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Murder on the Orient Express Review

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It’s time for a mystery thriller from Agatha Christie. And Then There Were None is still her best work as it’s a perfect example of how a murder thriller should go. While this one couldn’t quite match that master piece, it’s a very solid film and one that you should add to your repertoire. With all of the suspects boxed in on the train, it’s the perfect scenario for Detective Poirot. Still, he’ll have to work fast since the snow won’t last forever.

Poirot was enjoying a very peaceful train ride and was off duty for a change. He hadn’t expected to have any problems, but then a dead body is found. He quickly begins to deduce that there was something more to the victim than it would appear. Poirot also decides to interview all of the suspects and there were certainly a bunch. First is Harriet, a bold woman who loves to voice her opinions and is constantly chattering. She has something to say about everything so it is difficult to actually find out what she knows. Next is Hector, the secretary of the deceased. He is fairly mild mannered and always nervous. Then there’s Beddoes, a seemingly perfect butler who is always ready to answer politely. He was close to the deceased and delivers the nightly wine. Princess Natalia may be rather old, but that would also make it easier for her to do something while staying inconspicuous. She has a maid named Hildegarde who has served the master faithfully for many years so maybe it was all for this moment. Diplomat Rudolf and his wife Elena appear to be rather quiet for most of the journey. Rudolf does blow up whenever someone talks to him though so are his nerves cracking or are they both quiet because they know something? Mary, the teacher is around as well and her scholarly knowledge could be sinister. The Missionary Greta always seems rather timid and doesn’t know English too well, but is it all an act? There’s also Antonio, a car salesman and one of the only reasonable people here. He’s loud and bold and certainly isn’t nervous like the rest of the passengers. He’s ready to help the country and that could be suspicious. Finally, there’s the actor Cyrus. He always seems to fade into the background and that may not be an accident. We also can’t forget Poirot’s friend Signor. Sometimes friends aren’t as innocent as they appear to be. Poirot has a lot of suspects to flip through so this’ll be tough.

I love a good mystery and the whole film is about that. Poirot’s interrogation of every member is pretty fun as he grills them. Since most of the riders are either lying or hiding something, it really does make his job very difficult. The only co-operative guy was the car salesman who also happened to be the best character in the film. It’s no coincidence as I was glad to see someone being at least a little co-operative. Perhaps he was a little too eager so that makes him suspicious as well, but something to think about for sure.

The pacing is pretty tight here. The opening which shows a crime in progress is fairly short. It just gives you enough time to see each of the characters and then we are quickly taken to the train. Once at the train, it never feels like the movie is dragging on. While the mystery doesn’t start immediately, it gives you a chance to learn about each of the characters and gauge the reactions of each when things finally start. Naturally in any good thriller, you know not to pay too much attention to the reactions though. The guilty party is typically an expert and can feign any reaction somehow.

I was pretty satisfied with the ending. It’s not really a cop-out or anything like that. It’s probably not an ending I would want to see all that much as it would then start to feel like one, but done sparingly like this it works well enough. We’ll see if you can end up guessing what happened.

The underlying story in the prologue is fairly dark, but fortunately the film doesn’t go into it much. It was handled optimally as you know enough to understand the situation, but the film doesn’t go over details or try too hard for the edgy angle. It’s something that I hope the modern remake is taking notes on. The writing is quite good as you likely have suspected. I don’t know how strict of an adaption it was from the book, but I suspect that the writing is rather similar. All of the characters are sophisticated and it makes for multi layered dialogue as a characters says one thing and means the other. It results in everyone trying to manipulate one another.

If there’s one character who’s rather annoying (Aside from the guy who died rather instantly) it would be the missionary who has a hard time speaking English. Her scene dragged on for quite a while and it can be hard to get what she is saying. Moreover, it feels like what she is saying doesn’t actually matter. I’m sure it was relevant in some way as Poirot explained everything at the end and went into great detail with each member. It was probably relevant, but it didn’t feel like it was and I forget what part of it helped solve the case. I would have chopped that scene a little. Still, that’s really my only complaint with the film so you can tell that this is quite a solid one.i

Overall, The mystery genre is a tough one. I personally think it is one of the toughest ones to write and maybe it is The toughest one. Coming up with a good mystery sounds difficult and that’s probably why I enjoy reading them so much. It may be the best genre next to action, but it’s one that has to be handled delicately. Case Closed is an example of an excellent one. The only pitfall that they have is that the mystery only works once. They don’t have much replay value because when you watch it again, you already know the ending. It’s why the remake coming up should tread carefully. Granted, you won’t actually know if it’s the same ending until you’re at the end of the film so maybe it won’t matter all that much. Regardless, if you haven’t seen this film, I’d suggest changing that right away. It’s aged quite well and makes for an engaging watch.

Overall 8/10

The Great Wall Review

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It’s time to check out a monster film that didn’t stay in the spotlight for very long. The Great Wall had some potential as the trailer was fairly solid and the locale looked surprisingly good. Unfortunately, it ended up missing many of its objectives and the film fell flat. It has some good ideas, but fails to utilize them well which hurts the whole package in the end.

William and Tovar are shifty business men who steal stuff and make a profit. It’s rather vague what they are actually doing or the film just breezed by that description. Either way, their party is picked off by monsters and they are forced to surrender to the Chinese army as they were being followed by a pack of bandits. It was certainly a rough start for the heroes, but they were able to help fend off another monster invasion which earns them into the army’s good graces. General Lin in particular is impressed with William’s archery after initially wanting to kill him on the spot. William takes this in stride with casual insults and passive aggressive lines being thrown around by both characters. Can William survive the rest of the monster attacks or is he doomed?

As seems to be the case a lot of the time, William and Tovar aren’t heroes. Even though they were saved by bandits, they want to steal the army’s gunpowder so they can sell it off for a high price. William starts to drift away from this plan when he becomes attached to the war cause, but Tovar won’t be dissuaded. He never becomes a good character and does go as far as to betray the army and steal it anyway. He may be a bad apple, but William has influence so no harm ever really comes to Tovar nor does the guy ever learn his lesson. He surprisingly didn’t have any character development. Lin

William is a fine lead. He’s a super tough fighter who can be considered a prodigy and he accomplishes more than scores of other warriors right away. His skills are so legen…dairy that he becomes a hero rather quickly. That still doesn’t prevent him from getting knocked out by sucker hits and not making up his mind at times, but nobody can be perfect. Surprisingly the film didn’t go for a romance between him and the main heroine which was realistic for a change. They’re in the middle of a war so I’d like to think that romance wouldn’t be the first thought in their minds. I would have liked to have seen William do a little more as he never really becomes that notable, but he’s probably the second best character here by default.

