Category Archives: Live Action Movie Reviews

And Then There Were None Review

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It’s time to look at a really retro film. This title came out almost 10 years before the original Godzilla, which shows that it has certainly seen a long film history. You’ll be reminded of Clue almost instantly as the film begins. Little did I realize that this one would even beat Clue (Granted that it’s been a while since I saw that film) and this could be one of the best mystery thrillers that I’ve ever seen! It certainly surpassed my expectations.

The film opens with quite a few different characters entering a mysterious house. They have all been called here under various pretenses, but then they start to figure out that something is a wrong. A voice emanates from the shadows and accuses them all of various crimes involving murder. They were never brought to justice for their past deeds so the host has decided that it is his job to prosecute the characters. Can the 10 criminals trust each other long enough to come up with a plan or are they simply going to die until the title of the film rings true!?

The premise is a good one although it can be difficult to execute it properly. If this film had come out 50 years later, I’m sure that the director would have made this more of a modern slasher film where everyone dies in the diciest ways possible. Luckily, this was the 40’s. Back when everyone had constraint and the film is actually very tame considering the fact that the body count is quite high. All of the violence is off screen and their fates were all rather simple and direct. The film knew that the best way to go about this was to be direct and to the point. It worked like a charm!

As I always say, one of the best things about mystery films is trying to figure out who the culprit is. Likewise, the best thing in a slasher film is trying to figure out who’s going to live if you think that anyone will survive the experience. Needless to say, I tried to do both here. I was right about the character who lived through this, but I was wrong about who the culprit was. Ah well, 1/2 isn’t all that bad when you think about it. No worries, there are no cop outs here although one scene will have you questioning it quite a bit. I find it a little hard to believe personally. The crossed out section quickly mentions the scene and while I tried to make it spoiler free, you should still skip that paragraph until you watch the film. Since this is a mystery film, such potential spoilers are more important to mention than usual.

The scene in question involves a possible injury. It’s hard to elaborate on that without spoiling the film, but do you think you could tell if someone was shot or not if you had a clear view of the supposed bullet hole? It’s safe to say that you would be able to discern such a thing with ease. It’s actually tougher on the viewer than the character because you could just assume that the special effects were not up to snuff so it is hard to tell if the character is injured or not. It is a valid excuse for a movie watcher, but not for the characters inside of the film. There is no way that they would not be able to tell the difference.

That was just a small critique though. The film probably couldn’t think of a better way to go about this so that was still a mostly acceptable way of handling it. Trust me, it could have been much less believable! The atmosphere is very cloudy and mysterious, which suits the film. It is definitely a title that would be much different if it had been in color. I’m hesitant to say that any film is better in black and white, but it certainly worked for me here. For a mystery, black and white just seems to make sense.

Naturally, the most important factor for this film was going to be the cast of characters. You need a likable bunch or else you’re going to start rooting for the villain. After all, two wrongs don’t make a right, but the heroes have gotten away with murder…haven’t they? the ending does a good job of stopping this actually as the ending addresses everything, which makes the film happier than it might have been otherwise. Let’s just say that the crooks don’t necessarily get away with anything, but things are more complicated than they appear on the surface.

Of course, it’s also the kind of film where you don’t tend to remember any of the names after watching it. You will be able to recall how the characters looked and acted, but the names simply weren’t unique enough to recall. That’s all right though since the characters are the important part. The team is made up of 10 fugitives and then we’ve got the butler and his assistant. I’ll try to quickly give you a rundown of them so you can decide who is shady and who isn’t.

The butler is…the butler. What else can you say about this guy and why you should suspect him? He serves the food and knows the mansion better than the rest of the characters. The assistant doesn’t seem to like any of the other characters and she wants to get away from the mansion as soon as possible. Maybe she has a strong motive eh? We have the main character who seems like a really nice lady who is oblivious to the danger at first. Surely such a nice soul could not be the mastermind…right? An older lady is also present who loves knitting. She loves to voice aloud her agreement with Mr. Owens (The boss behind the shadows) in the fact that the fugitives (Minus herself) need to be punished with death. Maybe she is simply giving them a hint! There’s a crazy guy who loves singing and making the atmosphere morbid. He definitely seems suspect! There’s a judge of sorts who seems to be brilliant. He’s constantly making deductions and he is always able to make an airtight case against whoever is allegedly guilty at the moment. Maybe he’s turning the team against each other? A doctor is also in the house and he likes beer although he doesn’t admit to it. Is he trying to forget his wicked deeds before destroying the rest of the cast? You certainly can’t trust anyone who’s not being honest with the cast. We also can’t forget the guy who is always agreeing with the Judge. He is easily swayed by opinions and he’ll follow whoever seems to have the best idea. Perhaps he is saving his cunning mind for when he will truly need it! Finally, we’ve got the generic American, action hero. This guy’s cool, calm, and collected. He’s also armed with an illegal handgun that he is pretending to not possess. Hmmm….nothing shady about that eh? I believe that I named all of the main characters or at least I hope I did. If I left anyone out, it was just accidental misdirection…..

As I mentioned earlier, the ending is fairly satisfying with a little humor involved as well. For some context, my favorite character was the driver of the ship who was taking the 10 convicts to the private island. He was having fun with his sandwich and he certainly knew the score. Unlike the main characters who were fighting for their lives, the captain was just sleeping at home! He makes it back to the island for the ending and it is safe to say that he handled the situation quite well. The film ends there, but I have no doubt that he will be ready to take the win.

There are two elements to the plot that I did not mention earlier so I should quickly elaborate on them. For starters, the heroes cannot leave the island because the boat only comes on Mondays. Or, the next boat is on Monday. Either way, they have to survive 3 nights if they want to stay alive. Moreover, every character is dying according to a creepy poem that is in the house. The villain wants to stick to the script so that should at least give the heroes a heads up on what’s about to happen to them…if they heed the poem of course!

Overall, The film’s title allows you to quickly get yourself interested in what’s about to happen and the film executes the plot to perfection. There is little room for improvement here as the film really does a good job on all areas. The characters are interesting and the pacing is nice and quick. The ending is solid and the film was a slasher while still staying true to the mystery element. There are few films that I would recommend sooner from the 40’s than this one…if any. I highly recommend checking this film out and if you love a good mystery, it is safe to say that you will greatly enjoy this one!

Overall 8/10

Bunny Lake Is Missing Review

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It’s time to review one of the worst films of all time! At least, one of the worst films that I’ve seen anyway and this is a title that I highly recommend staying away from. It’s essentially a tragedy story with a lot of randomly bad elements thrown in to make the whole situation more tragic even though this is unnecessary. It results in a film that’s less fun than watching yourself lose a Super Smash Bros match 100x in a row.

Ann moves to a new place and decides to drop her daughter off at a local school as she heads home to get everything set up. Unfortunately, her daughter is missing when she gets back there and Ann wonders what could have happened. There is no proof to suggest that she even exists so the police are skeptical as well. Ann will have to find her daughter quickly if she is to get anyone to believe her and that could be tricky in such a big place.

