Category Archives: Live Action Movie Reviews

Bill & Ted Face the Music Review

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It’s time for the next Bill & Ted movie to jump in. That being said, I would have to say that it is the weakest one in the series. The main mistake if you ask me is that it doesn’t focus on Bill & Ted enough and they are still the best characters in the film. The subplot of their daughters running around assembling a team feels a lot weaker in comparison. The film will still have a good amount of funny moments to keep you going but you do feel like it is just missing something that the first two had.

The movie starts with Bill and Ted in a bit of a jam. They have not been able to create the legendary song that will stop the universe from blowing up and now they only have a few hours left. They figure their only chance is to travel to the future where their future selves have already created the song and then steal it from them. It’s a pretty clever plan that might just work. While they’re gone, Billie and Thea decide to help out as well. So they go across time to grab the best musicians from across the multiverse so when Bill and Ted find the song, they will have the best people playing it. The only thing standing in their way is Dennis, a Terminator type robot from the future who is doing his best to try and destroy them. A single blast is all it would take so they need to try and stay one step ahead of him or it’s all over.

Now the films have always been more on the comedic side and lean on being as absurd as possible but the first two films did still have more of a sense of danger about them. For example we already had evil doppelganger androids on the prowl. They were actually kind of serious and did effectively take out the main duo. Dennis is a major step down because the guy has big confidence issues and always doubts himself. Sure he can fight and use the lasers but he’s not proud about that. He would rather not be in the limelight and so he spends the whole film doing a lot of whining. He’s got to be the most annoying character here.

Then I would say Kelly isn’t a great replacement for Rufus. She tries to help the heroes out and spends most of the film using the “I told you so!” approach but she doesn’t have his charisma. In general she just doesn’t feel quite as on top of things. She is younger so that makes sense to an extent but you’re already seeing how all of the angles are just a bit weaker than the first two films. This continues with Billie and Thea.

So in theory these two characters exist to futureproof the series. They could take over the reigns if Bill and Ted get too old or the movies have a hard time getting the actors back. The problem is that they are so heavily introduced as being just like Bill and Ted that they don’t have much going for them. Their banter and dynamic certainly doesn’t match the original’s and right now I don’t see them being able to do much fighting when necessary. They are overshadowed in all of their scenes and so far just aren’t all that funny.

So once again it’s up to Bill and Ted to carry the film. To their credit they do a really good job of that. The Bill and Ted scenes are still a lot of fun as they mess everything up and are always confused. It’s always extreme but you never feel bored. For example when they are in the counseling session and trying to make things right with their wives. They suggest some solutions and do so with absolute confidence which you love to see. It’s obvious that they’re going up the wrong tree but it’s all about the confidence in their delivery.

The movie is just at its best when it’s about these two messing around and isn’t trying to get serious or emotional. The few serious scenes we do get can’t quite compete. For example the climax of finally playing the big song doesn’t work all that effectively. Perhaps it’s just played too directly without any kind of subversion but either way I’d have done a few more gags instead.

The music in general is okay but nothing all that exciting. The best piece of music in the film is likely the electric guitar that the main characters play once in a while. The actual songs got a bit too experimental this time so they weren’t all that catchy or anything like that. It’s easy to see why nobody likes their music in universe. They just don’t sound all that great or really know how to get a steady beat going. There wasn’t much for the legendary musicians to do either. They show up to help but their music doesn’t sound incredible either because they aren’t given much to play.

In the end the film should have really leaned into Bill and Ted having one last adventure. They can absolutely hold their own film and have already done so in the past. Mix in the fun time travelling and unique method to solve it and you have a lot of fun elements here. With more time for this subplot we could have seen them explore more of these alternate futures a bit more. It would be a win all the way through and likely enough to jump it up a star or two. A comedy film is only as good as the amount of humor it’s got in store after all and this one just wasn’t as consistently funny as it needed to be.

Overall, Bill and Ted may have its moments here and there but for the most part it really is just a big step down from the first two titles. Any scene you enjoy here has likely already been done but in a more impressive fashion in the first two films. This one is trying to juggle a little too much and as a result that means it has to really delegate the screen time between all of the characters. I’m not surprised that everyone turned on the main duo but you’d think the council would have been keeping in contact with them a bit sooner so this wasn’t a surprise at the end. Considering that the end of the universe is at stake you’d think they would be doing everything possible in order to help out. I guess that wasn’t to be though. In the end the film’s pretty harmless fun so it’s an easy one to recommend if you want something to check out but it could have been a whole lot better.

Overall 5/10

Side Street Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 6/10

The Black Scorpion Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 6/10

Commando Review

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

Commando is one of those classic thrillers where the main character takes names and blasts everybody. It’s not trying to really be much more than that and yet everything is executed at a consistently high level. The plot is also very different from what you would expect going in and it really nailed this subversion. Seriously the main character actually did feel like a top tier pro and handled things the right way. This is absolutely the guy you want covering your back when the going gets tough.

The movie starts off with a string of murders and it turns out that they were all ex teammates of Matrix. Matrix has retired a while back and is trying to live a normal life taking care of his daughter. So he doesn’t want to get back into the game but the option is taken out of his hands when his home is attacked. He fights off most of the invaders but they still kidnap his daughter so Matrix is told he will have to go murder the president of a different country to get his daughter back. Matrix agrees and comes up with a clever plan. Basically the villains have 3 different cushions here to prevent betrayal. They have two guys walking with Matrix to the airport. One will ride in the plane with him while a second watches the plane take off. If the boss doesn’t hear from both of them then the daughter dies. So Matrix waits until the plane takes off and murders the guy in the plane, then he jumps off. He now has until the plane lands to rescue his daughter.

I love this for a bunch of reasons. The first is that there really isn’t much point in completing the mission because it’s clear that his daughter would be murdered regardless. These villains aren’t the kind that have any kind of honor code and so their word is completely worthless. The toughest part of course is figuring out a way around this setup which actually isn’t easy. I’ll give the villains a lot of credit there, it’s a fairly foolproof plan that would have succeeded if not for a good degree of luck on Matrix’s side. If the second villain had stayed watching the plane for another minute then this plan wouldn’t have worked. Additionally it counts on murdering the first thug without anyone noticing.

The second reason I like this mission is it’s a very clever way of having a thriller movie with a very strict time limit right from the start. It adds a little extra tension without a doubt and in general makes the film a bit more serious. I still wouldn’t call it dark or anything but it adds an edge where otherwise you’d just be grinning the whole time. Both sides know that the villains are not bluffing about bumping off his daughter after all so Matrix is really against the clock here.

Now granted, I do think Matrix’s plan was a bit roundabout. For example when he assumes control of a girl’s car and tells her to follow one of the villains…why not take that villain out earlier? Just beat him up and I’m positive he would give away the location of his boss or the meeting place real quick. That villain seemed as whiny as they come and would have generally low resistance to any kind of threats that Matrix would make. I feel like there just wasn’t a great reason for all of this running around with the guy especially since it ended up leading to a whole lot of wasted time that he would have liked to have in the end.

Matrix is still a great character though. I can’t demand perfection at every turn after all since he’s in a super stressful situation where things keep on changing. He takes a lot of opponents down and proves himself to be an excellent fighter both in hand to hand combat and with a firearm. The way he handled the first villain sitting on a chair who was trying to set up the blackmailing arrangement was great. “That’s how the situation is right?” “Wrong!” That’s not the exact wording but yeah it was great. The only main mistake I’d say was when Matrix got the civilian Cindy involved.

I didn’t think that whole part was necessary. The plan he gave her to basically seduce one of the villains to stall for time wasn’t a good one and it goes back to my earlier point how this roundabout strategy actually just wasted a lot of time. You can even see why Cindy sold him out because Matrix did seem like a villain from her POV. She just ended up being annoying because then she was quickly switching sides later on and hiding the facts. In general I didn’t like her but I will acknowledge that Matrix messed up during that whole bit.

As one of the main villains Bennett makes for an imposing guy. The cracks in his confidence show early but what I like is that he is at least on Matrix’s level. The guy can fight and actually fight rather well. He’s not like one of those villains who’s all bluster and no action. So I give him credit there and the personal connection between them made the animosity even more intense. I’ll take him over Arius as the more interesting villain any day. I’ll actually remember this guy after all.