After all…the cast is basically just 3 characters. We have an old guy who’s also a traitor and a tactician who isn’t bad, but their roles are very minor. Lin is the final main character and she’s a solid fighter. She’s clearly high ranked in the army and moves up quite a bit by the end. Her armor looks pretty cool and on the whole I liked the blue color scheme as it reminded me of Mega Man. I do have to say that her method of fighting in the army is rather in efficient though. Her duty is to jump from the roof, slash a few monsters and then get pulled back by the rope. The problem is that it only lets you hit 1-3 of the monsters and there is a high chance of dying instantly. Since the monsters are numerous in number, I can see why the humans are losing the war. It’s just such a terrible tactic and it’s too bad she was saddled with this job. She was instrumental in the climax though and at least mastered her duty.

Here’s where the problems start. First of all, I didn’t like it when China appeared at the end or when William admits that the rest of the modern world exists. At the start this feels like a fairly apocalyptic type film where there are just ravagers left and monsters all around. If not that drastic, then the heroes are at least deep in the past so everyone is primitive. No, apparently China just blocked itself from the outside world so they don’t really know what basic things are like magnets and gunpowder. Fortunately, William has been around the block a few times and tells them about the modern world. Personally, I’d say that it wrecks the atmosphere completely and just really changes the film.

Another issue is with the monsters. Don’t get me wrong, the actual monsters are great. They show exceptional teamwork and intelligence. They stay one step ahead of the army throughout the whole film and it’s quite impressive. The fact that they also look after their injured made me root for them instead of the main characters the whole time. By the same token, they felt more like animals than monsters the whole time so seeing the heroes stab at them was pretty gruesome. The fights are intense and the only weak point for the monsters is naturally the eye. This makes the whole thing that much worse. As a result, the action scenes were the weakest part of the film for me and pretty much single handily drop the score all the way down. It’s just not fun to watch as the monsters should have won. It doesn’t help that the humans are just generally unlikable aside from William and Lin, but those two are just yes men so it’s not as if they will stop the others.

The visuals are definitely nice in this film though. I like how all of the groups are color coordinated. The armor designs are really on point and are probably some of the best ones that I’ve seen in a film in quite some time. The monsters also looked acceptable for me. I don’t care for the third eye stuff but a monster is a monster at the end of the day. I would have preferred a large city backdrop like NYC, but the Great Wall works well enough as well. The wall is definitely large though and it’s easy to see how traitors can hide around. Nobody knows what the other is supposed to do after all.

Overall, I can’t help but feel that the film and it’s entire premise are ripped off from Attack on Titans. It is a fun plot to play around with though so I can see why films would borrow from it a bit. This film isn’t bad for the most part. The writing isn’t anything special, but it’s all right. The main leads are good and help to make up for the rest of the cast. The fights are just a downer since you’ll be rooting for the monsters the entire time and once the main part of China gets involved, things get a little sour as well. I gotta give props to the monster queen’s body guards. Those guys did a pretty good job throughout. You can certainly do better with monster films and I’d recommend one of the new Godzilla’s. It has the right blend of humor and action.

Overall 3/10

Phantom of the Opera Review

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It’s time for a retro film that is rather iconic. I guess I should say that the Phantom of the Opera is rather iconic to be precise. It has had many adaptions on just about every medium over the years, but this is the first one that I’ve checked out. (Pretty sure) It’s a decent enough story with some fun characters and okay dialogue, but it doesn’t stand out as one of the all time greats or even as a super solid story. It gets you through the film all right and the pacing is good, but I would have liked the main character to have stopped leading everyone on by the end.

The story starts off with the Phantom being kicked off the opera because his hands are going bad and he can’t play well anymore. While he should have been rich since he served for 20 years, he spent all his money getting lessons for a girl named Christine. She doesn’t even know that he is providing the lessons for her and believes that she is getting them for free. While the Phantom is at least 20 years older than her, he wants her to be with him, but lacks the courage to say so. In the meantime, he will help her as much as possible from the shadows so she will owe him later in life. He realizes that if the opera won’t let her be the lead singer on their own, he’ll have to take the top singers out of the picture and threaten the opera into making the switch.

It’s a classic story of a villain thinking that since he is doing nice things for someone, they have to reciprocate. The whole situation is also his fault as he mistakenly thinks that someone stole his song and murders a guy for it. (Not even the guy that he thought stole his song) As a result his face is half burned off and he is forced into hiding. Fortunately for him, the Phantom is a master of hand to hand combat and has a surprising amount of physical strength. He murders a bunch of people with ease and the film hints that he could have taken on the two male leads as well before losing to a cave in. He’s not a very good/interesting villain, but at least the design worked rather well. Who doesn’t like the simplicity of a cape and mask combo? It’s why Batman got so popular.

I do have some issues with the main heroine though as she was annoying throughout the film. Christine has a lot of admirers as you can tell by now. The main two are Anatole and Raoul. She knows that they are both interested in her, but decides to play the field. She goes out to dinner and accepts flowers/gifts from both of them. She notices that they constantly fight over her, but seems to thrive on the attention. It’s rather inconsiderate of her, but that’s consistent in the film. She is not upset at all to learn that the main singer was poisoned and even celebrates in front of everyone since she will now have a chance to be on the big stage. There’s nothing really heroic about her and she even feels bad for the Phantom at the end. Sure he murdered a bunch of people, but he liked her so he couldn’t have been a bad person. You have to take a double take at her reasoning there since it’s rather outlandish. She was glad he got to hear his music one last time while I think it would have been poetic if he had gotten caved in before hearing it. That’s just me though.

While Christine is leading them on, I can’t feel bad for Raoul and Anatole since they know it. It’s hard to say who the better character is, but I’ll give Anatole the edge. At least he does know music and is a professional. He’s polite and ultimately has the better plan which ends up capturing the Phantom. On the other side, Raoul’s plan ends up failing and he seems to enjoy her musical career a little less. He basically wanted her to retire when he first showed up which instantly signals a bunch of warning bells. Fortunately, one of the higher ups told Christine that music is more important than anything else and it seems like she has decided to follow that advice.

The character roster is small, but that means they all got a lot of screen time. The film’s writing was pretty solid as well. While I didn’t care for the characters as much as in some of the other retro films, the script was still on point. I enjoyed all of the sarcastic/passive aggressive banter from all of the characters. Most of them did not get along in the slightest, but they were very subtle about it. The humor may not have been a great success, but it was also handled very mildly so it didn’t get irritating or go in the way of the story. The main comedy angle was that one character believed that a ghost was causing all of the trouble and would constantly describe him by pulling out his nose and imagining a beard. I forgot why, but he would never want to refer to the ghost by name. Perhaps he thought people would make fun of him, but the ones that he did tell took it pretty seriously for the most part. There was only one guy who disagreed and that’s not bad considering that I thought everyone would make fun of him for it.

Overall, This is a fairly good film. It’s not the greatest out there, but it was enjoyable during the run. As I mentioned, it’s rather short as well so the pacing is on point. It’s cool to see just how large an opera house is. I imagine that it would be difficult to find a criminal since there are 2500 rooms and he can keep hiding in different ones. Hopefully this will teach the Opera staff not to put the Master Key in an unlocked drawer in the main room that anyone can break into. Especially since their ex staff member was the main suspect of a crime and everyone knew about it. These guys just didn’t think ahead. The actual plays in the film didn’t seem all that interesting, but fortunately they never got all that much screen time at all. With a better cast, this film would get another star. As it is, I’d recommend checking it out. There’s not much to the film, but sometimes that makes it easier to watch. The plot is as simple as can be so you can just follow the journey from start to finish without thinking about it much.

Overall 6/10

The Mummy (2017) Review

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It’s time for the first film in the Dark Universe cinematic universe. Unfortunately it starts off with a complete flop. Mummy hits all of the wrong notes throughout the film and negates whatever presence and intensity it may have had. I can respect its reliance on jump scares as it has well over a dozen of them, but none of these moments were actually effective and it just goes to show that relying on horror tropes won’t get the job done. It’s also unsure whether it’s an action or horror film which adds to the confusion. Ah well, this isn’t one for the history books and you should stick to the last Mummy series.

The film’s about a thief named Nick who releases Princess Ahmanet from her prison. He doesn’t believe in Egyptian curses or anything like that and just saw it as a way to get rich very quickly. Unfortunately, this leads Ahmanet to pick him as her chosen vessel who will be possessed by Set and help her rule the world. Nick’s partner is destroyed in the process and becomes a ghost who blames Nick for his death and loses his mind half the time. Seriously, the guy can never decide whether he wants to be friends with Nick again or just destroy the guy. Meanwhile, an archaeologist named Jenny is in danger since Ahmanet doesn’t want Nick to have any friends who could become rivals. Can this human take on the Mummy? There’s also an Illuminati led by Henry that specializes in destroying supernatural forces. Hopefully they can help out a bit…if they’re not evil or super shady.

This movie has a long list of problems so lets start going through them. One of the biggest problems is..you guessed it…animal violence. I had to shake my head here since we start with Crows being tied down and end with masses of them being forced to suicide by the Mummy. I don’t think these scenes added to the movie and were just here as shock value. It’s a shame that it already started the film out on the wrong note, but things continued from there.

Ahmanet’s main attack is that she’ll kiss people to death. Is this what the Mummy has been reduced too? See, this is the problem that Hollywood keeps making. Why does the female Mummy have to attack this way instead of through sand attacks like every other Mummy? She also happens to be a very weak Mummy as she loses to a few stun guns and a net towards the middle. In the climax, she goes down in one hit. Did I mention that the climax is very anticlimactic and there is no actual fight? It’s a shame since the film hinted there was going to be a cool fight with super speed and epic effects but no, the kiss of death was activated. Ah man, a certain action hero better not keep that as his main attack. That’ll be brutal.

Ahmanet’s not a bad character, but she really wasn’t used well. I’m honestly not a big fan of the design myself as I’d prefer a normal look, but that she has the ability to turn to sand at will. Think Sandman or Crocodile. (One Piece) Her sand abilities were fun though so I wish she had gotten to use them more. She’s a total villain despite the film practically begging you to root for her at times. There just aren’t any real heroes in this film.

Another issue I had is that the Illuminati is clearly evil. I expected the movie to go this route, but they went as far as possible with them deciding to punish Ahmanet with a living, very long drawn out process of mummification. Basically they’ll fill her with mercury which sounds like a pretty painful way to die. Henry is also insane as the leader and the film doesn’t hide this at all so I may as well say that he’s the famous Mr. Hyde. If he doesn’t have his drugs constantly, he gains very mild super strength and poorly handled effects. It reminded me of an old film I saw a while back where the main character’s hair changed for when he’s evil. It’s very similar and poorly handled as well. Henry is the worst character in the series. If you have to choose between an evil organization or an evil Mummy, it’s probably best to just choose yourself and fight everybody. I’m on Team Cruise in this case.

The Mummy also couldn’t resist throwing in some poorly handled romance and dialogue. The banter between Nick and Jenny is painfully bad and played out. It’s all dialogue that we’ve seen before and doesn’t add anything to the film. We don’t need to see Ahmanet constantly throwing off her robe or stripping just to make deals or give people dreams of the future. We don’t need the same flashback a million times of her about to stab someone and then get stabbed herself. Murdering the baby once was enough, we don’t need to repeat that. All of the repetition just made each scene worse and worse as if they weren’t poorly handled enough the first time. We should stray away from child violence and baby violence as it is. No need for any of that here. So, to get this straight, Ahmanet was used for romance and fanservice a lot and was fairly weak for a Mummy. Like I said, the character wasn’t used well at all.

Then there’s Nick. He’s not very heroic as he was close to ditching Jenny a few times and he did steal from her after their hotel fling. Nick also decided that riches were more important than stopping the rebels or investigating the area like he was supposed too. Don’t worry though, Jenny tells us that he is a good man at heart so we’re supposed to believe that. His personality was also a little intriguing as he had the classic Cruise wit and fast talk down like you’d expect, but then he’d also get shaken a little easier. His conversation with Henry was just weird in that sense as he started stammering a lot like “Cure me right Doc? I I I’m ready….cure. You’re gonna cure me? Right? Lets do it. Lets do it Doc. Doc?” The lines were just really weird and scrambled during that scene and I thought it was because Set was starting to control him or something, but we learn that he had no influence until Nick was stabbed so…it was just random.

I didn’t care much for Jenny either. She wasn’t much of a fighter and her lines of “Get him off me” when the zombie broke into the car just illustrated that she wasn’t going to do anything about it. It was Nick’s job to get them away and she only “helped” by kicking him in the face for it. She sold Nick out to the evil organization as well and just never became likable. I actually preferred Nick’s partner which is saying something since his whole role was to panic constantly until he died. He was also odd to me as I mentioned before. He seemed to lose his mind when he tried destroying everybody but then he got it back. Somehow he kept his free will I guess after he had settled down, but why? Everyone else was a crazy servant and then he almost got Nick run over by a car. Nick just shouldn’t trust this guy, but it seems like he’ll be sticking around for the long haul….great.

This is a modern movie, but it doesn’t really have a modern soundtrack. There’s not much to it this time so the film fails on that account. The scenery isn’t bad when the characters are in the city. I do like cities for action films like this one and the underwater caverns weren’t bad either. The desert scenes hold it back to an extent though along with the flashbacks. Not to keep grating on this point, but 3 random guards were able to hold the Mummy down after she was given her powers? I dunno about that. Maybe the powers hadn’t sunk in yet, but I would have expected her to win that round.

That’s not to say there were no positives to be found here. The film is reasonably fun. Fun doesn’t go a long way when it comes to the score, but I don’t think you’ll really be bored. Something is usually happening at the very least. While the chase scenes aren’t very inspired, you do get to see Nick take down a bunch of zombies. There are some fun parody moments as well like when Nick tries to approach the Mummy and gets slapped or punched through a few walls. People got a chuckle out of it the first time. The film made sure to use that scene a few more times, but it was met with deafening silence on the re runs. Usually you don’t want to re use a joke more than once. It was good that the film showed the Mummy had super strength…it’s just too bad that it vanished when it counted. I am glad that the film didn’t cop out though and the Mummy had the edge over Jenny. I would have had a hard time believing that she could last very long against the Mummy at all.

Finally, I have to take another shot at Henry’s plan. His big plan…is to give Nick unlimited power and then destroy him before he takes them down. That’s such a flawed plan that it hurts. The instant Nick gets those powers, he could probably use super speed to get away or just activate some mystical ability to blow them all away. It just seems to risky, wouldn’t the better plan be to just destroy the jewel? It’s apparently very delicate as a quick bump can break it. There’s not much that the Mummy or Nick could do without it so that’s the optimal plan. No risk and the day is saved. That’s why if Henry is supposed to be this world’s Nick Fury, then we’re doomed. He’s just not all that intelligent.

Overall, I’m a little worried about the Dark Universe. The premise of it still has a lot of potential. Nick should play a big role and that should be interesting as he is a charismatic guy. That being said, most of the monsters haven’t aged well. I can’t imagine the Werewolf, Frankenstein, or Dracula even being all that interesting. Maybe the films can change my mind but based on how they handled this one, that could be a long shot at best. You should definitely skip this film and stay far, far away. It’s just not a good movie.

Overall 3/10

Gargoyles Review

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It’s time to look at a really obscure horror film. This one’s fairly low budget and at times you’ll wonder when it’s supposed to actually get scary. Well, the good news is that while it lacks in scares, it is a fairly short film. It’s all over in a little above an hour. You won’t feel a whole lot of heart during that time and the film mainly goes through the motions, but it’s not that bad. It just needed a few scenes with a bit more of a kick to take it to the next level. This didn’t happen though so the film just puttered out in the end.

The film follows a guy named Mercer who writes books about the supernatural. He doesn’t believe any of them, but they sell very well. One day he gets a letter from a guy out in the middle of nowhere who claims to have some valuable intel for Mercer. Our confident main character doesn’t believe him, but free beer is offered so he decides to give the guy a chance. It wasn’t much of one though as Mercer basically mocks him during the entire visit and really gives the guy a hard time of it. The guy even shows Mercer a skeleton that he found, but Mercer says it’s fake. At that moment, a Gargoyle drops the house on them and the old man dies. Mercer and his daughter Diana escape and decide not to tell the cops what happened. They report the dead body, but act as if it was a natural disaster or something. The cops are one step ahead of them though and decide to pin it on a group of teenagers who are known for stealing around these parts. Can Diana save the kids from the life of a prisoner and can she escape the Gargoyles?

From the start it’s hard to really like any of the characters. Mercer comes across as a total fake who mocks what he writes about. I understand writing purely for the money, but the guy’s attitude was never great. The whole intro scene where he’s mocking this old guy was just mean and only staying for the beer was kind of petty. He’s also a little inconsiderate as he keeps on playing the tape with Diana screaming when the monster comes back. How many times does he have to play that thing? He goes through it about 5 times and never learns anything new. There’s no secret piece of the puzzle that’s suddenly going to show up there.

As for Diana, she likes taking pot shots about Mercer and implying that he let the teenagers get framed for money. As he pointed out, the cops would never believe them about Gargoyles invading the city and starting World War III so he needs proof first. They’d have a similar reaction to the skeleton. I suppose it’s good that she went to exonerate the teens, but she didn’t do a good job about it. She also didn’t do a great job of resisting the demons although I suppose there wasn’t much she could do. I think making a break for it would have helped though.

The Gargoyles make for pretty bad villains. The intro to the film talks about how they’ve been at war with humanity for centuries and lose every time. Luckily, there is always one that escapes and she hatches a bunch of others and they start all over again. Well, that’s the case here and this time they decide to lie low for a while while the eggs hatch. This plan would have worked…but they decided to burn a house down and get people interested again. The plan made no sense and they would have destroyed the world if not for this. I suppose they couldn’t help themselves as they wanted to kidnap Diana and steal a demon book, but both of these things were ultimately pointless to them. If they had waited and attacked with their army, things could have gone a little differently.

Still, this film isn’t exactly known for its masterful writing now is it? To an extent I suppose it’s to be expected that some things wouldn’t add up and this was likely not thought out a whole lot by the writers. They just needed to churn a film out ASAP. One big moment where you’ll notice this is when Mercer goes back to get reinforcements and takes his time, but still catches up to the leader by the cave. I guess they were moving in slow mo considering how long Mercer was gone. The stale mate at the end was also anticlimactic as the demon basically just yelled “I’ll be back in 100 years” and flew away. There was no final fight or anything like that, just more posturing and bewilderment from the people in the audience.

The teenagers never got likable either and the cops weren’t great either since they were quick to pin the blame without any proof. None of the cast was likable and that includes the really random owner of the motel who was flirting around and accusing the main characters of various stuff the whole time. There was no reason for her inclusion except possibly for humor (Which failed if so) or just to give us a quirky character. Films don’t need quirky characters, but it seems like they are always added anyway. The Gargoyles get a few fatalities along the way so the film had some stakes, but it still felt like this horror was just going through the motions.

Going back to plot holes or at least leaps in logic, there was another iffy scene. After Diana goes to the police station on her own and walks back, it seems like it’s a very long trek. This kind of makes sense since the heroes had to drive in a car for a while to get there. The Gargoyles then attack her while she is in the middle of nowhere and you think that hope is lost for her. Fortunately, this isn’t the case as Mercer appears and takes her back to the motel…which is only 5 steps away. Wait a moment, the place was deserted for miles a second ago and Diana was looking around as if she was lost. Did she not see the cabin? It was a scene that didn’t make any sense. The brief “fight” scene after that was interesting as the Gargoyles just broke in and messed everyone up. The suits weren’t half bad I suppose, but they don’t look as intimidating when they’re walking around like that.

