesting and I actually forgot that he used to be the bad guy. I’m just too used to him being the hero at this point.

As you can see, the film had many good and bad points. I’d say that they roughly cancel out into a decent film. Decent sounds more positive than negative and you can make that case. On a technical level though, the negatives were numerous enough to slow the film down. The film was still fun to watch though and I’d say that it’s similar to Alien. An engaging plot even though the score was certainly doomed at times. Terminator is a big step up from Alien and I still to consider it to be one of the best classics.

Overall, Terminator was a very interesting sci-fi film and handled the time travel aspect well. I’m not sure if I’m crazy about the loop, but I suppose that it was inevitable as soon as we found out why Sarah was being targeted. How will the sequels work? Well, in the future, Skynet will likely just put their next plan to work and that’s how things will get started. I’m definitely hyped for the sequel and the Terminator is definitely a fun franchise. I became a fan of it through the games so it’s nice to see what they were based off of. As far as the concepts go, the only classic film to really be about on par with this one is Men in Black, which was pretty incredible. I definitely recommend checking this film out if you’re a big Sci-Fi fan and know what you’re getting yourself into. The film can be a little intense, but you are likely aware of that. Take away the scene with Kyle and Sarah and I’m confident that the score would have been higher and more like what you would have expected for a review of this title. It’s neat that the film did so well with critics across the board and it was definitely something new and innovative for the time that still works well today. That’s why I’m hoping that the new film coming out soon ends up being really good. I’ll be checking out the sequel soon so definitely keep your eyes open for that!

Overall 5/10

	Anonymous on The Alain vs Leon fight should…
	Anonymous on The Alain vs Leon fight should…
	Anonymous on One Hundred and One Dalmatians…
	dreager1 on Godzilla vs Water Horse
	dreager1 on Goku vs Blackfire
	dreager1 on Sniper Review

DReager1.com

The Ultimate Fighting/Review Site

Category Archives: Live Action Movie Reviews

The Swarm Review

Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life Review

The Village Review

Death Takes a Holiday Review

True Lies Review

Terminator Salvation Review

Terminator 3 Rise of The Machines Review

Jurassic World Review

Terminator 2: Judgment Day Review

The Terminator Review

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: