Need For Speed Underground Review

Posted on June 23, 2015 by dreager1

This is a game that I’ve owned for maybe 5-6 years at this point. It’s certainly been a very long time and I had played it off and on for a few years. Finally, I decided to crack down on it and complete the game once and for all about a month ago. After many races, I finally did manage to take the game down. I can safely say that it’s not perfect and some areas do hurt it, but as a racing game, it is very good.

The plot involves a new racer in town. This is the guy that you play as and he’s ready to move up the ranks. One of the ladies involved in the scene helps to get you ready and gives you intel about the other racers as you move up the ranks. You must become the best racer in every type of race to get to the end. After a lot of races, you are ready to fight the big boss. The main villain is someone who has plagued you for some time so you’ve been waiting for this. There is actually a secret final boss where a mysterious racer shows up and challenges you. The twist of who is inside it is slightly expected as there weren’t many characters in the game, but it’s still pretty neat. It’ll remind you of the final F Zero GX level.

First off, I have to criticize Story Mode. There are 118 levels in the game. That’s a whole lot of levels and while it is always good for a game not to be too short, this is simply overdone. It took me a grand total of 609 races to complete the 118 levels. If they were 118 original levels, that’s one thing, but most of the time you will be racing on the exact same tracks. Over and over again. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were only about 20 tracks given how often it would be the same ones. Sometimes they would be mirrored to try and trick you, but I count that as the same stage.

118 levels is definitely too much if you ask me. The levels are also decently challenging so just around 40-50 would have still made for a decently long game. Again, it took 609 tries for 118 levels, which shows you just how tricky these levels can be. Sometimes I would have to try a level about 30 times and would only end up winning because my opponent would crash and I would take the chance to leap to victory. I did enjoy that part though as a lot of racing games just make the A.I. completely perfect so they never crash into anything. It’s safe to say that this is more realistic as nobody should be able to navigate these levels without crashing or at least banging into the side rails.

Finally, my other negative would be the soundtrack and it’s actually significant enough to take away an entire star. It’s just downright terrible and they’re going for an underground feel. As such, most of the music isn’t enjoyable to listen too and I’m pretty sure that they’re not very appropriate. That being said, the lyrics are hard to hear since the singers are fairly bad and I ended up just turning the music off for most of the races so I would just hear the sound effects. Trust me, it’s not nearly as fun and it’s sad that I had to go that far.

Otherwise, the game is great as a racing title. The actual gameplay is a lot of fun and while there is a slight nitro boost, you’re essentially playing a normal racing game for the most part. That was a lot of fun and the controls are much smoother than Hot Pursuit 2’s. I can see the gameplay getting even better with the newer additions and this is the main reason as to how I could stick with the game throughout so many races. They would get tough as times and I would have to replay levels, but the gameplay was fun enough that I didn’t mind as much as I could have. I only learned about the power braking towards the end though, which is too bad since it would have been very helpful in a lot of the drift levels.

There is a lot of customizing to be done here and it’s typically required to upgrade your car every 20 levels or so. By the time that you are done, your car will be maxed out in just about everything and you’ll be moving at really high speeds. It’s a double edged sword of course as it can be easy to crash and instead of going with the best car, you may want to consider a slower model. I tried that for a while, but then I remembered that I love to go fast so I used the fastest car for the final levels. I’d say that it’s worth it unless the level has a lot of sharp turns.

The graphics are decently good. I definitely like how the levels look as well as the cars. The human designs are the ones that do tend to look a little iffy as they are pretty undetailed, but I suppose that most of the time working on this game was spent on the environments and cars. That would make a lot of sense so it’s all right that the humans don’t look great. The graphics aren’t perfect, but they get the job done and you can typically see the levels clearly although the overall game is pretty dark so you may need to increase the lighting.

This game was quite the adventure and I’ll definitely be enjoying a nice break from it. Once I’m ready to get back in the saddle again, I’ll buy Underground 2. The only problem is that I’ve heard that it has over 200 levels this time. That sounds even more extreme and I can’t say that I’m too enthusiastic about that, but I want to make it to the newer games already so I shall power through it.

Overall, Need For Speed Underground has improved from Hot Pursuit 2. The gameplay is great and that would have usually been enough to have given the game an 8 star rating. The soundtrack held it back along with the tedious story mode. Seriously, no game should take you over 600 races to complete. That’s simply overdone. The difficulty level was good as it was tough to complete the game, but not overly difficult where you will be wondering how the A.I. can move so fast. Some of the levels were a tad long though and I think that they should all be 3 laps at the most instead of 5-6. Let me tell you, replaying a 6 lap race more than once is no picnic. I definitely recommend getting this game if you are looking for a good racing experience, just have your MP3 player by your side during the races. There are some brief cutscenes which is cool, but there aren’t many of them.

Overall 7/10

True Lies Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time for another Arnold film and this is one that I definitely hadn’t heard of before. It essentially tries to be a James Bond film and I have to wonder if Cameron has ever seen one. That is one formula that you really don’t want to emulate and this film falls into a lot of the same holes that the Bond films create. True Lies ended up being below average and a film that I would not recommend, but it was decent for the most part. It simply could not recover from its mistakes.

Harry is a double agent who works for a very secret organization. His family does not know about this and they think that he just has a very boring job. His wife knows that Harry is passionate about it though so everything was going well until the Terrorists struck. Harry must now try to stop them even if it may expose his identity and Helen decides to get into an adventure of her own, but this ends up being a bit of a dangerous move. Will she be able to succeed or is she doomed? Those are the main plots of the film.

Let’s dive into the main negative, which crippled the film. That would be Helen’s plot as she essentially decides to abandon her family and practically cheat on Harry as she meets someone who claims to be a secret agent. She stops him after the guy tries to make out with her, but he still succeeded for a little before she stopped him, which was awful. From there, she also accepted a mission to be a hooker and we had a painfully long scene of her dancing for the villain in disguise. It was all just terrible and that scene alone guaranteed that this film would get a negative score. That was just terrible and I don’t think that any film could recover from such a thing.

The Helen subplot was just not necessary and it took quite a while to finish. Harry was also way too mean during those moments as well like when he forced her to take up the mission and do all of those degrading things. He was not a good main character by any stretch of the imagination nor was she a good heroine. She was ready to abandon her family and travel to another country on a whim, that’s just not smart and she also appeared to be very naive.

As for Harry, I’ve already explained how he’s a pretty bad hero. He also flirts with the enemies in classic James Bond style. At least James Bond isn’t married, but Harry is so he really shouldn’t be messing around. He doesn’t actually do anything, but the flirting is still unnecessary. He can accomplish his mission while being stone cold, that’s what the villains do right? He’s a good fighter and typically knows how to beat a group of enemies with a single gun. As an agent, Harry is probably even better than James Bond since 007 managed to lose to a random thief in Skyline while he was at his peak. I don’t think it’s even debatable which agent is more adept at hand to hand combat.

The film’s fairly light toned as it is a mix of comedy and action throughout. There is even a scene where a character drops a gun and the bullets take out about a dozen men. Harry takes care of the rest and he gets an epic one liner as he takes down the leader of the villains. There were no real interesting villains as the main one is very generic. At least the film used him to make the terrorists look rather inept, which is always good and I wouldn’t want him to be likable anyway. One of his foot soldiers is the lady who is around to distract Harry, but she never really gets to try this and just acts to make Helen jealous.

As you can see, most of the characters are pretty bad. Even Harry’s daughter is rather sad as she actually steals money from people and it’s a very unnecessary addition to her character. She is presented to be overly rude and that’s considering that Helen and Harry are already not the greatest of leads. Harry’s partner is the “funny” guy of the group and he gets a ton of burns and one liners, but he also has a number of them that just make him look bad. I definitely didn’t like him either although he’s certainly more charismatic than the other players.