The whole climax is a lot of fun as Matrix goes in blasting and really takes a lot of names. Of course there is definitely a whole lot of plot armor here, perhaps even more than you would be expecting. That said, it’s still just a lot of fun seeing him take out the equivalent of a whole army. He’s not taking any prisoners here which makes a whole lot of sense both based on his occupation and of course the stakes of trying to save his daughter. There’s no time to hold back and if anything it would probably place his own life in jeopardy if he was to try.

There was also a really good song that played near the end of the film. I’ll need to try and find it at some point because it really fit in well with the scene and was a very solid action film. I felt like the film really went in hard on all the technical aspects. The writing was great with a lot of really witty one liners as well. The pacing was on point and the character cast was solid. There’s a lot of replay value here and it’s the kind of film you could easily watch multiple times just because of the sheer fun factor here. The film’s a bit cheesy and heavy handed but completely embraces this and just makes effective use of that tone.

Overall, Commando is a pretty fun action film that you could really watch many times. It’s just over the top enough to be super entertaining without going too far and just being like a parody. I definitely didn’t have any big complaints with it. It’s really one of those films where you can feel its age but in a good way. The music is really on point here, the fights have a lot of hype and the writing is really smart. It may be a film that in some ways doesn’t stand out as being some kind of unforgettable experience but at the same time you’ll be grinning the whole time. Just when you think you’ve seen most of the films like this one, now you’ve got another title to keep you busy. If you want a thriller that balances the serious tone with some light hearted moments then this is the one for you.

Overall 8/10

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter Review

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It’s time to take a look at one of the meanest spirited films you’ll see in a minute. I remember reading on Reddit how you can measure how mean/good spirited a film is based on the percentage of characters who end the film better or worse off than how they were when starting it. In this film all of the characters end off worse than they began so that is a pretty good indicator all around. Trust me you’ll want to skip this one and go take a walk instead.

The movie begins by introducing us to the main character John who is mute which is definitely not an easy condition to live with. Still he has done all right for himself and he is even trying to help out his friend who is mentally disabled and having a much tougher time of things. John even moves to a new town in order to stay close to the hospital where his friend will be observed and so he moves into a house with a family that’s going through some tough times of their own. Will he be able to solve all of their problems and get a nice existence for himself or is it all over for him?

One thing you will notice right away is that the film loves throwing in a lot of unnecessary subplots just to make John squirm a bit. For example it turns out that the town’s police force is corrupt and racist so they decide to violate human rights and basically do whatever they want inside the station. There’s really nothing that can even be done about it by the main characters. One doctor tries to protest and that doesn’t end up working. So ultimately this results in one of John’s friends losing his leg, the doctor having to be miserable for a decent portion of his last days, and his daughter hating him for a long while.

That didn’t go very well for John but there are other people for him to save right? Well you have the family he’s living with but the father is crippled and unable to get more work. Unfortunately there don’t appear to be any prospects there so things don’t work out. Then you have the mother who completely destroys her relationship with their daughter by not encouraging her in the school ventures and limiting her opportunities. The daughter ends up having a one night stand with someone she doesn’t even know just to spite her family and the situation that she’s in. It’s something you can’t really take back either so John wasn’t able to help these folks out. The film also makes it abundantly clear just how young she was here to add that extra edge and grit to the film to sink it even lower.

Things take a pretty dark turn for the friend that he came over here to help so that was pretty rough too. A new friend he made over in this town had started to turn things around but it all ended up going sideways on him after trying to stop a fight so he had to split town. Basically everything went wrong in the end and so John ended up losing all hope which ends with his plot going down a dark path as well. Basically the body count in this film is rather high all things considered and it’s a drama that doesn’t leave any room for hope in the end.

Part of why the film’s so bad is because there’s just nothing positive about it in the end. Each character just kept going through tragedy after tragedy until the film finally ended with every character being completely broken inside and out. I was even surprised about the final person who died because I was sure it was going to be a fake out. The film wouldn’t actually go there would it? Well, in the end it did and that was definitely not a good idea. The film would have still been really bad, don’t get me wrong. But it could have maybe at least avoided the flat 0 with a quality ending to leave things off on a good note. The film was just too determined to have the characters in a never ending cycle of suffering. Whenever you’d have a moment where something bad wasn’t happening, you just knew this meant the film was setting up the next tragedy.