Overall, There’s not much to the Gargoyles film. The enemies are fairly bland and generic while the main heroes are unlikable and not very sympathetic. The film doesn’t have a lot of direction. It’s a shame because it didn’t really make many mistakes. The film isn’t violent, there isn’t any real language, and there’s no animal violence. However, not making mistakes doesn’t make up for not getting anything right. The film still isn’t very interesting anyway and there’s no real reason to recommend it to anyone. If you want a really scary film, check out Madoka Magica: Rebellion. The ending in particular is truly frightening!

Overall 4/10

Steel Review

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It’s time for an old superhero film. This one wasn’t exactly critically acclaimed when it first came out, but it’s aged pretty well. It’s a light hearted film that’s pretty fun and never take itself too seriously. This makes some of the fatalities throughout the film fairly unexpected when they happen. It would have been better if they could have actually tied this into Superman instead of treating the latter as if it was fictional, but I’ll take what I can get for now.

The plot follows a man named John who works with the government on testing weapons. Unfortunately, one of their men, Burke, wanted to show off for a senator so that he could get a promotion. He activates the weapon past its safety limitations and destroys the senator by mistake. He is expelled from the army (No real charges aside from a court hearing) and Steel decides to step away from the army. He’s done with the job now. His friend Sparky was injured so now it’s just too personal. She is fated to live in a wheelchair now and is having a hard time adjusting.

Steel isn’t able to lead a normal life as teenagers somehow got the experimental weapons from the army and are robbing banks with it. Steel realizes that he’ll need new weapons to fight these guys with weapons so he teams up with Uncle Joe and brings in Sparky so that the three of them can build a bunch of gadgets. They build him a steel suit, a hammer, magnets, and even a grapple hook. Steel is ready to bring on the hurt, but can he really hope to stop these villains?

Right away you can tell that Steel is going to be pretty fun. The opening action scene with John chasing one of the teenagers who fired at the cops was pretty fun. They weave their way in and out of the subway system and John has to use his super strength to keep up. He lifts a gate off its hinges and this is all before he even gets the steel suit. It was also fun because it shows what a heroic guy John is.

Is John a little on the cheesy side? Sure. The whole film is rather cheesy and campy and feels a little older than it actually is. I’m fine with that though as I’ve always been a fan of both those genres. John himself acts like the perfect hero as he looks out for his community and always does the right thing. Everyone can count on him and he has a really good reputation. He has no dark secrets or hidden memories, he’s just a nice guy. The fact that Shaq isn’t much of an actor only helps this case as he’s constantly grinning and acting like a nice guy that you might meet outside. He doesn’t use as many puns as I was hoping for, but he gets the job done.

Sparky is the main heroine and she’s a fun character. I was worried that she would be lost in doubt for a while as getting crippled really got to her, but she got past this. It was cool to see her gun infused wheelchair and every hero needs good tech support. I imagine we would have seen more of her fighting crime in the sequel if the franchise had ever gotten that far. Uncle Joe is the other supporting character who helped Steel out. He has connections and can get any piece of tech that he asks for. The guy may push Steel rather hard, but he’s another likable old chap. There’s not a whole lot to him, but sometimes there doesn’t need to be.

Finally we have the main villain, Burke. His name doesn’t exactly strike fear into your heart now does it? I couldn’t really take him seriously, but I do admire the fact that he doesn’t waste time. After murdering one of his subordinates, he is subtly threatened by the secretary. At this point, I thought Burke wouldn’t live through the film and she would get the last laugh as a stinger to the next film. Instead, he takes her out of the equation 2 minutes later with an elevator stunt. I came to the realization of what was happening at the same time that she did and it was rather unexpected. As I mentioned earlier, some of the deaths I didn’t really see coming because of the happy tone that the rest of the film had.

Still, that’s not enough to make Burke a good villain. None of the others were any better though so he’s the best by default. The guy he tricked into letting him be the big boss was probably the most gullible gangster boss I’ve seen in a while. Did he really not see Burke’s betrayal coming? I have to give one of the minions some props though because he looked exactly like the Donald Trump impersonator from SNL. It was uncanny and a bit distracting, but pretty novel.

Surprisingly the best fight scene here was the one with the trains. It was more of a chase than a fight, but it was still pretty fun. Once Steel was in the suit, we actually didn’t get many action scenes. He’d usually just use the magnet and then everyone would run away. He didn’t fare well against the tank, but fighting a vehicle isn’t much of a fight either. It would have been cool if Burke had made his own suit, but I suppose you’d wonder how he made it or why he’d bother.

One of the things that really helped the film stand out was its intense soundtrack. The themes were all really cool and particularly Steel’s theme. It would play for quite a few scenes when Steel would show up and it helped get that freestyle vibe to the film. A good soundtrack can absolutely go a long way and I was pleasantly surprised to see that Steel had one.

Overall, Steel has aged well and it’s a fun film that you can watch while eating a bowl of popcorn. It may not have the effects and explosions of a modern action film, but it has all the heart and wit that you could ask for. It’s a simple film at heart and it’s not too ambitious. It just adapts a straight forward plot and keeps it moving. I’d recommend checking it out and I have a feeling that you’ll enjoy it a lot more than you would have expected. I definitely wouldn’t mind a Steel reboot at some point although it would be hard to top this one. Throw in the cape and give us some good action scenes and it’s anyone’s game though.

Overall 7/10

Flip’s Twisted World Review

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It’s time for one of the lowest budget, glitchiest games that I’ve ever played. Flip started out as a reasonably fun game, but as the worlds went on it got worse and worse until it was finally sitting at the bottom of the pile. I’ve been working on this game off and on for years and I was finally able to conquer it. It’s a journey that isn’t for the faint of heart and I certainly wouldn’t call it an enjoyable game by any stretch of the imagination. This is one game that should stay forgotten.

The game follows a magician named Flip. He gets into some mischief and is involved with the 7 World Pieces being stolen. His former friend turns evil with power and now we have to find them all before the other kid destroys the world. Flip’s not a very nice guy though and will do whatever it takes to win on the way there. Don’t bother begging for mercy because Flip won’t offer it. He’s after one thing and one thing only…the Universal Scepter. Once he has that, Flip will be the king of the world.

The gameplay tries to be like a 3D Mario, but with a gimmick. Uh oh…here come the gimmicks. Why do games always feel like they need a cheesy gimmick? In particular, why do all Wii games have motion controlled gimmicks? I don’t understand anymore. The gimmick is that you can shift gravity in 4 directions which lets you walk on the walls or the ceiling. It has potential and can be interesting, but Gravity Rush exists. It completely invalidates this game because the whole gimmick was handled so much better. It’s a shame, but the games aren’t even in the same league.