It’s too bad because the film actually started out really well. The opening scene was like a James Bond film, but without going too far and the snow action scene was good. Of course, the first sign that this film was going to take a plunge was when Harry hit two dogs into each other. That was when I knew that the film didn’t really stand a chance and animal violence is always a sign that the film’s writers did not know what to do. It’s just unnecessary and rather sad. I really don’t mind the fact that this film didn’t get a sequel. It would ideally be better than the first film, but that’s still not saying much.

At least, I got to see another meme in the making. When Harry punches the fake agent while they are in the car, I instantly recognized the scene. It was used a lot online back in the day and I always wondered where it came from. Now that I’ve seen that one and the one from the Planet of the Apes, I’ve seen just about all of the big meme/gifs from the olden days. The main one that I’m missing now is the slow clap gif and I may still have scene that film. The actor in it looks familiar at any rate.

This film could not win so it’s good that Cameron already has a good resume with other films. It will be ironic if James Bond comes back to defeat True Lies with its upcoming film and the scary thing is that there is actually a possibility of that. The next James Bond film looks like it could finally be decent and it has more potential than all of the old ones with the exception of Skyfall. Skyfall wasn’t great, but they cut out most of the romance plots that have plagued the series and this one looks to continue that. Of course, Mission Impossible was always a better James Bond than the James Bond films so it’s all a little moot.

Overall, This is an old blockbuster that really couldn’t match up to the newer ones. Arnold and Cameron were around, but they simply couldn’t produce another winner this time. With such a large budget, they should have put more funds towards making the characters more likable. This review actually came across as even more negative than I had planned, but sometimes retrospect can make a film age even worse than you may have guessed. At the moment, it’s hard to think of any real positives. The film was fun during a lot of the moments, which would have to be its only real pro. It’s easy to watch for the most part and the pacing wasn’t bad, but when you have to endure the Helen subplot for well over 20 minutes…it just gets to be a little too much.

Overall 3/10

Terminator Salvation Review

Posted on June 19, 2015 by dreager1

It’s been nearly three years since I first saw this film and it was cool to see that I am still giving it the same score that I gave it all those years ago. It just goes to show that while some films may vary as the years go by, Salvation has managed to hold its place for quite a while. It’s certainly not as thrilling as the first three films and is mainly an information film.

Judgment Day occurred and John simply couldn’t stop it. He is now one of the pivotal figures in the war against the machines, but he is more of a figure head than a leader. He finds out that Skynet is preparing something big so the resistance decides to destroy it once and for all. As both sides get ready, he realizes that Kyle has been kidnapped. If Kyle is destroyed, John may cease to exist and everything will be wrecked. It’s time to get back onto the front lines to save the world and a new character is also running around.

First of all, I still have to question parts of the time loop. Since it seems like time moves linearly in this universe, Kyle’s death shouldn’t really matter. Just like how Skynet can see that its past Terminators fail because they failed in real time, Kyle’s death wouldn’t stop the fact that he already went to the past. How I see it, John would not cease to exist through Sarah’s death because of Kyle’s death. Of course, this is time travel so there are many ways for this to play out.

The main drawback for Salvation is the fact that the plot moves at a very slow pace. It’s simply not as action packed as the other three films and there is never a sense of danger. The heroes are just moving across a world that has essentially been terminated already. They aren’t trying to save the world, they are just trying to end the war once and for all. The film seems to mostly just be trying to emphasize just how tricky this new world is and you’re meant to ponder why humanity lost so easily. It’s not about explosions and epic action like the first three films and it’s just about taking in all of the information.

If you walk into the film assuming that you are going to get an action blockbuster, it will definitely be a disappointment. If you walk in thinking that it will be a slice of futuristic life film, then this will be up your ally. There is really only one action scene and that occurs at the very end of the film as John fights against the T-800. That was a cool fight even if it was a little short and there was not as much actual fighting as you would expect. The film didn’t have the budget to pull off the incredible action scenes that the third film had and it’s safe to say that the T-800 should be able to crush Marcus with ease.

The soundtrack is also rather bare bones next to the other films and there isn’t much of an antagonist. A few bullies appear at one point and Marcus gets to beat them up, proving that he is the ultimate main character. At least, that was the intention. He’s not bad, but he’s not very good either. I liked him more than John Conner, but Marcus never did a good job of explaining his intentions and just seemed to want to fight Skynet. There are some twists about this, but Marcus never really got to develop as a great main character. He was fairly generic and while he did beat John from T2 and T3 and Sarah Conner from film 1, he wasn’t great.

I quickly have to pause and praise one of the things that Salvation did right. As in T3, where we find out that Skynet outsmarted the humans, she does the same thing in this film. Everything that happened was part of her plan and it makes the ending that much more satisfying. It’s safe to say that Skynet is constantly toying with the humans and they shall never be able to defeat her. Machines will always trump man and our arrogance is what created Godzilla according to a trailer for that Kaiju’s film. It was still awesome and the opening of the film felt like a scene out of Resident Evil as there as Terminators everywhere. It is certainly the beginning of the end for the resistance.

Back to the characters, I didn’t care for John Conner all that much. I’m glad that he made the hero call to rescue everyone, but he just came off as a little mean at various points and he seemed to have even less of a recollection as to what happened in T2 and T3. I wanted more references to those films and I feel like he didn’t deliver in that aspect. One of his lines when he told Marcus to get him inside the base also came off very awkwardly and just didn’t work. That was supposed to be one of his big lines as well since it even came again during the climax of the film in a flashback. John simply couldn’t pull this off.

Finally, we have the main heroine. Blair was a decent fighter and she always talked tough even when she was in a tough situation. She was a good character even if she did appear to be trying to start up a romance. Marcus was too tough for that and luckily the plot never went anywhere. She still made the hero call when she helped Marcus out of a jam and proved that she was more loyal than just about anyone else. Kyle is a decently important character I suppose, but he’s unlikable and the actor didn’t do a good job of looking like the guy from the first/5th films. His partner wasn’t great either and that subplot really wasn’t needed in the film at all. It was just there to buy some time.

One of the big positives about this film is that they finally went ahead and toned down the violence a lot. I believe that they did the same for language and all other areas of the film as they finally bumped it down to a PG-13 from the start. That was a really great move on the film’s part and helps to make it a safer experience. If not for a few scenes, it could easily have gotten close to a PG as well, but some of the themes alone would prevent that. As it is, it’s one of the tamer PG-13’s. If we had some more action and good fight scenes, then it could have gone far, that just didn’t happen.

As a Terminator film, this title is fairly bad as it has nothing to do with the franchise. Technically, we are seeing the resistance a little, but you can see why it can basically be discarded and nothing would change. The only thing of importance that we saw is how John got his scar. It reminds me of the Chimera Arc from Hunter X Hunter, which was essentially 7 years of filler or a good chunk of the war arc in Naruto, but at least it still felt like Naruto. This Terminator film didn’t really have any time travel and you can’t really have a film in this series without the T-800.

As a normal film, it is still decently interesting. Who doesn’t like to see a future that has been taken over by robots? If you watch this as a stand alone film, then it may pique your interest a lot more. It just didn’t last too long as a Terminator film and I’m confident that the upcoming one will defeat it unless there is some animal violence to stop it. Salvation is a good film, but it can just be a little dull.

Overall, Terminator Salvation wasn’t very exciting. It has some of the worst camera that I have ever seen in a film as everything looked uninteresting and the pacing was very slow. Marcus was a decent lead though and the concept of robots taking over the world is still fairly fun. I’m glad that Skynet continues to have the last laugh and the humans can never stop her. This film does drastically cut down on the violence and other unnecessary content which also helps it. Technically, it does still beat the first film for me although the first one was more exciting. If you want to watch a good sci-fi film, I recommend checking this one out. Just don’t expect a whole lot of action.

Overall 6/10

Terminator 3 Rise of The Machines Review

Posted on June 17, 2015 by dreager1

This is of the edited TV-14 version of the film and all thoughts below should be read as such. A review of the uncut version would likely be more negative as edited versions help to address my complaints for a product…typically.