At best the film does show you how tough some people have it in life and why you should always give others the benefit of the doubt. It’s why they say not to judge someone on your first encounter since they could be having a bad day or something like that. You just never know after all, these characters all would have been having some really bad days that’s for sure. From the 5 senses, losing my sight would probably be the scariest. It’s just tough not to be able to see anything but all 5 are known as critical parts of you for a reason. Losing any one of them immediately makes life a lot harder so I have a lot of respect for those who forge their paths ahead despite that. It’s also why a happier ending here would have also been a lot more satisfying.

Overall, The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter is a movie definitely trying to convince you that at the end of the day you will not be able to help enough people. There will always be more problems and they will eventually consume you. It’s definitely a very sad way to look at things. Of course it is not possible to solve all problems which is why they say it’s best not to look at the news too much so you don’t get tragedy fatigue. Just solve the problems you can and keep moving forward. One first step to doing this is to completely skip this film. At all costs you do not want to check it out. Whether it’s the big tragedies that happen in the film or the little ones like spoiling a party and losing all of your friends in one shot, this movie loves to pile onto the main characters.

Overall 0/10

The Concorde … Airport ’79 Review

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It’s time for the last of the Airport movies! Honestly it’s really not bad but I can see why it’s considered to be the weakest one. Not only did the film allow its name to be changed to Airport ’80 when it was aired abroad but I don’t think it takes itself as seriously as the first three. Not to say that it’s a full comedy or anything but there are scenes that don’t benefit the plot in any way like the affair with the reporter and it actually gets a little repetitive with the plane being attacked. Some good ideas here but the execution was not on point.

The film starts off with a huge conspiracy as a group of villains led by Kevin want to destroy an airplane. No it’s not because he got left at home all alone but for monetary reasons. Reporter Maggie finds out a scoop about his shady dealings…well find is a strong word. A guy literally ran into her house to let her know before he was shot dead. Kevin sweet talks her out of saying anything so he can give her his side of the story. Once she goes on the plane he decides to blow it up. What he didn’t count on was Patroni being the pilot this time. This airplane is supersonic and Patroni has supersonic piloting skills so when you put the two of them together like that good things are sure to follow. Kevin knows that if Maggie lands safely it is all over, can his missiles really bring down the plane??

Okay so first lets go with the positives here. I would say the film is about even with positives and negatives though so the sections are similar. I do like how we get two climaxes of sorts. Now granted, the second one feels a bit repetitive so I would have liked them to shake it up a little bit. I appreciate them trying to get a lot of action in there but you could change it up a bit. Also having a plane dodge missiles was a good way to show how this was a supersonic plane and not nearly as slow or weak as the usual ones. We got to see exactly what Patroni could do in combat and it was very impressive.

In general Patroni is a big positive here. You may be wondering a bit how he became such a hotshot pilot to the point where he is pulling all of this off. I guess his days of being a mechanic and then the back-end CEO are over. Now he’s a fighter pilot but that helps add to the fun of it all so I’m cool with it. He’s easily the best character in the movie and you want to give your star as much screentime as possible. Trust me that is always the best advice you could give a film.

On the flip side, we do have a very pointless romance here. There’s an athlete trying to win at the Olympics and so a reporter has a quick affair with her. The whole scene in the hot springs is definitely absurd. Cmon now she’s trying to get ready for an event coming up and apparently hasn’t seen this reporter in a while. They’re going to get that “friendly” that quickly? Noooo the scene was completely pointless and even by the end there’s just not much here. I guess it was just to give the passengers more to do but I would have cut that part out.

In general this also might be the weakest group of passengers that we’ve gotten. None of them are particularly likable or that memorable. You have the guy with his kid trying to have fun on the plane but they have no character. There’s the old lady always running to the bathroom and then you’ve got the rest of the crew basically just hanging out. At least in the film with the saboteurs we had traitors on board and a fairly intense pilot. There was a lot more happening there. This plane may be filled to the limit but it sure felt empty at times.

