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Mission Impossible Rogue Nation Review

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Mission Impossible has always been a fun series and I was looking forward to this film. It was one of the few films that I thought had a chance to dethrone Pixels. It turns out that this wasn’t a very tough feat at all, but the film did not disappoint. Aside from Age of Ultron, this one’s easily the best film that I’ve seen in theaters this year from the live action titles. Off the top of my head it manages to dethrone MI 4 and the original film as the definitive best title, but it has been quite a while since I’ve seen those.

Ethan Hunt has been helping the IMF for quite a while, but it cannot be denied that there is typically a lot of collateral damage. As such, the organization is disbanded and the CIA claims its assets. Ethan goes off the grid to try and learn more about a shadow organization that has been committing acts of terrorism across the globe. Months later, Ethan has finally gotten a solid link on the adversaries and calls in one of his old partners, Benji, to help him with this fight. Together along with a member of the Syndicate (Shadow Organization) who claims to not be loyal to the cause, the three heroes embark on this perilous journey.

Naturally, this is the kind of film where you don’t really want to trust anyone. The characters could turn on each other at any minute and what’s a Mission Impossible film without a few twists and obstacles? That being said, if you believe in the Hollywood style enough, you should be able to see through most of the film’s deceptions. Now, why was this film a cut above the rest? It all goes down to a few elements.

For starters, the writing is good in this movie. As it’s essentially a battle of wits between Ethan and Solomon, the writing needed to be good or things could have gotten pretty dicey. Both characters try to stay one step ahead of the other, although it’s a much tougher task for Ethan since he has no resources for most of the adventure and has to make do with what he’s got. Solomon also has an entire organization to back him up.

The action scenes are pretty fun. There’s a motorcycle race between Ethan and the villains as they all cruise along at top speeds. Ethan has experience in all speeding vehicles so he’s definitely prepared for such a challenge. It’s definitely the best action sequence in the film and does a good job of showing Ethan’s skills as an agent. There’s also a car chase and then the stunt scenes like Ethan going underwater or hanging onto an airplane. Those were all fairly well done and holding one’s breath for so long is a good feat.

The hand to hand battles are also nice and fast paced. They’re a little more violent than the older films as the heroes literally break their opponents a lot of time. For current fight scenes, the trend is to hear the bones breaking and put a lot of emphasis on when the heroes pull a General Zod moment, but it never gets too over the top and you can still appreciate how skilled Ethan is when he’s fighting off the opponents.

In case you couldn’t tell, I’m definitely a big fan of the character. Ethan’s been a consistently solid agent since the first film and his skills have improved. He’s not portrayed as being invincible in hand to hand combat as a random thug was overpowering him in a fair fight, but he makes up for that with his other skills. Like James Bond, Ethan has a license to kill and he gives it a real workout here. He’s essentially a legal assassin so you shouldn’t expect him to take any prisoners. It’s simply not his way. That being said, compared to other secret agents who do whatever they want in the process of completing the mission like James Bond or even Jason Bourne, Ethan is simply better at the job. He’s far more professional than James Bond and I’d say that he’s smarter than Bourne.

That being said, the film probably does rub our nose in it a little too much. I don’t believe that Ethan could successfully follow the Syndicate around the world for months without his government status. He somehow manages to also stay one step ahead of the CIA along the way and makes himself a base filled with lots of high tech equipment. I definitely think that it’s a stretch, but Mission Impossible is all about doing the impossible so it’s not something to think about too much. Plot hax is always around if you know where to look.

While Ethan is easily my favorite character in the film, I also like Brandt. He’s the connection on the government side of things and he almost could have been the main character if not for Ethan always stealing the spotlight. He acts like a leader and he’s quite skilled although he’s no Ethan Hunt. Without Brandt helping with the legal aspects of the situation, Ethan would have likely been doomed. Benji is a big player in this film, but I can’t say that I’m a fan. He’s not a bad character, but I feel like he doesn’t really add anything to the film except to be there for when Ethan needs an extra man. I would have preferred Brandt to have been the co-star, but he was definitely needed in the CIA plot.

Another one of Ethan’s friends, Luther shows up during the film. After the opening scene, he essentially vanished until the halfway point or maybe even later. He’s good and his computer skills are top notch. He doesn’t get much to do compared to the other members, but he helps out when the team is in a pinch. The leader of the CIA was a fairly likable character and you couldn’t help, but root for him at times. He always meant well and looking at things from his perspective, it’s hard to deny that he made some good calls. Destroying the IMF? It’s probably a good idea, but he would need to have a backup squad ready ASAP before the villains got any ideas.

As for the villains, let’s start off with Solomon. He’s actually a good villain who thinks things through and did a good job of outsmarting the heroes for a while. He has one “intimidation” scene that will make you wince and/or roll your eyes, but that was the only scene where he wasn’t impressive. I like how he turned the whole “Should you accept it” speech around on Ethan. He did it twice, but the first time was certainly the best moment. It really came out of nowhere and while we knew that the villain would make a move, it’s safe to say that nobody expected it to be so epic. It made the wait for the rematch that much more epic.

There were other villains like the “Bone Doctor” who gave the film some fights. Beyond them, the other big character would be the heroine, Ilsa. Throughout the film, you have to decide if you will trust her or not. I give the film some major props for not trying to turn her into a love interest for Ethan. That would have been pretty terrible and most films make that mistake, but not this one. Ilsa is used for some slight fanservice in one or two scenes, but it’s slight at least and not played up. (As it would certainly be in a lesser film) Ilsa’s a good character, but at the same time, she doesn’t think about her current situation enough. She takes a whole lot of risks for her country, but it goes into dicey territory with how unnecessary a lot of them are. She should realize that she’s just being used and act accordingly. Ilsa also came close to destroying Ethan on several occasions and you have to wonder if she meant to or not since depending on the answer, it does make her look bad. On the bright side, while it was at the expense of the British, the American Government looks nice and fair by comparison this time.

Rogue Nation has a lot of intense action scenes, but it’s also a lot of fun throughout and has a similar upbeat tone to that of The Avengers. People in the audience cracked up when the M16 chief got shot because of his extremely mild/dazed response. The film also has a good amount of witty banter about it. It never turns into full on comedy mode, but has enough light moments to keep you entertained throughout the film. It’s only around 2 hours, but the film really crams in a ton of content so the movie is always going.

I have to note that the film also uses a retro effect that I haven’t seen some time. Remember a few decades ago when the opening credits of a film would show scenes from the actual film that hadn’t happened yet? This one does that as the credits were rolling and it’s interesting. I’m actually not a huge fan of this since it’s showing you scenes that are about to happen, but I suppose that it could be a good way to generate hype. I dunno, I’m still against it, but it’s worth noting.

One thing that I liked about the ending was who the new recruit to the IMF was. It’s the perfect situation since as long as this person remains in the shadows, the IMF can do whatever they want. Of course, with no one to check on them, the IMF has to be very careful that they don’t go down a similar path like the Syndicate. As mentioned several times, Ethan is a gambler and the IMF takes a lot of huge risks. They will fail sometimes, but at least they still save lives whenever they enter the field.

Finally, I can’t forget to mention that the soundtrack is really good. The opening theme that played sounded an awful lot like a Terminator remix and then we also got the classic MI theme a few times during the film. It was a great selection of themes to be sure and they helped to make the film even more fun than it could have been. It’s safe to say that no other live action film this year will be able to defeat this film except for possibly Star Wars and even that only has a really slim shot. Mission Impossible is just too fun a franchise and can hold its own with any big title.

Overall, Rogue Nation is another win for the Mission Impossible series. On the record, I believe that it is the best MI title to date, but the series has had a good track record of aging well so it’s possible that the older titles will age slower than this one and overtake it. We shall see, but I don’t see myself lowering this score anytime soon so they will have to catch up to it. With fun fight scenes and an epic soundtrack, this film had all the tools needed to be a winner. There are a lot of things that can happen in the next film since it’s essentially a clean slate right now. If you want to check out an action film, this is the perfect one for you.

Overall 8/10

Olympus Has Fallen Review

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This review is of the edited TV-14 version. All thoughts below should be addressed as such and a review of the unedited version would likely be a lot harsher.

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Time to look at a film which is in a tricky genre. I’ve seen a film or two like this before where it’s essentially about terrorists and what would happen when they take an area over. It’s not a genre that I’m crazy about because it usually revolves around all of the good guys looking like rank amateurs while the terrorists can suddenly shoot as well as Ann Oakley. Unfortunately, America looks even worse than I had feared and it does certainly hurt this film. The movie had potential, but you simply do not mess with the USA!

It’s an average day in the White House when terrorists storm the lawn. They had a guy on the inside who handled all of the “professional” agents around the President. Meanwhile, America must have been sleeping on the job because we only have 2 planes near the White House and they were both wrecked by the villain’s ship. One plane took down 2 and the terrorist plane was really large and clunky. America also had the better position since we were flanking both sides, but decided not to do anything. We didn’t have much protection or backup nearby either so the White House fell in 13 minutes. It’s up to one ex secret service member to take back the White House!