All right, let’s start off with some of the big negatives and work our way down. The first big negative is Ann’s brother, Stephen. See, the film makes it so obvious that he is insane and villainous from some of his first scenes that you will likely have a good idea of who the villain is. Maybe a red herring? No, because you are not meant to suspect him. He’s very over the top in how much he wants to protect Ann and find the daughter, but you know that he’s evil from his actions. He was a terrible character and a really bad addition to the film, which severely hurt its chances from the get go. His final scenes are just even worse and a waste of time here.

The next big negative is that the film introduces another villain for no real reason. The land lord is another criminal who just wants to seduce the people around him and he’s also insane. Again, there’s literally no reason to add him except to give us red herring who’s pure evil. Red Herrings are supposed to be subtle and not just thrown around for the audience to be tricked. The audience is much more clever for that and won’t fall for such tactics. The land lord does nothing but drag the film down even more.

Just to stress how dangerous the daughter’s situation is, the film has background characters make unnecessary comments about it like how they ended up finding another child who had gone missing a while back. These extra details are there to make the film darker and more tragic, but they just make you want to turn off the TV that much sooner. We get that the daughter is missing, but we want the film’s focus to be on finding her, not in explaining why this is so bad. Common sense tells us why she is in danger.

The film is just very distasteful in almost every scene and it’s really hard to watch. The writers wanted this tragedy to be as dark as they could, but what they forgot is that tragedies are automatically dark so you don’t need to keep on throwing in extra details at us. It’s like making an emotional film where you try to throw as many sad events at the main character as you can to make us sympathize with him/her. After a while, it’s simply overkill and makes the film a burden to watch.

These films also rely on some plot hax to keep going like how Bunny was actually abducted from the school. It’s hard to believe that someone could just walk in and grab her. Or that nobody would notice her being taken for that matter. It’s just very dicey, but to be expected as the plot had to happen somehow right? At least the policeman in charge of the operation tried a lot of different tactics to find her, but he seemed to be trying to be too clever for his own good. He was constantly metaphorically stroking his mustache as he kept on exposing Stephen in logical errors of the brother’s story, but he wouldn’t do anything about it. It all seemed like a game to him as he would learn more and more about the case, but not actually do anything. You also know from the start that the police won’t be able to do much so it’s hard to even have any suspense for that plot.

Then, the tragedy elements are focused on for just about the whole film so there’s no time for anything else. The film’s opening 5-10 minutes were decent as Ann punched her way through the crowds (Not literally) and tried to find her daughter, but that’s because the daughter wasn’t actually missing yet. She was, but they didn’t know that so the atmosphere was still calm. It was enjoyable to see the retro school life and Ann definitely had a strong personality. From there, the film just kept trying to hit you in the emotions far too often to be effective.

The climax of the film is probably one of the worst parts of the film. It goes on for way too long and I doubt that many people were watching this film so that they could see a psychotic episode. It just kept on going and going and you would just be waiting for the film to end already. It felt very long from the start all the way to the finish line. This film could easily be compared to Sucker Punch, which is another 0 star film. Both of them are incredibly dark and not enjoyable to watch. Sucker Punch has some action scenes at least, but has darker plot lines so they both end up being relatively equivalent.

Overall, This is the kind of film that you should never watch even if someone paid you too. It’s simply not worth exposing yourself to this title and you should just try to forget it as soon as possible. The terrible characters mixed with the bad climax and unrelenting unnecessary additions just end up transforming what could have been an almost decent film into a legendarily bad one. If you want a film that is fun to watch with plenty of excitement and laughs, just check out Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time. That film is essentially the opposite of this one in just about every way. It has likable characters, a good plot, and an epic climax. If you’re going to watch any film, it should definitely be that one!

Overall 0/10

Planet of the Apes (2001) Review

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Well, looks like it’s time to check out another one of the Ape films. I can’t say that I went in with high hopes after the first batch, but this is a reboot. With new directors comes new opportunities right? This one was a solid improvement over the last few as it managed to work on most of my big problems with it. That being said, it’s guaranteed to make you sleepy once you start watching it.

Captain Leo is at his space station when the commander decides to send a chimp into space. Leo protests this, but the commander won’t listen. The chimp doesn’t know how to use the controls so it slowly starts to fade away into the silence of space. Leo won’t allow that to happen so he hops into a pod and chases the little guy. Both of them fall into a portal, which leads to the far future. Apes have enslaved humanity and they now rule the world. Can Leo lead the resistance away from the apes or are they all going to die?

The plot is fairly similar to the first film, but with some improvements. For starters, Captain Leo is actually a likable character. He went after his monkey, which was the hero move and he was pretty cool about it. Unfortunately, he quickly starts to lose his edge once he is stranded on the foreign planet. Good things can’t last forever I suppose. He does stay defiant all the way through to the end though. He may not have been quite as tough as he was in the opening, but he is dealing with meta powerful apes so he has to be careful about how he operates. I dare the new films to think up a more likable character! I rarely mention actors, but it’s safe to say that the actor did a good job here.

Now, the main thing that you are likely wondering about is the animal violence right? After all, that’s what utterly destroyed all of the other Ape films. Well, you’ll be happy to know that it was significantly reduced from the other films. I dare say that this one has the least amount of it although I remember one of the old films being decent about it. Perhaps my memory has started to fade a little sooner than usual. It’s not completely eliminated though and you’ll also feel bad for the horses that are caught up in these petty wars. It’s a negative that is still around, but considering that this is a film about apes, Burton managed to take away as much of the animal violence as he could.

One part of the plot that felt a little like a plot hole were the cave dwellers. In the first few scenes, it seemed like the humans could not talk. They may not want the apes to know that they can talk, but there’s no way that they couldn’t utter a “Huwahhhhhh” or “Gwagggg” as they were being taken away. At least a “Help” at one point would have sufficed. No, they seemed to be totally mindless until they randomly started talking towards the end of the film. I’ll assume that this part simply wasn’t thought about very much as the writers just wanted to go through the plot already.

The ending is pretty epic. I love the concept although it could have been made even better. The film ending with Leo arriving on Earth where Birds have taken over the planet or something like that would have been cooler. As it stands, my take on the ending is that he’s in a parallel world. I don’t think he can be on the same Earth that he was in before because he is back in the past and yet things have not really changed. There’s no way that the past could have been altered from the future and the humans would have not lost so quickly and suddenly. It’s too bad that this didn’t get a sequel to surpass all my hopes and expectations…….or maybe it wasn’t.

One of the main problems from this film is that it will make you incredibly sleepy. As you’re watching the characters drone on and on about things that don’t ultimately matter, you will feel your eyes start to get a little heavy. As you try to keep yourself awake, you’ll slowly start to sink into the pillow that you have on the arm rest of your chair. Slowly, but surely, you will eventually fall asleep and only wake up as the film is ending. Such is the fate of all who eventually watch this film…in theory. It’s simply not very exciting at all and that really hurts how much you can actually enjoy it.

Also, you simply can’t save a bad concept no matter how good the execution is. Attack on Titan is an incredibly good example of this and I always love to use it. The anime played everything just about perfectly, but it still had to adapt the manga and that was the problem. No matter how likable they make Leo or how much they try to get rid of the animal violence, you simply can’t fix the film when it’s using this plot. There will always be some animal violence as long as the apes are the villains. There will always be the human enslavement plot that is not fun to watch because it’s part of the plot as well. That’s why the plot has always been known as a very important part to the film because it can destroy a film just as easily as it can make the title really cool.

Well, we’re getting a lot closer to the latest Apes film continuity, which is supposed to be the best yet. I have my doubts as the trailers did not look very good, but I suppose that you never know when a film will end up surprising you right? I’ll likely be seeing them soon or at some point in the future and then you can count on a review. We’ll see if it ends up topping this one or fading away.

Overall, Planet of The Apes really gave its all into making this film a success, but it simply didn’t work for me. I appreciate the effort though and the animal violence is noticeably reduced, but it’s simply not enough. Leo also had a great start as the main character and then he started to become more generic and less impressive. None of the apes are likable or interesting. You’ll really think that you’ve seen them before because they are all essentially cardboard cutouts of the original apes from the older films. We have the nice scientist/royalty member who wants to live in harmony with humans and her scared husband who is afraid for his life. Then there’s the main villain who wants to take control of the clan. Seriously, you’ve seen this all before so nothing is new on their side. There’s only so much that you can do with this plot after a while. If you want to see a film about creatures deciding to defeat humanity, I recommend watching Future Card Buddyfight 100. The monsters decide to take things into their own hands this time!

Overall 4/10

Witness for the Prosecution Review

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Looks like it’s time for a court room drama! I always liked that genre in a film as it is a lot of fun to see what goes on in the court room! There aren’t a whole lot of films that deal with this when you really think about it. This film came out a long time ago, which certainly raised the bar for it as I began to watch the film. Would it succeed or would I need to go make a sandwich for myself? Only time would tell!

The plot is that Leonard has been accused of murder. There is a lot of evidence against him so this seems like a done deal. He became acquainted with an older lady and then she mysteriously died. Leonard is now the first in line to inherit her vast fortune so this looks very suspicious. He goes to Wilfrid for help since Wilfrid is known as the best in the biz in this kind of work. Unfortunately, Wilfrid’s heart is weakening fast and his health is not what it used to be. He decides to take a gamble and accepts the case…even though it may be his last! Time is ticking and Wilfrid must find some way to prove his client’s innocence. This will likely be his most difficult challenge yet!

Wilfrid is a bit of a dicey character. He has his pros and his cons, but the cons ultimately win out. He’s the kind of guy who likes to insult and belittle people as often as he can. He is constantly rude to his nurse to the point of exaggeration that makes him rather hard to like. He simply goes too far in his threats. As sad as that may be, it also makes him a powerful force in the court room since nobody..not even the judge can intimidate him. Wilfrid sets the tone whenever he is in a room and he makes his presence clear. I didn’t like the character, but you can’t deny that Wilfrid is good at what he does. It’s no wonder why he never loses. Although, the circumstances here were a little deeper than they appeared to be on the surface.

The only area where I do feel bad for Wilfrid is in the health department. Because of his deteriorating health, he has to take constant shots, which would likely put anyone in a foul mood. The needles also look rather painful and this was before we got the pain relievers so you can imagine how sad this is. Luckily, Wilfrid still has some mild positives to keep his mind off of this. Like the chair that is installed into the wall. It’s cool that this concept still exists as I still see commercials of it all the time online. It would be pretty awesome to have around the apartment…even if I don’t have any stairs!

The court scenes are naturally the highlight of the film. The judge was legitamite and not a fake one so everything was played seriously. The opposing side did a good job of trying to prove that Leonard was guilty as well, which made the battle more interesting. The proceedings take up most of the film as they should, which helps the court case really feel intense. Wilfrid’s job would have been a lot easier if he had a better client, but at least he got to speak his peace.

Leonard certainly didn’t make things easy for Wilfrid though. He constantly panicked, yelled, and spoke out of turn. I was almost surprised that the judge didn’t kick him out at one point or just throw on some extra charged. “Contempt of court” or something like that right? Leonard isn’t a likable character naturally so you have to decide if you think he is guilty or innocent. After you make your decision, you are free to enjoy the case!

The writing is naturally very good here. There is a good amount of humor, but none of it is very obvious or annoying. It’s subtle things here and there that will make you smile. When one of the possible villains managed to defeat Wilfrid’s secret eye exam, you knew that things were definitely going to be tricky. Wilfrid’s whole personality can also be funny when he isn’t being too over the top. I still don’t like the lead, but he managed to have his moments.

The cast is very small here. Apart from Wilfrid and the client, we also have the client’s wife, a nurse, and Wilfrid’s partners. That’s just about it and it’s safe to say that Wilfrid’s partners appear to be out of their league right from the start. You could say that it’s all up to Wilfrid and without him Leonard probably wouldn’t have a chance. Trust me…Leonard is not used to talking to a judge in court! The small cast works though since that gives all of them a little more time for development. The partners may not be that useful, but they are still likable. The nurse also gives the whole situation her best and is a good character. The client’s wife appears to be rather devious and Wilfrid certainly doesn’t trust her.

I was fairly close to giving this film the ole 7, but something stopped me. The film went into flashback mode on more than one occasion and one of those times did take a star away. It was the origin of how Leonard met his wife. The flashback simply didn’t do the film any justice. We got a ton of romance scenes that didn’t do wonders for either of the characters and it also made the army joes look rather bad as well. This plot dragged on quite a bit and was the only part of the film where I can say that. It just goes to show that flashbacks aren’t always necessary..they rarely are.

The fate of the old lady is also sad. Luckily, it’s completely off screen, which is always preferable in these situations. Still, she seemed like such a nice person so it’s too bad that she got a bad roll of the dice. She was way too attracted to Leonard, but it’s possible that she just wanted someone to talk too. Either way, that’s why you need to have some hobbies so that you will have things to do when you’re older. After all, what’s the point of having unlimited free time if you don’t have any way to use it right?

As this is essentially a mystery film, get ready for some fakeouts and an ending that you may not see coming. I always like it when a film ends on such a note and the ending here is rather intense. It’s one of those, “Nothing matters anymore so I can do what I want” moments for one of the characters so things take a sudden spin. Where would we be without more endings like this right? That’s why they always say…it’s not over until it’s over!

Overall, This was a solid film. I definitely recommend it if you are interested in the law of like a good mystery. The writing is very good and the characters have strong personalities, which helps to keep you entertained throughout the film. You’ll want to really stay alert as you watch the movie to pick up as many tidbits as possible so that you can decide whether Leonard is innocent or guilty as the trial starts. I always find these films to be much more enjoyable if you try to guess the outcome first. At least, I’d say that this applies to all mysteries. You’ll also want to root for the nurse as she tries to keep Wilfrid away from the form of incoming death that is…the cigar!

Overall 6/10

2 Fast 2 Furious Review

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With Furious 7 out in theaters, it’s the perfect time to continue my journey through the series. I can’t say that I was impressed with the first one at all, but this looks like one of those series that gets better as you go along. In theory anyway. This one is certainly more fun than the first film, but it still falls into most of the holes that the first did, which prevents it from ultimately being a good film.

Brian has fallen from the good grace of the police for letting his target escape in the first film. He now has fun in underground racing so he has ironically become the very criminal that he used to hunt. The cops eventually show up with a job for him. He is to pose as a racer for a criminal mastermind so that he can help the cops get some evidence on him. Brian will need a partner and that’s where Roman comes into play. They’re going to need to drive hard and drive fast if they want to win this round!

All right, let’s talk about the improvements from the first film first. For one thing, the racing scene at the beginning totally destroys the scenes from the previous film. The cars were going very fast and the new nitro effects were a lot of fun to watch. The dark background of the night contrasted with the bright colors and made for a very explosive race. It was tough to beat..evidently too tough to be honest. The film could not even come close to matching that race for the rest of the film, but it was still a very epic way to start off the film.

The characters are also a lot more interesting than the ones from the previous film. The dynamic between Brian and Roman can be good at times. Brian is portrayed as an expert when it comes to this kind of operation. After all, he has been through this before back during his cop days. That being said, he starts to lose control of the mission whenever he sees a pretty face. That’s where Roman comes in. He may not be an old pro officially, but he knows how to fit in rather easily and probably does a better job of convincing the villains of their authenticity than Brian. He’s probably not as good a driver as Brian, but he’s good enough.

The film is typically a lot of fun, which is a shame that it fell into numerous holes. Where to start right? First of all, let’s go for the rat scene. Each of these films will probably try to have at least one big gangster moment to show us how evil the villains are. The first one had the scene where the villains forced someone to drink oil and this one has the villain pin a man down and watch as a rat starts to eat through his stomach. It’s a very gruesome scene to say the least. I prefer the classic “Held at gunpoint” trope as it shows that the villain is ready and the hero still knows that the guy is willing to pull the trigger.

Another aspect is still the underground/gangster feel that the films try to have. This results in a whole lot of unfortunate fanservice. The characters wear skimpy attire and are constantly making suggestive remarks. Roman and Brian naturally take part in these shenanigans as well, which is sad. What happened to professionalism? I fear that it died with James Bond and Captain Kirk taking office. It almost goes without saying that we also get language issues and birdies as well. The film should stick away from those things. It’s a writing issue and it’s one of the things that I’m hoping the films can change later on.

That may not seem like a lot of “holes” as I put it, but they are so frequent that there may as well be a dozen issues with it. The film simply can’t control itself. The main villain is also rather unlikable. He’s another guy who’s really just interested in getting rich and getting the girl. I would have preferred for him to have just been a good driver who wanted to get rich the quick way. He would still be a villain, but at least he would be someone that you could get hyped to fight.

The cops naturally look pretty bad as this is Brian’s show. A squad of around 20 cars can’t match up against two and they are constantly crashing. The FBI is fooled by the ole switcheroo tactic and they are also kept out of the loop a whole lot. You have to wonder why they always need to ask Brian for help during the beginning of these films, but the latter scenes show why they need him. On their own, they simply can’t stand up to the gangsters.

The final big scene where the heroes summon hundreds of cars is really the definition of plot hax. I really don’t buy that happening for a second. Getting everyone into the garage and into their cars while also allowing enough space for the heroes to fit in and get their car into the middle? That’s way too unpractical and elaborate to actually happen. It’s worse than the heroes constantly betting hundreds of dollars against each other every day. There must be a gold mine around there that we don’t know about.

I still have a problem with such large areas not being covered by the police as well. With their fancy satellites and FBI guys on the case, you would think that underground racing would really be a thing of the past at this rate. Of course, that probably won’t be the case as long as Brian is on the case. After all, he loves a good underground race apparently.

I was pleasantly surprised by one of the detectives making the right call at one point. After being threatened with the rat, he still managed to assemble the cops to have one last clash. I hope that he got his family to safety first so that he could really focus on this issue. It’s still too bad that the cops weren’t more organized, but at least the detective did the right thing. Hopefully he can live safe and sound now.

My main piece of advice for the series would certainly be to include more race scenes. We only got to proper races and one was just a back and forth route so it wasn’t a true race. Car action scenes are okay, but they’re not even close to being as epic as a race. A real race gets your heat pumping and you become ready for more. If the whole film had been epic races like the intro, it could have bumped it up a star. 1 star may not sound like a lot, but it’s something. Improving the races is simply one element to add to the whole. If it can get everything right, soon it could be one of the best racing franchises out there. (In movie world. F Zero and the famous Captain Falcon own the streets otherwise)

Overall, This film was better than the first one. It’s slowly becoming more of a respectable franchise, but it is really slow going. As soon as it gets rid of the suggestive themes and bad writing, the films will begin to rise up rather quickly. As it stands, none of the characters are actually likable. Brian and Roman are charismatic characters and they certainly have personality, but they’re way too into women, which distracts them from their moral compass as well as their job. I look forward to the FBI appearing to hire the heroes once again. I’m not sure when I’ll be seeing the next film, but eventually I’ll be onto the current one. Then we’ll see if it manages to live up to the hype or if the series has not changed quite as much as I hoped.

Overall 3/10

The Poseidon Adventure Review

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It’s been a while since I checked out a disaster film so it’s time to see what happens when a ship comes face to face with a large tidal wave. It’s safe to say that this is a battle where only one side can win and it’s likely not going to be the boat! The film had a pretty good set up, but unfortunately relied a little too heavily on the tragedy elements, which ended up hurting it in the long run.

A lot of characters are enjoying themselves on the boat. As this film has a large cast, we get around 6 or more perspectives from the ship and none of them suspect that this will not be a simple voyage. The ship is ordered to go full speed ahead to meet a deadline and that’s when the Captain notices the large wave coming in. He orders everyone to hold on as the ship flips over entirely. Now that the boat is upside down, the heroes are going to need to head up to the bottom of the ship to escape. Can they really survive against the waves for long or will they all be picked off one by one? With a Detective and a Reverend leading the way, the gang may have the skills needed to survive!

For disaster films, I always like the intros a lot because we get to meet all of the characters. They typically have interesting plots going for themselves and that happens here as well. I don’t think I would say that the characters are likable during the intro, but interesting nonetheless. I was a little sad when the captain got hit by the wave during the beginning because he was certainly one of the more enjoyable characters. Ah well, you do have to expect a high body count here considering that the cast really thins out by the end.