Now the conspiracy plot was fun but there are a lot of plot holes here. The obvious one of course is that this guy is rich enough with a ton of resources to have hired gunmen try to murder the reporter initially but then…he does nothing? Sure sending the rockets at the plane is all good but he should have just sent another gunman to her home or had someone snipe her on the way to the airport. He was way too complacent the whole time which really held him back. Also when she landed of course he should have had a backup plan to take her out instead of waiting to get the plane again.

She made it clear several times that she was going to destroy him and the company with the truth of his evil deeds so he had all day to do something about it. Now I don’t want to undersell his efforts. Of course he did plant bombs and use missiles of course which reasonably should have worked rather well but ultimately he just didn’t do a whole lot considering the high stakes of what it would meant if he let her loose. I also think Maggie was super lucky the whole time because technically she handled this poorly.

She committed all of the “don’ts” of being a reporter. She let the villain know that she was the only one who knew the truth and even gave him an exact timetable of when she would tell the world. Right up to the end with the TV crew she keeps mentioning that she’s going to break a story but not what the story actually was. So that still gave him even more time to finish her off. When you know a dark truth about someone who is a confirmed mass murderer then you need to keep things close to the vest. Seriously that’s an absolute necessity in this kind of thing.

So I would say there are some issues with that plot but the thing is, it’s still the best plot in the film. I wish they would have doubled down on that a bit. Imagine a whole chase scene in the airport like Mission Impossible? That would have been great and what would have made it double effective is how it would have the title actually be representative of the film for once. The action would actually be happening at the airport. I know that may sound crazy since you’re used to these films not having much to do with it but that’s why it would work.

Overall, Airport 4 is okay at best. It squanders the most interesting plot involving the conspiracy and I would argue it doesn’t make a lot of sense in general. I liked the attempts to make things more explosive and there was some promise with Patroni but ultimately this film just couldn’t execute at the level that it needed to. I would suggest watching the earlier films instead of this one. You should be reasonably entertained while watching this one but there just really isn’t much of a reason to do so. In a lot of ways the film is mainly going through the motions as opposed to doing something all that unique and so it doesn’t stand out.

Overall 5/10

Baby Driver Review

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

I remember seeing a whole lot of promotion for this film back in the day when it was coming out. It really got to be quite the big deal back in the day and who doesn’t like a high speed car film right? now that I’ve seen it I can safely say that it is a solid title. It’s a pretty well rounded film with a solid cast of characters.

The movie starts by introducing us to Baby who is the best getaway driver out there. He doesn’t want to be living this life of crime but doesn’t really have a way out yet. Doc has some serious dirt on the guy and he’s a powerful mobster in general so if Baby crosses him then it’s lights out. At least Doc says Baby just needs to do one last job and then they’re square. Is that really the truth? Well, Baby can’t really risk that either way. His foster parent Joe isn’t happy about this life of crime but it’s hard for Baby to explain exactly what’s going on. Then he falls for a lady named Deborah while at a café. Baby is trying to move forward in his life but the past just keeps on catching up.

Baby makes for a fairly unique character as he’s always listening to music because he suffers from tinnitus. Definitely a really rough condition to have and one that can be hard to fix even in modern times. So listening to music helps him tune out the constant whistle at least. He’s got a ton of different pairs of glasses and Ipads at the ready and even makes mixtapes in his spare time. This all makes for a fairly compelling main character and I think most impressively is how he’s able to stay strong and not flinch when the other villains try to mess with him.

I also liked that he isn’t naïve about the whole thing. Sometimes you see the main guy being blackmailed to being a villain but is really slow on the uptake the whole time. That’s not the case with Baby, he’s always alert and always ready to make a move. His plans towards the end of the film were actually really solid, just the wrong thing kept happening at the wrong time. So he’s definitely a unique main character and worked well in the role.

I also enjoyed Doc as the main villain. He’s a fairly ruthless guy who definitely doesn’t take no as an answer from the other characters. He will make sure they get their money and are fairly compensated though. The guy is a full businessman, an evil one but he’s not crazy. So the guy has had a steady business as a result and just keeps it moving. Perhaps his last scenes felt a bit rushed in terms of character but I’ll just take the scene at face value for now and he just wasn’t all bad.