It’s time to take a look at the third Terminator film! The second one was very enjoyable and really captured the feel of what a Terminator film should be like. The villain was impressive and the time travel aspects were handled well even if I had some questions on it. The third film wasn’t quite as big as the second film and certainly not as legendary, but it actually holds up to the second film. They’re very close and while I may give the second film the slight edge….it’s very close. Both of them outdo each other in various ways and I’ll compare them again towards the end of the review.

Sarah Conner is gone and John must now fend for himself. The problem is that John wasn’t prepared to attack the world on his own. He has managed to scrape by somehow, but now Skynet has sent another Terminator after him. The original Terminator is around to help John against the TX, but can the older model really prove to be effective at this point? Judgment day is at hand and the humans will have to get ready for what is about to happen. Only John can save the world, but can he even save himself?

As with the last film, John makes for a very poor protagonist. It’s hard to root for him when you consider the fact that one of his very first scenes is him getting locked up in a cage and swallowing some intriguing pills. He doesn’t get much better than that as his personality is simply unlikable. It’s like he was only half listening to Sarah’s warnings and he barely even seems to remember the Terminator from the second film. Granted, it’s another version of the character, but I expected more of a reaction although he clearly does remember the cyborg since he references the second film several times. I don’t know, he just didn’t feel consistent in that area and he never became likable.

Kate is the main heroine and she probably gets the saddest role in the film. The TX naturally takes down her fiance so that she essentially has no choice but to hook up with the main guy. She moves on from the Fiance in about 5 minutes so I don’t think that the relationship was that serious anyway, but it still makes her look bad. She really had no reason to like John since they hadn’t seen each other in years and the Hollywood effect (As I like to call it anyway) should have just let her off the hook here. As just friends, it would have worked out a little better.

Enough about the humans though. John and Kate are really the only two important ones. Kate’s father does have a role involving Skynet though and the fan favorite Dr.Peter also makes a quick guest star appearance for another fun scene. Beyond that, the Terminators really take on most of the important scenes so let’s talk about them. The classic T-800 is still a very likable character. He remembers what happened in the second film thanks to a sort of unified mind or something like that.

The fight is certainly tough for the Terminator since he’s really outgunned at this point. The TX is supposed to be superior in every way so only plot hax can protect the T-800. He’s still the best character in the film, but I have to admit that the fight scenes were really stretching logic at times although I’ll go into that more in a second. If you liked The Terminator in the first two films, you’ll likely enjoy him here. He gets more than one great burn and most of his scenes have him doing something cool like “Talk to the hand!” or “You’re Terminated” There was definitely a lot of memorable material here.

The TX is the first female cyborg to be shown and she makes for a merciless villain. Technically, she is easily the strongest Terminator that we have seen at this point and her weapons are very impressive. A single hit from her energy gun can destroy most Terminators and her instant regeneration is about as good as the T-1000’s. She can take over other pieces of technology and just acts more like a modern robot villain in general. She was certainly an imposing figure and made for a good enemy to the T-800. Even if she was a little overpowered to be honest.

Unfortunately, this film has more plot hax than the first two by a long shot. As mentioned, the TX is supposed to be superior to the T-800 in every way and she proves that in several scenes. Yet, the T-800 is able to physically overpower her during the big showdown and he actually lands a number of hits. It’s like watching a Mario player in Super Smash fight someone who doesn’t know how to DI. The Terminator simply keeps hitting and flipping her and she doesn’t really try to fight back. Eventually, she just seems to realize that she’s in a fight and disposes of him rather quickly. Perhaps she was toying with him since the Terminators do have a little personality at times, but the film didn’t play it off that way. She also had many opportunities to destroy John, but didn’t. One example is when she was on the car that he was in. Simply firing her energy blast would easily destroy him along with the vehicle. Such a minor explosion would barely harm her after all, but instead she tried throwing some punches and got knocked off of the car. Rookie mistake TX….

While the plot hax was around, the fight scenes were still the best in the franchise. The film producers/directors must have realized that CGI is the way of the future as the battles are like watching the Man of Steel if it was made a few years ago. The characters are really landing heavy blows on each other and they even have some decent speed feats. The action scenes are certainly ahead of their time and while you won’t enjoy them if you don’t care for CGI, CGI fans like myself (Only for live action) will definitely get a kick out of the bout. The TX should have won without much of a fight, but it’s more entertaining this way I suppose. Their battle was certainly the highlight of the film.

I found this film to be less violent than the second one and it feels like the series is getting a little tamer with each installment, which is always good. Of course, keep in mind that I am reviewing the edited version. The film can also still be intense at times like when the TX impales someone and drives while in that position. That scene was definitely pretty gruesome and the body count does get rather large at times. The implied violence can also get to you so naturally, you should know that you are about to watch a pretty intense film when you start this one. The soundtrack is also great and I have to say that it might even be better than the second’s. It’s very fast paced and the classic theme also shows up to increase the intensity. Most of the tracks really fit the scenes and while you won’t remember them for long, they are enjoyable while present.

In the end, how does this film stack up against the second one? Well, T2 has the edge with the main protagonist as Sarah is much better than John. T2 has less plot hax in the fight scenes and it was also a lot more epic as the stakes felt more real and theatrical. T3 was really epic as well, but in a way, you could tell that it was the sequel that was meant to be more comic bookey. Not a real word, but that’s a good way to describe it. While T2 was more of a thriller, T3 felt like a comic book film with super villains fighting the main lead. Even just looking at how the Terminators teleport onto the scene. T2 had the much cooler entrance as the Cyborgs just appear while T3 has a black bubble that appears first, which looked decently interesting, but it wasn’t quite as epic. T3 easily had the best action scenes of the trilogy and I dare say that it had better one liners for Arnold although most of his lines tend to be really cool. As such, it’s a close battle and both films are neck and neck, but I’ve got to give T3 the slight edge here. It’s hard to say whether T3 will always have the lead or not as one may age better than the other, but it’ll be interesting to see.

I’ve also got to give T3 props for the ending as it was fairly incredible and the kind of ending that you don’t see very often anymore. At least, not without a “Part II” or a direct sequel. While Salvation would end up rolling along, this was still an ending to a complete film and one that was fairly surprising. I was expecting more plot hax to be honest like the bomb plan actually working, but I loved every bit of the ending. It was all part of the plan and the heroes were just being led along. I’d love to see another ending like that sometimes, but it’s hard to handle correctly. We’ll just have to see if anymore films have it in them.

Overall, Terminator 3 was better than I ever could have anticipated. The fights were a lot of fun and the humor was handled well. It felt like a complete film and a very interesting one that used time travel to its fullest. Skynet never gives up and the quick pacing of the film keeps the audience guessing. The pacing isn’t quite as good as T2 as it slows down sometimes, but it’s typically fast enough. If John had been a better main character, the film would have been that much better. I definitely recommend this film to Terminator fans and you may be pleasantly surprised upon watching it. I wonder if the upcoming Terminator film will manage to have a stronger Terminator than the TX. Somehow, I doubt it, but that would be interesting to see.

Overall 7/10

Jurassic World Review

Posted on June 12, 2015 by dreager1

I recently saw all three Jurassic Park films so I was all set for this one. To an extent, the premise of the Jurassic Park franchise guarantees that the films will always get low scores thanks to the fact that it revolves around dinosaurs and will have a lot of animal violence. This film is no exception and it’s safe to say that it does lose to Jurassic Park III, but beats the first two films. If you’re a fan of the older films, you should definitely enjoy this one.

Claire has helped to put Jurassic Park back onto the map as the new amusement park, Jurassic World. While her boss doesn’t care to much about the financial part of the operations, that’s where she comes in. She had her team create a new dinosaur that was even bigger than the T Rex to increase the wow factor of the park, but ends up underestimating the creature. It escapes so she is forced to call in the resident dinosaur expert, Owen Grady!

That’s essentially the plot in a nutshell and while I will be talking about the film a lot, I’ll try to avoid spoilers. I managed to see this film yesterday which was fun since a day 0 viewing is always intense. The audience wasn’t quite as ready to roll as they were in Age of Ultron or the first Avengers, but it’s mostly due to the timeslot. They were still ready for action though and I had my comfortable recliner so I was ready for anything as well.

