Tag Archives: Film Review

After.Life Review

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

Now this film is definitely one of those terrible ones that will make you want to take a nap. It’s not so much that the film is boring, but that it is just terrible with a really bad ending and characters who don’t have much common sense. There are few things as bad as having an ending where a crazed mass murderer ends up getting the better of the heroes and the police, but this film also makes sure to add in the fact that this guy is just going to keep on murdering people and now he can do it with a kid who he is grooming up to be the next generation’s version of him.

Do you know what the “best” part of this whole thing is? The fact that the poster takes away any question of whether the plot is real or not. To understand this, lets get into the premise. A girl gets into a car crash after storming away from her boy friend. She wakes up in the morgue, where a guy tells her that she is dead. He claims that she simply doesn’t know it yet and that he can talk to dead people. He lets her know that she can’t leave the building though…..and keeps her drugged so she doesn’t recover her strength. Anna starts to consider the fact that she might be dead. If she is…then shouldn’t she accept her second death to make the first one move on?

So, part of the mystery is whether she is alive or not. Well, the poster basically clears that up before the mystery even starts. It shows the reasoning that the main villain has and why he destroys people. He targets those individuals who he believes have already lost the will to live. He believes that they don’t deserve to live anymore as they will drag others down and so he targets them. He kidnaps them and convinces the world that they are dead. There’s no real question by the end that Anna is actually alive, but if you’ve seen the poster then you know this from the start. That being said, you’ll probably realize this right from the beginning anyway since this is the most logical way for the film to play out. Especially if you know that this film is an indie production, which always goes for extra grit.

None of the characters are likable either. Anna gets into the mess in the first place because she doesn’t know what she wants to do with her life. She’s in a really bad mood for the whole film. I forgot why, but as a result she constantly gets upset with her boyfriend and even runs out during their dinner for no acceptable reason. She wouldn’t even let the guy defend himself. Then, once she’s told that she is dead, Anna makes all of the wrong decisions. She could have escaped by jumping out the window and she even had a chance to stab Eliot. There were so many moves that she could have made, but instead she decided to just start believing him. Also, shouldn’t it be obvious to her that she is alive if she can throw things around and make a mess of the room to the point where Eliot noticed? Common sense guys…..it’s time to use it!

Paul isn’t much better. He makes a little more of an effort for the two of them to be together, but ultimately he turns into a bad character. He doesn’t make a terribly good effort to find Anna once he finds out that she may be alive. Instead, he even backhands a kid and is taken away. Then, he is very easily bumped off after he falls for Eliot’s trap. Seriously, he played all of his cards wrong. Naturally, I didn’t like ELiot either. He’s just another deranged mass murderer that tries to be deep and insightful, but it just full of hot air. The kid is a terrible character either as he turns into a psychotic murderer without a whole lot of convincing. He was just a bad kid from the start.

Aside from the terrible ending where the murderers are going to just claim more and more victims, the film falls into a lot of other holes as well. We have animal violence, as a kid murders a bird and we also have unnecessary fan service with the generic shower scene popping back up. The film never even tried to be classy. From the start you could tell that this was going to be a bad film, you just couldn’t guess just how bad it would be. A lot of times, the film didn’t even know what was going on.

Anna was apparently sick with something since she got a nosebleed at one point. I suppose this is meant to account for why she was in a bad mood, but it’s not explained at all and isn’t a really good reason either. The lights all going out in the school is another random moment that makes no sense. The kid couldn’t move fast enough to pull that trick out and it’s a crazy supernatural moment that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just another way for the film to try and give Anna some extra suspense.

Overall, After.Life is a terrible film and it’s the latest entrant into the 0 stars category. It’s just hard to get much worse than this film as it’s a major chore to watch and has a really bad ending. A bad ending can hurt a good film, imagine how much it hurts a bad one. I don’t think people want to see a mass murderer get away scot-free and strengthen his position. It’s just in bad taste. I highly recommend avoiding this film as much as possible. There’s nothing redeemable about the film, whether it be the characters, messages, or writing. You’re better off watching just about anything else. After all, if the film’s poster can spoil the answer to the film’s question before you even start watching it….then is there even a point to this whole thing? I don’t think so.

Overall 0/10

Cat People Review

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It’s time for an old school horror film. The Cat People is one of those films that makes you shake your head. It was pretty good for about 90% of the film and then drops off the mountain in the closing scenes. It was so close to being a good film, but just couldn’t hang in there. It’s like they say about entering competitions. It’s not about how you start, but how you finish. It may not seem fair, but a bad 10 minutes can completely nullify a good 60 minutes. Negative moments have always had more influence than positive ones because they will just stick in your mind. That’s basically what happens here.

The film follows a lady named Irena who is approached by the flirty Oliver. Clearly this guy isn’t shallow despite going on the offensive immediately so Irena drops what she is doing and the two of them become a couple. The one problem is that Irena comes from the clan of Cat People and she is cursed with the ability to turn into a cat whenever things get past the friend zone. Oliver doesn’t buy this and slowly gets fed up with Irena. He decides to quickly get a new girlfriend before actually breaking up with Irena. He then lets her know about this after she goes through the long ordeal or curing herself. Well…it’s time for revenge!

Irena is actually a pretty good main character. She successfully fights off her impulse to destroy Alice the whole time and also prevents herself from going into the cage where the Black Panther was. She was doing it all to cure herself and become a normal person, but being back stabbed at the last second was the final straw. It was a shame, but now this forced Irena’s hand. The final bit gets rather crazy as she basically destroys herself and then the cat that she freed also dies as it is run over. The ending will just have you shaking your head. What happened to the writers?

Well, the film definitely makes Oliver as unlikable as possible. I wonder if it was intentional though because it doesn’t necessarily feel like it was, but you can’t really tell sometimes. Well, the intent doesn’t matter so much in the end though. You’re rooting for Irena to get him, but this just doesn’t happen. Oliver is too crafty and Irena is too nice for her own good. Alice certainly isn’t any good either. She goes after Oliver the whole time despite knowing that he is taken. She essentially tempts him into making the wrong call. He’s just as guilty as she is, but it doesn’t make either one of them likable in the slightest.

Judd is the psychologist who tries to cure Irena. At first he was a likable enough character. He knew what he was doing and wasn’t handling the situation all that badly. Unfortunately, he decides to go mad with power after that and decided that he wanted Irena all to himself. It doesn’t end well for him, but the whole plot was rather pointless and certainly didn’t need to be included. It’s just another moment where you have to wonder where the film was going with this.

The scenes with Irena as a cat were cool. She did a good job of really putting the fear into Alice and again, I have to give her credit for not finishing the job. Instead, she merely settled for intimidating Alice and subtly hinting what would happen if she didn’t stop playing games with Oliver. Alice ignored this in the end, but Irena still didn’t destroy her. By the end, Irena was certainly willing to, but chose to simply end it all instead of going for revenge. It’s a decision that is incredibly rare for this kind of film.

Unfortunately, we had to have that animal violence towards the end. Having the cat get run over was just pointless and I don’t think that Irena needed to have such a sad ending. Couldn’t the film have just had her go back to her village or just roamed the forest on her own? It would have been more satisfying and not quite as grim. The whole rushed plot with Judd also didn’t do any wonders for the movie. Such a shame, if the film had run its course without any of that nonsense, it could have definitely gotten a 6 or maybe even a 7 depending on what the alternate ending would have been. Still, what ifs and could haves don’t ultimately mean much. Also, another scene of animal violence had a bird die either of shock or Irena’s hands were too much like a cat’s and pricked the bird. Either way, it was another sad moment which really stopped the film’s chances of being good.

