Tag Archives: Thriller

Airport (1975) Review

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Now it’s time to venture into the second Airport film. It’s actually a good film across the board but the problem with it is similar to the problems that Airplane 2 had. It’s just weaker than the original one in pretty much every way. In a vacuum the movie is perfectly acceptable and you won’t have any problems with it but at the same time you feel like it could do so much more with the concept. Also, the premise on the poster is better than the whole movie. “The Crew is dead” would have made for a really intense plot. Like only the stewardess is left to try and survive. Then of course you would need more scenes on the ground to balance this.

So this movie starts by introducing us to a lot of characters getting ready to board their plane. You have some travelling nuns, a sick child who badly needs a rib/kidney transplant, a stewardess who wants to get into a serious relationship, etc. Everyone is stressed and ready to get going but the plane ends up colliding with another one so now the plane is going to go down unless they can find a way to land this craft without the pilot. It’s going to take a lot of teamwork with the ground crew but this is the moment to surpass all of their limits!

I know what you’re thinking here. The film is called “Airport” so what about the airport scenes? Well unfortunately there aren’t a whole lot of those this time. The plane takes off fairly early in the film and the vast majority of the scenes take place up there. You do have scenes in the subplot with the grounds crew trying to direct the stewardess but very few scenes in the airport itself. I think that’s the biggest shame here because you need that for proper setup. When you jump right into the plane then you lose a whole lot.

For example, I would make the case that virtually every plot in the first film is more developed than this one. The cast of characters is a lot stronger and even the bomb threat was a lot more engaging than the collision plot here. The main problem is there are only so many ways you can drag out the tension on a small plane like this. After a while everyone is just panicking in the same ways and it doesn’t feel like a whole lot of progress is being made. That’s really the roughest part here. The movie quickly runs out of material.

Nancy is a good main character. She does a good job controlling the plane and doing her best to get it back up during the emergency. You have to give her a lot of credit there and yet the scenes do go on a bit too long. There’s a lot of yelling and reading out what’s on the panels a lot. The film is going for maximum realism here and I’m sure anyone familiar with the inner workings of the plane will get an extra kick out of that but as a viewer you can’t help but wish they could speed things up a little bit. This plays out more like an airplane simulator at times than a few movie and the first film had a much better balance on that.

It’s still not enough to make this movie go into the red of course but keeps it from a higher score. Same with the writing in general. You may crack a smile at some moments but it’s not nearly as funny as the original one. Some of the characters really just see like jerks the whole time although at least there is less cheating going on. For example one character keeps panicking and taking shots at all of the staff when he should be more focused on letting everyone concentrate. I wouldn’t say it’s unrealistic because there are absolutely people like that but he gets annoying fast.

People just panic so much when the plane is in the air and you’d figure they would know there is nothing that can be done and would just calm down. After a while that’s the only sensible thing to do. Then on the ground I think they could have given better instructions to Nancy on how to fly the plane out. It’s not like driving it is easy but the instructions to turn didn’t seem that bad if they didn’t take forever to get each instruction out.

At the end of the day the pacing here was definitely shot from the jump. The pilots weren’t the most likable ones like the young one who was constantly flirting. At least the older one stayed respectable for the most part but ultimately he does get written out of most of the film. The movie will definitely remind you why flying is always a risk and to try and get some sleep so you won’t notice what is going on. One guy did that for the whole film and it ended up being a great idea since he had no stress.

Fortunately there aren’t any particularly bad scenes that will have you groaning though. The reason why I can still call this a good film is because it’s not hard to watch. It may drag on at some points to be sure but you can still get through those moments. The effects on the plane were good too. Some of the subplots introduced don’t even really get resolved which is interesting in a subversive way. The film ends rather quickly and for the most part you can assume how all of the plots ended up. Some in positive ways and some in negative but at the end of he day it didn’t really need an aftermath. Life just went on.

Overall, Airport 1975 is a film that doesn’t feel like it serves much purpose in the grand scheme of things. You aren’t likely to remember it after a while and for sure it will be overshadowed by the original as well as the fun parody Airplane. Still, I’d be able to recommend this film easily enough. You just have to have a high tolerance for listening to the characters talk about the details of how to fly the plane for a very, very long time and it’s all played very seriously. The movie doesn’t really take much time for humor and I think it could have used more jokes. Like I said earlier though, this film’s sort of like an airplane simulator insead.

Overall 6/10

The Hand that Rocks The Cradle Review

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This review is based on the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

There are some films where you wonder how the plot can work without the main characters looking awful and then you realize that they just do look awful and that’s how the film happens. This should be over in a few minutes if the main characters played it smart tbh but that’s how it goes I guess. I’d say this film’s more of a skip, you don’t really need to check it out.

The movie starts off with Claire and her husband Michael getting ready for her next baby to be born. Unfortunately the doctor at the clinic turns out to be a full criminal and takes advantage of Claire so they sue him and the guy quickly deletes himself. His wife tries to stay strong but fails and when she faints her baby is lost. The wife swears revenge on the main characters and changes her alias to Peyton. Peyton quickly heads to the house and is immediately hired by Claire to be the nanny to help out around the house. Now Peyton can begin work on splitting the family apart and ultimately murdering Claire. How will she pull this off though?

So it turns out that letting a random stranger into your house without any real background checks can be a real danger eh? Peyton starts misplacing items, destroying reports, and basically making Claire look really bad since it’s like she’s losing her mind. Peyton makes sure to threaten the gardener, manipulate Claire’s older daughter against her, and even directly handle the baby far more often than Claire so he stops liking her. Yes it’s all very easy…because the characters make it easy. Seriously none of this should be working out at all.

First off we have Peyton hanging out with the baby more than Claire. Claire should be with the baby as often as possible. Sure, she’s busy but why is Peyton basically left all day to give the baby walks, put her to bed, etc? That should still all be Claire’s duty and not because it’s a job but because you want to be with your baby right? Claire does have asthma and can get sickly at times but not all the time so this always felt a little forced. When you’ve just had a kid you’re usually going to be staying around the house a lot. I know they hired a nanny for a reason but yeah this was not a good idea.

Put it this way, even if Peyton wasn’t evil, it’s still possible that the kid and baby would end up bonding with the nanny over the parents if they spent so much more time with her. It just makes sense. It also would help if the parents actually listened a bit more. When Peyton frames the gardener, they don’t even try to listen to their daughter about how it was all fixed. Yeah the evidence was pretty bad so I wouldn’t expect them to be too reasonable but at least listen to her side for a bit right?

For the most part I would say that Peyton’s not even that subtle about all of this. Wearing her necklace as if to boast about how she’s the mother now, her seduction attempt on the husband, etc. At least to the guy’s credit he never cracks or comes close to cracking on that front but these are all massive red flags. Peyton’s initial appearance was a huge red flag since she wasn’t from any agency and happened to be in the neighborhood? Cmon now it may be a beautiful day in the neighborhood but you don’t just happen to be wandering around one.

Then even once they find out Peyton is the villain and have to take her down they handle is horribly. The husband lets himself get thrown down a flight of stairs and the main heroine’s stab attempt didn’t go very well. This is why you need to at least know some basic self defense. Or if you’re going to run, then run right away. Waiting at the house to pack everything up is always going to take way too long when you have a villain on the loose. You feel bad for Claire’s best friend quite a lot since she was at least making some headway but got way too sloppy towards the end. The classic reverse psychology trick worked on her.

The whole deception to make Claire jealous by revealing that her husband was hanging out with the friend was also really contrived. Look, surprise parties can be fun but never if it means lying to your wife about it. What matters more, keeping the secret or keeping her trust? It should be a really obvious decision or at least I would hope that it is. That’s where you just tell her that there is a surprise party coming up and to keep it on the downlow or something like that.

He has to know how it would look since the friend was an old ex of his. In general you don’t want your husband or wife to hang out with an ex in general, let alone in secret. Now it all comes down to trust so if you’re comfortable with your partner still seeing an ex then hey, power to you. Me personally? Nahhhhhhh, the ex needs to leave the picture completely. It’s way too dangerous to keep an ex around so there’s no hanging out as friends after that. It’s tough terms but that’s just how it has to be in order to keep the relationship strong.

Then you have Solomon who has a rather tragic role for most of this. He’s disabled so he already has a tough time explaining himself or talking so when he’s framed there isn’t a whole lot that he can do about it. He’s just trying to help but he’s in a really tough position the whole time. Especially since you see this coming right from the start of the movie, you can only watch and wait for the inevitable.

Aside from the story being rather weak and forced, the movie just isn’t generally high quality. Using the doctor for shock value at the start of the move is a whole scene that could have been completely skipped. Make up some other reason for revenge, but starting off the movie with Claire being attacked like that was pretty bad. The film also had some obvious fanservice in feeding the baby and while that shows how insane Peyton is in her role, you definitely don’t need to linger on those moments. Mix in the sub par writing and you don’t have a winning movie here.

Overall, This is a movie that only works when all of the characters make the worst decisions as if this was a horror movie. The story only starts at all because they happened to pick Peyton out of all the available candidates without bothering to look into her records at all. Who wouldn’t do their due diligence when you have a baby and a kid in the house right? Then you have the husband randomly keeping a secret when he shouldn’t have, a “accident” murdering the friend and not immediately grabbing a shotgun, the important report completely vanishing, etc. At least Claire picks up on the list of odd coincidences later on but sure took her time in doing so. Yeah this is one you should definitely skip.

Overall 2/10

Police Story 2 Review

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It’s time to return to the world of Police Story. The first one definitely surpassed all of my expectations. Not to say that I ever thought it would be bad but it was just so excellent that I couldn’t have guessed it would be this good. It was definitely really impressive and the sequel while still great isn’t quite able to match how brilliant the first one was. From the fighting to the comedy, it just isn’t ready to match that.

The movie starts off right away with Ka-Kui being demoted since while he may have saved the country, there was a lot of destruction and the villain has powerful friends. So he’s out of jail already and intends to ruin Ka-Kui’s life. He does this by harassing the guy and threatening his girlfriend. He’s trying to goad Ka-Kui into attacking him and if successful then that will really put him in a jam. Can he really resist these attacks for long though?

The best scene in the movie happens fairly early which is always a risk. Do you have the peak right away to get the audience invested or leave it til the end to make a lasting impression? I doubt it’s something a film maker would think about for too long because in theory every scene is made to be great but for me the restaurant fight was definitely the best part. John Ko and friends finally push him too far so he just beats them all up and it’s super satisfying. You do not mess with this guy.

You’d think that the villains would have learned their lesson after the first film but they are just really confident that no matter what he won’t end their lives. In a way I suppose they are right since Ka-Kui is a hero but that doesn’t mean he has no boiling point. If they took things just a little bit farther I wouldn’t have been surprised if he took John down for the count. Either way it’s great because sometimes you do need to just beat up the villains.

Surprisingly John Ko and his boss basically get written out of the film after this. New villains show up to give Ka-Kui a run for his money while these guys vanish. There is a plot reason for this and it also works as a twist of sorts because the first time you learn this knowledge you just assume the villains were faking so when the twist actually happens it’s a bit surprising. It’s a solid subversion so I enjoyed it well enough. The main problem is that the other villains don’t feel like they are as much of a threat.

The climax still has Ka-Kui go into a very difficult fight to be sure but it never feels insurmountable. I guess the guy’s catchphrase of saying general nonsense while tossing the fire pepper onion wrappers is very memorable though. When Ka-Kui finally turns the tables on that guy it’s definitely satisfying. There are also a lot of explosives so the climax is definitely intense visually. You can’t beat the mall fight from the first film but it’s still a lot of fun.

In general the film has a lot of action, there are several other scenes with a lot of battles as well. The film also keeps the general happy tone that it has from the first with a lot of comedic moments. Ka-Kui still has a lot of trouble with his girlfriend May due to a lot of misunderstandings. While in the first film I felt like 90% of those were directly his fault, at least in this one it can be more 50/50 like when the cops pulled him off the plane. That was one example where there wasn’t really anything he could do. It’s probably not much of a consolation to May who still has to deal with the fallout but hey, it could certainly have been worse is all.