I was cracking up for the first 30-45 minutes. Roughly of course since this isn’t the kind of film where you will be glancing at your watch. It was probably partially intentional by the film, but I mostly didn’t laugh at its jokes, but at the scenes due to being unintentionally funny. One example of a joke where I was laughing (on the inside, I rarely laugh on the outside) was when the parents tease Zach after his heartwarming moment with his friend. It was all in good fun so the parents went a little higher on my coolness chart. They were essentially non factors here though as their screen time was minimal. The kids were fairly awful, but they did help the humor for the film.

Another example is when the two kids finally meet up with Claire. She tries to be nice and excited about seeing them only to get one of the more awkward receptions. Zach basically doesn’t want to talk to her at all and Gray’s mood swings of being somber and then super excited don’t wait for anyone. Claire can’t stay so she lets her assistant babysit them. You just gotta feel bad for Claire and I sympathized with her for the whole film. She doesn’t have a lot of free time so it makes sense that she hasn’t seen her nephews in 7 years. It’s regrettable, but these things happen and the kids shouldn’t hold it against her. She’s trying to be a good Aunt, but they never even gave her a chance. Gray may have, but he was disheartened when she couldn’t stay.

Let’s quickly talk about the two kids. Zach’s thing is that he believes that he’s really cool. He completely ignores his parents at times and ends up flirting with every single girl that he meets. (Even though he’s taken) Zach’s constantly giving Gray a hard time. “Sometimes we have to grow up!” Those may not have been his exact words, but he gets a lot of the most generic dialogue in the film and he’s also a shining bad example in many situations like when he decides to head to the forbidden zone. He felt like the kind of character that you would see in a commercial warning you not to hang out with people like that. He has his hero moments towards the end with Gray of course and he sees the light, but that would help him in the sequel, not here. He was just terrible.

No worries, Gray was awful as well. He’s way too excited and constantly blasts through rides to the dismay of the babysitter. At one point, he starts to whine about where all the dinosaurs are…even though we see that dozens of them are in front of him only about a minute later. There’s no way that he wouldn’t have been able to see them. It reminds me of a critique for the flowers film where someone saw a dead body before they ever could have seen it. Sort of the opposite of this event. Gray really had no consideration for anyone but himself during his visit to the park and while you can sympathize with him since Zach doesn’t want to hang out with him, Gray should have still done a better job of enjoying the park. He’s also pretty emotionless when pointing out a giant dinosaur that is around.

Time for a few quick nitpicks. After two characters jump into a lake, we see them walking a few minutes later and they are hardly wet. Their hair is matter and one of the T shirts is soggy, but the characters look way too dry considering the fact that they were completely underwater for a little while. Anyone who has ever jumped into a pool and then walked out will know that you don’t dry out that quickly. There’s also the ball ride where two characters explore the park. Even once an emergency announcement cuts off the presentation and tells everyone to leave…the ball is unaffected. The passenger still has complete control of it and that’s certainly not very safe. If passengers could control these things to go wherever they wanted, people would constantly be crashing into dinosaurs.

I did also chuckle at the fact that one guy’s whole job was making sure that all of the balls were safe during the crisis. He tells everyone that they’re all safe until he actually looks at the screen and realizes that one is gone. Whoops….that didn’t look too good for the guy. I liked his Dinosaur collection and admired the fact that he always talked a good game, but he was out of his league and he also tried flirting towards the end. Luckily, it wound up being the ultimate friend zone moment and I thought that it was handled rather well. We need more friend zone moments to be honest as they would make just about every film better.

The actual park is definitely somewhere that you would want to go and it looks kind of like Epcot. They have big water rides and a petting zoo section as well. You could say that it’s a fusion of your local zoo with one of the big amusement parks. It’s hard to believe that people would get bored of such a place even though the wow factor was apparently leaving. How I see it, Zoos have remained relevant for decades, a Dinosaur park would at least last 20 years without any big decline in viewership. That being said, Claire may have been overreacting as the numbers still seemed to be quite good when she was mentioning the statistics.

Let’s take this time to quickly talk about Owen and Claire. I haven’t really mentioned Owen up til now, but he did have some solid scenes. I did enjoy his interactions with the Raptors and I like how it was handled. He was their partner, not their boss although he thought of himself as an Alpha. Owen’s essentially your average action hero who has his good moments and his iffy ones. His flirting and dicey remarks keep him from being a good character, but he’s still decent for the most part. It’s easy to root for him at any rate and he certainly knows what he’s doing. He’s another guy who never bows to authority and talks when he feels like it. Imagine if everyone in real life were so bold right? I think the world would be topsy turvy before long.

Claire is a good main heroine for the film and she was actually one of my favorite characters. She didn’t want to have kids which is a noble goal and she has spent her career moving up in the ranks until she became one of the higher ups at the biggest amusement park in the world. That’s no small feat to say the least. Towards the end of the film, she has a bit of a generic ending where you can probably guess that she decides to back away from one part of her logic, but she was still a good character through and through. I thought that she did a decent job watching the kids. Sure, she left that to the assistant, but she gave them VIP passes and they got to have a blast. It’s not like she could take a day off when the big bosses were in town and awaiting her sales pitch after all. I also can’t really imagine her getting on some of the rides and having a blast like the kids. Actually, one of the rides was only built for 2 anyway.

The assistant was actually fairly likable and I originally thought that she was going to be one of the main characters. The actress looked like the main one from Twilight so I thought that I may have just been out of the loop there, but considering her minimal role, I’m going to assume that it was someone else. She definitely didn’t care to be there, but she’s probably seen and been on all of the rides many times over at this point. Still, her facade was good enough to fool the kids I’d say, but they were intent on giving her a tough time right from the start. Her character path goes down a dicey road and I felt bad for the whole time. It just wasn’t her day.

The higher up in charge of the park was decently charismatic. The film was going for a Tony Stark kind of feel for the guy and it worked to an extent. He started to look a little iffy towards the end though, but at least he cared about the dinosaurs a little. As always, there is a human antagonist to liven things up and he is similar to the guy from the first film. He talks tough to everyone and he has his own plans in mind. He gave the film another jolt of humor and I liked him as one of the big bads. This guy certainly wasn’t playing around.

Time to talk about the mystery dino. If you’re seen the trailers, then you know that there is a new Dinosaur hybrid attacking everyone. While she is a little smaller than I had expected, she still packs a punch and makes for a great threat. There are few dinos who can hope to match up to this fighter and she is also very smart. The fact that this dinosaur has been created in a lab gave the writers a little freedom to add some new techniques so this dinosaur doesn’t just need to rely on physical strength. It has two defensive skills, which greatly increase how deadly it can be in a fight. This dinosaur was definitely one of the highlights.

The classics like the T Rex and the Raptor are also present of course and I still love both dinosaurs. Once you see this film, you’ll be reminded why the T Rex is so awesome and how merciless the Raptors can be. It would have been fun to have seen the Spinosaurus enter the fray, but maybe next time. The Raptors get a fairly large role and are integral to the plot. They are still my favorite Dinosaurs out there and I don’t expect that to change anytime soon. They just look so happy and cuddly next to all of the others.

As you might expect, there is a big climactic fight towards the end of the film and it’s quite impressive. It was a fight that I actually called out as I walked into the theater and I was thrilled to see it play out. The fighters gave it their all and we see some nice teamwork as well. The fight isn’t that short either and gives the dinosaurs enough time to really show what they are made of. It’s easily the best fight scene that we’ve gotten in the Jurassic Park franchise and it’s hard to picture this one being topped.

There are some plot elements left around to get you ready for the inevitable sequel. Let’s just say that the next film could have dog sized super dinosaurs running around and it’ll make for a pretty epic clash. Alternately, it could have a plot similar to the original King Kong. Either way, the sequel should be fun and I wonder if the main characters would return or if it would be time for a new cast. I would like these characters to return, but I’m open to change so that we wouldn’t have to see the kids return.

