Tag Archives: Thriller

Straight Time Review

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This review is of the edited 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

When you’ve got a film about a ex-convict attempting to turn his life around, you have to wonder if he will make it through to the end or if he’ll go more Ocean’s Eleven style where the message he learned was just not to get caught next time. Well, no matter how you slice it, Max wasn’t quite ready for the journey that was to follow here. The movie ends up fumbling relatively early on and is never able to get up again.

The movie starts with Max being released from prison. He’s been in and out of prison a whole lot over the years but maybe this was his last time. His parole officer is Earl and he reminds Max that there are a whole lot of strict rules and regulations that Max will be expected to follow. Max decides to break those rules immediately as he picks his own place to sleep and basically tests Earl’s patience.

Later on Max is finally able to get a job and starts complying but also immediately asks out a girl named Jenny. She agrees to go out with this man she has only known for 5 minutes and things are looking good except that Max goes back to hang out with his friend Willy who does a lot of drugs. This naturally ends up putting Max back in jail temporarily through a mix-up. Now Max is wondering if he will ever truly be free or if maybe he should just go back to his life of crime.

That’s the dilemma he finds himself in, but Max really doesn’t do himself any favors. For starters, he should have been following the rules of his parole pretty seriously. Messing up on day 1 is pretty bad. Then you have the whole trying to get back into the romance game so quickly. At least give yourself time to try and get used to the swing of things right? He jokes about dining and dashing immediately which isn’t a good idea.

Max gradually deteriorates throughout the film and I can definitely say that I wasn’t a fan of the guy. It didn’t seem to be like he really made an honest effort to try and turn over a new leaf. He definitely shouldn’t have allowed his friend to do drugs in his room and then he was very quick to just decide to start robbing places again. The instant you turn to a life of crime you’ve lost any sympathy points you might have had.

You’re rooting for the cops to capture Max as soon as possible. The guy’s just unhinged and is a danger to society. Based on how often he has been captured though, I don’t expect that he will be on the loose for long. As for Earl, he is the kind of guy who definitely doesn’t like to be shown any disrespect. Max starts defying him early on which leads to a very quick breakdown in their relationship. As a result he goes pretty tough on Max. He seems like he would have probably been a decent parole officer otherwise.

As for Jenny, my main issue with her is that she just seems way too at east with the whole situation. She meets up with Max and within minutes she is prepared to go out with him. Then she gradually learns that he’s a criminal and has a very minimal reaction to it. He starts getting rather rough about this as he yells that he can do what he wants and that he won’t change who he is. Jenny just accepts this as well.

It’s nice that she is so dedicated but you never really understand why she is. It’s like she just woke up one day and decided that Max must be a good guy. At least she’s a positive influence compared to his other friends Willy and Jerry. Willy and his household just seemed really messed up when Max got invited over. The whole place just didn’t have a good feeling and part of the tension is likely because of the drugs. I would have cut out the whole visiting scene entirely.

Meanwhile Jerry is probably the smartest character here in terms of when they’re actually going through with the heist but at the same time, he had a pretty good job and was making good money so deciding to go back on a life of crime wasn’t very smart. He didn’t put himself in a good position at all. If your partner isn’t leaving the crime scene in time then it’s definitely time to ditch him and escape before it’s too late.

Aside from the unlikable main cast, the movie just isn’t super interesting. It’s more frustrating than anything when you have to follow a bad main character. You see him making all of the wrong decisions time after time and can only shake your head. This is one of those films where it feels like Max creates all of the problems for himself.

Additionally, the romance in the film is just way too rushed and unrealistic. It goes too far in such a short amount of time and the film really didn’t need to include it. The way Max acts all defensive and treats Jenny despite him causing all of the trouble just makes him even more unlikable. They have a one night stand in a scene that goes on for way too long and definitely shows more than it should. All of these elements bundled together show that the film was trying to be a lot more gritty and intense than it needed to be. As a result, it wipes away any good parts that it might have had.

Overall, Straight Time won’t leave much of an impression so you’ll probably forget about it before long. I think it’s a story that could have been handled a lot better but the execution wasn’t on point. To a large extent the film just feels dirty. Every house/landmark in the film is as old as can be. The prison is deteriorating, the motel hasn’t been kept up to date, etc. The characters are morally bankrupt and it feels like the whole town is living in a bad neighborhood. Even the light hearted scenes never quite get all the way to being happy scenes as you feel a sense of dread. With some good characters that can be an effective combo but with nobody to root for, it just adds to the dragging experience of making it to the end here. I’d definitely say to give this one a hard pass.

Overall 1/10

Buried Review

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This review is of the edited 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
Being buried underground is definitely something that would be tough to deal with. In most situations if you’re stuck somewhere you figure that there has to be a way out. If you’re underground though then you’re really stuck. If you try punching your way out then the dirt will fall in and crush you. You have limited air so you can’t stay underground and going through the sides will have the same effect as going higher up. In a way your best bet is going down and hoping there’s some kind of tunnel but the odds of that are incredibly low. So…it’s a pretty tough situation to deal with.

The movie picks up with Paul waking up in a coffin underground. He is unable to escape and really has nowhere to go. The only items on him are a pen, glowstick, cell phone, knife, and a small carton of water. He will have to try and think of a way to get out here but it won’t be easy. He was a truck driver who went on a mission to Iraq in order to help people. Unfortunately his men were all shot and then he found himself here. The person holding him hostage says that he will only free Paul if he gets the guy millions of dollars by the end of the day. That’s going to be a hard sell but Paul will have to try and make some calls.

Now, usually in situations like this I say you can’t give in to the demands because they’re not going to save you anyway. Like in this film the guy tells Paul to make some videos and injure himself in the hopes of being let go. You feel like the guy is going to leave Paul to rot anyway so why give in to the demands right? If someone holds you at gun point and tells you to get into the car I’d say your best bet is to run. Worst thing that can happen is he shoots you like he was going to anyway after all.