While this is sort of a creature feature film, it’s played more seriously than titles like Creature From The Black Lagoon and the old Showa Godzilla films. I think it did try its best to be a horror film. The scene where Irena stalks Alice through the shadows and Irena barely makes it to the Bus Stop is definitely a horror moment. The music cuts away and it gets eerily quiet as she slowly starts to run instead of walk. There’s a lot of tension in the air and the scene was definitely handled well. It was a fun moment and again, I thought that Alice was going to die there. The whole film’s approach would have been different had that occurred as Irena would have likely just taken everyone out. Of course, then it’d just be a generic slasher film and it probably would have been even worse.

Overall, The Cat People is a film that had promise and handled itself pretty well for a while, but then it fell down. It’s still a lot more classy than most other horror titles. Unfortunately, the film simply couldn’t keep it up and Oliver really did his best to put himself in a bad position. The ending really prevents me from recommending this film and you should probably just watch an old Scooby Doo film instead. Those films typically have good endings and you’ll still get your share of scares in the meantime. You won’t have to think about lost possibilities either or wonder why Oliver got to have a happy ending despite being such a mean character the whole time. Also, why did a lady from the lost village show up if she was just going to vanish and never appear again? She was definitely real since everyone saw her. Maybe she traveled all the way to the big city just to mock Irena. I guess I wouldn’t put it past her.

Overall 3/10

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown Review

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It’s time to check out the Halloween special for Charlie Brown. Slowly, but surely I’m closing in on the rest of the Peanut specials. They certainly came out with quite a lot of them though so it’ll be a while before they are all complete. This one is pretty good and I’d say that it is one of the better specials even if it can’t quite keep up with Thanksgiving or the Christmas special. Halloween never could keep up with those two holidays in general though, despite what Teen Titans Go would have you believe.

Linus believes that the great Pumpkin will visit his patch if he waits all night and believes. Sally decides to wait with him although she ultimately regrets it. Meanwhile, Lucy, Charlie Brown, and the other characters all decide to go trick or treating. It’s safe to say that Charlie’s group has the better time, even if things don’t go well for Charlie Brown. Lets face it, things never go well for Charlie. Luck is not on his side and getting rocks instead of candy must be pretty insulting. A third plot is about Snoopy taking on enemy fighters in his imagination. That Dog sure can fly!

You can tell that this is one of the older specials since some characters act a little differently than usual. For example, Charlie and Linus aren’t really close friends in this one. They hang out, but Charlie quickly attacks Linus verbally when he is talking to Sally since Charlie doesn’t trust the guy. Linus also doesn’t seem quite as smart since he has apparently been waiting in the patch every year for a while now and never saw the Great Pumpkin. I guess he made a little slip every year which caused him to still think that it was real, like doubting for a moment. Still, it is quite sad for him.

As for Charlie, his costume was pretty bad. I’m sure that he would have at least gotten some candy if he hadn’t made his costume a broken ghost. Just find a new bed sheet and cut in two holes, it’s not exactly rocket science! Charlie takes it all in stride though and actually doesn’t spend a lot of time complaining about how bad things are for him. Maybe this was before he got really jaded with humanity. Charlie’s plot was more fun than Linus’ even if it was shorter.

Snoopy’s plot is fairly standard as we’ve seen these Red Baron fights a few times before. I thought it was all right and the scene didn’t last too long so it doesn’t drag. I preferred Snoopy’s plot in the Thanksgiving special as he made himself a feast, but eating such a large meal for every holiday is a good way to put on the pounds and Snoopy has to stay fit.

The animation and soundtrack are roughly the same as always. The style works well enough for the Peanut specials and it isn’t that bad. Most of the alternatives would be better, but it is what it is. The soundtrack isn’t particularly memorable, but these specials are more about the dialogue than anything else. The writing is good so I have no complaints there. The special is also pretty short like the others as it is less than half an hour long. You’ll be breezing through this one.

Overall, It’s the Great Pumpkin is on the better half of most Charlie Brown specials. That being said, there’s no real reason to rewatch it when you could revisit the Thanksgiving or Christmas specials. It’s a fun enough story, but experiencing it once will probably be enough. I definitely do recommend it if you haven’t seen this special yet. On my quest to watch them all, I’ll eventually be seeing the Election Day special. Once that happens, I’m confident that it will beat this one and maybe even the Thanksgiving one as it soars up to the top of the ranks. It’s just hard to picture the Election Day one not being awesome. It’s such a cool concept for Charlie and the gang.

Overall 7/10

Doctor Strange Review

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All right, I got to see the latest big Marvel film! As we inch closer to the long awaited Infinity War, it makes sense to bring in a heavy hitter like Doctor Strange. He will certainly come in handy for the big fights since he is already one of the stronger members on the team. Considering that he has only just begun to learn the mystical arts, he’ll only get stronger from here. This is definitely a solid film and ranks pretty well compared to the other MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) films. I’ll have a list of them from best to worst below.

All right, lets dig into the plot! Doctor Strange was a very successful surgeon. He may have even been the world’s greatest. Unfortunately, he gets into a car crash and his hands are severely damaged. To bring them back to working condition, he heads to the mountains to learn from The Ancient One, who healed a patient in a similar condition. It turns out that she used magical abilities and now Strange can learn these as well. The catch is that Strange will now find himself in the middle of a war between light and dark. Can he help defend the universe or will Strange return to his normal life?

Even before we get to Strange actually becoming adept at using magic and fighting off the villains, the film is pretty fun. I liked Strange quite a lot back in his confident days. You see how he isn’t very heroic as he doesn’t help those who may not make it through the day. Strange was in it for the publicity, but at least he was still helping people. He did it for the wrong reasons, but it could be much worse. I was a little surprised at just how rich he was, but surgeons do make quite a lot of money and if you’re the world’s best..then it makes sense that you’d be rich. I’d call this part the prologue and it’s fairly short. The scenes all go by very quickly and maybe that’s part of why it was fun. It doesn’t drag on, but still lasts long enough for you to get a general feel for how the situation was for Strange and his colleagues.

The action scenes after that certainly live up to the hype. Strange and the other magicians all fight using more of a Green Lantern style than Harry Potter. They use magic to create energy weapons to fight with and can also alter the landscape around them during battle. Magic seems to be able to amp up their physical abilities like in Psyren as well since we see Strange jump long distances and land without injury. His super cape also allows him to fly. This is definitely how I can picture some of the Green Lanterns battling when sparring with each other. Strange’s magic is limited only by his imagination so he can come up with a lot of good weapons.

Since Strange is a genius, he is also able to learn the spells at a rapid pace. He even becomes adept at time spells, which is very handy in a fight. Sure, it can mess with the time stream, but it’s still worth using since it can help the heroes out when they’re in a pinch. With the abilities he showed here, I’d put Dr. Strange ahead of all the Avengers in a fight except for possibly Vision, Thor, and Hulk. Strange’s one weakness seems to be that he’s rather slow..the curse of all spellcasters. He can fly, which helps to make up for that and he can bring his spells up a lot faster than good ole Harry Potter, but it will still be tough to do in time against a speedster. For the Hulk, the problem is that most of his spells probably wouldn’t do much damage to him at the moment. Considering that Strange still has room to improve while the others do not, the tables could turn very quickly. As it is, I consider him to be pretty close to the others. Ms. Marvel should claim 1st easily if she’s handled accurately though.

As I mentioned earlier, Doctor Strange is a great character and the best one in the film. He is certainly charismatic and will remind you of Iron Man. With Iron Man getting mellowed out in his old age, Dr. Strange could become the most charismatic in the MCU. We’ll just have to see if being sorcerer supreme also makes him “wiser” and he loses some of that fiery spirit. Hopefully not! The Ancient One is another one of the big characters here. She’s the mentor figure in the film…and well….we’ll see if you know what that means for her. Regardless, she’s a good character but tends to be a little too cryptic. A few more direct words would have helped clear up some of the major misunderstandings. Perhaps she was just too full of herself or simply thought that she could handle whatever troubles arised. She was fairly tough and was shown to be a more capable fighter than the others. At this point, she is probably still a little stronger than Strange as well. It’s just always going to be tough when you’re outnumbered.