Now, this review sounds decently positive so you may expect something like a 7? A 7 is what the film would have gotten if not for the main negative, but it is something that it almost literally impossible for the Jurassic Park franchise to get away from. That is…animal violence. It’s a dinosaur eat dinosaur world out there so it’s expected and I’m not surprised at the fact that dinosaurs are getting hurt all over the place. It simply makes sense even if it is regrettable. So, while I enjoyed the film as a whole, I’ve still got to cripple the final rating due to how many times an animal is injured and how prevalent this is in the film.

One scene is really just there so that the mini army can get some hype as a gun man casually shoots one of the Pterodactyls. That was just unnecessary and a lot of the other animal scenes aren’t much better. We see dinosaurs blown up, eaten, and effectively drowned. If you’re a dinosaur in this film, then you’re in a whole lot of trouble. A lot of the hurt also comes to my good ole Raptors, which is unfortunate, but probably a price of being one of the main characters. I could go on and on, but you get the drift and it occurs too often to be overlooked so you should prepare for a fairly low score on this one.

Still, it was more fun than the first three Jurassic Park films and certainly seemed to have more fun with itself as well. I’m glad that the Park finally got to open and the film was certainly able to make it look much more authentic than it could have with older effects. This is one of those times where the fact that it’s modern and has some good effects, really helps it. To an extent, I feel like new technology will always help films to have an edge over older ones. The older ones typically hold their own through the better writing, but when you have a good modern film against a good old one, the modern one certainly has that extra edge. Jurassic Park III still wins overall, but the tone and pacing of this film can’t be beat. World feels like a classic Summer Blockbuster.

Hmmm, have I touched on everything? I managed to stay pretty vague on all spoiler related areas and that also slightly limits what I can discuss in the review. The first half was really funny and made this the funniest film in the series and the ending also had the best action scene from all 4 so it was a nice balance. Any scene with the Raptors is typically a good scene as well. As for the soundtrack, you’ll certainly recognize the classic theme from the first film as well as the trailer theme, which plays during one of the scenes. The soundtrack may be a tad generic at points, but the main theme is still iconic and you probably won’t be forgetting it anytime soon. As long as you have one memorable scene, that’s more than most films have got.

While the animal violence is really the only big negative, there are some mild ones as well since this still wouldn’t be a perfect film if the violence was gone. (Although it would be a good-very good one) The kids naturally weren’t good characters, but the rest of the cast helped to nullify them. The writing isn’t great although this is mainly due to Owen and Zach’s characters as the rest are typically fine. There is one scene that will puzzle you a little bit as two security guards seem to have no idea that the Park is in trouble even though the alarms had already gone through a good half hour ago. It struck me as a little odd and random. That’s about it so the film was mostly solid. At around 2 hours, it was a good run time, which gave the film enough time to develop the characters and showcase the dinosaurs.

While Jurassic World is mainly a popcorn film with a lot of epic action and enjoyable moments, it can actually get pretty somber and sad at other moments. One of those moments is the Dinosaur graveyard, which is definitely tragic and one of the more emotional moments of the film. One moment that is supposed to be emotional is when we learn of a divorce, but it has no point in the film and its thrown out so randomly that you probably won’t feel any emotion other than a casual wince. Of course, if you like to have fun with films, then that may be a good thing as I was having fun grinning and wincing for some of the dialogue, but in a good way. On the whole, Jurassic World is still a fairly upbeat film that stays happy for most of its run time as it only gets sad once in a while.

The Pterodactyl attack scene will just get thrown in with the rest of the animal violence issue, but I wonder how some critics will take it. I read a critique of Jurassic Park III that Pterodactyls shouldn’t be strong enough to lift a grown man. Let’s just say that they lift quite a few people during the attack in this one. Is the science/films right or are the real life keyboard warriors correct on this one? I don’t know myself, but it seems perfectly feasible that Pterodactyle could lift humans up since animals are typically so tough. I’m no dinosaur expert though and am happy just being a casual moviegoer.

Overall, I’m definitely glad that I saw this one. If you liked the first three Jurassic Park films, then you should definitely like this one a lot. At the most, you may not like the fact that it’s much more of an action film than the first Jurassic Park, which was a survival film, but it’s still about dinosaurs and it’s still a good film so I believe that you would end up enjoying it. The animal violence is regrettable and it’s something that likely won’t leave the series until they bring in the mecha dinosaurs and I’m ready for that to enter the picture soon. Well, next stop should be good ole Terminator and it’ll be fun to see how that holds up.

Overall 3/10

Red Dawn (2012) Review

Posted on June 4, 2015 by dreager1

Looks like it’s time for round 2 for Red Dawn. The original got a reboot and now we can see if America could put up a better fight with the modern technology that we have at our disposal. Spoiler alert….America doesn’t fare all that well. While it’s a decent film for the most part, I can’t say that Red Dawn is really my style and the premise is completely unbelievable, although I’ll get into that in a second.

The main characters are enjoying the city life and having fun when the film starts off. Matt ends up losing his team the game, but he gave it his all and that’s what counts. His brother Jed is finally back from being abroad at war and it’s a good thing that he is. See, Korea and Russia have launched an attack against the US of A and we lost big time. The kids must now form a band called the Wolverines and strike back at the oppressors with their experience in warfare and combat. Can they really liberate the greatest country in the world?

Well, let’s go back to the premise since that’s the part that I can’t buy into. See, America is the greatest country in the world and no one can stop us. We have friendly ties with several countries like France and Great Britain, but even if they wouldn’t help us through such an attack, we’d be okay. Would they help us if we got invaded by Korea? I like to think so since it was an unprovoked attack and they would want to get in on the action and spoils of war before the enemies came after them.

Back to the America is for winners part. Apparently, all it takes is a well placed super EMP to take us out of the picture. Without our tech, America simply isn’t very tough and we were defeated in roughly a day. That’s….embarrassing to be honest. America loves its tech, but we also have the best defenses for it and they can’t be permanantely shut off so easily. Moreover, the enemies have closed circuit technology so that they can communicate…and we don’t? Booooooo. America is prepared for all eventualities and we wouldn’t have lost.

At most, they could maybe take a state or two, not 42. We would quickly win them back, turn our tech back, and then nuke the place. America cannot be defeated and we quickly proved this in World War II. Once America got involved, it was essentially Game Over for the enemies. So, this film really feels like propaganda from the enemy. I had this thought during the original one as well and it makes you wonder how this film got into theaters. Freedom of speech and films of course, but we don’t want the American people to get the wrong idea or for the enemies to take this as a challenge to attack. While not as politically controversial as that comedy film about Korea recently, this one’s still not quite as patriotic as you would hope.

There are still patriotic themes of course as the kids take out quite a few enemy soldiers and continue to blow up their bases. It shows that we will never give up and Americans will always have their freedom, but that should have been applied to the whole country, which is why we shouldn’t have lost. America fights hard and they fight to win. That’s how it’s always been and the only way to take us out is with Global Destruction. A mutual nuclear attack would do the trick and then it would be game over.

Naturally, this film is pretty dark given the serious themes that are at play the whole time. Characters drop off one after the other and the heroes are put in many tricky circumstances with people that they can’t always trust. It’s a film that will keep you interested from start to finish, but not one that is really fun to watch. It is fairly realistic as people go through these situations in other countries and in our past, but that’s part of the reason why it turns out to be a film that you won’t find very enjoyable.

There is a twist at the end to keep things real and all films need a twist of some sort nowadays. It’s expected and it adds more drama for the sequel. The event in question definitely comes suddenly and the film did a good job of not being obvious about it although the foreshadowing did start to get a little iffy as the heroes were having too much of a good time. You have to have nerves of steel at that point since everyone is dying so you learn to be able to get decently happy very quickly since you don’t know how long the peace will last. Still, they should have kept moving.