It’s a bit of a double edged blade though because then the characters shouldn’t be made too likable before they end up going overboard. The film remembers this for one character as she insults the other members of the cast several times before the ending. That being said, a few good characters also don’t make it. One of them simply works too hard during the ending and it was a sad way to go. The character did a great job before she perished, but it was a low blow for the film. She didn’t drown, which is good, but a death is still a death.

The film really wanted to show how sad this was so it kept on focusing on the issue. We got to see the husband get torn up over this and are reminded that they were going to visit their grandchild. So, the tragedy elements were certainly there a whole lot. We are used to characters dying, even likable ones. However, the focus should be on the heroic deeds that they have just accomplished and not on how sad things will be as a result. Look at the deaths of Goku, Sonic, etc. The death is sudden and then brushed to the side after a few moments. That brisk way of moving forward would have done wonders for this film. It also would have helped if the film simply didn’t have any kids or seniors. It’s safe to say that it’s a lot easier to just watch teens and adults be defeated by nature than the former categories. It simply isn’t fun to put a senior or a kid in such a dangerous situation. Likewise with adding any animals of course. Now that would be a tragedy!
The main lead is Frank, a pastor who tries to debunk some Christian beliefs as he helps the heroes. He states that God does not care about people on an individual level as he is simply too busy. If you want to survive, then it’s on you to do so. He says to pray to the part of God that is in you as you strive for victory. God not caring about each individual is certainly false and hopefully he didn’t lead anyone down the wrong path. Frank was selling the people an odd package and hopefully they didn’t buy into it.

Apart from that, he still managed to be a fun lead. He is right that you should still try to get out of a problem instead of staying still and hoping for the best. This attitude gets him far and helps to motivate his team. His back and forth debates with Mike also give the film an extra boost. I was always on Frank’s side as Mike was a little unreasonable most of the time. Still, it is always good to have someone who will question your decisions.

Mike was apparently a good detective back in his day. As a result, he has a very individual personality that makes him reluctant to just take orders from Frank without a little back talk. When push comes to shove, Mike still does make the right decisions. He can just be rather annoying at times. He also blamed Frank for many of the deaths that occur in this film, which is a really low blow. Frank is the only reason that anyone survived this ordeal. If Mike had been in charge from the start, they’d be on the bottom of the ocean by now.

I do have to take away some props for the film with one of its subplots. One character was single when the film started and some of the other characters made it their business to try and help him find someone special. The guy even admits that he does want to be married. That’s pretty sad if you ask me. What happened to being proudly single? I get that Hollywood needs some romance in the world, but that character should have been left alone. The moral just makes the whole thing a little dicey if you ask me. It’s like the film is trying to say that you can’t stay single and we know that isn’t true. Am I reading into this too…deeply! (Ocean pun) Maybe, maybe not. Still, that plot didn’t add anything to the film. I could say the same for the detective’s wife. Why give her such an origin story if it will have nothing to do with the rest of the film? There is such a thing as unnecessary character development after all.
Overall, The Poseidon’s Adventure is a classic disaster film. It played up the tragedy angle a little too much for me to recommend this title, but you should like it if you really like the disaster formula. One by one, each character is picked off so it plays out like your average slasher or Resident Evil film, but instead of a monster attacking, it is simply nature. Disaster films sometimes do this aside from the normal ones so there should almost be a sub genre for it. Either way, you should not get attached to too many of the characters, but you can always have a competition with your fellow viewers to try and guess who dies first from the main characters. It’s the kind of game that I like to play within my head when I see one of these films. So, if this sounds like your cup of tea, then go for it. Otherwise, I recommend re watching the original Godzilla film.

Overall 4/10

Bridge To Terabithia Review

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Bridge To Terabithia is a Disney film that came out a while ago and yet it is probably still one of the more well known films based off of a book from the company. Disney needs to adapt more of them to give us a break from the usual Hunger Games titles. That being said, the ending of this film does severely hurt it, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves. It should be noted that I attempt not to mention the actual ending directly, but it will become pretty obvious as I talk about it. So for spoiler purposes, I recommend not checking out this film until you see the movie..and I don’t really recommend checking the movie out because of the ending so it’s one of those cycles…

The main character of the film is named Jesse and his life isn’t very fun at the moment. The kids at school bully him and his parents seem very distant or downright inhospitable at times. The only character who actually likes him is his little sister and he’s not typically around for her. Jesse is the kind of kid who gets bullied a lot because he typically just takes it. Unfortunately, dishing it back out could also get him expelled. Things look up when a girl moves into town. It should be noted that Jesse’s hobby is running and he was the fastest kid in the class. Not anymore! The girl easily crushes him in the race and tries to be friends.

Jesse naturally feels salty (“Salty” meaning that a person is upset, irritated, or sulky because they have just been humiliated in a sport or battle) about this and doesn’t want to be friends with her for a while. Eventually he cracks. It’s not hard to choose to be friends with the nicest character in the film after all. Her name is Leslie and she suggests that they hang out at a club house so that they can get away from the outside world. She loves to imagine things and gets Jesse to play with her. It’s rough going at first since Jesse forgot to stretch his imagination before he left home, but he gets the hang of it. What can go wrong now?

That’s the plot in a nutshell. The film tries to make Jesse’s life before Leslie arrives as dark as possible. He likes drawing and running, but those two hobbies can’t last for very long in a day so he’s typically bored. His older sisters are typically pretty mean to him while his younger one has higher values than the others. His dad is willing to destroy animal creatures so that he can make some money and he’s a very unreasonable character. The mom simply isn’t around very often.

The contrast is very clear once Leslie is introduced to the mix. Her family is pretty awesome and reminds me of mine. They all hang out together, paint, have snacks, and it’s all merry. The folks even allow Leslie to keep the dog that Jesse gave her even though they had no warning beforehand. That’s pretty understanding right? It really makes you feel bad about Jesse. It should be noted that the bullies also attempt to take on Leslie, but they grow bored a lot quicker so she gets to be left alone a lot after the initial encounters.

The film was going well…until the final event. That was pretty disappointing and a really bad way to end the film. It happens suddenly so at least you can’t say that you were really expecting it unless you followed the foreshadowing scenes. (Diving paper, tide rising abnormally high, rope seeming to be withered…etc) Needless to say, the twist may have been unexpected, but that doesn’t make it good. I would have much preferred a fake out, like the characters were simply tricking Jesse. It would have been a little out of character, but I could have handled that.

I give the film kudos for actually mentioning God and Heaven. The heroes have a discussion about it where the sister tells Leslie that you will go to hell if you don’t believe in God. Leslie denies this and she’s pretty young so it can probably be odd to hear back then, but the sister actually made valid points here. Does this mean that Leslie would hypothetically go to hell if everything ended that instant? You could say so, but I am inclined to say that it’s no guarantee.

Think about a situation where a baby or a toddler dies. They hadn’t truly made a decision to follow God or not since they were so young. God is omnipotent so he knows what they would have decided and I believe that this is how the system works. (Or the tip of the iceberg at least) So, there’s always a chance that Leslie would have accepted Christ into her life a little later on once she had really begun to think about it. Our minds aren’t really developed until we’re in our later teens or early adulthood. I doubt that many of us look at things the same way that we did when we were kids right?

