Tag Archives: Movie Review

Princess Arete Review

Posted on by
Reply


Princess Arete is definitely a unique title. It’s sort of like what would happen if you had an adventure film where the main heroine herself was actually captured for almost all of it. It’s definitely a way to stand out but at the same time I found the film to be a little uneventful at times as a result of this. Dare I say it approached being boring at times? I would say it’s a film that just focuses too much on set up for an adventure that never happens and you don’t have any loud characters to run in and shake things up. This could have used a Shonen lead type of character.

The movie first introduces us to Princess Arete whose life has been completely restrained by her father the king. He keeps her inside a tower and doesn’t let her leave the castle grounds. Instead she just has to wait as many suitors keep on visiting her over and over again. She has no interest in any of them and these guys all do seem pretty desperate for power. It might just be the animation style but she also just looks like a total kid next to all of these guys. It’s only natural that she won’t be interested. Well, unfortunately a wizard named Boax shows up and uses his magic to hypnotize Arete and the King so that he can marry her. He then takes her and locks her up in another tower so that she live up to the prophecy. Can she snap the mind control and get out of there?

It’s a bit of a long summary but I wasn’t really sure exactly where I should stop. In a way you could say this is where the main story begins but at the same time this is after a decent amount of time in the film has elapsed. You can also see why the whole thing is a bit annoying because Arete isn’t really getting to do much here. We do see that she is really interested in the outside world and so that’s nice but she wasn’t able to fight for her freedom there anyway. In a world of magic you’d think the King would have some defensive measures but the world seems to mostly be normal so maybe I can give him a slight pass.

I didn’t think the main villain’s plan made a whole lot of sense though. So the prophecy states that Arete will somehow undo Boax’s complete immortality so he locks her up to prevent that. At the same time we see that he is really lonely and is hoping to find another wizard. Maybe he wouldn’t be so lonely if he wasn’t immortal? In a way that’s what really makes it worse and of course he is also evil by hoarding the water supply. If he had friends then they could help him find more magicians.

Basically it doesn’t seem like Boax really thought anything through. He’s not a particularly interesting villain and the whole time you will be shaking your head at the guy. Meanwhile for Arete, I can’t say I was very impressed with her either. Yeah she made one attempt to escape the tower but I would have liked to have seen her be way more proactive. Honestly when the first guy broke in through the window, she should have knocked him out or tricked him and then used his escape method. Getting mind controlled isn’t totally her fault I suppose but it was annoying to see her basically be a zombie for a while there. It’s only in the climax where she gets to really help out.

There isn’t really much of a supporting cast to back her up either. Yeah you have the King from the beginning but considering that he is pushing for arranged marriages, he’s not the best guy. You have Ample who helps out with a lot of the exposition and letting Arete know the main facts. Not a bad character but not a very interesting one either. Nothing wrong with the writing either, there just weren’t any standout characters and even the designs were rather bland.

The animation’s okay. The colors are fairly washed out so the whole product ends up looking rather dated but the movement is good. The backgrounds aren’t bad and of course it’s just always nice to see things that are hand drawn. Meanwhile the soundtrack is more forgettable but on the whole the technicals aren’t bad. The whole thing just doesn’t pop out. It feels like the kind of film you my see a character watching in another movie. I was so ready for things to happen that for a minute there I was actually hoping Arete would go on the long quest to find the ruby that Boax asked for.

For a second there, the film was actually teasing you with the idea of a true adventure and I was all for it. This is what I’ve been ready for! Instead she turned back to accomplish her true mission and yeah that was the right call but it wasn’t the most entertaining one. I could criticize Boax further on why he would even suggest she go on such a mission when the hypnosis could break at any moment but perhaps nobody had ever broken it before so he didn’t see any potential risks in that.

Overall, Princess Arete feels like a film that is really missing a middle act. It could have used another 30 minutes where we see Arete escaping at some point and having a full adventure before being recaptured. I think that would have gone a long way to really making her a fun heroine and also livening up the film a bit. There just isn’t a whole lot of fun times for the film here and it feels too much like an ancient fantasy tale without the adventure. If you want to check out a more interesting anime title, you should watch Bleach instead. All of those films go hard!

Overall 5/10

Cahill U.S. Marshal Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a classic western but in this one we do have some annoying kids who do their best to hold everything back. They make all the worst decisions constantly and can’t fight or anything. They get old real quick during the movie and so you wish they had a smaller role. The film itself is still good enough but all the best scenes are when the kids are finally not on screen for it.

The movie starts with Cahill taking down some more criminals. He is known as the best Marshal around and everybody knows to fear him. His skills with the gun are unmatched by any other fighter and when he is on the case, all others better retreat. Unfortunately when he returns home, there is a big prison break and a few people are killed. He asks his son Danny to help track them down but what he doesn’t know is that Danny was in on it. The kid is a total traitor and his silence is causing some huge problems. Will Cahill be able to figure out what’s going on before it is too late?

There are a lot of problems here with Danny. For starters, teaming up with a gang of villains to rob a bank and then not telling on them even after someone dies is crazy. The best time to tell would have been near the beginning when they were in prison and Cahill had his gun. The whole movie should have been over in a few minutes at that rate but of course the kids weren’t smart enough for that. I give Danny most of the blame though because he was actively helping out the villains and also because he’s older. He should have been a much better role model for Billy instead of just leading him down the wrong path the whole time.

He wasn’t even a nice guy outside of the whole prison angle. He was needlessly rude to the Indian lady and didn’t seem to like them in general. The guy has no manners and so you just can’t root for them. Meanwhile Billy is young but he should still know better than to go around working with crooks. He should have ratted them all out to Cahill at the first opportunity that he got. At a certain point you have to be willing to make the heroic call on your own even if it means that you are going against your seniors.