Jed’s a really good main character and the film does a good job of making him likable. The main gripe with him is just how much beer the guy drinks. It certainly won’t help him when he’s out in a firefight. Luckily, the guy has a lot of experience in the field and he really ends up helping the team a lot. Without him, it’s safe to say that the heroes may have been a little out of their league. Matt is not nearly as good. I really didn’t like his character from start to finish. His first appearance has him crumbling during the end of a football game and it seems like he barely cares. He just heads out to have fun with his girlfriend and really acting like one of those throwaway characters from any film or show. He’s the kind of guy that you just don’t like and the film tries to correct that later on, but it’s too little too late. He abandons the team and disobeys orders when he feels like it without any real remorse.

Most of the other characters are here to remind us that this is serious business and not for the faint of heart. The guy who lacked will power steals the food and betrays the heroes to the enemy. The surest way to tell who isn’t a real American is to find the guy who betrays you to the other country. That’s just sad and I’m pretty sure that the guy didn’t live through the experience. The other characters are typically all right or a little on the not cool side. Matt’s girlfriend certainly did not help him become likable and I thought that she was a bit much the whole time. Jed’s friend was much better as she was more reserved and dedicated to the cause.

The writing seemed to be decent as there was only one piece of unnecessary language that I noticed, but I saw this on TV so they helped the film out a little by covering this area. I don’t know how much or how little they cut, but that’s always nice of them. The film was over in a flash and felt way under 2 hours. That’s probably a good thing as short and sweet has actually been working out quite well lately. If you’re as good as Man of Steel or Avengers, then go for as long as possible. Otherwise, go for a shorter route.

Overall, This Red Dawn is better than the first version. The main character is easily the best person in the film and he puts the other guys to shame. It’s too bad that Matt couldn’t be quite as good. The film is pretty careful in terms of violence and while a lot of things happen to the heroes, it’s never as intense as in the original. That being said, the premise is still as unbelievable as ever. America simply doesn’t lose like that and this is the kind of film that shouldn’t be given a theater release without some kind of propaganda video before it to pump us up. At the very least, we should have had an epilogue about how we ultimately won the war and crushed everyone. It was neat to see the Marines and they actually looked impressive in this version, but they sure tried to be as unlikable as possible at times. If you like war films where the underdogs have to fight against large odds check this out. If you want a lighter film where America owns the world, check out The Avengers! Now that film shows us the determination and skill of The American people!

Overall 4/10

Still of the Night Review

Posted on June 4, 2015 by dreager1

Time for a modern mystery film! The poster is quite good as it takes the classic saying and throws in a knife for good measure. The only reason why it doesn’t work is because none of the characters look particularly intimidating in that scene. Hmmmm….ah well. I appreciate the effort. This film was not quite as good as the last two that I mentioned and it never ended up rising above itself. While I get what the film was aiming for with the flashbacks…it shouldn’t have bothered.

The main character is named Sam. He is a pretty good psychiatrist, but one of his patients is murdered one day. Sam takes this personally and begins to look into the matter. A mysterious lady who says that she had an affair with the guy appears. Her name is Brooke and she works with auctions. Sam forgets that one should always stay objective in a case and falls for her right away. That’s pretty embarrassing for the guy given that she had been messing around with a married man. Doesn’t Sam know a trap when he sees one? It becomes more and more evident that she may have destroyed the guy, but isn’t that too obvious? Sam better hope so because his life continues to be in more and more danger as the cops suspect that Sam’s days are numbered.

I almost chuckled when I googled this film to grab the names and saw that it said PG on the right. This film got a PG….really? You can tell that the Indiana Jones film was needed as the days before the PG-13 rating were certainly scary.The film isn’t that violent, but the Teddy Bear scene alone would make it PG-13 and that’s before the film becomes a horror thriller when the girl appears with the knife. Even the fact that there are flashbacks with a terrible character would make it PG-13 for all of the insanity that he is spewing.

As I’ve essentially established, I didn’t care for Sam. Going for someone who’s already been in a pretty bad affair is not the way to start a romance. Later on, we find out that she was calling it off, but it’s still a bit much and Sam didn’t know that for a while. Sam is also not the bravest action hero that I’ve seen recently. His life is at stake of course so he should be nervous, but going to the laundry room in the creepy basement at life is not the greatest of moves. Even if my life was not threatened, I wouldn’t be doing something like that.

Then, Sam also went to Central Park at night and was nearly destroyed by a random mugger. Again, that wasn’t his best move and the mugger wasn’t even that tough as he was easily defeated a few minutes later. I don’t see how the guy wouldn’t hear the heels getting close to him so he evidently lost in what must have been close to a fair fight. Sam just took too many risks in solving the mystery. I definitely couldn’t get behind him.

Naturally, I also didn’t care for Brooke. The beginning really destroyed her chances of being likable. Especially when you consider that she was hanging out with a guy who seemed to not exactly be a nice guy. She also didn’t help make herself less suspicious since Brooke was constantly acting a little shady and it’s easy to picture her destroying the guy. There are several times when she is following Sam and acting very suspicious so that you can think that she did it. But…did she do it? That’s the question!

No matter who the main villain was, Sam didn’t look too good at the end. He forgets to lock his car door and his reflexes and hearing are pretty bad. You’ll know where the scene is going as soon as there is some rustling in the backseat and it’s hard to even feel bad for Sam. Why would he not notice someone in his car? Definitely not a great move on his part and you’ll just be facepalming as it goes from bad to worse when he makes his last appearance. He basically just yells “Stop!” without making a move. I wonder if the villain will decide to stop…

The film certainly has a lot of misdirection as it tries to make everyone seem pretty imposing and scary so that Sam is unsure of who to trust. The scene with the laundry was a perfect example of this and it was also quite iffy. Someone was certainly messing around down there so were they doing it as a prank or were there ghosts in the machines? I prefer to think that it’s the latter, but you never can tell sometimes.

One reason why the film is not so good is naturally the romance between the two leads as it makes them look pretty bad. The dream also had something to do with it as the Teddy Bear getting injured was completely unnecessary. That was an example of the film just trying to be gritty for the lolz. That was pretty not cool and the film quickly turns into a horror for the climax as the heroes nearly don’t make it.

Still, that’s not really enough to break the film down to a 3 is it? No, the final piece in the puzzle is the flashback scenes with the guy who died. The film is trying to be deep and have a lot of layers by adding in this feature, but it was better off without it. We quickly learn that the guy was a pretty bad individual and almost all of his lines will just make you cringe. It’s easy to see how this guy was murdered and his speeches just bring down the overall quality of the film. His lines give us some hints as to who got him of course, but we could have found out that intel another way.

Did I mention that the cops also don’t look too good? The Detective starts to get onto the trail of the villains so he is quickly taken out of the picture. I suppose that he never had any proper combat training as he was taken down so quickly that it ended up being off screen. Yeah….that’s not cool. He was around a lot, but he never really got anything done.

Overall, Still of the Night is a film that took a lot of wide turns and didn’t succeed. While it started out as your average mystery film, the ending decided to play out like a horror film as the villain moved in with the knife all Jason Voorhees style and started to cut the cast down to size. It was handled decently although the protagonists IQs started to drop as the scenes went on. The film was simply riddled with too many problems along the way like the romance, the flashbacks, and the Dream. The Dream was totally unnecessary and we had to see it more than once. Not cool! There’s also something about the actual film that will keep it from catching your attention. Perhaps it is the characters as they definitely do not grab you. If you’re looking for a good thriller, horror, or mystery film, you can do better. This one is better left at Blockbuster this time.

Overall 3/10

North by Northwest Review

Posted on June 4, 2015 by dreager1

Looks like it’s time to check out one of the classics by Hitchcock. This film plays out like a James Bond adventure in many ways, which is good and bad. The film is certainly nice and long so there is enough time to fit in quite a few plot points, but the movie ends up being one of Alfred’s weaker ones. It just can’t hold up to some of his other classics, but gives it a good effort.

Roger was just an ordinary joe for a while. He had a good job and he was satisfied with how his life was going. One day, he is kidnapped by a group who claims that he is actually Mr. Kaplan. Roger is angered by these accusations, but he drinks a beer and is nearly tricked into driving off a cliff. He regains his wits in time to survive, but how will he prove his innocence? The police are irritated by his driving while drinking trick and then Roger is framed for murder. With everyone after him, it’s going to be tough for Roger to escape. This will take all of his extreme skills.