It is still a pretty sad topic to think about though. After all, there are many “good” or nice people who will go to hell regardless of how moral they were during their lives. That’s because morality will never be enough to get you to Heaven. The only way there is through Jesus Christ. If you don’t accept him into your heart, no amount of good works will save you from going to hell. That’s why it’s always so important to preach the gospel and get people to really think about it so that they can hopefully see the truth. There’s no guarantee that Leslie would have eventually become a Christian, but at least Jesse’s household is a Christian one. Since she had started going to church with him on Sundays, there’s always the chance that she would have started to believe. Sometimes, all it takes is one really good sermon to make everything click. Also, since this is a film, I can just choose to believe that she would have accepted the Lord into her heart so the ending is a lot happier than it was.

Now, how old do you have to be to die and just go to hell if you didn’t accept Christ? That’s hard to answer and I’m sure that it varies from person to person. It’s generally accepted that babies and toddlers wouldn’t be sent to hell as they couldn’t comprehend the notion of Christianity at the time and I personally expect that the same would be true for all minors. After that, it’s anyone’s guess. Only God knows such things after all.

Back to the film. I still wasn’t crazy about the ending. Even with the happy ending that I thought up, it’s still really sad for everyone in the present. The film tries to end on a bright note by having Jesse continue his sister, but it just feels hollow. You won’t be able to feel good about that part because you’re still reeling from the ending. Bridge To Terabithia certainly did a good job of making sure that the ending is sad…but maybe it was too good. Sad scenes aren’t bad in question, but the sadder the scene, the more likely that I’m not going to like it. After all, we’re watching this for escapism right? Let’s keep the nitty gritty out of this.

I’ve been trying to think of what the “best” sad scene was. Something sad, yet not overdone too much so you can still enjoy the rest of what you were watching. I’m coming up with a blank here. Krillin’s death in DBZ comes to the mind as that is definitely near the top. Hinata’s fate against Pain, Nami’s loss to Arlong. There are many scenes that come to mind. The main similarity between them all is that the main hero gets into a rage after the scenes happen, which is impossible to do with a live action film. I feel like the rage helps to offset the sadness because then you really get angry at the villain alongside the hero and root for him to drastically win. That’s my view on the matter anyway.

As this film deals with the imagination a lot, the film decides to have fun with that. Mythical creatures attack at several points and imagination begins to meld with reality. This leads to some odd scenes where trees come alive and gremlins attack, but it’s all fake so you essentially take it with a grain of salt. The dog was really cool in these action scenes though and always got the better of the villains. He was and is a true hero.

Overall, Bridge To Terabithia is a fun film until the ending. Jesse saved an animal from crushing the film even more through animal violence and Leslie was a really good character. It’s safe to say that I wasn’t a fan of Jesse from start to finish. (He didn’t help his sister when a bully showed up and he constantly forgot how to imagine and made things tough for Leslie) Of course, Leslie being such a perfect (The film really tries to make her perfect and essentially succeeds since she has no negative qualities) character makes the ending even dicier. The supporting characters didn’t add much to the film and I’m sure that we’re all tired of watching bullies, but I suppose that they help for character development and all. It’s an entertaining film, but I’m afraid that the ending throws all of that out the window. So, I can’t recommend the film and you should watch Yugioh 3D Bonds Beyond Time instead. That film has some tragic moments like a city getting burnt and someone losing his dragon, but it never goes too far. It’s juuuuust right.

Overall 3/10

Green Zone Review

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Note that this review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be understood as belonging to this version of the film as a review of the uncut version would likely be more negative.
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Green Zone is a war film and that makes it a pretty unique one for me at the moment because I have not seen many of those. I probably haven’t even seen 5 at present. That being said, it is not a genre that I would expect to enjoy typically because of the very concept. War isn’t fun and it typically translates to some pretty gruesome stories. On the whole, this film handled the situation as well as it could.

Things are heating up in Iraq and it seems like they are harboring weapons of mass destruction. Roy and his team are tasked with retrieving them, but every site that they arrive at is empty. Something clearly isn’t adding up and Roy begins to realize that a darker plot is happening in the background. One way or the other, he plans to get to the bottom of it.

One of the main things that I didn’t like was how America did not look good. There is usually a corrupt politician in the films, but the film makes us look bad on many fronts. Our army is quick to believe the intel that it acquires even though it is proven to be false again and again. Surely, we have people who prevent this from happening. More than one person should be required for this in case we have a turncoat in our midsts. It is rather sad to see the U.S so confused.

One of the soldiers doesn’t even care why they are fighting and he just wants to get out of the war alive. Certainly not a noble sentiment. Really, the picture that is painted shows that the US is simply too big and there is corruption everywhere. We are not fighting the good fight and are using our power to bully those who are weaker than us. That’s just not the US that I remember and I prefer to see us look very heroic and composed.

As a side note, America also looks like it is lacking in intelligence aside from the falling for fake intel part. Why would we publish everything that we are doing to the Wall Street Journal? Seriously, we shouldn’t be publishing anything like that. At the most, we should just be posting false data. Transparency is all well and good, but not if it costs us the war. Sometimes you just need to trust the government. As long as all of the senators and governors are in the loop, we should be okay. We can still know basic data, but certainly not any specifics.

As I mentioned earlier, the film did well in how it handled the violence. The only real violent scene was likely the interrogation one. That was certainly hard to watch as we never like to see an officer abuse his power. The man in charge seemed to realize that the officer was dangerous, but did nothing about it. You end up feeling bad for the man since he was caught between two factions of what he thought was the same army.

Roy is a good main character. Unfortunately, there is not a whole lot that one man can do in a corrupt organization, but he performs to the best of his abilities. He does a good job of getting the last laugh with the ending even if it is a little bitter sweet. He exposed a lot of the wrong doings, but if won’t bring the people back and now the world knows that the US is very disjointed. Still, it is safe to say that he made the right call. At least there will be consequences for the villain now.

Freddy was the main supporting character and he was definitely not very good. His ending is meant to be hardcore as he shows us that we are sticking our noses where they don’t belong, but he just looks s little delusional instead. His country is going to have even more violence now and he panics a whole lot. There was also a reporter to be found here, but she didn’t really add anything to the film. She helps us piece some parts of the puzzle together, but it’s hard to trust her since she will be quick to release any news and I still think that it is a tactical error on our part.

This is the edited version of course, which helps the film out in a big way when it comes to the language part. There were several words that were aired out, which hints at a bad script. It is not much of an issue, but something to be ready for depending on how you see the film.

As for action scenes, we get a few of those, but only one fight scene. Roy looks decent in his fight scene at first, but then he gets trounced. He likely threw the fight, but it still didn’t do him any favors. It reminded me of a fight in the Karate Kid as the main character was beaten up on the beach. Perhaps Roy could have won if he tried, but now we shall never know.