This one is unique so Buried did a good job of limiting the options here. Paul is already buried when he wakes up so there is absolutely no escape for the reasons I mentioned in the intro. His only hope is making a phone call. To his credit, I can’t say that there are any things to really have been done differently. He calls a ton of people but he’s somewhere in Iraq and has no idea where. He’s underground as well so the odds of anyone finding him are pretty slim. His best chance is to keep on calling but that can get tiring.

The only thing I could call him out for was keeping his lighter on so much. That will definitely get rid of the air extremely quickly. It’s a high pressure situation of course but I’d like for him to have kept it off to at least buy himself some more time., He does tend to fly off the handle quite a bit as well. The people on the phone were usually not very helpful either.

This movie is very serious to be sure but there were a few callers that were so outlandish you almost felt like the film was trying to throw in a little humor. You had some people who couldn’t understand a fairly simple recount by Paul who was explaining how he got buried in here and then a lawyer calling him from Team Corporate with some bad news. There’s even a scene where as Paul is explaining things the screen keeps on zooming in on him. It felt like a parody moment but I suppose the idea was to show how many times he has to repeat the same exact story and each time nobody is very helpful. So that was definitely pretty intense.

Now, while I give the film points for originality and thinking of a new scenario, I have to take away points for almost the same reason. First of all, Paul is stuck in a coffin for the duration of the movie. That means there isn’t really anything happening for large portions of the story. It’s pitch black when he isn’t using the lighter or the phone. There’s a lot of time with him just rolling and trying to make a call to someone. As a result the film is very slow paced. It’s interesting but you can forget about it having any replay value.

Additionally, if I were the film I would have kept it as more of a suspense thriller and kept the hostage situation out of it. Things escalate once the calls start coming in and this becomes a much darker movie with the realization that Paul isn’t the only one in a predicament like this. The whole situation is out of his hands and just gets progressively worse and worse as the movie goes on.

Buried’s ending is also pretty awful. It was bad enough where the film nearly lost everything but I’ll keep it at a point for at least trying something new. I do think the idea is interesting but honestly it would be better with two people. They can be in separate coffins with walkie talkies or just a slightly bigger one but it would help for banter and dialogue. I don’t think you can really effectively have a film with just one person. The people on the phone help in terms of dialogue but it does get old very quickly.

With two people you can still have a whole lot of banter or at least the ability to bounce ideas off of each other. Otherwise you’re just too limited in what you can do and that’s something that happened to this film really quickly. If you threw Paul a bone like some kind of tangible hope he could grab onto that would be good but as you listen to the guys taking his calls you don’t expect he is in a great spot. If I were Paul I would have answered the corporate call very differently by the way. A bunch of well placed “No” answers would have really wrecked their plans at the very least.

As a main character Paul is good. He seems like a reasonable character who was just trying to do the right thing. Unfortunately he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and it ultimately ended up costing him big time. He really has to go through a lot during the movie and never really gets a chance to rest.

Overall, Buried has an interesting premise but I wasn’t a fan of the execution. The whole movie feels just like that…a slow execution. Paul is slowly watching as his time is running out with the air getting low and help always seeming so far away. Death by suffocation is definitely a really tough way to go. It’s not as bad as drowning in my list but it’s all relative once you get to the grisly deaths like that. He has to go through the whole movie with that fear in the back of his mind as he doesn’t know if he’ll live or not. Throw in the random snake, Terrorists, and having to watch other people die on the phone and you’ve pretty much got Paul under torture for the entire film. Buried isn’t a pleasant watch and I’d say to skip it until they announce some kind of reboot or remake which may be able to change things up and give you a better experience.

Overall 1/10

Fast & Furious 6 Review

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The ride must go on. Fast Five ended up being my favorite title in the series but little did I suspect that it would get surpassed so quickly. 6 takes everything I liked in the 5th film and then adds on to it. We get a lot of great fight scenes and character moments here. The series holds onto its strong family values and makes it across the finish line in record time.

The movie starts out with Hobbs realizing that he’s up against a villain group that can’t be taken down easily. Usually he doesn’t need any help but this time is an exception. He grabs some intel from one of the villains pretty easily and then sets about recruiting Dom and the old gang for one last ride.

Dom and friends are all millionaires who are having fun around the globe so it may seem hard to recruit them right? Well, not when you have the right ace up your sleeve and Hobbs has a doozy. See, there’s a photo of Dom’s old wife Letty around and it seems like she’s riding with the villains. That should be impossible since she is dead but if there’s even the slightest chance that she is still alive, Dom can’t waste it. He quickly agrees to help. Still, can these heroes stop this new villain group or are they simply outmatched here?

One thing I really liked here was how quickly everyone dropped what they were doing to help Dom. It shows that the money didn’t change them. They’re still a very close knit group and show up when the call goes out. Dom doesn’t have to talk to them for more than an instant to get them on his side. There’s no complaining, whining, or any of that. They’re just ready for action no matter what it takes.

It keeps on reinforcing the family aspect of the series. Dom always explains that these guys are his family and you don’t give up on family. You help out whenever you can with no second doubts. It’s hard to think of any series where the main characters have such a close bond. It’s just nice to see and immediately puts the film in a good spot so far as knowing who to root for and getting you personally engaged in the fight.

As always Dom is a great character here. He really doesn’t waver and hasn’t gotten sloppy in his driving skills. It’s safe to say that the film still portrays him as the best racer in the series. You could maybe make a case for Brian matching him but under pressure you want Dom on your side at all times. When the chips are down he won’t fail. The guy is also the better hand to hand fighter. Dom is a natural leader and just doesn’t back down. One of the more impressive scenes is when he’s face to face with Shaw and doesn’t even flinch when a gun is pointed at him.

Brian has his own subplot here where he breaks into a jail to try and find out what happened to Letty. Ultimately he doesn’t learn a whole lot to the point where he comes back and Dom doesn’t even want to hear what he learned. That said, it was a huge risk and Brian proved that he was willing to do whatever it took to find her again. He also proved himself in a fight as he took on several opponents at once.

