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Agent Carter Review

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It’s time to finally review the Agent Carter show. I have to admit that I got off on the wrong foot with this shoe right from the get go since the first episode was pretty bad. While the show mostly never got quite that bad again, it did suffer from a fairly unlikable cast and a rather boring plot. Not much of note ends up happening in this series and while you can argue that this is the point of a spinoff, I would counter with a Scientific Railgun. I do think this show beats Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. but the latter is certainly more exciting. All right, lets dig into this review!

The show takes place before Peggy helped found SHIELD. While you may have thought that the point of the show was getting to see her form the team, that never happens so you should try to forget about that. She works with the SSR, but they don’t respect her because she is a lady. This also means that most of the guys don’t know how to do their jobs so Peggy has to help them all constantly. There are only 18 episodes between the two seasons so the show is fairly short, but each season has a plot. The first one involves villains stealing a lot of Stark tech and now Peggy has to get it all back. The second involves a corrupt politician and a lady who learns how to use dark matter. Peggy may not have any fancy super powers or anything like that, but she has a can do attitude and a lot of “witty” comebacks. The villains will have to tread carefully.

In case you can’t tell, I didn’t like Peggy Carter at all. She does a very terrible job of holding up the show and usually just helps to bring it down. I could go on a long rant about Peg, but lets just stick to the basics. For starters, she’s the tough female lead. That’s her character trope and she doesn’t get much personality beyond that. That’s fine, we’ve had many good characters like that such as Wonder Woman, Medaka Kurokami, Bra, (From Dragon Ball Multiverse anyway) and Dorothy from MAR. The issue with Peggy is that it feels very artificial. Medaka is an exaggerated version of the trope, but the series has fun with it and hey, Medaka actually is pretty tough. She could easily destroy planets by the end of the series. Wonder Woman is self explanatory as she’s a very strong character, but also has a winning personality. Dorothy’s nice and vicious and isn’t afraid to brutally murder someone if she feels like it. Bra just beats up everyone and then insults them afterwards. For Peggy, the writers seemed to think that people wouldn’t take her seriously so they really overplayed their hand by underplaying it.

In the very first episode, Peggy has to use her feminine wiles to solve the case. Naturally, she spits after going through with the plan to show us all that she’s tough and that doing this wasn’t personal. Sure…doesn’t change the fact that her skills as an agent were not enough and this is only the first episode. James Bond does this as well, but he’s one of the worst characters in cinema history (Lets not go extreme folks. Just main characters) and I’d put him in the tr-sh tier. Peggy’s not quite that awful. I just don’t get the logic from the writer’s point of view. This was literally the very first episode of the series, how are we supposed to take her seriously after that? She spends the rest of the series knocking guys out and getting a lot of verbal burns in. To help show that she’s the tough one of the group, her partner is Jarvis. A very frail, weak man who can’t fight for beans and is always very nervous. Ah, I see what the writers are doing here. The contrast will make her appear to be even tougher eh? Very slick guys!

Maybe….mayyyyybe this could have worked….but then the romance sets in. If you thought Carter was unbearably annoying in the first season, she gets worse in the second. A random joe shows up and they basically fall in love at first sight. Remember the guy from season 1? Forget about him, Carter’s ready for a new fellow this time around. Unfortunately, the guy turns out to be someone who lets others step on him and joins the villains. He quickly joins up with the heroes again on his dying breath and that’s that. Carter gets over it, but these romances aren’t really helping her toughness angle. Carter is also used for fanservice on more than one occasion which doesn’t help either. The worst part though is the fact that Peggy just isn’t a likable character. There was never a moment where I thought…”Here’s a good character”. None of her scenes really gave me that impression.

No worries, her supporting cast is just as bad. Lets start with Howard. You’ll remember him as Tony Stark’s father? Well, he has all of Tony’s bad qualities without possessing any of his good ones. He’s just another guy who flirts with everyone and it’s supposed to be endearing and funny. It’s funny in a “Ah man, when’s this guy gonna leave the screeeeen” *cue fake polite smile* way. He is supposed to be smart, but since the villains are always getting the best of him and his stuff keep getting stolen, I’m going to go on a limb here and say that he’s not very smart. Luckily, he doesn’t appear all that often.

We’ve got Jarvis at the ready and I guess he’s the best character. He’s portrayed as incredibly inept at just about everything and it’s handled well. I typically tend to like that kind of character, but they can be handled badly. He’s fun to have around and the only annoying part was his spat with Carter towards the end of the series where he decided to go in a full rage mode. I was actually on his side as opposed to Carter’s (Okay…I guess that’s not a surprise) but he really made his side look terrible by being held hostage. Now that was just embarrassing. He may never get to be all that tough, but at least we finally got to see him in the Cinematic Universe.

Next up is Jack. He’s the “tough” male lead. Oh boy…this isn’t going to end well for him is it? If that’s what you’re thinking, then you’re absolutely right! He starts off as a fairly intimidating character of course and he’s actually decently good at his job. This goes downhill fast though as he gets to see some real action in a gun fight. This traumatizes him and he freezes up so Carter has to come to the rescue. She promises not to tell anyone though. Jack’s never the same after that and then he’s naive enough to trust the villains and allow bribery to slow him down until one of the very last episodes. Ultimately, he does break away and decides to blow up a building, even though an innocent man is still inside. Hey…at least he’s hardcore right? Jack never seems to do all that well against the villains, but he is good at taking the credit. He’s the kind of character that you want to like, but just isn’t actually good enough to be likable. If he’d win a little more, then that would definitely help quite a lot.

Uh oh, we’ve got another “tough” character. Daniel is quite easily one of the worst characters in the show and that’s saying something. Here’s the problem, Daniel has crutches because one of his legs is basically broken, but the show still wants to paint him as one of the best agents in the business. This resorts in completely unbelievable battle scenes where he beat someone even though he can’t actually stand upright. He’s essentially beating them up while holding on to his crutch. I don’t care how little battle experience these thugs have, I just could not believe it. The show didn’t do a good job of convincing me of it at all. It gets a little worse for Daniel when he becomes Daniel the rebound guy. Basically, Peggy wouldn’t go out with him so he just finds someone else and then they get into a super
“serious” relationship. Daniel immediately breaks it off when Peggy’s other boyfriend dies off since he now has a chance and she’s eager for the rebound. It makes both of the characters look so shallow and petty the entire time. They are basically just using everyone else until the situation is just right for them to get together.

Dooley was a fairly good SSR boss to have. He was also rather naive though and talking to one of the big villains in his office with the door closed was not a smart move. I don’t put any stock into the whole hypnotism thing so that was just embarrassing for him to fall for. He got a dramatic end though as he broke into a pretty intense sprint with the most high budget explosion of the series. Everyone finally started to get their act together after that moment.

Dottie was one of the main villains of the series. She’s pretty tough and acts as Peggy’s main rival. She’s also involved for most of the series violence. Carter’s typically not that violent although Dottie getting tortured was pretty high up there and the implied death to the crazy dentist. I don’t recall much more than that and it’s a lot more tame than Agents of SHIELD. Dottie’s a fairly good character and she certainly has a very twisted personality. I think it’s safe to say that she’s the best villain of the series. Her boss was more of a generic evil scientist so he didn’t steal the show quite as effectively.

Whitney was the big boss for season 2. She may not have had Dottie’s experience, but she got alien abilities where she could zap people with black energy and destroy them pretty easily. She just needs to grab an opponent to defeat them so she was fairly overpowered. There wasn’t much that the heroes could do to stop her so they utilized the powers of plot hax. It’s economical and effective. She wasn’t bad, but she did use her powers to destroy a lot of mice so that definitely hurt quite a bit. She was also maybe a little too eager to have some help from Jason with the experiments since I don’t see how he could have offered much help at all. She got most of the last laughs though and I can safely say that Jason did not have a pleasant time.

Jason was the annoying love interest from season 2 that I mentioned earlier. He doesn’t last that long though and his character circle from “likable” supporting character to villain to heroic death dude was very rushed. I never really got to like the guy. His plan wasn’t great though and getting strapped down and tortured by the villains should have been an inevitability that he saw coming given how he really couldn’t trust any of those guys for beans.

Aloysius is a scientist who showed up in season 2. I had to bring him up because he’s pretty crazy. His romance is probably the worst in the entire show and he just acts like a jerk to everyone for no real reason. That’s when he’s at his best of course. The romance just ruins him though and there wasn’t much of a point to his character. He had his funny moments, but they were few and far between. Still, I guess it’s good to have a disgruntled employee into the main cast mix once in a while to spice things up. Other minor characters that I didn’t get to discuss include Jarvis’ wife. She’s a likable character who definitely has a lot of spirit. We’ve got the corrupt politician who’s just annoying. There’s a gangster boss who helps Whitney out in season 2. He was all right, but never really got past the “generic gangster” bit.

This show just suffers from the ripple effect. You know how people say that a really good character can make everyone around him good and improve the show as a whole? Well, the reverse must logically be true as well. Since I didn’t care for Peggy or the show as a whole, it makes sense that the rest of it would appear to be negative as well. I feel like they all helped to bring each other down and that’s why they all seemed pretty unlikable to me by the end. I also just don’t really have any fond memories of this show. It’s not as if it’s rotten to the core, but I don’t see any real reason to recommend it either.

Of course, I don’t expect many live action shows to get a positive rating as it is. It’s why I don’t watch very many of them. At the moment, the only live action show I’m even watching is Agents of Shield. Live action television has never really been able to do all that well and I think it’s because cartoons are just able to perform any plot a lot better. Live action is always limited by its budget and ditto for the action scenes since actors/actresses can only perform so well. An animated character doesn’t have to worry about choreography and can just launch into any battle. As a result, they’re typically a lot more fun. That’s not even getting into the soundtrack differences.

Overall, I wouldn’t recommend Agent Carter. There are certainly better things to do with your time than watch this title. It doesn’t really add just about anything to the mythos and you certainly won’t be missing any important tidbits of information if you skip the series. I’d sooner recommend watching a recent action movie like Avengers Confidential where the action scenes are incredibly good and the Punisher gets his best portrayal of all time. If Peggy ever gets a film, hopefully it takes place when she is actually a SHIELD Agent so there can be some more stakes or she can time travel and help the heroes on an alien planet or something. Adding in some sci-fi elements never hurt.

Overall 3/10

Nerve Review

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It’s time to look at a film where the entire premise only works if you’re one of the corrupted members of today’s youth. It’s a classic game of chicken where the main characters want to be the victors. The film’s definitely not good at all, but I have to admit that it is fairly realistic. Maybe not in how the idea is implemented, but I can totally picture a lot of people playing this game if it ever came out. It’s something that people just wouldn’t be able to resist.

The film follows a girl named Vee. She is usually pretty mild mannered and timid. While her friends go out drinking and doing a lot of wild things, Vee likes to keep it real and just be a nice person. How long does that last? Not long at all. See, there’s this new game called Nerve. Essentially, you give this very shady app access to your phone and GPS location along with the ability for them to access your bank account and do all kinds of things in your name. The up side is that you can win a lot of dollars. There are two modes to Nerve, Watch and Play. Watch means that you’ll be paying them a large monthly fee, but you’ll get to take a look at people’s private lives when they stream themselves doing the dares. They are the players. So, how does playing the game work? It’s all about how much nerve you have.

Nerve will tell you to do something and there will be a reward for it. One might say to go drink a bottle of beer for 10 dollars. Another might say to vandalize a Police Car for 500. The amounts continue to get higher, but the risks increase as well and the person who does the best can become a millionaire. All of the teenagers are into it and the ones who don’t have enough nerve to play content themselves with watching instead. After Vee is embarrassed in front of the local sports hero, she decides to join the game. She wants to be one of the cool kids and if that means embarrassing herself in front of millions of people, breaking the law, and sacrificing her morals…that’s a small price to pay for getting her 5 minutes of fame and fake friends. Vee quickly starts to rise to the top of the charts, but a shady fellow shows up to start teaming up with her and this game may have higher stakes than Vee ever thought possible.

So…where to begin. The Nerve game isn’t properly explained as you’re not totally sure who is doing the dares. For example, in one scene, Vee’s friends are able to create a dare for her on the spot. Can anyone just create a dare? That would be bad for the company since they would lose a lot of money on easy dares. It seems like a lot of ordinary citizens actually work for Nerve, but how did they get in on the loop? How did nobody find out about this and are we really supposed to believe that none of the adults know what’s happening? The ending was a clever way to end the game for good since it’ll never get quite as popular again, but you will have quite a few questions as the film goes on. This isn’t one of those films where the writing is so sharp that all of your questions will be answered.

Next, the film only works because all of the characters are so unlikable. If Vee was even a semi decent main character, she never would have gotten involved with this in the first place. Accepting a dare to kiss a random stranger is already a super suspect challenge and that was one of the first ones that Vee did. Breaking the speed limit and driving blind were also ones where you have to shake your head. Not only did Vee only complete that last challenge through plot hax, but you’d just hope that someone with common sense wouldn’t accept the task.

Again, there’s also the security aspect of it all. If someone can just throw money into your bank account, aren’t you going to be a little worried about them just taking it back later? The film’s a good public service announcement to all users about why you shouldn’t download strange apps and then attach your bank account to it. It was cool to visually see how it took all of her info though. Search Engines and Social Networks do it all the time and that’s basically how I picture it.

Lets take a break from the bashing to look at Nerve’s main theme. These films typically don’t have much of a soundtrack so it was cool to see this film have such a solid tune. Even the tagline “Snitches get stitches” was fairly catchy. The scenery was also good since the heroes were usually at or around big cities and those always look good at night. My recommendation to all films is to take place in NYC, it makes the whole thing cooler.

Back to bashing. Vee’s plan may have been clever, but it made no sense anyway. I don’t see how she could have made her plan and then told the necessary parties about it in time. Throw in the fact that she also had to get past the observers and everything and this plan was simply too unreal. It was also very convenient for Vee’s best friend Tommy to be a super hacker who knew a big group of hackers who helped to save the day. The one thing that could stop the game was a hacker after all.

Tommy was all right, but you can’t help but feel like he’s losing out here. He could be at home having fun, but instead he’s just following Vee around everywhere. She even ditches him at one point so he has to download the game before tracking her down. He’s the nice guy, but it also means that everyone walks all over him. Sydney is Vee’s other friend and she definitely doesn’t seem to have the main character’s best interests at heart. She just wants to be the most popular streamer and tries to sabotage Vee’s efforts when possible. Putting her friend on the spot while she was just trying to relax at the local pizza joint was definitely not a move that you’d expect your “friend” to make. I couldn’t sympathize with Sydney and the toxic relationship that she had with Vee was pretty bad both ways. Vee also made sure to slam Sydney live in front of millions. The film tries to act as if she didn’t realize it, but she’s playing the game…everything is on stream.