If you’ve seen one Terrorist film, then you’ve seen them all. By that, I mean that you can easily predict exactly what is about to happen before it ever occurs. The villain starts to kill off everyone one by one and they are forced to think about complying with the terrorist demands. Scratch that, they do comply with the demands and America looks really bad the entire time. Whyyyyyyyyyyy? I like to think that it’s just because the other countries want to see America looking weak as an ego boost. In the real world, we typically end wars as soon as they begin so this is their way to laugh it up a little. How these movies make it into theaters when they are essentially anti war propaganda against the US is beyond me.

Let’s quickly look at why America looked so bad. For starters, let’s go back to the plane scene. The heroes keep telling the mysterious plane to turn back or they will fire. They wait until the other plane is essentially within firing range and the terrorists quickly start shooting. The planes are so shocked that they go down almost instantly. It’s one of those facepalm moments. Another wince worthy scene is when random joes throw smoke bombs onto the lawn and quickly storm it. The pros can’t hit them so they are quickly overwhelmed and it’ll make you want to turn the film off for a few minutes to go make dinner or take a walk to forget about how sad that was.

Finally, The President decides to invite the Korean ambassador into the safe room during the terrorist attack. It’s really fishy that the attack happened during the visit right? Why on Earth would the President do this? Being nice is one thing, but his agents would never allow that to happen. It’s extremely plot convenient though and all of the President’s right hand men and women are there with him so now the villains can get everyone all at once. What a plan!

Oh boy, that was enough to drive me out of the film. It’s also just not fun to see the terrorists having their way with the heroes the whole time. Why give them ideas in the real world? These plans would certainly not work, but just making them look smart and tough isn’t a good thing. Making them look unsure of what to do and constantly on the defensive would have been more satisfying.

Even ignoring how America looked, the film is fairly generic. It plays out exactly how you would expect. The terrorists start killing the hostages one by one until the hero can get there and he manages to save a few of them before saving the President. Scratch that, just about all of them ended up getting blown up in one of the big twists so the body count is quite high. The main character ends up destroying the villains on his one man killing spree as he proves that he is stronger than the rest of the White House staff put together.

On the bright side, Mike Banning is a good character and easily the best part of the film. He had to make a tough decision at the beginning of the film, but he didn’t freeze up and you can’t fault him for what he did. He did what he could and would have saved everyone if he had the time. Once the White House was in trouble, he selflessly jumped into the White House to take out all of the terrorists. He really knows his way around the place to the point where I’d say that you have to suspend some disbelief, but he gets the job done. Mike Banning essentially symbolizes the ultimate American who is always ready to fight and won’t back down at any point.

Mike Banning doesn’t have much of a personality, but being an American basically is his personality. If the other guards had done as well as him, the film would have been finished a lot sooner. Even watching the pilots just stare at the giant cannon on the White House as it shot them down was just terrible. None of the other characters have much of a role except to panic or be destroyed. The film did give us a red herring as the President is shown to be practicing his boxing skills, but we never get to see him fight in the actual film. I would say that it was clever except that it’s just another way to make America look bad so I’m going to pass on that.

This film is fairly intense and violent, but you likely knew that going in. That being said, it’s not as intense as other films in this kind of genre and mostly you just need to remember that the characters are living out a Call of Duty game. It’s just like one of those titles as there are many headshots from both sides as well as the unassuming knife jabs. If you don’t like violence then you should probably stay away and the main character does have to resort intimidation, but I never said that he was a hero right? It’s a war and he goes all out on the opponents. It would be hard not to destroy everyone in this situation, but that’s the difference between a human fighting to save lives and a super hero. They go through the tough situations while still coming out scott clean because it’s what they do.

On the bright side, the pacing for the film is good. Something is always happening so there’s never a dull moment. Mike essentially starts his journey from the entrance of the White House all the way to the end through the movie. I forgot exactly how long it is, but you won’t really worry about the duration while you’re watching. The writing was also fairly decent although the traitor’s dialogue was not handled well and I didn’t buy his last second change of heart either. The whole scene just didn’t make any real sense.

Overall, This film is similar to Red Dawn in the sense that America looks bad and I’d say that it’s even worse because terrorists are behind the attack as opposed to another country. It does make a difference because the terrorists are simply given too much credit. It’s nice to see us mount a comeback at the end, but it doesn’t change the fact that they essentially destroyed all of our current government members during the process. There’s also a sequel on the way, which is likely going to make America look terrible once again. Less so since it isn’t on American soil, but shouldn’t someone find it a little strange that everyone will be in one place? There’s a reason why we have internet and such nowadays, it’s so all of the figure heads won’t have to meet up in one place. It’s not a parody like Sharknado so I guess we’ll just have to see how it ends up. I’m assuming that White House Down will be better as I thought that the trailer was good, but to an extent, I’m sure that it’ll be dicey. If you want to see a gritty action film where the main character goes around shooting everyone, I’d recommend Red. It would be more up your alley and it can basically match this film’s action scenes and holds up better in the other areas. Unless you’re waiting for the Call of Duty movie and want to see this one adapt the games (Because it is practically an adaption) this film just loses out to its rivals.

Overall 3/10

I, Robot Review

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It’s time to look at a film that involves Robots and a possible future for humanity. These titles are typically a lot of fun and this film handled the concept well. I really don’t like using the comma in the title, but the film forced me too. Luckily that doesn’t mean that I will need to do so in the review so I will refer to the film as I Robot when necessary. All right, let’s talk about this title.

Detective Spooner is called out by a man who presumably committed suicide. The guy left a small voice mail hinting that this wasn’t an ordinary death and everything is up to Spooner now. Spooner has held a grudge against robots for years so he enthusiastically sets out to prove that robots can actually be murderers. The problem is that a robot has never committed a crime in all of the decades that they have existed. Assuch, nobody believes Spooner’s theory. Spooner gains an ally from within the robot company, but it feels like everyone else is getting in his way. With Spooner’s job and life on the line, he must crack the case before the robots crack him!

First, let’s start with the technical merits of the film. The special effects were nice and have certainly aged well. I liked all of the fight scenes that involved the robots and they were actually better than I had anticipated. I didn’t think that the fights would be bad per say, but I didn’t expect them to be as smooth as they were. The main character’s cool laser blaster was also a nice tough and you could easily tell that this was a film, which was set in the future. When a film takes place in the future, it should always feel like the future. CoughHungerGamesCough!

The writing was good enough. I can’t guarantee that it was great as you can never fully tell in the TV version, but it seemed to be good. The main character does panic at times, but he never goes quite as far as the heroes do in horror films or TV budget films. His line actually reminded me of the Sharknado trailer for the new film coming up since the song uses the phrase quite a lot. Other than that, it’s not very noteworthy.

Detective Spooner is a little overdone in how rude he can be so I didn’t care for him as the main character. Pretending to sleep is a joke of his that gets old very quickly. I am glad that he knows how to fight and talks tough. If he was a little less rude and spent more time just talking a good game, I would like him more as a character. The main heroine is a lady named Susan and she’s all right I suppose. It’s good that she ends up saving a robot because she realizes that the whole situation isn’t right, but she doesn’t get a whole lot of character development. She’s essentially along for the ride.

The main robot is named Sonny and he wants to know the meaning of life. He gets off to a rocky start as he commits a crime and spends a lot of time on the run. He’s not a very likable robot, but at least he learns the values of friendship and human emotion by the end. He means well of course, but the innocent android who wants to be a human is a trope that I’ve never been too fond of. The fact that he can fight does help the character significantly though. The main villain was pretty fun, but his role is very small. He relies on subtle, but personal attacks on his enemies and he excels at verbal combat. He does let his guard down rather quickly though.

I don’t seem to be a big fan of the characters, but why is the film so good? Well, the characters aren’t great, but I wouldn’t call them unlikable either. Detective Spooner was probably my least favorite member of the group, but I still wouldn’t call him a downright bad character. He has his moments and he never has any real dirty lines or bad character traits like other leads. So, they do all right and the rest of the film is solid enough to carry the cast.

As I’ve said, the action scenes are fun. The big war between the robots and humans was great to watch and I had been expecting a cop out or for the war to be hinted at in the sequel. I was pleasantly surprised to see things get so large scale so quickly. The humans were definitely doomed against these guys since we allowed the robots to essentially take over the military systems as well as the rest of the world. The actor from the Transformers movie trilogy is in this film for a very small role and he’s actually a pretty funny character. He’s just around to look weak and never actually helps Spooner, but he likes to provide the audience with some random lines about how dangerous the situation is. To his credit, he runs up to the robots and tries to pick a fight, but he didn’t count on the fact that they would actually oblige him. He helps to turn a bad situation into a terrible one.

Viki is the big AI in charge of everything and she’s fairly similar to Skynet. Naturally, she doesn’t get a chance to have quite as many lines or get as much character development, but she makes for a good mastermind. I just wish that she could have gotten a true form at the end since that would have been neat. Could she really hack the government computers? Normally I’d have to think about this one, but since she Is the Government computers in a sense, it makes sense that Earth wouldn’t stand a chance. This is why we should never let one system run all operations. It’ll make the US way too dependent and vulnerable since just taking out that program would cripple the whole army.

Spooner also has a quick origin story for the Oscar bait, which explains why he doesn’t like robots. I certainly could have done without that and it really had no place in the film, but it was quick and is never brought up again after it is shone so you can easily just push it to the side. It could have been worse after all and doesn’t really end up hurting the film. It would have been more solid without it, but there is no point swing over this issue.

Overall, I Robot was a fun film. It’s not winning any awards soon, but it’s essentially the ultimate good film in the sense that it wasn’t great by any means, but I would never call it a bad film either. It didn’t make any big mistakes and while there are no characters who shine, they all stay classy. If you’re looking for epic action scenes and a nice futuristic world with laser guns, this is the film for you. It was better than I had anticipated and that is always a good thing to see. I don’t see this film getting a sequel, but if it did, I’m sure that we would get some more robot fights and that’s always a good thing. On a final note, it’s really good that Spooner had a robot arm or I would have called plot hax on the fight scenes. As it stands, while there is a decent amount in the final battle, it doesn’t go overboard and the climax is definitely very exciting.

Overall 7/10

Ant Man Review

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The Marvel Cinematic Universe has followed a strong formula for each of its films, which has resulted in none of them actually being bad. They’ve all been consistently good up til now and I had some decently high hopes for Ant Man. Unfortunately, I forgot that the concept of Ant Man may have doomed it from the start and every film series has to jump the shark eventually. This one proved to be Marvel’s first big miss! (For this continuity)

Scott is a man who has made some wrong choices. He chose to become a cat burgler and spent a lot of time in jail. He finally gets out, but realizes that nobody will hire him so he cracks and decides to become a criminal again. An old man who is called Mr. Pym gives Scott an offer. Scott can steal something for him or go back to jail. Scott uses the get out of jail free card and undergoes a training regime. Now that he is able to shrink and talk to Ants, nobody can stop him right? The ultimate battle against evil has now begun!

Ignoring the crippling negative that I will dive into soon, the film handled itself fairly well. As I mentioned, the MCU has a certain tone/atmosphere that is used for all of the films (Not counting The Incredible Hulk…another reason why that one is only barely in the MCU for me) and it works quite well for Ant-Man. We’ll get a serious spy scene, then a comedy moment, then a serious scene, comedy moment. It’s essentially a constant stream of back and forth and you typically will not go 2-3 minutes without an epic one liner or a burn from one of the characters. It’s one of the reasons why the MCU films have typically been crushing the competition.

It doesn’t take itself too seriously while still giving us good battles. I’d say that phase 2 has actually ramped up the comedy angle as the one liners seem more frequent, but it could be a coincidence. The action has also been ramped up so it could just be the “bigger is better” effect like what Slayers did with Next. Compare Avengers to Avengers 2, Cap to Cap 2, and Iron Man 3 to Iron Man 1. The sequels all had more action (The first is debatable I suppose) and more comedy moments. As long as the writing is good, this formula should always work quite well. Even if some of the jokes don’t work, there are enough of them that the good ones should overshadow the bad ones. Likewise, if you have a lot of fight scenes in a film, there should be at least one or two that you will like.

The MCU’s fights are also a step ahead of the other Marvel companies with the exception of ASM2. Ant Man’s battle against Yellow Jacket is pretty fun. Antman is certainly outmatched and probably should have lost, but it’s cool to see him dodging lasers and keeping up the intensity. Both fighters are always on the move and trying to keep the other off balance. The special effects seen here will definitely age well and the music while in the brief case was pretty epic.

Ant Man also likes to show us just how tiny the fighters are by showing off the outside world during the fights. During these moments, the music will stop and the real world will only have slight movement. This does rage a possible plot hole of Ant Man’s strength though. It’s shown that he still has his human sized strength while he’s tiny and he uses it quite often to take on the villains. So, why does Thomas barely move when the characters hit him at full strength in one scene? In the human world, we just see Thomas get lifted slightly as he bumps into the window. If Ant Man had his full human sized strength, it should have easily shattered the glass.

That’s only a mild thing though. Ant Man’s soundtrack is naturally good. The very first scene has a classic theme that you will remember from most of the other MCU titles with SHIELD and Ant Man introduces some other themes to the franchise. I’d say that just about all of them are good and especially the main “Ant Man” theme. You’ll know it when you see it. Having a good soundtrack is the first step to being a good movie. The next is having good writing.

Ant Man’s writing is solid for the most part. I say “for the most part” because it’s still not quite as good as the average MCU title. For one thing, I found Ant Man’s friends to be a little sad. They’re essentially all stereotypes. It’s used for comedy though and they each have their moments I suppose, but they felt like the characters that you would see in a mainstream comedy title like Pitch Perfect or Tower Heist and those are the characters that I can never like. The main friend is always making crude comments when talking about how he heard his stories and they are pretty off putting. The other two friends are really just there to use slang and try to be funny, which doesn’t work quite as well as the natural jokes that flow from Scott and the villains. An example of a scene that was funny was the Baskin Robbins moment. Those scenes I could get behind and I liked the manager a lot as he knew when to talk off the record as well as on it. Ant Man also felt like it had more language than I would have expected. The characters just can’t keep themselves in line so they constantly panic and let out some colorful words. So, I feel like that’s a bit of a writing issue.

Let’s go into the characters. Scott Lang is the main guy of course and he’s not bad. He’s essentially your average film protagonist who wants to do the right thing, but isn’t sure how to do that. I do think that he gave up and went back to a life of crime rather quickly, but we are led to believe that he looked for jobs for quite a while. A quick montage of that would have been good though. Still, in the end, he learns the values of teamwork and how to be a responsible hero. He really wants to keep his bond with his daughter and gets her a pretty nice gift. He’s certainly a good parent and I do like the character overall.

One plot element at the end of the film does hurt him a little though. There is a very forced romance between him and Hope. As with the average film, they meet and basically fall in love in the span of a few days. It’s just sad that the heroes have to be so predictable like this. At least it’s just one scene, but it’s still something that was not needed at all and was just added because it’s essentially expected at this point.

Otherwise, Hope makes for a good heroine. She can fight, which is always a good thing and she whips Scott into shape right away. She’s better at controlling the ants and is also a better hand to hand fighter, but she had quite a lot of prep time when compared to Scott. You’d think that Scott would have learned some more hand to hand in jail, but I guess he became buddies with the others too quickly. Hope easily outclasses Pepper, Jane, Betty, and Peggy as far as the MCU heroines go. Mr. Pym is another supporting character and he was fairly likable. It was good to see him take a nice shot at the government agent who stepped out of line and he is definitely very active for an old guy. This is not someone who plans to quietly retire from the front lines and I’m sure that he will have a decent role in the sequel. Hopefully he goes back to the mini world himself!

As for the main villain, he’s decently good. He seemed to flirt with Hope a little, which is generic villain 101 for how to not be taken seriously, but Yellowjacket was all right aside from that. You really can’t expect much from him in terms of character development as he’s meant to be a really generic villain, but he fits the bill and I definitely didn’t mind him as the antagonist. The Yellow Jacket suit is definitely really cool and seeing it again someday would be fun.

The film ends with some loose ends to be continued in the sequel or other MCU films. I’m not sure if I’m crazy about the villain who may be around for the sequel since we’ve done this dance so many times already, but we’ll see how it goes. There are two after credit scenes so you’ll want to check them out first. The first one is more of a traditional after credits scene in the sense that it would work for just about any film and doesn’t rely on the large continuity. It’s a good scene. The second one is some build up for the MCU. Time to start speculating about what this will all mean. It was cool to see the “Ant Man will return” sign at the end for sure.

One thing that I enjoyed about the film was that it didn’t act like everyone was gone. In a lot of comics, heroes will conveniently be out of town or asleep so that they don’t have to appear. This film doesn’t go that far and we actually get our first big meta human fight between heroes. It’s definitely neat and I agree with the outcome. There’s really no way that the hero should have lost this battle and as far as the victory went, I felt like it could have been even easier. Not saying that his opponent was a pushover….but he wouldn’t be much of a challenge either.

Sounds like a fun film so far right? I enjoyed the action and the comedy. Ant Man’s characters were pretty good for the most part, the effects were a lot of fun, and the film’s pacing was good. The movie always moved very quickly and I certainly wasn’t bored. The friends may have been a little sad at times and the writing wasn’t great, but the film could hold its own. Unfortunately, that’s where the negative comes in. See, this is a film called Ant Man so you can expect a lot of ants right? That’s the problem.