Brian’s always been a fun character. He gets overshadowed by Dom but I like the guy and it’ll be sad once he’s gone. His wife Mia doesn’t get to appear much this time around but she encourages Brian to help the team out. She’s still a team player for sure. Elena also doesn’t do much here but you can pretty much see why. With Letty back on the table you can basically confirm that her romance with Dom can’t last.

It’s why I was never on board with that romance either way. It seemed like a rebound no matter how you slice it. Letty would certainly have good reason to be upset about this as well although everyone takes it in stride. Hopefully Elena returns and we can see her in more of an action setting next time.

Of course Hobbs has a big role as you’d expect. He sets the tone right away with how he beat up one of the minions in the interrogation room. That was pretty impressive and it showed that he is just as obsessed as ever with bringing crooks down. He may be a lot more by the book compared to Dom’s crew but he’s willing to be flexible. He has a pretty fun scene with Tej when they have to round up some cars. Most importantly, Hobbs can still fight and comes in clutch during the climax of the film with the 2 vs 2. As a driver he’s slightly below Dom’s crew but holds his own surprisingly well considering that isn’t really his thing.

His new teammate in this film is Riley. She’s pretty solid and gave us the first big fight scene of the film against Letty. I would have to say that was one of the better fights in the movie, there was a ton of back and forth there. It’s definitely not The best fight of course since the climax threw in some big ones but it was a blast. Riley’s also no nonsense and can fight really well. She also knows how to take a hit and keep on going. She left an excellent first impression and always leaves the opponents guessing.

Tej is pretty good at getting the cars set up and planning things out as always. He may not get quite as much to do as some of the other characters but always has good banter with Roman. Likewise, Roman is a pretty charismatic guy. Not all of his jokes land but he does have a lot of fun moments. His lack of fighting skills do get exposed at one point but he does keep getting up so you can’t doubt his determination.

Han may not get a big role during the film but it’s certainly a memorable one. He’s always got a lot of confidence in Gisele and lets her do her own thing. When she moves in on a villain he just moves onto the next one because he knows she has this covered. Gisele does well with her gun and consistently makes accurate shots from long range. She has to be the best shooter on the team by far.

Then of course you have Letty. She isn’t quite herself during the film due to some memory loss. Of course you’ll be wondering how she survived. The film explains how this happened which will answer any questions on that. It doesn’t really make sense why someone did something which allowed her to live though. She makes for a good antagonist and definitely has a lot of fighting skills. I can see a lot of potential for battles in future films as a result. She has a solid character arc.

As for Shaw, he’s a solid main villain. After watching the trailer for Hobbs & Shaw the whole time though I was waiting for a certain twist that never happened. It makes the experience pretty unique to be sure but he still stands up well as a villain in his own right. He can’t fight but is a smart villain who plans for every contingency. The heroes never make a move without him being ready for it. His futuristic cars were also impressive both in how fast they were and also for their raw strength.

The rest of his villain group wasn’t too memorable though. The one who gave Roman and Han a good fight was impressive but good luck remembering his name. The rest of the group doesn’t get a whole lot of dialogue or anything beyond their initial scene though. It is cool that the film set them up as a dark version of the main characters though. They may not have had a proper team fight but it was still cool.

The battle scenes are the best that they’ve been. My favorite fight out of all the films is probably Hobbs vs Dom from Fast Five but this one just has many fights on that level back to back. There is a lot of nonstop action here so something is always going on. You’ve got different climaxes and high tension moments with both sides making move after move. It’s all extremely entertaining and also high quality. This is definitely what you would expect from the series.

The only weakness I would say the series has is the never ending fanservice. As always whenever the heroes go for a rare drive you’ve got everyone dancing on the cars or walking right into the camera. It’d be nice if the films could tone down this aspect and just focus on the fights. It’s not as heavy as in other titles though and the positives still outweigh this negative to a pretty high degree so it shouldn’t hurt your enjoyment of the title.

The writing is on point and has a lot of good humor moments throughout. The film is fairly long and since it has a fast pace that means you can expect a whole lot of adventures here. Fast & Furious 6 just keeps you on the edge of your seat throughout. It’s sort of like the non comic book version of the Avengers (2012) in terms of tone and action. Things even get pretty serious by the end as the film actually does have a body count. While the movies always end on a high note, the gang certainly goes through their share of trials. The soundtrack is also on point. The series always has a lot of different tunes that bring a lot of energy to each scene.

Finally, we can’t miss talking about the end credits scene. This was pretty hype and I always believe you should end your film with a cliffhanger like this one. It’s probably the most hype end scene since Tokyo Drift. We see an event from that film in a new light. Turns out that what happened to Han was a lot more personal than expected. It may be a retroactive change but it’s a solid way to make Tokyo Drift even more important all of a sudden. The new villain is also immediately going to be one of the better FF villains. You can tell from this scene that he means business.

Overall, Fast & Furious 6 was very impressive. This one is going to be extremely tough to defeat but I look forward to seeing how good 7 is. We’ve still got the full cast here so I am expecting it to be pretty good. I wonder if Brian will get a bit of a power up to keep up with Dom and Hobbs or if he will still mostly be more of a support fighter. With that stinger at the end you definitely know that 7 is about to get personal. Dom’s family will need to be ready to meet this challenge.

Overall 8/10

Live Free or Die Hard Review

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This time the series goes back to its roots with quite a lot of action right off the gate. Within the first 10 minutes you’ve already got your opening gun fight and a big action scene after that. The switch to a more tech based villain makes sense for the modern era. This definitely ends up being a very solid watch all around.

The movie starts with John scaring off a guy who was trying to pull some moves on his daughter. You’d think she would be more appreciative but Lucy basically just yells at him and tells John to go away. John then has to make one detour on his way home to pick up Matthew, an expert hacker. John doesn’t know why he has to bring this guy in yet but it’s clear that this is something serious since a group of trained professionals show up to take Matthew with them. This results in a pretty good fight but John manages to escape.

So the issue is that someone seems to have started a Firesale. They are using technology to try and take down the country. This targets many different aspects such as television, phone companies, gas, etc. It’s all based on a plan that Matthew helped with although he didn’t realize just how real this was. John now needs Matthew to think carefully about where these hackers are and how to stop them in time. If they are too slow, America may end up being defeated this time around.