May also ends up going through a lot here as she is captured and actually injured quite a bit. The sequel does have a few moments that are actually rather dark like when May and Ka-Kui get tortured by the villains. So you also empathize with her even more for being upset with Ka-Kui since now she’s in constant danger. She always bounces back really quickly and tries to be cheerful but you wonder how long it can last.

Ka-Kui is taking steps to try and make the relationship be a bit smoother like going on vacation with her but it’s just never as easy as all that. I’ll give him credit for making the attempt though and in general I would say he looks pretty good in the movie. For the most part he takes the right steps and again I give him a lot of credit during the restaurant moment. He wasn’t going to let the villains get away with anything and just charged in there!

While John Ko doesn’t stick around for the whole film, I will give him credit as a persistent villain. The guy can’t even fight super well but he’s always around to make life hard for Ka-Kui and is really resourceful. He appears everywhere and takes his job as the boss’ right hand man very seriously. He’s the biggest thorn in Ka-Kui’s side despite not being a fighter which is impressive in itself. He’s certainly crazy but works well within the role.

In general the supporting cast are solid too. I liked both Ka-Kui’s direct boss and his boss’ supervisor. They’re both always playing an intricate game of appearances where they keep trying to pass the buck off. This can make for a lot of fun comedic moments all throughout. The film wouldn’t be the same if either half of the genre was missing. This is a great comedic action film. You need the high level martial arts but you also need the fun humor. Mi the two together and I don’t see how this series can lose. It’s of course easier said than done to make a film funny and action packed but this team clearly has the right formula.

Overall, Police Story 2 takes just about all of the strengths from the first film and keeps the series moving at a high level. It doesn’t really make any mistakes but it simply can’t keep up with the first movie. It’s close though and that’s the important thing though. You could watch both films back to back and it works really seamlessly. I’m interested in seeing how it goes from here. Can it go 3 for 3 or is this the last hurrah? Only time will tell but the track record is in this one’s favor.

Overall 8/10

Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning Part One Review

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Mission Impossible is one of those series that always delvers high quality pictures and this one is no exception. I’ve been looking forward to Dead Reckoning for quite a while now and it’s really everything you could hope for it to be. The dialogue is very strong, there are a bunch of great characters, and the pacing is on point. Something is always going on here and there is a lot of replay value despite the length. This movie is definitely the complete package.

The film starts off with a submarine testing out some new tech but unfortunately things don’t go very well for it. We then cut to Ethan Hunt receiving a new mission, however this time he gets it with a lot of subtle threats as well. This is apparently the biggest mission of his career. He needs to recover two keys that open something that isn’t any of his business and the whole world is at stake. Ethan’s not really satisfied with that answer and decides to delve into this a bit further but this is at the cost of the whole world being after him. Every special intelligence agency in the world is on his tail now. He may be the most powerful Agent in the world but can even Ethan beat the combined forces of the planet?

Fortunately Ethan isn’t completely alone. His two steadfast allies Luther and Benji are around as always. Luther’s still great at hacking and managing everything from the control room. Meanwhile Benji always ends up getting a side mission of his own and he does well in them. These two are fun characters here as always. They may feel out of their depth in a lot of ways but it is a fact that Ethan would have been in big trouble without them.

Ethan here is a very solid main character who makes the right calls at the right times. I appreciate that he still has a strong sense of justice here and is always ready to save a friend even if it means defying orders. Ultimately that’s what you need to be able to do because if you just follow orders then you will inevitably become the villain. It’s not the first time Ethan’s had to go against the government either although I will say that it’s probably the quickest. He has to go rogue almost immediately here.

It’s another thing I appreciate about this film. The action starts up very quickly. We go to the desert and have an opening fight, after that we have an infiltration by Ethan, then a bunch of chase scenes and they just keep on going. Ethan certainly gets a lot of running done here that’ for sure but he gets to show off his intelligence and resourcefulness as well. Ethan is a fighter but the reason he is the best is because he always finds a way to win. His quick thinking in posing as a lawyer for example got him out of one jam.

The guy pulls off plans and disguises pretty much back to back and does it seamlessly. Also while the film’s a pretty serious one with an intense plot it does still make some for some good humor. There are a lot of quick lines that are really funny and all of the jokes are well thought out. You won’t be groaning at any point or anything like that here. The movie cycles through all of the genres rather effortlessly.

So it goes without saying that Ethan is the best character here. Then as the main heroine we have Grace who is a thief. A very good one at that as she manages to even pick Ethan’s pocket more than once. She causes a lot of damage and destruction throughout the movie because of how persistent she is. After a point you’ll probably just find yourself wishing Ethan would capture her already with how many times she betrays the group but ultimately that’s not how he operates. He wants to do his best to get her on his side as opposed to using force.

At times Grace really seems to act against basic survival instincts with how she handles this but ultimately she’s still a good character. She is a nice character for Ethan to have some banter with and she can actually fight which is always a plus. Automatically that helps her character out and when the chips were down she did get up and deliver so she has my respect.

Then there’s Ilsa who is another solid character. She doesn’t do quite as much here but we get to see how she’s still a really good shot and of course her close combat abilities are nothing to sneeze at. Definitely not someone you want to underestimate. Good ole Kittridge returns here as well although I can’t say that he looks too impressive. A bit of a shady fellow and while he may want what’s right for the country, his views aren’t always the best ones. I was definitely on Ethan’s side the whole time.

Alanna is one of the big villains/wild card characters here and she was a fun character to shake things up. She has a lot of connections/resources so whenever there is danger you can bet that she’s watching it unfold somewhere. I think the way she was dealt with near the end was a bit too easy so I couldn’t really buy into it but she definitely did a lot in this title.

Then there’s the main villain but it seems like the trailers avoided showing much of this guy so I won’t name him. Then the main villain has a boss that is mentioned constantly but we don’t know much about it. I’m not expecting the boss to really do anything other than get terminated in part two but the human villain has a lot to do here. He is able to fight really well and has a ton of confidence. He’s smirking in just about every scene that he is in and the guy keeps up with Ethan the whole time. This guy had to play his cards perfectly and that’s exactly what he did. Definitely not the kind of character that you can easily forget and I dare say that he may be the best out of all the Mission Impossible villains. It’s just hard to pull one over the guy.

Having a good villain like that is definitely huge for the movie. There are other villains here like one of his main minions but ultimately they’re more for the action while he is doing the thinking. They would not be able to keep up in that arena. Now if I had any small issue with the film it is that I would have liked to have seen some more factions. After all, think about it for a moment. The entire world is after Ethan so we should be seeing the CIA, M16, Japanese special forces, etc. Really the only main faction getting in on the action here are the Americans and for the most part the others are mentioned but don’t do as much.

I think in a lot of ways this should have been as chaotic as John Wick 3. You should have had people shooting from every direction and causing a lot of trouble. Of course this film isn’t a full action like that but I think you could still pull this off really naturally. I really liked the main cop who was after Ethan the whole time and think having more characters like that would have been great.

The soundtrack is really good as you would expect. The Mission Impossible theme plays quite a few times and it is definitely a catchy tune. There are a number of solid action themes within the movie as well so it never misses a beat. Of course the graphics are also really good as you would expect. The part looked very futuristic and every special effect was really clear. The series is second to none when it comes to showing off a bunch of great locations and making them all fit in.

There may be less actual fight scenes compared to some of the other Mission Impossible films but in the end you will still get a satisfying amount of action. Ethan takes a lot of fighters down and the supporting characters get to fight as well. There are also a lot of chase scenes as you would expect so you’re also getting action in that way as well. This is a very smart film so you can expect a lot of good planning too. At most you could make the case that maybe the main villain should have already won but otherwise I didn’t have any issues with the power levels or the plans going on. It all operated on a high level and had logic that made sense within the film.

It’s always a big thing when a film never gets boring and this one was really engaging the whole time through. There’s a lot more to say about the movie in the spoilers realm but I’ll let you see that for yourself. Sometimes I end up including a warning and then doing a spoiler section when there’s something I really need to dive into but in this case I would say there isn’t. Main thing to know is just that I was on Ethan’s side the whole time. The villains/antagonists and all of their goals are interesting to be sure but still not ones that I can get behind.

Overall, Mission Impossible succeeds in a big way once again. There’s a whole lot happening in this movie and it’s all balanced really well. I would say another strength to the film is how much was hidden. The trailers really didn’t touch on much of anything at all which meant there was a lot more to be surprised about. It can be a risky strategy nowadays since people probably want to see a lot to know if they’re going to theaters or not, but I would say the risk definitely paid off big time. I’m eagerly awaiting part 2 now to see if it can top part 1 and of course to see how this whole saga comes to a close. It’s going to be a long year!

Overall 8/10

Ghoulies Review

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The Ghoulies is one of those films that really doesn’t seem super sure on exactly what it wants to do. One one hand it’s usually a very disturbing horror type film with a lot of crazy visuals and goes fairly high up on the violence chart. On the other hand you have many scenes with comedy music playing and so you’re wondering just how seriously you’re supposed to take all of this. It’s certainly a tricky call but in the end all I can say is that it wasn’t able to pull this off.

The movie starts with a cult trying to sacrifice a baby but the baby’s mother is able to put a talisman around him for protection just in time. She’s destroyed but the baby is allowed to leave. Years later Jonathan has grown up to be a rather ordinary person and he ended up inheriting a rather spooky house. That’s his queue to invite all his friends over while he and Rebecca figure they will have the time of their lives. It all goes sideways rather quickly though as Jonathan wants to do a summoning and then monsters start to murder everyone. Is there any way out of here?

In a way the film is trying to emulate the success of the Gremlins but it is failing spectacularly. I wasn’t a particularly big fan of the Gremlins myself but you could tell that it tried more. The humor landed a lot more naturally and the main cast was better. A big issue here is that Jonathan isn’t likable at all even before he gets controlled. He’s really insistent on all of the characters performing the summoning to the point where he starts to get really upset about the whole thing. You could say that the atmosphere was already starting to control him but I think the guy just wasn’t very well balanced from the start.

As the film goes on he keeps on making more and more mistakes which endanger everyone around him. There’s no point where we get to see him just being a nice guy and that’s something that really hurts him. It’s not like the other characters were much better though. The teens were busy getting drunk and messing around the whole time. None of them thought that this whole party was a bad idea and none of them seemed to have any restraint. They’d all be considered as bad influences out in the world and you wouldn’t want to be in this friend group.

Whenever I see all the memes about how the characters really put themselves into these dangerous situations in horror films like wanting to use a spirit board or driving into a seedy hotel it does make you wince. This one’s the same thing with the whole summoning. Even if you thought it was all a joke, why even go through with it? What’s the upside? Are you so bored that doing this is the best form of entertainment you can think of? Because if it’s the latter then that’s really bad. You have the whole place to yourself and all your friends so entertainment should really be just about unlimited.

As mentioned the film could also be surprisingly violent at times. Characters are often wounded in the face/neck and the effects all seem rather practical so you feel the intensity. I was even surprised the film was PG-13 because of how graphic it could get. Maybe it’s just the way the bites went since it looked painful but technically wasn’t as explicit as it could have been. That’s certainly a possibility at least but eh they definitely should have toned that down somewhat.

The movie also started on a low note with the cult trying to sacrifice the baby. At least it didn’t actually happen unlike another movie but the fact that the mom ended up getting sacrificed and nobody did anything about it was rough. Of course it’s a cult so likely everyone there was basically evil but it’s still annoying regardless. It’s also one of those things where the villains have so many powers and the heroes can’t do anything about it so it isn’t even compelling. With a stronger hero cast perhaps there’s something you could do but that wasn’t the case here.