There is a lot of animal violence here and it’s really sad. The scenes are unnecessary and just there for poor shock value. Again, this is just a result of terrible writing and someone needs to get some new staff for the sequel. Goats already have a reputation of dying in big films like Jurassic Park, we didn’t need another one to die here. As soon as the goat appeared, I knew that it was game over. The way that he died was also very gross. A human died this way as well and it wasn’t sad like the Goat’s death, but it was still gross. This was a line that the film didn’t need to cross.

The Ants also die throughout the film. Scott clearly has no regard for their lives except for a select few. One of the ants gets a very emotional death while the others are typically taken down in the background. I knew that the ants should have all been mechanical. That would have solved the film’s biggest problem right from the start. As it is, this negative really destroyed the film just like with Jurassic World. (A film very similar to this one in many respects) Hopefully the sequel will use robots although I doubt that we’ll see a sequel for a very long time.

Ant Man also takes itself a little too seriously during one moment where Pym tells Hope about what happened to her mother. Scott quickly whips out another joke to stop the tension, but I felt like it almost could have broken them out of their slump sooner or they could have had Hope take the news a little better. That’s really the only scene where this happens though as the rest of the film is typically moving too fast for this to be an issue.

Hmmm, any more things to touch on here? The dialogue effect for the friend’s stories were good as every character had the same voice. If not for some of the terrible lines here, these were definitely some of the best jokes in the film. The guy will remind you of Sam from the Transformers Trilogy as they both have a similar style of speaking and maybe even similar personalities, but different enough that you would never mix them up. I think I’ve hit on most of the big points for the film here.

Overall, Get ready for some name drops, cameos, and world building as the film goes on. Now that the MCU is such a big franchise, it has to keep on growing to keep the audience in the loop and ready for some action. The film is still a lot of fun and has a lot of replay value due to its nature. On a critical level though, I still can’t recommend the title because of the very excessive animal violence. The writing and side characters can also be a bit dicey, but without the animal violence, we’d still be looking at a 7 star film here. If you are prepared for animal violence then you should see this film. If not, you really won’t be missing anything so you can still just skip to Avengers 3 and prepare yourself for the powers of the planet busters. Now, will Marvel be able to bounce back from this? I’m confident that they can as Civil War should be epic. From here on out, the only MCU film that you should be worried for is probably Inhumans and that one should still be good. The real question is, can Ant Man defeat the upcoming blockbusters like Pixels, Mission Impossible and Spectre? It’s going to be tough, but the Ant Man is used to being the underdog so he’s ready for action.

Overall 4/10

Puella Magi Madoka Magica Rebellion Review

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All right, it’s time to look at the movie that followed the TV show for Madoka Magica. I’m assuming that you have already seen the TV show so I will be mentioning the ending since we have to connect how it leads into the film and what happened. While the movie isn’t quite as amazing as the TV show, it’s still great and gives us some epic fight scenes while still dealing with deep themes. The ending is not as satisfying as the TV show’s end, but it is fairly original.

As you remember from the TV show, Madoka used her unlimited magical powers to recreate reality and add another rule to the books. The Law of Cycles was created and when magical girls are filled with despair, Madoka takes them to the afterlife so that no witches are born. Sayaka was taken so the rest of the magical girls were on their own and Homura was the only one who was allowed to keep her memories of Madoka. The witches were gone, but in their place came a new evil, the Wraiths.

That should have been the end of everything, but Homura wakes up one day in a world that seems to have forgotten this. Witches are still gone, but so are Wraiths. Nightmares have taken up their place and Sayaka, as well as Madoka are both alive once again. Kyubey acts like he cannot talk anymore and Mami is friends with the witch who ate her in the show. This world seems messed up and Homura has to find a way to make everything turn back to how it was. This labyrinth cannot hold her forever!

There’s a lot to say here so where to start right? Let’s go into the technical parts of the film first. The soundtrack is not quite as good as the TV show’s since we’re missing the incredible end theme that was present over there. Nonetheless, it’s still quite good and the songs definitely give the film the feeling that the heroes are always in danger. You can tell that the very city is sinister the entire time and it helps to create a good atmosphere for the viewers.

Animation wise, the movie likes to be very abstract so it doesn’t show off the animation very often. For the most part, you won’t notice much of a difference between the show and the movie. That being said, there is one scene where the film uses its animation seriously when Mami fights with Homura. That was certainly the highlight of the film and the action scene is quite good and we get to see why you have to fight very carefully when time control is being used. The two heroines shoot hundreds of bullets at each other so when time moves again, it gets very chaotic. These two are also likely the strongest of the magical girls so seeing them fight was epic.

The fight wasn’t very short either so we really got to see what they could do. Obviously, Homura could win in an instant with time control so Mami intelligently placed a thread on Homura so that Mami wouldn’t be stuck in time. That move’s what makes the fight so even. Homura was confident that she could win the fight, but she was also trying not to destroy her friend in the process. Both of them were holding back and due to the circumstances, I’m fine with Homura not winning. With her time mastery, she is virtually invincible, but take that away and Mami should in fact have the edge thanks to her incredible offensive capabilities.

I liked her as a character much more here than in the show. Of course, Mami didn’t crack here like she did in the other version and even tried to stop Homura from shooting herself. I’m actually glad that Mami defended Bebe since they were friends for quite a while so she shouldn’t betray the creature just for a transfer student. Protecting one’s friends is what a magical girl does after all so while I was rooting for Homura to win, Mami made the right decision in fighting at that point.

Kyoko’s still ahead of the other Magical Girls for me (Aside from Homura) and she gets a decently good role here. She’s the first to be told that the world isn’t real and she backs Homura up the whole time. By the end of the film, her role quickly begins to grow smaller, but she is a little outmatched against the heavy hitters. She has been surpassed by all of the other magical girls, but she still tries hard and is a nice friend to have.

Madoka is an interesting case here because some twists make her look a little bad and possibly weak considering that she’s all powerful. All right gang, spoilers for the film are coming up now so skip the rest of the paragraphs to avoid them until the final one. I do recommend just checking out the film before reading the review so you can have your own thoughts on what just happened and your views on Homura’s decisions. Before going into the characters, I should really talk about the timeline here so that it all makes sense. As you remember, Homura was still fighting Wraiths in the after credits scene of the show. She was not fighting to save the world, but she did it because that’s what Madoka would have wanted.

Well, at some point, the Incubators found her. It’s hinted that it may have been willingly, but even if it wasn’t, the Incubators trapped her soul in a prism so that nothing could interfere with it. This allowed Homura’s despair to turn her soul into a witch since the Law of Cycles cannot breach the barrier that the Incubators had put around her soul. If you think about it for a minute, this means that the Incubators were able to defy one of the fundamental laws of the universe. It’s been hinted that these cosmic beings can do just about anything, but their limits are very vague so it’s still hard to quantify. They cannot end entropy on their own after all and offensively, they don’t seem to have a lot of power, but maybe it’s all just an act. They have no emotions so they may not even care what happens to their physical selves.
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Back to the timeline though, as a witch, Homura recreated the city where she used to fight with the other heroines. Her soul lured in Mami, Kyoko, Sayaka’s friend, and the violin player among others. It was impossible for anyone to free Homura from the outside and once the heroes were tricked into entering her labyrinth, they could not get out again and they also forgot their memories rather quickly. It was like the old days of entering a witch’s labyrinth, but Homura is much stronger than an ordinary opponent. Homura even erased her own memories so that she could have fun with her friends. It was created to be a perfect world after all so she would have infinite happiness here.

In the end, her illusion was too good and Homura sought out the truth. There were 3 people in her labyrnth who didn’t belong. Madoka realized that her friend was in trouble so she assumed a physical form once more and entered the labyrnth. Realizing that there was a lot of danger here, she gave her powers to a creature known as Bebe and gave Sayaka her memories. They are essentially Madoka’s bodyguards and have ascended with her to the next plane of existence. Naturally, this means that they both got a big power boost, which explains why Sayaka was so quick in her brief scuffle with Homura. Madoka forgot her memories, but the two bodyguards didn’t lose theirs.

The heroes were able to defeat Homura’s witch form and made it back to the real world. Homura’s despair had still covered her soul so Madoka reached out to take her to the afterlife, but Homura had actually been tainted more than the heroes had realized and literally ripped out the human Madoka from her godself and altered the laws of reality once more. Homura essentially became evil to counter Madoka being good. If Madoka became a god then Homura was essentially a devil. (The word demon is used in the film) She decided to recreate the universe and now Homura is the ruler of it all. Madoka still has her limitless power and could overthrow Homura in time, but she has lost her memories again.

The film ends with Homura stating that the heroes will remember at some point and they will try to fight her. With Homura’s abilities are great as they are now, it’s hard to see how they can pose a challenge. Only Madoka can hope to defeat Homura and she will need to get her memories back first to do that. Sayaka seems to recall some parts of what happened even after Homura erased her memories so she will likely be the key if the film ever gets a sequel.