Ian is the main guy in the film and he’s certainly not going to do the film any wonders either. He wants to win at all costs and that means that he needs to encourage Vee to put her life on the line and go down the dark path. He acts as the main bad influence on Vee and he has great success with corrupting her. She doesn’t really put up any resistance since she always wanted to surpass Sydney in something and this was her chance. Ian gets a sob story to try and win you over, but I wasn’t really buying it. The guy was just annoying and unlikable the whole time.

Nerve’s just one of those films that’s not really well made. The film even resorts to using fanservice as one dare involves the main characters running around in a fancy clothing store in their underwear. It makes you wonder how far people will go for money and I like to think that the security in the store should have been able to stop them. At a place this fancy, they must have guards right? Don’t expect the cops to help all that much otherwise though since they don’t dare mess with the game. While my initial hunch about one of the cops being an undercover agent never panned out, they may as well be. They don’t believe that the game exists so they don’t feel obligated to do anything about it.

Overall, This film had a lot of potential since the idea is interesting, but it just couldn’t pull it off. Its underlying message about how people will be a lot bolder and do things that they usually wouldn’t once they have the cover of anonymity is a topic that Sword Art Online tackled more effectively. Since the characters were all pretty unlikable anyway, it’s not as if the game made them that much worse. You’ll be left with a lot of questions about the game as well and the plot convenience is certainly a bit much. If you want a similar kind of conspiracy group shaping things in the background, you should read the Liar Game manga. I can’t really think of a film that’s similar to this one, so just watch the second Tron film. It has cool music like the Nerve theme throughout the film so that’s definitely one that you should check out.

Overall 3/10

Insomnia Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be addressed as such. A review of the unedited version would likely be more negative.
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It’s time for a dark thriller by Nolan. This film’s a pretty sharp contrast to the light hearted Christmas films that I’ve reviewed of late so it’ll serve as foreshadowing to the horror films coming your way. The film’s battle between Will and Walter is interesting enough and the writing is pretty deep as you would expect. It gets a little too dark by the end though and the film ends on a rather bad note, which ends up hurting the film in the end.

Will is a pretty good detective who is caught in the middle of a rather tricky controversy. His partner wants to sell Will out because otherwise he’ll be the one who is caught in prison. Will has a solid reputation so he wouldn’t be in jail for too long, but the real problem is that many of his cases were dependent on his word so if he becomes a convict, a lot of villains will go free. It’s a tough moral dilemma and Will ends up shooting his partner. It’s an accident, but as the film goes on, Will begins to question whether or not that is really the case. Making things even worse is the fact that he is now being blackmailed by Walter, a villain who murdered a teenage girl. If Walter takes him to justice, then he’ll be freeing many other murderers and if he lets him go, Walter may go on to hurt others. What will Will do?

You can already tell that this is the kind of film where nobody really wins. It doesn’t matter what Will does to an extent, people are gonna get hurt. Now, this is true in life as there are always more villains out there and every choice has its repercussion, but it’s just a little too much if you ask me. I won’t spoil the ending I suppose, but lets just say that it’s verrrry dark. It’s heavily implied that one character makes a certain decision which means that the courts could make another decision that’ll end up with a lot of victims. Now, it’s not a 100% guarantee that the convicts will get out, but as there is no epilogue to the contrary, it’s just a very sad ending. It could have been easily fixed with a single scene at the end where the felons are still behind bars or a judge just says that the old cases are completely shut. It does show why vigilantism won’t work too well in the long run though. The truth always catches up to you and Will learned that the hard way.

The main plot is also rather dark with Walter murdering the girl. Not only did she die, but first she also had an abusive boyfriend who immediately moved on to her friend right after that. The rebounds were strong here and it’s why you can’t always trust sketchy friends from school. I don’t think we needed all of these dark elements. The film was already somber, this just helped to make it grittier and grittier with every scene. Of course, I’d expect no less from a Nolan and Al Pacino team up. Mix dark with gritty…and you get a dark, gritty film.

Will’s a good main character for the most part though. I’m of the opinion that it really was an accident when he shot the partner although the film makes it very ambiguous. You wouldn’t be wrong if you chose either option since it’s up to the viewer to make the final call. It’s a shame that we couldn’t see Will in his prime since he is clearly a very good detective, but doesn’t get to shine since he is being black mailed and manipulated the whole time. Walter’s actually a step ahead of him for the majority of the film, which is rather annoying. It seems like the villains are always geniuses as well in these kind of films.

Walter wasn’t a likable villain, but of course, he’s not meant to be. He’s just there to fill in the antagonist role and give Will an obstacle to overcome. There’s nothing redeeming about him and he’s just another psychopath on who needs to be brought to justice. It’s why you have to remember that someone’s always watching and lies will be found out eventually. In this case, it’s the worst possible scenario as it’s best to be found out by law enforcement or some kind of positive force rather than being found out by a villain. Then they can manipulate you as they please.

Ellie was a good supporting character. You feel bad for her since she looks up to Will and wants to prove herself as a detective, but slowly realizes that he is actually the culprit this time. She really did do a good job and ended up proving herself, but not in the way that she would have liked. Letting her guard down against the villain was pretty sloppy though and Walter really did embarrass just about everyone in this film. Again, it’s why it would have been fun to have a film where she could have teamed up with Will first before this situation had to pop up. No matter, Ellie made all of the right calls and depending on how you look at the ending, maybe she made another one. The decisions were all very hard, but in the end she had to accept the truth, whether or not she liked it.

The other supporting characters were mostly all good as well. I liked the local chief of police as he didn’t want to engage in all of the spying and double talk and just got down to business. He didn’t care about the scandals, he just wanted to solve the case. The local detective was also good and while Will kept on trying to steer him down the wrong path, the detective wouldn’t listen. He did a good job and I can sympathize with him since nobody likes to get pushed out of their job. He didn’t let Will’s legacy intimidate him and he just kept on chugging.

So, the whole film is just rather tragic. You’ve got a lot of good guys and girls trying to solve a murder, but little do they know that one of their own has been compromised. Will does try to break free of the black mail a few times, but Walter’s just too smart. The film also adds another layer to this by having Will murder an animal to try and use a gun’s bullets as some kind of evidence. I forgot the exact purpose of this, but I definitely don’t like to see any dead animals. Upon second thought, the animal may have already been dead and he just put the bullets in it, but I forgot. It wasn’t a pretty sight either way.

Overall, This was a well written movie and a fairly engaging one at that. There’s just only so much that a tragedy film can do and this is an example of a dark film getting too dark. There’s just too much misery here and almost no “feel good” scenes at all. It’s a somber ride from start to finish and it’s definitely not a film that I can recommend because you won’t enjoy it. It’s the kind of film that you simply experience. Cut out a few of the subplots and parts of the main plot…and maybe you’ve got yourself a good film. If you want a thriller with a good battle of the minds, then check out the recent Sherlock Holmes films. Those were actually quite good and also have a lot of engaging mind battles.

Overall 4/10

Star Wars: Rogue One Review

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All right, it’s time to take a look at the first Star Wars spinoff movie. This one helps to bridge the gap between film III and IV by showing us how the rebellion managed to actually acquire the plans to the Death Star. After all, how could they hope to get such secretive intel from the Empire? There’s a lot of action here and it’s always fun to see The Force move about. It’s a little hard to go back to the days when the Jedi weren’t fighting with their cool abilities, but Rogue One is a solid action movie. It’ll help get you ready for the Episode VIII movie which is coming soon.

Jyn is the main character of the film (Could have sworn that it was Jane) and she witnessed her parents get captured by the Empire. She escapes and was rescued by a tough resistance fighter. Many years passed and Jyn is now a very aggressive person who dislikes the Empire and the Rebellion. She is thrown back into the fray when the rebellion shows up and decides to use her to get to the resistance member. Jyn isn’t thrilled about this arrangement, but she doesn’t have much of a choice. Planets are on the line and the planetary destruction weapon is now complete so the clock is ticking.