The story also ends early on as it’s just the characters messing around and getting folded by the enemies everywhere. The main villain Malcolm is one of the most generic evil masterminds you’ll ever see. I guess the guy just wants destruction but there’s nothing about him that stands out. If he wasn’t so powerful then he would be doomed. He’s not too smart with how roundabout his plan was and he fumbles the ball constantly. With his abilities he should never lose so that means he has to make odd choices in order to give the heroes a shot. Again, that’s not a high value villain.

If I’d give the film credit for anything, I’ll say that the creature designs weren’t half bad. They’re not amazing or anything but the small green monsters were a little intimidating. In particular there is one scene where they jump out of one of those small wooden jesters that was intense. Still not enough to outweigh all the negatives of the film but hey it’s a start right? Now just take away the fanservice, the awful romance, the terrible characters, the bad plot, etc and then you can start a real conversation about this one.

Overall, Ghoulies is a film I absolutely recommend skipping. There is nothing much of value to be found here and it’s really just an excuse to see monsters eating everyone. The plot was probably just written around that concept instead of being planned out first. It’s just one of those films with the characters messing around with satanic elements and quickly finding out that this was a bad idea. Should have been obvious but that’s how it goes. At least we did get a half hearted ending cliffhanger which the film still can’t decide if it’s trying to be funny or not. I figure at this point the enemies are on their side so it’s more of a happy ending than anything but at the same time could you ever really trust them? I’d be very hard pressed to trust any creature that just tried to murder me.

Overall 1/10

S.W.A.T. Review

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SWAT is one of those franchises that I have heard about on many occasions but I still wouldn’t say that I knew a whole lot about the actual details of it. In the end I suppose it doesn’t really matter though as in a lot of ways the film is a fairly standard adventure. You’re not really going to see a lot of things that surprise you here and I would say the biggest knock against the film could be in how it’s satisfied being a normal thriller. That said, I always defend a film for being just a regular action film as long as the execution is good and that was on point here.

The movie starts with showing us the Swat team in action. They show up and clean out the bad guys rather quickly although in the process they do end up shooting one of the hostages. While the civilian lived, the issue is that this still broke protocol and so Brian is fired while Jim is demoted to being the guy who checks in the guns. Jim’s not happy but figures he’ll just stick around until he can move up again. That opportunity comes soon as Hondo is brought in to help the Swat’s poor public image. He is putting together a team of his own and decides that he wants Jim on it. This is Jim’s chance to finally make a comeback, but can he still hang with the rest of these professionals? Only time will tell!

First off I have to give the film credit for the soundtrack. There are quite a few lyrical songs that show up in this film which sound really good. The fast paced rock and high intensity of the action really mix well together here. The movie may lay it on a bit thick with the songs as they just show up out of nowhere in max volume but I had a lot of fun with it. It certainly makes the film stand out more than it would otherwise.

The action scenes here are also pretty solid as you would expect. Then the film also did subvert my expectations in one way that was fun. So there’s this big villain who gets his big intro scene with a lot of hype as you’d expect. He destroys someone, laughs about it and starts to monologue about how awesome he is. The guy then takes his car out for a joy ride…and gets pulled over by a cop and ultimately arrested. This…is the big bad. No, it’s not a big master plan like the Joker and he actually just made a mistake.

I think the film actually could have capitalized on this more because it’s a fun turn of events. Sometimes mistakes happen and this one just so happened to nearly end the villain’s plans in a single instant. It was really good fun there and it takes the guy a whole long time to get back in action. There is a double edged sword to this which I’ll get into in a minute, but yeah that was fun. I just kept waiting for some super big plot twist to happen and it didn’t arrive.

Don’t get me wrong, there are twists here but nothing too crazy and you can probably see one coming a mile away. Now the double edged sword of this is that without a main villain, the first half of the film is very low key. I even want to say the first 70% but that might be going too far. Mainly we get to see Jim train with the Swat team and a lot of setup as they locate each of the members for the team one by one. You get to see the team learning to get along, the training montages, etc. It plays out like an origin story to a large extent but that means there isn’t a lot of time for the high stakes battles.

It feels like we’re closing in on the end by the time this arrives. It delivers though and I still enjoyed the whole getting the team together part of the movie. It’s a classic way to set things up and it was satisfying. I would have just altered events slightly to setup the climax earlier and maybe thrown in an extra fight scene or two near the middle to really shake things up. Then this would really be a perfect setup.

Jim makes for a pretty solid main character here. He’s someone who does the right thing and he doesn’t rat out his partner even when someone tries to tempt him into doing so. You have to give the guy props for that and he also didn’t let his skills get rusty while he was on the bench. His partner Brian is annoying throughout the movie though. The guy really didn’t have a great plan and then didn’t take the consequences well. I don’t mind him running in there to try and save the hostage, that actually made sense but ultimately you still need to be able to take responsibility for that. If you don’t then you’re just being petty at that point and doubling down.

Meanwhile Hondo is definitely a solid character. He definitely doesn’t take too much disrespect from the Swat head who keeps trying to make new enemies. Ultimately Hondo trusts his team and puts them in the best position to win. You can’t really ask for much more than that out of any leader. He shows up in crunch time and gets the job done. The rest of the team also tend to be solid. One guy is perhaps a little too cocky and always ready to pick fights but it helps throw some tension into the mix. Then you have the tough heroine who is definitely ready to beat up anyone in her way.

The film does throw in some classic romance really just to tick off a box. There isn’t much point to the romance and it doesn’t change the film at all. It’s the definition of the Hollywood romance that doesn’t work as these people barely even know each other and it’s all so sudden. Not enough to really hurt the film mind you, but you’ll probably be rolling your eyes at that. If you want to go the romance route that should probably be saved for the second or third film so that enough time has passed for this to make sense.