A sequel really isn’t needed, but I would like one. We know that Homura will either keep them under her power for eternity or they will eventually defeat her, but what will the heroes do then? Madoka can recreate the universe a third time or bring things back to the way they were. If Madoka does the latter, the Earth is not in a good state. From what we saw of the present, there aren’t many inhabitants anymore and the whole world is like a large desert. It’s easy to see how the heroes succumb to despair so quickly and it’s what ended up breaking Homura. If Madoka ends up just recreating things from scratch, it will be like Terminator where the cycle will never end, but at least then the heroes get to have more adventures.

By the end, I thought that the film did a pretty great job of explaining everything. Now, the whole film works well into a linear timeline and the show also made a good amount of sense and it’ll probably feel even more grim when you watch it since you know that Homura ultimately ends up turning evil and wasted Madoka’s wish. The one really iffy part here is how Homura was able to grab infinite Madoka and pull her down from the heavens. She is now a demon who is evil incarnate, but that should not be enough power to grab Madoka even if the heroine was surprised.

As I mentioned earlier, the ending is very original because evil actually won in the end. There was no happy ending to be found and the powers of love and friendship lost to a twisted version of those that Homura used. Whether you decide that good wins in the end or not, the film ends with evil having the clear upper hand and it’s really 50/50 as to what side will ultimately claim victory this time. Madoka can’t count on any of the other characters to help her aside from Sayaka so it will be tough.
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So, I still like Madoka a lot like in the show, but the one thing that makes her look a little bad is that she lost her memories when she went into the labyrnth. It’s okay for the mortals to lose theirs, but Madoka is literally a concept who is above everything in the universe. She should have had enough power to have stopped Homura without putting in any effort. I’m glad that she stepped in unlike most cosmic deities, but it did make her look a little weak. It’s a good thing that she has two bodyguards by her side. This will likely give One Above All fans from Marvel some breathing room for debates since Madoka clearly has some weaknesses now. Personality wise, she’s definitely still a lot of fun though. Even without infinite power, she’s a good fighter.

Sayaka is no longer mortal and she can now use her witch form to fight, which makes for a pretty good power up. She’s a solid character as you would expect and still backs Madoka up whenever they get into a tough situation. She has moved on from the violin player, which is great character development if you ask me. That guy certainly wasn’t adding to the story so I’m cool with him being gone from the main focus. The power up was also very good for Sayaka and I’m glad that she was able to keep her memories and personality since she had been dead.

Kyubey is still as sly and crafty as ever and his plan here is really ambitious as he wants to control Madoka and her unlimited power. I don’t think that the plan should be very plausible, but I suppose that if Madoka had destroyed Homura while inside of the gem, then they would be able to steal her power, but it’s all assuming that Madoka couldn’t break out of the barrier and with unlimited power, I feel like she should be able to easily bust free. Those cosmic beings definitely have some good tech to be able to stop her. His chase scene with Homura was a lot of fun and it was like a high budget version of what happened in the first episode of the show. It’s impressive that he was able to last so long when Homura was really out to get him.

Homura’s story is the most tragic like usual and she totally went off the deep end. At the start of the film, she was the Homura that we all remembered as she tried to escape this fake world. She was willing to fight her friends and get into a lot of trouble to restore Madoka’s vision because she’s always done everything to save her friend. That being said, the revelation of being a witch and the temptation of being able to keep Madoka in the world was too much for her and she ended up being a total villain by the end. Homura’s sharp change in personality was definitely drastic and she is now a complete demon and definitely not a magical girl. Her abilities have risen tremendously and she can now erase memories and do what she wants with the world. While her abilities aren’t unlimited like Madoka’s, she seems to have gained a fraction of them. She mentions that she took the Madoka part of the Law of Cycles while the other two are still around with their powers intact, but all three have lost their memories now. (Sayaka may have some though)

It’s too bad that Homura is a total villain now. I also don’t fully understand why Homura made her final decision. If she had gone with Madoka to the afterlife, they would have been together forever like with Sayaka, who is always by Madoka’s side now. That would surely be better than trapping her in the new Earth while repressing her memories. I don’t fully understand Homura’s rationale for doing this, but since she has become a demon, she may just prefer it this way.

If you ignore the moral implications for a second, Homura’s world is actually a lot better than Madoka’s. Everyone is essentially back to life and the world is how it was before everything was destroyed. The Kyubey race can no longer hurt them and while villains are still around, the heroes can defeat them with ease. Everyone gets to live and Madoka doesn’t have to be a cosmic entity who can’t hang out with her friends anymore. On the surface, it’s a perfect world. The problem is that Homura had to alter everyone’s memories so they wouldn’t object to it. Madoka simply erased her existence from everyone’s minds, which is different from Homura deliberately altering her friends so they wouldn’t try to stop her.

If she had willingly gotten everyone to agree to her plan, then it would be completely okay. She just went about it the wrong way. For her, it’s likely a deal that is worth it since she gets to hang out with Madoka again. (I don’t get why Madoka had to be the transfer student this time though. Wouldn’t that change so many things that Homura should be a little concerned?) As always, Homura is just doing things for Madoka. Now, the heroine won’t have to be a cosmic deity who is forever alone. That being said, Homura is also looking out for herself this time and now she gets to have the life that she always wanted. I feel like I would sympathize with her wish a little more if she didn’t act so creepy/evil in the final scenes. For some characters, their bond is stronger than their desire for justice so protecting Madoka at any costs is something that I wouldn’t necessarily disagree with especially with how well the world turned out to be. Seriously, if Homura hadn’t been so over the top at the end, I wouldn’t have minded the ending nearly as much. Homura’s still a villain, but she’s a very likable villain at this point. Who knew that one character would end up being the best hero and the best villain in this franchise!

When you think about it, friendship is still the main theme here. The main difference with this compared to other shows is that the powers of friendship actually hurt the main characters. Madoka sees that Homura is in trouble and decided to enter the labyrinth in a human form, but it was her undoing. Homura’s friendship for Madoka turned into something sinister and led her into the road of evil. Everyone believed in the power of friendship, it just turned out badly for the characters.

Naturally, the series got even higher in the tier lists here thanks to Homura’s big power boost. Not to mention that Sayaka was also a lot stronger as well. This series really does blow the rest of the magical girl series away with how strong the heroes are. Mami could likely take down the group of sailor scouts on her own if you ask me. The Wraiths and Nightmares weren’t particularly impressive, but they have a lot of minions, which will help to distract the opponents. In a possible sequel, I’m sure that the characters would get even stronger!

As with the show, we get a lot of random abstract scenes during the show, which are always intriguing. The cotton balls with mustaches are still around and we get to see them fight the new villains at one point. The magical girls also have a weird transformation scene for each of them, which are all odd and likely have deeper meanings, but it’s good to just take them at face value sometimes. One really entertaining scene was the cake song where the heroes took on the nightmare. It was fairly creepy, funny, and entertaining at the same time. Talk about high stakes!

With the battle between good and evil, the film reminds you that it can be very easy to cross that bridge. Madoka allowed her friend to pull her back from her ascension and Homura turned evil. One must be strong and know when to hold steady so that you do not end up being led astray. Saving someone else is always a top priority and you must make every endeavor to complete that mission, but you must also not allow yourself to become weak enough that you are dragged to the dark side yourself. It’s something that Madoka probably wishes that she had known earlier.

It should be quickly noted that the original ending was actually Homura ascending with Madoka, but it was altered before the film came out due to the company pulling rank. That’s too bad because that ending would have been perfect. It even felt like the film could have ended there so there was definitely some behind the scenes action going. The extra content isn’t bad per say, but this ending would have been superior!
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Overall, Rebellion was a fun movie and it was still really great. I wasn’t crazy about the ending, but it was a very thought provoking film like I expected and the characters were still all likable like in the show. The soundtrack and animation are strong and the film was around 2 hours so it had quite a lot of time to develop. The Mami vs Homura scene is the one to look out for and the film nearly ends at one point, which was a great fake out. It’s also slightly regrettable though since that ending would have been vastly superior to the true one that we got. If you enjoyed the TV show, then you should definitely enjoy this film and it’s cool to see the main characters finally get to fight as a team for a change since they all got to be alive in the fake world. I do hope that the film gets a sequel at some point so that we can have a more positive ending for the heroes. Particularly for Homura since she’s still my favorite character in the series so I’m hoping that she’ll see the light and realize how far she has come from being the noble hero that she used to be. I’m confident that she would become a hero again in the next film. While her new personality is still pretty epic as the villain, it’s just not the ending that I had envisioned for her. Madoka has always been a layered show and Homura’s final actions are much deeper than your average villain’s. I don’t believe for a second that she should not be considered as a villain by the end because her wish was selfish and altering someone’s memories is always immoral, but at least it’s a decision that I can understand. The whole concept of helping someone through whatever means possible is always an intriguing one and something that I can sometimes agree with. It’s a concept that I’ll probably try to discuss more in a future review that deals with the subject. It shouldn’t be too long until something has this theme again since it can be quite prevalent at times. Almost forgot, make sure that you stick around for the after credits scene. It is fairly vague, but you get to decide what just happened. I like to think that someone is protecting the world from Kyubey and doing it in a way that Madoka would object to, which will raise some tension for the next film.