With hackers causing trouble it is a little difficult to know how to stop them. They could be logging in from anywhere and on the net they are also pretty versatile. Unless you take them down at the source they can just sign on again. There is a lot of running around here but unlike the last film, John’s team is usually on the offensive. If they can just find these guys they can deal a finishing blow in no time flat.

John looks pretty solid as always. At this point he’s definitely a veteran and knows how to handle himself. He has a tough time with Matthew because he is the very opposite of experience and determination. Matthew spends a great deal of time complaining before he finally ends up being helpful in the movie. Before that you can expect him to just hold John back.

I’d say the best sequence in the film is when the two are attacked by Mai. She’s the main villain’s right hand woman and can fight quite well. She gives John a pretty good fight and also survives some hits that would take out most fighters. Mai gets hit by a car and keeps on ticking. The battle goes a few rounds and she really leaves an impression on you by the end.

The movie also just went more all out with the fights than it has in a while. The battle with Mai for example felt more like a Jason Bourne or comic book kind of battle. There was some good hand to hand and using whatever object you could find in the background was also crucial. It was two fighters just trying to survive and taking the opponent out right away too.

As for the actual main villain Thomas, he was pretty good. The guy is definitely not a fighter but has a plan for everything. He’s all about shutting the system down with hits wits as opposed to his fists. At this point that’s probably the easiest way to do things too since it’s hard to picture someone using physical force to try and take down the whole country. You’d need to find a few nukes or something to get in the right position for that.

This movie does offer another reminder though of how easy it is to take a badge. At one point the villains have to convince someone that they’re a cop so they just flash the ID real quick. So the person is convinced but I don’t see how that would convince anyone. Badges could be faked ever since their inception and if you’re suspicious about someone already, I don’t see how a badge could help. There isn’t really any good way to find out if the person asking you to follow them is legit though so you just gotta go with your gut. In this case it’s not like she really had a way out anyway.

Live Free or Die Hard looks a lot more modern than the older films. The city has certainly changed a lot and the effects during the night time battle are on point. It was also cool to see the villains using fake footage to cause panic in the streets since that does make a lot of sense as a strategy when you can manipulate all of the channels. It was a good way to stir people up and cause a whole lot of trouble.

It’s only a single scene so this isn’t a big deal but the “romance” in the film is rather weak. Not only does it come out of nowhere but it’s for two characters who barely even interacted. It’s going for more of a funny ending but it doesn’t really land. It doesn’t help that I didn’t like either character involved in it. One just seemed super ungrateful throughout her screen time and the other one spent a lot of time whining. Both traits don’t make you a winning character.

Overall, This was a pretty good installment in the series. If it can keep up this level of action in the next one then we’ll be good. Of course you can’t survive on only action but this film had a pretty good mix of elements. The writing was on point and the story was interesting. The hacking was used pretty well and while it’s not a new concept to hack into the government, it’s one you don’t see a whole lot of thrillers take on. I thought it was a fresh angle and as a whole this is an example of taking the story in a different direction and succeeding at it. I didn’t have any real issues with the film and it’s the kind of title that has a lot of replay value.

Overall 7/10

Die Hard with a Vengeance Review

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

Die Hard returns for the third film in the series. This one takes things in a different direction as the first two were complete action thrillers while this one is more of a series of runarounds. The villain loves messing with the heroes and so we don’t have time for a true confrontation until near the very end of the film. It loses sight of the franchise’s normal goal but is an okay film.

We open with a bomb going off and a mysterious guy named Simon calling the cops. He explains that unless John McClane shows up to Harlem wearing a sign with the offensive language, he will blow up more bombs. The police figure they need to comply with this request or more people will die. John realizes this is a suicide mission so he also takes a gun with him. Fortunately a guy called Zeus shows up and they manage to just barely escape with their lives. Simon doesn’t like this so he decides that now both of them have to follow all of the missions. This ranges from solving math equations to catching trains on time. Can the heroes complete all of the missions? The tough thing they also have to wrestle with is that there may not be an end to the missions. They just have to keep on complying and hopefully things will go well.

In a film like this you can see how that’s the most frustrating part for the heroes. The villain has all of the leverage at the moment. He has bombs everywhere and there are no leads onw here he really is. As a result he can just keep having the heroes go on various missions all day until one finishes them off. If the heroes are a minute too slow then one of the bombs will go off after all. Sure, Simon loses some leverage but he has enough extra bombs where it won’t make a difference.

It’s a never ending story and that’s why it can feel futile. It’s why I say if you are ever held at gun point and told to get in a car, just make a break for it or try to tackle the guy. What’s he gonna do..shoot you? He’s going to that or worse if you get in the car anyway so you might as well take your chances. Now in Die Hard 3 it’s a little more complicated since the bombs will be affecting a lot of innocent people. So John and Zeus are doing the right thing in complying with the missions but you wish they would get some real backup at the same time. It just doesn’t feel like they are making any real headway throughout the film.

The individual challenges are okay. They’re not as thrilling as they could be but it’s fun to see the city and the shortcuts that are used to get to each destination. One puzzle was also like something directly out of Professor Layton with the characters having to measure to containers and try to get the right amount of liquid into one of them when one container is too large and the other is too small. It’s definitely a tough puzzle to solve under any circumstance, much less when your lives are in danger.

As for the main characters, the banter between them isn’t nearly as good as most buddy cop kind of films. Zeus is a guy with a big chip on his shoulder and he’s constantly playing the race card and trying to bait John. Then you have John who doesn’t really care about this and tries to reason with Zeus as he would anyone else but to get around the tough talk he lies a few times as well. Things end up blowing up from both characters but by the end they get along well enough. It just doesn’t make for nearly as entertaining a dynamic as most films in this genre though.

Zeus gets better by the end but I wouldn’t say I was really a fan. He does step up and do the right thing when needed but it does take a while. John’s good as always even if his plan is ultimately pretty risky. At one point he decides to just forget the mission and try to capture the villains but when they’ve made it clear that they have cameras on 24/7, isn’t that basically just sacrificing all of the hostages? Things work out with a little plot armor at the ready but just running off was never an option. When he decides to take this route it’s treated as a big deal but it just doesn’t seem like it would work.