Flip also gains a new ability in each world. By the end of the game, you’ll have Thunder, Water, Fire, Ice, Metal, The Book, and another ability that I’m probably forgetting. You’ll rarely use some of those abilities, but others like Water are always useful. Ground Pound is underrated as it’ll help you get through all of the obstacles. It’s your best option in about 90% of the tasks that you’ll be faced with. For most of the levels, you just have to get to the end, wherever that is, and find the Chapter Stone. Each level is extremely long and has around a dozen rooms which all function as mazes. Suffice it to say, you’ll be here for a very long while.

Lets talk about why this game was bad. First of all, the level designs are terrible. When you walk into a room and have absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to do, that’s a problem. The game also lets you go back through the door you came from for no reason. It’s never helpful as there is never a point in the game when you have to backtrack and the worst part is that you’ll typically have to clear the trial again. For example, I was in one of the last rooms in the final chapter when I fell through an old door. (Gravity shenanigans) and it took me to the start. I now had to clear about 6 mazes again to get through. One of those I initially cleared through a glitch so it took a while to figure out. You should never have to redo what must have been 30-40 minutes of work just because you took the wrong door.

There is also an infamous cave level that is pitch black. The point of it is that you use your fire abilities to light the way, but they barely give you any light at all. You’ll still be stumbling through the dark the whole time and as always, the old doors are around so if you go through them by mistake, you have to find the 3 switches again. This is the level that had me stumped for months and after a while I was too triggered to even watch the Youtube video on how to escape. I had to conquer the game so I grabbed a few bottles of Water and a lot of big dinners and months later…I did it. It wasn’t fun though, it was simply a challenge and that level alone doomed the game to a negative score.

The boss battles are also tough to figure out at times. You don’t know when they are actually taking damage and it’s just a lot of testing until you find the right strategy. None of the bosses were designed very well. The final boss is the only one that at least came with a cool character and stage design. Still, it wasn’t a fun boss either as he kept spinning the stage and glitching through it so you’d have to die and come back again. The good news is that jumping off of a stage doesn’t count as a death, it only counts when you lose to an attack. That’s nice since the game would be that much tougher without such a feature.

The audio is also pretty iffy here. Sound effects rarely ever occur except for a very long end cutscene. Most of them just have music and sometimes even the music will cut out. There isn’t much variety either as the game maybe has 5 different tracks that it plays. The standard one keeps on ringing for quite a while. I don’t know how long it took to beat the game, but I’d wager that it’s around 20 hours or more. It’s a long game so I can’t even say that I’ll breeze through it. Nothing’s worse than a long game that is boring and not fun to play. It’s a bad combo.

It almost goes without saying, btu the graphics are very bad as well. Flip’s always wincing or using recycled footage for his celebration. His level “celebration” is that he clenches his fists, closes his eyes, and looks at the ground. Then the screen starts spinning around him while he remains as still as a statue. He does this for every chapter, which gets old fast. The glitches make things even worse on the graphics and overall, the less said on this the better.

I feel like the game wasn’t even trying with the plot either. You’ll have characters talk to you and stuff, but it all feels like empty fluff. Nobody is actually doing anything and after a short while you’ll forget what they’ve said. It’s just a very empty game and one that probably isn’t even worth the 2 dollars that I got it for. There’s nothing driving you to this game at all and I don’t know what the developers were thinking.

Overall, Flip’s Twisted World is a bad game. There is replay value technically as you can go collect all of the maps and silver coins, but I can’t picture anyone actually wanting to do that. It just wouldn’t be fun and it would simply be a grind just so you can say you completed the game 100%. While it may have tried to be a big 3D adventure like Mario or the others, Flip failed miserably. Even without the glitches, the levels just weren’t thought out very well. They feel like they were slapped together with no heart or thought put into them. I can safely say that I consider this to be the worst game that I have ever played. While I probably wouldn’t give it a 0 overall, I can’t imagine what a 0 star game would be like. Rather, I can imagine what it would be like, but I can’t imagine myself ever playing one like that. While a 2 may seem generous for good ole Flip, at least it was a game. It still had platforming, levels and the like. I think giving it a 0 would be harsh, but we all know where it stands.

Overall 2/10

Kingdom Hearts Review

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It feels like I’ve been reading this novel for months, but I have finally finished! As you can probably guess, this book covers the plot of the first Kingdom Hearts game. It does a good job of going through all of the important events and really covering the worlds. This does come at the expense of the fights which is unfortunate, but it’s a great way to catch up with the series if you’re not really a video game player. After all, the plot is fairly engaging on its own and with the movie/TV series probably not coming for a long time, this is your best bet! (Perhaps the manga as well, but the novel seems to handle it with greater detail)

The plot of this story revolves around a kid named Sora. He lived on a peaceful island with his two friends Riku and Kairi. Unfortunately, he wakes up one morning to find that the ocean has turned to darkness and a tornado is ripping the island off the ground. Riku vanishes in the waves and Kairi also disappears. Sora tries to keep himself together, but then he also fades away. He wakes up in a mysterious town where he meets up with strange people who tell him that all of the worlds are connected…and dying. Sora shakes this off and meets up with Donald Duck and Goofy from the classic Disney movies. They explain that they are looking for King Mickey and were told to travel with Sora in the meantime. This is because Sora is the chosen Keyblade Master of destiny who will find the keyholes in all of the planets and restore balance to the universe. Sora gets his game face on and prepares for this endeavor, but it’ll be tougher than he dared suspect.

It’s a pretty fun story that works well enough even if you switched out the Disney characters for made up ones. That being said, it certainly has more of an impact when you throw the crossover angle into the mix. It’s pretty fun to see the characters show up and help Sora out in each world. Sora gets to travel to Aladdin’s world, Peter Pan’s, Alice in Wonderland’s among others. It can be pretty nostalgic to see them and while those characters can’t fight all that much, Sora doesn’t really need any help.

As I mentioned earlier, the one drawback to this novel is that the fights are very short. Most of them are over in a couple of hits and don’t usually last more than a couple of pages. Some of them seem to be over in a single page. I hope we can get some longer fights in future adaptions, particularly Kingdom Hearts II since that should have quite a lot of fighting in it. I don’t mind if they have to skip a few worlds as a result, the action will be worth it.

Sora’s a likable protagonist and a good kid. He loses confidence a little too easily at times which is his main character flaw, but I’ll certainly take that one over most. He seemingly gets over this by the end of the novel, but it’ll be difficult to say for sure until we actually get there. There are quite a few plot twists and villains who like their mind games coming up so that could rattle Sora quite a bit.

