The Four Musketeers Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for more Musketeers action. I can’t say that I’ve been the biggest fan of this franchise and this film wouldn’t really change my mind. I know the main characters aren’t really heroes so I wouldn’t expect them to always be heroic but they really do the bare minimum in just about everything. I wouldn’t trust them with my groceries let alone my life. I’d say the main issue the film has is just that it can be a bit boring at times. It’s not funny enough to pull off the comedy aspect and the fight scenes aren’t good enough for the action part. What does that leave you with? Well I’m not really sure but not enough to make this a solid flick.

The film picks up immediately where the last one left off. The 3 Musketeers along with their recent addition in the main character and are minding their own business when the main heroine gets kidnapped. D’art meanwhile gets distracted by a new villainess who finds it really easy to seduce him. Basically any lady can accomplish this task though as her own maid gets him as well. The guy has serious commitment issues so unfortunately you can’t trust him at all. The guy is as sad and shallow as they come which is really unfortunate and by the end of the film he has not changed so seriously you don’t want this guy in your corner. He just isn’t that dude. Trust me on this and in a way it hurts the film by extension since you want to have a good lead.

Wait is that the plot? Well okay that’s not all of it. So there’s potentially a big war brewing and in part it’s due to all of the affairs going on and so the Musketeers may have to actually enter the war and cause trouble. They already spend most of their time beating up on their own country’s army though so are these allies that you actually want to have on your side? Something tells me that you would want them to stay far away instead. Both countries seem reasonably corrupt though and the war never gets all that interesting so you won’t really care much.

In a way that is the film’s biggest issue in a nutshell. It’s just extremely boring. You don’t care about any of the characters. In a lot of ways I would say the first film was actually more engaging since you at least had the young hero picking fights with everyone. He was still a rampant cheater so still no someone you could root for but at least there was a lot going on. In this one? Ehhhhhhhhh yeah it’s just not working for me. Seriously I would have to give it a firm thumbs down. The first film also had the interesting fake fight where the heroes were stealing food which was clever.

That said, we do get flashbacks to the first film so you’ll see it there anyway. As a slight positive, the fights can be decent at times when they appear. Mostly they are treated for laughs though so there isn’t a ton of great choreography here. The film is leaning more fully on humor and adventure after all so there just isn’t time for any of that. Okay I do think the cardinal at least makes for an interesting villain. As basically the highest ranking member in the country he can actually sign documents allowing you to do anything. You could straight up murder someone and he can immediately pardon you. It sure is nice to have that level of power right?

I like the verbal battles there. The Cardinal is always on the offensive and as you can probably guess he tends to completely destroy the other Musketeers in the arguments. At the end of the day he’s not a serious fighter or anything but I tend to like the old government villains to an extent. He is a full villain though with the desperate plans he uses to take down the heroes. They aren’t even morally dubious by the way, they’re just villain plans.

The romance in the film is naturally pretty awful with no real loyalty to speak of. Everyone is cheating the whole time so you definitely can’t trust any of them. It really was a tough world out there with everyone after you. Imagine if this film was about the Musketeers having to fend off wave after wave of enemy invaders? Actually have them jump into the war rather than goofing off and watching it from the sidelines. That would have been a massive improvement right away. I’m not surprised that it didn’t happen of course but the film had many moments where things could have turned epic if that’s what the film wanted to do.

Okay one last slight positive for the film. I’ll throw it a little bone here. The acid blade that the villainess used was pretty cool. The effects for it actually weren’t bad and I wouldn’t mind something similar in a modern film. You can see how deadly the acid is by how it melted the wall and that helps to make the fight with the main character a little more balanced since otherwise he should win easily. He’s not the best guy but he is still trained with a blade after all.

Overall, The Four Musketeers isn’t a particularly good film. It’s one that will have you shaking your head the whole time. It’s not like the negatives are super egregious or anything. Sure the film can be boring, the romance is bad, there’s quite a bit of fanservice and the characters are no good but the film isn’t super long and it’s not like there are any big animal violence moments or excessive violence in general. It’s a fairly safe film to check out but I just can’t recommend it because it should have been many times better. I think the world is ready for a good 3 Musketeers film at this point. It’s just got so much potential. I think you really need to play it straight with the action though. You could absolutely make it part comedy but that shouldn’t be done lightly and of course it has to actually be super funny or that will backfire. I think this is a film that just gets worse and worse in hindsight.