As for the main villain Abe, he does a lot of posturing but is only brave when the kids are around. In a straight fight Cahill would have had him defeated almost immediately. In a lot of ways this villain is extremely unimpressive as a result and only hangs in there because of the kids. Without them in the picture then this film would have been extremely short. He really has fun smirking and laughing but yeah the guy is very petty.

I liked Cahill a lot though and he really had to deal with too much drama here. The guy is working a very honest job taking down criminals and risking his life on a daily basis. It would have been nice if the kids could have at least acknowledged that a little bit instead of hitting the panic button and causing a scene right away. I don’t think that would have been asking too much right? I also give him credit for eventually putting the pieces together and coming up with a plan. It was a very risky plan that kept the kids in danger but they did get themselves into that situation so most of that is on them.

Cahill’s right hand man Lightfoot was a good character. I would say this is the only part of the film that gets mean spirited because the way he went out was rather over the top. He meets a violent end and the guy has been minding his own business until Cahill recruited him. It would have been nice if he could have had a bit of a happier ending. If he had to go out, maybe after a long fight scene where he took a few of them with him. It just felt like the death wasn’t really needed for the story.

It’s not like this is a particularly dark or dreary western either. I think that’s part of why it feels a bit out of nowhere. Yes there are a lot of threats but that’s really all they are. You have the sense of danger without the film going all hardcore about it. Lightfoot’s death is really the only part that fits that bill. Once again, it’s something to blame the kids for because he would not have been in that spot otherwise. The fact that Danny came close to letting some innocent people die for the crime is also crazy.

Now it’s true that the group weren’t innocent in general as they were all committing crimes and getting into trouble but they were innocent of this particular crime which is what counts. Yeah Danny ultimately gets ready to do the right thing but without Cahill there, Danny would have died before he could have really done anything about it. He definitely didn’t plan things out particularly well.

Overall, Cahill U.S. Marshal is a good film but one that is held back from the kids. There is such a stark contrast between his scenes and those of the kids. Whenever the kids are on screen you end up getting really annoyed, however when the Marshal is on screen then you’re going to get a fairly intense scene showing just how skilled he is. It’s like two different films at some points. So if you really like westerns then I imagine you will enjoy this one too but you will be able to tell that it is a level under that of your average westerns. Those blow this one away and also have a lot more action.

Overall 6/10

Winter’s Bone Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

It’s time for a film about the horrors of living in a rough neighborhood where you can’t trust anybody. There is a lot of trouble going on everywhere and so it makes for a tense adventure. One that is without many pleasant scenes to be honest so as a whole the movie has a hard time trying to cross the boundary into being good. The mystery is interesting but to an extent you start thinking the resolution doesn’t really matter and the heroine just needs to find a way out of there.

The movie starts off by introducing us to Ree. She’s a teenager who has been given the daunting task of looking after her whole family after her father vanished. Her mother is super sick and can barely think anymore while her two siblings are too young to look out for themselves. They live really far out in the middle of nowhere so it’s not like there are any institutions or agencies that can help them. Now it turns out her father put the house as collateral before he ran off with a bunch of debts and a criminal record. If she doesn’t find him and make the guy go to court within a few days, her family will be homeless and that will be game over. Can she find him though?

The main reason why finding him will be tricky is because everyone around here are involved with drug dealing or know the people who are in it and don’t want to be a snitch. Talking around these parts is basically a death sentence after all and yet Ree needs to find her answers. The deeper she gets, the more danger she puts herself in and even gets beaten up. They may all have a lot of family around these parts but these people may as well be strangers. The business comes first before family and of course that puts Ree in a really bad position.

Her uncle is really the only character who defends her. Most of the others are willing to murder her when she digs into what’s happening. Yes she gets some help by the very end but it does feel a bit hollow since earlier they were going to let her die. They say that tough times show you a person’s true self and Ree definitely got to see the true feelings of many of her family members. She will know that they definitely can’t be counted on. It would be one thing if they were all just staying quiet about her father but when they jump into threats and violence then that’s crazy.

Additionally, if they wanted to get her off the trail then they should have helped her out. Maybe find a way to get her another place to live, bribe the courts, etc. They could have found some incentives which would make her want to drop the case, instead all they did was ensure that she absolutely had to keep on searching. She really did not have any choice in the matter. While the ending may be happy to an extent, you can’t help but feel like things will still be bad for a very long time. She certainly created a lot of enemies and rocked the boat during this adventure. That generally does not turn out very well.

As a character Ree is good though. She is risking her life the whole time for a task that shouldn’t even be hers. Ultimately she stepped in to fill the shoes of her parents who were both not able to handle the job. Additionally she managed to stay away from drugs and all of the bad habits that everyone else in the film had. So she gets a lot of credit there.

The only other character who I would give credit is Teardrop, the uncle who helped her out. He’s also risking his life by supporting her in any way because the rest of the community won’t like that. It takes a lot of bravery and guts to go against the masses and yet he does this on more than one occasion. He’s the only one who really went to bat for her so that does deserve credit. The rest of the town are all just super unlikable.

Ultimately that’s also why the film just isn’t very good. It’s super dreary the whole time and without many likable characters, it makes the adventure a bit of a slog. It’s just nonstop intimidation and corrupt characters running around. There aren’t a lot of colorful backdrops out there in the wilderness and it’s not like this is a huge conspiracy plot either. It’s a fairly local styled mystery and you can connect the dots on what happened to her father early on. The film was really lacking a hook that would really make you want to keep watching. Without that, well this one will just end up fading from your memory. I’d only recommend checking it out if you really want to watch a tragic kind of film. There are some people who have no choice but to live in an area like that and so you see just how tough that is.