As the main heroine Deborah is a fun character as well. She tries to cheer up Baby when he seems down and generally seems like a nice person. She had the right attitude on the job and she was quick on the uptake when Baby walked in with the gang. Deborah really didn’t make any mistakes so I appreciated that and she didn’t just freeze when the villains show up. She grabs a pipe and actually hits one of them which was really key since it bought enough time for the heroes there.

Then for the other villains, I would say Bats was the highlight. He’s a very tough guy who has been around the block a lot of times before. Nothing bothers him and he is always ready for a fight. The guy can be a little too perceptive for his own good at times but nothing just gets past him. I enjoyed having him around and he’s the kind of villain you want on your side in a heist. You don’t want to be going against him or it’s not going to end well.

Finally we have Buddy and Darling who really love flaunting their relationship in front of everyone. Darling in particular seems to get a kick out of it since she’ll have Buddy murder anyone who takes a look at her. They make for a solid toxic duo on the villain roster and Buddy is definitely a really determined guy. At first he seems like one of the nicer ones on the villain squad but once you’re on his bad list then it’s over.

What helps put Baby Driver at a solid level here is that the characters are fun. I feel like I’ve seen a ton of films with the main guy helping some gangsters and they’re all super forgettable criminals. You finish the film and you just won’t remember these guys at all. In this film they all had full character personalities so you won’t be forgetting them any time soon. I’d say that’s a good credit to the movie.

While the soundtrack’s fairly well known here I would say it can be hit or miss. I wasn’t particularly impressed with many of the tunes here but it certainly did have a lot of them. Music is a good way to build intensity during the chase scenes so that is appreciated. The specific songs just weren’t all that great compared to what they could have been but they were all fast paced which is the main important part. I enjoyed all of the car scenes and there was a lot of effort put into them. The actual shooting battles were also on point. They felt like true gunfights with a lot of back and forth. The whole climax is very hectic in a good way.

Overall, Baby Driver is a pretty good movie. It lived up to the trailers and you don’t always know what’s going to happen next. The pacing is on point and the writing was solid too. It works really well as a stand alone film and covers everything that it needs to. I think a sequel to this could be fun too since there’s a lot of avenues you can go for it. Baby Driver isn’t trying to be super ambitious or anything like that, just a good film to pass the time by and that works out well. It is a lot of fun and you’ll finish the movie feeling satisfied. I’d definitely recommend checking it out.

Overall 7/10

Blade Runner 2049 Review

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

Uh oh, Blade Runner’s back! This series has to be one of the biggest missed opportunities in all of cinema. How do you mess up a future setting filled with androids that look like humans and corporate finally taking over the world? Well you do it by not exploring any of the fun aspects of this and instead dragging out every scene as long as possible. There are so many scenes that are just quiet as we get a lingering shot of the sky or the city. I know they want to show off the special effects but the plot grinds to a standstill way too often.

The story starts off decently enough as we see K enter a guy’s home and murder him. He’s basically an enforcer for corporate whose mission is to destroy old replicant versions. The ones that can no longer be trusted and are out of date. He’s very good at his job, in fact many would say that he is the best. The guy doesn’t fail and he never lets his emotions get the better of him. That being said, this next mission is a little different. He is tasked with murdering a replicant that was born from another which should be impossible since they aren’t fully human. Additionally K has mixed feelings about this because that could imply that this person has a soul. Can he go through with this mission or is it time to resist against the system?

Since there are more negatives than positives let me go through the good first. One of the villains is an android named Luv who actually makes for a very imposing villain. She’s a strong fighter and is quite ruthless. Her emotionless demeanor holds for most of the film although she does not like to have competition so she has a personal vendetta against K which appears later on. She gets sloppy towards the end but was otherwise a very intense killing machine that fits in with this Terminator kind of future.

In general the fights could also be good. At times not as good as possible when it just resorts to who can hold a choke hold the longest, but when there’s an actual fight then it can be enjoyable. For example there’s one scene where K’s ship is downed by a group of rebels and instead of meekly falling to the ground like most protagonists he just breaks the first guy and starts shooting. As I always say, if you’re likely going to be murdered anyway, at least go down with a fight!