I can’t say that I liked Mordo, but granted, I knew where things were going thanks to the comic. I didn’t expect the road to be traveled so quickly, but here we are. His magic boots are definitely a handy tool to have. I’ll take the cloak personally since it gives auto defense as well, but the boots help Mordo be an aerial fighter. He doesn’t get a whole lot of action here so that’ll probably be more in the sequel. It’s hard to take him seriously as a threat, but a good power up can go a long way.

Christine is the main heroine of the film. As always, I thought that the romance was rather weak and unnecessary here. She wasn’t a bad character though and while she didn’t take the supernatural aspects particularly well, few characters do. Usually, a character only takes it well if it’s a comic relief moment and that wasn’t going to happen here. Christine does give us one of the jump scares in the film so that was neat. I’m hoping that she gets some powers for the sequel since that would help her out quite a bit.

Kaecilius is the main villain and he won’t be the next Loki. He’s essentially Malekith 2.0 or any other average baddy. He wants to destroy the world. That’s basically his only goal. I think one of the reasons why he doesn’t work so well is that this guy has been a disciple of the magical arts for ages. He’s one of the strongest warriors and yet….Doctor Strange is able to give him a good fight and overpower the guy in his very first skirmish. Despite everything that happens afterwards, it sort of destroys the hype around the guy. He’s not a bad villain though and I like him more than Mordo, but there just isn’t much to him.

Now, Dormammu is a solid villain. I didn’t really like the design that he got in this film, but the personality is still intact. When Strange makes his move, Dormammu does his best to keep doing what he does best. His attacks are definitely cool looking and his power is certainly treated with a lot of respect. I don’t see him getting a large role anytime soon as a result, but it was certainly nice to see him. There are some other nice tributes here like the Staff of the Living Tribunal, which pops up. That guy is an interesting figure in the comics as he is supposed to be one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse. I always took that with a grain of salt and believe that the staff proves this. It wasn’t able to break a simple conjured staff. I do want it to appear more in the sequels though as it leads to a lot of questions. Is the Living Tribunal dead? I wouldn’t be surprised, but seeing him and the other big Marvel abstracts on the big screen would be pretty awesome.

It almost goes without saying, but the effects are really good. The scene where Strange is launched into the magic world and the colors start going crazy is certainly the best example of this. I definitely enjoy seeing visuals like that and there is a lot to take in. All of the fight scenes are visually a blast as well. I am confident that the Dr. Strange films will be able to keep this up and it’ll be cool to see it transfer over to Strange’s other films as well. He’ll certainly be returning sooner than later. I can’t really say that the soundtrack was all that memorable though. I forgot most of the tunes right away, but they fit the scenes well enough.

There are two after credit scenes in this film so make sure that you stick around for them. They are the best scenes that we have gotten in quite a while and the first one in particular is a lot of fun. It definitely has a lot of promise and while it wasn’t the Spider-Man, Thor, Dr. Strange, and Ms. Marvel teaming up against Thanos cliffhanger that you may have been expecting, we can be confident that this will be happening soon. The second scene is a little more grim and you’ll definitely feel bad for person X because of what person Y does to him, but it also helps lead into a film and tries to legitimize a threat. Both are important and aren’t filler, which is huge since that has been my problem with some of the other scenes from past films.

Time for that MCU list! There aren’t as many films as in the Godzilla franchise so I won’t be using as many tiers since it would just spread them out needlessly. There will only be three tiers instead. The films that are easily a cut above the rest, the films which are all more or less at around the same level, and the ones that are easily weaker. Lets go!

S. Avengers, Captain America: Civil War, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Captain America: The Winter Soldier
A. Doctor Strange, Thor 2, Guardians of the Galaxy, Iron Man 2, Thor, Iron Man, Iron Man 3, Hulk
C Captain America, Ant Man

You should account for recency bias here as the theater effect typically makes a film stand out even more than usual for a few months. That being said, I do think Doctor Strange is a solid enough film to keep this spot for a while and if anything it just speaks to how Marvel has been able to keep up the quality and even improve upon it.

There are certainly a lot of other things to talk about here, but I’m trying to keep this movie completely spoiler free so I’ll have to let them go for now. One thing that I will say is that Strange has a good point about how warnings for spells should be written before the spells. One of the “crimes” that he commits isn’t even that bad if you ask me. It’s always a moral dilemma about how you should wield this fundamental force of nature and it’s too big to tackle in a paragraph, but if you can use it, then you probably should. I think it may play a big role in Infinity War if the Avengers aren’t quite ready for Thanos in the initial confrontation. You can’t even call it a Deux Ex Machina since it is already established and isn’t as easy as snapping your fingers. It would likely only be able to be used once so they wouldn’t have infinite shots. That’s enough hints on that though.

Oh yeah, I should probably just put this out there. Doctor Strange could easily beat Harry Potter and Voldemort in a fight. It’s not even close. In his very first fight with absolutely no prep time, Doctor Strange was able to take on 3 skilled opponents at once. (Probably the best fight scene in the film) Harry wouldn’t have been able to take any of them on. Being able to use spells while also fighting is a skill that will let Strange beat most other opponents. That’s another reason why I liked Strange. He didn’t want to join in the war, but when the fight came to him, he made sure to finish the job and take out his opponents. His only real misstep was snapping at Christine and just watching as the Ancient One was triple teamed. Seriously, he probably should have stepped in or tried to do anything. That would have been very helpful. I’m sure that he won’t panic like that again though and he’s still a rookie (Relatively. Astral Projections eliminate the need for sleep so he’s gotten to improve at triple speeds or more) As far as protagonists for Marvel go, Doctor Strange is probably the most likable one, with Tony Stark being second and maybe Cap being third. Cap’s gotten more likable over the last few films.

Overall, Doctor Strange is another solid installment to the MCU. I’d consider it to be one of the best Marvel films that they’ve put out. It works really well as a stand alone, which is rare for a film this late in the game. It’ll make Strange’s appearances in other films all the more special as he’ll already have had his character development and it will make the film feel more like a crossover. This film balances the more comical aspects with the serious ones pretty well and I’d say that it did a much better job of it here than Age of Ultron. The latter went a little too far with the comedy at some points. The moving buildings angle made for some really fun fights and this is what Thor: The Dark World should have done with Malekith. The fights in Doctor Strange were gimmicky, but still had a lot of action and you couldn’t say that they weren’t fighting. On the contrary, someone was always on the offensive in the fights and it just meant that they had to concentrate on multiple things at once. Magic is such a great ability to have. I certainly recommend checking this film out and then we’ll see if Guardians of the Galaxy 2 and Spider-Man can hold their own against this film. It’s certainly going to be tricky, They’re dooooooomed but if there’s anything we’ve learned about comic book films, it’s that you can’t count them out. After all, Civil War actually made Black Panther a likable character and was able to get me on Team Iron Man for once. Both of those were things that I didn’t think were possible.

Overall 8/10

Jack Reacher Never Go Back Review

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It’s time to take a look at the recent Jack Reacher film. Critics have not been very kind to it and neither has the box office. While Reacher may be a tad generic, it does a good job of hitting the tropes in a way that does them justice. I’ve always said that reusing an old plot is not a bad thing so long as it is executed well. The film does a good job and in the end that’s all that matters. Naturally, it does have its pitfalls though.