Green Zone’s locale isn’t very interesting as it is very bare and there are no real buildings to be found. Naturally, this is unavoidable based on the plot, but it can still make you wish for something more glamorous. The film is interesting though and you will want to see how it all plays out. That’s always a good sign. The film was certainly a little better than I had expected it to be, but it was still not enough to get in the clear.

Overall, Green Zone had some of the typical negatives that are usually present in the war genre, but it also avoided some. The violence wasn’t as bad as it could have been and the war themes didn’t get too radical. I didn’t like how America was portrayed though and there is certainly not a happy ending to be found. If you like war films, then this is a very good bet for you. If you don’t want any grim reminders of war, then I recommend checking out LBX, the show instead. You will still have high stakes battles, but they will typically end on an epic note.

Overall 4/10

Stealth Review

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Time to review a film that’s a lot more fun. It still has its flaws to be sure, but Stealth excels in two areas to an extent that is almost unprecedented in live action world. That’s not bad eh? The poster looks pretty intense and it makes you wonder why more people didn’t see the film. It certainly could have used the extra cash so that it wouldn’t flop in the box office.

Ben, Kara, and Henry are the main characters. They’re the three best pilots that we’ve got and these guys don’t mess around! One day, their commander announces that they will be getting a new partner. The twist is that the partner isn’t actually alive and it’s just a sentient A.I. That was certainly pretty scary for the heroes and can they really get along with this thing. Even more important…can they trust it!?

First off, I have to say that the three main characters were not great. Henry seems to be sexist and you have to love how he quickly mentions the race card as one of his first lines. It’s very intriguing. Either way, any chance that he had of being a good character is quickly wiped out when he realize that he’s just interested in having affairs with as many people as possible. That’s a sure way to be an unlikable character. Ben isn’t much better. He’s also a womanizer who eventually starts to develop feelings for the heroine. It’s really unbelievable and it’ll just make you wince. It’s sad because he has some cool moments like when he almost attacks the drone and the ending, but it’s hard to ignore the traits that he had earlier. It was simply too late for him. It’s hard to see what Kara sees in Ben and she does realize that he’s a womanizer. There’s almost no way she can trust him emotionally. It’s better to just stay as comrades and not take the extra step sometimes.

Let’s quickly talk about some of the positives. The action scenes are some of the best in cinema. These are Matrix/Man of Steel type of action scenes. Everything moves by very quickly and I can honestly say that modern action films can still learn a thing or two here. Imagine how epic it would look if Iron Man vs Ultron looked like these scenes in Age of Ultron. The Jets are breaking the soundbarrier left and right and the scenes really get your blood pumping. I still think Man of Steel wins as far as action scenes go, but in terms of pure speed it’s actually close. That’s extremely impressive for Stealth and I could not get enough of the cool plane scenes. If the new Top Gun film coming out looks this impressive I’ll have gained a lot of respect for the plane fighting genre. Still, all movies need to take a look at this and apply it when necessary. At the very least, films like The Flash, Shazam, Ms. Marvel, and Superman should always look like this. Superman already pulled it off so now it’s time for the others to do so as well.

That was one big positive and now it’s time to look at the other one. This film has a dynamite 5 star soundtrack. It’s almost perfect and it’s easily a contender for best soundtrack of all time. The impressive part is that this film was able to reach those heights with lyrical songs. If you know me, you know that I tend to prefer instrumental because lyrical songs tend to be edgy at times or the lyrics are simply not engaging. Here, they only picked snippets from various songs so I can’t actually recommend the whole song, but the parts that were used (Minus the rap song) were very good. Ben actually gets a nifty action song when he appears in the jet and likewise for various fight scenes. As a nice change of pace, we also got a cool techno/stealth theme, which worked very well for the mysterious moments.

It’s certainly not every day that you get a film where the special effects are through the roof and accompanied with a great soundtrack. Man of Steel accomplished that, but the film is certainly legendary. The film also took the high road when it came to the animal violence issue. The dog ran away instead of getting shot and I can imagine that everyone in the theater stood up and cheered when this happened. It was simply an intense scene that was extremely epic and awesome.

All right, it’s time to look at the negatives. The romance is one of them for sure. We get some pretty sad scenes involving Ben and Henry as they flirt with various women. There’s no depth here and it’s all about physical attraction. The actual romance between Ben and Kara also isn’t handled well and I don’t see why it was included in the film. It was really only there to fill the quota that every film should have romance in it. That’s what Hollywood seems to believe at any rate and that’s pretty sad.

Stealth has a pretty boring moment where the heroes decide to head to an island for some R n R. They need the vacation at this point right? It’s really just an excuse for more romance and fanservice so it’s pretty sad. We really didn’t need a breather like that one. Some parts of the film also felt rather random like when some enemies took over a lab belonging to Mr. Orbit. Where did these guys come from and what do they want? It’s a good thing that Ben had his drone at the ready.

Speaking of which, the drone made for a great bad guy. He had an epic design and his strategic planning was intense. As a villain, he really knew what to do and how to keep things impersonal. He does have emotions unlike most A.I. which is also impressive. The whole film is basically on auto pilot so everything moves by very quickly. This is a good thing as the film gets to be more ambitious than usual. Typically, the A.I. will turn evil and the heroes will destroy it. What if, the A.I. turns evil, but then sees the error of its ways? It’s something that’s never really been done before and it’s nice to see this film take that approach. It may seem rather hollow since the A.I. destroyed around 1000 people with nuclear fallout though. I thought that part went by a little too smoothly. The people in that area certainly weren’t expecting to be dead so quickly. The drone ultimately tried to make up for this though and I think he really could have become a great hero for future films if he had stuck around.

I was also expecting Ben to try and avenge one of his comrades. (Who died in a pretty bad way. They told him to slam on the brakes, but he wouldn’t listen…at all. It was clear what the drone was trying to do and he simply didn’t listen) When he fired the missile, I thought it was game over, but Ben is just a forgiving kind of guy I suppose. He was against the drone idea from the start, but he seemed to warm up to the drone by the end. You could almost say that they became friends at that point. The drone does sound a little like Hal 9000, which is pretty cool. He also had character from the start and he adopted the name of “Tin Man” since the heroes kept calling him that.

The acting in this film could be rather bad at times like when the hero yelled at the drone not to make him repeat himself, but acting is an extremely low priority on what I’m looking for in a film so this isn’t too bad. If it’s something distracting or seriously messed up, then it’ll start to hurt the bottom line. One scene that was unintentionally funny was when the general called his politician. He made a crazy speech about what separates warriors from politicians and then he pulled the trigger. You can guess what he was essentially saying, but the scene just felt off. The general was probably insane by the end and he’s a villain to be sure, but it was still an odd end. The politician also got the shaft here as he barely got to appear.