The film gets to the plot right away as Jyn’s backstory flies by and her first big mission is upon us. There is no need for a super large build up and that’s really the point. In a war, you don’t have time to go to the local deli first, it’s just on to the mission. As soon as Jyn and Cassian are at the first planet, the skirmish between the Rebellion and the Empire begins. From there we get a lot of other action scenes and the big climax is certainly the largest scale one in the movie. When you think that the fight is about to end, it ends up continuing and continuing. The film doesn’t let up right up through the very end. Naturally I won’t go into any details at all about the ending, but it is quite great and the perfect way to end things on a high note. It also explains why a ship wasn’t pulled back with The Force. I suppose it may not have been the wisest move anyway. You’ll definitely want to watch Episode IV afterwards to put all of this into perspective.

The graphics are good as you would expect. Due to the layout of the Star Wars universe, we don’t get a chance to see many futuristic tech or cities lying about, but the heroes do go to one cool city. It’s a fun camera pan out as we see what the city looks like from afar and then see how desolate it really is when the heroes land. The lightsaber that Darth Vader has looks cool as always and I did appreciate the beam battles that we got as always. That being said, I feel like they heavily nerfed the blasters here. Numerous characters are blasted in the chest with no serious injury. I don’t really think anyone should survive getting his by a blast, especially considering that everyone had their phasers set to stun kill.

I also enjoyed the soundtrack. It was fun hearing the classical themes of the series. I also really like the death wail that all of the machines make when they’re about to explode. I’ve been hearing it more and more as I play the video game and it certainly is catchy. The film doesn’t really have any new tunes, but the classic ones are all that you need in the end. Also, there weren’t really any one on one fights so there wouldn’t be much of a chance to use any new battle music.

Before getting into the characters, I have to talk about one in particular. A guy runs off during the film spouting some nonsense about finding an ultra powerful Jedi warrior who could turn the tables. He said that he trusts her with his life before running off and now we know why. This would give him an excuse to escape before things got messy. What other reason is there for him dashing off and not returning? The Jedi warrior never got to show up unless she was a cameo somewhere and that was just mind boggling. Hardcore Star War fans may know who is was talking about and why it was significant, but for a super casual (At least that’s what I let people think!) fan like myself, it was just rather random.

Jyn makes for a good heroine. I do think that her personality was maybe a little too similar to Rey’s though. Both of them are really tough “Me against the world” characters who know hand to hand skills and dislike everybody. Both of them eventually mellow out though and learn how to be team players. A big difference is the fact that Rey knows the Force though. Regardless of comparisons, Jyn was fun to have around although she maybe became a nice person a little too quickly. Her character arc was a little rushed, but I’ll take action over drama any day so I’m pretty fine with it in the end. Cassian was the main guy in the film and I can’t say that I cared for him. He doesn’t mind putting aside his morals when in the line of duty and even though he got too scared to pull the trigger, it’s hard to put aside the fact that he was willing to do the deed. Jyn calls him out on it and Cassian basically runs off to sulk, after insulting everyone and trying to pick a fight. I know that Cassian’s supposed to be a likable guy by the end, but I just wasn’t buying it. He could fight, which is a nice start, but he was just very annoying.

Speaking of annoying characters though, one of the worst was probably Chirrut. I dislike this fan favorite because he got on my nerves immediately. His whole “I’m one with the Force” gimmick was boring and repetitive. He couldn’t really back it up either as he would have died several times without his generic partner. He came across as a fake Jedi and the only way that I would have liked him would have been if he had an actual lightsaber and used the Force to attack. If the film wanted to have a Jedi around, then they should have gone the whole way. Have him fight Darth Vader near the end or something like that. Yes, Chirrut would have certainly died, but it would have been a good fight and it would have been a way to actually cement the fact that Chirrut was a fighter. His character arc just felt very empty and while it’s cool that we had someone with powers, I was hoping that we’d have someone who knew how to use those abilities.

Back to cool characters though, I certainly enjoyed K2SO. He was a fun sarcastic version of C3PO and he got most of the best lines in the film. He can actually fight, which is a big improvement from C3PO and had some fun action scenes. He is very useful as an undercover robot since the Empire always thinks that he is one of them and the design is cool as well. The heroes would have been utterly doomed without his expertise. Another cool character is naturally Darth Vader. He gets a pair of pivotal scenes, which was nice for his fans. He’s definitely one of the biggest symbols in the franchise and any moment with him in it is always neat. I don’t think his very first scene was necessary as we see him in the water tank since it makes him a little less threatening, but I suppose it was to help acknowledge him as more than just a Sith Lord who wrecks everyone, but I’m actually fine with the latter. You definitely can’t escape from Darth Vader, as many of the characters quickly figure out. It’s why I want a proper light saber fight with him since today’s effects could make it quite epic.

One character that you’ll probably feel bad for is Bodhi. He’s a pilot who had an important message to give to the extremest rebel, but ends up nearly being brain fried for his troubles. It shows just how shady this rebel was and I can see why the rebellion wanted nothing to do with him initially. Not that the rebellion is a whole lot better either. While they aren’t evil like the other guy, some of their members aren’t very courageous. The fact that a lot of them wanted to join the Empire speaks volumes about their resolve. I don’t know how they got a seat in the council. The “It’s a Trap!” guy continues to be a great character though. Now that guy’s a true leader!

Orson and Tarkin are two fun sub villains to have around as well. They’re both political villains who talk a good game and hide in the shadows. They use mind games and overwhelming numbers to take the heroes on while they debate among themselves the whole time. They both have personality and are fun to have around so I actually enjoyed them. They certainly can’t fight all that much, but Orson did manage to take on Cassian in a gun fight so he does have some skills. That or Cassian just isn’t that good and the latter is a real possibility.

I’m probably one of the only ones who feels this way, but I felt bad for the Storm Troopers a lot of the time. They’re constantly defeated through cheap tricks and sneak attacks so it was always cool to see them land some counter hits. The Storm Troopers may be on the wrong side, but they have cool armors and they do try their best. Only plot hax is enough to stop them at times. Rebellions are built on that after all. This film was fairly reasonable on that angle though. There’s no way that the attack should have worked and the Rebellion should have been squashed, but it’s hard to realistically have such a small group attack a big army. The Empire just has too many options at their disposal.

In the end, this film is definitely better than I, II, V, and VI, but it loses to IV and VII. It’s pretty close with III though since that film had a lot more action and big fight scenes while this one leaves you with more of a “Feels Good” feeling. III’s ending is rather somber and dark. In the end, I suppose the epicness wins out so that still puts this film as the 4th best among the 7. 8 if we count the animated film, but it’s really been a super long time since I watched that one. That one could potentially be the best, but I remember always being annoyed that some of the fights are so close to happening and yet they don’t happen. They were probably saving that for the TV show or something.
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Overall, Star Wars Rogue One is a fun prequel. It’s a good way of expanding the universe of Star Wars mythos and allowing us to see some classic characters like Darth Vader again. It’ll remind you that the rebellion certainly went through a lot of hardships before they got to claim some victories. The universe desperately needed some more Jedi. If you haven’t watched a Star Wars film before, then you can certainly jump into this one. In a way, it can be a new starting point for fans since it links into IV so well. I have always been with the crowd that says watching IV before I is crucial so this is the only exception to the original trilogy rule. The film accomplished what it set out to do here so I look forward to seeing if the next prequel will be as good. They definitely put a lot of work into these films so I’m confident that they will keep on checking through the script until it’s just right.