Jack is enjoying his retirement from the government. He is a free agent now, which means that he can tour the country and just stop crimes whenever he feels like it. It’s going fairly well, but then learns that one of his friends has been framed and is probably going to b murdered very soon. Jack breaks her out and the two of them must now find the real villains and take them to justice before things get out of hand. Does Jack still have what it takes?

The size of the cast is actually pretty small for a thriller. Although, I suppose thrillers have small casts in general. Jack makes for a great lead and he reminds me a lot of Kirito from Sword Art Online. Jack is an expert fighter and he seems to be good at just about everything. Even his rare moments where it seems like someone has gotten the better of him are suspect as you may just think that he was pretending. Either way, get ready to see Jack just knock everyone out. He spends a great deal of the film just knocking out every villain that comes his way. I dare say that he may look more impressive than Bourne did in the latest film since Reacher never really takes a loss. The only time that he was basically defeated is suspect since Susan distracted him. Had it been a 1 on 1 fight, I like to think that Jack would have claimed victory.

Susan is the main heroine and she’s a good character for the most part. The only time where she was a bit grating is when she gets upset at Jack for deciding that he should go fight the villains on his own. Jack has a point since leaving Samantha by herself wouldn’t be wise and if they’re being honest, Jack’s a better fighter than Susan. I don’t think she would have been able to have taken down all of those fighters on her own. She’s skilled, but there are very few individuals who can pull off what he did. When they did leave Samantha on her own later on in the film, it did not end well. Still, for the most part Susan is good aside from that scene. She performs well in the fights and is fairly quick on the uptake.

Finally, we’ve got Samantha. She’s definitely the biggest limiter for Jack since she doesn’t know the first thing about spies and apparently doesn’t watch many movies. How else can we explain the fact that she didn’t know phones could be traced? It was pretty odd since that is basically common sense at this point. They also warned her repeatedly, but Samantha made the mistake anyway. It was almost hard to believe since she is supposed to be the street savvy character. She gets her big moment towards the end of course, but her character is only good for the Jack Reacher banter. Beyond that, the film didn’t really need her.

As you’d expect, one of the main positives in the film are the fun fight scenes. They’re very stylized and flow smoothly from scene to scene. Jack really doesn’t have a lot of competition in the fights so they’re one sided, but are still fun. The pacing is fast and the film never drags on. A lot gets to happen during the 2 hours. The villains don’t get a lot of development, but they’re the villains so it doesn’t make much of a difference. They want to stop Jack and that’s basically all that you really need to know. The main hunter was decently tough and he talked a good game, but Jack was always one step ahead. I may have said this a few times now, but seriously, there wouldn’t have been much of a movie if Jack’s partners weren’t around. He would have run rings around the villains if he didn’t have to stop and help his teammates from time to time.

There’s one interrogation scene in the film by the villain, but most of the violence is implied instead of shown. That’s definitely a good thing although I’m still not really a fan of torture showing up at all. The film did its best to make it as nerfed as possible so that helped quite a bit. The film was very tame with the violence and it also managed to avoid any random one night stands and romance plots the whole time. There is some mild flirting, but that’s about it. Never Go Back did a good job of avoiding the obvious land mines like animal violence and other such stuff. There is definitely a bit of language here, but certainly nothing too iffy or maybe it’s less noticeable since you’re more engaged to the film than usual.

I didn’t care all that much for the ending though. I can’t say much without spoilers of course, but I feel like someone could be in a potentially dangerous position. Sure, the villains have all died or been kidnapped by this point, but all it takes is one more guy to really make things tricky again. That’s about all I can say on that. There isn’t any big after credits scene for this film so once it is done, you can just walk out of the theater.

Overall, Jack Reacher Never Go Back is a real solid film. I’m tempted to say that it beats the original, but it has been quite a while since I saw that one. Reacher’s portrayal in particular is quite awesome and more exaggerated than you’d expect. Reacher just takes names the whole time and he’s one of those guys who really fears nobody. It’s a good level of confidence to have. What is lacks in originality, Jack Reacher makes up for in quality. It was a real close shave when deciding if this film should be an 8 or a 7. On one hand, there really aren’t very many negatives here at all. On the other hand, it just felt like the film was lacking something in order to take that plunge to the next level. I guess it’s slightly closer to an 8 so that’s what it’ll get, but this film is right on the edge. Either way, I definitely recommend it.

Overall 8/10

Mama Review

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I’m afraid that it’s time for another horror film and this one is certainly not very good at all. In fact, it’s one of the weaker horror films, but I suppose the writers and producers can take solace in the fact that they tried to grab as many horror tropes as they could. This is probably a good film to show people if you want to explain why the horror genre just isn’t good. There’s no other reason to check this film out though so you’ll want to stay as far away as you possibly can.

The film starts off with a guy taking his kids to an abandoned shelter in the forest so he can destroy them, but a creature puts an end to them first. This creature then takes care of the kids for many years until Lucas shows up and brings them back to civilization. Together with Annabel, he tries to rehabilitate them and get them to act like normal kids. The problem is that the creature doesn’t like this turn of events and prepares to show them what true power really is.

While the plot may sound slightly different, it’s essentially the same old same old. The ghost is now in the house and it keeps haunting Annabel time after time after time. “Mama” never actually does anything though so maybe she was just enjoying the jump scares. No matter, it worked out well for Annabel. Even when the creature had Annabel alone, it never made a move. At least we do know that it can fight though so I’ll give the film some slight props there. Mama is slightly weaker than other characters like the Grudge as it doesn’t seem like it can really do any reality warping. Still, it has the ability to corrupt and destroy what it touches. It steals the life force of its prey, albeit a little slowly. It has basic super strength and speed as well. We can’t forget the levitation either and its ability to summon edible moths. Mama’s not a great villain, but at least the monster actually got to appear and had a distinct design and power set. It could have almost been sympathetic since it helped the kids out and all. The ending wrecks that though as it decides to take out another kid for the prophecy. The ghost should have realized that such a move would probably hurt the kid, but I guess she’ll settle for having the ghost spirit as a friend instead.

Lets start talking about the array of negatives in the film. To start with, there is animal violence. I definitely saw that coming. The two wolves dying in the opening credits weren’t as bad as they could be since it was all drawn using crayons. However, we then saw the kids eating moths later on which was very gruesome and disturbing. That’s a nice way to lose some points, but the film was really just getting started.

Annabel and Lucas are pretty bad characters and that’s why you will end up rooting for the Step Aunt, Cousin, something person. She wanted custody of the kids and while she wouldn’t have fared too well, she would have done better than this pair. Lucas is knocked out for most of the film and when he does show up, he’s knocked out rather easily. He talked a good game, but crumbled when it counted and shouldered all of the responsibility on Annabel even though she never wanted a part in this. He was rather rude the whole time. Annabel’s not that great either although at least she ignores the bad advice that her friends were giving her. She gradually learns to get better with the kids. Still, she helps us get to the next horror cliche of the two leads messing around with each other only to stop when the villains…or in this case the kids show up. One thing you know from horror movies is that ghosts don’t like to see any inappropriate behavior and it usually costs your life.

As for the beginning of the film it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. I thought it was hinting that the Dad was going to murder the kids because of the ghost or some kind of plot twist. By the time you reach the ending, the only real conclusion you can come to is that the guy was just insane. It’s rather grim and dark for no real reason and the plot didn’t have any reason to be here. It’s good that the ghost was watching, but we didn’t need any more villainous characters. The ending manages to top the beginning in how bad it is though and destroys the movie even further. What could have maybe scratched by at a 2 ends up going all the way over.