Overall, Swat’s a pretty good film. I had a good time with it and can also see why the franchise had enough potential to keep on going. There’s a whole lot you can do in terms of different adventures with this crew. There will always be villains to beat up and since the Swat is the best of the best, I like the idea of their always arriving at the end once the villains have been around for a while. They should be treated as the climax of an adventure they weren’t apart of each time because that’s really their role. They show up when local law enforcement is having a difficult time. Even the weakest member on Swat should be an excellent, top of the line fighter. We’ll see if the next film can keep up the momentum but I had a good time here.

Overall 7/10

Hunter Killer Review

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This review is of the TV-14 version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a tense adventure beneath the waves in this title. While you may think it will be difficult to pull off an intense film while the characters are all trapped in a submarine, this one does a pretty good job of it. The writing is solid and the characters are good so in the end that makes for a very complete adventure.

The movie kicks off with one of the US submarines vanishing so the government is a bit concerned. They’re in the middle of a cold war with Russia and tensions are high so a submarine “vanishing” isn’t something that they can just let slide. They send in Captain Joe to handle this and the guy basically spent his whole career in a submarine so he is ready for action. Joe is a free thinker and doesn’t always play things by the books though so that does cause some concern for his crewmates. Will this guy really be able to seal the deal and get them a proper victory over the Russians? Only time will tell.

Even aside from recent news about submarines I’ve never wanted to go under the sea. I can easily get claustrophobic in that kind of setting and to me the helplessness of the situation is the worst part. If something goes wrong then there is absolutely no escape. At least in a plane you can hope for a safe landing or jump out with a parachute but under the ocean that’s it. So with the ship that went down you already know the crew is basically doomed but at the same time you still do have to go with the rescue operation and find out.

One of the moral dilemmas Joe is faced with here is his crew’s not too eager to help out any Russians even if they’re drowning. Fortunately Joe has no such hesitations and points out that they have to save anyone who needs help. I’m definitely glad he made the right call here and never wavered. At the end of the day you have to do what’s right there and it’s not like anyone else would be in a position to help out. He even asks for help from their captain, Andropov when trying to navigate through the territories.

Things could have gone badly in a lot of ways but of course that could have happened regardless. I would say Joe consistently made the right decisions and was rewarded for doing so quite regularly. He also handled himself with a lot of authority the whole time so that nobody could capitalize on any moment of weakness. That’s really the trick to making the hard calls and getting everyone through the situation. The crew could get annoying the whole time with how much they tried to double think him but ultimately he never let them get the last word in and quickly got them out of the control room.

The other captain, Andropov ultimately did good as well. He was able to see past the sides in the war and do the right thing to help out. He was cautious about it being a trap initially but after a point that just wouldn’t make sense so it was time to get on board. You definitely need to enjoy the tense atmosphere within the submarine to enjoy the film since that’s really the bulk of the adventure but it’s very well done so you should have no problems. The pacing always feels fast with a lot going on.

Then you have the subplot with Beaman’s team having to infiltrate Russia and secure the president from people trying to take over the country from within. This part’s more like a Jason Bourne type adventure with a lot of action and gunfire everywhere. It definitely works out pretty well and helps to give the film some action along with the tension. It also does a good job of showing just how important a sniper is. One guy manages to take out a bunch of enemies including tanks and cars by himself. If you have a good vantage point and powerful ammo then there are very few limits to how you can contribute in a battle.

I’d like to see more movies really show off the sniper and what he can do with fire bomb bullets and things like that. It was a really impressive showing. I also thought the leader of the group looked great in going back for him instead of descending with the sub. At the end of the day you should never leave someone behind. Doing that would just be a massive mistake on all accounts. The villains probably should have just murdered the Russian president though. I don’t see a whole lot of benefit to keeping him alive with a situation like this could happen.

I feel like usually the US is the one having to deal with traitors and such in these thrillers so that was a nice change of pace. This also worked well in giving a war atmosphere without actually starting the battles in the main plot. I probably wouldn’t have stood there and trusted the former crew to protect me like Joe did in the climax but hey it ended up working out. I can’t say that I really had any problems with the film, it was a strong ride from start to finish. At best you can probably say that there just isn’t enough memorable moments to this film. It’s likely that you will just end up forgetting about it at some point but it’s still a title I could easily recommend.

Overall, Hunter Killer is a pretty intense name for this movie and it ultimately lives up to the hype. You have solid action, characters, and pacing all throughout. The submarine backdrop is probably not one that you want to use too often but it works for getting the job done. If you want to see just how stressful it can be to make decisions while your life is in the balance then this is a good title to check out.

Overall 7/10

Blacula Review

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Oof, this film was pretty bad. I’m just going to say it upfront, this one was not a winner by any stretch of the imagination. Initially it started off with a little potential as the main character seems like a reasonable guy. Perhaps he would be an anti-hero of sorts who only feeds on the blood of the wicked. A lot of potential right there but nah it just becomes another B version of the Dracula film which was already quite bad. There isn’t much to redeem about this film to be honest.

The movie starts off with a guy going to Dracula and asking him to stop slavery basically. Dracula laughs and basically confirms that he loves slavery and this whole thing was a trap. The guy tries to fight him off but promptly gets bitten. His wife dies and the guy is left in the tomb. Many years later, he wakes up and is now the vampire known as Blacula!! Surely he will now be going around trying to help people out, destroy any other vampires in existence and keep onto his righteous cause right? Wrong!! He hungers and so he begins to drain everyone as he goes through life. He then finds a girl who looks like his late wife and decides that he wants her. Can the others stop him?

As you can probably guess one of my big issues here is just how Blacula is suddenly super evil. As a normal person he was a good guy trying to do the right thing. Why did he have to suddenly fall to such depths now? It doesn’t make sense and critically assassinates his character. There’s also no reason for this. You could absolutely have him fall in love with this lady and try to win her over without all the threats and bumping everyone off. The main villain here could have just been Dracula who had kept on living throughout all of these years. Boom you’d have a great story right there.

Unfortunately this film could not think things through and just went with this sad approach instead. The movie plays out exactly as you would expect with Blacula picking everyone off. One of the worst instances of this is when he is running through the streets and bumps into a cab. So the driver gets out and she naturally gives him a talking too…and he decides to murder her? Not to mention that he’s hunting around a black neighborhood. You can see the irony here right?? He was fighting to stop slavery, give equal rights to all…and now he’s basically murdering a bunch of the black community.