The other positive I can say is there are some nice visuals here. The shots of the city actually do look nice and you could appreciate them more if they weren’t so dragged out. Likewise there are some good bits of dialogue and the idea of deciding what line you won’t cross as a contracted killer is always an interesting one. More so when you aren’t even sure if you can truly defy your programming.

The main problem with the film is in the execution. I’ve already talked about how everything is super dragged out and I’d say it’s because this movie has enough plot to probably fill 30 minutes easily and then you have a lot of fluff here. I believe the reason is that the film was trying to pack in a lot of lore and world building so you can understand what kind of world this is but that’s just not needed. You already understand it pretty well from the opening scene as well as the intro explaining what is happening.

Blade Runner also relies quite a bit on fanservice throughout the film in the most random of scenes. We see the process of creating an android which is shown in the most disturbing way possible while still keeping in fanservice. It’s to show you that Wallace is completely insane and one of those guys who lost all of his morality a long time ago. We could have basically guessed that though without that super long scene. Seriously that scene was really long and you can just tell us he’s evil without having such a long moment about it. This came in fairly early into the film to really make sure things didn’t get off on the right foot.

I would have probably just cut him out of the film entirely to be honest. You don’t need a specific main villain for this kind of film. A board of directors or something would work just as well and they still send Luv out to take K down once and for all before finishing the mission. They’re looking at this as cold hard calculated facts so you don’t even need an over the top evil villain at all. If anything it oversimplifies things by giving you a concrete main villain instead of reminding you that the whole society is crazy by this point.

Then you have the romance of sorts with K and the holographic figure known as Joi. Now how much you buy into this romance will depend on just how real you think Joi is. It’s established that even this deep into the future the robots don’t have souls yet which is why the situation of an android kid is such a big deal. At the same time, is he really hurting anyone by falling in love with a program? Even in real life you’re seeing that and well..it’s definitely something. I don’t think the plotline itself is awful but the romance is very cringe and drawn out the whole time.

I could definitely do without all those scenes. If you’re going to go through with the A.I. fantasy then I think giving her more of a solid personality beyond just being his love interest would certainly help. She literally does feel like she was just created to suit his needs which is basically what happened so without more depth then that’s it. She does obviously care about him and wants to help but it’s all programming.

This doesn’t do K any favors either since it makes him look really desperate. He was also a full villain for most of the film as he carries out his orders without thinking about the morality of it. You can understand this based on his origin but the whole time you’re still waiting for him to turn good and it sure takes a while. The only character who acts like a hero from the jump is Deckard and it takes him way longer to appear than I thought. He was a fairly big deal in the promotions and everything since people were looking forward to seeing him. I think he would have personally worked a lot better in this film as the lead compared to K. K’s great for the fight scenes but it’s not like he’s a great character either.

If the film could focus more instead of going for all the shock value then I think you could have a lot of promise here. The film just gets really gritty at times like with Wallace’s first scene and then it drags on a lot during others. So what you have here is a lot of time not really spent on advancing the story. If you want to make this a slow boil event then you need to really focus on the philosophical aspect more like K wondering if he’s a real person or not. Having to wonder if you’re an organic life form or fully robotic is an interesting angle and of course the whole conversation about having a soul.

These plots are all handled better in other mediums though. Also, as was one of my complaints in the first film, the movie doesn’t make the most of the Sci-Fi backdrop. Sure we do get more this time like flying cars and sci-fi projectors but a good portion of the film takes place in old locations like a small hotel, inside the compound, or abandoned forest areas. The main guy has a basic gun and a flying car but we’re still not seeing as much as you would expect from 2049. In movie-land I should say. In the real world I don’t think things are going to particularly look all that different 20 years from now.

Overall, Blade Runner 2049 serves as a warning bell for when robots take over the Earth and wipe us out. That said, you can see this message much more effectively by watching the Terminator films or the CGI Blame! film. Those titles are way more direct about it and also balance the action and warning tones a lot better. This one’s just way too drawn out to have an effective message and is focused on the wrong things. I couldn’t possibly imagine re watching this one and the negative moments severely overpower the positive stuff. That’s really the movie’s biggest problem. Perhaps the third film can change things but I have my doubts.