By the end, it was all futile. The ghost grabs one of the kids and jumps off with her. The little girl dies and will likely now be a moth monster like the Mama. It’s definitely pretty dark and that’s the kind of ending that you never really want to see. I don’t mind the classic “Villain comes out of the closet in the final scene to destroy the main characters” as it is more of an implied sad ending as opposed to a direct one. Ending with this just makes the whole story pointless. The villain won and now she can return whenever she wants to get the other kid. I also don’t think it makes much sense since she had been raising the children and protecting them all those years.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for the fact that the film revolved around the two little girls so much. It was rather gruesome to see them in the initial appearance as they were in very poor condition from living in the wilderness so long. They even lost their ability to speak for a while and while the older one started to get better, it was definitely a pretty dicey plot. It’s one that wasn’t handled all that badly, but throw in the deranged Mama who was watching their every moves and it was definitely not all that fun.

Overall, Mama is not a good horror film in the slightest. The ending cements it as a completely terrible movie. The characters are all pretty bad for the most part and the villain doesn’t make any sense either. Lucas in particular is rather annoying as he takes the time to get lost in the forest for a whole day even when he knows that Annabel is being haunted at home and asked him to get home as soon as possible. It’s little things like that which remind you that this is a horror movie so none of the characters are going to act very smart. If you want a good horror movie to watch instead…you’re going to need to do some intense searching!

Overall 0/10

Revenge of the Creature Review

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Oh boy folks, strap yourselves in because you’re in for an underwhelming film from the old days. The Creature from the Black Lagoon wasn’t a very good film to be honest, but at least the Gill Man got his props. This sequel makes him look as weak as possible, but still allows you to root for him since the main humans are so terrible. This film showcases some of the undesirable characteristics that people used to have before society got modern. The modern status quo may be pretty sad at times (Presidential Debate) but it also shows how we have gotten a little more civilized in other respects.

Clete has decided to go find the Gill Man and capture him. The Gill Man may have caused a lot of damage in the first film, but Clete is confident that he can handle him. I guess he was right since the Gill Man doesn’t put up much of a fight. Even when he gets people under the water and has the element of surprise, he’s not able to do much. People just swim away from him or break out of the grip. So much for the proportionate strength of a Hollywood monster eh? After Clete captures the Gill Man and forces him to work as a slave in the water circus, he meets up with Helen. Helen had been minding her own business and working on her sketches, but Clete wouldn’t have any of that. After falling in love at first sight, Clete reminds Helen that she will have to give up her professional career so she can be a stay home Mom like she’s supposed to.

Helen agrees and they live happily ever after. In the midst of this rigged situation, the Gill Man tries to break free of his prison and gets shot for his efforts. So the question is…where’s the film going with all of this? Is there a point and I just missed it or is this film just filler and an excuse to show the Gill Man again? Considering how weak he is in this film, I’m sure that his fans would have preferred that he stay lost in the history books of Hollywood. Appearing again just wasn’t worth it.

One of the main reasons why the film was so bad is the animal violence. See, back in the day it was just generally accepted that humans were above animals and could do whatever they wanted to with them. Animals existed purely for entertainment and that’s how they were treated. It’s essentially the same concept as slavery, but with creatures. That’s how the Gill Man is treated here. He is thrown into a tank and zapped just for kicks as Clete wants to show him who’s boss. It’s not even portrayed as a negative thing in the film as it was just the social norm. People who saw it in theaters back in the day probably didn’t think twice about it and were still rooting for Clete to win once the Gill Man resisted. It was just not fun to watch and that’s why I never like to see animals in old films. At the very least, keep the circuses and such away from me.

The main characters are also fairly annoying as well. Clete seems like your average flirt who just approaches everyone until he gets a yes. Naturally, I also didn’t care for him since he was mean to the Gill Man the whole time. Helen isn’t much better either as she is willing to throw away a career that she put a whole lot of time into just because she is going to marry Clete. Society was pretty dicey back then and that’s why she should have just pulled the friend zone card for a little while. If Clete was serious, then he would be willing to wait. There was also a random guy called Joe who wanted Helen as well, but he was quickly taken out of the picture. The Gill Man saw to that.

It’s also worth mentioning that Clete wasn’t as upset as you would expect once the Gill Man kidnapped Helen. He actually made a point of grabbing the microphone and saying that he didn’t want to see any heroics. Saving Helen was important, but he didn’t want anyone to risk their lives until they called for backup and had a good offensive ready. That’s all well and good, but it takes time. Clete should have been the one yelling for everyone to attack and the chief could have cut him off. Clete just felt very shallow and fake as a result. You’ll feel more sympathy for the two random teenagers who try to save Helen, but are quickly taken down for the count.

The Gill Man’s not a very interesting creature even though he is better than the leads. His super strength seems very sporadic as he is clearly shown to be stronger than the average human, but he can’t even beat one when he is in the water. He does once or twice, but they are usually able to escape him rather easily, which is pretty suspect. I’d expect more out of the Gill Man and since he apparently has to return to the water every few seconds, that’s a pretty big weakness. There was no way he was going to escape with Helen like that although he probably should have just gone to the water with her. He should have enough strength to swim in the ocean while keeping her up. As it is, he had no real plan and never had a chance at success.

Overall, This just isn’t a very fun film at all. It’s not enjoyable to see the humans toy with the Gill Man for a while before finally putting him down. Since there is another film, I guess the Gill Man may have escaped, but even so it’s just a rather depressing story. It’s just around for humans to feel dominant and unlikable. Hollywood can definitely do much better with their stories and I expect more out of them. I definitely do not recommend this film and if you ask me, you should probably watch the new Shin Godzilla film instead. It has a lot more dignity and better writing at its disposal.

Overall 1/10

Godzilla Resurgence Review

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Godzilla is a series that I had always wanted to check out, but it took me quite a while to do so. Finally, about 2-3 years ago I went back and checked out every movie in chronological order. To this date, it is probably one of my biggest achievements. This film would be my first Japanese Godzilla film in theaters so I was ready for a blast and a half. It’s definitely a very solid film and Godzilla certainly does appear more than he did in the American film, at least it felt that way to me. While it definitely loses to a lot of the classic Godzilla films as I enjoy the Mega Monster brawls, this will certainly be remembered as a classic.

The plot is fairly standard for a G film. Godzilla has arisen and now the Government must try to find a way to suppress him before the whole planet is put at risk. Japan will have to do this while also keeping the foreign governments happy. America is willing to use their nuclear options and wipe Tokyo off the map if necessary. The old guard is at the end of their ropes so it is time for the next generation-led by Yaguchi, to save the day. The real question is..can they defeat the King of the Monsters?

Controversially, this film was confirmed to not have any antagonist for Godzilla from early on. That was a shame in my opinion because the monster fights are the main reason why I love the Godzilla films so much. There are many films that only have a single monster like the Beast from 20,000 Fathoms or King Kong, but the battles are what separates Godzilla from the pack. Not to mention that in my very controversial opinion, the films where Godzilla has no antagonist are typically the weaker ones. One day I want to come up with my personal list of where I would rank each Godzilla film. It’ll be difficult though since there are so many and you can make a great case for most of them. Sometimes I can barely put Final Wars as my favorite because GMK and the classic Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster are so good.

Lets launch into the positives. I was expecting this Godzilla film to be really serious and over the top dark based on the title. “Shin” usually means that something is going to be dark and dreary. The film is serious, but Resurgence has a lot of light hearted moments. I got to see this in a fairly packed theater with an energetic crowd and people were laughing constantly. The film feels just as comedic as the original Showa films at some point. It may not always be intentional, but I think it definitely was for at least 80-90% of the scenes. It’s good to be able to mix these tone shifts and the film does it quite well.