Overall 7/10

The Jungle Book Review

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It’s time to finally get to the Jungle Book review. This film got a lot of recognition for its superb CGI and how realistic the animals ended up looking. They definitely do look pretty sharp and I’ll give the film a lot of kudos for its effects. Despite being a film with a lot of animals around and having a kid as the main character, Jungle Book did pretty well for itself. Honestly, the film would have been even better if Mowgli was older, but that’s for the sequel.

Mowgli is a kid who was raised in the forest. As such, he is used to being around animals instead of humans. Unfortunately, Shere Khan doesn’t approve of this. He faced a human once and lost his eye so now he thinks that all humans are evil. Honestly, most of the humans probably would come to the forest with the intent to do the animals harm, but Mowgli is too young for any of that. Mowgli is forced to go on the run when his clan is taken over by Shere Khan so now he must find some reinforcements and stop Khan before anyone gets hurt. He’ll need the help of a friendly bear, a panther, and a host of other animals who are around the bend. Mowgli is not a bad character, but I still think that kids can’t really hold their own films effectively. It’s just too hard to take him seriously. The scenes of him roaring, running around, or getting stung by bees all rank among the lower moments of the film. It’s really the side characters who do a good job of showing us why this film is good.

Take Baloo for example. He’s the best character in the film and since he is a bear, the guy is also a threat to the villains. A Bear would probably lose to a Lion in real life if they fought….but it would be very close. Both of them can conceivably defeat the other. Shere Khan is a tiger so then this helps Baloo’s case, but this bear isn’t a fighter anyway so that minimizes the advantage. Baloo is all about making equal partnerships and he’s a reasonable fellow. He’s a great friend to have around and he added some nice humor to the film. If he was intended to be the fan favorite all along, then the film definitely did a good job of making him a likable character.

Bagheera is the main Panther and the one who raised Mowgli ever since he was a kid. He’ll remind you of the main Panther from Animal Land and you can really draw a lot of similarities between this and that series. That one is a lot more extreme with the violence though and I don’t actually recommend it. It also got pretty supernatural by the end with all of the Chimeras running around and being as strong as Kaiju. That was certainly crazy. Bagheera may not be the absolute strongest animal here, but he’s a good all around fighter. I’d say that he seems to be a little stronger than the wolves, but not quite as powerful as the tigers. Bagheera is definitely one of the more likable characters in the film and while he may not be great at working with others, he learns to be a team player in the end.

Shere Khan is a great villain and he certainly makes his presence felt. I do think it was a little iffy how easily he defeated the Wolves though. They had numbers on their side and the leader shouldn’t have allowed himself to be taken out so easily. It’s a classic example of why arrogance leads to a fall. The Wolf wanted to show that he was in control of the situation so he lay down and pretended to be at ease. This made Khan’s plan all the easier. Khan would have won anyway, but I like to think that a prolonged fight against the whole clan would have been far too difficult, even for him. Khan is definitely persistent and you have to give him credit for never giving up. He never went down without a fight.

Kaa is another villain who got a big scene in the trailers, but didn’t actually do all that much in the film. She really got a glorified cameo if anything. Her illusion abilities are certainly handy, but in a fight she is clearly outmatched against the rest of the characters. The main character is one of the only people that she can defeat although to be fair, he’s the only one that she needs to eat in order to end the adventure.

If the film has any weakness, it’s that it can drag a little bit at certain points. For example, the escapade over to the Baboons. The plot didn’t really add anything to the movie and I never really care for the monkeys. It was impressive just how large the King was and the chase scene was cool, but it just felt like filler. The heroes were also so vastly outnumbered that it was just hard to see how they escaped from that plight without more serious injuries. I didn’t want any more bee injuries though because that always looks pretty gross so Monkeys were preferable. I also would have loved it if the film had taken place in the city, but then it’d be a completely different film right?

The writing was good, which always goes a long way in these movies. Bad writing would have made this film quite sad. I can’t say that I really recall there being much of a soundtrack in this film. That would have been pretty neat, but it wasn’t a bad soundtrack at any rate. I think there were some generic danger and action themes in there somewhere. As mentioned before, the graphics are pretty realistic. I prefer more fantasy esque graphics of course, but this wasn’t supposed to be that kind of movie anyway. As far as realistic animals go, Jungle Book did a really good job.

Overall, The Jungle Book is a good film. You’ll definitely get some Lion King vibes from the main villain and the scene where he “befriends” the cubs as a threat to the Mom is certainly familiar. Shere Khan definitely made for an epic villain. This is the kind of film that can definitely stand on its own without a sequel, but a sequel certainly wouldn’t hurt. There is definitely a lot that they can do with this series, but there are also a lot of ways that it can jump the fence. The writers will have to be careful how they handle this. I’d recommend checking out the film. There may be some scenes that drag on and Mowgli isn’t all that good, but by and large this is a solid film. The positives clearly outweigh the negatives and that’s always the important part. I think this film would have easily gotten a 7 if the main character had just been a little older, but that’s how it goes sometimes.

Overall 6/10

Silver Streak Review

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It’s time for another Gene Wilder film. This one sees him witness a murder while on a train and now he must try to get away with his life. This will be no easy task since everyone wants him dead now. George also has a tough time remembering how villains love to attack from behind, which gets him into a few sticky situations. He’ll need all of his skills and experience if he wants to get out of this in one piece. It’s a pretty fun film for the most part and the only thing that drags it down a little is the heavy handed romance plot which suffers from poor writing and being generally unrealistic. There just isn’t much to it and the whole time you’re just wondering why the subplot was included. The film would have been even better without it.

As mentioned earlier, George was just minding his own business at first. He wanted a train ride so he could have time to think and relax. Unfortunately, he quickly meets a bad influence who tells him that train rides are only good for finding rebound characters. It turns out that he was right as George quickly dashes back to his room in triumph. The joy is short lived as a dead body crashes past his room and then George is thrown off the train by a bunch of brutes. George must get back on the train and save Hilly or it is all over. Can he really catch a train though? Even if he does…what hope does he have against trained professionals?

George isn’t really my kind of main character. He has his funny moments as always since the actor is quite good at playing this type of character. The reason I can’t like George is because he’s simply too easy and he can also be rather slow on the uptake. George also isn’t much of a fighter so he ends up getting knocked around whenever he doesn’t have a gun. It is still priceless to see him panic at everything though. His constant yelling is what makes his character enjoyable most of the time. Unfortunately, Hilly doesn’t end up being a good heroine. Unlike George, she isn’t even charismatic and funny to make up for it. She really messes up every opportunity possible and a lot of the time she has no real reason to make the decisions that she does. For example, she had George alone with her quite a few times and still decided to keep him in the dark. Even once the villains throw him off the train and start to get violent, she tries to trick George into thinking that he was imagining everything. That was never going to work and if she thought that the villains were going to leave him alone, then she was just being very naive. Throw in the fact that she is constantly flirting and seems to be very “free” in the worst meaning of the word and you have a very underwhelming character.

Luckily, we had Grover as the fan favorite character. He doesn’t show up until we’re well through the film so unfortunately his role is rather small. No matter, he still made the film a whole lot more fun and I can see why people would like him and Wilder as a good combo. Their characters worked well together. Grover’s appearance meant that Gene finally had some muscle backing him up and he would have certainly been doomed otherwise. Grover even got the happiest ending out of all the characters so his hard work paid off.