It reminds me of the classic situation where a villain says “Don’t move” while holding a hostage and the hero moves anyway. If it works out then I guess that’s good but hindsight doesn’t make it a great decision. At least it does give us a proper climax with some fights and everything though. It’s what you’ve been waiting for the entire film so it does end things on a high note.

As always John is having some difficulties with his wife Holly again. This almost feels like a running gag in the films at this point. No matter how often they patch things up it just doesn’t work out. If things still aren’t working out by now I don’t see it changing but we’ll see if this gets brought up in the 4th film as well.

The effects are on point as expected. While the heroes getting foiled at every turn and having to repeat the tasks may get a bit repetitive, I’d say the pacing of the movie is on point. Simon’s an okay villain. He may not stand out a lot but he had a good plan at the end and almost came out on top. If he didn’t make a James Bond type speech and choose to let the heroes live near the end he really may have gotten away with everything. At the end of the day his own overconfidence was his down fall.

Overall, Die Hard With A Vengeance will get lost among the many action films out there. It just feels like it’s lacking in action despite that being the genre. Technically a lot of the chase scenes and such would be considered action but you won’t get the hand to hand/shooting matches that you had in the first two films. The banter with Zeus and John also tends to be more on the annoying side compared to entertaining. It seemed like they really didn’t like each other compared to most where they talk tough but still have each other’s back. I’d say you can give this one a skip but if you want to see more of John McClane’s adventures then you may as well check it out.

Overall 5/10

Runaway Review

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Runaway is definitely a film with a pretty interesting premise. In some ways it’s like Mega Man as robots are now a part of normal every day life and there should be no risk since they can’t hurt humans. As always, that also means that if someone hacks them that’s pretty much game over. The fact that there’s even a task force to handle the “Runaways” (Robots which go berserk) is neat. It’s a universe that has a lot of potential even if the film wasn’t all that good.

The movie starts out with Jack, the best agent in the biz having to take on a new partner. Her name is Karen and she’s eager to do her part in fighting off this robots even as Jack says that nothing exciting ever happens here. Naturally this means that the next mission is about to get explosive. A droid goes crazy in a house so Jack has to take him out before the family is injured. That was a pretty effective opening scene to be honest, the robot was not playing around. It was probably more intense than any other scene in the film. Surprisingly the father of the household doesn’t seem very concerned about his family’s safety with the killer robot and dashes off. He ends up going out like a chump either way though and since he’s in on the upcoming scheme…the whole thing makes him look pretty bad.

Our main villain here is a guy named Luther who has basically found a way to remove the safety features out of the robots. He can now make any robot turn into a “Runaway” that wants to just cause a lot of havoc and destruction wherever it goes. Seems like he is doing this to get rich as there’s a big market for this kind of thing. Can Jack and Karen stop him before it’s too late?

Unfortunately I wouldn’t say that Jack is a great character. One thing that hurt him right off the bat is how he immediately gets distracted by one of the villains. (Jackie) When she shows up he quickly makes a fool out of himself as he tries to show off by beating a robot 1 on 1. He should be trying to be objective since he’s the best agent in the field but you wouldn’t really know it just based on watching this film. He gets quickly overwhelmed in most of his fights and spends a lot of them running away.

He’s scared of heights but that’s fine since it’s a normal fear. The romance in the movie is also on the weak side. Karen spends a lot of the film flirting with Jack but he doesn’t seem to notice and always ends up letting her down. He’s only interested in Jackie but once she is out of the picture he is very open to being with Karen. Seems a lot like this guy just switched sides at the drop of a hat eh? The romance is way too fast as a result.

Meanwhile Karen’s a decent heroine. She tends to stay on target more than Jack. I do think she takes it a little too personally when he invites her over to focus on work instead of the activities she was hoping for. It is reasonable to do some free overtime to make sure you’re ready for what is to come right? Karen does end up contributing a lot throughout the movie so she does well as the heroine.

As for the villains, you have to give Luther credit for coming up with some cool items. His robotic homing bullet was incredibly handy. It can follow you anywhere and moves at incredible speeds. If anything it’s so good that it’s hard to picture the guy losing. He should have kept on using these super bullets but once we approach the climax he doesn’t take full advantage of this. There’s not a whole lot to the villain besides the fact that he’s evil and wants to be rich but he’s decent enough. He won’t leave a grand impression on you but he gets the job done.

Some of the other villains in this film are not very smart at all though. Jackie definitely got herself into quite a few messes when helping this guy out. When you’ve got tech at this level it’s pretty hard to try and get away with lying to the villain. By the time she thinks about escaping it’s already far too late to be honest.

She’s better than the random henchman from near the beginning though. The guy wants Luther to give him a bigger share of the money than they agreed upon. This is already a huge red flag for any villain but Luther throws him a bone. He tells the henchman what a shame it is that another villain and his family were all wiped out. Pretty tragic eh? Luther’s basically hinting that the guy should drop this subject of a raise right now.

Instead the henchman grins and just says that it was terrible. He misses the obvious clue and doubles down on wanting the money right now or else. You can probably guess how the scene ends for him. I’ll never understand why some minions are so bold around the boss. They have a front row seat to how the guy is always murdering everybody so you’d think that they would have a little more tact in these circumstances.

The special effects are pretty solid here. I’d say that they have aged well. The robots look cool and there are some classic gun fights here. The homing bullet still makes for the most impressive looking scenes but the normal fights are decent as well. The film can get a little violent at times with how the machines blow up in people’s faces or with how Luther goes down. Some films really want to make sure you know that the main villain is down for the count. You certainly don’t have to second guess whether that was the case here or not.

What ends up holding this film back is mainly the characters. If you had a more interesting main character than Jack that would help a lot. The future aspect of the story is cool but at the same time you also wouldn’t say that the world appears to be all that futuristic for the most part. You could easily mistake this for the modern day and it wouldn’t really change anything. The film’s writing is also okay but you may not be very engaged here. The movie does have large chunks of time where there isn’t a whole lot happening.