The humans never come across as annoying. Yaguchi is a good lead. He may panic from time to time, but he also comes up with a lot of good ideas and never gives up. The American representative Kayoko is also pretty likable. I always like having an American character step into the fray and she feels American right from the start. She is very direct and quippy as opposed to the other serious characters. I also appreciated the film’s restraint with not pushing for a very unrealistic and sudden romance and keeping things professional instead. Friendship isn’t dead quite yet and people can get along without having to take the next step. The Prime Minister was also fun as he was clearly out of his depths, but tried to keep on a tough face. Watching him and the group switch from room to room was definitely entertaining.

The film showed how having a lot of bureaucracy can be a very bad thing. It’s hard to act on a situation when you have to jump through so many hoops. The film portrays America in a very good light as a result as the country does whatever it wants whenever it wants too. America promotes young people who have fresh ideas and it has led to them becoming a global power. America was also portrayed with the might that is appropriate for them as their missiles are the first thing to actually injure Godzilla. They dealt quite a lot of damage and while I don’t think a nuclear missile would have finished Godzilla off, they are one of the only placed to have such an arsenal up their sleeve. I was definitely very satisfied.

Naturally, seeing Godzilla was also a blast. Shooting Atomic Breath out of his spikes and out of his tail was awesome and the whole crowd cheered quite a bit during this moment. It’s a little morbid since he basically took out an entire city, but who wasn’t rooting for Godzilla? I was definitely on Team Kaiju from the start. Godzilla keeps the army at bay for quite a while and he looks fairly tough as you would expect. However, I wasn’t completely thrilled with his portrayal as I had some negatives.

My first gripe is that they went with CGI for Godzilla instead of a suit. CGI can work decently well at times I suppose, but this wasn’t one of them. This is easily the worst Godzilla design of all time aside from the 1998 film which barely counts. People chuckled when Godzilla first appeared in his Rooster form and I was fairly shocked. Luckily, it was just something to throw us off, but I don’t think that Godzilla’s first stage should look like that. Even once he turned into his final form, Godzilla felt fairly off. I’m not crazy about the fact that it always looks like he is bleeding when he walks and that he has to shoot out blood in his first form.

While I don’t mind the narrow stream of Atomic Breath, it certainly looks more impressive when it is a wide blast. Also, I don’t like the way his face has to completely open up in order to shoot the blast. It looks a little gross and disturbing like the Predator’s true face in the classic horror series. It almost makes it seem like a weakness as he will be very vulnerable during that time. The back rays are still cool as they can react in time to stop high speed missiles, but Godzilla shouldn’t run out of energy so quickly. I always have to mention moments that I deem as “plot hax” in these films and Resurgence is no exception. The humans obviously have to come up with some kind of plan at the end, but I would have been more content with Godzilla just walking away like in the 2014 movie. Without going into detail, the plan should not have worked. Godzilla seemed to lose all of his smarts as he walked into every trap and expended energy when he did not need too. It should have been game over for the humans right from the get go and even knocking him down was a bit of a stretch. Either this Godzilla is less durable than some of the others or he just underestimated them. If the film was trying to portray the latter, I didn’t quite buy into it.

The soundtrack for the film is definitely pretty good. There were one or two themes that were memorable like the opera esque tune. Seeing the original Godzilla theme return with a new remix was definitely a lot of fun as well. I was actually expecting more homages to the original films, but I suppose you don’t really need them since the film holds up so well on its own. I really would have liked a good cliffhanger to end the film though. I suppose you could count a certain scene as a possible cliffhanger, but I wanted another monster to roar or something. This film seems like it isn’t really leading up to a sequel so maybe we’ll the next live action film will be another take on the classic franchise.

While listing all of the films in order is tough, in order to celebrate Godzilla’s latest film I thought I’d give it my best shot in this review. Tentatively here’s how I rank them and each row is in order. Keep in mind that these ranks are comparatively so just because a Godzilla film is in D rank doesn’t mean that I consider it to be remotely as bad as films like Pixels and I Know What You Did Last Summer. I’m doing this list off of my head so I’m not looking at my older reviews or blog posts for reference. As a result, the list may look a little different than it would if we went purely by the scores that I gave. It’s been a while since I saw these films so I may remember them differently, but I also didn’t have time to look at all of my posts so this was a little simpler.

S Rank Godzilla Final Wars, GMK, Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster, Godzilla vs Hedorah, Godzilla vs Mecha Godzilla II, Godzilla (2000), Terror of Mecha Godzilla

A Rank Godzilla vs King Kong, Godzilla vs Mecha Godzilla, Godzilla Against Mecha Godzilla, Godzilla Tokyo SOS, Invasion of the Astro Monster, Godzilla vs Destoroyah, Mothra vs Godzilla

B Rank Godzilla vs Space Godzilla, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah, Godzilla vs Ebirah, Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs Gigan, Godzilla vs Mothra, Godzilla vs Megalon

C Rank Destroy All Monsters, Godzilla (2014) Son of Godzilla, Godzilla Resurgence

D Rank Godzilla Raids Again, Gojira (1954), Godzilla vs Biollante, Godzilla (1998), The Return of Godzilla, Godzilla vs Megaguirus

It’s definitely tough to list them all and my feelings on the films can be really contradictory. Take Godzilla (2014) and Godzilla Resurgence as they are the two latest films. On one hand, I feel like Godzilla was easily the more intense film. The action scenes were great and the Muto made for a really good villain. The mythos around the film are more interesting and the ending was much better. On the other hand, the human characters in Resurgence were far superior as well as the writing and the pacing. Resurgence never drags on or has any real filler scenes. It captures the impact of Godzilla’s first appearance a lot better and the comedic tones work really well. So…should Godzilla really beat Resurgence? Both films are just so close that it is really hard to stick with one over the other for long, but alas decisions must be made at some point.

Overall, Godzilla Resurgence is definitely a fun film. The humans are easily some of the most interesting and least annoying ones that I have seen in a very long time. I also haven’t seen a Japanese live action film in a very long time so it is interesting to see how they film the movie as opposed to the ones that I’m used too. There are a lot more close ups on the characters, which worked well for comedic effect, but I don’t think I would want that to happen too often. The only real weak point of the movie is the fact that there are no other monsters and that Godzilla’s design isn’t all that good. Still, I definitely recommend it to all Godzilla fans and to anyone that likes a good creature feature. The pacing is very quick so the film never drags on. I look forward to seeing the new Godzilla animated film or the American one coming up. Either way, I will be awaiting them at the theater.

Overall 7/10

Collateral Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would be more negative and may have a different score

It’s time for an action film where Tom Cruise is actually the main villain. It’s definitely an interesting switch to see him play the antagonist and it is handled very well. Typically, you’d expect the film to purposefully make the character as evil as possible to show us that the actor can handle different roles, but Collateral allows Cruise to still play himself…he’s just on the side of evil this time. Collateral certainly destroyed my expectations and proved itself to be a great film. I dare say that it may just make my top 5 non franchise films when it comes to live action. It would lose to The One, but that’s pretty much all that comes to mind and it’s been a while since I saw that film so…who knows.

Max is a cab driver who one day wants to open his own business. Working as a cabbie is just something that he is doing to earn some money first. Unfortunately, his plans are thrown for a loop when he ends up carrying a dangerous assassin by the name of Vincent. After being tricked into driving Vincent to his first target, Max quickly realizes that there is no easy way out of the situation. If he tries to leave, he’ll die along with his mother and anyone else that he knows. His only chance is to take Vincent out, but Vincent seems to be a complete pro at anything relating to violence. Can Max make a move before Vincent targets someone that he knows?