Roger is the main villain and he’s all right. He’s basically your average villain so there’s nothing unique about him, but he does a good job in the role. He keeps the heroes on their guard at all times and does have a lot of confidence. Even once he is outnumbered and at gunpoint, he tries to make a deal with George. Only plot hax is enough to save him at that point. He may have even been a little better than I would have expected. One of his minions, Reace, was also all right. He’s definitely an intimidating villain since he is rather huge and one good hit would be enough to defeat George. Luckily, fights between mere mortals will always come down to who has the better aim and George is a crackshot with a harpoon.

Finally, I have to mention that the main Police agent in the film is pretty bad. Bob is undercover so he uses that as an excuse to get drunk and flirt a lot before actually getting serious, but it’s a little too late by that point. He’s a very unlikable character and not even a very competent one at that. He opens a door without even looking even though he knows that gangsters are on the train. Seriously, they even knocked to give him a bit of a warning, but it was no use. Common sense couldn’t save Bob so what chance did George and friends have?

This film would have been an easy 7, but the main thing holding it back is the romance. As mentioned earlier, the plot isn’t written well. It just implies that George and Hilly are both people who will start a relationship with just anybody and are constantly on the rebound. The plot is given way too much screen time and you have whole minutes of nothing happening because they are too busy with each other. It slows the film down and that’s something that the film didn’t need since it is already so long. Parts of the film do drag towards the middle and this doesn’t help matters. Honestly, getting off the train 2-3 times was rather embarrassing. Actually jumping off was probably the worst mistake that George made. The heroes had the win in the bag at that point, but didn’t have the courage to follow through.

The milking the cow scene is also pretty gross, but I’ve always thought so. It’s just hard to watch and looks so painful for the cow. That’s why you should always bring something with you while watching a movie, like a snack or a water or something. That way you can quickly look away and grab that as you wait for the scene to end. Honestly, the cow scene is almost worse than the normal romance because of how iffy it is. Back to positives, the action scenes are pretty solid. Action isn’t exactly one of the genres so don’t expect long fight scenes or anything like that, but the fact that George can’t really fight makes his action scenes entertaining.

Overall, Silver Streak is a good film. I highly recommend the TV version since it cut out what felt like dozens of swear words throughout. The air bubbles make for a pretty funny experience. The romance holds it back and the cow scene was unnecessary, but the rest of the film is strong enough to make up for that. If you’re a Gene Wilder fan then you already know what to expect. If not, just come in looking for a fun retro comedy film and it should not disappoint. It’s not quite as strong as his Willy Wonka film, but it is still solid. Gene is definitely rising up as one of the better actors for me. He’s certainly charismatic and the fact that he always plays the same character type works for me. If you’ve got a good thing going, why switch it right? Get ready for some serious plot hax, but….since when has a gun film not had some of that?

Overall 6/10

Black Friday Review

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It’s time for a retro film. It feels like it’s been a while since I reviewed an oldie, but I suppose it hasn’t been all that long. This film’s a fun take on the whole mind switch concept and you can think of it as being similar to Frankenstein. It’s done a whole lot better than Frankenstein ever was though and the characters are actually pretty likable and endearing except for one guy who goes off the deep end.

The plot involves Ernest, a scientist. He is a genius whose only real friend dies in a car crash one day. To save his life, Ernest decides to do an experimental brain transplant. It’s a success, but the problem is that George (The friend) now has a split personality. He’ll be George one minute and then he’ll be Red Cannon, the gangster. Ernest could help George’s personality pull through, but he really wants to be rich and everyone knows that Red Cannon buried 500 million dollars somewhere in the city. Ernest will have that money and then he’ll save George. Can he really have his cake and eat it too or is something sinister about to happen?

As you can expect, Ernest is the character that I don’t care for. At first, his motives were good. He went pretty far to save his friend and his gamble paid off. Unfortunately, his desire for fame and glory corroded him. It was even a bit cheesy at one point as Red Cannon was afraid of Ernest. I find that hard to believe since he was such a hardened gangster. Ernest doesn’t get away with it which is good, but he put everyone in a sticky situation. He’s certainly not a team player.

On the other hand, George is a solid character. He constantly reminds everyone that he is a Professor of English Literature and that’s why he has a hard time dealing with all of the gangster drama. He’s a very polite guy who simply made the mistake of trusting his old friend. Even when a side effect of the serum caused George to be a little cranky, he was always ready to apologize for it. George is a real stand up guy and that’s why I’m glad that he got a good ending. He didn’t ask for any of this and did the best that he could to see to it that everything went all right. He even gave the Cab driver a huge tip, which was pretty neat.

Red Cannon was an okay gangster, but as I mentioned earlier, he did get scared by Ernest. I’m not really sure how I can take him seriously after that. He did a good job of beating up most of the guys who had betrayed him though. Messing with the boss is definitely not a good move. I mean, he was dead so they won…….lets ignore that for now. The gangsters were fairly confident and since they had Red Cannon’s girlfriend on their side, how could they lose? She actually did trick Red Cannon a few times though so he’s got a ways to go when it comes to running a gang biz. That’s why you’re not supposed to mix work and romance, it makes things risky. I did have to chuckle at the fact that the gangsters were forced to hide in a closet as a last resort. That normally shouldn’t buy you a whole lot of time. Leaving the secret beer cabinet open as well is another critical mistake.

The unsung hero here has to be the cab driver. He’s the kind of guy who wasn’t going to let Red Cannon walk all over him. I like how he calmly walked up to the cops and saw to it that justice was served. Red Cannon was gone by then of course, but it’s the thought that counts. The students were also pretty nice as they helped George out and even when he randomly shape shifted, they took it in stride. They were certainly pretty accepting of the whole thing, despite how strange it all was.

Aside from that, the rest of the film was also pretty realistic. Even the energy drain since George should definitely be tired from living two lives. That’s a lot of exercise for a rather old fellow. The writing was very good from start to finish as well. It had that dignified feel that you really can’t find in a more modern adventure. Not to mention that it’s what helped make George a good character. Bad writing would have made him cheesy or just fake while he felt like a real likable fellow this time.

The fight scenes were also solid. They did a good job of showing why Red Cannon was so feared throughout the land while not going overboard and making the minions look weak. After all, they did keep the gang running well after his death so they had to be at least a little competent right? The film is rather short so the pacing stays quick throughout the adventure. The only slow parts is when Ernest is trying to turn George back into Red Cannon by taking him around town, but it’s more screen time for George so that is always a good thing.

Overall, Black Friday is a film that I can recommend wholeheartedly. All of the characters are either likable or written well as villains. The fight scenes are good and the plot is engaging. Even the secondary characters like the Bellhop are fun to have around. It shows why you should always be skeptical when you’re given a life saving medicine or start to feel tired for no reason. On the other hand, it reminds you that you can always suppress any foreign minds that try to inhabit your body. You may not become a shape shifter, but that’s fine. The film blends together a nice mix of humor and seriousness. There’s really nothing negative to say about the film and the only thing keeping it from being an 8 is just not having enough content to quite get up that high. It’s a solid all around film otherwise.

Overall 7/10

Lights Out Review

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It’s time for a fairly recent horror movie. This one actually managed to be fairly decent as far as horror movies go. Unfortunately, it slipped up towards the end of the film. The ending may not be as terrible as something like The Innocents, but it’s certainly still a Debbie Downer. It may not be winning any awards from me, but you could certainly do worse if you’re looking for a quick scare before Thanksgiving is upon us.

The film starts off in an abandoned toy factory esque place. The assistant notices that someone has broken into the building and warns her boss about this. He basically tells her that he has no time for games so she leaves. Afterwards, he gets ready to leave, but the creature attacks him and the guy doesn’t live through the experience. It’s a fairly solid way to start the film off and it isn’t even all that violent. For once, the scene is actually handled fairly well and the creature’s design was pretty good. Honestly, I felt like the whole film should have taken place in that shadowy store.