It undermines his character even more. Now if you said that Dracula injected his personality into Blacula then that could have been something. Honestly it would still have been a very baffling decision but at least it would make sense but the film never even hints at that. At best you can say we do see how he is losing his mind and getting more feral but that’s just standard vampire stuff. There’s still nothing in there that would cause his personality to do a complete 180. This is definitely a very lackluster film I have to say.

Of course it has the usual vampire movie issues as well like all the blood draining and everything. No matter how many times I see it I still find the whole thing a bit revolting. You should do vampire films without the draining. Think about it and you’ll see that I’m right. Have the vampires scare people in a different way and then we’re good. Like seeing Blacula in a dark alley with the cape is already scary so if you know he’s going to murder you then you don’t need the draining.

Okay enough about Blacula. Tina is the main heroine here and she doesn’t look great but you also have to cut her some slack because some of that is the subtle vampire mind control. Also it’s tough because she doesn’t really have an out here. Technically no matter where she goes or what she does there is no way to escape this guy. It’s a rather cruel environment to be in without a way out. Then you have Thomas who mainly leads the search in trying to stop this guy. He’s a reasonable main guy doing his best to help out but there’s nothing about him that particularly stands out. Much like this movie in general…..

Still, he’s good and does get results. The movie’s ending isn’t particularly satisfying but the movie did end which is what I was waiting for. At last the journey was over. There are some silver linings here like the characters but on the whole this film just makes no sense. They seriously need to remake it but with Blacula as an anti-hero. Or if you want him to be a true villain, have Dracula put him into stasis and when he wakes up have him appear in an area where his community is being terrorized or something. So now he wants revenge on the world. That kind of gimmick would go a long way. Just about anything instead of what we got to be honest.

The dark atmosphere worked well and the film had a lot of tension. So capitalize on all of that and maybe, just maybe you will have given the film a fighting chance to do something good. I wouldn’t hold my breath since it would still be a vampire film and would likely have the same issues though. At the end of the day there are very few good vampire films and I don’t see that really changing in the future.

Overall, Blacula is definitely a pretty bad film. In the end the movie did not even use the premise at all. Change Blacula to Dracula and nothing about the film changes. That’s probably the worst part in all of this because then it makes the whole thing pointless. You’ll be shaking your head the whole time and wondering why the movie even exists. If you want to watch a vampire film then watch The Batman vs Dracula instead. Hardly my favorite Batman film out there but it still blows this one away with ease.

Overall 1/10

Kickboxer Review

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This review is of the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time to look at a film that by all accounts should have been really good but instead it fumbled throughout the experience until it crashed in the end. It’s a shame because the template for this kind of film isn’t all that hard to follow. Just deliver with some good fight scenes and you will have a fun revenge film that works all around. The title got sequels so I guess enough people liked it, but it was a big thumbs down for me.

The movie starts with Kurt’s brother Eric deciding to take on the Thailand top kickboxing fighter. Eric has always been the world champion but one guy claimed that Thailand had the real strongest. So Eric shows up and unfortunately he is badly beaten by Tong to the point where he is crippled for life. Kurt’s upset since the guy was cheating but there is nothing to be done since this scene is basically an underground arena. Kurt will have to train with the local elder Xian to get strong enough to avenge his brother but Tong has more tricks up his sleeve. Who will come out on top!?

There’s a lot of problems with this very contrived setup. The first one is that Eric basically just heads off to Thailand to have a fight that is borderline unsanctioned at the drop of a hat. Really, all it takes is one guy mentioning that there is someone stronger and Eric leaves? I find this a bit hard to believe because Eric is so cocky that he would probably insist on the challenger coming to his turf. That’s the way that these things are supposed to work after all. Rocky did it right where after you lose then you go to the enemy turf.

Additionally as the world champion you’d expect Eric to have press agents and a lot of media attention. Surely they would have flagged if something was wrong with the Thailand site right? They would have had their own security and everything. Instead Eric and Kurt were basically by themselves. You could say that they left in absolute secrecy for the fight but I have my doubts on that and the stadium was all set up for the fight so some reporters would have heard about it. The entirely plot just doesn’t hold up when you think about it.

It makes the beatdown frustrating with Tong openly cheating throughout the entire match. The refs don’t care since they were bought off as apparently Tong basically owns the place. Even the cops don’t dare go against him and again…there’s no way the fight would be held in such a corrupt place. It really doesn’t make any sense and will just have you shaking your head the whole time. Then even with the cheating how did Eric go down so fast? I would have liked to have seen him get some hits in.

Of course you know that he’s going to lose the fight but you could still make it a little interesting. The more lopsided the match becomes, the less likely it is that Kurt will be able to convincingly avenge him. I’d expect better from the world champion. As a character Eric was good though. I did like his confidence and ultimately he was ready to support Kurt later on. He was initially reluctant about letting Kurt get into the ring but that made sense since he knew first hand how brutal things could get.

Then the film is goes for extra edge later on as Tong goes after the heroine. The film could have stopped with a threat or something but no it goes all the way with this plot so the damage was already done. Kurt only finds out about this near the very end of the film and of course it’s a moment used to ignite his rage but this is always the lowest hanging fruit you can use. A film should never use this plot because there’s just no reason for it and after a while all the edge only serves to hurt the film rather than help it.

Additionally the film sacrifices any semblance of realism by the end. So Kurt can’t go all out for a while due to some circumstances so Tong is beating up on him for quite a while. Keep in mind that just a few blows were enough to cripple Eric completely. He lands dozens upon dozens of hits on Kurt and those hits are amped up since he rolled his fist inside of glass chunks. So Kurt is really feeling every punch and the guy just keeps landing these blows.

By the time Kurt is able to fight back he should not even be able to stand. I think the movie was going for some Rocky vibes here as the lead would often get beat up over and over again before landing a counter attack but the movies were never this exaggerated. Then the resulting fight is so one sided that it makes 0 sense again. It’s not like Tong lost all of his skills so why he is just a punching bag now?