Overall, Winter’s Bone is not the best film. In fact I wouldn’t really even call it a good one. The whole circumstance for the main characters definitely sucks and they need to find a way to sell the house and get out of there. Things will only get worse before they get better after all. Of course it’s easier said than done to leave any area and that’s why the whole situation is tough. It may be a dramatic film but it’s not one that is all that fun so I’d definitely say to give it a skip and watch something else.

Overall 3/10

Two Mules for Sister Sara Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for one of those classic Western films. This one has its share of ups and downs. On one hand, the romance is pretty bad and the main character looks surprisingly weak at times but on the other hand it is an interesting story as it goes through. The ending is a bit sad for many of the characters but the lead isn’t exactly a full on hero this time around so he doesn’t exactly stop to worry about it. I don’t see this one hanging in there with the best in the genre but it’s good enough.

The movie starts with Hogan saving a nun from a bunch of attackers. She pleads for his help and Hogan is reluctant at first but she begins to prove herself useful in knowing about a nearby base. See Hogan needs to help blow up a French base due to a deal he made with the Mexicans and then after that he will be given a lot of gold. Hogan is ready to be rich and so he quickly prepares for this. What he doesn’t realize is that his side is way less prepared than they led him to believe.

Now a lot of the humor in the film is based around how Sara doesn’t always act like a Nun. She can be rather crass at times and just doesn’t have the right temperament. I’d say the audience knows something is up almost immediately but surprisingly Hogan doesn’t really put the pieces together. In hindsight it doesn’t make Sara look all that good though. If anything it makes her appear extra naive at times and you really wonder what kind of a plan she even had. If not for Hogan stopping by early on then she would have really been doomed right from the start of her journey. She also takes her duties rather far to the extent of wasting water and doing a lot of extra work when time is short.

The scenes are more questionable by the end of the film but you can make some arguments for them so I suppose that’s what counts. I never ended up becoming a fan of her character though. One crazy scene in particular happens in the climax while everyone is dying she is relaxing in the tub. Of course Hogan isn’t any better so the same thing applies to him. The guy makes plain that he’s not a hero on several occasions and is always coming close to a shootout. I give the Mexican commander props for standing up to him the whole time. It’s rare to see anyone with that level of confidence against the main hero.

In that debate Hogan was technically correct in that he sacrificed too much to be cut out at that point. He’s a very good shooter as always but perhaps isn’t quite as overly confident as you’re used to the actor being in other films. There is also a scene where Hogan is completely taken by surprise and shot by a nearby Indian arrow. That scene was probably the best in the film because of how sudden it was. Usually the arrows hit a side character or something but no, this time it was a full surprise blow that completely worked. Most impressive!

Of course it does lead to the weakest scene which is when the arrow has to be pulled out. The whole scene is dragged on way too much. It just goes and goes and you feel like we got the point early on. The film could have proceeded from there. So the movie has an issue with fanservice, bad romance, and the pulling out the arrow scene was overdone. At least in terms of animals only a snake gets chopped. Still rough but it could have been worse if it was a dog or a horse.

There isn’t a ton of action here until the end though. For the most part it’s all about the adventure. There are several close shaves but each time the fight ends up getting defused first. We had a scene where Hogan was setting up guns at different windows and I thought he was going to pull a bluff about a lot of soldiers being around or actually using them all. Instead the other army just keeps on going which felt like a bit of a waste to me. I thought that would have been real interesting to see how the fight would play out. I suppose its effective as a misdirect but it would have been a good opportunity to throw in some quality action.

The climax delivers on all the gun action but since both sides are bunches of nameless grunts, you’re not quite as invested. Hogan gets a quick shootout inside of the room but I would have liked it if he could have gotten more to do after that. In theory he’s the best asset that the army has so lets see him get a little more action to do. A few key shots to take care of villains, maybe show him saving some of the soldiers, etc. Even if he’s not going to be the ultimate hero, it helps to serve his own purposes which is enough justification in itself.

I will say that the twist for Sara is good in the sense that it takes away from the corruption message. Otherwise it felt like throughout the whole movie Hogan was trying to get to her and introducing a bunch of doubts in every direction. That would have definitely been annoying if the romance had just happened anyway. So this way you remove that part even if it doesn’t exactly help her as a character. So the film basically had to pick its poison among two dicey options.

Overall, Two Mules for Sara is a good film if you really love westerns but only okay otherwise. It feels like Sara heavily overplays her hand to the point where you feel like the film is really trying to steer you away from the plot twist even though there were several hints for it early on. The film is really built around the banter between the two main characters but since the romance isn’t particularly good, this doesn’t end up working as effectively as it should have. The climax delivers on the action by the end but it takes a while to get there. It is an interesting and engaging film so as long as you can look past the weak points, you should be fine.

Overall 5/10

Rambo: Last Blood 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

If you walked up to me and told me that Rambo: Last Blood was gonna be a terrible film…I would have just nodded. I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that the film didn’t go well. When a thriller series goes on for too long it gets tempted to throw in a bunch of tragedy and call it a day. A cheap revenge thriller will always cost a film a lot of points and this one just feels hollow by the end of its run. Too much damage had already been done.

The film starts off with Rambo trying to live an ordinary life. He lives fairly isolated on a mountain with a nice lady and her grand daughter. Unfortunately the girl really wants to meet the father who ditched her as a child. Doesn’t seem like the best thing to do and Rambo warns her against this. Her father wasn’t a good man and he lives in a very shady part of Mexico. Just going over there is courting death. The girl doesn’t care and heads over but things don’t go well and she goes. Now Rambo is on a big revenge tour to destroy all of the people responsible for what happened to her. Can even Rambo take on an entire army though?