Overall 3/10

Escape Plan Review

Posted on by
Reply

This review is of the 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

It’s time for a thriller that’s pretty fun. Admittedly the whole setup to the main part of the film is extremely unbelievable but I suppose it can be tough to get the characters into position sometimes. I would have changed that but otherwise I didn’t have many issues here. I haven’t seen tons of prison break movies either so it felt fairly fresh.

The movie starts by introducing us to Ray who has a very interesting job. He allows himself to be arrested in order to test out a prison’s defenses and see if there are any weak points. Naturally this is all worked out with the prison in advance so he has a code word to get out of there safely and it’s a fairly controlled environment. Most don’t know that he’s a fake prisoner so the experience can be as authentic as possible. Well, the government has shown up with an offer to try his luck at breaking into one of the strongest max prisons ever. There are some shady parts to the deal though. They won’t allow the company to track Ray’s location and he can’t even know where it will be. Both of these conditions completely go against Ray’s rules so obviously he won’t take the job right?

Wellll…yeah he decides to do this anyway. So now nobody knows where he is and it turns out that this whole thing is a bit of a scam as his safe word doesn’t work and it seems like the wardens actually want to break him. Ray’s experience in breaking out of jails is his only hope now because this time he will have to break out for real. His only real ally here is Emil who wants to help but Ray doesn’t trust him. The guy’s trying just a little too hard to be helpful you know? Doesn’t really feel legit is what Ray’s thinking and I don’t blame him since I wouldn’t be trusting anyone at all. Still, it looks like they will need to team up to stand a chance here.

The film’s very interesting from the start which is absolutely crucial for a title like this. The world building is good and while there aren’t a ton of main characters, they are all very memorable. You’re not going to just forget about them after watching the film. I would also say the writing is pretty good. Naturally there is a bit of plot armor going on here for Ray and the others since the guards really could just go in and finish them at any time. The plans for escape often involve a lot of surveillance and scoping things out which only works because the villains take their eyes off of the monitor briefly. Things have to work out absolutely perfect for this to work out and you will probably have to suspend a little disbelief here.

The actual prison also stands out because of its unique architecture. This is definitely not looking like your average prison and that’s a good thing because as a maximum level one it should look a lot different. That’s the whole point after all. The heat room also seems like it would come really close to breaking a lot of inmates since you have to deal with bright lights as well. So now you can’t really sleep and are getting dehydrated. The guards really have every possible advantage here since they can also apply beatings whenever they want. There’s a whole montage where they just keep beating Ray up at all times of the day and there really isn’t much that he can do about it at all.

Ray is a good main character. I may deduct some points for going through with this crazy idea in the first place but at the end of the day he is good at what he does and that’s what gives the heroes a chance in the first place. Without him it really would have been curtains for everyone. Then you have Emil who is definitely a fun character. I would even say that he is the best one. He gets a ton of standout scenes and I like the way his character arc ends. In general the end of the film is very satisfying. This is a movie that absolutely sticks the landing.

The villains are a bit more on the generic side. I guess I won’t say who the mastermind is but I would say it’s not a twist that should surprise you. This guy seemed rather tricky right from the start and so that’s just how it goes. He’s okay but it’s not like he can fight. The main head of the guard loves beating up on people but ultimately that’s about it for his character. The villains don’t have a whole lot going for them but you will remember them because these roles are fairly critical to any prison breakout movie.

The film is surprisingly tame for the most part. Make no mistake there are violent moments that will happen during the adventure but they aren’t nearly as deadly or frequent as you may have expected to start this off. This is a good thing as the movie maintains a serious tone and a high level of tension without having to be all over the place. It’s not trying to be edgy or anything like that which is a really good idea. It lets you really get into the film and enjoy the detective work.

After all a big chunk of the film is planning out the escape. Learning the guards’ movements, doing some recon, etc. If the characters tried to jump into the escape without that then it really wouldn’t have worked. It is fair to say that the prison really was impossible to escape for any single prisoner because you needed teamwork and a whole lot of resources and specific situations in order to pull this off. You can’t really see anyone replicating this so in a way the prison doesn’t need any upgrades.