Overall 9/10

Horror of Dracula Review

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Time to look at another Dracula film! Dracula has always been my least favorite of the classic monster legends. Yes…he’s less enjoyable for me than Frankenstein! I didn’t have high hopes for this film, but it was an old one so maybe it would be good. Alas, it wasn’t to be. The film made all of the mistakes that you would expect of it aside from animal violence. While I am grateful about the last part, it’s not enough to save the whole film.

Mr. Harker heads to Dracula’s lair to end the vampire once and for all. Little did he know that the mission was doomed to fail right from the start. Dracula is simply too powerful and with his telekinesis..there is really nothing that a mere mortal can do. Van Helsing realizes that Harker has been gone for a long time and decides to take out Dracula himself. Can he really beat the vampire or will everyone have to die first?

The film is surprisingly violent so you should be ready for a large body count. Characters are impaled and naturally bitten as this is a vampire film. It’s why I will never be able to get into Vampire films since blood sucking is essentially inevitable. If a 50’s version of Dracula is this violent, you can imagine how gruesome the latter ones are. Dracula takes no prisoners and simply creates more and more vampires whenever he fights.

I will give the film some credit for actually doing a good job of making you think that Mr. Harker actually stands a chance. He’s very confident and puts on a good poker face when talking to Dracula. His mistake was letting his feelings get in the way of his mission. He should have found it a little suspicious that there was a girl who wouldn’t tell him much, yet she still wanted to bypass the friend zone with him. Sadly, Mr. Harker is like the average film protagonist in the sense that he just doesn’t care. It certainly came back to bite him.

Vampires are typically weak against Garlic, Sunlight, and the sign of the Cross. It depends on the version, but all three are effective in this version and they are the best way to fight them off. Van Helsing uses all three, but he forgets them for the final battle so we get to see a quick fist fight. As with most classic monsters, Dracula likes to resort to the classic choking attack to take the heroes down for the count. It proves to be a bit of a mistake as it always gives the heroes a little extra time to prepare themselves.

Dracula doesn’t have a whole lot of personality and it seems like he just wants to make everyone miserable and suck as much blood as possible. His character had potential in the opening scenes, but then he quickly went off the deep end and became a villain who simply needed to be stopped. I suppose that’s all the character that he really needs, but it doesn’t make me care for him as an antagonist.

Mr. Harker was a decent lead, but his one mistake was a huge one and made him look like a rookie. How can you let yourself get bitten? Howwwwwwww! Van Helsing is more prepared than Mr. Harker, but he loves to be vague. Instead of rushing over to challenge Dracula, he likes to have some bait ready and it always cooking up a scheme that will allow him to approach the vampire from a defensive standpoint. Helsing is smart, but not overly brave and he could have reduced the body count if he had been upfront with the other characters from the start.

He certainly doesn’t deserve all of the blame though as the rest of the characters look pretty bad as well. Dracula’s victims aren’t able to fight their urges nor are they able to defend themselves so Dracula easily manages to take them out. If you know that you’re about to die anyway, you may as well through a good punch or something. It’ll look good on the stat sheet.

The first vampire lady to appear was rather odd on that front. She asked Harker to help her and then she attacked him. That’s not a very effective way to get someone to help and then Dracula defeated her. I assume that her lust for blood was just too powerful, but that still makes her look terrible. If you want to escape, then that should give you enough motivation to escape instead of going back and forth with the decisions. Ah well, that’s why her mission ultimately failed.

The beginning of the film with Mr. Harker was the best part and I feel like the whole film would have been better off if it had followed his plot a little more. Spending 80% of the film as a mystery thriller with him would have been epic. He would have had to die at some point anyway, but that would be the climax and the rest of the film would have still been fairly epic. Fans who went in expecting Dracula to get a big role would have been disappointed, but it would have all been worth it for the epic intro.

Dracula doesn’t look very tough in this version. I would still choose him over The Mummy in a fight as their physical abilities are more or less equal, but Dracula has the speed edge. Beyond that, I have a feeling that bullets would hurt him in this version as he didn’t seem all too sturdy. If he really cannot turn into a bat as Helsing believes, that also hurts his retreat options. The humans could have beaten Dracula if they knew any good judo tricks. Running up to Dracula and throwing a punch is simply not going to cut it here.

Overall, Dracula doesn’t manage to be as entertaining as the Mummy film. It’s short, but it’s still just pretty bad. The violence was a little over the top and you’ll just be reminded of why vampire films are no fun. The bitemarks are always a little gross and the concept of blood sucking is rather sad as well. Dracula Untold managed to avoid all of that for the most part and if you want to watch a film with the legend, check that one out instead. This one is best left in the relics of yesterday as it is forgotten while in the shadow of the original. Of course, this film did get 8 sequels…which is very intriguing. The legacy did not die here!

Overall 2/10

The Mummy (1959) Review

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It’s time to look at another take on The Mummy franchise! I’ve seen quite a few Mummy films at this point and he’s probably my favorite horror icon when compared to the other classics like the Werewolf, Dracula, and Frankenstein. The Mummy isn’t as strong as Dracula or potentially the Werewolf, but he defeats his opponents in more honorable ways. Slow and steady is typically how you want to fight against opponents and that’s just how The Mummy works. This film was actually decently good.

A few guys wander into a tomb and find a mysterious scroll. It activates the Mummy and puts one of the characters into a coma. Three years later, the old man wakes up and warns the main character that the Mummy will destroy them all. John essentially chuckles at this and heads back home, but he may have underestimated the message. The Mummy begins to systematically take the heroes down and John will have to think of a way to take it down once and for all!

The film plays out like you would expect it too. The Mummy formula is classic and the heroes can only wait for their ultimate demise, but I do appreciate the fact that John tries to fight back. He locks himself up in the study and prepared himself with some blunt objects. The Mummy easily chokes him, but the important part is that he tried. Luckily, he is saved by Isobel twice. The Mummy’s eyesight is failing so he believes that he recognizes her and decides to stop his attack on John. Man, John may have been the big hero in the film, but he definitely couldn’t get the job done when it counted.

The Mummy actually isn’t Imhotep this time, but a guy named Kharis instead. It doesn’t actually make a difference in the end, but it’s worth noting. You may even feel bad for the Mummy by the end since he can barely comprehend what is happening and he just wanted to be reunited with his love once more. Instead, he is simply used the entire time and doesn’t get to be friends with anyone. What a sad way to go. At least he got to show off his slight degree of super strength as the film went on and he used his patented choke attack on everyone.

I didn’t really have any big problems with the film. It all played out fairly well. This isn’t exactly the most exciting film though and it maybe dragged on a little at times, but never that much. It was a fairly short film after all so it’s not like any of the scenes went on forever. I do think that the calm before the storm scenes could maybe be a little dull at times, but it’s a minor issue and not something that would actually hurt the film.

The characters are a little bland, but not bad. John is a decent hero and I do appreciate the fact that he takes the initiative. He enters the home of the suspect who may be plotting to destroy him and he does it very casually with some veiled threats the whole time. That was a fun part in the movie as John wasn’t even pretending to be polite. He was openly insulting the villain and everything that the guy believed in. John is nothing if not bold after all. While the visit didn’t help him all that much, it did utterly prove that the villain was responsible for the Mummy. John succeeded as a secret agent!

Isobel didn’t have much of a role before we found out that she looked like the old Princess. She was able to trick the Mummy that way, but it was mostly accidental and she ended up fainting from the excitement so I can’t say that she was a great character. The Inspector was fun, but he was out of his league the whole time. It was very humorous to see just how unprepared he was the whole time. He really did not act like much of an inspector.

The climax was a lot of fun as a result though. The Inspector had hired several men to protect John, but they were no match. Not against the Mummy, but against the Mummy’s assistant! The human actually ends up taking just about all of them down, which was the funny part. It’s seriously not something that you would have expected. The hired guns just forgot to keep their ears alert for any signs of danger. The climax is more sad than funny though as the Mummy is shot to pieces by the trained professionals. The Swamp helped the intrigue factor I suppose.

Mehemet was the main human villain. He’s fairly generic and prays to a large statue of a cat god. Mehemet is very sensitive about people poking fun at his beliefs and he decides to destroy all of the main characters because they desecrated the tomb. It’s an interesting point of whether we should really be grave robbing or not. Essentially, that’s what is being done when people open tombs right? I actually agree with him that we shouldn’t be doing that because it is just like breaking into someone’s grave. It was his only valid point, but the guy naturally went off the deep end instead of going into that point a little more.