Rambo gets a lot of hype in these films and he is tough but the guy definitely bought into his own hype here. He shows up at the villain’s base without any plan and gets absolutely dominated. He doesn’t even put up any kind of fight and it’s definitely one of the more embarrassing showings for a guy like this. At least later on he gets some prep time and pulls off some Home Alone tactics. It takes a long while to get to that point though. One of the big problems with the film is it feels like the whole first half is just to set the tone and show how messed up everything is.

The fights don’t really start until the climax when it’s Rambo against everybody. That part is certainly fun although the film definitely does go out of its way to be as graphic as possible. Each death tends to be like something out of a slasher type film as the characters are all ripped to pieces. The film makes sure to remind you how evil they all are first so you don’t feel bad for them but the film definitely could have handled itself in a less extreme manner. This whole film is going for the extreme angle and so of course it’s just not a particularly fun watch.

The granddaughter makes a ton of terrible mistakes and isn’t particularly smart but you still don’t want to see her going through so many trials. The movie is just way over the top mean spirited throughout so you don’t even get a breather. There is virtually no characters around so there isn’t even any chance for banter. I mean the film’s overall tone might have made that impossible anyway but with only Rambo around there just isn’t much for the film to do. He goes around murdering everyone and that’s it.

To fix the film, you’d need to completely rewrite the plot. Remove the first half and definitely tone down all of the violence throughout the movie. You definitely don’t need any of that. Maybe have at least one villain with actual goals and aspirations beyond just being super evil. I don’t need a sob story and I definitely don’t need a full subplot but maybe something about money or power. He’s basically just trying to spite Rambo by the midpoint which isn’t even a real goal. He’s just doing whatever he wants without even thinking it through. Not the most interesting kind of villains here. They just exist to die.

Also you do have to suspend a good amount of disbelief for Rambo taking everyone out. Yeah he is legendary and everything but he takes out dozens and dozens of fighters while running through the tunnels. everything had to go perfectly for him in order for this to work like them going through specific entrances and always triggering the traps on time. It’s a thriller so this kind of thing is definitely to be expected but it also means that the fight scenes aren’t as good as they could have been. Mainly there aren’t fights as it’s just the villains getting murdered by traps.

At no point do you feel like the film even has a real purpose here. It’s just going through the motions and then it’s not even doing that right with how long it takes for the fights to start. I’d say that the film was disappointing but for the most part it’s not like I went into it with any high hopes anyway. Just about everyone agrees that the film is pretty weak so this wasn’t a surprise. The film just ended up living up to its own hype and in this case that was a bad thing.

I think it’s fair to say that it is time for the Rambo series to end. There’s just not much more to do with it by this point. He’s already lost so many people and he’s also really old by this point. You can only have so many Rambo hype moments. After all, that’s why most of this film has him with homefield advantage picking the villains off. in a straight fight there would just be too many of them.

Overall, Rambo: Last Blood is definitely not my kind of film. If you want a super edgy, grim dark title then check this one out but otherwise you should stay far away. It’s one thing to make a darker film where things don’t always go well but this one goes too extremely in the other direction. Nothing goes well and the heroes just keep on getting farther and farther away. You have a reporter around who lost someone to the gangs but if you take her out of the movie then virtually nothing changes. I still find it hard to understand why you would even want to try and find a parent who ditched you, seems like that will end poorly 99 times out of 100. Meanwhile the cops are corrupt and while Rambo is saving people related to this immediate danger, it seems like this is a huge syndicate. It just paints a very bleak picture of life for everyone involved. At least I can appreciate that Rambo does not have a no kill rule since that would have made the situation even more difficult.

Overall 1/10

Mass Review

Posted on by
Reply


All right it’s time for a film that is the definition of being dialogue based. There is a whole lot of talking here and the characters don’t really get to leave the room once they’re inside. It’s an interesting concept but the execution is done in a way that prevents the film from being all that interesting. Each of the characters has to try and navigate their way through the conversation carefully so the pacing gets shot immediately and it all goes downhill from there. Now it’s hard to say if the positions themselves are a spoiler or not but since that is the focus early on, I’m going to lean on not. Throwing the warning out early though because if you do feel that’s a spoiler, then you’ll need to skip the whole review until you watch it.

The movie starts with a room being set up in a church. They are expecting 4 guests and the church lady is extremely stressed the whole time. We get a lot of awkward dialogue the whole time but finally the 4 people arrive. They are two couples and they are here to talk about a recent school shooting. Their conversation is going to get pretty intense because one couple are the parents of one of the kids who got shot, while the other couple are the parents of the school shooter who was then shot by the authorities. Can they come to an understanding?

Well naturally just from the premise you can see how this isn’t exactly a popcorn action flick. It’s all very serious and dreary the whole time. I think the idea of a debate of sorts would be pretty interesting but this isn’t really a debate. The parents of the first boy just really want to hear some regret from the other parents and try to convince them that their son was a monster. Meanwhile the other couple is doing their best to be pleasant but don’t want to back down on their position that he was still their son and otherwise was a good person.

As a result, it’s not like there is much of an end point that they can have here. The second couple has been taking heat from everybody around the world and may have even had similar conversations with other parents. Meanwhile the first couple can talk a lot but it won’t bring their son back so if anything it means that the conversation may just stir up old wounds even more. They all hope that this conversation will help provide some closure but will it do that? In my mind that seems like a pretty impossible task. I could see having conversations with other people but reaching that far across the aisle is probably going to be a bad idea 99% of the time.