From the start of the film it is shown that Max is a nice guy. He’s the kind of cab driver who will have fun holding a discussion with the passenger and ensure that he gets you to your destination as soon as possible even if that isn’t economically preferable to him. Max helps a prosecutor out with some advice and also visits his sick mother regularly. He’s not used to violence and panics quite a bit once Vincent shows up. The situation is handled fairly realistically as well as there isn’t a whole lot that Max can do to escape. His best bet would have been running as soon as they hit the second target. Max halfheartedly tried, but that was it for him. Vincent took more extreme measures to ensure that the driver wouldn’t get away. Max stepped up when it counted though and the whole time he did his best to put a dent in Vincent’s plans. The film did a good job of not making it cheesy when Max started to actually resist more and more.

Vincent’s easily the standout character here though. He has the confident personality that most of Cruise’s characters possess. Vincent is great in a hand to hand fight and a crackshot with his gun. He takes out normal joes and professional gangsters alike. One of his best scenes is when he walks into a night show and takes out multiple gangsters, cops, and random joes. Vincent is just very good at his job to the point where he is typically very relaxed. He makes jokes and quips and even tries to give Max some life advice. The film still makes you wonder how serious he is about this though. On one hand, it is hinted that Vincent was always going to destroy Max once he finished off his targets as a similar case happened in the past. On the other hand, he does say that he will let Max go and acts like your average protagonist at times. Personally, I believe the former. I think it’s all just a big act and he’s a lot more cruel than he lets on. Vincent is just really good at keeping the mask on at all times. After all, who says that a villain can’t have a sense of humor and a positive disposition? If anything, it helps Vincent blend into the crowd more.

Annie is the prosecutor that Max helps out at the very beginning of the film. Naturally, the film wouldn’t have had her appear if she wasn’t going to return right? Initially, I was expecting a very different film. I thought she had appeared because Vincent was going to escape or die and then Max would be framed for serial murder. Annie would then help him out in court. Instead, the film goes in a very different direction and one that is just as effective. The writers also did a great job in avoiding the cliched romance between her and Max. Instead, they acted as competent partners in the end. If I had a minor gripe, it’s that the incident shook Annie up a little too much. Of course, who knows how I would act in a similar situation. It’s an extremely minor nitpick and Annie’s still a good character. Ironically if Max had followed her lead, the heroes would have made it out of the climax a lot sooner.

Ray is a police officer who talks a good game and acts like he is going to be a major player in the film. The writers certainly had a lot of fun with him and the way that his plot plays out is perfect. Seriously, Collateral had a fun time destroying the usual cliches and giving out red herrings. Ray’s definitely a likable guy and his role was direct and to the point. There were a few other cop characters who showed up, but they were mostly just bit roles to give Vincent someone to shoot. Ray was the only one who really felt like a full fledged character.

The film had a good amount of night scenes. The camera settings were definitely solid though as it was never hard to see what was happening. The only scenes that were fairly dark were typically for suspense reasons. For example, Vincent looked as if he was Wesker from Resident Evil at times with his dark shades and mysterious attire. I’d say that he probably draws quite a lot of attention that way, but maybe it’s one of those “So obvious, nobody would ever suspect” kind of things. I can roll with that.

I don’t really remember the film having much of a soundtrack. Whatever tunes were there fit well with the scenes though as I definitely don’t remember any moments where I would need to shake my head. The violence in the film never gets too gruesome. People are shot and they die, but it never goes out of its way to be all that graphic. It may be thanks to the TV version, but regardless, I’ll chalk that up as a positive here. Restraint is always a good thing for an action thriller.

Collateral moves at a great pace and is anything but dull. As I mentioned earlier, it’s easily one of the best thrillers. You can feel the tension whenever Vincent is around and especially after he subtly threatens Max’s mom. That’s when things get a little more serious for Max. The film’s action scenes are great, which almost goes without saying. The gun fights are handled well and it makes you wish we could have a Bourne vs Vincent match someday. I think Vincent would actually have the edge in a gun fight although Bourne could win a fist fight.

Overall, Collateral is a great movie. There is almost nothing negative to say about it. The characters are all likable for a change and the fight scenes are great. If you’re looking for a good action film, then this is definitely the one for you. I don’t know why it isn’t more popular, but maybe it’ll eventually be known as an obscure classic. The ending has some mild plot hax, but don’t most thrillers? You can also make the case that someone’s heart wasn’t in it by the end. The film gives you a lot to think about so it’s fun to come up with your own deductions.

Overall 8/10

Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children Review

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It’s time for an interesting film that uses a the concept behind X-Men, but with its own spin. Considering how sad the last few X-Men films have been, it’s not hard to construct a universe that’s more interesting. (At least when it comes to films) Unfortunately, this film jumps off the cliff by the end as the logic just doesn’t make sense at times while also having some of the worst writing that I’ve seen in a film in a very long time. (“Some” being the key word here since Pixels exists) It takes you out of the experience, but at least it is interesting and never really drags on.

Jake was just an average boy who tries to live a normal life. His Grandfather would tell him stories of people with fantastic powers and other such tales, but Jake paid him no mind. One day, the grandfather is attacked and murdered by a large creature. Everyone tells Jake that he is crazy, but the kid discovers a recent letter from the head of the school for Peculiar Children. Jake convinces his Dad to tag along as they head to the island and Jake discovers that he is the chosen one. He must save the school from the giant monsters before it is too late, but will he gain some intelligence in the meantime or are all of his friends doomed?

It’s hard to know where to start here. I think I want to go with Jake since I have a lot to say about him although none of it is good. He is easily one of the most incompetent main characters that I have ever seen and also one of the most unintelligent and unlikable. Lets go chronologically here. I guess I can give him a slight pass for not believing the grand father since it would be a tough tale to buy, but after he sees the creature and how the grand father is murdered…he should accept it as true right? He believes it enough to go to the school, but then he is startled by the kids that the grand father has talked to him about for many years. Jake should not be startles, but he is and then he trips and knocks himself out.

Jake continues to embarrass himself further for the rest of the movie. One girl is embarrassed to eat in front of him because of her ability, but Jake says that its fine since he’s a tough kid and can handle it. Needless to say, he gives her a sad, scared, worried kind of look afterwards and shifts in his seat. Later on, everyone warns Jake that the school bully is going to try and scare him by showing Jake the kid who was murdered. Jake knows this, but wants to meet the kid anyway. I won’t say exactly how the interaction goes, but Jake runs out of the room screaming…which tells you enough.

Part of the plot revolves around how Miss Peregrine keeps the kids in a 24 hour time loop which saves them from the bombing in WW II, but also keeps them eternally young. As a result, they live the same day over and over again and have been doing well without Jake. Knowing this, the main heroine brings Jake out to the country side to see how Miss Peregrine destroys the monster every day. Jake suddenly forgets common sense when he sees the monsters and yells out a warning to Peregrine even though she clearly did not need one and Jake could have ruined everything there. Need I go on? Yes! I could write a whole essay on Jake and his unending fails.

Another sad moment is when Jake decides to take down the main villain. He has the element of surprise on his side and a point blank target. Jake misses anyway and then proceeds to miss the next half a dozen shots. Some of them were at very close range and the main villain doesn’t even try to dodge since he tends to forget that Jake exists. Jake messed up every single time. There’s another moment where one of the monsters is choking one of his classmates. Jake grabs the arrow launcher so he can take the monster out, but then he freezes. With his terrible aim, I suppose I can’t totally blame him, but aim at the monster’s legs at least. It was lifting the classmate very high off the ground so it was another clear shot. Jake was very slow on the uptake the whole time and you also have to love how he breaks his promises instantly. He told Peregrine that he would protect everyone, but once she is gone he decides to bolt. He has a completely safe and protected Grandpa to check on after all!

This was also one of the big plot holes in the novel if you ask me. The logic used here is that if you alter the past then you’ll change the future. It’s simple enough if you go with that theory, but it doesn’t work since time acts linearly in this film. When the main character spends a day in 1943, a day still passes in the present. As such, the grandfather shouldn’t come back to life if a certain past event never happened. If time did shift like that, then the Peculiar Kids should all be in very different situations as well since the loop would have never been necessary. The film just tripped itself up here.