Moving along, the creature is named Diana and she has become friends with Sophie, Rebecca’s Mom. Sophie and Diana have become quite close and that’s why Diana wants to murder all of Rebecca’s friends. She can’t let anyone come in between them. Unfortunately, this is having a negative impact on Martin, Rebecca’s brother. Child services get involved and Rebecca decides to keep Martin for a little while. The board won’t have it so Rebecca has to head back. She decides to spend the night, but will she be able to vanquish Diana or is it all over for her?

The film seems to lose its sense of direction at several points, which is where things get rough for it. For example, Diana is shown to be a fake friend. She is just using Sophie because she wants the Mom to feel the same sadness that she felt. Okay…but her plan only works if Sophie ends up being messed up. Unfortunately, that is the case as Sophie doesn’t mind being thrown around since she believes that she deserves it. Sophie’s a pretty terrible character as she puts Diana before Martin and Rebecca several times. She seems to want to be a good Mother, but then back pedals at other points. At one point, she gives Rebecca a letter saying that she needs help before she is dragged back into the darkness. So, Sophie seems to be somewhat aware of the fact that Diana is not her friend, but then forgets it again. I suppose it’s just part of her whole Martyr disposition, but it definitely doesn’t do the character any favors.

Diana’s power level also seems to fluctuate quite a lot. In some scenes, she can’t stand the light to the point where she won’t go near it. By the end, she’s going through the light no problem. It burns her, but she can take the heat long enough to do whatever she wants to do. She has a good amount of super strength as she can throw people around and quickly stab others, not to mention that she is also bullet proof. At the same time, the heroes can struggle against her quite effectively so maybe she’s a little weaker than Captain America. Regardless, she makes for a good villain, but not really a great character. I’d prefer her goal to simply be “Destroy everyone” or something rather than just sparing people sometimes and attacking in others. Going after Martin seemed like a random move towards the beginning when they were watching a film. Wouldn’t that instantly destroy her “friendship” with Sophie? I imagine that it would override her current condition. Diana also took a while to make her move since we find out that she has been around, even when Rebecca was a kid. I guess she just didn’t attack if you didn’t get in her way.

The main problem with the ending is its one of those classic “I can’t beat the villain so it’s time to exit the game” moments. It’s portrayed as the right call of course, but it’s definitely not the best way to win. There wasn’t really any other course of action in this example, but that just makes it all the more tragic. Not to mention the fact that the character’s reputation is going to be slung through the mud now since nobody will know the truth.

As per usual, the cops don’t look so good here. You can’t blame them quite as much this time since they are up against a monster that can easily defeat them, but they still could have handled the situation better. The cops take a while to find the main characters and even once they do, they don’t do a good job of handling the situation. They clearly know that they’re dealing with someone dangerous, but they still don’t watch their distance. They did try shooting at least, but one of the cops just waved the main character off when she tried to give some advice. It’s a good thing that Rebecca had a lot of survival skills earlier because those were more dependable.

I can’t say that I was really a fan of Bret. He does help out a lot and certainly does better than most horror characters, but he’s just not that likable. The scenes with him trying to show Rebecca that she is making the wrong move didn’t really go over well. Taking Martin definitely seemed like the right call although she did handle it in a pretty sour way. He may have been right, but he started off rather accusing so it makes sense that Rebecca would get defensive. Rebecca got to be a decent character by the end although the beginning makes sure to show you why she’s not a good role model for Martin. She certainly went far with the whole rebellious streak.

This is another horror film that doesn’t play out as you would typically expect it to. The body count increases by the end, but it’s more of a slow burner as Diana doesn’t do anything for quite a while. It works well to an extent and as I mentioned, this is technically one of the better horror films. On the other hand, it means that there isn’t a whole lot for Diana to do except give us some fake jump scares. I can live with that if it beats the alternative I suppose.

Overall, Lights Out isn’t half bad. The film never has a gritty moment just for kicks and the whole film is rather chill when it comes to that. The monster is fairly good and the backstory is rather tragic while not being over the top. The characters may not be great, but they are better than their counterparts. On the other hand, the romance with Bret and Rebecca is fairly poor. It just reminds you why these two are going to have a hard time trying to win custody. The ending isn’t very good either and it was hard to really get Diana and Sophie. Sometimes they acted rationally and other times they did not. Sophie really could have handled this whole debacle a lot better and if Diana was serious about destroying everyone, she could have really done it at any time. She waited too long due to plot hax. If you’re a big fan of horror movies then this could be a decent one to check out. If you want a film that I could recommend to everyone, check out Scooby Doo: Zombie Island!

Overall 4/10

Disturbia Review

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Well, it’s time for a horror/slasher/thriller film where the main plot tries to live up to the title. The romance is definitely a contender for one of the worst in cinema and the rest of the film isn’t much better. Without any characters to actually root for and cringe worthy dialogue throughout…where can the film even go? Needless to say, it can only go down from there. On the bright side, the film was up front about itself from the get go, hence the title.

The film starts off with a guy named Kale. His father passed away due to a car accident a while back and he never recovered from it. After slacking through another class and having the professor call him out on it, Kale quickly went for a punch. It landed him in house arrest and he will really be arrested if he leaves the house for longer than a few seconds. He can technically make it to the front and back yard, but that’s it. Kale decides that if he can’t go around beating people up anymore, he can at least be a stalker. He spends his time spying on the main heroine and even invites his friend as well. Unfortunately, it turns out that one of his other neighbors is a murderer and since Kale made it obvious that he knows about this…the group is in danger now. Can Kale stop this guy or will he destroy them all?

Well, the basic premise already starts this film off at a disadvantage. Naturally, the main heroine decides that she doesn’t care about Kale’s antics, or the fact that he crashed or party in a fit of rage because it’s a bad movie it shows that he cares. It’s just hard to watch because you already know that Kale is not a good guy at all. Lets face the facts, he punched out a Professor who wasn’t even being super antagonistic. Sure, he played the Dad card, but the main character had been sleeping through classes and hadn’t even seemed apologetic. After that, Kale did his best to do all the wrong things. He didn’t help out around the house, he would play games all day, then he would watch sketchy TV all day, etc, etc. Kale would always try to make the situation worse.

You can’t feel sympathetic with him at all. Honestly, his situation was pretty lucky all things considered. This is why you should have hobbies. If I had to stay at home for a full month for some reason, it’d be easy. I’d be blogging, gaming, TV watching, and doing all kinds of things. Even card/board games would get a shot. There’d also be a lot of time to do some cleaning as well or at least not adding to the mess. Heading back to the main heroine, it’s also quite telling that Kale would invite his friend over to watch as if she was the afternoon entertainment. There’s no way a healthy relationship can be formed from such a twisted start and it just never gets better.

As I already mentioned, none of the characters are good. It’s obvious why Kale isn’t good and the heroine is simply too easy. Even if it was to get Kale jealous, (Or should I say Especially?) she was getting awful close with the random strangers at the party and things were quickly getting dicey. If she is that free, then the pairing makes a lot of sense, but is still pretty terrible to see on screen. We can’t forget Kale’s friend either. The guy spends his first 5-10 minutes making one looooooooong repetitive dirty joke about how a Spanish word sounds like a sad English phrase. The professor lets him go on and on for reasons unknown. The friend also proves that he only cares about himself several times as he is ready to let Kale take the fall for the false murder accusation. Recording the heroes at the end is just adding insult to injury.