It’s like this was a super basic revenge story written by someone who just knew the genre but not how to get there. So pick the easy methods to get Kurt really mad, have him get beat up a while and then beat up the other guy. There is no restraint or reason to any of this and so it really doesn’t work. Of course it’s nice to see the villain get what’s coming to him but it sure does take a super long time to get there. Too long if you ask me.

At least one nice thing I can say about the film is that the soundtrack is good. There are a lot of really solid themes playing here and they fit the action scenes. So the movie put in some work there. The choreography can also be good when it’s finally time for a real fight. It’s just a shame that there isn’t much time for that since usually one of the 2 fighters can’t fight back. Either because he’s completely outmatched or because there is a hostage around. Having more actual fights would have been nice.

Kurt’s a good main character and I did appreciate that he did his best to avenge Eric. I would have had him start off with a little more skill just so that it would be more believable in the end though. It was referenced that he knew how to fight a little and was just sloppy but having him land a hit on Tong during his first outburst or something would have gone a long way.

Xian’s not nearly as good. He’s an old master and yet he did nothing to protect his niece when she was being threatened for years? He says he was worried they’d take it out on her but so then you just make sure to finish off all of the villains and keep her close. Not doing anything is of no help. Mylee is also nice enough but she definitely gets the short end of the stick since she is basically used as rage bait here. She didn’t deserve any of this.

Winston is a guy who helps out and gets Kurt on the right track. He’s had a rough past but is doing his best to get past it. The guy delivers when it counts even if it does take a while for the payoff. Finally there’s Tong who makes for a pretty bad villain. The guy isn’t even brave enough to fight his own battles and resorts to asking his goons for help in the end. If he at least had the dignity to fight his own battles and didn’t go after Mylee then he could have been a reasonable villain but in the end it was not to be.

Overall, Kickboxer is a film I would say to avoid. It just gets way too dark during this adventure ad takes things a step too far. If it was satisfied with being a solid action film then that could have really gone over well for the film but instead it even added some animal violence like when the dog was attacked. I’m telling you, anything the film could do to try and give the main character more fuel for rage, it would do it. Truly a shame.

Overall 1/10

Bat*21

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This review is based on the TV-14 edited version of the film. All thoughts below should be addressed as such as a review of the unedited version would be more negative

It’s time for a film based on the dramatic story of the Bat’21. It makes for a pretty solid thriller and since I knew nothing about the real life events, it was all still very real and exciting for me. Definitely another reminder of why travelling across enemy lines for any reason is always dangerous and you never know what will happen. Being stranded has to be one of the worst nightmares of things that can happen to you.

The movie starts with Gene getting shot down over Vietnam and the rest of the men die. He manages to contact “Birddog” the call sign for one of the guys manning a helicopter. Gene hoped for a quick extraction but it won’t be so easy here since the whole place is basically a fire field and there are enemies all over the place. He will need to try and survive a whole night here but that won’t be easy. Additionally what if that one night turns into two? Gene is going to have to start thinking about planning his own way out of here or his life may be over a whole lot sooner than he expected.

The movie properly gets across how scary it is to be alone in the forest at night. Even when nobody is around you think you hear things. The natural wildlife certainly isn’t pleasant and it’s also incredibly dark out there. A single wrong move like stepping on a branch will absolutely be heard for miles. Additionally since you’re in another country you can’t just run out of there. You could be running for months and never make it anywhere close to America. In fact that’s basically a guarantee since you can’t just run out of there.

It’s also a tough numbers game because of course you could just blow up most of the area and evacuate him but the government’s not trying to burn down all of the innocents in the area too. Home court advantage isn’t with the U.S. and so a lot of the enemies are taking shelter with families in the tents. The longer Gene stays in Vietnam, the more he begins to doubt the mission as he sees just how brutal things get there.

One of the main themes here is how the war doesn’t look nearly as bad on paper but once you’re out on the field it can be a lot tougher to stomach. His life certainly wouldn’t be the same after this, that’s for sure. He also has to make some tough calls while on the ground on if he will fight or just succumb to what happens next. He doesn’t always handle the situation perfectly but it’s hard to ask for much more since he’s not accustomed to this.

Meanwhile Birddog has to be the MVP here. He takes a lot of great risks to help Gene out even when it means going against orders. It’s a tough situation but even so he knows that some of the orders don’t make sense, like sacrificing Gene and so he makes a move. When the going gets tough, the best characters will make a move and follow their instincts even when other characters tell them not to do something.

It’s why Birddog’s such a great guy. He never loses his humanity during all of this and you know that he’s someone you can count on. He intends to keep his word all the way to the end. I also liked his friend who led the air battalion to support extracting Gene. Things don’t go very well for them but the important part was that they tried. It would have been nice if someone could have helped them out though.

The movie is certainly very serious so you will see your share of sad moments here. Behind enemy lines there isn’t really such a thing as a 100% victory. There are going to be losses that pop up and the cycle of violence is another thing to consider. Each side keeps retaliating more and more which keeps increasing the body count and it’s always super difficult to be the one to stop it. However you do need someone to step up or ultimately everyone will be dead.

I definitely get why the airplanes ultimately took out the village though. While Gene was right that not everyone was a combatant, after a point they were being used to keep arming the others and providing a place to rest. It’s a no win situation and ultimately everyone loses so you have to choose who you protect and who to sacrifice. Never an easy call for sure.

Overall, Bat’21 is a pretty solid film. There is constant tension and danger in the air throughout the movie. You really see just how much the soldiers had to deal with on a daily basis during the war and of course it wouldn’t get any easier when they would get back home to a lot of disapproval. At the end of the day the soldiers didn’t ask to be stationed here but once they arrived they had to do their best to stay alive. Gene got to see first hand how rough this was and of course in the end the moral is that war is never a fun thing. It’s why you have to avoid it as long as you can but ultimately be prepared to fight when it comes to you.