Granted, I doubt that John would have even considered the notion of stopping. He was way too interested in the new findings and didn’t seem to have any doubts about the moral ambiguity of what he was doing. John just wanted to win the fight at that point and he was looking for clues to do so. Luckily, the hero didn’t bring a dog over to the villain’s place like last time, which immediately gave this film an advantage over the original.

This Mummy film certainly beat the original one. I’m not sure how it stacks up against the 1999 version as it’s been a while, but I’m tempted to say that it may beat that one. It’s a tough bout of course, but I’d say that the main character here may be a little more likable. I still can’t get over how he casually went up to the main villain and started trash talking him. That was definitely classic. I was also glad that the heroes left Egypt right away so we got to go to a more city like environment for the duration of the film. Definitely a good move on their part.

Overall, The Mummy was a good film. It was actually better than I had anticipated since these classic Hollywood monsters don’t always have the greatest of reputations. Just wait until I review the Frankenstein film..heh heh heh. The characters are good and the writing is naturally solid as well. While the climax is a little more emotional than intended, this makes for a fun retro film to watch. It’s interesting to see how different the Mummy was back then. Watch a modern version of it and you’ll notice the differences. The new one is made to be more of an action blockbuster, while this one is more subdued. It’s also very short as I mentioned earlier so you’ll breeze through it.

Overall 6/10

The Lazarus Effect Review

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The_Lazarus_Effect_(2015_film)_poster
Gee…I wonder who the main villain of this film is. Even if you haven’t seen the trailer, there are only so many actresses on the poster who look like the character in the center right? You can guess between the two actresses listed and it should be easy to guess correctly. This is a modern horror film that I actually saw the trailer a while back. I knew that it would be terrible, but I saw it to see if I could at least drag some good feats out of this. I wasn’t disappointed!

A group of scientists decide that they will bring things back to life against the school’s orders. They succeed in bringing a dog back to life, but then some corporate white collars decide to shut down the project. The “heroes” laugh this off and try to make another experiment, but someone forgot to pay General Electric so a spark is sent off and destroys one of the characters. They bring her back to life, but…she seems different. She seems…evil!!!!!? (Shocker!)

My hunches are typically right when it comes to a film being good or bad. I can usually tell if I will like it or not based on a single trailer. Not a teaser, but the full thing. That being said, you still have to be careful to go in with an open mind, but this film makes it easy for you since there’s animal violence within seconds of minutes of the film starting so I was able to confirm my theory. It may sound strange to watch a film that you know will be terrible, but it’s actually not uncommon.

See, the best reason to watch a film is to enjoy it. After that, another very legitimate reason is to just watch the film for feats. This way, I can add the fighters to this site someday in the battle section. A final reason that I watch films for at times is just to appreciate the dialogue as well as the banter between characters. If a film’s script is really good, I can at least have a few chuckles as I get ready to write my negative review. I do the same thing for video games. (minus the third option since there is almost never any banter in video games) Based on the poster/dvd cover, I knew that the villain would have some good super powers. After all, villains in horror films are always overpowered and typically have a range of attacks like reality warping and teleportation.

One of the ways that this film went wrong was the fact that it has way too many jump scares. Seriously, when you show us a vague object in the background and start speeding up the music as the scene gets darker and darker, everyone and their pet bird knows that a jump scare is about to happen. You’re taking the scare out of the jump. Every jump scene here is utterly predictable and you’ll just be laughing. Actually, this is a Great film to watch in a group as you try to poke fun at it the whole time. Seeing the Mystery Theater 3000 tackle this would likely be very entertaining. There’s just so much material to work with here.

An obvious negative here is the animal violence issue. It feels like I have to mention this in every single horror movie and it must be a trope of some kind. Naturally, the dog dies. It’s so unnecessary and disturbing. The fact that the heroes are bringing things back to life also ensures that you see quite a few dead animals throughout the film and this movie was doomed from early on. However, it brings me to a nice topic of discussion that many philosophers and scientists still debate. As far as I’m concerned there is no debate, but I’ve seen this question asked several times in real life and the answers that other people give are always sad. They always seem to believe that the end justifies the means.

The characters are all fine with experimenting on animals. When the main character decides to finally try a human everyone immediately starts to back up. “Experimenting on animals is okay, but a human..humans are real!” is essentially what the characters try to say. For many people, animals don’t have rights and anything is fair game. If killing 10 animals means that you will save 100 humans, a lot of people would jump on board in an instant. If you were to rephrase the question so it’s 10 lives against 100, people would still go for it, but there would be many more who would simply find it preposterous. It’s a very sad train of logic that I’ve always disagreed with right from the start. The fact that all the characters believe this just makes it all the more sad.

The other topic to tackle relates to one of the final sane lines by the main villain. Zoe asks why she was sent to Hell over one mistake when she tried to make up for it by doing good things for her whole life. That’s an incredibly easy one to answer, good works are not enough to send you into Heaven. You can lead the nicest life imaginable. You can fight in wars and save hundreds of people or always put others first and help out whenever possible, but you still won’t go to Heaven if you haven’t accepted Jesus Christ into your life. It’s a concept that many people cannot wrap their heads around and the outcome is quite sad, but unavoidable. It’s tough to think that you could be a great person and it will not make a difference, but we are all sinners and don’t have the power to save ourselves. Zoe found this out the hard way and now she’s working on bringing as many people down as possible. Considering how all of the other main characters act, it shouldn’t be difficult.

To Zoe, Hell is essentially reliving her worst moment in life over and over again. I don’t see this being very far fetched as that could certainly be what Hell is like. Hell is simply unbearably bad. So, whatever hurts you the most emotionally and physically will be what happens there. It’s why Hell is a truly scary place and it’s never ending. Another difficult concept to grasp, but one that you must as it will really affect how you live each and every day. You will certainly treasure each day on Earth as you realize what a privilege it is to live in such a pleasant world even if it’s far from perfect.

It almost goes without saying that I couldn’t stand any of the characters by the way. We have the average teenager who smokes a lot and is constantly making crude and inappropriate comments. He was terrible. The main character believes that experimenting on animals is okay and he doesn’t seem to think too highly of the dog’s intelligence. His final scenes are also terrible and he’s unlikable. Zoe essentially cracks and we find out that Hell broke her and turned her evil. While that may not be her fault as she is insane for the final part of the film, it doesn’t help her become a good character although she is a threatening villain. The intern seemed out of her depth the whole time as she tried to fit in and the final member of the group didn’t really have any character.

The script is one of the things that prevented any of the characters from being likable as they were constantly swearing. It’s to be expected as horror films in general have some of the worst reputations when it comes to the script. The characters will swear whenever they are surprised, upset, or excited, which is constantly. While it’s not the worst writing that I’ve seen, it’s certainly down there and hurts the film once again.

At the very least, Zoe is a strong villain. She seems to have some reality warping skills as she can literally send you to Hell. She has high speed regeneration, possibly some kind of body snatching ability, super speed, telekinesis, super strength, and much more. As with most horror villains, she can essentially do whatever she wants including turning off the lights with her mind. How spooky right? For films like this, you’re essentially watching to see how she destroys everyone in whatever gruesome ways she can imagine. No worries though, all of the bodies are somehow kept intact for the twist ending.

You do know that there is a twist ending right? All horror films are basically required to have one and this is no exception. How one guy’s body survived being in a metal container that was crumpled up is beyond our wildest imagination, but I’m sure that Zoe has a power to help with that. She also has a large blood supply so that she can give some to everyone that wants to have powers without wearing herself out. Must come back to that high speed regeneration eh? As with most twist endings, we can assume that humanity was ultimately destroyed.

Overall, This was a pretty terrible movie, but at least it was predictable. It followed the horror stereotyped and formula to a T. You can probably guess just about everything ahead of time. “Will ____ die DReager?” “I’ll do you one better Bill, they’re all going to die and at least one of them will be in a Man of Steel way” “Right on Reager!” Now, just copy and paste that answer to every single horror film where there’s one villain up against a group of teenagers and you’ve got yourself the correct answer. If horror films where you get to see really unlikable characters destroyed by a villain that they cannot even begin to fight against are your thing, then you’ll love this film. Just try to get past the animal violence and the poor script. Meanwhile, I’d recommend watching Scooby Doo Zombie Island if you want a movie that has more heart. On the bright side, I did like the corporate agents who came in and owned the main characters without breaking a sweat.

Overall 1/10

The Swarm Review

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O ENXAME
This film definitely came out a good while ago. Whether you’ve heard of the film by name or not, you’ll likely be familiar with the concept. For some reason, a film about bees attacking the world just seems like something that you’ve heard before. It’s not a concept that will excite you and the film certainly doesn’t do that. This is a classic that has not aged very well.

Dr. Crane is found at a government installation and all of the agents are dead. The officials fear that enemy agents managed to break in, but Dr. Crane admits that it was actually the bees. Nobody believes him for a little while, but they are forced to realize the truth when more cities are attacked. The bees have launched a war against humanity and Dr. Crane says that they have been planning the war for some time now. The heroes will have to be careful about how they handle this because they will be doomed if other insects join the fight against the humans.

