Tag Archives: Tension

The Mummy’s Shroud Review

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The Mummy has returned to usher in a new era for horror films. At least, that’s likely the intent here, but the series has made some mistakes in the past so we’ll see if this film can really take home the gold. While it does ring more true to the classic Mummy mythos than the previous film, it does make its share of mistakes. I don’t think you’ll be bored though. We have a pretty colorful cast of characters here and at least one character does try to fight back against the Mummy.

The film starts off with a flashback about how an Egyptian king was overthrown and everyone got murdered. We fast forward to the modern day where Dr. Basil and the rich Stanley have broken into the tomb. They steal the coffin and head back home to show it off. Unfortunately it appears that the coffin had a curse within it that has begun to affect everyone who walked into the tomb. There is now a murderous Mummy on the loose and the bodies are starting to pile up. Stanley wants to leave, but the cops are keeping everyone in one place. Can he get out alive?

Stanley may be a predictable character, but he sure is an entertaining one. He’s the classic rich guy who doesn’t care about lives. He just wants to turn a profit and let everyone else take the fall. This is especially evident when he tries to discredit Basil and throw him away for life. Stanley ultimately only seems to care about his family, everyone else is considered expendable. He’s certainly an antagonist, but a fun one nonetheless. You’re still rooting for him against the Mummy. He did make a lot of big mistakes though. If you’re trying to flee the country you probably shouldn’t wait in a dark alley for someone to come and help. Especially when you’re rich and the locals know it. Ah well, Stanley tried.

Then you have Dr. Basil who is reasonable I guess. He was annoying in his final scenes, but I guess that makes sense since he was poisoned. Still, it makes for a scene that drags on quite a bit as an old lady makes fun of him and then he’s taken out of the picture. Speaking of which, the old lady was annoying as well. She’s basically just here to rub the deaths in the faces of the victims before they perish. She doesn’t have much point here except to egg everyone on and get them into trouble. I mean, she performs the role quite admirably of course, but cutting out the drool in her scenes would have helped me take her seriously.

I consider Stanley to basically be the main character here, but Paul and Maggie get big roles as well. Paul is the son of Stanley and unlike his father he wants to work his way to the top. He doesn’t want to be drunk on power and sets his sights on stopping the Mummy instead of fleeing. Meanwhile Maggie knows how to read Egyptian and was against going into the tomb in the first place. Still, now she may be the only one with the power to stop this situation. It puts her in a tricky spot. Both characters are pretty reasonable. I do think Maggie made a big mistake in going to some random fortune teller to try and dispel her fears though. Even if the fortune teller wasn’t evil, did she really think anything could be done at that stage in the game?

I also have to give the cops some credit here. They were on point for the most part even if they didn’t really uncover much in their investigations. At least they were trying to help out and they certainly managed to be a thorn in Stanley’s side. The chief finally even relented in the end so at least he could try and save some victims. He maybe should have done that a bit sooner, but I think he just wanted to axe Stanley. Not the most heroic move of course, but it is what it is. Stanley’s wife also looks pretty good here. She’s always being passive aggressive and really enjoys the fact that she never went into the tomb.

So, most of these are positives, but what are the negatives? Well, pretty much the usual Hammer stuff. The film can be a bit violent here with everyone getting bumped off. People are strangled, burned to death, crushed, etc. The Mummy makes sure to take everyone down at some point or another. The Mummy also doesn’t make for a particularly good antagonist. He’s slow and you can’t believe that he is beating everyone the whole time. Even if he is bullet proof you can at least out run the guy. The only one I can’t blame is Basil since he was sick. At least the photographer tried fighting back though. You’ll feel bad for Stanley’s right hand man though since the guy gets the short end of the stick throughout the film.

The movie’s humor and writing were on point though. This one actually was a step ahead of most of the other Mummy titles. It could have definitely been a lot worse. At least it’s entertaining throughout and has a quick pace. If you’re going to do a Mummy film then you can definitely take a lot of cues from this one. It knew how to properly develop the characters after all.