Overall, Escape Plan is an intense prison film that reminds you just how scary it can be. Sometimes you hear stories and figure that prison isn’t so bad…but make no mistake it can absolutely be a nightmare. Perhaps they aren’t all as intense as a max security setup but you can bet that most still are not a walk in the park or anything like that. This film is the type that will always be best the first time around as it’s a bit of a slow burn that gradually gets you to the end. You wonder who will make it and who wouldn’t. So go into the film as blind as possible for the maximum experience. Do that and you should be all set.

Overall 7/10

Event Horizon Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

Event Horizon is one of those films that reminds me why I’d never want to be stuck anywhere in outer space or underwater. At the end of the day you’re stuck with a bunch of people that could go crazy at any point. Sure you might know them to an extent but being on your own for a long amount of time can change everything. This film slowly has the cast cracking and the whole time you’re shaking your head. They lack the willpower to succeed!

The movie starts with a crew being formed to try and find a spaceship that went missing many years ago. The crew isn’t thrilled about this since they were on vacation but hey a mission’s a mission right? Well Dr. Weir will be coming with them to explain the specifics since this mission is very different from most. Of course that’s another reason for the crew to dislike the mission since they aren’t finding out the truth until they’re stuck in space. Basically they have to use some super experimental technology to jump through a wormhole into another dimension to grab the ship and then head back. Sure it didn’t work for the first ship but the tech is better now! Well they do the jump and make it to the other ship but now their ship is busted. The heroes are ready to make the repairs but weird things start happening. The crew see visions and are slowly going crazy. Will they ever be able to go home?

So this film’s mostly pretty bad but I can say it wasn’t all bad. I really liked the music. Seriously it was pretty great, felt like I was entering some kind of big action movie. Mix that in with the sci-fi effects and yeah this definitely seemed like a winner. That being said, It’s one of the only positives I can really say about the film. The rest of it tends to go for a lot of shock value and just doesn’t seem like a good idea when you’re trying to be a good film. The characters make a bunch of awful decisions and while you can blame some of it on “the darkness” it doesn’t help them.

Okay so lets start with Dr. Weir. At first he seems fairly reasonable. He wants to complete this mission and is taking it super seriously. He doesn’t get into space as much as the crew so he doesn’t really comprehend the dangers but he did build this experimental sci-fi tech so if anyone knows how to pull this off then it should be him. Unfortunately he has significant skeletons in the closet which start to break him. The ship shows everyone illusions and so of course his are easy to pull out from the past. It’s a rather brutal one and the whole build up to the tragedy is rough.

The film loves its special effects to make the characters as ugly as possible. Lets just say there is a ton of violence in this film. I would easily put it on the high end for a horror film. Not just because of what happens in the present like multiple characters getting impaled, disfigured, and blown up in the vacuum of space but also in the quick flashes the characters get when the ship is messing with their minds. It’s typically all happening so fast that you can barely even tell what is happening, only that there’s something bloody and disturbing on the screen.

Still even with the visions it’s hard to feel any sympathy for Weir. The guy is really responsible for this mission in the first place so he needed to hold it together. By the end he is a complete pawn who wouldn’t even be all right if his plan succeeds which hurts quite a lot. As a villain if you don’t really have a grand master plan or anything like that then you are basically just spinning your wheels. You’re not actually doing anything and at that point you’re just a psycho.

Starck serves as the main heroine here and does her best. She is able to resist the illusions better than most of the characters and has to put up with everyone being really slow on the uptake. The most annoying moment for her had to be when the captain told her to find an explanation on what was going on. She did find the reason (evil spirits) but he didn’t believe her. It’s a shame because by this point in the film you’d think that would be a very credible option. Seriously you had everyone seeing crazy illusions, things not working as they should and a mysterious reactor turning on when that’s supposed to be impossible? You’d think the captain would hear her out at least.

Miller is the captain and for the most part he looks good. While he didn’t believe Starck, at least he did spend most of his screen time trying to keep the crew from murdering each other. He had a tight grasp of what it means to be a leader and was always making the hard calls. I would say he was the most reasonable member of the team and was also able to realize that the spirit was manipulating him with the past later on. He has a big scene in the end as well. The guy was definitely real determined.

Throughout the movie you’ve really got a big survival thriller feel going on. In general that should be solid as the characters try to live but with the evil spirit using the powers of memories and illusions it’s just not thrilling. You already know the characters will fall for this and that there isn’t much they can do about it. That’s the most annoying part about all of this. For example one character sees her son running around the spaceship. Obviously there is no way he can be here and yet she falls for it anyway.