I didn’t like Donald or Goofy though. They showed their true colors when they chose to leave Sora after the keyblade vanished. Friends shouldn’t just leave each other so easily. While they eventually went back to Sora’s side, it feels like he can’t really trust them as much as he thought. That test of loyalty was one that they failed. It’s not as if they’re great fighters either. Goofy’s shield and Donald’s magic will never be quite as effective as Sora’s sharp keyblade. It’s just the ultimate weapon.

Riku also shows up and part of the drama with him is that he has been tempted to the dark side. He thinks Sora is having too much fun as he goes on side trips while Kairi is still in a coma. Riku decides that he’ll have to save her on his own and goes through a lot of dangerous quests to get to this point. The darkness starts to overwhelm him by the end though and he loses sight of his goals to an extent. With his character arc coming full circle as Sora convinces him to join the light once more, he should make for a good ally in the coming volumes. While he may have had a point initially with Sora, he was also pretty unfair about it since Sora did try to find Kairi and just failed to do so. Riku had the advantage of having an evil witch on his side….if you can call that an advantage.

Maleficent is one of the big villains here, but her role is greatly reduced from the game. She gets to appear a few times, but comes across as an underling who was being used the whole time. Unless she redeems herself in the sequels, I’m going to say that the author probably wasn’t a big fan of hers. Ansem shows up at the end of the novel as a fun final boss and he makes for a good opponent. We certainly haven’t seen the last of him. Once Organization XIII shows up, it’ll help the series as it will finally have recurring villains who will last for a very long time.

This novel is of a pretty good length so it should last you a while. It’s about 300 words and the font isn’t all that big either. A lot of stuff happens over this time and as I mentioned, the book was able to fit in a lot of worlds. Each of the Disney worlds gets a good amount of screen time. While the Beast may have only gotten to appear without his world, he still looked pretty good since he was able to follow Belle when all of the other main heroes failed to do so. Following someone through a portal is rare no matter what medium you’re in. Characters just tend to hesitate a little too much when the going gets tough.

Overall, It’s fun to revisit the original Kingdom Hearts story and to finish another book in general. It’s been a long time since I played the first title so this is always nostalgic. I remember the series very well so it’s not as if it’s new to me, but it is fun to see how the series was before the deep plot started. Make no mistake, the seeds had sprouted for the plot with hintings all around. The writers likely had a good portion of the sequel all planned out and that’s one of the fun things about the franchise. It’s all connected and you always feel like it’s planned out well. I’ll be reading the sequel right away, but it’s a lot longer than this one so it could take a while to finish. I definitely know it’s going to be fun as well and it may even be better since Chain of Memories had a more engaging plot with higher stakes than this one. If you haven’t played the game, I highly recommend reading this book to get you into the franchise. Alternately, you should take the plunge and finally buy the original game.

Overall 7/10

Taken 3 Review

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Uh oh, Taken’s back for another copy of the same plot. Who’s going to die/get kidnapped this time and why do they never let Bryan have a happy ending? In truth, the film was actually decently good the whole time except for…a scene with animal violence. Why did they feel the need to destroy the dog? That was sloppy writing and that’s putting it nicely. I expected much more from this film, ah well. Conceptually, having a Taken 3 makes sense for that “One Last Ride” kind of feel and the poster is actually very good. The execution just wasn’t ready for it.

Well, Bryan is having a good day as per usual until he heads home and finds out that his ex-wife has been murdered. He is framed for having done the deed and must prove his innocence while finding the real crooks. It’ll be tough though since they are after his daughter as well now and these guys don’t play by the rules. Furthermore, Bryan is being hunted by the FBI and CIA so that complicates things. Ah well, he’s a pro so he should be able to get the job done.

I don’t really talk about cinematography or camera work much because I don’t really care much about it. Unless it’s really bad camera work like objectionable zoom ins (Michael Bay films) or something then it’s all the same to me. Still, it’s worth mentioning how the camera constantly cuts away in this film. Action scenes use dozens of different camera angles and they all barely last over a moment. It’s like the director was panicking the whole time. It’s unintentionally funny, but I don’t think that’s what he was going for.

The film’s mostly not all that violent which is nice. I dare say that it’s probably the most tame of the 3. After all, this one is really focused on being a big action film as opposed to a dark, more serious kind of revenge tale. That being said, the waterboarding scene was a bit much. Bryan puts the guy under 3 different times in a scene that drags on way too much. The guy will sputter and gargle, talk a tough game, then rinse and repeat twice. I was expecting it to happen twice, but not a third time. That was definitely a twist, just not a good one.

This film wasn’t even all that dark. Again, it’s just a generic action thriller with some iffy plots. One of those plots was that his ex-wife is unsatisfied with her current marriage and wants to cheat on the side with Bryan. He is too honorable for that even if his reaction time is suspiciously slow for breaking it off when she attacks him. We didn’t really need this and it does seem like she’s floating back and forth a little too much. The characters all talk about how her current husband is pretty bad and he does turn out to be one of the big villains, but I don’t see what she saw in him the first time.

The husband is basically just one of those guys who owes a bunch of money to gangsters and is now caught in a position where he owes them a lot of money. Ah well, that’s why you don’t deal with gangsters. The film never tries to get you to sympathize with him and that’s good since I wouldn’t have bought the act. The actual villains are pretty soulless though and don’t get any personality. They’re literally just guys with guns and this isn’t personal for once. I guess there wasn’t as much of a focus on them for a change.

For once the cops actually didn’t look that bad. They still let their guard down a little too quickly at times and lost quite a few rounds, but they tried. While you probably won’t believe how easy Bryan knocks them out and escapes, he’s the main character. The primary detective for the cops ended up doing a good job though. At times the film tried too hard to make him the “tough but laidback” character as he’ll sit down and enjoy a few bagels. He’s clearly still thinking about the case, but tries to get everyone to let their guards down. It was nice to have at least one cop who was fully competent since he helped to elevate everyone else.

Bryan’s daughter got a mild role here as well, but her whole subplot was basically filler. It wasn’t the best time for having a kid or even distracting Bryan with that revelation since he is a wanted man. I can’t say that I care for her friend at all since he vanishes whenever the villains appear and seems to be a little too interested in wine. The daughter also just annoyed me with how ungrateful she was for the bear. I get that it’s not the present she would have wanted, but you should really appreciate any present that you get or at least put a brave face on in the moment. It’s important to take these things in stride.