One plot that was not quite as fun as the others was when Kara landed in North Korea. Naturally, there are still a lot of tensions between our two countries and it’s always satisfying to see the U.S. come out on top, but it was rather unnecessary. That bit of the plot really came out of nowhere. I have fun looking into how people predict World War III would play out and an unfortunately large group of people do believe that we would lose, but I’d invite them to watch this film. Perhaps this is how it would go. There’s practically a mini army after Kara and they still have a tough time trying to stop her. Imagine what a whole squad of U.S. troops could do. It’s sad that the government left her for lost there, but at least Ben manned up and went in to save the day.

This may not be a horror film, but there is a twist ending. I won’t say what it is, but let’s just say that it’s pretty intense and perfectly leads into a sequel. Unfortunately, we’ll likely never get a sequel. Ah well, at least the film got to go off with a bang. If it ever did get a sequel, I’d like to see the drone and Ben team up against aliens. That would make for a solid story and it would certainly be engaging for new viewers.

Overall, Stealth was a fun film. I definitely wish that the fanservice was gone and the romance wasn’t handled very well. Taking away those two features would have greatly helped the film. After all, the special effects were out of this world and the soundtrack was dynamite. That’s a winning combo for most films, but it’s one that is very hard to actually achieve. The pacing is also really good aside from the brief rest stop at Thailand. Everything just goes by really quickly, which allows the film to go through many plots and a lot of different action segments. We never got the fight between Ben and the drone that we wanted, but we came close in several scenes. The ring of fire that the drone made was cool and it was also neat to see him figure out how to attain fuel the hard way. I definitely recommend this film. You should be wary of the fanservice since it can be rather overwhelming, but once you get past that you are in for an action treat. I don’t think we’ll see any airplane film have better fights than this one for quite a while.

Overall 6/10

Heist Review

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Note that this review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be understood as belonging to this version of the film as a review of the uncut version would likely be more negative.
HEIST
Time to look at a Heist film, hence the title. This genre can be quite good as we saw in Ocean’s Eleven and I’m confident that the Ant-Man film coming up will be good or decent. Unfortunately, Heist doesn’t live up to its name and it takes the genre way too literally. It plays out like a classic crime film and you can barely even call it a heist by the end. Seriously…the heroes just don’t do anything for most of the film.

The main characters were part of a gang, but they decided to stop robbing stores when their leader was caught on camera as he attempted to escape. Unfortunately for Joe, another mobster wants him to do one more job. It’s not exactly a request and Joe has no money so he can’t escape otherwise. He’ll have to comply, but can he really suceed in this job when he also has to deal with a watchdog on his tail? Not a literal one, but the mobster’s son/nephew/some kind of relative is assigned to watch. Joe doesn’t like this one bit!

Joe may not like that, but it’s safe to say that I don’t like Joe. The film flopped for several reasons, but let’s get into the biggest one right away. The writing. This film has more language than the average horror film and it’s very in your face. The heroes will swear in just about every scene and Joe went on a roll at one point where he would curse in just about every sentence that he spoke. I always found that provocative language is just a sign of bad writing. The writers don’t know how to engage the audience in the scene so they just use course language to get everyone to pay attention. It’s a bold strategy, but one that it always doomed to fail.

The characters also reuse the same words over and over again. “It’s burned Joe” No, it’s not burnt Bob” It’s burnt…burrrrrrrrrnt!” They say the word, burn, and its other variations many times as the film goes on. You’ll eventually start wincing and wondering what’s going on here. No exaggeration, they probably say this at least 20-30 times. It gets old very quickly. The conversations go round and round and round. The film may have had some hope otherwise, but it’s almost literally impossible to be a good film when the writing is this lousy. A by product of this is that every character is instantly unlikable so it’s safe to say that their potential is out the window.

No worries, this film wasn’t about to just make one critical mistake. There’s also a degree of fanservice involved as Joe sends his wife to entice one of the villains. The very thought of Joe sending her off on such a mission already shows you more than a little about his true character. It’s a pretty cheap trick and the villains don’t really buy into it anyway. The scenes with her and the villain are rather unnecessary and the heroes could have tried to trick them in a better way.

Those are really my main two complaints with the film, but they sure deal a lot of damage. Another factor to add in is that the film simply isn’t interesting. There’s barely even a plot as it goes on. Joe will try to trick everyone and keep his money, but the villains won’t let him and that’s really all that happens. There is also a lot of the usual plot hax of course, like a police guard being defeated so easily and the cop actually believing what she heard in a bar. Naturally, these things will happen I suppose. Joe is also given an awful lot of time by himself to paint his hold and hide it in two trucks considering that the villains are on to him….

If I had to pick a character that was at least a little likable or close to it, I would pick Joe’s main assistant. He’s essentially the bouncer and since Joe isn’t the greatest fighter around, the guy protects him. He gets a pretty happy ending and he did good in the big fight scenes. It’s a little hard to imagine how he was able to stay underwater so long without an obvious air pipe sticking out, but we’ve already questioned the film’s writing so let’s not go there…

There are actually some fight scenes, but none of them are very good. They’re simply standard punches and kicks, which won’t be winning the film any brownie points. What it needs to do is look back and reflect on the many things that went wrong so that a potential reboot can be made better. For one thing, serious and heist don’t really go together. If the heist is played too seriously, then there’s a chance that the film will overcompensate by making all of the heroes really unlikable and evil.

We need some kind of plot twist to show that they’re stealing from someone who’s actually crooked. At least they try not to murder any civilians, but it’s only a small start. (That reminds me that it’s hard to believe that they could grab a job at the local coffee shop and drug everyone’s coffee….) Ocean’s Eleven was the perfect example of how to do the genre and this film should have taken some notes. The main characters in Ocean’s Eleven (Some of them anyway) were pretty likable villains. You still do need to call them villains since they are robbing the place, but they’re doing it in a professional manner. These guys lacked professionalism at every corner. Granted, you need good writing to pull off what Ocean’s Eleven did, but you could say the same for just about every film. There’s no real soundtrack so we’ll have to skip that section.

Now, let’s think of how the film could have realistically been improved. 1. Each of the characters is professional and the writing is on par with The Avengers GI Joe. 2. Get rid of the fanservice and the whole plot between the main villain’s relative and heroine. 3. Establish more of an actual plot. We need to know what they’re stealing and how they’re going to do it directly. Not in between all of the burnt comments. That’s not a lot of things, but it would have bumped up the score by at least 3-4 stars. That’s pretty good if you ask me.

Overall, Heist is terrible. It’s the kind of film where you’ll be counting down the minutes until it’s finally over. The ending has one of the main characters smirking, but you’ll be wondering why he’s smirking. One of his friends isn’t around anymore and his wife is gone. He got some money…but that’s hardly going to change things. If you want to see a good heist film, check out Ocean’s Eleven like I’ve been hinting or check out Dragon Ball Z, but be warned that it’s not actually related to the heist genre. Why did I recommend it? Simply because DBZ is pretty awesome. Now, we simply have to wait for the Ant Man film to see how it handles the slippery slope of being a heist film.

Overall 2/10