As I mentioned, the film is a little like James Bond. One of the ways in which it is similar is how long the film is. The plot is constantly changing as the film goes on and new situations present themselves. It’s safe to say that you won’t see the ending coming from the early parts of the film because of how many transitions are present. Length can be a tricky thing, but this film handles it rather well even if I do prefer the first half of the film to the second.

See, at first, Roger is just your average joe. He is framed so he tries to clear his name after he escapes the country. We get to see him jump on trains and outrun the government. The second half has him become more of a special agent as he tries to deal with the villains. The film turned into a bit of a spy movie as we had special agents and villain organizations. Still pretty good, but a pretty big shift.

In an unfortunate similarity to James Bond, Roger begins to like one of the antagonists and they have several prolonged scenes of trying to start a romance. It goes on for quite a while and these scenes are what brings the film down. Even when Roger is trying to enact a plan or get revenge on the enemies, he takes the time to flirt and ignore the fact that Eve wants him to just leave her alone. How many times do you have to be betrayed to get the message right?

The “heroes” are also more than a little shady. I’m talking about the council who is aware of Roger’s plight. Not only do they do nothing to help the guy, but they actively try to destroy him at one point as they don’t want to risk Eve’s safety so they allow Roger to walk into a trap with one of the airplanes. (Or was it a helicopter?) It’s hard to forget that Eve was in on it so the romance should have been over and done with it. None of that “It wasn’t personal Roger” talk could get out of that one.

Roger’s mom is a pretty funny character to have around. She doesn’t take the situation seriously at all and puts Roger in many tough plights. As far as she is concerned, Roger is guilty and just making up stories to make himself look better. She had to miss a show because of Roger and I like to think that she is holding it against him for the whole movie and that’s why she’s giving him such a hard time. Missing the opera is certainly not fun.

Roger was a likable character for a while, but then he went James Bond and it was all over. The guy stopped being the epic protagonist that he used to be, but he still had his moments. The auction plan was brilliant as he did a good job in summoning the police. He started to act with more confidence in the second half of the movie as he finally began to gather his bearings and accept his role. It’s easy to root for the guy even if I don’t care for his character.

Eve is in a tough spot right from the start. She is forced to make quite a few tough decisions. It’s hard to say whether she makes the right ones or not, but then she shouldn’t have continued to mess around with Roger. There was no reason for it and endangering the mission is not cool if she was still planning to take it seriously. The main villain is fairly dull. He talks a good game…but he really doesn’t have much of a role. He’s simply the villain and there’s not a whole lot to say about him. He actually still liked Eve the whole time until he found out about the treachery as she was his girlfriend before she ever defected. He simply underestimated the power of morality and money.

As with most spy type films, there is a bunch of plot hax to be found here. Right from the start actually as Roger is held a gun point while in a very high class restaurant. The place is bustling with people and nobody notices this. Roger isn’t exactly subtle about the situation and the gunmen don’t really try to quiet him down. You’d think that the place had been deserted and the no witnesses part comes back to haunt Roger. Roger also walks right into a government establishment and allegedly take out a powerful politician. Where were the guards and how did nobody notice that Roger did not actually commit the act? These are the kinds of questions that you will have to ask yourself as you watch the film. Plot hax like this doesn’t really hurt the film, but it will make you shake your head a little.

As expected of such an old film. The writing is very good and the characters all sound respectable. Even the villain is polite in a passive aggressive way as he threatens Roger. I was surprised to see that the soundtrack was also very quick and ready to go. You don’t expect such a colorful soundtrack in such an old movie, but we had some nice tunes. That helped the film really be complete.

Overall, This is another compelling installment by Hitchcock. The main thing that holds it back is the relationship between Eve and Roger as it doesn’t make sense and is unnecessary. Once Eve sold him out to the villains, that should have been the end of that. We hardly needed more flirting after that. The film is quite long and the film uses this effectively. You’re in for a good ride in this film despite its faults. I recommend this film if you’re really into the James Bond films and you would probably like it even more than I did. However, if you’ve seen some of Hitchcock’s other thrillers like Dial M for Murder, you may find it to be a bit lacking. This film was extremely close to getting a positive rating after all, but I don’t do .5s so it had to be held back.

Overall 5/10

Beyond The Poseidon Adventure Review

Posted on May 26, 2015 by dreager1

I saw the original Poseidon Adventure not too long ago. It played out as you would have expected from a disaster film. One by one, the characters all went down until the ending finally came for the lucky survivors. It was decently good, but dragged o n a bit. The sequel has a very similar plot that also goes for around 2 hours so it’s safe to say that I expected it to drag on a little as well. I can also see why it got bad reviews since it is like you are seeing the same film twice. That being said, it was a decent film.

After the Poseidon adventure, a boat happens to come across it. The Captain is none other than Mike Turner. Along with Wilbur and Celeste, he decides to go into the boat and try to grab as much treasure and riches as possible. After all, the boat was carrying a lot of rich people aboard so there is a lot of money to be found. The dangers are also present as it could go under at any point and trap the main characters. This is a risk that Mike is willing to take as he is in a very tricky financial situation at the moment. A few doctors also arrive and decide to join Mike. Will the group be able to get rich and find some survivors along the way as well? Time to find out!

The premise is definitely a little out there as it is hard to see someone actually jumping into a boat that is already mostly underwater. Also, it really looked like the boat was not going to stay up based on the first film. I have to wonder if there were any fans of the first film who decided to really take a look at how it was presented in the second film. It’s just hard to believe that there are still so many rooms that are not filled by water yet. In the first film, the heroes were constantly trapped and forced to take other routes. Is this really the same Poseidon? Many areas just seem to be completely different, but I was watching as a casual viewer and can’t say for sure whether or not anything had changed. I can just imagine that there must be a lot of plot holes to be found.

A lot of people actually ended up surviving as well. It felt like Mike and the others managed to find a new survivor in every room that they came across. It’s cool that more people got to make it out of the ship alive, but it also meant that more fatalities would be present in the film. One character actually says “Finish her” as a reference to the old (and new) Mortal Kombat games. That’s the perfect way to also mention that there are villains this time. A group of felons want to take away some chemical weapons as well as the traditional ones from the ship. They’ll shoot anyone who gets in their way.

That’s another part that can be a little hard to buy at times. While it is really easy for the villains to find the weapons, I don’t have a problem with that. The ending is more dicey as the villains leave the boat and then find a way to easily get to the weapons from outside and start to bring them all up. I don’t think that it was so easy to reach the weapons and bringing them all outside would certainly take some time. As you can see, I just found many parts of this film to be a little unbelievable, but I suppose that it helps the nostalgia value. In modern films, every part of the script and background is typically looked at by so many people that it’s hard to spot any big errors or leaps in logic anymore. For example, an old cartoon may have some scenes where a character’s costume loses its colors, but you probably wouldn’t see that in a modern one. I kind of miss those errors as they help the film age well 50 years from now as you can witness the errors and smile.

This film mainly suffers from an area that hurt the first film. It tends to drag on after a while. Most of the film is just the crew trying to escape the ship so they go deeper and deeper into the boat before finally starting to get out. You could spend a good 10 minutes or more watching the heroes try to go up a single ladder. What makes this even less exciting is the fact that you already saw them do this in the last film. You’re almost literally watching them do the exact same things again. We have the underwater ladder push that happened in the first film as well and most of the ladder scenes are similar as well. The director should have definitely tried to speed things along a bit here by having the heroes just climb up faster or not showing us every little detail.

Finally, I also think that the film overestimates how much effort it takes to climb a ladder. It’s incredibly easy to do so, but all of the characters act as if they’re lifting weights while going up. The only person who should have had a tough time was the person with a dislocated arm or the blind man, but even then it should have been a little easier. You only need your arms for balance while on the ladder and even then, one arm is good enough. Your legs are doing all of the work. I don’t see what the big deal was about. Mike also looked bad as the lady fell and took him with her. He should have easily been able to keep them both on the ladder since he was prepared for her to possibly fall down. It was definitely not his best moment.