Overall, Runaway has a pretty unique plot. It’s definitely an interesting look at what could happen if robots decide to take over the world as expected. I do think there are a lot of areas where the movie could improve though and add some more energy into the experience. That being said, the movie shows why you would probably need more than a quick task force. You would never be in enough places at once and all it takes is a quick virus chip to cause a lot of them to go haywire. It also seems inevitable that they would start looking into military applications for these bots. The moral of the movie is that you need to stay focused while going after these robots. Ultimately you can probably find a better sci-fi experience than this one though.

Overall 4/10

Fast & Furious Review

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It’s time to continue to the Fast and the Furious series. This time we’re going away from Tokyo and back to the main plot with Dom. You’ll get your share of explosive race scenes here and a pretty good story. The film still holds itself back a bit with its reliance on fanservice but you will get some hype rock songs to keep you in the mix. I don’t think it quite tops Tokyo Drift’s soundtrack but that one still has one of the more iconic film end songs.

The movie starts out with Dom and the gang stealing some more gold as they take down a truck. He feels like it’s all getting a little too dangerous though and decides to put some distance between himself and the rest of the family. Things are quiet for a while but then his friend Letty is murdered by a gang lord. Everyone warns Dom that he shouldn’t pursue this since the guy is an incredibly infamous villain but that’s not going to stop him. You don’t mess with family after all.

Then you have the other main character Brian who has been put back on the task force. He has not had the best track record as of late so this might be his last shot. He barely captures someone after an extended chase scene but he gets some clues. At the same time as Dom, Brian finds out about a big race that is about to happen. The winner gets to transport some of the goods which means that it is the perfect time to find the gang lord. Only one person can win the race though so this is going to get close.

The movie does a good job of contrasting each of the characters’ theme music. In Tokyo Drift the main character had an electronic theme that fit in with the neon atmosphere of Tokyo. Here Dom always gets a fast paced Spanish song and Brian gets an intense rock tune. They’ve all got different ways of handling their business after all even if there are a good amount of similarities. The soundtrack is definitely on point and reaches the intense levels you would expect here.

Fast & Furious doesn’t hold back with the special effects either. It looks good throughout with a lot of fun cars involved. The action scenes are good and the pacing is on point so the film doesn’t drag out. If anything you just wish it could be longer at times since it’s all over in the blink of an eye. The first race doesn’t even happen til almost halfway into the film. It’s cool for setting up the action that is about to happen but it also means that you can’t expect too many different races. The climax has a lot of action though. There’s a lot you can do with cars and that’s really the appeal of these films. Whenever Dom uses the nitro I’m reminded of the various racing games for Gamecube.

On the flip side, as always the movie does tend to dwell on its own fanservice issues a little too much. The characters inevitably go to night clubs and such where everyone is acting really sketchy. One of the villains certainly has a pretty cringe worthy setup going for him before Brian brings in the cops. I could do without those scenes so we could focus more on the action. None of the romances are particularly impressive here either and could really be cut out without any issues.

As for the main characters, I still prefer Dom to Brian. Dom really gets the job done and feels like an experienced veteran when it comes to racing. While Brian did appear to have the edge in the race, Dom always makes up for this with his own creativity on the track. As he is in revenge mode a lot here, you can expect a lot of intense scenes with him breaking into places and taking people down. He’s certainly a strong fighter.

Brian is still a good character too though. He is pretty torn at the moment with his friends and also with upholding the law. His agency looks a lot less reasonable here though as they jump in before he gives the signal and one guy in particular was trying to give him a hard time. Brian didn’t let that slide though and I liked how he landed a pretty good combo right away. He’s no pushover.

Then you have some of the supporting characters like Mia who is still pretty upset at Brian for his choices when they first met. The guy did lead off with a lot of lies and deception so you can see why there would be some sore feelings there. She seems like a good character and will hopefully get to do more soon. Letty doesn’t get to appear for very long before things get dicey for her but she was not someone who would back down from a tough mission. She did her best to the end.

None of the villains are particularly memorable though. You have the guy who took out Letty and he acts as evil and petty as possible. There’s just nothing really making him stand out from any other gangster. You know that he is doomed the moment he messed with Dom’s family. There’s Gisele who seems rather high up in the villain ranks but she doesn’t really get to race here. Hopefully that’ll change soon.

Overall, Fast & Furious is a fun way to bring the cast back. I’d like the films to really start focusing more on the races and less on the nightclub kind of scenes. Once it does that I think we’ll be off to the races so to speak. I do think it beats the first two films in the series though. Does it beat Tokyo Drift? That’s a pretty close one but ultimately I would give it the narrow edge. Due in part to the end stinger but I also liked how much influence it took from the Need for Speed series. Dom is definitely a better main character than the last guy though. We’ll see how the series continues from here because I’m really looking forward to seeing when the series goes really off the rails with the stunts and everything.

Overall 4/10

What’s the Matter with Helen? Review

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What’s the matter with Helen? Is one of those films where you know from the jump that it’s probably going to be bad. You’re hoping that maybe it’s still decent or something, but the odds aren’t in its favor. It goes for the usual extreme amounts of shock value the whole time and throws in some animal violence for good measure. The film may not be particularly long but you will be shaking your head the whole time without a doubt.

The movie starts with showing us Adelle and Helen who are the mothers of two kids who became murderers. The world is blaming them for not raising the kids properly and so they have to discard their old identities and go into hiding. Unfortunately, someone seems to have followed them. They get calls from a mysterious man who says that he will be murdering them later on. Helen is terrified of this and wants to just stay home in hiding with Adelle. Adelle isn’t taking this as seriously and says they should just move on with their lives. Both of them are rather extreme in their views but Adelle is taking it a little better.

So, Adelle is right in the sense that you should not live your life in fear. I’m totally cool with that but she takes it pretty far when she starts forgetting to close the door behind her. Now that’s just common sense, why would you forget to do that each night? It’s even worse when someone is threatening your life as well as your roommate’s. It’s a lack of common sense on Adelle’s part.