Again I do find conversations like this interesting but typically the features I watch online are done in a much more aggressive ways. Think of something along the lines of Piers Morgan where the panelists are always yelling over each other and calling each other names or any Youtube debate with folks like Destiny, Asmongold, Haasan, The Crucible, Peterson, etc. They tend to be one dimension removed from the situation so they can go on TV and start yelling real hard as they press on the positions. You get the slightest fact or detail wrong and they will absolutely pounce on you right away.

In some ways that kind of conversation will tend to yield more results since you can try exposing the other side. Of course in this movie nobody is really in it to expose the other. Perhaps a little at first but again it’s more for closure. It’s just that it takes absolutely forever to get to any of the points. Anytime they start to get into some interesting topics like gun control, psychiatry, etc. they are cut off by one of the other characters to try and make more emotional arguments instead of looking at things logically.

By far I would say the couple who raised the shooter were the best characters here. They both did their best to be sympathetic and proper right from the jump. They said all the right things while also refusing to back down from their positions or relent on any point that would make their son seem like a monster. They kept strong here and just did a solid job. They were also able to look at the situation a whole lot more analytically and didn’t have as many emotional bursts as the first couple. Considering that they went through a whole lot as well, that was impressive. Whether or not they suffered more than the second couple will be debatable but ranking different traumas is ultimately pointless. Everybody suffered in this film which is the point that the film is trying to establish here.

Of course the first couple has a lot of reason to be upset but they were the ones mainly breaking the agreed upon rules like going into interrogation mode and launching into personal attacks. They were consistently more aggressive and having to walk around the room. I give the first couple a lot of credit for agreeing to meet up as well since this easily could have been a trap or some kind of surprise attack. Once they were all alone in that room, any number of bad things could have happened before any kind of backup would arrive. So the first couple also showed a lot of bravery.

The scenes with the church folks from the beginning and ending may have been a little too dragged out but I appreciated the attempt at trying to have a little levity in here. I wouldn’t have minded that as a subplot of them running around and maybe bumping into the room once or twice. It would have been a good chance to have a few cliffhangers too with one side landing a solid zinger as we cut away and then return.

At its core, I suppose the main issue here is that the conversation gets fairly boring pretty fast. You basically know all of the stances that the characters will take before they make them. This is of course because the film is trying to go for a lot of realism. You could picture this being a real conversation between two families with all of the crying and pausing that was implemented in the film. There are probably talks like this that go on every day but in a film you need to do some kind of enhancing to make it interesting. The film could have probably had its runtime cut in half and still preserved all of the core ideas that were brought in.

Overall, Mass may be realistic but it’s not particularly entertaining. I really think they should have had the lawyers from both ides involved. That way you have them being aggressive the whole time while the family begins to see the others’ side of view. The lawyers get kicked out in the climax and then we get the quick wholesome ending. That would definitely work well for making things a little intense. All in all, if this is a topic that you find interesting then you may enjoy the film but otherwise I do think you can find better movies that touch on the themes of forgiveness and moving past trauma like Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Overall 2/10

The Third Murder Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for a police thriller, this time with a bit of a jaded edge from the defense attorney. He doesn’t really care about justice and just does whatever he can in order to get the best deal for his clients. This way he can just stay detached from everything but will he be able to in this case? It’s an interesting film but one that doesn’t have any real likable characters for the most part. I was also really hoping we could get more scenes within the courtroom but for the most part they tend to all be off screen.

The movie starts off with a guy getting murdered and then lit on fire. We cut to the present where the assailant was found to be a guy named Misumi who ended up agreeing to the charges. He is not slated to be sent for death and so that’s when Shigemori is called in as his defense. Shigemori needs to fight the technicality of the crime here. If he can change it from a murder robbery to something slightly lower, then he can get the guy off with life in prison instead. The problem is that Misumi seems to keep on giving different answers to every question as if he himself isn’t sure of what happened and is also giving incriminating statements. Does this guy want to be found guilty?

For a while there that’s sort of what I figured was happening. Misumi desperately wanted the death penalty and was trying to sabotage himself. It turns out that this wasn’t the case which makes him look that much worse to be honest. He comes off as really naive and gullible the whole time. The guy is in a bad position and just tries to do his best but he really could have planned things out almost any other way and had a better outcome. So every time the characters have a conversation with him you just cringe. Even right to the end the guy was being super cryptic.

As with any criminal case, you do have to try and measure all of the evidence. One girl even tells Shigemori how nobody tells the truth around here and that seems about right. Everybody is lying to their own ends. Even Shigemori basically says he will do whatever it takes to win even if he doesn’t believe what he is saying. It’s a pretty rough way for a defense attorney to speak. I imagine it’s probably the easiest way for him to live with himself since it is a tough job. Being a defense attorney means you sometimes have to defend truly terrible people that you know are guilty. It’s definitely not a job that I could ever take.

He has a younger assistant who still believes in justice but we’ll see how long that lasts. The prosecutor is a lot more likable since she is trying to make the world a better place and is getting stopped by Shigemori the whole time. Now I know the Japanese criminal system can make a person jaded with how good they are at forcing confessions. Regardless of if the confession is true or not, they get it and then that ends the threat. In any society you always have to choose between security and freedom. Japan has chosen security and so there are pros and cons to that. A pro is that you often don’t see a lot of crime, most of the ones that make the headlines are from tourists which makes a lot of sense.

It means if you commit a crime then you will be in for a very bad time. It also means you need to be really careful where you are at because if you are falsely accused then you are also in for a bad time. For what it’s worth, I would say the Japanese system has more pros than cons, I would consider it to probably be the best system around the world. Other systems that use a similar security styled focus like China tend to have more corruption issues and freedom styled justice systems always tend to become a bit of a joke by the end.