As for the cast, we had a pretty colorful one. The film was trying to have a similar dynamic between the main character and rival as the last one so there is a guy here who is constantly arguing with Mike. Again, the film is just trying to copy the first one as with the plot and scenes instead of coming up with something different. The Texas drunk was one of the more likable characters, but most of the others were just all right or not that good. I was never a big fan of Wilbur and Mike was too interested in the money to really be all that great. At least he did care about saving everyone though. The blind guy wasn’t bad and neither was his wife, but they also didn’t add anything to the film. The doctors showed their true colors and the lady with the high heels got a decent action scene, but she really didn’t think her actions through very carefully. Celeste was just very odd throughout the film as she was always rambling on about something. Still, the cast could have been worse as none of the characters were actually terrible or very bad. Most of them just weren’t that good either.

Overall, I still wouldn’t call this a bad film at all. It was just too busy trying to be a complete copy of the first adventure that it didn’t try anything new. I can see why it got bad reviews as it may as well have been a reboot of the first title. It dragged on at times and the characters weren’t great. There were some action scenes as well like gun fights and someone grabbed an axe as well. (The axe scene definitely came out of nowhere) The dialogue can be good at times, but also not very good in other moments so the film didn’t stand out there. As you can see, the film wasn’t exactly great in any area, but for the most part, it wasn’t bad in any either. It’s a slightly under average film, but it still holds up just well enough to keep it from getting a negative rating. It’s still impressive that one of the characters managed to keep hold of his wine bottle for almost the whole film. He definitely lasted! I’d almost say that I recommend this film more if you haven’t seen the first one. If you liked the first one a lot then it’s still a good bet to say that you’ll like this one. If you weren’t crazy about the first title, then you should definitely skip this one as it is not quite as good in just about every way. It’s still a decent adventure though and it’ll be interesting to see how is fares against the reboot.

Overall 5/10

Jurassic Park III Review

Posted on May 26, 2015 by dreager1

The Dinosaurs are back and my revisit to the original trilogy is now complete. Just in time for the upcoming Jurassic World right? So far, each film has gotten better for me as the series went on so that could be a good thing for the newest film. It certainly looks more upbeat than the last three, but there’s clearly still going to be animal violence. Also, Raptors work for no one! Back on topic, let’s look at what Jurassic Park III did right.

Alan has vowed that he would never go back to Jurassic Park. The island is too deadly and he doesn’t even like dinosaurs anymore. The experience changed him and now he’s back to working with fossils. That’s when a rich couple appear and offer Alan a large sum of money and a contribution if he would be their guide on a trip to Jurassic Park. They wouldn’t actually go onto the island of course, but just a flight above it through the rich guy’s connections. Alan reluctantly agrees because he wants the money (Deja Vu from the first film eh?) but soon realizes that he has been tricked. These people are not rich and they are actually looking for their son. He was lost in the island weeks ago and they aim to get him off of the island in one piece. Their plane is quickly taken down though so the heroes will have to try and survive in this habitat. Is the kid still alive (This is a summer blockbuster right?) and can the heroes find a way to leave? The stakes have never been this high or the situation so personal.

This film is definitely much different from the second film. While the second title was the most violent and had the cast dying off left and right, this one is more of a survival mission. Naturally, you should expect that most of the expendables won’t be making it far, but there aren’t nearly as many deaths and the dinosaurs aren’t overpowered by humans this time. That was certainly not very fun to see and dinosaurs should always have the upper hand. Isn’t that the whole point on why you’re watching as film with dinosaurs? Now, there still is some animal violence so it’s not all gone. The T Rex vs Spinosaurus fight is very epic, but also a little brutal as both creatures go for neck blows so that they can win the fight in a single blow. This was a point of outrage for many people and I have to agree that the T Rex should have won. He came out swinging and bit the Spinosaurus’s neck first. I don’t think that there is any way that the Spinosaurus should have gotten out of that. Once a T Rex bites your neck, it’s game over. There’s not a single creature that can escape. Of course, the Spino did escape and quickly beat the T Rex, but that was definitely not cool. I simply can’t believe that something like this could happen.

As for the characters, Alan is a good lead. The friend zone twist between him and the heroine from the first film was definitely unexpected, but appreciated. After such a dangerous situation in Jurassic Park, I could see why he would want to be by his lonesome and just read books all day. He has now seen some of the scariest sights on Earth and he just wants to enjoy some calm years for now. Of course, he is unable to resist the allure of money, which traps him once again. While he may not care for dinosaurs all that much anymore, he is still knowledgeable about them and the group wouldn’t have lasted long without him. The rich couple has had some issues over the years and they don’t always get along, but their search for their missing son starts to bring them back together. They did a good job of conning Alan and they did come pretty well prepared with their gunmen and bull horns. They certainly aren’t well versed in the ways of the dinosaur, but they mean well and were decently good characters for the most part. The one that I didn’t really care for was Alan’s apprentice. The student, Billy, really crossed the line when he decided to steal an egg. There is a living dinosaur in that egg so he was essentially kidnapping one of them for money. Definitely not an okay move and that’s where I definitely didn’t like the character. His personality was decent and he was definitely not afraid of taking risks, but it was still a bad call.

The missing son who essentially becomes Tarzan was better than he could have been, but I still find it hard to believe that he lasted 5 weeks in Jurassic Park. There’s really no way that this could have happened and his hideout was decently secure, but not enough so that it could protect him from dinosaurs. He’d be T Rex chow in no time. The film tried to show that he was super experienced, but it’s hard to swallow. I also don’t get how his partner died on the parachute. Did he really just stay there until he died of hunger or was he attacked and the dinosaurs just left his bones so neatly? Either way, the death really did not make any sense in the way that it happened.

The film’s sense of timing is not that good at times. After a character just seemingly died, the heroes get ready to leave the island and board a raft. That’s when the film’s happy theme plays and the heroes look at the dinosaurs. They quickly note that the dinosaurs are amazing and start to see how great the island is. You’ll wince and quickly realize how inconsiderate the heroes can be. They just had a man down and yet they can enjoy the view now? That was just horribly misplaced.

The Raptors were fun to see as always. They’re still the best dinosaurs of all time and by far. This film gives them a lot of credit for their intelligence and we get to see the Raptors make plans and really terrorize the humans. In the end, the Raptors spare the main characters as the heroes would have certainly been finished otherwise. The Raptors definitely deserve the praise and there is a reason why they have gotten a good role in all four films. They are simply that good. The Spinosaurus is also a fun dinosaur to watch. His snout is definitely iconic and he does look like a powerful dinosaur. While I would take the T Rex in a fight, the Spino is certainly a cool dinosaur and all of his scenes were a lot of fun. When the heroes first mention that he is bigger than the T Rex, you knew that we were going to be in for quite the fight.

I can’t say much for the soundtrack as it just reuses the main theme from the other two films and it’s hard to think of many other pieces of music. I suppose that it was decent, but the classic theme really wasn’t necessary at all in this title. The scene could have just been kept out. Most of the movie is really just about the heroes trying to escape from the dinosaurs. I like a good chase scene although the island is still not my ideal setting. The film never really drags on, which is good.

Overall, Jurassic Park III was certainly the best of the Jurassic Park films. It worked on some of the issues from the first two films like the animal violence and the normal violence in general. There are still some moments that fall into these holes like watching a T Rex snack on another animal, but at least they are few and far between. You can still see that the film did improve on these areas. It’s still not my kind of film and there are enough scenes to keep me from giving it a positive rating. If you liked the first two films, then you should like this one. I wouldn’t recommend it myself and if you don’t like animal violence then you should skip it as well. I will definitely be checking out the new one though so it’ll be interesting to see how good that one is. At least the Raptors are large and in charge once again, which is always good.

Overall 4/10

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