Still, at least Adelle is trying her best to move on. She started her romance with Lincoln rather quickly but that may have been another way of coping. If she married him and they move off somewhere, perhaps she will be truly safe. Towards the end of the movie she is a bit slow on the uptake though. Lets face it, Helen’s been quite unhinged for a while at this point. Adelle continues to turn her back to Helen though even when things don’t seem to be in a good spot. Rule number 1 of any film even if you’re not a horror title…don’t give your back to someone when they are standing right next to a conveniently placed butter knife.

Now for Helen….I’ve got a lot of issues for her. She starts turning crazy very early on in the film to the point where the movie may have tipped its hand a little too early. You’ll be tempted to think that there never was a phone call if Adelle hadn’t heard it. You’ll be considering how Helen could have faked the call or if she hired someone. Neither option makes a lot of sense though so then you have some potential here.

I forget the exact name of the movie, but it might have been the Crow. Basically the plot is that there’s a villain who has decided to rob a bank and next he is going to murder Vincent Price. If you’ve seen any old film you’ll know…you don’t just bump off someone like Price without a fight. What the murderer didn’t count on was the fact that Vincent was also a criminal and he turns the table in an instant. The would be victim has now become the villain himself. I still remember thinking that was a brilliant twist. It’s why Willie’s Wonderland always looked fun in that sense.

There are so many horror films where the villain is just an ordinary person and yet they’re murdering dozens and dozens of people. After a while you hope that there will be a film where this killer runs into the wrong house and has to deal with someone just as crazy. You probably can’t do this plot too often or it would get old but once in a while? Absolutely that’s an excellent twist and a good way to subvert expectations. Now this might seem to be unrelated but here’s what I’m getting at.

The film could have had a really interesting dynamic with the mysterious caller breaking into the house only to find that Helen isn’t some powerless old lady. That would have made for a great confrontation. Instead the film doesn’t go that route and it’s unfortunate. The route we do go through is pretty much exactly what you would expect from the very beginning of the film. Helen gradually goes more and more insane as she consistently raises the body count.

It’s not a cool kind of insane either so she’s not exactly a villain you could root for. No, she’s still crying a lot the whole time and isn’t intimidating in the slightest. She only claims victory against others who were not expecting a battle or animals who couldn’t possibly fight back. It’s not entertaining at all and is just annoying to see everyone go down so easily. The cast is also pretty small so it’s not like supporting characters could save her. Lincoln is probably the only other real character here and he’s just around for the romance. You shouldn’t be trying to romance a teacher the first time you meet so I didn’t have a great first impression on him.

To wrap this up, it’s a very classic horror type film. It gets rather violent as Helen imagines dead bodies in front of her and stabs people quite a lot. There’s a surprising amount of blood in these murders as well. Then you’ve got the animal violence which really comes out of nowhere and is pretty awful. The film doesn’t have any particularly good scenes to bring it back up either. There’s no line of dialogue that impressed me or a sub plot that was interesting. It’s a movie that flops from start to finish.

Overall, What’s the Matter with Helen is a film that I would highly advise staying away from. Just take a look at the poster so you know how the film will end and then you can save yourself the full experience. A slow decline into madness is the kind of plot that may be easy to show in a film but it’s hard to execute well. This one just went through the motions with no real soul and as a result it was doomed to fail.

Overall 1/10

The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956) Review

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It’s time for the remake to the film I just reviewed. When you watch both of these films back to back you can really compare their strengths and see which one comes out on top. Ultimately I would say this one definitely beat the original. Both of them are solid and so I wouldn’t say the gap is big or anything but I was really able to get behind the remake. I felt like the main characters were stronger and with the added time you could do a lot more. Although ironically the villains have almost 0 development.

The film starts with Ben and Jo on vacation with their son Hank. They’ve had a pretty fun time of it so far and have a few more stops left. They nearly get into a fight with someone on the bus though when Hank steals something from a lady. They are saved by the intervention of a guy named Louis who is eager to know everything he can about Ben. He asks a ton of questions and every time Jo tries to ask him something the guy ignores or and asks Ben some more questions. Ben loves talking about himself so this is a fine set up for him. After telling Louis where they are staying, how long they will be staying and where they will go next, Louis leaves.

Jo warns Ben that he’s making some big mistakes with giving all the info away but Ben’s confident he’ll be okay. Louis ends up getting murdered but quickly tosses Ben a note. Ben thinks about telling the police but then he gets a call warning him not to tell them anything or Hank will die. Turns out that they swiped Hank away under the guise of a nice neighbor taking him home. Ben tries to gently break the news to Jo but she doesn’t take it very well. The two of them are going to need to try and track Hank down but it’ll be difficult since they aren’t exactly used to dealing with the underground. All they’ve got as a clue is a location from the note.

Like in the first film we get the return of the Church led by one of the villains. This time they aren’t worshipping the Sun though so it’s not quite as outlandish. It’s interesting because this could have been game set and match for the villains if there was any way to leave the Church without being noticed. Unfortunately for the heroes that isn’t exactly possible. In a small setting like that, everyone notices when you get up and the villains have a plan for everything. It was fun to see the various stare downs in there as well.

This time around we don’t get a big shootout climax. In fact, the climax is very low key with things happening quickly but quietly. The ending just sort of happens as we cut away from what would have presumably been the full climax. It’s a solid ending but I do think the first movie has the edge in that area. I was glad Ben went for the shove at one point since it’s always something I feel more heroes should do. Look, if you are being held at gun point and the guy is at your side instead of behind you, just quickly shove into him.

At that angle he can’t hit you in the head and a heart shot is unlikely. So now you’ve got him on the ground and even if you’re wounded perhaps you can hold him down until someone arrives to help. At the very least Hank is safe no matter what so you’ve accomplished your main objective. It’s certainly a whole lot better than just accepting your inevitable death. Because if you follow this guy into a car or a dark alley that’s all that awaits you. At least this way you have a chance.