All of these are reasons why Shigemori may not believe in the cause anymore. His father used to be a more lenient man but has also turned hard after his light sentences were taken for granted. One of them even involves the current suspect. Now as the film goes on we get more and more actual motives for Misumi beyond the ones that were made up. One in particular involves the girl Sakie and while most of the plotlines are left a bit up for interpretation, I don’t believe there is ever any scene that gives us a reason to doubt what happened to her. It is the cleanest explanation for the murder later on and helps Misumi look more reasonable.

I still maintain that Misumi could have handled things a whole lot better though and his whole speech about control was really just bonkers. The fact is that some people do have control over other people’s lives depending on the context and situation. It may be nice to say that nobody should have control but that’s like me saying it would be nice if there was no crime. There’s just not much point in such a statement because that’s just how it is.

Also back to Shigemori, part of why he’s not likable is aside from the fact that he doesn’t care about justice, he just seems to be completely unreasonable the whole time. For example he brings a letter to the widow of the man who was killed and explains it’s from the murderer who feels bad about the whole thing. The fact that he actually half expected her to take the letter is crazy. That’s just such an insult, I was glad she ripped it. Why would you possibly forgive the murderer so easily or believe that he has any sympathy about the incident? If anything I’d be more likely to attend the hearings after that and make it clear that I want him gone. Shigemori acting like that was rude of her was totally crazy.

Ah well, again I also think the film would have been a whole lot better if we got to be in the courtroom a bit more. Of course the judge also seemed to be a bit corrupt in the sense that he was most worried about his image. I don’t blame the judge for basically insulting the whole defense team at the end though because the way they handled the situation would absolutely look crazy to everyone on the outside. The investigating period as the characters travel around is interesting enough but usually the court room is the payoff for all of that. It felt like we got cheated out of the most interesting bits and could only see a small preview of it.

Overall, The Third Murder is an interesting film. It runs a tad too long at times and I would have either made the characters a bit more optimistic or given the assistant more of a role. It would just be nice to have someone in the film who was super invested in what was actually happening. To a degree that is part of Shigemori’s character arc but it takes him a long while to get there. Ultimately the film has a lot to say about the justice system and characters spouting off their own idea of ethics but for the most part the characters come off as crazy. Like the father when he said that at birth some people are capable of murder and others aren’t. It’s such a crazy perspective I had to wonder if he meant something else at first. Either way there is a lot going on here.

Overall 6/10

Puppet Master Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

It’s time for one of those disgraceful movies. This one never even got to start on a high note and so you knew immediately that it wouldn’t be any good. Puppets can make for interesting villains at times but this one is definitely just going for shock value the whole time with no real substance at play. Throw in a bunch of annoying characters and you have an absolute recipe for disaster.

The film starts off with the Puppet Master bumping himself off instead of fighting off the evil villains. We then cut to the present where a group of psychic power users are summoned by their old “friend” Neil. These people are the best at what they do. Whether it is seeing the future, seeing the past, or being able to use wards, they are ready for anything. You might call them something like the Psychic Avengers! When they all walk into a room you will be shocked at what little aura any of them possesses. It’s almost as if they drain it from the room. Here’s the strange thing though, Neil is dead and has clearly been that way for a long while. How come none of these psychics sensed that? How did Neil summon them while dead? Well surely it wouldn’t hurt to stay in his mansion for one night?…….can they survive the puppets?

I mean maybe you could feel a little bad for them if they were upstanding citizens but they all look terrible from the jump. Frank and Carissa are way too self absorbed as they mess around when this should be serious business, Dana seems rather desperate and Alex completely wastes his future ability by not actually doing anything about it. It’s clear that they are all out of their depths and completely unprepared for what is about to happen. These psychics are all about to get exposed.

Neil’s wife Megan is rather suspicious the whole time. She is easy to offend but also seems to know more than she is letting on with Neil. The film shrouds her in mystery the whole time but she still never manages to be all that interesting. She gets to spend a decent amount of time with Alex but of course she was just married so you hope there is no romance brewing. Alex just seems oblivious to all the danger throughout the movie though. Even in the dream where we see the future, he just mindlessly walks into a trap. Yes, it was a dream but it is treated as something he would have done if that was the situation. Cmon now.

Frank and Carissa are some of the worst because they know they are in imminent danger and decide now is the time for bondage play. Really? Reallllly? That’s one of the most contrived kills I’ve seen in a long time, especially as Carissa has several minutes to free Frank but panics instead. The whole scene is just soooo bad and drawn out. They were going for max edge on both of the kills here and it was all so overdone.

Then for Dana, she seemed like the weakest anyway. Aside from her only noticeable trait being that she was crazy, she just didn’t handle this very well. I’ll get into this more later on but the puppets are really weak. At least for Frank and Carissa you can make a few excuses even if they are weak ones. Well, Frank has a legit excuse, the rest are dicey. For Dana she is just flat out defeated which is crazy.

These puppets are nothing like Chucky or Talking Tina. They don’t seem to have infinite regen or teleportation. We see characters tossing them around and plucking them apart like actual toys. They look so weak (Thanks in part to the low budget) that they should have lost immediately. For example one of the puppets is like the Thing. He does the “It’s Clobbering time!” barrage of fists. His fists don’t hurt too much as different characters eat a few punches and then toss him away. The main problem as always is they don’t finish the job. Rip the puppets arms off, keep the head detached, etc. Instead they just wait as the puppet very slowly puts himself back together.

Yeah the small hits will add up eventually so just take them out. Near the end we get an extended fight scene where somebody takes on multiple puppets at once and you just can’t help but feel like he could have done a lot better. The movie never actually makes the puppets look all that scary. I mean they were scared of humans with guns in the opening scene after all. They are fighters but not particularly good ones.