Back to Jake, I also couldn’t back him up on the romance. I have to give half of the blame to Emma here as well. So, let’s put this into context. Emma is at least 80 years old, but her age is likely far greater than that since we don’t know how long the time loop had started in the first place. She fell in love with Jake’s grandfather, but he ditched them so he could murder villains and age like a normal person. So, she decided to go for the rebound guy, aka Jake. Jake looks completely identical to his grandfather so that works for her and Jake falls in love with her within seconds so he’s fine with this. I’m not even going to mention the fact that Emma should double think this since Jake was so easy to obtain, but it shows that this romance is pretty fake. Not to mention the fact that Jake barely even thought twice about ditching her in the end only to visit her again by the end to make everything seem okay.

Jake’s also anything but heroic. At one point, he says that the only way he will stay to help the kids is if Emma becomes his girlfriend. That isn’t the exact line, but it is essentially what he meant. He was talking about how people needed him back home and he won’t only stay as their guardian if Emma- but then she cut him off and told him to go away. Jake basically just came across as a poorly written jerk the whole time and the amount of times that he should have died in this film is quite high. He just had the writing to protect him. Lets also not forget that fact that Jake completely led the villains right to the Home’s doorstep. Just something to think about…

There’s one more big plot hole here. Emma’s whole gimmick is that she can manipulate the air which allows her to make all of the water exit a room and such. That’s great…but she still needs iron boots in order to stay on the planet. Are you really telling me that she can’t make a gust of wind to bring herself back down? That makes no sense and it’s such a core element to her powers that I can’t believe the film didn’t address this. Perhaps the book did, but such a thing needed to have been in the film as well. I feel like the writer was in over his/her head on this one and as such, all of these plot holes began to show up. Not to mention that most of the characters are unlikable, underused, or just don’t do much and you’re left wondering what just happened.

All right, lets talk about the positives real quick. For starters, there are more action and intensity than I was expecting so that’s definitely a good thing. It died down a little after the start, but a strong beginning is always important. The visuals were fairly good as well even if the film never let the kids use their powers all that much. The time loop was cool to watch and Peregrine’s outfit is certainly unique. It had a very regal esque look to it. The design for the monsters was also solid.

The best character in the film was definitely Jake’s Dad. He’ll certainly be a polarizing figure, but he worked quite well for me. He clearly doesn’t really know how to be a Dad and makes a lot of mistakes, but he does seem to care. Certainly more than the other supporting characters from Jake’s past. (Especially with a certain plot twist from his one of his advisers) He was just a lot of fun to watch even if he was portrayed rather extremely. Some characters just can’t resist Miller Time after all. You have to look at the Dad as a fun comedy character. Naturally, he isn’t meant to be taken seriously.

As for the rest of the cast, you already know my views on Jake. I can’t say that I liked Emma either as she was far too dramatic and all over the place with Jake. She should have just placed the friend zone card right from the get go. The little girl with super strength and the twins with their masks were all right, but they didn’t get much character here. Victor is another character who hasn’t gotten to do anything and I suppose that will be developed in a sequel. Enoch is the bully who is definitely not likable. He’s basically just around to make things tough for Jake and naturally this means that he has a very easy job. Olive is all right and her fire powers are some of the most useful in a fight, but she is completely invalidated when the ice villain is able to defeat her. The whole point of having fire powers it that you shouldn’t be frozen so easily. It was a rather embarrassing fight for her and the rushed romance between the two was rather forced. After 100 years of working together you finally develop your feelings after a quick fight? Hmmmmm.

Most of the other kids are just around to remind you that they have powers and aren’t afraid to use them. Miss Peregrine is the final big hero. (Unless you count the other Time Wizard, but she looks rather terrible the whole time. Getting kidnapped is one thing, but getting one shotted in the next scene? That’s even worse! She’s a character who just seemed rather odd. The film hypes her up as a very strong character who can put up a fight, but it turns out that she is rather powerless and can’t even beat a single opponent. Theoretically, the film acts as if one monster can take down the whole school and that’s…just embarrassing. I feel like all of Peregrine’s hype was destroyed when the main villain walked into the room and that hurt her character a lot. She’s charismatic, but it appears that she is all talk for the moment. Not to mention the fact that she seems a little corrupt as she will murder people quite easily and does keep the children confined in a time loop for eternity while treating them like kids. It doesn’t seem quite right, but that isn’t really delved into.

I have to quickly jump onto a few more plot holes while I’m at it. This one’s not really a plot hole so much as it is a power inconsistency. The headmistress of another time loop claimed that she couldn’t save any of her students because there were too many monsters. Later, it is shown that a single monster can destroy them all since the monsters are invisible. Maybe the Time Loop character was trying to sound impressive, but it seems like the writer didn’t really think it through. Furthermore, a moment in the climax is another plot hole. The whole climax doesn’t make sense since the villain could destroy all of the kids several times, but chooses not too. Based on how he was acting prior to those moments, it just makes no sense. He has waited for this moment for many years, he would definitely be taking it at least a little seriously. Still, a monster grabs him and the main villain forgets that he has powers. I seriously could not believe what I was watching. It made absolutely no sense and ranks up there along with the sad scene of watching skeletons take down the monsters. It makes absolutely no sense!! Speaking of not making any sense, I hope that a sequel deals with how bringing people back to life and forcing them to fight against their will is rather shady and morally suspect as well as how Peregrine left the rest of the schools to fight for themselves by not warning them that the villains were coming. She is directly responsible for the villain mass murdering a group of kids since she could have warned them, but chose not too. Again….everyone in this film is either shady, has no character, or is just weak.

You seriously just need to throw logic out the window when you watch this film. It’ll let you enjoy it a whole lot more since the writing is just disgraceful. Beyond the plot hax, the main villain isn’t bad I suppose. At least he has a personality and is fairly charismatic. I just can’t take him seriously and the whole eyeballs thing prevents him from being all that good. As you can tell, I mainly had a big problem with the characters in this film and the writing. Still, that isn’t quite enough to give the film a negative rating. It still could have probably gotten a 5 and maybe narrowly a 6. Unfortunately, the film hit two big snags.

One of these was animal violence. Yes, the film resorted to having a herd of cows die for no real reason. It had nothing to do with anything and the scene should have been cut out. The other part is the fact that the villains have to eat eyes to power up. That’s just super dark and the concept should not have existed. It’s just there to be gritty and dark and this does not mesh well with the rest of the film. Seeing the villains consume eyeballs for lengthy periods of time is just disturbing and disgusting. The scenes aren’t horribly graphic as they’re made to look gross, but fake. Still, it’s not something that should have been in the film either and these two negatives ensured a negative score for the film. There’s not much of a soundtrack to be noticed here so that couldn’t help to earn any points either. I’m sure that the tunes were decent, but as I don’t remember any of them, they couldn’t have been all that good.

Overall, This is one of those films that is easy to talk about. I probably didn’t even address everything here as there is just so much to say. On a conceptual level, this film is just very interesting as I like the premise and the world that was built up. Unfortunately, it was simply mishandled and that’s a shame. The Dad was a fun character and I definitely missed him once Jake jumped back into the fantasy world. Jake panicked once again and forgot that he was in a time loop, but I’d expect nothing less from him by that point. I would recommend you check this film out, but you should probably take a pass on it. Watch the film if you want a logic-less action film that must have taken writing cues from Now You See Me, but you should probably just watch Man of Steel again. Now that film was a deep action film with a lot of epic moments. If this film gets a sequel, I’m going to expect it to explain away some of these plot holes so it can try to save the franchise.

Overall 4/10