Overall, The Mummy’s Shroud is actually decent. The shroud itself is actually important by the end so it’s also a title that makes sense. That’s always a good idea as opposed to just having that in the title to sound cool. The slasher elements we could have done without, but it’s handled in a less graphic way than it likely would nowadays. I won’t give the film a positive score, but it’s not bad either so it lands smack in the middle. If this film sounds like your cup of tea then you should check it out. At the very least, this film will keep you guessing as to who will get bumped off first.

Overall 5/10

Charlie’s Angels Review

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Well, it’s been a little over 2 years since I last saw this film, which brings it up to 2-3 times that I’ve seen it so far. It’s a pretty neat concept and I’ve heard that the show was pretty good, but the film has a lot of flaws that are barely hidden beneath the surface. It had a lot of potential thanks to some of the techniques that they used, which will remind you of the good ole films, but it’s simply not enough.

Charlie’s Angels is actually one of those films that can make you really worried for a Wonder Woman or Ms. Marvel film. Let’s just say that if one of those films was like this one, it would make audiences around the world shudder. A 30% on Rotten Tomatoes would likely shock me as it could be even lower. This one is spared that because of when it came out. I can guarantee that if this film came out now it would make waves…and not the good kind!

The plot involved a multi billionare (Probably) named Charlie. He hires three women to work for him as they stop crimes that no ordinary police force ever could. Their missions are dangerous, but these women are even deadlier! Natalie, Dylan, and Alex are the three main characters and they’re all pretty different, but are about equal in overall fighting technique. (Very, Very arguable) Well, they finish another mission when they find out that a computer whiz has been kidnapped. He has created a tech that can figure out a person’s voice print pretty quickly. It’s like tapping a phone, but it works on the actual voice. The Angels must find him and stop this from getting into the wrong hands.

Now, I just have to point something out about the premise that is pretty interesting. The climax involves Charlie making a phone call and the villain stalling him to try and figure out his location through the voice prints. It’s like a GPS and using some satellites he can track him down. That’s cool….until you remember that we can actually tap phones nowadays and you can track a person’s real location without inventing some made up technology about the voice prints. So, why is the voice print even necessary? Your guess is as good as mine…….the only way out of this logic hole would be if phone tracers had not been invented yet, but I’m pretty sure that they have been.

Okay, let’s quickly digress into some of the positives for the film. It has a very Dragon Ball Evoloution feel to it, which works pretty well. We get a lot of slow motion, interesting action shots, and facial expressions that would make film creators proud. It’s hard to describe how it feels like “That” kind of film, but watch any classic video game or manga inspired film like the one I just mentioned or the original Street Fighter and you’ll get my jist.

The soundtrack is also very intense. I can’t confirm that the lyrics for all of the songs are okay since some of the songs can be sketchy, but others were great. We got some really fast paced rock/battle themes that were all over the place and it made the scenes a whole lot more fun. It’s the kind of soundtrack that would never win you an Oscar, but that’s actually a good thing in this case. Oscar films can actually have some good tunes as well, but never anything quite like this. For every good song, there is still a bad song as well to highlight the fact that this film still uses a lot of not very subtle fanservice in between (and during) fight scenes. Ah well, I’ll take what I can get I suppose!

Dylan is my least favorite member of the Angels so I’ll start with her. She’s a decent fighter like the others, but she comes off as more of a tom boy. That doesn’t stop her from using her charm to seduce the characters that she can, but it ultimately results in a pretty embarrassing moment for her. Let’s just say that you should never start hanging out with a suspect so casually unless you want to get burned. Even without that scene she was likely my least favorite, but it certainly didn’t help her case.

Natalie is more laid back, but she still needs romance in her life so she quickly brings in a bar tender that she met and they instantly made it past the bounds of friendship. That was quick and then she went off to continue fighting and saving the world. Again, I find it hard to like her at all since she needs to have more hobbies aside from romance. She danced for a while, but it was pretty bad and again..it didn’t help her case.