I’d also say that the ending is rather rushed with the puppets doing a 180 for no reason. You’re not sure why the main villain is suddenly afraid of them or why Alex suddenly wants to help the villain. Did he think the death would be too gruesome? I just don’t see why, if Alex frees the guy then Alex will quickly be murdered. It again makes Alex look dumb as rocks here. So not only is he making all of the wrong decisions over and over again but now he’s actively going out of his way to help the villain?

The writing throughout the film is terrible but that’s par for the course. The villains aren’t very intimidating at all and the characters are really bad. The violence is extremely over the top and so the movie doesn’t really have much of anything going for it. It’s not very long at least which I can say is a good thing. That may be the only real good thing I can say about it. There was a lot of potential here but the film used none of it.

There is one good thing I can say about the film and that is that I liked the designs of some of the puppets. The one with the knife was rather scary and I also liked the one with the big fists. The sound effect every time he would punch someone was intense. Maybe a bit funnier than scary but it worked well. The puppets could hold their own in a survival setting. The movie just didn’t execute on anything around them.

Overall, The idea of a bunch of psychic people getting together to solve a mystery of their dead enemy is really interesting. You could have done a lot with that but instead they don’t actually get to interact a ton before they split up and start getting picked off. None of them have any survival instincts with how they drink a lot and get tied up. Different members felt danger and evil when they walked into the mansion, did they just forget that? They underestimated the dummies to a painful degree and I’d argue the only smart thing to do would have been to leave the house immediately. If not, at least stay together and it would be hard to be defeated. Their overconfidence got to them and I still find it hard to believe that the franchise got so many films. Maybe the sequels will be better but this was a really rough start for the franchise. It was just L after L and you want to stay very far away from this one.

Overall 2/10

Plane Review

Posted on by
Reply

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

It’s time for a thriller and I remember seeing this trailer several times when the film was coming out. Sometimes you just like to see a fairly basic action title and this one definitely fits the bill on that level. There is quite a bit of action here and the characters have to surpass some real difficult odds. The film is fun the whole way through and the weakest aspect is really just that there aren’t any really great members of the crew outside of the main cast.

The film starts with Brodie getting ready for a fairly routine flight. He’s a solid pilot and has seen his share of action over the years. He’s flown through all kinds of weather so when the company forces him to chart a path right through a storm, he isn’t overly worried. He is less than pleased at also being surprised to find out that he will be transporting a criminal as well but doesn’t really get an option about that. Well, naturally the storm does impact the plane and they are forced to have an emergency landing in the middle of enemy territory. They are now being attacked by legions of powerful tribesmen. Can Brodie and Louis (The convict) team up to save everybody or will they ultimately fall to this attack?

I would say the film does a pretty good job at building some tension early during the flight although it was pushing it a bit to have Brodie leave the controls to check on everyone during a massive storm. I’m thinking it was to get him banged up and show how serious this was but there had to be a better way to do that. Still, once they land the film moves pretty fast. Brodie and Louis exploring the island is pretty fun and Brodie even gets to use his expert skills to get the phone working.

The first fight is definitely on the weaker side though. It was really just a long grapple and I was expecting a lot more hand to hand there. I’m thinking that’s because this was made to be a really down to Earth film so this is supposed to be what fighting is really like but I’ll take a cinematic battle any day. The gun fights we get later on are definitely a lot more solid and I would argue that’s usually rare. Typically I would expect the hand to hand battles to really be the highlight in a film like this.

Ah well, I suppose the film couldn’t do it all. On the gun fighting, I was glad they showed just how useful a good sniper can be. He took out most of the enemies on his own. If anything, I think they could have potentially won that fight outright since he just needed a few more shots. By the very end we do get into some Storm Trooper status as everyone keeps on missing but the film made clear the difference between a master operative who does this for a living and the random terrorists.

I also really enjoyed the subplot with corporate talking tough from home base. You had the sleazy CEO type guy who refuses to help no matter what since he is worried about his reputation. He would absolutely just let everybody back to die if it would help his image. Then you have the consultant who is good at situations like this. He comes in insulting everybody and gets right to business. This guy is definitely the standout character of the film because without him calling in backup and getting things ready, the heroes would have been absolutely cooked.

I’d even say it’s almost like a twist because for a while there you are basically expecting Brodie to do everything himself. Instead in this case he actually has a whole lot of backup who come in clutch to help out. It makes this into a bit of a team up film which initially you thought it would just be with the main two. They still do a good chunk of the work but they get a good amount of help against the waves of enemies. In the end it also helps with the whole realism angle.

So Brodie works well as the main character. He’s a tough fighter and never gives up as he fights on. I do think he had a pretty bad plan at the end though when he’s ready to give himself up. I get the noble sacrifice play and all but giving yourself up is never the right move. All it does it open yourself up to a whole lot of trouble. There’s rarely if ever any real benefit to doing this and you have better odds trying to fight your way out. Yeah your odds are lousy there too, but at least they aren’t 0.

Then Louis also does well with his combat experience. The guy has been around for a long time and he takes out some of the enemies right away. I was surprised if anything how shocked and hesitant Brodie was. In this situation you have to take the out as quickly as possible since jail is not an option and using lethal measures is a must. Without Louis, Brodie was definitely not going to last long here. At the end of the day Louis definitely proved himself when it counted.

As for the rest of the crew, they’re just generally awful. They panic and yell the whole time and then when they’re obviously in strange territory they still run up to the cars approaching. It’s not like it would have changed things much if they had stayed back but everyone knows not to run up to those. Then later on when it’s time to escape, they grumble about the method. None of them seemed to have any common sense or even a sense of urgency about them. It’s always rough to see the NPC type characters acting like this because you just expect better. I’ll give some kudos to Brodie’s co-pilot and one of the stewardesses but aside from them the others were just making too many bad decisions.