It’s up to you to determine to just what extent the spirit has full mental control over the characters but evidently it is a massive amount. The characters seem to be completely unable to resist its control at times and other times they at least know that something iffy is going on. I think if you cut out all of the random violence then you may have something here. Perhaps it will be less “exciting” in terms of action but I think the movie would be able to hold its own. The way it is there just isn’t anything to like about it once the spirit starts to make its presence felt. Seeing the characters start to get corrupted one after another is supremely annoying.

As you’d expect the ending does have a bit of a horror zinger to end things off with but it’s a bi more passive than you’d expect. I actually think the movie could have been a whole lot bolder here. The ending is definitely throwing some strong implications at you and of course I’m on the side that everyone’s doomed but you can always look at the ending in a different way. It’s certainly open for interpretation.

Overall, Event Horizon really went off the deep end. The initial scenes are decent, I would say it started out well. It all just goes downhill once the evil spirit starts to consume everyone and trick them into being destroyed. The film starts to feel aimless as it’s just about everyone dying in gruesome ways. Additionally there seems to be no real way to escape the evil influence or to fight back against it so everything seems futile. The idea of being alone in space with something after you is absolutely solid but they should go with a more tangible threat next time. Something like….an alien!

Overall 1/10

Reiji vs Yugi

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Sonic Reiji has a super powerful dragon in Chibi and a lot of experience so he can put up a good fight but ultimately it will not be enough to defeat Yugi. Yugi has a whole army of powerful duel monsters at his beck and call. When you’re trying to defeat top fighters like the Dark Magician, you don’t have a whole lot of options at your disposal. They will quickly overpower all of Reiji’s attempts to stop them and then that will be game over. Sheer numbers are hard to stop at times. Yugi wins.

Hao vs Copy X

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Sonic Copy X is a very strong opponent because he basically has all of Mega Man X’s attacks and then some. His firepower is considerable and he also has a lot of speed at his disposal. That said, Hao will still be winning this round. His Spirit of Fire Oversoul is enough to overcome most of Copy X’s moves while also keeping him out of range for most counters. Copy X does have aerial maneuvers but he won’t be moving nearly as fast as Hao or hitting as hard. That is going to catch up to him in the end. Hao wins.

Queen Beryl vs Ganondorf

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Sonic Queen Beryl is a strong fighter with a good array of energy attacks at her disposal but they won’t be enough to stop Ganondorf here. He got a really good buff in the Hyrule Warrior games which improves his attack power as well as his speed. Beryl’s energy barrier can still block some attacks but won’t be enough to last for too long. Eventually the hits will breach through her defenses. Ganondorf wins.

Aerodactyl vs Garurumon

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Sonic Aerodactyl is a strong Pokemon and he’s part rock type so he will be able to resist a lot of Garurumon’s moves for a little bit. That being said, he will ultimately be overpowered because he just can’t take the endless array of hits. Garurumon is coniderably faster than Aerodactyl and can dodge all of the Pokemon’s hits. When you fight a versatile Pokemon with a crushing attack like this it can be difficult to mount a comeback. Garurumon wins.

Zero EXE vs Kazuya

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Sonic Kazuya is an incredible hand to hand fighter and he has a few super modes up his sleeve. Those should make this a closer fight particularly with the speed at his disposal but Zero still takes this. The main reason is because Zero is still faster so at the end of the day Kazuya’s advantage will be completely nullified. The hand to hand mastery is still good but Zero uses a blade giving him the longer reach and a big advantage there. Zero EXE wins.

Godzilla Junior vs Worm

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Destroyer The Worm is a clever villain to be sure. This guy is always crawling around and making trouble but at the end of the day he isn’t ready to defeat Godzilla Junior. Not yet at least. Junior may not be as strong as Godzilla but he still has the Atomic Breath which packs a real punch. A single hit would atomize an opponent like The Worm who doesn’t have the endurance to survive it. Godzilla Junior wins.

Marshmallow Man vs Mary Moo Cow

Posted on by
Reply



Suggested by Destroyer Nobody messes with the Marshmallow Man, you can count on that! The guy’s incredible physical abilities means that Mary Moo Cow will not have the edge in strength this time. Additionally she isn’t a very fast character and so this will immediately end up being a physical battle. There just isn’t any way for her to really mount a comeback at this point so a loss is inevitable. She just doesn’t stand a chance. Marshmallow Man wins.