Alex is the final member and she already has a stable romance going so she’s already set from the get go. Again, it’s hard to like the Angels because they don’t seem to have much of a personality beyond the romance. It’s quite sad. They are also willing to do just about anything to complete their mission so you almost start to feel bad for their boyfriends. (Almost! They’re not exactly innocent either) She can fight as well, which is good since you would be doomed otherwise against the villains.

Bosley is another one of the main characters and he looks pretty bad. One of his first scenes has him give the girls a long speech about love and how they can make it stronger while they’re basically mocking him and then he proceeds to get tricked by one of the main villains. (Naturally, the villain was female) He has enough strength of mind to tell her that he was going to keep it professional, but he still looked really terrible by letting her in the house from the start. You don’t do that when you have a billion dollar program inside and the person outside the door is a suspect.

There’s not much to say about Charlie. He’s rich and he’s old, but he barely gets to appear. At least he reminds the Angels that he’s watching over them before sending them on extremely dangerous missions. One of the main villains is known as the Thin Man and he’s pretty awesome…at first. We find out that he has something for hair and he gets a little too emotionally involved in that aspect. You just knew that the film would find some way to wreck his character. He started out as a really serious villain as he took on the three main characters. By the end, he was reduced to getting clobbered in a one on one fight and basically running for the hills. No worries…he’ll be back!

It may not sound that bad from all of that, but there is one ultimate reason why it was doomed right from the get go. The fanservice! This could probably hold its own against just about anything else in this area. You’ll get a scene that fits this description in almost every scene in the film. Whether the heroes are seducing someone to distract him or just striking unnecessary poses, it’s just sad. Every male character is presented to be someone who’s heads over heels for them. The guys just care about their outer appearance and none of them are morally ethical. It’s pretty sad to see guys depicted like this. It’s actually common place to an extent, but certainly not to this level. Even in James Bon….well, it’s basically at the same level. It’s just more fanservice than actually going further while it’s the opposite in James Bond.

An example of this is the traditional planning scene where the heroes explain what the security is like. The camera quickly zooms in on their mouth so we can have some really awkward visuals to distract us from what they’re actually saying. It’s pretty cringe worthy. It’s what drives this film down to Sucker Punch levels. Of course, Sucker Punch didn’t suffer from fanservice, but that’s another story. It’s a sad coincidence that those two films are down at the 1’s because they both could have been very good. What happened? The film just needed a different director and writer and then maybe it could have stood a chance.

After all, the fight scenes are pretty good when they happen. At one point, the three Angels team up to fight someone and he actually holds his own against the three of them for a while. It’s fun to watch, but it definitely doesn’t make the main characters look impressive. How can the three of them be having such a tough time when it’s so early in the film? Obviously, the writers forgot that you’re supposed to make the characters very likable and strong before you give them a villain that they can’t defeat.

The two main villains are pretty bad as well. One of them has a gun, but she’s still strong enough to give one of the Angels a tough time in hand to hand combat. If someone who seems like she doesn’t have that much time to train can give them a good fight….just how tough are the Angels? It definitely makes you wonder. The guy is very weak, but he knows that the main characters are always using their charms so he just uses that to his advantage. A surprisingly cunning strategy, but it never would have worked on a halfway decent character. Never!

Overall, Charlie’s Angels isn’t any better than I remember it. The film still puts too much emphasis on the heroes’ bodies and not enough on their character. Every other scene will have you looking away or wincing because you know that the film is just getting started. The soundtrack is pretty good and the actual plot is so retro that it still works despite the logical errors. It’s simply not enough to overlook this and it won’t help the feminist position. Let’s face it, we’d never have a film where three guys are constantly being used for fanservice throughout the film. It wouldn’t happen. Instead of checking out this film, watch the original Mortal Kombat to see how the film could have/should have/would have gone if the writers had realized sooner what they had done. There was simply tooooooo much fanservice here and I can’t stress enough just how sad it was. I highly recommend skipping it, no matter what type of film you’re looking for.

Overall 1/10