Overall 1/10

Die, Monster, Die! Review

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This movie definitely doesn’t feel like the average horror title and I’d say that shows how Lovecraft handles things a bit differently in general. This is more of a slow burn with a lot of solid atmosphere and suspicious things going around. There is a violent visual or two but for the most part this film isn’t going for a lot of violence or anything like that. I think it could have stood out a bit more with a more engaging plot and cast of characters but it’s a decent title.

The movie starts off with a guy named Stephen looking for his girlfriend’s house but whenever he mentions the name of the place people refuse to talk to him. Nobody will give him the time of day at all and it’s starting to tick him off. Finally he finds the place and her father Nahum insists that he leave. Stephen will do no such thing and gladly meets up with Susan anyway. She introduces him to her mother who seems nice enough and now Stephen can stay to have a good time. But will it be a safe time? He hears weird sounds in the night, Nahum continues to be really shady and in general the place feels like its got a rotten edge to it.

If I was Stephen I’d probably just ask Susan to come with me and get out of there right away. The longer you stay at this place the worse it gets but once you’re thrown into the mystery it’s hard to leave at that point. What is Nahum hiding? Until Stephen figures that out then he knows Susan will probably be in danger. So one way to escape danger is to leave. He seems like a reasonably tough guy too and wasn’t taking the town’s nonsense. You need to be a bit stubborn like that if you want to succeed when going to a new town for the first time. I was also glad that he was not intimidated by Nahum and intended to say from the start. Now, it’s clear that Nahum cares about his daughter but at the same time he’s just not really doing much to protect her at all.

That’s my main problem with Nahum. He is so passive about the whole thing. Sure he tells Stephen to stay away but on his own what is he really doing? It’s not until the very climax of the film that he makes the obvious call to deal with the threat and by then it’s a bit late. Lets just say that there’s some radiation involved and Nahum did the equivalent of throwing the source in a box. That was never going to go very far and in the meantime casualties were piling up.

I guess you could chalk some of this up to the film going for a vibe of being very strange but it wasn’t the most satisfying execution. I’d also say that Susan seemed really slow on the uptake since she didn’t really seem to know what was going on and Nahum wasn’t being very subtle about how shady he was. Seriously the locked rooms, “You can’t go in there” and other lines didn’t set off any alarm bells? The whole place even looked spooky during the daytime which is a massive red flag.

As always the townsfolk were really not helpful in the slightest though. They could have at least given Stephen a hint as to why they wouldn’t talk to him or help the guy get to the house. Instead it was the same vague warnings of not saying anything so I can’t give the town any credit at all. Having them do something could have given this film the bolt of energy that it needed.

Because at the end of the day I wouldn’t say the film made any big mistakes. If anything my only real problem with it was that it could be a bit dull at times. I wouldn’t say this film was a real page turner. You didn’t care much about the lore as it was happening and this wasn’t a film that was going to suddenly start throwing in a lot of fight scenes or plot twists after all. So in that case you need top tier writing or something to really give the film energy.

The writing is good. I may not say amazing but it’s got that retro feel that I always enjoy and so that part’s okay enough. It just needed more though, whether it be a fun antagonist or something like that. Maybe the problem is that for all the build up of the odd mystery within the dungeon, it wasn’t as exciting as I expected. The film did surprise me since I hadn’t guessed what the actual twist was going to be, but eh it wasn’t enough. So I wouldn’t say the movie’s bad or anything but it wasn’t very solid either. I’d end up putting it right in the middle.

Overall, The movie’s title is a lot more colorful and intense than the actual movie itself. You’d expect a monster running around and some kind of crazy climax but that isn’t the case at all. There is sort of a “monster” running around if you really stretch the term and of course there is a climax but it’s just not what you would really be expecting. It’s not a frenzy of action and if anything you just feel bad for the victims who happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. When you finish this film it will quickly be smothered by the more popular horror titles and you’ll be lucky to remember more than bits and pieces within a year. If you’re a big fan of Lovecraft works then you should check it out but I expect most of the other titles will be more memorable. The suspense is what’s supposed to sell you after all and I’m confident that more of them would be able to pull this off. This one just couldn’t get the vibe right.

Overall 5/10

Lifeboat Review

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Overall 6/10