The film doesn’t even do well as a slasher. Now, this part is a little contradictory since the “better” you do as a slasher, the lower your score might be. After all, increasing the body count solidifies the villain as a threat, but will also likely make the film more violent. Well, the villain here can’t be taken too seriously since he keeps letting people go. He didn’t destroy the friend, he spared the heroine, he spared the Mom, etc. I get that it was all part of the plan, but he reeeeally took his sweet time. I’d also argue that the way in which he invites people over to his house and then murders them sounds like a fool proof plan to fail. Nobody noticed any of this? None of the families were able to track the cell phone to that location before the person died? Even if the villain got rid of the phone, they could see it on the trail right? His wig disguise shouldn’t be as convincing as it was. I guess Kale’s eyes are as bad as his personality, but it’s still pretty sad.

The film also throws in some animal violence for good measure as the main villain destroys a deer and also takes down a rabbit. Why? It was part of his master plan to trick the cops and it works super well, but it doesn’t help the film. Back to the cops, they look terrible as per usual. One of them has a personal vendetta against Kale which he lets get in the way of his objectivity. When the main character leaves the house and the Police are sent to take him in, the cop decides to stop by a McDonalds esque place first to finish his Cheeseburger combo. By the time he gets to the house, his reflexes and reaction times are shot. He walks into the house and is quickly murdered by the main villain. It happens so quickly that he doesn’t even get to use his gun. Police are trained for this kind of thing, I’d like to think that they wouldn’t walk through a sharp turn in pitch black conditions without some kind of plan.

Kale only lives through the climax due to plot hax. After all, he makes all the wrong calls. He trips, makes a lot of noise, lies down to make himself an easy target, and a slew of other things. One character who I didn’t mention, but is also pretty bad is the Mother. She invites the neighbor to her house and then even after Kale tells her that he is a murderer, she doesn’t care. Sure, Kale’s not the greatest person to take tips from, but she should at least use some common sense and not go to the guy’s house in the middle of the night when they’re all alone and there isn’t anyone to protect her. She just looks soooooo bad here. The early part of the film tried to make her a tough and independent character, but this nullified all of that in an instant.

Overall, There definitely isn’t much in the way of positives for this film. Originally I was going to give it a 1 because it’s super distasteful, but does it really deserve a 0? Well, after thinking about it a while as this film stayed on the backburner, I think it actually did deserve a 0. It tries to romanticize a pretty bad relationship and doesn’t actually have a moral in place to show Kale that what he did was wrong. It’s never portrayed negatively at all, but rather it happened and the heroine rolled with it. Throw in the animal violence, the stalking scenes, the unlikable characters, and the bad writing….and it all leads to one conclusion. If you want to watch a film with a similar plot, but a much better execution, check out Rear Window instead. Whatever you do, just stay away from this film. There is really nothing good to be found here.

Overall 0/10

Secret Window Review

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I’m on a roll so lets go with another terrible film that I saw a little while ago. I’m actually shocked that this one is PG-13. The tone and everything felt like it was not, but I’ll give the film some slight props for that I suppose. Unfortunately, it all goes downhill from there. This film falls into some deep traps that thrillers/horrors are prone to stepping in and the film’s glum outlook doesn’t help matters either. It’s simply not a fun experience from start to finish.

Mort is an author who hasn’t been doing well lately. His papers won’t write themselves and he certainly doesn’t want to do any writing either. Things get worse when a guy by the name of John Shooter shows up and claims that Mort stole his paper. Mort knows that this isn’t true because he wrote it before John claims that he did, but he needs proof. Until Mort can get proof, John decides that he will destroy everyone close to Mort and will scare him into submission. Can Mort get this guy off his back or is it time to panic and retreat? Lets just say that neither one is an option.

All right, this film’s terrible. We can start with the animal violence. Mort has a dog, but naturally he is destroyed. The film was pretty obvious about the fact that the dog was going to die and this prevents you from ever getting into the film. What’s the point when you know that something so criminal and tragic is about to happen. I didn’t like it…I didn’t like it one bit. It was a distasteful move right from the get go.

There’s also another big problem with the film and it concerns the ending. It’s something that doesn’t happen very often, but certainly gets quite bad when it does show up. There will be spoilers in this paragraph as well as the next one so skip these if you don’t want to know about it. You have been warned so lets go back to spoilers in 3….2……1….Go. It turns out that Mort is insane. John Shooter is a figment of his imagination. What this means is that Mort is the one who destroyed his dog. Mort is also the one who burned his house down and murdered a few other people. The ending of the film also sees Mort murder his wife and her new rebound guy. It then ends with him burying them and living a peaceful life in his house. The police know that it was him, but there is nothing that they can do about it without any proof. I call plot hax on that and it is a very depressing way to end.

There are few things worse than having the villain win in the end. Mort’s a mass murderer and the film ends with the knowledge that no charges can be put on him. Moreover, he still comes to town to intimidate people and everyone knows that he could easily do the same thing again. It’s a very depressing end to an already terrible film. Imagine if Sucker Punch had end….bad example. Imagine if Air had en…..another bad example. Lets go to Poltergeist 3. If the film had ended with Maryanne being stuck in astral world and everyone else just getting murdered and replaced with ghosts, it would have been pretty lousy. You question what the point of the whole film was. It’s possible to handle the situation well and still have the villains win in the end. For example, the Avengers film could have had Thanos show up and destroy the planet and I don’t think it would have affected the score negatively. If anything, it would have been a pretty fun ending. It’s all about execution, but you simply can’t have a psychotic mass murderer end the film off on a high note while all of the other characters get massacred. It just doesn’t work.

None of the characters are particularly likable here. Mort’s annoying and terrible. There’s no real way to like Amy since she is cheating on Mort the whole time. She wants a divorce, but she hasn’t actually gotten it yet so that destroys her as a character. Ted’s no better since he’s the rebound guy for Amy. To make sure that you don’t forget this, the film plays the flashback about 10 times or more where Mort finds this out the hard way. The only character who can be seen as semi good is the private investigator, but he’s not very good. He’s very relaxed about the whole thing and lets his guard down the whole time. He comes across as a guy who is all talk and no action. Needless to say, John Shooter is a pretty terrible villain as well.

The film feels very old despite being a 2000 and later film. Maybe it’s a technique that it used on purpose to achieve a retro affect. Whatever the case, the film looked and felt like a 1990’s R rated Indie horror film. While I can try to respect the fact that the film got this sinister tone, it doesn’t really help the film all that much at all. It doesn’t save it from the perfect 0 and doesn’t win it back any points. How could it? The plot twist at the end just ends up hurting your own trust in the film and it was already going to be a 2 or a 3 max. Add in the actual ending and then the 0 is an absolute certainty.

There isn’t a whole lot more to say about the film. If we ignore the plot twist, then there would have been a lot of plot hax and stretches of disbelief. With the twist, then everything adds up pretty well. I don’t like not being able to trust what I’m seeing though, it feels like a big cop out. I suppose that it’s the only way the film could go with this plot though. The writing wouldn’t have been able to handle it otherwise.

Overall, Secret Garden is a terrible film. It has one of the worst endings in film history, (And that’s saying something) a crippling plot twist, unlikable characters, and animal violence. I don’t think any film could survive such an onslaught of negatives. There is simply too much to overcome and the only mildly interesting scene in the whole film was a very brief fight, which doesn’t even matter thanks to the twist. It’s a shame…a true shame. If you want a film with some semblance of quality, then check out I Know What You Did Last Summer. If you want a film with actual quality, then go watch Space Jam. Trust me, there is a big difference between actually being a good film and having a very short glimpse of potential. Space Jam is the former and the Summer film is the latter. Secret Window can’t even make it to either category.

Overall 0/10