Hank doesn’t do a whole lot in this film. He’s just a kid after all so he gets kidnapped and tricked but that’s about it. Jo’s a solid main heroine. I wish she wouldn’t panic quite as much when she learns about Hank going missing but after that initial scene she handles the rest of it pretty well. She was key in helping out at the opera as well as executing the big plan at the end involving her songs. She took a fairly large role in getting Hank to safety.

The same can be said for Ben who does his best to take on this criminal enterprise. He may not have experience but he’s got determination which is important. In this version of the film he’s with Jo a lot more while in the first film he was teaming up with the older fellow. The change makes sense since this way both parents get a sizable role here.

As mentioned before, the villains aren’t very memorable though. You have the old lady who starts to think that maybe she’s on the wrong side here. It’s way too late if you ask me though. She was completely fine with kidnapping the child and it was obvious what would happen to Hank in the end. Getting cold feet now doesn’t make her more heroic. The other villains are mainly just here as part of the story but don’t have a lot of character. At best you have the friend of the prime minister who had an interesting personality. He certainly doesn’t excuse failure a whole lot but as a political head he can’t go around shooting people either so he’s in a bit of a bind.

Overall, This was a pretty solid remake. The writing was very good as expected and I thought the characters were an improvement over the first film except that the villains were not memorable. The film had a little more humor than the first film and it all landed pretty well. One of the better gags was the main characters having to rush out all the time to the confusion of their friends and family who had gone over to have some fun with them. It wasn’t quite the house party they had in mind that’s for sure. I’d recommend checking this one out. Unless you want to compare both titles directly and just want to watch one, I would say this is the definitive version of the movie to check out.

Overall 7/10

The Man Who Knew Too Much Review

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Whenever you know too much it can be tricky. Knowledge is hidden away for a reason after all and when you find out what it is, you’ve just put yourself in a whole lot of danger. It’s something that the lead characters learn quickly here although it’s not knowledge that they tried to learn so you can’t blame them. It’s a pretty solid suspense thriller with a surprisingly action packed climax.

The movie starts with Bob and Jill enjoying a nice vacation with their daughter Betty. Unfortunately Betty does wreck Jill’s chances of winning a shootout though by causing a lot of noise and distractions. She was goaded on by another character but it was still a tragic way to start the day. Bob and Jill head back in to have a good time but then a mysterious person they didn’t know very well hands Bob a letter and quickly gets murdered. Bob is about to tell the police about this when he reads the letter and sees that it’s a threat. If he tells anyone what he knows then Betty will die.

Bob confirms that Betty is gone and so this threat cannot be taken lightly. Bob needs to find these guys and fast so he heads out with Clive. The reason for urgency is that the cops are slowly gaining ground on the villains as well and if they do catch them, the antagonists may believe that Bob spilled the beans and take out Betty. The heroes will have to go to some dangerous places and dark alleys to find them. Meanwhile Jill has to do her best to stop another assassination attempt from taking place.

There’s a lot going on here which is something you always want to be able to stay about a thriller. Bob goes to different places from street corners to dentists to corrupt churches. In the dentist scene I was impressed with how he turned the situation around. Usually when the villain grabs their tube and starts to hit you with the knockout gas, the character will immediately fall to the ground and have no tolerance for the stuff. It’s not a very impressive look for them but Bob was able to rip it off and take the villain down. Now that was impressive.

In general I thought Bob was very good. He did a lot of the legwork in trying to find Betty and put himself in peril many times. He didn’t crumble under the pressure and kept a cool head about everything. His partner Clive also deserves a lot of credit for sticking with him on the adventures. He had a particularly rough time at the dentist’s office and was still able to keep it moving. He was certainly a loyal companion.

Meanwhile you also have Jill doing her best to handle this. We saw in the opening scene that she is good with a gun so the whole time you’re waiting for the payoff on this. Fortunately it does arrive and as the film’s climax is a giant shootout, that makes sense. This way each character got to contribute which was good. Only Betty didn’t I suppose but as a kid there’s not a whole lot she could do. The villains treated her pretty well at least so the experience wasn’t too traumatic.

The climax was extremely explosive though which is still surprising. The villains decide that they won’t go out without a fight and the nonstop shooting between the heroes and villains commences. The police didn’t look very impressive with their counter strategies though. If you see that your guys are going down one after the other you should probably rethink your strategy of plunging forward. They don’t and so by the end of the film a few villains have managed to take down almost 2 dozen cops. That was pretty crazy and I wish we had seen more tactics.

The main villain here is Abbott who looks shifty from the start. I think it’s safe to say that you’ll figure he is the villain almost as soon as he appears. You have the sinister music/atmosphere when he shows up and there aren’t a whole lot of other suspects anyway. Abbott does make for a good villain though. He seems a little insane but that’s not surprising for a villain like this. He’s the brains of the operation and the rest of the villains are fairly expendable to him. He made it pretty far in this plan.

The only character who didn’t seem to have much of a clue the whole time was Louis. I dunno, I suppose the whole thing wasn’t his fault since he had a mission to achieve but it felt like he didn’t act too cautiously. You’d never know that he was a professional agent with the risks he took. The guy thought he was James Bond with how he would party and hang out. I’m mixed on him since a decent amount of that may have been his cover. If he could have taken a few villains down before going out that would have helped.

The film is very strong all around though. The characters are good and the script is really solid. I’ve probably said this a thousand times but I love the good banter in the old school titles with the heroes and villains. There’s always a very fake polite type dialogue going on between them. If you read the text through an emotionless machine you could think the characters were friends but it’s all in how they talk to each other. The pacing is on point as well.

Overall, The Man Who Knew Too Much is a solid thriller. It is pretty tense with the child being kidnapped and all. We also get some rather atmospheric locations like the fake church. The characters balancing their attempts to save their kid while also being subtle or they will put her in more danger was effective. The cops also looked decent here as they were beginning to find Abbott, I just wish they had looked better in the climax. There’s no scenario where running into a stronghold filled with guns is a good idea without some kind of cover. You gotta be ready to adjust and then fight back.

Overall 7/10