The film is very long so it likes to take time to develop the scenes. That’s not a good thing since it means that simple actions like taking a walk can drag on for quite a while. The opening scene where the agents find the dead men lying around takes at least 5 minutes before they call in the backup. By the end of the film, you’ll have wondered why the heroes are losing to bees instead of remembering what the plot is.

My main problem with the film would actually just be the fact that I don’t like the concept. It’s always been a little gross to see humans covered by insects and that means that none of the action scenes are enjoyable. The Bees are also animals and while animal violence doesn’t apply to them too much, it’s still not going to really help the film in the long run. That’s why a film can only be as good as its concept and this concept had a lot of limits to it.

There’s also a lot of plot hax as the bees are basically immune to everything and nearly impossible to stop. We get a few twists and the heroes think of a plan at the end of the film, but the death count is incredibly high. Hundreds of thousands of people died against the bees so it really was like a real war. If the Bees can do that much damage to us….imagine what the flies can do! It should be noted that the Bees were actually Super Bees who could destroy the average human in 2-3 stings. That’s why the heroes were so defenseless against the creatures.

This film is incredibly old so there’s no real soundtrack. That being said, we still get a really emotional death scene where a scientist realizes what he has to do to stop the bees. The only downside is that he must die to test out his serum. The guy decided to take a large dose of venom and by the time he applied the antidote, it was too late. The scene is supposed to be really sad, but the scientist just acted so unintelligent that it’s hard to buy the emotion. He should have had an assistant with him and he shouldn’t have started the dosage up at such a high level. His sacrifice was essentially in vain.

I do like the determination that the army had as they went into this fight. The commander always talks a good game and he didn’t make the mistake of underestimating the opponents. That being said, he was forced to defer to Mr. Crane on this war, which meant that he couldn’t actually go through with the war efforts that he wanted to try. Both Mr. Crane’s and the commander’s tactics proved to be useless anyway so it wasn’t a big loss, but he was much more interesting than the main character.

Mr. Crane wasn’t a bad main character by any means, but he may have been a little naive. He persisted in waiting out the Bees even when the casualties were steadily rising. He really had no plan to stop them for a while and the losses shouldn’t have been acceptable to him. Worrying about the environment is good, but America was getting close to being destroyed, he needed to act sooner. His possible romance subplot was also rather iffy and not integral to the plot…it was just there to be there.

There’s a little kid in this film who helps to doom his fellow students as he launches an attack on the bees. It was one of those emotional subplots that we didn’t need. While he did a good job of taking down a lot of Bees, he should have known that they would retaliate. The citizens are partially to blame since they had quite a bit of time to get inside, but many of them were still caught unprepared. After the first traumatic attack, I’d imagine that everyone would be especially careful not to be outside too long.

There’s also a subplot where two guys are flirting with an old lady. With all of these subplots, it’s no wonder why the film was so long right? This was mainly just filler and some levity likely intended to take your mind off of the somber Bee plot. The moral is essentially that both guys should have just been satisfied to stay in the friend zone. It would have saved them a lot of grief and they wouldn’t have had to become enemies through their fight over the lady.

At least the writing is all fairly good in the Swarm as this was back in the 1970’s. The characters mostly sound distinguished and Mr. Crane is constantly trying to out think the government. It is hinted that he allowed the Bees to destroy the military base without trying to warn any of the guards and that adds some tension to the equation. I still love the classic dialogue from these olden films and the English language is still my favorite because of how smart and quick it sounds.

It was a little surprising to see some of the victims of the Bees. I wasn’t expecting a good number of the school children to die, but I suppose that it was left in since it wasn’t a violent death. (On screen anyway) It’s too bad that they couldn’t escape though since they didn’t really need to add to the body count. It was already so high by that point. We did get some decent action scenes at the end as the humans grabbed their flame throwers, but they were doomed from the start. There are millions of bees after all and a quick sting is enough to take the fight out of the humans. The Bees even start to give you visions of a giant bee that wants to sting you. Their abilities are certainly fierce!

Overall, The Swarm really isn’t my kind of film. If you want to see how humans would fare against the Bees, then you should like this film. If you buy into Crane’s theory that they are out to get us, then it’ll be even more fun for you as the Bees strategically take down base after base. The film is really dragged out though and it just isn’t that much fun to watch. The Bees don’t work as antagonists for me and while Dr. Crane and the government agents are decent, there are no really good characters. Even the climax may not be all that exciting for you. This is a film to pass and I doubt that it will scare you either as it feels more like a comedy than a horror at times.

Overall 3/10

The Village Review

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Time to take a look at The Village! This is the kind of film that you know will be bad before you actually watch it, but finding out just how bad it is ends up being your main goal. Needless to say, the film met my expectations and maybe even exceeded them in that regard. You certainly won’t be missing much if you skip this title and The Village is certainly no NYC!

The main characters all live in a small village where they are scared of the color red and dare not go near it. They bury anything of that color so that the demons won’t attack them. Unfortunately, one of their members is gravely injured towards the end of the film, but that’s actually when the main plot begins. The main character must now venture outside of the village to get some medicine from the outside world, but since she is blind…can she really defend herself against the demons? Only time will tell!

Well…there’s not a whole lot of good things to say about it. The only good thing that I can say is that the design for the villains was decently good. They certainly seemed like a bit of a threat even if they were extremely slow. So, that’s a plus. Beyond that, the film really just makes mistakes at every corner and even the plot twists are fairly predictable even if they should be. Of course, they do help to create a lot of plot holes and face palm moments.

None of the characters are likable so I should get that out of the way first. The main villain is a psycho who wants to hurt people. We’ve seen this kind of villain many times before and it’s never been enjoyable. He just brings the film down more and more. The main character is blind as I mentioned, which makes for a climax that is hard to believe. Are we really supposed to believe that she can traverse through a forest that she’s never been in before and make a multi hour journey over to the nearest town, get some supplies and find her way back home again? There’s just no way and her fight against the “demons” was also rather unbelievable.

The other villagers are all fairly slow on the uptake as they fall for multiple tricks their whole lives. Have none of them considered fighting the demons who are extremely slow and look rather old? Instead, they all hide in the basement and in the attic as if they were children. A whole village should consider defending themselves a little more than that. That being said, this is the same village whose men didn’t mind leaving a blind girl to fend for herself in a harsh environment so we shouldn’t be too surprised.

One of the main reasons why this film was so terrible was that there was also a lot of animal violence. Several animals are skinned and destroyed in very cruel ways. It’s pretty violent and just one of the many reasons why you should skip this film. It’s just distasteful and adds nothing to the film except to remind us that the villagers are all rather insane. The writing is unbelievably bad as well and none of the characters seems to have an original thought. There are so many red herrings that you begin to wonder if there is even a plot anymore.

An example of this is a security guard who throws a lot of veiled threats at one of the workers and the guard never actually appears on screen. He’s just around to intimidate the audience and try to make the film scary. The director/writers probably wanted this film to be really scary, but it ended up just being rather boring instead. At one point, the heroes all discuss their sob stories in an attempt to justify what they have been doing the whole time, but it’s just an excuse to discuss some dark happenings in the film to make the whole thing tougher to watch.

The main guy also deserves to be singled out as to how bad he was. His big scene is basically him yelling at the main girl as he tells her that he can be quiet if he wants too. It’s a terrible speech and he’s basically just being mean to her because he can. I’m glad that the romance never went anywhere as the guy was a terrible role model and makes the kids from Jurassic World look good. I miss the days when the kids were all like Arthur from the famous animated series. That guy knew what to do. The Chief of The Village condones just about anything and his final speech can’t save him. He goes for the Oscar Bait as he gives what he thinks is a heart warming speech, but it is incredibly generic and just not interesting.

The Village is the kind of film that you wouldn’t expect to get a theater release. It feels like an indie film that simply wasn’t good and is relying on the creepy factor to keep itself going. None of the characters are realistic and there’s no good scenery to look at. Forget about having a soundtrack either and I could go on and on about how bad the film was. It’s the kind of film that could almost make Sucker Punch look good. This film wasn’t even exciting or had any good action scenes and it just felt like a waste of time. Luckily, I had extremely low hopes going into the film and had a feeling that it would be something like 1 star, but it’s not always fun to be right.

Overall, Don’t watch this film. It’s time to stop mentioning all of the negatives and just wrap this up as you get the point. This review was definitely a negative one and I can’t begin to describe just how bad it was. It felt like the film dragged on forever and it continues to remind me why I’m not a fan of horror films. You could argue that this isn’t a complete horror film, but no matter what genre it was, it wouldn’t have been good. When the writing is terrible and all of the characters are unlikable, there’s really nothing that can save such a title. Go check out Terminator 2 if you want to see an epic film instead as this Village is just depressingly bad.

Overall 1/10