As you can expect given the circumstances, there is definitely a bit of a body count here. The characters are getting bumped off left and right and the film can definitely get rather violent. It’s definitely a case where I think it could have been more extreme but it’s enough to probably caution you about either way. Know that you’re getting into an intense film with this one but you could probably guess that. The film has solid writing and pacing throughout so it all goes pretty quickly. The film never lingers on any one moment for too long.

Overall, Plane is a fun film. It can definitely get rather intense and the villains are always annoying to see but you’ll enjoy it more than you don’t. While the passengers panicking and generally getting in the way may be realistic, it doesn’t make their scenes any less annoying. You absolutely do not want to get stuck with them on your side. They won’t be able to back you up at all or come in handy and will only put you in more danger. If you’re in a plane crash, you’re definitely going to want to put some distance between you and the others as soon as possible.

Overall 6/10

McQ Review

Posted on by
Reply


It’s time for one of those thrillers that doesn’t always make a ton of sense and people act out of character for no real reason but at the end of the day we accept this for the plot. I wouldn’t put it in the same conversation as any of the truly great thrillers but at the end of the day it’s not bad. It will keep you entertained on just how over the top it can be the whole time. McQ definitely does whatever he feels like.

The movie starts off with a cop looking corrupt and there are some shootings and handling of mysterious packages. Shortly afterwards the final cop is murdered and then we’re introduced to McQ. McQ is one of the most intense detectives out there but as a result he doesn’t play well with others. He’s an absolute solo act and I can tell you this right off the bat, you don’t want to get in his way. His partner was one of the guys who got bumped off so he wants to quickly find out what happened. He will have to get through a whole conspiracy though.

Whether you like the film or not will probably depend in large part on how much you like McQ. The guy always has a bit of an odd look on his face although I would describe it as he looks like he’s going to cry as opposed to it being a tough guy look. It’s pretty true to form with how often he gets rocked in the movie though. He walks into every possible trap and is on the back foot almost the whole time. I think he’s meant to be portrayed as an absolute powerhouse but it just didn’t come across that way for me. He had me shaking his head when he walked in on the villains and they made him drop the gun. Which time? Oh that’s tough since it happens more than once…

I do appreciate that he just beats up the villains whenever he wants but of course that makes it easy for him to be demoted as well. Then once he’s off the cops it is even harder to gather evidence…or is it? He basically has free reign to all of the police facilities and equipment anyway since nobody seems to care that he quit. He’s pals with everybody so they just laugh and give him experimental new guns. In some ways I might even say that this is super realistic but still I think it was maybe played up just a litttttttle bit more than I would think it should.

It’s at the point where they may as well have had him working for the cops the whole time because it didn’t actually impact the plot pretty much at all. He’s basically still a cop the whole time although where things get crazy is near the end as the cops are hunting him with the dog and are definitely going to injure him badly before he escapes. Makes the ending a little more interesting hehe. Again this is not a film that you are really watching for the logic so you don’t want to pay too much attention to any of that. Just remind yourself that this is just how things go when McQ is on the case.

I think the real low point for him is when he goes to get intel from one of the girls who has been on the scene for a while. You might be expecting a James Bond type moment where he woos her into revealing the info and that would be a bad enough scene but it actually gets worse for him. She basically says that she won’t say anything unless he has a one night stand with her and the guy has no rebuttal so he just goes ahead and does it. The guy has absolutely no main character energy to be letting himself get pulled into something like that. It’s such a sad scene for him and he needed to find another way. I mean it’s not like he has too many morals since he brought her some drugs to bribe her but I was still expecting a little better.

Yeah McQ is pretty shady. At least he is a good shot like when he takes someone down at the beginning of the film from a long distance. The film just can’t decide if he’s this ultra powerful vigilante or someone who is completely out of his depth. I’m inclined to pick the latter. Meanwhile his supervisor is absolutely unhinged the whole time. He tries to say that he is McQ’s friend but the actions would have you believing otherwise. He is constantly yelling and doing his best to destroy McQ while also yelling “I told you so”s throughout the movie.

In the climax we have a pretty interesting shootout but McQ forgets that he has the mega cluster gun for part of this battle. He should have used that as the cars were driving in and it would have easily murdered the driver both times. Instead he plays it safe so the climax takes a bit longer. In true thriller style we get a whole bunch of twists near the end. One of them feels like it was spoiled during the intro scene tbh but the characters don’t act like it’s a big shock anyway so maybe that’s the point.

All in all, the story itself is interesting but I dare say that the film’s leaps in logic are even more interesting. Yes, you want to see what’s going to happen but you’re more curious about what McQ is going to do next. Is he going to buy a gun while he is forbidden from owning one by the cops? Will he try playing vigilante as he chases a laundry truck down the street only to pick the wrong one? Will he even go as far as to beat someone up in the bathroom? McQ is always one step ahead of the movie audience and in a way that’s admirable. I feel like the film is 2 degrees short of going into comedy mode at times with how seriously the film portrays itself as.

Overall, I had a good amount of fun with the film. I feel like it’s not always in the way that the film had planned but hey it works for me. The film balances the seriousness of the case with a good amount of light hearted moments as well. The over the top cheesy ending is really the cherry on top here. I would recommend checking this movie out. It’s not great but as a random stand alone film it actually manages to be rather memorable. Whether you keep up with the film or not, you will certainly be entertained. Just try to make it past the unbearable romance scenes which do drag quite a bit.

Overall 7/10