I can at least say that the pacing is pretty quick. The film goes by in a flash considering the actual time and that’s because the plot is interesting and the characters are rather familiar by now. I do think that Bryan’s friends are given way too much hype at times as they can pull guns on federal agents and just walk away calmly. Does nobody care that these retired pros are interfering with the law? It feels like they can get away with anything so it’s good that they’re heroes at the moment.

Overall, Taken 3 is mostly decent. Take away the animal scene and the random waterboarding and it would grab 2 stars back. Still, there’s nothing original about the film and it does end up as a very generic action movie. It never managed to carve out an identity for itself which is unfortunate. I suppose this was just too much for the movie. If you enjoyed the first two films and don’t mind seeing another rehash then this is the film for you. Keep in mind that nobody is really taken for about 90%n of the film unless you take the title more literally this time around. The first film is really the only one where the plot focused on someone being taken for the majority of the movie.

Overall 4/10

Woman of the Year Review

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I’m glad that the poster mentioned how this isn’t suitable for general viewing because it really isn’t. Yes, I’m talking about the content. It’s not violence or fanservice, but just a bad message that the film churns out which basically says that the heroine tried to step out of her designated gender line and so she was in the wrong. Lets delve into this film a little more, but it all feels like some kind of big scam considering that the title suggests that this will be a very empowering film.

The film starts off with a reporter drinking away his sorrows at a bar. He’s your stereotypical American. Sam like sports, has an over inflated ego, and drinks constantly. He hears a coworker by the name of Tess on the radio who says that sports are basically pointless and she wouldn’t mind if they were banned. He gets incredibly triggered and starts yelling a lot as everyone gently kicks him out of the bar. He writes a quick editorial back at her and the wars start. She’s completely destroying him in these written arguments and the boss begins to worry that it’s getting too personal. He tells them to knock it off and Sam realizes that he’ll have to “win” some other way. He invites Tess to a baseball game and they almost immediately decide to get married. Phase 1 of Sam’s plan is complete…time for phase 2!

Sam wants Tess to stop overshadowing him and making him feel bad. While they are co-workers in the magazine, they are on different levels. Sam writes pieces on sports and nobody really cares about him. Tess has connections within the army and ties to foreign ambassadors and people of very high stature. She speaks dozens of languages and is also rich and known as one of the most charitable individuals in the world. Sam is jealous and I suspect that he has been for some time now. He wants her to be a normal housewife or he’s going to embarrass her socially. He decides to skip out on her father’s wedding because he’s a jerk like that and does his best to destroy her legacy as such a pioneer for women’s rights. Can he succeed?

Short answer: Yes. Long Answer: He causes a lot of damage and does undermine her efforts at every turn. Towards the end of the film, Tess starts to get over dramatic to make Sam look good in comparison but it’s far, far too late. While the film doesn’t necessarily say this either, the whole thing seems like a plan of Sam’s from the beginning. I feel like he only married her so that he could try to get her to retire from being super successful and then he can finally feel superior. The whole thing felt like a way to put her down and the film never made this out to be a bad thing.

On the contrary, most of the climax is about Tess trying to make him a breakfast. Plot twist! Despite Tess being a super genius she has never been inside of a kitchen before. She doesn’t know how to make Toast or how to crack an egg. You’ve gotta be kidding right? That’s such an exaggeration and there is no way that she wouldn’t be able to do these things. I was getting triggered myself during the scenes as Sam is still being petty the whole time. He just sits there making mean facial expressions and mocking her efforts the whole time. She shouldn’t even have to be making it up to him since he was in the wrong the whole time.

Lets backtrack a bit though. When they first went out to the baseball game, Tess made an effort to learn it. Learning a sport and all the positions can be pretty tough if you’re not familiar with it, but she used her analytical experience from solving foreign matters of great delicacy and did it. She was then able to really get into the game and have a good time. Next, she invited him to one of her diplomatic meetings. Sam quickly found out that nobody there spoke English so he took the chance to make fun of someone since the guy couldn’t understand him and then Sam dashed out. He gets pretty full of himself from then on and tries to visit Tess in her office without talking to her secretary. Why would he be allowed in without an appointment? He has absolutely no respect for her position or duties and seems to think that he should be given priority over all of them. “Drop your appointment with the Prime Minister…I want to go to McDonalds tonight!” is essentially his attitude.

The only real mistake Tess made was to try manipulating Sam. She made him breakfast in bed for the first time and started talking about having a kid out of the blue. Sam was thrilled about this since having a kid would in theory mean that Tess would be focusing on her job next. She then lays the atom bomb on him by walking in a fully grown kid that she adopted from an unsafe environment. The kid’s a refuge. Sam’s immediately apprehensive, but you can be sympathetic to him. It’s like waking up on Christmas and your parents saying, “Remember that Nintendo Switch bundle that just came out with Mario Odyssey?” Me: Yeah! Them: “Well, we got you a Nintendo 64 and a used copy of Superman 64” Me: “Nooooooo!”

Superman 64 is actually a good game and adopting a kid is a really nice thing to do. They can easily turn his life from a very tragic one into a blessed one. The problem is that it’s not fair to just push this onto someone with no warning and even more so when you bring their hopes up only to smash it down. The kid can’t speak English either which makes the situation worse and the whole thing is unfair to Sam. This is the one part of the film where I don’t blame him for being upset and returning the kid to the orphanage was the right thing to do. The pair couldn’t handle the kid, but none of them really had a discussion with the other. This was also a pretty tricky moment since he did it as she was supposed to accept her Woman of the Year award. He naturally decided not to attend either although to his defense again, she claimed that he had no life so he should come. That’s kind of a mean thing to say.

You can tell by this point that the film was now trying to make her so exaggeratedly mean and insincere that we’re supposed to root for Sam. The problem is that I’d never do so in a million years. You really have to watch the film to see what a terrible character he is. At the very least, he does believe in getting even and tries to do so every time he is slighted.

It’s a shame that the film had to die in the writing department/plot because it could have been good otherwise. It’s part comedy and the humor is handled rather well. I liked one of Sam’s friends who is always talking about how well he fights. The guy came through when it counted and I always like the genuine friends like that who enjoy a good beer but are around when it counts. The scenes of Sam getting embarrassed are also pretty fun as you’d expect. It’s just all for naught in the end…such is the power of a bad ending.

Overall, I’m clearly not impartial in this film. I was on Team Tess the whole time. If you were rooting for Sam then I imagine that you would probably like this film quite a lot as he gets the last laugh time and time again. I never like seeing someone running around trying to please the other when it’s the mean character’s fault in the first place. It’s just unsavory and brings this film down quite a lot. I recommend avoiding it like an old Cheese stick and just watching something a little classier like The Magic School Bus. At least that show is educational and always leaves you with a heartfelt message.

Overall 3/10